Nothing But Iron: Southern Discomfort by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. October 11, 2007 It is times like these that make me envy people who live in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. They have only water to the south. We have Illinois. Unfortunately Illinois is 95% land-locked, so it is unlikely, even in the event of an earthquake of unprecedented calamity, to fall off into the ocean, or even into Lake Michigan. But no harm in a little fantasy, right? With a No. 5 ranking, Wisconsin didn’t have a chance against the Illini. Perhaps if the same UW team had gone in unranked, barely ranked or had shown up at night in a hollowed out wooden horse, it could have surprised the up-and-coming Illini and filched a win before the home team knew it was missing one, but the mighty wining-streaked Badgers might as well have been 18-point bucks with sequined antlers on opening day of gun deer season. I do credit the Badgers, who are a legitimate top-five team in the way that I am a Pulitzer Prize winner, with making a game of it. Following the season’s script closely, Wisconsin got behind but still had a chance to win late in the fourth quarter. No team, with the exception of tOSU in a championship year can win all the close ones. Bear (there’s that word again) in mind that I am not berating my Badgers for being who they are. They did not invent the polls, nor did they ask to be No. 5. That designation was a fabrication of people who fancy themselves as the experts that we condone them to be, like the ones who thought USC might be better than Stanford. Realistically, the Badgers are still pretty good and, with a 5-1 record, still in pretty good shape. Realistically, though eliminated from so-called national title playoff contention, they have an outside shot at winning the Big Ten. The loss of Luke Swan does not help that cause, but all teams are subject to the ramifications of injury. Good teams manage to play on. Illustrative of that concept was the way in which the Illini managed the temporary loss of starting quarterback Juice Williams. They simply substituted a different beverage, Milk McGee, who is clearly related to Williams by virtue of a common stem cell. Had I not seen Williams sitting on the sideline, I would have sworn McGee was the same QB in a different jersey. Brother Bruce summed it up: "That’s good recruiting." Tom Oates wrote an article in last Friday’s State Journal about the betting line. He quoted Jack Ikeguono, who was perplexed and clearly angered by the apparent show of disrespect. I am going to rewrite Ike’s quote to what I thought it should have been, granted I am a 46-year-old ex-athlete of diminishing testosterone levels and he is a 20-year-old college football player at the peak of his hormonal masculinity. When asked about the Badgers going into Champaign as 3-point underdogs Ikeguono (might have) replied: "That only matters if you are betting on the game. I’m not betting on the game. To waste emotion on something out of our control that has no bearing on the game itself would be poor focus, so I refuse to consider it in my pre-game preparations." Oates tried to explain the origins of the betting line, but his explanation was incomplete. I asked a part-time, but highly educated amateur gambler why Illinois was the favorite. Here is Bruce’s explanation (paraphrased and embellished by me): The line is set in hopes of getting half the money bet on each team. Under that scenario, the house makes money is because of the juice, not related to the Illini quarterback. Juice is the 5% or so that the house charges before paying out the winning bets, kind of like a shipping and handling charge, only there is no shipping. If the bets are split evenly, the house pays out 45% and keeps 55%. That represents a good profit. In the case of Wisconsin at Illinois, it was a simple matter of a favorable greed:risk ratio. High greed (which is ever present in Vegas), low risk. Evidence suggested that the Badgers, perhaps based on their close game against University of Gambling Capital of the World, were overrated and the Illini were strong but underappreciated. The house projected Illinois to have a high likelihood of winning outright. Making UW the underdog with a No. 5 ranking and long winning streak created the perfect sucker bet, which is good for the house because there are many perfect suckers in the gambling population. The house figured this would be a good time to forego a 5% return for much larger gain, figuring that many ill-informed or overly emotional people would bet on Wisconsin. In this case the house may have taken in (for example) 80% and paid out 20%. Had Wisconsin won, the house would have taken a huge loss, which is a rare event based on my observation that new casinos are springing up like thistles in a vacant lot and you don’t see a lot of casino converted into malls, restaurants or condos after a few years. You may still argue that the Badgers were really the better team in Champaign, but it is a fragile argument that can be shattered with the efficiency of a simple definition: The better team is the one that won. I do think that Illinois has turned the corner, but I won’t dwell on that because I proved, with my gushing praise of Michigan State, Iowa and UNLV, that my powers of observation are not so powerful. The safest opinions I can offer now, are that the Illini are better than the Badgers, and that I now fear Northwestern as the threat that it should be once every 4000 years. On that note, there is no reason to think that this coming Saturday’s game at Penn State will compromise the season’s theme of close calls. Here’s to Wisconsin scoring last. And most. What a difference a day and a pilgrimage to the Mecca of the NFL might have made, but it did not. Bruce and I surprised other brothers Matt and Mike and nephew Elliot with the arrival of a very long Hummer limousine that stretched its white body at the base of our driveway Sunday afternoon. Soon the maiden voyage of three men and a 10-year-old boy to the shrine we know as Lambeau Field was underway. Seeing their excitement meant I would not take for granted my access to Packers tickets for some time, possibly forever. Economically and environmentally speaking, the Hummer limo would not be my massive transportation of choice on a regular basis, but for the special occasion of the reunion of the Lagman brothers of Arizona, California and Wisconsin it was an excusable frivolity. With an expected 1:00 a.m. (actual 3:00 a.m.) return through a 120-mile minefield of inebriated motorists, there were safety considerations well satisfied by the bulk of our vehicle and its designated driver, Ben. To say the game was a letdown is like saying Vince Lombardi is well known or that green and gold are nice colors. Seeing a game in Lambeau is the experience of a lifetime. Seeing the Packers beat the Bears in Lambeau would have been the experience of lifetime, multiplied by 100 and squared. The visiting Lagmans would have to settle for a mere experience of a lifetime. It is a tall order to go 5-0 in the NFL, and the Packers looked to be about five-foot-three in the second half on Sunday. While it is true that the Packers had every reason to win, and the Bears had every reason to continue their downward first-to-worst spiral, it is equally true that the intangible and uncontrollable determinants of success and failure sometimes side with the wrong team. Such was the case on Sunday night, when Green Bay’s success-masked first-half flirtations with disaster catalyzed a disaster-come-true second half that may well have saved the season for our recently-renewed arch rivals from Chicago. Credit the Bears with patience, persistence and a willingness to take that which was given them. Like the football. Rumor has it that, in addition to multiple offerings of possession, the visiting locker room had been adorned with silver platters of delectable hors d’oeuvres, fresh cut bouquets, warmed wash cloths handed out by tuxedo-clad attendants and foil-wrapped mints placed on blue and orange pillows near each locker. The Packers could be accused of many things Sunday night, but failing the role of gracious host was not one of them. The problem with turnovers was the confidence it incubated on the Chicago bench. The Bears, even in the midst of injuries, have too many great players to be allowed confidence. Turnovers also meant that Favre was compelled to be more spectacular than he really is. I believe him to be quite spectacular to begin with, but even Favre cannot complete a pass through Brian Urlacher’s torso. Penalties, collectively reached a point where they were just as bad as turnovers. I blame the penalties on coaching. Just kidding, but I know some idiot on some radio call in show somewhere must have said that. I really place some of the blame on the players themselves, and most of it on the lying, stinking, cheating, legally blind, ursinophilic refs. If you detected an unfamiliar word in that sentence it is because I made it up. For you Latin buffs, you might recognize ursine, the adjective used to describe things of a bear-like nature. Ursine is a close cousin of asinine. By the way, I was just kidding about the refs, but in the heat of battle, I actually felt that way in a few brief instants of their weakness. Credit Brian Griese for not crumbling under the pressure of a 1-3 start and a defeaning Lambeau Field crowd. At the polar (yet another asinine ursine reference) opposite end of the quarterbacking feel-good spectrum had to have been Rex Grossman as the UW band’s tuba players displayed a marching sign (one letter capped each tuba) in the south end zone: NICE CLIPBOARD REX. It was amusing, but I am not a fan of personal attacks on players like Grossman whose only crime is having done his best and failed sometimes. I might have spelled DIAMONDBACKS or RUSH HOUR or TOLLWAYS ARE STUPID or RUNNERS UP or GO COLTS or something more universally applicable. I heard comments about how rude the Bears fans were. It is true, many of them were rude. In fact, having witnessed several blue-green interactions, I agree that the Bears fans are every bit as rude as Packers fans. I saw only verbal exchanges, which was impressive considering that the Bears won in our stadium and we have a song called "The Bears Still Suck" and everybody knows the words to it and sang them liberally. I don’t fault the Bears fans for their happiness. Imagine if we had gone into Soldier Alien Space Ship Field in a game meaningful to both teams and knocked off the undefeated Bears. We would be happy too, and we would deserve to be happy and people would think us rude. Mike said he saw a fight through the glass in one of the stadium stairwells. A taunted Packers fan pushed a gloating Bears fan hard in the chest. What if one or both of them had gone over a railing? For the families of those men misery might have taken on meaning beyond that of a lost football game. Matt recalled that a fan was shot to death at a Dodgers game a couple years ago after a similar altercation. Why? Figuratively speaking I may bleed green and gold, but I would not actually bleed for the my team. You might think the sum of the first losses for both the Badgers and Packers adds up to a dismal weekend, but that is probably because your brothers were not with you. It helped that we had a great Friday at our alma mater, Cuba City High School, affectionately known as Cuba City West or Cuba City Only. We watched from behind the home bench as our Cubans beat an undefeated Fennimore team that was ranked No. 2 in the state. Head Coach Jim Meckstroth, who three decades ago coached Matt, Mike and me in games of far lesser significance paced the sideline as the Cubans dominated early, then held off a late run by the Golden Eagles. During the game Coach spotted us standing behind his players and made a point of greeting each of us with a handshake. Not only did he remember us, but he remembered obscure details like Mike dating Kim Helbing and Matt’s helmet getting turned sideways at the Prairie du Chien game. He even remembered our numbers. We learned from the program that Mike (947 yds, 5.3 yds per carry) was the 17th-leading rusher in recorded Cuba City football history. Though we were formidable players by our own decaying recollections Matt and I did not make any of the lists, and Mike made sure that no hour passed without a reminder of that. (Bruce played his high school football in Arizona.) Badger Luke Swan’s little brother Nathan played for the Golden Eagles. I knew that Luke would already be in Champaign getting ready for his own game, where he would suffer a season-ending injury. I could not tell if Nathan was destined for Division I fame like his older brother, but the younger Swan should get a chance to prove himself if he knocks on the Badgers door two years from now, I bet he will get a chance to prove himself. There is another Swan brother who follows Nathan. UW should recruit him now. It wasn’t so in our family, but often the youngest sibling turns out to be the best athlete. Aaron Swan. Write that down for the 2015-2016 season. There was other icing on the weekend’s salty cake. In the limo ride up we watched Blades of Glory, a masterfully inane (another cousin of ursine) Will Farrell film that does not try to be anything but what it is–masterfully inane. It is the perfect movie to watch with your brothers and one nephew in the back of a inane vehicle. We watched it again on the way home in between stretches of invading somnolence. It was like mouthwash for our minds. We got free G-force t-shirts. It is not often you get something free at the gate that is actually worth the price you didn’t pay for it. I didn’t even take the calendar or the poster and I took the magnet schedule, but I lost it. It probably got stuck on something metal. I still have my G-force cheering towel, but I am not sure if I should save it in a box or use it to dry things. Friday afternoon we gathered at Platteville’s Pizzeria Uno, which is an unrelated stand-alone version of a chain by the same name. The only difference between Platteville’s Uno and the Franchise Uno is that the PU pizza is a hundred times better than FU’s. We think PU’s is the best pizza in the entire universe and every bite stirs deep-seated memories of an adolescence that once was. I salivate just writing about it. No October NBI would be complete without baseball coverage, which means that this is one of about six complete NBI’s ever. First a prediction: Instant replay is coming. Why? Because, BCS football aside, utter stupidity can only prevail so long. I read that instant replay will have no place in baseball as long as Bud Selig is in charge. I say that baseball will have no place for a commish who doesn’t advocate for getting the calls correct. And by the way, Bud, those new-fangled touch-tone phones seem to have caught on after all. O.K., replay is coming, but just for foul-fair calls, right? Um, here’s a different idea: No. We, meaning the people who really give a flying foul pole about baseball, should use it to get the calls right. Give managers red flags and let them chuck the flags onto the field a few times a game. And please, allow me to laugh my ace off in advance at any one with the audacity to argue that replay will disrupt the flow of the game. It’s B--A--S--E--B--A--L--L. Ponds flow faster. Ironically, the relatively fast-paced sports of tennis, football and basketball use some form of replay. In those sports it is not quite perfect, but it is definitely better than the archaic methods of umpiring by educated guess. I am only an anti-Cubs fan for three reasons: 1) I have not forgotten the small-mindedness of the Bartman debacle. As long as I have even a fleeting recollection of the injustices heaped on this poor fan with excellent eye-hand coordination, I will cheer any and all Cubs failures. 2) My brothers are Diamondbacks fans. I am a fan of my brothers. 3) The Illinois Tollway. Lastly, I ask why anyone would ever fire Joe Torre. Next I ask, would he ever consider relocating to a city situated on a much smaller ocean, such as Michigan Ocean? If he doesn’t want a full-time job he could just be available to cover Ned Yost when Yost gets kicked out of games. Bruce said he hoped that Torre would be fired. I asked why. "Because I like him," he said. Finally, I ask, wouldn’t it be great if collectively all available managers boycotted the open Yankees position and Steinbrenner had to manage the team himself or have one of the grounds keepers or some old drunk guy do it? Or what if for the next decade of Steinbrenner’s life he handed his credit card to Baseball, Inc. in an effort to buy his next World Series and he kept getting told that the card was not valid? If there is a god of poetic justice, please hear us now. Quotes: "I don’t hate Chicago. I hate the entire [IMLE] state of Illinois." Text message from unnamed suffering sportswriter at Lambeau. IMLE means insert most likely expletive. "The defense is a year away [from dominating]." Steve on the Badgers, during Saturday’s game. "I can hardly even see Mike." Bruce, seated on the other end of Hummer limo. "I can see him just fine." Steve, looking at Mike through binoculars. "I had five pieces. But I trained." Bruce, asked how many pieces of Uno pizza he had eaten. "I will personally take a foul-mouthed college student over the silent, non-expressive, 80-year-old fan any day!" Nancy Wills in a fabulous editorial published in the WSJ. (click here to read article). "No thanks, I had plenty before we got here." Limo driver Ben, when offered a pre-game beverage in the parking lot near Lambeau. _________________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column. This issue is dedicated to the traveling Lagmans, to the author’s mother for giving him premium brothers, to Ken Gile for his Cuba City safe house hospitality, to Coach Meckstroth and the Cubans, to Karen and John Utley for making the best pizza ever, to second mom and dad, Norm & Jeanette Weber, for watching Elliot while we bar hopped, to Chopper Moore for comping our drinks and pre-bar time pizza, to Ben our fantastic limo driver who, at 1:00 a.m. found a McDonalds drive through that would accommodate walk-up customers against corporate policy, to Doug and Erin, who hosted our brief appearance at their Appleton pre-game party, and to the Swan family, who had a tougher sports weekend than any of us. ©2007 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.