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Beer Guy Rob is still off tonight, and in the absence of adult supervision they decided to let me drive the DFO Virtual Party Bus this evening.

My heart is broken, because the rumors that Curt Schilling was arrested for his involvement in Steve Bannon’s Big Wall Fraud appear to be untrue.

On the other hand, I discovered that a rescued baby sea otter has his own livestream on Youtube.  YOU WILL WATCH IT NOW AND FEEL THE COCKLES OF YOUR HEART GROW WARM.

NFL Nuggets:

Very little “news” today- with the truncated nature of training camp, we are mired in the “X is lookin’ real good” stage of puerile NFLspeak much later in the calendar than we normally are:

• Cleveland Browns’ cornerback Kevin Johnson suffered a lacerated liver during practice Wednesday and had to be hospitalized.  Johnson, a former sixteenth-overall draft pick in 2015 by the “Texans”, was considered the front-runner to win the nickel cornerback spot before rookie Harrison Bryant landed on him.  Can’t wait to hear some Grizzled Fake-Tough Assistant Coach try to pin this on the lack of off-season workouts and full-contact drills.  Johnson gave a Zoom interview Monday, talking about how overcoming an extensive injury history provides him motivation.  “I have faith in God and a belief in myself. I want to win. I want to be the best teammate and player for this organization. The rest of the things will just take care of themselves from there.”  While the Browns have not given official word, he is expected to be designated on the Injury List as (Out- Tragic Irony).
•   Today in misleading headlines: “Rob Gronkowski of Old is in Training Camp”.  Bruce Arians said Rob Gronkowski “looks to me like he was five or six years ago.”  However, he went on to clarify that he means Gronk is moving without the stiffness exhibited in his final years caused by his myriad injuries.  “Hey guys, turns out that corpse we traded for is only MOSTLY dead!”  Regardless, I am going to enjoy seeing my fellow Buffalonian struggle mightily this season.  We saw how poorly he performed when the league was Mad at the Patriots and wouldn’t let him push off defensive players to make space– I don’t see refs being quite as accommodating to the Glazers as they were after Roger and Bob made up.
• Dez Bryant apparently will not be a Ratbird this season after he left a tryout with no contract offer.
• Matt Nagy still needs more time to see if Mitch Trubisky has improved over the last two years.  “He’s only kicked 30 field goals from 43 yards in total silence.  I need at least 250 more reps to really make a judgment,” said Nagy.
• Georgia State quarterback Mikele Colasurdo is fighting myocarditis arising from his COVID-19 infection.  Myocarditis is a deeply fucking scary condition where your heart muscle gets inflamed, potentially throwing off your heart rhythm and/or weakening it to the point where it either can’t pump enough blood or you start throwing clots.  I bring this up under NFL Nuggets because COVID-related myocarditis is one of the biggest concerns voiced in connection with the resumption of both pro and college football.  It can damage your heart for the rest of your life, and there are reportedly more than a dozen instances of COVID-related myocardial injury in college athletes.  This danger (and the attendant lawsuits it will bring) was allegedly one of the driving forces behind the MAC, Big (More Than) Ten and PAC-12’s decision to cancel fall sports. While the NFL has provided itself somewhat better legal cover, both PR flacks and the Legion of Lawyers have to be sweating blood hoping to make it through the season without a dead player.

In Dirt Football “action,” Thom Brennaman has been suspended by the Cincinnati Reds for a bit of hot-mic bigotry during yesterday’s double-header against the Kansas City Royals.  The audio came on to Brennaman remarking on somewhere as “one of the [redacted] capitals of the world.”  In this case, [redacted] was a word that Brits use for cigarettes.  Brennaman then issued an apology on the air while still trying to call play-by-play, which is either pitiful or worthy of grudging admiration.

https://youtu.be/Tnw0ZOgbrM4

I’ll leave you to judge the apparent sincerity of the apology.  However, I will note that he ticks at least 3 of the Standardized Bullshit White Guy Apology boxes:

1. Apologizes “if” he offended anyone

2. Invokes his “faith,” as if no one with sincere religious belief could POSSIBLY be bigoted (Leviticus 18:22).

3. “That’s not who I am.”  Well, by the only objective measure– it is.

Seriously, Cincinnati- you JUST washed the Marge Schott stench off.  In case you missed it, Brennaman’s sainted father Marty had his own issues with public homophobic language in the long-ago less enlightened times of…uh…2010, when commenting that Marshall University’s president must be “queer” for softball at the university’s baseball banquet and fundraiser.  Brennaman stated, “I probably could have made a better choice of words, but in no way does that reflect my opinion about gays at all. It’s just a comment I made about the president of the university.”

Fire the fucker and move on.

Tonight’s sports:

Holy fuckballs, I’m not used to any actual sports taking place.  Let’s see…

• NHL:
  • New York Islanders at Washington Capitals – 8:00PM Eastern/ 7:00 God’s Time | NBCSN / Sportsnet
    • Game 5 – Isles lead 3-1
      • I have nothing against the teams, but their fanbases can all die in a tremendously large fire.
• • Dallas Stars vs. Calgary Flames – 10:30PM Eastern/ 9:30 Real People Time| NBCSN / Sportsnet
    • Game 6 – Dallas leads 3-2
      • Dallas stole their team from Minnesota, and the resulting angst warped my best friend permanently.  They can jump in that Islanders-Capitals fire as well.
• NBA: Portland with a 1-0 over the Lakers at 9:00 p.m. Eastern/ 8:00 DFO Daylight Time on ESPN
• MLB: Just one national game today- Brewers at Twinsies at 8 Eastern/ 7 DFO on Fox Sports 1.