THE #1 Story In Sports!

…..   October produces a conucopic proliferation of sports battling for front page inches and SportsCenter minutes.  It’s Reggie Jackson Month in baseball while NFL and NCAA grid wars are in high gear.  NASCAR is Chasing and the PGA and WNBA are doing whatever they do.  One harmless little fuzzball with half his brain tied behind his back is blowing every other story out of the water.  The Story you won’t read anywhere else ….. read on!

A Quick Football recap:  Saturday saw two coaches with totally different offensive philosophies prove that when executed to perfection, they can’t be stopped  At least not by the opponents they defeated Saturday.  Everyone in “The Carter” knew Duke was going to pass.  They did very successfully.  Everyone in Tallahassee knew GaTech was going to run.  They did very successfully.

“How did 50,000 Tar Heel fans get into The Carter Saturday afternoon?”  ONLY UNC football fans “cry, boo, cut and run” when their team is being pummeled, Right?  That was THE largest 4th quarter mass evacuation of pissed-off humanity since Moses led the Israelites outta Egypt.  When The Carter clock struck 00:00 there were not enuff PackPeople still within three miles for a game of 3 on 3.   Sunday morning found PackPeople anticipating “Midnight With Sidney” and, as always, unfavorably disposed towards Lee Fowler.  Trinity Road has been renamed “The Trail of Tears”

   Congrats to Coach Cut and The Wally Wade Flying Circus / Air Show.    As Leo Hart bends down to tie his shoe, Wes Chesson “goes long” and that bronze bust of Ol’ Wally cracks a smile.  Is a sleeping giant stirrin’ in West Derm?

Over in Orange County, UNC’s $2,295,000 mercenary directed a pummeling of “the 3rd best team in Georgia”.  Backflipping over “that” is like applauding Julia Child for boiling water.  We played’em – we beat’em.   So did South Dakota State and Elon.  I was with a buncha UNC Football has-beens on Sunday.  It was unanimous that any UNC loony that dares to gloat about that State v Duke score is stoopiedier (sp?) than usual.   UNC is a 3 point favorite over “Open Date” but after that it gets real dicey.        

 Down in Tallahassee “that silly offense that will never work in major college football” drove Chief Osceola’s spear thru the heart of SeminoleNation.  Ol’ Bobby started the game at 79.  100 triple options later he looked like The Cryptkeeper’s Grandfather.  Best I can figure, Chuck hates Jimbo hates Mickey hates TK hates His BOT hates Chris Weinke hates Jenn Sterger hates the aforementioned Chief Osceola.  When the only positive the TV guys can come up with about FSU Football is “the QB makes good grades” ya know its “dark & stormy” in Tally.  …… Good thing Paul Johnson is not still at Georgia Southern?  Huh!

Up in Appalachia, Bud Foster’s defense chewed up and spit out “Yoda’s” offense. Frank is wondering if his Hokies can skip thru an entire ACC season without breaking a sweat.  They hokie-pokie down to Grant/Dodd/Cremins Peachtree GridPark this week to duel Paul Johnson’s “silly offense”.  Oughta be a “good’un”.

Bud Selig always looks constipated.  He’s more so after 3 Playoff series go 3 & Out and the 4th is played in Iditarod weather. How come freakin’ Tampa has an indoor stadium and Denver does not?  If you make $20,000,000 you better hit homers in October – like A-Rod and Texiera did.  If you make $2,295,000 you better beat ….. awww never mind.

Buddies and Babes, the list of stuff I do NOT know diddly, squat or jack about is longer than Sam Perkins’ wingspan and includes normal stuff many of you are world-class experts about. ….. wine, auto mechanics, thai cooking, AC/DC, Chinese arithmetic, holistic medicine, why people watch Oprah, who put the Bop in the BopShooBop and who put the Ram in the RamaLamma DingDong.   I don’t know that stuff.

 There IS one subject that I, BobLee, know more about than any ManJack-Jill, pundit, talking head, ink-stained wretch and despicable sack of human debris floating aimlessly in The Sea of Ignorance.  If the Final Jeopardy category is “Rush” bet the kids’ college fund on the tall guy with the beard.

Rush Limbaugh has been my friend for over 30 years.  I have friendships of longer duration but none I suppose as eye-brow raising.  When our star-crossed paths intersected in Kansas City in the mid 70s we were not Global Icon and Internet Legend.   At an IHOP in Mission KS over a bottomless coffee carafe we pondered when the world would acknowledge our respective genius.

We have navigated the rites of passage that friends do over 30 years.  Shared good times, not-so-good times, incredible triumphs, silly crap, and numerous champagne wishes and caviar dreams.  I know “the truth” behind the truths, half-truths, lies, damn lies, innuendos, insinuations, fabrications and orchestrated attacks on  ….. “THE most successful radio personality in American history.” 

He’s my friend.  I do not care if you like him, love him, loathe him, or have no opinion of him.  I probably would not like some of your friends either.

For only the second time in 30 years, I actually outweigh the Shrinkin’ Son-Of-A-Gun (195 lbs and dropping).   Do Rush and I agree on everything?  Absolutely not.  He insists Arthur Bryant is the God of BBQ.  I know Wilbur King is.  He prefers Maybachs.  I’m an F-150 guy.  We agree to disagree!

He is arguably the most provocatively controversial personality of the times in America.  With “Bush” off the radar in North Dallas, RUSH may be the most provocative four-letter word in the English language.  Declared Public Enemy #1 by two of the last three US Presidents simply because of his opinions and his pure genius at expressing his opinions.

20+ years of enduring the lies and damn lies written and said about him by his enemies and parroted by those they influence, it still pains me to read the toxic crap.  Rush, Erskine, and Holden among others friends ….. I sure can pick’em.

I “get” why a large number of people have a bone-deep teeth-grinding bile-spewing hatred for my friend Rush.  I “get” why he has built and maintained the largest, most-loyal radio audience in American history and, as a result, earns an annual income greater than any TWO New York Yankees combined.   Greater than A-Rod AND Jeter combined?  Yep!

I understand why his syndicator eagerly extended his lucrative contract for another decade.   I’m not sure any one understands “genius” but if possible I understand the genius that has enabled him to achieve the incredible success he has so well-earned.  Did you really think it was Affirmative Action?

 That “genius” is NOT his political ideology.  Therein lies the simple secret to it all.  It is an incredible ability to communicate thru a microphone and to hold a radio audience’s interest for over 20 years.

An audience far larger than Paul Harvey, Walter Winchell, Will Rogers, Howard Stern, Larry King, Cousin Brucie, Wolfman Jack and the 10,000s of wannabes scattered across the fruited-plain.   The EIB audience is light years beyond them all and has been for 20 years and counting.

Obama has designated staffers monitor EIB every single day.   EVERYTHING Rush says is immediately newsworthy simply because Rush said it. 95% of the mainstream media is cross-eyed jealous of Rush’s phenomemal success.  Their jealousy morphs into nuclear hatred and, quite often, totally consumes them.  Like now  … 

Rush is a part of a group of “rich guys” currently negotiating, along with several other competing groups of other rich guys, to buy the St Louis Rams.  IF the group he is part of “wins” he will NOT be the “managing general partner”.  Simply one member of an ownership group.   Quick:  Name all the ownership partners of the St Louis Cardinals? ….. the Boston Celtics? ….. the Atlanta Falcons? ….. the Carolina Hurricanes?

I wish he wouldn’t do it simply because of the 110% predictable malicious firestorm it has generated.  I suggested a less high profile “really rich guy” option –  partnering with Tom Fazio to build the first golf course on Mars.  He wants to do this NFL thing so I support him ‘cause that’s what friends do. In his home theater/basement rec room in the late 70s I watched him become a life-long fan of the NFL via the Steeler juggernaut of that era.

This highly complicated competitive business deal “might” happen.  It easily might not.  Wanna bet?  Regardless, the pipsqueaks, piss ants and slobbering mob of Rush-hating hairballs will chortle and snort then slither back into their dank hidey-holes where such species ferment.  They will be very angry and very unhappy.  Their segment of America will always be very angry and unhappy at it’s own reflection.

Rush will still be at the golden EIB microphone doin’ what he does like no one has ever done it in history.  12-15 years from now he might retire after a 30 year run of unparallel incredible success.  The pipsqueaks, piss ants and Rush-hatin’ hairballs will slither out again and snort “We told you he wouldn’t last!”

Between the two of us, we reach a massive audience of all you Buddies & Babes ….. plus that handful of dittoheads he contributes, of course.  :>)

Like Rangers Gus and Woodrow, Rush and BobLee will, one day, figuratively, be back in that IHOP laffin’ and agreein’ …..

 

Everybody wants my best joke about Obama getting the Nobel Prize.  “Obama getting the Nobel Prize” IS the joke.  …… Coming up next:  Joe Biden selected to MENSA and Oprah joins The Rockettes.