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• It frustrates me so much MLB didn’t allow him in the HOF. My dad is from Cincinnati, so I always had a soft spot for their sports teams. It’s time to dig out my baseball collection and see how many of his cards I have.
• Hey, every time I hear the name of the great actor Paul Giamatti, my immediate thought is about his father, the baseball commissioner who established the ban.
• They told him all he had to do was admit he bet on baseball. He did, yet MLB kept its stance. Even his signing (and selling) baseballs and apologizing for his actions did nothing to move the needle.
  
• MLB extended its condolences on Twitter, and the fans’ comments were as expected. Here’s one that stood out to me:

  “Gonna be awesome when he finally gets elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame presented by DraftKings Sportsbook on FanDuel Induction Weekend”

• People my age know nothing more about Pete Rose than that he was a great batter who later became his team’s manager. He was found guilty of betting on baseball games, which prevented him from being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Any interview with him always centered around betting on the game and whether that should disqualify him from the Hall of Fame.

  None of us saw him play or watched a game he managed. We knew he was great because of the video highlight packages. Similarly, it’s the same with us Cowboys fans around my age. We all know Roger Staubach was great, but we never watched him take a snap in his playing days. You may think I’m nuts for bringing up Staubach. But what a lot of folks don’t know is that Staubach grew up in Cincinnati, as did Rose. Rose would often say the best athlete to ever come out of Cincinnati was Staubach and that he himself followed as the second.

  What’s frustratingly sad to me is that so many people thought Rose was nothing but a dumb jock who could do nothing but hit a ball with a bat. That’s why I want to end with this clip, to give the man a little dignity. The man was intelligent; he had a clever baseball mind. But no one ever asked him about baseball; they only asked him about the scandal. Well, in this clip, it’s abundantly clear the man knows the game, and he knows it well. It’s the first time I ever saw him go into “a zone” that he was extremely comfortable in, thoroughly and thoughtfully answering all of ARod’s questions and sharing baseball wisdom, strategy, and history.

  Pete Rose shares tons of baseball knowledge with A-Rod and Frank Thomas. It’s a 6 minute video, but I promise you, it’s the best thing you’ll see about Pete Rose today.#RIPPeteRose pic.twitter.com/dlpBbZ4e1C

  — BaseballHistoryNut (@nut_history) September 30, 2024

• I like how it came to be. ESPN wanted the Mannings to be part of a broadcast team, but they didn’t want to commit the time and be apart from their families. So, the network asked what if they could sit on the couch in their basements and talk football with their brother for three hours on 10 Monday nights per year. That was appealing, so the ManningCast was born.
• They followed Tony Dungy’s advice: “Don’t do anything for a year, then decide what you don’t want to do first.”
• Their contract runs through the 2034 season.
• I like the addition of Belichick, who has a defensive mind compared to the two quarterbacks. Who would have thought 15 years ago that Peyton Manning and Bill Belichick would team up to call games?

• As a student of presidential history, I like to find out how each president tries to portray himself to the media and country. For instance, Bush 43 and Obama were often seen at the golf course, and many people criticized them for not working hard enough. That wasn’t the case with LBJ; he would frequently get photographed or filmed working in the most unconventional places; there are pictures of him talking to his staff while getting a haircut or conducting business while he’s in his swimming pool at his ranch. In this example, he’s “working” two hours after gallbladder surgery on 11/06/1966. In case you were wondering, a total of ten doctors worked on him and three Secret Service agents were in the operating room. I mean, I get why the Secret Service agents where there, but really, what could they do?
  
• One person who always interested me during the LBJ presidency was Jack Valenti, who later became the head of the Motion Picture Association. The man hated the VCR and thought it would end the movie industry. He was also at LBJ’s swearing-in on Air Force One at Love Field. Last night, I found an article about him speaking about what led to that moment and how he started to work for LBJ, who wouldn’t accept any excuse for him not working for him.

• Several students were attending an informal gathering of the swim team at an on-campus residence on September 6 when one of them used a box cutter to scratch the n-word on another student’s chest, according to statements made by the college and the family who says their son was the victim.

• The last time the Longhorns and Mississippi State played was at the 1999 Cotton Bowl, which you can watch in its entirety here, with Joe Buck making the call. I remember because I was there. It was my first college football game (football games at Hardin-Simmons don’t count) and the first and only game I’ve seen in the Cotton Bowl.
• The reason I got to go to the game was because my brother gave me tickets. Six months prior, our father died. My spring semester grades were mailed to our house in Mineral Wells, and he saw them and chastised me. I tried telling him that these particular set of classes, like Business Law, were hard and cut me a break, I’ve been distracted by our father’s health. The following fall semester, I earned a 4.0, made the President’s List and Good Will Hunting fashion, slapped my grades in front of him, and asked him, “How do you like them apples!?” (The movie came out two years prior.) It was hard to ever get a compliment from him; I tried my hardest repeatedly. I can’t remember what he said, but I do remember a smile. But he rewarded me with tickets to the Cotton Bowl to see my favorite player and current Heisman winner, Ricky Williams. He couldn’t go, but I tagged along with one of his friends. I mentioned that he probably lucked into the tickets and probably got them for free, but his friend corrected me, saying that wasn’t the case at all, that he told him he was proud of me and he had to do something for me for such a great turnaround. I have mixed emotions about not speaking to him since 2006 after Mom died.
• I vividly remember hearing Prince’s 1999 played on every radio station on the way there. It was the first day of the year, after all. But it was just too much in a short time period that I voiced my displeasure about it. It became a joke with us. Then, at halftime, you can guess what the band played.
• That was a memorable Cotton Bowl for Longhorn fans. Of course, Ricky Williams won the Heisman and had a great game. On one run, he knocked out a tackler. The opposing coach was former Aggie nemesis Jackie Sherrill. He’s still alive and 80 years old, in case you were wondering. It was also Mack Brown’s first year.
• All I wanted that season was one of those Ricky Williams Heisman shirts. At that time, stuff like that was hard to get, especially in Abilene. But someone was selling one in the parking lot, and I finally got one.
  

@joshpet Betty met a new friend! #alzheimers ♬ original sound – JoshPet