Sports Comments

--It looks like a great football game ahead between Florida and Alabama this coming Saturday, to be held here in Gainesville. Funny though, the sports media pundits don't seem to give the Gators much of a chance against the Crimson Tide and instead are looking far ahead to Alabama's showdown contest against #1 LSU in November. This in spite of the fact that Florida is playing at home and is ranked at #12. Who knows, maybe Alabama will breeze through this game, but I wouldn't bet on it...

--My Miami Dolphins are showing their usual mediocre regular season form, sporting a "perfect" 0-3 record after a promising 4-1 preseason record. I heard on ESPN radio today someone say that, with parity in the NFL creating so many close scores, teams that collectively have a winning culture will find ways to win those close games, while those with an expectation and history of losing will find ways to lose them. Teams like Buffalo and Detroit, "losers" in the past few years, have recently found that winner's culture and turned out victories while the Dolphins are apparently convinced that they WILL lose the close ones...

--In baseball, there are two teams in each league vying for final wild-card playoff spots: Boston or Tampa Bay in the American League and Atlanta or St. Louis in the National League. At this writing Boston and Atlanta are each one game ahead in their respective races with only three games to go in the regular season. There's no way to tell how things will end up, but for the teams involved there is one thing for certain: the de facto playoff system has already begun for them! I'd like to see Atlanta and Tampa Bay make it into the playoffs, but then again, nothing would beat a New York Yankees-Philadelphia Phillies World Series for excitement...

--Sexagenarian long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad has once again failed in another of her many attempts to swim the Florida Straits between Cuba and Florida. This time she was caught in a flotilla of Portuguese man o' war jellyfish, which inflicted so many painful stings on her that her life was deemed to be in danger. It's interesting to me how an obsession like Nyad's of crossing that one particular body of water can take hold and utterly dominate one's existence. I think that she might just consider stepping back and letting someone else have a go at it. She's surely convinced me (and much of the world) of her athleticism, courage, and tenacity. But I think she may believe that adopting such a reasonable attitude would be the sign of a "quitter"; but people need to be realistic as to their own limitations, too...