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-I really wish I would have had more time recently to do something on the Olympics, as I love that shit. I had a couple ideas involving the Games, including the 10 Horniest Olympic Events (not sure where, but Doubles Badminton is definitely on that particular medal stand) and an Olympic Village Sex Scavenger Hunt (bonus points for a tug from a Latvian handballer), but I just didn’t have time to flesh those out. Regardless, I’ll be watching the rest of the weekend, as the track and field relay races and the basketball medal games should be front and center by the time I post this.

-WWE’s “Summerslam” was last Saturday, and it totally delivered. Roman Reigns showed up for the first time since “Wrestlemania,” and Superman Punched and speared his cousin Solo Sikoa to help Cody Rhodes retain the Undisputed WWE Championship. It sure looks like we’re heading for a Bloodline Civil War at Survivor Series, with Roman leading one side and Solo leading the other. Factor in dudes like the Usos, Paul Heyman, The Rock, and even Sami Zayn, and it has the potential to be a hell of a few months between now and Wrestlemania 41 in April.

BTW, I’ve got a few wrestling-centric ideas floating around. One is a playlist involving the best songs to play as Rhea Ripley tases your balls (“White Lightning” by George Jones is a no-brainer). I’ve also got germs of ideas for a power ranking of “Rhea’s Sexiest Wrestling-Based Safe Words” (“jobber” is even money to be in the Top 5), and a post titled “Rhea Ripley, I Will Give You Cash Money to Pee on my Chest.” That last one feels a bit too broad, but I’ll see if I can narrow the focus.

-Huge news from the world of college athletics, as the NCAA has finally changed the number of scholarships a school can award in a few different sports. Included on that list is Division I baseball.

For the last billion years, NCAA Division I baseball programs could offer up to 11.7 scholarships. Teams could divvy those 11.7 scholarships up however they saw fit (some guys got quite a bit, some got maybe 25%, some got jack shit), but the number of scholarships was capped at 11.7. Starting in the fall of 2025, though, Division I baseball programs can offer up to 34 scholarships. But here’s the catch…the rosters are capped at 34 players. For a long time, there was no cap on roster spots, and recently it’s been capped at 40 players. These changes are…seismic, and will impact college baseball in many, many ways.

Too many, in fact, for me to expound on all of them here. I did have three initial thoughts when I heard the news, and further research into the changes just confirms my initial ideas. They are:

1) This is excellent news for the bank accounts of most Division I college baseball players and their parents. As a former one myself, the first thing that came to mind was, “This will hopefully eliminate the need for students to go into massive debt in order to finance their careers.” Most college baseball players must either rely on Ma and Pa to pay for whatever their scholarship doesn’t cover (you can’t see me but rest assured that my hand is raised as high as possible right now), or take out student loans and go into massive debt. Neither option is great, but if that’s the only way for a youngster to continue his career, he’s going to do it every time. That practice will, of course, still happen, but the rule changes should mean quite a bit fewer kids (and/or their parents) will be forced to take on predatory, horseshit, and debt-creating loans out of desperation.

2) This is great news for college baseball’s middle class. The Mid-Majors (think conferences like the Sun Belt, the WAC, and the Big South) should benefit greatly from both of these rules, but especially the roster limit. In days of yore the Big Conferences (in baseball, it’s now the SEC, ACC, Big XII, and Big Ten; rest easy, Pac-12) could stash a shit ton of players on their roster, even guys the coaches knew would likely never sniff the field. Why? One reason is the small chance that a kid develops into the type of player that can contribute to a big-time program. The other, more important reason is that if a kid is on your roster, he’s not on someone else’s roster. ‘Cause if he’s on someone else's roster, then he could potentially make that team better, thus making your job as a big school coach harder. With a limit of 34 players, that won’t happen as much at the big schools, and the Mid-Majors should reap the rewards of all that runoff (especially at what you might call Upper Middle-class schools with big-time fan support that also have solid NIL systems in place like East Carolina, Southern Miss, Coastal Carolina, Louisiana Tech, and Dallas Baptist).

3) The Power Four college baseball conferences will unofficially become Minor League teams, even more so than they have been. This shift started a few years ago, when COVID helped shrink the MLB Draft from 50 rounds to 20 rounds. Then Major League Baseball did away with their short season leagues, minor leagues that typically started play a couple weeks after the draft (the New York Penn League and the Appalachian League are two examples). Those two occurrences ensured that several hundred less dudes are going to enter pro ball each year, and those guys are gonna play somewhere, right? That somewhere is college baseball, especially the big conferences. And especially now, as the big schools will be able to offer up to 34 full scholarships (on top of NIL money). There’s a theory around the game that MLB player development departments have long wanted upper echelon college baseball to essentially be a version of High-A ball, and it seems that’s what’s going to happen. Places like Vanderbilt and Wake Forest already have pitching and hitting labs filled with the same high-tech gadgets and technology that MLB teams employ, and many other places with money to spare are following suit. Pretty soon the facilities at a Power Four school will be indistinguishable from those at an MLB stadium, and guys from those schools will be ready to move much more quickly through a system once they’re drafted/signed.

So yeah, big changes afoot. Of course, there are many other aspects to this that I didn’t have time to get to today (Title IX stuff and the likelihood a few programs will be dropped; how college baseball’s lower class may get squeezed; what it means for recruiting and high school/summer ball; the continuing evolution of NIL/portal stuff and how this news will affect all that), and there will undoubtedly be unintended consequences of the Not Great type. But, for now, celebrate if you’re a college baseball fan, ‘cause this great news for the sport as a whole.

-I’m thinking about taking a deep dive into the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child. The Amazon show is awesome, and I even liked the two Tom Cruise movies. Although…it was a bit odd seeing Mr. Cruise, all 5’4” of him, playing a dude that’s supposed to be built like the offspring of an elephant and a refrigerator. Was Jose Altuve unavailable to play Reacher? Could no one get a hold of Gary Coleman? Wait a second…I’m being frantically waved at by my assistant…What’s that?...Mr. Coleman’s been dead for almost 15 years?...Are you sure?…I feel like I would have heard about that…Confirmed?...Shit. Condolences to the Coleman estate.

But yeah, Jack Reacher is awesome. I’m thinking of taking a weekend and watching the series again, then maybe start reading the first book. It’ll be awesome, an entire weekend of all things Jack Reacher; a full-blown Reacher Round. Maybe a couple of ‘em, as it is the gentlemanly thing to do. Just make sure to mix in a couple of different strokes as you progress…

And BOOM. Flawless victory. I challenged myself to somehow tie Jack Reacher and Gary Coleman together, and it came together perfectly. That’s how the fuck you wrap up a Marinade.

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And finally, on a short day, I give you the latest edition of the 221, where the greatest TV show of all time, “The Wire,” is front and center.

I just finished my latest rewatch a couple weeks ago, and I’m finally ready to sack up and make a life-altering declaration: Season 4 is the best of “The Wire.” A lot of people share that opinion, but let’s explore how I landed on this.

Season 1 is the most important season, as it lays the foundation for everything that comes after. It’s brilliant, and transcendent, and the story is phenomenal, but…no Marlo, no Slim Charles, very little Prop Joe, no Carcetti/Norman, and they somehow made Dierdre Lovejoy look unsexy with one of the worst wigs in the history of filmed content.

Season 2 has the best story of all the seasons, as the investigation into the dead girls folds into the investigation of Frank Sobotka, which leads to Lester/Daniels/McNulty et al. learning about the Greek and his operation, which ties into Prop Joe and his crew, who initiates a team-up with Stringer, which leads to Omar shooting Brother Mouzone, which leads to Stringer getting killed at the end of Season 3…just a sublime example of cohesive and logical storytelling by Mr. Simon and crew. But…still no Marlo, Jimmy’s on the boat for most of the season, and there’s no Sydnor. I really like Sydnor.

Season 3 is the season most often pitted against Season 4 for the title of “Best Wire Season.” For a long time I thought it was Season 3, but I think there was one element of those episodes that blinded me a bit: It’s the only season where Avon, Stringer, and Marlo are featured players. Those are the dudes that ran the dope and coke trade in west Baltimore for several years, and their war in Season 3, while brutal and extremely deadly, was so entertaining to watch play out on the screen. Factor in Squeak and Bernard, the Carcetti/Royce stuff, Slim Charles and Cutty being introduced, Omar and Brother Mouzone’s Super Team, the dissolution of String and Avon’s relationship, and Rhonda Pearlman being an absolute smokeshow the whole time, and it’s tempting to say Season 3 is the best. But…the main story of Season 3 revolves around Bunny Colvin and his effort to legalize drugs, and it’s just…no. There’s no plausible way that happens for more than a couple days, even in a city with a bureaucracy as fucked up as B-more’s. The “paper bag for drugs” analogy is interesting, but the suspension of disbelief required to buy what’s happening in Hamsterdam is too much for Season 3 to be considered the best.

Season 5? I’m Ride-or-Die for Season 5. Bubbles’ sobriety journey, McNulty back to killing brain cells and plowing Badge Bunnies, Kima’s relationship with Elijah, the last ride of Omar Devon Little, Mike sniffing out Snoop and killing her (“How my hair look, Mike?” “You look good, girl.” Makes me cry every time.), the complete and irredeemable heel turn of Thomas Carcetti… I fucking love the final season, and think it gets unfairly maligned, but it can’t be the best for a couple of reasons. One, it’s too short; only 10.5 episodes. And two, the homeless serial killer farce/Scott Templeton fabulist stuff is more ridiculous than the Hamsterdam arc. I might be able to buy one of those two things occurring, but both? Simultaneously? Nah. I get the point David Simon was trying to make, but when considering a show that was at its best when firmly rooted in reality, Season 5 can’t take the title.

And that leaves Season 4. The redemption of Prez…the season long hunt for Lex and his tomb…the mayoral election, which gave us so many incredible Norman moments (“When I finish my memoirs, that shit’ll be in there, no doubt.”)...the maturation and development of Carver as good police, juxtaposed with the end of Herc’s career on the force…Bunny and Namond’s relationship…”Ask him who Young Leek be.”...Officer Walker getting his comeuppance…the ever-changing ownership of Old Face Andre’s ring…Cutty’s growth and evolution into a leader of men…Omar pulling a fast one on the entire New Day Co-Op and stealing an entire shipment…the conversation between Wee Bay and Bunny, which is one of the best scenes in the entire series…...”That’s a good strong dick you’ve got there, Mr. Mayor, and I see you know how to use it.”...the final act for Preston Broadus…

And of course the kids. Mike. Dukie. Namond. Randy. Even Donut, who’s no doubt serving a dime somewhere for grand theft auto. And the most tragic of all of them, Sherrod. Those kids, and their stories, are heart wrenching, and everytime I watch Season 4 I get mad all over again at how shit turns out for those boys. The message that there’s talent/ability/intelligence everywhere, even in places riddles with drugs, poverty, and violence, is timeless, and really resonates with me as a former teacher. Season 4 is by far the most affecting, and much more realistic than Season 3, so it takes the crown. But don’t take my word for it. Go watch them shits yourself and make up your own mind.

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That’s all I got today, kids. I’ll be back next week with something likely college football related. I’ve also decided to continue something I started last year called “Case of the Mondays,” where I break down high school football around where I’m from, college football games I care about, and the Cowboys each Monday during the fall.

ArmSideFun@gmail.com is the email. Please write me some stuff, folks. I’m the kind of gal that needs to be wined, dined, and cuddled.

Love you guys, and I’m so glad a few of you read this. Take care, and don’t be an asshole.

August 10th, 2024

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