Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Recorded Sunday, April 22, 2018

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in-depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

What better to follow up the 4/20 holiday with than my version of Xmas – the time when NFL teams find out after weeks of anticipation, shaking and listening to gift(ed) items which new assets they get to play with.  And, finally this spring it’s lovely weather!

I give several general points about the upcoming NFL Draft that helped shape my Mock Draft, but first…

For Your Read!

We know – we get it.  We’re not really supposedto read these days.  We’re supposed to glance.  Multitasking win!* As I’m sure Dr. Steve Brule would recommend, read something kind of long, or at least nuanced, ya jackass. Hair on your chest, blah blah. Read!

In honour of 4/20 we give a quick shout-out to a horror-inducing piece from The Ringerthat ponders the decline of the joint.  We wholeheartedly disagree…but you know us.

*- Loss.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

The 2018 Jerkules NFL Mock Draft – 21:00

As Friday says in Dragnet, “Just the details.” So here.

A Few Extra Thoughts On Our Picks (as mentioned during the podcast)…

This year’s NFL Draft being harder to predict than ever from top to bottom (I know – people seem to say this every year, but THISyear…) the Jerkules Mock Draft 2018is more of what I’d like to see than in past editions, with a mind still towards prediction as well.

With that growing uncertainty in mind, along with the fact that last year’s draft set a record for most trades, I do not include trades in this year’s mock. Not only is it just to damn hard to do well without direct sources, but especially at the top if a trade one predicts doesn’t occur, then it makes (more of) a mess of what follows.

You’ll notice I have Josh Rosen falling all the way to the Bills at 12.  I’m suspicious of teams jumping up in the draft order for a QB after Denver at 5, until Buffalo’s current position because each team picking in between is likely to pass on whichever of the top four passers might still be available.

With that in mind, maybe even two quarterbacks might fall beyond the top five selections?  Recent media coverage would contradict this notion, but before the annual smokescreen period leading up to the combine and draft the consensus in the football world was that ALL of the quarterbacks in this draft were flawed enough to not be considered franchise passers.  Is that prognosis still true among scouts, or have private workouts, pro days and the combine changed those perceptions?

One thing seems at least partially clear: In a copycat-obsessed league within which the Eagles and Rams are stockpiling roster talent now that they (seemingly) have found their franchise QB, and have a fifth round option on their salary cap-friendly contracts, teams have quickly become more eager to reach for a quarterback and enjoy the same window of opportunity.  (It also didn’t hurt this mindset when Seattle’s once-vaunted defense just so happened to get busted up once the Seahawks had to open up the bank for Russell Wilson’s first non-rookie deal.  I could be wrong, but I bet GM John Schneider and coach Pete Carroll would have liked to keep that group together one more year.  Wilson, however, was famously a third rounder and thus his contract lacks the fifth year option.)

If you’re a team among the top 5 0r so picks, though, and Sam Darnold is available, you can at least assume you’re not getting an effeminate passer.  After all, TRIVIA BOMB: Darnold’s late grandfather used to be the cowboy in Marlboro ads.  His name?  Dick Hammer. You can’t get much more manly than that.

Shit We Wrote Down – The Notebook, the Sequel

Take this, Noah and Allie, ya freakin’ saps!  One excerpt from our TFQ Notebook: “We’ve had it with Ryan Gosling.  Dude shortens his release under pressure… If scouts kept saying, ‘He can make all the throws,’ then how come he’s never made any in the pros yet? Wait – Sorry, that’s Rams QB Jared Goff. Can you blame us for confusing the two? LOOKALIKE BOMB!

“I wish Todd Gurley was more girly, like Rachel…”

I digress. So we have a notebook, and whenever we come up with new (just as dumb) thoughts while recording the podcast, we write them down in our trusty notebook.  Whenever I’m lucky enough to read my own writing (which is less often than you might think) andmyself or Yorga actually remember what the scribbles mean, we’ll put them here, at the end of the episode.  Congrats! – You made it to the end?  Guess what you win: Another chance to click on the fucking…you get it.

There was but one note in the Notebook this episode, and it was to include a nostalgic photo of the good ’ol TFQ NFL Draft Advent Calendar.

So there.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Recorded Thursday, November 16, 2017

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in-depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Regrettably, this post isn’t as robust as other recent ones. Some of you may love that (you’re welcome). Either way, it’s because, life, and I wanted to tally my Jerkules’ Picks win-loss numbers so far this season to add here, and I hadn’t realized that I never kept track of said dumpster fire. Love y’all.

The cold weather’s up here in Toronto, but sport are still hot!

(I said that during the podcast, and I’m not proud of it, but…SQUIRREL!)

We even come at you with some MLB Awards talk, along with the ongoing sagas that are the NFL and NBA regular seasons.

But first, the NFL situation that not only won’t go away, but keeps complexifying. It started with Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem before NFL games, as a show of protest to the ongoing injustices with respect to race and the legal system. Now, in a turn of events that would have been fairly unexpected months ago, Cowboys owner Jerry “Emperor Palpatine” Jones has taken on a very direct assault upon NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Keep this in mind: Goodell represents the collective wishes of the owners of NFL franchises. Jones is one of those 32 owners. Jones’ threat of legal action against the ad hoc Compensation Committee that is drafting Goodell’s new contract isn’t so much biting the hand that feeds you, but biting one of your own 32 hands, if you had 32 hands. (And if you do, what are you doing reading this article? Surely you could be doing something really cool and/or illegal to get rich instead.)

The Emperor always strikes such an intimidating pose.

Well, those other 31 hands are fighting back. (Who knows; with Jones’ near-schizophrenic inebriation due to power it might be all 32 hands.) Forgive us for basking in the irony of the NFL trotting out the “conduct detrimental to the league,” but…

Ooooooh yeah.

We talk in-depth about this new insurgency by the Cowboys Empire. Check it.

Bedshitter of the Week – 16:00

We try (and often fail) every episode to anoint at least one person or team an award that goes to the biggest choke job, or soul-searing collapse in recent sports.

Listen – it wasn’t totally his fault, but head coach John Fox gets it for leading his Chicago Bears into Challenge-pocalypse like Spud from Trainspotting led his feces into his girlfriend’s mattress.

“Oy – It’s not me! It’s the shite rulebook!”

Here’s the play. Benny Cunningham appears to score a TD, but is called out at the 2-yard line. Fox believes otherwise, and challenges the play – hoping to get his team a touchdown. Instead, the dumbest rule in football is employed, giving the Packers the ball at their own 20-yard line. Again – the Packers didn’t have the ball, nor did they ever possess it during the play that ultimately led to them getting a touchback.

Rodger Sherman of The Ringer explains the shitty-shitty-shit rule, along with some alternatives to it.

PLEASE are you fucking kidding me, we can eliminate the force-out call, revamp overtime, scrap the Tuck Rule, but we can’t get rid of the SO MUCH MORE STUPID RULE?

Moving on.

Episode 155 is Dedicated To (20:45): Sometimes the stars align. This episode will reach many of you exactly 24 years ago – November 18, 1993. In Edmonton that day, a man set the Guinness Book of Records for most cigarettes smokes at once…with…155. His name: Jim Mouth. You’re welcome.

Simpsons equivalent thought of by Count Yorga.

To open this episode’s segments we play a new track from a classic brother – “Mutations” by Grand Analog. The group’s front man is Odario Williams, who now has a late night DJ gig with public radio in Canada. He first broke out as a member of the Winnipeg-based hip-hop duo Mood Ruff. In fact, one of their earlier tracks, “No Hooks” serves as a source for the sample that we use in the intro for this Podcast! #PROPS!

(One of these days, Odario, I’ma make you pull out some of those breaks moves.)

Also, “Mutations” features none other than Posdanous (aka Plug 3) from De La Soul!

Also, it starts at 22:55, if you’re that cold.

#PROPS & #DROPS – 25:25

If you’ve already worked clicking on the fuckin websiiiiiiiiite into your routine, YOU’RE NOT DONE YET. Follow us on Twitter, where we will occasionally give a thumbs-up or –down ruling on something in the world of sports. We’ll hashtag that shit PROPS or DROPS, and then we’ll turn right around and set you all up with more of them in every episode. To wit:

I’ma add these later. And I still haven’t added the tally for Jerkules’ Picks. Deal.

For Your Read! – 59:00

We know – we get it. We’re not really supposed to read these days. We’re supposed to glance. Multitasking win!* As I’m sure Dr. Steve Brule would recommend, read something kind of long, or at least nuanced, ya jackass. Hair on your chest, blah blah. Read!

*- Loss.

Here you get a nice ditty from Jonathan Tjarks about possible NBA lineups that could try to stand up to Golden State’s Lineup of Death. Like Jyn Urso stands up to the tidal wave of explosion that ends her in Rogue One. But it’s still an enlightening read.

Weekly Woodshed – 1:01:15

One thing you can always trust sports for is its lack of empathy for the weak. Almost any day of the year, some athlete or team is dominating and embarrassing the living shit out of an opponent. We try to shine a spotlight on these heinous landslide victories because, well, some of us think the underdog deserves to die.

Count Yorga serves us up a nice NBA beating.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Splashtown vs. Brick City – 1:03:55

(After a brief musical interlude)

Throughout the NBA season we take a more in-depth look at players, teams, trends, play designs, blah, blah and then we assign the topic either to the good city of the bad one. Just try and guess which is which.

The NFL Bug Zapper – 1:24:10

RIP Richard Sherman’s season (achilles).  This section depresses me.

NFL Shitwatch – Week 10/11 – 1:25:25

Each week during the NFL season, we grab some shades, whistles, Hasselhoff, and we go on NFL Shitwatch! The NFL is the shit these days, with lots of crazy shit going on, teams that are the shit – and others that are just plain, well, shit. But fear not, we’re on the lookout!

Who’s cuter – us, or the shit?

I review last week’s key games, as per our shit categories. Check it.

Jerkules’ Picks – 1:49:15

RAMS win @ VIKINGS -2.5

BROWNS over JAGUARS +7.5

PACKERS over RAVENS -3.0 (I regret this one already)

CHIEFS win @ GIANTS +13.5

SAINTS over SCALPERS +7.5

TEXANS over CARDINALS +1.5

LIONS win @ BEARS +3.0

BUCS win @ DOLPHINS -3.0

CHARGERS over BILLS +4.0

PATRIOTS win @ RAIDERS +5.5

BENGALS win @ BRONCOS -2.5

EAGLES win @ DALLAS +3.5 SNF

FALCONS win @ SEAHAWKS -3.0 MNF

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Recorded Thursday, November 2, 2017

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in-depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

Happy (post-)Halloween, everyone! Boooooooooo! Scary, scary!

I couldn’t resist. If you’re Canadian, you’ll understand.

We have so many fun tricks and treats for our Halloween episode! But first, let’s address a more horrific note: the fact that rookie sensation DeShaun Watson won’t be quarterbacking the Houston Texans again this season, thanks to a torn ACL suffered in practice Thursday.

We spend a lot of time this episode touching on how bad most NFL teams are this season. Even though the Texans are such a team, Watson’s historic play constitutes an outbreak of grace in a season rife with confusion.

Let’s hope the reigning national champion in college football can return to the pros without diminished skill. Let’s hope Watson’s dizzying influence upon the NFL isn’t some sort of Greg Cook-like comet; let’s hope he doesn’t follow the same professional path as the late Bengals prodigy, who amazed everyone until a shoulder injury relegated him to a scant few seasons served as a shadow of his Olympian self. Let’s hope for future games in which Watson’s performances come even just within the vicinity of the athletic bonanza that was Texans-Seahawks in Week 8. The launch angles on his throws. The Archimedean sense of trajectory. The full-body strength that makes his throws possible, if not beautiful.

Generally, I’m not the most vocal proponent of hope, but let’s just hope. Get better, DeShaun. If the league doesn’t need you, my aesthetic sensibilities as they apply to the game of football do. I won’t compare you to Michael Jordan, like your former coach at Clemson, Dabo Swinney, has. But if you’ll allow me to compare you to the great Michael Jordan, he broke his foot during the third game of his second NBA season, and missed the next 64 games. I’m no historian, but that serious injury seemed not to hinder Jordan’s ability. Listen to your former coach, Mr. Watson. Be like Mike. Come back soon – and be at least kinda the same.

Siiiiiiiiiigh. Nothing like starting off the TFQ Podcast post on a bummer of a note. Yeaaaaaah! Halloween! The World Series went to seven games! Wooooooooo!

(You better be icing that knee, DeShaun. Love you.)

!RESTART!

I couldn’t resist. If you’re Canadian, you’ll understand.

Halloween! Who doesn’t’ love Halloween! We have so many fun tricks and treats for our Halloween episode! For the last (aka second) time this year we roll out Count Yorga’s Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine – and we work that fucker so hard in honour of a World Series unlike any we’ve ever seen that Count Yorga’s Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine is left in a smoldering heap of rubble by the end of our analysis.*

Halloween! Who doesn’t love Halloween! We’ve reached the halfway point of the NFL season, and holy shit do we ever analyze that league! Sure, we abbreviate our regular NFL Bug Zapper segment – but that’s because we do so much more. The trade deadline was wild, so we analyze that. The first half of the 2017 regular season has shown us that there aren’t many good teams, so we analyze that. Some suspensions to key and/or once key players have once again come to the fore, so we analyze that. It’s Halloween, and Season 2 of Stranger Things* has us waxing nostalgic about trick-or-treat candy from the mid-1980s because we’re old, so we analyze that. I mean, we give out the TFQ NFL 2017 Midseason Awards based on rankings of old school Halloween candy. We don’t analyze our age. That’s so old person.

*- Memo to Count Yorga: Shotgun not fixing Count Yorga’s Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine in time for next MLB postseason.

All Hallows Eve has a way of disorienting the self. Maybe that’s how the citizens of Houston feel. Their home team finally won the World Series – in the literal wake of hurricane disaster. They finally found their quarterback of the future, except see my rant above. The owner of their NFL franchise, Bob McNair, is so amazingly rich and white and old that it has rendered his sensibility so tone deaf (read: racist) that he – no joke – referred to his players as inmates. Sure, I get it – it’s an idiom for even the slightest inversion of control: “the inmates are running the asylum.” But YOU’RE THE OWNER OF A SPORTS TEAM THAT HAS BEEN PROTESTING INEQUITABLE PRISION SENTENCING BASED UPON RACE. REFERRING TO THE MEMBERS OF THAT (YOUR) TEAM AS “INMATES” IS PROBABLY NOT THE BEST IDEA.

I should be a life coach.

Mr. McNair, citizens of Houston: I offer my skills up to the highest bidder. Gimme a shout. You know my fucking website.
In case you haven’t already noticed, we’ll be chiming in on the NFL player protest situation for as long as we deem relevant. You know: the Bill Of Rights, freedom of speech, standing up for equal treatment of all races under the law, unarmed black people shouldn’t be shot in the head by police, yadda yadda. If you’re not down for that, boy do we have the site for you!

Bedshitter of the Week – 13:40

We try (and often fail) every episode to anoint at least one person or team an award that goes to the biggest choke job, or soul-searing collapse in recent sports.

This might not be as direct a bedshitting as the inaugural one laid by Spud in Trainspotting, but it sure bears mentioning.

“I might not know slumps, ya – but I can clearly show you some streaks. Skids, too.”

Hence this mentioning:

In a sport as superstitious as baseball, it’s been a tough year for jinxes. If you look at the last two World Series you could say that baseball jinxes have shit the bed. Last year, the man now known (to us) as Curse Breaker, Theo Epstein, realized his goal of building a champion as the president of the Cubs. In doing so, Epstein lifted a Billy Goat Curse that had been the source of Chicago’s ire since 1945 – small potatoes for Curse Breaker, who, in 2004, had already lifted the Curse of the Bambino in Boston (ESTD. 1919).

Enter Jeff Luhnow, who became the Astros GM in 2011. Houston was without a championship ever since the franchise’s birth in 1962, and three years later Luhnow was staring this in the eye:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Curse_of_the_Billy_Goat

https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Curse_of_the_Bambino

So you know what Houston did? They kept on making a kick-ass roster, largely built from within the organization. They made the centerpiece someone who just might go down as the best pound-for pound position player ever if he keeps it up: 5’6”, 165-pound second baseman Jose Altuve. They went all-in at he trade deadline, snagging ace Justin Verlander. They watched the centerfielder on that auspicious SI cover become the World Series MVP. They broke the infamous SI cover jinx. I mean, if there’s a more thorough way to de-jinx one’s self after appearing on the SI cover, I’d like to hear it.

So there you go: 212 total curse years between the Red Sox, Cubs and Astros. All of those curses have been broken in the last 13 years, two of the three in each of the last two seasons. Get with it, jinxes.

Episode 153 is Dedicated To: I won’t work the same sort of angle for the dedication as I did last week again… But how can you blame me? From that same 1967 Topps Baseball Card Series, this is card number 153:

Yeah, I’m Blair. Wasn’t me – I swear!

#PROPS & #DROPS – 19:00

If you’ve already worked clicking on the fuckin websiiiiiiiiite into your routine, YOU’RE NOT DONE YET. Follow us on Twitter, where we will occasionally give a thumbs-up or –down ruling on something in the world of sports. We’ll hashtag that shit
#PROPS or #DROPS, and then we’ll turn right around and set you all up with more of them in every episode. To wit:

I give at least one college football #PROPS/#DROPS for each episode during the college football season. This episode, I give #DROPS to the BCS Committee for ranking Georgia at number one – ahead of Alabama. (The first BCS rankings were unveiled Tuesday.) Don’t get me wrong – the Bulldogs have fairly earned their spot with a win over third-ranked Notre Dame. But the last thing the rest of the FBS needs is a chip on the shoulder of the Crimson Tide. ’Bama tends to paste teams when they have an axe to grind. Hell – they tend to paste opponents in general. Like a frustrated coach says to a referee, they don’t need any help. I also use this occasion to detail the top five teams in both the last pre-BCS AP poll, and the BCS rankings. Without an undefeated contender remaining this season, shit could get interesting.

Count Yorga gives #DROPS to Astros first baseman Yulieski Gurriel for making a racist gesture at Dodgers starting pitcher Yu Darvish following his Game 3 home run. Ideally, these conversations wouldn’t even happen, but alas, racism. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has defended the decision not to enforce Gurriel’s 5-game suspension for the gesture until next regular season because players don’t get paid the same in the playoffs, thus weakening the punishment, and it punishes teammates more unfairly when the stakes are playoffs-high. It’s a complicated matter, one we discuss thoroughly. So, listen up!

I give #PROPS to Warriors coach Steve Kerr, for saying this to the media when asked about LGBT night during his team’s recent game against the Raptors:

“Maybe, if you are coming to the game tonight, and your child says what does that [LGBT] mean, explain it to them. Explain the importance of loving the person next to you and respecting him no matter who they are and where they come from. They are human beings, we are all human beings and we are all in this together.”

Plus, on a different theme night – Halloween, against Washington – Kerr wore this outfit:

Proper.

I give #PROPS to ageless wonder Julius Peppers. The Panthers defensive end’s sack total halfway through the 2017 season is 7.5, putting him on pace for…carry the two…fifteen! That’s also the total number of NFL seasons in which Peppers has had at least seven sacks. Keep in mind Peppers has played sixteen seasons. He’s now fourth on the all-time sacks list, with 151. He’s also oooooold. I contextualize Peppers’ longevity by looking at pop culture moments from way back in 2002, his first pro season.

Yorga gives #DROPS to Oakland A’s catcher Bruce Maxwell, who has followed up his lone wolf “anthem protest” during the MLB season with pointing a gun at a delivery guy. I don’t think this bears much more explanation.

I give #PROPS to The Late Show With Conan O’Brien for another amusing installment of “Clueless Gamer.” Though this edition doesn’t match the seminal Rob Gronkowski-Marshawn Lynch episode, Packers Aaron Rodgers (replete with post-surgery sling) and tackle David Bakhtiari hold their own.

Lastly, I give #PROPS to Sports Illustrated’s Jack Dickey, whose anti-tanking column in the current print issue articulates my sentiment toward tanking, and how it’s essentially a disservice to fans. I was going to put the quote here, but fuck – listen to the podcast, baby!

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Count Yorga’s Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine – 47:25

Gotta start off our last sesh this year with the Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine with the appropriate song.

Holy fuck, this year we sure pushed the Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine to its limit – and beyond! I suppose that’s what can happen when, for instance, the all-time record for total home runs in a World Series gets broken.

We feed numerous punch cards into the Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine, which spits out analysis, TRIVIA BOMBs, and the like, reminding us what puts the “Fantabulous” into the Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine. Listen up! Honestly! Because we work the Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine so hard that, well, maybe you’ll end up like this guy…

If only Big Al were still with us, maybe he’d be able to fix the Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine…It pretty much fell to pieces after we fed in the last data card.

Lastly, – since Count Yorga’s Fantabulous World Series Contraption Machine is currently in Humpty Dumpty mode – Ben Reiter, the man behind the now-famous Sports Illustrated 2014 cover article that predicted the ’Stros would win the World Series this year, says that Houston will repeat as MLB champs in 2018. That sure gets a guy to Mullin.

“You’re winning it again, huh? Fuggedaboutit!”

For Your Read! – 1:31:35

We know – we get it. We’re not really supposed to read these days. We’re supposed to glance. Multitasking win!* As I’m sure Dr. Steve Brule would recommend, read something kind of long, or at least nuanced, ya jackass. Hair on your chest, blah blah. Read!

*- Loss.

We consider several aspects of this great proposal, and rehash some of the stats/findings in the article: The Ringer’s Kevin Clark gives his case for the NFL taking a midseason week off. Please make this happen, rich old white guys (and Shad Khan). There are of course some issues with the idea, but I don’t care. This shit is too tiring, too watered-down, and the players deserve whatever means with which they can be given more physical rest.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Splashtown vs. Brick City – 1:36:35

(After a brief musical interlude)

Throughout the NBA season we take a more in-depth look at players, teams, trends, play designs, blah, blah and then we assign the topic either to the good city of the bad one. For now, especially with the NFL in full swing, we take some quicker, simpler looks at the NBA.

The early stages of the regular season often makes for some weirdass vibes from a few teams – almost like Magic. Orlando Magic, that is. At the time of recording, the Magic were tied for the best record in the league! And after doing his best Kenny “Sky” Walker* impersonation to start his pro career, Aaron Gordon was hitting 57.7 percent of his three pointers on more than four attempts per game! And Grant Hill never had ankle problems after coming over from Detroit, he and Tracy McGrady convinced Tim Duncan to join them in ’Lando,** and a dynasty was born! If we played Truth Or Fiction with those statements I wonder how many people would pick the wrong one.

*- The former Knick was a dynamic dunker, but seldom saw a broad side of a barn he could hit with his jumper.

**- How come no one that I know of refers to Orlando as ’Lando?? Floridians! I’ll make you a deal: Eat all of your firearms, start working ’Lando into your lexicon, and I’ll take it to the next step. That’s right. Aaron Gordon, small forward, Orlando Calrissians.

I only came up with this while writing this post. Man, this is SO coming up on a (near) future episode. Apologies in advance.

In case it wasn’t already clear, we’re putting the Calrissians in Splashtown – for now. I mean, the guy lost a Corellian YT-1300f light freighter to a shoot-first bum smuggler in a game of sabacc. Who knows how quickly this team could end up shitting the bed?

Speaking of shitting the bed, we overlooked something when designing this segment…I mean, sure, it’s all metaphor, but there’s a lot of ball that falls outside of the mere swish-brick binary. I’m not sure how many people expected Sixers “rookie” Ben Simmons (he sat out his first season in 2016-17 due to injury) to fill up the stat sheet like he has so far this season, but 18.4/9.1/7.7 shouldn’t draw the focus to swished jumpers or clanging bricks. Rather, get Simmons some time in, I don’t know, Dime City or a BOARD-er Town?

Let’s do the same for DeMarcus Cousins, but in this case usher him into a Block Borough. TRIVIA BOMB: In a loss to the Pelicans last week, Boogie put up 35 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 6 steals, 3 blocks, and 5 three pointers. No one else in NBA history had done that before.

The NFL Bug Zapper – 1:40:20

For the musical interlude at this point:

I thought I loved this song, but Yorga is so thrown asunder by the fury of Earth, Wind & Fire that he can’t find his adapter to plug in the Bug Zapper. Delay ensues.  Also, one day I will own that shirt.

Injuries are a serious matter in football. Ideally there’d be none of them. In reality, it constantly feels like players are “dropping like flies” as the adage goes. You should never consider this segment comprehensive; we try to go over the more significant injuries, flying each such player into our NFL Bug Zapper.

Because of how content-packed we are this Episode, we kept this segment short.

After playing much of this season already banged up, Patriots LB Don’t’a Hightower is done for the season after tearing his pectoral muscle. – an awful

We’ve already mourned DeShaun Watson here. Zach Miller’s gruesome leg injury was so bad that the Bears tight end almost lost his leg. So bad, I’m not giving up a link to footage of it, lest our first feedback from our three listeners be complaints about being subjected to visuals of such violence.

The word “luck” will always have a complicated connotation in an injury segment, but aw fuck it – Colts QB Andrew Luck finally gets shelved for the season after his recovery from (throwing) shoulder surgery. Turns out the coaching and medical staffs in Indy advised/let Luck play with a bad labrum over the last two seasons. Turns out that can adversely affect rehab in that shoulder. Who knew.

NFL Shitwatch – Special Halloween Midseason Edition

Each week during the NFL season, we grab some shades, whistles, Hasselhoff, and we go on NFL Shitwatch! The NFL is the shit these days, with lots of crazy shit going on, teams that are the shit – and others that are just plain, well, shit. But fear not, we’re on the lookout! At the Midseason point of the season, boy do we ever heap this shit on! Enjoy!

Who’s cuter – us, or the shit?

The Shit Seat (Coaching Hot Seat) – 1:48:30

I’m getting a bit tired of this see-saw battle, but the soiled punishment diaper is wrapped back around Giants head coach Bob McAdoo after spending some time against the rear of Colts head coach Chuck Pagano yet again.

I’ve been thinking of other candidates for our equivalent of the hot seat, and you can now officially assume I’ll want Marvin Lewis of the Bengals in consideration. I think it getting nigh upon time to start considering Tampa Bay’s Dirk Koetter as well. Shit on, you crazy diamonds.

NFL Trade Deadline Analysis – 1:55:06

At least one NFL front office exec called this the busiest trade deadline they can remember. I’ll buy that. Four game-changing players were moved on deadline day in exchange for draft picks. Okay – sorry, Janeane – let’s say three players, since Jimmy Garoppolo hasn’t even started that many games as a pro.

We take an in-depth look at all four deals, plus how this could be a sign of things to come in the future, after years and years of largely boring trade deadlines.

Tricked, or Treat(ed)? Ezekiel Elliot & Josh Gordon Suspensions – 2:18:45

Fuck this, NFL; I can’t keep up. I just smoked a joint, and I’m pretty sure Elliot’s suspension was upheld, then given a stay, seventeen times before I finished. He’s playing in Week 9 against Kansas City

UPDATE 03/11/2017: Elliot’s stay has been granted. He’s playing this Sunday against the Chiefs. Fuck this, NFL; I can’t keep up.

Holy shit, Josh Gordon might actually see an NFL field again – and in uniform! The Browns wide receiver was a manimal, tearing up defensive backs and raising tents in the pants of fantasy football owners until drug problems (including, but not limited to: testing positive for drugs) forced him from the league indefinitely. Details are within, but I hope Gordon’s been keeping in (pseudo) game shape, because he has to jump through more hoops than a dog at the Westminister Dog Show just to get a chance to dress for a game again.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

NFL Midseason Standings Overview – 2:22:45

We take a look at the whole league…and how shitty it is. It’s pretty difficult to assemble more than six quality teams in each conference at this point. There’s a ton of analysis here – plus I’m starting to hallucinate, this post is so long to write out – plus a LOOKALIKE BOMB:

Eagles head coach Doug Pederson = Duke Nukem.

NFL Midseason Halloween Awards/Treats – 2:37:25

This is pretty straightforward: Stranger Things 2 + Halloween IRL = Naming our usual Midseason Awards for players after Halloween candy we prized when we were growing up, which just so happened at the same time in our history as the hit series. Never doubt us – there’s stats and analysis with each piece of midseason candy hardware.

Full Candy Bar (League MVP)

In honor of Stranger Things 2.

Jerkules – Carson Wentz, QB, Eagles

Count Yorga – Carson Wentz, QB, Eagles

Mini Candy Bars (Offensive Player of the Year)

Jerkules – Kareem Hunt, RB, Chiefs

Count Yorga – Kareem Hunt, RB, Chiefs

Double Lollies (Defensive Player of the Year)

Jerkules – Calais Campbell, DE & Jalen Ramsey, CB, Jaguars

Count Yorga – Calais Campbell, DE, Jaguars

Reese’s Pieces – (Offensive Rookie of the Year)

Jerkules – DeShaun Watson, QB, Texans

Count Yorga – Kareem Hunt, RB, Chiefs

Jolly Rancher (Defensive Rookie of the Year)

Jerkules – Marshon Lattimore, CB, Saints

Count Yorga – T.J. Watt, LB, Steelers

Mini Box of Raisins (Goat of the Year)

Just seeing this image makes me want to kill someone.

Jerkules – Trevor Simien, QB, Broncos

Count Yorga – Julio Jones, WR, Falcons

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

NFL Shitwatch – Week 8 – 2:52:10

Each week we observe different games or news items that fit certain shit criteria – shiteria, if you will (you won’t, but we already are) – and look at good and bad aspects of each team in said matchup. Sorry – shitup.

I won’t lie. I’ve been up all night and the booze’s hold is loosening. I analyze several games from Week 8. Maybe I’ll add this content later; get bent. I will at my spreads for Week 9 below later on. For now, it’s all there in the episode. xox

Jerkules v. Spreads for Week 9 – 3:01:10

They’re coming – don’t let me keep you from losing money, though.

Shit We Wrote Down – The Notebook, the Sequel

Scouts have warmed up to his play – and they think his acting chops are top-notch. Sorry, that’s Rams QB Jared Goff – or is it thespian Ryan Gosling, star of The Notebook? Can you blame us for confusing the two? LOOKALIKE BOMB!

“I wish Todd Gurley was more girly, like Rachel…”

I digress. So we have a notebook, and whenever we come up with new (just as dumb) thoughts while recording the podcast, we write them down in our trusty notebook. Whenever I’m lucky enough to read my own writing (which is less often than you might think) and myself or Yorga actually remember what the scribbles mean, we’ll put them here, at the end of the episode. Congrats! – You made it to the end? Guess what you win: Another chance to click on the fucking…you get it.

So, um, this one is awkward – even by our standards. In the name of Halloween and the Minnesota Vikings, our opening song was “The Purple People Eater,” which, while spooooookyyyy was also the inspiration for the Vikes’ defense of the 1970s being called the Flying Purple People Eaters.

Upon extra research, the song is by Sheb Wooley.

During this podcast, I say that he song is by Karl Pilkington. Drugs is the only way to explain this. Damn, you notebook.

I take a few politically incorrect steps while Yorga gives #DROPS to Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel. Mistakes are made when one drinks. Coming up with the (Asian) band name Asian Persuasion isn’t one of them.

Shit lots of candy, everybody – and we’ll see you next episode!

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Recorded Saturday, September 23, 2017

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in-depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

EDITOR’S NOTE: POST INCOMPLETE; WILL BE FINISHED SOON. Sometimes life gets in the way of our hobby gone mad. You know, if y’all clicked on us and followed us enough, maybe this hobby would evolve into a paid gig. Until then, sometimes the posts won’t be ready, but we want you to have to episode here & on iTunes in time. Don’t like it? Sue us. Our legal team is ready.*

*- Legal team ready = Me with whiskey.

Bedshitter of the Week

We try (and often fail) every episode to anoint at least one person or team an award that goes to the biggest choke job, or soul-searing collapse in recent sports.

It dawned on me: Trump is at once a con and distraction artist. (I maintain that neither are a result of skill, but rather the genuinely random machinations of an overweight, delusional, and almost certainly drug-addled senior citizen.)

SPUD BED SHIT SCENE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s10Dkwnl9ns

Episode 149 is Dedicated To: The

#PROPS & #DROPS

If you’ve already worked clicking on the fuckin websiiiiiiiiite into your routine, YOU’RE NOT DONE YET. Follow us on Twitter, where we will occasionally give a thumbs-up or –down ruling on something in the world of sports. We’ll hashtag that shit PROPS or DROPS, and then we’ll turn right around and set you all up with more of them in every episode. To wit:

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

The STATGASM

I love stats. They make me wet. I used to even go stat digging as a paid job for a now-assimilated TV station here in Canada. Sometimes myself or someone else will get thinking about something or someone in sports, and it will send me digging. I tend not to stop without thorough results.

The NFL Bug Zapper

NFL Shitwatch – Week

Each week during the NFL season, we grab some shades, whistles, Hasselhoff, and we go on NFL Shitwatch! The NFL is the shit these days, with lots of crazy shit going on, teams that are the shit – and others that are just plain, well, shit. But fear not, we’re on the lookout!

Who’s cuter – us, or the shit?

Each week we observe different games or news items that fit certain shit criteria – shiteria, if you will (you won’t, but we already are) – and look at good and bad aspects of each team in said matchup. Sorry – shitup.

The Shit Seat (The Coaching Hot Seat)

The Big Steamer (The Game of the Week)

I’m Telling Mom You Threw Shit At Me (A Rivalry Game)

Blow It Out Your Ass (Biggest Mismatch/Most Likely Blowout)

Diarrhea Scoreboard (Best Chance of a Shootout)

The Shit Parade (Least Appealing Matchup)

Shit We Wrote Down – The Notebook, the Sequel

Take this, Noah and Allie, ya freakin’ saps! One excerpt from our TFQ Notebook: “We’ve had it with Ryan Gosling. Dude shortens his release under pressure… If scouts kept saying, ‘He can make all the throws,’ then how come he’s never made any in the pros yet? Wait – Sorry, that’s Rams QB Jared Goff. Can you blame us for confusing the two? LOOKALIKE BOMB!

“I wish Todd Gurley was more girly, like Rachel…”

I digress. So we have a notebook, and whenever we come up with new (just as dumb) thoughts while recording the podcast, we write them down in our trusty notebook. Whenever I’m lucky enough to read my own writing (which is less often than you might think) and myself or Yorga actually remember what the scribbles mean, we’ll put them here, at the end of the episode. Congrats! – You made it to the end? Guess what you win: Another chance to click on the fucking…you get it.

Here’s Thumbing At You

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Recorded Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in-depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

EDITOR’S NOTE: POST INCOMPLETE; WILL BE FINISHED SOON. Sometimes life gets in the way of our hobby gone mad. You know, if y’all clicked on us and followed us enough, maybe this hobby would evolve into a paid gig. Until then, sometimes the posts won’t be ready, but we want you to have to episode here & on iTunes in time. Don’t like it? Sue us. Our legal team is ready.*

*- Legal team ready = Me with whiskey.

Bedshitter of the Week

We try (and often fail) every episode to anoint at least one person or team an award that goes to the biggest choke job, or soul-searing collapse in recent sports.

SPUD BED SHIT SCENE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s10Dkwnl9ns

Episode 148 is Dedicated To: The

RIP

We always play an opening song, and occasionally we interrupt it to give an RIP to someone in the sports world who has taken that graceful dive into the maggot-filled shit pool called death.

For Your Read!

#PROPS & #DROPS

If you’ve already worked clicking on the fuckin websiiiiiiiiite into your routine, YOU’RE NOT DONE YET. Follow us on Twitter, where we will occasionally give a thumbs-up or –down ruling on something in the world of sports. We’ll hashtag that shit PROPS or DROPS, and then we’ll turn right around and set you all up with more of them in every episode. To wit:

Mind Readers –

Since its inception, the spirit of The Fifth Quarter has been to always, yes, smoke pot and drink, and, yes, give you smart and experienced sports analysis, and, yes, make it amusing for listeners and readers alike. This delivery is couched in profane language and content, so that we’re able to take advantage of the one advantage we have over professional and/or more mainstream sports media: We’re our own bosses, and our bosses couldn’t give two fucks about obeying The Two Media P’s: PC & PG. As such, we’re able to give you opinions and analysis that is not only more entertaining, but also able to articulate a host of thoughts that our colleagues at networks must leave unspoken. In fact, we can even take examples of instances when athletes or media are probably thinking something they can’t give voice to in public, and “translate” their more diplomatic expressions into something likely closer to the truth.

CAN USE “What you want from TNT, ESPN & co., but with HBO content. We can’t get fired or cancelled like Bill Simmons!” FOR VARIATION

“Hello, my name is _____ !”

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

NFL Shitwatch – Week 1 Recap

Each week during the NFL season, we grab some shades, whistles, Hasselhoff, and we go on NFL Shitwatch! The NFL is the shit these days, with lots of crazy shit going on, teams that are the shit – and others that are just plain, well, shit. But fear not, we’re on the lookout!

Who’s cuter – us, or the shit?

Each week we observe different games or news items that fit certain shit criteria – shiteria, if you will (you won’t, but we already are) – and look at good and bad aspects of each team in said matchup. Sorry – shitup.

The Shit Seat (The Coaching Hot Seat)

The Big Steamer (The Game of the Week)

I’m Telling Mom You Threw Shit At Me (A Rivalry Game)

Blow It Out Your Ass (Biggest Mismatch/Most Likely Blowout)

Diarrhea Scoreboard (Best Chance of a Shootout)

The Shit Parade (Least Appealing Matchup)

Shit We Wrote Down – The Notebook, the Sequel

Take this, Noah and Allie, ya freakin’ saps! One excerpt from our TFQ Notebook: “We’ve had it with Ryan Gosling. Dude shortens his release under pressure… If scouts kept saying, ‘He can make all the throws,’ then how come he’s never made any in the pros yet? Wait – Sorry, that’s Rams QB Jared Goff. Can you blame us for confusing the two? LOOKALIKE BOMB!

“I wish Todd Gurley was more girly, like Rachel…”

I digress. So we have a notebook, and whenever we come up with new (just as dumb) thoughts while recording the podcast, we write them down in our trusty notebook. Whenever I’m lucky enough to read my own writing (which is less often than you might think) and myself or Yorga actually remember what the scribbles mean, we’ll put them here, at the end of the episode. Congrats! – You made it to the end? Guess what you win: Another chance to click on the fucking…you get it.

Here’s Thumbing At You

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Recorded Friday, August 25, 2017

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

https://www.facebook.com/The-Fifth-Quarter-413667415348376/?ref=br_rs

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

EDITOR’S NOTE: POST INCOMPLETE; WILL BE FINISHED SOON. Sometimes life gets in the way of our hobby gone mad. You know, if y’all clicked on us and followed us enough, maybe this hobby would evolve into a paid gig. Until then, sometimes the posts won’t be ready, but we want you to have to episode here & on iTunes in time. Don’t like it? Sue us. Our legal team is ready.*

*- Legal team ready = Me with whiskey.

Let’s start off this joint with a LOOKALIKE BOMB!

Jaguars CB Jalen Ramsey & Raptors PG Kyle Lowry

What a week here at TFQ HQ! This is our second episode of the week, following the opening festivities of Episode 146, our grand opening of the TFQ Bedshitters Hall Of Fame! As a result, there is no Bedshitter Of the Week in this episode. Hard to believe as it is, even we can only take so much feces in one week.

If you haven’t checked out the hallowed Hall, take a look. We’re very pleased with the investment made to commission renowned blind painter Hoo Flung Poo. Canton has bronze busts; The Fifth Quarter has a cavalcade of artwork that relives moments and/or individuals in the history of choking in sports in a way that only someone who has never seen anything can convey on canvas.

Don’t be shy! Give us your thoughts about our choices for the charter inductees into the BSHOF, or other suggestions that could make it onto future Hall ballots!

Episode 147 is Dedicated To: The

RIP

We always play an opening song, and occasionally we interrupt it to give an RIP to someone in the sports world who has taken that graceful dive into the maggot-filled shit pool called death.

#PROPS & #DROPS

If you’ve already worked clicking on the fuckin websiiiiiiiiite into your routine, YOU’RE NOT DONE YET. Follow us on Twitter, where we will occasionally give a thumbs-up or –down ruling on something in the world of sports. We’ll hashtag that shit PROPS or DROPS, and then we’ll turn right around and set you all up with more of them in every episode. To wit:

Weekly Woodshed

One thing you can always trust sports for is its lack of empathy for the weak. Almost any day of the year, some athlete or team is dominating and embarrassing the living shit out of an opponent. We try to shine a spotlight on these heinous landslide victories because, well, some of us think the underdog deserves to die.

Shit We Wrote Down – The Notebook, the Sequel

Take this, Noah and Allie, ya freakin’ saps! One excerpt from our TFQ Notebook: “We’ve had it with Ryan Gosling. Dude shortens his release under pressure… If scouts kept saying, ‘He can make all the throws,’ then how come he’s never made any in the pros yet? Wait – Sorry, that’s Rams QB Jared Goff. Can you blame us for confusing the two? LOOKALIKE BOMB!

“I wish Todd Gurley was more girly, like Rachel…”

I digress. So we have a notebook, and whenever we come up with new (just as dumb) thoughts while recording the podcast, we write them down in our trusty notebook. Whenever I’m lucky enough to read my own writing (which is less often than you might think) and myself or Yorga actually remember what the scribbles mean, we’ll put them here, at the end of the episode. Congrats! – You made it to the end? Guess what you win: Another chance to click on the fucking…you get it.

Here’s Thumbing At You

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Recorded Thursday, August 24, 2017*

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

*- After a 20-day summer break of sorts, we were deeply organized for this Special Episode as well as the next, recorded the next day. That didn’t stop me from continually getting the date of recording wrong – this was performed on the 24^th, not, as I so stonedly state, the 26^th.

Episode 146 is Dedicated To: Page 146 of Volume 120, Issue 2 of The Journal of the Franklin Institute! Yes, there you’ll find the essay, “Contributions to our Knowledge of Sewage” as well as a “lit” look at ammonia and nitrogen released from human feces. At this link, you can see a preview of a page – and even buy a .pdf file of the whole issue. I know that our NFL Shitwatch supervisor, David Hasselhoff, has already put purchased .pdfs onto thumb drives to give out at parties. Not surprising, the ’Hof is pretty old school, and the issue is dated August 1885.

R.I.P.

We always play an opening song, and occasionally we interrupt it to give an RIP to someone in the sports world who has taken that graceful dive into the maggot-filled shit pool called death. Today that man is former MLB player, Darren Daulton.

Speaking of resting in peace, wither the talent of (former) Buccaneers placekicker Robert Aguayo? Perhaps it was the pressure – the pressure of Tampa Bay trading a third- and fourth-round draft pick to move up and draft the college star in Round 3 of the 2016 Draft – that forced him to such a fibre-heavy approach to kicking, but he’s somehow filled more bedspreads than uprights he’s doinked. To wit: Aguayo gets the pink slip in a recent episode of Hard Knocks – no, not Pepto-Bismal. His ass gots canned.

EDITOR’S NOTE (02/09/17): Aguayo’s intestinal weakness didn’t stop there. He was signed by the Bears shortly thereafter…aaand was waived before Chicago’s season opener. Roberto Aguayo can currently be found without an NFL team, giving speeches in schools around the country on the virtues of a high-potassium and rice-heavy diet.

Thanks to current events, we have two Bedshitters of the Week. The next one is also a charter member of our new yet-already-hallowed Hall, so let’s get at ’er.

The TFQ Bedshitter Hall of Fame – Charter Class Induction Ceremony

SHit – n. 1. feces 2. A contemptible or worthless person; v. 1. Expel feces from the body 2. Tease or try to deceive (someone) “I shit you not.” excl. 1. An exclamation of disgust, anger or annoyance

Bed – n. 1. a piece of furniture for sleep or rest, typically with a framework and mattress and coverings 2. The bottom of a sea or lake or river; v. 1. Settle down to sleep for the night, typically in an improvised spot 2. Transfer (a plant) from a pot or seed tray to a garden plot

I would totally have this bed – who wouldn’t? – but alas, I’m vegetarian.

BEDŸshitter – n. 1. Someone who loses all or most of their composure while failing at the task at hand 2. A person who is somewhat of a complete failure, does not perform tasks well, might as well be a Shih Tsu 3. A generic term used to describe an elderly person who cannot control certain bodily functions 4. I guess anyone can shit the bed

“Those pricks at TFQ are obviously never letting me live this down…”

And so there you have it: A + B = Bed With a Lot of Shit in It. Elemental concepts in everyday life such as that equation and this classic shitty moment and scores of ones like it are what enables us as humans to make sense of the world around us. Logically, it must follow that the world’s a big putrid bed and we’re all just shitters in it.

In similar fashion, sports parallels and/or stands in as metaphor for our culture: Race. War. Class Systems. Economics. Bedshitting. We’ve all been there, a big moment in our lives looming. That moment might seem daunting, or it might not concern you in the least, despite its importance. Sometimes, such moments might even get us excited – ready to seize the moment, as opposed to feeling butterflies in our stomach.

But none of those things can prevent shitting the bed, should we choke and/or fail monumentally in the face of a challenge. In fact, some of those factors just mentioned bring about the embarrassing moment when, next thing we know, the big moment in question has passed, and we’re left on the losing end, looking like we just dry humped a mountain of fudge.

Sports, as it so turns, out, is a breeding ground for bedshitters. So many big moments. So many mattresses to soil. With this in mind, we at The Fifth Quarter have erected our TFQ Bedshitters Hall of Fame.

After all, when one unloads one’s self all over one’s trundle,* it should be monumental. This is our monument to shitting the bed – and with it, the charter inductees.

Perhaps you’re wondering – and believe me, our many prospective co-investors in the BSHOF had the same concern – how, as a not for profit, drug consumption-oriented sports media outlet, will there be any bronze busts, or the like, to commemorate members of the Hall? We could’ve offered some bullshit alternative that seems jazzy, until very shortly after inductions it becomes clear to anyone with eyeholes that so much money was wasted on cheap parlor tricks…In a sense, we’d be offering Donald Trump. No one wants that.

*- Trundle = Bed. Thesaurus > My bed/shit vocabulary, once down the rabbit hole.

That’s why, it gives us immense pleasure to reveal that we’ve commissioned renowned blind sketch artist Hoo Flung Poo to create artwork commemorating each individual/team and the bedshitting moment that ushered them into the Hall. The man behind the seminal work Spots On The Wall isolated himself for months, with nothing but food and Ex-Lax, and he emerged not only in serious need of a shower, but with the following creative masterpieces that we are honoured to display on the walls of the BSHOF – which is now open for visitors! We’ve no clue how much to charge for admission, so for now just get the up in us! Why not?!

Behold! For some might shit bigger beds, with more shit*, but these are some of contemporary sports’ biggest bedshitters, so fuck you. Enjoy!

*- SPOILER ALERT: A certain president has an inside track on an induction to the BSHOF next year.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

The TFQ Bedshitter Hall of Fame – Charter Class

Tiger Woods – Life Work

Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods. Once the owner of any final round of a major PGA tournament, resplendent in his Sunday Red. (Pictured above.) Also once the lord of the lady, the (un?)willing heir to Wilt Chamberlain. (Pictured above.)

It seems like ages ago that Woods put together arguably the most dominant run of success in golf history – at least Jack Nicklaus, the best golfer ever, would argue so. In Tiger’s playing prime, friends and I would respectfully refer to what we called Tigerfear. In an old fantasy book series entitled Dragonlance, people would be overcome by dragonfear, a sort of instant and debilitating PTSD, upon mere sight of a dragon flexing its power. Opposing golfers would succumb to a similar bedshitting as those characters when Tiger showed up to warm up on the range, red golf shirt and a final round lead hugged tight to his ripped physique.

In the end though, Tiger would turn out to be the one to fill a bed with more feces than most of his challengers. It began with a knee injury he battled through to win his last major at the U.S. Open. It actualized itself with his first squandering of a Sunday lead in a major to Y.E. Yang in the PGA Championship. It gathered outhouse-flooding momentum when he crashed his Escalade into a tree during a falling out with his then-wife once she discovered his rampant adultery. It let loose the stink of a cattle farm in July as his body and swing failed him, both due to wear, tear, and a slew of back surgeries.

It’s not just the epic profundity with which Tiger’s golfing life has come apart; it’s the heights from which he fell. Most phenoms that rise to the top and flame out spend but a fraction of Woods’ time atop the sports world. As fans, in the end it might be best to take solace in this: where there’s shit, there’s an asshole. Tiger has both covered.

Jeremy Guthrie – MLB Pitcher

(From TFQ Podcast, Ep. 136)

Guthrie earns the dubious distinction of being the least well known of our charter inductees. We first caught a snuff of the bed that the 38-year old Nationals starter had been soiling when he gift wrapped our Weekly Woodshed this summer, giving up 10 runs to the Phillies before being yanked without getting out of the first inning.

Guthrie had already prepped the bed with a similarly-rank deuce two years ago, which means he’s the first player in the MLB era to have surrendered 10 runs in an inning or less.

It’s okay though, Jer – don’t worry. Your most recent squeezer came on your 38^th birthday! Don’t blow (ew); just make a wish.

James Harden, PG Rockets – Game 6, Western Conference Semifinals, 2017

Here, Mr. Hoo has recreated a halftime graphic from national television that gave an account of Harden’s shooting stats in the first half of a win-or-go-home playoff game against the San Antonio Spurs.

Even though Russell Westbrook won the award for his historic triple-double season, Harden was the NBA MVP of the last regular season. Though his usage rate (34.24) couldn’t touch Russ’ single-season record of 41.65, it seemed as though Harden shouldered as much of a load in his offense. The southpaw was, in effect, the new Steve Nash in coach Mike D’Antoni’s high scoring system, the livelihood of the whole offense. Whereas Nash’s Suns teams would find a myriad of ways to fall short during playoff runs, Harden took a game matchup in a winner-gets-dismantled-by-Golden State series and in 24 feces-laiden minutes he’d sunk his team’s season.

Two field goals attempted in the whole half, one miss. That’s true shit. Perhaps Harden ran out of steam after a season (several, really) grinding out possessions as the only true catalyst on his team. Maybe the fix was in. (Why do we all of a sudden never hypothesize that the gambling world can touch pro athletes?) Whatever the case, Harden shat the bed so fiercely in Game 6 that the maintenance crew at the Rocket’s arena might’ve preferred having to clean up after circus elephants.

Jean van de Velde – Final Round, 1999 Open Championship

The golf ball, seemingly drawn to the crisp water of the burn on the 18^th hole at Carnoustie. The green, ever so close, yet ever so far. Van de Velde, his shame unfolding before our eyes like Fletch’s ID cards. The mound of excrement in the creek under van de Velde’s arse. Mr. Hoo captures it all here.

Boasting a three-shot lead heading to the final hole in the British Open, the Frenchman then turned around and boasted a load of dump that no one in modern golf can match. After an ill-advised choice of driver from the tee, a ricochet off a wall, time spent wading in that cursed burn, and a spot earned among the greatest chokers ever, van de Velde’s triple-bogey on 18 brought him to a tie with two other golfers.

Van de Velde had seen enough. The shit was out; the bed was brown. He lost the playoff to Scotsman Paul Lawrie, and has been mentioned in any major since only as a cautionary tale.

The 2016 Atlanta Falcons – Collapse in Super Bowl 51

Mr. Hoo’s talent for distilling profound moments into general symbolism shines here – with an impressionist twist (note the air pump, top left).

Is this a coop of roosters lying down for a game of duck-duck-goose? Is it the Sea of Hands (and feet and shins) 2.0 catch Julian Edelman made to sustain a crucial late game by the New England Patriots? Is it the Falcons players reaching in unison toward a bunch of bead-ready shit in unison, as though drawn to it like Odysseus? Or is it that Circle of Friends potted candleholder all our moms have, but never use?

It needn’t be clear – APPRECIATE THE AMBIGUITY IN ART!

What is clear is that no team had ever made up a 10-point deficit in the Super Bowl. (Special credit: that god-awful string of blowouts in the 1980s and early 90s.) And that milestone doesn’t do justice to the Falcons dominating the Patriots to an extent perhaps unseen during the Bill Belichick era in Foxborough. New England had to have been concerned somewhere in their psyches that they were about to shit another Super Bowl bed – they trailed 28-12 with 9:44 left in the fourth quarter! – when Atlanta swept in with a Jabba-sized log, allowing the greatest comeback in NFL history, further solidifying Tom Brady’s status among the best quarterbacks ever.

Chris Webber, PF Michigan – 1993 NCAA Championship “Timeout” Call

(As a staunch Wolverines supporter, it hurt me to commission this piece.)

As fans, we find out about certain nuances of sports rules only once a heartbreaking moment unfolds for an athlete and/or his/her team: The Tuck Rule; Hack-A (Shaq) defense; grounding a club in a bunker, even if practically everywhere one steps could be a bunker (see: Dustin Johnson, below). Our association to the specific rule becomes synonymous with the seminal moment in sport history that brought it to the forefront on a big stage.

Few stages in North American sports are as large as March Madness. The spring ritual pits 64 (or more…I’m a purist, damnit) NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball teams in a single elimination tournament that decides the national champion. Heroes are made. History is made. Beds are shat.

Webber was recently a finalist to enter a notably less renowned Hall of Fame than ours: The Basketball Hall of Fame. He’ll have to “settle” for charter membership in the TFQ BSHOF for ingraining into a generation’s memory the rule that YOU GET ASSESSED A TECHNICAL FOUL IF YOU CALL A TIMEOUT WHEN YOUR TEAM HAS NONE.

As the alpha male of the Fab Five freshman class at University of Michigan, Webber had already led his crew to the NCAA Championship in their first try. The following year, C-Webb and the rest of the Wolverines came up against the University of North Carolina Tar Heels in the March Madness final.

Sure, Webber traveled after corralling a rebound with :19 left in the game and his team trailing by two points. Sure, the refs missed that violation. Those things didn’t stop Webber from dribbling toward his team’s bench in desperation, calling the fateful timeout that didn’t exist. Although it remains unclear whether Webber misheard false information from the coaching staff during the previous timeout, or if he shit the bed of his own accord, like a Spud left to his own devices. Either way, teams without timeouts left will never escape a Webber reference…and the shit left on beds made messy by an athlete’s faux pas will forever contain maize.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

The New York Yankees – Blowing a 3-0 Lead in the 2004 American League Championship Series

Hoo stays simple here, and so will we: The Boston Red Sox became the first MLB team ever to come back from a 0-3 series deficit. Future Hall of Famer David Ortiz won the ALCS MVP. The Sox figured out the all-time riddle that was closer Mariano Rivera. Johnny Damon’s two home runs in Game 7 – one of them a grand slam. And, perhaps most memorably, starting pitcher Curt Shilling gutting out a Game 6 win for Boston with an ankle injury, such that his sock became famously stained.

This landmark win not only started a new era of success in Beantown. It began then-GM Theo Epstein’s legendary Fuck The Goat With The Babe phase of his career, during which he led the Boston front office past the Curse of Bambino, then took over in Chicago and put the Curse of the Goat to bed there.

But don’t forget: Behind many success stories in clutch time there’s an opponent that shits the bed to make it possible. The stacked 2004 Yankees are such an opponent.

The Boston Red Sox – Blowing Game 6 in the 1986 World Series

This Hoo Flung Poo piece can be purchased with the last one, in lithograph, as a “karma pair.”

If the long age of suffering endured by Red Sox fans knows any true depth, it must be in 1986, when, needing only one more out in the tenth inning, with no one on base in a potentially clinching Game 6, Boston let the Mets start a comeback rally that is etched into baseball lore. There are so many moving parts to this sports classic (Mookieeeee!), but the iconic moment is poor Bill Buckner booting a ground ball hit right at him that could have brought Boston a title. 18 years later (see above), there might have been no bigger sigh of relief let loose than Buckner’s.

We also give this sports moment an extra thumbs-up for the Mets champs, who in hindsight, it turns out were either drunk or high on cocaine or high on something else – or all of the above – while playing out the regular season.

PGA Golfers: Phil Mickelson – 2006 U.S. Open; Dustin Johnson – 2010 PGA Championship & U.S. Open, 2015 U.S. Open; Greg Norman – Almost Every Masters He Played

This account of choking at a PGA major tournament, depicted in shitplicate, serves as the only triptych of the work for which we commissioned Mr. Hoo. Despite previous, future and overall success, these bedshittings have stood out in each golfer’s career. Mickelson’s bravado can be both enticing and nerve-wracking. At Winged Foot in ’06, lefty elected to go for the aggressive approach off the tee…”idiot.” Dustin Johnson had a bemused run-in with a “bunker” at Whistling Straits in 2010 (see above), and what seemed like cursed final rounds – twice – at Pebble Beach. Now that Sergio Garcia has won The Masters, Norman is entrenched as the most lovable loser in PGA history for tasting victory several times, only to have it watered down by a ton of bedshit. (Unless you have a soft spot for John Daly, at which point I’d advise you to crack open a Schlitz.)

John Starks, Knicks PG – Bricklaying In Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals vs. Houston

Few will remember the extent to which Starks carried the Knicks in the NBA Finals that season. The undrafted guard scored double digits in the fourth quarter of Game 4 and Game 5, one-upping himself with 16 in the final frame of Game 6. But many more will remember the bad shooting day unlike any other Starks squeezed out from his rear in Game 7, effectively costing his team the championship. 2-for-18 from the field, 0-for-11 from three? Starks had many famous Knicks moments in his career; this is one he’d just as soon forget.

John Elway, Broncos QB over Ernest Byner & Co., Browns – AFC Championship, 1986 & ’87

Sorry, Cleveland. Sure, LeBron James has eased so much heartbreak by leading your Cavaliers to an NBA title, but man, do the pains every outnumber the rejoicing in the Cleveland sports world. (Unless you’re a sports masochistic, and rejoice in pain, but maybe then sports watching isn’t for you. Or it is. Not our business.)

Onetime Browns owner Art Modell uprooted the franchise and moved it to Baltimore in 1996, representing the nadir of a Browns fan’s existence. (Hard to tell, but I swear it is.) But the temporary span spent without an NFL team – the league would grant the city an expansion franchise in 1999 – could actually be seen as a tease for Cleveland. That’s because being team-less meant there was no risk of repeating the torture fans were put through by Broncos Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway. Twice in a row Denver and Cleveland met in the semifinals to the Super Bowl. In 1986 Elway led Denver on “The Drive” that forced overtime and eventually victory for the Broncos. The Browns seemed poised to right that wrong the next season, with a hold on the ’87 AFC final – until RB Earnest Byner coughed up “The Fumble.” It’s not a stretch to say that the Browns have been shit since. Why do you think they’re never wearing loose boxers there?

Matt “Pick-6” Schaub, NFL Quarterback

You might think, because of the vanishing point in perspective in two-dimensional art that Mr. Hoo plays with here, that the pastoral landscape is a perfect place for someone who likes shit to take a nap.

You’d think correctly. Enter Matt Schaub, the Dragon of the Pick-6 – a phenomenon so pride stealing that the player who shit the shit is left watching and/or chasing after the shit he shit while is does the exact inverse of scoring his team a touchdown.

It’s rare for someone to attain the bedshitting manifest by their opponent returning their intercepted pass for a TD so often that they appear to be making an art of it. In this regard, Schaub is a latter-day Picasso. In 2013, Schaub set an NFL record by serving up a pick-6 in four consecutive games for the Houston Texans. In fact, Schaub valued his place in history so much that in 2015 he tried to duplicate it when he subbed in for Ravens QB Joe Flacco to throw pick-6s in two straight games – which, if you go back to the previous game he played in, as a Raider in 2014, gave him another three straight contests in which the other team took his toss to the house.

Cherish Schaub while his feats are still fresh on the bedspread of history, for this man shits ’em like no other.

Aaron Brooks, Raiders QB – Snap, Fumble, Snap, Fumble, Bench, 2006

It’s as if we’re witnessing Brook’s speedy regression from starter to bench as it passes through time.

Good thing Hoo captured the essence of the moment, because it survives on only in the memory of dedicated bedshitter watchers.

I’ve looked for footage of Brooks’ epic meltdown for over a decade, always finding only frustration. But I’ve finally pinpointed the moment – and now understand why I couldn’t find it before. You see, once upon a time, Brooks was a dynamic QB on the rise, leading the Saints to multiple upsets of the Rams’ Greatest Show on Turf. By the time he arrived in Oakland, he was dynamic in failure only. The reason you won’t find Brooks’ consecutive botched snaps very easily is because his bedshitting is so wholly fecesesque* that he did it on the first two Oakland possessions of the game!

Sept 17, 2006. Week 2 of the NFL season. The Silver & Black is in Baltimore to take on a vaunted Ravens defense. The Ravens go up a field goal on the opening drive of the game. If Brooks hadn’t seen all he needed to of linebacker Ray Lewis & Co. in warm-ups, the first two Raiders plays from scrimmage might have convinced the QB to find a way out – any way out.

Play 1: Raiders run for 1 yard. “Okaaay, these guys are good.”

Play 2: Raiders run for -4 yards. “Life ain’t worth this. I’ma shit my way out!”

Play 3: Aborted snap. TURNOVER.

Seemingly just as disinterested in employment (both men would be out of the league by 2007), head coach Art Shell sent Brooks out for Oakland’s second drive. Maybe the time spent on the sideline while Baltimore added another field goal would give Brooks more courage.

Play 1: Aborted snap. TURNOVER.

Brooks was subsequently benched for the legendary Andrew Walter.

Snap, fumble. Snap, fumble. Bench.

Brooks hugged pine until Week 10, when he would re-take the reins…and start in six straight losses to end Oakland’s season.

The reason it’s so hard to find evidence of Brooks’ shitsplosion: he’s not in conventional box scores because he never attempted a run or pass. He handed the ball off twice, and then started the sequence that sealed his and his franchise’s doom.

Think I’m exaggerating? Oakland would recover in 2007 by hiring Lane Kiffin as head coach, and drafting Jamarcus Russell at QB.

I shit my case.

Oh – and Brooks also did this. What a bedshitter.

*- I’m running out of shit-pletives, so just back off.

Marge Schott – Late Owner, Cincinnati Reds & Donald Sterling – Why-Can’t-He-Be-Late Owner, Los Angeles Clippers

Maybe you’re racist, in which case you don’t consider being a latter-day slave driver shitting the bed. May the good lord be with you.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Mike Ditka, Saints GM/Head Coach – Trading MORE Than A Whole Draft For Ricky Williams

(Hon. Mention: Tom Benson, Saints Owner)

If you thought the Minnesota Vikings had a hard-on for RB Herschel Walker when they traded enough draft picks to enable the Dallas Cowboys to build a dynasty, then 1999 Ditka must be the equivalent of one of those guys they warn in the Viagra commercials – the ones who are advised to “seek medical assistance immediately.”*

Sure, Williams had won the Heisman award, and just set the career record for rushing yards in college. Barring some injuries and suspensions/bans for marijuana use that no one could have foretold, he had a very successful NFL career.

The problem is, not even a griffinesque Bo Jackson-Earl Campbell creature justifies trading YOUR WHOLE YEAR’S DRAFT PLUS TWO MORE PICKS IN THE NEXT DRAFT. But that’s exactly what Ditka did, handing over eight draft picks to Washington for the right to select Williams.

I drink, etc. So I can sort of put myself in a mindset similar to the one Iron Mike might have been in when he came up with this so-crazy-it’s-batshit-crazy idea. I mean, half of the picks New Orleans gave up were in the fourth round or lower. Surely an elite tailback is a bargain for a few high picks plus a handful of ones fro the lower rounds.

Right?

Lo and behold, the Saints would finish the 1999 season 3-13, and reach double digit wins only once until 2006 when two guys named Payton and Brees came to town.

Who knew that foregoing a whole draft’s worth (and more) would effectively mortgage your franchise’s immediate future?

Ditka’s bedshitting is one of the most impactful of this charter class – he set a whole sports franchise back with his liberal anus.

Saints owner Tom Benson gets honourable mention for thinking it was a good idea to make Ditka – on par with an actual football in terms of intelligence – as both head coach and general manager.

*- I will maintain this standpoint until my final days: If I experience an erection longer than four hours, the first person I’m hunting down is not a doctor.

The Buffalo Bills of the Early Nineties

Four straight Super Bowl losses – the last three severe blowouts. No team has shit the bed like that on the big stage. Not even the Jerry West Lakers in the NBA, who lost seven finals in nine years, but never four straight.

Some prefer to give the Bills credit for sustained excellence. There’s another Hall of Fame for that; this one is for the constipation-challenged.

Vinny Testaverde, Buccaneers QB – 35 Interceptions in 1988

Emulating the work of Edvard Munch, one can practically feel Testaverde’s horror in this piece by Mr. Hoo.

Fuck it – I’m afraid just thinking about 35 picks in one season. (Somehow only second all-time; George Blanda heaved up 42 for Houston in 1962, but by then I’m certain that he was 108 years old and smoking three packs a game.)

Shudder.

Ryan Leaf, former NFL QB – Life Work

A very surrealistic turn for Mr. Hoo here.

Start off with a college career at Washington State that had many scouts saying they’d opt for you at first overall in the NFL Draft instead of this Peyton Manning guy. End with no NFL career, an addiction to painkillers that leads you to break & enter a physio facility, and a high school coaching gig, and you’re bound to find some feces on a bed in there along the way. It’s just a given.

The Washington Generals

How could we leave out the most famous, prolific losers – aka bedshitters – in sports? Maybe much of the Harlem Globetrotters games were staged. That doesn’t ease the pain of diaper rash contracted from basically existing in shit.

Had to have been frustrating to be a General against the Globetrotters.

I mean, they were using a freakin ladder, for god’s sake.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Recorded Monday, July 31, 2017

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

EDITOR’S NOTE: POST INCOMPLETE; WILL BE FINISHED SOON. Sometimes life gets in the way of our hobby gone mad. You know, if y’all clicked on us and followed us enough, maybe this hobby would evolve into a paid gig. Until then, sometimes the posts won’t be ready, but we want you to have to episode here & on iTunes in time. Don’t like it? Sue us. Our legal team is ready.*

*- Legal team ready = Me with whiskey.

Bedshitter of the Week

We try (and often fail) every episode to anoint at least one person or team an award that goes to the biggest choke job, or soul-searing collapse in recent sports.

SPUD BED SHIT SCENE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s10Dkwnl9ns

Episode 145 is Dedicated To: The

RIP

We always play an opening song, and occasionally we interrupt it to give an RIP to someone in the sports world who has taken that graceful dive into the maggot-filled shit pool called death.

#PROPS & #DROPS

Weekly Woodshed

One thing you can always trust sports for is its lack of empathy for the weak. Almost any day of the year, some athlete or team is dominating and embarrassing the living shit out of an opponent. We try to shine a spotlight on these heinous landslide victories because, well, some of us think the underdog deserves to die.

The Diarrhea Scoreboard

This segment was a mainstay in our NFL Shitwatch last season. Here’s our much raw molten desire we emanate, should you ever cast your eyes on these two tawdry cohosts:

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Shit We Wrote Down – The Notebook, the Sequel

Take this, Noah and Allie, ya freakin’ saps! One excerpt from our TFQ Notebook: “We’ve had it with Ryan Gosling. Dude shortens his release under pressure… If scouts kept saying, ‘He can make all the throws,’ then how come he’s never made any in the pros yet? Wait – Sorry, that’s Rams QB Jared Goff. Can you blame us for confusing the two? LOOKALIKE BOMB!

“I wish Todd Gurley was more girly, like Rachel…”

I digress. So we have a notebook, and whenever we come up with new (just as dumb) thoughts while recording the podcast, we write them down in our trusty notebook. Whenever I’m lucky enough to read my own writing (which is less often than you might think) and myself or Yorga actually remember what the scribbles mean, we’ll put them here, at the end of the episode. Congrats! – You made it to the end? Guess what you win: Another chance to click on the fucking…you get it.

Here’s Thumbing At You

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

http://tfquarter.com/Podcast-TEMP/TFQ-Podcast-Ep-144.mp3

Recorded Monday, July 24, 2017

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

https://www.instagram.com/tfquarter420/?hl=en

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

https://www.facebook.com/The-Fifth-Quarter-413667415348376/?ref=br_rs

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

http://www.allinsportstalk.com

EDITOR’S NOTE: POST INCOMPLETE; WILL BE FINISHED SOON. Sometimes life gets in the way of our hobby gone mad. You know, if y’all clicked on us and followed us enough, maybe this hobby would evolve into a paid gig. Until then, sometimes the posts won’t be ready, but we want you to have to episode here & on iTunes in time. Don’t like it? Sue us. Our legal team is ready.*

*- Legal team ready = Me with whiskey.

Bedshitter of the Week

We try (and often fail) every episode to anoint at least one person or team an award that goes to the biggest choke job, or soul-searing collapse in recent sports.

SPUD BED SHIT SCENE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s10Dkwnl9ns

Episode 133 is Dedicated To: The

RIP

We always play an opening song, and occasionally we interrupt it to give an RIP to someone in the sports world who has taken that graceful dive into the maggot-filled shit pool called death.

End the Movie, Start the Madness

#PROPS & #DROPS

If you’ve already worked clicking on the fuckin websiiiiiiiiite into your routine, YOU’RE NOT DONE YET. Follow us on Twitter, where we will occasionally give a thumbs-up or –down ruling on something in the world of sports. We’ll hashtag that shit PROPS or DROPS, and then we’ll turn right around and set you all up with more of them in every episode. To wit:

Weekly Woodshed

One thing you can always trust sports for is its lack of empathy for the weak. Almost any day of the year, some athlete or team is dominating and embarrassing the living shit out of an opponent. We try to shine a spotlight on these heinous landslide victories because, well, some of us think the underdog deserves to die.

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

kiss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y6u1gmEGWY

Shit We Wrote Down – The Notebook, the Sequel

Take this, Noah and Allie, ya freakin’ saps! One excerpt from our TFQ Notebook: “We’ve had it with Ryan Gosling. Dude shortens his release under pressure… If scouts kept saying, ‘He can make all the throws,’ then how come he’s never made any in the pros yet? Wait – Sorry, that’s Rams QB Jared Goff. Can you blame us for confusing the two? LOOKALIKE BOMB!

“I wish Todd Gurley was more girly, like Rachel…”

I digress. So we have a notebook, and whenever we come up with new (just as dumb) thoughts while recording the podcast, we write them down in our trusty notebook. Whenever I’m lucky enough to read my own writing (which is less often than you might think) and myself or Yorga actually remember what the scribbles mean, we’ll put them here, at the end of the episode. Congrats! – You made it to the end? Guess what you win: Another chance to click on the fucking…you get it.

Here’s Thumbing At You

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

Recorded Sunday, July 16, 2017

Hosts: Count Yorga & Jerkules

Now you can follow us on Instagram: tfquarter420

Like The Fifth Quarter on Facebook too.

Make sure you check out the All In Sports Talk Network, where you can find in depth soccer analysis with a focus on Toronto FC and Liverpool FC.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m trying a bit of a different approach to the posts for the TFQ Podcast, in hopes that you pricks will read it as well as listen to the episode. I bet you’re reading it now, aren’t you? Good. You’ll find that I’m giving you different content here to summarize the episode.

“Somebody gon’ die TONIGHT!”

This is one of the core sentiments throughout this magnificent, award-nominated* episode of everyone’s favourite podcast.^ No, we aren’t referring to a key line from Despicable Me 2, although one YouTube user might feel otherwise:

Image quality due to having to take a picture of my laptop’s screen…isn’t there a way to view comments on my iPhone? Help me – I’m old and I drink!

That’s right – we’re talking about the HBO hit series Game of Thrones because this episode is recorded earlier on the day of the Season 7 premiere! Hooowee! And for sure somebody’s going down tonight!

We should give you a SPOILER ALERT warning right off the bat, because for our last segment, Game of Jones, we pair off sports figures with their “corresponding” GoT character. It’s fun. Believe that.

*- Awards won by the TFQ Podcast: 0

^- Percentage of listenership for whom the TFQ Podcast is their favourite podcast: 0

There’s tennis, baseball, b-ball – all sorts of fun shit to dissect while we ingest some drugs and I toss back that there gin.

In the early going, I draw attention to a fun piece by Shea Serrano of The Ringer about Andre Roberson, and how shitty he is at free throws – especially given his wage earnings.

But before anything anywhere can continue further, we have to call attention to a photo Count Yorga found – one that blows our feeble minds, and you can find it in our final segment for this post – Here’s Thumbing at You.

David Michael Hasselhoff. He’s Michael Knight. He’s Mitch Buchannon. He’s a music god in Germany. He’s the leader of our annual NFL Shitwatch. In two words, he’s everything.* Fuck it – here’s the pic you’ll find at the end.

*- Should the “he’s” count as a word? I say yes. But only one word – even though he’s” is a contraction of two words.

You see what I mean about the everything?

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Hof’s birthday falls the day after recording this episode. Ergo, Episode 144: The Hof Tribute Episode!

The success Hasselhof enjoys in Germany reminds me of how John Tesh somehow carved out a similar niche in Japan… And, as Yorga recalls, spins a yarn about how he left his initial idea for the old NBA theme song as a voice message on his home answering machine – Tesh, not Yorga. Hard to believe that he balls-tone-voiced Tesh composed the old NBA theme song? Well, feat your eyes and ears on this baby. Tesh’s voice mail – played live during the performance – and his onstage energy are something to behold…like if you think Olive Garden is something to behold in terms of Italian cuisine. Shout-out to vests with mandarin collars!

I love how, at the end of the performance, Tesh is all physically taxed and appreciative of the audience, as though he were performing something on a level above a live concert for a video game score.

YOU WILL NEVER BE HASSELHOF, TESH! GO FUCK YOURSELF WITH THAT VEST – IT LOOKS RIBBED.

Bedshitter of the Week (12:10)

We try (and often fail) every episode to anoint at least one person or team an award that goes to the biggest choke job, or soul-searing collapse in recent sports. This week it’s a shared distinction for two individuals who would have done Spud proud. First, we have Venus Williams, who promptly soiled her bed full when bowing out of Wimbledon this year. More on that in #PROPS & #DROPS. I also deserve a nod here, because…

Jesus, this Jerk(ules) again??

Episode 143 is Dedicated To (12:45)

I fucked up and didn’t make a dedication. Sue me.* But last episode we paid homage to baseball great Derek Jeter, and here’s one of many sweet Jeter stats to whet your appetite. TRIVIA BOMB: Jeter is the only player in MLB history to amass 3,000 hits, 250 HR, 350 SB and 1,300 RBI in a career.

*- I suck.

To kick off the episode, we knock over a roach-filled ashtray! Ugh.

#PROPS & #DROPS (19:08)

If you’ve already worked clicking on the fuckin websiiiiiiiiite into your routine, YOU’RE NOT DONE YET. Follow us on Twitter, where we will occasionally give a thumbs-up or –down ruling on something in the world of sports. We’ll hashtag that shit PROPS or DROPS, and then we’ll turn right around and set you all up with more of them in every episode. To wit:

I give #PROPS to…FOOTBALL!!! Yeeeaaaah!

Okay, maybe it’s a bit of withdrawal, but I pump out several sweet NFL-related TRIVIA BOMBs, several of which had me…Mullin things over, baby!

As Abe Simpson would say about Johnny Unitas, there’s a haircut you can set your watch to!

Count Yorga gives #PROPS to Roger Federer and Garbiñe Muguruza, winners of the men’s and women’s singles at Wimbledon this year. He also uses this occasion to elaborate on the bedshitting Venus Williams squirted down, losing the final in straight sets, while failing to win a single game in the second set.

Federer’s result played out on the opposite end of the spectrum, while the man continued to defy the diminishing expectations that come with aging. TRIVIA BOMB: Federer is the first men’s player to win Wimbledon without losing a single set since Bjorn Borg in 1976. Wow. That’s one hell of a way to add to your records of 9 Wimbledon titles and 19 major tournament victories.

I give – brace yourself – #PROPS to the L.A. Clippers. I know! Who knew? Maybe part of this #PROPS is because the NBA team I dislike the most has fragmented, with the Dick Puncher, Chris Paul, being traded to the Rockets, and J.J. Redick signing with the Sixers,* not to mention the one guy I do like, Jamal Crawford, heading for Minnesota. But one sure part of this #PROPS nod is for the Clip show making those moves while remaining a team of note in the Western Conference since their other decisions avoided a rebuilding, blow-up-the-roster phase. Sure, head coach Doc Rivers may have epically overpaid his son, PG Austin Rivers, but the logo – new front office exec Jerry West – has made a few good moves that keep his new team relevant.

*- Fuck Duke.

For starters, he retained the services of Blake Griffin, whose contract was up. Then, West replaced three-time Sixth Man of the Year Crawford with the man who won the award in 2015: Lou Williams. Sweet Lou must be glad to be back in Los Angeles after the Lakers traded him during last season. Some of you might remember Episode 54 of our podcast, when, as past of an exclusive report about the partying habits of the Toronto Raptors, I explained that Williams is a bit of a fan of casinos – game time next day be damned. Now he’s once again eligible to make the Swingers-esque drive from La La Land to Vegas.

They’re gonna give daddy the Rain Man suite! Raaaagh! Vegas!

West’s most significant acquisition thus far, which, in my opinion – that counts for about as much as Swingers does towards a grounded, non-douchy portrayal of the young adult male (I went there) – rivals re-signing Griffin, is snagging Danilo Gallinari. Gallo has the potential to be the perfect Swiss army knife to pair with Blake, especially if L.A. unleashes the Russ in their power forward like it did a few playoffs ago.

Gallinari has both the length and all-around perimeter toolbox to D-up opponents’ top shooters, spot-up shoot, and attack the closeouts Griffin creates when he gets the ball on the wing. The biggest “if” for this new tandem: Neither of them have been able to stay healthy.

Still, consider the trio of DeAndre Jordan, Griffin and Gallo to pressure opposing frontcourts, and West has done an Ainge-like job of kinda blowing up his team while skipping the rebuilding process…for now.

Yorga gives a sarcastic #PROPS to Vegas casinos. Thanks to a 6-month deadline to claim winnings on sports wagers, it turns out that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of winnings have gone unclaimed from the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series last year. As Yorga notes, many diehard Cubs fans who habitually place an “aw shucks” bet on their team – combined with those who wagered on Chicago since they were one of the favourites to win it all in 2016 – are more likely to keep the betting stub as a memento than they are to pay for the trek to Sin City to cash in a, say, $40 ticket.

My question: If the Cubbies winning the title only nets you under $100 on a bet that can only be redeemed in Nevada, why even bother betting at all?

I give #DROPS to the MLB and their rules for protesting a call and or/game. During a 16-inning Red Sox-Yankees game last week, Matt Holliday. Then, he inexplicably turned around and slid back into first base on a Jacoby Ellsbury grounder to first. Boston argued that Holliday interfered with the eventual throw from second to first, which would make both he and Ellsbury out on the play. (The throw went out of bounds past first base.)

After a ridiculously long session with MLB headquarters in New York, Ellsbury was ruled safe at first. The Sox officially protested the play.

My beef: the game now goes in the books as played under protest by Boston. Seeing this in the box score years from now, one would likely assume that there was controversy in one of the deciding plays. Yet the next two Yankee hitters were retired in this case, stranding Ellsbury at first and rendering moot him being safe. Perhaps teams should be able to lift their protest in such a case – I mean, why document playing under protest over a play that ultimately doesn’t figure into the outcome of the game?

Weekly Woodshed (1:16:32)

One thing you can always trust sports for is its lack of empathy for the weak. Almost any day of the year, some athlete or team is dominating and embarrassing the living shit out of an opponent. We try to shine a spotlight on these heinous landslide victories because, well, some of us think the underdog deserves to die.

19 hits. 14 runs. 7 batters with multiple hits. Meanwhile, your ace throws 8 innings of 4-hit ball. That’s the extent to which the New York Mets abused the Colorado Rockies last Saturday, to the tune of 14-2. Apart from Mets starter Jacob DeGrom’s fastball, the only things rising were the ball off of New York hitters’ bats, and the score.

After a huge start, the Rockies are in a tailspin of Maverick-like proportions, this loss being their 14^th out of their last 19 games. The Mets live to fight another day…though given the state of their roster’s health, the fight isn’t going to go well.

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MLB All-Star It Happened But It Doesn’t Matter (1:19:45)

Can you believe that the Home Run Derby garnered more viewers than both the Pro-Bowl and NBA All-Star Game? Last episode we big-upped Yankee Aaron Judge – pun intended – and his titan physique muscled 4 dongs that traveled over 500 feet.

You know when you can muscle dongs over 500 feet, you…well, I don’t know. Really!

Still, peep the metric perspective on the homer that Judge hit off the retractable roof in Miami. That mixed parentage bomber ain’t playing around, as evidenced in this artist’s rendition of Judge hitting one of his mammoth shots.

How epic is that???

As for the game itself, it was decided in extra innings with a Robinson Cano home run that gave the American League its fifth straight All-Star game victory. Having returned to its exhibition status as opposed to the winning league gaining home field advantage in the World Series, managers took a less cutthroat style. Instead of guys being ridden for their maximum three innings of use, the roster was emptied such that most hurlers saw just one inning of action. This allowed them to zone in on merely a handful of hitters while opening up their velocity. The result: a low scoring game, which both makes sense and serves as a cautionary tale for the league as it tries to preserve the value of the Midsummer Classic.

NBA Rule Changes But They Do Matter (1:31:30)

Maybe I’m just patient, but I never feel negatively about games taking “too” long. Sure, the midseason yawners during which games end with a parade to the free throw line aren’t to die for, but they’re par for the course in most cases.

Seemingly forever in pursuit of the sort of financial windfall that the NFL enjoys, NBA owners are trying to woo the members of their fan base that are casual fans at best; those are the fans who complain about the pace of play in the final minutes. So that has been addressed, along with a number of other changes that at first glance seem small, but they aren’t. I’m tired of typing now, so just listen to the fucking pod. xox

Game of Jones (1:45:40)

And here we are! We’re not entirely sure what the point of this GoT ßà pro sports segment is – but if you’re a faithful listener you know that we’ve never let anything get in the way of a goofy story. But wait – oh, look, here we go! And eff off, ya corner cutters – you’ll have to listen in to get all the comparisons. A taste: LOOKALIKE BOMB!

Shit We Wrote Down – The Notebook, the Sequel

Take this, Noah and Allie, ya freakin’ saps! One excerpt from our TFQ Notebook: “We’ve had it with Ryan Gosling. Dude shortens his release under pressure… If scouts kept saying, ‘He can make all the throws,’ then how come he’s never made any in the pros yet? Wait – Sorry, that’s Rams QB Jared Goff. Can you blame us for confusing the two? LOOKALIKE BOMB!

“I wish Todd Gurley was more girly, like Rachel…”

I digress. So we have a notebook, and whenever we come up with new (just as dumb) thoughts while recording the podcast, we write them down in our trusty notebook. Whenever I’m lucky enough to read my own writing (which is less often than you might think) and myself or Yorga actually remember what the scribbles mean, we’ll put them here, at the end of the episode. Congrats! – You made it to the end? Guess what you win: Another chance to click on the fucking…you get it.

We touch on that majestic fortnight….Venus Willaims and her sister I LOVE YOU SERENA have won the women’s singles title at Wimbledon a combined 12 times.

That doesn’t stop the lankier sister from earning our Bedshitter of the Week award – calling to mind the title of my science fiction masterpiece: Shitting on Venus.

When I mention the Swingers road trip, Yorga tells one from Cleveland to Cincinnati. This reminds me of the infamous Sam Wyche anti-Cleveland PA announcement.

Count Yorga’s Weekly Woodshed about the Mets win had some mispronounciations on my part (hey, you know I drink, you know we’re high), and they lead to a great baseball name: Taton Dong.

During the MLB All-Star segment, we realized we hadn’t given out a #DROPS to an event we weren’t happy with: Connor McGregor, you might be hard as your own dick when you look in the mirror, but that won’t make you put up a good fight. Major #PROPS for that suit jacket you wore to the presser, though!

Let’s close with what will be the first sentence of my breakthrough novel, “Judge was hitting dongs to all fields.”

Here’s Thumbing At You

Listen to the podcast here; also available on iTunes

See you next episode — for this man’s bday!!!