Iraq ... take a back seat! -- 2006 Midterms .... what're they? -- 2008 politics ... you gotta be kidding!

Obama? GWB? Hillary? Saddam? Osama bin Hidin'? Insurgents? Terrorists? "October Surprises"? What's the news item of the day?

Why it's "the smudge," of course!

The three pictures above show Kenny Rogers' pitching hand while pitching against the Yankees in the divisional series against the Yankees (the left-most photo), plus two others. The middle picture is his hand during game 3 against the A's in the A.L.C.S., and the right picture was taken in game 2 of the World Series.

Hmmm ... what do you think? Well, I grew up in that part of Michigan and it looks a lot like Michigan mud mixed with cat poop from Ocean Shores, Washington. I study these things, you see.

Maybe a closer picture will help ...



Here, we see the smudge in the first inning of Sunday's game and then his hand in the second inning after he wiped off the mud and cat poop. An argument against the yellowish-brownish smudge being cat poop was that he constantly had his hands cupped over his mouth and nose keeping his hands warm in the first inning ... this game was in Michigan, after all.

Maybe it really was just a mixture of resin and dirt as he claimed ... and the Detroit Tigers are, after all, God's team on Planet Earth, so I guess it wasn't anything as nefarious as the sports writers are saying today ... they were all probably born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri.

It should be noted that Kenny Rogers has yet to give up an earned run in the post-season and went on (after wiping his hands off at the umpires' suggestions) to pitch two-hit shutout ball.

Oh, for some of that good old Michigan mud, eh, brother Richard? It was well known for making baseball's famous "roller-coaster" pitch famous for the likes of Gaylord Perry. No need to spit on a baseball if you had a smudge of Michigan mud, as the old saying goes. And then, add a wee bit of cat poop and, need I say more?

[Younger readers need not try to figure out who Gaylord Perry was ... hint: he lives in the same state from where the best pine tar for doctoring baseballs comes! And, although in Baseball's Hall of Fame, he once had to leave a game when his hands became glued to his mouth when using a bit too thick a pine tar substance in a World Series game. See what you Europeans are missing by playing sissified games like cricket, soccer (European "football") and rugby?]