Do you realize the three longest suffering franchises in baseball all made the playoffs this year? The Cubs and Red Sox have the two longest droughts without winning it all in their respective leagues. The Indians haven’t won a series since 1948. As it is, the hopes for the Cubs-Bosox series have been dashed already, and the Indians may be out by the time you see this. Wait ’til next year!

Speaking of long-suffering teams: how about those Seahawks? Whoops, three weeks late! How about those Dolphins? Whoops, two weeks late, since my favorite team, which started, like the Seahawks, 3-0, will probably be 3-2 by the time you read this, after they run into the buzzsaw that is the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The other NFL expansion team, the Carolina Panthers signed Sean Gilbert this offseason, to bring the heat on the quarterback and to bring a veteran, stabilizing presence in the locker room. Maybe his speeches about bringing your heart to the game worked: at least they got Kerry Collins to quit.

Returning to baseball, we all know they’re going to give the MVP to Sammy Sosa. Obviously, Mark McGwire deserves some sort of award as well. So why not create a new award for him and McGwire to share: it would be for saving baseball from itself: we could call it the “Anti-Bud Selig-Don Fehr Award” (Selig and Fehr, if this wonderful season has made you forget, are the ones who caused the game of chicken that nearly destroyed baseball).

We couldn’t discuss labor troubles without talking about the NBA lockout. Its already impacted Ames, forcing the cancellation of the exhibition game supposed to be played here. I for one, am almost glad that the Bulls and Pacers aren’t playing in Hilton. Could you bear to watch Corey Benjamin, a rookie, take Michael Jordan’s place in the lineup, and the incredibly inconsistent Toni Kukoc as the starter of the Bulls at forward? It would be like watching Jason Garrett and Sherman Williams taking over for Troy Aikman and Emmit Smith. Oh, wait, that happened already!

Looking deeper, it’s easy to see that basketball has a problem. See, its dynamic personalities, Jordan, Bird, and Magic, saved the sport before it destroyed itself. Now that they are gone as players, who’s going to save the league from itself? Maybe we could arrange for McGwire and Sosa to go one and one. That’s an interesting one to handicap: though Sosa would probably be the better outside shooter, McGwire would post him up every time.

There are more serious things going on in our country than the NBA lockout, believe it or not. You know what I’m talking about. But I have the explanation why people in Washington are obsessed with Clinton’s problems. They know that they can’t impeach Norv Turner, Dana Stubblefield, Big Daddy Dan Wilkinson, or Gus Ferotte, so they have to impeach somebody. They’re not really upset about the affair, they’re mortified by their 0-6 start and loss in the Basement Bowl to the Eagles.

The college equivalent for that game would be the Toilet Bowl: it would be played in Flushing Meadows, and would feature the two worst teams in Division 1-A football. This year, Iowa State’s not even eligible for that game.

Speaking of Cyclone football, is their any way ISU can get Northwestern, Illinois, and Indiana on their schedule? These are the great teams from the Big 10 (“We Can’t Count”) Conference that the University of Iowa gets to play.

For Iowa State: Kansas State, Nebraska, and Colorado. Though I am, to paraprhrase an energy company slogan, obsessively, relentlessly optimistic about Cyclone football. (By the way, does anybody else find it creepy for an energy company to be “Obsessively, relentlessly at your service.” I sure do. Free association with obsessively and relentlessly: I think Ted Kaczinski). I believe that those three games we have coming up are three losses, while Iowa’s three games against their cupcake conference opponents are three wins.

I’ll end with a promise: Never again will I go on so long a rant. I will come up with well-developed ideas that can be worked for a full column. Well, at least for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully. Maybe.

Jayadev Athreya is a junior in mathematics from Ames, Iowa.