# 340, Oct. 21, 2004

GAINESVILLE, Fla: It’s 85 degrees in this college town, sun is shining (except when it’s raining), and the students are all wearing shorts. And politicians here think folks are paying attention to them.

The World Series has the Red Sox against the Cardinals. For a while we thought it might be Massachusetts versus Texas, the same as the Presidential Series, but St. Louis slipped in there and knocked out Houston. These old historic baseball towns will put on a good show.

I read where Senator Kerry is shooting geese in Ohio today and President Bush is hunting for votes in Pennsylvania. They’re both heading down here this weekend. Meanwhile Ralph Nader is doing all he can to avoid getting goose eggs on election day.

The Soccer playoffs start this weekend. Now, we know the rest of the world gets excited over soccer, but in the United States it struggles to get attention, and I think I figured out their problem. Of all the teams in these playoffs, not a one of them has won even half their games. If the best team can’t win half the time, who knows what the worst ones do. Well, what they do is play for ties, and nobody does it better than soccer teams, not even hockey, if they were playing, which they’re not. In these soccer championship games if they all end up as ties, well, to decide who gets the trophy and which fans get to celebrate I guess they’ll just flip a coin. It’ll probably land on edge.

From all the campaigning here in Florida one thing you can be sure of. They don’t want another tie.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers:

“My idea of the height of conceit would be a political speaker that would go on the air when that world series is on.” DT #683, Oct. 3, 1928