Whether you're at the end of your rope or merely the end of your week, welcome to Whitt's End:
*I'm going to be extremely disappointed gutted if the Rangers don't sign Cliff Lee, hopefully during next week's Winter Meetings in Florida. Sorry, but a consolation prize of Zack Greinke - or the scoreboard/video enhancements unveiled today at 2 out at Rangers Ballpark - isn't going to have me or any other baseball fan dreaming of a repeat trip to the World Series. And if they give up top minor-league arms Martin Perez and/or Tanner Scheppers to get Greinke ... vomit.
*Radio ratings for November (Oct. 13-Nov. 10) are in. For 6 a.m.-Midnight Mon-Sun among Men 25-54, 1310 AM The Ticket ranked No. 2 with a 6.0, followed by 105.3 The Fan (3rd, 5.1) and 103.3 FM ESPN (4th, 4.9). During the - ahem - important afternoon drive time The Ticket again dominated with a 7.3 (1st), followed by ESPN's 5.5 (4th) and The Fan's 4.3 (5th).
*The latest NASA study tells us there are triple the stars in our sky than originally thought. The total number: How about a 3, followed by 23 0's. 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, better known as 3 sextillion. In a related story, there are arsenic-eating aliens. Cool.
*There are almost 3 sextillion college football bowl games this winter, 35 to be exact, including - I kid you not - the Beef O' Brady's Bowl. That means Texas fell from last year's National Championship game to this year out of the Top 70. Wow.
*So let me get this straight, this weekend TCU fans are enthusiastically hoping for Cocks (South Carolina over Auburn) and Beavers (Oregon State over Oregon).
*Truth be told, punter Mat McBriar is the Cowboys' best player.
*Hot.
*Not.
*Speaking of the Rangers and Lee, check out Sam Merten's enlightening cover story in this week's dead-tree version of the Observer. Lee = Barry Zito and Denny Neagle? Yikes. The difference, of course, is Lee's prodigious post-season pedigree.
*'Twas a rough week for religion. The atheists delivered a sucker punch in Fort Worth via "Good Without God" buses while in Dallas one of the leading televangelists admitted to infidelity. Christmas can't get here fast enough.
*The Rangers play their first spring training in Surprise, Arizona on February 27. By my math that's 86 days. Knowing me I'm off by a day or two, but you get the picture.
*Tonight's area high school game of the year - Coppell vs. Trinity - will be attended by only 12,000 at Southlake's Dragon Stadium, but it will also be televised live on TXA 21. I'll follow watching it with Mavs-Jazz at 9:30.
*There isn't a more cocky human on this planet than Puff Daddy P Diddy Sean Combs Whatever. And in those new TV commercials he lazily refers to a photograph as a "pihchuh". Everybody knows it's "picksure."
*When Denver Broncos' receiver Kenny McKinley committed suicide back in September, it made us all wonder how an NFL player blessed with talent and fame and fortune could sink to that point. Now we know. Gambling. Though, in the big pihchuh, $105,000 in debt doesn't sound all that unreasonable. Does it?
*The Stars are off to a surprisingly decent start, in first place in the Pacific Division. Too bad no one cares. Attendance is down 16 percent, largest dip in the NHL.
*"At Citibank we will meet accidentally. We'll start to talk when she borrows my pen." Genius.
*The Dallas girl - Ann Ward - that this week won America's Top Model ain't hot. Too skinny. And other things.
*I know we're no soccer power, but the U.S. lost the bidding for the 2022 World Cup to ... Qatar. Nobody can pronounce that, much less point to it on a map. I think it's over there, littered with lavish stadiums surrounded by moats of oil.
*Penn State head coach Joe Paterno next year will have held the same position at the same company for 46 consecutive years. Having spent 18 years at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and already another six at the Observer, I find that unfathomably remarkable.
*Speaking of longevity, don't look now but 105.3 The Fan will turn 2 next Wednesday. How are all those "they'll switch formats by (fill in the blank)" predictions coming along?
*This weekend? Think I'll do some writing, then maybe some talking. Sunday night I'll be on the 105.3 The Fan Cowboys-Colts post-game. Please find a way to not be a stranger.
