FOOTBALL APOCALYPSE. BE ALARMED.

arricade your homes and places of business.  The Football Apocalypse is here.  As it is written in the Book of Football Revelations and the Associated Press, there will come riders from the East.  They will bring with them the Signs of the End of Times: Poisonous Nuts, Terrifying Googly-Eyed Mascots, Satantic I-Dotting Rituals where the I stands for the phrase well-known in demonology: "I intend to do evil things upon your person," A Creepy Geriatric Whose Head is Not His Head, Weird Quasi-Biblical Prose that is not going to make it to the end of this paragraph before Getting Tedious, and other augers of an Intention to Ruin Your Evening.
Gameday is Nigh!

Northwestern football is many things, but I think we can all agree that it is historically a blight upon the noble narrative of college-aged men who wish to smash into each other in a vaguely organized fashion.  Lots of momentous events have occurred in one hundred plus years since Northwestern football players started futilely attempting to score touchdowns.  Most importantly, many of them used to have mustaches and now, very few of them do.

In the 1930s, the term "Great Depression" was coined by a person who had attended more than a dozen Wildcat football games.  Images of Northwestern's offense have been known to turn the stomach of even the most hardened sports beat reporters, even those from Cleveland.  In the late 1970s, Northwestern lost 2,000 consecutive football games to Big Ten foes, non-conference opponents, a resurgent Chicago Dental College that had been nursing a Count of Monte Cristo Revenge plot for nearly 70 years, and carnival rubes who had never played football before but managed to score effortlessly on Wildcat defenders and earn themselves a stuffed gorilla.
 
Kennedy's moon mission speech initially asked "why does Northwestern play football at all?" after 
his line about Rice playing Texas, but it was scrubbed because Northwestern winning football games 
seemed far less feasible than landing on the moon with only analogue tape machines and short-sleeved 
shirts, but also because the nation was not prepared to hear a Kennedy attempt to say the word "Northwestern"

The world changed in 1995, when Darnell Autrey and Pat Fitzgerald led an 85-man blasphemy against the Touchdown Jesus, the Wildcats went to the Rose Bowl, and they won an almost-unfathomable Big Ten championship.  Other Big Ten football fans may mock Northwestern supporters for investing the year 1995 as such a turning point for thinking about the team, but think about this: in 1995, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory came out, and after that, Steven Seagal's career entered a death spiral that led to the Glimmer Man, Exit Wounds, and a million interchangeable films where he waddles listlessly around Bulgaria. Clearly, 1995 is not just an important point in Northwestern football, but one that marks a significant shift in all of Western civilization.
 
Actual, latter-day Seagal movies.  First off, kudos to Seagal for appearing in a film 
where the word "belly" features prominently in the title.  Secondly, please enjoy 
this curated list of actual Seagal movies as the titles get progressively more generic: 
Out For a Kill, Mercenary for Justice, Shadow Man, Attack Force, Flight of Fury, 
Urban Justice, Against the Dark, Driven to Kill, Pistol Whipped, and Maximum 
Conviction, which I assume is about a man who, driven by his convictions, begins  
a massive letter-writing campaign to reform City Hall before  successfully running 
for office as a  reform candidate and then karate chopping 600 armed Bulgarians

Even after this resurgence, Northwestern has shifted to imploding in increasingly heart-wrenching ways in big games and especially bowl games.  Somewhere, Big Ten Legend Eric Crouch is polishing his Alamo Bowl MVP trophy.  Jeremy Maclin is still scampering across the Alamodome turf.  And someone has hired that UCLA guy who returned two consecutive onside kicks for touchdowns to head a Department of Northwestern Football Antagonism.

But here we are in 2013.  The 'Cats have exorcised their bowl demons.  They have exuberantly ripped apart a plush monkey doll and paraded its head around at a press conference like the world's least impressive Jim Corbett impersonators.  They are 4-0 again and facing an undefeated Buckeye team at home.  ESPN is in Evanston.  ABC national television is in Evanston.  Approximately 95,000 Ohio State fans are in Evanston to take over the stadium and shame Northwestern on said national television.  The capital of the Greater Football-Land Metropolitan Area is Evanston, Illinois, and this time it is not because they are playing a game in a one-endzone geek show against the Last Days of the Zook Empire.  Stock up on bleach.

URBAN JUSTICE

All of the carnival hoopla surrounding this game can only mask the fact that Northwestern has to play Ohio State.  Two weeks ago, Ohio State demolished Florida A&M by a score of 222-0.  At the same time, the Wildcats sputtered against an unacceptably frisky Maine team, only pulling away in the second half.  One of the problems of increased expectations for Northwestern is a concern about how it beats teams.  While Wildcat fans would traditionally take any win against any opponent, even if it came weeks later on a technicality due to some bureaucratic error that mislabeled the score, now fans are concerned that they are not pummeling FCS opponents enough. 

Meanwhile, Ohio State has maintained its position at the top of the Big Ten pecking order.  They defeated Wisconsin handily without having to resort to any clock-confusing wizardry.  Superstar quarterback Braxton Miller missed two games and his replacement, Kenny Guiton, threw dozens of touchdowns against nonconference opponents without a second thought. Miller is expected to be the quarterback against Northwestern because Urban Meyer has not realized the winning football strategy of using as many quarterbacks as humanly possible all of the time.

Historically, Northwestern has faltered against Ohio State.  They've beaten them once since 1971, when Brett Basanez and Noah Herron led a stirring overtime comeback.  This game has led to the importance of the number 33 in Wildcat numerology: Herron, wearing #33, scored the games decisive 33rd point with his 33rd carry, and I also saw a drunken bar patron menace close to 33 people with a bar stool after the game was over.
 
Noah Herron temporarily ends the Buckeyes' reign of terror against Northwestern football

The 'Cats open this game as home underdogs.  In a spot of good news, Venric Mark will play for the first time since a brief cameo in the opener.  The addition of a dynamic playmaker will only help the offense, which struggled against Maine. Nevertheless, Northwestern faces hurdles.  The pass defense will be tested.  They will need to take advantage of turnovers.  And they should possibly look into some type of subterfuge such as convincing the Buckeye coaching staff that the Wrigley Rules are still in effect from Gameday and they are barred from any use of the south endzone for any reason including touchdowns, touchdown dances, safeties, touchbacks, team-building exercises, and general Big Ten expansion talks.

FOOTBALL APOCALYPSE

In the meantime, you have from now until Saturday evening to prepare yourself for the momentous, exhilarating, terrifying prospect of a football apocalypse.  The United States government has shut down in preparation.  There are no longer any laws in the United States.  You can go to Columbus with a crew of several thousand and crane equipment, steal Buckeye Stadium, remove it to a vacant lot, and leave threatening messages on Brutus Buckeye's voicemail account because there is no one left to stop you.  The Big Ten can add as many teams as it likes without consequence and no one can prevent Jim Delany from walking around with a cape.  The game will have no referees except for the angry fake Mayan guys from Legends of the Hidden Temple who will pop out of the locker room and attempt to startle players in false start situations.
 
THIS IS NOW YOUR PRESIDENT, AMERICA

Stock up on canned goods, water, and Wildcat Hats.  Gameday is coming.  And, on Sunday, when the dust has cleared from Ryan Field, when nothing remains of the braying fans, when expired sausage products disintegrate in the parking lot, Northwestern will have won or lost a football game, and this means something. 

Interleague Baseball

Interleague play between the Cubs and White Sox begins this week providing the city with playoff intensity, bragging rights, and an excuse for local face-punching enthusiasts to practice their art on unsuspecting drunks. All great sports rivalries are at root inconsequential, but the Cubs/Sox rivalry remains one of the most nonsensical rivalries in all of sports. Between 1906 and 1997, the Cubs and Sox did not play a single meaningful game against each other, yet the two fanbases share a pathological antipathy. In theory, the Cubs and Sox play in separate leagues and share a startling history of futility and a fanbase of mustard enthusiasts-- there is basically no logical reason not to root for both teams or at least maintain a benign indifference to the neighboring club instead the kind of searing, fist-shaking hatred practiced by French mobs against anyone in a powdered wig or a chocolate-guzzling monseignor. Then again, by this logic the Hatfields and McCoys should have realized their similarities as moonshine drinking, possum gobbling, rifle toting, buckskin wearing, toothless shitkickers and combined into a massive jugband, doubling up on knee-slappers, washbin scrapers, and gutbucket experts.

While the washtub is possibly more emblematic of the
classic hobo jug band, the gutbucket is a vastly
superior hobo instrument in terms of versatility,
required skill, potential stew earning power, and
ability to ward off railroad bulls

Like most great sports rivalries, however, the Cubs/Sox rivalry comes from some sort of primordial place that defies logic. Part of being a Cubs fan is taking shots at U.S. Cellular Field (which has evolved into an underrated ballpark) as bland and corporate while Sox fans follow Ozzie's lead by decrying Wrigley's monuments to failure, propensity to attack passersby with unexpected masonry assaults, and incubation of a swaggering vermin population. Therefore, Chicago baseball fans should choose a side and deal with opposing fans by puffing out their chests and displaying eye spots in the threatening manner.

BYCTOM fully supports the "when you're a jet, you're a jet all the way"
school of sports fandom, gangland activity, and grandes jetes. On a
somewhat related note, a shark is so much better than a jet as a
gang mascot (are jets a killing machine made of nothing but
cartilage, teeth, and malevolence?) that it is not even worth discussing

INTERLEAGUE HISTORY

The greatest interleague series between the Cubs and Sox was the 1906 World Series, the first and only postseason meeting between the teams. The "Hitless Wonder" Sox upset the Cubs with Hall of Famer Ed Walsh winning games three and five.


The 1906 White Sox (above) and Cubs. Both teams showcase an extremely
disappointing lack of facial hair, with the main difference coming from the
pictured executives' haberdasherment. The Cubs' C.G. Williams (mentioned here
as a club treasurer) prefers the Jack the Ripper suspect look while "The Old Roman"
Comiskey has the bowtie and more sporting hat allowing him greater mobility for
foreclosing on the dozen existing Spanish-American war widows and stabbing at
Dickensian orphans with a sharpened pince-nez

The modern interleague series has a more festive air. City officials celebrate the ballparks' connection by putting the game ball on the Red Line to be carried by a handpicked malodorous wino or a confidence man with an elborate rhyme taunting fellow patrons into challenging him at three card monte. The most recently indicted city official gets to throw out the first pitch to a mafioso-turned-state's witness.

Wednesday night is "Grand Jury Night" where a lucky fan will
be able to pull a crooked alderman's corruption case off stet, and
the verdict will be decided by fanometer, as the founding fathers
intended

While the 1906 series featured Hall of Famers like Mordecai "Three Finger Brown," Tinker, Evers, Chance, Ed Walsh, and George Davis, the modern interleague series has been marked by mediocre players tormenting the Cubs, like Twins irritant and high priest of the unnecessary head-first slide into first base in blatant defiance of the physical laws of the universe Nick Punto. It's one thing for Carlos Lee to clobber the Cubs; the gelatinous devotee to the sloppy chin beard who loves waddling around the basepaths at Wrigley Field after inevitably assailing Waveland Avenue with grand slams so much that he now only plays for NL Central teams is an all-star caliber player. Surely the greatest White Sox player in this category is former shortstop Jose Valentin, the only batter who demanded a batting cape and was banned from Minute Made Field due to fears that he would tie helpless women to the railroad tracks in front of the orange train before escaping with a cackle and demanding that fans pay the rent.

Only British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald could use his mustache more
effectively to cast aspersions upon his enemies

I cannot currently find a website that publishes hitters' stats against a specific team, and I am unwilling to manually sift through Valentin's game-by-game stats only to have my anecdotal assertions disproved by inconvenient data, but I clearly remember Valentin as a constant thorn in the side of the Cubs despite his slightly below average career 96 OPS+.

SUBMARINES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH INTERLEAGUE PLAY

A recent article that caught my attention is David Kushner's piece for the Times about the use of semi-submersible submarine crafts to smuggle drugs. The vessels are assembled deep in Colombian jungles and are capable of traveling hundreds of miles with a cargo of thousands of tons of cocaine shrouded from military radar, a safer and more efficient way to haul a large amount of cargo than with go-fast boats or massive condom-swallowing operations. Kushner notes that the crews refer to the vessel as el ataúd (the coffin) for its cramped conditions and rickety construction reflecting what one naval officer described as a Mad Max style, although the tight quarters dissuade a Road Warrior wardrobe as crew members are reluctant to inadvertently stab each other with unnecessary sadomasochistic spikes jutting out from leather chaps.

Lord Humungous demonstrates submersible fashion faux-pas with
studded vests and chain-link gimp tethering

The submersible technology has improved, with crews using lead and piping cool water to reduce the engine's heat signature. The Bigfoot II, presumably named to echo the creatures' impossibility to detect without the aid of moonshine or a Fox camera crew, remains the only semi-submersible captured intact by the U.S. This video shows the seizing of the vessel and gives a shaky tour of the inside of the boat.

The use of these crude yet sophisticated vehicles recalls the development of submersibles and submarines. The first working submarine dates all the way back to 1620 when Cornelius Jacobszoon Drebbel built an oar-powered sub for England's Royal Navy, a remarkable feat considering the alchemical scientific climate, where, according to his Wikipedia page, Boyle claimed that "Drebbel had a chemical liquor that would replace that quintessence of air that was able to cherish the vital flame residing in the heart."

Drebbel's submarine could travel for three hours submerged at 12-15
feet in an age of leech-driven medical technology

The American Civil War provided the first military testing ground for submarines. The first U.S. Navy sub was the Alligator, which did not actually undertake any military missions but was commanded by Samuel Eakins, who, even by lofty Civil War standards, sported an excellent combat beard.

Samuel Eakins oversaw the
Alligator's glorious puttering around
in Navy experiments before it was
scuttled in a storm or engulfed
in a mislaid pair of Civil War
muttonchops

The Confederate H.L. Hunley did successfully destroy the Union Housatonic with a spar torpedo as a punishment for naming a ship or any object not endorsed by Billy Mays"Housatonic," but the experiment was a mixed bag as its crews tended to drown. The H.L. Hunley sent 32 soliders to a watery grave during its career. The Hunley showed that submarines that did not kill crew members could be useful in combat, and submarines did eventually become the infernal tools of the hated Kaiser.

The Kaiser sends one six-footer Allied
shipping couldn't handle ladies let's have
a party

The Cubs and White Sox meet in this first series to torpedo each others' tenuous playoff hopes. Let us hope that the teams display the quintessence of air and the fans challenge the vital flame of competition residing in the heart but their reliance on chemical liquors could result in watery deaths or overly aggressive pas de basque.