Life had been good for Brad Lidge and the Phillies last night. Well, if not good, certainly improving; Pedro Feliz had just hit a home run with two outs in the bottom of the eighth to tie the game at 4, and Lidge had dispatched the first two batters of the Yankees’ ninth inning without incident. Then Johnny Damon hit a single to left on a full count, and the Phillies put in a massive defensive shift to account for the dead-pull Mark Teixeira at the plate.

(Feliz: “Not good not good not good not good.”)

That shift put shortstop Jimmy Rollins well on the other side of second base and our hero from earlier, concrete-shod third baseman Feliz, nearer to the bag. So when Damon took off on a steal on the very first pitch, it was Feliz’s job to cover the bag, and that turned into a rather substantial problem - especially when Damon was the first person in the entire stadium to realize that there was nobody on third. Video, if you missed it last night, is after the break.

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So I’ve been looking for a game-ending football play to erase the unholy image of that Brett Favre pass against the 49ers, and this may be it. Poor, poor Otter Valley High Otters. Even when an opponent’s desperation game-ending field goal attempt fell short, they still managed to lose.

As you will see in the video below, Mt. Mansfield (Jericho, Vermont) came up with the 20-16 victory in most unlikely fashion, when an Otter Valley player caught a short field goal attempt, then thinking the game was over, spiked the ball. But that’s technically a fumble, and Mt. Mansfield’s Jeff Sutherland alertly picked it up and ran into the end zone for the win. Oh Lordy.

(Video after the jump.)

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For athletes awash in money and in the twilight of their careers, opening a steakhouse is a rather conventional way to start earning money outside the sport. This is usually a good thing; if you’re ever in Chicago and have about $200 to blow, for example, take a friend to Iron Mike’s Steakhouse and admire the loose connection the restaurant has with Mike Ditka and football while you eat one of the best steaks of your life.

(”Overcooked and served with Dominican rice, which turns out to be water-logged grains studded with bland black beans and corn kernels, unripe chunks of pineapple and mango, and pieces of asparagus stalks.” MMMMMM!)

But the food has to be good, otherwise it’s a big fat FAIL. Hey, speaking of big fat failure, David Ortiz! Big Papi opened up his own steakhouse - “Papi’s Grille” - in Boston recently, and the BOSTON GLOBE sent a food critic to try it. Considering the food put in front of her, said critic is lucky to be alive.

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Anyone who went to a conservative religious school growing up probably remembers the gusto with which teachers and administrators enforced school dress codes. Not paying attention in class? Who cares. Bullying freshmen in the hallway? No problem.  But heaven forbid a student show up to class with an uncollared shirt or too-short skirt - those were the real dangers facing the youth of America! Instant demerits!

It’s kinda like the NFL. If you’re an NFL player, your job is to put your body in as much peril as possible to emerge victorious from one of the most brutal and vicious sports in this country. Players are accused of domestic violence with alarming regularity. Some players have killed other people, others have been implicated in murders. And yet they play on. But wear your shorts too far above the knee? That’ll be $5,000, you immoral hell-bound heathen.

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Look, it’s pretty obvious that the Northwestern Wildcats will probably end up doing bad, bad things to the woeful Eastern Michigan Eagles today. It’s a matchup borne out of money and a desire for an easy win. You know it, I know it, both teams probably know it. No, Northwestern isn’t exactly national championship material, but they’re a respectable Big Ten team (oxymoron?) and Eastern Michigan is, well, Eastern Michigan.

But that doesn’t mean EMU deserves to be spotted 3 points at the beginning of the game, does it? Apparently, the Big Ten Network has taken pity on the Eagles and rewarded them with a phantom field goal to start the game. How kind of them. Is that even legal? Why the hell am I watching the Big Ten Network, anyway?  These are the questions we’re pondering so far as Week Two of college football kicks off. What’s on your mind?

The Dallas Cowboys are a perfect sports analogy to Microsoft. They’re both led by supremely arrogant billionaires who have cornered the market on casual users of their respective products. To wit: nothing says “I know nothing about computers” quite like a guy running Windows Vista Home Edition, and nothing says “I know nothing about football” quite like a guy in, say, North Dakota sporting a Cowboys jersey.

FAILlionaires* Bill Gates and Jerry Jones inadvertently teamed up Saturday to cause havoc at Cowboys Stadium, and it had nothing to do with Sam Bradford’s shoulder sending Oklahoma’s national championship hopes down in flames. Get your nerd flag out and ready to fly.

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Oh boy, this is gonna get ugly. It’s only been, what, four hours since the esteemed Mr. Jacobi wrote about the developing situation up in Ann Arbor regarding Michigan’s “voluntary” workouts, but it appears that the entire Michigan football team is now about to erupt into a Taiwanese Parliament fight. If any football fans out there thought the Wolverines would get back on track this season and surprise the (many) doubters, you might want to think twice about that.

(Lies.)

A new group of current and former players is now claiming the original group of current and former players are full of crap and no rules are being broken. Teammates calling each other liars, parents threatening other parents…this ain’t your father’s Big Ten football.

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The Rich Rodriguez Era enters its second season in Michigan, and it can’t possibly be worse than the first, right? After all, going 3-9 at Michigan is like going 0-12 at most other schools and having half your team arrested for something the authorities ominously refer to as “gross horse exploitation.” So it has to get better; it’s not like Rodriguez turned into a bad coach when he left West Virginia, right?

(Sure, the workout’s voluntary, just as long as you know that this man will kill you with his bare hands if you don’t show up.)

At the same time, the defense is a mess, the quarterback situation is like a 3-headed hydra (if the hydra had AIDS), and it’s hard to see where many more wins come from this year. Ah, but this is where vaunted S&C Mike Barwis steps in and whips the whole program into shape and Michigan’s back to being great! Problem solved, let’s all go home and eat waffles.

But wait. About that, the whole Barwis offseason program, um… here’s the thing: if what Michigan players are telling the local press is true, it’s blatantly violating all sorts of NCAA rules.

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Recall, if you will, that the major off-season move in the NFL was undoubtedly the Bears sending Kyle Orton and a truckload of picks to Denver for “disgrunted” Jay Cutler. The general consensus was that it was a fine move by Chicago, but that they overpaid - badly - for Cutler.

(Orton, during a rare moment of not giving the ball to the Niners. It would soon pass.)

But less was made of the effect the move made on Denver, who was basically compensated three high picks for having to substitute Orton in for Cutler. How’s that going to work for the Broncos? Well, if last night’s game is any indication, it’s going to be a long season.

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