Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
I think this is a good week to open up the mailbag and reveal what things have been on your mind lately.
Roger, do you think the US will ever win the World Cup?
No, I do not.
Look at the teams that make up this year’s field. The thread of commonality that runs through 47 of the 48 countries represented in group play in this year’s event is their commitment to soccer (AKA futbol) every day of every year.
Kids from those countries don’t see soccer as a sport, they see it as a lifestyle. It’s not part of their culture, it is their culture.
The kids in their countries always have a ball between their feet, and empty patches of ground attract large groups of kids from the neighborhood to put down pieces of wood, old tires or whatever they can find to use as goals. Then they divide up into two teams and start playing.
There is only one country of the 48 that doesn’t happen in, and it’s ours.
Maybe we have too many options. Maybe our kids get to a point where the “only sissies play soccer” mantra takes hold (and the flopping and flailing that goes on is no help to that cause). Maybe the skill set of playing a game almost exclusively with your feet just takes too long for American kids and their miniscule attention spans to master.
Whatever the reason, we aren’t any more of a world power in soccer than we ever have been.
Roger, do you think the quarterback who gambled on his games in college will ever get a chance in the NFL?
I do think Brendan Sorsby will be on an NFL roster in the fall of 2027, but I will be surprised if he is taken on either of the first two nights of the draft next April, if he’s drafted at all.
If you don’t remember, Sorsby is the quarterback who went to Indiana and Cincinnati and illegally placed wagers on college football games—to the tune of about $90,000 over four years.
Sorsby’s legal team got a judge to rule him eligible for this fall at his new school, Texas Tech. The judge claimed that to not let him play would have “irreparably harmed him”.
OK, whatever.
The outrage that followed from Tech’s fellow conference members and other schools on their 2026 schedule led TTU to change course and give up the fight.
Sorsby then applied to the NFL to be included in a supplemental draft. The league thought about it for a few days and then took a hard pass, saying they want to see Sorsby get help for his admitted addiction to gambling before applying to the regular draft next spring.
Great advice. The kid should take it.
I don’t know Brendan Sorsby, but by what we all do know about him, and his addiction, is it’s a long road in front of him to make an NFL roster.
But he is a quarterback who clearly is talented, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see someone draft him in the sixth or seventh round or sign him as an undrafted free agent…just in case he does figure out how to beat his demons.
Roger, should the Cubs be buyers at the trading deadline?
That’s complicated, but they really should not.
The Cubs are in the playoff hunt, but the Brewers would have to have a Cub-like meltdown in the last two months of the season not to win the division. The Cubs would have to pay a heavy price to bring in healthy pitchers, and that’s not going to help them.
For one thing, the injuries they have sustained to their pitching staff this season have hastened the call up of pretty much their entire AAA pitching staff, which is probably who they would package up to go get major league help.
But because many of those pitchers haven’t been very effective at the major league level, the perception that the Cubs minor league system “is loaded” has changed to the Cubs minor league system being “loaded with mediocrity”.
It would be a waste of personnel to make trades that would get them into the playoffs but not make them a serious contender to make a deep run in the playoffs once they get there.
We all hate wasted seasons, but that’s just what we are looking at for the Cubs of 2026.
Roger, when do high school sports start back up?
Girls golf teams can start having matches and the rest of the fall sports teams can start practicing on August 3.
But can we just enjoy the rest of our summers before we start back into the grind again?
The older I get, the longer it takes me to get ready.
Can anyone else relate to that?
