Editor’s Note: As we age, the memory ages. Often annoyingly so. Like when one posts a column on Aug. 10 to publish in a day or two, but forgets to put the day of a day or two on the column. 🤦‍♂️ Like with this one. Here is it is, in its original form, no updates or corrections. *Sigh*

There is joy for many of us when spending a boatload of money to buy wins doesn’t quite work out.

***By Michael A. Lough***
***The Sports Report***
***centralgasports@gmail.com***

Gloriously, it doesn’t work out more than we realize. And we’re veering that way in the majors.

The team with the highest payroll, an obscenely high payroll, is not the best team in the majors.

While they’re likeable, the LA Dodgers are not in any form or fashion running away with the NL West. They have as many struggles as the other good teams. There was bellyaching that they didn’t do enough at the trade deadline.

It’s a reminder that, well, people need to quit expecting things to go as they hope or plan, or because somebody spends a lot of money.

Sports are – again, please, for the love of God, remember this, and your life will improve (probably) – unpredictable.

Human beings – again, please, for the love of God, remember this, and your life will improve (probably) – are human beings. Imperfect (and maaaaaan, are there dozens of daily reminders of that?)

It’s notable, and entertaining, that the Dodgers are running away with nothing. Yes, technically the Dodgers are No. 2 in payroll, but only because of so much deferring.

Funny, because the Mets are No.1, and they’re not pulling away from anybody, either.

The team with the best record has the eighth-lowest payroll. The team tied for the fourth-best record is in the middle of the pack.

We pause for a few moments so the folks who wake up bitching and moaning about their team – even if in first place – can have a moment of bitching and moaning.

The teevee guys doing the Reds and Braves at Bristol showed some lucidity by noting the obvious, which was noted here a few weeks ago amid the inane daily whinefest.

Atlanta will be Atlanta next year. It won’t have the season-long slumps. It won’t have the same ridiculous injurypalooza.

The Braves of 2026 will be a nice resemblance – record-wise – to the Braves of 2024.

To squeal about a lack of panic at the trade deadline was predictable and imbecilic, especially considering the groveling and slobbering and smooching people do on a regular basis in April.

Man, people are exhausting.

Alex Anthopolous isn’t suddenly a moron. Crap happens. Other teams don’t cooperate. Players don’t cooperate.

Why don’t people get this?

Yes, Atlanta needed to put Michael Harris – who people forget they raaaaaaved about daily up until about May – on the clock, his recent surge only slightly lessening that need.

For all the arm problems, folks forget that Chris Sale got hurt making a baseball play, not throwing.

And yes, Ronald Acuna has to be moved to the “touchable” list, because of the injuries and because, well, he’s not a leader. His antics don’t make the team better, and you’re just waiting for some showboating to lead to another injury.

But constantly shuffling and wanting a lot action just for action’s sake doesn’t make an organization better, short term or long term. Patience and intelligence are, contrary to our current mentality any more, good things.

Bailing on players for one subpar year is a knee-jerk philosophy that, well, doesn’t work. Never has.

Let some of these guys play, see how they do to finish the season. And yeah, play a bunch of ‘em.

Shall we look at who made the most deadline moves and pencil them into the World Series? Noooo. Games must be played. Human must fail or succeed.

That, in different words, is why we watch and squirm and dance.

No, the recent surge doesn’t change anything, except back up the thoughts here months ago that we had to wait it out and see how players adjust and finish a season that was over playoff-wise early.

Atlanta is in the bottom quarter of the majors in winning percentage. The company it keeps now is unlikely to be the company it keeps in 2026 when it returns to contention.

Meanwhile, out in the mountains …

It’s obviously good news that Deion Sanders scuffle with bladder cancer was short and successful, as successful as any cancer fight can be.

Alas, yeah, we’ll hear about it for a long time, because it only adds ammo to the “media” cult regarding the Colorado head coach that was rocking and rolling before we hit August.

"Deion on the glitz that has been brought to the Colorado football program. "You want to see us win. You want to see us lose. But you want to see us."

No, the rest of us – non-Colorado fans, non-cult members, non-“media” cult members - don't want to see you, or hear you, or read the unprofessional crap shoved at us.

But here we are with more “media” accountability-free blathering, like the tush-kisser in Boulder who just slobbered: ““I admittedly was surprised when Sanders didn’t emerge as a hot coaching candidate this past offseason after the swift and dramatic turnaround he authored at CU.”

Why? What turnaround? One nice year. Nice is obviously better than ugly, which is what that first season was. Granted, I hate the term “hot coaches” and would almost never want one hired.

But good Lord, how in the world is 13-12 worthy of such hyperbole? Especially since the program the last two years is defined first and foremost by hyperbole.

Note: Karl Dorrell went 8-10 in his first two seasons – including a COVID year – and that’s not much worse than 13-12, so calm down.

The reality is that wisely-run teams were not interested in Sanders. Thus, the Cowboys were. Florida State? No.

The other reality why it’s been clear to about 293 people that Sanders is going to retire in Boulder is health.

So clear a caveman saw it, and long before this latest situation.

Sanders has had health issues for a half-dozen years. It wasn’t a big deal at Jackson State, for a variety of reasons. But at a bigger program, yes. Only the gullible – and there’s a huge number – would hire a guy solely on his self-promotion and the absence of media professionalism - some media hacks have been puckering up for years - and social media hits without exploring life at an HBCU – it’s often another world – and break down who the good wins were over at Colorado.

Colorado has gone 1-4 and 0-2 against ranked teams. That’s 1-6. The win was over No. 17 (which finished 5-7), the losses to No. 10, 8, 23, 16, 23, 18, 17.

The opponents’ record in 2023 was 78-73, and the teams Colorado beat went 16-28. In 2024, all opponents – excluding FCS power North Dakota State – went 77-73, the teams Colorado beat going 45-49.

The reality: Sanders isn’t going bigger, isn’t going to the NFL, Colorado will struggle to .500, and health issues will be the reason Sanders leaves Boulder, and it may be before the end of the 2025 season.

And yeah, we’ll be grumbling about the grumpy guy at North Carolina and the same “media” absurdities with him soon enough.

Loughdmouthings

While you’re complaining about the portal and quitting and listening to the wrong people and all, note that some of the little angels who called Central Georgia home are deep in all of this.

From multiple commitments and transferring to transferring to transferring – one gave clearly misleading information just to play around, which is worth of a scolding from his new college coach – it’s all over the Central Georgia alums who do follow through signing day by making a roster.

We have one Central Georgian on his fifth school (but it’s not about playing time or NIL money). …

As per releases, a belated thank-you to Dublin City Schools and Jason Halcombe for doing it right, as with the announcement earlier this summer of Josh McLendon as the new softball coach.

They’re very alone in those getting-it-right meetings among Central Georgia schools, who can’t get public relations and media relations – aka, informing constituents – right in almost any form or fashion.

It’s not hard or complex, and simply takes the desire to do it right. So, well, yeah, never mind. …

Dear high school football teams (for next spring and August): If you’re hosting a scrimmage and charging admission of any kind, yessir, that scoreboard has to be on and points kept. Folks didn’t pay something to scout time management and position rotations. …

Catching up: So, so there was the legendary former college football coach – known for professionalism, competence, work ethic, fairness, standards, structure … - at a college commencement ceremony, in introducing the speaker back in May.

“It’s nice to be important, but its also important to be nice.

“You got to earn it. Have accountability for what your job is.”

“It’s not about being better than someone else. It’s about being the best that you can be.”

An opposing view followed minutes – and daily - later. …

From Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel:

“So Aaron Rodgers goes on Pat McAfee’s show and whines about how he has no privacy — after signing up for a three-part Netflix docuseries on his private life. Rodgers revealed his soul, his family trauma and his gastrointestinal cleanses on Netflix’s camera, but now it’s our fault for noticing.”