Sleeping on The Job?

If only I could.

Otis, doing what he does best.

Can’t sleep.

Seems the world’s simplest act. Been done as long as homo sapiens started scraping their knuckles along the dirt. Bears do it for months on end. Otis the Cat does it 18 hours a day at our estate and the other six hours he has his eyes closed. The lucky dog.

Close your lids, pull up the covers, get your head comfortable and. . .

Can’t sleep.

Been gliding in a no-sleep fog for a week.

Can you sleep?

How?

I’ve tried. Milk, ice cream, turkey slices. Turkey is heavy with tryptophan. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid used to make proteins. Everybody knows that. It helps you sleep. You. Not me.

I’ve tried changing bedrooms, changing pillows. I’ve eliminated any thoughts from my mind. I’ve tried, I swear, walking the 18 holes of Augusta National, sort of a Masters-weirdo version of counting sheep. I’ve re-read past TMLs, usually the ones dealing with the NFL Draft.

Can’t sleep.

I have no huge worries. I mean, I’m retired. I have a great OG gig hosing down golf carts. I write this. OG keeps his old hand in. People seem to tolerate me. I work out semi-religiously, I walk Crazy Chester a mile or so a day, up and down hills.

I’ve cut back on cigars and bourbon. That’s tragic, but it seemed a logical step. Didn’t work. (Thankfully.)

Can’t sleep.

This isn’t good, this not sleeping. Bad for my mood, bad for my health. Circadian got no rhythm. Bad for my appearance. Take it from a guy who works out partly to make the shirts fit better: No sleep does scary stuff to the acreage under your eyes. I look like Bill Clinton on his worst days. I’m pondering blepharoplasty. Lookitup.

Nothing that a little surgery can’t fix

The Guinness Book of World Records says that in 1963, a guy went 11 days and 25 minutes without sleep. I’m only a few days out of 1st place.

I’m irritable.

How can you tell, Doc?

Shut up.

I can’t think straight, which normally does wonders for TML. But enough is enough.

So. . . how do youse achieve this most basic of human acts? No drugs, please. No melatonin, which actually makes me feel like jumping out of my skin. Which I’m too tired to do. Help, please.

Now, then. . .

MAYBE IT’S THE BRAIN FOG, BUT lately stuff doesn’t make sense. Such as. . .

The Blue Check Mark on Twitter. I’d look it up if I cared. I guess it means I’m not a mouth-breathing liar/troll/instigator. Fact is, I don’t know if I’m check-marked or not. Are you? Does it complete you?

Five NFL Players Suspended for betting on the NFL. NYTimes:

The league on Friday handed down some of the strictest penalties it has ever issued, banning three players for at least the 2023 season for betting on N.F.L. games and suspending two others for six games for other violations of the league’s betting policy. Five players in the past four years have received at least season-long bans for betting on N.F.L. games.

Apparently, you can’t have your point spreads and eat them, too. The NFL spent decades railing against the evils of betting, until the Supreme Court in 2018 said betting was OK. Then the league jumped in with both moneyed feet.

Goodell, 2012: “The N.F.L. cannot be compensated in damages for the harm that sports gambling poses to the goodwill, character and integrity of N.F.L. football,” Goodell wrote in a declaration for a court case about sports betting.

Goodell, now: Welcome to Las Vegas, site of the 2023 Super Bowl.

And now we’re spozed to be shocked that NFL players are betting on NFL games.

Times:

The N.F.L. did not disclose enough information about the violations for the public to know whether the players bet on their teams’ games, or bet in coordination with one another, or how they were caught. There’s been no clarity from the league on whether, or how, the integrity of that game or others were at risk.

We’re just supposed to believe the league. The same league that denied the CTE-concussion link. The league whose man-sters almost never fail PED tests. Uh-huh.

The Reds Aren’t Hitting. Just guessing, it could be because they don’t have many good hitters. How many Reds batsmen would play regularly for a good team? India, probably. Stephenson. That’s it.

I wrote last summer that the ‘23 Reds would lose a lot of games 3-2. That might prove generous. The Club has scored 6 runs in its previous 6 games. It is 1-7 in one-run games, dying for just one more significant knock (and, of course, relievers who can get people out). Last four in Pittsburgh: 3-4, 2-4, 1-2, 0-2.

Oh, and the defense has been lacking, too. If you don’t score much, you better be better at preventing runs, somehow.

The Club has spent the month lauding its intangibles (spirit, togetherness etc.) but that’s no sub for actual talent. Among MLB’s 30 teams, the Club ranks 24th in runs, 25th in hits, 27th in homers (even with the benefit of the Small Park), 26th in OPS and 4th in strikeouts. Their BABIP is at No. 12, suggesting that luck has not been for or against them.

College Players Get Magically Better. . . After They’re Done Playing in College! PKing says The Men will take tight end Luke Musgrave of Oregon State with their 1st pick in Thursday’s draft. King says this about that:

Odd in such a great class for tight ends that a guy with 1.4 catches per game in his college career, with just 633 yards receiving and two receiving touchdowns in four seasons, would be a first-round candidate. Musgrave excelled at the Senior Bowl and has been a popular pre-draft riser.

Odd? Not at all. Biz-as-usual in a league whose prognosticators tell us everything about a player except if he can play. You can work your aspirations off for four years, make all kinds of All teams and be dominant at your position, but boy, if you screw up the intelligence tests or put ketchup on your scrambled eggs your “draft stock’’ is gonna take a hit.

Conversely, you can spend four years compiling OK numbers and generally be seen as nothing special, until — presto, change-o! — you “excel’’ at the Senior Bowl and become “a popular pre-draft riser.’’

I need Tim Krumrie to explain how this works. Better, someone just put on some training camp film of Krumrie (10th-round rookie) beating up on Dave Rimington (1st round) while calling him Fat Boy. Rise this, Crystal Ball Guy.

I Love Golf. I Don’t Love the Zurich Classic. I don’t want to have to think about who’s leading a tournament. I just want to watch the damned thing.

The 1st and 3rd rounds are best ball, the 2nd and 4th rounds are alternate shot. Forty two-man teams. Finishing scores straight outta Putt-Putt. What? F outta here. Mediocre course (TPC Louisiana) nondescript field, stupid scoring system. Makes one long for the Quad Cities Open.

Did I mention I can’t sleep?

The Men Could Use a Burrow Back-Up. . . I thought McCarron did a very good and highly underrated job filling in for Andy Dalton. Recall, McCarron almost led the Men to a playoff W over Pittsburgh, before, um, Tez and Pac ruined things.

How ‘bout an AJ encore? Yahoo:

AJ McCarron never amounted to much in the NFL, but he has just completed perhaps the finest season any quarterback has ever had in the XFL.

McCarron threw six touchdown passes on Saturday for the St. Louis Battlehawks, giving him 19 touchdown passes on the season. That’s the most any quarterback has ever had in any of the XFL’s three seasons, surpassing Tommy Maddox, who had 18 touchdown passes in 2001.

Once McCarron’s XFL season is over, he’ll be eligible to sign with an NFL team. There’s no guarantee that he will, but he has at least performed well enough this spring that NFL teams might consider him worthy of a chance to earn a backup job in training camp.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . I sang this to Jillian The Magnificent every night when she was a baby, before putting her to bed. The very great thing is, her tomorrows really have been sunny and bright.