You say, Game of the Century!

The Republic of Cincinnati yawns

Ohio State plays Michigan in tackle football Saturday, for the quasi-amateur pigskin championship of the civilized world. You might have heard. Then again, you might not have.

The rest of the Buckeye state is losing its mind with anticipation. Three-vee-2 with national championship stakes! The Game, The Rivalry! Woody and Bo in the center ring, St. Peter trying to keep them apart!

To which we might say, “Yeah? Bengals at 1 tomorrow?’’

Nothing speaks to the clannishness of our little corner of the state more than our general ambivalence toward the Buckeyes. The Republic of Cincinnati@ isn’t necessarily above The Game. The Republic just chooses not to be irrational about it.

I mean, let’s be honest, what do we care about Columbus? We have UC, Xavier, UK and Louisville and they’re all closer than High Street. The Buckeyes won’t give UC the respect of a game, they line their roster with our high school stars. UC made Luke Fickell a star.

We don’t look like Columbus. We’re curvaceous, Cowtown is flat. We’re historic. Ohio started around here. Marietta happened first, settled by New Englanders. We were next. Columbus showed up later, in a covered wagon.

Ohio isn’t Midwestern. It’s Eastern (Cleveland) and it’s Southern (here). Only in Columbus can Ohio be viewed as Midwestern. The only connection our Republic has with Columbus was made by an early 19th-century mapmaker who decided Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland belonged in the same state. Yeah, right.

Cleveland loves its Buckeyes. Anywhere north of West Chester is Buckeye Country. Around here, we mostly shrug. Our lives don’t revolve around quasi-am football. We’re much too sophisticated for that.

The Game is at noon Saturday. It oughta be hellaciously good. If you’re interested.

Are you interested?

ALL THAT SAID, PERHAPS TONGUE IN CHEEK. . . Rivalries are easy to define but hard to justify. Most don’t age well, all require the sort of all-in venom that’s not exactly healthy. It’s not necessary that both rivals be really good, only really equal most of the time.

What some fans see as a rivalry the rest see as hype. UC football has no rivals within the AAC, only a few big games a year. That might change. UC-WVU has potential, but rivalries take time.

Bengals-Steelers wasn’t a rivalry for years. Bengals-Browns is a rivalry, but it dims with Paul Brown’s memory and the Browns futility. It hasn’t aged well.

Xavier-UC remains very good. The two schools see themselves as different and apart. One dwarfs the other in size and scope. Each looks down upon the other, for different reasons. Neither has been great in recent winters, but they have been mediocre together, so the blood still runs hot. Very good rivalry.

What high school rivalry is most intense? Moeller-St. X? Elder-Anyone?

Army-Navy? Great for many reasons, but way too much mutual respect for it to be a blood-n-guts rivalry.

My pal Bill Rabinowitz had a good take on The Game this week, in the Columbus Dispatch. This could be the most anticipated meeting ever. It might also be the last best rivalry game:

With a 12-team playoff, the every-game-is-a-must-win mentality that makes college football unique won't exist anymore. A division-less Big Ten that makes an OSU-UM rematch possible in the conference title game might lessen the fervor around the teams' late-November showdown.

But what will make Saturday's game even more special is that it could be the last time that The Game will be for all the marbles. In 2024, the Big Ten will add Southern California and UCLA to expand to 16 teams, and the CFP is expected to grow to 12 teams. The Big Ten will likely drop its divisional format. If that were the case this year, Ohio State and Michigan would play back to back – this week in Columbus, the next in Indianapolis for the league title.

Money-money-money has a way of obliterating traditions in college sports.

Now, then. . .

I WROTE A SECOND TML YESTERDAY, after the US tied Wales in its World Cup opener. You can find that bit of inflammation (sorry, futbol fans, please don’t take it personally) in the archive. For now, more Qatari stupidity. NY Post:

The Qatari crackdown on support for the LGBTQ community has extended to credentialed media.

Journalist Grant Wahl, who runs a Substack covering soccer and formerly wrote for Sports Illustrated, tweeted that he was not let into the stadium for Monday’s US-Wales 2022 World Cup match because of his shirt, which had a soccer ball surrounded by a rainbow.

Wahl tweeted that he was told: “You have to change your shirt. It’s not allowed.”

Later in the day, Wahl tweeted an update, saying he was “OK, but that was an unnecessary ordeal.

“Am in the media center, still wearing my shirt. Was detained for nearly half an hour. Go gays,” Wahl wrote.

It’s illegal in Qatar to be gay. Seriously.

AN ENQUIRER STORY listing some free agents the Reds might be interested in acquiring drew this response from a reader. In part, he wrote,

The fans are not going to get any more excited over five more wins next season. Save the money until you're ready to play with the big boys.

This is true, sort of. And depressing, definitely. The real question is, when will The Club be “ready to play with the big boys?’’

This isn’t a query limited to the scrappy local nine. It’s a universal question asked in MLB towns coast (Oakland) to coast (Pittsburgh).

MLB is the only major sport where at least half its teams spend most of their time trying to escape poverty. Even then, escape is temporary. Most MLB teams are anything but upwardly mobile.

If you want to feel sad about next season, read this story.

AND FINALLY. . . I’m going to go deeper on this soon, but for now, this question:

At this point, what interests you about UC basketball?

Maybe we were spoiled by Huggs and Mick and mostly unbroken success. Not only were the Bearcats good a great part of the time. They were. . . interesting. They had stars and compelling personalities and players who were fun to watch.

Now, what do they have that compels you to watch?

Just throwing it out there, knowing that it’s very early in the season and things can change.

What say you?

AS ALWAYS, if you like what you read here, please SHARE. This Space belongs to you as much as it does to me. We’ve built a cool community here of civil talkers sharing virtual bar space. Let’s grow This Space together. Much appreciated.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Great two-minute tunes is an evergreen topic here. They’re very hard to do well. Here’s an example of a very good one.