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Inspirational thought of the week:

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary

When troubles come and my heart burdened be

Then, I am still and wait here in the silence

Until You come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains

You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas

I am strong, when I am on your shoulders

You raise me up to more than I can be

— “You Raise Me Up,” Josh Groban

Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located in the cargo hold filled with kibble in the belly of Ben Herbstreit’s private canine jet, we, like those who scream “CAN I PET HIM?!” to Kirk Herbstreit every weekend, desperately seek out heartwarming inspiration.

So, imagine the Marcus Spears-sized warm-and-fuzzies we felt last Friday night when the centerpiece showcase game in all of college football was a contest between the teams formerly known as the Kansas Nayhawks and unLv. Not so long ago in seasons not so far away, KU and the Fightin’ Tark Sharks were among those teams in a perpetual whirlpool battle for Bottom 10 suppressed supremacy. Nary was there a year during the first decade I was charged with helming this hole-filled vessel that those two weren’t featured barnacles stuck to the side of the Bottom 10 boat.

But then, sitting at the bar Friday night as I was on the road to cover this grand sport, there they were. On national television. On all the televisions in said watering hole. The room was riveted. KU finished 2023 in the hoity-toity Top 25, and by game’s end UNLV had earned its first ranking in that same fancy-schmancy poll.

What does that tell us? It tells us that hope is good. It tells us that dreaming is OK. Even when I am suddenly reminded of where I was when I was watching that game Friday night: Gainesville, Florida.

“Hey, man!” an overserved gentleman dressed sloppily in orange, blue and green shouted to me, pointing to the Gators logo on his shirt with one hand as he clung to the bar for balance with the other. “You think we can be as good as them two teams one day?”

With apologies to former Florida State corner Chris Hope, University of St. Thomas running back Hope Adebayo, Bob Hope’s All-America Team and Steve Harvey, here’s the post-Week 3 Bottom 10 rankings.

We heard from so many angry loyal subjects of the State of Kent last week that we thought we were at a Renaissance Faire. Were they throwing tomatoes and casting witches’ spells our way because their beloved brethren were in the Bottom 10? Nay! They were hotter than a, well, Golden Flash, because last week they were — in the words of a Twitter/X user who I believe was named @YesJackLambertActuallyPlayedHere — “What do we have to do to prove to you morons that we are the worst team in football?” Turns out, trailing Tennessee 65-0 at the half was enough to do the trick.


The Owls had already made their FBS road debut and their FBS home debut, so when they traveled to San Jose State to lose 31-10, it was their “Hey, SJSU, here’s a copy of our résumé, please take it with you when you have your meeting to try to join the new Pac-12 and yes we did like Elle Woods and made it pink and scented to give it a little something extra” debut.


The Zips followed up their two-week Big Ten check collection tour with a visit from Colgate. Akron won but failed to cover against a team that was 0-2 and picked to finish fourth in the six-team Patriot League. Also, if you laid down cash against the spread in the Akron-Colgate game, you might want to find a different hobby. Speaking of payouts, Akron now travels to Williams-Brice Stadium to face South Carolina.


The Minors asked for Liberty but were given death by a 28-10 score. UTEP opens the season with three of its first four games on the road, followed by a bye week and then finally playing a second home game on Oct. 3, aka Week 6. By then they will have been gone so long the Sun Bowl will be turned into a Spirit Halloween.


After all those years that the UW Huskies made their Thanksgiving living out of snatching the Apple Cup from the favored hands of Washington State, now they played the game in September as a new nonconference game and did so at the end of the same week that Wazzu helped orchestrate the Gravedigger-like resurrection of the Pac-Whatever of which Washington was a member like 10 minutes ago. Hey, Huskies, if you’re nice, maybe they’ll let you come back. No? You’re good? Cool cool cool. We’ll check back in mid-November after your trips to Piscataway, Iowa City, Bloomington and State College. Then again, maybe you’ll like having more frequent frequent flyer miles than George Clooney in “Up in the Air.”


Once again, Temple has to settle for being our second-highest-flying parliament of Strigiformes, forced to sail in the broken wind that trails Kennesaw in the race for Bottom 10 Owl air supremacy. Now they host Bottom 10 watch list members Utah State Not Utah, aka the Other Other Aggies. Speaking of Aggies …


Last week we joked that the L-obos should call their Land of Enchantment mortal enemies for the cheat code on Auburn, seeing as how the Other Aggies (one Other) had beaten Hugh Freeze the past two years in a row. Maybe they did. Because Whew Mexico had Snore Eagle on the ropes for a while, trailing only 17-13 at the half. Then they were outscored 28-6 in the second half. Maybe New Mexico State sent them the “How to Beat Hugh Freeze” playbook tablet, but purposely only charged the iPad halfway so it would go dead at halftime.


The Minuetmen don’t join the MAC until next year but opened the season with three straight #MACtion opponents and lost all three. This weekend they finally get back to being their true Lexington Green independent selves when they face Central Connecticut. But … wait a feathered-tricorn hat here … the next two games they travel to play My Hammy of Ohio and the Fighting Irish Stompers of Northern Illinois? But they still aren’t actually in the MAC? This is like that Leo DiCaprio movie where he convinces everyone he’s actually a doctor, a lawyer and an airline pilot just by showing up at a hospital, courtroom and airport and saying that he was a doctor, lawyer and airline pilot.


The good news? Charlotte finally won a football game. The bad news? They beat the FCS Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs by one point and had to come back from 17-down in the second half to do it. Calling this a win is like burning all the cupcakes in the pan but one.


Remember when those in FSU circles pointed to the fact that Cal was joining the ACC as a surefire sign that the conference was on its last legs because Cal was so generic at football and Cal was not worthy of being in the same conference with mighty Florida By God State. This weekend the 3-0 Bears face the 0-3 Noles, the same Noles who at last check were favored by a massive 2 points over the little ol’ hippie refuge school out of Berkeley. At home. With a roster that might have 16 NFL draft picks. That’s how you graduate from the Coveted Fifth Spot to the actual Bottom 10. We look forward to hearing from FSU’s lawyers. Everyone else has. Perhaps they can sue us all out of having to watch the Sunshine Showdown with Florida at the end of the season.

Waiting list: Flori-duh, Living on Tulsa Time, Southern Missed, UCan’t, Muddled Tennessee State, Not The Jacksonville You Think It Is State, “Why, oming?”, more flopping.

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

NEW YORK — A blunder that typifies the current state of the New York Yankees, who find themselves in the midst of their second six-game losing streak in three weeks, happened in front of 41,401 fans at Citi Field on Saturday, and almost nobody noticed.

The Yankees were jogging off the field after securing the third out of the fourth inning of their 12-6 loss to the Mets when shortstop Anthony Volpe, as is standard for teams across baseball at the end of innings, threw the ball to right fielder Aaron Judge as he crossed into the infield from right field.

Only Judge wasn’t looking, and the ball nailed him in the head, knocking his sunglasses off and leaving a small cut near his right eye. The wound required a bandage to stop the bleeding, but Judge stayed in the game.

“Confusion,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I didn’t know what happened initially. [It just] felt like something happened. Of course I was a little concerned.”

Avoiding an injury to the best player in baseball was on the Yankees’ very short list of positives in another sloppy, draining defeat to their crosstown rivals. With the loss, the Yankees, who held a three-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East standings entering June 30, find themselves tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for second place three games behind the Blue Jays heading into Sunday’s Subway Series finale.

The nosedive has been fueled by messy defense and a depleted pitching staff that has encountered a wall.

“It’s been a terrible week,” said Boone, who before the game announced starter Clarke Schmidt will likely undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.

For the second straight day, the Mets capitalized on mistakes and cracked timely home runs. After slugging three homers in Friday’s series opener, the Mets hit three more Saturday — a grand slam in the first inning from Brandon Nimmo to take a 4-0 lead and two home runs from Pete Alonso to widen the gap.

Nimmo’s blast — his second grand slam in four days — came after Yankees left fielder Jasson Dominguez misplayed a ball hit by the Mets’ leadoff hitter in the first inning. On Friday, he misread Nimmo’s line drive and watched it sail over his head for a double. On Saturday, he was slow to react to Starling Marte’s flyball in the left-center field gap and braked without catching or stopping it, allowing Marte to advance to second for a double. Yankees starter Carlos Rodon then walked two batters to load the bases for Nimmo, who yanked a mistake, a 1-2 slider over the wall.

“That slider probably needs to be down,” said Rodon, who allowed seven runs (six earned) over five innings. “A lot of misses today and they punished them.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s throwing woes at third base — a position the Yankees have asked him to play to accommodate DJ LeMahieu at second base — continued in the second inning when he fielded Tyrone Taylor’s groundball and sailed a toss over first baseman Cody Bellinger’s head. Taylor was given second base and scored moments later on Marte’s RBI single.

The Yankees were charged with their second error in the Mets’ four-run seventh inning when center fielder Trent Grisham charged Francisco Lindor’s single up the middle and had it bounce off the heel of his glove.

The mistake allowed a run to score from second base without a throw, extending the Mets lead back to three runs after the Yankees had chipped their deficit, and allowed a heads-up Lindor to advance to second base. Lindor later scored on Alonso’s second home run, a three-run blast off left-hander Jayvien Sandridge in the pitcher’s major league debut.

“Just got to play better,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down to. It’s fundamentals. Making a routine play, routine. It’s just the little things. That’s what it kind of comes down to. But every good team goes through a couple bumps in the road.”

This six-game losing skid has looked very different from the Yankees’ first. That rough patch, consisting of losses to the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, was propelled by offensive troubles. The Yankees scored six runs in the six games and gave up just 16. This time, run prevention is the issue; the Yankees have scored 34 runs and surrendered 54 in four games against the Blue Jays in Toronto and two in Queens.

“The offense is starting to swing the bat, put some runs on the board,” Boone said. “The pitching, which has kind of carried us a lot this season, has really, really struggled this week. We haven’t caught the ball as well as I think we should.

“So, look, when you live it and you’re going through it, it sucks, it hurts. But you got to be able to handle it. You got to be able to deal with it. You got to be able to weather it and come out of this and grow.”

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

Bobby Jenks, a two-time All-Star pitcher for the Chicago White Sox who was on the roster when the franchise won the 2005 World Series, died Friday in Sintra, Portugal, the team announced.

Jenks, 44, who had been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer, this year, spent six seasons with the White Sox from 2005 to 2010 and also played for the Boston Red Sox in 2011. The reliever finished his major league career with a 16-20 record, 3.53 ERA and 173 saves.

“We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family today,” White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement. “None of us will ever forget that ninth inning of Game 4 in Houston, all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organization during his time in Chicago. He and his family knew cancer would be his toughest battle, and he will be missed as a husband, father, friend and teammate. He will forever hold a special place in all our hearts.”

After Jenks moved to Portugal last year, he was diagnosed with a deep vein thrombosis in his right calf. That eventually spread into blood clots in his lungs, prompting further testing. He was later diagnosed with adenocarcinoma and began undergoing radiation.

In February, as Jenks was being treated for the illness, the White Sox posted “We stand with you, Bobby” on Instagram, adding in the post that the club was “thinking of Bobby as he is being treated.”

In 2005, as the White Sox ended an 88-year drought en route to the World Series title, Jenks appeared in six postseason games. Chicago went 11-1 in the playoffs, and he earned saves in series-clinching wins in Game 3 of the ALDS at Boston, and Game 4 of the World Series against the Houston Astros.

In 2006, Jenks saved 41 games, and the following year, he posted 40 saves. He also retired 41 consecutive batters in 2007, matching a record for a reliever.

“You play for the love of the game, the joy of it,” Jenks said in his last interview with SoxTV last year. “It’s what I love to do. I [was] playing to be a world champion, and that’s what I wanted to do from the time I picked up a baseball.”

A native of Mission Hills, California, Jenks appeared in 19 games for the Red Sox and was originally drafted by the then-Anaheim Angels in the fifth round of the 2000 draft.

Jenks is survived by his wife, Eleni Tzitzivacos, their two children, Zeno and Kate, and his four children from a prior marriage, Cuma, Nolan, Rylan and Jackson.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees, digging for options to bolster their infield, have signed third baseman Jeimer Candelario to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the affiliate announced Saturday.

Candelario, 31, was released by the Cincinnati Reds on June 23, halfway through a three-year, $45 million contract he signed before the start of last season. The decision was made after Candelario posted a .707 OPS in 2024 and batted .113 with a .410 OPS in 22 games for the Reds before going on the injured list in April with a back injury.

The performance was poor enough for Cincinnati to cut him in a move that Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall described as a sunk cost.

For the Yankees, signing Candelario is a low-cost flier on a player who recorded an .807 OPS just two seasons ago as they seek to find a third baseman to move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base, his natural position.

Candelario is the second veteran infielder the Yankees have signed to a minor league contract in the past three days; they agreed to terms with Nicky Lopez on Thursday.

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