https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/?d=4WordPress Posts: WordPress Postsenhttps://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-in-the-absence-of-baseball-coronavirus-shows-us-the-real-score/Thursday, April 2, 2020   The day dawned cloudy and lukewarm and the forecast is for pure gloom for years to come. I thought about going back to bed, but it was almost noon.   I shrugged off the covers, fed the cat and brewed some coffee. I had no idea what day it was. We are living the new abno...7933Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-covid-19-its-worse-than-you-thought/I like to think that my life as a journalist, horse player, football prognosticator, depressive, political junkie, occasional user of recreational drugs (long ago, so long ago), radio second-banana and victim of a moderate obsessive-compulsive disorder have provided me with an insight into the hum...7842Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-on-the-intersection-of-coronavirus-and-sport/I write this under duress, having been frightened by the panic buying I witnessed at my local big box over the weekend.   The designer hand sanitizer was long gone, although the generics were still available if you were willing to pay less. But emotions were running high in the toilet paper secti...7819Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-on-richard-pitino-noted-philosopher/Years of mediocrity have not jaded Minnesota sports fans. "Gullible" is such an ugly word, so let us call the local fan base "trusting," or "hopeful." A cynic might say we are in denial, but we fans don't much care for psycho-babble.   I grew up in a family that always saw the black cloud behind...7784Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-betting-the-big-game-super-bowl-54/I'm not a guy who likes to stroll down memory lane. Too many potholes. As my friends in The Program say, after a few falls into the abyss, it's best to take a different street.   For hardcore football fans, though, it's fun to look back this weekend at some of the most remarkable Super Bowls.  ...7697Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-on-tom-brady-and-immortality/No quarterback in the NFL playoffs this year looked as lifeless and disconsolate as Tom Brady. If you somehow construe Brady as a sympathetic character, you might feel relieved that the loss in the Wild Card round shielded him from future embarrassment. For the record, the 20-13 defeat yielded Bra...7675Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-scandal-makers-and-conference-championship-picks/For some, it's no scandal at all. Hey, everybody does it.   For others, it places baseball just above cockfighting on the sports ladder of disgrace.   As a centrist, I see no reason we can't have it both ways.   Yes, the sign-stealing scandal that originated in Houston in 2017 is pretty awful....7642Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-life-on-the-tundra-and-divisional-round-picks/Don't let anyone tell you that winter came early this year. In fact, by the frosty calendar that numbers our Minnesota days, winter has yet to officially arrive.   But it won't be long. I know because a few days ago I walked into my dentist's waiting room and confronted the horrors of life on the...7609Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-wild-card-round-picks/No charming tales or self-loathing confessions of failure this week. I'll save those for the Super Bowl.   Instead, I'm going to take the plunge with three significant but mythical wagers. I'm in a Vegas state of mind today and would bet all four games if I didn't find the notion of Philly hostin...7585Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-humility-or-a-lack-thereof-and-week-16-picks/It has come to my attention that humility doesn't seem to be in fashion these days. Which is bad enough, except that humility -- a quality that is generally considered to be a foundation of most religions -- has been replaced by a loudly proclaimed piety.   Like a cuckolded spouse, humility leave...7547Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-the-most-popular-cliches-of-the-year-and-week-15-picks/It's days like this when I put on the thermal underwear, flannel pants and shirt, my thickest hoodie and a snowmobile suit before I battle the arctic chill. And that's just my sleepwear.   You know your house is poorly insulated when there's black ice in your kitchen. And no, not in the freezer....7528Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-avoiding-the-vikings-and-week-14-picks/I will probably have my Minnesota citizenship revoked -- or perhaps even deported to Wisconsin -- for making the following confession, but I'm tired of hiding in the shadows. So here it is:   Until the Monday night debacle in Seattle, I had not watched a Vikings game all year. Oh, I saw bits and...7506Fri, 06 Dec 2019 07:13:04 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-happy-endings-and-week-13-picks/I've always contended that I stopped rooting for the home team when I started betting on games, but as the snow piles up outside my window, I am reminded that it's a bit more complicated.   Gambling and journalism -- the two passions of my life outside my family -- may not seem compatible at firs...7480Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-gambling-anger-and-shame-and-week-12-picks/I think I speak for most of us, regardless of our political bent, when I say that I am quite relieved now that the impeachment hearings are over. Just in time for Thanksgiving, we are now poised to put the divisiveness behind us and march together, united as one, toward a new national unity.   (P...7462Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-cliches-from-sociopaths-and-week-11-picks/As I force myself to again view the video of Myles Garrett's criminal assault on Thursday night, I am baffled by what seems to be a willingness among players, fans and the NFL infrastructure to believe that this was just one player gone rogue.   In fact, after Garrett ripped off Pittsburgh quarte...7436Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-the-huge-score-and-week-10-picks/Give me a few minutes and I can recall at least 20 movies about gambling. The themes tend to be of a piece. All gamblers die broke and alone; their bodies are generally found in a studio flat above a drugstore. Sometimes they mess with the mob and are tortured, their bodies left to rot in the dese...7411Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-knowing-the-score-and-week-nine-picks/My dad would have turned 97 over the weekend had Alzheimer's not hijacked his brain. As it was, he made it to 92 after almost a decade of cognitive impairment. And a miserable decade it was. The old man was playing tennis or walking four miles a day into his 80s. Doctors couldn't find anything wro...7381Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-despising-authority-and-week-8-picks/The Black Sox scandal notwithstanding, 2019 might have been baseball's most pernicious year. The national pastime was never exempt from greed, stupidity and the original sin of hate, but 2019 was something special. Perhaps it was the inevitable crescendo of corruption, or maybe baseball was simply...7363Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-paying-the-piper-and-week-7-picks/It won't be long now before the state legislature starts to debate the merits of state-sanctioned sports wagering. It's going to be a chaotic, expensive and, no doubt, highly irrational controversy. The shouting begins when the legislature convenes in February. Sadly, we can't bet on the outcome....7338Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-the-furniture-man-and-week-five-picks/Most gamblers I know are thoughtful, literate folks who simply need a daily distraction to cope with the awful cloud of anxiety that shrouds their lives. We like to call ourselves degenerates, but it's mostly an exercise in irony. We still read newspapers, so we know who the real degenerates are....7288Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-jockocracy-and-week-four-picks/It's been almost 50 years since Howard Cosell put Monday Night Football on the map with his arrogance, moral rectitude, and an especially offensive habit of almost always being right.   The best thing about Cosell was the glee he took in biting the hand that fed him. It's hard not to think wistfu...7259Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-will-the-nfls-flag-fest-finally-repel-fans-plus-week-3-picks/Before we discuss the prowess of NFL officials, let us agree that there's nothing the league can do to screw up its money machine. We know this because every possible effort has been made to do just that.   With each passing day, people under 40 are giving their televisions to their grandparents...7226Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-bet-freely-bet-often-and-bet-more-and-week-two-picks/Call me Stretch. Some days ago -- never mind how long precisely -- having little or no money in my purse,* I thought I would build up my bankroll by "going heavy," as wagering etymologists might say, on professional football games. (I do not bet on college games, so as to avoid sullying the purity...7182Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-modernized-stockholm-syndrome-and-week-1-picks/As I ponder the predictive numbers emanating from America's citadel of broken dreams, I find myself humbled even before the beginning of another NFL season. Who am I to question a betting line honed with a bloodless scalpel by the finest minds of Las Vegas and its most perceptive gamblers?   What...7144Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000https://wolvesdaily.com/news-rumors/mike-gelfand/gelfand-bombs-over-bunts-lamenting-the-bygone-era-of-the-sacrifice/In this year of the check-swing home run, the most risible baseball anachronism has to be the All-Star game's home run derby.   Because that's pretty much what baseball is these days.   I don't want to serve up a stat salad with sour dressing, but here's the gist of it: at the All-Star break, ma...6916Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000