The Mailbag, pres. by Whitney McNutt/Tommy Morgan Inc Realtors: Edition 131

It's time for The Mailbag, presented by Whitney McNutt of Tommy Morgan Inc. Realtors, Edition 131.

I asked for your questions. You delivered. So here we go...

I honestly don't think it matters that much. If Ole Miss extends him, that helps with recruiting in a sport where you recruit three and four years out. If you don't, you save a little money on the back end and signal he's on thinner ice than usual. Again, I know it will be hotly debated and people will gnash teeth over it, but I just don't think it's that big of a deal.

It's easily one of the best episodes of the entire series. I wonder if it would even air today. Michael picks Stanley because of racial stereotypes and then gets frustrated when Stanley is awful. Kevin, who is fat, doesn't get picked because of his weight and turns out to be a strong perimeter shooter. The Jim and Roy dynamic, with Pam watching from the "stands," was a strong early plot-builder.

The flagrant personal intentional foul was very Michael Scott. It was obviously an awful call, but it was the kind of pettiness that personified Michael. In the end, no one lost and an entire day was wasted, which was sort of the point of the show, I suppose.

One question: Do I have to wear a mask? Because if I do, I'd rather just sit at home.

I guess I'd love to go back in time and be in the room when The Declaration of Independence was signed. I can't imagine how much energy was in that room at the time. People believed something so strongly that literally signed their potential death warrants.

I guess I'd time travel back to the crucifixion of Jesus. I mean, if you saw it and then saw the aftermath, it would no longer be a matter of faith, I suppose. I don't know. I'm clearly not spending a lot of time thinking about time travel.

I've seen him out there, but I recall correctly, he's been wearing a black jersey, meaning he's injured and not going through contact drills. I've heard nothing about him to indicate anything is serious, and I suspect he's very much in the plans for the fall. Kiffin doesn't give detailed answers on personnel. It's pretty obvious he hates those questions, so with the season five months away, very few people are asking them.

That's probably right. I don't know that I know enough college baseball to try to come up with someone other than Bertman, so yeah, let's go with Bertman.

Wow. I've read several accounts of Hitler's military mistakes in World War II, but never anything that detailed. I suspect you've sent me down a rabbit's hole of sorts. I needed some summer reading. This is a fascinating theory. I'd have to read more. Thank goodness Hitler wasn't a better military tactician, however. The world would be a much different place.

There would be similarities.

Look, as for Kennedy, 12 years was a long time and he was done. Recruiting losses where he felt he could do nothing more had drained him of energy. He was making it work with transfers (Henderson, Moody) and missed on one (Burnett). He didn't have the resources to buy the top high school players, but fans wanted him to get those players. It's a really, really hard job, and when Kennedy rolled the dice on Rahim Lockhart and lost Bill Armstrong, and then Bruce Stevens wasn't the player all thought he'd be, it was over.

As for baseball, I think it's a fair question to wonder if Ole Miss has over-invested in the sport. It would also be foolish for the university to give up tens of millions of revenue just to enhance the baseball scholarship situation a bit in hopes of landing more trips to Omaha each June.

Bianco has built the program. He's created the monster that demands to be fed, and the more it eats, the bigger it gets and the bigger it gets, the more it requires nourishment. I don't know the answer. I personally think the idea of firing a perpetually successful coach who can't get over the postseason hump is risky, if not downright idiotic. But I am not a college baseball aficionado, and I'll freely admit I could be wrong.

I agree that the lag is ridiculous, but I can't say with any degree of conviction that I know the NCAA is not addressing the LSU mess. The NCAA moves at a snail's pace, so it's possible -- if not likely -- that it just hasn't finished digging into LSU at this point. We'll see. I do agree that anything less than a very stiff institutional penalty sends a message to everyone else that there are no rules.

No, I do not.

I doubt even Kiffin knows at this point. Making judgments that quickly would be very risky. I highly doubt that's something he and his staff are doing at this point.

He likes to keep the winning dramatic.

Yes, but keep that between us. He enjoys the Omaha-or-bust debate each spring very much.

Yes. How did you know?

He despises you and has a dartboard with your usernames on it. When he gets wine drunk, he throws poisoned darts at it.

Yes. If he'd get off his phone and off the golf course, you'd be better.

I haven't studied Florida State's recruiting class, as it's April, but yes, Norvell is a very good recruiter. I would guess, if they're having really big early success, they have elected to make some early investments in top prospects. This might be a good question to present to Zach on the message board.

Zach is working on it. Hopefully, he'll have some sort of list out. I've seen kids at the stadium the last three weeks but I just don't have the lack of social awareness necessary to walk up to them and ask them their names. I just can't do it. I know it's likely a part of my job and it would accrue information you all would like to have, but I can't do it. I just can't.

Zach will be in Oxford Saturday. He is younger than I, and he will likely recognize some of the kids and he'll walk up to them and get information. His son is a toddler. My son is almost these kids' ages. It just feels so incredibly creepy.

But to answer your question, no, I really don't.

I'll be honest here. I've never given my legacy any thought at all.

As for legacy in regards to journalism, I don't think I leave one. I really don't. As a whole, I view my journalism career as abject failure. That bothers people, I know, but it's the truth. I didn't achieve what I hoped to achieve. I never became a national writer/reporter. I never covered a World Series, an NBA Finals, a Super Bowl (got close to that as a beat writer), etc. I don't think I ever wrote anything that anyone will ever really even remember.

I think if I died today, people would give some lip service to my reporting ability. Some would say, "Yeah, he was tenacious on coaching searches," or "If he put his mind to it back in the day, he was a bear on investigative stuff," but I'm not sure they could name specifics.

I'd likely get some credit for my entrepreneurial skills, for my versatility as a broadcaster/podcaster, etc., but I just don't know that I leave any real journalistic legacy. I paid my dues as a young pup, worked really hard, sacrificed a lot and then ultimately got off the trail to chase money.

There was a time I had real regrets. I don't anymore.

As for the legacy I leave my kids, I don't know. They have never had to doubt if I loved them, if I'd fight for them, if I'd die for them. They have never had to wonder where they rank on my list of life priorities.

Parenting is hard. I fail all the time. But I think my kids know me as a human being, not as some fake super hero. They know me as a real person with weaknesses and failures and regrets and insecurities. They know I never hold them to a standard I wouldn't hold for myself and they know I'm proud of them no matter what.

It's the one thing I do think I have figured out. When my kids have success, I try to say that I'm happy for them. That's different than saying I'm proud of them. I try to save that for when they fail at something they really tried. I've tried to teach them the value of resilience, of getting back up when you fail, of putting yourself out there. I've tried to make sure they know more about my failures than my successes.

I don't know if that's good parenting or not, but I guess if I died today, that would be my legacy as a dad.

Yes, I still use it a good bit, but I've gotten into running over the last nine weeks or so in an effort to shed some upper-body weight. I love Peloton, but I've caught myself growing weary of the classes where there's no one in the class but the instructor. I think it's just Covid fatigue. I look forward to the classes where the studio is packed and the energy kind of comes through the screen. But yes, to answer your question, I still view Peloton as a very good investment.

Like I've said, I'd prefer to keep my faith very private.

I much prefer time alone with a devotional and prayer to a church service.

Here's what I'll say: If you're telling me that God ordains terrible things to happen and therefore wills those things to happen, I would have a difficult time worshipping that God. If you are telling me that God not only knows my children are going to die in a car crash but has arranged the circumstances so that the event will absolutely happen and then does nothing to stop that crash from occurring, I don't want anything to do with that God.

I don't believe that is the case.

And I'll leave it there.

You know, I was rolling around town with my truck outfitted with its new Chef Boyardee tires wondering the exact same thing over the weekend. Great minds...

Yeah, I think most elections after two-term presidents are overreactions or overcorrections. So if McCain had won in '08, he'd have lost to someone in '12, though I don't think it would have been Hilary Clinton. Whoever that Democrat would've been would likely have won twice, meaning 2020 is either a more moderate Democrat or a Republican such as Romney or Cruz or someone of that ilk.

No. I want you guys to have a winner. Winning is fun. Winning is happy. Winning would be good for my pocketbook.

I don't think I'd touch it. It's a brilliant document.

It would cost tens of millions in university monies lost due to changing scholarship programs. It seems foolhardy.

I expect about 23,000-25,000 fans at the game. I don't think that is the record, but I'm not positive. I expect a jam-packed opener in September, however.

1. Twitter is conspiring to silence Conservative voices.

2. Twitter goes into accounts and creates false reports to justify said silencing.

3. Masks don't really work in real life and Fauci and Co. are trying to figure out a way to save face, pardon the pun.

4. Twitter is in on protecting Fauci.

5. That's about it. If there's something that's generally negative about Twitter, I'll buy in.

Baseball has a strong regional following that provides strong regional ratings. Most sports dipped, I think, because people found other things to do during the pandemic. Basketball has tanked because the product is difficult to watch without fans, in my opinion.

C -- Willson Contreras

1B -- Anthony Rizzo

2B -- Ryne Sandberg

SS -- Javier Baez

3B -- Kris Bryant

LF -- Gary Matthews

CF -- Dexter Fowler

RF -- Andre Dawson

SP -- Greg Maddux

RP -- Lee Smith