While it is my responsibility to keep everyone posted on cheerbabe news, I didn't (but probably should have) seen this one (or one like it) coming, to wit:

"Mackenzie Rae Putnal is the former Jacksonville Jaguars cheerleader who is allegedly the 19 year old girlfriend of Jaguars wide receiver Kassim Osgood. Mackenzie got in the news when reports surfaced that Osgood had to jump through a window to avoid a gun-wielding man.

The man, Julian Armond Bartletto, exchanged gunfire with Putnal, and was arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office. (emphasis added, spelling corrected.)

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/jacksonville-jaguars-wr-kassim-osgood-pistol-whipped-in-attack-092910

http://www.oliverwillis.com/livenews/2010/09/30/photo-mackenzie-rae-putnal-cheerleader-in-jacksonville-jaguars-shootout-controversy/

* So, that was an awfully short honeymoon for Coach Kelly in South Bend, wasn't it? As Lou Holtz said, Notre Dame fans are behind the coach "Win or Tie", and they don't allow ties anymore. Actually, Kelly and his team will be all right, but there's a lot of dead wood to be cleared out still, quite obviously.

* I had a great time at the Indians/Royals game last night (Friday), won by Cleveland 7-3. There was a (relatively) big crowd (it was $1 hot dog night, plus with fireworks), and the Tribe played well. If you closed your eyes, you could almost imagine it was 1995 again. Almost. 

My sister's boyfriend Jerry had the line of the night though. After Kansas City intentionally walked Travis Hafner for the second time in the game Jerry said, "If Barry Bonds had had Shelley Duncan batting behind him he'd have been intentionally walked 500 times."

* I also heard a good one the other day. A guy found a genie who would grant him a wish. The guy said, "I want to live forever."
"Sorry" said the genie, "I'm not allowed to grant wishes like that!"
"Fine," the guy  said, "I want to die after the Cleveland Browns win the Super Bowl!"
"You crafty bastard," said the genie.

* It turns out that there's a facebook page after my own heart, "The Cleveland Browns Need Cheerleaders" page. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Cleveland-Browns-Need-Cheerleaders/356269152164

I can't argue with that!

* I think the Browns win beat Baltimore tomorrow, but then I thought LeBron would stay with the Cavs so what the hell do I know? I do know that I'm pretty impressed with Serena here of the Ravens cheerleaders. http://www.baltimoreravens.com/People/Cheerleaders/Women/Serena_B.aspx

It's been a long summer here on the south shore and/or north coast of Lake Erie with the Cleveland Indians careening toward a hundred losses for the first time since the dark ages of the early 1990s, and so it is a very good thing that the 2010 college football season starts tonight. Thursday night opening games used to be the exclusive province of scrubby teams like my alma mater Kent State, which opens tonight with a home game against the Murray State Racers, but now one of the biggest of the big boys, THE Ohio State Buckeyes, are also opening tonight against the school with the best nickname in college sports, the Marshall Thundering Herd.

In other Big 10+2 news, the conference finally decided how to organize itself in the future. It decided to put Ohio State into one division and Michigan into another, which is a dumb decision, but at least it decided to keep the Ohio State/Michigan game as the regular season finale. There had been rumors that the big wigs were considering playing the Game at some time other than at the end of November,  which to me only goes to show that said big wigs (1)aren't particularly bright and (2) Notre Dame was correct to keep its distance. Having seen how the former Big 12 screwed up the great traditional Nebraska/Oklahoma game, it sure looked like the Big 10 was going to do the same thing to its signature game. (Not that the Illinois/Northwestern game isn't exciting.)

As for my Irish, I'm thinking Brian Kelly sure looks like he knows what he's doing. I've said that before and been wrong - Bob Davies, anyone? - but I think they're going to win 9-10 games and go to a nice bowl. I'm not as optimistic as a fellow Irish alum I met at the Lake County Captains/South Bend baseball game last week, who thought they'd go undefeated this year, but I'm still pretty upbeat. And why not? If you can't be upbeat before the first game is played, when can you be upbeat?

As a Sporting News blog refugee who hasn't quite gotten the hang of this "You Gab Sports" website yet, I do recognize that it is my responsibility to keep everyone informed about cheerbabe news, and this week we have a whopper, as Sarah Jones of the Cincinnati Ben-Gals won $11 million in a libel suit against a website that "that falsely reported she has been exposed to venereal diseases." http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2010/08/bengals-cheerleader-std/1

Here's Sarah's Ben-Gal page:

http://www.bengals.com/team/cheerleaders/Sarah-J/772eb0af-d35f-4c26-b862-10f658415317

There's no word yet on whether she's going to stay on the team once she gets all that loot (assuming the judgment survives the inevitable appeals, of course.)

Here she was on the cover of the team calendar from a couple years ago.