by John Walters

LAWRENCE OF AWAY-BIA

Clemson quarterback and preseason Heisman Trophy favorite Trevor Lawrence is the latest high-profile athlete to test positive for the coronavirus. Probably because he was on the field celebrating with the Dodgers.

Lawrence, a junior, will miss this weekend’s Clemson game at Boston College. He’d probably be back in time for next Saturday’s Notre Dame game but will have been in isolation for 10 days, which means he would not be able to practice with his teammates until game day.

90,000-PLUS

For the first time, the U.S. recorded more than 90,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day yesterday. And while those diagnoses will lead to, statistically, fewer than 500 deaths, it’s still something, no? I mean, that’s how we’re thinking these days: what’s another mid-air collision between two 747s among friends?

Also, yesterday, more than 1,000 Americans died due to the coronavirus. But of course, you’re welcome to take cocaine-addled Don Jr.’s word for how the battle against Covid-19 is going.

Worth noting: The U.S.A. ranks like 145th among countries in terms of population density and yet leads the world in coronavirus deaths and cases. Keep America Great!

Deadliest Wreck

Off the coast of Senegal, a ship carrying 200 or so migrants to the Canary Islands capsizes and more than 140 people perish. It’s the deadliest shipwreck of 2020.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a vessel carrying 200 people left the Senegalese coastal town of Mbour last Saturday, bound for the Canary Islands.

A few hours into the journey, the boat caught fire and capsized near Saint-Louis, on Senegal’s north-west coast.

The Fellowship Of The Tweet

Just how bad does Twitter founder Jack Dorsey want a role in the next installment of a Hobbit film? We’re not experienced in the growth of facial hair, but we’d think he’s been working on that look for at least a year, no?

Travis Roy

Yesterday Travis Roy passed at the age of 45. If you do not recall him, his story is heartbreaking. Roy, a Maine native, was a freshman hockey player at Boston University in 1995. Just 11 seconds into his first shift for the Terriers, he was slammed into the boards and suffered a broken neck. Roy was paralyzed from the neck down.

Yesterday he died during a procedure he needed to offset some complications. Fate dealt Roy a cruel, cruel blow and from all accounts he did his best to become a crusader for others who were quadriplegics and paraplegics. Here’s hoping there is an afterlife and that he is free once more.

by John Walters

Wiscons-out

The University of Wisconsin will not play football this Saturday. After freshman quarterback Graham Mertz (20-21 in his debut) tested positive for the coronavirus, and then an additional eleven players and staff did, the Badgers suspended all football-related activities for seven days.

Their game at Nebraska this weekend has been canceled. The Huskers have replaced Wisconsin with Chattanooga, which I’m fine with as long as the request to play began with, “Pardon me, boy…”

You Don’t Know Jack

This week’s Lou Holtz Award for ” ’80’s Sports Legend Who Reveals Himself To Be Out Of Touch With Reality” goes to golf icon Jack Nicklaus, who won a thrilling Masters in 1986 when he was 46.

Wondering how many white male golfers will admonish Jack to “stick to sports.”

The Million Dollar Highway

A buddy of mine is embarking on this road in southwestern Colorado this morning and I’ve already paid him my last respects. Not that I respect him all that much, but he is a fun guy.

The MDH, a.k.a. Highway 550, stretches from Bernalillo, just north of Albuquerque, up to Montrose, Colorado. But it is the stretch between Durango and Ouray, an Alps-like area with hairpin turns, that garners the most “oohs” and “ahs” and “oh no’s!”

Cult 45 (or “The End Of The Innocence”)

Every word of this opening from Frank Bruni’s essay in The New York Times this morning. Every. Word.

It’s always assumed that those of us who felt certain of Hillary Clinton’s victory in 2016 were putting too much trust in polls.

I was putting too much trust in Americans.

I’d seen us err. I’d watched us stray. Still I didn’t think that enough of us would indulge a would-be leader as proudly hateful, patently fraudulent and flamboyantly dishonest as Donald Trump.

We had episodes of ugliness, but this? No way. We were better than Trump.

Except, it turned out, we weren’t.

How do you put it any more succinctly, candidly and accurately than that?

I had conversations with two Uber drivers yesterday (my very first day as a customer). Both were white, one was a 26-year Marine veteran, and both indicated they “could not vote for Trump.” I’ll go out on an extremely short limb and say that both of them voted for him in 2016.

(Kind of the perfect metaphor for the Trump presidency).

Both of these men were decent guys, and good thinkers. I don’t know why so many people like them were hoodwinked four years ago. To so many of us, it was obvious. Those who continue to willingly be hoodwinked, well, I don’t know what’s up with them. Or would rather not entertain what the answer is.

They Don’t Even Care

Here’s yet another metaphor for what’s wrong with this country. The challenger here, Jon Ossoff, pointing out both the greed and the corruption of the incumbent, David Perdue, a literal stuffed shirt, who doesn’t seem all that bothered about having his past sins exposed. After all, he’s got the money and enough white supremacist/evangelists will always be in his corner because they don’t want those damn immigrants taking “their jobs,” even if they are unemployed, on government assistance and perhaps running a family meth lab.

by John Walters

Dis A Ray

Wow.

History will record that at the time Blake Snell was pulled from a do-or-die game in the World Series for the Tampa Bay Rays, he had struck out each of the first three hitters in the Los Angeles Dodger lineup twice. And their leadoff hitter, Mookie Betts, was about to come to bat for the third time.

So, in case you are not paying attention: six plate appearances for the Dodgers’ top three batters and six strikeouts.

The Rays led 1-0 with one out in the bottom of the sixth. Snell had struck out nine and allowed two singles, the latter to the Dodgers’ No. 9 hitter. The 6’4″ former Cy Young Award winner had PLENTY of gas left in the tank. And manager Kevin Cash pulled him.

Understand: this is a forever moment. This isn’t the second game of a three-game set in mid-May. Blake Snell, Kevin Cash, the Rays: they’re never coming back to this moment. Even if they all return to the World Series.

Blake Snell was pitching the game of his life in the most important game of his life and Cash, adhering to some arcane saber metric guidepost, robbed him of it. Robbed the entire team. Remember in Hoosiers when Norman Dale tried to diagram a game-winning play that would make Jimmy Chitwood the decoy and the rest of the Milan High team looked at him like he was batshit crazy? That was what happened last night in Arlington.

It’s tough enough to lose. It’s unforgivable when you out-manage yourself. Moneyball, yes. Cashball, no.

This Justin

No sooner had the Dodgers secured their first World Series title in 32 years than Fox’s Kevin Burkhardt reported that the reason third baseman Justin Turner had been pulled in the late innings was because he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Then things really got weird.

First, one of my students phoned and posited the thought that what if the Rays had won Game 6? Would Game 7 have been postponed as the Dodgers quarantined? Then there was Turner out on the field celebrating with his teammates, which is completely understandable and yet, probably against MLB protocol.

THEN it really got weird when Fox’s Ken Rosenthal reported that Turner had tested positive on Monday, and again on Tuesday.

I may not be understanding Rosenthal well, but why is he talking about whether or not Turner should’ve been on the field during the celebration? Why isn’t he talking about why Turner was even in the game in the first place? He tested positive on Monday. Shouldn’t the second test have been about whether he could return to the field?

In other words, why let him take the field in Game 6 before a second test, for lack of a better word, exonerated him? And who is at fault here? MLB? The Dodgers? Turner? All?

Crazy ending, but then it fits our year.

And You Want To Be My Latex Salesman

Ole Miss coach was recently fined $25,000 by the SEC for questioning a call in the Rebels’ loss to Auburn on Saturday. Lane-changer was totally correct on the call, which cost his team a touchdown, but he whiffed (twice) on the math later when he suggested snarkily how he’d pay his fine.

Someone must have been sitting in the same math class as Mara Gay growing up.

A Higher Porpoise

Love this moment. It almost makes up for the spring break jackasses being responsible for a baby dolphin’s death a few years back because they all wanted to pose with it on the beach as it suffocated. Thankful for people like this.

Poocher Perfect

I guess we could’ve devoted this final item to what miserable human beings the Trump family are, and how the president left his rally goers in Omaha literally out in the cold as Air Force 1 flew off into the night, with all of them having to find their way back to their vehicles in freezing temps in lots that were nearly four miles away. At least nine of them were taken to hospitals and treated for hypothermia (as many—most?—are older and obese and probably will test positive for the coronavirus, too) and I suppose you could make a point about how it’s all a perfect metaphor for who Trump is and where his dumb(struck) acolytes will find themselves in the near future.

I suppose we could’ve riffed on that. But I’d rather show intelligent and amiable dogs. All of whom I’d rather hang out with than the average Trump supporter.

by John Walters*

*Double Espresso edition: smaller and extra-caffeinated.

Phillips 8-7

One of the most tremendous moments in World Series history. The last batter on the bench, facing a 1-2 count, lofts a single into right center. What follows is two errors, one baserunning gaffe, two runs, and an airplane moment in left field.

Fully Elongated Penix

An hour or two earlier in Bloomington, Indiana, Hoosier QB Michael Penix, Jr., stretches every inch of his frame to score (dubious) on a two-point conversion for the win against Penn State. This play only happened because the Nittany Lions scored with 1:42 to play when stopping for a first down would have ended the contest. The Atlanta Falcons learned nothing from this, losing in the same fashion the following day versus the Detroit Lions.

Under Cover Of Darkness

That sense of anger and sadness from more than 50% of the nation has less to do with who or what Amy Coney Barrett stands for and everything to do with how she backslid into a Supreme Court confirmation. And now you have Brett Kavanaugh proposing that he’ll be sure as hell to dismiss mail-in ballots.

Joe Biden may win Wisconsin… and Pennsylvania…and Ohio… and even Arizona. Will it even matter? That’s what Americans are asking themselves this morning. And if it does not, then our democracy is dead for the foreseeable future.

The question I keep asking myself is why would anyone believe that Mitch McConnell, William Barr and the S.C. judges are suddenly going to play fair. I don’t believe they will. Viva la revolucion!

Metcalf Roping

Seattle’s D.K. Metcalf with the definitive effort play every coach will show for the next 1,000 years. He could go on the speakers circuit off this play alone. Of course it helps to have world-class speed.

Meanwhile, when is Pete Carroll going to learn to NOT throw the ball deep in the red zone toward that particular end zone in this particular stadium????

On MAGA and Fascism

A couple clips from last night. First, this one:

And then, here’s Sacha Baron Cohen:

by John Walters

Welker Wins

Once more, we watched none of the presidential debate, but from the social media approbation we sense that its winner was moderator Kristen Welker. So if you are scoring at home the worst of the three debate moderator was the Old White Guy Legacy (the son of legendary 60 Minutes news man Mike Wallace) while the best was the Woman Of Color.

Shocker.

How It Started…

…How It’s Going

By the way, two things: 1) More than 50 million Americans, including your humble (Ha!) scribe, have already voted and it is only October 23rd. That total represents 36% of the total votes from the 2016 election. I wonder what that might mean. 2) We ran into an older man walking around the supermarket with his wife yesterday clad in a shirt that read “If You Don’t Like Trump, Then You Won’t Like Me… And I’m Okay With That.” And of course even though he was wearing cargo shorts, he was toting a sidearm. If Trump loses I’m wondering how many fellows like this man might become super-spreaders of gun fire in public places.

Oh, Danny Boy, The Pipes, The Pipes Are Calling

This play last night more than sums up the New York Giants’ season, but New York pro football for the past decade. And yet, it is so beautiful and meme-worthy. Yes, that is World Series announcer Joe Buck, who is hogging all the sports events for Fox. I mean, he is really, really good but Buck flew from Dallas to Philly to cover the game and will be back in the booth in Dallas/Arlington tonight for Game 3.

“Man Lying On Couch Covered In Thin Layer Of Cheeto Dust Refers To Favorite Sports Teams As We…”

This breaking story comes courtesy of the Babylon Bee and I don’t know if it’s trying to compete with The Onion, but it’s quite a funny story. Our good friend Smo, who was on the text chain where the story came to my attention (via our other good friend, Fink!), noted that “Cheeto Dust” is my favorite J Crew color.

Black Hands Matter (All Hands Matter)

Those are the hands of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and are they black because an Oscar Wilde-type literary fantasy came true? Is God slowly turn Mitch into a black man? Another curse brought down by RBG? Or is he C. Thomas Howell’ing it in order to get into Harvard?

Who knows? The most plausible-sounding guesses we’ve heard on the Twitter relate to blood thinners or other circulatory issues. Is that simply heavy bruising? Mitch also has a slight discoloration of similar pigment just above his lip?

by John Walters

Barry, Gold Weaver

He waited nearly four years, but Barack Obama finally dunked on Donald Trump yesterday in the city that invented the shattered backboard. Wow. The whole speech is below:

President Trump does not react well to being mocked (few of us do). The last time Barack publicly humiliated him, back in 2015, Don reacted by running for president (and winning). Just sayin’.

Still, this must have been a cathartic moment for President Obama. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a meme to perfectly encapsulate the Trump presidency:

How It Started…

….How It’s Going

Someone on Twitter thought of the above conceit, but I cannot find the tweet now. So, yes, I’m stealing his or her idea and I’d love to credit them for it.

Spare Parts

We hear it all the time: Hey, Dubs, when are you going to stop messing around with politics and provide more bowling coverage?!? So here you are. We’ve done this move quite often while bowling, just never intentionally.

Hello, Fodder

Some malevolent and lost soul attempted to shame Bill Murray Joe Biden and his son for being affectionate. Well, as the kids say, he got ratio’ed. But maybe he just posted the wrong photo. It happens. Maybe he meant to post this:

Or this:

Or this:

Raiders Of The Lost Yak

Along the India-China border, peace and cooperation breaks out and you may credit lost yaks for being responsible. A Chinese soldier, Capt. Wang Yalong (I know, sounds like a John Hughes foreign-exchange student) inadvertently crossed into India while helping local herdsmen search or a missing yak (how do yak go missing, you ask? They’re rather large).

Indian forces captured Capt. Wang, but instead of treating him with nefarious intent, they simply returned him to his outfit. Of course, this may have been a Chinese spy mission (dressed undercover as lost yaks), but the Indian army acted in good faith. After all, this is the country that invented karma.

No word on the status of the missing yaks.

by John Walters

Mookie Business

Is it too much to say that Game 1 of the World Series turned on a no-outs, 5th inning walk Tyler Glasnow yielded to Mookie Betts? The Dodgers’ five-tool stud stole second and third, then scored on a one-hopper to the first baseman (Take the out, Rays! Take the out!).

L.A.’s three studs showed up: Betts and Cody Bellinger both homered and Clayton Kershaw retired 17 of the last 18 batters he faced in the 8-3 win.

Pandemic Baseball Changes We Like: 1) Games every night, which means 2) The season ends before Halloween even though 3) Eight teams in each league made the postseason. Keep as much of this as possible, please.

One suggestion, and we’ve said this before: If MLB can play an entire 60-game season minus fans, why not start the first two weeks of the season in Florida and Arizona, at spring training sites? Let Opening Day be on the Ides of March. This way you can start the postseason a week earlier and be done before Halloween with 16 teams making the playoffs.

Me Tua Movement*

*The judges will not accept “Ahi Tua”

The Miami Dolphins announce that Tua Tagovailoa, the fifth overall draft pick last spring, will replace Ryan MisFitzpatrick as the starter. The Dolphins are 3-3 and Fitz, now in his 16th season after being the last of 14 quarterbacks selected in 2005, has the 7th-best QBR in the NFL.

That photo, above, represents a cool moment. After Tua was put into the game last Sunday versus the New York Jets in a Fish romp and completed his first NFL pass, he returned to the field postgame alone. One assumes he was thinking about how far he’d come in just 11 months after suffering a potential career-ending injury at Mississippi State. A very cool moment. Happy for him.

Lekki Massacre

Details remain scarce, but in Lagos, Nigeria, at the Lekki Tollgate, an unknown number of peaceful protesters were set up on by soldiers who cut them down with bullets. Many deaths. The #EndSARS protesters were assembling about the government’s poor response to its epidemic (any of this sound familiar?).

This is what happens when you empower a bad-faith government that abhors free speech and insists on “LAW AND ORDER” at all times. We’re really not that far away from Lagos… if the wrong man wins in less than two weeks.

By the way, check out the caption in this story and see if you cannot spot the irony…

Summers In Rangoon

By the way, if you’re on the Twitter and not following Rex Chapman (yes, the former hoops star), you’re missing out on great humor and humanity. That’s where we found this.

Which Biden Ad Do You Prefer?

This official one that candidate paid for and that aired during the World Series last night…

…or this one, property of The Simpsons a week or so back, that cost his campaign nothing?

Look closely and you’ll see one of the things that happened is “Served McDonald’s to the Clemson football team.”

by John Walters

Mute Court*

*The judges will also accept “Polling Up” and “Jeffrey Tubin’ It”

The New Yorker has suspended writer Jeffrey Toobin and CNN put him on leave after he was allegedly caught masturbating on a Zoom call to discuss election night coverage. Toby was on a call with members of the mag and radio station WNYC when there was a pause to break into smaller groups. Toobin took a phone call that was the equivalent to a phone sex call and thought he’d muted the Zoom call. He had not.

Mic Drop*

*The judges will also accept “Mute Point” (kind of a theme this morning)

The final presidential debate, this Thursday, will be set up so that both candidates’ microphones will be muted during parts of the debate. Let’s just go ahead and refer to this as the “Donald Trump Rule.”

Saturday Night Disaster

For years, decades really, people have complained that “Saturday Night Live isn’t funny any more.” Well, they’re finally right.

Ever since the original cast (plus Bill Murray) departed after 1979 (or ’80), there’s always been someone to whine that the show is no longer funny. Even in the last 20 years you’d hear it despite the show having the talents of Tina Fey, Bill Hader, Kristen Witt and Kate McKinnon.

But in this season’s first two weeks, and with the election of a lifetime looming, the show has failed miserably. Let us count the ways: 1) We love Jim Carrey, but his Joe Biden is just his character from The Mask in white face. Jason Sudeikis‘ Joe Biden was always the best version and even though he’s now Ted Lasso, they should beg him to return. 2) The Weekend Update guys, usually the most reliable part of the show, have been lame. In Week 1 Colin Jost ended at least two jokes with “I’m just sayin’,” which is not how a pro ends a joke. Michael Che had one good joke about “police in Ohio say that report of a homeless man sleeping on a bench turned out to be a statue, which is a huge relief because they shot it 15 times.” Now that was funny. Not enough jokes like that.

3) The worst aspect of the show is how many skits seem to address political correctness or the lack thereof. We’ve tuned in to a skit about a mafia don whose crew was correcting him about his slurs and a group of friends, mostly black, riffing on Lovecraft Country. You can make any subject funny or not, so it’s not just about what they’re tackling. It’s more, to us, about how they’re tackling it. 4) Let’s not even discuss Bill Burr’s monologue from a couple weeks back.

We’ll say it again: Lorne Michaels desperately needs to hire John Mulaney as the show’s head writer. Back up the Brinks truck.

Dreams? She’s on the Case

Thanks to a TikTok ad, Fleetwood Mac’s 1975 classic “Dreams” was the 2nd-most downloaded song last week. So leave it to Andie Case (and her two male accompanists) to swiftly record a cover of the tune. She’s got a very Stevie Nicks-y voice, after all.

A reminder that Rumours included the following tracks besides this: “Don’t Stop”, “Go Your Own Way,” “Second-Hand News,” “The Chain,” “I Don’t Want To Know,” “You Make Loving Fun” and “Never Going Back Again.” People on Twitter have recently, seriously, asked if this is a good album. The answer is, This may be the BEST album.

By the way, this was the band’s ELEVENTH studio album. It took a few tries to achieve perfection. And just so you know, the previous album, simply titled Fleetwood Mac, included “Landslide,” “Rhiannon,” “Over My Head,” and “Say You Love Me.” They were already pretty close to perfection.

True Genius

Some junior high student is going to see this tweet and win his school’s science fair. And we’re all for it.

Rule No. 2: He ALWAYS Accuses His Enemies of Being Exactly What He Is (Doing)

We’ve covered the President Trump rules before: 1) Always be lying, 2) If you’re doing it or being it, accuse your nemesis of being/doing exactly that thing, 3) Always use superlatives, 4) Deflect all accusations with argument that they’re lying (which is sort of a combo of Nos. 1 and 2).

I’m sure there are more, we’re just not in the mood to to explore them at the moment (we’ve been so happy of late). Anyway, referring to Dr. Fauci as “an idiot” is the ultimate expression of Rule No. 2 here. Just worth noting that once upon a time there was another Italian scientist whom the ruling powers attempted to discredit. His name was Galileo. We all know how that worked out.

If you saw Dr. Fauci on 60 Minutes Sunday, you know that he’s now doing his daily walks with bodyguards. What a sad state of affairs when the person who has devoted his life to stopping the one thing that is killing so many Americans this year has his own life in danger because he’s simply super-spreading the truth.

by John Walters

Seven Up

We waited about seven seconds after realizing that Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial Of The Chicago 7 was streaming on Netflix to press Play. Well worth it. We didn’t know anything about the trial or the principals other than their names and that it had to do with riots in Chicago in the summer of 1968.

So it was educational. And disturbing. And, yes, depressing, because look how little we’ve changed.

But what a cast: Eddie Redmayne (Oscar-winner), Michael Keaton (ibid), Mark Rylance (op cit), Sacha Baron Cohen, Frank Langella, Ben Shenkman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeremy Strong (The Big Short) and John Carroll Lynch (Fargo, Zodiac). And, of course, it’s Sorkin and a court room and you don’t need to know anything more than “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” to know how that goes.

We’ve hardly seen any new movies this year—nor have you—but this and 1917 are our two favorites.

Tampa Bay Watch

A great weekend in sports for those denizens on the Gulf Coast. The Rays avoid being forever wearing the goat (small letters) label by not blowing that 3-0 lead to the Astros and winning Game 7. And the Bucs take down the undefeated Green Bay Packers with stunning ease. That Tom Brady kid has a future in this league.

The Rays will take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in Arlington beginning Tuesday. It’s a ballpark that has never hosted a regular season game but is about to host a World Series.

Wanna know the oldest ballpark in baseball to have never hosted a World Series game (this will depress you)? Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

Take Us To New Zealand, Please

George Carlin Meets John Stewart

Take a good 12 minutes to listen to George Carlin giving thoughtful answers to a young John Stewart. Stick around toward the end when he talks about how much he loves people as individuals but despises them in groups. George was on to something here.

by John Walters

Astro-Logy

Does anyone else feel the way I do: the Astros, the sports franchise that best examplifies the Trump era, trailed the Rays 3-0 in the ALCS. But after a walk-off home run last night by Carlos Correo, Houston is now only down 3-2.

So, yes, I recognize that Joe Biden is way ahead in the polls, but as long as the Astros remain alive in baseball this month, I still fear there’s a chance Trump can win. If the Astros lose, I’ll begin to feel as if the world’s karmic balance is beginning to right itself. Anyone else feel this way?

Savannah Trumps Donald

Someone was certainly paying attention during mock trial in law school. NBC’s Savannah Guthrie grilled the president as if she were Katie Porter in their “town hall” on Tuesday night and did such a fabulous job that she almost redeemed Kabletown for deciding to air it contemporaneously with the Joe Biden town hall on ABC.

It’s funny, and I’m not botanist, but I think that when you drain a swamp what you’re pretty much left with is a savannah.

Three-Word Review of Matthew McConaughey’s Memoir

Who knew when he was explaining the reason why, as Wooderson, he still loves teenage girls as an aging 20-someting in Dazed and Confused that Matthew McConaughey would turn out quite as big as he did? Or, like Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise, did the charisma just jump off the screen at you even in that cameo appearance (we’ll vote the latter).

The Oscar-winner whose finest moments for us will always be as Rust Cohle has a memoir out, Greenlights. We’d buy it, but we’re just going to ask to buy Katie McCollow’s copy when she finishes reading it. Although, on second thought, buy the audiobook and drive aimlessly in my Lincoln Continental with a dog or two listening to it in full.

Iowa Caucus

A senate debate in Iowa went as viral as such a thing possibly can when the challenger, Theresa Greenfield (Dem… and, if your name is “Greenfield” in Io-way, you better know your agriculture), was able to accurately answer the “break-even price” of corn. Then the incumbent, Republican Joni Ernst was unable to duplicate the feat with soybeans.

Debates are so much more fun when they are structured like quiz shows. More of this, please!

Animals, Always and Forever

This photo of a tiger in Siberia won National Geographic‘s “Wildlife Photograph Of The Year” award. As much as we adore tigers and the idea that there are still vast uninhabited spaces in Russia and China for wildlife to thrive, this wasn’t even close to the most impactful photo in their gallery. Take a look and decide for yourself.