Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): The second week of the 13th annual Bookie Challenge competition was mystifyingly highlighted by a longtime beleaguered handicapper, one with a checkered four-year past but who emerged this past weekend to produce the most stunning two-week start to a Bookie Challenge handicapping campaign, as in he unleashed the best-ever two-week beginning to a competition in the storied history of the Bookie Challenge. That handicapper was catman23! Yes, the "Tomcat from Handicapping Alley" stole the show after he nailed down his second straight 6-point parlay winner of the season to take the overall and undisputed lead in this year's point standings. After the weekend ran its course, catman tallied his 13th point of the season to take a substantial 4-point lead over second-place TCU, who himself had a much-needed and momentum-changing 7-point outing to rejuvenate his Bookie Challenge career after bombing out in last year's competition. With nine overall points garnered on the season in the wake of this past weekend, Too Tall Tommy (aka TCU) was able to leap frog over both DawgPound (8 pts/3rd place) and DIRTYBIRDS (7 pts/4th place), both of whom only registered 1-point outings this past weekend after each hit opening-day parlay hits. It should be needless to say that all four of the aforementioned handicappers are already ahead of the game as it pertains to the all-important 8-week sprint to capture one of the top-four seeds at this year's divisional seeding.

As it stands now, that is, after this past weekend, there is a clear-cut separation by the top-four aforementioned participants in this year's point standings versus the rest of the Challenge field, which is something that doesn't normally occur this early in the season, or at least not in previous seasons. Generally, throughout the first four weeks or so of most Bookie Challenge competitions, most of the times a significant amount of handicappers are closely-knit atop of those early point standings, with maybe one or two participants, on occasion, establishing more noteworthy leads early on in the season. But as can readily be seen this season, the four present front-runners in the standings, meaning catman, TCU, DawgPound and DIRTYBIRDS, are already breaking away from the rest of the Challenge field, with all four making strong bids to be one of the top-four seeds at this year's divisional seeding. One must not forget that in the first critical stage of a yearly competition, the foremost goal of all handicappers in the league is to snatch one of the top-four seeds at a divisional seeding. Doing as much pays huge dividends, primarily because they get to start the divisional races at the helms of their respective divisions.

Impressively, it was Too Tall Tommy, who with seven overall points tallied over the weekend, turned out to be this past weekend's leading scoring, and as a result, he registered the first week-won of the season after catman misfired on his respective best bets and failed to complement his 6-point parlay winner. However, despite TCU's fabulous outing, it was catman whose name shone brightly through the marquee lights, and for very good reasons. This past weekend, the Tomcat from Handicapping Alley became the first handicapper in the history of the competition to open a Bookie Challenge competition with two consecutive 6-point parlay winners. It's a phenomenal feat when considering that catman has never been a bona fide contender for a Bookie Challenge championship over the span of his previous four seasons, not even close. But what should already be known by anyone who is somebody in the competition, is that over the course of his first-four seasons in the Challenge competition, the Tomcat has not taken the contest seriously. Something else that should already be known about catman is that he has built a shameful reputation for being a quitter. He bailed out early from his first-three competitions and never completed a divisional race within those respective seasons. Last season, however, he finally made it to the end of the regular season, but has yet to complete a full season after he only handicapped one round of last year's postseason. Even more damning for catman is that he refused to submit propositional selections during the couple of Turkey Shoots he has handicapped, calling them a headache not worth messing with.

But here's the rub as it concerns catman--he never reneged on any of his annual antes. And if there's anything that can be said of catman is that he has an inexorable penchant for returning to participate in ensuing Bookie Challenge competitions despite his previous exits from previous competitions. In that regard, you have to admire his stubbornness, no matter how contradictory it appears when considering his knack for quitting. Interestingly, when juxtaposing the handicapping track records of catman23 and TCU, who was this past weekend's other big winner, it's easy to see that Too Tall Tommy's handicapping history is a horse of a totally different color. To begin with, TCU is handicapping his 7th Bookie Challenge competition, while catman is competing in just his 5th. It might be easy to say that the two extra seasons is why TCU is far and away a better Bookie Challenge handicapper than catman, maybe he's more experienced and knows the ins-and-outs of the competition better than catman does. Regardless, the number of seasons they have comparatively handicapped in their respective Challenge careers means absolutely nothing. Purely and simply, catman never took the competition seriously when he joined the Bookie Challenge. On the other hand, TCU had to have thoroughly read the entire official rules of the competition before he handicapped his first week. Back then. the Nihilist had taken notice of how fast TCU caught on to the competition, and so the Nihilist subsequently said of TCU that he never saw a greenhorn grasp every aspect of the Bookie Challenge as did Too Tall Tommy in his rookie season. In hindsight, TCU obviously did his homework before competing in the Bookie Challenge, and because he already was a good handicapper, it made it that much easier for TCU to be successful in the competition.

Case in point, right from the start of his rookie season and throughout his first-five seasons in the competition, Too Tall Tommy proved early on that he could knock down best-bet winners with the top handicappers in the league, so much so that he quickly rivaled the tenacity of dbucc's league-leading ability to nail down best-bet winners. If not already known by some participants out there, dbucc is the all-time leader when it comes to winning best-bets. In TCU's sophomore season (Challenge yr #8), he came ever so close to winning that season's Swami award after he registered a startling best-bet tally of 30-18-1, which was good for a hellacious .625 win percentage. But amazingly, DawgPound, in his rookie season, just barely won that year's Swami award after he posted an incredible .630 win percentage. In any event, as it concerned TCU's overall handicapping from earlier in his Challenge career, although he had established that he could knock down best-bet winners at a good clip, his parlay game was lacking when he joined the competition. He only connected on one 6-point parlay hit in each of his first-two season, but he quickly fine tuned his parlay game in his third overall season. He blasted out four parlay winners in his third season, then hit two more in his fourth season, and followed that up with four more 6-point parlay hits in his fifth season. That rare handicapping ability to consistently win best bets and also pound out a decent amount of 6-point parlay winners is what makes a Bookie Challenge handicapper a dangerous one. And that's precisely the handicapping regimen that TCU possesses. That laudable combination of handicaping expertise was the very reason why Too Tall Tommy never qualified for the playoffs as a lowly at-large participant throughout his first-five seasons of handicapping in the BC competition. Instead, in his first-five seasons, he qualified for the postseasons once as a divisional champion and four times as a divisional wild card.

So yes, everything was going great for Too Tall Tommy after his first-five seasons in the Bookie Challenge, with the only exception being that he could not snare an overall Bookie Challenge championship during those initial five seasons. However, in last year's competition, TCU hit a brick wall and had a disastrous season, registering last year's worst handicapping record for the regular season, scoring just 15 total points and failing to connect on a single 6-point parlay hit. It was so bad of a season that TCU didn't bother handicapping in last year's postseason. But this season, it's quite evident that Too Tall Tommy has found his handicapping mojo again, which could mean trouble for the rest of the Challenge field. He began this season with two best-bet winners, and as everybody already knows, he hit a 6-point parlay for a 7-point outing after winning his third best bet of the season. The parlay hit was TCU's 13th all-time for regular season handicapping, but more importantly, the parlay winner from this past weekend snapped his horrific streak of 23 consecutive weeks in which he failed to connect on a 6-point parlay combo. One last thing that has to be mentioned about TCU's lifetime best bet record. To qualify for all time records last season, a handiccaper had to at least have handicapped 299 overall best bets in his Challenge career. Too Tall Tommy fell short of qualifying for all-time records by just 23 best bets, but he'll definitely qualify for all-time records after this season's stats go into the books. But here's the kicker, entering this year's competition, TCU's lifetime winning percentage of best bets, which was a .541 win percentage before the start of this season, ranked second overall behind dbucc's all-time best, which was a staggering .578 win percentage before the start of this year's competition.

(BOOKIE CHALLENGE BONUS ARTICLE)

ANOTHER SUMMER OF SORROW

Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): Generally, women outlive men, but just barely, with the average lifespan being five years longer for women than men in the United States. To put it differently, and statistically speaking, husbands should die before their wives but at a slightly above-average basis. However, three active participants in the Bookie Challenge competition sorrowfully find themselves on the wrong side of the death stats. In 2000, the Biased Nihilist lost his first wife, Sherry, to a rare bone cancer desease after 17 years of marriage. In 2021, dbucc lost his wife, Diane, after 43 years of marriage. And now, on the 24th of this past May, moemonie lost his wife, Brenda, after 44 years of marriage. It is often thought that other than losing a child, there is no greater heartache for a man in this world than losing his longtime spouse, or for better words--his truelove, his soulmate, and his best friend. That aforementioned "heartache" is suppossed to slowly be tempered by the passage of time until a water-downed normalcy of life returns, but for some husbands it never fully does.

Just recently, very recently, the Nihilist phoned dbucc, told him of the sudden passing of moemonie's wife, then proceeded to pick the Donald's mind about the sad subject matter. Immediately, dbucc's heart went out to moemonie and he went on to say that "he knows what moemonie is going through" and that there isn't a day in which dbucc doesn't think about his beloved Diane. In fact, in the main room in which dbucc relaxes to watch TV, he is always constantly reminded of his deceased wife. Below his TV is Diane's remains, which are surrounded on both sides by wedding pictures of him and Diane and also pictures of his grown children. Donald also said to the Nihilist that he sincerely feels for moemonie because the pain doesn't ever really go away. And as the conversation continued, the Nihilist was amazed by the coincidental similarities concering the circumstances shrouding the deaths of dbucc and moemonie's wives.

For starters, both were married to their respective wives for almost the same amount of years, with dbucc having been married to Diane for 43 years and moemonie to Brenda for 44 years. Both wives were nearly of the same age, as Diane was 66 years old when she passed away and Brenda was 65 years old when she died. Then there is the most unexplainable and relevant similarity of all--both died unexpectedly of heart conditions, here one day and gone the next, with Diane dying at home and Brenda passing away at a hospital. Personally, the Biased Nihilist did not know Diane nor never met her, but he did know Brenda for a good 20 years, for she lived just around the corner from the Nihilist when she was alive. Over those years, the Nihilist has done an inordinate amount of yard work for moemonie and Brenda, has hooked up flat-screen TVs and surround-sound equipment in their home, so he knew Brenda very well. To this day, the Nihilist remembers Brenda as a "very special and genuine person who always exhibited an authentic appreciation of people, never speaking bad about anybody and always treating people with overwhelming kindness and respect. She represented everything that is good about humanity."

An excerpt from her obituary is a clear-cut testament to Brenda's warmhearted and compassionate demeanor: "She [Brenda] retired from the Burton Center in 2019, where she spent many years as a caregiver to individuals with disabilities or special needs. Helping others was her passion. Prior to the Burton Center she spent several years as a cloth inspector at Greenwood Mills. She was a member of the Church of Christ." Without question, moemonie is presently going through the toughest time of his life, but his faith in God should be a tremendous help in dealing with the healing process. For most of his adult life, moemonie has been a hard worker but also a hard "player". For many years he has owned a car dealership, but today he's semi-retired, so to speak. Not surprisingly, he still loves to gamble, always has, and the thing is that he's pretty damn good at it too. What's more, the Moola Hawker's gambling appetite consists of a huge smorgasbord of wagering delights. He plays parlay cards during the football seasons, and picks both college and NFL games alike. He also loves playing the football squares, especially when the Super Bowl rolls around. He also dabbles with college and pro basketball spreads. And like 7mick7, he loves a weekly poker game, just loves them. Then there's the billards, of which he'll bet on also, and he regularly enters pool tournaments at a local bar.

Of course, he also tries his gambling luck in the Bookie Challenge competition. Speaking of which, this year he'll attemp to mimic what dbucc did. Specifically, when dbucc lost his wife in the off-season before the start of the 11th annual Bookie Challenge competition (2 yrs ago), it remained to be seen how he would handle that year's Bookie Challenge competition, or whether he would even compete in that year's handicapping contest when considering the emotional duress he was under. Unexpectingly, when the Nihilist sent out his annual bulk email to kick off another Bookie Challenge, alerting them to start signing up on the message board for the 11th annual handicapping contest, dbucc was the first participant to sign in. Furthermore, in that first post within the sign-up thread, he wrote: "I'm in. I'm about to go crazy and need the distraction". Now, here's where it gets downright eerie. Challenge year #11 was dbucc's 8th Bookie Challenge, and over the span of his previous seven years, dbucc never won so much as a divisonal title and only averaged one 6-point parlay hit per season, and when considering that he had just lost his wife before the start of the 11th annual competition, nobody really expected dbucc to be focused enough to realistically compete for a Bookie Challenge championship. But, man alive, nobody in the Challenge field saw it coming, meaning how Diane's passing turned out to be an extraordinary inspiration for dbucc that season. In something that was out of this world, the Donald's season was inexplicably propelled be a surreal and fascinating case of divine intervention, in which his season morphed into an unbelievable storybook event that could only be found in fairy tales. He incredibly won his first ever divisional title on the strength of three 6-point parlay winners, not to mention that he also knocked down a 6-point parlay hit in that year's postseason en route to winning the overall Bookie Challenge championship.

But in the case of moemonie, is it too far-fetched to believe he can pull off the same miraculous feat while being under the same mental duress that dbucc was under when he pulled out the improbable, the impossible? Can lightning strike twice? Well, not for nothing, but the similarities are already spooky. Back in Challenge year #11, dbucc started the first-two weeks of that season with a 2-2-0 record, and by a strange coincidence, moemonie is off to the same 2-2-0 start this season. What's more, it wasn't until the 5th week of Challenge year #11 that dbucc started to really take off on his magical season, of which that 5th weekend was the very time the divine signs from heaven began to trickle down on him. In other words, there is certainly plenty of time for moemonie to get on track in a simliar time frame and perhaps emulate what dbucc did in the Bookie Challenge immediately after his wife's death. Regardless, if it doesn't happen, if a divine intervention isn't in the cards for moemonie, one thing will certainly happen--each and every participant will be wishing moemonie the best. They'll be hoping hard that he makes it through his trying times ahead and that he soon finds a peace of mind in his life, that he'll eventually turn the melancholy into something much more joyful.

• THANKS FOR NOTHING, CONSENSUS PICKS!: Sometimes in the Bookie Challenge competition, siding with the majority of the field's most picked selections can turn out to be catastrophic, especially as it pertains to those parlay combinations. As it happens once in a while on a Challenge weekend, there were more than one weekly consensus pick this past weekend. This time around, the two consensus picks not only came from the AFC North division but also they each played one of the two remaining teams within their division. Cincinnati and Cleveland were this past weekend's consensus picks, with Cleveland hosting Baltimore early Sunday afternoon and Pittsburgh hosting Cleveland on Monday night. Well, to put it bluntly, the two Ohio teams royally screwed the Challenge field after both teams lost as small favorites. As a consequence of Cincinnati's loss, Driveline, the Biased Nihilist, and rookie Vikings17 all missed connecting on their respective 6-point parlays by one game because of Cincinnati. In addition, Blitzkrieg loss one of his best bets because of the bungling Bengals. Cleveland, like Cincy, also took down 6-point parlays after they blew a couple of leads against Pittsburgh. The two victims from Cleveland's loss were Hall of Fame City Kid and not surprisingly--DawgPound. What's more, the Browns also wrecked three best bets, those of Driveline, dbucc, and HOF City Kid. Lastly, there was one handicapper who had the misfortune of having both consensus picks ruin his weekend, and that handicapper was Driveline, who is this year's defending Bookie Challenge champion. As already mentioned above, Driveline had his 6-point parlay eliminated because of bungling Bengals, then the Browns shot down one of his best bets on Monday night. Speaking of Driveline, as this year's defending champ, he's gotten off to a ho-hum start to this season, but so have 10 other handicappers. Regardless, it's going to be interesting to see if the "Fisher of Winners" gets it going this season like he did in last year's competition and perhaps becomes the second participant in the history of the Bookie Challenge, aside form the Nihilist, to win consecutive overall championships.


• WEEKLY TICKER......In a mind-boggling coincidence to the start of this season, both DIRTYBIRDS (wk#1) and TCU (wk#2) ended their respective 23-week parlay droughts, which now leaves jcvike with the longest dry spell without a 6-point parlay hit (now 18 wks in a row)......DawgPound wins one best bet in wk#2, extends his all-time scoring streak to 24 consecutive weeks.....rookie Vikings17 lands first exact-score selection of season after correctly predicting Philly to score 34 pts this past Thursday. Wins 1 pt for the prediction, but narrowly misses 5pt win after his prediction of Philly to win 34-27 was one point off the mark (Philly won 34-28)......Too Tall Tommy is already making a case to be honored with this year's Comeback-Handicapper-of-the Year award, albeit that catman23 is the present front-runner for the honor. Still, with one 6-point parlay hit already notched this season, TCU won his 3rd best bet of the season this past weekend and presently leads the league with this year's top best-bet marks (3-1-0/Win% .750).....