Chelsea 1 Stoke City 0
1 is an odd number. Chelsea scored 1 goal today at Stamford Bridge. Ashley Cole scored that goal at the 85 minute mark, an odd number. And as any True Blue fan knows, Ashley Cole wears the #3 shirt, also an odd number. Chelsea were, in a Shakespearean sense, lucky to emerge winners in a game that they dominated from start to finish. There was a sigh of relief that was LOUDER than the cheers when Ashley Cole schlupped the winning goal home over Asmir Begović. It felt almost better than drinking 201 cases of beer in 5 weeks. Stoke is always a tough team to play, home or away. They’re never stylish. You know that you’re going to get a physical pounding playing them. So winning against them requires an element of luck. And at 85 minutes, Chelsea got that luck off a sweet play from Mata to Cole via Lampard, Moses and Ivan. That makes, count’em, FIVE people involved in the goal….5 is, for those keeping score and hobnobbing with the executives at The Engine Room in Leek, Staffordshire UK, an odd number, and also, as an added bonus, a prime number.
And speaking of 5…after 5 matches, Chelsea are number 1 in the table at 13 points. The only thing that’s NOT odd about all that is they’ve won 4 of their 5 matches. So perhaps a bit of skill was involved there after all. Or as Isaac Newton would most likely have described it, a bit of human alchemy. It took 85 minutes on the day to cast a spell that worked. Nothing odd about THAT if you stop and think about it.
Wisconsin 37 UTEP 26
Notre Dame 13 Michigan 6
Oregon State 27 UCLA 20
Austin Dillon drives the #3 AdvoCare Chevrolet to Victory Lane in the Kentucky 300
Luck creates it own good. And being good creates its own luck.
Then again, a team or a person might be lucky enough to win, despite themselves….or, because of the BAD luck of others. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (#6 Ford EcoBoost Ford)got into a little argy-bargy with the #14 car (Eric McClure’s Hefty/Reynolds Wrap Toyota) on pit road and Austin Dillon benefited from Ricky’s bad luck. And note that number on Austin’s car. #3. Ricky and Eric drive EVEN-numbered cars. How odd is THAT coincidence?
Check out the winning scores from the winning teams. All odd numbers. Losers stuck with evens.
Interestingly, Wisconsin and Notre Dame won with odd number scores that were also prime numbers. The Oregon State Beavers won on an odd that is not a prime number. But fortunately it is the 5th odd number that is not a prime number, so that bodes well for their upcoming Pac-10, Pac-12 whatever-the-fock season. Then again, every single Pac-12 team that won yesterday won by a score that was an odd number, but only Arizona State’s 37-7 trompage of Utah brought a prime number into play.
The winner of today’s Sylvania 300 at Loudon will not be one of the usual suspects. Not Jeff Gordon (24) who has the pole position (pun not intended). Nor will it be Jimmie Johnson (48), Junior (88), Smoke (14) or The Biff (16). I’m thinking that the more likely winners, based on starting position and race acumen at these 1 mile tracks will be either Kasey Kahne (#5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet) who won the July race at Loudon or Clint Bowyer (#15 5-hour Energy Toyota) who finished 3rd in the July race. Denny Hamlin, (#11 FedEx Toyota) starts way too far back in the field to be a factor even though he finished 2nd in the July race. So I’m going with Clint Bowyer to for the win. His car number is the first odd number that is a multiple of two different odd prime numbers.
I’d bet 23 cents on it. And an odd number of words.