So this year, no worrying about being home early enough Tuesday night to prepare the odds sheet and send it out. No worrying about my own picks and whether I’m going to use a system or not and whether or not my system needs to be tweaked. No getting annoyed at the players for thinking the deadline doesn’t apply to them so I end up getting up early before church Sunday and STILL not having all the picks in so I can get the sheets out to the players and they can see how they’re doing in relation to everyone else. And no more sending checks to people the weeks I don’t win.

Yes, I’m in Glen Macnow’s Suicide Pool, hoping to stay in a while, like I did the first year I partook and no end up out in the first week (thank you Jacksonville) like I was last year. But that’s not nearly so time consuming or, yes, I’ll say it, stressful.

For the first time in years, my autumn is as it should be. Bliss.

Happily, the cobwebs are coming unwebbed to the mellifluous tones of Michael Missanelli’s return to local radio. They may call it 950ESPN now, but really, from 9-1 its local Jody Mac and from 3-7 its local Mike Missanelli.

Jody’s been back for more than a year now, and it was nice to share afternoon drive time with him, even if I was working when listening. The move to morning-ish is a bit problemmatic with the change in programming across the dial at WIP, where my friend Glen Macnow has been moved back to days with the insufferable Anthony Gargano. But Glen is as good as it gets, and when last paired with Gargano, Glen managed to temper Anthony’s more annoying tendencies. So I’m thinking 9-12 will be Jody and 12-3 will be Glen.

But for 3-7? No question I’ll be tuning in for Missanelli. He sounds genuinely happy to be back. It’s hard to tell how this will go long term, because today is overloaded with the old caller gang welcoming him home. However, I have every confidence Mike can be as biting and ascerbic as ever with a bit more even temper. We’ll see. In any case, there’s a lot more good sports talk during the day, and a real dead zone after 7 in Philadelphia.