If you could erase the worst moments of your life from your memory, would you?
Like, for example, letâs say you were Batman.
BatmanâŚcool guy, right?
Cool car, money, great love life, a damn spotlight symbol all to himself in a time of crisis.
But thereâs a catch. His parents died in front of him. Which sort ofâŚ.led to everything else.
Now if you were Batman, and you had the option to erase that from memory, would you?
The Bad Event would still happenâŚyou just wouldnât remember it. But maybe Batman never becomes Batman if he doesnât remember it. Orrrrr maybe nothing changes, and an inordinate amount of pain is just removed from his mind and heart.
Hypothetical memory lossâŚ.fun concept.
Actual memory lossâŚ.not fun at all.
I watched my Grandma suffer from it for nearly a decade.
Some background - My Grandpa and Grandma used to pick me up from elementary school on a special day once a month, every month.
We would go back to their house, where my Grandma would always make pancakes for dinner while I played wiffle ball in the backyard with Grandpa.
Itâs one of those memories you can still sense, 20+ years later. I can close my eyes still smell their house. I can still picture the skinny yellow bat I used to swing in the yard. I can hear the piano they had in their basement, the one that had a broken key that always made me laugh.
When I got older, my Grandma started suffering from memory loss, which for my money is one of the cruelest diseases on the planet. Especially on the people around them.
It started slowly. We would notice small thingsâŚlike how she would repeat the same thing 10 times in a three-hour span. Other than that, everything was fine.
When I first started dating my wife, Grandma was in this phase. I remember telling Mal before one of our first family outings, âjust be prepared - Grandma is probably going to say something to you 20 times tonightâ.
And thatâs exactly what happened. I watched for three hours, as my Grandma kept pulling my very new girlfriend off to the side. I would make eye contact with Mal, and she would smile, but I never knew what was being said.
After my grandparents left, I went straight to Mal to ask what she kept saying.
Me: âdid she say the same thing over and over again?â
Mal: âoh yeahâ
Me: âwhat did she say?â
Mal: âshe said âYou are such a beautiful addition to our familyââ
Me: âhow many times did she say itâ
Mal: âprobably 10â
Confession time - I have not actually had any major tragic events in my life worth memory-erasing.
But man, lately it sure feels like I have.
Tigers ALDS Game 4 Loss followed by Game 5 Loss followed by OH YAY THE LIONS ARE AT LEAST GIVING US SOMETHING TO BE HAPPY ABOUâŚâŚ
crack.
Hutch goes down. Gruesome. NSFW.
I was crushed. As were Lions fans everywhere. As were Lions, and even Cowboys players.
I waited on my living room couch as the TV crew went to not two, but three commercial breaks before play resumed. Sometime midway through the third break, I started thinking about what those players on the field must be thinking.
How do you seeâŚ..thatâŚ.happen and just immediately pretend like it didnât and go back to running full speed hitting people?
The day before the Hutch injury, the Tigers blew a 1-0 lead to the Guardians to lose Game 5 of the ALDS.
I had some extended family in town that day. My Uncle andâŚ..my Grandpa! My Grandma has since passed away (RIP, we love you Grandma) but my Grandpa just turned 92 and looks like heâs in his 70s. He still calls every birthday. He rocks.
It was only their second time seeing Murphy, and sheâs a lot different as a 17-month old than she was as a six-month old.
Unfortunately for the #Vibes that day, shortly after they walked in, Tarik Skubal gave up a grand slam to put the Tigers down 5-1.
Iâm not gonna lie. I was crushed. I tried my best to not let it ruin some quality family timeâŚbut man that one hurt.
I woke Murph up from her nap, they stayed for about another hour, and all in all it was a great injection of positivity into the afternoon. Good for the heart.
When it came time for them to leave, Murphy gave some hugs goodbye, and then it was my turn.
I leaned in for a hug with Grandpa, and he sort of pulled me ever-so-slightly to the side.
And what he said nextâŚ.it got me.
âMurphy is such a beautiful addition to our familyâ
So whatâs the moral of the story here?
You guys, I donât know, I truly donât. Maybe Iâm doing the Me thing where I make everything 100.000 times more meaningful than it needs to be. Life is weird.
My teams canât win a big game to save their life, despite my attempts to will them to an ALCS in person last week.
Even when my teams win, something awful happens immediately. #GetWellSoonHutch
I canât seem to win a bet, despite my attempts to make these Newsletters more and more and more and more meaningful every week.
There have been plenty of times in the last five days that I have had the conscious thought that I would LOVE to just erase my memory of what just happened.
When my family left on Saturday, I took Murph down to our basement where we watch games. She sat with me, interested for about five minutes. And I sat there, thinking about my Grandpaâs words being the exact same words my Grandma used to say.
Then Murphy climbed down, ran straight to the piano I have tucked away on the side of the room and started laughing.
LAST WEEK RECAP:
GREG RECORD: 4-5 (-1.4 Units)
CART RECORD: 2-3 (-0.79 Units)
GREG WINS:
Cincinnati +3.5 at UCF (-115)
LSU +3.5 vs. Ole Miss (-112)
Vanderbilt +13.5 at Kentucky (-108)
Colorado +3.5 vs. Kansas State (-108)
LSU ML
Cincinnati ML
GREG LOSSES:
Illinois -19.5 vs. Purdue (-110)
Rutgers -2.5 vs. Wisconsin (-112)
Oklahoma +14.5 vs. Texas (-110)
Ohio State -3 at Oregon (-115)
UNDERDOG PARLAY
USC ML
Colorado ML
CART WINS:
LSU +3.5 vs Ole Miss
LSU +136 vs Ole Miss
CART LOSSES:
Rutgers -2.5 vs Wisconsin
Ohio State -3 vs Oregon
Syracuse vs NC State over 54.5
SEASON RECORDS:
GREG RECORD: 40-57-2 (-11.83 Units)
CART RECORD: 7-10 (-2.83 Units)
GREGâS PICKS:
Every solo bet I am betting this week (with write ups):
BYU -9.5 vs. Oklahoma State (-112)
BYUâŚgood. Complete football team. Arguably the only complete football team in the Big 12. They have a fantastic QB Jake Retzlaf, like 20 running backs and a raucous Provo crowd. This is a Friday night game and BYU is one spot away from the CFP fieldâs top 12. And most importantly, this is the time of the season that you can identify the dead football teams. Oklahoma State is one!!!! They started the year 3-0, and then lost a heartbreaker to Utah (without Cam Rising) and since have lost by 22+ to Kansas State and (checks notes) West Virginia (???). Ollie Gordon hasnât run for more than 80 yards since Week 1 and OKST is rumored to have given up entirely on 7th year starting QB Alan Bowman. Sell, sell, sellâŚblowout incoming!
Indiana -6.5 vs. Nebraska (-115)
Hereâs what Indiana has done ATS for me through their first six games: Cover, Cover, Cover, Cover, Cover, Cover. I donât need anything more than that, but I will add: this is Indianaâs first actual sell out, one that Cignetti has been begging for all season. Itâs IUâs Homecoming, Bloomington will be going up, and Iâm newly a Dylan Raiola skeptic. IUâs offense wonât be stopped here and Raiola will make enough mistakes to keep it out of striking distance.
Illinois +3 vs. Michigan (-108)
The public loves Michigan here because they are off a Bye Week, and they have a supposed new QB Jack Tuttle. Jack Tuttleâs record as a starting QB at Indiana: 1-5. Bad quarterback! This is as much a Bounce Back game for Illinois after their disastrous 2nd Half against Purdue as it is a good spot for Michigan. I simply cannot believe the better football team with the better quarterback at HOME with more to play for is catching points here.
Georgia Tech +12 vs. Notre Dame (-110)
This line jumped out at me immediately as a fishy one. If they wanted you to bet GT, it would be 14 or more. Haynes King is one of the best dual threat QBs in America, and he should be enough to keep this close. I donât have much more advanced analysis here, this spot just feels like a Notre Dame let down game and GT is tricky enough to capitalize. Also dare I sayâŚ.lookeahead spot for the Irish with #25 NAVY waiting for them next week???
Arkansas +3 vs. LSU (-115)
Arkansas is 5-1 against the spread this year. I love betting this team. Taylen Greenâs incredible and a playmaker. This team beat Tennessee the last time they played, then had a WEEK OFF (yay rest!) and this is an obvious let down spot for LSU after they somehow squeaked by a win over an Ole Miss team that should have beaten them 90 out of 100 times. SOOOOOIE!
Florida +1 vs. Kentucky (-110)
I am very, intensely, confused by this line. Florida QB Graham Mertz is out for the season after tearing his ACL last week (thatâs probably it), but freshman stud DJ Lagway stepped in nicely and made things extremely interesting taking Tennessee to Overtime. Meanwhile, Kentucky is falling apart. They lost convincingly last week at home to Vanderbilt as two-score favorites. This oneâs in The Swamp, and I genuinely think this is DJ Lagwayâs coming out party against a Kentucky team that is grossly overrated. Gators win big.
South Carolina +3 at Oklahoma (-110)
Oklahoma has So. Many. Injuries. Hand up, I wasnât aware how banged up they were when I backed them to cover against Texas. Now they play host to a South Carolina team that already recovered from their injuries. When the Cocks have been at full strength, they have been awesome. When they have been without their QB (or with Sellers banged up), they have been awful. SCAR (with healthy Sellers) took Alabama to the wire last week, destroyed Kentucky and was beating LSU before Sellers subbed out due to injury. That team good, and thatâs the team showing up against a very injured Oklahoma team this week.
UNDERDOG PARLAY (+2013):
Editorâs Note: Iâm betting each of these four individually this week. Goal to hit two of the four, and come out profitable. Then putting one extra unit on the parlay. Only have to hit one a season to win the year.
Florida -2.5 (+106)
Arkansas ML (+114)
Illinois ML (+124)
South Carolina ML (+114)
All written about above, but Iâm playing each individually along with this four-legger parlay. Weâre hitting one of these this year, I CAN FEEL IT.
Now over to Cart, who texted me this today:
CARTER ELLIOTT:
One of the running tropes that Gregory always brings up is that I donât listen to any episodes or segments that Sleepers releases. I am not here to call him a liar because he isnâtâŚI rarely listen to anything that we do as Sleepers but there is one thing that has stuck with me as of late and that is Deionâs approach to One Big Thing. It's short, simple, and to the point (honestly like him). I think I might try to steal his flow and apply it to my newsletter intros. Todayâs statement is that Lemon Pepper Freestyle is some of the highest levels of rapping and I wish others would pay homage. Letâs get to the picks.
*WEEKLY DISCLAIMER* There are no such things as guarantees in the betting world, but what I can guarantee the fine readers of this newsletter is that every bet that I tell you about I, Carter Ramone Elliott IV, will be placing set bet and #research will always be at the root of the picks (some will have heart or gut feeling factored in but if it is I will make that known)
Miami -4.5 vs Louisville (-110)
After two straight weeks of just surviving Miami goes on the road to take on the struggling Lousiville Cardinals who have been slumping as of late. Miami in the last 2 weeks has thwarted a hail mary attempt and also pulled off an improbable 25 point comeback on the road at Cal. They got a much needed bye week to reset after what was a crazy two weeks and I think that will be just what they need to get it done on the road versus Louisville. Cam Ward is firmly in the Heisman conversation and he is going up against a Cardinals defense that has made some average quarterbacks look like Heisman contenders (especially on the ground). I think Cam Ward and the Hurricanes offense will find it smooth sailing against the Cardinals defense while on the defensive side they get enough stops to cover in this one. Take Miami to cover in this one.
Missouri -4.5 vs Auburn (-110)
Do I love picking back to back -4.5 spreads? No. Do I love this Missouri team? Not necessarily. Do I love fading Payton Thorne on the road? You bet your sweet ass I do. Auburn has been a shit show this season who canât seem to score the ball even when Payton Thorne manages to throw it to the correct team. Luther Burden will play in this game and even if Missouriâs defense has been gashed by some good offenses and football teams, Auburn is neither of those things.
Florida -1 vs Kentucky (-110)
Sometimes during research you have those lines that just smack you in the face and give you the warm fuzzy feeling that you get to bet on it. This is that game for me. Quiet as kept after a rough start Florida has played some good football and had a good win at home against UCF and honestly went on the road at Tennessee and almost won the game. On the other side Kentucky footballâs win against Ole Miss is carrying way too much weight in my opinion. Kentuckyâs QB play is disgusting and on the other side of the ball this is the first official full on game of the DJ Lagway era. Lagway is special, Florida at home, Kentucky not as good as Florida, Gators chomp. Give me the Gators.
Alabama -3 vs Tennessee (-110)
Yes I know I knowâŚin the last 10 quarters of football it seems that the Alabama defense canât stop anyone and they lost to Vanderbilt and they narrowly escaped South Carolina. This all may be true but want to know what else is true? Alabama is a good football team and has special players especially on the offensive side of the ball. If you havenât been paying much attention you may have missed that the Volunteers offense has been smelly against SEC defenses and in particular the play of their freshman QB who in my opinion lacks weapons and is going through some growing pains. I think Bama has fixable defensive issues which I think will make it tough for the Vols to score and if they keep Jalen Milroe upright they playmakers make plays. Give me Bama to cover.
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