ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – One year ago, almost to the day, the Baltimore Orioles made baseball magic possible in this town. They played their hearts out on the final day of the season against the Boston Red Sox – a game that was meaningless to them in the standings. In doing so, they allowed the Tampa Bay Rays a fighting chance to win the wild card and make the playoffs.

One year later, the Orioles arrived here with a chance to win the AL East. Another week of October magic was possible. All Baltimore needed was a good series against the Rays and a little help from the Red Sox.Orioles third baseman Manny Machado made a critical error Monday in a loss to the Rays. (Reuters)

And up in New York, Boston manager Bobby Valentine trotted out a lineup of no-names and minor league call-ups to face CC Sabathia.

How fitting.

You would think the Sox, of all teams, would show up in force against the hated Yankees. You would think Boston would relish the chance to rob New York of a division title. You would think just maybe there would be some pride left in a beaten baseball town.

TAMPA, Fla. – His headset went out.

He was a rookie quarterback, on the road, with less than two minutes to save a game and, quite possibly, any hope for a season.

And the headset inside Robert Griffin III's helmet went out. Robert Griffin ran for a score and threw for more than 300 yards on Sunday against Tampa. (AP)

His head coach, Mike Shanahan, called it "miscommunication." His wide receiver, Santana Moss, called it something else.

"Happens every time," Moss said after the game. "No lie. I've been in the league 12 years, I've been in plenty of games, and the home team goes, 'Oh well.' " Then he mimicked yanking an imaginary plug out of a wall.

[Week 4 winners/losers: Matt Cassel losing grip on Chiefs' starting job]

Whatever the reason for the technical difficulty, Griffin had to take Moss and the Redskins all the way down the field, and do so with only the single play he ran onto the field with after a touchback stopped the clock with 1:42 to play and the Redskins down 22-21.

It's funny, because right before Tampa Bay's Connor Barth kicked a

Stephen Warner directs traffic for Louisiana Tech in a win against Illinois. (Courtesy of La. Tech)One of the most dynamic offensive players in college football has zero touchdowns, zero catches, zero rushes and zero yards.

He's a walk-on who says he got scholarship offers from "Louisiana College and Arkansas … I can't remember the name of it."

He's the heartbeat of one of the most explosive teams in the country. And he spent his Thursday at a job fair hoping to make connections in the construction industry.

It's easy to laugh at the idea of Stephen Warner, offensive lineman, being a college football superstar, but his Louisiana Tech offense is the only one in the nation to score 50 or more points in each of its first three games. It's 17-for-17 in red zone scoring (with 16 touchdowns) and it has scored eight touchdowns in less than a minute.

And its MVP, Warner, is a center. But not just any center.

Warner calls the plays.

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You read that right. Warner, a senior, doesn't just snap the ball and

He started doing push-ups, according to the NFL Network.

Ed Hochuli and his fellow referees will be back to work Thursday after a three-month lockout. (AP)Football fans will chuckle at this, as "Hochules" is well-known for his buff physique. He does an hour of cardio and an hour of weights four times a week, even at age 62. But behind the jokes is a very serious truth that makes his workout routine appropriate for the moment: Hochuli and his fellow officials have broken the will of the NFL in large part because of their underestimated ability to prepare, prepare, prepare.

Few understood when this replacement referee mess began how uniquely qualified the actual NFL officials were to do their jobs. Hochuli and other "zebras" were dismissed by many as "part-time" workers. This annoyed Hochuli to no end, as he spent hours upon hours over his 20-year NFL career studying for his three hours on the field. The idea that he showed up every Sunday, threw on the stripes, a

There is a pro football commissioner who's unafraid to blow the whistle on underperforming refs.

Lingerie Football League commissioner Mitch Mortaza has ripped the NFL for its officials. (Getty Images)There is a head of an American football league who has fired an officiating crew because he felt the integrity of his sport was at stake.

There is a pigskin boss who was willing to bite the bullet and admit he made a mistake.

His name is Mitch Mortaza. He is the commissioner of the Lingerie Football League. And he feels the NFL has lowered its standards.

Mortaza was surprised to learn a referee he says he dismissed for poor performance, Craig Ochoa, had been picked up by the NFL and placed into the NFL's marquee Hall of Fame game. Ochoa has not served in a regular-season game so far, but he remains with the NFL as an alternate. And Mortaza just can't get over it.

"It was a bit of a shock to see guys that couldn't officiate in our league were officiating in the NFL," Mortaza says.

[Dan Wetzel: Roger Goodell needs to immediately clean up NFL officiating mess]

You may

The University of Oregon sports one of its multiple uniform looks against Fresno State. (US PresswireThis is getting to be ridiculous. Unveiling different football uniforms every week has gone from awesome to tired to grating in about the time it takes Phil Knight to pocket another 500k.

The latest abomination comes from Florida's Atlantic High School – yes, a high school – and provides a garish sign that the shark has been jumped (see photo below). It appears as if this poor kid's been sideswiped by a Sherwin Williams van.

The University of Oregon started this trend and, depending on where you fall, either mastered it or prompted an epidemic of unsightliness that's since swept across the nation. (You'll notice Atlantic High's unis have shoulder pads with the Duck wings on them.) It's still amusing to see what the creative geniuses at Nike come up with on a weekly basis – as Michael Kruse wrote in Grantland, the Ducks are "college sports' undisputed champions of the 21st century's attention economy" – but the slope is getting more slippery with each new uniform unveiling.

For

Rich Rodriguez has led Arizona to a 3-0 start in his first season with the Wildcats. (AP)Shaun King will tell you he's played under some of the sharpest offensive minds in recent NFL history. Then the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers starter will list them: Mike Martz, Jon Gruden, Dennis Green, even Mike Shula.

And then King will say something emphatic:

"I still think Rich is the best."

That would be Rich Rodriguez, the new head coach of the Arizona Wildcats. The stats are hard to refute:

• In his only full season under Rodriguez, Michigan's Denard Robinson became the only quarterback in NCAA history to run and throw for 1,500 yards in a season.

• Pat White ran and threw for more than 1,200 yards in two of his three seasons under Rodriguez at West Virginia.

• Clemson's Woody Dantzler threw for more than 1,500 yards and ran for more than 700 in his only season under Rodriguez, who was offensive coordinator at the time.

• King set the single-season NCAA passing efficiency record while Rodriguez was his coordinator at Tulane.

Patience Beard, second from the left, is a freshman cheerleader for Arkansas. (Jim Tran/R'back Spirit Squads)FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Jean Nail has been judging cheerleaders longer than most current cheerleaders have been alive. She started as spirit coordinator for the University of Arkansas 30 years ago, and let's just say her standards are as tough as her name.

So her heart didn't immediately melt earlier this year when she saw the DVD application of a blonde Texarkana girl named Patience Beard. Nail knew thousands of people would go "wow" when they took one look at the girl, and not in the way most red-blooded males say "wow" when they look at a cheerleader.

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Patience was different than any other applicant Nail had ever seen: She had a prosthetic left leg. Nail was sympathetic, but this incoming freshman would have to inspire more than concern to become one of 12 freshmen to cheer for the Razorbacks. The coach would offer "no special consideration" here. Beard would have to do all the stunts, and do them perfectly.