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This is the highbrow stuff.

This is what my family wanted for me when I enrolled in college and was taught the finer points of bothering strangers about matters of public interest.

They wanted me to ask the hard-hitting stuff, like, "Did Mike Ditka lift his right buttock and smother Cris Carter in airborne misery on Monday Night Countdown last night?"

This is the question of the day, and solving its mysteries is the goal.

UPDATE: October 21

Ditka denies that he lost control for a moment and accidentally submerged Carter in a cloud of unholy brat mist during Monday Night Countdown.



Speaking with the Chicago Sun-Times' Dan Cahill on Tuesday, Ditka went on the record, saying he was not the one who dealt it:

It wasn’t me. Believe me, I’m to the point in my life where it doesn’t matter. One day I’ll be happy if I can leave a fart. Right now, it wasn’t me. I don’t care what they think. They can think anything they want.

Hmm...sounds exactly like the words of someone who did leave a fart, right?

"One day I'll be happy if I can leave a fart. Right now, it wasn't me."

A farter in waiting is just a farter who hasn't been caught yet. We might not have enough here to pursue this poot in a court of law, but rest assured: Ditka will strike again. And next time, we'll be ready.

---End of Update---

Initial allegations of Ditka's fumigation arose when Deadspin posted video of Carter making his pick alongside Ditka and Chris Berman before Monday night's game between the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants.

Carter picked the Giants out of spite, prompting Ditka to laugh and possibly scorch the room with a loud, involuntary fart:

Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

My first instinct here is to ask questions: How is this possible? How can the sound be so crisp and unmistakable? Was Ditka's microphone embedded in his chair? Was it Berman? An off-camera sound guy? Was there a second pooter?

Sporting News' Sean Gentille insists this video hasn't been tampered with, leaving us to conclude that Ditka's bowels poured forth such a gale that standard, outside-the-pants audio equipment couldn't help but register the noise clearly.

This would explain the look of unblemished terror that appeared on Carter's face after the sound. This is the face of a man meeting a fate he can't run from:

Somebody farted. I can't prove it, but I've run through the scenarios, and it all comes back to a gut blaster. We'll never know who did it, but Occam's razor suggests we consider the obvious culprit.

I know it was you, Mike.





Dan is on Twitter. Fart-truthering isn't easy, but it pays the bills.

