Following are the winners in the noon NFL games today, according to St. Paul Katie. These picks were duly recorded this morning at the $3000 Canterbury Park Perfect Pick contest.
Vikings
Green Bay
Houston
New York Giants
Dallas
Tampa Bay
Indianapolis
Buffalo
Good luck to us.
We renewed our tradition of the Sunday morning El Cheapo Breakfast Feast in the Card Room (Two eggs medium, hash browns, sausage links, bagel and cream cheese, orange juice, $6), still served up by our favorite waitress, Melissa. Then we rode to the third floor Racebook to make our hopeful entries and to see if Katie's faithful from St. Paul were still at their Wasted Days reserved gaming table.Sure enough, we haven't checked on them for a year now, but there they were, still seeking riches and fame by investing in the nation's thoroughbred stock. As an additional bonus today, Bob Lange, a classmate Katie can't remember from St. Paul Central, was also seated at the special table.
They chatted enthusiastically about old times. Now Katie is back home with her yearbook, trying to figure out who the hell he is.
We wrote a post about this profligate gang one year ago. Nothing, it seems, has changed. So we're not going to write anything new. Here's our post from October 2, 2011:
Most every day, these learned gentlemen ride the escalator to a third floor work station dedicated to their personal use by Canterbury Park management.
Toiling like brokers in gritty financial pits, they plot the day's investments, carefully assigning value to the nation's thoroughbred racing stock.
On Sundays, these professionals pause from their ordinary labors to enjoy a special treat: The Perfect Pick contest sponsored by Canterbury Park. It costs nothing to enter, so you can't lose. Just pick all the winners in the noon game schedule and the house will award you $500.
This enticement brings Stan and Katie to the establishment for breakfast each NFL Sunday. After hash browns and eggs in the ground floor card room, they ride to the third floor betting parlor to enter their picks, then greet this work-a-day gang, always at table, always at work, always smiling and commenting on world events with a mixture of skepticism, dry wit, and the guarded optimism of those living in constant pursuit of the next big score.
We greet these old hands every week, as part of our Sunday gaming ritual. So far, this has brought us no luck whatsoever.
Don Kieger, the handsome gent embracing Katie in the photo above, is an old family friend from St. Paul, who spent many a scuffling day playing and talking baseball with Katie's brothers, Dan and Jim.
Two weeks ago, as is his habit, Don paused from his labors handicapping the nation's ponies, to apply his considerable skill to the challenging Perfect Pick. He won the $500 pot that day, naming the winners in all eight games and getting the over/under in two.
This remarkable achievement gave rise to a nasty rumor circulating on the third floor that, given his special status as a house whale, management has allowed Don to submit his picks late in the third quarter. This advantage has been denied, of course, but somehow the story persists among the less fortunate.
Today's prediction from The Don? The Vikings will lose again. He faults the QB for the Viking's woes. Can't win with McNabb, he says.
We shall see.
