Gil Thorp by Henry Barajas and Rachel Merrill for October 12, 2022

“His own flesh and blood” and “4-and-15” said no American sportscaster ever.

“It’s four and fifteen at the 30 yard line on the 46 yard line. Coach Hernnadez-Martinez sends forth his reproductive spawn onto the field to face the Central defense. Wait, this formation… could it be? It is! Pedro is setting up the Fastball Special! Colossus throws Wolverine at the Goshen defenders, opening a hole for a quarterback scramble! One of the Milford linebackers tries to tackle, but Pedro shakes it off using a slam dunk! It’s a six yard gain for the first down! Valley Tech wins!”

In all reality , Watch and learn Mr Kim you Jerk and easy on the the starch on my shirts. Comprehendie , me Amigo ?

While it remains unclear what Valley Tech uniform colors are exactly, their Halloween Awareness Month uniforms are eye catching.

Ummm…there’s no two minute warning in high school football.

Reminds me of a high school game featuring two local powerhouse football teams playing at Browns stadium that was being aired by a local sports radio station. The main broadcaster, who comes from a rival city and just constantly demeans anything local, goes into a diatribe over one of the coaches poor clock management and how he should use his timeouts along with the two minute warning. His partner who is a seasoned, accomplished broadcaster let him finish, then said, “You know (No names please), there’s no two minute warning in high school football.” The ten seconds of silence as that followed were awesome.

Fastball special? Yay sports! Run the thing to the thing!

Wondering how a new writer is chosen. Do the guys at syndicate say, “Hey, here’s some guy who’s written great graphic novels – gritty stuff with Hispanic characters. Obviously he must know how to produce a daily three panel comic strip!”? Or do you send in a résumé? Or do you just hire some guy at random, even if he has no idea of the history of the strip or sports?

P1 !Ay caramba!

P2 If your name isn’t Luke, is it Pedro if you are associated with Valley Tech? Now that pool season is over (around here anyway) does Pedro step into his fall job as an offensive coordinator for the local football team?

P3 Kim. Pedro Kim. Really?

No two minute warning in HS football. Strike one. No transmitter in the QBs helmet. Strike two. And nothing will top Gil’s 23 Skiddo play, much less the Thorp Special. Strike Three. Take a seat Hank.

So Milford has two football stadiums? It must be bigger than we had thought.

Yesterday the late great Vin Scully, today Mindy Kaling. Who shows up tomorrow?

I’ve always wanted to phone a sports call-in show and ask, “With no two-minute warning like the NFL has, how do college coaches and players know when two minutes are left?”

P-1: Coach H relies on his Aztec roots and offers a blood sacrifice from his own family, right on the field.

P-2: Lots happening, Luke calls his “special” play, confusing his assistant coach, and we learn there are only 4 quarters in a game. Hmmm. Actually, Mr. Kim is following George Burns’ instruction on how to be a straight man in comedy: always repeat the comic’s last line and wait for the comeback.

P-3: All Snipers are on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what a fast ball special is. My personal hope would be a long pass into the end zone where the receiver catches the ball with both hands on the same side of the ball. Wouldn’t that be funny if both teams’ “special” play was the same thing? We could have a replay of the Detroit/Seattle game.

Do high school coaches wear headsets, and is HS foobaw played in “stadiums”? I mean, outside of Texas, of course.

Turns out the Fastball special is the same play as the Thorp special. Everything is special in this strip

A baseball game breaks out in the middle of a football game. Like when I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.

Is P 2 supposed to be some kind of stand-up comedy routine?

I guess, since there are quarters, that the fourth one would also be the final quarter. But it’s good to remove any confusion.

4th and 15? That’s a hard one to convert. Let’s see how will VT do that. Also, I love the artwork of this strip. It’s really simple, without those extreme details that cause you to get confused.

Obviously VT scored because The Fastball Special is such a genius, unstoppable play. The thing is, if all these teams have these perfect plays that always work, why do they only pull them out in the waning seconds of the game when they need to score to win? And speaking of winning, everybody wins when you read Mopped Up Thorp.

https://moppedupthorp.wordpress.com/

P2: Did coaches Hernandez-Martinez and Pedro help park cars before the game, or are they off to do a road work job afterward?

So, am I to assume that Pedro isn’t a starter, and BHHL put him in the game for the important last chance play to win it? Nobody else knows how to run THE FASTBALL SPECIAL? I hope we actually get to see it tomorrow, but I’m guessing there will just be something like one panel of Pedro taking the snap, and then in the next one or two someone catching the touchdown. “Yay, Fastball Special!” everyone yells.

Maybe they should just have a soccer player try an 88 yard field goal.

So this is a new Conference cost saving directive, only play the last 2 minutes of the 4th Quarter for every game??

P-3: SCi-Fi Alert: We Boomers, all remember the X-15. So, now, 70 years on, the Air Force has the X-23? Talk about budget cuts. Or…is this an homage to the X-Files?

I love the repartee in P2: Fastball special, Pedro. The fastball special, coach? What part of Coach’s instruction was unclear? I was hoping it would be: Pedro: Don’t tell me you want the fastball special? Coach: The fastball special, Pedro. Pedro: I asked you not to tell me that!

Coach Hernnadez-Martinez trolling Gil by referring to his special play by its generic name.

Tribune Content Agency. . We are begging you. . .get rid of this writer.

“Fastball Special” – Coach is a big X-Men fan