OFF THE WALL

We just couldn’t let this stuff go …

Brady finds out Florida weather a little different

Having played for 20 years with the New England Patriots, and at the University of Michigan before that, Tom

Brady knows something about nasty weather. However, in his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he discovered that he still had a few things to learn about the kind of weather that can sweep in from the Gulf of Mexico, writes Des Bieler of The Washington Post.

After Tropical Storm Eta battered the Tampa area Wednesday night into Thursday, Brady discovered something missing: his Jet Skis. Oh, and the dock at which they were parked.

Fortunately for the QB, his personal watercraft wasn’t gone long and as for the dock, presumably that’s more of a problem for Derek Jeter, Brady’s landlord in Tampa, Fla.

“The hurricane, that was a trip for me ... the storm,” Brady told reporters Thursday of Eta, which briefly strengthened to hurricane levels while still in the gulf the day before. “I had a dock, it broke, floated away. I had these Jet Skis on it, and I saw those things sitting out in the middle of the bay and I was going, ‘Wow, that’s pretty surreal.’ ”

Some folks a little farther south along the Gulf Coast probably felt lucky not to have wound up near the jaws of a monstrous beast. Alligators are fairly common sights in Florida, but a notably large specimen was spotted stalking a golf course in Naples, Fla.

Footage of the incident went viral and had some wondering if it might have been faked, given the creature’s impressive size.

“Yep, it’s real,” Tyler Stolting, a golf professional at the Naples country club where the scary stroll took place, told the Tampa Bay Times. Rather than call fish and wildlife authorities, he let it continue meandering.

After all, gator sightings in Florida are (wait for it) par for the course.

Trivia question

On this date in 1988, Kirk Gibson won the NL MVP despite a pedestrian 25 homers, 76 RBIS and a .290 average. (Did they vote after the World Series or something?) Who was second?

They said it

• Ex-heavyweight champ Mike Tyson ,ina “Hotboxin” podcast, on why he put his child’s urine into a “Whizzinator” to pass pre-fight drug tests: “One time I was using my wife’s and my wife was like, ‘Baby, you better not hope that it comes back pregnant or something.’ ”

• From Dwight Perry of The Seattle Times: “Another sure sign it’s 2020: Illinois punted on fourth-and-goal against Minnesota. But then again, it was fourth-and-48.”

• From Myron Medcalf of ESPN.COM, on Fighting Irish fans rushing the field en masse after beating Clemson: “Is Justin Turner Notre Dame’s crowd consultant?”

• From Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, after the Red Sox rehired Alex Cora, fresh off his one-year suspension, as manager: “Adjusted bromide: ‘Cheaters Almost Never Prosper.’ ”

Trivia answer

Gibson earned 13 first-place votes for the 94-67 Dodgers. Darryl Strawberry was second with seven first-place votes for the 100-60 Mets. Strawberry hit 39 HRS and drove in 101, and had a higher OPS, .911 to .860. Of course, if we’re going by advanced metrics, neither might have won had the vote taken place today. The Dodgers’ Orel Hershiser was sixth in the voting but had a 7.1 WAR, to 6.5 for Gibson and 5.5 for Strawberry. Even the Giants’ Will Clark had a higher WAR at 6.7. Strawberry was hurt by a split vote. The Mets’ Kevin Mcreynolds was third in the voting with four first-place votes. He hit 27 homers and drove in 99 with a .288 average.