To quote the great thinker Archimedes: “FOOTBALL!”

Yes, the Vikings have reported for training camp, which means that football - actual counts-for-real football - is not far away. Now that we’re into the hottest portion of the year in Minnesota, the summer is revealed for what it really is: a three-month-long festival of humidity, gnats, and sweat. While everyone spends the frigid winter and the slushy spring looking forward to the summer, it’s autumn - crisp, cool, breezy, sunny, football-filled autumn - that’s the real star in these here parts. Training camp, as pointless as it is for fans, points the way towards fall - and for that is given real importance. As the man said: Are you ready for some football?

On with some links:

*We start this week with Kansas City Star columnist Joe Posnanski, who has just been knocking the figurative ball out of the park lately. In the past week, he’s written a great deconstruction of the legend of Sandy Koufax that devolves into a treatise about the greatest pitchers of all time. He’s written a similar piece about the greatest hitters of all time, along with a companion 2,500 words about why Stan Musial was one of the greatest ever to play the game — and why he tends to be forgotten in debates about the same. And just to top it off, he recounts the story of Eric “The Eel” Moussambani, perhaps the greatest swimmer to nearly drown during an Olympic event, the video of which might be the funniest clip I’ve seen this year, and which plays out like a Monty Python sketch.

Take a look at that output — which, I remind you, is the result of less than a week’s worth of spare-time work. He also writes a Sunday column for the Star and is working on a book about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. I have to wonder: sure, it’d be hard for the newspaper to give Posnanski room for 10,000 words a week. But if they did, and you lived in Kansas City and enjoyed baseball, how could you NOT subscribe to that paper?

*In more local news, Jay Levin — usually of LetsGoTribe.com — makes an appearance on Twinkie Town to discuss Francisco Liriano, and why Liriano’s agent is wrong about every single thing. It’s a brilliant breakdown of the situation at hand.

*With trade-deadline talk swirling, Over The Baggy takes a look at mid-season acquisitions since 2001, and rates the effectiveness of these sometimes-desperation moves. Eagle-eyed readers may spot a move that worked out rather well for the Twins …

*Chris Brown at Smart Football breaks down Wonderlic scores by position, and discusses whether the famed NFL Combine smarts test really has much of anything to do with football smarts. Also, note that centers and offensive tackles tend to score the highest. Take that, everyone who played running back or quarterback on my high school team! However, there is no mention made of the relative intelligence of that famed sandlot position, the end-guard-tackle.

You know: Sit on the end of the bench, guard the water cooler, and tackle anybody who comes near it.

For pulling out a joke that was not even particularly funny when I first heard it in the second grade: I’ll show myself out. Have a wonderful Saturday.

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