The Gunslinger Top 25

To imagine the developed gunslinging flavor palate a patron at that Taco Bell had to have to truly appreciate the levels of complexity of flavor layers of tacos gunslung at that Taco Bell is to understand why the most famous of unimaginative non-gunslinging foodies never dared to do a show there. #Cowards

But even more importantly, this above graphic when linked in (barely humorous pun intended) with the below graphic of a later Fernando Mendoza LinkedIn profile, shows more than just visual evidence of evolution omitted from On the Origin of Species—but won’t be so egregiously omitted from the long-awaited and long-(mostly privately)anticipated On the Origin of Gunslingers: this evidence proves that slinging tacos at Taco Bell is a natural stepping stone, a natural phase in evolution, to becoming an NFL quarterback.

And a gunslinging quarterback at that, for we have yet to see any Taco Bells pop up prominently in Linkedin profiles of any Charlie Checkdowns.

Once a prospect working to help gunsling Taco Bell towards profitability, now a gunslinging banker also quarterbacking an NFL team; it’s a tale as old as (this year’s version of) this great Gunslinging Poll.

Which version of Fernando Mendoza would you be more apt to hire? Make your opinion count by voting in a Poll that answers that very question, as we have neither the time or space nor the resources to sufficiently answer that here.

What we can sufficiently tell you here is the following: to become the NFL quarterback in the profile above, he was drafted #1 in the NFL Draft, which shows you that it is easier to be the consensus first overall pick in the NFL Draft than it is to be #1 on this Poll. No further proof should be needed to demonstrate this Poll’s legitimacy. But if you need more proof, keep reading. And even if you don’t need more proof, keep reading, for we can all benefit from educating ourselves, especially when that education is free, like a public library. Why your local municipality is not using part of its budget to help support this Poll is something you could take up at your local town meeting, not only would that help our admittedly dormant Gunslinger Outreach Program, but it would also help make your town meetings more interesting and increase the probably-pathetic attendance numbers as the ancient art of ordinance oration has greatly deteriorated over the years in direct correlation to reduced attention spans caused by clickbait on the Other Internet. So please do the right thing and help the kids stay focused longer by telling your local town council about this Poll. If you don’t tell them, who will?

4. Bo Jackson

Bo knows baseball. Bo knows football. Bo knows basketball. Bo knows tennis. Bo knows running. Bo knows cycling. Bo knows weights. (citation: Nike). Bo knows gunslinging (citation: the Great Gunslinging Polls of SLP). If you were in a saloon, in the Old Wild, Wild West, and High Noon were approaching for the big showdown where winning a game of Tecmo Bowl were necessary for the rights to stay in the town (and stay alive), there is no gunslinger you would rather have on your side than Bo Jackson. If Family Guy can dedicate almost two full minutes of prime-time programming to Bo Jackson’s Tecmo gunslinging greatness, then the least we can do for this gunslinging legend is get him on this prime-time Poll at a prime internet location and expand upon the Tecmo Bowl gunslinging genius to other hues on his gunslinging palette he draws from to paint, with great artistry, his great gunslinging self-portrait, which is even more beautiful than Narcissus’ reflection and would have distracted Narcissus from wasting his days away staring at water as he instead would have been staring at a Bo Jackson gunslinging self-portrait and thus now would either be best known as a gunslinger cognoscente or a gunslinging hunter, as the Jackson gunslinging self-portrait could would have inspired Narcissus to reach the gunslinging heights of his original profession; sadly, instead of those great gunslinging legacies, because Narcissus was trapped in the dark B.C.G.E. (Before the Common Gunslinging Era) days and did not have the benefit of modern gunslinging luxuries we now take for granted, such as modern gunslinging Bo Jackson self-portraits, Narcissus is now simply best-known for narcissism.

While Bo Jackson clearly is “The Greatest Video Game Athlete of All Time,” he is #4 on this Poll because: look kids, great gunslinging is not something you can accomplish by hitting A and B very fast on a Nintendo controller. It is not a destination you can arrive to by driving the streets of Los Angeles in Grand Theft Auto. It is not something you will be led to by in-game tracking tools in Pokémon GO. It takes a lot more to become a great gunslinger, as you are about to see in this substantial entry of this substantial gunslinger on this substantial Poll (a substantial sentence that could used for preposition instruction in classrooms throughout America someday).

Bo made his gridiron greatness known early on at Auburn one late autumn with one of the most iconic moments in the school’s history: his famous “Over the Top” goal-line touchdown to beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl and make the phrase so catchy that Sylvester Stallone made an over-the-top movie by the same name (but about something completely different) just five years later, a couple years after Jackson capped off his college career with a Heisman, paving the way for future gunslinging Heisman winners like Mendoza to get onto this Poll and into the NFL. Jackson made the gunslinging gunslinger move of not playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who had drafted him, because he believed they lied to him and caused him to be ineligible for the end of his collegiate baseball career. Bo knows dishonesty when he sees it, like any good gunslinger does (citation: gunslinger poker skills in Westerns).

But it all worked out for the better, because Bo also knows a good gunslinger organization when he sees it. The Raiders. Which at that time were in L.A., because a good gunslinger owner like Al Davis knows that gunslinging travels (specifically from Oakland to L.A. back to Oakland and then to Las Vegas). In the summer of 1987, Jackson negotiated a gunslinging contract with Davis that would bring him to the Raiders after the Kansas City Royals season ended. While Jackson’s first game was against the pre-Tom Brady, non-evil-only-pathetic Patriots on November 1st, it was at the end of his first NFL month where he made his mark by running into the hearts and minds of NFL fans on Monday Night Football and running into the tunnel with an immortalizing 91-yard TD run that was named by the NFL as the 25th greatest play in its history. That same game, Jackson put Brian Bosworth on his back, the ball in the end zone, and himself in position to be on this Poll just a few decades later.

A few years later (from that long touchdown run, not from getting onto this Poll this year, in the Year of Our Gunslinger, 2026), Jackson one-upped himself with a 92-yard run against the defending AFC champions, the Cincinnati Bengals, becoming the first player in NFL history with two 90+-yard TD scampers; in doing so, he let opposing so-called gunslinger defenses know the Raiders need not be inside the opponent’s 20-yard line to be in the red zone: when a great gunslinger like Jackson is in the backfield “All the world’s the red zone,” in a gunslinging update of Shakespeare’s declaration through Jaques that “All the world’s a stage.” After all, NFL football gets much higher ratings than plays. Kings of Leon isn’t rocking out at Broadway casting calls.

Unfortunately, the next season against the Bengals in the playoffs, he (Jackson, not a king of Leon) suffered the freak hip injury that would end his football career and put a big damper on his gunslinging.

So how did Bo overcome injury to get onto this Poll?

It is an inspiring story of perseverance. While he would never return to the gridiron, he promised his mom he would return to baseball and hit a home run in her honor. She died before he was able to come back; but when he did come back, he hit a home run in his first plate appearance, got the ball bronzed, and put it in her dresser as a tribute.

Though Jackson was more highly sought-after in football, being picked first overall by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers versus being a 4th round pick by the Kansas City Royals, he followed his gunslinging heart and took less money to play baseball. Though his MLB career was ultimately cut short by the football injury, he made every moment count with gunslinging highlight after gunslinging highlight. The guy’s arm was a gunslinging weapon, throwing out runner after runner. Sure, the Great Picture Shows of Old are filled with peoplescaling fences and whatnot, but Jackson could literally scale walls, like the Great Spider-Men of Old—though Royals Hall of Famer Frank White would use a different superhero for comparison, saying, “I really did play baseball with Superman,” demonstrating that a multi-dimensional gunslinger like Jackson who is the 4th-best gunslinger in the world is more powerful than any one superhero (citation: this paragraph, where two superhero comparisons were needed to describe Jackson’s gunslinging greatness).

This begs the question: Who Would You Bet Your Farm On In A High Noon Showdown: Bo Jackson or Superman & Spider-Man?

While MVPs might figuratively carry a team, Jackson could literally single-handedly hit a home run, which he did after the non-gunslinging law (the umpire) failed to grant him a timeout on a 1988 mid-summer gunslinging night. The tale circulated the saloon circuit (though such establishments were by then humbly calling themselves bars or pubs) and still lives on today in dusty corners of the Other Internet. Sure, it looks more like he is using both hands when you see it on film, but looks can be deceiving and besides, the Great Gunslingers of the Old West didn’t have their great gunslinging efforts weighed down by video evidence. Who are we to believe that a bunch of old Tombstone gunslingers didn’t kill a flying monster (quite possibly a pterodactyl) in 1890? If some geek in a lab coat wants to tell us that J. Frank Dalton isn’t Jesse James, exhuming an extra body along the way for the sake of gunslinging sanity, are they going to next use DNA, exhuming some extra gunslinging right arms along the way, to claim Brett Favre didn’t throw 336 career interceptions?

Tell your children what you please—and if years later they have to seek therapy and hate you (perhaps slightly partly) because you told boring non-gunslinger-based bedtime stories of two-armed home runs, our hands (both of them, admittedly boringly enough) are clean as we are endorsing the one-arm story and suggesting that’s the tale you pass along to future gunslinging generations.

But whether one arm or two (we may never know for sure), Jackson was such an efficient gunslinger, for of his 141 career home runs, so many were memorable. He used one of them to win the division for the Chicago White Sox, the ball carrying farther and farther, buoyed by what Jackson called his own personal jet stream, something even the greatest of gunslingers are lucky enough to ever have. If you desired a traditional, Presidential home run, he could—and did–deliver that for you (though that did not count towards his official career total as it was during the All-Star Game). If he went up against a dual-sport fellow gunslinger like Deion Sanders, Jackson would hit three home runs to Sanders’ one, helping propel Jackson past Sanders (who could very well return to this Poll after a strong debut in 2025) on this Poll just a few decades later after that great feat.

But most importantly, if you needed someone to shoot a bow*** and arrow on your baseball field or in your baseball locker room pregame, Bo Jackson could do that—with his feet! What is more gunslinging than that?

Perhaps you thought that was a rhetorical question. For average people, it would be. But for a great gunslinger like Jackson, there are answers, concrete gunslinging answers, to the age-old question of: “What is more gunslinging that shooting a bow and arrow pregame in a major league locker room?”

He would shoot apples out of teammates’ hands, like the Great William Tells of Old used to shoot apples off of heads or the Great Silver Screen Gunslingers of Old used to demonstrate their impeccable aim in similarly challenging ways, if not always so fruit-based.

So now you know that how Bo Jackson broke lesser gunslinger hearts, like they were mere baseball bats, on his way to being the #4 gunslinger in the world. More than three better gunslinging stories couldn’t be told (at least not in the Year of Our Gunslinger, 2026).

5. Satchel Paige

He was born in a shotgun house. What is more gunslinging than that?!

A shotgun house, for those of us lesser gunslingers not born into a shotgun house, is a house where the rooms are built basically in a line, forming a shotgun shape so that you have better odds in raising a gunslinging child there, which is what Satchel Paige quickly became. #SavvyParenting

But we don’t know exactly when he was born in that shotgun house.

July 7th, 1906 is the official date that has been granted the gift of mass circulation. But there have been many questions about his age over the years as various numbers have been slung around. Often, it was thought he was older than his official age, making his gunslinging throughout his later years even that much more impressive.

And his birthname wasn’t actually Satchel Paige; it was Leroy Robert Paige.

But destined early on to become a great gunslinger, something inside of his consciousness knew he deserved a more gunslinging name. He earned the nickname Satchel because he slung satchels on a stick, toting them as a little kid to earn money for the family. So he was born a slinger and raised a slinger (and died a slinger, and now lives on immortalized in this Poll as a slinger). #AThingOfBeautyIsAJoyForever #Keats

And he sure could sling the rock, the actual rock, not the slang for “football” as many well-known gunslingers have slung. Growing up poor and unable to afford a baseball or any toys, but still needing to satisfy that eternal gunslinger hunger to throw things, Satchel first developed his arm by throwing rocks. When his mom needed a chicken dead, rather than use a shotgun like most unimaginative people who lived in shotgun houses back in the day, Paige grabbed a rock and fired it at the target in a successful circumvention of gun control laws so rare that it has even more rarely (never) been a topic of extensive debate in public political discourse. #PeopleCan’tDebateThingsWhenTheyAreIgnorantAndNoNothingAboutThemBecauseTheyHaven’tEducatedThemselvesByReadingGunslingerPolls

Satchel was never much of a rule follower as few gunslingers are and got himself into trouble at an early age, often getting into fights, as gunslingers are want to do, but it was stealing that got him put into a reformatory school.

As the saying goes:

“You can’t reform a good gunslinger into a non-gunslinger as that would be the opposite of reform: destroy. You can only reform a good gunslinger into a great gunslinger, which is synonymous with reform: tremendous growth and self-development. And if the reform is truly well-done, executing the best gunslinging reform best practices the best, you might even get the exquisite results of an appearance on an immortalizing Poll.”

As such, it is only natural that in reform school, Satchel reformed his right arm into a gunslinging, fastball-throwing machine, as reformed gunslingers are want to do.

Good gunslingers are also want to drive their cars fast and so it was only natural (and impressive) that Paige got speeding tickets in “every state [he] went through and just about every town” (citation: Paige, Satchel). This was very risky when you consider the extreme racism of that time. But Satchel liked to take risks, making Tom Cruise’s Risky Business look like mere child’s play. Paige had a stint with the Monarchs where he essentially prophesized Costco’s business model:

“Those Kansas City policeman arrested me so many times for speeding they must have been thinking about giving me wholesale rates on tickets.”

Paige played for many different Negro League teams, including one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled, the Pittsburgh Crawfords, where his battery mate was the great Josh Gibson, “the Black Babe Ruth.” One could endlessly debate who was better—Paige or Gibson—but they played different positions. While still subjective, it feels reasonably safe to say that Paige was the biggest star in Negro League history. He was the biggest draw. Satchel Paige was box office.

He was Prime Time well before Neon Deion.

He was a gunslinger.

With accuracy. Major Leaguer Mickey Vernon recalled Paige placing a gum wrapper in front of the catcher and throwing 8 out of 10 fastballs over it.

Typically even great gunslingers have to choose between quality and quantity.

Paige chose both. He pitched an unknown amount of innings that would dwarf the accomplishments of even other great gunslingers like Nolan Ryan. Paige played so many games in the Negro Leagues, Major Leagues, overseas, and barnstorming that it will never be known just how many innings he actually pitched. But he literally did (sometimes) pitch morning, noon, and night, once winning three games in three different places on the same day while barnstorming.

One might think that pitching so much with complete disregard to the non-gunslinger ideas of load management or pitch counts might lead to injury. And Paige did get injured (though not as much as might be expected by non-gunslinging experts). When doctors told him that might never pitch again, he still was able to draw crowds will pitching sidearm, underhand, or throwing up lollipops: in other words, pitching terribly. But people still came to see him. People still came to watch him sling it. Good gunslingers, after all, are want to fight through injury. #ShadesOfBrettFavre

Good gunslingers are also want to talk trash, which Paige did at an elite level. To a batter coming up to hit against him:

“No need for you to tote that wood up there. It’s just weight. You ain’t gonna need it ‘cause I’m gonna throw nothin’ but my trouble ball.”

But “actions speak louder than words” as we all know from that very saying and so Paige, a loud speaker, actually performed the trash-talking actions few are even ever able to verbalize—and never actually act upon—probably because of an unimaginative interpretation non-gunslingers have of the “talk” in “trash talk.”

You are probably wondering right now, “What the flying f*@k are you talking about?”

Good question. We are about to answer it.

This is what we are talking about: Satchel Paige once intentionally walked the bases loaded so he could face Josh Gibson. He then told his fielders to sit down, because they wouldn’t be needed. Then he struck out Josh Gibson.

But that wasn’t the first time Paige employed such a brilliant tacit. When just (around) 18 and pitching for the Down the Bay Boys (presumably hailing from down some bay somewhere), three infield errors loaded the bases with two outs. Paige talked his outfielders into sitting down for the last hitter, whom Paige promptly struck out on three pitches.

But such exploits weren’t always for trash-talk purposes. Sometimes they were for necessity. Once when playing for a team in Bismarck and experiencing racism, his outfielders wouldn’t go back onto the field when he pitched. So he struck out the side.

Sometimes the stakes were even higher. Paige accepted a deal to play for the team of Rafael Trujillo, nicknamed “El Jefe,” the dictator of Dominican Republic at the time. Paige recruited other Negro League players to join him. Trujillo didn’t just want to win a championship: he demanded it. This was not entertainment. It was political. Soldiers followed them around everywhere they went. Before the championship game, the manager told them:

“You better win.”

“What’a you mean, we better win?” Paige asked.

“I mean just that,” the manager responded. “Take my advice and win.”

Down by a run in the top of the 7th inning, Paige observed Trujillo lining up his army in what Paige thought looked like a firing squad. They scored two runs in the bottom of the inning to take the lead. Paige threw as hard as he could the next two innings, they won the game, and left the country as fast as they could.

Paige pitched in other countries as well, but of course racism kept him out of the Major Leagues beyond the age when most have retired. He wanted to be the one to break the color barrier, but it was probably his age and his gunslinging ways that prevented him from being the first to do so (since the color barrier was established in 1887).

He did become the 7th African-American to break the color line when he debuted for the Cleveland Indians on July 9th of 1948 in a relief role at the ripe young age of (at least) 42 (which happens to be Jackie Robinson’s number).

Then he got starts in August and hurled shutouts in front of record crowds.

But even crazier is that Paige literally came out of the rocking chair he was sitting in the A’s bullpen to pitch three scoreless innings at the age of (at least) 59, for Paige said that age was just a number, and for Paige we never really knew that exact number.

Paige famously said (or at least repeated a Mark Twain quote):

“Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

He also famously said:

“If you keep moving, Old Age ain’t got a chance of catching you. He moves mighty slow.”

A gunslinging quote-maker, Paige’s gunslinging quotes are too numerous to list here. Hall of Famers Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and Dizzy Dean all said Paige was the best gunslinger they had ever seen, but the most accurate description of this great ageless gunslinger may be:

“Paige was baseball's Mark Twain, but with a much better fastball.”

Making him a superior gunslinger, and a spot higher than Twain on this reputable, well-researched, well-documented, widely-(secretively)respected, quote-supported Poll.

6. Mark Twain

And so Mark Twain is the #6 gunslinger in the world instead of cracking the Top 5 because he did not have enough zip on his fastball (citation: mlb.com).

But he did sure have some zip on his gunslinging quotes.

On Innovation:

“Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.”

On Analysis:

“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.”

On Success:

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.”

On Advising Children In Regards To Listening To Their Parents:

“Always obey your parents when they are present.”

On Advising Children In Regards To Listening To Anybody:

“Always respect your superior; if you have any.”

On Fathers:

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

On Perseverance:

“I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

On Death:

“I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”

On Geography:

“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”

On Why Gunslinger Polls Are So Long:

“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

On Justifying the Sentiments of Middle-Schoolers and High-Schoolers Frustrated With Reading Jane Austen:

“I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

On Banking:

“A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.”

On April Fools’ Day:

“April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.”

On Anger Management:

“When angry, count four. When very angry, swear.”

On Why Brett Favre Throws So Many Interceptions:

“Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.”

On Procreation:

“Familiarity breeds contempt—and children."

On The Company Of Gunslingers:

“Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."

On School Boards:

“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards."

On Procrastination:

“Do not put off until tomorrow what can be put off till day-after-tomorrow just as well.”

On Why So Many Classic Books Don’t Include The Great Gunslingers That Grace These Polls:

“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but of what is left out of it.”

On Age & Expectations:

“There is nothing sadder than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.”

Of course, Twain is such a gunslinging quote-maker that perhaps is most-famous quote is one he never even said:

“A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth puts on its shoes.”

Obviously it is the perfect quote to be misattributed. Twain is such a great gunslinging quote-maker that when someone hears a great gunslinging quote, they (almost) rightly assume it must be from this great gunslinger. If you have a great gunslinging quote that needs a misattribution to Twain, contact us here and we will see what we can do. If you are a Twain fan, it just might be the help he needs to move up on this Poll, for will 2027 be the year that the Top 5 in this Top 25 Poll is cracked by this great gunslinger who helped pioneer stand-up comedy in the 1860s so we could have some Sweet Livin’ Blue Hill Comedy in the millennium that followed?

Finding out the answer to that question is a reason to live another year (in addition to other reasons as well).

7. John Madden

Not sure what to be thankful for this Thanksgiving? Worried about repeating the same old, tired, worn-down (and worn-out), boring non-gunslinging cliches of family, friends, and football? Save that Xanax for next time your QB gets infected with Charlie Checkdownitis. No need to worry about fresh material for your Thanksgiving thankfulness roundtable this year. We got you covered: be thankful that the John Madden movie is set to be released on Thanksgiving!

We are all certainly so thankful for that! No man, woman, or child—other than the Pilgrims and Indians—have been more responsible for putting Thanksgiving on the map (i.e. the NFL Calendar) than John Madden.

Before Madden, Thanksgiving was just a Day—Thanksgiving Day—after Madden made Thanksgiving big with football, it now has an Eve: Thanksgiving Eve because the NFL now plays a game then, making John Madden the Santa Claus of Thanksgiving, delivering football joy the night before the big event, when all is supposed to be otherwise quiet, even the fucking mice.

Before Madden, the day after Thanksgiving was Friday. After Madden began popularizing Thanksgiving through football gunslinging in the 1980s, a little known holiday caused by riotous football fans in Philadelphia called Black Friday spread across the country like wildfire and now we have NFL football on this extra holiday, which more and more employers recognize with paid days off, which can be fairly gunslingingly interpreted as an advanced level wink, nod, and tip of the cap to the great gunslinging of John Madden, for employers are typically not want to gunslingingly hand out free days off.

Before Madden, people commonly ate turkey for Thanksgiving. Since Madden, people still commonly eat turkey for Thanksgiving, according to leading Thanksgiving scholar Niall McCarthy, who astutely notes, “When it comes to the numbers, Thanksgiving is always impressive.” #Impressive

But what is more impressive is the Turducken diet Madden introduced to the Thanksgiving table. #MoreImpressive

The Turducken origin story rivals the great origin stories of other great historical figures, and great internets. It started December 1st, when most non-gunslingers think Thanksgiving is over, of 1996 when Madden fell in love at first sight with the Turducken, gunslingingly gobbled it up with his hands and before washing them shook hands with Saints owner Tom Benson, who never spoke with Madden again. Obviously, Benson is on the wrong side of history as since then he has died while Madden has gone on to become the #7 gunslinger in the world and Turducken has become “the ULTIMATE Thanksgiving Centerpiece,” inarguably more valuable than certain Thanksgiving dinner attendees that you could certainly do without and arguably more valuable than some of the more mediocre members of your Thanksgiving celebration.

But Madden is more than a one-trick gunslinging gluttony pony. Like the Great Bioengineers of Old, Madden helped push the limits of biology by spearheading the development of the six-legged turkey in a truly thoughtful and considerate healthy gesture to hungry NFL offensive linemen.

Even though most mainstream thesauruses remain neglectfully un-updated accordingly as most of their stakeholders are the older, non-gunslinging crowd, John Madden is synonymous with Thanksgiving as it brought together the things most important to him: family, football, food, tradition, and fun. Using “t” as an “f” alliteration is a gunslinging linguistic move that has English teachers running wild trying to figure out how to account for and rappers looking for ways to emulate, when not indulging in the gunslinging great benefits of consuming fake Percocets, in a trailblazing move to help industrious upstart entrepreneurs of Small Pharma compete with Big Pharma.

Oh if John Madden would have just invented and popularized improved livestock and made Thanksgiving a better holiday than in the 1800s when Sara Josepha Hale was the face of Thanksgiving and no household had sufficient electricity or television reception to watch football games, that would have been enough for most good gunslingers. But John Madden is among the greatest of gunslingers in the world (7th best, to be precise) and his accomplishments extend well beyond that of revolutionary culinary arts.

No, John Madden is not just another Julia Childs.

This revolutionary gunslinger revolutionized coaching. Before Madden, it wasn’t typical for future Hall of Fame 6’7 linebackers to arrive to practice on horseback or live and die by Romantic Age British Poetic advice as Ted Hendricks did in strict adherence to William Blake’s advice “excess is best,” a gunslinging line for the ages that completely dismantled Goldilocks’ tiresomely anti-gunslinging argument for moderation. Before Madden, casts were known largely known as medical devices, but where a boring doctor sees a Class I medical device, a great gunslinger sees a Class III club for clubbing the enemy. Before Madden, medical science was definitely drabber, with smoking harming the lungs and athletic performance, but Madden’s legendary wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff would chain smoke cigarettes and puke before the game. There’s a lot to learn from studying John Madden’s Raiders, but most mainstream doctors do not, instead adhering to practices they learned in medical school.

But let’s not get sidetracked by discussing what’s wrong with our medical system.

Madden didn’t make a laundry list of dirty rules that would prevent gunslingers of doing great gunslinging things like ingesting “rat turds,” slickly using Stickum, or wearing tailormade illegal pads. No, Madden had simple, no anti-gunslinging-nonsense rules:

1. Be On Time

2. Pay Attention

3. Play Hard

That was it. It was just those 3 rules, along with the clubbing of opposing players in the head, etc., that helped make Madden’s .759 winning percentage, the highest of any coach ever with over 100 victories.

In addition to the God’s honest gunslinging antics, Madden was a student game, once watching the Green Bay Great Vince Lombardi talk about ONE single play for EIGHT hours! You’d probably get banned from TikTok if you tried to upload that, or get hired by Martin Scorsese as a consultant for his next film. If any historians are able to uncover the video of that Vince Lombardi one-play eight-hour seminar, please Contact Us as we would love to see it and drink whisky for the full duration of that masterclass, the only eight-hour shift we know of (at time of publication) that you are not only encouraged, but in fact required, to drink whisky throughout.

For most great gunslingers, being one of the top gunslinging NFL coaches of all-time with players riding horses onto the field like it is the Old Wild, Wild West would have been enough to get a bust in Canton (though you would have to wait awhile to get it, both in real time and until the end this Great Gunslinger Poll entry); but more is required to get onto this highly-competitive, highly-respected Poll.

To do that, Madden would need to continue gunslinging, so when Madden retired from coaching, he did not retire from gunslinging. Instead, Madden started slinging beer sales as one of the greatest gunslinging beer pitchmen of all time.

Which he did, selling Miller Lite with the tagline:

“It's everything you want in a beer. And less.”

Madden delivered classic gunslinging commercial acting performance after classic gunslinging commercial acting performance. But which is the most gunslinging?

Miller Lite began this research in 1991 with a two-part sensationally sweet series and we look to build off that work (while pivoting in a more-Madden centric direction) just 35 years later.

Had Madden just been one of the best NFL coaches and beer commercial actors of all time, that would have been enough for most great gunslingers. But he wanted be among the greatest of gunslingers. And so he became one of the greatest NFL announcers of all time.

While we don’t want to overstate our case, in the broadcast booth Madden was able to multiply food in ways society hadn’t known since biblical times:

“If you're gonna give a guy a bone, ya might as well give him two bones.”

Though his creeds strayed from strictly biblical when it came to treating blindness:

"Don't worry about the horse being blind; just load the wagon.”

But not everything Madden said from the booth was in the field of theology; some were more veterinary or zoology-based:

“If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.”

Sometimes he just made astute observations about bodily movement, like any gunslinging dabbling in the field of kinesiology may be want to do from time to time:

“This is a guy who when he runs, he moves faster!"

Sometimes, Madden was so efficient with his language, he only needed one word to describe what was happening in the world (of football on the field):

“Boom!”

But Madden was more than a wordsmith in the booth; like the Great Renaissance Men of Old, he had multiple gunslinging artistic talents. He was famous for the visual arts (of drawing with a telestrator).

Yes, what Picasso is to cubism, what Warhol is to pop art, what Matisse is to fauvism (not to be confused with Favrism, unless Henri painted an overly vibrant painting of his cock and gifted it to an unsuspecting massage therapist: then it is pretty much the same thing), Madden is to telestratorism.

And Madden put his body on the line to popularize the new artform. Rather than beat him like a scab in the Great Violent Union Strikes of Old, Madden’s gunslinging potential shined so brightly that he was the one non-union members allowed to touch the telestrator. Yes, Madden risked his life so Dan Orlovsky could grow up to diagram plays and (allegedly) fart on national television.

But that’s just what great gunslingers do for others.

Gunslingers also deliver moving eulogies for their pardners, as Madden did at Pat Summerall’s funeral.

Madden called over 300 games with Summerall in 4 different decades, but it wasn’t until Madden was preparing for his final broadcast, when the Steelers finally captured the One For The Thumb defeating the Seahawks in Jerome Bettis’ hometown of Detroit (apropos as Madden famously rode his own bus everywhere in a hatred of flying machines matched only by his hatred of socks), that John Madden learned he was going home to Canton as a Class of 2006 Hall of Fame inductee.

Now he is finally here at home on this Poll as one of the greatest gunslingers of all time.

And on Thanksgiving, while we eat mere four-legged turkeys in our inferior-gunslinging households, Madden will finally get his movie.

Will Nicolas Cage, who is portraying Madden, join him on this Poll?

We will have to review how gunslinging the performance is before bestowing such an honorable honor.

But we do know it is possible, for Madden has a such a lengthy gunslinging resume that it all cannot even fit here on this meaty Poll entry, for who can forget the Madden video game?

Certainly not us, but like lovely Thanksgiving leftovers we will have to save such savory content for another Gunslinging Poll.

And furthermore, who could forget that it was Madden’s love of Favre’s gunslinging that helped promote Favre to such gunslinging greatness and glory?

Certainly not us, but like the lovely Thanksgiving leftovers mentioned above we will have to save such savory content for another Gunslinging Poll, as also mentioned above, like the great gunslinging angels of above, gunslinging in the sky, while also residing here as #7 on this Poll.

But don’t jump the gun just yet, for Madden’s gunslinging shoulders are so broad that not only might the aforementioned Nick Cage ride in on them next year, but the very next gunslinging entry rides in on them this year.

8. Games With A Name (That Madden Won)

Like the Great Holy Trinities of Old, the Sea of Hands, Ghost to the Post, and Holy Roller come together to form the Holy Trinity of Games With A Name (That Madden Won).

Any of us in life, especially in the fabulous field of gunslinging, would be honored and humbled to win one Game With A gunslinging Name. John Madden has three under his greatly grandiose girth-and-gravity-defying gunslinging belt.

Some (probably gunslinging accountants whose licenses have been revoked multiple times in a world where licensure processes typically go against the gunslinging grain) might argue he even has 4 as the Raiders defeated the Dolphins in a 1970 home playoff game sometimes referred to as the Mud Bath, like the Great Mud Baths of Old, sans “sooth[ing] the skin [or] relax[ing[ muscles and joints.” But if a Game With A Name doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry (at the time of Gunslinging Poll publication), is it really a Game With A Name?

No.

It is more of a worthy preamble to great gunslinging Games With A Name. Like the Great Literary Devices of Old, it foreshadows the future. And like the Great Oracles of Old sometimes mentioned in the Great Literature of Old, it was mysterious and on the dirty side. Yes, be weary of oracles that shower, especially with those new high-tech digital systems, for indoor plumbing was rare in the olden days when futures could be better seen and foretold by those who bathe in mud; whereas nowadays those who bathe in mud simply have good skin.

But the 1970 Raiders Mud Bath bathers were not worried about skin health. They were not worried about health at all. It was the beginning of the Madden Era and such a win that was literally dirty would be indicative of the 1970s Raiders gunslinging ways and their winnings of Games With A Name to come; but the team wasn’t fully formed yet, the cast of characters were in their understudy stages, with the likes of the great gunslinging Ken Stabler throwing just seven passes that year as the third QB on the depth chart.

So while the Mud Bath was a great win, and a mud bath is the most common type of bath for gunslingers, it cannot rightly qualify as a great gunslinging Game With A Name win, as it is harder to achieve a great gunslinging Game With A Name win than it is for a rich man to get into heaven (citation: there are more rich men in heaven than there are great gunslinging Game With A Name victories).

Madden’s unprecedented and unmatched success in great gunslinging Games With A Name, even when excluding the Mud Bath, is unprecedented and unmatched (citation: earlier in the sentence). As such, his extensive space occupied in this Great Gunslinging Poll is well-deserved and well-justified as well as well-appreciated by well-read gunslinging aficionados well deep in well whisk(e)y.

Any of us, especially in the honorable field of gunslinging, would be honored and humbled to be associated with one entry on the most-trusted Gunslinging Poll in existence. But Madden (thus far into your scholarly reading of this peer-reviewed Poll) now is the driving force of two (in a row). Will he be associated with a third on this very Poll, possibly consecutive in three-peat fashion while achieving multiple holy trinities like Jordan in the 90s?

You will have to continue reading to find out.

When examining Holy Trinities, it is best practice to not only look at them as a whole (often by including them together in an important entry in the most important Gunslinging Poll in existence), but also by examining them individually (often by listing and discussing them under subheadings in an important entry in the most important Gunslinging Poll in existence). As it our best Gunslinger Poll practice to follow best gunslinging practice, we gladly gunslingingly do that here.

Just like the Great Holy Trinities of Old are discussed in chronological order, we will stay faithful to chronology here in examining this Great Holy Trinity of the 1970s.

Sea of Hands (1974)

Normally one hand can be enough to capture the imagination of the public—if that hand is a great gunslinging hand moments before a high noon showdown, especially if that high noon showdown was documented by filmmakers and appropriately labeled High Noon. But imagine multiplying that one exciting gunslinging hand by a whole ocean!

Or even its smaller, but still impressive, brother: a sea, something both oceanographers and gunslinger analysts study.

So whether you are an oceanographer, gunslinger analyst, gunslinger, or simply a depressed young man trying to find your place in this world you couldn’t find in a Michael W. Smith song but are just beginning to discover by reading Gunslinger Polls, which you finally found late at night like a Great Oasis of Old in the Great Deserts of Old when scrolling through the Other Internet, you now are blessed, like a paying-for-placidity patron in the Great Himalayan Salt Massage Centers of Old, with the beautiful image in your mind of a large amount of hands in a large body of saltwater. This is what mathematicians (who watch football with a gunslinging eye, but have a rather limited knowledge of marine biology) call a Sea of Hands.

Or The Sea of Hands, as it has only happened once in recorded mathematical history: December 21, 1974. It was billed as Super Bowl VIII.5 (pronounced “Super Bowl eight and a half) and remains the only half Super Bowl on record in recorded history; the unique invention, like the Great Half Birthdays of Old of the Great Kids of Young was brought into being the same way many kids are brought into this world: oversized expectations (probably preluded by alcohol consumption). It was thought the winner of this game would inevitably go on to win the Super Bowl as the Raiders had the best record in the NFL and the Dolphins were fresh off three-straight Super Bowl appearances, winning the last two, and enjoying the only undefeated season in NFL history along the way.

While neither team would go on to win the Super Bowl ultimately captured by Pittsburgh (just as many infants with expectations end up as loser adults who have never read a Gunslinger Poll), the hype leading into the Raiders/Dolphins Divisional Playoff Game, punctuated by the gunslinging fractional mathematics, made this game, and this gunslinging play, all the much greater and more important to human history, as well as animal history with signs like “Flipper is a Raiders Fan” decorating the Oakland Coliseum in what may be the only recorded instance in animal history of Flipper breaking his (or her?) Dolphin loyalty in such rebellious fashion perhaps only the gunslingingly rebel Raiders gang could inspire. If you want to label Flipper a whore, do so at your discretion. We will not jump to that conclusion here, as we are not marine biologists, nor do we have in our possession the famous gunslinging Jump to Conclusions Mat.

Making the game even bigger was the rivalry. It was Oakland who snapped the Dolphins long winning streak just the previous year, following the 1972 campaign of such pure perfection to make any gunslinger gag on their champagne for lack of mistakes and poor-decision making en route to flawless success. But then it was the Dolphins who ended the Raiders season later that year, knocking them out of the playoffs.

In the decade they had played in the Coliseum, the Raiders had been dominant in front of the crazy crowds of bats-in-the-belfry fans discordant in their reveling raucousness that was anything but a church choir. Adding to the obstreperous atmosphere was a sea of black. Raiders fans had collectively decided, like a union entering into the Great Collective Bargaining Agreement Negotiations of Old, to all swing blank handkerchiefs in response to the white handkerchiefs the Dolphins fans would swirl in Miami. #ContrastIsTheOxygenOfArt

But it wasn’t just handkerchiefs: women brought black lingerie to swing, in what would have probably been a problem for the Raiders if their quarterback was Brett Favre. #Distraction

But it was another great gunslinger: Ken “the Snake” Stabler, who got the ball under center earlier than expected after the Dolphins Nat Moore returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown, killing the mood momentarily and paralyzing the sea of swinging panties.

But the sea of arms would rise erect once again and the panties, like the Great Swingers Parties of Old, would start swinging soon again as the game went back and forth, as ferocious playoff football foreplay is known to do. The Raiders got their first lead at 14 - 10 on two insane Fred Biletnikoff TD catches, one nullified for barely being out of bounds, but the second counting. In most great gunslinging games, those catches would have gotten names.

But this was among the greatest of gunslinging Games With A Name, of all gunslinging times.

As a five-year-old future gunslinger in Brett Favre was likely over the bedwetting years, the sea of swinging black panties were almost definitely paving the way for future, more-matured wet gunslinging dreams.

But that is not for us to speculate, as we can only report the facts here as we know them.

The game went back and forth; Miami held a 19-14 lead with just five minutes left. Cliff Branch, who would go on to average an insane 24.2 yards per catch in eclipsing 1,000 yards in 1976, caught a crazy deep bomb for a TD. Yes, another great gunslinging catch, which was called in real time by the Raiders announcer “the most incredible catch of the year” and would have had a name if this were any other mere good gunslinging Game With A Name.

But this was among the greatest of great, if not thee greatest, gunslinging Games With A Name.

But with 4:37 on the clock, the Dolphins weren’t done yet. They promptly scored a touchdown to go up 26 - 21 and left the Raiders with just two minutes (and one second) to keep their season alive.

Stabler promptly gunslung (marched) the Raiders downfield. Where on first-and-goal (not 4th down) from the eight-yard line with 35 (not 5) seconds left, Stabler made such a great gunslinging gamble that would make the greatest of gunslingers (Brett Favre) swoon even more than a sea of swinging panties. Fractions of a second away from being sacked, a falling down Stabler lobbed a lame duck ball into quadruple coverage to the guy with the worst hands on the team, according to teammate and Hall of Famer Gene Upshaw. That man with bad hands was Clarence Moore. But rather than be left for dead on some Old West thoroughfare, slowly decaying into anonymity, Clarence Moore wrote his name into gunslinging history (here in this entry on this Poll) by making that miraculous catch in The Sea of Hands that kept the sea of panties swinging and swinging and swinging late into the night across the Bay Area, which may have contributed to the Bay Area’s increased population over the past half of a century (if you are of a certain age and Bay Area born, Clarence Moore may not be your father, but he certainly damn well might be your gunslinging godfather, which is a bit of free genealogical information you can’t even pay ancestry.com to retrieve for you).

Final Score

Oakland Raiders 28

Miami Dolphins 26

Unfortunately for the Raiders, the great Pittsburgh Steelers would come into the Coliseum the following week and put up 21 points in the 4th quarter to earn the trip to the Super Bowl.

Fortunately for Madden and the Raiders, it wouldn’t be their last victory in a great gunslinging Game With A Name.

Ghost to the Post (1977)

This was another crucial play in another classic playoff game, the first playoff game the Raiders would win on the road, away from the Coliseum, away from the site of the sea of swinging black panties.

On the opposite coast, in fact, in Baltimore against the Colts, who had edged out Don Shula’s Dolphins to grab the top spot in the AFC East and the right to host the Raiders in the AFC Divisional Playoffs and lose a Game With A Name to legendary gunslinging head coach John Madden.

It was a game that saw a series (a sea, we might have said instead if we were still studying saltwater rather than the supernatural) of great plays. Spurts of great defense, particularly in the first half, followed by spurts of great offense, particularly in the second half, and then more spurts of great defense once again in overtime that spilled over into an improbable second OT period in the gunslingingly sudden death era of NFL overtime.

Like the Sea of Hands game, this was a back and forth seesaw game that either team could have won.

But only one team had “the Ghost,” only one team had All-Pro Dave Casper, the lone 70s Raider whose nickname namesake was a friendly ghost, in stark contrast to the likes of Jack Tatum “the Assassin,” Kenny “the Snake” Stabler, Skip (which is actually a nickname itself often used instead of his first name Alonzo) “Dr. Death” Thomas, or "Kick 'em in the Head Ted” (surname: Hendricks) whose more “family-friendly” alternate nickname was the Mad Stork.

Yes, the only squad that day that had a friendly ghost on their motorcycle gang of a football roster would be Madden’s Oakland Raiders.

Casper had an all-time great playoff performance—and it is hard to immediately think of a better one by a tight-end—with 3 touchdown catches!

But it was an even better grab that snagged a name for this game and a spot on this Prestigious Poll with a name: The Gunslinger Top 25, Your #1 High Noon Poll.

Down by 3 late in the 4th quarter amidst a roaring Baltimore crowd, Dave Casper ran a post pattern designed to create space for two Raiders receivers to run in patterns. After briefly discussing the play with Stabler following an incomplete pass, Raiders receivers coach Tom Flores threw out a poetic line that bolstered his Hall of Fame case to eventual success just half of a century later; what may have seemed like an afterthought to most boring, unimaginative, non-gunslingers who have never bluffed in poker, broken a rule, or recited the gunslinging poetry of Raiders assistant coaches, what may have gone in one ear and out the other helmet hole of those unoriginal quarterbacks who like to always throw the ball where the play is designed to go, is etched in immortal gunslinger history:

"Take a peek at the Ghost to the post."

When you give a great gunslinger like Kenny Stabler a beautiful gunslinging speech like that, he is going to do more than just take a peek: like the Great Heroic Voyeurism Of Old, he is going to launch, from a clean pocket into triple coverage, a 42-yard bomb so his tight end can make an iconic, all-time great catch to get the Raiders into overtime, and later double overtime, so that same friendly gunslinging ghost can make the game-winning, walk-off touchdown catch in the corner of the end zone.

Casper, one of the greatest tight-ends of all time in addition to his paving the way for ghosts-obtaining-acceptance credentials, continued his all-time great playoff performance that year by catching two more TDs the following week on the road in Denver to keep the Raiders alive in an AFC Championship Game they would ultimately lose by three points.

But this story doesn’t end here: we are only 66.6667% through this holy trinity as Casper wasn’t done helping John Madden win great gunslinging Games With A Name.

The Holy Roller (1978)

Oakland opened the very next season at San Diego.

Their offense had been erratic throughout the game, with Stabler completing less than half of his passes, three of which ended up in the hands of Chargers as interceptions.

As such, it is only natural for any great gang of gunslingers to go deep into their gunslinging toolkit when down by six with ten seconds left and almost getting sacked just outside the redzone to start fumbling the ball forward until to reaches the end zone, where Dave Casper can land on it and win the game for the Raiders.

Non-gunslingers call this play controversial, because it was illegal, even with the NFL’s more gunslinging-friendly rules (or lack thereof) of the 1970s, for a player to intentionally fumble the football forward.

But when do gunslingers, with all their brawling and boozing, have time to read a rulebook?

When a great gunslinger, like Dave Casper, is verbally told a rule, such as you can’t sit on your helmet at practice because you wouldn’t eat with your helmet on, Casper wisely came to dinner that night wearing his helmet and ate through the facemask to prove a gunslinging point. Casper astutely noted:

“If you’re gonna be a great football player, you’re gonna be a little weird.”

The same could be same about being a great gunslinger:

“If you’re gonna be a great gunslinger, you’re gonna be a little weird.”

Or just batshit crazy.

Unfortunately, the term batshit crazy is not always viewed in a favorable light by global society’s establishment.

And so what happens to those in society don’t stand their whole life in the corner? What happens to people who color outside the lines or color non-red flowers or non-green leaves? What happens to any good example of great gunslinging? The law will step in to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And that’s what the NFL did, implementing rules to limit the advancement of fumbles, one of the gunslinger’s favorite plays.

This is perhaps why we have so few great gunslinging Games With A Name (That Madden Won) nowadays; yet we can still pull ourselves up by our gunslinging bootstraps and use our self-gunslinging-agency to vote on which Game With A Name (That Madden Won) that makes us feel the most gunslinging, a Proposition the anti-gunslinger calls batshit crazy and will never allow in their stuck-in-the-mud (but not Mud Bath) antiquated polling stations.

“Why choose between getting rid of batshit or crazy,” the anti-gunslinging thinking goes, “when you can get rid of both?”

But it is more than the law that degrades great gunslinging works by (mis)using words as their demonic tool. The anti-gunslinging propaganda machine gets to work and calls this great gunslinging play The Immaculate Deception, a play on the greatest play in NFL History that represents the only Great Gunslinging Game With A Name Madden lost: The Immaculate Reception (which does rhyme with deception, making some feel clever in swapping the words as they walk a pathetic path towards self-worth #SometimesSelf-DiscoveryIsn’tTheBestThingWhenYouDiscoverYourDenigrationOfGunslingersThroughBasicRhymesIsWorthless).

9. The Immaculate Reception

The number 9 signifies completion, among other things. The Raiders might think 13 is a more appropriate spot for this great gunslinging play, this great gunslinging Game With A Name on this Great Gunslinging Poll, for it caused the Raiders to lose the game 13 -7 and end their 13th season.

Unlucky?

Is being on the wrong side of great gunslinging unlucky?

Sometimes it just means being the victim of a Brett Favre crime.

But in cases when you yourself are a great gunslinger, and you are on the wrong side of an even greater gunslinging performance, it is called being outdueled (citation: Hamilton, Alexander); and you may have to wait a couple centuries for someone, probably named Lin-Manuel Miranda, to create a gunslinging play to return you to gunslinging prominence (citation: Hamilton).

Oh the fun puns and wordplay we could play here with the word play as a noun (meaning “theatrical performance”), the word play again as noun (meaning “something that happens in a football game that could reach such gunslinging heights that it helps you achieve immortality”), and play as a verb (meaning what it means as a verb) would be enough to remix a classic book of Dr. Suess, a gunslinging doctor who opted out of medical school training while still getting a medical school named after him while also helpfully paving the way for future great doctors who simply lacked a few of those educational boxes checked (citation: Dre, Dr.) while also helpfully getting fired from a writing job for gunslingingly drinking gin during Prohibition while yet also miraculously avoiding costly and draining medical malpractice suits because he never medically malpracticed, demonstrating once and for all that gunslinging could be, and is, the answer that finally solves the riddle of how to fix our healthcare system.

But until our healthcare system is finally fixed, we are forced to rely on the old tried and true Old West remedy of drinking whisky and discoursing about gunslinging.

As so far as the gunslinging of the Immaculate Reception goes, it was the second time the Raiders were done in that season by the Steelers, losing the season opener at Three Rivers Stadium, in early evidence proving that gold is worth more than silver (black provides the constant in the precious metal study of the Steelers Black & Gold vs. the Raiders Silver & Black) and in also setting up nice gunslinging symmetry for bookending their 1972 campaign with losses at Pittsburgh, the backend of which came by dropping this Immaculate Game With A Name.

The Raiders came into this Game With A Name hot. After starting the season 4-3-1, The Silver & Black reeled off six straight wins. Their offense was clicking, reaching at least 20 points in each of those games.

That had no names, not completely unlike America’s Great Anonymous Horses of Old.

But in this great gunslinging Game With A Name, they were locked in a defensive battle, a shutout until the Steelers mustered (pun of the Heinz variety intended) a field goal in the third quarter followed by another in the fourth quarter, going up 6-0 in a game where that looked likely to be enough to advance to the AFC Championship Game.

But then the great gunslinger Kenny “the Snake” Stabler used his legs, which is ironic in some metaphorical roundabout way because (in the last 6,000 years or so) snakes don’t have legs, which we know from the Bible, and/or seeing a snake that doesn’t have legs yet still doesn’t qualify for disability benefits; not to mention that great gunslingers historically rely more on their upper limbs than lower, Brett Favre’s penis (the upper echelon of gunslinging low-to-middle limbs) not withstanding. So with all of this aforementioned meaning embodied in Kenny “the Snake” Stabler’s lower limbs, he used them to silence the opposing Three Rivers Stadium as he slithered and snaked his way for a 30-yard TD scramble that put the Raiders up 7-6 with just over a minute left.

Sometimes great gunslinging just sets the table for even greater gunslinging. And that’s what happened as the Steelers had the ball 4th-and-10 from their own 40-yard line with just 22 seconds left, still trailing 7-6. The fate of their season, the fate of the gunslinging future, the fate of (the #9 spot) of the 2026 Top 25 Gunslinger Poll was held in the balance.

One of those pairs of hands holding the fate of the gunslinging future in the balance belonged to the great gunslinger Terry Bradshaw, and we all know great gunslingers do not hold things in balance for very long (7 seconds at most, we will soon learn). Bradshaw dropped back, almost immediately under pressure from the Raiders defense. He scrambled to avoid pressure and threw up a desperation heave that was launched a gunslingingly-long almost 7 seconds after the snap.

The gunslinging prayer was intended for John “Frenchy” Fuqua (an Anglicized French surname, you have correctly surmised), who was leveled by Jack “the Assassin” Tatum at the Raiders 35-yard line, showing off the arm strength of Bradshaw as with a flick of the gunslinging wrist he seemingly effortlessly propelled the ball from under pressure backed up at his own thirty to the Raiders side of the field.

But it looked all for naught, a failed great gunslinging effort, as the ball sailed backwards in the air, apparently destined for incompletion and a turnover on downs.

In this game, though, like the Great Angels in the Outfield of Old, there was divine gunslinging intervention.

Gunslingers don’t like incomplete passes; neither do their gunslinging gods.

Touchdowns are loved.

Interceptions are adored.

Incompletions are hated.

And so as the pigskin floated harmlessly in the air towards the ground and obscurity, like the billions of boring non-gunslingers that have died before us, the gunslinging gods put their spirit into Steelers rookie running back Franco Harris and echoed, probably in some postproduction effect-laden whisper-stylized voice, the words of his Penn State coach Joe Paterno in his head:

“Go to the ball.”

So Franco Harris went to the ball, scooped it up (out of the air, not off the ground, of course) with the other pair of gunslinging hands that would hold the fate of gunslinging futures in its grasp on this fateful gunslinging day, and outran the Raiders defense on the way to the end zone, a miraculous 13-7 victory for the Steelers, the best play in NFL history, and the only gunslinging Game With A Name the great gunslinger named John Madden would ever lose.

Of course gunslinging at advanced levels is rarely without some level of advanced controversy.

And the greatest of gunslinging is rarely without a two-part controversy centering on the anti-gunslinging laws on the NFL books Before the Common Gunslinger Era (B.C.G.E.):

1. If an offensive player touches the ball on a pass, only he could catch the pass. However, if a defensive player touched the ball by himself or simultaneously touched the ball with an offensive player, it was fair game for anyone to catch it and proceed with gunslinging as necessary.

2. If a pass were thrown and hit the ground before anyone caught it, you could not just scoop up the ball off the turf as if you had caught it and then, continuing to pretend you just legitimately caught the ball, run it into the end zone to break John Madden’s heart in the only Game With A Name he ever lost.

Like any great legal battle that demands transparency for its great gravity (both of importance and regular gravity as the ball may have hit the ground before Franco scooped it up), these two statutes above were argued and litigated in the court of public gunslinging opinion.

But before that could happen, the NFL Police Force (referees) took a long time to make their final decision.

Back judge Adrian Burk had signaled touchdown and umpire Pat Harder agreed. But the other boys in blue (referees actually wearing black and white) weren’t so sure. A discussion took place. At this point, like the Great Police Investigations of Old, it was uncertain if truth and justice would prevail. But in great gunslinging stories, justice always prevails (citation: Westerns), unless you believe justice is Brett Favre giving back lunch money he stole from some poor kid, in which case we don’t know what you are drinking, because if you are drinking whisky as advised while reading this Poll, you are not living in some dumb-as-dogshit fantasy land where that will happen, where Brett Favre will be giving alms to the poor. For those educated among us reading this Poll (all that are reading this Poll are inherently educated by reading it) can clearly see the obvious truth: Brett Favre gives dick pics, not money or food, primarily to hot massage therapists; Brett Favre takes money, primarily from the poor when doing it illegally through unfortunately easily traceable text messages.

Referee Fred Swearingen, conveniently of the same last name namesake (though with an altered spelling, which can happen over the course of gunslinging time) as famed Deadwood pimp Al Swearengen (Old West Dead Pimp researchers actually show the correct spelling of Al’s surname is actually Swearingen) and so we can imagine Fred to be a direct or distant descendant of Al until some anti-gunslinging genealogist without a life but with a perverse anti-gunslinging agenda proves otherwise, made a phone call.

After the phone call, Swearingen (the referee, not the pimp) confirmed what God already knew: it was a touchdown.

Naturally, the Raiders probably wondered how Alexander Graham Bell, not known for having any affairs during his lengthy loving marriage, kept on getting his instrumental instrument involved in so many of these tantalizingly important gunslinging moments.

The Raiders definitely wondered what was discussed during that phone call.

They didn’t believe that Fred Swearingen used that time to send a dick pic on the NFL’s dime because you have to remember that telecommunications technology was not that advanced Before the Common Gunslinger Era (B.C.G.E.).

As such, other speculation was speculated, like the Great Gold Speculators of Old searching to line their pockets with gold—or conspiracy theories.

The finest such conspiracy held that during that phone call Fred Swearingen checked to see if there were enough police on hand (actual police, not NFL referees) to ensure public safety, especially that of the referees (selfish bastards), if they were to rule against the great and godly Pittsburgh Steelers and side on the demonic side of the devilish Oakland Raiders. When Fred Swearingen, maybe or maybe not a direct descendent of Al Swearengen as noted earlier through pronunciation of last name analysis, learned there was not enough law enforcement to ensure safety, that perhaps no amount of law enforcement could quell a riotous Pittsburgh crowd (citation: Pinkertons raising the white flag four times in the Great Homestead Strikes of Old), that the best thing to do for public safety was also actually congruent with the best thing to do for gunslinging integrity: call the play a touchdown.

So that was the end of the story.

So an anti-gunslinging activist genealogist would like to think.

And they would be wrong, as genealogists who get distracted by non-genealogy work of attacking gunslingers often are.

It was time for the big boy scientists to put on their big boy pants, which they probably suppositionally did after waking up, and conduct big boy experiments on this big boy gunslinging play.

For any time there is a good gunslinging controversy, prominent physics professors should—and do—get involved. Carnegie Mellon University’s John Fetkovich combined his physics and Steelers fandom background to perform unbiased (and perhaps unneeded) experiments that proved the ball hit Tatum first. Such science is agreed upon by Dr. Timothy Gay, who literally wrote the book on the physics of football, with the foreword by Bill Belichick providing some good, old old-fashioned honest credibility to the project.

But you honestly don’t have to be a physics professor to know that. You could be Terry Bradshaw, who Hollywood Henderson (an untrustworthy man actually from Oklahoma and not Hollywood) claimed couldn’t spell “cat” even if you spotted him the first two letters. Of course Bradshaw was smarter than people jealous of his great gunslinging claimed. But really, when you look at the play and how the ball bounces backward, it does seem pretty likely to have hit Tatum first.

Which brings us to the second point of controversy: did Franco scoop the ball off the ground or out the air?

That really seems like it could go either way. It doesn’t seem definitive.

Until you look at the evidence.

The ball is so far from the ground, there is enough space to fit a Sweet Livin’ hat, evidence that can be conveniently purchased at: https://www.sweetlivinproductions.com/merch.

So as you can clearly be seen here from this statue, the ball is clearly off the ground. And if you don’t believe the airport statue, go argue with TSA and see what good that does you.

But Franco still had to run 40 yards after legally catching the ball. In order to do, look at his gunslinging eyes.

After realizing how successful the one conference game was, the Pac-12 decided to take the age-old, sage-old advice of Ernie Banks—"It's a great day for a game, why not two?"—and double the conference fun in 2025 with two conference games.

Everyone in the conference was a champion! Is there a more competitive conference in America?!?!?! How many conferences champions will the Pac-12 have next year? Nine? Or more? Only the new year, and the new Pac-12 math it offers, will tell.

22. The Guy Who Cut His Own Arm Off While Climbing To Save Himself & Get On This Gunslinging Poll

Sometimes referred to as The Gunslinger Who Cut His Own Arm Off While Climbing To Save Himself & Get On This Gunslinging Poll, but we exchanged “Gunslinger” for “Guy” here because this is a Gunslinger Poll (the most-esteemed at that) where everyone is a gunslinger and thus we wanted to avoid the redundancy that would have been created by including the word “gunslinger” in the subheading above out of consideration for the reader’s time—and liver, as the reader must be quite hammered by now if you have been drinking whisky nonstop whilst reading this Poll, as prescribed (if your doctor is Doc Holliday, in which case your doctor would be dentist. And dead. And would be the protagonist in the greatest gunslinging general practitioner story ever told).

But even if we consider more likely healthcare scenarios, even if Doc Holliday is not yet acting as your unlicensed general practitioner, your current general practitioner recognized by your insurance company may have reservations about prescribing so much whisky or recommending a gunslinger cut off their own arm just to get onto this Poll. Your general practitioner may have many questions, which is part of their medical training that they receive at the finest of our medical schools where they are shown episodes of Seinfeld to prepare them for what being a doctor will not be like.

While a gunslinger cutting off his own arm is a gutsy gunslinging move of the utmost gunslinging degree, how then will he proceed to gunsling in the future?

Good question. And it is true that neither Jerry Seinfeld nor George Constanza ever even tried to answer that.

But as highly-secretive as our highly-secure Gunslinger Voting procedures are, we will reward you for reading this far and reveal that George Constanza is not a Gunslinging Voter.

Neither is Jerry Seinfeld, yet.

Sure, you are smart and may use the process of elimination to figure out who the Gunslinging Voters are, but luckily people are continuing to get intoxicated and have babies, making the Gunslinging Voter voting rolls all that much more secure and resistant to the powers of process-of-elimination science.

Because you cannot watch Seinfeld reruns to get sound medical advice, we will provide substantial suppositions here regarding the gunslinging prognosis for the future of a one-armed gunslinger.

Well, at least we will make one such supposition, for a substantial supposition has the power of plurality endowed in its wonderful weightiness.

We suppose he could go on another climbing adventure, this time with one arm, get that remaining arm stuck, and then cut it off to get even higher on this Poll.

A tall order indeed.

The only comparable example we (or anyone else, for no one else in the world has provided comparable examples to this one-armed, self-amputated amputee gunslinging) can think of to this exemplary example of gunslinging gutsiness is 2Pac shooting his own testicle.

2Pac still had one remaining testicle and this guy presumably still has one remaining arm. It’s essentially the same.

Perhaps this guy took the line “I’d give up my right arm to get on the Gunslinger Poll” too literally.

Or do others not take it literally enough?

2Pac gave up his left testicle.

Would you rather dedicate your left nut or your right arm for the sake of gunslinging?

Or are you thinking about parting with another body part altogether?

What body part would you sacrifice to get on the only Gunslinger Poll you trust?

You certainly aren’t going to sacrifice your time and spend two hours watching James Franco play this guy in a movie, when you would much rather spend your valuable time finishing your whisky and finishing this Poll.

23. Elwood P. Dowd

“Elwood P. Who?” you might be thinking.

We will explain. #GunslingingEducation

A true gentleman gunslinger, this guy rips up mail before even looking at it just as he rips up responsibilities. In true Old West gunslinging fashion, he prefers whisky over beer and rebukes the most esteemed psychologist around for siding with barley pop over the harder stuff. He stashes booze around the house and when he is not at home, he is usually getting hammered at the local bar with career criminals and his imaginary rabbit pal, who might kindly and conveniently pick up the tab every now and then.

Most people (who are reading this Poll for the first time; not those of you who are re-reading this Poll in preparation for the final revision of your senior thesis and thus already can educatedly anticipate what we are about to say) probably never think of the black-and-white 1950 film Harvey as a one-hour-and-forty-four-minute revelatory gunslinging exposé revealing the hidden beauty of the beautiful gunslinging of one Elwood P. Dowd. If they have even heard of the film, they probably never watched it, thinking it is some cheap mid-20th-century comedic gag about a man who has an imaginary rabbit friend.

Far from it. When you sit down and watch the movie—and try to match Dowd’s drinking pace while doing so—the subtle hints of dry comedic genius rise to the surface along with the should-be-seminal shirking-of-responsibility act of blaming one’s alcohol problems on a pooka, a mystical, mischievous, and (most-likely) fictional large, white rabbit. Where for many a millennium many a gunslinger may have been saddled with guilt for shedding responsibilities in favor of whisky, now we all can just blame it on the pooka (and then make the person trying to make us feel guilt instead feel shame themself if they don’t know what a pooka is). #VerySmartIfNotGenius #ItIsActuallyGenius

But it is not just the blame and shame game that Dowd wins in gentlemanly fashion: in virtually every conversation he is involved in he comes out on top. For example, when someone asks him in everyday conversation “Is there something I can do for you?”, Dowd gunslingingly responds, “What did you have in mind?”

The correct response, we will generously reveal for you, is joining Dowd and his friends (real and imaginary alike) for a nightcap down at Charlie’s.

There is another beautiful life riddle that this gentleman gunslinger gentlemanly and gunslingingly provides us the answer to as he responds to the esteemed psychologist Dr. Chumley becoming frustrated and asking Dowd:

“Good heaven’s man! Haven’t you any righteous indignation?”

To which Dowd so beautifully responds with advice his mother gave him:

“‘In this world Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’

Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.”

With Dowd’s permission, we have indeed quoted him—and given you the choice yourself to be the smart gunslinger or the pleasant gunslinger. It is obvious which gunslinger Elwood P. Dowd voted for (posthumously, through our surrogate voting program for presumed-to-be-deceased gunslingers) in the gentlemanly pleasant v. smart High Noon showdown, for he indeed is the good-guy gentlemanly pleasant gunslinger like Eli Manning.

But it is not the coattails of Manning he road on to get onto this Prestigious List after more than three quarters of a century of waiting. It is the coattails of a gunslinger a little more course but just as quote-worthy:

Curt Cignetti.

“Curt Cignetti is also friends with tall pookas!?!?!?!?” You may be wondering.

To the best of our journalist knowledge, no. Unless they are good at football, and very coachable. And pookas usually aren’t (citation: you never see any pookas invited to the NFL Combine).

“Elwood P. Dowd must be the grandfather or a relative of Curt Cignetti then—that must be it, right?”

Well, we cannot say that you are wrong, because we don’t actually know for sure as we have not commissioned a proper genealogy investigation into the important subject matter yet, but that is not the current connection even though we hope that to be the connection in the future. #SomethingToPrayFor

“So what is the connection between these two great and glorious gunslingers? Please tell me now as I am dying to know.”

We shall oblige:

Indiana.

“Elwood P. Dowd is a Hoosier?”

Probably, at least in the film version given the license plates and offhand mention of Akron which wouldn’t be too far (though the mountains in the distant background of some scenes indicate a kind of Hollywood version of Indy, usually known for flatness off of the silver screen #MovieMagic). So that Hoosier bond is a legitimate potential connection between Dowd and Cignetti. Still, it is a different Indiana we are referring to that brings these two all-time great gunslingers together here on this all-time great Gunslinger Poll.

“Oh!” You must now be thinking. “You are referring the great town of Indiana, Pennsylvania, in the old, less-recognized wild west of Western, Pennsylvania just a little over an hour from the great gunslinging city of Pittsburgh, which not only produced the steel to defeat the Nazis in World War II, but also has long-used the positive gunslinging math much older than that of the Pac-12 to turn two rivers into three, in a miraculous multiplication feat more believable than those of biblical proportions. It is also important to note, especially if you are an investor: like the Great Rumpelstiltskins of Old, Pittsburgh can (and has) turned something yellow into gold, a valuable skill you can also learn by watching this short video that can change your financial future forever.”

Precisely!

“I knew it!” You must be saying to yourself right now (especially if you are reading this out loud, something you might unknowingly tend to do when heavily intoxicated). “But now I need to know what the connection to that particular wonderful Indiana is exactly.”

And we shall oblige this worthy wish as well:

Curt Cignetti, as you may remember from his entry above and your time watching Indiana University of Pennsylvania Crimson Hawk games between 2011 to 2016, teamed up with Norm the Crimson Hawk to start one of the greatest gunslinging runs of any collegiate football coach ever (citation: 2026 Gunslinger Poll). And gentleman gunslinger Elwood P. Dowd is portrayed beautifully in the beautiful 1950 film Harvey by Jimmy Stewart, who was born and raised in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

Jimmy Stewart himself embodies the gentlemanly gunslinger.

While Pittsburgh supplied the steel to defeat the Nazis, Jimmy Stewart flew the planes. He was the first major movie star to enlist in the military during World War II and he made sure that he did not receive special star treatment for his star (or Western PA) status. He flew behind enemy lines as a combat pilot and retired a brigadier general. He was a war hero.

Yet rarely talked about it, never gloating about it or using it to his advantage.

He was a humble hero.

So much so that many do not know about his heroics.

To the extent where he can successfully play the weak politician in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance opposite of the tough guy hero played by John Wayne, who never served in the military outside of a Hollywood studio, where he did multiple tours of duty in all of the branches of the armed forces.

That dynamic essentially embodies Stewart’s brand of under-the-radar gentlemanly gunslinging he portrays perfectly in Elwood P. Dowd.

After World War II, Stewart starred in It’s a Wonderful Life, the top Christmas movie of all time. He would later star in four classic Alfred Hitchcock films on his way to gunslingingly impressive 80 total movies and ranking as the 3rd most legendary male actor of all time.

That just goes to show you that it is that much easier to be an all-time great actor than all-time great gunslinger as Jimmy Stewart himself hasn’t even actually made this Poll as this entry is simply his great gunslinging character, Elwood P. Dowd. And even if this slot were occupied by Stewart rather than Dowd, 23 is a much lower ranking than 3, once again demonstrating and highlighting the competitive industry of gunslinging, which obviously dwarfs Hollywood in competitiveness.

That’s why it is much more realistic for parents to encourage their kids to be a Hollywood movie star than to be an all-time great gunslinger and ascend to this Poll.

But maybe we would have more movie stars if more parents did encourage their kids to reach the dream of being an all-time great gunslinger; after all, as they (people who don’t even know the most basic sh*t about astronomy) say:

“If you shoot for the moon, you’ll land on the stars.”

If all of your gunslinging dreams didn’t come true, which constellation would you most like to land on?

We don’t have a Poll for that because frankly that is something you should be discussing with your therapist (plus there are A LOT of constellations, so it seems like a lot of work to put into such a Poll). #WasteOfTime If your therapist thinks you are crazy for wanting to talk about that subject of choosing what constellation should be your consolation prize for failed gunslinging that is causing a lifetime of regret, kindly explain to your dumb therapist that that is precisely why you are in therapy. #DoYourJob #(IfBillBelichickIsYourTherapist,HeWillUnderstand)

24. Barry Sanders

He keeps running backwards on this Poll, but not in our hearts (where he will always run at exactly 5 yards per carry). At this rate of running backwards, this is likely this great gunslinging running back’s final appearance on this Poll, which he has been on every year since this Poll’s revolutionary inception in 2022, the same year ChatGPT was released; and so it will be interesting to observe what will be more influential over time: ChatGPT or this Poll. The only way to truly track that is by voting in this Gunslinging Preposition Poll.

As for Sanders, his legacy will undoubtedly be showing future running backs how to gunsling. Naturally, it is easier for quarterbacks to be gunslingers because of the throwing motion coupled with the fact a quarterback can throw a plethora of interceptions and still continue to play and send dick pics (citation: Favre, Brett) whereas a running back is not allowed to fumble 23 times in back-to-back seasons at the prime of their career as Brett Favre was successfully able to achieve with interceptions to round out the 1990s (though obviously the Y2K computer bug hurt everyone’s interception rates much more than cellphone plan rates). And no one wants to receive dick pics from practice squad running back. But Sanders, another gentlemanly gunslinging never known for sending a dick pic or fumbling, came up with another creative way for a running back to gunsling.

Running backwards.

Sanders famously holds the NFL record for 336 negative runs for a total of 1,114 yards. That would be a great season for many running backs (if those yards were positive). Before Sanders, it was never thought that a running back could be a gunslinger. But with his creative thinking, his creative running, and creative gunslinging, he has paved the way for other running back to be able to make this Poll. Sure, they might not run backwards as much as Barry, but who does? What we are saying is that Barry Sanders ran backwards a lot over the course of ten seasons so Ricky Williams could smoke a lot of weed and make this Poll last year, becoming only the second running back to ever achieve that accomplishment (after Sanders of course), probably a big reason why the devaluing of the running back position has been so largely discussed to the point where running backs have had to hold conferences discussing the matter. But since Sanders has consistently been making this Poll every year of the Poll’s existence, the running back position has been making a comeback, demonstratively demonstrating the power of this powerful Poll, which is one reason the admired and (secretly) celebrated voting process is so secretive, to avoid so-called gunslinger lobbyists from trying to float about money in attempt to corrupt the system. With a less secure voting system, punter lobbyists would go around trying to court our voters with fancy dinners and vacations at expensive resorts so that people would think punters are gunslingers and they would get bigger contracts, and women would think their penises are bigger. Because we aren’t susceptible to such corruption, it has allowed Hims to fill the void and experience tremendous growth (that we could have experienced here had we not been so ethical). Of course, another reason we must avoid corruption here is so that there is enough room for enough corruption for Southern Miss to have high-quality women’s volleyball facilities.

You may be thinking, “What about Barry Sanders? He has been gone for a good chunk of this previous paragraph. Where has he been?”

Running backwards, we presume.

25. (Tied) Tiger Woods

What a great year it has been for Tiger (in gunslinging terms, more so than golfing terms)! Not only did he play the the age-old I-was-just-talking-to-the-President-get-out-of-jail-free card in effort to get out of a DUI arrest, but the police bodycam footage surprisingly shows a bright sunshiny day, where most lesser gunslingers usually experience such arrests after sunset, with less jokes about the value of putters and whether or not we may play in the Masters.

(Tied) Happy Gilmore

Tiger Woods once again shares this spot on this Prestigious Poll with Happy Gilmore, who rose back into this Poll by starring in a new self-titled movie, a sequel to his first very successful self-title movie. Tiger has becoming looking more and more of that same ilk as Happy Gilmore, but it is John Daly, who has notably been snubbed in these Polls, who is actually Happy’s brother as was revealed in 2 minutes and 52 seconds of glorious screentime. Happy’s newest movie revealed that the famous gunslinging golfer has a lot of famous gunslinging associations, like Marshal Mathers, whose father’s identity was revealed in this new film. Will Tiger star in a Happy movie in the future? Will Happy have even another movie to complete the trilogy? Will Happy and Tiger happily share a spot on this Poll once again to complete the trilogy of sharing a spot on this Poll three times? Only the hands of gunslinging time, which tick through future Gunslinger Polls, will tell.

26. Boxing Day

As long as the greatest gunslinger holiday known to humankind (citation: 2025 Gunslinger Poll) remains the 26th day of the last month of the Gregorian calendar, it will surely remain 26th on these most-prestigious and important Top 25 Polls.

Honorable Mention: Rick Pitino

Is there any more time-tested honorable way to make up for moral and ethical transgressions than winning?

You could rummage through the wisdom of any honorable and trustworthy Gunslinger Poll without finding one.

And so this year’s Poll (almost) ends here.

Receiving Votes/On The Bubble:

Nicolas Cage remains on the bubble for his John Madden movie ties; we are all eager to see how that pans out.

Hemingway’s Cafe in the South Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. They played by their own rules, calling themselves a cafe when most more traditional users of the English language would refer to them as a bar. They connected Hemingway, most known for the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa (or even his Midwest upbringing), to Pittsburgh. As literary of an anchor as this establishment had (citation: its namesake), it was also a place where you could get pitchers (of strong alcohol) with gummy worms (that replaced the original Dum-Dum lollipops after the popularity of the pitchers outpaced the production of Dum-Dum lollipops at the Dum-Dum lollipop factory), very much in line with the Pittsburgh culinary tradition of making anything as unhealthy as possible (the Pittsburgh Salad). We were unable to get a comment from a reputable (or disreputable) chemist to provide an accurate (or inaccurate) estimate of how quickly a Dum-Dum lollipop stick dissolves in a pitcher of liquor, nor could we get a comment from a reputable (or disreputable) dietician regarding the potential health benefits of consuming Dum-Dum lollipop sticks, but it is safe to assume that if you are going to ingest Dum-Dum lollipop sticks that pairing them with a large amount of strong alcohol is the way to go. Named Hemingway’s by former Pirates infielder and All-Star Frankie Gustine in 1983, Hemingway’s had a quite a run, outliving Gustine who died in 1991, leaving a lasting legacy well beyond his lifetime. Now we put Hemingway’s to rest here. RIP May 1, 2026. Gone but not forgotten. Maybe they will get some posthumous bump like 2Pac.

André the Giant was a real-life giant. And real-life gunslinger. His liver was otherworldly. His drinking stories are legendary—and might just be enough to get him off of the bubble and onto the Poll.

Oreos generously offer such a gunslinging amount of flavor packed into a such a compact cookie. They have broadened their horizons with a wide array of gunslinger flavors. It is hard to seem them not gunsling their way back onto the Poll.

Shoeless Joe Jackson: no shoes, just pure, unadulterated gunslinging.

Dad’s Dogs in Pittsburgh.

The good news for these lucky dogs (low-hanging pun intended) is that by earning enough votes and consideration to get on the bubble, these great gunslingers have earned a permanent place on future Gunslinger Poll ballots (if they haven’t, like Oreos, earned that honor already), invaluably improving their pole position and exponentially increasing their chances to successfully earning their own prestigious place on future Prestigious Polls.

A Late Valiant Push To Get On This Year’s Poll:

Tony Romo. The sky is the limit for this charismatic gunslinger. We will have to see where 2027 takes him. All’s we know for now is this is a gunslinger who has had multiple back surgeries. We expect to have more details about his gunslinging by next year, where he has at least done himself the favor of getting onto the ballot, a very big accomplishment. So he has to consider 2026 a successful year for himself.

Bubble Burst/Notable Fall From Gunslinging Grace & Glory:

Tyrese Haliburton’s Dad is suffering, like a good gunslinging father always does, vicariously through his son’s Achilles injury.

Jim Harbaugh has just been putting together winning, playoff teams. But where is the bridge burning?

Marc-André Fleury retired from the NHL and has seemingly retired from gunslinging, for now.

Big Ben (The Clock, Not The QB) probably has been a little too consistent with the timekeeping for gunslinging standards. Maybe be a little more gunslinging with your timekeeping. No need to follow the masses. Set your own standards. Set your own time. #JustAFriendlyBitOfFreeAdvice

Lil Wayne didn’t show up for this year’s Poll just as he didn’t show up for his own concert in Bangor, Maine (though he did show up early for his early morning flight to sneak out of there, perhaps worried that an axe-wielding Paul Bunyan, standing 31 feet tall and in earshot of the performance that never happened, might take revenge).

*for most of the country: Erie, a town that has hit hard times despite its relative close proximity to the great City of Pittsburgh, just stopped using the Pony Express last year.

**but if you do call your congressman, congresswoman, or congresschild to encourage the passage of such legislation, we advise you borrow your friend’s cellphone to do so, as getting a buddy, rather than yourself, flagged by the federal government’s lack of a sense of humor is always a good gunslinging gag

***pun enthusiasts may note that “Bo” and “bow” could make for some solid puns, so you may use this time (we are gifting you some time here) to create some puns in that manner.