If Ben Franklin were alive today, he’d probably smell awful and he’d have to agree that three things are certain in life – death, taxes and people hating ol’ biased Joe Buck. Sure enough, baseball fans complained to the highest heavens and lowest hells about his alleged love for the St. Louis Cardinals during last year’s World Series, and they absolutely bitched and moaned again this year during the NLCS. So of course the San Francisco Chronicle asked Tim McCarver’s babysitter what he thinks about these accusations.

“We get it everywhere we go,” said Buck, referring to himself and partner Tim McCarver. “It’s not unique to San Francisco. It doesn’t matter where we are.”

“It’s easily explainable in the baseball world,” said Buck. “Fans are used to hearing their hometown guys. When you come at it objectively, people aren’t used to it. It gets frustrating. You want to say, ‘No, I don’t hate the Giants.’ “

A very diplomatic and reasonable response by Buck, who I sometimes feel bad for because of all of the hate that he receives from baseball and football fans alike. But there’s another side to this coin that people don’t often recognize – a lot of Cardinals fans think that Buck is biased against the Cardinals. And he had a response for that as well.

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There’s a great site out there called Stiff Arm Trophy, and they’re projecting that Auburn quarterback Cam Newton will win the Heisman Trophy, which will be handed out for the 76th time this weekend. Newton was arguably the most outstanding player in college football this season, propelling the Tigers to their first SEC title since their BCS snub in 2004.

This morning, on the strength of an additional 22 ballots, we’re revising that estimate downward slightly. At this time, our projection shows Newton earning just over 2300 points, or nearly 84% of a unanimous vote. To be sure, that’s still a big damn deal – but it would drop him to fourth place all-time, behind Ricky Williams (85.2%). We now have a hard count of 13 Heisman voters who excluded Newton from their ballots entirely (plus 8 that ranked him #2 or #3.)

–Stiff Arm Trophy.

Cam’s father, Cecil Newton, will not be attending the award ceremony tomorrow night (perhaps to field contract offers from the UFL. Without his son’s knowledge, of course).

I have a cheesesteak bet with Dan Levy that Cam gets less than 85 percent of the total vote; obviously I was expecting the tidal crusade for amateurism to wash over a few more voters. And apparently it’s just called a “cheesesteak” and not a “cheesesteak sandwich.” Whatever. I’m just afraid that if I don’t specify, someone will bring out a cheesesteak pie. I’m hoping for that, actually.