This World Series?
This was the World Series when Max Scherzer played Monty Python's Black Knight to the Astros' King Arthur, the latter saying "But your arm's off!" while Scherzer, squirming out of another jam, insisted, "No, it isn't!"
This was the World Series when past and present formed a ghostly double image, Scherzer rising to help the Washington Nationals win Game 7 the way Walter Johnson rose from career twilight 95 autumns ago to help the Washington Senators win Game 7.
This was the World Series when home field advantage was a punchline. When the Nationals dropped prosperity like a bad habit, and welcomed adversity like a prodigal son. When they won a couple on the road and then were thoroughly dominated at home -- as if deciding, perhaps, they could make it harder on themselves if they really tried.
So they lost all three games in D.C. by an aggregate score of 19-3 and went back to Houston done like dinner. Except they weren't, of course.
They threw Stephen Strasburg at the 'Stros in Game 6 and won 7-2. Then, for Game 7, they sent out Scherzer, who had nothing but grit and by-God-no-you-won't stubbornness going for him. And they won 6-2.
In both games the Nats trailed early and rallied. In both games they got big home runs in the late innings. With the Series on the line, they simply refused to lose as stubbornly as their spiritual ancestors, the Senators, once refused to win,
It was as wonderful and baffling a World Series as has ever been played, the only one in history in which no one won a home game. We'll likely never see that again, especially in a seven-game Series.
On the other hand ...
On the other hand, the Nationals still have Strasburg and Scherzer. They still have Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto and the now-immortal Howie Kendrick. They still have the swagger of the drunken redneck who says, "Think I can't do this? Watch THIS!"
Think we can't blow an un-blowable lead in the World Series? Watch THIS!
Think we can't get embarrassed in front of our home fans? Watch THIS!
Think we can't go back to Houston down 3-2, outscore the Astros 13-4 and steal the Series from a team that won 107 games during the regular season?
Watch THIS!
Well ... we did.
And, damn, it was beautiful.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Bowing to the obvious, sort of
Give the pashas who oversee professional collegiate athletics this much: They can indeed read.
This is especially true when the handwriting is as bright and legible, and the wall it's written on as imposing, as it is in this case.
And so the NCAA yesterday voted unanimously to allow student-athletes to profit from the use of their names, images and likenesses, on account of they didn't have much choice. The California law prohibiting state schools from punishing athletes for accepting endorsement money blew the NCAA's lovely fantasy world to shards, and other states were lining up to follow suit. And so the organization was faced with an untenable prospect: Making its member institutions break the law in order to keep their "student-athletes" from getting a cut of the enormous profits they generate.
So, the pashas caved. Well, kind of. Sorta-kinda.
What they did, actually, was say this: Yeah, OK, if we use you guys as billboards for your schools' apparel deals we'll cut you in on the take, because we've gotta. But only if it's the same sort of deal regular students would get, and only if it doesn't create a competitive imbalance, and only if it maintains the fiction that you're still Joe College and NOT, you know, dirty uncouth professionals.
OK. So they probably didn't say the latter. Not in those exact words, anyway.
But trying to keep pretending there's a substantive difference between Power Five football and basketball and what goes on at the next level is a fool's errand, as everyone except the NCAA seems to realize. That delusion clearly remains in place, even as the NCAA itself votes to effectively cripple it. It cannot bring itself to admit theirs is as much a multi-billion dollar corporation as any on Wall Street -- and that as such their "student-athletes" are in fact employees of the university, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto.
Thus this whole desperate long-way-around-the-barn parsing. You can profit from your labor like any professional, but not if it looks too much like you're a professional. 'Cause you're not. You're STUDENT-ATHLETES. This makes you different from PROFESSIONALS, because ... um, because ...
And there the logic train runs out of track.
Pretty obviously, all this doublespeak is the NCAA's way of caving to the inevitable without looking like it's caving to the inevitable. It's a half-measure designed to put the brakes on what it surely must know is coming, which is a clear break between Power Five athletics and everything else.
That break already exists, in essence. Rules for Division I and II athletics, and Division III athletics, already are different. So the next step is an easy one: Casting fiction to the wind and allowing FBS football and Division I basketball to operate fully as the professional enterprises they are, and making everyone else adhere to the student-athlete model to which they already largely adhere.
For the NCAA, that's clearly a bridge too far just yet. But the first span has gone up.
This is especially true when the handwriting is as bright and legible, and the wall it's written on as imposing, as it is in this case.
And so the NCAA yesterday voted unanimously to allow student-athletes to profit from the use of their names, images and likenesses, on account of they didn't have much choice. The California law prohibiting state schools from punishing athletes for accepting endorsement money blew the NCAA's lovely fantasy world to shards, and other states were lining up to follow suit. And so the organization was faced with an untenable prospect: Making its member institutions break the law in order to keep their "student-athletes" from getting a cut of the enormous profits they generate.
So, the pashas caved. Well, kind of. Sorta-kinda.
What they did, actually, was say this: Yeah, OK, if we use you guys as billboards for your schools' apparel deals we'll cut you in on the take, because we've gotta. But only if it's the same sort of deal regular students would get, and only if it doesn't create a competitive imbalance, and only if it maintains the fiction that you're still Joe College and NOT, you know, dirty uncouth professionals.
OK. So they probably didn't say the latter. Not in those exact words, anyway.
But trying to keep pretending there's a substantive difference between Power Five football and basketball and what goes on at the next level is a fool's errand, as everyone except the NCAA seems to realize. That delusion clearly remains in place, even as the NCAA itself votes to effectively cripple it. It cannot bring itself to admit theirs is as much a multi-billion dollar corporation as any on Wall Street -- and that as such their "student-athletes" are in fact employees of the university, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto.
Thus this whole desperate long-way-around-the-barn parsing. You can profit from your labor like any professional, but not if it looks too much like you're a professional. 'Cause you're not. You're STUDENT-ATHLETES. This makes you different from PROFESSIONALS, because ... um, because ...
And there the logic train runs out of track.
Pretty obviously, all this doublespeak is the NCAA's way of caving to the inevitable without looking like it's caving to the inevitable. It's a half-measure designed to put the brakes on what it surely must know is coming, which is a clear break between Power Five athletics and everything else.
That break already exists, in essence. Rules for Division I and II athletics, and Division III athletics, already are different. So the next step is an easy one: Casting fiction to the wind and allowing FBS football and Division I basketball to operate fully as the professional enterprises they are, and making everyone else adhere to the student-athlete model to which they already largely adhere.
For the NCAA, that's clearly a bridge too far just yet. But the first span has gone up.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
An American rite. Or right.
Fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, not noted for their social graces, once booed Santa Claus.
No, that's not accurate, actually. They pelted him with snowballs.
But it's October and it was baseball and so Our Only Available President did not catch a nice fluffy curveball square in the snozzola the other night, the way Ralphie did from Scut Farkas in "A Christmas Story." So, yeah, it could have been worse.
The Grifter-in-Chief only caught a nice chorus of boos, when he showed up for Game 5 of the World Series in D.C. Oh, and a few chants of "Lock him up!", an acknowledgement that the President of the United States is as crooked as a dog's hind leg and pretty much always has been. Oh, and a banner that read "Impeach Trump.''
You'd think this was the end of the Republic, the way the pundits and Beltway cognoscenti carried on. Even some Democrats said we shouldn't be booing the President, on account of he's the President and we should respect the office, even if its current occupant has turned it into a hangout for various Luca Brasis and Clemenzas. And poor old Joe Scarborough, no fan of OOAP, tsk-tsked that this is not who we are as a nation.
To which Blob would reply: He's kidding, right?
Sorry, Joe, but this is exactly who we are as a nation. You think sports fans who throw snowballs at Santa Claus wouldn't boo a president who's being investigated for all manner of high and low crimes and misdemeanors? It's the toughest crowd there is, a sports crowd. Ain't no tea and crumpets in this locality.
So, really, what could OOAP have expected? You want applause, go to the opera. And stop conducting the people's business like a mafia don. And stop the juvenile trashing of anyone who calls you on your bullstuff.
Act like a damn president and not an 8-year-old. Then maybe you'll earn some respect.
Until then, Joe Scarborough and everyone else needs to quit pretending booing the president and chanting "Lock him up!" is disrespecting the office. It's not. It's disrespecting an occupant of that office who's earned that disrespect in spades.
You reap what you sow, in other words. Especially from the sort of crowd that's called their witless coach or hapless QB1 a hell of a lot worse.
Think OOAP got treated rough the other night?
Shoot. He was lucky.
He could have been Mitch Trubisky or Matt Nagy in Chicago on Sunday. Now that's rough.
No, that's not accurate, actually. They pelted him with snowballs.
But it's October and it was baseball and so Our Only Available President did not catch a nice fluffy curveball square in the snozzola the other night, the way Ralphie did from Scut Farkas in "A Christmas Story." So, yeah, it could have been worse.
The Grifter-in-Chief only caught a nice chorus of boos, when he showed up for Game 5 of the World Series in D.C. Oh, and a few chants of "Lock him up!", an acknowledgement that the President of the United States is as crooked as a dog's hind leg and pretty much always has been. Oh, and a banner that read "Impeach Trump.''
You'd think this was the end of the Republic, the way the pundits and Beltway cognoscenti carried on. Even some Democrats said we shouldn't be booing the President, on account of he's the President and we should respect the office, even if its current occupant has turned it into a hangout for various Luca Brasis and Clemenzas. And poor old Joe Scarborough, no fan of OOAP, tsk-tsked that this is not who we are as a nation.
To which Blob would reply: He's kidding, right?
Sorry, Joe, but this is exactly who we are as a nation. You think sports fans who throw snowballs at Santa Claus wouldn't boo a president who's being investigated for all manner of high and low crimes and misdemeanors? It's the toughest crowd there is, a sports crowd. Ain't no tea and crumpets in this locality.
So, really, what could OOAP have expected? You want applause, go to the opera. And stop conducting the people's business like a mafia don. And stop the juvenile trashing of anyone who calls you on your bullstuff.
Act like a damn president and not an 8-year-old. Then maybe you'll earn some respect.
Until then, Joe Scarborough and everyone else needs to quit pretending booing the president and chanting "Lock him up!" is disrespecting the office. It's not. It's disrespecting an occupant of that office who's earned that disrespect in spades.
You reap what you sow, in other words. Especially from the sort of crowd that's called their witless coach or hapless QB1 a hell of a lot worse.
Think OOAP got treated rough the other night?
Shoot. He was lucky.
He could have been Mitch Trubisky or Matt Nagy in Chicago on Sunday. Now that's rough.
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 8
And now a special Halloween week edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the spine-tingling Blob feature of which critics have said "My spine is tingling!" and also "Aiyeee! Oh God, my SPIIIIIIINE!":
1. The Browns! Aiyeee!
2. Hello. My name is Mitchell Trubisky and -- Aiyeee! It's the ghost of Bob Avellini!
3. On certain nights, when the fog settles in the low places and a chill not altogether natural settles over the old river town, the dead rise and walk, shambling through the streets in a manner that barely suggests they were once human.
4. Oh, wait. That's just the Bengals.
5. "Yeah, I've seen 'em," whispered the old salt, cutting bait for another day on the water. "Late at night, out there on Biscayne Bay, when the moon's right ... they rise, the creatures. They rise and moan 'Tuuuuuaaa ... Tuuuuuaaaa ...'"
6. Oh, wait. That's just the Dolphins.
7. "Oh, my God," the Cardinals moaned, huddling together in fear. "It's ... it's ... DREW BREES! He's BAAACK!"
8. With a soulless chuckle, Fangios dripping blood, Vic Fangio drained the life from another Broncos drive with another run up the middle on third-and-5.
9. "Aiyeee!" screamed Joe Flacco.
10. "Aiyeee!" screamed the Jets fan, as Sam Darnold plunged another razor-sharp interception through his heart.
1. The Browns! Aiyeee!
2. Hello. My name is Mitchell Trubisky and -- Aiyeee! It's the ghost of Bob Avellini!
3. On certain nights, when the fog settles in the low places and a chill not altogether natural settles over the old river town, the dead rise and walk, shambling through the streets in a manner that barely suggests they were once human.
4. Oh, wait. That's just the Bengals.
5. "Yeah, I've seen 'em," whispered the old salt, cutting bait for another day on the water. "Late at night, out there on Biscayne Bay, when the moon's right ... they rise, the creatures. They rise and moan 'Tuuuuuaaa ... Tuuuuuaaaa ...'"
6. Oh, wait. That's just the Dolphins.
7. "Oh, my God," the Cardinals moaned, huddling together in fear. "It's ... it's ... DREW BREES! He's BAAACK!"
8. With a soulless chuckle, Fangios dripping blood, Vic Fangio drained the life from another Broncos drive with another run up the middle on third-and-5.
9. "Aiyeee!" screamed Joe Flacco.
10. "Aiyeee!" screamed the Jets fan, as Sam Darnold plunged another razor-sharp interception through his heart.
Monday, October 28, 2019
Bowled over
Here is how you know the college bowl landscape has become a country of the absurd, aside from the fact that teams with .500 records now routinely get a berth in the Credit Union Dot Com/Condiment Packet/Ragweed Bowl:
You know it when the title sponsor for a bowl turns out not to exist.
Yes, that's right, sports fans. It seems the new title sponsor for ESPN's New Mexico Bowl, DreamHouse Productions is, well, mostly just a dream.
ESPN has therefore dropped the non-existent sponsor as the sponsor, and gone in search of a new title sponsor. Several excellent candidates are available, the Blob has learned. Among them:
* The Leonard McCoy Institute for Country Doctors.
* Tom Slick's Thunderbolt Greaseslapper Auto Parts.
* Boardwalk Hotels, "The Place To Land When You Want To Go Broke."
* Trump Steaks.
* Trump University.
* Trump Casinos.
* Pretty Much Anything Owned By Trump.
And last but not least ...
* NewDream Productions.
You know it when the title sponsor for a bowl turns out not to exist.
Yes, that's right, sports fans. It seems the new title sponsor for ESPN's New Mexico Bowl, DreamHouse Productions is, well, mostly just a dream.
ESPN has therefore dropped the non-existent sponsor as the sponsor, and gone in search of a new title sponsor. Several excellent candidates are available, the Blob has learned. Among them:
* The Leonard McCoy Institute for Country Doctors.
* Tom Slick's Thunderbolt Greaseslapper Auto Parts.
* Boardwalk Hotels, "The Place To Land When You Want To Go Broke."
* Trump Steaks.
* Trump University.
* Trump Casinos.
* Pretty Much Anything Owned By Trump.
And last but not least ...
* NewDream Productions.
In-audible
Joe Flacco did not like the call. No, sir. Thought it was weak. Thought it smelled like surrender. Thought it was a big ol' 'fraidy-cat call by a bunch of 'fraidy-cat coaches who preferred hiding under their beds instead of trying to, you know, win a football game.
So, here's what Joe Flacco did, as his Broncos were clinging to a one-point lead that turned into a two-point loss to the Colts:
1. Ignored his helmet mike and said "Screw those lily-livers with their run-it-up-the-middle bulls*** on third-and-5. We're gonna throw the football and get the bleepity-bleep first down right here."
2. Ran the play as ordered, then complained about it afterward.
If you chose door No. 2, congratulations. You officially understand how things work these days in the National Fainthearts League.
Now, no one's ever going to mistake Joe Flacco for Joe Namath or Kenny Stabler or any other swashbuckling quarterback of yore. Those guys would have said "Screw that play," dialed up a pass and finished the Colts for good. That's because, back in the yore, quarterbacks actually had minds of their own. They were not slaves to scheme or probability or the prevent offense -- and their coaches understood that what they were seeing out on the field trumped what some coordinator was seeing from a mile up in the pressbox.
Alas, those days are done. It's a coaches' game now, and that's a fact. And so all Joe Flacco could do was complain.
"I just look at it like, we’re now a 2-6 football team and we’re afraid to go for it in a two-minute drill, you know?” he said. “Like, who cares if you give the ball back to the guys with 1:40 left? They obviously got the field goal anyway.
“And once again: We’re a 2-6 football team. And it just feels like we’re kind of afraid to lose a game ... I just felt like, what do we have to lose? Why can’t we be aggressive in some of these situations? That’s kind of how I feel about a lot of the game today.”
He's absolutely right, of course. But saying so after the fact doesn't answer the essential question here, which is "If you hated the play that bad, why didn't you just channel Joe or Kenny and audible out of it?"
The answer: Because obviously he didn't have that option. Or at least didn't think he did.
Crazy game.
So, here's what Joe Flacco did, as his Broncos were clinging to a one-point lead that turned into a two-point loss to the Colts:
1. Ignored his helmet mike and said "Screw those lily-livers with their run-it-up-the-middle bulls*** on third-and-5. We're gonna throw the football and get the bleepity-bleep first down right here."
2. Ran the play as ordered, then complained about it afterward.
If you chose door No. 2, congratulations. You officially understand how things work these days in the National Fainthearts League.
Now, no one's ever going to mistake Joe Flacco for Joe Namath or Kenny Stabler or any other swashbuckling quarterback of yore. Those guys would have said "Screw that play," dialed up a pass and finished the Colts for good. That's because, back in the yore, quarterbacks actually had minds of their own. They were not slaves to scheme or probability or the prevent offense -- and their coaches understood that what they were seeing out on the field trumped what some coordinator was seeing from a mile up in the pressbox.
Alas, those days are done. It's a coaches' game now, and that's a fact. And so all Joe Flacco could do was complain.
"I just look at it like, we’re now a 2-6 football team and we’re afraid to go for it in a two-minute drill, you know?” he said. “Like, who cares if you give the ball back to the guys with 1:40 left? They obviously got the field goal anyway.
“And once again: We’re a 2-6 football team. And it just feels like we’re kind of afraid to lose a game ... I just felt like, what do we have to lose? Why can’t we be aggressive in some of these situations? That’s kind of how I feel about a lot of the game today.”
He's absolutely right, of course. But saying so after the fact doesn't answer the essential question here, which is "If you hated the play that bad, why didn't you just channel Joe or Kenny and audible out of it?"
The answer: Because obviously he didn't have that option. Or at least didn't think he did.
Crazy game.
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Remember when ...
... your Houston Astros were toast, flambe, chauvinist-pigs-on-a-spit (thanks for that, Brandon Taubman!) in this man's World Series?
Yeah, well, they whupped the Washington Nationals 8-1 last night to tie the Fall Classic at two wins apiece. They've outscored the Nats 12-2 so far in the Nats' home yard. And tonight they again send to the bump Gerrit Cole, who's no doubt aching to prove his Game 1 loss was a gargantuan fluke.
So who's in trouble now?
* Remember when ...
... Notre Dame was going to go up to the Big House and drive a stake through the Jim Harbaugh Era at Michigan? When it still held out a glimmer of hope of pole-vaulting into the College Football Playoff? When coming in at No. 8 in the polls did not seem weird at all?
Yeah, well, Harbaugh's Wolverines crushed the Irish 45-14 last night in a driving rainstorm, and there went the latest Domer delusion. Michigan pushed the Irish all over the field, ran on their defense at will, and gave the Notre Dames not a sniff on the other side of the ball. The Irish even made Shea Patterson look like an actual quarterback, a not inconsiderable feat.
This from a Michigan team that got embarrassed a few weeks back by Wisconsin, which itself got embarrassed Saturday by Ohio State a week after jacking around and losing to Illinois.
See ya in the Chicken Sandwich Bowl, Irish.
* Remember when ...
... Alabama and Clemson were the best college football teams in the country, by, like, nautical miles, and everyone wished someone could at least give the Crimson Tide and Tigers a game?
Yeah, well, anybody looked at Ohio State these days?
The Buckeyes laminated Wisconsin 38-7 yesterday, looking like a football team that has no intention of losing anytime soon. Their defense held Jonathan Taylor, maybe the best running back in America this year, to 52 yards on 20 carries. Wisconsin scratched out just nine first downs, 191 total yards and 83 rushing yards. The Badgers averaged just 2.4 yards per rush, despite fielding one of the best offensive lines in the country.
Meanwhile, 'Bama and Clemson stayed unbeaten by rolling over two more overmatched opponents. Which does not mean either one would relish facing the Buckeyes anytime soon.
Not if they're paying attention, anyway.
Yeah, well, they whupped the Washington Nationals 8-1 last night to tie the Fall Classic at two wins apiece. They've outscored the Nats 12-2 so far in the Nats' home yard. And tonight they again send to the bump Gerrit Cole, who's no doubt aching to prove his Game 1 loss was a gargantuan fluke.
So who's in trouble now?
* Remember when ...
... Notre Dame was going to go up to the Big House and drive a stake through the Jim Harbaugh Era at Michigan? When it still held out a glimmer of hope of pole-vaulting into the College Football Playoff? When coming in at No. 8 in the polls did not seem weird at all?
Yeah, well, Harbaugh's Wolverines crushed the Irish 45-14 last night in a driving rainstorm, and there went the latest Domer delusion. Michigan pushed the Irish all over the field, ran on their defense at will, and gave the Notre Dames not a sniff on the other side of the ball. The Irish even made Shea Patterson look like an actual quarterback, a not inconsiderable feat.
This from a Michigan team that got embarrassed a few weeks back by Wisconsin, which itself got embarrassed Saturday by Ohio State a week after jacking around and losing to Illinois.
See ya in the Chicken Sandwich Bowl, Irish.
* Remember when ...
... Alabama and Clemson were the best college football teams in the country, by, like, nautical miles, and everyone wished someone could at least give the Crimson Tide and Tigers a game?
Yeah, well, anybody looked at Ohio State these days?
The Buckeyes laminated Wisconsin 38-7 yesterday, looking like a football team that has no intention of losing anytime soon. Their defense held Jonathan Taylor, maybe the best running back in America this year, to 52 yards on 20 carries. Wisconsin scratched out just nine first downs, 191 total yards and 83 rushing yards. The Badgers averaged just 2.4 yards per rush, despite fielding one of the best offensive lines in the country.
Meanwhile, 'Bama and Clemson stayed unbeaten by rolling over two more overmatched opponents. Which does not mean either one would relish facing the Buckeyes anytime soon.
Not if they're paying attention, anyway.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)