Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Pirates on finally
breaking their 20 consecutive year losing season streak. After you’ve set that kind of record, what’s
the point of extending it? No, really
though, good job guys. This is a great
franchise that hasn’t deserved this kind of ignominy.
Of course ironically, they achieved this milestone against
the Rangers and then went on to sweep them, perhaps out of the division race as
well. I’m seeing lots of fire and
passion in Rangers. Unfortunately, this
isn’t translating to winning. I’ve
picked up on one obvious problem that the team has had the last two years. They need to stop trading for Cubs pitchers
during the season.
I don’t care if they got Ryan Dempster and Matt Garza for two
bags of chips, they weren’t worth it.
Sure, I could pick at the Ranger’s lack of hitting, but with the jet
stream in right field being dead this year, I have to go with the pitching. Perhaps I’m arbitrary blaming the Garza
acquisition, but I don’t care how good he was, he played for a loser and
brought that losing tradition with him.
Groan! In the
Saturday game, Darvish gets 10 strikeouts and only gives up one run. . . and
takes the loss. His fourth 1-0 loss this
season. Bad enough that they also lost
the Friday game to the A’s, where they came back after they were down big,
partially because of a bad call by the ump.
(I’m sure instant replay will fix this, and we’ll never complain about a
bad call again.) Frankly, the Rangers
only real hope of winning the division was a sweep. Now they’re going to have to really fight
just to hold on to a wild card spot.
Was I reading that pitching match up correctly on the ticker
during the game? Roy Oswalt is starting
for the Rockies ? Why on earth are major league teams allowing
this guy to pitch for them? I’d think
twice before selling him a ticket to the game, much less paying him to be on
the field. (No, I haven’t forgotten his
stint with the Rangers obviously.)
Okay, the big game on Saturday was actually Alabama versus Texas
A&M. I tried to watch it. I really did, but it seemed like there was a
flag thrown on every other play. Are the
teams playing each other, or ref’s? I
can tell you that ref’s always win and that the fans always lose when that
happens. The worst of it is, it seems
like this is every NFL game and every big college game now. So much for football coverage this week.
Okay, on to the big fight on Saturday night with Mayweather
versus Canelo. I watched this with my
game playtesters, Evan and Victor. It
was pure luck, but after our Fantasy Core game and dinner, I was able to find
the fight on a Juarez station (over the air)
right before it started. What’s more
amazing is that that station does not usually come in well, but it strong and
clear for the fight. That said, I am not
a boxing expert, and I’ve just about given up on the sport. I seem to miss the good fights and walk right
into the bad ones. This fight only
solidified that.
Pretty boy Canelo got his immaculate hair messed up during
the fight, but his face isn’t just for good looks, it can take a punch, which
it did repeatedly. He was filled with a
fiery passion and some wild swings that seldom connected. Mayweather was lighting-quick on his punches
and dodges. That helped to win him
rounds, but they weren’t powerful enough to Canelo down. There were two moments in the fight where
Canelo was used as punching bag, and I thought that the fight was about to be
called TKO. The ref, however, was a
better judge of events, and Canelo came out of the barrages swinging.
Eventually, as the weight of winning rounds added up,
Mayweather just danced around and stayed away from any close contact. By the end, Canelo, virtually conceding,
allowed it to happen. If you’re going to
lose anyway, there’s no point in risking getting knocked out. It’s not like you’re going to get paid more
to lie down on the canvas. If Canelo
could have connected more often, this might have been a different fight, but
Mayweather was just too quick. This was
the result most experts were predicting.
I’d say the only surprise was that it wasn’t a unanimous decision by the
judges. I guessing one of them didn’t
like Mayweather’s late fight strategy and deducted for it.
On Sunday, the Pirates won an important game for them
against the Cubs, who aren’t playing any important games. The coverage mostly focused on this guy out
on the river wearing water-jet shoes.
You’d have to see it to believe it, but it was like guy was hovering
over the water on two powerful streams of water coming out of his feet. Not that it was a bad game, but how can you
beat that for attention?
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