Sports Journal 5-11-14

No TV baseball, no hockey, no problem.  I’ve still got plenty to write about.

Indycar

We’ll consider this a warm-up post before the 500.  It was a beautiful day in Indianapolis for the inaugural Grand Prix of Indy.  It’s the clockwise-running road course that’s been used by F1 and Moto GP, but this time with Indycars.  The cars lined up for the standing start.  The starting lights went out.  And pole-sitter Sebastian Saavadra’s car did not start.  Most of the cars behind him, managed to dodge him.  The two that didn’t created a spectacular shower of carbon-fiber.  Meanwhile, every F1 team that was watching the race snickered.   

I keep waiting for this “great” strategy of US open wheel racing of ditching ovals, using option tires, and standing starts to pay off.  So far, it’s only been a death march of Indycar following in the same failed steps of Champ Car.  It’s not like this isn’t the first time I’ve seen standing starts become moving junkyards. 

If you’re going to emulate F1, you’re going to get compared to them.  Even if the races are more interesting (more on that later), it’s because Indycar is amateur hour by comparison.  Fans of F1 don’t think much of you.  Fans of NASCAR don’t think much of your twisty races either.  Anybody in between that (like me), would rather watch a sports car race on a road course, because your cars are very ugly compared to any other race car. 

It was hard to get a sense of the crowd size.  Because of the track configuration, the grandstands were only occupied at certain points.  There were infield seats and areas for sitting out on the grass.  Unlike most road courses, Indy is flat.  Elevation changes actually probably don’t make for a better race, but they are more interesting to look at. 

I’m reminded of the old Cleveland Airport track by the lake.  Completely flat and basically course laid was out with a few soft barriers and some traffic cones.  It produced a cool race, but maybe I’m just remembering the starts.  Turn 1 was wide enough to accommodate half the field running side by side, which is what would happen.  Of course, they all tried to get to the inside and kapow!  The survivors would race much smarter.

There was passing for the lead on track at Indy, but mostly only on restarts.  After that, there was little passing.  The bulk of the race discussion concerned tire wear and fuel mileage.  Frenchman, Simon Pagenaud, would be the first winner of the event based on his ability to save fuel.  Was this event an attempt to lure F1 back?  Was it just a tease for the Indy 500?  (Certainly they mentioned Kurt Busch’s upcoming attempt at the Memorial Day Double enough.)  Are they out of municipalities to trick into running street races in their downtowns?     

F1

I got up at 7:00 am on a Sunday to watch this.  While I enjoyed Bahrain, we’re back to typical F1 here.  Essentially nothing happened in the race.  Hamilton and Rosberg started in front and Hammy won.  Red Bull’s Ricciardo came in third.  Vettel was told during the race to stay on “Plan A,” which was apparently start somewhere mid-pack and finish in fourth.  Mercedes might start looking over their shoulder at these guys, but I think the driver’s and constructor’s championships are safe.      

The race was at Catalunya outside Barcelona, Spain.  There was a large crowd there, many lounging on the green hills surrounding the track.  They started the race clapping to Queen’s “We will rock you,” over the PA.  I’m not sure if the crowd showed up for a race or a party.  The Uni-mas announcers showed up to root on the Mexican drivers, but didn’t have much to cheer about.  I never heard them talk about the World Cup.  I figured the over/under on that would be at least two mentions, since the race was boring.  Speaking of that.

Soccer

I flipped past NBC and noticed they were showing English Premier League soccer.  They said there was some sort of championship on the line.  Since I may not have much else in sports to watch later this summer, I thought I’d watch.  What’s the worst that could happen? 

Sigh.  It’s not even worth coming up with a joke.  In fairness, I did join the match halfway through, and the guys sponsored by Jihad Airways were up by the insurmountable score of 2-nil.  The fans swarmed the field to congratulate the players and celebrate.  If this happened at an American football game (not including the Superbowl, since the fans in attendance there don’t care who wins), they’d be machine gunned, possibly drone-striked.  ESPN commentators would be saying that they had it coming and call for barbed wire to surround the stands. 

What’s really frightening is that the nine other games in progress for the end of the English soccer season were being simultaneously broadcast over nine different US cable networks, including Syfy.  Not one freaking over the air baseball game this weekend, but 10 different English soccer matches to choose from, including one over the air.  Wait’ll you see ESPN promoting the World Cup this summer.  Somebody seems to think there’s an audience for this here and is determined to service it.  The only feature to recommend soccer is that the matches are shown without commercial interruption, unlike certain American sports, like NASCAR, who insist that showing the race is optional compared to the commercials.  (F1 coverage is also commercial-less.)  Speaking of that.

NASCAR

It was the race that wouldn’t end.  The half-hour late start was insignificant to the time spent under caution for wrecks and spins.  An incident near the end of pit cycle lead to a first time 30 car wave around and the “Lucky Dog” ending up on the front row with the only other car starting on the lead lap.  For all of the threatening weather in the area, it was not a race to half way and the crowd was tremendous.  This first Kansas NASCAR night race was a success.  They did have a rookie incident with the lights going out in a corner, but the drivers were okay with it.  This again reminds me of the Cleveland Airport track.  The last race that I know of there was a night race, which I didn’t see, but was told that there was a complete black out spot in one of the corners.

Baseball   

It was a bad weekend for baseball for me, flat out.  Friday night, I noticed that the Texas Rangers were winning 8-0 over the Red Sox.  I didn’t notice Yu Darvish had a perfect game/no-hitter going until afterward.  I never quite got the story straight about hit/error that spoiled it.  An ESPN update used Matt Hicks’ spirited call of the incident, which surprised me since you’d think they’d use the Sox call instead.  Unfortunately, while Eric Nadel routinely gets credit for his calls, I’ve yet to hear Matt get credit for his.  He should at some point. 

I ended up listening to the NMSU Aggie game Saturday night.  The Aggies had it won in the 9^th, but Bakersfield tied it.  The Aggies would go on to do this two more times in the 13 inning game, before finally losing it on an error.  Ouch.  They also fell victim to the hidden ball trick during the game.  Double ouch.  The next day, they’d bounce back and win it 19-7, but I only heard the last couple of innings.  They were up 14-0 after like two innings.

I missed the Saturday Ranger game for the Aggies, and missed the Aggies for the Sunday Ranger game.  The Rangers were fairly listless in their 5-2 loss.  I also missed the Chihuahuas Sunday game, which they won 11-0.  I wonder if they stopped putting the balls in the humidor?  I caught a little of their Saturday game.  Their coverage started late and, of course, cut off for people listening in Las Cruces after the sun went down. 

I was struck by the crowd.  They were still oohhing and aahhing on every play.  Where were these people for the Diablos?  This question merits discussion.  I remember seeing the team once at the old Dudley Dome, which wasn’t a dome, it was a step above a vacant lot.  I think the only reason Dad took me was because we had free tickets, which they gave out all over El Paso, all the time.  I later went to Cohen Stadium several times, which was a very pleasant place to see a ballgame (which was easy to get to with plenty of close parking I might add).  They gave out souvenirs and had fireworks constantly, and some cheap concession items (unlike the current place from what I’ve heard).  The crowds were never that into the game. 

Is it the new stadium?  Is it the level of play?  Is it the promotion?  Has El Paso become a baseball town (at least until football season starts)?  Are they getting a crowd from Juarez who are into baseball (at least until World Cup)?  I just don’t know. 

In any case, dad, who did listen to the Sunday game, made me feel a little better about my continuing use of faux pas of using the name, Diablos, when he finally did it too.