Sports Journal September 19-26, 2017

9-19-17

KROD broadcast the Triple-A Championship game today, even without the Chihuahuas.  The Durham Bulls ended up beating the Memphis Redbirds.  El Paso was mentioned a couple of times, along with and Hunter Renfroe, who blasted several home runs upon his return to the Major Leagues.  I was off at Aggie Volleyball, and only heard an hour of the game.  When I got home, I caught a static-y broadcast of the Rangers versus the Mariners.  I don’t even remember who won.

   

9-22-17

I caught a little of the Giants playing the Dodgers on the MLB free game.  Things were weird at work that night, so I didn’t watch much.  Plus, I was had some sort of bizarre flashback and thought I saw Pablo Sandoval back at third, playing for the Giants.  I know this was my imagination because he looked like he’d been on a crash diet.  There was a big crowd at Chavez Ravine for fireworks.  Tommy Lasorda was there for this ninetieth birthday.  He nearly got hit by a foul ball in the stands. 

What I did watch all of was a fight on ESPN (again, it was an odd night at work).  I’d had to call Mike at home about work, and he told me that Laiza was at the fight in Tucson.  It was okay.  Both fighters got knocked down in different rounds.  I could see Laiza there, in a good seat by a post.  She looked lovely.  I heard later that she partied with the winner that night.  Laiza yelled at him to keep his guard up.

9-23-17

The big football Gameday:  NM State Aggies versus UTEP Miners.  Sigh.  Since I didn’t go for various reasons, I’m not going to discuss the game.  (It didn’t help that I saw my current boss in a TV news clip at the stadium, though she didn’t look like she was having a good time.)  [Edit: She was unhappy because she knew she was on camera, though she insisted on seeing the clip later.]  What I thought was interesting was the El Paso sports talk pre-game hype.  Two different hosts were already conceding defeat, which I found curious, since the Miners were playing a team that was 1-2 and that they’d beaten eight years in a row.  Then again, they’d seen the Miners play this year.  I’d only watched a quarter of them playing Oklahoma.  Firing their offensive coordinator after their last game, seemed like a bad sign for the Miners.    

 If nothing else, NMSU had “won” the marketing.  Steve Kaplowitz, apparently monitoring Aggie AD Mario Moccia’s Twitter feed, was incensed as Mario kept tweeting out promotions on Friday afternoon.  “They’re giving out foam fingers!  There’s going to be an F-16 flyover!  What-A-Burger, a Texas company, is going to hand out special Aggie What-A-Burger t-shirts!”  Good thing Steve didn’t know about those What-A-Burger free burger coupons on the back of the game tickets.  “The Aggies even released their own beer!”  Of course, it’s a “racist” beer with super-secret neo-Confederate/crypto-Nazi symbolism on the label that only academic liberals were smart enough to decipher.  (Okay, I’ll let this issue drop, as long as nobody else ever brings it up again.)  Striking the Wonder Dog, who retrieves the tee on kickoffs was also mentioned.  Rush Limbaugh mentioned some other school having such a dog recently, like it was a new and unique concept.  (He is so out-of-touch sometimes.)     

Jason Groves, the Las Cruces Sun-News main Aggie correspondent, came on Steve’s show Friday with all the enthusiasm of a man in the waiting room of a dentist’s office.  He hasn’t even covered the team long enough to be this bitter.  Groves was way more realistic about the Aggie football team than Steve was building them up as some sort of juggernaut.  The Saturday show with another host continued the theme. 

As it turned out, the Aggies were way better this year than the Miners to the tune of 41-14.  Much like the Oklahoma game, the Miners were only good for a quarter.  They only got a second touchdown very late after a fumble in the Aggie end.  Aggie Shamad Lomax had three interceptions, including a run back for a touchdown.  Larry Rose III had three touchdowns, including a highlight reel run, shaking off two tacklers.  Tyler Rogers made some great passes in the game and hit 11 different receivers.  The team made some mistakes, but very much took care of business tonight.  Official attendance was 17,000, though there were higher numbers mentioned.  It was a late-arriving crowd by accounts.  The TV pictures showed the place full, except for the endzones.  Moccia reported 50 RV’s parked at the stadium the night before and 100 on gameday.  He spent the morning visiting them, good work.             

During the day, Fox showed the Cubs and Brewers playing in Milwaukee.  They had the roof open for the sold out game.  Front Row Amy came in a bit late and was sitting next to four Cubs fans.  She was also in a low-cut top barely covering her generous assets, which the cameraman kept showcasing whenever a player was standing in front of her.  The Astros and the Angels, the alternate Fox game, was on a Juarez station.  I may need to check them out during the playoffs.  Elsewhere on the dial, Uni-mas was showing an MLS match, shockingly, in English.

I’ll pick up this game in the ninth, Cubs up 2-1.  On the first pitch of the bottom of the inning, Brewer Orlando Arcia homered to left field, just around the foul pole.  There was either a startled, delayed reaction from the crowd waiting for ump’s call because it was so close, or it was a mostly Cubs’ crowd.  Arcia and Bernie Brewer knew it immediately, as Bernie slide down into his beer barrel.  Wade Davis, the Cubs’ pitcher hadn’t blown a save since last year.  The TV crew hadn’t even had time to tell the audience before he’d given up the homer. 

We went to extras, tied at 2, the third extra innings game in a row for the series.  Upsettingly for the network, this game was now overlapping into a college football game.  In the tenth, Jon Jay singled in Ian Happ for a 3-2 Cubs’ lead.  The crowd roared.  I think I can guess which way they were leaning after all.  But it wasn’t over yet.  Ryan Braun doubled in the Brewers’ half, then Travis Shaw homered into the ecstatic Milwaukee bullpen for a 4-3 Brewers’ win.  That was pretty exciting.   

     

9-24-17

Okay, I tuned into an NFL game on the radio in the morning and was greeted with a prepared statement from the league defending their player protests and then a description of said protests.  Well, that ensured I wouldn’t have anything to do with the NFL for the rest of the day.    

With a That 70’s Show marathon on the Laff network, I was hardly worried about being under-entertained today.  (Seriously, that show had what had to be dumbest cast of characters ever assembled in a TV sit-com.)  Other things were going on.  The Stadium network was showing a women’s college soccer match between UNLV and San Diego State.  I never thought it would come to this, that I would be this desperate for college sports on a weekend.  It ended up being a 1-nil victory for UNLV.  That single goal was actually an own goal by SDSU.  Additionally, the ref carded the Aztec bench twice.  I will say the pleasant, knowledgeable SDSU announcer made the game very watchable.  I think I learned a couple of things. 

Later, there was an Ultimate Frisbee championship on (technically Ultimate Disc, AUDL).  I was at a game in-person once somewhere in the 90’s, when I had a roommate that was a player.  I enjoyed it and it was very skillful.  Nothing changed today, it was still the same sport on that level for me, a pretty good time.  The final was San Francisco Flamethrowers 30-Toronto Rush 29.  Finally, I checked out the premier of the new Star Trek show: Star Trek Mary Sue.  They cancelled Axanar for this?  The first episode more than lived up to its title: Cocktease.  Nothing happened in the episode other than it established how great Mary Sue was in an essentially long-boring commercial for the action-packed second episode, which you’d have to pay for.      

9-26-17

Yesterday, I started writing out a thoughtful, yet forceful, commentary (if I do say so myself) about the NFL protests.  I got three pages out and even kept mentally writing it while at work.  That night, the entire Dallas Cowboys team and owner, Jerry Jones, took a knee before their game to finally emphatically join in with the protest.  That was my team, and now I’m done with them.  I’m done with the league.  I don’t care what you’re protesting, if you even know or will be truly honest about it.  I’m not explaining myself; I’m not even bothering to finish what I previously wrote.  I used to be a huge NBA fan, and I dumped them fifteen years ago over way less than this and haven’t watched since.  I’ve never been a huge NFL fan, and I later figured out the sport was nothing but fixed somewhere in the 90’s.  This is an easy drop from my free time schedule.  Bye.