Sports Journal 9-15-13

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? 

And I’ve finally learned the origin of the Pirates name for the Pittsburgh team.  I thought it was chosen for the alliteration, but actually it was a pejorative against the team, who had a habit of “pirating” players off of other teams.  So, it’s like the elephant logo on the A’s uniform, an insult taken to heart and now a proud team symbol.