Who would have thought that the Yankee-Red Sox game would
have been the first to finish amongst the three Saturday Fox games? Of course the other two games went into extra
innings. I had really hoped to see the
Dodger-Reds game, but how many times a year do you get a chance to see the
Yankees and Red Sox play? Umm. . . About
19 is the answer. Given that both games
had playoff teams involved, I’d have thought that we’d get the more regional
Dodger game. KROD radio declined to
broadcast the game as well. Their local
sports talk show really needed to make their important Week 1 predictions for
the NFL.
I’m not going to admit the 13-9 Red Sox over the Yankees was
a good game. But I will say that it was
your typical overly long AL East softball game played in a Little League
stadium. Actually I found the most
interesting moment of the broadcast was in the post game. Mitch Williams said about injured Matt Kemp
of the Dodgers, “I don’t think they’ll miss him in the World . . . the
playoffs.” Is it really getting that
inevitable? Certainly Fox hopes so. My biggest Matt Kemp question is, “Will the
Dodgers end up really regretting that huge contract they gave him last year?” If you’re the Dodgers, it’s only money.
On Sunday, I woke up a little early and caught the end of
the F1 race from Italy. There was a big,
passionate crowd there and about three-quarters of them were wearing Ferrari
gear. I agree with the experts. An Italian driver in a Ferrari car would have
the weight of the world on him. The
other thing I noticed were these liquor billboards that read, “Think before
driving.” You know, just consider it as
a courtesy. As opposed to this country
where busy streets are closed down for “DWI checkpoints.” And, they’re much bigger drunkards in Europe.
Welcome to the traditional end of the baseball season, that
is to say, the start of the NFL season.
Hope you enjoyed this summer. The
Cubs and Brewers went through the motions of playing a baseball game anyway
today, as did the rest of the league.
The Chicago crowd seemed subdued, as did the announcers and
players. I assume everyone was
preoccupied thinking about their fantasy teams and hoping to get this game over
quickly to check their stats.
Len and JD had a pointless discussion about the WAR stat in
relation to the MVP award. I think I
raved about WAR earlier in the season.
Let put this in football terms, so that it will be comprehensible to the
average sports fan. Tony Romo would
probably have a great WAR stat with all of the numbers he puts up (if they had
such a thing in the NFL, which they may).
Do I need to make a better case than this against the stat? WAR shows “theoretical” wins, as opposed to
“actual” wins. WAR is only most valuable
to agents and the teams they’re negotiating with, not to the fans and not to
the team Win-Loss record.
A jovial Lee Smith was on hand for the 7th inning
stretch. He works for the Giants now,
and they talked about the near perfect game on Friday pitched by some guy,
whose name I couldn’t possibly pronounce, and other pleasant topics. As for the singing, well, the Cubs never paid
Smith to sing. Junior Lake hit a homer
in the 5th to break a scoreless tie.
Dad really likes him. He does
seem pretty good. However, the Brewers
would carry the day, 3-1.
Meanwhile, the Pirates have lost four in a row in their
quest to have a winning season for the first time in 20 years. They just need one more win, and they’re
almost locked into the playoffs as well.
What could possibly go wrong? The
Rangers were pounded again Saturday night.
I didn’t even have the heart to listen.
I didn’t even get the final score.
I might have listened if I’d known that today’s game was going to
preempted by the local affiliate for, not a football game, but the Fox Sports Radio’s
commentary show about the games.
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