Sports Journal September 15, 2018

I was not going to the Aggie Football game this evening, but it was going to be a busy day of sports anyway.  Starting right off in the morning was an important matchup between the Dodgers and the Cardinals on FOX.  Both teams were playing to get in the playoffs.  Manny Machado got it started for LA in the first with a two-run homer.  They threatened to add more in the third with the bases loaded, but some good defense and a strikeout got the Cards out of it.

Oh, this is ominous.  FOX ran a little 10-second Wells Fargo commercial in-game during a pause in play.  This is a really bad sign for watching the playoffs on this network.  I’m already cringing.  And just to make me feel more insecure about the bank I work for, Capital One announced that they’re changing their branches into cafés.  (Do we have a branch here in the town?  I might be looking to suddenly move my money.)

Yasiel Puig homered in the fourth to make it 3-0 Dodgers.  He’s apparently been on fire lately.  In the bottom, while the announcers were chatting with Adam Wainwright (who was cheering on the team), Dodger starter Rich Hill walked the bases loaded.  Patrick Wisdom came up and sent one into Big Mac Land in the second deck for a grand slam.  4-3 Cardinals.  I remember him from the Memphis Redbirds playing the Chihuahuas.  He’s good.  Wisdom gave the St. Louis fans a quick curtain call from the dugout. 

That was the last Cardinal highlight of the day.  From there, the Dodgers took batting practice on Cardinal pitching.  Puig hit two more home runs.  He kissed his hitting coach after each one, a scene which got progressively more disturbing intimate with each homer.  The game finished with mostly bench players on the field and just Dodger fans in the stands.  17-4 Dodgers. 

Thankfully in the latter half of the game, a Women’s College Volleyball game came on Stadium.  It was an inter-service rivalry match between Navy and Air Force in Colorado Springs.  The AF announcers said this was the largest home crowd of the season for the Falcons.  It was SRO in their volleyball gym and the cadets were plenty passionate.  Their costumed mascot was there, along with a pair of live falcons.  There were reported to be a few Navy cadets present to root on the Midshipmen.  They were at the Air Force Academy as part of an exchange program.   

It was a gym, but it seemed to be specific for just volleyball.  The ceiling must have been fairly low, because several balls that were popped up hit the rafters.  Those balls were considered to be in play, just like when a baseball hits some of the catwalks at Tropicana Field.  A couple of balls ricocheted directly down on to the court for kills.

As usual, I focused on the prettiest, tallest blonde on the court, #12 Abigail Miksch of Air Force, in this case.  At one point in the match she fell into the front row of cadets seated on the court.  What a thrill that must have been.  The team also had an attractive assistant coach with about 3’ of long, flowing blonde hair.  Actually, I could never identify the coach of the team.  I think it was a guy, but I never saw him.

Air Force won the first two sets by the same score, 25-21.  Navy, down two sets and in a hostile environment, came back and won the next three, 25-19, 25-22, and 15-7, and won the match 3-2.  Both teams were nervous and each had double-digit service errors for the match.  The coaches were also a bit tight.  They went a combined 1 for 7 in challenges.  The play of the game was an Air Force cadet dancing in the stands between two of the sets.  Even the players stopped to watch him.

Next up was the Rio Grande Rivalry football game between the NM State Aggies and the UNM Lobos.  It was 109-th meeting between the football teams.  I actually had three tickets in my possession on Thursday courtesy of work.  Unfortunately, Ron and his brother canceled that night.  I’d had issues with people at work that week and decided that I didn’t want to go by myself, so I returned the tickets.  I missed being at the game and the catered tailgate, but the game was actually on local TV and radio so I was covered.  I sat there eating a bowl of ramen in front of the TV thinking, This is fine.  I didn’t need Rudy’s Barbeque.  This is okay.  I didn’t need Caliches ice cream either.  I’m good.  This is fine.  With that, I wiped away a few manly tears and watched the game.

 

Wow, the cameras showed a large crowd for the game.  It was estimated around 20,000.  The visitor’s section was filled with Lobo fans.  The game started off well for the Aggies.  Terrell Hanks ran back an interception for a touchdown, and Matt Romero took one in on a keeper for a 14-0 lead in the first quarter.  The Lobos converted on a short field to make it 14-7.  A couple of pass interference calls got Dylan Brown in range for a long field goal to make it 17-7.  It was a busy first quarter.

In the second quarter, it all started going downhill.  A pair of Romero interceptions were converted to touchdowns, 21-17 Lobos.  Nick Jeanty, last years’ backup quarterback, came in.  As a senior, he’d gotten into plenty of games over his career.  I was kind of shocked by how ineffective he was.  I’m not sure he completed any passes.  The last four minutes of the second quarter featured an absurd number of the penalties by both teams.  Another Aggie interception ended the half.

Red-shirt freshman Josh Adkins started the second half for the Aggies.  In his first series, he got a deep ball to Jonathan Boone, who caught it with his knees.  (A similar play happened last year, but I can’t remember when.)  However, the Aggies didn’t score there and the Lobos added another touchdown, 28-17.

By the fourth quarter, I was mostly watching the fight (I’ll get to that).  The Lobos added another touchdown, 35-17.  Adkins passed to Jason Huntley for a touchdown.  Huntley got a huge amount of yardage after the catch.  Adkins ran in the two-point conversion, 35-25.  The Aggies had another chance, but were intercepted at the goal line.  And then another interception went for a touchdown.  The final was 42-25 Lobos.  Their fans all stayed to the end.  The count for the Aggies was three quarterbacks and five interceptions.  Your guess is as good as mine who starts next week against winless UTEP.  At 0-4, this season is likely over for Aggie Football, but losing next week could portend a very bad season.

There was some baseball on the radio at the time.  I was a bit surprised to hear Aggie Football on my El Paso Rangers’ affiliate.  Much later, I caught the last inning on my night time affiliate.  The Rangers won 6-3 over the Padres.  Reception was so poor and I gave up on listening to the postgame.  Eric Nadel was not calling the game again.  It was Matt Hicks and another voice that I didn’t recognize.  Also on the radio, the Rockies lost to the Giants 3-0.  Your explanation was that Madison Bumgarner was pitching.  I think the Dodgers just moved into first place in the NL West with that result.

The big event of the night was another Saul “Canelo” Alvarez/Gennady “Triple G” Glovokin boxing match.  I covered their last one (9-16-17).  In that post, I said this: 

I want the rematch, but I do not want a repeat of this fight.  One of these guys needs to figure out how to beat the other and finish this. 

Spooky foreshadowing music. 

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much what we got.  Canelo was back to looking slimmer and more handsome at least.  I scored each round, but my heart wasn’t in it this evening with the Aggie loss (and my loss of barbeque and ice cream).  I’m just going to summarize this, since I’ve essentially already written this recap before.

For the first seven rounds, the guys traded some hard blows, but nothing really hurtful.  For nearly the entire fight, the guys stayed in the middle of the ring.  In the eighth, Canelo looked tired and there was a wrap-up at the end of it.  By the ninth, they were both exhausted.  G was backing up a bit to avoid engaging.  In the tenth, Canelo was staggered by a headshot and seemed dazed.  He stayed on his feet and G couldn’t capitalize on it.  In the twelfth, Canelo went to a knee briefly, but he might have just slipped. 

After the fight, both guys were spurting blood from their brows.  Canelo’s face was swelled up.  G had a pair of shiners.  I had Canelo winning two rounds and I was rooting for him.  The commentator scorer had him winning maybe four or five.  (The final scorecard was only flashed on screen for a moment.)  The only thing left now to save this fight will be a controversial decision, I thought.   

Right on cue, Canelo was given the win.  The judges were two for and one draw.  I seriously saw either G winning in a split decision or another draw.  I suspect I wasn’t the only one.  I called my co-worker Mike, who narrowly avoided having to go to this fight with his boxing/Canelo-crazy girlfriend.  (She couldn’t get free tickets again.)  Mike said he had Canelo winning all the way, but added that Laiza was nearby and he was afraid to say anything else.  

 

I don’t want to say this fight wasn’t entertaining, but it was really unsatisfying.  If the fight had gone another round, G might have been in trouble, since they had trouble sealing his wounds afterward.  I heard George Foreman earlier in the morning on local sports radio.  He refused to pick a winner, but did say about the last fight that the judges weren’t going to give it to G, a knockout artist, unless he actually knocked Canelo out.  Maybe that’s what happened here.  Certainly, they didn’t want to call another draw, but that’s really what happened.  Neither fighter could dominate the other.  I don’t know if anybody really wants a rematch either.

There were about a half-dozen movie promos before the fight.  I had no idea most of them were coming out, but they were mostly remakes.  The in-fight ads were pretty much continuous.  There was a McDonald’s ad that the announcers kept having to read every round.  It didn’t make me hungry for McDonald’s, but was making me hungry.