10-6-18
I went to work for two days with a cold. It wasn’t too bad, but on Saturday I wasn’t
feeling up to going out to see Aggie
Baseball’s fall scrimmage. Later in
the afternoon, I felt well enough that I could have gone, but it was too late
then. I felt bad about this missing it,
even though the game didn’t matter. It
was kind of fun last year sitting in the center section seats with the players’
families.
Certainly, I didn’t have anything better to do. The baseball playoffs were not on local radio
or TV, even Mexican TV. (I have watched World Series games on Mexican TV when I
couldn’t take anymore of Joe Buck.) The Astros
beat the Indians 3-1 to take a 2-0
series lead. The Yankees beat the Red Sox 6-2
to tie their series. I felt lucky to
have even gotten the final scores (thanks, Stadium).
I was not shut out of baseball today, no sir. In the evening, we had the Mexican League Championship
series. I could tell it was the playoffs
because they had the red, white, and green bunting out. It was the Monterrey Sultans versus the Oaxaca
Warriors. OMG, that Sultans’ uniform
looks like a NASCAR firesuit with
all the sponsorship patches. That’s not
even a fair comparison, NASCAR doesn’t put patches on their drivers’ butts like
the Sultans do. I recognized a couple of
players. Ramiro Pena, a former El
Paso Chihuahua, was on the Sultans. Yuniesky Betancourt was on the
Warriors. The Sultans won tonight
3-2. I don’t know where the series
stands though.
Before I’d gotten sick, I’d mentally flirted with the
idea of going to see Aggie Football
after the baseball scrimmage. I don’t
think that actually would have worked out timing-wise, and I probably didn’t
want to go to a football game by myself again (12-2-17), though that did
work out pretty well last time. In two
different interviews, Coach Martin
didn’t seem very optimistic about this game with the Liberty Flames. It was
Homecoming, so there wasn’t promotion going on that I knew about to bring in
more fans.
I annoyingly missed half of the radio pregame show,
where they usually talk to the coaches in other Aggie sports. While I had the radio on for the game and it
was on TV too, I found myself not really into taking decent notes today. In the first quarter, the Flames looked good
on their first possession to take a 7-0 lead.
On their second drive, the Aggies forced a fumble and converted in short
order to tie it at 7.
Late in the second quarter, the Aggies started moving
the ball better. Josh Adkins would hit Anthony
Muse for a touchdown to make it 14-7.
They got the ball right back and Adkins hit Dan Drew on a deep strike, which set up a two-yard rush by Jason Huntley for a 21-7 Aggie
lead. The Aggie defense held just before
the half, but a roughing the kicker penalty gave the Flames another set of
downs. The very next play was a bomb for
a touchdown. 21-14 Aggies at the
half.
Even with five touchdowns in the half, it was pretty much
a defensive battle for the first half. The
second half felt much more offensive-minded.
In the third quarter, the Flames got a good runback on a punt, and they
converted on a short field to tie the score at 21. The Aggies marched efficiently down the field
on their next series. Adkins would find
a completely wide open Drew for a touchdown, 28-21 Aggies.
DeMarcus
Owens on the defense would come up big with an interception,
which he returned to the Liberty 31.
Adkins hit tight end Bryce
Roberts for another touchdown, 35-21.
Here I got a ten-minute phone call from Ron, and I was away from the TV
and radio. When I got back, it was 42-28
Aggies in the fourth quarter. I told you
this half was offensive. Hmm. Somehow, I think I’m not using the best word
there.
The Flames came back and pounded it in for another TD,
42-25. I hope most of the fans there
stuck around to this point. Aggie
running back Christian Gibson, on a
third and one, broke loose for 66 yards and a touchdown, 49-35 Aggies. We’re still not done. The Flames got a late touchdown, but the PAT
was blocked by a high-jumping Cedric
Wilcots. And now we’re done. 49-41
Aggies. Alright!
I made some effort to listen to the postgame stats, but
just didn’t do a good job. (Maybe I was
sicker than I thought today.) Here’s one
great stat line: Josh Adkins 400+
yards passing, 4 touchdowns, no interceptions.
He also spread the ball around well.
Christian Gibson rushed for
over 100 yards and two touchdowns. OJ Clark had 10 catches for over 100
yards and a touchdown. The defense, in
spite of giving up 41 points, did get two crucial turnovers that were converted
to 14 points. Leon McQuaker’s name was called on a bunch of tackles for the
defense. Special teams had two bad plays,
but that blocked PAT could have been the difference in the game if the Flames had
gotten another touchdown.
It was a team effort tonight. I didn’t get a good sense of the crowd from
the TV pictures, but it looked a lot less than the last two games. [It was just over 8,000. Ouch.]
Hopefully, this rather exciting game will inspire a bigger turnout next
time, but their next game is on the road, where the Aggies haven’t fared
well. Right now, Coach Martin is likely
mentally beating himself up that he didn’t pick Adkins at the beginning of the
season to start at quarterback. They’d
probably have at least beaten the Lobos,
which would have won over a lot more fans for the team.
Hey,
there’s Kayla Green working on the
sidelines, I thought as I watched the local news report of the
game. I feel like I’ve been seeing our
senior Softball team pitcher
everywhere. She’s certainly been busy as
heck this fall. [And retroactively, this
is all I got to see of her this weekend as I was still too sick on Sunday to
see the softball team’s exhibition double header.]
Amazingly, this wasn’t the end of my sports night. Later, I was flipping around the stations and
noticed a UFC match on a Mexican
station, instead of their usual boxing.
I tuned back to a F1 “race”
(high speed parade) that was going on live from Japan, but then I remembered something
about a Conor McGregor fight this
weekend. I turned right back to the
fight.
Conor was fighting the defending champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov (don’t ever expect
me to write out that whole name again).
When I came in, it was the start of the fourth round and Conor was not
doing well. They were both tired, which
kind of made me sorry that I didn’t watch this from the beginning, but Conor
was getting the worst of it. Finally,
Khabib got him in a choke. I saw Conor
trying to tap out three times, before the ref had to step in and break them
up.
That was my first clue that there was some bad
blood. My second was that Khabib clearly
didn’t want to stop choking Conor even after winning the fight. At the point he jumped out of the octagon to
attack people in the crowd, I could tell he was angry. Khabib was ready to take on the crowd and, I
think, they felt the same. Someone then
jumped into the octagon and attacked people there. Wow, this was way more fighting than I was expecting
for the match.
Conor and Khabib had to be escorted out separately under
heavy police escort. Joe Rogan told Khabib that he couldn’t
hand him the belt, because he was afraid the crowd was about to riot. The winner was announced after the fighters
were gone. Khabib definitely won the
match, but frankly, for what he did afterward, he should have been disqualified
from winning the title (thus setting up a lucrative rematch). Expect a rules change before the next UFC
match. Monday, I found out that Khabib
had taken Conor’s prefight jabs at him way too personally apparently. Somebody needs to explain “hype” to Khabib.
10-7-18
While I finally more or less got over my cold today, it
happened too late for me to think about going to today’s scheduled Aggie Softball exhibition. Also, the weather had finally turned to fall
outside, as it was cool, overcast, breezy, and tried to rain late in the
afternoon. I wasn’t going to be able to
sit out in that in my iffy condition. I
really felt bad about not going. I felt
like I disappointed the girls. (I’m
comfortably sure they couldn’t care less or were glad I wasn’t there.) I won’t be seeing them play again until next
year.
Not to mention, there was nothing on TV in the afternoon
and I had absolutely nothing to do (not that I felt like doing anything). Turned on the TV anyway and tried to watch
some more of Alias Season 3. I gave up 10 minutes into the next
episode. What a terrible show. (It’s not even worth the effort to
review.) So much for
binge-watching. I did watch a couple of
episodes of Community Season 1 as
long as I had the DVD player on, so at least I enjoyed some use out of it.
On Babylon 5
later on Comet, Walter Koening made his first appearance as Bester today. Anyone thinking that he was just a one-shot stunt
casting is going to be real surprised later on.
I wonder what people who haven’t seen the show before are thinking about
it (beyond the dated CGI). This is the
first time I’ve seen these Season 1 episodes since I’d seen the rest of the
series. The show is awkward in places,
but I can now see how clearly things are being set up for later. This is a show meant for binge-watching and
re-watching.
Once again, I was shutout of MLB baseball. The Brewers beat the Rockies 6-0 to advance
to the NLCS. That was their eleventh win
in a row. The Braves won 6-5 over the Dodgers, so their series
continues. I think the Braves were up
5-0 early, so they nearly lost. Once
again, I felt lucky I even got the scores.
But, I did get to watch some baseball today. The Monterrey
Sultans were again playing the Oaxaca
Warriors in the Mexican League
Championship series. When I tuned in,
the Sultans were up 5-1 in the fifth and I almost turned it off, but decided to
keep watching while I was eating dinner.
In that time, the Warriors came back and tied it. Well,
now it’s a game. I guess I have to
watch.
Unfortunately, neither team could score in nine
innings. The Warriors did have runners
on the corners with no outs in the bottom of the ninth, but hit into a double
play and couldn’t get a run in. The large
crowd there in Oaxaca was doing a Braves-like tomahawk chop chant during the
rally.
In the bottom of the tenth, rain suddenly started coming
down in sheets. There were two outs and
two on at the time, so the umps must have been reluctant to stop the game. The Sultans catcher kept having to towel off
his face between pitches. With bases
loaded, a single delivered the winning run.
6-5 Warriors. I still don’t know what the series score
is. Oops. I think one of the Warriors players got
injured during the on field celebration.
I hope he wasn’t a starter.
There was one other sporting event I briefly watched on
Mexican TV earlier. There was a bullfighting recap show on. (I have covered this sport
before.) I guess they were
highlighting some of the top bullfighters.
Or not. One of the guys I saw got
gored between the butt cheeks. That’s
kind of funny until you realize they don’t bunt those horns before the
match. Ouch. The guy had to crawl away holding his hand
over the rip in his pants. Sometimes the
bull wins.
10-8-18
This has been one crap of a three-day weekend for me. I’ve been cooped up for three days when I had
some places I wanted to go. I haven’t
been able to get a decent night’s sleep and can’t quite get rid of these
coughing fits. I’m been so close to
being well, but not quite. I couldn’t
even chance going out nearby to go get lunch with it being cold and wet outside
(and I haven’t gotten my appetite back either).
Maybe this happened because of all of the Aggie sports I went to last
weekend and further exhausting myself recapping them.
It didn’t help my mood that KROD didn’t carry the early game on the MLB playoff schedule today or any of the other games. The Astros
won 11-3 over the Indians to advance to the ALCS. The Dodgers
beat the Braves 6-2 to face the Brewers
in the NLCS. But the shocker of the
night was the 16-1 thrashing of the Yankees by the Red Sox in Yankee Stadium
no less. Well, the Bleacher Creatures
wanted to see the Red Sox. The Red Sox
went up 2-1 in their series.
Did you know that there’s a new remake of Magnum p.i. on? I didn’t until I saw it on the schedule. I sort of indifferently watched it on Monday
night. They’ve made every effort to call
back to the original series. The red
Ferrari has never looked better. I can’t
believe the original helicopter is still in service. There’s the estate and the bungalow (more or
less). There are the Lads. Thomas is wearing his Cross
ring, his father’s watch, and a Tigers hat.
But then Higgins is now a woman, and she went along to
help Thomas on the case. Them bickering
with each other has more of a Moonlighting
vibe than the original characters’ adversarial, yet close, relationship. I’m conflicted on this, because it definitely
changes the whole dynamic of the show.
But then again, the woman is really attractive.
The new Magnum frankly isn’t as masculine-looking or as
ruggedly handsome as Tom Selleck. The character, in spite of good looks and being
very capable and experienced, is still a hard luck case in his personal
life. They definitely emphasized that
aspect. Overall, I’m kind of
ambivalent. I’ll watch again, when I get
the chance. I can easily predict a
crossover with the new Hawaii 5-0,
something that the original Magnum wasn’t able to do.
10-9-18
I’ve seldom been happier to be wrong. Tonight, the Red Sox beat the Yankees 4-3
in a thriller. I had picked the
Yankees to win it all this year. Don’t
worry, they’ll pick up Bryce Harper
and Clayton Kershaw in the
offseason. Surely, they can’t lose at
that point.
I have no recap here, because I don’t really like either
team. I was just watching so I could see
some baseball. But then in the later
innings, the game became very dramatic and drew me in. These two teams did the impossible; they made
me care who won. With some tremendous
crowd support behind them, the Yankees scored two in the ninth and very nearly
pulled off either tying or winning. Gee,
now I’m almost sorry that the Yankees have been eliminated. Almost.
The league championship series start on the Friday. That’s when I start my vacation, so I won’t
be posting for a week. Hopefully,
weather and health permitting, I’ll return with some Aggie sports reports. I’m
definitely pulling for the Brewers
over the Dodgers, though I may not
get to watch or listen to any of their games.
I should get to watch some of the Astros
and Red Sox. That should be a good
series and something to look forward to.
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