How I Spent My Summer Vacation July 2019 Part 2

7-7-19 Continued

Here’s where I’d like to do some coverage of the NASCAR Whatever Sponsor 400 that we’ll hereafter refer to as Daytona. I wasn’t going to, but they were washed out on Saturday night. I didn’t watch much of the rain delay, but did get to hear Dale Earnhardt Jr. telling a few heartwarming stories from his youth at the Firecracker 400. It was essentially his favorite race as a kid, because it was like a family vacation to the beach after the race with the other NASCAR driver families.

The rescheduled running happened right after the Women won their match.  This canceled the scheduled sportscar race that I was looking forward to, but there was no time for regrets. After a two-minute intro, the coverage started with the cars already running the pace lap. I think they were expecting more weather. I started watching, but my attention drifted at the first commercial break 10 minutes in.

Somewhere in the soccer postgame, there was a Subway commercial for $3 6” subs. It was a moment of weakness, especially since I’d already planned to go to 5 Guys for a hot dog for lunch. I rushed out to go to the mall next door, instead of 5 Guys, which was even closer. Yes, the hog dog and fries would have been better, but it also would have been about $12. Of course, the mall Subway was not offering the $3 6” subs, but I had a coupon for a $6 12” sub and got a cold cut instead. I had half back at home for lunch and saved the rest for the next day. After that forced march in the heat, I’d worked up enough of an appetite to thoroughly enjoy the meal.

So, with the race still on and while I’m eating, our next event came on, Rangers Baseball versus the Twins on the radio. I turned down the TV, but kept watching. Daytona got to about halfway and the overhead camera was showing a major storm coming for the track. With some added pressure after the race was official, we had “The Big One.” Austin Dillon and Clint Bowyer collided while fighting for first. Both of them got turned around in front of the rest of the field and nearly took out everybody. I think 20 cars were involved in the wreck. Not only did the race go to caution, I lost the station.

I didn’t know if the station had gone off the air, or if I’d lost the signal. I didn’t want to mess with my antenna, because the Yankees and the Rays were playing on a Mexican station. It was 2-1 Rays in the eighth; I couldn’t turn away from that. It was nice to see a full house at Tropicana Field, even though it was likely mostly transplanted New Yorkers there for the Yankees. The Rays did take it 2-1 and beat the Yankees 2 of 3 before the All Star break.

During this (stay with me here), the Chihuahuas’ game against the Bees came on another radio station. I’d flip over to it during Ranger game commercials. I found myself wishing I could have listened to it more, but the Rangers and Twins were tied at 1 in a tight game. Matt Harvey was pitching for Salt Lake today. Tim Hagerty reported that Harvey chatted for a while with the Little Leaguer out with him for the Anthem.

Eric Nadel had taken this Ranger series in Minnesota off. Matt Hicks and Jared Sandler were having a good time calling the Rangers’ games together. In the fourth, with Twins runners on second and third, they both tried to advance on a flyball. Joey Gallo in left, threw out the runner at third to end the inning and caught him before the runner on third got home to keep the score tied. Next inning, the Twins ended the inning with a strikeout/throwout. The entire team apparently didn’t know how to count and lingered on the field until evicted.

Okay, with the ball game on TV over, I played with the antenna and got the race back, except they were now in a rain delay with 33 laps left. Bubba Wallace went out on track and tossed a football with another driver. Bubba later signed it and tossed the ball into the stands. I’d tuned back in just as the drivers were called back to their cars. Unfortunately, the optimism was short lived. There was a nearby lightning strike, which led to a mandatory 30 minute delay. I’ve had firsthand experience with this (4-23-19).  At the end of that delay, where they could have finished the race, it started pouring. They didn’t call the race at that time. They waited until I had starting flipping channels. Then they called the race and went to a track and field event (not the sportscar race), and I missed the announcement. I was lucky ESPN Radio mentioned the race at the top of the hour. Rookie Justin Hayley won.

I kept watching TV and saw Mexico Bravo. It’s the Mexican weekly bullfighting show, if you’ve never heard of it. For you animal rights activists out there, I’ll tell you that the bulls were winning about half the time. Back to Minneapolis, I have to applaud a couple of the Twins’ walk up music, which included Return of the Mac and Shining Star. However, they did have a strange strikeout sound effect. They might want to rethink that. It was 86 degrees there, but apparently very high humidity. The home plate umpire had to leave the game for heat exhaustion.

After the delay for another ump to get ready to call the game and the game then going into extra innings, I figured out the Chihuahuas game was going to finish first. They won going away 9-2. I needed to listen to the postgame to hear what the schedule was for this week with the Triple-A All-Star Game. Also mixed in, my dad called while the Rangers were rallying in the eleventh. I got back and tuned in just as Roughned Odor hit a three-run homer, which was the winner. 4-1 Rangers. They salvaged one game against the Twins before the break.

The Women’s soccer coverage had nothing to say about this evening’s US Men’s championship match. Likewise, Mexican TV had nothing to say about the Women’s World Cup. This was because their team was only watching it, like I was. However for the CONCACAF final between Mexico and the US, they’d been running a countdown clock in the corner of their broadcasts all day since yesterday. Several stations were showing the match (none in English). I’d watched the end of the US team beating somebody last week, so I’d sort of been keeping track of them since and knew they were playing tonight.

The American crowd at Soldier Field in Chicago looked a lot more hetero than the American crowd in France. But as usual, the US team couldn’t get a home game against Mexico if they played on the moon. The Mexicans human trafficked 10,000 “migrants” into this country last week, just for this game. I appreciated that at least the announcers were way more passionate and interesting than that Fox play-by-play guy, even though I didn’t really understand them and they were rooting for the Mexican team. Less impressive and perhaps horrifyingly, the Mexican station I was watching was running picture-in-picture commercials during the game. I’d think Mexicans would be up in arms over this desecration. They didn’t do that in US broadcasts of the sport.

I wasn’t really watching, but checking back on the game periodically. It was nil-nil at the half again. Soccer sucks. Having seen the Women earlier in the day, I can compare the two sports. The Men are all bigger, taller, stronger, and faster. I heard a couple of weeks ago that a Women’s professional team played the US Men’s Under 20 team and got destroyed by them. I can believe it. Women’s sports can be very entertaining. (I’ve done blog post after blog post covering various Aggie Women’s sports. I wouldn’t keep paying and showing up if I was just there to girl watch.) That said, Men’s sports are played at a higher level than the Women’s version of the same sport. Even women fans will generally prefer watching the Men. (There’s also some sexual attraction involved there I venture to say.)

Footnote: Drag Racing is the only major sport I’ve seen where men and women compete equally against each other. (Leah Pritchett is not only very hot, she’s also cool.) I’m not sure why this is. It seems like an interesting case study. By the way, I do mean NHRA drag racing, not RuPaul.

In the 73’, Mexico scored. The scoring player pulled up his shirt and revealed he was wearing a sports bra. No judgments. (No, actually, I’m highly judging this weirdness.) There was a thunderstorm going here while I was watching the waning minutes of the match (and also I was waiting for another show to come on), but I hung in to bitter end. Mexico won 1-0. (At least the rain cooled things off here a little.) Damn it, so much for my winning streak today. Will Megan Rapinoe have the nuts to justify her team getting paid more because the Men lost?