I wish I hadn’t formatted July’s entries the way I
did. That was dumb. I really didn’t intend to do any sports
writing this summer. At least I haven’t
been writing about every game or sport I’ve been watching or listening to, so
it’s been a bit of a break. I’d never
been so tired of writing as I was earlier this year after the Aggie sports season had ended.
Just as a sidebar, I’d like to backtrack and mention some tennis I saw in July on CBS.
It was called “Team Tennis.” The
teams were affiliated with various cities and there was a league. They played five sets, but each set featured different
players in different formats. They
played women’s doubles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles, women’s singles, and
men’s singles. The total number of game
wins determined the match winner. It was
interesting. The crowd there in Las
Vegas seemed to be into it. There were
even cheerleaders. I’ll give it another
shot if I have the opportunity. It’s
good to see a sport not being too hamstrung by tradition to try something new.
8-1-19
I saw some of the O’s
versus the Blue Jays on MLB.TV.
Obviously not much of a game in the matchup and not much of a game with
an 11-2 Jays win. However, there was the thrill of seeing Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, and Vladimir
Guerrero Jr. all batting back-to-back at the top of the Jays’ lineup. Let’s go Legacy Jays!
Also in the Eastern time
zone, the Chihuahuas finished off
taking two of three in Nashville. The Sounds
are the Rangers’ new Triple-A affiliate. The “Condor,” Ronald Guzman, had been sent down there recently. He had a pure frustration outburst after
making an out in one of the games, but tonight he did hit a grand slam home
run, though in a losing effort.
8-2-19
How about some Little League action? Stadium
was showing an international tournament in Branson all day today. I was really impressed with the facility at Ballparks of America. The field was a bit like a minor league park
with seats and sunken dugouts. I wonder
if a Little League field has the same dimensions as a softball field. Unlike college and professional parks, I
think the PA was asking for foul balls back from the fans. Unfamiliar with Little League rules, I didn’t
realize they used ten-batter lineups.
(Is this why there’s a tenth batter slot on scorecards?)
They were showing games played
on the main field called “St. Louis.”
It’s a 2/3 size replica of Busch
Stadium with an arch painted onto the artificial grass outfield. How hard can it be to grow grass in Missouri? Judging by the half-barren grassy knolls by
the field, apparently it’s harder than you’d think. There are four other fields named after
cities at the complex, including a “Boston” field with a little Green Monster. We assume the right field dimensions at the
“New York” field are the same as Yankee
Stadium, thus allowing popups to the outfield to fly right out, just like
the big league.
I saw parts of two American regional
games and two international games. The
last game had New Zealand versus Canada.
The announcers hyped up all afternoon that the Kiwi boys would be doing
the “haka” war dance before the game, like their championship rugby team, the All-Blacks. However, they didn’t actually show it when it
came time for the game. Annoyed, when I
got to work, I searched for them on the Internet and found their Facebook page
with a haka video. It was an impressive
performance (even surprising, because it was a bunch of white kids). I’m sorry I didn’t get to see it live.
Later in the evening, I heard
the Chihuahuas versus Memphis Redbirds. Actually, it was more like they were playing
the Cardinals, the Redbirds’ MLB
parent club. Harrison Bader, Matt
Carpenter, and Yadier Molina were
in the lineup for the Redbirds. They just
missed playing against Marcel Ozuna
as well. Yadi got a big ovation for his
first at bat and was big fan draw tonight.
Chihuahuas’ catcher, Austin Allen,
from St. Louis, is a big fan of Yadi’s.
He was introduced to him by Chihuahuas’ coach, Edwin Rodriguez, before the game.
The coach had worked with Yadi years before. It was Elvis Night in Memphis, so there were Elvis
impersonators performing between innings.
This should be a fixture everywhere.
8-3-19
I want to mention that Aaron Sanchez was the starter in a combined
no-hitter for the Astros on
Saturday. He was just traded to
Astros from the Blue Jays. In spite of his atrocious record this year,
I’d seen him pitch a couple of weeks ago and had a feeling this move
would do him good.
8-4-19
Baseball did not work out so
well for me today. I had the opportunity
to see all of the Padres versus the Dodgers. I saw Eric
Hosmer hit a grand slam home run and the Padres take a lead into the
ninth. Unfortunately, because the
coverage started late, the Mexican station I was watching cut away to a local
soccer match before the end. The Padres
would lose 11-10.
The Chihuahuas were scheduled to play at the same time as the Rangers on the radio, but a three-hour
rain delay in Memphis allowed me to
hear both games. While the Rangers beat
the Tigers, the pups were one-hit in
their game against the Redbirds and
lost. The ESPN Radio baseball game came on right after, which was a nice
surprise and that game had also been delayed, so I could have listened to most
it. Unfortunately, it was the Red Sox versus the Yankees. Worse, the Yankees
went up 7-0 early and then the signal dropped for the night.
I had a little better luck
with sports earlier. NBC put USA Volleyball on TV. It was
an Olympic qualifier, and it was the
girls and it was indoors, my favorite combination for volleyball. Due to the previous match running over, they replayed
the fifth set of yesterday’s match against Bulgaria
and then showed today’s match against Argentina. I was impressed with the matches’ handling of
challenge calls. There was a high-speed
camera for touches at the net (regular cameras just show blurs on replay) and a
tennis-like silhouette system for in/out calls.
The US women are big, built,
and tall. The shortest, thinnest girl
was their libero and she could have been a middle blocker for the Aggies.
Regrettably, for the most part, they weren’t winning any beauty
contests. Some of the girls on the other
two teams, who were also quite impressively built, had more of my
attention. The US girls won the
tournament and will be in the Olympics.
They unfurled and waved a big American flag for the big home court crowd
in Louisiana. That’s how to get on my
good side.
I keep trying to give Leah Pritchett, NHRA Top Fuel drag racer, my adoration. (I need a new sports crush, since Alex Morgan disappointed me so
badly.) For the last two weeks though,
she’s been eliminated in the opening round.
That means no interviews, no honey shots, no nothing. Even the announcers were very gently saying
she needs to perform better, since she’s with a top team.
But this event was still
worth watching. John Force has been sitting on 149 wins for a while. Today, he made it to the finals and won it for
win #150. The larger-than-life racer was
exuberant coming out of the cockpit. He
might have come out of something else as he kissed competitor Ron Capps on the mouth. I’m sure Capps regretted coming over to
congratulate him. Force then gave an
over-the-top speech, thanking everybody, and, in reference to finally getting
this win, said, “I’m over this sh*t!” He
then took off on a scooter, went over to the stands, hopped a fence, fell down
(I was afraid we’d lost him for a moment), and then ran into the grandstands to
be with the fans. What a guy!
No comments:
Post a Comment