Part 2
Sunday 5-30-21
I got up a bit early to exercise and shower. I turned on the Indy 500 prerace, but was only watching it on-and-off. Danica
Patrick and Jimmie Johnson were
part of the two hosting crews. (That’s
in addition to the actual crew calling the race.) Jimmie was sitting this race out. I’m not sure why, but he did say he was uncomfortable
with the thought of driving into Turn 1 to start the race in an Indy car.
I did see the tribute to Dan Wheldon. It’s been 10
years since he died on track. I saw that
race at my parent’s apartment that day.
His two boys are now racing themselves with their mom managing
them. (And the Mrs. is looking hotter
than when Dan married her. Now I feel
even worse for him being gone.) Race team
owner, David Letterman, was almost
unrecognizable in his big white beard. He
was very lively and enthusiastic about the race. He won last year with Takuma Sato as his driver. Letterman
thought winning in front of an empty stadium was like having a birthday party
with no one invited.
No problem this year.
There were 135,000 in attendance.
That’s 40%, but it looked full there.
So 135,000 unmasked people in the stands were watching Back Home
in Indiana performed by a band with trumpet players wearing masks. It’s all been theater, folks. (That song was always mom’s favorite
part.) The American flag was at
half-mast in the background for some reason.
(Don’t bother telling me. I don’t
care.) That’s its usual position
whenever a democrat is in the White House.
I’d expected to go to dad’s apartment to see the race, but
he called and said that he couldn’t get the station to come in. His friend, Joe, was supposed to be joining
us for lunch. We changed plans to have
them come over to my apartment. I’m not
really set up to entertain guests. I
hustled to get things ready. Dad brought
over Dominos for lunch. Frankly, they’re not my favorite pizza place,
but it was okay.
It was a cool 63-degrees and fair weather in Indianapolis
for the race. (I’m missing The Jetsons for this. It’s an Astro episode. This had better be good.) Scott
Dixon started on the pole, but Colton
Herta led Lap 1 to the approval of the crowd. There was an accident on pit lane during the
first stop. This had the effect of Dixon
running out of fuel and having trouble re-firing his car. This took him and Alexander Rossi, with a similar problem, out of contention for the
win.
Hometown boy, Connor
Daly, took the lead after the restart and heard it from the crowd. Dad mentioned something about an all-female
pit crew and they showed them at work.
There was a female driver in the field.
I’m not sure if that was her crew.
She wasn’t in contention. Our
only wreck of the race came about halfway through, when Graham Rahal lost a wheel coming off pit lane. The loose tire also damaged Daly’s car.
Helio
Castroneves took the lead on the restart and the crowd
loved it. What I’m loving is that NBC is only going full screen on
commercials during cautions. I’m pretty
sure that will go away when they take over NASCAR
coverage. Jimmie Johnson had a different
commercial on every break for his sponsor.
That’s a lot of coverage for a guy not in the race.
Helio and Alex
Palou started swapping the lead as cars on an alternate fueling strategy
finally peeled off. Dad said, “This is
about the time in a NASCAR race when there’s a caution.” He was right in general, but not about this
race. Helio took the white flag going
into a crowd of lapped cars, but he worked around them. He’d win and become the fourth four-time
winner of the Indianapolis 500. The
crowd went nuts. I’m sure he heard them
in his car.
Spider-man took to the fence to salute the fans. He cried on his team owner when he came
down. I think a hundred people
congratulated him on track as Helio ran along the wall. Mario Andretti
kissed him on the top of his head and blessed him. As the commentator said, “It was the fastest
Indy 500 ever and the longest on-track celebration.” It was very hard to not feel happy for him.
Helio thanked the fans especially in Victory Circle. As Helio is 46 and just beat a 24-year old,
he repeated a comparison he’d just heard about himself and Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson (who
won the US Open golf tournament last
weekend). The old guys are taking
over. He also took a shot at Paul Tracy, who probably didn’t
appreciate it. Helio chugged the
milk. He handed it to a crew member, who
took a swig himself, as two masked pageant girls kissed Helio on his
cheeks. It’s all theater.
Dad and Joe enjoyed the race, even lacking some drama this
year. I was glad to see Helio win
too. After they left, I skipped around
the dial and got some bonus coverage of an MLB
game on a Mexican station. It was the Tigers versus the Yankees in the ninth inning.
Surprisingly, the Tigers were up 6-2.
They almost lost it with the bases loaded and two outs. Aaron
Judge struck out looking on a slider up in the zone in the middle of the
plate.
I hadn’t had dessert, so I took a quick trip over to the Paleta Bar for a frozen ice cream
bar. This one was vanilla with embedded
peanut butter cups covered in milk chocolate.
The last two times I’d gone there, I got a bellyache, but I attributed
it to the big meal I’d had beforehand.
This time I’m attributing it to the bar itself. Though the service was very friendly and
fast, the product is expensive and might disagree with me. I’m going to have to ban them. Once again looking back, I went to Orange Leaf for Froyo in 2019 over MDW. I do nothing original.
I still had time before the NASCAR race started. I scanned around again and found another Mexican League Baseball game. This time I identified the teams: the Oaxaca Warriors and the Puebla Parrots (?). The Parrots were wearing the A’s colors and had a player with a
Polish name. I couldn’t quite figure out
what the Warriors mascot was supposed to be.
Like other Mexican League games I’ve seen, the PA only
stops the music when the pitcher goes into his motion. I saw one batter hit a home run to center,
which was pretty impressive given how far back the walls are. Mostly, this was just something to watch
during NASCAR commercial breaks, so I got to see quite a bit. The Parrots came back from 3 down to tie
it. An ill-timed PSA break caused
everyone to miss their go-ahead run in top of the ninth for a 4-3 win.
Ah, the *oca-*ola
600 at Charlotte. I’m not promoting
the sponsoring company. They’re a bunch
of *ssholes. (Granted, I will still
drink their soda when offered.) This
race is a lot like my ice cream indigestion; too much of what I like,
especially after just having watched another race, and F1’s Monaco most years. They
ran their race last weekend. The pole
sitter’s car was damaged and couldn’t start the race. The car in second damaged a tire on a pit
stop. That was functionally everything
interesting in the whole race.
The over/under you should be betting for this race is 9
cars finishing on the lead lap. Less
than 15 minutes into this race, drivers were already getting lapped. After the longest green flag start to a 600, half
the field was down a lap. Pole-sitter Kyle Larson took an eventless Stage 1.
Chase
Elliot aggressively took the lead in Stage 2, but lost it during
a green flag pit stop. Meanwhile, hockey
and local baseball started at the same time.
The Colorado Avalanche scored
twice on the Vegas Golden Knights in
the first period. The big news at the
baseball game was that Mackenzie Gore
wouldn’t be starting because of a blister.
I think this probably hurt the Chihuahuas’
pitching today. The OKC Dodgers homered twice in the first
for a 4-0 lead, but the Chihuahuas punched back for 2 in the bottom. They then proceeded to get buried third
inning, 7-2.
There was a yellow flag back at the race. I didn’t see what caused it. That jumbled things up a bit after a pit stop. Chase retook the lead, but Larson came back
and won Stage 2. The four Hendricks cars briefly filled the first
four spots. They finished that way in Dover a few weeks ago (I didn’t see it). Great sponsored segment with Denny Hamlin. He showed off his good-looking Meatball Sliders. I want to have dinner at Denny’s.
In Denver, the Avalanche went up 3 early in the second, then
4-0, the 5-0. In El Paso, OKC went up 10-3
in the fourth. In Charlotte, Ryan Newman hit the wall late in the
third stage. Kyle won the stage under
caution. This is all turning into a
massacre regardless of the venue.
Larson and Kyle
Busch fought like heck at the Stage 4 start. Larson prevailed and took his teammates with
him to the front. Elliot and William Byron fought over second. Colorado took a 6-1 lead after two
periods. The crowd there loved it. I think Vegas’ strategy of playing without a
goalie is backfiring on them. OKC hit a
grand slam in the sixth inning for a 14-3 lead.
Worse for the fans, there’s no fireworks scheduled tonight.
A position player was pitching for pups in the seventh, Matt Batten. He has a win.
Broadcaster Tim Haggerty was
reminding everyone that he was the pitcher when the Chihuahuas had their
biggest comeback ever. Kyle Larson won
the race. He’d come in a frustrating
second in three straight races before this.
Kyle Busch spoiled an all Hendricks top four. Alex
Bowman finished fifth anyway. This
win gave Rick Hendricks the NASCAR
team wins record. Perhaps a bigger win
was that this event was at full capacity.
And you should have taken the over for cars finishing on the lead lap.
Finally, there’s a fight in the third period of the hockey
game, an ugly one. I can’t believe it
took this long. Five players went to the
penalty box with Vegas getting the worst of it.
Colorado got a 9-minute power play with 12 minutes left in the game. They did win, surprise, 7-1.
Back at the ballpark, Steven
Sousa Jr. hit his third home run of the game for the Dodgers in the eighth
off of Batten. Batten returned the favor
and singled in two runs in the bottom.
In the ninth, Luke Raley hits
his third home run of the game for the Dodgers.
There’d be no four-homer night though, as Batten plunked Sousa, who came
up next. Patrick Kivelhan homered for the fourth straight game for the
Chihuahuas in the ninth. Tim was busy
keeping track of all the players going for cycles and home run achievements. 20-9
OKC was the exhausting final in another three-and-a-half hour game.
Okay, I don’t know what to make of this. I was flipping around channels and ran into a
Mexican soccer game, Cruz Azul versus Santos for the championship.
It’s tied and in 5 minutes of extra time. However, the clock had gone well past that as
there were 20 guys on the field fighting.
I’ve not seen this in a soccer match ever. It’s eventually broken up. They replay the incident leading to the
scrum. It seemed like a pretty nominal
trip and push. There must have been
something leading up to it. The ref
handed out two yellow cards. Play
resumed for 30 seconds. The game
finished tied. Blue Cross wins the
championship? The blue shirted fans in
the crowd went nuts. A guy on the sidelines
started engraving the trophy.
After a tie?
Even if this was explained to me, I doubt I would
understand it.
Not going to lie, today has been a bit disappointing all the way around. I was happy for Helio, but that wasn’t the greatest Indy. I almost feel like I should have just watched that Mexican League baseball game. Okay, I’m done for the day. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
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