Labor Day Sports Report 2021 Part 1

Boy, did I make a mistake waiting until after Labor Day to start posting this stuff.  There was so much at times, I should have been posting some of this weekly.  Just to make it worse, I then petered out about the middle of August.  I blame the falling fortunes of the Chihuahuas and Padres for that.  I just wasn’t as excited about sports.  In keeping with tradition, I keep meaning to watch some college football and I continue to only watch little clips of it.  So, the actual Labor Day entry is sparse.  Oh, just looking at the first entry here, I see how out-of-date this all this.

 

7-7-21

I did get to see the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the Stanley Cup at work.  They were up 1-0 in the third period.  The Tampa Bay arena was packed, but the crowd was almost silent in tension.  I’d never seen anything like it.   The players seemed super tight too.  Their winning seemed more relief than a celebration. 

 

7-8-21

The Padres are having some epic games this season.  They were playing the Nationals tonight with the Nats up 8-0 in the fourth.  I was listening to the Chihuahuas’ broadcast when Tim Hagerty mentioned the game.  The Padres had started a comeback, which was capped by El Paso reliever, Daniel Camarena, getting is first MLB hit.  It was a grand slam off of Max Scherzer.  That’s what you get for throwing down and in to a lefty.  This hit was an instant sensation.  The MLB posted that clip right up.  I started following along on Statcast.  The Padres would win it in the ninth with a walk off hit, 9-8.

 

7-9-21

Tonight’s Chihuahuas/OKC Dodgers game was extremely frustrating in every respect.  When I tuned in, Tim Hagerty was trying to do the game call, but very slow working pitcher was on mound.  Maybe he was an MLB pitcher on rehab and wasn’t under pitch clock restrictions.  Tim was clearly getting irritated.  The game was two-and-a-half hours in and they weren’t even half way through.  Tim started telling about a story about a whale swallowing a guy in sheer annoyance.

 

It got worse.  The Chihuahuas had a 7-0 lead and lost 15-11.  The score wasn’t entirely that close.  They were down eight runs in the ninth, before they rallied.  The time of the game was over four hours.  They almost passed their previous 9-inning record game time from last month (6-20-21).

 

I confusing thing I learned during the game was that Tim said the official scorer of the game was not allowed to ask the broadcasters about the scoring on plays.  This contradicts would happened last month in a game (6-9-21), where the scorer asked both announcers what they saw on a play.  Now I don’t know what’s correct.

 

7-11-21

I hung out with Ron again to watch today’s NASCAR race at his father’s house.  Ron kind of talked me out of going to a couple places for lunch before settling on Jimmy John’s.  He suggested going by Wal-Mart to get chips, drinks, and ice cream.  This was a store across town from the one I usually go to.  I decided it was a much better place, as I could vaguely hear Blackpink as the PA music.

 

Waiting for the race, we watched some MLB Tonight (misnamed for day viewing).  They were covering the Marlins and the Braves.  Pablo Lopez of the Marlins had started the game with an MLB record 9 strikeouts.  As soon as they committed to showing the next inning, he gave up a hit, but it was still a great accomplishment (and some really poor effort at making contact by the Braves). 

 

The race at Atlanta was not hugely interesting.  I think the stands were only half-full.  Either the fans were concerned about the weather or didn’t want to come out for a lousy race.  There weren’t any weather problems, but there was a delay for a large chunk of asphalt coming up from the track.  It is going to be repaved in the off season as a super speedway.  That might make it more interesting.  Kurt Busch beat his little brother, Kyle, for the win.  Kurt lapped it up afterward in the interview.  He raised his arms up in triumph to the crowd, “We beat Kyle Busch!”

 

Of note during this visit was the ice cream.  I’d bought a half gallon of salted caramel with chocolate chunks.  I’d had a pretty big dish.  Ron had a pretty big dish.  Then Ron had another one.  And then another one.  Finally, he was eating out of the carton over the sink.  Needless to say, I didn’t take home any leftovers.

 

I’d noticed a big black cloud hanging over the Organ Mountains to the east all afternoon.  It didn’t move; it just sat there.  Ron dropped me off at my dad’s apartment.  He was outside sitting under a tree on a wall.  We chatted for a bit and I walked home.  I was mindful of that cloud the whole time.  Once home, I turned on the radio to listen to the Chihuahuas’ game.  In the first maybe half hour of listening, there were about five weather alerts interrupting the game about a storm in the area.  Finally, the storm hit us.  Essentially, it was high winds and a large amount of rain blowing sideways.  I looked out the window and thought, Wow.  That’s exactly what hurricane footage looks like on TV.  Frighteningly, the worst of the storm actually missed us.

 

While the storm was going, I wasn’t hearing thunder, so I kept the TV and radio on.  The Chihuahuas were surprisingly still playing the OKC Dodgers.  The storm had not yet reached El Paso.  In the fifth, the pups were down 7-0, so I was sort of mentally tuned out.  The wind was starting to kick up there as the Chihuahuas made a comeback.  With the bases loaded, Taylor Kohlweg hit a hard liner to the outfield.  With the wind, the fielder misjudged it, jumped, and missed.  The ball went straight to the wall.  The crowd went crazy as Kohlweg rounded the bases for an inside-the-park grand slam home run.

 

It was 7-6 at that point.  In the sixth, the storm had passed by Las Cruces and the Chihuahuas had scored another run to tie it.  I was thinking that it was going to be somewhat tragic for the fans there when they stopped the game.  Indeed, the tarp came out in the seventh before the rain hit.  There was no way they’d have gotten it down when the weather hit.  The game was suspended for the night. 

 

Tim Hagerty briefly chatted with his producer as the rain began there.  He said he’d gotten messages from people in other parts of El Paso that were amazed they were able to play as long as they did.  The storm just took a while to get downtown.  Tim was a bit glad for the break.  He needed to get some more water, because he’d almost lost his voice calling the home run.

I kept watching The Monkees on the Weekend Binge on Decades TV.  It was still raining, but not bad, and I was drawing at the time.  I was inking in the face and had just finished and had raised my pen off the paper, then the power went out.  I laughed in the dark.  That could have caused a bad mistake.  Ten minutes later, the lights were back on and I finished.

 

Likewise, the game finished in the early evening the next day.  Gosuke Katoh hit a massive home run in the eighth to win it, 8-7 for the Chihuahuas.  Unfortunately, they lost the regularly scheduled game right after.  It’s been that kind of season.   

Continued in Part 2