The main highlight (and lowlight) of Memorial Day Monday was the food.
Shortly after waking up, I walked over to next door, McAlisters. The Spicy
Turkey Melt was messy, but awesome.
I downed two cups of sweet tea and took one home.
I got back home just in time for the first pitch between
the Texas Rangers and the Detroit Tigers on the radio. Great timing.
Nathan Eovaldi started for
the Rangers. In the second, he got into
bases loaded/no outs trouble, but a force out at home and a double play ended
the threat.
The first scoring didn’t come until the fifth when Corey Seager hit out a 3-run
homer. The Rangers added 2 more in the
seventh with Seager driving in one of those.
They won 5-0. Broadcaster Matt Hick’s microphone seemed to be turned down during the game for
some reason. Jared Sandler’s mic was fine.
It was frustrating at times. By
the way, Eric Nadel is still
mentioned in the Rangers’ broadcast sign off.
They apparently haven’t given up on him coming back to call games someday.
French
Open Tennis was on TV.
I tried watching for like 5 seconds.
It was two guys I’d never heard of, grunting at the top of their lungs,
and it wasn’t even a good match. So much
for tennis. I just had it on waiting for
the NASCAR race.
MLB.TV put
a good rivalry game as their free game, Cardinals
versus Royals. The players were all wearing poppy flower
patches on their uniforms for Memorial Day.
I e-mailed my Aunt Judy to let her know I was watching her Cardinals
play. She didn’t write back. I wonder if it was because of how the game
went.
In the third, after a great catch at the wall in the
second, Cardinals’ star in the making, Lars
Nootbaar, came out injured, but was able to walk. This isn’t good news for a struggling
team. Later in the frame, the Italian
Nightmare, Vinnie Pasquantio, got
the scoring started by doubling in a run for the Royals. Adam
Wainwright escaped a bases loaded jam, just giving up the 1 run. In the fifth, a triple brought in a run and a
squeeze play brought in another for the Royals.
I had the sound off for most of the game, since I was
listening to the radio. I didn’t realize
until I saw the MLB notion on the game that it was a perfect game was in
progress. The Royals had started with an
opener, and then Mike Mayers had
kept the Cardinals locked down. I was
watching the Cardinals’ broadcast. Their
announcers were desperately trying to jinx it.
I should have flipped it over to the Royals’ broadcast.
Nolan
Arenado finally broke it up with a hit as the first batter of the
eighth. The Cards still didn’t score. Their announcers then worked on jinxing the
shutout and started talking about doing some grilling for dinner that
evening. The Royals added on with a Bobby Witt Jr. home run and followed by
a two-run homer in the ninth. The Royals
kept the shutout and won 7-0. The Cardinals disappointed a full house of
fans in St. Louis.
After the Rangers’ game ended, I greedily checked out ESPN Radio on KROD and they had just started a game between the Twins and Astros. This must be my
lucky day. The Twins took a 3-0 lead on
a 3-run homer in the third. The Twins
were still up 4-1 in the fourth.
In the bottom of the seventh, Jose Altuve came up with the bases loaded and put the Astros up 5-4
with a grand slam. However, the Twins
managed to tie in the ninth with 2 outs.
The first pitch of the 10-th was a 2-run homer for the Twins. They went on and beat the Astros, 7-5.
(I should be honest here. Where I
don’t note the name of a player making a play, it’s probably because I haven’t
heard of them before.)
I’d checked the Charlotte, NC, weather earlier. It seemed like there was a window in the rain
for a race. I checked the NASCAR
website. They were running the postponed
Xfinity race before the Cup. They were having rain issues. When I finally tuned in on TV for the race,
it was cloudy, but not raining. There
were quite a few fans in the stands, which made me hopeful.
The broadcast coverage started with a moment of silence,
then the Invocation, and then the Anthem, sung by a female Marine. There were shots of kids in the infield on
bikes, who’d stopped and put their hands over their hearts. I’d noticed Fox had taken Bubba Wallace off their promo image
this week, but did highlight him during the Anthem.
Let’s face it, the Coca-Cola
600 sucks. It’s a death march for
everyone involved, including the viewers.
The only way to make this race more interesting is to force everyone
watching to bet on it and bet big. Some of
the cars at least were sporting cool paint schemes. There were a couple of camo-like paint
schemes. Tyler Reddick had an Air Jordan car in NC blue. The looks winner, though, was Daniel Suarez’s American flag scheme,
pictured at the top.
Jimmie
Johnson was in the race.
He spun out, while the race was in commercial of course, to bring out
the first caution. The in-car cameras
and trackside cameras looked like they were getting drizzle, but not enough to
stop the race at this point. William Byron took Stage 1 by nipping Christopher Bell at the line.
There was a light downpour late in the second stage. The race still wasn’t official by this
point. The cars were parked for about a
half hour delay. (I think.) During this break, Aric Almirola and Bubba had a confrontation in pit lane. Aric shoved Bubba hard and then the two of
them were broken up. You know what? I’m sick of writing about Bubba. This is sort of sort of wearing me out even
watching. Anyway, I found out about this
incident the next day. I may flipped channels
during the delay and missed it when it happened (or they didn’t show it on the
broadcast).
When the cars got back to racing, Jimmie wrecked on the restart
with 25 laps still left in the stage. I
have to think he’s regretting coming back, even for just a handful of races
this season. Later, Kyle Busch then spun out near the front of the field. Suarez bumped into him, but somehow everyone
else missed him. 15 laps to halfway and Chase Elliot and Denny Hamlin tangled and took each other out. Chase would later get a suspended for a race
for his part in it.
There was another wreck before Stage 2 ended and it
finished under caution with Chris
Buescher taking it. The sun was out
there in Charlotte, so making the race official wasn’t a big deal. With the baseball games over, I left for a Paleta
ice cream bar during a caution for a wreck with 30 laps left in Stage 3.
I got back and they were 15 laps away. I was finally now listening to the race call.
Ryan Blaney won the Stage 3. My Paleta bar was a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup
dipped in chocolate and covered in pistachios.
Yeah, it was almost unbearably good, but it was a full meal in itself. It may have taken 20 minutes for me to finish
it. This has been a good day for food. (I had a bellyache for the rest of the night,
but it was worth it.)
Fox showed a race recap and I’d missed a bunch of
weirdness, including a fire in the pits.
With 72 laps to go, Reddick had a near crash, missed the wall, drove
through the turf, and still managed to retain his second place spot. “I have to change my underwear,” he said
afterward on the radio.
A bunch of wrecks then occurred. Probably the most dramatic was with 26 to go.
Kyle
Larson went sideways in front of most of the field on a restart. Lucky he didn’t take out everyone behind him. We just kept missing the big one.
Blaney blew away the field by the end. Boy is Ryan’s girlfriend, Gianna Tulio, pretty. Fox was barely showing the race after they found her on the pit box.
She’s a former Miss Hooters.
Ryan ran into the stands after winning, ala Josef Newgarden’s Indy celebration yesterday. He thanked the crowd for sticking around as they
chanted his name. That was five hours of
NASCAR. It was certainly interesting,
but that was more race than probably anyone really wanted. (Yes, I’m still planning on watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans next month, though
probably not every hour.)
Okay, I kind of forced myself to write this and it
shows. While I may be over-consuming
sports next Memorial Day, I may not be writing about it. I don’t think I relaxed at all this
weekend. Indy was a definite highlight
for the weekend, as usual. Not getting a
pizza for the race was the biggest disappointment. Saturday’s Chihuahuas’ game was the best baseball game. It kind of sucks not having any Aggie Baseball to talk about this year,
but we got lucky last year.
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