D's Notebook

Tag: baseball (Page 2 of 14)

Baseball Notes (+1)

September 29, 2022 /

My season-long boycott of baseball has continued. It’s really not been hard since the Royals have been so shitty this year. I’m not feeling any inclination to crack in a week when the playoffs begin. I’m sure I’ll watch some of the games, but I don’t expect to be as into them as I have been in recent years. I have plenty of other things that can entertain me during evenings in October.

Still, I thought I should drop a few baseball related thoughts.

Dayton Moore Fired

This is over a week old, but the Royals have finally moved on from their long-time general manager/president of baseball operations, the architect behind the 2014 pennant and 2015 World Series winning teams.

This was a good move.

Everyone says Dayton is a decent man who loves the franchise and the Kansas City area, and I don’t doubt that. But his methods had become outdated and it seemed like as long as he was in charge, the organization would remain stagnant.

When you look back at his career, it’s really remarkable that the R’s ever got to the postseason. It’s not that they weren’t deserving; those teams were filled with high draft picks and smart acquisitions. Rather what made those two Octobers seem so unlikely are the seasons around them.

I think Dayton was probably one more under-performing season away from losing his job in 2014. And the post-World Series era has turned into an absolute disaster.

A Twitter commentator said that championships are never truly flukes – it takes too much to win one in any sport to write them off as breakdowns in the matrix – but when you look at how the Royals performed in Moore’s first seven or eight years, and then in the seven years since, that title seems like a huge outlier.

I’m hopeful that J.J. Picollo, despite being a Moore protégé, is the right choice to move the franchise forward. He seems more open to using advanced stats and more modern training methods than Moore ever did. Perhaps that will unlock the potential of all the pitchers the R’s have collected in the past five years. His changes to the organization’s hitting philosophy are promising, so that bodes well.

The Dayton Moore era was filled with contradictions. The Royals were one of the few franchises that looked to take care of all of its employees during the pandemic. His efforts to build a new baseball academy are exactly what the sport needs to stay relevant and capitalize on talent that doesn’t come from the baseball factories of the American south or Latin America. Then there was his weird interest in educating players about the dangers of watching porn. Of all the ills in the world, that’s the one he chose to take a stand on? Bizarre.

There was a lot of shitty baseball between 2006 and 2013, and again since 2017. But what happened in the middle can never be discounted, no matter how much of an outlier it was.

Aaron Judge

I’m sure my long-time readers will be shocked that I’m super-annoyed by the coverage of Aaron Judge’s pursuit of the American League home run record, a mark he tied last night.

There’s the way ESPN has covered it. I don’t watch a lot of Sportscenter these days, but when I switch by it drove me nuts how the crawl would say something like “Judge Still Stuck at 60.” Still stuck. Two games after he hit #60. God I hate American journalism sometimes.

There was the same whining that happens anytime a record is being pursued and a hitter gets walked a lot. It’s not the job of the opponent to serve up meatballs, especially when they are fighting for a playoff spot. Ironic that some of the people complaining about Judge’s walks are the same people who fit into the next group and are allegedly concerned with the sanctity of the game.

But what has annoyed me most is the commentary around his chase, and the idea that should he break Roger Maris’ 1961 mark, he will become the “real” home run king.

That is garbage.

The MLB home run record is 73. It doesn’t matter if you hate Barry Bonds, if you think he didn’t play a clean game in his life, and if you think everything about that era was suspect. Those games, and those home runs, happened. You can’t strike them from the record without removing everything that happened in that era. So, Yankees fan, do you want to eliminate the team’s consecutive titles between 1998 and 2000? Roger Clemens was on those teams. Andy Pettite was on those teams. Jason Giambi. Kevin Brown. And those are just the big names we know about.

And you know how I feel about steroids. Do we know for certain that Judge is clean, or that he’s not using something now that is illegal but won’t be allowed in five years? The PED line is always moving, there are always advances in medicine, and I refuse to get upset about who is/is not using when the criteria for what is/is not allowed is not fixed.

Aaron Judge is a marvel, and what he’s doing is one of the most impressive performances in baseball history, especially when you compare his numbers to the other power numbers. He’s in position to break the AL home run record while also winning the Triple Crown, which is nuts. Let’s just celebrate that without trying to re-litigate 20-year-old grievances.

Albert Pujols

Hey, Pujols has had a remarkable summer, too. I figured when he signed with the Cardinals it would be for a victory lap, maybe a couple home series in the summer in front of packed crowds, then he’d slip away with an injury that would keep him on the IL until the final weekend of the season when he would come out for a few final ABs and hat tips to the crowd.

Boy was I wrong! Despite being 52 years old,[1] he’s somehow rediscovered the magic he lost over a decade ago and has bashed his way to 700 career homers and is OPS+-ing a cool 142.

It’s pretty amazing how a player can decline for a decade and suddenly find it agin. It’s weird how there’s been all the kvetching about Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, and Sammy Sosa but no discussion of Albert’s miraculous comeback. Not saying it’s not legit, just saying be consistent if you’re going to complain.

Brett Favre

Not baseball, but he’s a piece of shit. Not that this was a surprise.

  1. Or 42. Allegedly.  ↩

Weekend Sports Notes

July 18, 2022 /

Some sports happenings over the past few days.

Royals

As if being shitty wasn’t bad enough, ten Royals players “did their own research” and decided not to get vaccinated against Covid, preventing them from traveling to Canada for the series with the Blue Jays over the weekend.

Just an exhausting moment. As I am barely interested in the team or sport right now, this does not make me want to come back.

Let’s move on…

Pacers Go Big…Almost

The Pacers have never been big players in the free agent market. Good players who are healthy generally don’t want to come to Indianapolis, and the Pacers have generally run a tight financial ship and refused to overpay to get talent to come to town.

That nearly changed last week. They signed restricted free agent Deandre Ayton to a massive offer sheet. Ayton had a strained relationship with the Phoenix Suns who seemed lukewarm on bringing him back on a max contract. There had been rumors for weeks the Suns and Pacers were talking about a deal that revolved around Ayton and the Pacers’ Myles Turner. If those talks were serious, though, they never resulted in a trade agreement.

So the Pacers sent out only the second offer sheet they’ve ever tendered, the biggest in league history, for Ayton. For about three hours Pacers fans were debating whether to be excited about the prospect of Ayton joining a young roster or to worry about Ayton getting hurt or just sucking and turning the deal into a disaster that sunk the franchise for the 2020s.

That debate only lasted a few hours because the Suns quickly matched the Pacers’ offer. Which could be a good thing. Offering $133 million for a big man in the current NBA seemed ultra aggressive, especially for one like Ayton, who is a good player but certainly not among the league’s elite.

It was cool the Pacers tried to make a splash, at least. Now I wonder where they go. They seem set up to remain on the outside of the eastern conference playoff picture next year, but also not bad enough to enter the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes. They have a ton of cap room and a lot of picks stacked up for the next few years. Plus they still have to figure out what to do with Turner, an elite shot blocker and serviceable 3-point shooter whose total game does not match his ego or financial desires. Do they package Turner and some of their picks for a difference maker? Hang onto Turner until the trade deadline to see if he meshes with their new lineup (and can stay healthy)? Or do they move Turner now, take on a bad, expiring contract, and hope they are crappy enough to get deep into next year’s lottery and then make rapid improvement?

Kid Hoops

L’s team decided to get together for one more tournament. Saturday they played two teams they played two weeks ago, including the team that knocked them out of that tournament. They pounded that team pretty good, although they were playing without their best player. We were three players short, including a starter, but not sure that was an even trade. In game two they got a 14-point win over a team we have now beaten three times. This was our best performance against them.

In Sunday’s semifinal we had a five-point lead early in the second half but lost by 10. Our girls just got waxed in the last 10 minutes or so. The other team was too fast on both ends, our girls neglected to play any help defense, and we missed a ton of easy shots early that could have had us up by double digits early in the game.

L had a mixed weekend. She shot the ball like crap going 3–20 overall. Saturday she hit the top of the backboard with 3 pointers from behind the NBA line.[1] Apparently she’s been working out too much. In the second game she missed two wide open layups and another two contested ones. But she did score six in that game. And she turned the game around with her defense. We were down seven when she checked in. Five minutes later, when she checked out, we were up six. In that span she had two points, two rebounds, two assists, and three steals. She just shut down their point guard, getting steals on three of four possessions. We never looked back after that.

We’ve been doing some good shooting over at the YMCA, so I don’t know if she was just sped up, if her contacts weren’t locked in, or if it was the classic case of the improvement she’s making in practice not translating to games yet. Whatever the explanation, her shooting was gross. Afterwards I reminded her, though, that back in January if she ever took a 3-pointer, it was usually two feet short. Now she’s shooting them 3–4 feet long from behind the NBA line. So she has the range, she just needs to lock in the accuracy.

The Open

Jeeeeez what a let down. Rory McIlroy seemed like was finally going to break his eight-year major-less streak, playing beautiful golf all weekend. He was a little less stellar Sunday, missing six putts by a combined six inches, but still played well enough to win.

Except Cameron Smith went nuclear and hit every freaking putt on the back nine. Shooting 30 on the last nine of a major – six birdies and three pars – is pretty dope. Rory couldn’t even finish second as Cameron Young snuck by him with a final round 65.

There was no meltdown round this time. Rory played great all four days. Perhaps he was a little too cautious Sunday. Or the nerves caused shots that gave him short birdie looks the first three days to leave him much longer looks in Sunday. Whatever the cause, it felt like a massive letdown when he couldn’t close it out. Sometimes you just get unlucky and end up on the wrong side of a legendary closing round by another golfer.

It was really a magnificent tournament. St. Andrews is barely hanging on against modern players and technology, but it produced a terrific weekend of golf. Saturday, when six or seven players all seemed to be in the mix, was amazing to watch. It came at a perfect moment for professional golf, which has seen the 2022 season dominated by the break between the PGA and the Saudi-backed LIV tour. But you also have to wonder when we will see a tournament like this again. The 2023 major season could be drastically different as more players defect to the LIV, which could affect their ability to play in future majors. Perhaps it was that, more than Rory coming up short, that made the end feel a little extra somber.

  1. The tournament was at Jeff Teague’s gym, and we played both Saturday games on the NBA court, which is longer than the other two high school courts at the facility, and only has the college and NBA three point lines parked. Not sure why they had kids as young as fifth grade playing on it without the high school arc marked.  ↩

Sports Notes

June 9, 2022 /

KU Hoops

I still need to do an NIL post, and now that things finally seem to have calmed down a little on that front, I’ll move that up in the mental queue.

KU’s roster appears to be locked in for next year, so a few thoughts on how that has shaken out.

In general I think the transfer portal is a good thing, as it gives players more control of their careers. But I think it also gets misused as players bail on situations that are simply less-than-ideal instead of truly bad or jump at any opportunity to trade up in prestige of program. For fans, I think we expect too much from players who are transferring-in, expecting them to replicate what made them stars at their previous school while playing in different systems, with different teammates, often with very different roles.

I think the best move for KU this off-season would have been to keep the roster completely intact and not add any players. Even had some guys at the back end of the roster left, I would have been fine going forward with 11–12 scholarship players instead of trying to fill a bench player’s spot with a transfer who had started elsewhere.

There are just a whole lot of guys who will be fighting for playing time this year, and clearing out a spot wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

That said, replacing Christian Braun with Kevin McCullar, Jr was about the best move KU could have. They are different players, but since McCullar is complementary on offense and position-less on defense, he can slide right in and not be disruptive. I don’t think he will struggle to find his role the way pretty much every transfer last year did. While he adds to the roster crunch in the wings rotation, his presence also means that neither Gradey Dick nor MJ Rice will be expected to have an immediate impact for the team to win games in November and December.

Jalen Wilson coming back was the right move for him and potentially a huge move for KU. It’s unrealistic to expect him to take the jump Ochai Agbaji did last year, but after a solid NBA combine, it’s not unreasonable to see a leap in his game. I can see him having a tremendous statistical year, in the range of 15–16 ppg and 10+ rebounds per game.

Right now I think there are three players locked into starting roles: Wilson, McCullar, and DaJuan Harris. I would guess Zach Clemence is most likely to be the starting big man today. And then someone from the pool of Bobby Pettiford, Joe Yesufu, Dick, or Rice fill the remaining spot, depending whether Bill Self wants two small guards or a larger wing to join the other five. One of the freshmen bigs – Ernest Udeh or Zuby Ejiofor – should play a lot. I think Bill Self loves KJ Adams, so he will play.

I just named 11 players. Both Cam Martin and Kyle Cuffe are on scholarship, and most people think that Cuffe has a bright future. It’s hard to see either of them getting minutes, and I’m a little surprised Cuffe didn’t decide to jump somewhere that would give him a better opportunity to play.

Bottom line, the roster is deep, loaded with options, and seems pretty good here in June. They should be elite defensively if a big man can become a shot blocker. Offense may be a struggle at times, so I expect more games in the 60s than last year.

It’s a long way until practice begins, let alone the first games in early November. The defending national champs may not be in the true list of betting favorites (they are actually rated pretty high by Vegas at the moment, but that seems irrational) but they are going to run back a pretty good squad in ’22–23.

Professional Golf

I don’t know that it’s been on many of my reader’s radars, but men’s professional golf is in the midst of one of the most important weeks in its modern history. For a year or so there have been rumors of a league to rival the PGA, with rumors of multiple competing leagues at various times. The option that seemed the most serious and likely is backed by the government of Saudi Arabia, as part of their “sports washing” efforts to use their massive piles of cash to distract the world from the regime’s awful record on human rights. The LIV Golf tour begins this week and several notable PGA players have renounced their PGA Tour status and made the jump. Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson are rumored to be receiving between $100 and $200 million for joining the new tour. Others have received less but still more than they can make in many years on the PGA Tour. The weekly purses are also far beyond the already crazy money players are earning on the PGA Tour.

For obvious reasons, there has been a kerfuffle about all this. There is the fact these players are turning their backs on the tour than made them rich. The fact they are taking blood money from an oppressive government that had an American citizen murdered and chopped into pieces because he was publishing articles they didn’t like. The fact most of these golfers are trying to act like they are doing this for the “good of the game,” or in belief that golf can change the world. The idea that golf will somehow turn Saudi Arabia into a Jeffersonian Democracy with equal rights for all citizens is one of the dumbest things about this whole enterprise.

It’s all a little ridiculous. I think Dustin Johnson is the only person who has pretty much said he’s doing this for the money. Good for him. Be honest, take the heat, and know that it will fade. I disagree with his decision, but respect the fact he’s not hiding behind the BS most of his fellow LIV jumpers are spouting.

I’ve been more interested in the media/public reaction. Granted, my view is heavily skewed by the side of Golf Twitter that I follow, which is unusually progressive for golf in general and, likely, much more aware of all the details than the wider golf public. What has stuck me most is the heat these people are taking. A lot of the public is jumping on the side of the players, usually defending their taking the life-changing money. Which, again, I get.

I wondered how many people making this argument defend other professional athletes who chase money. Do they say, “Well, the Yankees offered him more, I don’t blame him,” when their favorite baseball player leaves their team for a bigger market? Or when the wide receiver their NFL team drafted and developed goes elsewhere when he is a free agent, are they as understanding? I can hazard a guess. I imagine terms like “greedy” and “disloyal” get thrown around.

What makes that question fascinating to me is that you can make a legitimate economic argument for why NFL/NBA/MLB players chase money. You may think that team X overpaid for your shooting guard, but his new contract was determined by market conditions, often based on offers from multiple teams. Nothing about what these golfers are getting paid makes sense from an economic standpoint. They weren’t sifting through a stack of offers similar to what the Saudis had on the table. Saudi Arabia is paying far beyond the true economic value of these golfers in an effort to legitimize their new league. Several golf writers have pointed out that these contracts make even less sense because LIV hasn’t offered any kind of business plan for how to grow and maintain their league. That won’t matter to the Mickelsons and Johnsons who are set for life based on their initial contracts and have PGA Tour status basically for life based on winning majors. But that’s a legit question for the lesser-known players who have joined LIV, and could have their careers wrecked if the league falls apart and they are banned from the PGA Tour.

This whole thing is just Saudi Arabia doing what they do: lighting cash on fire at a moment when oil is as expensive as it’s been in ages to try to get people to forget beyond their flashy architecture and lavish spending, most of country, from its leadership down, live lie it is still the 16th century.

Splitting sports leagues is pretty much never a good thing. The big names jumping to LIV are getting money that can literally set up their families for generations. While they have the right to make those decisions, I don’t think they realize the long-term damage this split is going to do to professional golf. In a decade or so, if TV contracts and exposure have shrunk and golf is even more niche than it is now, I’m not sure the next generation of players will be thanking the players who took the Saudi money and ran.

Royals

Good Lord the Royals suck. As of this morning, they are two games worse than Oakland and Cincinnati, two franchises that are trying to lose. I’m still not watching, listening, or paying much attention. But I still have several Royals commentators in my feeds and get enough of texts from friends who are still on board to have a sense of what a disaster this season has been.

For a long time it felt like the Royals were handling their post-title rebuild the right way and were poised to break back to respectability this year and possible contention next year. Especially with the new, expanded playoffs this year.

At the moment, it sure seems like they’ve bungled it all. And it seems like it’s time for new owner John Sherman to clear out the front office and coaching staff and start anew. Still won’t get me to re-up my MLB subscription this year.

Weekend Notes

April 11, 2022 /

That was a weird weekend. No big sports of any kind. No basketball or football on the TV for the first time since Labor Day. No kid sports.

Sure, I watched some of the Master’s, but we were often busy during the peak watch times so I wasn’t able to give it a ton of attention. Plus it wasn’t a super interesting tournament this year, so when I did sit down to watch, I did not feel compelled to remain seated for hours.

Baseball has begun, but I’m in one of my baseball moods right now and not ready to dive back in. Out of protest at the owners’ bad faith during their lockout of the players, I cancelled my MLB.TV subscription rather than let it renew annually as I’ve done for at least a decade. A few days later MLB automatically put all accounts on hold pending a resolution to the labor conflict. But I still felt like I got one over on them, withholding my $120 on my terms.

I have yet to go back and re-up.

A big piece of that is the dishonesty and unfairness that the owners built their entire lock-out argument on. They wanted to prevent the players from taking their fair share of the revenue pie in a moment when said revenues are skyrocketing.

And as soon as an agreement was made, MLB started trotting out all these new ways that baseball will be broadcast. Each of which is a new revenue stream for owners but which also makes it harder for fans to see their favorite teams. National broadcasts that wipe out local broadcasts and require a subscription of some kind to see. Added to a refusal to adjust the existing, ridiculous MLB blackout rules, these are just another example of how hostile to fans ownership and the MLB office are. Throw in that it’s damn near impossible for a family with more than a couple kids to take the entire household to an MLB game without dropping $500+ and I can’t help but be soured on how the game is run and where it’s headed.

My little protest won’t mean a thing to any organization’s nor MLB’s bottom lines. But it’s hard to get interested in a game that really doesn’t seem interested in the fans in any way other than finding more ways to get money out of us.

Of course, if the Royals are playing well in a month I may cave and start watching again.

We did have one big family event on the calendar this weekend: M got inducted into the National Honor Society. The ceremony was Sunday afternoon and we drug her sisters along with us. They were thrilled. We told them we expected to do this again in two and four years for each of them, so no pressure.

That was the first moment in a big month for M. Prom is two weeks away. She has a dress, a date (a friend, they are going with a large group), and as a class officer is responsible for setting things up the morning of the dance. We’ve also told her to get serious about what colleges she wants to visit so we can start making plans to get on those campuses between now and September.

Sweetness

March 24, 2022 /

Ahhhh, Sweet 16 week.

I’ve always said this is the best week of the tournament for the real hoops fan. Provided your team is in it, of course.

The frenzy of the first weekend has been thinned out and we can get down to some real, serious hoops. There’s always an interesting story or three for the national media to latch onto. And there are usually a couple “I HAVE to watch that game!” matchups.

This year I think those marquee matchups are Texas Tech – Duke, Houston – Arizona, and North Carolina – UCLA. Not that the others aren’t intriguing in their own way, but these are the most interesting games on paper.

Plenty of storylines. Obviously St. Peter’s finding a way to continue their miracle run is top of the list. Well, CBS will make it about whether Duke can cap K’s career with another Final Four. Is this finally the Purdue squad that can overcome the program’s history and get to New Orleans? Charlie Moore!!! Will the Midwest remain the region of chaos with a surprise champion or has the chaos just cleared the way for KU to get to the Final Four?

I’m obviously most concerned with that last one.

Like most KU fans this has been a strange week, with me wavering between confidence and fear. We’ve built up Providence to be Gonzaga-lite and the 10/11 seeds making up the opposite regional semifinal as the next cruel trick the Hoops Gods will play on KU fans. “This is 2011 all over again,” has been a familiar refrain.

Smart, more emotionally balanced people have pointed out the bracket also broke for KU in 2008, although that Elite 8 game was far from stress-free. It broke in a different manner, but still for KU, in 1988. So there are two data points to balance the disaster of 2011. Both of them ended with a KU title. Sooooo….

We should probably stop thinking about history and consider the actual opponents.

Providence will be a tough test. Some analysts have dismissed the Friars because of the “luck” they’ve won with this year.[1] To others that makes them battle-tested and ready for any challenge. They are extremely experienced, with an average age older than that of the Oklahoma City Thunder! They are long. They are solid, if not exceptional, on both ends of the court. They get to the free throw line a lot. They have a player who seems ideal for giving Ochai Agbaji fits on the defensive end of the court.

Still, looking around the Sweet 16, I’d rather KU play Providence than Arkansas, Houston, or UCLA. That doesn’t mean KU is guaranteed to win. Sweet 16 games that feature chalk matchups are pretty much coin-flips these days.

If KU plays well defensively and efficiently on offense, they win. If they fuck around and give Providence open shots and don’t play smart on offense, it could be a very tense night. The Friars are good enough to win and it not being some fluke night where everything broke right for them.

The Elite 8 would bring one of two super interesting matchups. Either Charlie Moore and Miami, who are very athletic, have some great wins this year, and just destroyed Auburn for much of their second round game. Or a streaking Iowa State team for the third time. A Cyclones squad that probably should have won in Lawrence back in January.

There are scary things about both of those opponents. But, man, I need to stop being such a KU fan.

The Jayhawks are the best team left in the Midwest bracket. And while the best team doesn’t always win, they should win, dammit. And if they don’t, I’m going to be on a beach in Florida all next week.

KU 77, Providence 68

Rock Chalk, bitches.

  1. I admit I don’t totally understand KenPom’s luck rating. KU won a bunch of close games, too, but rank 105 in luck. I guess that says KU should have won those games, based on the peripherals, while Providence should have lost a good chunk of their close games.  ↩

Weekend Sports Notes

February 28, 2022 /

Jayhawk Talk

A large game in Waco Saturday. KU looked fantastic for the first 15 minutes against Baylor, then, other than a brief spurt in the second half, pretty pedestrian.

I was as low-key about this game as any late-season, Big 12 contender matchup in years. I listen to three different KU-focused podcasts and all of them insisted last week that Baylor was a great matchup for KU. I think that was putting too much into the teams’ first matchup, which was as dominant as KU has looked all year. That sentiment must have gotten into my head, though, because I didn’t have the usual nervousness going into this game.

I also thought all the pressure was on Baylor because of that first game and the margin between the teams. If KU lost they would still be in first place. Texas Tech losing to TCU earlier took some more pressure off.

For awhile it looked like that was all true. KU looked great early, hit their usual lull before halftime, and struggled to match Baylor’s adjustments through the second half. Or at least that’s what the general narrative of the game is.

In truth, KU missed a ton of open shots. Especially Ochai Agbaji, who despite scoring 27, missed a handful of, for him, relatively easy shots. Jalen Wilson was back to December Jalen Wilson. The bench was non-existent, although Remy Martin did score five, balanced by his typical terrible defense.

I’m not throwing those details out there to diminish Baylor’s performance or poo-poo the loss. It’s just to say I wasn’t all that worked up about it. It’s not like Baylor made KU look silly, like KU pissed it away as they had the game in Austin a few weeks back, etc. KU lost to a really good team on the road while having their worst offensive game, efficiency wise, in some time. Not a loss to lose sleep over.

Of course it helped pretty much everyone else in the Top 10 dropped a game last week.

It’s almost March. I’m more concerned with how the team is playing than the result. KU lost because the missed shots they normally hit and struggled to guard Baylor’s athletic bigs. That’s pretty much the blueprint for a KU loss this season.

Youth Hoops

L’s winter team had their final regular season game yesterday. As has been usual, they were missing four players and had to recruit a replacement from the C team just to have a sub.

Comparing scores, the team they played had lost by seven to the team we beat a week ago. So I was hoping for good things.

Not sure what went on in that other game, but our result showed why using playground logic is bad. We took a 2–0 lead, gave up an 13–0 run, and never got it under nine again, losing by 20. This team had good, little guards that could handle the ball and shoot 3’s. They had two big girls who looked awkward but could post and score, move their feet a little on D, and rebounded the hell out of the ball.

L scored eight and had three assists. She was aggressive but did not have the distance dialed-in on her jumpers and had a bunch of airballs. She also had her best, and smartest, play of the year. She had the ball at the top of the key and one of the big girls on her. She recognized the mismatch, got the girl leaning left, blew by her on the right and laid it in. A simple play, but a smart one. She hasn’t had the results she’s wanted, but I think her hoops IQ continues to improve. She’s been frustrated by this season. I keep telling her that things are going to get better, and more fun, once he AAU season begins.

Her AAU coach was in the building and watched the first half. He told me he was excited to have her and her St P’s buddy on his team. They start their practices tonight and are supposed to play in a shootout on Sunday, pending enough teams registering. Meanwhile the winter league team plays a tournament game tomorrow and a championship game on Saturday, should they win their first game. The “tournament” is kind of whack, but I’ll share more about that later.

Winter Olympics

I realized I never wrote anything about the Winter Olympics. Which should be like a mortal sin to the blogging gods: the Olympics have been one of my go-to content sources over the last 18 years.

It’s not that I didn’t watch. I did watch quite a bit in the first week, but tailed off significantly in the second week.

I guess it was fatigue from a third-straight Olympics being held with a 12–13 hour time difference and how that affects how us Americans can watch the events. There was the prime time evening window, which is probably way more convenient in the Pacific time zone than the Eastern. I don’t think I watched past 11:00 PM more than two nights. I often caught a few minutes of live events in the morning before I took L to school. That was pretty much it, though. And, as I said, in week two I lost some interest.

The lack of crowds sucked, especially since here in the States we’ve been back to full crowds for quite a while.

There was also the fact they were holding the Winter Olympics in an area that gets like 10 inches of snow a year. The starkness of the ski slopes covered in artificial snow while all the surrounding hills were a dull brown kind of cut into the vibe you want from the winter games. Naturally there was a nasty snow/wind storm that affected some of the ski events. Those were the sports gods letting the IOC know you need to stop chasing Chinese money and put the games where they belong. Seriously, I think the Winter Olympics should always be in the Alps, Scandinavia, or Canada. Fuck China. And fuck Russia, too, while we’re at it.

I laughed out loud at the ski broadcasters discussing how the snow in these games was so different than what the competitors were used to skiing on in Europe. One of them said the snow was “very sensitive.” Snowflakes on two levels!

Once again I found I enjoyed the newer events that grew out of the X-Games more than anything. The halfpipe snowboard events, especially, are crazy fun to watch. Ayumu Hirano winning the men’s gold was an insanely impressive performance, even with the judges trying to screw him. I loved the analyst getting noticeably pissed as the judges refused to reward runs that included elements that had never been done in competition before.

Also fun to hear the cross country analyst again, who screamed like someone is dying anytime there was a close race.

I suppose my favorite thing about the games was Instagram stalking the competitors. I spent too much time looking at Swiss skier Lara Gut-Behrami’s page. Please don’t tell my wife.

Baseball

Rob Manfred and the owners suck. For the first time in at least 15 years I turned off auto-renewal for my MLB subscription. I doubt losing my $120 will bring them to their senses, but I also don’t feel obligated to sign back up right away when an agreement is reached. There are a lot of problems with baseball, and the owners seem intent on making every one of those issues worse while adding more to the pile.

Weather and Sports

October 6, 2021 /

Mother Nature can’t figure out what she wants to do. For the past few days, if you’ve looked through a window to see what’s going on outside, you would assume fall has taken over. It’s been cloudy most of the times, flat out dreary a few times, so you would think you would need to bundle up a bit when you set outside. Yet it’s still been close to 80 most days, and it looks like it’s going to be warmer than that for the next several days.

Not that I’m complaining. I’d be pleased as punch if I could wear shorts and t-shirts until Thanksgiving. However, I would also like to bust out the fall clothing. The jeans, the chinos, the flannels, the quarter-zips. You know what I’m talking about.

Game two of the CYO basketball season was last night. L’s team was playing St. I, a school that is always good and has beaten us pretty easily every time we’ve played them going back to third grade. We heard before the game that one of St. I’s best 7th graders would not be available, but knowing they have three really good 8th graders, we figured it wouldn’t matter much.

It might have helped us a little. At least at the beginning. We held them scoreless for the first four minutes and change of the game! Granted, we were without a basket, too. But being tied is better than getting crushed.

Sadly that changed quickly. St I scored, put on their press, and next thing you knew, we were down 12–0.

It never got much better – although we did win the third quarter 6–5 – and the final was 37–10. St. I not only had better players, but they all know how to play together. They would set up our defense and then get exactly what they wanted.

Meanwhile our girls were throwing lazy passes, never setting screens for each other, not running the right plays, dribbling into triple teams, and taking bad shots. The gap between the teams with players and the teams with athletes sure gets more obvious as the girls get older.

We were playing in a very small gym where the stands are directly behind the benches, so we were able to listen in on timeout huddles. To break the St. I press, our coaches drew up a very simple play that involved three quick passes and one cut. Our girls went out and ran it every single play for the next five possessions. It didn’t matter that St. I’s figured it out after the first play and adjusted their defense accordingly. Our girls blindly threw the passes that the coaches had told them to throw, without looking to see if that pass was covered and someone else was open.

It was super frustrating to watch and made me very glad I’m not coaching this year. The girls are all good girls. But none of them play enough basketball to not totally panic when faced with a better team that is messing up what they try to do.

L went scoreless, going something like 0–4 or 0–5 from the field. She had a couple decent looks in close that she missed. The rest were panic shots she threw up because she was trapped in the lane. She had one assist but approximately 37 turnovers. Ugly all around.

CYO now takes three weeks off for the various fall breaks around the Archdiocese. Stupid. L’s team does play in a mini-tournament this weekend but otherwise will have a few weeks to try to regroup and figure things out before they play their most winnable game of the year on October 26.

Hey, the Colts finally got their first win on Sunday! Since it was L’s birthday and we had some other things going on, I did not give the game my full attention. I believe I said it a few weeks ago and I have to restate it: I don’t like Carson Wentz, but that dude plays hard. You see why coaches and GM’s love his potential. He can make plays happen that only a handful of QB’s can pull off. But there’s always the downside with him that guys like Patrick Mahomes don’t also have, where he will account for an ugly turnover or three in his efforts to make a big play. Plus the inevitability of a major injury as a result of his scampering around.

The Colts still have tough games three of the next four weeks before the schedule lightens up a bit. That 0–3 hole is going to be tough to dig out of, even in the soft AFC South.

For those of you interested, CHS went down to Cincinnati and hammered a really good Ohio team last Friday. It was their best performance of the year. Their young quarterback had the best game of his career, throwing for 340+ yards, and he did it without his #1 receiver. Two more games in the regular season, both against fellow #1 teams from Indiana.

Finally, I was not super excited about last night’s AL Wild Card game between the Yankees and Red Sox. I even watched a short movie earlier in the evening. I did catch the last three and a half innings, though, and it warmed my heart to see the Yankees get bounced. A lot of things change over time, but my Yankee hatred remains strong after over 40 years.

I don’t think I watched a Royals game after mid-June. That terrible stretch that began about five weeks into the season killed any enthusiasm I had about devoting time to watching their young guys develop.

I’m bummed I missed most of Salvador Perez’s monster season. It has been shocking how he keeps getting better despite getting older. I hope he has another couple great years left in him so he can attach them to a season in which the Royals are contending.

Also a shame that Nicky Lopez’s out-of-nowhere great year was wasted on a season that the Royals were never in the race. You could have talked me into a great Salvy season last spring. But Nicky Lopez? No freaking way. Fingers crossed it was repeatable and not a fluke.

Now to get Bobby Witt Jr. to the bigs and hope the young arms progress. That’s enough to get me watching again next April.

ASG, 2021

July 14, 2021 /

Ahhh, the All-Star Game! The mid-summer moment when we set aside our differences and come together as Americans to celebrate our once-and-always National Pastime.

Well, except for this year, which was ruined by the forces that want to keep us apart, that want us to continue arguing about manufactured wedge issues to distract us from the true damage being done to our sacred, national institutions.

Yes, I’m talking about those fucking terrible, straight ass uniforms.

For about the 8000th time in recent years, Major League Baseball has shown how they are clueless, tone deaf, run by the worst people, and care more about pleasing their advertising partners than catering to the fans of the game.

One of the greatest parts of baseball’s All-Star Game is always seeing the players collected from every team in the league, wearing their varied jerseys on the same field. In eras of excellent uniforms, the team/field pics were glorious, multi-hued snapshots of moment in baseball, and American, history. Even in bad years, when almost every team wears the same shade of gray on the road, it’s still fun to see the different caps scattered about the field.

But, for $ome rea$on, ba$eball decided to $crap nearly 100 year$ of tradition and ae$thetic $plendor to put the team$ in league-$pecific uniform$.

It’s not just that the idea of AL and NL uniforms was bad, it’s that they were executed so incredibly poorly. They were ugly and filled with awful design elements. One of the beauties of the All-Star Game has always been a quick glance at the screen can tell you who an unfamiliar player’s home squad is. All of that was lost, as you had to catch the camera view just right to see a player’s home logo plastered onto the All Star logo on his cap, or try to decipher the rec-league quality graphics on the fronts of their jerseys.

Honestly I’m shocked it took MLB this long to fuck up the All Star uniforms. Each year they roll out another set of “special” caps for any and every holiday that falls during the season, all of which cater to the America First/Support the Troops crowd even if the holiday has no patriotic angle. These alt caps are almost always terrible. Why MLB didn’t realize they could use the summer’s biggest showcase to force another shitty hat on the public sooner is really a small miracle.

The uniforms put me in a bad mood from the start, so most of the notes I took during the game were cranky, snarky, and cynical. Since I’ve written enough about the uniforms already, I’ll dispense with most of those and just focus on one other major point from the night.

I’ve never liked anything about Fox bothering mangers in the dugouts or miking-up players on the field during the game. In regular/postseason games, the conversations with the managers rarely provide any real insight into what’s happening during the game as they are reluctant to share any information that might put them at a disadvantage. The ASG in-game miked-up moments are usually awkward between technical difficulties and guys, you know, trying to play the game.

Last night was no different.

Freddy Freeman was solid, as he is affable and seemed eager to be involved. He did seem to have scripted some lines ahead of time. Which is fine; his segment was filled with “banter” rather than awkward pauses.

I enjoyed the Ozzie Albies and Khris Bryant segments, too, as they seemed the most like what a conversation with those guys would actually be like. They both seemed like laid back dudes who were enjoying being part of the event.

But the others? Yeesh.

Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of the great young stars in the game and is super media savvy. But his segment showed how tough it is to find guys who can speak naturally to people he can only hear while also trying to play a game. Maybe the worst broadcast moment of the night was when Joe Buck yelled into Tatis’ ear “Say something to him!” when his pal Vladimir Guerrero Jr. sauntered by after his massive home run. It seemed like a desperate attempt to salvage an awkward segment and ignored the fact that there was a 100% chance that Tatis was going to say something without being prompted. I wish Tatis chose Spanish for his comments as an F-you to Buck and Fox, but I think he’s too nice for that and just used the language Guerrero was most comfortable with.

Talking the Xander Bogaerts while he’s in the batter’s box seemed like a horrible idea, and made for bad TV. It also kept Fox from giving any attention to Guerrero Jr. nearly killing Max Scherzer with a wicked line drive and then going over and to hug him in apology afterward. They were too busy trying to get Bogaerts to share his approach in the box.

AL closer Liam Hendricks was miked-up, too, but apparently couldn’t hear Buck. Fox kept his mike on, though, which allowed us to hear his grunts on each pitch and a shouted “GODDAMMIT!” when he spiked a breaking ball. Later he dropped a clear f-bomb. It all came together when he conferenced with catcher Mike Zunino and Zunino advised him to keep quiet because of his mike.

“It’s ok, it’s not working,” we clearly heard Hendricks reply.

Thank goodness he didn’t say something truly offensive.

Trying to talk to batters in the box and pitchers on the bump is taking this too far. They should be focused on playing the game safely, not on what Joe Buck is saying in their ear or what they might accidentally say that goes out over the airwaves.

I’m open to trying new things tp spice up the broadcast. Sports coverage shouldn’t be static over time. If it was, we wouldn’t always be able to see the time and score or get other information on the screen. We wouldn’t have constant replays from 100 angles. And so on.

But when these innovations distract from the game rather than add to it, someone at Fox has to make the call to scale back rather than add another layer every year. Then again, all the attention they put everywhere other than the action on the field is a reminder of what the All-Star Game has become: a massive marketing event where the game is secondary to moving product.

That said, maybe all those distractions were a good thing. Baseball is pretty boring right now, and the game was indicative of that. Lots of swings-and-misses punctuated by a few home runs. At least the game wasn’t interrupted by a bunch of replay reviews.

This long run of American League dominance still feels weird to me, as I bet it does to most children of the ‘70s and ‘80s. We were raised on the idea that the National League always was, and always would be, superior. Sure enough, most Julys the NL would come out and beat the AL no matter how stacked the AL roster was.

My first sports gambling moment came when I was 8 and my uncle bet me a nickel that the National League would win. Dave Parker’s unforgettable outfield assist was the capper on a night when I first discovered sports bitterness and cemented in the idea that the AL was inferior.

Even after the 26 wins in 32 years, though, it feels very strange to me that the AL runs the game.

Finally, a shout out to the many, many, many, many minority-owned businesses in Cobb County Georgia who were decimated by MLB’s cruel decision to yank the All-Star Game away from them. Cobb County has long been a bastion of racial equality and minority empowerment and it is a damn shame that they got barreled over by the leftist, socialist, critical racial theory, politically correct agenda.

Weekend Notes

October 19, 2020 /

It felt like I mostly sat on my ass watching sports this weekend. Turns out a lot went on. Here are some details.

HS Football

M snagged a ticket at the last minute to the Indy high school game of the year: 5A #1 Cathedral vs 6A #1 Center Grove. Both teams were undefeated, had rolled through their first eight games pretty much unchallenged, and were ranked in the top 25 of the USA Today national poll.[1] They were also ranked 1–2 in the all-class Indiana computer poll, with a large gap between CHS and the #3 team.

I figured CG would win fairly easily. Although CHS had played a tougher schedule, CG is much more physically impressive. They have 6’8” and 6’6” kids on the offensive line. Their quarterback is just a junior and has offers from most of the Big 10. They have a d-lineman committed to Minnesota and a d-end who has offers from Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, and pretty much every other major school. Their running back is an absolute horse who would likely be challenging career rushing records had he not missed almost his entire junior year because of injuries. CHS has a receiver who is going to Louisville…to play baseball. Their best running back is going to Columbia. Most of their other good seniors will go to D2 or D3 schools. Very good players, but without the ceilings of CG’s best.

Oh, and CHS won a very physical, nasty game 14–9 last year. So CG was motivated.

CHS punted on their first possession then CG scored without much effort. My prediction seemed solid. But CHS’ defense righted themselves and the rest of the first half was very even. CHS got two big completions and scored a touchdown in the second quarter to go into the break down just 10–6.

Then they controlled the third quarter, forcing multiple CG punts. They caught a huge break late in the period when they got an interception and ran it back 73 yards for a touchdown. Suddenly they were up 13–10 and controlling the game on D.

The fourth quarter was a series of traded punts. CG, who has arguably the best kicker in the state, put a 30-yard field goal off the crossbar to miss a chance to tie with about 4:00 left. The radio announcers started doing the math: three first downs and CHS would escape with a huge win. They got the first two, CG burned all their time outs, and the game came down to a fourth and one just past midfield.

CHS got too cute. Instead of giving it to their running back, who was having a good series, or letting the quarterback take it and make something happen, they handed it to a receiver on a sweep and he was stopped for a loss. The decision made some sense because CHS had not punted well all night, plus CG would have brought heavy pressure. With the way the CHS defense was playing, it was a reasonable risk.

CG had a minute to go 54 yards. They needed just 44 of those seconds, scoring on a touchdown pass with 0:16 left. CHS couldn’t do anything on the final three plays of the game and lost a terrific game 17–13.

CHS has to feel disappointed about the final outcome, but great about hanging with CG, something no team in the state did for more than 30 minutes. CG, provided they stay healthy, are going to roll through the 6A playoffs. Most assume that CHS will do the same in 5A. This should give them confidence that their first eight games were no fluke.

The highlights I saw on Twitter showed a group of CHS students in both the main visiting stands – the stadium was 50% capacity – and in one section of the end zone stands. When I picked M up I asked her where she sat, on the side or in the end zone.

“What do you mean ‘end zone’?”

L was with us – I had picked her up from a friend’s on the way – and she laughed out loud.

KU

Not much to talk about KU. The defense really hung in there and made some plays until they ran out of gas. The offense continues to look awful.

I was kind of half-watching when M walked through the room.

“Is that KU football? You never watch that.”

Which, first, is not true. But I explained how I don’t get as into football as basketball because KU has been terrible for a decade.

“Do people actually go to games?”

I knew what she was really asking but decided to deflect.

“Well, most stadiums have limits on how many people can be there. This game is in West Virginia so I’m not sure how many people are allowed.”

“No, I meant at KU. Do people just not go because they’re terrible?”

Roasted by my daughter who doesn’t know what an end zone is. I would be offended but, come on, it’s KU football.

Family Pics

The big event of the weekend was that we had family pictures scheduled for Sunday evening. But as the forecast looked rainy, we moved them to Saturday.

We haven’t done a true family pic in six years because they are always total disasters. At least one girl is crying, one or two of the others are surly and uncooperative, and S and I are usually stressed and yelling at everyone. It’s hard enough to get a Christmas card pic without total meltdowns, so we kept putting off the full family pic.

It had been a three-week hassle for S to get the girls to agree to clothes to wear. They didn’t want to go try things on so she would come home with bags full of things to try. They kept rejecting her suggestions without offering guidance on what they would wear. There had been plenty of yelling that I managed to stay out of.

Saturday morning when we told the girls pics were that night, one of them immediately burst into tears. For fuck’s sake. Another waited until about an hour before we left to start fixing her hair, which takes a long time to dry. Another was crabby and uncommunicative about the entire affair. And then the first girl cried again and refused to wear what she had agreed to wear. S was on the verge of tears. I decided to drink a beer and stay out of it because yelling at the girls to stop being jackasses never seems to work.

But we made it out of the house, everyone settled down, and we actually had a very good photo session.

You would think they would learn to shut the fuck up and just go along with what their mom wants them to do. It gets it over way quicker, there’s less stress, and they can get back to whatever it is they would rather be doing. But kids are dumb. Even smart kids.

Colts

Looked like it was going to be a disaster, then turned into a pleasant surprise. Aside from one bad interception Philip Rivers had a great game. Some receivers are stepping up to replace all the injured guys who should be playing. And I’ll write the first quarter off as a fluke for the defense.

Baseball

What a great end to the league championship series. The ALCS wasn’t necessarily a great game, but it was a great result. It felt very 2020 that Houston might find a way to reach the World Series. Thankfully Tampa shut the door and didn’t completely blow their 3–0 lead.

Game seven of the NLCS, though, was treeeeeeeeeeemendous. A back-and-forth game with plenty of huge moments, both good and bad, is perfect for a non-aligned viewer. Cody Bellinger’s game-winning home run was one for the ages. As a Twitter user I follow said, “That boy just hit the ball to Mars.” Also very 2020 that he apparently hurt himself, at least momentarily, celebrating with his teammates.

I kind of enjoyed the neutral field playoffs. I loooooved the seven games in seven days schedule. For everyone who complains about this year’s rules changes taking strategy out of the game, the schedule added a lot of tough decisions for managers.

I know the old Rangers stadium is probably not usable, but I think it would have been cool to have the ALCS in one of the stadiums, the NLCS in the other across the street.

It feels like it should be a very good World Series. But you never know which team will have good pitching all the way through, and which will slip up. I just hope Clayton Kershaw pitches well. I really don’t care who wins but I hope if the Dodgers lose it isn’t because of his failures. I usually don’t get into the “Athlete X deserves a championship.” I’m making an exception for Kershaw. A championship won’t erase all his past October struggles. But it will at least be a counter to them.

Dodgers in seven

  1. CHS was #25, CG #14.  ↩

Weekend Notes

September 28, 2020 /

It’s time for the weekly Monday sports review!

Gale

Gale Sayers was waaaaaay before my time. He retired about six months after I was born, and his final two years in the NFL were slowed by a series of serious injuries that robbed him of his breath-taking speed. But there were uncles, and friends of uncles, and other people their age who would get emotional when they talked about watching him play in his prime. I once had a boss who was from Chicago and grew up in the ‘60s. This man was gruff and cold and rarely smiled or laughed. But if you mentioned Gale Sayers to him, he would soften and talk about how he had never seen anything like Gale when he played for the Bears.

Gale Sayers died last week. He was the greatest football player to ever play at the University of Kansas, either at KU or as a pro. That’s not saying much, it being Kansas football and all. Which makes it more amazing that one of the most gifted running backs to ever play the game, someone who everybody who saw play in his prime said would be just at home in the modern game as in his era, was a Jayhawk.

Another thing about Gale: pretty much everyone who ever came across him in his post-playing days said he was one of the nicest, most unaffected former athletes they had ever dealt with. They always said he was warm and genuine.

Sayers wasn’t celebrated much when I was on campus. Which is a shame. As big of a deal as it was for Wilt Chamberlain to finally come back to campus in 1997, Sayers should have been welcomed back as often as he was willing to return. We all knew the names and stories of basketball legends of the past. Gale’s story really should have been drummed into our heads so that we knew, even if we never saw him play with our own eyes, how lucky we were that he was a Jayhawk.

KU Football

I didn’t play close attention to the build-up to last week’s game against Baylor since the game was in doubt until Friday due to Covid concerns on the Baylor roster. So perhaps I missed signals that a change was coming.

Thus I was surprised on Saturday when I saw the tweets that true freshman Jalon Daniels would be starting at quarterback. The coaching staff seemed thrilled when he committed and signed last year, but I don’t think I ever heard his name in the preseason. I wondered if he wasn’t ready for the challenges of college ball yet.

But Saturday he started well. I couldn’t see the game, only highlights that hit Twitter, but he was much bigger than I expected. Writers say he has a huge arm. He made a ton of mistakes, but also played with a swagger and confidence KU hasn’t had in a long, long time. His mistakes were out of ignorance and brashness rather than cluelessness or ineptitude.

KU played a lot of first year players Saturday. They lost 47-14. The first sentence in more important than the second. Les Miles and his staff are doing it right. They’ve filled their first three recruiting classes almost exclusively with high school players. That’s step one. Step two is playing those kids, for better or for worse. If you believe in their talent you get them on the field and let them learn by going through adversity. It sure as hell won’t pay off this year. It may not pay off next year. But unlike the wishy-washy half measures the last three coaches have taken at least this is a concrete path to the future.

Starting Daniels is the most obvious piece of this plan. To be fair, he started because at least one of the QBs who played week one was not healthy enough to play this week. But throwing Daniels out there also sends a message to this year’s recruiting class: if you’re good enough, you can get on the field quick. And look at this kid and his potential, don’t you want to be a part of what he’s going to do?

Offered with the usual caveat that this is KU football and any glimmers of hope are more likely to be brutally crushed than offer even meager payoffs.

Alex Gordon

This was Alex Gordon’s final weekend as a professional baseball player. Most of my readers are Royals fans, and thus read the many tributes to Alex over the weekend. I feel like most of what I would write would repeat those, so I’ll try to keep this brief.

Alex was the first guy who made me believe the Royals’ fortunes would change. He was the best player in college, grew up a Royals fan, and they managed to not fuck up the draft and pick him when he was waiting for them. He roared through the minors. This was it, the next great cornerstone of the franchise!

Then it didn’t exactly work out like we all planned it to. He retires being responsible for the biggest hit in franchise history, being beloved by the fanbase, and almost certain to have his number retired. But it was a bumpy road to get there, and even when he righted himself after early struggles, he still had a strange career. There was the offensive peak from 2011 until he got injured in 2015. Even then, though, he would be white hot for three weeks, then go stone cold for three weeks. He would hit the biggest, loudest, most majestic home runs you have ever seen, then look lost for weeks at a time.

He worked his ass off to become the best left fielder in the game. He may have worked too hard and hurt himself at the plate, but you could never, ever question his dedication or worth ethic. He was not the demonstrative leader that Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, or Salvador Perez were. Yet he was also the unquestioned guy that everyone looked up to.

There’s a part of me that will always view Alex’s career as a slight disappointment. He was a career .257 hitter with an OPS+ of 102. As good as he was in 2011 and 2012, if feels like he should have extended that success over a 4-5 year stretch. His defensive play always made up for his struggles at the plate, though. And “Gordon in the air to center…back, at the wall…this game is tied!” will always make up for any disappointment at his career numbers.

Kid Hoops

L’s first CYO basketball game of the year was Sunday. I am back on the bench as an assistant coach this year. We played a school we lost to by eight last year, mostly thanks to a third quarter in which we were outscored 6-0.

We led 7-5 at halftime and used a 8-0 run in the third quarter to break the game open. We got a little sloppy late but still closed it out to win 17-7.

L had four points. She hit a couple jumpers, one from a step inside the 3-point line. She also missed at least 80 layups and was 0-2 from the line. We will be spending a lot of time on layups at practice this week. I believe our team went 1-852 on layups.

I am responsible for the offense we run and the girls, well, they did not run it well. It’s a (theoretically) simple pass-and-cut offense that you can run against about any defense. They were passing and cutting, but then no one looked for the ball or posted up after their cuts. And no one looked at the cutters for a quick hit. Well, L did throw one toward a cutter late in the game, but the cutter never looked at the ball, and the defense had switched to zone so there were three defenders waiting to grab the pass.

Our defense, though, was awesome. We are pretty small and mostly fast. The team we played was bigger and slower. Our girls attacked every loose ball, jumped in the passing lanes, pressured the ball, and generally created havoc on the defensive end. Not exaggerating, we had at least 20 breakaway layup attempts that came off of steals. If we could get to even 50% on those we would be in really good shape, because half court offense is always going to be a struggle. That is middle school basketball for you.

MLB

Still trying to figure out how the playoffs work. I’ve been pretty checked out of baseball for the past month so need to start paying attention again.

NBA

Not sure if it is the bubble environment, the lack of crowds and travel, or just the strangeness of 2020, but Miami is making the playoffs feel more like an NCAA tournament. They are the team that got hot at the right time and never fade in the big moments. Some friends of mine and I like to make fun of Jimmy Butler and how he thinks he’s a superstar. If he gets the Heat to a title, I guess he can laugh at us. Lakers in six.

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