D's Notebook

Tag: baseball (Page 3 of 14)

Sports!

August 10, 2020 /

It’s taken me awhile to get into them, but sports are back! Kind of, sort of, that is.

As I type this fall college sports are looking nervously at the drain, aware that a hand is lingering near the handle to flush them away to 2021.

But the pros have been keeping us entertained for a few weeks now. And it has been surprisingly good.

Golf

Golf was the first major American sport back, and had a glorious weekend with the first major championship of the year, the PGA Championship played at Harding Park in San Francisco. Twenty-three year old Collin Morikawa, just over a year after turning pro, won his first major with a sublime back nine Sunday.

Morikawa was in the middle of an extraordinarily packed leaderboard when he mis-hit a wedge on the 14th hole, coming up short of the green. Hoping to just get close so he could salvage a par, he chipped in to take the lead at –11. Two holes later he hit a legendary tee shot. Where others kept trying to fade the ball over the trees to the reachable par four, Morikawa took a little off his standard cut, bounced the ball just short of the green, and rolled it to six feet. He banged in his eagle putt and the tournament was his. He damn near holed a 30-foot birdie putt on 17 just to clown with people.

It was a dazzling end to a fantastic tournament. At least 120 guys had a chance to win on Sunday. Well, more like 12 or so, but it was a lot. Morikawa was the only one who could bust through, and he did it with absolute aplomb. He was the least heralded of last year’s three college megastars who turned pro together, largely because Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland played on one of the greatest college teams ever at Oklahoma State. All three have wins in their first year on the tour – Wolff also had a chance Sunday and is lamenting three putts that just missed – but Morikawa now has three wins including a major. The future of golf is good.

What was greatest about the weekend was ESPN’s coverage of the tournament. ESPN doesn’t get too many chances to show golf, but they balled out. Scott Van Pelt and David Duval were soooo good in their hosting duties. Duval never strikes me as a dynamic personality on his Golf Channel work. I don’t know whether Van Pelt drew it out of him or he was just more relaxed, but he was like a totally different guy. He provided great insight, was sneakily funny, and even gently roasted a few players. The network managed to show both the stars and the developing stories. Their on-air-talent was entertaining, informative, and humorous without being distracting.

In certain circles of the golf media universe, people love to kill CBS for how bad they are at broadcasting golf. ESPN gave people who complain exactly what they have been craving. I hope they can repeat the weekend’s performance when they take over non-network coverage of most PGA events in 2022.

Oh, and all PGA’s and US Opens should be played on the west coast. There’s nothing better than turning on golf at 10 AM and having it still on at 10 PM. I didn’t watch every minute of the coverage, but the TV was generally on just about every hour that ESPN and CBS were broadcasting.

NBA

The Bubble World NBA has been surprisingly entertaining. The first week I watched a lot; this past week I’ve mostly been watching only when the Pacers are playing. Where golf manages without a crowd – you lose the reactions to dramatic shots you but also lose the idiots who have to yell “GET IN THE HOLE” or “MASHED POTATOES” on every fucking tee shot – I was worried basketball without a crowd would seems sterile and boring. But it’s been alright. Granted, there is some fake crowd noise piped in, along with music and announcers. The Zoom fans are a cool touch, too.

I think what saves it is seeing the benches go nuts on certain plays. Those moments get lost a little when the crowd is going crazy. But when Joel Embiid took another piece of Myles Turner’s soul with a ridiculous dunk in the Sixers-Pacers game, seeing his teammates literally jump over the barrier in front of the bench was awesome.

As a Pacers fan, it has also been a lot of fun watching TJ Warren begin the restart on a ridiculous hot streak. He had some really good moments in the first part of the season, but also seemed to be working to find his place on the team. He’s not an alpha, content to quietly fit in, which made the transition a little more awkward. Something flipped and he’s just been going off. 53 in a win against the Sixers. 39, including a massive three with 11 seconds left to beat the Lakers. He’s been over 30 in every game but one and leads the league in scoring in Orlando.

The Pacers have also been a lot of fun to watch. They’ve been banged up, which has forced them to play small. But it is, mostly, working. I don’t know that they have enough to win a series or two in the playoffs, but at least they are entertaining.

Baseball

Baseball is also really strange without a crowd. Stadiums designed to hold 30,000–50,000 fans being completely empty gives the games a haunted vibe. Listening on the radio gives the games a spring training vibe, with the voices from the dugout and around the diamond coming through clearly.

With the short season and expanded playoffs, the math for this year is different than any other year. Teams that probably shouldn’t be taking chances to get to the postseason are doing just that in hopes they make the tournament and can then get hot.

The Royals are one of those teams. Brady Singer and Kris Bubic are clearly good enough to be in the big leagues. But I’m not sure it makes sense for the Royals to be burning a year of their big league control of each pitcher in a season in which the Royals are unlikely to contend. Then again, the Royals needed starting pitching and with there being no minor league ball this year, I guess this is the only way to allow their best prospects to keep developing. And I guess it’s a good problem if the Royals are good enough in a few years that they regret starting the service time clocks on these guys early.

For the first two weeks that decision looked especially dumb. The Royals looked pretty bad over the first 12–13 games. But now that they’ve ripped off four-straight wins, including sweeping first place Minnesota, and you start crunching numbers on how they can make the expanded playoffs. They’ve started hitting the ball. The pitching has been solid, especially the bullpen. And they are getting guys healthy.

It’s stupid to get too excited about winning four games (which translates to nearly 11 games in this year’s math). The Royals are still a pretty weak club. And baseball has made so many missteps along the way to reopening that I don’t think anyone has much confidence they won’t have to shut the game down at some point. At least there are games to watch for now.

(Mostly) Sports Notes

February 18, 2020 /

Time for some of my famous half-assed sports thoughts!

NBA ASG

Man, I am mad at myself for not paying more attention to Sunday’s All Star Game. I blame L. I told her the game was on and she wasn’t interested, so we watched other things. I turned it on for the last 30 seconds of the first half then switched away, got distracted by a book and emptying the dishwasher, and forgot about it until it was over.

Sounds like the new format was a success, though. This Elam Ending thing is certainly intriguing. I really hope that the NBA uses it in the G-League and summer league games, or even that some college holiday tournaments give it a shot. I like the concept but I really want to see it in a true game setting to understand how it works in practice. I’m suspicious about changing the context of a game within the game. But I would also love to find a way for the end of close games to not take 20 minutes of real time to play.

Astros

The Houston sign stealing scandal has gotten really good over the past few days. You have players calling out the Astros and the MLB commissioner. You have fans just destroying the team and the league. In an era when so many dramas are manufactured, this one is 100% legit and I’m waaaay in on it turning into a season-long beef.

I saw this morning that an oddsmaker set the Astros hit by pitcher total for the upcoming season at 83.5. My initial thought is that seems low, although I’m sure MLB is going to step in and do its best to chill things out if the beanings get out of hand in April, which could make that number about right.

KU

You see what they’re doing, don’t you? Marcus Garrett having the best shooting game of his life Saturday? And Devon Dotson repeating the act Monday night? They’re getting all those shots out of the way so they combine to go a very March-like 0–21 on Saturday against Baylor. At least it’s February…

Seriously, game of the year Saturday in Waco (assuming Baylor beats Oklahoma tonight). I hope KU has a better plan to attack Baylor’s defense than they did a month ago.

Marcus Morris

Plenty of chatter among KU fans about whether Marcus Morris was deserving of having his jersey retired. Since the standards were relaxed late in Roy Williams’ run, I think Marcus absolutely fits the standard: he was the Big 12 POY which, even at KU, should be enough. As a couple writers keep pointing out, he had the most efficient and impressive offensive year of any player in Bill Self’s tenure.

Still, I understand some of the reluctance. And I think it’s totally based on how Marcus’ teams never made it to the Final Four. Most of all, it goes back to the 2011 VCU game, the worst loss of Self’s career and perhaps in school history.

CJ Moore had an interesting conversation with Elijah Johnson on The Athletic about that game. Elijah is always a super interesting quote, but I can’t believe I hadn’t heard him share this story before. He said in the team’s film session before the VCU game, the coaches ended it with a highlight reel of the 2010–11 season. The design, it seemed, was to remind the players of all the good things they had done and how great they could be.

However, Johnson said, the players took it a totally different way. He said the film room was dead quiet afterward. Some players were emotional. He said instead of inspiring them, the highlights reminded them of how close to the end they were, a big deal for a team that was exceptionally tight. He also said it made him feel like no matter how they played in the VCU game, they couldn’t match what had been contained in those highlights.

Fascinating. It may explain why KU came out so dead in the opening five minutes of that game, digging a hole they could never get out of.

It also makes me madder about the game I’ll always be maddest about. A freaking highlight video kept a team with the easiest path to a national championship any KU team has ever had from beating a team that shouldn’t have even made the tournament? Going to find a stray dog to kick for awhile…

Colts

Speaking of kicking dogs, there is a lot of smoke around the rumors that Phillip Rivers could end up as a Colt. I totally get it. You go get Rivers or Tom Brady or Drew Brees or some other competent, experienced quarterback, draft someone else in the first round, and use the veteran to get through the next two years before that rookie is ready to play.

But Phillip Fucking Rivers?

For starters he’s a douche. His skills are clearly on the decline. Most of all, he and his teams were Kryptonite to the Manning-era Colts. They knocked them out of the playoffs twice, once with Rivers on the sideline injured. They ended the Colts’ perfect season in 2005.

At least Brady won Super Bowls. And even lost Super Bowls. Rivers’ teams have never gotten close. His game is clearly on the decline. He’s never been mobile. Seems like a horrible move to me. Just another reason for me not to watch the NFL, I guess.

I’m also fearful the Colts will draft Tua Tagovailoa. No doubting the kid’s heart, but he’s undersized and always hurt. Not a recipe for a franchise QB.

The Algorithm

Sometimes the various algorithms that run our lives are spooky. M is creeped out by the ads that pop up on her Instagram feed. They seem to mirror closely conversations she’s had. The other day she was saying “DOG FOOD!” near her phone, over-and-over, to see if that sparked a bunch of dog food ads. It did not, which I think proves the algorithm knows when you are trying to game/mock/test it.

I do enjoy how the algorithm works most of the time. Especially on YouTube, when it will randomly pick up some old song I haven’t listened to in years and spits its video or a performance of it out at me.

I say that because it’s been months since I’ve watched any 2014 or 2015 Royals highlight videos. Yet, last night when I was doing some research I’ll discuss in my next Reader’s Notebook entry, there were a bunch of ALCS and World Series highlight videos that kept bubbling up.

I approve, algorithm, I approve.

Weekend Notes

November 4, 2019 /

As has become routine, a quick-ish rundown of what went down over the weekend.

Halloween

OK, not technically the weekend, but worth a few words about how the girls spent Halloween.

M went to a friend’s house to hang out and watch movies.

C, along with most of the girls in her grade, dressed as Dalmatians. They didn’t quite make it to 101 but you get the idea.

And L dressed as Robin from Stranger Things and joined two friends who were dressed as Dustin and Steve from the show.

The big thing was that this was the first year ever our girls did not trick or treat in our old neighborhood. Last year we were still trying to sell the old house so we went over to turn on lights, put a car in the driveway, and then hang out with the neighbors. This year C and L were in separate neighborhoods near St. P’s, hanging with school friends.

Although I missed the annual dad chili cook-off and sitting in the driveway and drinking, it was nice to drop the kids off, come home for a quiet evening, and then go pick them up when they were done. We only had one group of three trick or treaters at our house. That was mostly because it was snowing, the windchill was in the 20s, and kids were not spending a ton of time outside.

World Series

Again, not officially last weekend. But that was some game seven, with the Nationals coming back to win with a 2015 Royals-like, late-inning rally. I’m still in a little shock that the Nats were able to pull off the upset. It will be interesting to see if they’re any good next year, between having the oldest roster in the league and a number of free agents to be.

L Sports

Basketball on Saturday. A nice win by eight over a team that was a good match. She scored one basket.

Soccer on Sunday, a makeup of a game that she was supposed to miss. She was kind of reluctant to play, we think because of getting hurt in her last soccer game. But she ended up being very glad she went. They won 5–1 to clinch first place by two games. She had an assist and then, finally, a classic L goal. She had a defender on her heels, faked her both directions until the girl turned her hips, cut the ball inside, flicked it outside to get an angle on the goalie, and then finished. She raised her hands and threw her head back, as if she, too, was saying, “Finally!” This was her only goal that was from her work this season, rather than a tap-in or from the penalty spot. Think she was glad to know she still has it.

Royals Hire Mike Matheny

Not happy about this. At all. His one, glaring weakness in St. Louis was his inability to handle young players. That’s what the Royals need right now, someone similar to Ned Yost who can nurture the young prospects as they begin working their way to the majors.

But I also thought Ned was a bad hire and he clearly learned from his failures in Milwaukee, although he was still driving us crazy deep into 2014.

So I guess I’m open to being surprised if Matheny ends up working out. Doesn’t mean I have to like it right now.

High School Football

Friday was week two of sectional play. Cathedral had a bye in week one so it was their opener. On a cold, clear night they ran up a 38–0 lead before halftime, played the sophomores through a running-clock second half, and advanced 38–13. M and C really wanted to go, so I bundled up in my ski trip clothes and sat through it. Thank goodness for that running clock. This Friday they play the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last year. That team has won eight straight games so it should be a good game.

KU Football

One of the most reliable things in fall is KU coming off a big win, there being excitement around the program, and K-State kicking their ass and sending us Jayhawks back to reality. Bill Snyder may be gone but the math remains the same. For now.

Just an ugly loss. Pushed around on both sides of the ball, Carter Stanley playing his worst game of the year, and not converting when they had chances to keep the game close early.

I didn’t expect to win. I was hoping we could keep it competitive, though. There’s been progress, but still a long way to go.

Colts

I was at L’s game when I heard groans go up. I looked at my phone and saw that Adam Vinatieri had missed another field goal, this one that likely would have won the game. So two of the Colts’ losses are directly on him and his misses. He gets credit for winning last week’s game – although his misses in that game made the game-winner necessary – so he’s still trending to the bad side. It might be time, Adam. It might be time.

Of course, none of that matters if Jacoby Brissett is out long-term. Brian Hoyer was decent yesterday. But if the Colts have to rely on him for multiple games, I think winning my bet that the Colts will not win 10 games is back in play.

Belated Weekend Notes

October 29, 2019 /

OK, finally some weekend notes.

Youth Basketball

L’s team finally got their second win of the year, a nervy 18–15 win. They were down 14–10 in the fourth quarter, which seemed like a monumental gap. We got back-to-back steals and scores to tie, then cranked up the defense, got a couple more scores, and held on for the win.

It was everything a 5th–6th grade basketball game should be: maddening, hilarious, outrageous, and ridiculous. The girls try hard but, bless their hearts, it’s pretty rough rowing some days.

L was held scoreless for the first time this year. That was largely because she missed most of the second half. She got body-checked and went down pretty hard just before halftime. I was worried at first she had hit her head. A week after the possible concussion in soccer that would not be good. Turned out it was more of a hip bone directly into the hardwood thing. She eventually loosened up enough to come in for part of the fourth quarter. She missed a couple shots and two free throws, so she had her chances.

Kansas Freaking Football

How about them apples! Sure, it was Texas Tech, who isn’t all that great this year. And, sure, it came partially to a massive gaffe by Tech that gave KU the chance to attempt a second game winning field goal when the game should have gone to overtime. Still, a week after missing kicks, not making stops late, and having the clock operator help their opponent, KU did everything they had to do to win in the fourth quarter.

Man, the offense looked good at times. Brent Dearmon really might be a genius. Which means he’ll be in Tuscaloosa or Baton Rouge or South Bend or some other legit college football town sooner rather than later. I say back the truck up and pay that fool to stay.

We’ll see if they can keep it together again this week again Kansas State.

World Series

What a weird damn series. Last Thursday everyone had the Astros dead and buried. Today it is the Nationals who look cooked. With Strasburg going for the Nats tonight I fully expect a game seven tomorrow. Then the big question is can Max Scherzer be right enough to go?

Colts

A thoroughly uninspiring win against the Broncos, helped greatly by some rather fearful coaching decisions on the Broncos’ sideline. I had a bad feeling about the game for some reason, so I spent most of the first half doing yard work and running errands. It warmed up enough by halftime to watch outside, which was pretty glorious. Still not sure how good the Colts actually are. But they’re in first place and I’m another win closer to having to buy some beer for my buddy who believed they were a 10-win team in August.

Tiger

I watched bits of the Zozo Championship as my sleep schedule allowed. With Gary Woodland and Tiger Woods leading the event all weekend, I had plenty of reason to watch. I just wasn’t crazy about watching a rather meaningless golf tournament after midnight.

And the whole “Chase for 82” thing is silly. A) It only includes PGA tour wins, so Tiger’s true career win total is not reflected in it. B) As has been established many times, Sam Sneed’s 82 tour wins is a farcical number. C) Even if we decide that matters, isn’t win #83 the important one? Why is the PGA celebrating a record being tied? What was celebrated more, Hank Aaron’s 714th or 715th home run?

High School Football

Sectional playoffs started last week. Cathedral had a bye so we stayed in. Unfortunately, wind chills are expected to be in the 20s for their game this week. M hasn’t told me yet whether she wants to go or not. And if she goes, I likely have to go.

Speaking of going…I forgot to share how one of the songs the Cathedral band played as part of their halftime show this year was “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” As a massive fan of the Clash, I approve. But I also chuckled that I’m sure it was selected because of its use in season one of Stranger Things. Apparently that made the song part of Indiana culture!

A Few Baseball Notes

October 10, 2019 /

Each year as we pass through October I enjoy the memories that pop up in my Facebook feed from Octobers past. Specifically the Octobers of 2014 and 2015, when the Royals were keeping me up late so many nights as they won two-straight American League pennants.

Then there were the memories from years after the R’s run, when I joked about not thinking I would still stay up late to watch baseball when, in fact, I was staying up until 1:00 watching more crazy, extra-inning games.

Not this year, though. I have been casually watching games over the past week. But I generally check out around 11:00/11:30 regardless of the state of the game. I don’t have enough invested in any team this year plus I’m a few years older and have a harder time justifying being miserable the next day for a game that I don’t really care about.

The bitch of that is the meds that the good doc put me on to fight my poison ivy rash keep me from sleeping for more than two hours at a time at night. So I’ve been waking up around 1:30 or so, coming downstairs to read for awhile as my body resets, and checking the scores.

When I did that Thursday morning I was shocked to see that the Dodgers blew their lead and the Washington Nationals had advanced to the NLCS with a dramatic, extra inning win. I was not shocked to see that Clayton Kershaw was responsible for the Dodgers giving up their lead.

Although he’s had a few amazing post season performances, there is no doubt that he is now the biggest postseason…I’m struggling for the right word here…failure/frustration/goat/disappointment of his generation. One of the three or four best pitchers of his era and he consistently comes up short in the biggest moments of October. Of course, playing for the Dodgers he may still have four or five more chances to finally win a World Series even as his skills are slowly fading. That leaves him with, at best, a chance to have a John Elway-like career in terms of postseason success. It’s going to be hard to wipe away all those failures, though.

Good for Howie Kendrick for hitting the 10th inning grand slam that sent the Nats through. Seems like he’s been a very solid, but never great, player forever. I like that he has such a big moment to cap his career.

I also missed yesterday’s other game 5, the one in Atlanta between the Cardinals and Braves. L wanted me to pitch to her so we spent half an hour in the front yard hitting before I remembered that the game had started. I checked the score between pitches, saw the Cards were up 10–0, and knew I didn’t even have to turn it on.

I was pleased that this was finally the year that the Twins-Yankees matchup turned out differently. Oh, wait, it didn’t.

My World Series champ pick has been Houston. So I’m a little surprised they are facing a game five against Tampa today. Which also bums me out because that series going long means their rotation won’t be aligned ideally to face the Yankees should they advance. If things open up for the Yankees, I’ll probably dive back into the Netflix queue for the rest of the month.

R’s: End of the Season Notes

September 30, 2019 /

This was a lost baseball season for me. The Royals were shitty. For the first time ever, the MLB apps performed erratically at best, occasionally not at all. It was hard enough to find motivation to watch/listen to a bad team. When the tools that provide that access don’t work, you stop making the effort. Which is a shame because putting in the time in the bad years makes the good years even better. I don’t know how far off the next good run is, but I’d like to have thought following the Royals this year would be somewhat akin to the attention I gave them back in 2010–2012, when it seemed hopeless in Kansas City but there were guys developing in the system that I hoped would be good one day.

Alas, I could not match the attention I gave the team nearly a decade ago.

With another 100-loss season in the books, I thought I’d check in with some end-of-the-season comments since there has been some news.

New Ownership

This was out-of-nowhere and happened real, real fast. I figured David Glass would transition the team to his son Dan when the time was right. But quietly selling them to KC-area native John Sherman was a complete surprise. Sherman was alleged to have been a big part of Cleveland becoming more aggressive with their payroll since he became a part of the Indians’ ownership group. The natural hope is he will continue to be willing to spend money now that he has his own team. He doesn’t have to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers in payroll. I do hope he is more willing than the Glass family generally was to spend money. Sherman got pretty good reviews from those in the know. I hope he is both a good owner and can hang around for 20 or so years to keep the Royals stable.

New Stadium?

There was immediate talk that the Royals were already quietly scouting areas in downtown KC for a new stadium. Word was this was very preliminary, with the idea being to have a downtown stadium ready to go when the current lease at the Truman Sports Complex runs out in 2031. I like the idea, though. The K is a wonderful park. But with downtown redeveloping over the past decade, a centrally-located stadium makes sense. Of course, I’ll be about 60 if/when this happens, which kind of sucks.

Ned

It wasn’t a huge surprise when Ned Yost announced that he would be retiring after the season ended. I didn’t expect him to hang on until the Royals were ready to compete again. But I did wonder if he would stick out a few more years, since his strength is dealing with young, developing players.

But I give him props for walking out on his terms, while he is still healthy, and while he can still do pretty much whatever he wants with his life.

I, like I think most Royals fans, came a long way with Ned. I didn’t love his tactical moves, his adherence to old school baseball, or the way he often dealt with criticism. I wanted him fired multiple times in 2014, as late as mid-way though the Wild Card game in fact. Check my Facebook feed for proof! But all that Royals Devil Magic of the 2014 and 2015 postseasons stemmed from his support for his players. He empowered guys to find their strength and do their thing. For that, they out-performed what most ever expected of them. By 2015 we had learned to love Ned despite his faults, understood some of his crustiness with the media was pure act, and adopted him as our oddball manager who got results. Winning the 2015 World Series meant we loved him forever and just chuckled and rolled our eyes when he did something crazy.

The biggest compliment I have for Ned is that he learned from his mistakes. Outwardly he comes across as very stubborn and sensitive to criticism. But it’s clear he learned from his failures in his first job in Milwaukee. He actually adjusted his style to adopt some modern analytics, although he would probably never admit it.

Despite his overall record and those maddening early years, he retires as a beloved franchise icon.

Alex

There are plenty of offseason questions the team needs to address as they approach the 2020 season, which should be the beginning of the climb from the bottom of the rebuild. I’m not sure if any of them are huge, given that winning is, at very best, one year in the future.

Thus figuring out what to do with Alex Gordon becomes the default most important decision of the winter.

It sounds like the Royals would like to have Alex back for another year, leaving the decision all up to Alex on whether he walks away or spends one last summer playing professional baseball.

I’d love it if he came back. His importance to the organization far outweighs his career stats, and it would be great for him to spend one more year helping transition to the next group of young guys. Even if that is in a reduced role.

But I keep thinking he will retire. He’s always done things quietly and on his own terms. Coming back would make it obvious that was the last run. I think playing out this season of uncertainty and walking off the diamond Sunday to a standing ovation is the way he really wants to go out rather than with a six-month farewell tour.

As I said, his importance outweighs his stats, or at least his offensive ones. The slow start to his career and then his wild swings between three weeks of being red hot and five weeks of being ice cold prevented him from ever being the offensive player he was expected to be.

But he was so good on defense. And, more importantly, the way he reclaimed his career by going to the minors and learning a new position without complaining, and his tireless work ethic are what we will remember about him. Honestly it’s a little difficult not to be disappointed by his career. He could have been a superstar. But that work ethic, his quiet demeanor, and the standard he set for every other player outweigh the slight disappointment you feel when you look at his numbers.

Oh, and then there was the biggest home run in franchise history.

Soler!

Speaking of home runs, a quick shout out to Jorge Soler who not only set the franchise home run record, but became the first Royal to ever lead the league in home runs. Even in a juiced ball year, that’s amazing. You figure some Yankee would hit 60 in their bandbox. Or this season it would be someone from Minnesota. But Soler seems to be developing into the player the Royals thought he could be when they traded Wade Davis for him. Now hopefully he can actually be part of a winning team before he departs for a team with more money.

I’m hopeful over the winter MLB gets their shit together so their apps work right again in 2020. Because I think that’s when it will start to be both interesting and rewarding to start listening to the Royals on warm summer nights again.

School Days

April 23, 2019 /

I really want to crank out a kid sports update. But this is our busiest week of the spring – two games tonight, track meet tomorrow, two games Thursday, game Friday, track meet Sunday – and it seems like I should wait until we get through it before I start breaking things down for you.

Instead I’ll share what I did with the girls last week, when I spent two days with them at school activities.

Tuesday I went with C’s class to the Indianapolis Indians game. It was a beautiful day, sunny and pushing 70. Unfortunately we were in the lower deck under the overhang so it was still a little chilly.

This is the third or fourth time I’ve gone to a baseball game with the girls and a school group. It was the oldest group I’ve gone with, and that was reflected in how we all sat. Although we were in the same section as the kids, the parents and teachers all kept to one side and the kids to another. In the past I would always be sitting right with my daughter and the group of kids I was responsible for.

Tuesday I had a group of five girls in my group, and they had instructions to check in with me anytime they went to get food, go to the restroom, etc and then to always have a buddy with them. One of the girls in my group is someone I know pretty well. She’s a really sweet kid and has probably never been in trouble in her life. Every single time she left she told me. I texted her mom to compliment her and asked if she was a rule follower. “For sure!” was the response.

Anyway, the kids had a good time. The Indians won – although former Royal Brandon Maurer tried to blow a three-run lead. C won a couple stuffed animals playing games. My entire group was accounted for at the end of the game. The dad who rode down with me observed that he didn’t think he had been to a baseball game and not had a beer since high school. Later that evening I saw one of the teachers posted a picture of her iced tea with the diamond in the background. Because of the light, it looked at first glance like she was drinking a beer. Man, that would have been some good stuff for a teacher to be sneaking beers and then posting on Facebook about it!

Thursday was the school’s annual day of service. I volunteered to join L’s class at the distribution center for a local mission. We spent most of the day sorting through large donation boxes. In our morning session somehow L and I got put with almost all the boys in her grade. She was literally the only girl in the group. You haven’t lived until you’ve spent two-plus hours with a bunch of fourth grade boys digging through boxes of random shit. Each time they uncovered anything interesting, they would have to yell out what it was and then the rest of the group would come running over. “OOOOHHH, look, a naked Barbie!” “HEY! I found a bowling ball!” The coolest thing they found was an original PlayStation, which knocked them off track for at least ten minutes. The coolest thing I found was a Rubbermaid box filled with random crap along with two, infant-sized, dirty diapers. Yeah, that was fun. The highlight was all the yelling at kids I got to do, because they were mostly acting like idiots. At lunch I asked L if the boys always acted like that. “Yes, they’re sooooo annoying!” Seriously, boys are a disaster. I don’t know how you parents of boys do it.

We got moved to the other group after lunch and here we just dug through boxes of clothes. That was more laid back and there was less yelling, although I did get to lay the smack down on a few kids again. Over the weekend C and L both said all the boys in their classes are afraid of me because I yell at them. Mission accomplished!

I realized that I’ve come a long way. Years ago I never would have yelled at someone else’s kid, and I was always confused by parents who would raise their voices at school events when teachers were present. I don’t know if it’s a private school thing, because the school is part of a church and we feel like we’re all a part of the community, or something else, but St. P’s parents are never shy about jumping in to correct behavior. I’m glad I’ve lost my reserve about barking at kids when they act like fools.

I’ve had nothing with M’s class, although she is about to start a very busy final month at St. P’s. Her class goes to DC next week. There’s a Mother’s Mass and Mom-Kid day out a week later. There’s an awards event the following week. We have about 100 different small projects to get turned in before graduation. And graduation itself at the end of May. Time is flying in her world.

Weekend Notes

October 29, 2018 /

A strangely busy yet boring fall break weekend.

L had a soccer tournament to wrap up her season. This came after not playing for two weeks and, unfortunately, it really showed. The girls, and L especially, were just not on their game.

Friday we played our opening game at 7:45 under the lights. The windchill was in the upper 30s, there was a stiff northerly breeze, and it was raining steadily. All-in-all a miserable night to do anything outside. We were playing a team we beat 2–1 in the regular season. Surprise, surprise, we got another, nervy, 2–1 win. We played our second round robin game Saturday against a team that beat us 8–1 to begin the season. We hung in for the first half and went into the break down just 1–0 on a freaky goal that went off our defender, off our goalie’s hands, and then off her foot into the goal. We melted down in the second half and lost 5–0.

Still, we made it through to the semis and took on a team we tied 3–3 during the regular season. We played really well for the first 25 minutes, mostly controlling the game. L had our only decent scoring chance and put it off the post. But right before half time we fell apart again, the last five minutes being played deep in our defensive end. The second half was the same: we could not get possession and were constantly scrambling in the back to clean things up. Our defense finally paid for being out of position and we let one through midway through the half. We never got a decent scoring chance after that and our season ended with a 1–0 loss.

L just had nothing all weekend. I don’t know if it was the weather – Saturday was cool and the field was still sloppy; Sunday it was warmer but very windy – if she wasn’t feeling well, if the two weeks off ruined her soccer stamina, or if she had just checked out mentally. Whatever it was, these were probably the three worst games she’s ever played. She just showed no energy, shied away from going after the ball, wouldn’t make runs when we had the ball, and basically played extremely out of character for her.

As a coaching parent, it was very frustrating. I let her have it a few times Sunday when she would just stand and watch where she used to get in the middle of the action and make things happen. Afterward I had to remind myself that we played three good defensive teams this weekend – she had scored just one goal against them in three regular season games – and all three were older teams. For playing most of the season against girls two years older than her, she still had a really good season. I think it was her lowest goal-scoring season ever, but she still had 9 or 10 in 10 games. Most importantly, I think she understands the areas she needs to get better in if she wants to keep playing. She needs to learn how control the ball better. How to do more than just do a series of fakes and step-backs when a defender cuts her off. How to pass the ball to others when the defense keys on her. Rather than play a winter sport, she’s most likely going to do some individual training with a local high school coach. I expect between that, and maybe a growth spurt that helps her compete against bigger girls, she’ll be just fine the next time she plays in a league.[1]

I was secretly relieved we lost in the semis. If we had advanced we would have played the team that smoked us Saturday again, and their coach is an annoying tool. Plus right around the time of the championship game we had wind gusts over 50 MPH, so that would not have been fun.

Oh, and we had a basketball game yesterday, too, which would have made playing soccer again rough.

L looked just fine at basketball, at least in the first half. She scored four, ran the floor well, played decent D. In the second half she looked pretty gassed, though, and kept losing the ball when she brought it up against pressure. They won – almost blowing a big lead but hanging on late – and are now 5–1 with one game to play before the tournament begins.

Whew. No surprise that she was pretty tired and sore last night.

M cheered for the final time yesterday. Our 7th/8th grade football team lost 7–6 in the City semis. She was bummed she’s done with cheer. She really enjoyed it, although I think it was mostly the hanging out with her friends that she liked more than the cheering part. She’s made some comments about wanting to cheer in high school. We’ve pointed out that in HS you need to have tumbling/gymnastics experience, which she has zero of. So we’ll see where that goes. I think the majority of her St. P’s friends that go to high school with her will likely not cheer either.

Speaking of high school, we got the final pieces of paperwork in for her application last week. Now we wait about three weeks before we hear. Her shadow day is tomorrow.

OK, onto other stuff from the weekend.

Hey, KU won a Big 12 football game! We’re tied for last place with the tie breaker over TCU! If the season ended today, we would be 9th! I was not able to watch the game between soccer, a visitor stopping by, and then a family party that took us away from home. I was following along online and via text updates from friends.[2] I think I’m glad I wasn’t able to see the final moments of the game. It would have been sooooooo KU football to leave a second on the clock then mess up the squib kick and give TCU a chance to kick a winning field goal. In fact, I’m shocked that didn’t actually happen. But, hey, KU has three wins this year. They really should have four if not for the mysterious absence of Pooka Williams week one. That won’t be enough to save David Beaty’s job, but at least you can argue there’s been progress. The big question is what is he leaving behind. If he is fired, how many non-seniors will decide to leave? He kind of messed up recruiting so he/the next coach will have very few scholarships to give out for next year, so it’s imperative that the program hang onto as many of the young guys as possible. Do that and you can start to squint hard enough to believe a good coaching hire this winter and a good recruiting class next year means mediocrity isn’t too far in the future. Ah, mediocrity! How I’ve missed you!

Five game World Series are strange beasts. A team winning 4–1 makes it seems like it was a boring series. The Royals-Mets series in 2015 proved that wrong, with two extra-inning games and a third that had a lead change in the 8th inning. I think this year’s will go down as fairly boring, although games three and four were the exceptions to that.

No, I did not stay up for all 18 innings of game three. Hell, I went to bed at the end of the 9th. Although, strangely, I could not sleep and kept waking up. After I saw the score Saturday morning, I was convinced my body knew there was an epic game going on in LA and wanted me to go downstairs and turn the TV back on. Game four was thoroughly enjoyable to a non-partisan fan. Dodger Stadium was coming unglued after Yasiel Puig’s home run in the 6th that put LA up by four. But, man, these Red Sox are relentless, and once they got that first run back, you knew the game, and the series, was over. The 9–5 final made it look like another blow out. But those last four innings were fun to watch.

I was really hoping for a seven game series, and not just to stretch the end of the season. I wanted to see how Alex Cora managed his pitching staff over seven games. I loved the way he mixed and matched all series to get his best arms on the mound in any situation. But I wondered if they could keep that up if the series had returned to Boston. David Price was simply amazing last night, and all series for that matter. I’m not a huge fan of his; he often seems like a joyless, bitter human being. But that performance last night was fantastic.

  1. She’s making noises about taking the spring season off from competitive soccer and playing CYO soccer. I’ve tried to tell her CYO soccer is kind of a disaster, but she really wants to play with a couple friends who aren’t skilled enough to play in her league anymore. We’ll see…  ↩
  2. The ESPN app feed glitched in the fourth quarter for about five minutes. It would update down and distance but not the clock. People were texting me that there were 30 seconds left but the app still said 6:00+. I have a friend who was following the game from Spain and she said it did the same thing to her. I think the app couldn’t believe KU was about to pull off the W.  ↩

ASG ’18

July 18, 2018 /

This has been the summer of my baseball discontent. We’ll get into the reasons for that in a moment. Despite that, I still sat down for my annual viewing of the MLB All Star Game last night. Granted, because of errands, watering the grass, and kids controlling the TV, I wasn’t able to tune in until the 4th inning. Which seemed appropriate for this season. Hey, at least I turned it on!

I never got going with baseball this year. The season began with the Royals alternately getting crushed and rained out over the first week. Also, there was a sporting event in San Antonio that week that occupied much of my attention.

Soon came spring break prep and spring break itself. After our return, spring sports. Next looking at houses and getting ready to move. A few times in April and May I would try to turn on a Royals game, only to be thwarted by our endless network issues we were experiencing at the old house.

The team was shitty, I was busy, and the feed locked up constantly. It was easier to do other things where I had watched the Royals every night for the past five or six years.

If the Royals were just bad I may have tried harder to build the habit back up. But, man, they’ve been terrible. I figured there would be bad stretches this year but I’m still waiting for the first good stretch. There’s almost a majesty to how bad they’ve been. And it will likely get worse as the team tries to move a few pieces over the next couple weeks and begins calling up more guys who have no business playing in the major leagues.

So rather than devote too much time to the big league club, I’ve been following the experts on Twitter and paying attention to blurbs in other sources about the next crop of prospects. As I followed Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, and Yordano Ventura a decade ago, now I’m tracking Nicky Lopez, Nick Pratto, Khalil Lee, and Seuly Matias.

I don’t have a ton of confidence that Dayton Moore is going to get much back for Moustakas or any other players he decides to trade this month. But I’m hopeful that this year’s draft was solid and next year’s very high pick will result in the next future superstar for the organization. And hopefully it won’t be another 25-year wait for them to be in a pennant race again.

Once I turned on the game, it eventually got pretty fun. At least if you like home runs in dramatic situations.

Otherwise I was, as usual, annoyed with Fox mic-ing up players every inning. I was annoyed with commercials for football. And I became annoyed with Joe Buck’s endless slobbering over all the “good guys” in the game. At first I kind of chuckled, because who doesn’t love Jose Altuve? But a few innings later Buck had labeled at least three other guys as “as good a guy as you will find in the game.” Everyone he labeled may, indeed, be a great guy. But it felt forced and pushed upon Buck from above rather than organic.

I was also a bit put off by the endless pushing of connections between the game and the military. Listen, honoring the troops is awesome and anyone who serves deserves respect and recognition. But it seemed like every five minutes here came another forced military tie-in to the game.

That combined with Buck’s identification of all the good guys in the game seemed like a concerted effort to say “Hey, we’re not the NFL!” Which, as much as I’ve grown to dislike the NFL, feels unnecessary.

I could expound further on this topic, but I think Drew Magary wrote way better than I can about it just last week in his weekly politics column for GQ. I recommend checking it out.

Patriotic Correctness Will Doom Us All

R’s: Opening Day

March 29, 2018 /

In the past week we’ve had more snow combined that we had received all winter. Four inches fell last Thursday followed by over six inches Saturday.[1] In each case the snow melted quickly. Thursday it was all gone before the girls got home from school. Saturday’s snow was almost completely gone by Sunday evening. Now we’ve transitioned into warmer days – at least into the 50s – but it is dark and dreary and the land is saturated from seven days of melting snow and rain.

Makes a man feel like it’s time for baseball season!

My enthusiasm for baseball is not what it has been in recent years. I’m still focused on college hoops for a few more days, obviously. And the Royals window of opportunity has closed. Worse, the team can’t figure out what to do next. They went for “value signings” over the winter and have a team that, on paper, doesn’t look terrible. But it also doesn’t look great, and seems destined to win at most between 70–75 games. Not good enough to compete, not bad enough to be in full rebuilding mode yet.

Dayton Moore deserves an immense amount of credit for building a team that went to two-straight World Series. When you do that, you earn a lot of leeway in how to do your job. Still, I’m not sure I love him being in charge of the next Royals rebuild. The minor league system is already pretty lean but he’s putting off the total gut for at least one off-season. I don’t know that I agree with that strategy. And given how few major leaguers the system has produced since the championship core came up, I have concerns about Dayton and his scouts’ evaluation abilities.

Unless there is some dramatic shift in how baseball revenues are divided up or a change in how the Glass family is willing to spend money, the Royals have to build with young talent. That’s what they did in the first part of this decade. I don’t understand why you delay hitting the reset button to get that process going again. Especially in a division that should be won by one of the best teams in baseball (Cleveland) and also has a team that is both filled with young talent and made some strong moves to fortify that talent in the winter (Minnesota). The AL Central is not up for grabs. Nabbing a Wild Card spot would require a massive amount of good luck for the Royals and bad luck for at least five other teams.

Salvador Perez tearing up his knee this week and taking him off the field for 4–6 weeks is not a promising start.

I think the Royals could – could – have decent starting pitching. It looks like a staff where every guy can go on a 3–4 start roll where things are working and they only give up 2–3 runs a night. But I also worry about the health of most of them, and every dude is also capable of getting into ruts where they can’t make it through three innings for a few weeks in a row.

The once vaunted Royals bullpen is a mystery. Maybe Kelvin Herrera settles down this year and sets a standard that knocks everyone else into place. But I see too many arms that have struggled in the past joined by too many unknowns to have much confidence in that group.

The lineup is full of question marks, too. Whit Merrifield seems like the only sure bet, and that’s based on a single season of big league performance. Can Moose stay healthy? Will Salvy get healthy? Is Alcides Escobar’s modest goal of getting on base 30% of the time doable? Can Jorge Soler harness his immense potential? Can Lucas Duda be a poor-man’s Eric Hosmer? And can poor Alex Gordon provide anything at all at the plate?[2]

A lot has been made of the Royals late winter signings and how they added some “professional hitters” to the lineup. We’ll see if those are enough to keep the team in the window of mediocrity.

I really hope all those elements come together and the Royals can stay in the 70s for wins. It’s really going to suck if they don’t and the team ends up being shitty without having gone all-in with the rebuild. I think most Royals fans were prepared to accept bad baseball if it meant young talent would begin flowing into the system. Without that influx already in place, this will feel like an empty, wasted year that put off the chance to compete another year without making any progress toward that goal.

I’m still downloading the MLB apps onto all my devices this morning, though. I will be listening as the Royals open things against the White Sox this afternoon. And I’m sure they’re still going to be the soundtrack of my summer, even if the goals are a lot more modest than they have been in half a decade.

As for predictions, I haven’t paid close attention to spring break stories around the league, so I’m not sure how great these are going to be.

AL East: New York
AL Central: Cleveland
AL West: Houston
AL Wild Cards: Boston, Minnesota

NL East: Washington
NL Central: Chicago
NL West: Los Angeles
NL Wildcards: Milwaukee, St. Louis

  1. The Indy airport got 10.2” Saturday, making it the sixth snowiest recorded day in Indy history, which is nuts.  ↩
  2. Man, Alex…I feel like Royals fans are going to spend the summer hanging their heads after his at bats, wanting to curse him but refusing because of what he’s meant to the franchise.  ↩
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