Late Night

Clare went upstairs to put Maeve to bed last night, leaving Michele and me with Leo. Did our four-year old grandson want to watch the World Series? Not really. But throw a mini-football to and at his grandparents? Oh, yeah. After twenty minutes or so of throwing and catching, Clare returned, and we got back to watching the game. The grandparents got tired just about the time Alejandro Kirk hit a three-run homer in the fourth inning. I caught my second wind once we were back home and lasted through the visitors’ half of the thirteenth inning. Note to Blue Jays: If you don’t want to lose in eighteen, figure out how to run the bases and bunt runners along. Between innings, I caught the end of the Hawks-Bulls game. Three games—and wins—into the season, Billy Donovan’s squad looks just like I said last week, with players six through ten nearly as good as numbers one through five. Last night, eight Bulls scored in double figures while Nikola Vucevic fell one assist short of a triple-double in a 128-123 win. Trae Young of the Hawks dished out seventeen assists to go with 21 points. Anytime you can overcome a performance like that, you’ve had a good game. A 3-0 start. Who’d have thought it?

Comedy of Errors

Here are your Chicago Bears, a team trying to shake down the General Assembly for close to $1 billion to fund infrastructure needs related to their planned stadium in Arlington Heights. Ravens 30 Bears 16. Caleb Williams, the first pick in the 2024 draft, couldn’t move his team against a mediocre Ravens’ defense. Williams also continued the disturbing habit of getting lost in the red zone. Two early forays there led to six points; good teams would’ve generated fourteen. And a good quarterback would avoid throwing an interception deep in his zone with his team trailing by three points with just over nine minutes left in the game. The defense, which had excelled at takeaways, came up with none against a 1-5 team led by a backup quarterback. But they did pick up penalties. Then again, so did the offense. The Munsters managed eleven—let me repeat, eleven—penalties on the afternoon. Guys, figure out how to line up on the right side of the line of scrimmage and when to move, as in with the snap and not before. As for coaching, you have to wonder. Ben Johnson said in the postgame that team leaders need to deal with the penalty problem. Funny, I thought the coaching staff handled that. And who decided to have Cairo Santos handle kickoff duties? Baltimore gained good field position on Santos’s kicks all afternoon. Sure looks like Santos is suffering from a thigh injury, but what do I know? Poor McCaskeys. Well, not poor in any financial sense. No, more poor as in pitiful. Here’s a family that sees their pot of gold from a new stadium, yet they can’t make their team play well enough to excite the fan base. How do you expect folks to pony up for personal seat licenses, again, when the product on the field doesn’t look a whole lot better than it did last year? Beats me.

Playing to Strength

The Dodgers like to hit homeruns, and they like to spend money on pitchers. Last night, that formula worked to perfection, with the boys of Tinseltown topping the Blue Jays, 5-1, behind seventh-inning homeruns from Will Smith and Max Muncy along with a complete game by Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The 27-year old righthander gave up four hits (three singles and a double) and no walks while fanning eight. Yamamoto signed a twelve-year, $325 million contract back in December of 2023. Has he been worth it? That depends. He’s gone 19-10 over the course of two seasons. Not overwhelming numbers—affected by injuries, especially in 2024—and not nearly as impressive as 5-1 over two postseasons, including 3-1 this year, including a 1.57 ERA. In comparison, the White Sox are barely on the same planet, let alone the same sport, as the Dodgers. Contact vs. power, both hitting and pitching. Series tied at one game apiece. Onto Los Angeles, with Grandpa and grandson Leo slated to watch game three Monday night while at least one of us eats pizza.

Warming Up

As good parents, grandparents and in-laws, we went to the last game of the season for the Lake Park Lancers, coached by our son-in-law Chris. And, because we are parents, grandparents and in-laws of a certain age, we left in the third quarter. Something about the temperature dipping into the forties makes a body feel its age, and then some. We listened to the World Series on the way home. Michele loves baseball on the radio; it feels like summer, she says. Me, I think of the time driving in Colorado, an Oakland A’s game fading in and out. I was too preoccupied with not driving off the side of a mountain road at a time of night when all sane people were asleep in bed. I don’t listen on the radio now as much with Ed Farmer gone. Anyway, we heard Daulton Varsho go deep against Blake Snell to tie the game at two. And we got home in plenty of time to see the Blue Jays score nine runs in the sixth against Snell and the Dodgers’ bullpen. Final Score, Toronto 11 Los Angles 4. What really stuck out is how the Dodgers struck out, thirteen times in all to four whiffs by the Jays. Toronto hitters are geared to contact, which shows in the stats—best team batting average (.265) and on-base percentage (.333) in all of baseball. The Dodgers hit twelve points lower and had an OBP six points lower than the Jays. However, the boys of Tinseltown did lead the majors in striking out, 1627 as compared to 1099 for the Jays. That’s the second lowest in baseball. Game two, who can say? All I know is, you can’t win unless you hit the ball (or walk a lot). That, and dress like it’s winter even if it’s only late October.

Ice Berg Tips and Coal Mine Canaries

The NBA has been hit by a betting scandal, again, only now it involves HOFer and current Portland Trailblazers’ coach Chauncey Billups along with Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former player and former assistant coach Damon Jones. What the various charges do is raise questions, again, about the honesty of NBA games, of their outcomes. (A second scandal involving Billups concerns high-stakes’ card games, rigged by the Mafia.) It also raises questions about the integrity of broadcast networks that show games and push betting. I’m talking about you, ESPN, Marquee and CHSN. Right now, it’s the NBA. How long until a scandal rocks the NFL or MLB? Is tonight’s game one of the World Series on the legit? You have to wonder.

A Sleeper, or Not

The Bulls kicked off their season last night, beating the Pistons 115-114 before a packed house at the United Center. They almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, only to think better of it. This is an odd team, one where the second unit looks nearly as talented as the starting five. That’s either a good thing, or bad; only time will tell. But nobody seemed to miss guard Coby White, expected to be out another two weeks with a calf strain. In which case, thank goodness Arturas Karnisovas decided to keep Tre Jones around for another three seasons. The 25-year old scored twelve points while dishing out eight assists, the sort of performance he gave on a regular basis last season after being acquired from the Spurs. A smart move by Karnisovas—who knew? Sort of like Nikola Vucevic, the human tree on skates, scoring 28 points to go with fourteen rebounds. Now, if the big tree can do that in March and April, there may be cause for hope. I’d also trade some of the 50 or so guards Karnisovas has collected, but that’s just me.

Do the Math

I wonder what Jerry Reinsdorf and Tom Ricketts are going to do during the World Series. Wag their fingers and say, “Tsk-tsk,” maybe, or lay the groundwork for a work stoppage after the CBA expires at the end of next season? A hard salary cap for the good of the game, anyone? At the very least, they should both be rooting for the “small-er” market Blue Jays, who have a $255.2 million payroll vs. $350 million for the top-spending Dodgers, per spotrac.com. Number seven payroll vs. number one. Go, seven. What I’d love to ask these two whiny billionaires is this—why are you team owners if you don’t want to spend money? By all means, be smart in spending the cash (think Blue Jays), but spend it or get out of the business. Instead, the odds are we’re talking about two owners who are going to spearhead the drive for a hard cap. What a bunch of cry babies.