Too Many Toys

The Brewers pulled ahead of the Rays 3-2 in the top of the twelfth inning last night when rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt homered off Tampa pitcher number-seven. The Rays stormed back to walk the game off in the bottom of the inning after a lead-off error was followed by four straight hits off of Milwaukee pitchers number-eight. Rays 4 Brewers 3, Milwaukee up three games to one. That’s fifteen pitchers total in 11.2 innings, in case you’re counting. Speaking for all the baseball dinosaurs out there, what a joke. Baseball works best when it enters the realm of things magical and unscripted. Consider game six of the 1975 World Series between the Reds and Red Sox. Sparky Anderson made just like Pat Murphy did last night, by using eight pitchers over eleven-plus innings; Darrell Johnson went with four. The magic was provided by Carlton Fisk in the bottom of the twelfth. Or take the 1991 Series between the Braves and Twins, recognized as one of the best ever. Games six and seven both went extra innings. The Twins won game six in eleven innings, 4-3, each team using four pitchers. The next night, the Twins clinched the Series when Jack Morris threw a ten-inning, complete-game, 1-0 shutout. Atlanta went with three pitchers, John Smoltz going 7.1 innings. Minnesota one pitcher 35 years ago, Milwaukee eight last night. Somebody point me in the direction of Jurassic Park.

Could'a, Would'a, Should'a

Well, if you’re a Brewers’ fan, last night’s 10-1 beatdown of the Rays in their home park had to be a lot of fun, especially since the game wasn’t as close as the score might indicate; two of the three hits Tampa had on the night came in the ninth inning. Did I mention that Milwaukee scored eight two-out runs in the fifth inning? The Rays are being thoroughly outclassed here. If the White Sox had had a clue in the ALDS, they could’ve beaten the Guardians and advanced to the ALCS. And what’s to say they couldn’t have won there, too? They definitely couldn’t have done any worse than the Rays are, that’s for sure.

Lap-dog Journalism

Bears’ tight-end Cole Kmet suffered a season-ending knee injury Thursday night against the Patriots. What kind of knee injury I don’t know because nobody wants to say or find out. Go on the Bears’ website, and the only two things you’ll find are Coach Ben Johnson’s press conference from Friday where Johnson confirms Kmet’s season is over and a roster-move, also from Friday, that Kmet has been placed on the IR. As ever with the NFL, they decide what’s newsworthy and what isn’t. All of which is to be expected. What gets my head shaking in disbelief is how meekly the Chicago media goes along. No updates on Kmet anywhere that I could find. Kevin Fishbain did a story in The Athletic today that assesses Kmet’s value to the team. OK, but what exactly happened to him? Fishbain doesn’t say. To which Coach Johnson, Bears GM Ryan Poles and everyone else in the NFL would respond: Good boy.

Buddy Downer

If I needed a reason to root against the Brewers, ex-owner and -commissioner Bud Selig provided one when he crawled out from under his rock Thursday to call for a salary cap, just like he did in 1994, which led to a strike and him cancelling the World Series that year and, in a way, the steroids’ era that followed. The now 92-year old Selig sounded like an old dog unable to learn anything new, or even remember the mistakes he and owners committed 32 years ago. I’m not as old as Selig, but I do forget things sometimes. How many MVP and Cy Young awards did Selig win again? What year did he hit for the Triple Crown or throw a perfect game? How many fans go to a game looking at the owner’s box instead of the field? How many?

Night-night

Last night, Michele and I went to watch our son-in-law coach his high school team in the state playoffs (not good), so I had to tape the World Series. We didn’t get home till close to 10 PM. The Rays-Brewers’ broadcast started at 7. It took me maybe fifteen minutes to zoom through everything. The first pitch was at 7:17, which means I saw the last nine minutes or so in real time. Yawn. Commercials plus relievers makes for boring baseball. By my unscientific count, there were two minutes of commercial per half-inning. That’s 32 minutes of ads. If the Rays win on the road tonight, that would go to 36 minutes, give or take. Also figure about two minutes for each time a reliever comes in during an inning. That happened three times last night, so another six minutes. Also figure all the ads flashing onscreen during the game itself. The human mind can only take so much. Did I mention relievers? Somehow, the starters for both teams went five innings, after which came the parade out of the respective bullpens, four relievers for the Rays, three for the Brewers. The human mind can only absorb so much. Oh, Brewers 3 Rays 2.

Imagine

The announced attendance for last night’s Bears-Patriots’ game at Soldier Field was 60,520, which looked to be full house to me. Fans wore their Mike Ditka tribute outfits and/or mustaches and had plenty to cheer about in a 30-24 Bears’ win. Long story short, they’re a good team if Caleb Williams is under center. I wonder what the McCaskeys were thinking when TV cameras showed the crowd. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there were also plenty of shots of the nearby Chicago skyline. Talk about picture-perfect. Does any of that happen with a Bears’ stadium in Arlington Heights or, perish the thought, Hammond? It would be nice to know how many traffic accidents are the result of Bears’ games. Consider what tailgating plus three hours of drinking inside Soldier Field will do to a person. I would like to see projections for the number of accidents with a stadium in Arlington or Hammond vs. Chicago. If the Bears have those numbers, they’re not sharing them, and they should. My guess is either alternative site will have more accidents because access to public transportation will be lower. Right now, fans can either walk from Soldier Field or take an Uber downtown; from there, they can take the subway or Metra home. Arlington and Hammond might each have one rail line, but that’s about it. All those fans who made it home last night, would they driving from Hammond (oh, what skyline shots there would have been, of the steel mills and refineries)? My experience driving home from Valparaiso University after visits to Clare was white-knuckling it until we crossed over into Illinois. Interstate 80 or 90? Pick your poison, and I don’t drink. What did Jonie Mitchell sing, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone? Last night, Soldier Field looked as close to paradise as Bears’ fans will ever get.

Nothing to See Here

It must be a thing with Reinsdorf teams on the rebound (pardon the pun for team #2). The White Sox started the regular season losing three to the Brewers; things gradually got better after that. Maybe the same will hold true for the Bulls. They copied the Sox by laying an egg for their season opener. The Sox lost 14-2, the Bulls got blown out in Toronto by the Raptors, 135-92. Now, let’s see if they can turn things around. Rookie forward Caleb Wilson, the foundation for this latest rebuild, scored sixteen points, which isn’t bad, unlike the nine turnovers. Yikes. Wilson teamed with Matas Buzelis, who scored seventeen points with six rebounds, so, there’s that at least. I’ve got a whole season to learn what is basically a new roster to with a new coaching staff. Maybe by April it will have been worth the effort.