Call it “Reality Sinks In Day”. Today marks the point in the season whereby the first MLB team achieves sufficient stinkitude that it cannot have a winning season. The Washington Nationals lost yesterday and that was their 81st loss of the season assuring that they will not be over .500 for the season. Oh, by the way, in order to hit that .500 mark, all they need do is to win their remaining 37 games over the next 6 weeks. Two words for you here:
Not. Happening.
A ray of hope for Nationals’ fans emanates from Kansas City where the Royals are imploding. The Royals have lost 8 of their last 10 games and are a mere 3.5 games “ahead” of the Nats in the race to the bottom of the MLB standings. The Royals started out well back in April and I said it would be fun to have them competitive all season long as a way to reprise the Tampa Bay Rays excitement from last season. So much for fun…
While things are not nearly so dire for the Chicago Cubs, there is a trend line on the north side of Chicago that should be severely troubling to Cubs’ fans if they choose to acknowledge it. On 6 August of this year – less than 3 weeks ago – the Cubs and the Cardinals were tied for first place in the NL Central Division. This morning, the Cubs are still in second place in the division but they are a full 8 games behind the Cards and the Cubs trail four teams in the wild card race.
Recently, SI.com did a list of things they missed from old-time baseball. It was a good list including things like the eephus pitch (Google is your friend), day games in the World Series and relief pitchers being delivered to the mound in golf carts. Here are some of the things I miss:
Bill Veeck’s antics as an owner.
Charlie Finley’s antics as an owner.
Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek doing the Game of the Week on TV.
Seeing kids keeping score at the games.
An outside chance that a game will be finished in two-and-a-half hours.
Doubleheaders.
Syndicated columnist, Norman Chad’s column this week consisted of a list of 23 things he knows are true about sports on TV. A couple of his items were on-point:
“How is it that Usain Bolt can run 200 meters in less time than it takes Tiger Woods to line up a putt?”
“I love Outside the Lines: First Report, but when exactly are their second and third reports?”
“With my luck, when I die and I’m buried with my remote, they’ll forget to change the batteries.”
“With The Best Damn Sports Show Period now history, I am terrified that Fox Sports Net is developing The Second-Best Damn Sports Show Period.”
By the way, the passing of Best Damn Sports Show creates the situation where it is becomes necessary to crown a new champion for the title of “TV show whose name is in the greatest violation of the truth-in-labeling laws”. My nominee would have to be Jim Rome Is Burning. I do not watch every day to be sure, but when I tune in, he is never en fuego…
There were reports earlier this month that Lou Holtz was contemplating a run for Congress. Subsequent reports said that he chose not to do that. Forgetting completely whether or not his political views – - whatever they may be – - would be a plus or a minus for the Nation as a Congressthing, I do believe that he was serious about running. How do I draw that conclusion? Because he seems to have gotten himself into the realm of fanciful thinking and rosy projection that always afflict politicians of every stripe once they go into “campaign mode”.
The lingering effects of that political campaign mindset seem to have surfaced recently when Holtz predicted that Florida would play Notre Dame in the BCS Championship Game this year. He said that when he looked at Notre Dame’s schedule – - and it is hardly a daunting one this year – - he thought that the Fighting Irish could go 11-1 or 12-0 and climb their way up the polls to make the BCS Championship Game.
Notre Dame plays only 4 road games all season traveling to Michigan, Purdue, Pitt and Stanford; everyone else plays at South Bend. Three of the visitors to South Bend this year will be Washington (zero wins last year), Washington State (one win against Division 1-A teams and that win was over Washington) and UConn (picked 6th in the Big East in the pre-season conference poll).
So maybe Holtz’ rosy projections have a chance of becoming reality… Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
Finally, on this date in 1913, Walt Kelly was born. Kelly was the creator of the comic strip Pogo and other great cartoonists have cited him as a major influence on their work. Some of those later cartoonists include Bill Watterson [Calvin and Hobbes], Gary Trudeau [Doonesbury], and Jeff MacNelly [Shoe]. Pogo Possum’s most famous line is probably, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” My favorite bit of wisdom from Pogo Possum came from his response to the question about why people did not “throw the rascals out” – - referring to politicians in office. Pogo’s response was a classic:
“Why doesn’t anyone think of that before they throw the rascals in?”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…