Why I'm Not Following the (American) Football Season

It's September, the time when a whole lot of people pay a lot of attention to what's happening on the gridiron. I've done that myself for many years, but I've decided this year it's time to finally put my time and money where my principles are.

I've got two major problems with the game of American football: the injuries it causes on the field, and the way the organizations treats their players off the field.

Head trauma caused by playing football is not news...it's been reported widely for years. (A quick search will turn up plenty of articles, but here's one for easy reference.) There was even a movie. It's a difficult condition to diagnose. Different people have widely varying reactions to blows to the head. What one person shrugs off might cause serious issues for another. Worse, the effects are often delayed, showing up days, weeks, or even years later. But what is known is this...repeated hits to the head are bad for anyone, and in at least some cases are known to cause serious problems.

At the professional level, the injury potential can be excused to some extent because the players are adults able to make their own decisions. Years ago, the players weren't informed and couldn't make that decision, but these days there's no excuse for any adult playing football to plead ignorance. Adults that want to take a risk for love of the game or for a big paycheck should be allowed to make that choice.

However, the vast majority of football players aren't professionals. They're high school kids and college students, mostly still minors. We restrict young people from doing potentially dangerous things all the time, and playing a game with a high likelihood of causing life-long health issues should be no exception. But we don't discourage it - we actually do the opposite in most communities, treating football games as social events and the players as heroes. I don't want to be part of the problem by participating in the sub-professional football ecosystem, even in a small way as a spectator.

My second concern comes in at the college and professional level. The organizations that run the game (NCAA and NFL) don't treat their players very well, even if you leave aside the injury concerns.

In the NCAA, huge sums of money go to schools and coaches while the players aren't paid. At the top schools, it's possible you could argue that scholarships and benefits make up for that (although I don't think that's nearly enough), but certainly at lower division schools that's not the case. Don't believe me? Ask Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He played basketball rather than football, but the same arguments apply to both. Basketball and football account for the vast majority of the money in college sports. The "amateurism" doctrine in college sports needs to change, and until it does I don't want to spend any more of my time or money in support.

In the NFL, the majority of players don't have guaranteed contracts. If they get injured or just slow down a bit, they can be cut and the team owes them nothing. The average NFL career is less than 4 years, and most players won't make big money in that time. Enough to live on, certainly, but if they get a costly injury...very likely...that money won't last.

There's also been a lot of news in the last few years about NFL players protesting against treatment of people of color at the hands of the police. Some people have said they stopped watching football because those players were disrespectful of the United States. I don't agree with that at all, and fully support the right of the protesters. In fact, one of my reasons for not watching football is the opposite...I think the NFL owners have suppressed those protests. The obvious example is the way that Colin Kaepernick has been unable to find a team, but the NFL has tried to make rules limiting the ability to protest and individual owners have spoken out against it.

For all these reasons, I've decided it's time to make a clean break with football. It's impossible to completely avoid it...it's everywhere on the news and across the Internet...but I won't be spending time watching TV coverage, or spending any money on merchandise or attending games. One person won't make a difference, I know, but it feels like the right thing to do. If enough people eventually make the same decision, change may come.

Favorite Moments - Winter Olympics 2018

Another Olympic Games have come and gone. For the last couple of weeks, one sport or another has been a near-constant background presence on my TV. Picking a top three is the Olympic tradition, so here's my personal list of favorite moments from the 2018 games.

Ester Ledecka winning gold in the Super-G: Ledecka is a snowboarder first, not a skier. Pretty much everyone considered the medals to already be determined by the time she went down the hill. Ledecka herself didn't believe it at first when she saw the time after her run. It's worth a few minutes of your time to search for her interview shortly afterward, clearly still shocked at her own performance. Oh, and then she won gold in snowboard parallel giant slalom, too.

The hockey finals: I'm cheating a bit here by combining these because both the men's and women's gold medal games were amazing in their own way. The USA vs Canada women's final match-up was a surprise to approximately no one, and it lived up to the hype with a well-played and hard-fought match that went all the way through overtime and into a shootout. I'm not a big fan of the shootout to decide games, but the incredible move by Jocelyne Lamoureux to score for the USA and big save by Maddie Rooney to seal the win was epic. The men's final, on the other hand, was not as expected: Germany vs the-team-who-can't-say-they're-Russian. The Russians were supposed to be there, but the Germans had to beat two powerhouses in Sweden and Canada. Then Germany almost had the gold medal in hand, with a lead inside two minutes left in regulation and even a man advantage, but somehow the Russians came back and tied it, then won in overtime. Crazy and incredibly entertaining games, both of them.

German Madrazo of Mexico finishes last in cross-country skiing: Last place usually isn't newsworthy, but this finish was heartwarming. In the men's 15k cross-country race, Madrazo came in dead last. But not alone, as fans and several of his fellow competitors stayed to cheer him on across the finish line and carry him off in a hero's exit. One of those was Pita Taufatofua, the athlete from Tonga famous for marching shirtless in the opening ceremony, who had finished the race just a few places ahead. The elite athletes with medal chances get the headlines, but there's a lot of others attending and competing, and it's good to sometimes stop and spare a thought for the rest of the field.

Every Olympic Games has a long list of great moments, of course, way too many to attempt to list them all. Nearly every event had something exciting, emotional, incredible, or all of the above. Looking forward to the next installment, in the summer in 2020.

"The Eastern Stars" by Mark Kurlansky

The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris by Mark Kurlansky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The subtitle of The Eastern Stars is accurate, but incomplete. As with just about everything Kurlansky writes, there's a whole lot of background leading up to the main theme. The book is certainly about baseball changing San Pedro, but it's also about everything else that impacted San Pedro and the rest of the Dominican Republic, as well as quite a bit of baseball history.

The early chapters are largely about the origins of the city of San Pedro, and how it became a production powerhouse in the sugar industry. That industry helped form the city's baseball roots in many ways, including factory-sponsored teams that were early places to discover talent. The middle and later chapters focus more on baseball, including quite a few stories of individual players. There's still plenty about the changes in San Pedro, though, and how the city has changed over the decades.

For me personally, the subject matter is a perfect match. I've visited the Dominican Republic a few times, and baseball is easily my favorite sport. I found Kurlansky's meticulously researched details fascinating: about the town of San Pedro and the Dominican Republic, the sport of baseball, and many of the key figures involved with both.

Having said that, I could see how someone who isn't quite as interested in one or both subjects might not find this book as interesting as I did. If you're not into either of those subjects, this book probably won't change your mind. But I think anyone curious about either the Dominican Republic or baseball history would find The Eastern Stars a good read.

Gender Transition in Competitive Sport

Recently, a story has been making the rounds of the usual news outlets about Mack Beggs, a teenager in Texas who won the female state wrestling championship. Generally not national news, but in this case Beggs was born female and is transitioning to male.

Let's start with the facts (according to the link above, which I have no reason to doubt). Beggs was born female, but has chosen to transition to male. The process started a year and a half ago, and includes testosterone injections. According to Asa Merritt, a reporter in West Texas, Beggs "...wants to compete against boys" but isn't allowed to due to a Texas school rule that students must compete as the gender on their birth certificate. Thus, Beggs competed against girls. And as it happened, won every match on the way to a state championship.

That rule about competing as the gender on your birth certificate sounds familiar - it's similar to the North Carolina Bathroom Bill that caused such an uproar last year. But I think there's a significant difference here. There's no competition involved in using a bathroom, but in sport the competition is the main focus. While I see the bathroom question as a discrimination issue, I think in sport the issue is about maintaining a level playing field for the other participants.

If anyone else took a performance-enhancing drug while participating in competitive sports, the rules would prohibit them from competing. (Or at least put them in a more appropriate category, if one exists. In this case there's probably not enough born-female-but-testosterone-enhanced participants to have such a category.) It seems to me that the only reason we're even hearing about this issue is that the drug was taken as part of a gender transition.

I don't have any problem with someone making a life choice that is appropriate for them (even if I don't understand it, which in this case I certainly don't). But I also think we need to recognize that every life choice that a person makes opens some doors and closes others. No choice should cause discrimination, but it also should not infringe on the rights of others. In this case, the right to compete fairly against other similar participants. We all make choices on a regular basis that affect our opportunities, and while this one is a bigger decision than most, it shouldn't be treated any differently.

When Beggs chose to take testosterone, that should have closed the door to participation in competitive wrestling (and likely, any other sport). The reason for taking it shouldn't matter, only that it was a free choice made by the athlete which caused an competitive imbalance.

The House of Daniel by Harry Turtledove

The House of Daniel: A novel of wild magic, the great depression, and semipro ball by Harry Turtledove
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There's a lot of baseball in The House of Daniel, but not the kind you may be familiar with. The book is set around the time of the Great Depression, which for baseball players meant that a lot of the lower-level minor league professional clubs folded. Semipro teams featuring local players who happened to live in the area were the norm, as well as barnstorming traveling teams - some with big-name players since they didn't get paid millions like today's stars. Outside of one organized tournament, the baseball in this book is the kind played by a traveling team against a different small-town semipro team every day.

Money, or lack thereof, is a constant theme - unsurprising in a Great Depression-era story. Jake "Snake" Spivey, our narrator, is grateful for his athletic ability to play center field well enough to earn money at it, since other jobs aren't easy to find. Even so, the opportunity for a little extra cash leads him to fall in with the wrong crowd. He gets lucky when the House of Daniel traveling team happens to need a center fielder after an injury, giving him a chance to make better money while also leaving behind some of his own problems.

As is usual with a Turtledove book, there's a lot of actual history mixed in with the more fantastic elements. There was a traveling team called the House of David which formed the basis of the House of Daniel team, and many of the towns and ballfields are based on those that actually existed back in the 1930s. References to the wider world are sprinkled through the book, from mention of the "War to End War" (this being before WW II) to Weeghman Park (our narrator not yet knowing that it was renamed Wrigley Field).

The world of The House of Daniel is also one of magic, where wizards work alongside engineers and vampires roam the night. This affects the story only in fairly minor ways, aside from one big dangerous event around the middle of the book. Most of the time, Jack takes the magical side of the world in stride and describes it no differently than the more mundane aspects. Honestly, I didn't think the magical aspects added anything to the story - you could have replaced it all with equivalent mundane activities without changing much. But it doesn't hurt, either, and I'm guessing Turtledove enjoyed putting in zombies and elementals and chupacabras.

As a fan of both baseball and alternate history novels, not to mention just about anything Turtledove has ever written, The House of Daniel was right up my alley. I had a great time reading about the little details of the team's games as well as following the larger story arc. Those who aren't as much into either baseball or the concept of an alternate history may find that the amount of detail is overwhelming, but that won't bother those familiar with how Turtledove works.

Joe Buck's Memoir "Lucky Bastard"

Joe Buck has been a fixture in sports broadcasting for most of my adult life. I heard about Lucky Bastard from various sports media and via Buck's guest appearance on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

The full title of the book is Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, and the Things I'm Not Allowed to Say on TV. That's a pretty good sample of the writing style: slightly profane and irreverent, but honest. Within the first chapter he's explained that using the word "bastard" is technically true as well as being an eye-catching title - he was conceived well before his parents married - and shared a slew of his own embarrassing life moments. It feels very real and open to me, and the same is true when he moves on to talking about other people.

I'm a sports fan, particularly baseball, so I found plenty of interest in the many stories and descriptions of the people that Buck has met and events he's worked. As the son of a Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Buck, Joe has even more of those stories than most life-long sports personalities. He literally grew up in baseball stadiums, and has been part of big events like the World Series for years. I enjoyed his perspective on the people and events that I remember following as I've grown up.

Even more than the sports stories, though, I thought that Lucky Bastard is excellent for its portrayal of Buck's personal life story. The father-son relationship between Jack and Joe is a large part of that story, and I thought the love there was very evident. Buck isn't afraid to admit that he's made plenty of mistakes, either, both at the personal and professional level. His descriptions of both the good and bad times feel very real to me.

I have no reservations recommending Lucky Bastard to any sports fan, certainly, but I think even those with only a general knowledge of the last few decades of sports events would enjoy it. Buck has an engaging writing style and an interesting life story to tell.

What a Series

Holy Cow.

I've seen a lot of baseball games. The best ones don't always come in the biggest moments. But this season's World Series is certainly going to be hard to top.

Cleveland's run through the post-season has been all about great pitching. The games they won in this series followed that script. A total of two runs given up across all three. You expect better-than-average pitching from a team that makes it to the post-season and through multiple playoff rounds, but even by that standard the Indians pitching was spectacular. But in a long seven-game series, good hitters have a chance to adjust as they see the same pitching repeatedly. The Cubs' bats came alive as the series went on, particularly in the last two games.

The Chicago pitching was plenty good during the post-season, too. I was particularly impressed with Kyle Hendricks, and not just because of his performance in game 7. This is a guy who came into the season as the 5th starter on the Cubs staff, and all he did was lead the National League in ERA and win 16 games over 190 innings. By the time the post-season rolled around, Hendricks was third in the rotation and manager Joe Maddon felt comfortable lining up his starters to put him in game 7. And he did the job, giving up only 1 earned run over 4.2 innings.

When Jon Lester took over on the mound in the fifth, that also brought David Ross into the lineup. And 39-year-old "Grandpa Ross" (as his younger teammates call him) promptly hit a home run, making him the oldest player ever to go deep in a World Series game 7. This whole year has been full of great moments for Ross, who had announced that he'd retire after this season. Can't finish off a career much better!

Aroldis Chapman has been great closing games since he came to Chicago, but in game 7 he couldn't get the job done. Maybe that's because of all the work he's been doing recently, including pitching in game 6 even though the Cubs were up by 5. I can't say I agree with Maddon's pitching change decisions through this series, but getting the win in the end is what counts, even if that happened more due to the bats than the pitching in the final game. It's fitting that Mike Montgomery ended up with the game 7 save, considering all the good pitching he's done in the post-season out of the bullpen.

For Cleveland fans, I'm sure it's tempting to write off a season as a failure when your team loses. You can't get much closer than being down to a single game for the championship, though. Especially in baseball, where a single game is such a toss-up, and particularly when it goes to extra innings! Even great teams tend to lose around a third of the time. There's disappointment in losing the seventh game of a World Series, but no shame.

For Major League Baseball overall, I'm not sure this year's World Series could have gone much better. Usually, the conventional wisdom says that you want two teams from big markets to draw in the most viewers. Chicago is big enough, but usually you want to see at least one coastal team. This year, though, the fact that neither team had won the championship in so long made it compelling viewing for sports fans from all over. Also, it's always best for the popularity of the sport when the drama is high, and this series didn't disappoint. From a tense 1-0 Indians win in game 3, to two Cubs wins in elimination games 5 and 6, to the winner-take-all game 7 that goes into extra innings - hard to draw it up any better to keep maximum interest from the fan base.

I always miss baseball over the winter, but this will be a much happier off-season than usual. It may take me until spring to get used to hearing "World Champion Chicago Cubs!"

Dear Grandma - How about those Cubs?

Dear Grandma Scott - It's finally happened. The Cubs are playing in a World Series.

I don't have a lot of memories of you, since you passed away when I was still a teenager. Much of what I do recall is from the last part of your life, when you lived with my family but were mostly confined to your own room. I didn't see much of you other than mealtimes, and not even that when your lifelong heavy cigarette smoking led to your hospitalization and eventual passing. But that was the end, and I prefer to remember earlier times.

Before the sports media explosion of the last decade or two, it wasn't nearly as easy to be a serious sports fan as it is now, particularly if you didn't live in a team's home area. There was no Internet to look up all the bits of information about every player, no streaming video to watch individual games from across the country (and world), and cable TV options were much more limited. The Chicago Cubs were an exception, though, thanks to WGN Sports broadcasting a large number of their games. Our family didn't watch a lot of TV, but when you lived with us, my mom made sure we had cable so that you could see the Cubs games.

You sitting close to that little black-and-white TV in your room, turned up loud to help you hear it, the voices of Harry Carey and Steve Stone - that's how I best remember your time living with us. I was more interested in reading and games and music than in actually sitting down to watch a baseball game, so we didn't actually watch very many games together. I still heard plenty, though. Thanks to you (and mom, who got it from you) I knew all about baseball, and in particular the Cubs. And I followed your example in becoming a life-long fan.

We all know that it hasn't been easy. Even those who know nothing else about baseball can tell you that the Chicago Cubs have a ridiculously long World Series drought. Much of the time the team was just bad, and even when they were good the playoffs never went well. From what I remember, though, the winning (or lack thereof) wasn't what you focused on. Whether the team was in contention or losing 100 games, you'd be watching. Sure, it was great when they won, but the important thing for you was hearing Harry and seeing Wrigley Field and watching the games played.

The current Cubs would be both easy for you to recognize, and completely different. Wrigley Field has gone through some changes, but it's still the same hundred-year-old park with the ivy walls. They've built up an amazing roster, largely with young players that could be around for years. There's no Harry in the broadcast booth, but his face still looks down on the field, and manager Joe Maddon is a kindred off-the-wall soul. They've always sung "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch at Wrigley, and now there's a song after every win, too.

Over the next couple of weeks, as Chicago and Cleveland (yes, the Indians made it too) play for the World Series title, I'll be watching. And I know you are, too.

Love,
Your Grandson Sam

MLB Division Series

Seems like they were in a hurry over in the American League, where both division series ended in sweeps. But neither National League series was a one-sided affair.

I'm not surprised by anything that happens when the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers face off, though I wouldn't have predicted a sweep. The Jays offense came to play, jumping out to big leads in both of the first two games, which is not an easy task against Cole Hamels and Yu Darvish. Toronto was down in the third game but again the offense came through, forcing extra innings. Some shaky Texas defense and good Toronto baserunning led to the walkoff, series-clinching win.

Three losses in a row for Boston, on the other hand, was a major surprise. Most of the year, the Red Sox were scoring ridiculous numbers of runs and pitching fairly well. I kept expecting them to struggle at some point, and it just didn't happen. Well, now it has, at the worst possible time for them. Worked out well for the Indians, though. Two close wins and one big shutout has Cleveland in the championship series.

The Cubs just barely won their first game against the Giants, just a single run scored in a great pitching duel between John Lackey and Johnny Cueto. In game two, Chicago starter Kyle Hendricks was injured by a line drive (fortunately no broken bones) and had to come out. Travis Wood came in and did a solid job in relief, and provided some offense with a home run in another Cubs win. But then the Giants won game 3 in San Francisco, despite Jake Arrieta driving in more runs (3-run homer) than he allowed (2). The Chicago bullpen blew the lead in the 8th and then allowed a walk-off score in the 13th. But in game 4, the Giants bullpen returned the favor by blowing a 3-run lead in the 9th, sending the Cubs on to their second championship series in a row.

I didn't watch much of the Dodgers-Nationals series, but I did see game four. The Nationals won two of the first three, so it was an elimination game for Los Angeles. Clayton Kershaw started on short rest and was pretty impressive after a shaky first inning. He had a 5-2 lead in the 7th, but couldn't quite finish off that inning, and after he left the Nationals tied the game. So the Dodgers had to rally late to win and force a fifth game in Washington, which I'll likely be watching Thursday night.

Regardless of who wins that fifth game in Washington and both championship series, some team is going to break a fairly long World Series drought. Most baseball fans know the Cubs last won in 1908, but it's been a long time for the Indians also - the last Cleveland title was in 1948. It's been since 1988 for the Dodgers, Toronto hasn't won since 1993, and the Nationals franchise hasn't even played in a World Series (in either Washington or Montreal). Some team's fans are going to get a celebration that hasn't been seen in at least a generation.

MLB Wild Card Games Deliver

Well, those Wild Card games certainly lived up to the hype.

Earlier this week when I posted about the upcoming MLB Wild Card games, I was half-expecting one or both of them to be a blowout. In the AL, you had a ton of run-scoring potential on both sides. The NL looked like a great pitching matchup on paper, but how often do those actually work out in real life? Fortunately, both games turned out to be great baseball.

The AL game did come down to home runs, though it wasn't the high-scoring shootout you might expect. Six of the seven runs in the game came off the long ball, including the final three on a walk-off blast by Edwin Encarnacion in the 11th inning. The big story in this game was Oriole manager Buck Showalter choosing not to use Zach Britton, the best reliever in the game this year, with baserunners on in that final inning. But well before that, the Orioles had plenty of chances to go ahead...always the case when a game goes into extra innings...but Toronto was able to hold them off.

In the NL game, the pitching was as good as advertised. Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard matched zeros through seven innings. The Mets went to their bullpen after that, and Giants third baseman Conor Gillaspie drove in the only runs of the game with a home run off Mets closer Jeurys Familia in the top of the ninth inning. Bumgarner ended up closing out the game with yet another shutout performance in an elimination game...he did the same thing to the Pirates in 2014.

So we had one game where the manager chose not to use his best reliever, and lost the game on a home run...and one game where the manager chose to use his best reliever, and lost the game on a home run. Managing a baseball game is no easy task.

While I like the Orioles and would have liked to see them advance, I'm not unhappy that the Blue Jays are moving on to face the Texas Rangers in the AL division series. Who doesn't want to see those two meet up again in the playoffs, after last year's dramatic division series and the bad blood from earlier this year? I'll be pulling for the Blue Jays to win again.

Cleveland and Boston are playing in the other AL division series. I don't particularly care for one or the other, but I suppose I'd rather see the Indians win. Better another midwest team advancing than the Red Sox, if only to avoid hearing endlessly about David Ortiz in his last postseason. I do hope ex-Detroit-Tiger Rick Porcello does well for Boston, though.

As for the NL, can't say I'm enthusiastic about the Giants going to Chicago to face my Cubs. San Francisco can't seem to lose every other season, having won the last 3 World Series in even-numbered years. And it sure would have been nice to have a chance for revenge against the Mets after they eliminated the Cubs last year. But it's the Giants now, and this year's statistics do favor the Cubs. Here's hoping they can live up to it.

In the other NL division series, I don't really have a particular favorite. Regardless of who wins between Washington and Los Angeles, I'll be hoping they lose in the next round, ideally to the Cubs.

Should be quite a week of baseball in the division series. Looking forward to all the dramatics!

A Day Off, then MLB Wild Cards

One brief day off, then the MLB playoffs get started.

I was hoping that Monday wouldn't be a day off. We might have had a Tigers-Indians game today, if Detroit had managed to beat the Atlanta Braves and either Baltimore or Toronto had lost. No luck on any of those, so the Tigers missed the postseason by 2.5 games. Rough ending for the Tiger offense, who managed only 3 runs in the final two games. You have to beat the bad teams to have a shot at the playoffs, and Detroit wasn't doing that down the stretch.

We could also have seen a game today if the Giants and Cardinals had ended up tied for the second NL wild card spot. But San Francisco beat the Los Angeles Dodgers to grab that spot, even though St. Louis won as well. For a while it looked like the Giants were going to fade enough in the second half of the season to miss the playoffs, but they did just enough to squeak in on the final regular season day.

The wild card games this year couldn't be much more evenly matched, at least as far as regular season records are concerned. Both AL teams have 89 wins, and both NL teams have 87. The games will be in Toronto and New York since the Blue Jays and Mets won the season series against their opponents, but it was only by one game in both cases.

I had thought the Blue Jays would win the AL East, but losing 16 games in September kept them from keeping up with Boston. The Orioles were slightly better, losing only 12 games in the final month, staying just ahead of Detroit. Both of these teams are sluggers, so this game could well be decided by who hits more home runs.

The story in New York will be the pitching matchup. Madison Bumgarner for Giants, and Noah Syndergaard for the Mets. Those are the top two NL pitchers in ERA that don't play for the Chicago Cubs, and both are in the top 5 in the NL in strikeouts. Combine that with the fact that both New York and San Francisco are in the bottom half of the NL in offense, and this could be a real pitcher's duel.

Of course, now that I've said that, we'll probably see a 1-0 game in the AL and a blowout in the NL. Because baseball.

NWSL Playoffs

Playoff time for the National Women's Soccer League begins this weekend.

The first semi-final match has already been played, with the Washington Spirit hosting the Chicago Red Stars. Looked like a pretty wet night out in Maryland just north of Washington D.C. More than four thousand fans still made it out to the match, though.

Washington looked like the better side through most of regulation time, in my opinion, with many more offensive chances and better ball control for about 75 minutes. They had the 1-0 lead at halftime on an Ali Krieger goal. Of course, since there's so few goals scored in most soccer games, it just needs to be close for both sides to have a chance. That's certainly how this one played out, with Chicago finally getting their offense going late and Christen Press getting the equalizer. She almost won it, too, but hit the crossbar on what looked like a near-certain shot at the end of regulation in stoppage time. That miss meant extra time, in which I thought both sides had some decent scoring chances. Only the Spirit were able to put one home, though, thanks to a great team effort with multiple passes right around the penalty area leading to a Francisca Ordega goal. That sent Washington to the NWSL final with a 2-1 win.

The other semi-final happens Sunday in Portland, with my Thorns playing the Western New York Flash. Portland finished the regular season strong, ending up on top of the standings to win the NWSL Shield. Looking forward to watching that one. Sadly, it's a long way from Michigan to Portland so I won't be there in person, but it'll be on FS1 and I can get that through Playstation Vue. I'll be ready in front of the TV with my Tobin Heath jersey on.

Regardless of who wins this weekend, I'll be watching the championship match next week. That's in Houston on Sunday October 9th. Of course, I'll be much happier if Portland is one of the participants - go Thorns!

Chicago Cubs, NL Central Champions

The Cubs have clinched the National League Central Division Championship for the first time since 2008! Time to start worrying about the post-season.

Chicago clinched the division last night, when the St. Louis Cardinals lost. Not exactly how you want to do it, since the Cubs lost their game earlier in the day to Milwaukee. A Cubs fan is almost as happy when the Cardinals lose as when the Cubs win, though - we'll take it.

It'll be at least a few more days before anyone else has a division title. The Washington Nationals and Texas Rangers could each win their divisions sometime in the next week, though it may take a bit longer. Cleveland would likely be next after that, unless Detroit gets its act together and beats the Indians a bunch of times in their 7 games over the next two weeks. The NL West and AL East might come down to the last weekend of the season.

As a Cubs fan, I'm naturally predisposed to look at ways that things could go wrong. So, here's some bad news:

• Since the Cubs last won the division in 2008, no NL Central champion has won the World Series. 
• Chicago is likely to play the wild card winner in the first playoff round. The Giants, Mets, and Cardinals are the front-runners for that spot. Cubs combined record against those teams this year: 13-16.
• The Cubs haven't won an NLCS since 1945. Four attempts, four losses. (And the less said about 2003 in particular, the better.)
• The pressure. The Cubs are actually favorites to win it all, which adds the weight of expectations to the already pressure-packed playoff atmosphere. And of course just being the Chicago Cubs, with their 100+ years of losing, is a whole world of pressure all its own.
• Home field advantage is important in the World Series. Due to the (incredibly stupid) rule that the All-Star Game winner gets home-field advantage, the American League champion will have that advantage this year.

Having said all that...this could still be the year. Expect the worst and hope for the best, always a useful attitude, and especially for Cubs fans. Bring on October!

MLB: Down the Stretch

It's September, and that means MLB pennant races. Although that's sort of an outdated phrase, since winning the pennant requires winning at least two post-season series. September these days is about the race to the wild card and division titles.

With around 20 games left, half the divisions are already just about wrapped up. In the AL West, the Texas Rangers are up by 8.5 games over the Houston Astros, and in the NL East the Nationals have 8 games on the New York Mets. Then there's the NL Central, where the Chicago Cubs have a 16 (!) game lead on the St. Louis Cardinals. It will take a collapse of epic proportions over the last few weeks for any of those teams to lose the division.

The AL Central and NL West aren't totally out of reach yet, but it's getting close. Cleveland leads Detroit by 6 games, and the Los Angeles Dodgers have 5 games on the San Francisco Giants. All those teams play one another several times down the stretch, so it's possible a miracle could happen. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

The real race to watch is in the AL East, where Boston, Toronto, and Baltimore are all clustered together at the top. There's a bunch of games left between those three teams, so it could go to any of them. I still think Toronto has the best chance, like I said back in May, but that's certainly nothing more than a guess.

Then we have the wild card races. I don't like the single-game wild card playoff much, since any one game in baseball doesn't tell you a whole lot about which team is better - it's more about which side has one or two players get hot that night. But I do love the race to those wild card spots at the end of the regular season. A whole lot of fans can get excited about their team's chances even if they're way behind in the divisional races. It's good for the game, even if someone does have to go home after just one game in the post-season.

If I had to guess right now, I'd say that Boston and Detroit will get the AL spots, and St. Louis and New York in the NL. But there are several other teams in each league that have good shots at those spots. If we're lucky, maybe the races will be extremely close and we'll get a game 163 or two. It'll be fun to see how it all works out down the stretch.

American Football Season

It's the first big weekend of the (American) football season, with most colleges playing their first game. The NFL gets underway next week.

I like football, though baseball will always be my favorite of the major sports. It's certainly entertaining to watch, with plenty of action in each play. The sport is an interesting mix between strategy and individual skill. The plays called on each side are like a chess match between the coaching staff on each side, with the intent of getting the best players on each team in a position to use their skills to fullest.

Another interesting aspect of football is how much every game matters. College teams only play a dozen or so games in the regular season, and the pros just a few more. Just one bad day can make a huge difference to an entire season. There's always some kind of drama at the end of the season about which teams are going on the post-season. It happens in other sports as well, but in football, the final games have high drama just about every year.

Watching football is a bit of a guilty pleasure due to the inherent danger in the sport. The big story in recent years has been about brain injury, brought about by very large men hitting one another repeatedly in the head. There's also problems with addiction to painkillers and other drugs, on top of the purely physical issues inherent in any sport (especially such a violent one). In college and the NFL these days, I feel that the players have been sufficiently informed about the risks to make their own adult decisions. (Though that may not have been the case in the past.) But even today, I oppose the idea of high school and youth contact football. It's more dangerous for still-developing bodies, and I'd rather see the decision about such a risky activity left to those who have reached the age of majority.

This year, I've also joined a fantasy football league at the urging of some friends. I've never been a big fan of the fantasy sports games. I've tried it a few times, and generally get tired of it part-way through the season. Playing with friends makes it a bit more interesting, though. So I'll probably manage to maintain interest through the end of the year, if for no other reason than to try for some bragging rights.

Some kind of unexpected happenings crop up in the football season every year. This year won't be any different, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it unfolds.

Olympics Thoughts, Final Weekend

Another collection of thoughts from watching the Olympics on the final weekend.

• I very much enjoyed watching the women's triathlon on Saturday. I was a bit disappointed that NBC showed very little of the men's race earlier in the week, but we got the whole women's race. I assume that was because American Gwen Jorgensen was one of the favorites. She came through with the gold medal win, which was especially nice after she had bike troubles back in 2012. And she was an accountant until just a few years ago - an inspiration to cubicle-dwellers everywhere!
• The bronze medal match for women's volleyball was a good one, at least through the first three sets. The US ended up winning the fourth to defeat the Netherlands, but I didn't get to see it since the local NBC station broke in for the better part of an hour with weather reports. There was a thunderstorm and tornado warning in neighboring counties, but that was already scrolling along the bottom of the screen. Severe weather is bad, I get it, but there's plenty of ways to disseminate that information that doesn't require preempting live TV.
• Brazil versus Germany for the men's gold medal in soccer - couldn't have written that up any better for drama value. After their 7-1 World Cup loss a couple of years ago to the Germans, the entire Brazilian populace was hoping for a rematch. Fortune smiled on the home side in the first half, as the Germans had several good chances go off the goal frame, while Neymar scored for Brazil on a shot that just glanced off the crossbar and in. Germany tied it up in the second half, and neither side could score again through regulation and extra time. So it ended in penalty kicks, never the most satisfying of endings, but I don't think anyone in Brazil cared when Neymar put in the fifth and clinching shot. The celebration in the Maracana was just as loud and emotional as if they'd won by 10.
• No weather interruptions in the gold medal match for women's volleyball, fortunately, and it was a good one. China started out terribly against Serbia, losing the first set badly, but then got it together to win the next three sets. Much like the tournament overall for China - started badly, ended great. History for both sides: the silver is Serbia's first ever medal in this event, and China coach Lang Ping is the first ever to both win a volleyball gold as a player and lead a team to gold as a coach.
• I'd never heard of Israeli marathoner Ageze Guadie before his name came up in Sunday's men's marathon. He's part of a group of Ethiopian Jews who were taken from poverty and famine into Israel. Guadie just barely qualified for Rio at the last opportunity, and certainly he didn't have much chance at a medal. But he was able to go to Rio, not only an opportunity for him, but a chance to draw attention to his people's situation. Great story.
• Tokyo's bit in the closing ceremonies was right up my alley. Shinzo Abe coming up out of a Mario pipe, Hello Kitty and Pacman cameos, anime references...fun stuff. The 2020 opening ceremony should be something to see.

Olympics Thoughts, Late Week Two

Another collection of thoughts from watching the Olympics on Thursday and Friday, on the second week of competition.

• On Thursday, about an hour was dedicated to a documentary film on Martha and Bela Karolyi which was really well done. It followed their personal and professional journey across 50+ years, starting in Romania then moving to the United States. I knew the high points - all those Olympic gymnastics champions that they coached - but much of the rest of their journey was new to me. Great story of love, perseverance, and amazing success across decades.
• I still think that media coverage of the US swimmers' late night altercation has blown the whole thing out of proportion, but the facts certainly seem to indicate that it's their own fault. It's disappointing that Olympic athletes weren't able to stay under control and be good representatives, particularly those from the US, and worse that they appear to have lied about it. They certainly deserve to be punished, and I'm glad an overdue apology was finally made. Hopefully now it'll be out of the news cycle.
• Ashton Eaton and Brianne Theisen-Eaton are almost too good to be true. Gorgeous young couple who are both medal-winners in the decathlon? Marketers' wet dream. I'm pretty sure NBC showed a bit more coverage of the decathlon because of them, which is fine by me. Every Olympic athlete is amazing, but those in the decathlon are the most impressive of all in my book.
• Here's something you didn't hear about in the Olympics coverage: gay/lesbian athletes. I know they were participating - I can think of four off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are many more. A few of the "meet the athlete" segments mentioned same-sex fiances or spouses, with no more or less emphasis than with hetero couples. Whether you agree with the lifestyle or not, I think it's great that the personal life of competitors is no longer newsworthy. (This aspect of it, at least.) 
• Congratulations to the US women's water polo team, who won the gold medal game against Italy on Friday, and it wasn't even close. The most dominating performance of any of the team sports that I watched, although US women's basketball is up there as well. Lots of very young players, including the youngest water polo gold medalist ever (Aria Fischer), so it'll probably be a very similar story in 2020.
• The big story of Friday night was, of course, Usain Bolt and his Jamaica teammates winning yet another gold medal in the 4x100 relay. It tells you something about just how big a star Bolt is that the NBC coverage was focused heavily on him, rather than the 3rd-place US team. They did get back to the US eventually, unfortunately for a bad reason, as they were disqualified for an illegal baton pass. 

Olympics Thoughts, Early Week Two

Another collection of thoughts from watching the Olympics on Monday through Wednesday, on the second week of competition.

• I caught the badminton men's doubles quarter-finals match between Malaysia and Korea, and it was amazing. The speed of the game and reaction times required from those guys is incredible. I know nothing about Olympic-level badminton, but the announcers were saying that the Koreans were huge favorites. Nonetheless, the Malaysian team took them to a third set and then pulled ahead, winning in the end by two points.
• I've probably seen a steeplechase race at some point in a prior Olympics, but I don't remember it. This time around I'm finding it to be one of the more interesting races to watch - 3 kilometers, a bunch of hurdles, and even a water hazard after one of the jumps. Congratulations in particular to Emma Coburn, the first American woman ever to medal in the event with a bronze.
• Poland's Anita Wlodarczyk won the women's hammer throw, setting a world record in the process. Her reaction right afterward was great, celebrating well before the hammer landed - she knew right away it was a great throw. Most of the time, the athletes are looking for scores or waiting on judges in those kind of events, but it was fun to see someone so confident right away for a change.
• They really like their volleyball in Brazil. The home country's athletes always get big crowds and cheers, of course, but it sure seemed like the spectators were especially worked up for Monday's matches. I watched both the beach and indoor men's volleyball matches on Monday, and the crowd noise was huge. Nice to see both Brazil teams advance, although it's too bad that the beach win was at the expense of the US men. Same big fan base on Tuesday, but things didn't go so well as the Brazilian women's indoor team was beaten by China, and the top-ranked women's beach volleyball duo lost. It wasn't until the very early morning Wednesday that Brazil finally pulled off another big volleyball win, on the beach over the top US women's duo in the midnight madness match. They lost both the medal games, so Brazil ended up with just the one silver medal on the beach. The crowd was fully into every match, win or lose for the home teams.
• The Brazil women's soccer team ran into the same Swedish defensive wall that took down the US women, and lost the same way, on penalty kicks. Unlike the US match, though, it sure looked to me as if Brazil was the better side almost the entire way through. I know FIFA makes rules changes even slower than MLB does, but I sure wish the game encouraged more of an offensive stance. Perhaps giving the team with more shots on-frame an advantage in the penalties, to discourage the kind of defend-until-time-runs-out stance we've been seeing.
• This whole mess with US swimmers reporting being robbed at gunpoint is being blown all out of proportion. It's getting more coverage than a lot of the events. I'm not surprised - drama sells - but I'll be really happy when it goes away.

Olympics Thoughts, Weekend Two

Another collection of thoughts from watching the Olympics on Saturday and Sunday, the second weekend of competition.

• The early heats of the 100 meter races rivaled swimming for over-coverage. Literally hours of those first-round races, both men and women. There's a whole lot of other sports going on, NBC. No reason you couldn't use those hours to show some of them, and just the highlights of those preliminary rounds (i.e. Bolt and Fraser-Pryce). I fast-forwarded through most of it.
• Speaking of swimming, it's finally over. I enjoyed the approximately 15 minutes of actual finals races, and mostly ignored the other 200 hours. Slight overstatement, maybe, but it sure felt that way.
• Mo Farah of Great Britian won the men's 10k, but it wasn't easy. He actually fell down early on! Recovered nicely, though, and it was clear he was just plain faster than everyone else on the last lap. Nice to see him defend his medal from London, which was one of the great moments of those Games.
• It feels like there should be some kind of weighting to the medals from different events, instead of just focusing on overall counts. Sure, Michael Phelps won a metric boatload of medals, but a single water polo medal probably required just as much effort by a whole group of swimmers. I suppose it doesn't really matter, but the focus on medal count just annoys me.
• You know the security measures are pretty extensive, but most of the time, the media coverage avoids showing it. But during the women's marathon on Sunday, there were a few times where armed soldiers standing guard were very obviously positioned right by the course. Gives me mixed feelings seeing that - glad the protection is there, but it's kind of sad that it's necessary.
• The big hype on Sunday night was for Usain Bolt, of course, but if you only watched him then you missed South African Wayde van Niekerk setting a world record in the men's 400 meter race a few minutes earlier. NBC had a nice piece on van Niekerk before the race, showing him with his coach and his mom - an athlete in her own right, but in her day, apartheid limited her opportunities. I was thinking that his was one of the better stories regardless of how well he ran, and then it became amazing with that world record run.

Olympics Thoughts, Late Week One

Another collection of thoughts from watching the Olympics on Wednesday through Friday.

• I missed a lot of the rugby, but since I decided to try out Playstation Vue for access to extra coverage, I was able catch the men's medal matches. Both matches were blowouts, which I had not expected. South Africa beating Japan wasn't a surprise, even as a blowout, although the Japanese certainly put up a fight early on. I thought the Springboks were a bit unsportsmanlike at the end, running up the score with no time left on the clock. Perhaps some revenge from the South Africa loss to Japan in last year's Rugby Union World Cup? In the gold medal match, though, I expected a closer score. I was pulling for Fiji to win their first ever Olympic medal, and boy did they deliver. Great Britain looked completely outmatched in the first half, and by the time they gathered themselves it was already over. Congratulations to the Fiji Bati!
• I remember watching the US women's water polo team win gold in London four years ago, with this teenager named Maggie Steffens setting scoring records and winning the MVP awards. She's 23 years old now and it looks like she could be just as dominant in Rio, but seems to me that she's purposefully letting others get involved. There are plenty of team members even younger than Maggie, so it looks like the US women will have a solid team for years to come.
• The weather got involved with rain, and enough wind to delay some events (such as rowing). It certainly affected the cycling, where at least one rider slipped on wet pavement and went down. Looked a bit chilly for events like beach volleyball, too. Part of the risk you run when holding summer events in the winter (southern hemisphere), but I suspect everyone is happier with this than the alternative of heat and humidity that you'd get in a Brazilian summer.
• Speaking of weather, it's affecting even some sports that I wouldn't have expected, such as indoor volleyball. Apparently the concourse of that venue is open to the outside, so outside winds can blow through the doorways and swirl around the playing area. No roof on the diving and water polo pools, either, which apparently isn't completely unheard of but not what you usually see. A couple of times, rain was falling hard enough that it was pretty obviously affecting the athletes' concentration.
• NBC is doing some interesting things with their people, having them do some unfamiliar things. The Golf Channel's David Feherty spent some time with swimmer Ryan Lochte at his home in North Carolina, for example, and I thought it was a pretty good piece. I was less impressed with Pierre McGuire as poolside reporter for water polo, though.
• The diving pool turned a weird green color, which prompted some comment and concern. Then the water polo pool next to it started to show the same. Apparently it's a problem with the pH balance in the pools, and doesn't pose any danger to health for the athletes in the water. It's got to be disconcerting, though, when you're standing on a diving board and trying to concentrate.
• Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena of the US played an amazing beach volleyball match against Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo of Italy on Thursday afternoon. Both teams were going to advance anyway, so this match was just to determine seeding for the knockout rounds, but you'd have thought this was the gold medal match from the way they went at it. Three sets and 17 extra points before the US finally won it. We can only hope the medal matches are nearly this good.
• Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia ran an amazing 10k race to win gold on Friday, breaking the world record by nearly 15 seconds. Her time of 29:17.45 is about what I run...in a 5k. And it looked to me as if she could have kept going for a while! Congratulations to her on an incredible run and a well-deserved gold medal.
• Friday was a disappointing day for US women's soccer. The US team dominated ball possession, but allowed so many scoring opportunities to go by the wayside. The chances were there - 27 shots by the US to only 6 for Sweden - but the finish wasn't. The match ended in a penalty kick shootout won by Sweden, but really the US shouldn't have gotten that far. Their one goal came off an incredibly lucky bounce off a defender's head, and Sweden had a goal disallowed that should have counted. You never want to see your team lose, but in this case, I'm glad Sweden won the shootout. They deserved the win, after the inability of the US team to convert their opportunities into goals. And as for Hope Solo - who called the Swedes "cowards" after the game - I hope we've seen the last of her in USWNT play. I'd much rather see Alyssa Naeher take over in goal.
• Seeing Michelle Carter take the US flag from her father Michael after her gold medal win in the shot put was fantastic. He's a silver medalist in the event himself, and though he wasn't showing a lot of emotion, you could just feel his pride in his daughter and her accomplishment. Great family moment.