Make the Bowls Great Again

It’s college football bowl season and we’re approaching the fifth edition of the College Football Playoff.  This is the second straight year that the Big 10 and Pac 12 have been left out.  So there’s lots of talk of playoff expansion.  I don’t love the idea of playoff expansion.  One of the best things about college football is how every game means so much.  As you let more teams into the playoff, the regular season becomes less important.  Of course in college basketball, the regular season is pretty much meaningless.  The good teams just have to do well enough to get into the NCAA Tournament (which might mean .500 in conference play in the best conferences).  For teams that aren’t in major conferences, all that really matters for most of them is winning their conference tournament to get to the NCAA tournament.  I don’t want to diminish the college football regular season.  But if the College Football Playoff is going to expand (and it probably will at some point), I’ve put a lot of thought into how to do it.

I had a first attempt at a playoff expansion proposal at the end of last season.  There were some issues with my proposal.  The Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Peach Bowl wouldn’t be equal to the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Orange Bowl.  They’d only be playoff bowls one out of every three years and people wouldn’t care about them when they’re not playoff bowls.  Here’s what it would have looked like this year under my first proposal:

Rose Bowl:  Ohio State vs. Washington
Sugar Bowl:  Alabama vs. UCF
Orange Bowl:  Clemson vs. Georgia
Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, or Peach Bowl:  Oklahoma vs. Notre Dame

Another problem is that you’d end up with weird matchups.  Why does Ohio State get to play the lowest ranked team?  So yeah, I could live with a system like that, but I never thought it was that realistic anyway.  I’ve modified that idea and come up with something much more realistically possible.  I don’t anticipate that this is how playoff expansion will happen, but I would love to see it happen this way:

The basic idea is that you have a four team playoff after the bowls.  That’s kind of what my first idea was, but now I’m making all six major bowls matter.  How cool would it be if you had two days with three bowls each that could actually matter?  That would restore some of the tradition of the bowls.  For example, in the 1977 college football season, Notre Dame went into the bowls ranked number 5.  We beat Texas who was ranked number 1 in the Cotton Bowl.  Number 2 Oklahoma lost the Orange Bowl and number 4 Michigan lost the Rose Bowl and Notre Dame won the National Championship.  You had three bowls that had a hand in determining the National Championship.

So my new idea is that you have six major bowls.  Four of the winners of those games will advance to the playoff after the bowls:

Rose Bowl:  Big 10 vs. Pac 12
Sugar Bowl:  SEC vs. at large
Orange Bowl:  ACC vs. at large
Cotton Bowl:  Big 12 vs. at large
Fiesta Bowl:  Group of 5 or highest ranked at large vs. at large
Peach Bowl:  Group of 5 or highest ranked at large vs. at large

You’d have conference champions plus a Group of 5 representative plus the highest ranked at large team filling up seven of the 12 spots.  So this year Notre Dame and UCF would be assigned to the Fiesta and Peach Bowls.  I’d give the higher ranked team between the highest ranked at large team and the Group of 5 representative the choice of which bowl they want to go to.  So this year Notre Dame would get the choice.  Notre Dame might prefer playing in the Peach Bowl because it’s closer.  But maybe they’d prefer playing in the Fiesta Bowl based on the opponent.  The at large teams would be the highest ranked teams that aren’t are left after those first seven spots are taken.  So the question would be how do you assign the at large teams?  I think I would just do it randomly.  I would avoid rematches from the regular season.  I could live with Alabama and Florida playing because they didn’t play in the regular season.  But if you wanted to make it so that there wouldn’t be any conference matchups, I’m cool with that too.  So I used a random number generator to hypothetically fill out what it could look like this year:

Rose Bowl:  Ohio State vs. Washington
Sugar Bowl:  Alabama vs. Penn State
Orange Bowl:  Clemson vs. Georgia
Cotton Bowl:  Oklahoma vs. Michigan
Fiesta Bowl:  Notre Dame vs. Florida
Peach Bowl:  UCF vs. LSU

I assume Notre Dame would choose to play Florida in Arizona rather than Georgia, but if we had drawn Penn State, maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference where we played.  If there had been an at large team from that Pac 12 that we drew, we’d almost certainly prefer to play in the Peach Bowl.

So they play the games and then rank the winners.  The top four go to the playoff with the semifinals happening on the campuses of the two highest ranked teams.  Obviously, if the top four teams won with the match ups I have, they’re going to the playoff.  If you get some upsets, then it gets interesting.  You’d also have a situation where UCF is hoping to draw the best possible team.  Beating LSU wouldn’t do much to help their chances of getting to the playoff.  If there’s one upset of the top four teams, the Rose Bowl winner probably gets in.  But if UCF played Georgia and won, that might get them in ahead of the Rose Bowl winner.

So you’d have six major bowls that all have the possibility of mattering.  You don’t necessarily have 12 teams with a chance of winning a National Championship, but you have at least eight.  LSU likely has no chance with the matchups that I have.  They would have been much better off drawing Clemson or Notre Dame.  As the lowest ranked team to get in, Penn State likely doesn’t have a chance, but drawing Alabama would be their best case scenario.  Let’s say Penn State, Florida, and LSU all won.  At least one of those teams would be going to the playoff.  Beating Alabama would probably be enough for them to jump Florida and LSU.

One problem with my plan would be potential conflict with the NFL Playoffs.  I’ve long advocated for pushing back the Super Bowl to the day before Washington’s Birthday.  I’d also greatly prefer having the National Championship Game on a Saturday.  With the calendar this year, my college playoff system, and the Super Bowl on February 17, that would put the National Championship Game and the Wild Card round on the same weekend.  My answer to that would be to work out some TV deal where you have two NFL Playoff games that afternoon and then the National Championship Game in prime time.  Another possibility would be having the National Championship Game on the weekend between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl.

I’d make a couple other changes to college football.  I’d probably get rid of conference championship games or at least get rid of divisions.  Getting rid of conference championship games would eliminate the possibility of a team like Northwestern or Pittsburgh this year being a conference champion.  As for divisions, if you look at the SEC and ACC for example, with eight conference games and two seven-team divisions, you’re playing everybody in your division and then only two of the seven teams in the other division.  There’s been a move toward nine conference games, but I’d prefer eight conference games and then more good non-conference games.  As for getting rid of divisions, you’d be playing some teams in your conference on a much more regular basis.  Of course, you wouldn’t be playing the teams that were in your division as much.  My answer to that would be to have each team have one or two protected rivals that they play each year, but then you rotate your other conference games each year.  I’d actually be for keeping divisions if you have a conference with 12 teams as long as there are no protected rivalries across the divisions.  You could play every team in your division every year and then you play every team in the other division once every two years.  But the Pac 12 is the only major conference with 12 teams right now anyway.

The other change is that I’d want to get rid of teams playing FCS teams.  That might be difficult.  Some states might have political stuff involved with state schools playing each other.  But I’d definitely make it so that you can’t play an FCS opponent after the second weekend in October (no more of this SEC nonsense of playing FCS teams the week before Thanksgiving).  And I’d at least try to limit it to like two FCS opponents every five years or something.

Anyway, I’d love to see playoff expansion happen this way.  I’ve heard the possibility of an eight-team playoff with the first round on campus.  Then you’d have two playoff bowls (which is what we have now), but the other bowls would be even more meaningless.  Would the losers of the quarterfinal games go to bowls?  If they do, is there any reason to care about the outcome?  If they don’t, now you’re taking four of the best teams out of the bowls.  My plan would make the bowls matter more.

Go Irish!

Playoffs? Are You Kidding Me?

Notre Dame has made it to the College Football Playoff.  I meant to do this post last week, but I’ve been busy.  Much like in 2012, it came down to a game on the road against USC.  I definitely expected to win.  I thought it would be pretty easy, but we got off to a bad start.  USC went up 10-0 in the second quarter and the score stayed that way until the last three minutes of the quarter.  We finally scored a touchdown on a nice pass from Ian Book to Chris Finke.  Finke seemed like the only Notre Dame player who came to play in the first half.  We got the ball back before halftime, but some bad clock management by Brian Kelly cost us a chance to get at least three more points.  The half ended up on a completed Hail Mary inside the five yard line.  We had a timeout that we didn’t use on the possession.  If we had used it, we could have run another play or two to either set up a field goal or have a better shot at a touchdown.

I was pretty annoyed at the start of the game.  People from work were texting about bringing in ornaments for the Christmas tree in the office.  I did not care one bit about that when we were playing terribly in our biggest game in the last six years.  But when we went into halftime down only three after playing a terrible first half, I felt very good.  All we had to do was play one good half and we were going to win.  I had confidence that USC wouldn’t play as well in the second half because they just weren’t very good this year.  Dexter Williams gave us the lead early in the second half on a 52-yard run.  We never looked back.  A field goal made it 17-10 late in the third quarter.  We were totally outplaying USC in the second half, but it was still a one possession game.  That changed when Tony Jones took a short pass 51 yards for the touchdown with 3:09 left.  It didn’t look like it was going to be a huge play right away, but it got to a point where only one defender had any chance and Jones had Miles Boykin as a blocker.  I was calling for Jones to cutback as the play was happening and when he did, Miles Boykin took out the last defender with a great block.  At that point, the game was pretty much over.  I was watching the game with my brother Sean.  He was lying down.  I think it was after the Jones touchdown that Sean put his hands up in the air and I just slapped one of his hands without thinking.  It made me think of how the high five was invented spontaneously at Dodger Stadium in 1977.  Anyway, USC scored a touchdown, but we finished the regular season with a 24-17 win over USC, the same score that we beat Michigan by to start the season.

So we are going to our first College Football Playoff.  Strangely, we’re the first team to wear blue to make the playoff.  We are a big underdog against Clemson and we should be.  I don’t really expect to win, but I do think we have a chance.  Everybody remembers what happened when we took on Alabama six years ago for the National Championship.  Nobody seems to remember three games that were more recent than that:

October 18, 2014:  Florida State 31, Notre Dame 27.  Never have I been less upset with Brian Kelly about a loss.  We deserved to win that game and some terrible officiating killed us at the end.  That Florida State team went 12-0 before losing to Oregon in the playoff (they’d say they were 13-0, but I refuse to give any of the teams I’m about to talk about any credit for beating FCS teams).

October 3, 2015:  Clemson 24, Notre Dame 22.  The game was played in a huge rain storm.  We got off to a bad start and made a valiant effort at a comeback.  Brian Kelly went for two before he needed to and we didn’t get it.  We scored with seven seconds left and failed at another two point conversion.  Kick two extra points and we’re going to overtime (this wasn’t the first or the last time that Brian Kelly has made this mistake).  That Clemson team went 13-0 before losing 45-40 against Alabama in the National Championship Game.

September 9, 2017:  Georgia 20, Notre Dame 19.  Georgia never led by more than one in this game.  It was close for the whole game, but we couldn’t pull it out.  That Georgia team went 12-1 before losing 26-23 in overtime against Alabama in the National Championship Game.

Three games against teams who made the playoff in our four previous seasons.  All three were highly competitive.  We just haven’t come out on top yet and I’m not going to believe that we will until we actually do.  I think Brian Kelly will have the team ready to play a competitive game, but I’m going to predict a loss.  You think you know how much I want to be wrong, but most of you probably don’t understand.

I’ve had a complicated relationship with Brian Kelly as Notre Dame’s head coach.  I wanted him fired after 4-8 in 2016 (his seventh year).  That would have been totally defensible, but keeping him has worked out.  If we compare this season to 2012, it feels very different.  2012 felt like a magical season and we were a team of destiny.  It looked like we might go undefeated and not make it to the National Championship Game because Oregon and Kansas State were ahead of us.  And then they both unexpectedly lost on November 17.  We were number 1 and all was good in the world.  But that might have been what cost us a National Championship because that meant we had to play Alabama instead of one of those two teams.  Still, I thought we would beat Alabama (crazy in hindsight, I know).  This year has been fun.  After 2012, I didn’t know if we could get back to this point.  And now here we are.  But the big difference is that I have no expectation of winning it all.  I think we have a chance to beat Clemson, but if we do, I’m definitely not expecting to beat Alabama.  Going back to Brian Kelly, I wanted him fired after 2016.  After 2017, I said that he needed to make a major bowl this year.  Well, we’re not going to the Peach Bowl or the Fiesta Bowl (which I would have been satisfied with), we’re going to the Cotton Bowl in the College Football Playoff.  If he loses to Clemson, there’s no shame in that (I really don’t want to get blown out, though).  But we need to get to where Clemson and Alabama are.  They are clearly the best two programs in college football.  I mean, I guess Ohio State is pretty close, but I have have no desire to have anything in common with Ohio State other than beating Michigan all the time and winning lots of games every year, but Urban Meyer will be gone soon and they’ll most likely take at least a little bit of a step back.  Winning a major bowl has to happen soon.  It’s been far too long.  And then we need to win a National Championship (also far too long).

Just some quick thoughts on Oklahoma making the playoff and some silly thoughts we’ve heard this season.  I don’t want to see Oklahoma in the playoff.  Their defense is terrible.  Like really, really bad.  They’re going to lose to Alabama 56-24.  I’d rather see UCF get a chance (even though they’d probably lose 63-10).  I’d rather see Georgia play Alabama because as we’ve seen, Georgia can give them a game.  However, Georgia doesn’t deserve it.  While I definitely think Georgia is better than Oklahoma, the games have to matter.  Georgia lost by three scores against LSU.  They had their chance against Alabama and blew it.  If you’re not going to give UCF a chance, Oklahoma is the most deserving team.  Along those same lines, we heard for two months that even though Notre Dame beat Michigan and was undefeated, Michigan was better.  Fortunately, Ohio State put an end to that.  Obviously there are lots of factors to consider, but when two teams played each other and there are no other losses between the two of them, no other factors really matter besides head to head.

We play Oklahoma in basketball tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden.  Tickets are weirdly expensive.  It is a doubleheader, but it’s December and the four teams are Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Florida, and West Virginia.  It’s not like we’re talking about Syracuse, Villanova, and Duke, and somebody (there’s a lot more interest in Notre Dame football than Notre Dame basketball in New York).  So it looks like I’m not going.  But maybe I’ll be totally wrong about football and we’ll be playing them in football next month for the National Championship.

Go Irish!

New York's College Football Team

Notre Dame is one win away from the College Football Playoff.  I attended my first Notre Dame football game in over two years (the longest I’ve gone in between games).  My last game was the disaster against Duke in 2016 (I had no interest in writing a blog post about that one), so the last win I saw was three years ago at Fenway Park.  This was my fifth Shamrock Series game (Yankee Stadium in 2010 and FedEx Field in 2011 before the blog, JerryWorld in 2013, and Fenway Park in 2015).  It was the third Notre Dame game at the New Yankee Stadium (Army in 2010 and the Pinstripe Bowl in 2013).

I drove the the game with Megan (a St. Mary’s alum), her husband Pat (a Notre Dame alum), and her cousin Ben (a Syracuse alum, he also kind of looked like Wilhelm).  I met up with and sat with my former assistant principal’s husband and sons who are all Notre Dame fans.  Getting into the stadium was a total disaster.  We went to go in around 2:00.  Other gates probably would have been better, but where we went in was barely moving.  We ended up getting separated and I got in first.  I made it just in time for kickoff around 2:40.  I don’t get why it was so bad getting in.  Yankee Stadium gets big crowds for Yankee games (not all the time, but somewhat frequently, they were second in the Majors in attendance with an average of 42,998).  My other complaint with Yankee Stadium was that they didn’t make good enough use of the video board and the ribbon boards.  They showed plenty of replays and during timeouts they had stuff about the history of Notre Dame at Yankee Stadium, so that was cool, but they could have provided more information during the game.  They gave you score, time, down and distance, and timeouts remaining.  They could have shown a lot more stats and scores from other games They did that a couple of times during timeouts, but not nearly frequently enough.  Of course, it was a pretty bad weekend of games (our game was easily the best match up of the weekend), but Ohio State almost lost to Maryland and Alabama struggled against the Citadel for more than a half (by the way, that game never should have been played, the SEC teams playing games like that in November is a joke).

As for the game, I admit that I was a little nervous.  I definitely thought that we were better than Syracuse and that we should win.  But it’s hard to win all your games and Syracuse turned out to be the second best team on our schedule this year (they might not be in the top five opponents in terms of talent, but they’ve clearly had a better season than all of our opponents except for Michigan).  And they score a ton of points.  At least they had been scoring a ton of points.  It was a little bit of a frustrating first half.  Syracuse couldn’t cover our receivers and we were moving the ball through the air, but we were having trouble finishing drives.  We scored our first touchdown on a pass from Ian Book to Dexter Williams.  We settled for field goals on our next two drives.  After that, we had a fourth and goal on the one.  Ian Book stumbled on the snap and just threw it up and it was picked off.  So rather than going up 20-0 or giving the ball back to Syracuse on their own one, Syracuse had the ball at their own 20.  Jon texted me, “If this half somehow ends 13-7, that would be tragic.”  But there would be no tragedy.  After an interception, Jafar Armstrong scored a touchdown on a beautiful misdirection play.  We went into halftime up 20-0.

Fortunately you can't tell how terrible our uniforms were in this picture.

The band makes a batter hitting a home run during halftime.  As always, we had the better band.

Our first two drives in the second half resulted in a field goal and a touchdown pass from Book to Miles Boykin.  With a missed extra point, we were up 29-0 and in total control of the game.  Syracuse drilled the upright with a 23 yard field goal.  Who kicks a field goal down 29-0?  They deserved to miss that.  Brandon Wimbush got to play in the fourth quarter and made some nice plays with his legs.  There were some frustrating aspects of this game.  We had four false starts (if I remember correctly) and we struggled to get the running game going.  But on that Wimbush drive, we did it all on the ground.  Dexter Williams finished it off with a 32 yard touchdown run to make it 36-0.  I was really hoping for a shutout, but Syracuse kicked a 28 yard field goal with 10 seconds left.  Congratulations on not getting shut out.  Kicking those field goals was the football equivalent of sacrifice bunting down 8-0 in the ninth.  What’s the point?  If you show some guts and score a touchdown to break up the shutout, congratulations, but kicking field goals was lame.  I figured out after the game that I’ve never been to a shutout.  It would have been cool to see.  With the win, Notre Dame is now 30-12 with me in attendance.  There was a Beat SC chant at the end.  We definitely should beat them.  But they did beat Washington State so we have to go take care of business.

A rare I-formation play for Notre Dame.  We had a touchdown called back because of holding on this play.

The Alma Mater after the game.

The defense was outstanding.  We had six sacks and three interceptions.  Jalen Elliott had one of the interceptions and Alohi Gilman had the other two.  The second one by Gilman was a beautiful play where it looked like a completion, but Gilman separated the receiver from the ball and then picked it off.  While there were some frustrating aspects of the game, we totally dominated the 12th ranked team.  Syracuse isn’t great, but it’s November and they deserved to be ranked 12th.  This wasn’t beating an overrated team in September.  This was domination against a good team.

I’ll finish up with some thoughts about the Shamrock Series.  Some fans hate it.  I disagree.  If we’re going to play seven games on NBC, we can play seven at home or six at home plus a neutral site game.  The problem with playing seven at home is that you’re only playing five away so that means you have to play two games against teams that you’re not giving a return game.  That means you’re getting the likes of Ball State, New Mexico, Bowling Green, Western Michigan, etc.  This year Vanderbilt was one of those games.  That’s about as good of a game that you can get without having to return it.  If I was scheduling those games, I’d try to get them against Vanderbilt, Oregon State, Rutgers, and bad teams like that from Power 5 conferences.  Or I’d go with Boise State and other Group of 5 teams that have had some success in the last couple of decades.  I’d be willing to do two home games and one away game with BYU, Air Force, Army, and some Power 5 teams.  My worst case scenario for those extra home games would be evening up some scores with teams like Tulsa, UConn, and USF.

I can live with the Shamrock Series not being every year, but I definitely wouldn’t get rid of it totally.  I just think we need to fix it.  First of all, stop wearing stupid uniforms.  Please, stop.  We’re Notre Dame, we’re not Maryland.  I was expecting this year’s version to be bad, but I wasn’t prepared.  I was thinking like a blue jersey with white pinstripes.  No, it was much worse.  I could actually live with the jersey (you know, if we’re going to be wearing stupid uniforms, which we shouldn’t be).  But the pants were pretty much the Yankees’ pants.  And the helmet needs to be gold.  But just stop with all the stupidity.  Just wear the regular uniforms.  The gold and blue is beautiful.  Speaking of uniforms, they also messed up the green jerseys.  I don’t like the shade of green that we used, but I can live with it.  The biggest problem is that Notre Dame and Under Armor insist on pairing the green with blue numbers and letters (this isn’t just a football issue, they do it in other sports as well).  It doesn’t look good.  If you’re wearing green, get rid of the blue.  The numbers should be gold with white outlines (or the other way around, but I like gold numbers better with green).

The other issue to fix is who to play and where.  Some fans hate playing in baseball stadiums.  I disagree.  Of course it’s not the same Yankee Stadium, but we have history at Yankee Stadium (we’re now 17-6-3 at either version of Yankee Stadium).  I would take playing in Yankee Stadium over that big sterile stadium in the Meadowlands a million times out of a million.  Yes, some of the sight lines are weird (I’ve actually really liked my view for all three games that we’ve played at the new stadium), but it’s still better than playing in a big NFL stadium with no personality.  I’d be fine with playing in Yankee Stadium once every ten years.  The only other baseball stadiums I’d consider playing in are probably Fenway Park (I’d say once every 20 years because of its smaller capacity), Busch Stadium, Petco Park, Target Field, Nationals Park, AT&T Park, and Dodger Stadium (a long shot because I’m not sure if you can fit a football field in there and we play at USC every other year anyway).  I’m not saying we should play in most of those stadiums, I’m just saying I’d be willing to play there because they’re cool stadiums and either they don’t have an NFL stadium in those cities or I wouldn’t want to play in them (I don’t want to play in a dome in Minneapolis).  I wouldn’t play at Wrigley Field because the last time they played college football there, they couldn’t fit a full field and we could easily fill up Soldier Field anyway (another spot where I’d play once every ten years).  And the opponent needs to make sense.  We could play anybody at Soldier Field.  I’m cool with playing Army at Yankee Stadium because of the history, but we shouldn’t be playing them or Washington State in San Antonio (especially when Washington State was terrible).  I’d be cool with giving 50-50 ticket splits to get some better opponents.  That’s what we’re doing with Wisconsin at Lambeau Field in 2020.  That was the one NFL stadium that I really wanted to play in.  And we got a really good opponent for that game also.  I don’t like how we’re playing them in Soldier Field in 2021 also.  I would have greatly preferred to have a three-game series with a game at Lambeau, a game at Notre Dame, and a game at Wisconsin.  And then we could play anybody else at Soldier Field for the Shamrock Series in 2021.

Anyway, now I have to go to work for three days this week when we have our biggest game in six years coming up on Saturday.  I’m going to be entirely focused on the USC game.  I’ll be wearing a Notre Dame tie all three days.  Go Irish!  Beat Trojans!

1955 Is Coming

It wasn’t to be this year for the Dodgers.  Like last year, their season ended with a 5-1 loss at Dodger Stadium in the World Series.  But it was a very different season.  Last year, the Dodgers were a great team.  Unfortunately, the Astros were also.  It could have gone either way (total runs were 34-34 in the World Series), but the Astros came out on top in a best of seven series.  If they had played 25 games, the Dodgers might have won 13.  This year, the Red Sox were a great team and the Dodgers weren’t.  If they played 25 games, I doubt the Dodgers would have won 13.  Knowing that the Dodgers just weren’t as good as the Red Sox makes it a little bit easier to take.  But on the other hand, it’s disappointing that they moved in the wrong direction this year.

I thought the Dodgers had a chance (and they did).  They weren’t as good as they were last year, but they had a knack for winning when they had to.  It looked like the playoffs were slipping away in late August.  The Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Cardinals all stood in the Dodgers’ way.  At one point in late August, they were four and a half games out.  They lost the first game of a four game series against the Diamondbacks on August 30.  Then they won each of the next three games by a score of 3-2.  They won five out of six against the Rockies in September.  They won three out of four in St. Louis against the Cardinals in September.  In mid-late September the Dodgers were looking good.  The Diamondbacks had been eliminated and the Dodgers had just swept the Rockies.  But the Dodgers lost two out of three in Arizona (meaningless games for the Diamondbacks) and suddenly it looked like the Rockies were in control.  The Dodgers swept the Giants in San Francisco on the last three days of the season to force a tiebreaker with the Rockies for the NL West Championship.  And the Dodgers won that game.  In the NLCS, the Dodgers fell behind 1-0 and 2-1.  They came back and won Game 7 in Milwaukee.  Then they lost the first two games of the World Series.  Once again, they needed to win and they won an all time classic World Series game on Max Muncy’s home run in the bottom of the 18th in Game 3.  They went up 4-0 in Game 4 and it looked like they were going to win another game they needed to win.  And then it all fell apart.

Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo had a good rant about Game 4.  I’m reminded of another famous Mad Dog rant:

He got three.  I’m still looking for one.

I don’t feel like diving into the poor performances.  Their bullpen was great against the Brewers, but terrible against the Red Sox (except for Game 3).  Dave Roberts didn’t manage a good series.  Clayton Kershaw didn’t pitch well.  They got two great starts from their starters and only managed to win one of those games.  They couldn’t hit (16 runs in 54 innings).

I’m interested to see what changes next year brings.  Hopefully Corey Seager is back and healthy.  They should definitely pick up David Freese’s option.  I absolutely want to see Clayton Kershaw back (Jon Weisman explains it better than I can).  I have no interest in seeing Manny Machado or Yasmani Grandal wearing Dodger uniforms again.  We’ll see what free agents they go after.

It’s tough because baseball is so different from basketball (another sport where they play best of seven in the playoffs).  I grew up watching Michael Jordan and you knew what you were getting.  Jordan was going to dominate every game and the Bulls were going to win every year.  In baseball, the best players have games where they do nothing.  Each game is totally different from each other because the starting pitcher changes every day.  The Red Sox were the best team, but would you have been shocked if they lost to the Yankees or Astros in the playoffs?  I wouldn’t have been shocked if the Dodgers had lost to the Braves in the first round.  Weird things can happen in the playoffs and teams that you didn’t expect to do anything in the playoffs can win it all.  Hopefully the 2019 Dodgers are more like the 2017 Dodgers than the 2018 Dodgers, but even if they are, that doesn’t guarantee anything.

Kind of going along with how you don’t know what’s going to happen, playoff baseball is usually so stressful to watch.  Basketball isn’t like that when you have a good enough team.   One of the hosts of my favorite Dodger podcasts usually doesn’t watch their playoff games live because he can’t take it.  I could never not watch, but the games can be tough to take.  The regular season isn’t as stressful, but you have games almost every day.  I’m glad that I can relax and not have to worry about baseball and schedule my sleep around it anymore (I’ll be scheduling which mass I go to around football for the next few months).  But don’t worry, I’ll be ready to go next spring.  As Rogers Hornsby said:  "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."

So the season is over.  It ended in disappointing fashion, but it could have ended much earlier than it did.  There was a lot to enjoy.  They won all those games they needed to win until the World Series.  Max Muncy was a lot of fun.  Walker Buehler has a very bright future.  Clayton Kershaw had two great starts in the playoffs and he finished off Game 7 against the Brewers.  They kept that cheater Ryan Braun from reaching the World Series.  But the Dodgers haven’t reached their goal yet.  Since the Dodgers won their first World Series in 1955, their longest World Series drought had been 16 years from 1965-1981.  They’re now at 30 years.  The Brooklyn Dodgers were the team that never won anything.  When they signed Jackie Robinson, that started to change.  They made it to the World Series in 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, but they couldn’t win it until 1955.  It’s a different world in baseball now.  Back then, you just had to finish with the best record in your league to get to the World Series.  Now you have two rounds of playoffs before the World Series.  But we’ve gone back to those Brooklyn Dodger days.  The Dodgers have won their division and made the playoffs six straight years.  They’ve been to the NLCS in four of those years.  And now they’ve been in the World Series the last two years.  They’re close.  They’re going to do it.  1955 is coming.  Hopefully next year.  It’s going to be great.

Late Hour Max Power

Game 3 deserves a blog post.  It was an amazing game.  First of all, Walker Buehler’s performance kind of gets lost.  He pitched seven amazing innings and then there were 11 more innings after that.  Buehler would be in line to pitch Game 7.  That could change if they use people on short rest or whatever.  But if it gets to Game 7 with Walker Buehler pitching, I like the Dodgers’ chances.

One of my concerns going into the postseason was Kenley Jansen.  He was shaky for much of the regular season, but he had been good in the playoffs until he blew the save last night.  He blew the save in Game 2 of the World Series last year.  The Dodgers lost that game, and that changed the momentum of the series.  But the Dodgers won this game.  If you’re going to blow a save in the World Series, it doesn’t mean too much if your team can find a way to win.

You had Mary Hart making fun of Craig Kimbrel.  That was fantastic.  He does look ridiculous with that pose on the mound.

After Jansen, the bullpen pitched nine innings and gave up one run.  Cody Bellinger saved Pedro Baez in the 10th.  It was a shallow fly ball and I thought Bellinger had a good chance to throw out the runner at the plate.  His throw was so far off line that my dad and I both reacted when it was still in the air like the runner was going to be safe.  But the throw was so strong that it didn’t matter how far off line it was.  The run the Red Sox got in the 13th was pretty silly.  The Dodgers got a silly run in the bottom of the 13th to stay alive.  With Max Muncy on second, Puig hit it sharply up the middle (Cora should have walked Puig to face Barnes).  Off the bat, my dad and I thought it was a hit, but Ian Kinsler was there.  He stumbled and made a bad throw that allowed Max Muncy to score.  If not for that, the game is over and the Dodgers are down 3-0.  Kenta Maeda made a huge play when he got the force out at third on the sacrifice bunt attempt in the 15th.  He had to whirl and throw to third all in one motion and he made a perfect throw.  In the bottom of the the 15th, Max Muncy hit a long fly ball.  Off the bat, I didn’t know if he hit it hard enough.  But as it was in the air, I could tell it had the distance.  I said something like “It’s gone” when I realized it had the distance.  I didn’t think it was going to be foul, but it was just barely foul.

Max Muncy got another chance in the 18th.  He drove it out to left center.  Off the bat, I didn’t know if it had the distance, but it just kept going.  It was gone and it was awesome.  Former Dodger Nathan Eovaldi was outstanding.  He pitched six scoreless before giving up the home run to Muncy.  And now he’s out of the picture for Game 4.

If the Dodgers lost, they would have been in big trouble.  Nobody has ever come back from down 3-0 in the World Series.  I have no idea what is going to happen.  Red Sox in five, Dodgers in six (ideally), something else, anything is possible.  It was the longest World Series game ever.  It took more time than the four combined games of the 1939 World Series.  Since 1908, it was the third longest game by time at 7 hours and 20 minutes (three minutes off from the second longest and 46 minutes off from the longest).  If it doesn’t go the Dodgers’ way, at least they didn’t get swept and they won a classic World Series game.  But thanks to last night, it can still go the Dodgers’ way.  They are alive.  Three more to go.  Let’s Go Dodgers!

World Series Ramblings

I didn’t post anything about the World Series last year on the blog.  I don’t know how coherent this post is going to be.  The Dodgers are back in the World Series.  They’re taking on the Red Sox.  The Red Sox are due for a World Series loss, right?  2003 Jim would think that sentence meant that they hadn’t been to the World Series for a while so they were due to get there and lose because that’s what the Red Sox do in the World Series.  They are the favorite, but anything can happen.  Here are a bunch of random thoughts about the World Series:

I’m the rare Dodgers/Celtics fan.  The Celtics have been in the NBA Finals six times during my lifetime.  I only remember two of them, but five of the six have been against the Lakers.  The two that I remember were against the Lakers.  I love Boston (as in the city, not just the Celtics) and I hate the Lakers.  When the Celtics beat the Lakers in 2008, it was one of the greatest days of my life.  When they lost to the Lakers in 2010, it was one of the toughest losses I’ve ever had as a fan.  If we compare it to other games where my favorite teams had a chance to win a championship, I’m pretty sure it’s the worst loss I’ve ever dealt with as a fan.  The Celtics had a chance to win that game.  And it was a loss to the Celtics’ biggest rival, but at least they had won it two years before.  Notre Dame football is the team I care most about.  When we lost to Alabama, it was over early.  It didn’t hurt nearly as much as Celtics-Lakers in 2008.  Game 7 last year of the World Series hurt a lot too.  I’d rank that in between Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals and the BCS Championship Game.  The Astros jumped on the Dodgers early and it was never really competitive.  But the Dodgers and Astros were evenly matched for the series (total runs were 34-34 for the series).  And it had been 29 years since they had won the World Series.  But still Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals is my worst loss as a sports fan.  A Dodgers-Red Sox World Series is pretty weird for me.  I’m not conflicted in any way, but it’s still weird to be rooting for the Los Angeles team against the Boston team.

Besides sports, I love beer.  I own one share of stock in the Boston Beer Company.  Sam Adams Summer Ale is my favorite beverage.  Clayton Kershaw is my favorite baseball player ever.  I try to drink a Summer Ale whenever he pitches.  But much like I won’t drink Sam Adams when the Patriots are in the Super Bowl, I can’t drink Sam Adams when the Dodgers are playing the Red Sox in the World Series.  So I went to get some World Series beer yesterday.  Blue Bell had some California beers, but most were from Northern California.  There was one from a brewery about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but the beer was called Union Jack IPA.  That definitely didn’t seem appropriate for watching the World Series.  So I went back to the Dodgers’ roots and picked up some Brooklyn Lager.  The Brooklyn brewery used to make a Pennant Ale 55 in honor of the 1955 World Series Champions, but they don’t brew that one anymore.  So I will be drinking Brooklyn Lager during the World Series.

I've had Brooklyn Lager before, but I hope this six pack tastes like a World Series Championship.

Dave Roberts vs. Alex Cora.  They were teammates in Los Angeles.  Dave Roberts drove in 71 runs as a Dodger and 23 of them were Alex Cora.  I liked Alex Cora when he was a Dodger.  Of course he had the 18-pitch at bat that ended with a home run.  And of course, Dave Roberts had the most important stolen base in baseball history with the Red Sox.  I was mad that the Dodgers traded Dave Roberts that year because they totally could have used him as a pinch runner when they got to the playoffs (they lost to the Cardinals in the first round).  But Red Sox fans can’t be mad if Dave Roberts beats them in the World Series, right?

The Dodgers and Red Sox haven’t played in the World Series since 1916.  That was before the Star Spangled Banner was played at baseball games (the first time that happened was the 1918 World Series, which was before the Star Spangled Banner was the national anthem).  The Red Sox won in five.  The Dodgers were known as the Robins then.  Babe Ruth pitched a 14-inning complete game in Game 2 (that game was 2 hours and 32 minutes).  Will any pitcher pitch 14 innings in this year’s World Series?  Even if it goes seven games, it’s possible that nobody pitches 14 innings.  In the 1916 World Series, the Red Sox played their home games at Braves Field because it had a bigger capacity than Fenway Park.  And I’m a traditionalist.  I know interleague play isn’t going away, but how cool would it be if these games were going to be the first between the Dodgers and Red Sox in 102 years (which would then also be the Dodgers' first ever games in Fenway Park)?  But the Red Sox are one of the three teams other than the Dodgers that Clayton Kershaw has never faced (the Twins and the Orioles are the other two).

I’ve seen the Dodgers play at 12 different stadiums (that includes Fenway Park).  I’ve spent plenty of money going to Dodger games around the country.  If the Dodgers had played the Red Sox in the World Series last year, the Dodgers would have had home field advantage.  That would have meant that the games in Boston would have been on the weekend.  I think I would have tried to go to Game 4 if that had happened.  Of course the Yankees were one win away from playing the Dodgers last year.  I would have definitely tried to go to a game if that had happened.  But it looks like I’ll be watching from home again this year.

Speaking of stadiums, Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium in the World Series.  I've been to 31 stadiums.  Other than the Dodgers, I root for teams to make the playoffs based on what stadium they play in because I want to see good stadiums on TV in the playoffs.  Based on my stadium rankings, here are the teams that I'd want to see in the playoffs:

NL West:  Dodgers
NL Central:  Pirates
NL East:  Nationals
NL Wild Cards:  Padres and Cubs

AL West:  Mariners
AL Central:  Royals
AL East:  Red Sox
AL Wild Cards:  Twins and Yankees

And here's how I'd want the playoffs to go:

NLCS:  Dodgers over Pirates
ALCS:  Red Sox over Royals
World Series:  Dodgers over Red Sox (I do have Fenway ranked number 1 and Dodger Stadium ranked number 2, but there's no more baseball after the World Series so it's totally cool if Fenway is eliminated in the World Series)

Unfortunately Notre Dame has a night game against Navy in San Diego next Saturday, which is Game 4 of the World Series.  The World Series will be on TV and Notre Dame will be on the iPad.  The good news is I can go to the vigil mass and pray for wins before the games (I don’t know much about St. Vibiana, but I do know that she’s the patron saint of Los Angeles).  The last time the Dodgers won the World Series was 1988.  The last time Notre Dame won the National Championship in football was 1988.  Maybe the 30th anniversary is going to be a good one.

Anything can happen.  Nothing will surprise me.  Either team could win in a sweep and it could go seven games.  I’ve seen the Celtics win a championship.  I need to see the Dodgers win one.  And I really hope they win one with Clayton Kershaw on the team.  If they lost this year and then won one in a few years when Kershaw wasn’t on the team anymore, I’d still be excited, but it wouldn’t mean quite as much.  This can be the year.  My one prediction is that Matt Kemp will get the biggest hit of the World Series.  Because that makes no sense.  So why wouldn’t it happen?

Let’s Go Dodgers!

Oh Hi Clayton, Oh Hi Playoffs

This is a long overdue post.  If you don't want to read about my trip to Los Angeles, you can skip down to my thoughts on baseball and the playoffs at the end. Anyway, after Sean’s wedding in August, I was on my own in Los Angeles for a couple of days.  I was hoping to see Pete, but circumstances prevented that from happening (fortunately I got to see him and Katie in New York a couple weeks later).  So I switched from the nice hotel where the wedding was to the Super 8 down the street from Dodger Stadium.  I don’t mean to imply that the Super 8 was bad.  It’s fine (I had stayed there before so I willingly went back to it this time), but it’s really just a hotel that gets the job done rather than being a nice hotel like the Hilton in Woodland Hills.

I dropped off my bags because I was too early to get into my room.  The first thing I did was take a walk down to Philippe’s.  It was on Man vs. Food and I had been there on my first trip to Los Angeles back in 2011.  They’re known for their French dip sandwiches.  I got the beef dip, double dip with blue cheese (unfortunately the clip with Kramer telling Elaine to try the beef because that’s real au jus sauce isn’t on YouTube).  It was really good.  I didn’t remember how good it was.

It's not the most exciting food picture, but this was really good.

My next stop was Dodger Stadium for a 1:00 tour.  It was the third time I’ve done the Dodger Stadium tour.  I had done it in 2011 and 2013.  Our tour guide was pretty confident that we would see some players at that time of day.  You start at the top of the stadium (one of the coolest things about Dodger Stadium is how you can enter the stadium on any level).  Usually you work your way down to the field.  Because of the time of our tour, the tour guide wanted to get us down to the field as quickly as possible because it was going to be closed to anybody other than players and coaches soon.  So we went down the elevator and that lets you out in this hallway where they have a bunch of awards that players have won throughout the years (I think most of them were replicas because the players have the real ones).  So the tour guide is explaining about those awards (I knew Greg Maddux won a bunch of Gold Gloves, but I didn’t realize he won 18, every one from 1990-2008 except for 2003) and then the elevator doors opened and out walked Joc Pederson, Clayton Kershaw, and Yasmani Grandal in that order.  Every was quite awestruck at the sight of Kershaw.  I recognized Pederson.  I recognized Kershaw, of course.  I did not recognize Grandal, which is weird because he is pretty distinctive looking, especially with all the tattoos on his arms.  But after seeing Kershaw, I didn’t really care who the third person was.  And apparently I wasn’t the only one.  Somebody asked the tour guide later who the third person was.  The tour guide told us that Dodger Stadium Security’s codename for Kershaw is Elvis.  A couple minutes later Kenley Jansen came out of the elevator.  Also later on we were on the elevator going up and Justin Turner was standing outside when the door opened, but unfortunately I was standing in the corner of the elevator and didn’t have an angle to see him.  I’m pretty sure we saw Sandy Koufax the last time I did the tour.  As somebody who definitely does not look like a Major League Baseball player anymore, he was able to just kind of blend in without anybody noticing, but my Dad thought it was Koufax as well.  So we got to go to the field and then we went up to the press box and a luxury boxes.  It was a very good tour.

Joc Pederson, Elvis, and some other guy

He took the loss that night, but it was still good to have him back.

Me in the Dodgers' dugout

For the game, I spent a little more on a ticket than I usually would (I mean, why not when I’m going to one game all year at one of my favorite places in the world?).  I was on the loge level (one level up from the field level) right behind home plate.  That’s a good location if you want a chance for a foul ball.  I think you’d have a better chance if you’re a little off to the side a little rather than directly behind home because there were a lot that went to each side, but there was one that landed two rows in front of me (a few seats to the right of landing directly in front of me).  I walked all over the field level before heading back up to my seat.  By the way, since you can enter on any level, Dodger Stadium restricts access.  If you’re on the top two levels (which is where I’d usually sit at a Dodger game), those are the only levels that you have access to.  If you’re below that, you can access the whole stadium.  I would definitely change that.  Of course at every other stadium, you’re entering on the lower concourse and you’re free to walk around wherever you want.  Give all the fans access to the field level.  That’s one way to improve the fan experience. I would say that my ideal seat for a Dodger game would be low on the reserve level right behind home plate (kind of right above the press box) if I had access to the whole stadium. It's a great view and it's not a crazy price.

Anyway, when I was back up on the loge, I got two Dodger Dogs and a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  When I’m at a baseball game outside of New York, usually I like to go for something more exotic than a hot dog, but when I’m at Dodger Stadium for my only game of the year, I have to get Dodger Dogs.  And I like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, but I wish there was a bigger selection of good beer.  I can get Sierra Nevada anywhere.  I’d like a wider selection of southern California options (there were some, but none that really interested me).  So there’s my other suggestion for improving an absolutely great stadium otherwise.  The good beer was quite expensive (I think it was $17.50, I used a Visa gift card that I had from my students to pay for my food and drink so whatever).  But as somebody who believes in the free market, I can’t complain.  I would have had one beer even if the price had been $9 or something not so crazy.  But I would say that if I went to ten games at Dodger Stadium per year (like I probably would if I lived out there), I would not drink a beer at every game (which is something that I would do if they were more reasonably priced).

The game was interesting.  It was Alex Wood against Austin Gomber.  Jose Martinez hit a solo home run in the first.  The Dodgers loaded the bases with nobody out on two singles and a hit batter.  Then Cody Bellinger fouled out and Matt Kemp lined into a double play.  No good.  The Cardinals scored two more in the fifth.  Manny Machado singled home a run and Cody Bellinger brought home a run with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fifth to make it 3-2.  Max Muncy tied the game with an RBI single in the seventh and it felt like all the momentum was on the Dodgers’ side.  Kenley Jansen made his return from the DL in the ninth with the score tied.  The fans were excited because the bullpen was figuring out how many ways they could lose games when he was out, but it did not go well.  Jedd Gyorko and Matt Carpenter (one of my least favorite players) hit home runs and the Cardinals won 5-3.  The Dodgers had their chances.  They went 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position and left 14 men on base.

This is a really good view, but I would prefer to be a little higher (if you're not too much higher, I think it's actually a better view) for half the price.

The next day I had a really late flight so I went to Santa Monica.  My first stop was Bruxie, which was on the Los Angeles episode of the new Man vs. Food.  I had the Southern BBQ chicken and waffle sandwich.  As I saw people getting their food, I was a little upset that I didn’t order fries.  But then my food came and the sandwich was so big that I definitely didn’t need fries.  The sandwich was amazing.  I would totally go back to Bruxie whenever I’m in Santa Monica.  I took a walk to the beach and stopped at Pinkberry.  And that was my trip to California.

This one was as good as it looks.

Shortly after returning to New York, I got to another Man vs. Food spot.  The original Man vs. Food had New York, Brooklyn, and Long Island episodes and I’ve never been to any of the places that were on the show.  I got to a place that was on the New York episode of the new version of the show.  Kyle and I got dinner at Clinton Hall.  I got the fondue burger, which is what Casey had on the show.  The presentation is excellent and it was tasty, but there were a couple of issues.  First of all, who wants to eat a burger with a knife and fork?  And the cheese is great at first, but it quickly loses its value as it cools off.

After it cools, this one isn't as good as it looks.

I’ll finish up with some thoughts about baseball.  It was a very weird season in the NL West.  The Dodgers got off to a bad start.  They’ve done that before, but this one felt different.  There were a lot of injuries and it just didn’t seem like things were going to get turned around.  Then they did get it turned around and I thought that everything was back to normal.  Once they got to first place, I thought it was over for the other teams.  But it wasn’t.  The bullpen was generally good, but it was terrible when Jansen went on the DL.  Shortly after the game I went to at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers found themselves four and a half games out.  It seemed once again like this wasn’t going to be the year.  But they did a great job against the two teams they were competing against late in the season.  They went 11-3 against the Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Cardinals from the end of August through September 19.  But they lost series against the Mets, Reds, and Diamondbacks after they were eliminated in September.  And after being swept by the Dodgers to fall two and a half games out, the Rockies went nuts.  They went 9-1 for the rest of the season.  The Dodgers had to sweep the Giants in San Francisco to force a tiebreaker.  And it was still complicated.  If they beat the Rockies, they would have home field advantage against the Braves.  If they lost, they’d have to play the Wild Card Game on the road against the loser of the NL Central tiebreaker game.  Fortunately they won that won fairly easily to win the division for the sixth straight year.

What will happen in the playoffs?  I have no idea.  They definitely have enough talent to win the World Series.  Kenley Jansen hasn't been as dominant as usual this year, but the Astros figured out a way to win a World Series without a great bullpen. Since the middle of May (I was there the weekend they turned their season around the first time), the only team that won more games than the Dodgers is the Red Sox.  But they could definitely lose in the first round against the Braves.  Playoff baseball is stressful.  Last year it was pretty stress free for the Dodgers until Game 2 of the World Series.  My first sports memory is being aware of Kirk Gibson’s home run and the Dodgers winning the World Series in 1988.  But I was four years old.  I’ve experienced the Celtics winning an NBA Championship (I was 24, and that’s going to happen again soon).  I need to experience Notre Dame winning a National Championship in football (that also last happened when I was four, but I have no memory of that, basketball would be great too, but I’ll settle for just football) and the Dodgers winning the World Series.  It really broke my heart that the Dodgers got so close and lost.  It’s so hard to get to the World Series (it’s not like the NBA where if you’re good enough, you know you’re going to get to the Finals).  I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of having to do all the work to get to a point where they had a chance to win the World Series again.  But here we are.  The Dodgers are 11 wins away from being World Series Champions.  Maybe this will be the year.  Let’s Go Dodgers!

Mystery Runner

After seeing the Somerset Patriots last summer and the Brooklyn Cyclones two years ago, Adam and I made the trip to Staten Island for the Staten Island Yankees on Thursday.  Getting to Staten Island is kind of a hassle.  I had no interest in driving there.  The Staten Island Ferry is free so I wanted to take the ferry to the game.  But taking the ferry back to Manhattan after a night game and then take the Subway to the Long Island Railroad would mean getting home at a pretty ridiculous hour.  The Staten Island Yankees play some late afternoon games on the weekends, but that would most likely interfere with watching the Dodgers.  So I targeted a weekday afternoon games (or late morning/early afternoon games).  They had a couple of 11:00 starts where they have camps there and stuff.  That worked for our purposes.

So I met Adam by the ferry.  We took the 10:00 ferry to Staten Island.  We had a good view of lower Manhattan, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty.  I don’t think I had ever been on Staten Island for any reason other than driving through it before, but the Staten Island Ferry is worth doing even if you had no reason to go to be on Staten Island.  It’s about a five-mile ride with some cool views.  You could just take the ferry and then take it right back to Manhattan (I’m pretty sure some people were doing that).  Richmond County Bank Ballpark is maybe a ten-minute walk from where the ferry lets you off.

This made me think of a Seinfeld bit.

It was a good day to take the ferry.

The stadium has a great location.  Beyond the outfield wall we could see the water and lower Manhattan.  The food and beverage selection left something to be desired.  I ended up getting a hot dog and a Flagship Pastime Summer Ale.  I’ve stated my theory on summer beers before:  Sam Adams makes a great one, and most breweries make a pretty underwhelming summer beer.  I got it because there wasn’t much craft beer available and Flagship is a Staten Island brewery.  It wasn’t really what I expected from a summer beer, but it was pretty good.  I’ve had beer from three of the five boroughs.  The two that I’m missing are the two where I’ve spent the most time (by far):  Manhattan and Queens.

The Staten Island Yankees were taking on the Lowell Spinners, a Red Sox affiliate.  Staten Island scored one in the first.  Lowell tied it in the fifth.  And that was all the scoring through nine.  That meant it would be my first minor league extra inning game with their silly rule of starting the inning with a runner on second base.  In the top of the tenth, Lowell had their leadoff hitter sacrifice bunt.  He reached on an error by the pitcher.  With the infield in, the next batter singled and drove in a run on a line drive that probably would have been caught if the infield hadn’t been in.  The next batter hit a home run to make it 5-1.  That inning would have been totally different if they didn’t start with a runner on second base.  Staten Island scored one in the bottom of the tenth and that was it.

This was our view for the game.  We were in the shade for most of the game.  It was hot in the sun, but very nice in the shade.  A hot dog, beer, and day baseball when the weather is good is tough to beat.

So I wanted to discuss some differences between the rules in the Majors and Minors.  You have the starting extra innings with a runner on second in the Minors, which is totally ridiculous, but it’s the Minors, so whatever.  In the Minors, each game of a doubleheader is only seven innings.  I can live with that.  And you have the pitch clock in the Minors, which is probably coming to the Majors.  I’m fine with the pitch clock, but I don’t know if it’s going to work to increase the pace of play.  I would definitely get rid of starting extra innings with runners on (at least in Double-A and Triple-A, I would just say whatever for levels lower than that).

After the game, we took the ferry back to Manhattan.  We went to the Dead Rabbit, which was named the best bar in North America every year from 2013-2016.  In 2016, it was also named the best bar in the world.  I don’t know who was bestowing these honors.  But it was a good bar.  I had a Dead Rabbit Irish Red, which I hoped might be a Manhattan beer, but it was brewed in Brooklyn.  There was a fire there in July that damaged their kitchen so they are still operating with a very limited food menu.  We didn’t have anything to eat.

Our last stop was the Federal Hall National Memorial.  It’s at the site where Federal Hall stood, which is where Washington was inaugurated in 1789 and the first Congress met.  That building stood until 1812.  The building there now was completed in 1842.  It was the US Custom House for the Port of New York and later a sub-Treasury building (that started when Lincoln was president).  There’s a big statue of Washington outside and it’s a little museum on the inside.

Down the street was the Trump Building (which is different from Trump Tower).  Donald Trump is no George Washington.

This is what Federal Hall looked like.

This is the Bible that was used in Washington's inauguration.

That was probably my last minor league game of the year, so I should update my minor league/college stadium rankings:

18. Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton
17. Dehler Park in Billings
16. Arvest Ballpark in Springdale
15. Autozone Park in Memphis
14. TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, New Jersey
13. Memorial Stadium in Boise
12. KeySpan Park in Brooklyn
11. Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo
10. Isotopes Park in Albuquerque
9. TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha
8. Daniel S. Frawley Stadium in Wilmington
7. Greater Nevada Field in Reno
6. Richmond County Bank Ballpark on Staten Island
5. Dickey-Stephens Park in Little Rock
4. Four Winds Field in South Bend
3. Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park in Charleston
2. Dunkin Donuts Park in Hartford
1. Regions Field in Birmingham