Unslandering Bill Russell

Sports change over time.  This makes it difficult to make comparisons between players from different generations.  Rickey Henderson stole 1,406 bases.  If his career started in 2009 instead of 1979, he most likely would not steal half as many bases in his career.  Joe Montana threw 273 touchdown passes in his career.  If his career started in 2009 instead of 1973, he would probably end up with at least 450 touchdown passes.

And basketball is no different.  Stephen Curry has averaged 309 three-pointers per 82 games in his career.  Since 1984 was the year I was born and the Celtics won the championship that year, let’s look at the NBA in the 1983-1984 season.  The leader in three-pointers that year made 101 threes.  And when I say the leader, I mean the team that led the league.  Stephen Curry’s career average for threes per 82 games is more than the top three teams in 1983-1984 combined.  If Stephen Curry played back then, he would not be making 300 threes in a season.  He might make 100.  Maybe.  Darrell Griffith led the league in 1983-1984, making 91 of the Jazz’s 101 threes (Michael Cooper was second in the league with 38).

So that brings me to the point of this post.  There’s been some slander against some all-time great players who played for the Celtics recently and I don’t like it.  J.J. Redick took exception with Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo saying that Chris Paul is not better than Bob Cousy.  I’ll preface this by saying that obviously I never saw Bob Cousy play (other than watching his final game back in April 2020 when we didn’t have sports), but I absolutely agree with Mad Dog.  Chris Paul has never won anything.  If he wins the championship this year, that would be big for him.  But Chris Paul is not somebody who I have ever feared.  The Suns are really good.  The Suns beating the Celtics in the NBA Finals this year is a possible outcome for the playoffs.  But I’m much more afraid of Giannis Antetokounmpo than I am of Chris Paul.  Chris Paul is better than Rajon Rondo, but Rondo always used to outplay him when Rondo was on the Celtics and he faced Chris Paul.  Redick pointed out that Bob Cousy never shot 40%.  That’s true.  If you could take Bob Cousy and make him a modern basketball player, he absolutely would shoot well over 40%.  He also said that Bob Cousy “was being guarded by plumbers and firemen.”  That’s fine, but that doesn’t mean he would be the same player if his career started in 2005 instead of 1950.  All you can do is compare guys against the guys they played with and Bob Cousy was the best point guard of his generation.  Chris Paul is the second best point guard of his generation.  Curry is number 1.  It’s not ridiculous to say that the second best point guard of one generation could be better than the best point guard of another generation, but it’s also not ridiculous to make the case that Bob Cousy was better than Chris Paul.

But what really annoyed me was when I heard somebody say on a podcast that Bill Russell would be just a guy if he played today.  And the reason for that was pretty much J.J. Redick’s “plumbers and firemen” logic.  I’m pretty sure Bill Simmons currently has Bill Russell ranked third all time behind Michael Jordan and LeBron James.  I think it’s absurd to put anybody other than Michael Jordan ahead of Bill Russell (Jordan and Russell would never have a series where they were outplayed by somebody like Rajon Rondo or be part of a team that was as terrible as the Lakers this year).  Simmons obviously doesn’t consider Russell “just a guy” if he played today, but I’m pretty sure his logic for not putting Russell higher than third was the “plumbers and firemen” logic also.  I think I remember him saying that he didn’t know what Russell would do against more modern centers like Shaquille O’Neal.  I know what he would do.  He would be Bill Russell.  Bill Russell faced Shaquille O’Neal.  His name was Wilt Chamberlain back then.  Wilt Chamberlain was 7-1 and 275 pounds and he was the most dominant scorer ever.  He wasn’t some white guy who was playing center at 6-8 and 200 pounds and smoking two packs of cigarettes each day.  Wilt Chamberlain was Joel Embiid, except much better.  And Bill Russell dominated him.

Bob Cousy and Bill Russell are two of the best five players in the history of the franchise that has won more NBA Championships than any other team in NBA history.

Wilt Chamberlain was a rookie during the 1959-1960 season and his first ten years in the NBA overlapped with Bill Russell.  Chamberlain was clearly at his best for his first seven years (when he led the NBA in scoring each year).  During those ten years, Bill Russell won nine championships.  Let’s look at how Russell did against Chamberlain individually.  Russell was 57-37 (.606) against Chamberlain in the regular season.  He averaged 14.2 points per game against Chamberlain (slightly less than his overall average of 14.8 during those ten seasons).  Of course, Russell was known for his defense more than his offense.  Wilt Chamberlain averaged 29.9 points per game against Russell in the regular season, but that was down significantly from his overall average of 34.4 during those seasons.

But it’s the playoffs that matter.  They met in eight of their ten years together in the NBA.  Bill Russell won seven of those eight series.  And Wilt Chamberlain scored significantly less against Bill Russell in the playoffs compared to what he was doing to everybody in the regular season:

Year	Result	Chamberlain Regular Season Scoring Average	Chamberlain Scoring Average in Playoffs vs. Russell	Difference
1960	Russell 4-2	36.7	30.5	-6.2
1962	Russell 4-3	50.4	33.6	-16.8
1964	Russell 4-1	36.9	29.2	-7.7
1965	Russell 4-3	34.7	30.1	-4.6
1966	Russell 4-1	33.5	28.0	-5.5
1967	Chamberlain 4-1	24.1	21.6	-2.5
1968	Russell 4-3	24.3	22.1	-2.2
1969	Russell 4-3	20.5	11.7	-8.8
Total	Russell 29-20	34.4 (1959-1969)	25.7	-8.7

I’ve heard the argument about Russell playing on more talented teams.  Chamberlain had plenty of talent around him.  I think Bill Simmons addressed that one in his book.  The biggest difference between the teams was Russell and Chamberlain.  Wilt Chamberlain was traded twice.  If I remember correctly from Simmons’s book, one of those trades happened because his teammates wanted him traded.  Russell’s teammates never would have wanted him traded and the Celtics never would have considered it.  But Chamberlain played on plenty of good teams.  In his first ten seasons, he played in 98 playoff games.  Exactly half of them were against the Celtics and half were against everybody else.  He did very well against everybody who wasn’t the Celtics, going 31-18 (.633), but he was only 20-29 (.408) against Russell and the Celtics.

Wilt Chamberlain was not as good as Bill Russell, but he definitely wasn’t just a guy either.  He absolutely dominated the NBA, as long as he wasn’t going against Russell.  To discredit Russell because of his competition is ridiculous.  If he played in the NBA today, he would dominate the way he dominated the most dominant scorer in the history of basketball.

A Decade of Jim

I started the blog a decade ago this month.  The original idea was to document my year of not having a job.  And then I got a job.  I tried changing the name of the blog at one point, but that would have messed up any links to old blog posts so I just kept it the same.

Anyway, I had goals of getting to every Major League Baseball stadium and all 50 states.  For a short time, I had been to every Major League Baseball Stadium.  And then the Rangers got a new stadium so I still need to get to that one.  But since I started the blog, I’ve seen Major League Baseball games in 32 different stadiums (two different stadiums for the Braves and Blue Jays).

I’ve now been to all 50 states.  I had been to 21 states when I started the blog.  I think I’ve been in all 50 since starting the blog.  I was trying to think of how many I’ve made a point of visiting since starting the blog and I think the number is 47.  The only time I’ve been in New Hampshire since 2012 was driving through it to get to and from Maine (I had made a point of going to New Hampshire and getting some clam chowder when I was in Massachusetts for John’s wedding in 2011).  I probably haven’t actually set foot in Rhode Island since 2012, but I’ve definitely gone through it in a car or on a train or bus a few times (I was in Rhode Island to visit Providence when my brothers were looking at colleges, probably around 1995).  And I spent a few nights in Virginia when my brother Sean was still living there, but I was only there to do stuff in Washington DC or Maryland (but Virginia is probably in the top 10 states where I’ve spent the most time in my life).  At some point, I’d like to see some sports in those states.  Virginia and New Hampshire have minor league baseball teams.  A Notre Dame football game in Virginia would be another possibility, but we don’t play at Virginia Tech again until 2028 and we don’t play at Virginia again until 2031.  Rhode Island doesn’t have a minor league team anymore.  I guess my first choice for a sporting event in Rhode Island would be a Providence basketball game.  Other options would be college baseball or summer league baseball (featuring college players).

Besides my travels around the country, I’ve also been to four other countries now.  When I started the blog, I hadn’t left the country.  But now I’ve been to Ireland, England, Canada, and Australia.  I’ve seen sporting events in each of those countries (college football in Ireland and Australia, tennis in England, and baseball in Canada).  I don’t know when I’ll leave the country again, but the next three countries I want to visit are Italy, Vatican City, and Poland.  There won’t be any sports in the Vatican City but we’ll see about Italy and Poland.  And France might have a history of being cheese-eating surrender monkeys for the last 200 years, but I would be interested in visiting Normandy and Lourdes at some point.

My idea for this post was pretty much to be the clip show of blog posts.  I wanted to go through each year and highlight the best trip from each year (which sometimes had multiple stops and/or blog posts) and one other blog post.  I’ll ignore the fact that calendar years are completely arbitrary and that my year starts in September with the start of college football and a new school year.

2012- Notre Dame in Ireland and my goodbye to Camp Alvernia after spending 13 summers working there.

2013- England (Day 1, Wimbledon, Days 3 and 4, Fourth of July, Canterbury) and Clayton Kershaw’s dominant Opening Day (this was part of a trip, but it would have been worthy of a blog post even if I didn’t go).

2014- Civil War road trip and Clayton Kershaw’s no-hitter

2015-  Field of Dreams, Nebraska and the Dakotas, and Minnesota (that was five states in one trip) and Clayton Kershaw’s dominance on my father’s birthday

2016- Hawaii/Australia and my running diary of a game during Vin Scully’s last season (which included a great Vin Scully story)

2017- Driving from Denver to San Francisco with Tom and drinking the 50 states (I only had 13 posts in 2017 so there weren’t a lot to choose from)

2018- Arkansas/Notre Dame (that was the same trip) and winning the gold medal in curling

2019- Oakland/Alaska (Oakland is definitely only included because it was the same trip as Alaska) and some history and the Big East Tournament in New York City

2020- March for Life (this post was not specifically about the March for Life, but I mentioned it and it was the only trip I went on beyond Long Island all year) and the Dodgers win the World Series

2021- Louisville/Los Angeles (that was the same trip) and the Dark Knight trilogy

And looking back on old posts, I came across the All Jim Team.  I’ve updated the team.  The team originally only had nine pitchers.  I’m going to 11.  Even though Major League Baseball has gone to 26-man rosters, I’m staying at 25, because baseball should have just kept rosters at 25 (the only reason they expanded is because of how many pitchers they use and they use too many pitchers).  Also, I had Clayton Kershaw as my third favorite player ever (behind Koufax at number 1 and Hershiser at number 2).  Since then, he won his second and third Cy Young Awards, an MVP, and helped the Dodgers win the World Series in 2020 (and he deserved a World Series Championship in 2017 as well).  Kershaw is clearly my favorite player ever now.  So here’s my updated starting lineup:

Jackie Robinson 2B

Ken Griffey Jr. CF

Babe Ruth RF

Ted Williams LF

Lou Gehrig 1B

Roy Campanella C

Corey Seager SS

Justin Turner 3B

Clayton Kershaw P

Obviously we’re not using a designated hitter.  You would definitely want to have a left-handed pitcher against us.  And here’s the full 25-man roster:

Pitchers (11):  Clayton Kershaw, Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, Orel Hershiser, Roy Halliday (the first five I mentioned are the starting pitchers on my team), Grover Cleveland Alexander, Johnny Podres, Don Drysdale, Jeff Samardzija, Mariano Rivera, Kenley Jansen

Catchers (2):  Roy Campanella, Yogi Berra

Infielders (6):  Jackie Robinson, Corey Seager, Derek Jeter, Lou Gehrig, Justin Turner, Keith Hernandez

Outfielders (6):  Ted Williams, Ken Griffey Jr., Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Duke Snider, Hank Aaron

Manager: Tommy Lasorda

So here were the changes from my original All Jim Team:

In:  Jeff Samardzija, Kenley Jansen, Corey Seager, Justin Turner

Out:  Joe Torre, Pee Wee Reese, Torii Hunter Sr., Tony Gwynn Sr.

I added three players from the 2020 Dodgers and the best wide receiver from when I was a student at Notre Dame.  I could have gone with more 2020 Dodgers, but I tried to limit it.  Kenley Jansen is the Dodgers’ greatest relief pitcher ever.  Corey Seager was NLCS and World Series MVP so that was an easy choice.  I wish they had re-signed him, but it was hard to argue with not re-signing him since they have Trea Turner and the Rangers gave Seager a huge contract.  And Justin Turner has been the heart and soul of the Dodgers for several years now.  The hardest omission was Walker Buehler.  If the World Series had gone seven games and he won Game 7 or if he had won the Cy Young last year, then he would have been on.  Hopefully if I update this again in 10 years, he’ll be on the team.  For now, we’re just going to put him on the 40-man roster, not the 25-man active roster.  So here are the other 15 guys on the 40-man roster:

Walker Buehler, Julio Urias, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Jesse Orosco, John Franco, Fernando Valenzuela, Don Newcombe, Joe Torre, Pee Wee Reese, Torii Hunter Sr., Tony Gwynn Sr., Andre Ethier, A.J. Pollock, Chris Taylor, Kiké Hernandez

Hopefully the Dodgers will win the World Series this year and Walker Buehler will get promoted. There are several other players on the team that can get promoted or added to the roster if the Dodgers win the World Series. Let’s Go Dodgers!

And I also had an All-Jim Basketball Team. I limited it to players from my lifetime who were Hall of Farmers, future Hall of Famers, or players who should be in the Hall of Fame so it wasn’t just the 2007-2008 Celtics. I had Kevin Durant on the team so obviously this needs to be updated as well. I’m going to make a couple of exceptions to the Hall of Fame requirement because I need to make a change at point guard. Here’s the starting lineup:

PG- Marcus Smart

SG- Paul Pierce

SF- Larry Bird

PF- Kevin Garnett

C- Shaquille O’Neal

Bench: Ray Allen, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, David Robinson, Robert Horry, Pat Connaughton

Coach: Monty Williams

So here were the changes:

In: Marcus Smart, Pat Connaughton

Out: Rajon Rondo, Kevin Durant

Paul Pierce played mostly forward, but he did play shooting guard early in his career. He had to be in the starting lineup but Larry Bird had to be in the starting lineup as well. Shaquille O’Neal and Robert Horry are on the team only for their non-Lakers years.

I had to replace two players. I’ll always love 2007-2008 Rajon Rondo, but he’s now played so much of his career not on the Celtics and he ended up winning a championship with the Lakers. I could have replaced him with any Celtics starting point guard since then who wasn’t Kyrie Irving. Isaiah Thomas gave everything he had to the Celtics. Kemba Walker was the anti-Kyrie Irving and people forget how good he was until he got hurt. The 2020 All Star Game was a classic All Star Game and Kemba Walker was playing when the game was on the line. But Marcus Smart gets the nod over Isaiah Thomas and Kemba Walker for winning Defensive Player of the Year this year. And Kevin Durant became one of the most dislikable players in the NBA as soon as he went to the Warriors. And then he left the Warriors and Durant and Kyrie Irving made the Nets into an even more detestable team than the Warriors were. So Durant gets replaced by my favorite Notre Dame basketball player ever and 2021 NBA Champion Pat Connaughton.

Jaylen Brown could definitely make this team someday. Jayson Tatum has a chance to be the best Celtic since Larry Bird, but he went to Duke so he has a lot of work to do to make up for that if he’s going to make the All Jim Team. It would be awesome for the Celtics to beat the Nets this year because the Nets have become my least favorite team in the league other than the Lakers. This season was a complete disaster for the Celtics and then it completely turned around. They have been awesome for the last few months and the Lakers were so terrible that they didn’t even make the play in tournament. And now the Celtics are two wins away from ending Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant’s season. If they do beat the Nets, anything could happen after that. My guess would be that the winner of Bucks-Celtics would end up winning the East, but that’s not guaranteed. The Suns have definitely been the best team in the NBA this year, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the Celtics beat them if they could get to the Finals. But for now, the Celtics need to finish off the Nets. Let’s Go Celtics!

College Baseball on Long Island

When the lockout was going on, I decided I was still going to go to as many baseball games as I could.  The minors were still going to be starting on schedule and college baseball started in February.  Long Island has two Division I schools (I’m defining Long Island as Nassau and Suffolk).  Even though the lockout ended and Major League Baseball is back, I still wanted to get to games at Hofstra and Stony Brook.  I have traditionally done an Easter vacation baseball trip.  I thought about doing a minor league game in upstate New York or Pennsylvania this week if the weather was good.  I was checking the forecast and it isn’t very good so I’m not going anywhere.  But the weather last week so it was a good time to get to games at Hofstra and Stony Brook.

My first game was at Hofstra.  I went on Tuesday after work.  I think this was my first Hofstra sporting event ever (maybe I’ve seen Hofstra play basketball somewhere before, but I don’t think so).  The game started at 3:00 so I didn’t get there until the third inning.  Hofstra was leading St. John’s when I got to University Field.  St. John’s scored runs in the fourth and fifth to tie it.  They added three in the seventh and one in the eighth.  Hofstra hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth, but that was all they could score and St. John’s won 6-4.  Apparently Hofstra is now 11-64 all time against St. John’s.  I have a former student who is a freshman at Hofstra.  She met me at the game when she got out of class around 4:30.  It was good catching up with her.

I ended up sitting behind the guys who had the radar guns for each team.  I was paying attention to them until my former student got to the game.  Neither team had a pitcher last more than three and a third.  There was one pitcher who was throwing in the low 90s.  It seemed like everybody else was topping out in the low-mid 80s.  The weather was fantastic with a high of 72°.  I really could have gone for a hot dog and a beer, but there was no concession stand.  I said how Frank Eck Field at Notre Dame felt closer to a minor league stadium than a high school field.  University Field at Hofstra felt closer to a high school field.

I would prefer maybe 10 degrees warmer, but it was really good baseball weather.

On Friday I went to Stony Brook for their game against Binghamton.  Although I spent a year as a Stony Brook student, the only Stony Brook sporting event I’ve ever been to was the biggest win in the history of their basketball program many years after I was a student there.  Like the Hofstra game, I got to this one in the third inning also.  The game was moving along really quickly until the sixth or seventh inning and I had to park really far away because most of the lots required a permit to park until 4:00 on weekdays.  So I had to park by the basketball arena and pay for an hour of parking ($2.50) and then I walked back to my car and moved it to a lot much closer to the field.  Anyway, it was a pretty well-pitched game for the first six innings.  Stony Brook’s starter lasted six and a third and Binghamton’s starter went seven.  I saw Stony Brook take a 1-0 lead on a home run in the fourth.  The guy crushed a ball to left field, but it was foul.  Then he hit a high fly ball to left that was fair and it just kept carrying over the fence.  That was the first hit for either team.  Stony Brook scored another run in the fifth when I was moving my car.  Binghamton didn’t have a hit until the sixth inning.  They tied it with a home run in the seventh.  Stony Brook took a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the seventh and then Binghamton tied it in the top of the eighth.  Stony Brook hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth to make it 5-3 and then they held on in the ninth for a 5-3 win.  The win improved Stony Brook to 55-36 all time against Binghamton (and then they ended up losing the next two games of the series).  I have another former student who is a freshman at Stony Brook.  She’s the best friend of the one at Hofstra, but she was working during the game on Friday so I didn’t see her.

At Stony Brook, there was a tiny press box.  I’m guessing it was mainly used to run the scoreboard because both teams had broadcast teams that sat at the top of the stands (for an internet broadcast).  I sat in front of Binghamton’s broadcast team until I moved my car.  When I came back, I sat in front of Stony Brook’s broadcast team.  It was kind of cool to hear the broadcasters and get more information that I would normally have at a game like that. For example, I learned that Binghamton outfielder Christian Perez is the son of former New York Met Timo Perez. The weather was pretty good, but not as good as when I went to Hofstra.  The high was 67°, but it was getting a little cold by the end of the game with the wind.  Joe Nathan Field (named after Joe Nathan and his 377 career Major League saves) felt even more like a high school field than Hofstra’s University Field did.  There was no concession stand, but it was Good Friday and I was fasting anyway.

It looks really good, but the weather wasn’t as good as it was three days earlier at the Hofstra game.

I would say that I liked University Field a little better than Joe Nathan Field.  It was free to attend games at both, but I had to pay for an hour of parking at Stony Brook (I probably would have been okay parking in one of the student lots, but I didn’t want to take any chances).  University Field had a turf infield and grass outfield.  Joe Nathan Field was all turf.  Grass is good, but having a turf infield and a grass outfield is weird (Mulcahy Field in Anchorage was like that also).  University Field had seats, but Joe Nathan Field just had metal bleachers.  Joe Nathan Field definitely had the better scoreboard.  At Stony Brook, it was more like a professional game in that they had to fill the time in between batters and innings with music and they had the PC Richard’s whistle when Stony Brook struck somebody out.  Also, one of the speakers was right behind where I was sitting when I first got there and it was too loud.  Hofstra let the game breathe a little more.  Joe Nathan Field was symmetrical, but University Field had a more interesting outfield.  Of course, when you’re sitting that close to the field, you can’t really appreciate the shape of the outfield (that’s why my ideal seat at a baseball game is a little higher, but you can’t sit all that high at these college fields).  University Field did not really have a batter’s eye.  The fence had kind of a translucent blue covering over it and you could see cars driving through that covering from left field to center field (there were trees behind the fence in right field).

I like the shape of the outfield.  I don’t like the turf infield.

It’s all turf and symmetrical.

It looks better than Stony Brook’s field, but it’s also all turf and symmetrical.  I didn’t post this picture in my Notre Dame post, but I think I’ll keep doing it for college and minor league games.

I have been to many college basketball games and college football games.  I’ve been to a handful of college hockey games.  I have been to very few college baseball games.  But this wasn’t a bad way to spend a couple of afternoons when the weather is good.  I probably won’t go to any other college games this year, but it’s definitely something I’d be willing to do again in the future.  It would be interesting to go to a college baseball game at a place where they get big crowds.  Most college stadiums hold less than 5,000 (some are significantly less than that) but some hold more than that and probably draw pretty big crowds (especially SEC schools).  I’ll end with my college baseball stadium rankings:

1. TD Ameritrade Park

2. Frank Eck Stadium

3. University Field

4. Joe Nathan Field

A Cold Weekend in March

I took my first trip anywhere since the summer to Notre Dame for Jon and Halie’s wedding at the end of March.  I was not totally sure this trip was happening until the night before.  I had my doubts about being able to go, especially in January when the latest wave of the pandemic was peaking.  After about 25 months, I took my first coronavirus test.  We had to test negative on Friday and Saturday to attend the events.  I didn’t want to get out there and then test positive so I took one on Thursday night and tested negative.  That’s when I knew I was going. It was my first time back on campus since I was there for some outdoor hockey in 2019. I think the longest stretch I had without being back to campus before this one was two years between football games in 2014 and 2016.

I saw some friends for the first time in a long time.  I hadn’t seen Jon since July 2019 in Syracuse.  I hadn’t seen Kyle since October 2019 in the city.  I thought it was March 2019, but as I was writing this I remembered getting dinner with Kyle at Clinton Hall.  I remembered the Jets beat the Cowboys that day, but I didn’t remember what year it was so I looked it up.  And I don’t know when the last time I saw Matt was.  Unless he was at the Duke game in 2016 (I didn’t want to blog about that weekend), I think it was 2015 in Boston for the Shamrock Series at Fenway Park.  I remember staying with Matt when I went out to Notre Dame for the Navy game in 2007.  I didn’t see him again until the National Championship Game in 2013.  Then I saw him a bunch for the next few years. There were two trips to Texas (for the Shamrock Series at Jerry World and a Rangers game at their old stadium), I think two trips to ND (I’m pretty sure we both stayed with Jon for the Navy game in 2013, but I didn’t blog about it, and we went to the Stanford game in 2014 together), and the Shamrock Series in Boston and then I didn’t see him again for a while (as far as I remember).  I spent most of the weekend hanging out with Kyle and Matt so that was fun.

It started with meeting Kyle at the airport on Friday since we were on the same flights.  Flying to South Bend is the way to go if it’s not a football weekend as long as it’s not significantly more expensive than flying to Chicago.  If it’s a football weekend, flights are likely to be significantly more expensive and you’re probably not staying close to campus anyway.  So our route was Laguardia to Chicago to South Bend and then we did the reverse on Sunday.  Our flight to South Bend was delayed, but that worked out pretty well because it got us in right after Matt got there.  It was cold and rainy when we got there.  On the Monday before we got there, the high was 73°.  On Friday, the high was 47°.  We checked into the Embassy Suites and then hung out at the manager’s reception for a little bit.  It stopped raining and the sun came out.

This was from Saturday, but I wanted it to be the first picture in this blog post.

I wanted to see the baseball team play since they were at home.  They were hosting Virginia Tech for a three game series.  At least it was supposed to be three games.  The weather was looking questionable for all three games.  They got the Friday game in, but the Saturday and Sunday games were both cancelled because of the weather.  I didn’t need to see a whole game, but I wanted to get to at least one inning (I would have set my goal higher if the weather had been good) since it had been more than three years since I was at a Notre Dame sporting event on campus, the baseball team is good, and I didn’t really remember Frank Eck Stadium.  I think the only game I ever went to there was when I was back on campus in 2009 to go to my first game at Wrigley Field and to go to the Blue-Gold Game.  We went to see Golden Tate play baseball.

That’s Golden Tate at bat in 2009.  Back then the field was natural grass and dirt.

I should have gone to games when I was a student because we were pretty good when I was there.  We won the Big East in 2005 and 2006 and made it to the NCAA Tournament.  We didn’t make it to the tournament again until 2015.  And then last year, we made it to the tournament, advanced to the Super Regionals, and nearly beat the team that ended up winning the College World Series.  I got to the game on Friday in the top of the eighth and we were ahead 5-4.  We got out of a jam and then we got two runners on in the bottom of the eighth but couldn’t score.  I didn’t stay for the ninth because I needed to get ready for the welcome reception that night.  And the ninth went … not well.  We ended up losing 10-5.  Our season was off to a good start, but we were swept the previous weekend by Louisville.  We had a non conference game scheduled that week against Northwestern, but it was cancelled because Northwestern didn’t have a bus driver (I’m not making that up), and then we lost the only game that we played against Virginia Tech.  We won nine in a row after that, but now we’ve lost three in a row.  Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by Frank Eck Stadium.  It felt closer to a minor league stadium and a high school field (I’ve been to two other college games since then where that wasn’t the case, I’ll get to those in an upcoming post).  I would love to see the baseball team have some sustained success and upgrade the stadium.  Much like the football stadium, they should go back to real grass.  I didn’t see any food available, but supposedly there is a concession stand there.  It’s quite possible that it was open earlier in the game, but then it was closed by the time I got there.  It was the rare Lenten Meat Friday (for the Solemnity of the Annunciation) so I would have enjoyed a hot dog while watching the game.

Maybe next spring I’ll take a trip out there in April (perhaps as a stop on my way to a Major League game somewhere) and hope for better weather for a baseball game.

The welcome reception was in Corbett Family Hall, which is one of the buildings that was attached to the football stadium.  It was a really cool setting with a good view of the field.  This was the first time that Kyle, Matt, or I had met Halie.  There were TVs going with the basketball games and we watched the end of St. Peter’s being Purdue.  It was definitely a fun first night being back at Notre Dame.

I had to go outdoors to take this picture.  It was really cold and windy.  I wish they would get rid of Brian Kelly’s fake field and go back to grass.

They’re lighting up Touchdown Jesus every weekend in blue and yellow every weekend until the Russian invasion of Ukraine ends.  Hopefully they won’t still be lighting it up like that in 2034 or something.

After breakfast on Saturday morning, we walked around campus for a little bit.  The weather was terrible.  The high on Saturday was 35° and it was snowing.  It wasn’t snowing hard, but it was windy and these little snowflakes would kind of hurt when they hit you in the face.  The weather for late March at Notre Dame is pretty much a coin toss and we lost the coin toss.  I didn’t mind the snow (campus looks nice with snow), but the wind was bad.  Anyway, we checked out the bookstore and we were all pretty underwhelmed.  They are in the process of changing the operator of the bookstore from Follett to Barnes and Noble and Fanatics so that might explain why it wasn’t impressive.  At some point, Kyle and Matt went back to the hotel and I stayed on campus and stopped by the Grotto.

Usually I want to buy everything in the bookstore.  This time, this shirt was the only thing I wanted to get (I didn’t buy it, but I wanted to).

This is one of my favorite pictures from the weekend.

The wedding ceremony was in the basilica.  I had been counting on Dennis and Courtney to get married on campus, but they got married in Minnesota (I’m not complaining, their wedding was a lot of fun and I enjoyed some excellent Minnesota beer).  So this was the first wedding I went to on campus.  After the ceremony, we had some time before the reception so we went to lunch at O’Rourke’s.  Our service was pretty horrendous.

The reception was at the Armory in South Bend.  Matt, Kyle, and I were at the St. Ed’s table with Kevin and his wife and Father Ralph (Father Ralph beat me to blogging about Jon and Halie’s wedding).  There were two empty seats.  I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but I thought of them as Dennis and Courtney’s seats since they definitely would have been there if not for the fact that their daughter had just been born.  Jon’s brother gave an excellent best man toast.

Kyle, me, Father Ralph, Jon, Kevin, and Matt

After the reception, we went back to St. Edward’s Hall.  Fr. Ralph invited us over for a drink.  He’s been the rector of St. Ed’s since my last semester.  That seems like a really long time.  I didn’t know Father Ralph well since I only had one semester with him, but it was good visiting with him.  He was telling us how alcohol issues are down, but mental health issues are way up.  He said that the kids seem much happier just staying in their rooms and not doing stuff.  He took us on a tour of the dorm (there have definitely been some changes since we lived there) and it was really quiet for late on a Saturday night.  I left St. Edward’s Hall in December 2006.  I had friends living there until the spring of 2009.  I definitely wouldn’t have expected to do any drinking in St. Ed’s after my friends all graduated.  Then Jon was an assistant rector there in law school and I definitely enjoyed some beverages in his room in 2012 and 2013.  And now, more than 15 years as I’ve graduated, I’ve probably had my last drink in St. Edward’s Hall.  And that was the weekend.  I would have gone to Mass on campus on Sunday, but Kyle and I had an early flight on Sunday morning.  I ended up going to the 5:00 Mass back home.

I took this picture of St. Ed’s while I was walking around campus earlier in the day.

I’ll end this post with some football thoughts.  Matt spotted new defensive coordinator Al Golden at the Embassy Suites.  I didn’t notice him at first, but it definitely was Al Golden.  He was having a drink at the bar.  Matt also said that Jack Coan walked right by us.  That weekend was pro day at Notre Dame.  Perhaps Coan isn’t taking classes anymore and was just back on campus for pro day so maybe he was staying at the Embassy Suites.  I’ve thought about getting back to a football game.  My last football game was at Duke in 2019.  I was supposed to go to the Virginia game at home that fall, but my flight got cancelled.  So I haven’t been to a home football game since 2016 (the disastrous Duke game mentioned earlier).  We’ll see about this season.  A lot might depend on if any of my friends are going to games.  If I go to a home game this fall, the possibilities are Cal in September, Stanford in October, or Clemson in November.  Clemson will be expensive and it will be a night game in November.  If Stanford ends up being a night game, I’d probably rule that one out.  Stanford isn’t good, but our home schedule is pretty terrible other than Clemson so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a night game if we’re going to have two home night games.  Cal isn’t particularly interesting, but it’s likely to be an afternoon game with good weather so it’s a possibility.  We play at North Carolina in September.  That’s a possibility for a road game.  And we’re playing our Shamrock Series game in Las Vegas against BYU on October 8.  I already got a hotel room.  I don’t like Las Vegas, but there are a few reasons why I’d consider going to that game.  Some of my friends might want to go.  It’s early October so even if I miss a few playoff baseball games, hopefully the Dodgers will have a lot more playoff games after that.  It’s Columbus Day weekend so I have an extra day to decompress before going back to school on Tuesday.   And it’s just easier to get to Las Vegas from New York than it is to get to Notre Dame.  Flights are easier and I got a hotel room less than two miles from the stadium.  I’d put it at less than a 50% chance that I actually will go to Las Vegas for the game.  I can cancel my hotel room and get refunded, but it was a cheap room close to the stadium so I figured I’d lock it in in case I do decide to go.

The other thing that Father Ralph told us was that he’ll talk to kids about why they chose Notre Dame and for a lot of them, it will be like they didn’t get into Harvard or wherever so they decided to come to Notre Dame.  Kyle pointed out that if you don’t buy into what Notre Dame is all about, it seems like a pretty crazy place.  While I agree with Kyle, that’s an interesting observation coming from the person who has become the biggest defender of Brian Kelly.  Kelly did a good job.  He was by far the best coach we’ve had since Lou Holtz.  But he never understood Notre Dame.  Marcus Freeman has been there for just over a year and he gets Notre Dame better than Kelly ever did.  Marcus Freeman said, “Notre Dame will change you if you let it.” Brian Kelly’s attitude was “I will change Notre Dame as much as Jack Swarbrick will let me.” And Swarbrick let him change a lot, unfortunately. Kelly moved the pregame Mass from Saturday to Friday.  Freeman is moving it back to Saturday. I hope Freeman will undo some other things that Kelly did.  Freeman also works much harder in recruiting than Kelly did.  Kelly has said a lot of weird/dumb things since he left and one of them was admitting that he didn’t want to put the effort into recruiting at Notre Dame.  Kelly had reached his ceiling at Notre Dame.  He was very good, but not great.  He won a lot of games, but not enough big games (especially away from home).  He was not winning a National Championship at Notre Dame.  We have no idea what Freeman will be as a head coach.  The floor is definitely lower than what it was for Kelly.  But with Freeman’s recruiting and the way he embraces everything about Notre Dame, the ceiling is higher.

Bringing this back to Jon and Halie’s wedding, Halie has something in common with Marcus Freeman. They both went to Ohio State. And our first football game in the fall is against Ohio State. I hope Halie will embrace Notre Dame the way Marcus Freeman has and that Marcus Freeman will be Notre Dame’s first great coach since Lou Holtz.  Go Irish!