Unfortunately, I’m not talking about the Houston Astros in this case. I went to my second collegiate summer league game last week. I went to a game in the Hamptons league earlier this summer. Long Island also has the Blue Chip Collegiate Baseball League and that’s the league I saw last week. There’s also the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League, which has games stretching from Pennsylvania to Long Island. Based on where the players go to college, it seems like the Hamptons league is the best of the three. I wanted to get to a game in each league, but it looks like I’m not going to get to the Atlantic league since their regular season is coming to an end this week. I had planned on going earlier in the summer, but weather and other stuff got in the way. I could have gone to a game in the Atlantic league this week, but it would have been played at the same field as the Blue Chip league game that I went to so I didn’t feel like doing that again.
Anyway, the Blue Chip League has a team called Long Island Dodger Nation. I had planned on seeing them play for obvious reasons, but weather and stuff prevented that. Also, they play at various fields and many of them are turf. I didn’t want to watch a game played on turf if I didn’t have to. I was never able to have the weather, my schedule, and a Long Island Dodger Nation game on grass line up so it didn’t happen. So I did the next best thing. I went to a Long Island Astros game and rooted against them because they’re the Astros. They were taking on the Long Island Noreasters. The Noreasters had blue in their uniforms and their starting pitcher was wearing number 22 (he was right-handed, but whatever) so I had no problem rooting for them against the Astros. It was 89°, but the feels like temperature was 98° for a game that started at 11:00 in the morning. And that was cooler than it had been for a few days. The game was at Eisenhower Park. There were two games in the same league happening on fields right next to each other. I watched for a little while from the stands near first base. But it was pretty rough in the sun so I watched the rest of the game from the shade beyond the fence in left field. The other field with a game going on had no shade anywhere around it.
It was a really hot day for baseball.
Anyway, I enjoyed the game as the Noreasters pounded the Astros. The Noreasters hit a ball off the fence for a double. I was surprised to see a ball hit that far. There were no distance markers on the fence, but they use wooden bats in the league and these players are used to using metal bats in college. But then they hit a home run later in the inning (I looked up their stats and they have 11 home runs in 24 games as a team). It was a good inning as they scored six runs to go up 7-0. It was after that inning that I moved to left field. They also tried my favorite video game play: the double steal where the runner takes off from first and then the runner from third goes home on the throw. It didn’t work as the runner was thrown out at home. But it was total domination. I wasn’t really keeping track of the score, but I knew that the Noreasters had scored a lot of runs and the Astros hadn’t scored. At home point, the Noreasters scored a run and the Astros just walked off the field and the game was over. Being way out in the outfield, I didn’t hear anybody say anything, but I assumed there was a mercy rule and the website confirmed that there is a 10-run mercy rule after five innings. This was supposed to be the first game of a doubleheader. With the heat, I wasn’t planning on staying for both games and that was it for me. It was also it for the two teams as strong thunderstorms came through Long Island that afternoon.
I didn’t last in this spot very long. 
You can’t really tell from this picture since I put my phone right up to the fence, but I was standing in shade on the other side of the chain-link fence.
So the two collegiate summer league games I got to were fun, but they don’t really compare to the ones I went to in Alaska three years ago. The Alaska games were much closer to going to a minor league game. These games were probably more like high school games. I could have gone for a hot dog and a beer, but they definitely didn’t have anything like that (there was a solid food/beer selection in Alaska). There actually was an ice cream truck parked by the field for a little while, but I didn’t check it out.
Anyway, hopefully the real Astros will lose in the playoffs. Right now they trail the Yankees by two games for the top seed in the American League. The Mets are 4.5 games behind the Dodgers for the top seed in the National League. And the Astros and Mets might want to stay right where they are. The Dodgers and Yankees might have very little to play for at the end of the season. The magic number for the Dodgers to clinch a bye is 55. For the Yankees, it’s 54. Something would have to go very wrong for either of those teams to not get one of the two byes. But either team could finish as the 2 seed instead of the 1 seed. And the 2 seed might be more desirable.
The likely 4/5 matchup in the National League is the second place team in the NL East against the Padres. The winner of that would play the 1 seed. The 2 seed would get to play the winner of the NL Central or the third wild card. I guess the Padres don’t have the second wild card spot locked up, but let’s assume that they’re the fourth best team in the NL. The three best teams in the NL are the Dodgers, Mets, and Braves. We’ll see if the Padres are one of the top four teams, but there’s a pretty good chance that the best team in the NL will have to play the third or fourth best team in the NL in the second round and the 2 seed would likely get to play the fifth or sixth best team in the NL.
In the AL, the Yankees and Astros are pretty far ahead of everybody else. The wild card contenders are not separated by that much, but the 1 seed will play the winner of the top two wild card teams and the 2 seed will play either the AL Central winner or the third wild card. Obviously the 1 seed gets home field advantage until at least the World Series, but the 1 seed is likely to get the tougher opponent for their first playoff matchup than the 2 seed in both leagues.
We had the same issue last year with a different playoff format. The Giants had the best record in baseball and their reward for that was playing the team that was one game behind them for best record in the first round. It all worked out for me since the Dodgers beat the Giants, but that was pretty silly. The Mets and Braves could be the two best teams in the NL (I hope not, but it’s a possibility) and if they are, they shouldn’t play each other before the NLCS, but that’s exactly what would happen unless one of those teams got upset by the second wild card. Although the Giants got a bad matchup last year, they did have one advantage for being the 1 seed. They got to play a team that had to do whatever they had to do to win a Wild Card Game whereas the 2 seed had to play that didn’t have to survive a game like that. That advantage is gone this year as both of the top two seeds will play a team that has to get through the Wild Card round.
So this format doesn’t reward the 1 seed enough. We could easily fix this problem. The first thing is that they should reseed after the Wild Card round. If the 6 seed pulls off the upset over the 3 seed, why does the 2 seed get to play the team with the worst record to make the playoffs? The second thing I would do is give the 1 seed four possible home games. They would play their first game on the road and then the next four at home. Those two things combined would make it really difficult for the 6 seed. And if you’re the sixth best team in the league, you don’t really belong in the playoffs anyway so why not make it as difficult as possible? The 6 seed in the NL last year would have been the Reds, who were 83-79. They would have to win a best of three series on the road and then they would have to come home for one game to start a best of five series and then play the rest of the series at the 1 seed’s home stadium. And the last thing I would do is seed 3-6 just based on record. In many years, you’re going to have at least one wild card that’s better than the third best division winner. Last year, the Dodgers won 18 more games than the 3 seed, but the Dodgers were the 4 seed. Even though the Dodgers won 11 more games than the 2 seed, I would not give them the 2 seed since they didn’t win their division. So you’d have to be a division winner to get a bye, but the third best division winner would not be guaranteed the advantage of the 3 seed (being a division winner would be a tie-breaker over a wild card). So here’s how the seeds would look as of right now under my system:
Dodgers (64-32)
Mets (60-37)
Braves (59-41)
Padres (55-44)
Brewers (54-44)
Phillies/Cardinals (51-47)
Yankees (66-32)
Astros (64-34)
Blue Jays (54-43)
Mariners (53-45)
Twins (52-45)
Rays (52-45)
Under my system, the worst case scenario for the 1 seed would be to face the fourth best team in the league and have four possible games at home. Under the current system, we saw the worst case scenario last year for the 1 seed when the Giants had to play the second best team in the NL and only get three home games. I’m definitely not going to root for the Dodgers to lose and fall to the 2 seed. It is nice to have Game 1 (and possibly Game 7) of the NLCS and hopefully the World Series at home, but I’m not going to be happy if the Dodgers are the 1 seed and they have to play the Mets or the Braves before the NLCS.
Before I wrap this up, I have a basketball thought. Under no circumstances should the Celtics trade Jaylen Brown for Kevin Durant. I have many reasons for being opposed to this idea:
Kevin Durant is getting old. He’ll be 34 in September. Jaylen Brown turns 26 in October. For comparison, the Celtics traded for Kevin Garnett two months after his 31st birthday.
Durant already had a major injury. Since recovering from his injury, he’s played 90 total regular season games in two seasons. Garnett had played at least 76 games in every season before coming to the Celtics, except for the lockout season when he played 47 out of 50 games. And we saw what happened to Garnett after he got hurt in 2009. He was still good, but he wasn’t the same. Durant is going to be declining (we already started to see it in the playoffs against the Celtics when he had pretty bad shooting and rebounding numbers). Brown is still getting better.
They would have to trade more than just Brown. One of the reasons they lost to the Warriors was the lack of depth. They’ve made a big upgrade in depth with Brogdon and Gallinari. They don’t need to give up some of that depth.
With Tatum, Brown, Smart, Williams, Brodgon, Williams, White, and Pritchard, they have a window of many years to compete for championships. That window gets much narrower if you trade Brown and another young guy/draft picks for Durant.
Kevin Garnett was loyal and hungry for a championship. Kevin Durant is neither of those things. He’ll ask to be traded if at some point.
Obviously he wouldn’t be bringing Kyrie Irving with him, but why would anybody trust a player who decided that he wanted to play with Kyrie Irving?
There are probably more reasons to be against the trade, but I think that’s a pretty good list. Just sign the best veteran big guy you can (not Dwight Howard) and call it an offseason and then go win the championship in 2023.
Anyway, I’m in the second half of my summer. I’ve only been to one professional baseball game this summer (a Ducks game), but I’ll get to at least one more before summer is over. Hopefully I’ll be able to enjoy the Dodgers playing some really good baseball for the rest of the summer.
It’s less than 40 days until college football so I’m definitely starting to long for that. Marcus Freeman is exactly who I want to be representing Notre Dame so I really hope he’s successful. Everybody is expecting Notre Dame to lose against Ohio State to start the season. I can’t really say that I’m expecting to win that game, but it would be awesome if we ever did win that one. Hopefully we’ll get on a good run after that game either way. But I still have plenty of summer to enjoy until then.
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