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!

Seven-Ninths Perfect and Sports Villain Power Rankings

Clayton Kershaw made his season debut today and it was awesome.  It was a weekday afternoon game in Minnesota, but it worked out really well because it was my last day of school before Easter vacation and it was a half day.  I was at home watching the game by the end of the top of the first inning.  Clayton Kershaw was outstanding.  The Twins were swinging and missing all game and when they did hit the ball, it wasn’t hard.  He should have had a perfect game eight years ago, but Hanley Ramirez and Don Mattingly messed that up.  Today it was Rob Manfred that was to blame.  Kershaw came out after seven innings with a perfect game intact.

Besides not being able to finish the game, the only other bad part was that Carlos Correa wasn’t in the lineup to strikeout a couple of times.

Alex Vesia gave up a hit to the second batter in the bottom of the eighth and that was that.  I was hoping for the first combined perfect game ever.  But check out this story about when Babe Ruth was involved in a combined almost perfect game.  It stunk that Kershaw had to come out of a perfect game, but if there was ever a time to take a pitcher out of a perfect game, it was this game.  It was Kershaw’s first start, the weather was cold, and he had pitched less than 17 innings (between spring training starts and a simulated game last week) since he got hurt on October 1.  So I’m blaming Rob Manfred for Kershaw not being able to finish the game with the shortened spring training.  And having another reason to be upset with Manfred gave me the idea this blog post.  Years ago I did my Sports Hate Power Rankings with my least favorite teams.  Now we’re doing the Sports Villain Power Rankings for my least favorite people in sports.  I’m limiting this to people who are currently active so we won’t have Barroid, A-Roid, or Mike Krzyzewski on this list.  It’s highly likely that I’m going to realize that I forgot people right after I publish this, but here we go:

26. David Shaw- He would rank higher if Stanford was still good in football.  He’s just on this list as long as he’s coaching Stanford.

25. James Harden- He would rank higher if he was still on the Nets.  I don’t like the 76ers at all, but I would root for them over the Nets without hesitation.

24. Sidney Crosby- I haven’t watched a lot of hockey this year.  Hopefully I’ll be able to pay more attention in the playoffs. The Rangers have a pretty good chance of playing the Penguins in the playoffs and my dislike for Sydney Crosby goes back to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

22. (Tie) Brandon Crawford and Logan Webb- I’m going to have one player currently under contract with the Dodgers on this list, so I needed to put somebody from the Giants on the list.

21. Lincoln Riley- He has the potential to skyrocket up the rankings in the years to come.

20. Lane Kiffin- I hate how people have decided that they like Lane Kiffin now.  Why?  He’ll always be on this list.

19. John Calipari- Maybe Kentucky will reclaim their spot as the best team full of mercenaries pretending to be college students from Duke now.

18. Geno Auriema- The only reason he’s not higher is because I don’t care more about women’s basketball.

17. Dabo Swinney- I used to have a fairly positive view of him, but he earned his spot on this list back in 2020 when he was telling the ACC officials which penalties to call or not call in the Notre Dame game.

16. Jim Boeheim- There are a lot of unlikeable coaches in college basketball, and Jim Boeheim is the most unlikeable of them all.

15. Jim Harbaugh- He would rank higher if he was a better coach.  He’s one of two exceptionally weird college football coaches on this list.

14. Bill Belichick- I almost forgot about him because the Patriots haven’t been as good lately.

13. LeBron James- I did not almost forget about LeBron James.  Anthony Davis would have made this list if the Lakers weren’t terrible, but LeBron James still makes the list and ranks pretty highly.  I did really enjoy how bad the Lakers were this season.

12. Trevor Bauer- He’s my least favorite Dodger ever.  I hope he gets suspended for all of this season and then the Dodgers just cut him after that.

11. Kevin Durant- The only reason he doesn’t rank higher is because of his teammate.

5 . (Tie) Yuli Gurriel, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, George Springer, Marwin Gonzalez- These are the 2017 Astros who got a lot of at bats that are still in the Majors.

4. Brian Kelly- And here’s our other really weird college football coach.  I’m going to have more about him in an upcoming post.  If he doesn’t win a National Championship at LSU, he won’t be able to do something that Ed Orgeron did and that would be embarrassing.  Speaking of Orgeron, he was just at a Notre Dame practice.  Any time I hear his accent or Brian Kelly’s fake accent, I think of Maine Justice.

3. Tom Brady- It’s safe to assume that he’s won one Super Bowl without cheating and he just did his whole fake retirement thing. And he went to Michigan.

2. Rob Manfred- What is Rob Manfred’s next bad idea?  You know it’s coming.

1. Kyrie Irving- He was a horrible teammate who completely ruined the Celtics’ season three years ago.  It would be so wonderful if the Celtics ended his season. He’s my least favorite Celtic guy who played for the Celtics ever (he doesn’t deserve to be called a Celtic).

After all of that, I’ll end on a positive note.  In my last post, I left out the change in baseball that I’m most excited about.  Joe Davis is replacing Joe Buck as the voice of Major League Baseball on Fox.  I said years ago that he would be the next person to call the World Series on TV, but I didn’t expect it to come so soon.  He had the impossible job of replacing the greatest broadcaster in the history of sports (it would be one thing if he was like Gary Cohen or somebody who had an established career, but Joe Davis took over when he was 29) and he’s been really really good.  I posted my email exchange with Rob Manfred.  Here’s my Instagram direct message exchange with Joe Davis:

Sadly, the podcast did not continue after 2020.  I listen to way too many podcasts and that was one of my favorites.

So now Joe Davis will be the first World Series TV broadcaster who wasn’t Joe Buck since Bob Costas in 1999.  If Fox would replace John Smoltz with Ron Darling or somebody, that would be awesome.  And it will be the first World Series called by the voice of the Dodgers since 1988.  It would be awesome if we could get the same World Series Champion as that World Series.

Baseball is Back and it’s Not Better than Ever

After a lockout that went on way too long, baseball is back.  There are some changes in the game and I’m going through some of them from worst (DH in the NL) to best (no more runner on second base to start extra innings).

The DH will be used in the NL.  I hate this so very much.  I want to boo the DH every time I go to a game in an NL stadium (including the Dodgers’ DH).  The American League game was so much less interesting than the NL game.  And the DH benefits the Dodgers because they have so much talent, but I don’t care.  They will get 20-40 home runs from their designated hitters this year and they will not be interesting.  Joe DiMaggio said, “You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen.”  I was there on Opening Day in 2013 when something wonderful did happen when Clayton Kershaw hit a home run in the bottom of the eighth to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.  The Dodgers scored three more runs and Kershaw finished off the shutout.  It was amazing.

Hyun-Jin Ryu’s home run in 2019 was another example of how awesome it was when a pitcher did something at the plate.  And now we will never have moments like that again.

I did some googling back in February to find an email address for Rob Manfred and found rob.manfred@mlb.com and tried it.  I got a response from Manfred@mlb.com:

First of all, Rob Manfred needed to have better things to be doing in February when the lockout was going on than responding to my email.  Second of all, the idea that he needed to include the DH in the NL to get a deal done was absurd.  Manfred just gave that to them.  There was no attempt to get a deal without the DH.  If he had just said we’re not having the DH in the NL, that was not going to be the reason the players wouldn’t agree to a deal.

Yes, most pitchers are bad hitters.  I don’t care.  That’s what makes the rare home run or extra base hit by a pitcher awesome.  And I like that managers have to deal with the pitcher’s spot in the lineup.  You mess up a double switch and it could cost you a game.  Now they don’t have to think about that anymore.  Using the logic of the DH, why not just have nine players in the field and nine different players hit?  Of course, that would be a terrible idea also.  Playing baseball like football would make it less interesting.  Playing football like baseball would make football more interesting.  Peyton Manning would be a bad defensive player, but it would be a more interesting game if he had to play defense.  And what if you lost a player for the rest of the game once you took him out?  That would be more interesting, but there are legitimate reasons not to play football that way since it’s a much more violent game.  There is no legitimate reason for the DH.  There’s no rule that pitchers can’t be good hitters.  I guess Shohei Otani has to be my new favorite non-Dodger.  We’ll get to him.  I was thinking about what games I would watch on Opening Day and how I would just default to NL games because they’re more interesting than AL games, but now they’re going to be the same anyway with the DH.

The runner on second base to start extra innings is back.  I hate this slightly less than I hate the DH.  If I go to any non-Dodger games that go into extra innings this year, I’m leaving after nine.  The people who defend this rule say that they don’t want games going 18 innings.  First of all, that is a complete straw man argument as that is so rare.  Second of all, when that does happen, it’s amazing.  Who are these people that want great games to end?  I remember the Mets and Cardinals going 20 innings in 2010.  When there’s a game like that and I don’t care who wins, I’m disappointed when it does end.  Now I’m just disappointed if a game goes to extra innings.  Supposedly this rule is just going to be for this year, but I don’t trust Manfred at all.  Like the DH, there was absolutely no reason for this.  They literally made a deal that didn’t include this (and that was what I was most looking forward to this year) and then they decided to do this again this season.  I despise Manfred so much.

As much as I hate this rule, I heard Bill SImmons on a podcast come up with three ideas that were even worse.  First was ties after 12 innings.  What is this, tee-ball?  The second idea was having all nine hitters bat for both teams in the 10th inning.  So your team could make seven outs or something.  People complain about games being too long, but he wanted to guarantee at least 10 batters in extra innings (if the home team managed to not allow a run and then hit a lead off home run) and quite possibly have 18.  That made absolutely no sense.  And the third idea was that a team could win without scoring a run.  Like if the home team didn’t allow a baserunner in the top of the tenth, all they needed to do to win was get somebody on first base.  If the road team didn’t score and stranded a runner on second, the home team would win by getting a runner to third.  When you can come up with three ideas even worse than one of Rob Manfred’s terrible ideas, that’s impressive.

They’re changing the schedule after this season.  Starting next season, each team will play the other 29 teams.  The right way to go here was less interleague play, not more (you would need to expand to have an even number of teams in both leagues, but they can’t do that until they figure out what’s going to happen with the Rays and A’s).  I would much rather see the Dodgers play NL West teams (or NL teams in the other divisions) than see them play the Cleveland Guardians or any other AL team.  Right now each team plays 20 interleague games.  I don’t think they’ve given details on this, but my guess is that it will be 46 next year.  Each team would have one team in the other league that they play four games (the Dodgers and Angels would play two in Los Angeles and two in Anaheim since the Angels play in Anaheim, not Los Angeles).  Then you play three games against every other team in the opposite league.  Then you play each team in the other divisions in your league six times each (60 games).  That would leave 56 games to play against the teams in your division.  You would play each division opponent 14 times (instead of the current 19 games).  I fear that this is a precursor to radical realignment.  I saw one plan on the internet with the Dodgers in the NL and the Cardinals in the AL.  Those are the two best franchises in the history of the NL.  Don’t put one of them in the AL.  Also, it had the Cubs still in the NL so it would be splitting up the Cubs and Cardinals, which is also stupid.  But I could totally see it coming.

The All Star Game would have a home run derby instead of extra innings.  We have a home run derby the night before.  Play real baseball.  Of course these days, managers want to put every single player into the game.  I had the solution to this.  Some players should be designated as extra innings players.  They could only get into the game if it goes into extra innings.

There are new places where games are going to air.  Notre Dame fans hated having a game on Peacock and now there will be baseball games exclusively on Peacock.  There will be games on Apple TV+ (which is supposedly going to be free).  Why are they making it harder for people to figure out how to watch the games?

Players can now be the pitcher and the DH.  Before this year, the Angels would choose not to use the DH if Otani was pitching, but then when he left the game, they had the pitcher’s spot in the lineup rather than the DH.  It doesn’t make sense to punish them for having Otani hit when he’s pitching so now he can leave the game as the pitcher and still be the DH.  While I acknowledge that the old way isn’t fair, they went the wrong way to fix it.  If we’re going to have the DH (gross), a better way to go would be tying the DH to the starting pitcher.  If you take out your starting pitcher, you lose the DH and the pitcher gets put into that spot in the lineup.  And then the DH would actually do something to help improve the game.  It would encourage teams to keep their starting pitcher in longer.  The opener would forever be killed if you did this.  Nobody is going to intentionally have a starting pitcher go one inning and then not have the DH for the rest of the game.  There is one problem here is that if you don’t write that rule correctly, it gives the road team the advantage.  The road team could have their DH hit in the top of the sixth and then take him out the starting pitcher in the bottom of the sixth.  The home team would need their pitcher to finish the top of the sixth for the DH to hit in the bottom of the sixth.  The way to fix that would be that for the DH to hit, the starting pitcher has to face a minimum of three batters in an inning.  So if the road team has the DH hit, the starter has to go out and face at least three batters in the bottom of the inning.  If the home team takes out the starting pitcher after he gets one out and walks two guys in the top of the inning, the DH could still hit in the bottom of the inning.  Then there’s no advantage for the road team.

Rosters will have 28 players until May.  I don’t care about this too much, but I’m really not looking forward to starting pitchers going an average of three and two-thirds innings (that might be optimistic) because of the short spring training and huge bullpens.  The Dodgers are starting the season with 12 position players and 16 pitchers.  That just sounds terrible.

Playoffs are expanding to 12 teams and the first round will be best of three.  I’d say that I’m slightly positive on this one.  They will also use tiebreakers from now on so we won’t get anymore Game 163’s.  That’s the bad news.  A Game 163 was fair (and awesome) when two teams were tied after 162.  But I get it.  With that many teams in the playoffs and with a best of three first round instead of a one game wild card round, it makes sense to use tiebreakers.  A Game 163 for two teams who were tied was awesome, but the Dodgers having to play what was essentially the same as a Game 163 last year against a team that finished 16 games behind them was not an enjoyable experience (fortunately they won in awesome fashion).  I’m glad they settled on six teams from each league and not seven.  If you’re the seventh best team in the league, you have no business having a shot at a championship.  You really don’t deserve it if you’re the sixth best team either, but I’m okay with it because it’s a way to give an added advantage to the second best team in the league.  If we had the same standings as last year, this is what it would look like:

1. Giants 107-55

2. Brewers 95-67

3. Braves 88-73

4. Dodgers 106-56

5. Cardinals 90-72

6. Reds 83-79

I would make two changes.  First, I would not give the three division winners the top three seeds automatically.  I would say the top two seeds (the teams that get the byes) should go to the best division winners.  After that, everybody is just seeded based on record.  Why do they get an advantage over the Dodgers for winning a terrible division?  Under my system, this is what it would look like:

1. Giants 107-55

2. Brewers 95-67

3. Dodgers 106-56

4. Cardinals 90-72

5. Braves 88-73

6. Reds 83-79

And the second change would be that they should absolutely reseed after the first round.  The Giants’ reward for having the best record in the league was playing the Dodgers in their first playoff series.  I don’t feel bad for them because I hate the Giants and it was awesome when the Dodgers won, but it made no sense that they had to play the Dodgers before the NLCS.  Under the current system, the Giants would be guaranteed to play the team with the second or fourth best record and the Brewers would be guaranteed to play the team with the fifth or sixth best record, which makes no sense.  That could have been avoided by making the Dodgers the three seed and/or by reseeding for the second round.  If the Reds pulled off an upset in the first round, the Giants should get rewarded by playing them rather than a team like the Dodgers in the next round.  Under my system, the Giants would have played the team with the fourth, fifth, or sixth best record and the Brewers would have played the team with the second, fourth, or fifth best record.

Seven-inning games in doubleheaders are gone.  This was supposed to be half of the good news when they settled the lockout and were returning to real baseball.  Of course, the other half was not having the runner on second base to start extra innings.  Instead they changed their minds and brought back the much worse rule of the two.  I’m happy that we’re back to nine-inning games in doubleheaders, but I was not nearly as offended by seven-inning games as I was by the DH or the runner on second in extra innings.  Why?  Because you can have games that are shorter than nine innings.  If the home team has the lead after four and a half and then a storm comes, that’s the game.  And as long as it’s a true doubleheader, fans were getting 14 innings for the price of nine.  But there were some instances last year of split doubleheaders with separate admissions.  Fans were getting seven innings for the price of nine.  That was wrong.

Possible changes for next season include a pitch clock, bigger bases, and banning the shift.  I’m fine with a pitch clock, but I’m not convinced that it’s going to make a difference.  As for bigger bases, if they just did this and didn’t say anything, most people probably wouldn’t notice so whatever.  If it led to more stolen bases (since the bases are slightly closer together), that would be a good thing.  And they definitely should do something about the shift.  There should be two infielders on both sides of second base and they shouldn’t be on the outfield grass.  That would encourage more balls in play and third basemen would be required to, you know, play third base instead of short right field.  If they were getting rid of the shift this year, that would have been my favorite change.

So yeah, on the whole, I’m not excited about the changes in baseball.  Can we just make Derek Jeter the commissioner?  He has to be better than Rob Manfred, right?  Anyway, I already have tickets for Dodgers-Mets in August.  I’m hoping to get out to Los Angeles at some point this summer.  Ideally I’ll get to see the Dodgers in at least one more city and get to a Rangers game in Texas since that’s the only current stadium I haven’t been to and that’s where the Dodgers won the World Series in 2020.  Hopefully there will be some minor league games somewhere along the way.  For now I’m looking forward to drinking some Sam Adams Summer Ale and watching baseball on TV.  Hopefully the season will end with some Summer Ale (if you know me well, you know that I will absolutely still be drinking Summer Ale in late October and early November) and Octoberfest to celebrate the Dodgers winning the World Series this year.

Winter Olympic Sports Power Rankings

I’ve always been a big fan of the Winter Olympics.  We need to have it back in the United States.  Having it in Beijing is a terrible idea for many reasons.  They don’t get much snow so they have to make it, they had some skiing events near a nuclear power plant so that looked ridiculous, and the Chinese government is pretty evil.  But it’s not the athletes’ fault that they have to compete in China so I’ve still been supporting them.  In four years, the Winter Olympics will be in Italy so that’s much better.  And then in eight years, it looks like the possibilities are a Spain/France/Andorra combination, Japan, Canada, or the United States.  We do have the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028 so I would say we should wait and try to get the 2034 Winter Olympics.

I get the week of Washington’s Birthday off every year.  Ever since I’ve been teaching, the second week of the Winter Olympics was during my week off and it was awesome.  But with Washington’s Birthday being late this year, I had to work both weeks of the Winter Olympics and it was really annoying.  I wanted to just be able to stay up and watch stuff live as much as possible.  Now I’m off for a week and the Winter Olympics are about to be over.  I already checked the dates for 2026 and I’ll be off during the second week again so that will be better.

Anyway, I ranked the Summer Olympic events back in July when they were going on so I had to do it for the Winter Olympics.  There aren’t as many events in the Winter Olympics so I’m going to rank every event, not just list the ones that I have no interest or minimal interest in.  Here we go:

15. Figure Skating- It’s the gymnastics of the Winter Olympics.  I don’t care.  They’re amazing athletes, but I’m not going to care about events determined by corrupt judges.

14. Nordic Combined- I had no idea what this was.  I looked it up and it combines cross-country skiing and ski jumping.  If you’re going to combine things, my policy is that it should be things that seemingly have no relation to each other.

13. Cross-Country Skiing- I don’t get why somebody would want to do this.  I get the appeal of skiing down a mountain, but cross-country skiing doesn’t seem fun.  But events that involve racing can’t be terrible.  In four years, ski mountaineering will be an Olympic sport.  I had no idea what that was so I looked it up.  It involves skiing up a mountain and then down the mountain.  Sign me up for that one.  I mean, sign me up for watching it, not for doing it.  All I know about skiing is that French fry when you should pizza, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Before moving on, it’s worth pointing out that cross-country skiing did give us this four years ago:

12. Freestyle Skiing- Ski cross is cool because it’s a race.  But I have no interest in the events that are judged.

11. Snowboarding- Again, racing is good so snowboard cross is cool.  I know there’s half-pipe and then there are other snowboarding events called parallel, slopestyle, and big air.  I have no idea what those things mean.  I didn’t bother to find out.

10. Ski Jumping- This is one of the events that would result in my death if I ever tried it.  It looks cool enough.  I haven’t watched much this year and if I was watching, I wasn’t really paying attention.  The problem is that I could watch somebody do it and have no idea if they’re good or bad at it.  I think they put like a first down line on the screen to show how far the leader jumped so you can see what each person has to beat.  But without that, I’d be completely lost.

9. Skeleton- This is another event that I wouldn’t survive trying.  It’s cool to watch them sliding, but again, I have no idea how good somebody is at this just watching it.  If something goes terribly wrong, then it’s easy to tell, but you can’t really tell other than that.  Trying to be the fastest at something makes for an interesting sport, but track and field and swimming are better because people are competing against each other at the same time so you can actually see who is the fastest.

8. Bobsled- This one isn’t nearly as crazy as skeleton, but it has the same issue in terms of competing for the fastest time, but you’re not competing at the same time.  Going back to swimming, the other thing that makes it fun to watch is when they put the line on the screen that moves at the pace of the world record.  That gives me an idea to make this a better sport to watch, which I’m taking from the original Mario Kart (perhaps the greatest video game of all time).  If you did a time trial, they would have a ghost driver with the fastest time on the screen.  So you would be competing against the ghost driver.  It’s 2022, it seems like we should be able to take the team with the fastest time and put them on the screen as a ghost bobsled as each team goes.  That would be much more fun to watch.

7. Luge- It’s less crazy than skeleton and more fun than bobsled.  But I don’t get why doubles luge is a thing.

6. Biathlon- This sport was invented by Norwegians based on their experience fighting the Nazis, right?  The combination of skiing and shooting makes it weird enough to be interesting.  And it’s a race where everybody is racing against each other at the same time.

5. Speed Skating- You get two skaters at the same time so that’s better than the sports where it’s just one person or team going at a time.  But there is a better skating event.

4. Alpine Skiing- It definitely looks cool.  Adding the ghost skier with the fastest time would make it better.  I’m going to watch some tonight and drink a Sam Adams Alpine Lager since I drink by mood.

Before we get to the three Winter Olympic sports that are clearly ahead of the rest for me, I saw a tweet that said that every Winter Olympic sport is some variation of “get down hill fast” or “knife feet.” And that’s kind of true. We could use more variety in Winter Olympic sports and just more Winter Olympic sports in general (the Summer Olympics have a lot more sports than the Winter Olympics). So I googled sports that should be in the Winter Olympics and I found some winners:

Yukigassen:

Snow Rugby:

And I had the idea for events like a three-point shootout and home run derby in the Summer Olympics. So why not an accuracy shooting competition for hockey? You could also make a hockey shootout its own Olympic event. Speaking of hockey…

3. Hockey- It’s the basketball of the Winter Olympics.  The thing that makes it worse than basketball this year is that we don’t have NHL players.  The thing that makes it better is that there’s more parity.  The US should win every gold medal in basketball.  I love it when the US wins gold medals, but it’s less interesting when it’s entirely expected.  I would love to see the US win the gold medal in hockey.  It looked like we had a chance this year, but we were eliminated with a tough loss in a shootout. As I said, make the shootout its own event and get rid of shootouts in the medal round of hockey. They do play a three on three overtime for ten minutes before going to the shootout, but that’s a bad way for a team to be eliminated. The NHL gets this right. In the playoffs, they just keep playing regular hockey until somebody scores. Overtime hockey in the playoffs is amazing (but if your team is involved, its pretty much as stressful as playoff baseball).

2. Short Track- I always want more of short track.  It’s kind of like swimming with everybody racing each other at the same time.  The relay races are especially crazy.  The all skate so fast and there’s not a lot of space on the short track so the idea of passing somebody always seems impossible to me.  Sometimes you do get races where somebody just leads wire to wire, but then there are crazy races where they lead changes as the race goes on.  This event is the Mario Kart of the Winter Olympics.  You never know what’s going to happen.  I feel like it should be more like Mario Kart.  Just let the skaters throw turtle shells at each other.

1. Curling- It’s just the best.  Women’s curling is the main event of the Winter Olympics.  I really hope the US can win gold someday, but I would settle for any medal.  It was amazing when the men won the gold medal four years ago.  Sadly, the men finished in fourth this year.  But since three of the four men’s curlers were the same as the team that won it four years ago, it wasn’t as disappointing as it would have been without the gold medal four years ago.  John Shuster, Matt Hamilton, and John Landsteiner have represented the United States well and I will never speak ill of them.  John Shuster is the greatest American curler of all time (five-time Olympian, 2006 bronze medalist, 2018 gold medalist). Finishing fourth this year would be like if Notre Dame won a National Championship and then the next year the same quarterback and head coach didn’t have as much success, I probably would not complain at all.  The difference is that in curling, there’s nobody like Michigan or USC who could win and completely ruin my experience as a curling fan.  We lost to Canada in the bronze medal game and if there’s anybody that I don’t want to lose to in curling, it’s probably them, but that’s not nearly as bad as the idea of Michigan or USC winning a National Championship.  I was happy that Sweden won the gold medal after they lost to us in the gold medal game four years ago (it was definitely the same skip for them, but I don’t know about the rest of the team).  So yeah, I’ll always been a fan of John Shuster and his team.  I will still hold out hope that Cassie and Jamie Johnson (they have different last names now that they’re married) will get back to the Winter Olympics in four years and win the first medal for the US in women’s curing.

I got to see them and John Shuster at the USA Curling Nationals in 2014.

The Super Bowl of Eating

Thanksgiving is really the Super Bowl of Eating, but the Super Bowl is up there as a big eating event.  Before I get to the food, I’m looking forward to the game.  I have lost so much interest in the NFL in the last decade, but I’ve enjoyed the playoffs (other than having a Monday night playoff game).  Eight of the last ten Super Bowls have featured at least one of the Patriots, Jim Harbaugh, Pete Carroll, or Tom Brady.  The only ones that didn’t were Super Bowl L (I refuse to not use the Roman numeral) and Super Bowl LIV.  But those other eight games had the possibility of making me miserable (it was guaranteed in the case of Super Bowl XLIX).  Super Bowl XLVI turned out to be amazing, but there have been far too many Super Bowls recently that I haven’t been able to enjoy.  But this year, there’s no terrible outcome other than a bad game.  There’s nobody I despise and both teams have one Notre Dame player.  I love Los Angeles, but I like the idea of the Dodgers being the most recent Los Angeles team to win a championship.  And the Rams’ Notre Dame player is Ben Skowronek, who only spent one year at Notre Dame as a graduate transfer (I’m guessing he didn’t finish a graduate degree).  The Bengals have Khalid Kareem, who spent four years at Notre Dame (I’m assuming he graduated) and recorded 13 sacks.  So I’m rooting for the Bengals, but I won’t be too disappointed if the Rams win.

When it comes to watching the Super Bowl, I know I’m different from most people.  I don’t like watching the game with a lot of people.  I want to be able to watch it and pay attention without being distracted at a party.  But I do like combining good food with football.  So let’s talk about designing a Super Bowl food and beverage program.

I’ll start with the easiest part, which is my Super Bowl beer.  Last year I didn’t drink anything because of an issue with my blood test from my physical a couple of weeks earlier.  I ended up having to have two more blood tests and two other tests and seeing two more doctors, but everything turned out fine.  I just had my physical this year and everything came back fine so I’ll definitely be enjoying some beer with this Super Bowl.  George Costanza dresses by mood and I drink by mood.  I love Sam Adams, but I couldn’t drink any Sam Adams whenever the Patriots were in the Super Bowl.  I would try to find some beer from the city of their opponent.  But this year’s beer selection is easy.  Everybody associates Sam Adams with Boston, but much of their beer is brewed in Cincinnati.  I’m rooting for the Bengals.  I love football in the snow, but I think of football as a fall sport.  The start of football marks the end of summer and the end of football marks the beginning of the long dark winter in sports until college basketball conference tournaments (which is made much more bearable this year thanks to the Winter Olympics and the this being the latest Super Bowl ever).  Orange is one of the Bengals’ colors and I completely missed out on Sam Adams Octoberfest in 2020 because of the pandemic.  I did not miss out on Octoberfest this year.  I still have some that’s good until April.  It was probably brewed in Cincinnati and the label is orange so I’ll be drinking Octoberfest.

As for food, I’ve been listening to the Ringer Food podcast.  They went through the signature foods for each playoff city.  It was tacos for Los Angeles and Skyline chili for Cincinnati.  Tacos aren’t a terrible food option for football.  I’d go burrito over taco most of the time, but a burrito is a much bigger commitment and I’d rather not make that commitment when there’s lots of other food to eat.  I’m not interested in Skyline chili.  They did a bracket of all the playoff food and it came down to Buffalo wings against the Philly cheesesteak.  If you’re going to have a sandwich, a Philly cheesesteak is a really good option, but I think the Buffalo wing is pretty much the perfect football food.  For their bracket, they first narrowed it down to four AFC cities and four NFC cities and then got the food delivered from Gold Belly.  For Green Bay, it was bratwurst with cheese curds. Hot dogs are the classic baseball food. I would agree that bratwursts are more of a football food. I definitely had some brats tailgating at Notre Dame as a student, but I’d take a hot dog over a brat (one of the best hot dogs I ever had was tailgating before the USC game in 2011, unfortunately that turned out to be the highlight of the day). Anyway, I considered getting something from Gold Belly for the Super Bowl, but I opted not to.  Back in the spring of 2020, I got some Chicago deep dish “pizza” delivered from Gold Belly.  It was good, but I don’t think it was the same quality that you’d actually get in Chicago.  Some other foods might travel better, but the prices for things other than pizza are pretty high.  And of course, I can get actual pizza (not deep dish “pizza”) from many local establishments for a cheaper price.  But back to Buffalo wings, I had them in Buffalo last summer and I could definitely get Buffalo wings that are just as good from some places around here.

So what do I want to eat for the Super Bowl?  Well, I do live in the Pizza Belt.  The great thing about living in the Pizza Belt is that so many places have really good regular pizza.  I think the biggest variance is in the speciality slices.  I have three clear favorite local specialty slices:

Jimmy’s Buffalo Chicken

Chefs Broccoli Cheddar

Little Vincent’s Cold Cheese

All are outstanding, but for the Super Bowl, I think Jimmy’s Buffalo Chicken is the clear winner.  You’re combining Buffalo wings and pizza.  And Jimmy’s does it so well.  Buffalo chicken pizza has become ubiquitous in the last decade and a half or so, but so many places don’t do it well.  You need to feel like you’re eating a slice of pizza, not just having dough with a bunch of Buffalo chicken piled on top of it.  I’ve seen it served with a side of blue cheese.  That’s not the way to do it.  The blue cheese has to be part of the pizza and you need to get the ratio of chicken, buffalo sauce, blue cheese, and mozzarella cheese just right.  When Jimmy’s of Greenlawn was sold, I was most disappointed about losing their Buffalo chicken slice, but then I realized that Jimmy’s of Centerport still has the same quality Buffalo chicken pizza.  I have a leftover slice that I’ll be heating up for the game.

As for snacks, I don’t need much.  I was going to go with pretzels and hummus.  Boar’s Head makes an everything bagel hummus, which is fantastic.  But my grocery plans changed today and I ended up getting stuff delivered from 7-Eleven on Doordash.  I didn’t like their pretzel selection so I was looking at other options.  Tortilla chips and salsa are a good option.  Two snacks that I think are overrated are popcorn and regular potato chips.  I ended up getting Cheez-Its and pistachios.  If you want some vegetables, you should reconsider your Super Bowl food decisions.  But if you must, I would want something like baby carrots or celery that you could have with hummus or dip in blue cheese if you’re having Buffalo wings. I should have given more consideration to Totinos Pizza Rolls.

For dessert, I was trying to get some edible cookie dough.  There’s a place in the mall that I’ve gotten it from before, but they didn’t have it this weekend.  So I’ll keep it simple.  I rediscovered the classic ice cream sandwich at the beginning of the pandemic.  It’s really good.  I’m taking it easy on the dessert because I’m sure I’ll have enough food.

So I’m looking forward to some good food and one last football game.  I’ll finish with a scheduling tangent.  We need to make it so that the Super Bowl is Washington’s Birthday Eve (remember Presidents Day is not a thing) so that I don’t have to go to work the next day.  With the extra regular season game, it will be Washington’s Birthday Eve some years, but it’s not this year.  The NFL should take a page from college when it comes to scheduling (a page, not multiple pages, there are plenty of problems when it comes to college football scheduling with the most glaring being that they play the championship game on a Monday night).  The college football regular season goes from Labor Day to Thanksgiving weekend.  Sometimes there’s an extra week in there and so teams just have an extra bye week.  The NFL regular season has 18 weeks now and then you have three weeks of playoffs, a week off, and then the Super Bowl.  They should just make it so that some years have 18 regular season weeks and some years have 19 depending on when Washington’s Birthday is so that the Super Bowl is always the day before Washington’s Birthday.

Anyway, I hope everybody enjoys some delicious food and a Super Bowl without the Patriots, Jim Harbaugh, Pete Carroll, and Tom Brady as much as I’m going to.