A World Series and a Century Series

My last Notre Dame football game on campus was the Duke game in 2016.  It was a disaster and there’s no blog post because it wasn’t worth blogging about.  The last Notre Dame win I went to on campus was Stanford in 2014.  That was also the last football game I attended in October.  Since then, I have purposely avoided games in October because I didn’t want to miss the Dodgers in the playoffs.  I broke that rule this year for a couple of reasons.  First, the Dodgers won the World Series in 2020 and 2024.  I still wouldn’t miss a World Series game, but the sense of urgency to see every playoff game isn’t as strong as it was when the Dodgers went three plus decades without winning the World Series.  And second, there was the possibility of this being the last Notre Dame-USC game.  I definitely want the series to continue, but in case it is the last game, I didn’t want to miss it.

Let’s briefly review my history attending ND-USC games and when that intersected with the Dodgers in the playoffs:

2005- This was the most heartbreaking loss I ever attended in any sport.  Of course, Reggie Bush was a professional athlete at a time when that was still not allowed in college athletics.

2009- We trailed 34-14 in the fourth quarter and came back and got to the four yard line with a chance to tie it, but we threw three straight incompletions and lost 34-27.  This was when I officially gave up on Charlie Weis.  I wouldn’t have been opposed to replacing him after the 2008 season, but this is when I knew it was necessary.  He was 0-5 against USC and 4-6 against Michigan and Michigan State.  That was not close to being good enough.  I missed the Dodgers winning Game 2 of the NLCS against the Phillies to fly out for the game and the Dodgers lost the other four games of the series.

2011- It was the first night game at home since 1990.  There was a lot of hype, but two conflicting forces were at work:  Brian Kelly being bad in big games and Brian Kelly being good against USC.  Brian Kelly being bad in big games won this time and we lost 31-17.

2013- I finally got to see us beat USC in a very ugly game by a score of 14-10.  The Dodgers were playing the Cardinals in the NLCS.  Game 6 was Friday night when I was flying out.  I was supposed to take the bus to campus and stay with Jon because he was in law school.  Instead, I got a room at the O’Hare Hilton so that I could watch the game.  The Dodgers got blown out and were eliminated.  If they had won, Game 7 would have been at the same time as we were playing USC.  I don’t know what I would have done.  If I was in that situation now, I would have no problem going to ND-USC.  But it had been 25 years since the Dodgers had been to the World Series at that point and Notre Dame already had two losses that season.

This year, I knew the schedule would line up with me traveling during Game 4 of the NLCS and the game would be the same day as Game 5.  I wouldn’t want to miss any World Series game even if the Dodgers weren’t playing in it, but for the NLCS it would only be an issue if the Dodgers were playing in it.  I didn’t want to miss the Dodgers, but I would have been okay with it if it happened.

As it turned out, I didn’t miss much.  I flew JetBlue on Friday night during Game 4.  I got TBS on the plane so I was able to watch the first five innings on the plane.  They scored three runs in the first and they were well on their way to the World Series.  The TV service was pretty good, but it did cut out a few times.  It cut out at one point and came back right after Shohei Ohtani’s second home run (the one he hit over the pavilion).  So when I got to Chicago the Dodgers led 4-0.  Ohtani was pitching and hitting (the way God intended baseball to be played).  He pitched six scoreless innings and hit two home runs (and then added another home run later as a silly DH).  I originally booked an airport hotel, but then I found one pretty close to Millennium Station and booked that because it would be more convenient for getting to and from the game.  I kept my original hotel room and canceled the second reservation because I figured I would be able to get to the airport hotel in time for the end of the game.  I got there and saw the ninth inning.  The Dodgers won 5-1.  I would have been very okay with the Dodgers winning the series in five games and missing Game 5, but sweeping the series and not having to worry about Game 5 was beautiful.  I got a personal deep dish pizza delivered from Lou Malnati’s.  I think Lou Malnati’s is supposed to be a pretty well known Chicago pizza place, but this was not good.  And this isn’t just my opposition to the idea of saying that something that isn’t pizza is pizza.  I’ve had deep dish pizza before that was good (even though it wasn’t pizza).  This just wasn’t good.

The next morning, I left my hotel the following day around 9:30 in the morning central time.  I got back at 2:45 the following morning.  I took the CTA to Millennium Station (which looks exactly the same as it did in the Dark Knight 17 years ago).  I took the South Shore Line to South Bend.  I got to campus around 2:45 eastern.  I walked around for a bit and saw stuff that I wanted to see.  I got a hot dog from a concession stand on campus.  I was planning on getting a cheeseburger later, but that didn’t happen because of the weather.  I think that was God’s way of reminding me that cheeseburgers are for bye weeks (as Notre Dame football fans from the Charlie Weis era know).  I went to the 4:00 Mass in the crypt of the basilica.

The sky was looking ominous, but it was good to be back on campus for a football game.

I will stop by the Grotto whenever I’m on campus, but it’s better when it’s not right before a football game and there’s not a huge crowd.

After Mass, I was meeting up with my friend Tim.  I think the last time I saw him was at the Oklahoma game in 2013.  He was in the lounge at our old dorm, St. Ed’s.  That turned out to be a really good place to be because the weather got really bad from about 5:00-6:30.  At first, it was just Tim, his son, his friend, and me in there.  A few more former St. Ed’s residents came in later.  But we got to hang out at a place that wasn’t crowded and we watched some football and waited to be able to go to the game.  I found one report that said South Bend had 0.74 inches of rain that day.  We missed the worst of it while we were in St. Ed’s.

I’m sure there were much worse places to be on campus when the weather got really bad.

I was still concerned about the weather for the game.  The forecast had been looking really bad for a few days.  I didn’t mind rain, but I really didn’t want to deal with a delay.  Fortunately the weather for the game was pretty good.  It didn’t rain much in the first half.  It rained for most of the second half and it was getting heavier, but it never really got too bad.  It wasn’t cold (67 degrees) and there wasn’t too much wind so that was good.  But I felt like I feel at the first game of a doubleheader in the Big East Tournament.  I’m always rooting for a quick game because I want to be able to stay for as much of the second game as possible (because I’ve been going on Thursdays lately and I have work the next day).  This time, I was rooting for a quick game because I wanted the game to get played before there could be a lightning delay.  Fortunately, the only lightning was before the game and there were no delays.  If there had been a delay, making it back to Chicago in time for my 6:45 flight the next morning could have been an issue.

Anyway, things got off to a good start with USC winning the coin toss and taking the ball.  I’m still mad about Brian Kelly doing this.  It makes no sense.  Why would you not want to start the second half with the ball?  Yes, they did score a touchdown, but there’s so much of the game left to play.  Last year in the championship game, we got the ball first (because Ohio State did the smart thing and deferred).  They were leading 14-7 and then scored with 27 seconds left in the first half to make it 21-7.  Then they got the ball to start the second half and scored again to make it 28-7.  We did fight back to make it kind of interesting at the end, but the game was pretty much over when they scored back to back touchdowns to end the first half and start the second half.  That is why you always defer.  Taking the ball is so stupid.

My thoughts on the stadium:  I had the jumbotron behind me.  It’s good to be able to see replays.  I like how they took out the scoreboard on the other side of the field so that I was able to see Touchdown Jesus.  They absolutely need to bring back real grass in the stadium.  A game in the rain was cool, but it would have been more fun on a grass field (the way God intended football to be played).

On our first possession, alternated between incompletions and Jeremiyah Love runs.  His first run was for 63 yards.  His second run went 12 yards for a touchdown.  It was a sign of how the game would go.  CJ Carr was not very good.  Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price were awesome.  Love had 228 yards (a record for a Notre Dame player in Notre Dame Stadium) and a touchdown on 24 carries and 37 yards on five catches.  Price had 87 yards on 13 carries and a touchdown, one catch for nine yards, and two kick returns for 113 yards (100 on one return) and a touchdown.

After a USC field goal (their kicker was good, ours was not), we traded punts for the rest of the first quarter.  We took our first lead when Jadarian Price ran for 16 yards and a touchdown early in the second quarter.  We got a turnover on downs when USC threw incomplete on fourth and three at our 19 yard line.  It looked like we were on our way to take control of the game when we had first and goal at the 3 yard line on the following possession.  We ran the ball very well in this game, but not in short yardage situations (it seems like we’ve been bad at running in short yardage situations forever except for last year with Riley Leonard).  Love had two carries for one yard.  Then on third and goal, CJ Carr threw pretty much the worst interception that you can imagine.  It wasn’t a good play call, but Carr needed to just throw it away.  USC made a field goal to make it 14-13 going into halftime.

Fortunately, we got the ball to start the second half and we scored a touchdown on a six yard pass to Will Pauling.  USC got another field goal to make it 21-16.  We had another opportunity to make it a two-possession game, but we had a run for four yards and two incompletions followed by a punt.  USC took three plays to go 71 yards.  They scored on a 59 yard pass and then got the two-point conversion to take a 24-21 lead.

I was feeling pretty frustrated.  We were better than USC, but we were not playing well.  It was a competitive game, but it didn’t need to be.  It felt like it might end up being a stupid loss.  Fortunately, Jadarian Price wasn’t having any of that.  Right after USC took the lead, Price returned a kickoff 100 yards to retake the lead.  But even with that, a missed extra point added to the frustration.

Fortunately, our defense played well for the rest of the game and USC never retook the lead.  Christian Gray intercepted a pass on the next USC possession.  But still, we couldn’t take advantage and our drive ended with a missed 31 yard field goal.  Then we got another turnover.  I was listening to a podcast previewing the game and one of the hosts was saying how Lincoln Riley is a great play caller, but he’ll get impatient and do something stupid.  That’s exactly what happened.  After a 42 yard completion to Makai Lemon (their best wide receiver) that got them to the Notre Dame 37 yard line, they ran a play where Makai Lemon was supposed to pass it.  He had nobody open, he fumbled, and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa recovered it.  Jeremiyah Love ran for 31 yards on our next possession to make it first and goal at the 5.  Two runs by CJ Carr got us into the end zone and it was finally a two-possession game with 7:16 to play.  We forced an incompletion on fourth and 1 to end USC’s next possession.  We were in very good shape getting the ball back with a 34-24 lead with 5:55 left, but we missed a chance to completely put it away and turned it over on downs with 2:35 left.  With just over a minute to go, Luke Talich intercepted a pass to seal the win.

All was right in college football.

The win keeps us alive for the College Football Playoff.  After a terrible start (especially on defense), we have played well since then.  When we started 0-2, I said that it felt the same as when we were 1-1 last year (our two losses this year weren’t as bad as our one loss last year).  We needed to win ten straight games to make the playoff.  We’re halfway there.  Our defense might not be as good as it was last year, but it’s been pretty good lately.  The offense misses Riley Leonard’s rushing ability, but our better passing game gives the offense a higher ceiling.  We’ll be favored to win the rest of our games.  Hopefully we’ll take care of business and get back to the playoff.

This was my first home night game since the USC game in 2013.  It was also my first home football game since the stadium renovations were completed (but it was my second sporting event in the stadium since then because I went to a hockey game in the stadium in 2019).  And it was my first game in the stadium with alcohol available, but I didn’t drink anything.  The selection was mostly bad, but there was Guinness.  The other good option was Bell’s, but that’s a Michigan brewery so I would never drink any of their beer during a Notre Dame football game.  They should get some beer from an Indiana brewery in the stadium.

Notre Dame improved its record with me in attendance to 33-12.  I’ve seen wins in other places since my the Stanford game in 2014 (my last win was at Yankee Stadium last year), but it had been way too long since I got to see us win at home.  I used to get to a lot of home games.  After graduating, I still had friends out there as undergraduates or in graduate/law school for six out of seven years.  Since then, I don’t have a place to stay.  And getting to Notre Dame is a hassle.  I considered going to our game against BYU in Las Vegas in 2022 because Las Vegas is easier to get to than South Bend.  But I didn’t want to miss this game.  I knew Tim was going.  Jon had talked about possibly going, but that didn’t happen.  There was a chance that it would be our last game against USC and I hadn’t seen us play USC since 2013.  It was great to be on campus for a home football win against our rival of 100 years that we might not play again.

I hope the series continues, but if this is how it ends, it was pretty awesome.  And why might it end?  Because of how incredibly soft Lincoln Riley and USC are.  We’ve played them every year for 100 years except for three World War II years and 2020 because of the pandemic (we’re 53-38-5 against them).  There is no reason that the rivalry should end.  The USC explanation for possibly ending the series is that the game isn’t beneficial for them.  And I agree.  The game isn’t beneficial when you lose all the time like they have been lately.  I despise Pete Carroll, but he would smack Lincoln Riley around for entertaining the thought of ending the series.  They should be trying to beat us, not running away from us.  They complain about the travel.  They have been really bad outside of the Pacific time zone for a while.  Of course, they made the decision to join a conference where all of the teams before they joined were in the Eastern and Central time zones.  They didn’t have to do that.  But they did, so now they have to deal with the consequences.  We travel to them every other year and we’ve handled that pretty well lately.  USC needs some leadership.  Why in the world would they let Lincoln Riley run away from this rivalry?  It should be like when Lou Holtz mentioned changing Notre Dame’s helmets.  He was told no (and he learned why the answer was no).  Lincoln, this is what you signed up for when you took the USC job because you were too afraid of playing in the SEC with Oklahoma.  Now he’s afraid of the Eastern and Central time zones.  I thought I would miss Clay Helton as USC’s coach.  I have not missed him.  But USC fans might be missing him because Lincoln Riley’s winning percentage is just barely better than his and Clay Helton didn’t try to get rid of their most historic rivalry.  USC needs some people in their leadership like Petros Papadakis.  He wants the rivalry to continue without interruption and without moving the game to September or neutral sites or anything like that.  Hopefully USC won’t let a crappy coach who isn’t going to be there very long anyway ruin a century of tradition.  I want the series to continue for as long as college football is played, but if it doesn’t, we will all know that it ended because of how soft they are.

Lincoln Riley is an embarrassment for USC.  At least USC fans can root for the Dodgers in the World Series.  Go Dodgers!  Go Irish!

Goodbye to a Legend

When I started this blog in 2012, Clayton Kershaw had already won his first Cy Young award at the age of 23.  When I figured out my favorite post-Cold War baseball players in 2012, Clayton Kershaw was number 2 on the list.  I said, “He’s going to be the Dodgers’ second best pitcher ever.”  He was 24 years old at the time and that’s how confident I was in him.  Now that he’s retiring, you can make the case that he’s number 1.  I would still go with Koufax because of his World Series dominance, but Kershaw’s peak compares favorably to Koufax and he did it for longer.  I said that he had a good chance to take over the number one spot on my list of favorite post-Cold War baseball players (Orel Hershiser was number 1 at the time).  Kershaw probably took that spot by 2014.  He is now clearly my favorite athlete of all time.  Five years ago, I figured out my favorite athlete for every year of this century.  Clayton Kershaw has been my favorite athlete for every year for the last 15 years except for 2012 (Manti Te’o).  I knew he didn’t have much longer left, but I’m sad that his retirement is coming at the end of this season.  He goes into his final start on Sunday 11 wins away from Don Sutton’s Dodger record for wins.  One more season would have given him a chance so I was hoping for at least one more.  But he didn’t owe the Dodgers anything.  And he will go out as a pitcher who was still good at the end.  Hopefully he will go out as a World Series champion.

I love this picture.  I want this one more time.

I have written a lot of blog posts about Clayton Kershaw.  Here are some blog posts that weren’t about games that I attended:

His no-hitter

When he was about to win his MVP award in 2014

My post when he was having possibly the best month of his career in May 2016

After his 200th win

One of my favorite blog posts of all time was my post celebrating the Dodgers winning the World Series in 2020.  Some people will denigrate that World Series because it came in a drastically shortened season (which I think is absurd for reasons covered in the post).  People will criticize Kershaw for his performance in the playoffs.  And there’s no question he didn’t come close to his regular season success in the playoffs.  But he did have plenty of excellent starts.  Of the bad starts, some of them were completely on him, but there are a good number where his numbers ended up looking much worse than they should have because the manager left him in too long and/or the bullpen gave him no help.  If you go season by season, he was excellent in 2013 until the last game, he was excellent in his only two starts in 2015 (he pitched a great game to keep the Dodgers alive against the Mets in Game 4, but then they lost Game 5), he was excellent in 2017 except for the game in Houston when the Astros were cheating, and he was excellent in 2020.  And there were some really good moments in other years too (for example, closing out the series against the Nationals in the first round in 2016 and two great starts in the first two rounds in 2018 and then closing out Game 7 of the NLCS against the Brewers).  And like people discount the 2020 World Series, they might discount Kershaw’s performance in it.  If he had been bad, it would have been used against him.  So if he was good, he should get credit for it.  He won both of his starts in that World Series.  He was excellent in Game 1 and he was very good in Game 5.  And Game 5 was absolutely huge.  The series was tied and the Dodgers had lost Game 4 in the most ridiculous way possible.  If they lost Game 5, they probably would have lost the World Series.  He gave them 5 ⅔ and only allowed two runs.  If not for Corey Seager’s ridiculous World Series, Clayton Kershaw probably would have been the MVP (Mookie Betts would have been the other candidate).  In his World Series career, he was 3-2 and he would have been 4-2 with another World Series championship if the Astros weren’t cheating.  His World Series ERA in games where the Astros weren’t cheating was 3.48.

There are more Kershaw posts on the blog than the ones I’ve included in this post so if those weren’t enough for you, just search for Kershaw on the blog and you’ll find more.  There were lots of posts about games that I attended.  I got to see Clayton Kershaw pitch in person 12 times and pinch hit twice.  I have been to 16 games at Dodger Stadium. They have all been during Clayton Kershaw’s career. I only got to see him pitch at Dodger Stadium once, but it was an all time classic. The first two times I saw him were before the blog, but I included links for the blog posts for the other games.  Let’s run through the games:

July 7, 2009 against the Mets at Citi Field:  6 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 2 walks, 7 strikeouts, win (0-1, 2 sacrifices)

April 24, 2010 against the Nationals at Nationals Park:  6 innings, 8 hits, 2 runs, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts, no decision (the Dodgers won in 13 innings) (0-2)

July 22, 2012 against the Mets at Citi Field:  sacrifice bunt in the 11th inning (the Dodgers won in 12 innings)

April 1, 2013 against the Giants at Dodger Stadium on Opening Day:  complete game, 4 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 7 strikeouts, solo home run leading off the bottom of the eighth to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead, win (1-3, home run)

April 23, 2013 against the Mets at Citi Field:  5 innings, 3 hits, 2 runs, 4 walks, 5 strikeouts, no decision (the Dodgers won 7-2) (0-2)

August 17, 2013 against the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park:  8 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 1 walk, 8 strikeouts, win (1-3 with an RBI double)

July 23, 2015 against the Mets at Citi Field:  complete game, 3 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 11 strikeouts, win (1-3)

May 29, 2016 against the Mets at Citi Field:  7 ⅔ innings, 4 hits, 2 runs, 0 walks, 10 strikeouts, no decision (the Dodgers won 4-2) (0-3)

September 14, 2016 against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium:  5 innings, 1 hit, 0 runs, 0 walks, 5 strikeouts, no decision (the Dodgers won 2-0)

April 7, 2018 against the Giants at AT&T Park:  struck out as a pinch hitter in the 14th inning (the Dodgers lost 7-5 in 14 innings)

June 23, 2018 against the Mets at Citi Field:  3 innings, 5 hits, 2 runs, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts, no decision (the Dodgers won 8-3) (0-1)

September 13, 2019 against the Mets at Citi Field:  6 ⅓ innings 4 hits, 2 runs, 3 walks, 5 strikeouts, win (0-3)

September 1, 2022 against the Mets at Citi Field:  5 innings, 1 hit, 1 run, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts, no decision (he left in position to win, but the Dodgers lost 5-3)

May 23, 2025 against the Mets at Citi Field:  2 innings, 0 hits, 0 runs, 1 walk, 1 strikeout, no decision (the Dodgers won 7-5 in 13 innings)

Final stats as a pitcher: 12 starts, 72 innings, 1.25 ERA, 75 strikeouts, 39 hits, 18 walks, 0.79 WHIP, 2 complete game shutouts, 5-0, 7 no decisions (the Dodgers were 11-1)

Final stats as a hitter:  3-22, 1 home run, 1 double, 3 sacrifices, 2 RBIs

So I won’t get to see Clayton Kershaw in person again, but it was a pleasure following his career.  I remember getting MLB.tv (on a really old computer) late in the season of 2004 to follow the Dodgers at the end of the season.  I first had access to MLB Extra Innings in 2008.  I don’t remember if I had it for the whole season or if it was like the second half of the season, but that was Clayton Kershaw’s rookie year.  So I’ve been able to closely follow his whole career.  Of course the Dodgers play more than half of their games out west.  That means a lot of late starts on the east coast.  During the summer, I pretty much watch every game.  During the school year, I can’t do every regular season game.  I need sleep.  So my policy for many years has been to watch Kershaw’s starts no matter what and watch September games if they’re meaningful (it’s been a common occurrence that the Dodgers have things locked up at some point in September, but it was a fairly tight race this year so there have been a lot of late nights).  I think from now on I’ll be staying up for Shohei Ohtani’s starts.  During the early days of the pandemic when we had no sports, I made a whole long YouTube playlist of great Clayton Kershaw starts.  I rewatched many of them before the 2020 season started.  So I think it’s safe to say that I’ve watched him more than any other pitcher ever.

With the way pitching is going, there probably won’t be a pitcher who has as good of a career as Clayton Kershaw ever again.  Paul Skenes has the talent, but is he going to last long enough to do what Kershaw did?  It would be great for baseball if he did, but I’m not optimistic that he will.  And even if he does, it’s almost a certainty that he won’t spend his whole career with the Pirates.  If Kershaw had signed with the Rangers late in his career, I definitely would have rooted for him and I think I would have continued to watch all of his starts, but spending his whole career with the Dodgers has made it even more special.

Clayton Kershaw’s career is not over yet.  We’ll see how the Dodgers will use him in the playoffs.  He was a valuable starter for them this year.  He was really good in August (5-0 with a 1.88 ERA).  But he’s tailed off late in the season to the point where he’s their sixth best starter right now (but it should be pointed out that the Dodgers’ starting pitching has been ridiculously good lately so being their sixth best starter doesn’t mean that he’s been bad).  He’s going to be on the postseason roster.  I hope he’ll be able to pitch well and contribute at some point in the playoffs.  My ideal scenario is the Dodgers winning a blowout in the final game of the World Series (unlike their final game in 2020 and 2024) with Clayton Kershaw pitching the final three innings to get a save.

Here are some crazy Clayton Kershaw stats/facts (these start to sound like Chuck Norris facts):

Since he last won the Cy Young award, he is 124-47 with a 2.59 ERA and 0.98 WHIP

Yoshinobu Yamamoto had a great year this year.  He had a 2.49 ERA and a 0.99 WHIP.  Clayton Kershaw had a 2.41 ERA and a 0.97 WHIP over his last 15 seasons.

He lost 21% of his starts.  The next best for any starting pitcher with at least 200 starts is Whitey Ford at 23%.

He is the first pitcher since Bob Caruthers to finish with more than 200 wins and fewer than 100 losses.  Bob Caruthers pitched before they moved the pitching distance back to 60 feet 6 inches and before they pitched off a mound.

He was the only pitcher without 150 starts to have more scoreless starts than losses (101 scoreless starts, 96 losses).

He has the most games in Major League history with at least 7 strikeouts and 0 walks with 65 (Curt Schilling had 64).

He has 110 more starts than any other pitcher with fewer than 100 losses.

In the live ball era, the only pitchers with more games of at least 6 innings, 1 earned run or less, and 1 walk or less than Kershaw (119) are Greg Maddux (166) and Don Sutton (131).  Kershaw has made 450 starts.  Maddux made 740.  Sutton made 756.

From 2022 to the present (well after his prime), he has the fourth best ERA of any pitcher with at least 375 innings (behind only Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell, and Max Fried).

He put over 60% of his bunt attempts into play.  That’s the highest rate of the 60 batters who attempted 160 or more bunts in the pitch tracking era.

Let’s do some comparisons of Kershaw to other pitchers:

I’ll start by comparing Clayton Kershaw to the other two greatest left handed pitchers of all time.

Here’s the peak for each pitcher.  Kershaw was 2011-2017.  Randy Johnson was 1997-2002.  Koufax was 1961-1966.

Kershaw’s career was probably most similar to Pedro Martinez.

Here’s the peak for Kershaw and Pedro Martinez (1997-2003).  Like their whole careers, their peaks were very similar also.

Here’s Kershaw and his peers.

Here’s Kershaw and RA Dickey in 2012.  Kershaw should have won the Cy Young.

If not for Jake Arrieta having one of the most random ridiculously great season of all time and a Hall of Famer having a career year, Kershaw would have won the Cy Young in 2015.  There was still a case to be made for Kershaw, but I would have given it to Greinke.

If Kershaw didn’t get hurt in 2016, he would have won the Cy Young over Scherzer.

There is a case to be made for Kershaw getting the Cy Young in 2017, but Scherzer did have a pretty solid advantage in innings pitched.

I’ll finish by updating the All-Jim Team.(Kershaw was on the original team in 2012 and he was still there when I updated it in 2022).  Here’s the starting lineup:

Jackie Robinson 2B

Ken Griffey Jr. CF

Babe Ruth RF

Ted Williams LF

Roy Campanella C

Freddie Freeman 1B

Corey Seager SS

Justin Turner 3B

Clayton Kershaw P

Here’s the full 25-man active roster:

Starting Pitchers (5):  Clayton Kershaw, Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, Orel Hershiser, Shohei Ohtani

Relief Pitchers (6):  Roy Halladay, Johnny Podres, Walker Buehler, Jeff Samardzija, Mariano Rivera, Kenley Jansen

Catchers (2):  Roy Campanella, Yogi Berra

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

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

Manager:  Tommy Lasorda

There were three changes from the previous version:

In:  Shohei Ohtani, Walker Buehler, Freddie Freeman

Out:  Grover Cleveland Alexander, Don Drysdale, Keith Hernandez

Walker Buehler was my toughest omission last time.  After what he did for the Dodgers last year, he had to make it.  Shohei Ohtani had to make it since he’s closing in on being the greatest hitting pitcher of all time.  The All-Jim Team does not use the DH so Ohtani is making it as a pitcher.  As a pitcher, Ohtani is hitting .276/.385/.507 with 11 home runs and 36 RBIs in 221 at bats.  Babe Ruth hit .309/.373/.524 as a pitcher with 14 home runs and 69 RBIs in 437 at bats.  Grover Cleveland Alexander was a great pitcher with a great name, but it was easy to take him off the team.  It was harder to take Don Drysdale off the team.  He’s the third greatest pitcher in Dodgers’ history.  It was between him and Johnny Podres.  Johnny Podres won the most important game in Dodgers’ history so he keeps his spot.  And as a New Yorker and a Seinfeld fan, I love Keith Hernandez, but when you’re responsible for my favorite sports moment of all time and you win the World Series MVP for the Dodgers, you get a spot on the team.

But we have another 15 spots on the 40 man roster so here’s who gets those spots:  Grover Cleveland Alexander, Don Drysdale, Keith Hernandez, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Jesse Orosco, Fernando Valenzuela, Don Newcombe, Joe Torre, Pee Wee Reese, Mookie Betts., Tony Gwynn Sr., Andre Ethier, A.J. Pollock, Chris Taylor, and Kiké Hernandez.

I didn’t have Mookie Betts on the 40 man last time.  That was a mistake.  I think he's the toughest omission from the 25 man roster now (he could easily be on it, but I didn’t want to go with 25 Dodgers).  Hopefully the Dodgers will win another World Series championship this year and some new heroes will earn their way onto the All-Jim Team.  Whatever happens, I’m pretty confident that Clayton Kershaw will never be replaced as the number 1 starter on my team.

Thank you for a great career, Clayton.  I’ll see you in Cooperstown.

Notre Dame’s Long Absence From Minnesota

During my trip to Minnesota, I found out that Notre Dame has not played football against Minnesota since 1938.  As far as I can tell, we haven’t played a game in the state of Minnesota since playing Minnesota on the road in 1937.  Obviously, Minnesota is not a premier college football program, but not playing them since the 1930s seems like too long.  Using the Alexander Bess Notre Dame Football Database, I discovered that out of all the Power 4 teams that we’ve played (and we’ve played most of them), we have played every other team more recently than Minnesota.

The other inspiration for this blog post is that there’s been some news in the last couple of days about college football scheduling.  The SEC is changing to a nine-game conference schedule starting next year.  It seems like most college football fans like this.  I actually don’t.  Why?  First of all, I’d rather have more good non-conference games.  And second, an even number makes much more sense.  An eight-game conference schedule means four home and four away.  Nine means that you have a four/five split between home and away.  But the other SEC scheduling news was good.  SEC teams will have to play at least one team from the ACC/Big 10/Big 12/Notre Dame per year.  I would much rather have the power conferences playing eight conference games and at least two power conference opponents in their non-conference games.  And people have noted that the ACC will be the only Power 4 conference with eight conference games and it is mathematically impossible for them to go to nine because they have 17 teams.  That brings up another issue with college football scheduling.  These conferences are way too big.  You’re not going to play a lot of the teams in your conference each year.  For me, the ideal number of teams in a conference is 0 because conferences are stupid.  But if you’re going to have conferences, the right number of teams is 12.  You split the conference into two divisions and you play everybody in your division each year and you play half of the other division each year.  And these conferences all used to have 12 teams at some point (not necessarily at the same time).  If only we could make these conferences smaller and add a fifth power conference out west with 12 teams.

Anyway, there are going to be some SEC teams that need to schedule a good non-conference game for each season.  Notre Dame should definitely get in on that.  We actually have a lot of SEC games coming up over the next decade (starting with Texas A&M and Arkansas this year).  But we should schedule more games against SEC teams.  There are four SEC teams that we’ve never played so we should get them on the schedule.  There are three Big 12 teams that we’ve never played and we’ve played everybody in the Big 10 and ACC.  Here are my rankings of teams by conference in terms of how much I want to see them on Notre Dame football schedules:

Big 10

1. USC- We should play them every year as long as there isn’t the worst war in history or the deadliest pandemic in a century going on.  We started playing them in 1927 and we’ve played every year except for 1943-1945 and 2020.  But it seems like Lincoln Riley only wants to play us as long as there are no consequences for USC when we beat them. As much as I despise Pete Carroll, he would not be afraid to play anybody. USC absolutely cannot give this guy what he wants when it comes to having Notre Dame on the schedule. He won’t be there that long anyway. We’re 52-38-5 against USC all time.

2. Michigan State- They’re our biggest rival from the Big Ten other than USC.  We’ve played them 79 times (49-29-1).  We played them almost every year from 1948-2017 (there were some short breaks in there).  We haven’t played them since 2017.  They should be on the schedule more often.

3. Ohio State- I want to keep playing them until we finally beat them.  We beat them in 1935 and 1936 and we’re 0-7 against them since then (all during my lifetime).

4. UCLA- We should immediately schedule a two-game series with them if Lincoln Riley ends the Notre Dame-USC series because he’s a coward.  I think we’ve only played two games all time in the Rose Bowl stadium (the 1925 Rose Bowl and at UCLA in 2007) so playing there again would be cool.  But if USC brought in new leadership that wasn’t afraid of playing Notre Dame, that would drop UCLA several spots.  We’re 4-0 against them all time.

5. Oregon- They’re one of the best teams of this century that hasn’t won a national championship.  We’re 1-0-1 against them all time and we haven’t played them since 1982.

6. Washington- We’re 8-0 against them all time.  I was there for our last game against them in 2009.  They’re another west coast team to play if Lincoln Riley ends our series with USC.

7. Nebraska- They’re a college football blue blood that we haven’t played since 2001.  We’re 7-8-1 against them all time so it would be good to play a two-game series and win both to have a winning record against them.

8. Purdue- They’re a less interesting version of Michigan State.  We’ve played them 88 times (60-26-2).  We spanked them last year and we play them again this year.

9. Michigan- I want nothing to do with them because they tried to destroy Notre Dame football because Fielding Yost was an anti-Catholic bigot.  We lost to them the first eight times we played them.  Then we beat them in 1909 and they refused to play us again until 1942.  But that’s not all they did.  They tried to get other schools to refuse to play us also.  Then we beat them in 1943 and they refused to play us again until 1978.  Also, they are obnoxious cheaters.  They would be much lower on the list if not for the fact that we got a classic Brian Kelly loss (an embarrassing performance in a big game) the last time we played them (2019).  They’re on the schedule for 2033 and 2034.  We need to win those two games and then I would be fine with never scheduling them again.  We’re 18-25-1 against them all time.  But we have a winning record against them since starting 0-8 (those first eight games were played from 1887-1908).

10. Minnesota- They rank this high because Lou Holtz coached there and we haven’t played them since 1938.  We’re 4-0-1 against them.

11. Iowa- We played them pretty regularly for a while, but we haven’t played them since 1968.  We’re 13-8-3 against them all time

12. Wisconsin- They would be higher, but we’ve played them more recently (2021) than most of the teams above them and we’re playing them again next year.  We’re 9-6-2 against them all time.

13. Illinois- We’re 11-0-1 against them and we last played them in 1968.

14. Northwestern- We’re 38-9-2 against them and we last played them in 2018.  Ara Parseghian coached there so we have that connection with them.

15. Indiana- We beat them in the playoff last year and they’re on the schedule for 2030 and 2031, but they are playing the softest possible non-conference schedules so I wouldn’t be shocked if they tried to get out of those.  We’re 24-5-1 against them all time.

16. Rutgers- We’re 5-0 against them all time and I was there the last time we played them (the 2013 Pinstripe Bowl).  The teams above Rutgers on the list are either already on the schedule in the future or I would want to get them on the schedule in the future.  Rutgers and below are not on future schedules and I don’t have any interest in getting them on the schedule.

17. Maryland- We’re 2-0 against them and I was there when we last played them in 2011.

18. Penn State- Their worship of Joe Paterno is gross and I want nothing to do with them.  We’re 10-9-1 against them and our last meeting with them was my favorite sporting event that has taken place on my birthday.

SEC

1. Texas- We’re 9-3 against them and we last played them in 2016.  They’re on the schedule for 2028 and 2029.

2. Alabama- We’re 5-3 against them and we last played them in the 2021 Rose Bowl (one of two Rose Bowl games all time that wasn’t played in the Rose Bowl).  They’re on the schedule for 2029 and 2030.

3. LSU- Beating Brian Kelly would be wonderful.  We’re 7-5 against them all time and we last played them in the 2018 Citrus Bowl.

4. Florida- We have only played them in the 1992 Sugar Bowl.  They’re on the schedule for 2031 and 2032.

5. Auburn- We’ve never played them.  They’re the most interesting team that we’ve never played.

6. Tennessee- We haven’t played them since I was a student (2005).  We’re 4-4 against them all time.

7. Oklahoma- We’re 9-2 against them and I was there the last time we played them in 2013 (sadly, one of the two losses).

8. Georgia- They would rank higher, but we’ve played them in the regular season recently and we just beat them in the Sugar Bowl last season.  We needed that win because we were 0-3 against them before that.

9. Ole Miss- We’re 1-1 against them and we last played them in 1985.

10. Texas A&M- They would be higher, but we beat them last year and we play them again this year.  We’re 4-2 against them.

11. Missouri- We’re 2-2 against them and we last played them in 1984.

12. Arkansas- I guess I would rank them higher because we’ve never played them, but they are on the schedule for this year and 2028.  Lou Holtz coached there so it’s cool that we’re finally going to play them.

13. Vanderbilt- They’re an SEC team that actually cares about academics so I couldn’t put them all the way at the bottom.  We’re 3-0 against them all time and we last played them in 2018.

14. Kentucky- They’re not that interesting, but we’ve never played them before so let’s get them on the schedule.

15. South Carolina- They would be higher as a former Lou Holtz school, but we beat them recently in the Gator Bowl in 2022.  We’re 4-1 against them.

16. Mississippi State- I’m putting them last because they’re just not interesting (unless Mike Leach was still around), but we’ve never played them so let’s get them on the schedule.

Big 12

1. TCU- We won our only meeting with them in 1972.  It’s a Texas school so I say we should get them on the schedule.

2. Oklahoma State- The only time we played them was Marcus Freeman’s first game as head coach (the 2022 Fiesta Bowl).  They rank this high because we lost and we could potentially play a couple of games against them and have a winning record against them all time (this is a theme that’s going to come up again).

3. Cincinnati- We’re 1-1 against them with a win in 1900 and a loss in 2021 that got Cincinnati to the playoff and kept us out.

4. UCF- We’ve never played them.  They’re a Florida school so I’d be cool with getting them on the schedule.

5. Texas Tech- We’ve never played them.  They’re not as interesting to me as TCU so that’s why I have them a little lower on the list.

6. Kansas State- We’ve never played them and they’ve had a pretty good program this century.  Also, I’m mad at them because they might have cost us a national championship by losing to Baylor in 2012 (we would have played Kansas State instead of Alabama if Kansas State had won that game).

7. Houston- We won our only meeting with them in the 1979 Cotton Bowl (the Joe Montana Chicken Soup Game).

8. Arizona- We’re 2-1 against them all time.  They rank ahead of the next few teams because our last meeting was before my lifetime (1982).

9. Utah- We won our only game against them in 2010.  It’s another western school that we could play if Lincoln Riley is too scared to play us.

10. BYU- We’re 7-2 against them and we last played them in 2022.

11. Arizona State- We’re 3-1 against them and we last played them in 2014.

12. Colorado- We’re 3-2 against them and we last played them in the 1995 Fiesta Bowl.

13. West Virginia- We’re 4-0 against them and we last played them in 2001.  If we had a two-game series against them, that would be the best possible sporting event I could go to in West Virginia (one of the five states where I haven’t seen a sporting event).  Also, we beat them in the 1989 Fiesta Bowl to win the 1988 National Championship so that would bring back fun memories for Notre Dame fans old enough to remember (sadly, I am not).

14. Baylor- We’re 2-0 against them and we last played them in 1998.  I would be interested in scheduling all the teams above Baylor.  I really don’t care about the two teams below.  I’m indifferent to Baylor (if they weren’t in Texas, I would have zero interest).

15. Kansas- We’re 4-1-1 against them and we last played in 1999.

16. Iowa State- We won our only meeting with them in 2019 in the Camping World Bowl.  If we’re going to put a team from Iowa on the schedule, I would definitely take Iowa over Iowa State.

ACC- They’re a little different because we play all of these teams regularly with our scheduling agreement with the ACC.  The scheduling agreement began in 2014.  SMU, Cal, and Stanford were not part of the ACC until last year, but we’ve played Stanford way too much and we did play Cal recently also.

1. Miami- We’re 18-8-1 against them and we open the season with them.  They’re in Florida and this was once a heated rivalry.

2. Florida State- We’re 6-6 against them (and we’ve won our last four meetings).  There’s some history between Notre Dame and Florida State, but not quite as much as we have with Miami.

3. Clemson- We’re 3-5 against them and we’re starting a 12-year series with them in 2027.

4. North Carolina- We’re 21-2 against them.  They would rank last because of 18 years of fake classes (and like Michigan, not getting appropriately punished by the NCAA), but I want to beat Bill Belichick.  I’m not convinced that he’ll be there very long.

5. Georgia Tech- We’re 31-6-1 against them.  So we have a pretty good amount of history with them, but they’re kind of like the ACC version of Purdue.  On the other hand, it’s good to play in Georgia for recruiting.

6. Boston College- We’re 18-9 against them.  It was 9-9.  So we’ve been dominating lately.  That’s the way it should be.  I like playing the only other Catholic school in the FBS.  We should just beat them all the time.

7. Pittsburgh- We’re 51-21-1 against them.  We’ve been playing all the ACC teams the same amount (although that’s going to change with the Clemson series).  I wish we could play Pittsburgh and above on this list (except for North Carolina, they’re only that high because of Belichick) more frequently than we play the rest of the ACC.

8. Louisville- We’re 3-2 against them.  For a while, this was a really good basketball rivalry.

9. SMU- We’re 10-3 against them and we last played them in 1989.  They’re on the schedule for 2026.

10. NC State- We’re 2-2 against them.  We might have a winning record against them if Brian Kelly didn’t try to pass 26 times in a hurricane (we averaged 2.1 yards per attempt).  They’re another former Lou Holtz school.

11. Virginia- We’re 5-0 against them.

12. Virginia Tech- We’re 3-1 against them.

13. Syracuse- We’re 8-3 against them.

14. Cal- We’re 5-0 against them.

15. Duke- We’re 6-2 against them.

16. Wake Forest- We’re 6-0 against them.

17. Stanford- We’re 24-14 against them.  We’ve been playing them every year except for 2020 since 1997.  They’re not USC.  We don’t need to play them every year.  I’m not opposed to playing them occasionally, but we need to take a break from playing them.  Also, their band is despicable.  If we took a break for like a decade, I would have them much higher on the list.

Group of Five/Pac 12

1. Navy- Some Notre Dame fans don’t want to play Navy.  They’re not USC, but I’m with Father Hesburgh on this one.  We should play them every year as long as they want to play us.  I like the tradition and the history of Notre Dame and Navy in World War II.  We’re 83-13-1 against them all time.  We should just play them and beat them every single year (which we did from 1964-2006) as long as they want to play us.

2. Boise State- We’ve never played them, but they’re on the schedule for this year.  They’re the most successful Group of Five team this century.

3. Army- I respect the military academies and we have a lot of history with them.  We’re 40-8-4 against them and I was there for our most recent meeting last year.

4. Air Force- We’re 24-6 against them and we last played them in 2013.  I don’t want to play them as frequently as we play Army, but it’s time to get them back on the schedule.  For the service academies, I think my policy would be that we should play Navy every year, Army an average of once every five years, and Air Force an average of once every ten years.

5. Oregon State- We’re now into the group of teams that we have a losing record against and we should get them on the schedule to rectify that situation.  We’re 1-2 against Oregon State.  We won our last meeting with them in the Sun Bowl in 2023.  So we could be one two-game series away from having a winning record against them.

6. UConn- We lost our only meeting against them in 2009.  We have some history with them in basketball (especially women’s basketball) so that’s why I’m ranking them this high.

7. Northern Illinois- We lost our only meeting with them last year.  Of course, the loss sparked a turnaround that led to our best season since 1993, but we should get them back on the schedule for two games so that we can have a winning record against them.

8. Marshall- We lost our only meeting with them in 2022.

9. Tulsa- We lost our only meeting with them in 2010.

10. South Florida- We lost to them in 2011, but we beat them in 2020.  They’re on the schedule for 2029 and 2031 so we should end up 3-1 against them.

11. Hawaii- Unless I’m forgetting somebody, I’m done with the group of teams that we have a losing record against where we should quickly fix that issue (we’re 0-1 against Yale all time, but we’re not going to be playing them).  We’re 3-0 against Hawaii all time.  Our last meeting was in the Hawaii Bowl in 2008.  The other two meetings were both road games in 1991 and 1997.  I wonder how that happened.  So we’ve never played them at home.  I would be cool with making a scheduling agreement with them for two home games and one away game (a Week 0 game in Hawaii would be a cool way to start a season).

12. San Diego State- We won our only meeting with them in 2008.  Like Hawaii, a two for one scheduling agreement would be okay with me and it would give us a cool place to play a road game.

13. Appalachian State- We’ve never played them, but I appreciate them for beating Michigan in 2007 (when Appalachian State was still an FCS team).  So I would be cool with playing them and doing what Michigan couldn’t do.

We should play Navy plus one other Group of Five team per year (maybe two others occasionally).  Our general schedule model is six home games, five road games, and one Shamrock Series game.  That means we have one buy game at home where we’re paying a school to come play us and we’re not going to play at their stadium.  That’s where we need a Group of Five team that isn’t Navy (or it could be a two home games and one away game deal).  There’s probably a small group o Power 4 teams that could fit into that spot also (Rutgers, Kansas, Vanderbilt, maybe a few others). So my advice to Pete Bevacqua is to start settling some scores with schools that we never should have lost to.  And get some more SEC schools in the schedule since they’re going to need a good non-conference opponent.

As you can see, I’m ready for football.  It starts tomorrow with Week 0.  But we don’t play on a Saturday until September 13 because we start with a Sunday game at Miami and then we’re off Week 2.  Hopefully this season will be even better than last season.  Go Irish!