Fixing College Football’s Postseason

There are a lot of problems with sports these days.  I like coming up with solutions that will never happen for those problems.  I tried to fix college football in general three years ago.  Of course, things have just gotten worse since that blog post.  So I’m not going to try to fix the entire sport, but I am going to try to fix college football’s postseason.

The 12-team playoff is here and I hate what it’s done to college football’s regular season.  Oregon and Ohio State played the biggest game of the regular season and it meant nothing.  Ohio State lost that game and they lost to a bad Michigan team and they still made it to the College Football Playoff.  Notre Dame had one of our worst losses ever, but we still made the College Football Playoff.  Of course, I’m happy with Notre Dame being in the playoff, but I am perfectly fine with the idea of college football being a sport where losing to Northern Illinois ruins your season.  So yeah, I’m opposed to the 12-team playoff, but it’s not going away (if anything, it will expand further) so I’m going to try to make the postseason better.

The easiest problem to fix is the seeding.  Boise State and Arizona State were ranked 9th and 12th, but they got the 3 and 4 seeds because they were conference champions.  With all the stupid conference realignment we’ve seen over the last couple of decades, it was entirely predictable that something like this would happen.  Because of the stupid seeding, the 5 and 6 seeds have easier second round opponents than the 1 and 2 seeds.  It sounds like they’re going to fix that problem.  Guarantee spots for five conference champions, but just seed the 12 teams in the order that they’re ranked.  It would also make sense if they reseeded after each round, but I can live with not reseeding if the seeds make sense.

Another problem is the calendar.  The football calendar and the academic calendar do not line up in a convenient way, especially when it comes to the transfer portal.  Players are leaving their teams to enter the transfer portal before the season is over.  One of the many things I love about college football is having games on Saturdays.  But with the playoff going deep into January, they lose Saturdays to the NFL.  The playoff started with the first round split between a Friday night and Saturday.  That was excellent.  The second round is New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.  Of course this year, that’s a Tuesday and Wednesday, but that’s fine because people will be off and New Year’s Day is college football’s traditional holiday.  But then we have problems.  The semifinals are on a Thursday and Friday.  Friday night is fine, but if Notre Dame wins the Sugar Bowl, we will be playing in the Orange Bowl on Thursday, January 9.  I absolutely hate the idea of having to go to work both the day of and the day after a Notre Dame football game (it was pretty weird working the day we played Indiana, but that was okay because it was a half day and then I was off for two weeks).  And then the Championship Game is on a Monday night.  The Monday night championship game has been a problem for a long time.  This year it’s Martin Luther King Day.  So it’s cool that the championship game is on a holiday, but it’s not cool that the next day is a work day.  But if Notre Dame makes it, I am absolutely taking that Tuesday off.

Anyway, I think we can fix the calendar issue.  First of all, get rid of conference championship games.  Conferences are stupid to begin with and conference championship games have gotten especially stupid now that conferences have ridiculous numbers of teams and they’ve done away with divisions.  Like you can end up with three-way ties and no logical way to break the ties (because so many teams in the same conference don’t play each other).  With divisions, you played everybody in your division and having the best team from each division play in a championship game made some sense.  But look at the Big 10 this year.  The Big 10 had four good teams:  Oregon, Penn State, Ohio State, and Indiana.  Ohio State played the other three.  Penn State and Indiana only played Ohio State.  Anyway, Oregon and Penn State played in the championship game.  If they just didn’t play the game, what would have been different?  Oregon still would have been the 1 seed in the playoff.  Maybe Penn State would have been the 5 seed instead of the 6 seed.  Who cares?   The game meant nothing.  Conference championship games also made a little more sense when only four teams made the playoff, but this year we had Ohio State, Indiana, and Tennessee all make the playoff without playing in their conference championship games.  We don’t need the conference championship games (especially if they’re fixing the seeding so that they’re not determining byes anymore).  Just get rid of them.  Besides conference championship games being stupid, I want to get rid of them so that we can start the College Football Playoff the first weekend in December.  The second round would be the second weekend.  The semifinals would be the third weekend.  And then the championship game would be January 1.  Then you could play all the games on Friday/Saturday in the first three rounds, January 1 would once again be the most important day of the college football postseason, and everything would be done before the spring semester starts which would help with handling players transferring.

One thing that people seemed to like about the first round was having playoff games on campus.  I remember Mike Francesa saying years ago that one reason that there wouldn’t be a playoff is that it would mean a lot of traveling for fans and selling tickets would be an issue.  Like if you’re an Oregon fan, you’re looking at having postseason games in Pasadena, the Dallas area, and Atlanta if Oregon makes it to the championship game.  How many fans can go to more than one of those games?  So the 8 seed gets to play a home game, but the 1 seed only plays neutral site games (of course they do get a bye in the first round).  I would have the first two rounds on campuses.  So what happens to the bowls?  Hold on, I’ll come back to that.

Another idea that I’ve seen that I’m on board with is creating a football version of the NIT.  Why not?  It’s no crazier than having all these bowl games that mean absolutely nothing.  They would be more interesting to watch if they had another tournament where they were playing for something.  So I would have a 12-team tournament for teams not in the college football playoff.  Any conference that didn’t have a team in the college football playoff would be guaranteed a spot.  So here’s what it could have looked like this year:

Byes:

1 Alabama

2 Miami

3 Ole Miss

4 South Carolina

First Round

5 BYU vs. 12 Jacksonville State (Conference USA)

6 Iowa State vs. 11 Marshall (Sun Belt)

7 Missouri vs. 10 Ohio (MAC)

8 Illinois vs. 9 Army (American)

So the NIT would have the same format as the playoff (and you could expand both tournaments up to 16 teams and the format and scheduling still works fine).  The first two rounds are on campuses.  The final game of the NIT would be on either December 31 or January 1 also as the undercard for the National Championship Game.

So what do we do with the bowls?  Well, if the College World Series can always be in Omaha, the National Championship Game in college football can always be in Pasadena.  The Rose Bowl is the National Championship Game on January 1 every year (or January 2 if January 1 is a Sunday).  The Rose Bowl has the most history and tradition.  And if we’re not going to play the championship game in cold weather, give me outdoors and on grass in a beautiful setting any day over an NFL stadium, indoors, and/or on artificial turf.  What happens to the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and Peach Bowl?  I would have them in a rotation.  Each year one of them would be the championship game for the NIT on December 31 or January 1 before the Rose Bowl, two of them would be the College Football Playoff semifinals, and two would be the NIT semifinals.  As for the lower level bowls, I would still have as many as possible, but some would probably have to die.  Looking at the system I just came up with, the only teams ranked in the playoff committee rankings who wouldn’t make the College Football Playoff or NIT would be Syracuse, Colorado, UNLV, and Memphis.  So the lower level bowls are not going to be all that interesting, but they’re already mostly not very interesting.  If we lose some, that’s fine.  Like how many bowl games do we need in the state of Alabama?  How many bowl games need to be played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando?  Right now there are three bowl games played in Alabama and three played at Camping World Stadium.  Do we really need that many in those places?  There are a few bowl games that I would not want to lose:  the Hawaii Bowl on Christmas Eve, the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, the Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium, (I like football in Yankee Stadium), Pop-Tarts Bowl for their creative marketing, etc.  I would want some others as well just to have football on TV during the week in late December.  But if we don’t have the 68 Ventures Bowl (that was an actual bowl game this year, not something I made up) anymore, that’s fine.  The games that really matter would be played on Fridays, Saturdays, and January 1.  The bowls that are left over would be used to fill in the weekdays between the semifinals and the championship games.

I think this would make college football’s postseason better and more interesting than what we have right now.  And the schedule would make a lot more sense.  The schedule we have now is better than it once was.  One of the things I always thought was silly was the ridiculously long gap between the end of the regular season and the big bowl games.  Before the Big 10 had a championship game, the 2006 Ohio State team finished the regular season by beating Michigan on November 18 and then they didn’t play again until they played in the National Championship Game on January 8.  My idea would take us right from the end of the regular season to the playoff and we’d end the season on January 1.

How would all of this affect Notre Dame?  I think there would be some good and some bad.  Notre Dame had 40 players take a final the day before we played Indiana (I’m sure most of the SEC would laugh at that idea).  Moving up the playoff calendar would mean that Notre Dame’s players would be dealing with academics and football for the first three rounds of the playoff instead of just the first round.  But it might help with transfers coming to Notre Dame.  Let’s just say Texas makes it to the National Championship Game on January 20.  Their players have five days after that to enter the transfer portal.  But Notre Dame’s spring semester starts on January 13.  Is the football team able to get somebody into school for the spring semester who goes into the transfer portal like 10 days after the spring semester started?  I would think the answer is that they would probably have to wait until the summer to get him into Notre Dame.

Of course, this is another one of my ideas that won’t happen.  The biggest thing for me is keeping Saturday and January 1 as the biggest days in college football.  If they could figure out a way to get the championship game on a Saturday, I’d be good with that, but that seems unlikely with NFL playoff games.  Maybe a more realistic option would be moving the championship game to a Friday night.  That would be a million times better than playing it on a Monday night.  Having the championship game on a Monday night is probably my least favorite thing about college football other than Michigan.

Anyway, the second round starts today.  And if Notre Dame wins, that means we’ll be playing in the Orange Bowl on my birthday.  That would make this birthday either my best birthday ever or my worst birthday since I had to go back to work after losing to Alabama in the championship game 12 years ago.  Many weeks ago, I was talking with my college friends about how we had such a wide range of possibilities.  I thought that we could lose in the first round if we got a bad matchup.  Fortunately that didn’t happen.  I also thought we had a chance to make a very deep run.  I wouldn’t say that I expect to beat Georgia, but I think we have a much better chance to win this game than we had to beat Clemson in the playoff in 2018 or Alabama in the playoff in 2020.  If you want to get to where you want to go, you have to win a game like this.  Clemson’s win over us in 2015 and Georgia’s win over us in 2017 helped get those programs to another level. This game is an opportunity for us to do that.

Go Irish!  Beat Bulldogs!

Three Games and Three-Point Field Goals

We’ve gotten to the point where the only three teams I really care about are Notre Dame football, the Dodgers, and the Celtics.  I would still call myself a Ranger fan, but I just don’t have the time to pay much attention to them until the playoffs.  As for the Jets, I was once a huge Jets fan.  But I’ve just lost so much interest in the NFL.  The combination of the Patriots cheating and winning all the time (I mean that’s over now, but it lasted a long time) and the Jets being terrible, Rex Ryan, USC quarterbacks, and Aaron Rodgers have made it very difficult to care about the Jets.  Anyway, of the three teams I really care about, I’ve been to a ton of Dodger games in my life.  I went to a very good number of Notre Dame games over the years.  I’ve been to a relatively small number of Celtics games compared to the other teams I care about.  I’ve been to a few at Madison Square Garden, a few at Barclays Center, and one in Boston.  Like the rest of the world, I stopped going to sports in 2020 because of the pandemic.  I’ve pretty much gotten back to normal in terms of attending baseball games.  I hadn’t been to a Notre Dame football game or a Celtics game since 2019.  So I wanted to see them in person this year.  I was able to make that happen in November.

With the Knicks coming off a good year and the Celtics winning a championship, seeing the Celtics at Madison Square Garden would cost a ridiculous amount of money.  But seeing the Celtics play the Nets in Brooklyn was very affordable.  I was supposed to go with my dad, but then he couldn’t go.  But I got to see them.  The last time I saw the Celtics in person was January 14, 2019 in Brooklyn.  That was in the middle of Kyrie Irving making that the most miserable season since before they won the championship in 2008.  He didn’t play in that game so the Celtics had a starting lineup of Tatum, Brown, Horford, Terry Rozier, and Marcus Morris.  Tatum had 34, Brown had 22, and the only other Celtic in double figures was Brad Wanamaker with 13.  The Celtics lost 109-102.  Net fans chanted “Kyrie’s leaving!”  Little did they know that the joke was on them and he was going to come make them miserable.

So after almost six years, it was time to go see the Celtics again.  It was nice to see the Celtics wearing their green uniforms and the home team wearing white.  That so rarely happens these days thanks to Nike’s ridiculous influence on the NBA.  They got off to a bad start, but they only trailed by two points after the first quarter.  They played well for the rest of the game and led 65-60 at halftime.  It was 103-89 after three.  And the Celtics ended up winning 139-114.  Tatum had 36 points, 10 assists, and 9 rebounds.  Brown had 24 points and 12 rebounds.  Payton Pritchard had 23 points off the bench.  Teams have caught on to the fact that he wants to shoot from anywhere at the end of a quarter and he can make it.  They’re not just giving him 50 footers at the buzzer anymore.  Jrue Holiday and Sam Hauser were also in double figures.  I think my two favorite players are Derrick White and Al Horford.  White got off to a rough start with early fouls and turnovers.  He ended up with 9 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 block.  And as expected, Al Horford didn’t play the second game of a back to back.  So I didn’t see great games out of my favorite players, but I did see my favorite team play a great game.  The Celtics were 22/48 on threes.  The Nets were 19/45.  That’s pretty good, but they still lost by 25 points.  You’re just not beating the Celtics if they’re shooting 46% on threes.  I was surprised to see Kristaps Porzingis working out before the game.  He looked pretty good and he ended up coming back a month before I expected (I was expecting him to make his debut on Christmas).

The Celtics should always wear green on the road.

I have one other basketball thought before I move on to football.  The Tournament of Meaninglessness is going on right now.  The Celtics finished 3-1 in group play.  The Celtics did not win their group because they finished tied with the Hawks and the Hawks beat them.  They would have won the group if the Cavaliers had beat the Hawks.  I was absolutely rooting for the Hawks because the Celtics are behind the Cavaliers in the standings that actually matter.  The Celtics still might advance to the elimination round as a wild card depending on what happens on the final night of group play.  I’m rooting for the Knicks because a Knicks win means that the Celtics are almost certainly not advancing.  There is absolutely no benefit to advancing.  If they advance, they’ll have to play a road game in the elimination round.  If they win that one, they will have to play a game in Las Vegas instead of in Boston.  I don’t want to give up a home game.  And then if they won their first game in Las Vegas, they would have to play another game in Las Vegas that literally means nothing in the standings.  It’s just an extra game that’s an extra chance for your players to get hurt.  If they end up getting to that game, I will want them to lose (unless they were playing the Lakers) and not get anybody hurt.  Why would I want them to lose?  Because the NBA would make them hang up a banner for winning a tournament that means absolutely nothing and I would be embarrassed if they had to hang that up.  The Celtics only hang banners for stuff that actually matters (I would make the banner a handwritten sheet of paper for winning the Tournament of Meaninglessness).  So to summarize, advancing in the Tournament of Meaninglessness would mean the possibility of losing a home game, the possibility of having to play a game that means literally nothing except for an extra chance for players to get hurt, and the possibility of having to hang a banner for winning a completely meaningless tournament.

As for football, the last time I got to a Notre Dame football game was when we played at Duke in 2019.  I was also supposed to see us play Virginia in 2019, but my flight got canceled.  This year, we had games at MetLife Stadium and Yankee Stadium.  I’ve seen us play twice at MetLife Stadium.  That’s enough for me.  I definitely wanted to see a game with Marcus Freeman as the head coach and I was not going to miss a game at Yankee Stadium (I was there before the blog in 2010 and then again in 2013 and 2018).  It’s easier to get to and I can get good tickets at a reasonable price.  Before I get to the game, let me set the stage.  Our season got off to a great start with a road win at Texas A&M.  And then we had maybe our worst loss ever.  We lost to Northern Illinois and all the air seemed to go out of the balloon.  Somehow, the air has gotten back into the balloon.  I remember lining up for a 62 yard field goal on the last play of the game losing by two against Northern Illinois.  It was a pretty terrible feeling knowing that we had no chance to make it and we were going to lose to Northern Illinois.  After that game, everybody was very down on Marcus Freeman.  My friends seemed like they had given up on him.  And that was entirely understandable.  I was very down on Freeman also, but I would say I was still more hopeful than my friends.  I wasn’t optimistic, but I still had hope.  And it’s been quite a turnaround since then.

We won eight straight games after Northern Illinois going into the Army game at Yankee Stadium.  We’ve played many big games against Army over the years.  This year was the 100th anniversary of the Four Horsemen game.  That one was at the Polo Grounds.  We won that one 13-7 and went on to win the National Championship.  The year before, we beat Army 13-0 at Ebbets Field (our only game at Ebbets Field).  And the year after, we lost to Army 27-0 in our first game at the Old Yankee Stadium.  We also beat Army 17-0 in 1965 in the only game we ever played at Shea Stadium.  This was probably Army’s biggest game since 1958.  From 1943-1958, Army finished 13 seasons ranked.  They beat us and finished ranked third in 1958.  That was the last time they beat us.  They also beat us and won the National Championship in 1944 and 1945.  We tied them and we won the National Championship in 1946.  The 1944-1946 games were all at Yankee Stadium.  Since finishing ranked third in 1958, Army has finished two seasons ranked.  They came into this game undefeated and ranked 19th.  They controlled their own destiny for the college football playoff.  If they beat us, they would move ahead of Boise State and be in position for an automatic bid in the college football playoff by being one of the top five conference champions.  Fortunately I never had to worry about that.  We went up 14-0 in the first quarter on touchdown passes to Jordan Faison and Jeremiyah Love.  Army tried to make it somewhat interesting.  They scored to make it 14-7 and then stopped as on the goal line for a turnover on downs as we tried to run the Knute Rockne box shift.  But the defense was good for the rest of the half and Love and Jadarian Price ran for touchdowns to make it 28-7.  We missed a 48 yard field goal before halftime, but we were in control of the game.  The second half started with Love going 68 yards for a touchdown.  It was cool seeing that one in person.  As soon as he hit the hole, I knew he was gone.  Price added another touchdown and Aneyas ran for a long touchdown and we ended up winning 49-14.  Good times were had by all.  Except for Army.  The last two sporting events at Yankee Stadium have been won by the Dodgers and Notre Dame so I approve of that.

I had to go black and white for a Notre Dame-Army game at Yankee Stadium.

People complain about playing games in baseball stadiums.  I don’t agree.  If we’re going to play in New York, I would much rather play at Yankee Stadium than in MetLife Stadium (a terrible stadium that isn’t in New York).  If we’re going to play in Boston, I’d rather play at Fenway Park than Gillette Stadium (not in Boston).  If we ever play in San Francisco, I’d rather play at Oracle Park than Levi’s Stadium (not in San Francisco).  Other baseball stadiums where I would play would be Wrigley Field, Busch Stadium, Rogers Center, Oriole Park, Target Field, Nationals Park, Truist Park, and Petco Park.  I’m not sure if you could fit football fields in all of those places, but I’d be willing to play in those stadiums if you could.  A football game in Dodger Stadium would be cool, but if you ever played a Shamrock Series game in Los Angeles, it should be at the Rose Bowl (it would probably end up being at Sofi Stadium, but it should be at the Rose Bowl).  I will say that football games in baseball stadiums should be rare.  We’ve played five in the last 15 years.  That’s too many (but one was the Pinstripe Bowl so that wasn’t planned).  People complain about sight lines.  And there are definitely seats that have really bad views for football, but I had a good view.  Yeah, I was far away from the field, but I was at about the 45 yard line and the tickets were not overly expensive.  It’ll take that view over being in a corner of an actual football stadium.

One legitimate problem with playing at Yankee Stadium was getting into the stadium.  I remember it was bad in 2018 (I don’t remember it being like that in 2010 or 2013).  So I got to the stadium around 6:15 thinking that it would be plenty of time to get in.  It was really bad.  You’re in a line that isn’t moving and you think maybe another gate would be better.  But then you also think, another gate could be just as bad and then you wasted time going from one gate to another.  So I stayed where I was.  It took a solid 45 minutes to get in.  Game time was 7:00, but fortunately it didn’t actually start at 7:00.  I was worried about making it in time for kickoff.  But when I got up to the upper level where I was sitting, I saw the clock counting down to the start of the game and I had about nine and a half minutes to spare.  I was able to get a hot dog and a water and get to my seat in time for the start of the game.  I don’t get why it was so bad.  The Yankees play games with big crowds on a regular basis.  They should be able to handle this.  But the last two football games I’ve been to there have been really bad getting into the stadium.  So if we ever play there again, I hope I will read this blog post again to remind myself to get to the gate more than an hour in advance.

I got a hotel room in the Bronx because it was a night game.  I figured I didn’t want to deal with getting home after a night game and also it gave me the opportunity to watch other games in my hotel room.  I saw the end of Florida beating Ole Miss before I went to the game and that was fun.  I watched a good amount of Penn State-Minnesota.  Penn State took the lead before I left for the game and sadly, they ended up winning.  And I watched the end of the Texas A&M-Auburn game and some of USC-UCLA before going to sleep.  I thought about going to Mass before the game.  Fortunately I decided not to do that because I probably wouldn’t have gotten into the stadium in time for kickoff if I had.  I ended up going at 7:45 the next morning.  I wouldn’t have gone so early, but it was the only convenient English Mass I could find in the area (the rest were in Spanish).  I’m pretty sure that was my first ever Mass in the Bronx.  So I’ve now been to Mass in three of the five boroughs.  I don’t think I’ve ever been to Mass in Brooklyn and I’m like 99.9% sure I’ve never done anything on Staten Island other than drive through it and go to a Staten Island Yankees game.

The win over Army meant that we were playing USC Thanksgiving weekend with a chance to clinch a spot in the college football playoff.  It was a competitive game.  We were tied at 14 at halftime and it felt like we should have been winning.  When we went up 21-14, I texted my friends that we should be up by more.  USC tied it at 21, but then it seemed like we were taking control of the game.  We scored back to back touchdowns and then we got the ball back early in the fourth quarter.  If we score there, the game was over.  We had three plays for no yards and then we punted.  But if we got a stop there, the game was over.  USC scored in five plays and it was 35-28 and now it was a game.  On our next possession, we had five plays for a total of three yards and we punted.  I wasn’t feeling great.  USC was moving the ball.  On the broadcast, Nessler and Danielson were talking about if USC would kick the extra point or go for two and the lead if they scored.  Matt texted “This is not going to end well for us” and Jon texted “36-35, Lincoln will go for 2” and right after that Christian Gray returned an interception 99 yards to give us a 42-28 lead with 3:39 to play.  It was looking very good at that point, but it still wasn’t over.  Then Xavier Watts returned an interception 100 yards to make it 49-28.  USC added a meaningless touchdown to make it a 49-35 final score.  Xavier Watts is my favorite player on this year’s team.  He started out as a wide receiver and it didn’t look like he was going to be a player.  He moved to safety and turned into a great player.  And he’s stayed for five years when he definitely could have left after last year.  He went out of the game earlier with an injury, but it looks like he’s fine.  As I’m writing this right after the game, I’m enjoying my last Summer Ale of 2024 as I celebrate a wonderful victory to get us to the college football playoff (the bottle says on it to enjoy before December and I am certainly enjoying it).  So it was an awesome win, but we did miss a short field goal early in the game.  Field goal kicking is a huge concern right now for Notre Dame.  I hope we don’t need one to win a playoff game.

We have a good chance to be the 5 seed in the playoff and that would be really good.  That would mean a first round game against the 12 seed and then if we win, Boise State would be the likely second round opponent (but all of that could change with conference championship games).  Whatever happens, I think our first two playoff games will be very winnable.  If we win those two, anything could happen after that.  I don’t think there’s a team like 2012 Alabama, 2018 Clemson, or 2020 Alabama that we’re going to see.  The range of possibilities is very wide.  We could lose in the first round and I wouldn’t be shocked (I’d be very disappointed, but not shocked).  I also think winning it all is not out of the question.

I’ll finish up by going back to Marcus Freeman.  It’s been a bit of a roller coaster so far.  It is still to be determined how he will be remembered at Notre Dame.  But he’s done a fantastic job after the loss to Northern Illinois (he also did a fantastic job to win nine games in his first year with Drew Pyne playing quarterback).  Hopefully the Northern Illinois loss will end up being the turning point in his career as a coach.  If we had beaten Northern Illinois, I don’t think we would have been undefeated.  Somebody would have beaten us along the way.  Maybe we would have still ended up 11-1.  But maybe it would have been worse.  Let’s say we beat Northern Illinois and lost to Louisville.  A loss to Louisville would have been much more excusable and then maybe we would lose to somebody else after that.  But since an inexcusable loss to Northern Illinois, we’ve played fantastic football.  In 2022, Notre Dame, USC, LSU, and Oklahoma all had new head coaches (Freeman, Lincoln Riley, Brian Kelly, and Brett Venables).  A few weeks back, I texted my friends saying that Freeman was looking pretty good out of that group (Luke Fickell was another possibility for us and his first two years at Wisconsin haven’t been too good).  I said “Kelly is maybe even with him, but we had reached our ceiling with Kelly.”  We had definitely reached our ceiling with Kelly (or more accurately, we reached Kelly’s ceiling), but Freeman and Kelly are not even anymore.  Freeman has clearly pulled ahead of him late in this season (Freeman is also a million times more likable than Kelly).  I hope we haven’t reached our ceiling with Freeman yet.  I hope we’ll reach it this season by winning the National Championship.  Go Irish!

Party Like It's Later in 1981

I did a game by game diary of the NBA Finals.  Of course, I had to bring it back for the World Series with the Dodgers playing the Yankees.  I’ve been waiting for the World Series my whole life.  It’s the most common World Series of all time.  It happened 11 times in the 41-year stretch from 1941-1981.  But then we went 43 years before it happened again.  So for the first time in my life, we got Dodgers-Yankees in the World Series.  I was hoping it would be like 2008, when I got the Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals I had been waiting for (it had happened before in my lifetime, but 2008 was the first Celtics-Lakers Finals I could remember and it was wonderful).  When the Celtics won the championship this year, my blog post was Party Like It’s 1981 and one of the reasons I picked 1981 for the title (there are lots of years I could have chosen for the Celtics) was because the Dodgers won the World Series later that year.  Much like 1981 (and 1959, 1963, and 1965), the Celtics and Dodgers have won championships in the same year.  This was the first time I got to experience my two favorite professional teams winning championships in the same year.  So anyway, here we go.

I did not expect this for most of the season.

Game 1

I wore my 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers World Champions shirt.  I heated up a leftover slice of Little Vincent’s and a leftover slice of Chefs broccoli cheddar and drank a Brooklyn Lager as the game started. I was ready to enjoy this game.  Game 1 was a great baseball game.  While it still looked like I might not be happy about the result, it was a great baseball game.  And then we got the most memorable ending of a World Series Game 1 since 1988.  Both teams got good pitching from their starters.  Jack Flaherty was good, but Gerrit Cole was better.  Fortunately Flaherty was a lot better than he was in Game 5 against the Mets.  NLCS MVP Tommy Edman (what a great acquisition by Andrew Friedman) had a really good game that will probably end up being forgotten.  He had two hits, scored a run, and saved a run with a really good play in the field.  Gleyber Torres came very close to giving the Yankees the lead in the ninth, but it ended up being a double on fan interference instead of a home run.  When it happened, I thought right away that it wasn’t a home run.  I’m glad that was the initial call, because I don’t know if you could overturn it if it had been ruled a home run.  It was reviewed and they said the call was confirmed.  But it didn’t seem confirmed to me looking at the replays.  Like I don’t think it was going to be a home run, but I’m not 100% sure.  The fan clearly reached out over the wall, but he also caught it above the wall.  Blake Treinen stranded two runners in the top of the ninth, but then he gave up a lead in the top of the tenth.  He stranded a runner at second and we went to the bottom of the tenth with the Dodgers trailing 3-2.  I felt like they had a pretty good chance.  If one runner reached, Shohei Ohtani would get to hit as the game winning run.  Gavin Lux walked and then Tommy Edman got his second hit of the game.  With one out and the game winning run on first, the Yankees brought in Nestor Cortes, who hadn’t pitched in more than a month with Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman coming up.  Ohtani hit a fly ball that Alex Verdugo made a really nice catch on.  The problem for the Yankees was that Verdugo had to go into the stands to make the catch. I knew the rule and that meant that the runners got to advance.  I knew they would then walk Betts and have Cortes pitch to Freeman.  Freeman didn’t waste any time and hit a game winning grand slam on the first pitch.  The Dodgers won 6-3 and it was amazing.  It didn’t take any stupid Rob Manfred rule to end an absolute classic game in ten innings.  Joe Davis had a fantastic call that referenced Vin Scully’s call of Kirk Gibson’s home run in Game 1 in 1988.  I’ve watched it like 15 times already (I’m writing this like an hour after the game ended).  So that was Game 1.  It was amazing.  But it’s a long series.  I don’t expect this to be like the NBA Finals when I expected the Celtics to win fairly easily (I’m still confused about why people thought the Mavericks would win).  The Dodgers have beaten the Yankees thrice in the World Series.  And in two of those three series, they lost Game 1.  So there’s a long way to go in this one.

I was aware of Kirk Gibson's home run as a young Dodger fan, but I'm sure I didn't watch it live.  It was pretty awesome that I got to experience this.  They were both hit at 8:37 Pacific time with the Dodgers trailing and down to their final out.

Game 2

We all know that the Astros cheated in 2017, but the Dodgers still could have won that World Series.  They let Game 2 slip away.  The Dodgers almost let Game 2 slip away tonight, but fortunately they held on to win.  The Dodgers did their scoring early.  Tommy Edman continues to be amazing.  He got it started with a home run in the second.  The Yankees quickly answered with a home run by Juan Soto in the third.  Juan Soto is terrifying.  But that was the only hit Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed.  He was fantastic for six and a third. I’m hoping his season is now done because he is in line to pitch Game 6.  If Game 6 doesn’t happen, the Dodgers will be World Series Champions.  Anyway, the Dodgers quickly retook the lead with a two run home run by Teoscar Hernandez and then a solo home run by Freddie Freeman in the third.  And that was all of their scoring.  Anthony Banda and Michael Kopech were excellent out of the bullpen.  But Blake Treinen was shaky in the ninth.  He gave up a run and loaded the bases.  But he struck out Anthony Volpe for the second out.  After Treinen got two outs on 33 pitches, Alex Vesia got the third out on one pitch when he got Jose Trevino to fly out to center.  So the Dodgers won 4-2.  I would think Treinen should pitch in no more than one game in New York.  He’s thrown a lot of pitches the last two nights.  I would go to Kopech or Graterol in the ninth in Game 3.  But the big concern is Shohei Ohtani.  He got caught stealing and hurt his shoulder.  The way he looked coming off the field wasn’t good.  It’s good to be up 2-0, but this series is far from over.  The last two times these teams met in the World Series, a team went up 2-0 and then lost the next four games.  So hopefully that history won’t repeat itself this year.  Also Notre Dame beat a ranked team, Brian Kelly predictably lost a big game on the road, and the Celtics won.  So today was a good day of sports.

Game 3

The Dodgers are one win away from being World Series Champions.  Walker Buehler was excellent for five innings.  He had a pretty bad year coming back from his second Tommy John surgery, but he’s looked good in the playoffs.  He’s going to be a free agent so he’s picked a good time to start pitching well again.  We’ll see what happens in free agency, but he will always be a big part of helping the Dodgers win two championships as long as they can finish this off.  Freddie Freeman hit another home run and he’s on his way to being World Series MVP.  Teoscar Hernandez made a great throw to get Stanton at the plate and end an inning.  The bullpen was a little shaky.  They got out of some jams and then Kopech gave up a two run home run in the ninth, but they held on to win.  Tomorrow is a bullpen game.  Up 3-0, the Dodgers will probably use at least two of Landon Knack, Ben Casparius, and Brett Honeywell.  So the Yankees should have a decent chance to get a win, but there’s always the possibility that the Dodgers score 10 runs and don’t need a great game from their pitchers.  I’m in favor of that tomorrow.

Game 4

Well, this was like Game 4 for the Celtics.  I wore my Sandy Koufax jersey hoping for the sweep like 1963, but the sweep was not to be.  Freddie Freeman hit a first inning home run (to break cheater George Springer’s record for most consecutive World Series games with a home run), but the rest of the game wasn’t good.  Ben Casparius and Landon Knack were solid.  Daniel Hudson and Brett Honeywell were not.  The good news is that they were able to rest the high leverage bullpen guys other than Hudson.  Hopefully they’ll finish it off in five like the Celtics did.

Game 5

I planned on doing a running diary of Game 5 like I did for Game 5 of the NBA Finals when the Celtics finished off the Mavericks.  I started it and gave up in the second inning.  Here are two of my entries from before I gave up:

8:21- Jazz Chisholm hits a home run.  It looks like we’re getting bad Jack Flaherty like we did in Game 5 against the Mets.  The good news is the Dodgers are up 3-1.  The bad news is that unlike against the Mets, the Dodgers don’t have their low leverage relievers available today to eat up innings so they’ll probably have to use their high leverage guys even if this game isn’t competitive.

8:25- Anthony Rizzo strikes out.  If the Dodgers can somehow get into the Yankees’ bullpen early tonight, they’ll have a chance.  If Cole pitches well, the game will probably be out of reach by the time it gets to the bullpen.

Well, they had to use their high leverage guys.  Cole pitched well, but the game was not out of reach by the time it got to the Yankee bullpen because of some truly horrendous fielding in the fifth inning. The Dodgers scored five runs when they shouldn’t have scored any that inning.  After two errors, Mookie Betts drove in a run on an RBI single because Cole didn’t cover first base on a ground ball to Anthony Rizzo.  Freddie Freeman drove in two runs with a single.  And Teoscar Hernandez drove in two more with a double to tie the game.  The Yankees retook the lead with a sacrifice fly by Giancarlo Stanton in the sixth.  The Yankee bullpen couldn’t get it done.  Tommy Kahnle gave up two hits and a walk to load the bases.  The Yankees brought in Luke Weaver.  He gave up sacrifice flies to Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts and the Dodgers led 7-6.  The problem for the Dodgers was the problem I thought was going to ruin their season.  They were running out of pitchers.  Brusdar Graterol got two outs and allowed three walks and a hit and gave up the run that gave the Yankees the lead back.  Blake Treinen came in and gave the Dodgers everything he had.  He got seven outs.  He got out of a jam in the eighth after Roberts went to the mound with one out and left him in.  They still had one more inning to go and the only relievers they had left were all guys that pitched yesterday.  Hudson was the only high leverage guy left and he wasn’t good yesterday.  Casparius, Knack, and Honeywell all threw a lot of pitches.  So Dave Roberts went to Walker Buehler.  Walker Buehler had a terrible regular season coming back from Tommy John surgery.  I wasn’t excited about him pitching in the playoffs, but the Dodgers really had no choice because they only had two other starting pitchers left.  He made one start in each series.  His numbers against the Padres were bad, but that was almost entirely because of bad fielding.  He was good against the Mets, but he only got through four innings.  He was great in the World Series for five innings in Game 3 and then he got the save two days later.  Freddie Freeman obviously deserved the World Series MVP (looking back, there was no way the Dodgers could lose this series after the Freeman grand slam to win Game 1), but Walker Buehler will forever be a Dodger legend.  He’s pitched in three World Series now.  He’s 2-0 in 19 innings pitched with one run allowed and a save in a World Series clinching game.  He’s going to be a free agent.  The Dodgers let Corey Seager get away and that was a mistake.  They need to bring back Walker Buehler.

Walker Buehler already would have been remembered favorably by Dodger fans, but now he's a legend.

When the Dodgers swept the Yankees in 1963, Sandy Koufax said, “I had two great thrills in the World Series–when I thought it was over and then when it actually was over.”  That’s how I felt about this series.  It was a thrill to go up 3-0.  But after losing Game 4, I definitely wanted to wrap it up in Game 5.  If the Yankees won Game 5, the Dodgers still would have been in very good shape, but anything could have happened at that point.  Fortunately the Dodgers didn’t let the Yankees come back to Los Angeles with them.

Four years ago, the Dodgers didn’t get the parade they deserved.  I didn’t get to celebrate with my favorite beer, Summer Ale (if not for the pandemic, I definitely would have made sure I had enough Summer Ale to get me through November). Well, the Dodgers will get their parade on Fernando Valenzuela’s birthday and I just enjoyed a Summer Ale.  I am particularly happy for the guys who were on the team in 2020 (Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Mookie Betts, Will Smith, Max Muncy, Kiké Hernandez, Austin Barnes, Chris Taylor, Gavin Lux, Tony Gonsolin, Brusdar Graterol, Dustin May, Blake Treinen, and Joe Kelly).  If there are any other 2020 players who aren’t currently under contract with another team, I would invite them to the parade.  Right now I’m drinking a Brooklyn Lager in honor of the Dodgers’ roots.  If I didn’t have to go to work tomorrow, I would drink an Octoberfest also (I completely missed out on Octoberfest in the fall of 2020 because of the pandemic).

Andrew Friedman deserves a lot of credit.  He made some great acquisitions with Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Teoscar Hernandez in the offseason.  Flaherty, Kopech, and Edman were in-season acquisitions who all helped the team in big ways (even if Flaherty was bad tonight).  Dave Roberts was masterful in the postseason.  I’ve always been a Dave Roberts fan, but a lot of Dodger fans criticize him constantly.  Finding a way to win the World Series with the pitching staff in the condition that it’s in is absolutely amazing.  He’s going to the Hall of Fame as a manager and I hope he stays with the Dodgers for many years to come.  And Clayton Kershaw gets his second World Series ring.  Injuries derailed his season.  He only made seven starts and didn’t pitch in the postseason.  It’s kind of like he gets the ring that he deserved in 2017.  I hope things go better for him next year.

In one of his interviews after Game 5, Mookie Betts credited Clayton Kershaw with helping getting the team going when they were struggling.

Baseball is a weird sport.  The Dodgers were the best team in baseball.  They finished with the best record.  They beat the Padres and the Mets, who were pretty much the two best teams in the NL for the last four months of the season.  They beat the Yankees, who were the best team in the American League.  So there is definitely no argument to make that any other team was the best team in baseball, but there have definitely been better Dodgers teams in recent years that didn’t win the World Series that were better than this year’s team (2017*, 2019, 2021, 2022).  The Dodgers easily could have lost to the Padres in the Division Series.  But they found a way to win.  Once they beat the Padres, I was hopeful that they would beat the Mets and Yankees, but anything could have happened.  Once they got to the World Series, I thought they would win, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they lost.  It pretty much did turn out to be my baseball version of the 2008 NBA Finals.

Like 1959, 1963, 1965, and 1981, my favorite basketball and baseball teams have won championships.  Of course, I wasn’t alive for any of those.  I completely expected the Celtics to win the championship this year.  I did not expect the Dodgers to do it for most of the season (they were bad when I saw them in Los Angeles in July and in September I wrote a post where I mentioned how they were running out of pitchers).  In 1966, the Celtics and Notre Dame both won championships.  In 1988, the Dodgers and Notre Dame both won championships.  It’s never happened that the Celtics, Dodgers, and Notre Dame all won championships in the same year.  There’s still a chance that Notre Dame could do it this year (it’s a long shot, but we have a solid chance to make the College Football Playoff).  As one of four Notre Dame/Dodgers/Celtics fans in the world (my dad, cousin, and uncle being the other three), I hope 2024 is the year.

Churches and Gelato

Years ago there were rumors of Notre Dame playing a football game in Rome (maybe against Boston College, I don't remember all of the details).  I went to see Notre Dame play in Ireland so I was ready to make the trip to Italy for a game.  All of my international travel before was to English speaking countries (Ireland, England, Canada, and Australia).  Italy was definitely the first non-English speaking country I wanted to get to.  As the years went on and that football game never materialized, I decided I wanted to go to Italy even if I wouldn't get to see football or any other sport (I saw football in Ireland, tennis in England, baseball in Canada, and football in Australia).  By the beginning of 2020, I was ready to plan a trip to Italy.  And then the world fell apart.  I had found 206 Tours on the internet and they ran various pilgrimages to several different countries and there are all sorts of different packages with some involving multiple countries.  If I had been able to do it in 2020, I probably would have done a Rome and Poland pilgrimage.  I would love to get to Poland to see St. John Paul the Great stuff and World War II stuff.  But in 2024, I wasn't too excited about the idea of going to a country that borders Russia and Ukraine.  I also considered combining Rome with France.  I would love to get to Lourdes and Normandy, but I have almost zero interest in Paris.  I ended up deciding on the Rome and Assisi pilgrimage.  The dates were convenient and most of the other packages involving Rome would have had one less day in Rome.  So I was off to Rome for four nights and Assisi for four nights.

I wanted the first picture of this post to be St. Peter's Square.

When I first got to Rome, I had most of the day to myself before meeting the other people in my tour group (it included people from Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Kansas).  I didn't have much planned since I was tired and I was going to get to see all of the stuff I wanted to see with my tour group.  All I wanted to do that first day was get pizza and gelato.  I got there in the morning and fortunately I was able to get into my hotel room right away.  After relaxing until lunch time, I walked to a pizza place by my hotel.  Traditional Roman pizza is rectangular and they cut you the amount you want and the price is based on the weight of the slice.  I got some slice with ham and potatoes.  The ham was very good.  Then I went to a gelato place.  Inspired by John's pandemic ice cream tour, I did an Italian gelato tour.  I got a small gelato each day at a different place.  There was a lot of good gelato, but the dark chocolate and pistachio gelato I got on my first day at Gelateria La Romana was probably the best that I had.  I went back to my hotel and took a nap before meeting the rest of my tour group in the evening.

There was other really good gelato, but I think this was the best.

The next two days were what I was looking forward to the most.  We were in the Vatican both days.  The second day will almost certainly be the day in my life that I crossed international borders most often.  I went back and forth between Italy and the Vatican many times (I resisted the urge to be like Homer Simpson at the American Embassy in Australia).  We went to the Vatican early in the morning for the pope's general audience.  Pope Francis came out walking with a cane and then later on he was in a wheelchair.  He spoke mostly in Italian and then they would give a summary of what he said in various languages.  I think the order was French, English, German, Spanish (he did speak a little bit in Spanish also), Portuguese, Arabic, and Polish.  

There's a weird sculpture of Jesus behind the pope.

After seeing the pope, we had some free time until the afternoon.  So that's when I crossed back and forth between the Vatican and Italy numerous times.  I got lunch at Pizza Zizza right by the Vatican.  It was probably the best pizza I had in Italy.  Our dinners were paid for and they included wine.  I don't like wine, but I had a total of probably less than two glasses of wine during the whole trip.  Normally I wouldn't drink wine at all (it had probably been years since I last drank any wine), but I had some in honor of Jesus being a wine drinker.  But during my lunch at Pizza Zizza I got a glass of Birra Messina because I wanted to make sure I had some Italian beer during my trip.  Later in the day I had gelato at the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major that was commissioned by Pope Francis to celebrate the miracle of the Roman summer snowfall on August 5, 358.  It had a lemon flavor with orange, ginger, and meringue toppings.  It was unsurprisingly not my favorite gelato of the trip, but I wasn't going to not have papal gelato.

This was good.  I found Pizza Zizza on Yelp.  I knew it was right by the Vatican, but not exactly where.  I happened to find it while wondering during my free time.

St. Mary Major had statues of the Apostles.  St. John was the reason I picked John for my confirmation name.

There's never been a Pope James, but there were two Apostles named James so that's pretty good.

Papal gelato wasn't bad, but I would definitely take flavors like (dark) chocolate, pistachio, caramel, and peanut butter over this.

The next day was another day in the Vatican.  We went to the Vatican Museums.  That was a little underwhelming.  There was lots of stuff to see, but it was so crowded (and this was during a time of the year that is supposedly not so crowded) and we were kind of rushed through.  You end up in the Sistine Chapel.  It is cool to be where the pope gets elected and look at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but again, it's really crowded and you get rushed through.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside so I don't have any from there.  After that, it was time for St. Peter's Basilica.  That was really cool.  The thing I most wanted to see was the tomb of St. John Paul the Great.  He was the greatest person of the 20th century.  So now I've been to the tombs of two of the three heroes of the Cold War.  I was at Ronald Reagan's tomb in 2015.  And the third hero, Rocky Balboa, is still alive.  I was going to take a night off from gelato, but I had been texting John and he suggested looking up John Paul II's favorite gelato place.  I found out that it was Gelateria Giolitti and it was about a mile from my hotel.  So I went exploring to find it after dinner that night.  I got chocolate and blueberry.  It was good, but it wasn't my favorite.  I tried various flavors during my trip and my favorites were dark chocolate, pistachio, peanut (I guess it was called peanut instead of peanut butter because peanut butter is much more popular in the US than in Europe), and caramel.  So I might have just picked the wrong flavors this time.

He was the pope for the first 21 years of my life and the greatest person of the 20th century.

Much like Homer Simpson, I hate pants, but we had to wear them inside St. Peter's.

This was the gelato from St. John Paul the Great's favorite place.

On my last day in Rome, we went to the Colosseum.  The Colosseum held about 50,000 people.  Being there felt a little bit like being in a college football stadium.  It's not big enough to fit a football field, but if it wasn't in ruins, it would be a good place for Notre Dame to have their first ever Shamrock Series basketball game.  According to our tour guide, Christians were not martyred in the Colosseum.  The Romans definitely persecuted and martyred Christians, and Christians were probably killed in the Colosseum, but they weren't killed there because they were Christians.  Later on we went to the Pantheon.  It was a Roman temple and now it's a Catholic Church.  Rome was really cool and I feel like I could have spent more time there, but I got to do everything I wanted to do in Rome.

Other members of my tour group commented on the weird group of teams that I root for because I represented them all during the trip.

I think some of the other 206 Tours packages with Rome didn't include the Colosseum.  I definitely did not want to miss seeing it.

Here's the outside of what was the Pantheon.

And here's the inside of what is now the Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs.

The next day we were off to Assisi.  We were staying in Assisi, but visiting various other places for the next four days.  That was a more laid back day.  We stopped in Orvieto and went to the Duomo di Orvieto.  It's a church that took 301 years to build.  We had to take a tram to get up there because it's elevation is 1,066 feet.  The population of Orvieto is a little over 20,000.  So that was the first of several small towns that we visited.

I took this picture of Assisi from the bus.

These pictures are the view I had from my hotel room in Assisi.

Then it was my Sunday in Italy.  We had a priest in our tour group who said Mass each day in a different church, but for Sunday, we went to a regular Sunday Mass at San Michele Arcangelo in Bevagna.  So it was Mass in Italian.  I was able to figure out some of what was being said, but I read the readings in English later on.  I don't remember if I recognized it during the first reading or during the homily, but I figured out that it was the reading with Joshua saying, "As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."  Then we had some free time in Bevagna.  Bevagna is an old town with a population of about 5,000.  I got pizza that looked like it could have been from Chefs in East Northport.  I had a spinach slice and a regular slice.  They might have looked like Chefs, but they were not Chefs quality (the Spinach slice was decent, but both slices looked better than they tasted).

We stayed in Assisi the next day.  We went to the Basilica of St. Francis, which is where St. Francis is buried (we couldn't take pictures by his tomb).  The last two days were the best parts of the non-Rome portion of the trip for somebody who spent 13 summers working for the Franciscan brothers at Camp Alvernia and regularly attends St. Francis.  Brother Robert taught me the St. Francis quote "Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary, use words."  And it was Brother Geoff who taught me that St. Francis never actually said that.  One of the things I learned on the trip was that there's a good amount more to the Vatican than what you would think.  Of course, St. Peter's Basilica is inside of the Vatican City.  But there are three other papal basilicas in Rome.  St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls are all part of the Vatican even though they're not in the Vatican City. We visited each of those when we were in Rome.  There are several other places in Rome that belong to the Vatican as well.  So any time you go to one of those places, you're crossing from Italy to the Vatican.  And there are some other places outside of Rome that belong to the Vatican.  The Basilica of St. Francis is one of them.  We also visited the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels in Assisi.  There was a golden statue of Mary and a dome on top so I liked it.

I was back in the Vatican at the Basilica of St. Francis.

You see Nativity scenes in Assisi because St. Francis invented them.

For lunch in Assisi, I went to a restaurant that was supposed to have really good lasagna.  I had lots of pizza, various kinds of pasta, and gelato, but I wanted to make sure I had some lasagna in Italy.  It was a white lasagna, so there was some sort of white sauce instead of a tomato sauce.  It was very good, but I suspect I would have liked it more with some sort of tomato sauce.  And speaking of food in Italy, the food in general was good.  It was the best food I've had in another country.  But I wasn't overwhelmed with the food.  Living in New York, I could get Italian food that is pretty comparable to what I had in Italy.  Anyway, it was a good day in Assisi.  Of all the little towns I visited, that was the most interesting one.  It's this old Medieval town.  The original town is on a hill inside of Roman walls and then it has expanded beyond that.  To get to my hotel, we had to park the bus outside the walls because the roads are too narrow.  We had to go inside the walls and then walk up a big hill.  And then we would enter the hotel on the third floor and I would go down to my room on the second floor.  The population of Assisi is about 28,000 and the elevation is 1,391 feet.

The last day in Italy we went to Gubbio and La Verna, where St. Francis received the stigmata.  It's also where the Franciscan brothers got the name for Camp Alvernia.  Gubbio is a town of about 33,000 people at an elevation of 1,713 feet.  La Verna up in the mountains at 4,209 feet.  After a week of 90-95°, it was nice to be up in the mountains with temperatures probably in the high 60s or low 70s at La Verna.  La Verna is in Tuscany.  As a Seinfeld fan, I was reminded of Bob Cobb trying to keep Jerry out of Tuscany.  George guessed that Tuscany was the size of North Dakota.  Tuscany is about eight times the size of North Dakota geographically with almost five times the population.  It's very close to New Jersey's size geographically, but New Jersey has about 2.5 times the population of Tuscany.  Anyway, the background that they used in Seinfeld for Tuscany did look like it could actually be Tuscany.

La Verna was a much different setting from all the other places I went to.

I don't see any houses to rent.

I had to wear my Camp Alvernia shirt to La Verna.

Italy and the Vatican were amazing.  I'm glad I finally went.  Of all the countries I've visited, I would want to go back to Australia the most.  But it's so far away that I probably won't go back and that's okay.  The place I'm most likely to go back to is probably Canada since it's so close.  I might go there next year since I have my passport renewed and go to a Blue Jays game (they renovated the stadium since I was there ten years ago) or maybe go to a minor league game in Vancouver if I can fit that in on a trip out West.  I would probably want to go back to Italy before England or Ireland, but if I was going to Europe again, I'd probably go to a country I hadn't been to before I would go back to Italy.  Poland and France are the ones I'd want to get to the most.  It would also be cool to go to Norway since that is Knute Rockne's homeland.  But I probably won't ever go to Norway.  Portugal, Spain, and Germany are other European countries I might consider going to in the future.  Other than that, the only other countries that I might ever think about going to would be Mexico (because of Our Lady of Guadalupe) or Japan.  Seeing baseball in Japan would be really cool.  I feel like the culture is so different though that I would be pretty out of place.  If I was going to take another really long trip (like more than seven hours on a plane), it might be a domestic one.  I would love to get back to Hawaii.  Pearl Harbor was amazing, but it would be cool to see places other than Oahu.  If I could see some sporting event in Hawaii, that would be awesome.  I felt pretty comfortable in Italy.  Speaking English was not a problem at all in Rome.  In the smaller towns, it was a little more hit and miss, but it wasn't too bad.  As one of our tour guides pointed out, Americans have it easy since people speak English all over the world, but the only people who speak Italian are Italians and opera singers.

I thought about all the Italians who came to America over the years.  They must have been disappointed to leave behind the beautiful churches.  The scenery was really cool with lots of mountains.  New Jersey seems like it would be disappointing in comparison.  But it actually reminded me a little bit of Southern California with the mountains and similar weather (it was hot and they said it pretty much doesn't rain in Rome during the summer, but it was probably more humid).  On the other hand, the tradeoff for the beautiful churches was churches with air conditioning and more comfortable pews and kneelers.  I don't mind heat much, but when you're walking around Rome all day and it's 93°, it gets a little rough.  The restaurants and my hotel were air conditioned, but the churches didn't provide any relief.  But the churches were very impressive.  I lost track of how many we went to.  It was eight days and probably an average of around four different churches per day.  Sometimes there were churches that were literally less than 100 feet from each other.  Long Island is pretty densely packed with Catholic churches, but finding two Catholic churches within a mile of each other is unusual (actually I teach at a parish school and there’s another Catholic church a mile away).  Manhattan has some places with Catholic churches pretty close together, but it’s probably a few blocks apart instead of on opposite sides of a little square.

So that was my trip to Italy.  I’m probably done with traveling for 2024.  It doesn’t look like I’m going to get out to Notre Dame for a football game this year (I’m not ruling that out completely, but it’s not looking likely).  As for 2025, I might go see some Notre Dame sporting events this winter and/or spring.  We play hockey at Wrigley Field.  I've seen us play outdoor games at Fenway Park and Notre Dame Stadium so Wrigley Field is a possibility.  I haven't been to a Notre Dame basketball game on campus since 2016 so I might try to do that.  And I might try to go to a baseball game since I was unsuccessful in my attempt in 2024.  And I'm sure there will be traveling for baseball in 2025, but I haven't given that too much thought yet.  It was a pretty good summer even though I saw the Dodgers play terribly in Los Angeles and I missed out on going to Boston because I got sick.  Italy and the Vatican definitely helped make up for that.