Give UCF a Chance

Georgia and Alabama are playing in the championship game tonight.  Two SEC teams.  Boo!  But Go Georgia!  We will finish the year with one undefeated team and that’s UCF, who beat Auburn, who went 2-1 against Georgia and Alabama.  Of course, UCF had no chance to win the championship.  Now I would acknowledge that there was no reason to think UCF was as good as any of the top 7 teams in the college football playoff rankings before playing Auburn.  Auburn played four games against the playoff teams and went 2-2.  I doubt UCF would have done better than that.  Still, I don’t like that they went undefeated and had no chance to win the championship.  One of the great things about college basketball is that every team has a path to win the championship (as unlikely as it might be for many teams).  Everybody seems to think the playoff will eventually expand to eight teams.  So how does that happen?

I have a playoff expansion plan that I acknowledge isn’t all that realistic, but I like it anyway.  Expanding the playoff certainly could diminish the bowls in significance even more.  Right now, people pretty much don’t care about the bowls other than the two playoff games (and maybe the Rose Bowl when it’s not a playoff game).  If you had a round of playoffs before the bowls and then used the bowls as the semifinals, would the losers go to bowl games?  Because that would be weird and then definitely nobody would care about the non-playoff bowls.  I say you start the playoff with the bowls (two games on New Year’s Eve, two on New Year’s Day), but I wouldn’t have the bowls with a straight 1-8 seeding.  Here’s my idea:

Five Power Five conference champions plus the top Group of Five Champion plus two wild cards make the playoff bowls:

Rose Bowl:  Pac-12 vs. Big 10
Sugar Bowl:  SEC vs. Group of Five or Wild Card
Orange Bowl:  ACC vs. Group of Five or Wild Card
Cotton/Fiesta/Peach (rotating):  Big 12 vs. Group of Five or Wild Card

After the bowls, the winners are seeded and the top two teams get home playoff games.  The Championship Game is at a neutral site.

Here’s why I like this.  It greatly increases the importance of the three most historic bowls.  They always get to be playoff games.  And you restore some history.  Georgia-Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl was a very exciting game, but it was a little weird having those two teams play in the Rose Bowl (if that had been the Sugar Bowl matchup, it wouldn’t have been weird at all).  Under my plan, the Rose Bowl is always Pac-12 Champion vs. Big 10 Champion, which is actually pretty unusual now.  If the Rose Bowl is a playoff game now, it’s unlikely you’re getting that matchup.  If the Rose Bowl isn’t a playoff game, you’re definitely getting Pac-12 vs. Big 10, but probably not both champions because at least one of them is probably going to the playoff (this year was the first year neither of them made the playoff).  In the four years since the playoff started, the four Rose Bowls have featured three out of eight teams who were either Pac-12 or Big 10 champions.  I assume the Cotton/Fiesta/Peach Bowl folks wouldn’t like this all that much, but they are still playoff games once every three years, which is exactly the way it is for those bowls right now (I mean, I'd be fine with just having the Cotton Bowl be a playoff bowl every year, but I don't think the Fiesta/Peach Bowl folks would be too happy.

So how would you assign Group of Five and Wild Card teams to bowls?  You could do it randomly I guess.  I think my answer would be to avoid conference matchups (if Alabama was a wild card, don’t send them to the Sugar Bowl), but do it by rankings other than that.  So Clemson was the top seed so they would get UCF.

Here’s how this year’s playoff would have worked:

Rose Bowl:  USC vs. Ohio State
Sugar Bowl:  Georgia vs. Wisconsin
Orange Bowl:  Clemson vs. UCF
Cotton:  Oklahoma vs. Alabama

Ohio State actually did beat USC so let’s say Georgia, UCF, and Alabama won the other playoff bowls (I think Clemson would have beaten UCF, but UCF actually did win their bowl and nobody beat them, so let’s just go with it).  You could just go with rankings before the bowls or you could rerank them (maybe UCF gets a big bump for being the only undefeated team and beating the number 1 team).  But if you went with rankings before the bowls, the semifinals would be:

UCF at Georgia
Ohio State at Alabama

Now you might have people that are upset that the Pac-12/Big 10 champions always have to play each other whereas the other Power Five conference champions get a Wild Card or Group of Five team.  That’s true, but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee a tougher game.  This year the Pac-12/Big 10 champions were ranked 5 and 8.  One of the other Power Five champions is playing Alabama, who was ranked 4.  And in other sports, seeds don’t always go by actual team rankings.  In the NFL, the Jets could be the second best team in the NFL (I know, just go with it for a minute), but if the Bills are the best team in the NFL, the Jets are the 5 seed and they’re playing a road playoff game in round 1 and possibly playing the Bills in round 2 (bad for both teams in that case).  In baseball, the top Wild Card could be the second or third best team in the league, but they have to win a one game playoff to get to play the best team in the league.  In basketball and hockey, you can have one conference be better than the others.  The Spurs are going to have a tougher road to the NBA Finals than the Celtics.  That’s just the way it is.

The problem with my plan is that you’d have to play the semifinals on a Saturday and NFL Playoffs are in the way.  You could move back the NFL season to fix that.  It’s such an obvious plan to get the Super Bowl on the Sunday before Washington’s Birthday (the other thing that the country/NFL could do would be to have the Super Bowl played the day before my proposed federal holiday of Lincoln's Birthday).  Why hasn’t there been any movement towards playing the Super Bowl the day before a Monday holiday?  But the College Football Playoff Championship Game would probably still have to be on a Monday (which I hate) unless you made the Championship Game the third game of an NFL Playoff/College Football Championship triple header on a Saturday (check the end of this post for my plan on that).

I definitely don’t love playoff expansion (even though it would make it easier for Notre Dame to make the playoff).  My fear is that it would encourage teams to not play any good non-conference games.  You’re getting in if you win your conference and if you don’t win your conference, you still want to give yourself a chance at a wild card.  But everybody seems to think the playoff will expand.  So that’s how I would do it.

Mike Brey Appreciation Post

Mike Brey is awesome.  I’m long overdue for this post.  Four weeks ago, I traveled down to Newark, Delaware, to see Notre Dame take on Delaware in basketball.  It was the first year since before I was a student at Notre Dame that I didn’t get to any football games, but I wanted to get to a basketball game (as I’ve said before, Notre Dame is a basketball school now).  So Jon took the train up to Newark and I took the bus down.  I had previously made a point of going to Delaware for a minor league baseball game, but I’m pretty sure that this was the first time I’ve ever spent a night in the state of Delaware.

After dealing with Penn Station and the snow on the day of Santacon (not a day that I’d want to be in the city, but it was early so people weren’t too drunk yet), I arrived in Newark around 5:00.  Jon and I got dinner and watched the end of Army-Navy before going to the game.

The guy taking our picture could have easily gotten the court in the background, but he chose this angle instead.

The arena holds 5,000 people, so pretty much every seat in the house is fairly close to the action.  This was definitely Delaware’s biggest home game of the year.  To buy tickets from Delaware, you had to buy season tickets.  I actually considered doing that and then selling all the rest of the games on Stubhub.  Season tickets were actually cheaper than a lot of the tickets on the secondary market for this game.  But we monitored prices and bought at the right time for a reasonable price.  We were in the second to last row, but pretty close to half court.  The TV cameras were above us just off to our right.  It was a much better view than I’ll have if I go to the ACC Tournament.

Our view for the game

We were a little shaky early on, but we seemed to have taken control by halftime.  We led 38-27.  We played a very good second half and won 92-68.  Bonzie Colson, Matt Farrell, and T.J. Gibbs almost outscored Delaware by themselves (they had19, 24, and 21).  Colson and Martin Geben both had 12 rebounds.  We were 13-23 from three.  So it ended up being a convincing win.

Notre Dame played at Delaware because former Notre Dame player and assistant coach Martin Inglesby is in his second year as head coach at Delaware.  Mike Brey was also Delaware’s head coach before coming to Notre Dame.  He got a nice hand from the crowd during the pre-game introductions.

Mike Brey made the tournament as Delaware's coach twice.

This banner is from after Brey's time at Delaware.  No Delaware didn't win a game, they were one of 60 teams to get a first round bye when the NCAA insisted on calling the first round "the second round."

The next morning, Jon and I got a good breakfast and then he was off.  I went went to mass for the second Sunday of Advent and then took a walk across campus to my bus.  One day I'll have to try to figure out how many different states I've attended mass in.

Eggs Benedict with blue cheese

Delaware's snow-covered campus

Since the Delaware game, Mike Brey has passed Digger Phelps become Notre Dame’s winningest men’s basketball coach.  And today we won at Syracuse for the first time in 11 years.  It’s always nice to beat Jim Boeheim.  The last two games have been without our best player, Bonzie Colson, who might be out for the rest of the year (hopefully not, but we’ll see).  Also today, we didn’t have our second best player, Matt Farrell.  A lot of people were very worried when Colson got hurt.  I would put myself in the “a little worried” category.  Brey has had a lot more success than people expected in the past when we lost some good players (although not back in 2014 when we lost Jerian Grant).  We still have a lot of work to do, but we definitely still have a chance to make the NCAA Tournament.  3-0 in the ACC is a good start.  I love Mike Brey.

Some quick thoughts on football.  I wasn’t motivated to get to a game this year because of how much of a disaster last year was.  It turns out we had some really fun wins.  The game at Boston College was the one game I wanted to go to at the last minute, but I was hoping to go stay with John and take him to the game but it turned out that his wife was due to give birth that week (I hadn’t realized that the baby was due that soon).  It would have been fun to see us run all over Boston College.  The USC game was wonderful.  But then November happened.  The Miami game was a total disaster.  And it’s a problem that we can’t win at Stanford.  The Citrus Bowl was painful to watch at times, but it was really fun at the end.  It was a ten win season (definitely better than I was expecting) and our best bowl win since January 1, 1994.  But we still haven’t won a major bowl under Kelly.  And we had a very good opportunity to get to a major bowl at the start of November (the playoff was a legitimate possibility too).  I would like to think that we have to get to a major bowl next year.  If not, isn’t nine years and an 0-2 record in major bowls enough?

I hope to get to a game or two next year.  We’re playing Syracuse at Yankee Stadium next year so I definitely plan to go to that one.  I’d be up for a home game as well if my friends are going to any.  My preference is always September games (to avoid conflict with baseball playoffs in October and cold weather in November).  And I prefer attending afternoon games.  That pretty much leaves Vanderbilt as my ideal home game to attend, but I might be talked into one of the night games.  It’s also been a long time since I went to an away game on another team’s campus (part of why I wanted to go to the Boston College game this year).  Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, and Northwestern would all be interesting to me if I could get tickets at a reasonable price.  I assume it’s much easier to get to Northwestern than the other two.

Happy Birthday Lou Holtz!

Made for Drinkin'

Good news and bad news and they're both the same:  summer is coming to an end.  I had a good summer, with trips to Denver-Salt Lake City-Reno-San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Boston (and a Dodger win at Citi Field), as well as minor league games in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Tennessee.  Despite their recent struggles, the Dodgers have been great (they ended August on a 5 game losing streak, but they were still 17-10 for the month).  And Clayton Kershaw is coming back tonight.  And college football is starting.  So I'm ready for summer to come to an end.

When I first figured out my list of states that I've had a beer from, I was at 30.  The blog posts linked above cover the beers that I added from Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Tennessee.  And I've added three more to the list.  First was Virginia.  I bought a six pack of Optimal Wit at Blue Bell from the Port City Brewing Company of Alexandria, Virginia.  It was okay, but it seemed almost cidery (or at least what I imagine cider tastes like since I don't think I've ever had hard cider) and not beery enough.  And last week, I added two more states, which finished off the original 13 and the east coast.

The Fireman's Fair mug reminds me of the fact that I wish the Fireman's Fair had some good beer.  They'd definitely get more money from me if they did.

On Friday, John was in town and he invited me to go out on his father's boat.  So I stopped by his parents' house first, where he had an Every Night IPA from the Moat Mountain Brewing Company of North Conway, New Hampshire, waiting for me.  I'm not a huge IPA guy, but this was a very solid beer.  We stopped at Blue Bell to get some beer for the boat.  Of course, we had to get some Summer Ale.  We also saw some Cigar City Tampa-Style Lager which is not surprisingly from Tampa, Florida.  The can said "MADE FOR DRINKIN'" right on it.  My comment when John mentioned that was "As opposed to all these other beers that aren't made for drinkin'."  So we picked up a six pack of that as well.

With this beer, I finished off the original 13 states.

That's not my hand.  I googled this picture.  But you can see that it's "MADE FOR DRINKIN'"

It was a good time with John and Joe on Joe's boat.  I always love being out on the water, but I don't get to do it very often.  I think the last time I was on a boat was a year ago when I was in Sydney.  They even let me drive the boat for a little bit.  But I have to say that I wasn't really impressed with the Tampa-Style Lager.  But Florida is crossed off the list (although it's quite possible I had already crossed Florida off the list during Vin's bachelor party or some other previous trip to Florida).  Thanks again to John and Joe for taking me out on the boat.

I was wearing my Australia shirt because I was in Australia at this time last year.

On the way home, we stopped at the Harbor Head Brewing Company (the other Northport brewery).  We picked up a six pack of one of their beers and I tried that as well when we got back to the house.  It was pretty good.  Of course, that didn't add a state to my list.

So I'm down to ten states that I'm pretty sure I haven't had a beer from:

1.  Indiana

2.  Kentucky

3.  Arkansas

4.  Oklahoma

5.  Kansas

6.  West Virginia

7.  Iowa

8.  Nebraska

9.  South Dakota

10.  Alaska

If you know where I can get beer from any of them, please let me know.  I don't think I'm going to any Notre Dame games this year, but hopefully Indiana will be an easy one to cross off at some point in the future.  I still plan on getting to Alaska (possibly next year) so I'm not too worried about that one.  Actually, I remember seeing Alaska beer in Denver (and maybe a couple other places out west), but I purposely opted to cross off other states because I still have to get to Alaska.  According to the Lexington Brewing Company's website, I can find some of their beer in some stores around here so hopefully I'll get Kentucky soon.  But I don't know about the other ones.  None of them are all that close and I'm not aware of any beer from them that's sold in New York, but hopefully I'll be able to find some at some point.

Anyway, college football starts (for real) this weekend.  Notre Dame has to be better than last year, right?  That's not asking for much.  Could we actually be good?  I'm not too optimistic.  But the Dodgers should be clinching some stuff pretty soon.  It would be nice to set the franchise record and to be the first NL team to win 110 games since the 1909 Pirates, but I'll settle for breaking the franchise record for wins (105 in 1953).  Really, I'll settle for just winning the World Series.  Go Irish!  Go Dodgers!

Standing Room Only

My friend Jon wanted to get to a game at Fenway Park so it was kind of a last minute thing, but we took the bus up on Sunday morning and spent a day in Boston and I went to possibly my last baseball game of the season.  I like ending my season at Fenway Park.  I've thought about going to a Staten Island Yankees game or maybe even making it to Pittsburgh, but I think I'll save those for next year.  Of course, I could always go to a Met or Yankee game.  But if I can't see the Dodgers again, I might as well let a game at Fenway Park end my season.  This could change, but for now I'm saying it was my last game of the year.

I had been to Fenway Park three times for three different sports since starting the blog (hockey in 2014 and baseball and football in 2015).  I didn't pay for tickets for any of those games thanks to John.  But John doesn't work there anymore.  So Jon and I had to buy tickets.  My recommendation was standing room only because the only actually seats that weren't totally ridiculously priced were way out in the bleachers.  I think we made a good call.  I don't expect to be back at Fenway Park anytime soon, but I'd go with the standing room only again in the future.  The only thing is where to stand.  Our tickets were for home plate standing room.  Nobody seemed to be checking the tickets so you could probably just go with the cheapest tickets.  There are areas marked for standing room and some aren't good.  I think there were third base and home plate standing room areas that were against the outside wall of the stadium.  But we were directly behind home plate for most of the game.  And we had a little ledge for leaning on and putting food and drinks.  People sitting in seats right in front of us probably paid a lot more for a view that was hardly any better and they didn't have anywhere to put food and drinks (old seats with no cup holders).  The bad thing was the overhang above us that made it impossible to see balls hit too high.  There were three home runs that landed from left field to left center and we didn't see any of them land.  If they had been hit to right or right center, we would have been able to see them land.  Late in the game, we went up to the right field roof and stood there.  We stood in an area that was marked "No Standing," but nobody seemed to care.  I have to say that it was a pretty bad view of the game, but a good view of Fenway Park.  We must have been well over 400 feet away from home plate (we were a long way from the Pesky Pole, which is 302 feet away).

Our view for most of the game.  It's right behind home plate, but that overhang was annoying.

Jon and me on the right field roof

The pitching matchup was Doug Fister against Mike Pelfrey.  The Red Sox went up 2-0 in the first, but gave up three runs in the second.  That was all the White Sox got.  The Red Sox tied it in the third and added three in the fifth.  The final was 6-3.  Chris Young went nuts with two home runs and a double.  Eduardo Nunez also hit a home run.  According to my MLB Ballpark app, the Red Sox are now 8-1 with me in attendance.  It's possible that I'm missing some games from the old days at Yankee Stadium or possibly even a game with the Mets at Shea Stadium, but I think that's accurate.

To drink I had a Summer Ale (of course) and to eat I had a Fenway Frank.  The Fenway Frank was pretty solid, but I'd take a Dodger Dog over it.  And I think Sam Adams beers taste better in Boston.  Maybe it's just a psychological thing.

We came across the statue of Ted Williams after the game.  He finished with 521 home runs.  He missed three full seasons serving in the Marines during World War II.  He played a total of 43 games in 1952 and 1953 because of the Korean War.  If not for all that missed time, he would have been the second player to hit 600 home runs.

After the game, we walked to the Prudential Center.  Inside, there's a shopping mall with a chapel.  That's where I went to mass before the Notre Dame-Boston College game in 2015 and I went to a 5:30 mass.  I didn't go to the vigil mass on Saturday and I put in a lot of effort to figure out when/where to go to mass on Sunday.  We were leaving early enough that I couldn't go in New York.  I found lots of possible late Sunday options in Boston, but some of them don't exist during the summer.  But St. Francis Chapel in the Prudential Center has now come through for me twice.

After that, we were off to the Beantown Pub.  I've been there with John before.  It's right across the street from where Sam Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Crispus Attucks are buried.  I had another Summer Ale, clam chowder, and grilled cheese.  I had thought about some other options for food.  There's Union Oyster House, which claims to be the oldest restaurant in America, but that was closed for the weekend because of fire.  There's Doyle's, which Kyle and I went to.  It was the first place in Boston to serve Sam Adams.  And our trolley driver said that it had the third best clam chowder in the city and burgers that were better than Five Guys (this guy was amazing, he was right out of a Saturday Night Live skit).  But Doyle's was a little out of the way.  There was the Barking Crab, which was on Man vs. Food.  But I looked into making a reservation and they were all booked.  But the Beantown Pub got the job done.  John had suggested checking out the bar at the Parker House Hotel which is right by the Beantown Pub.  We looked at it after dinner and it appeared to be closed (it was a Sunday night).

Clam chowder and Summer Ale

So that was my trip to Boston.  We went back to the hotel and watched the Dodgers beat the Mets again on Sunday Night Baseball.  I have Fenway Park ranked as my top ballpark.  But Dodger Stadium is really close.  And yes, I'm totally biased.  I give Fenway a clear edge over Wrigley Field.  It's hard to compare Fenway to more modern ballparks.  The history and the weirdness definitely helps Fenway.  What doesn't help Fenway is how expensive tickets are.  You're going to be paying a lot of money if you want a good seat.  Standing room only is a good option, but you can get good tickets cheaper than that at Dodger Stadium (possibly a lot higher up).  When I was there last month, we sat way up high, but we were right by home plate and it was a great view.  Anyway, I think a Dodgers-Red Sox World Series would be a great World Series in terms of stadiums.  Both have a ton of history.  You get the weirdness of Fenway Park and the symmetry of Dodger Stadium.  Both are beautiful in different ways.

It's Chase Utley's World

We're just living in it.  I went to the first of three Dodgers-Mets games at Citi Field with my dad.  It was Yu Darvish's debut with the Dodgers.  Jacob deGrom was going for the Mets.  The Dodgers were pretty much in control the whole way.  Chris Taylor led off the game with a home run.  Yasiel Puig hit a home run in the second.  And Chase Utley hit a home run in the sixth because of course he did.  Yu Darvish pitched seven shutout innings with 10 strikeouts and only allowed three hits and one walk.  The Dodgers won 6-0.  We enjoyed the game.

I'll just mention a few Citi Field things.  We were sitting in my favorite row for an affordable price at Citi Field.  It's the wheelchair row on the Promenade Gold seats.  We were up high, but close to home plate.  The row in front of you is down a few steps so people can get up and they don't block your view.  It's really easy to get in and out of the row.  Other people get get in and out of the row without disturbing you.  You have access to the Promenade Club (which has some good food/beer options that aren't available in most other places).  I don't like that there's restricted access.  If somebody wants to spend money in the Promenade Club, let them.  But I had access so good for me.  To eat, I went down to the field level to get the spicy chicken sandwich from David Chang's Fuku.  I really only went there because David Chang has been on House of Carbs.  It was really just a glorified Chick-Fil-A sandwich.  It was good, but not something I'd pay $12.50 for again.  In the Promenade Club, I was able to get a Sam Adams Summer Ale.  You know my feelings on Summer Ale.  It's even better when I can drink it outside while watching the Dodgers.  And they also have d(o with the line over it) in the Promenade Club.  They sell edible cookie dough.  There were three or four flavors.  I went with the regular chocolate chip cookie dough because chocolate chip cookies are by far the best cookies.  You can get one scoop for $6 or two for $11.  I got one scoop and it was really good, but I definitely didn't need a second scoop.  It would have been nice if they gave out small cups of milk with the cookie dough.

Yu Darvish's first pitch went for a hit, but it was not a sign of things to come.

Summer Ale is the best.

This was really good.

The Mets might not be good, but Mr. Met is still the best mascot in sports.

That was the only game of the series I got to.  The Dodgers ended up sweeping the season series with the Mets.  They had a nice comeback in the second game of this series.  The Dodgers still have work to do, but it's definitely looking like they're going to finish with the best record in the NL and probably the best record in the Majors (they're up 12.5 on the Nationals and 9 on the Astros).  They are fun to watch, but I'm starting to get excited for college football.  Hopefully Notre Dame won't ruin that excitement early in the season.  Go Dodgers!  Go Irish!

It's Always Cloudy in San Diego

After Los Angeles, I took my second trip to San Diego.  I took the train.  I wanted to sit on the side facing the ocean.  Unfortunately, I didn't know which way was which when I got on the train and picked the wrong side.  For a decent part of the trip, the train goes right along the ocean.  The train was pretty full.  San Diego was the last stop and it did thin out before that.  So I did switch seats to sit on the ocean side, but I missed most of the part of the trip along the ocean.  I did get to see some mountains on my side though.  And I was able to watch about five innings of Dodgers-Giants (another Dodger win) on a probably illegal YouTube live stream.  It was bright and sunny the entire way down.  And then I got to San Diego and it was cloudy.  It was cloudy when I was in San Diego five years ago also.

My view of the ocean from the train

Anyway, I got to my hotel, which was in the Gaslamp District and close to Petco Park.  I had googled best fish tacos in San Diego and one of the places I found had a location right by Petco Park.  So I stopped in there before the game.  I got a taco with fish, shrimp, and octopus.  It was really good.  Then I headed in for the game.

I really like Petco Park.  As I walked around the lower concourse, I was surprisingly reminded of Fenway Park in a weird way.  There are some random ramps and stairs that you'll find at Fenway Park also.  Of course, it's a much more modern ballpark.  And of the ballparks built during my lifetime, I have it behind only PNC Park (another one I'd really like to get back to, maybe next year).  One of the things that I didn't like when I was there five years ago was that the dimensions were too big and they had the visitors' bullpen on the field.  So I suggested bringing in the fences and moving the bullpen behind the fences.  They did that two years ago.  It's still been a pitcher's park in two of the three seasons since they moved in the fences, but not as extreme of a pitcher's park as it used to be.  So they've improved Petco Park.  After the Dodgers, I mainly root for teams with good ballparks because I want to see good ballparks in the playoffs.  So my ideal playoffs would be:

NL West:  Dodgers
NL Central:  Cubs
NL East:  Nationals
NL Wild Cards:  Padres and Giants Reds Cardinals Phillies (the Giants and Cardinals get crossed out for obvious reasons, the Reds get crossed out because I think their ballpark is a much better in person ballpark than TV ballpark)

AL West:  Mariners
AL Central:  Royals
AL East:  Red Sox
AL Wild Cards:  Twins and Yankees (I have Oriole Park at Camden Yards ranked one spot higher than Yankee Stadium, but it's fun to be in New York when the Yankees are in the playoffs and it gives us the possibility of Yankees-Red Sox)

I should note that I haven't been to Sun Trust Park yet (maybe next year) so the Braves might take that second Wild Card spot in the NL.

Anyway, back to San Diego.  I was able to get to all three Man vs. Food spots, sort of.  The first was the Petco Park version of Lucha Libre.  It's a Mexican place where Adam had the Surfin' California burrito.  It has shrimp, steak, fries, pico de gallo, jack cheese, avocado, and chipotle sauce.  They also gave me little cups of two different salsas.  I had the Surfin' California burrito at Petco.  It was pretty good.  I think I'd prefer either just shrimp or just steak.  I don't love both at the same time, but maybe that's just me.  I've done two Man vs. Food spots where they have fries on the sandwich (Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh and Lucky's Sandwich Company in Chicago).  I thought the fries in the burrito got overwhelmed a little bit more than they did on the sandwiches.  I'll get to the other two Man vs. Food spots it a bit, but Lucha Libre is probably tied for first of the three (don't worry, it's not a three-way tie, there was a clear number 3).

As for the game, it was Dinelson Lamet for the Padres against Ivan Nova for the Pirates.  The Padres went up 2-0 in the first and 4-0 by the end of the fifth.  The Pirates managed to score two runs in the seventh, but it was a comfortable win for the Fathers.  Jose Pirela had two triples and Manny Margot hit a home run.  To drink, I had a Pale Ale .394 from the AleSmith Brewing Company (a San Diego brewery) in honor of Tony Gwynn's 1994 season.  It was a solid beer.  Tony Gwynn is my favorite non-Dodger who played for an NL West team.  Nolan Arenado is second on that list.

My view for the game

My flight home was an overnight flight the next night.  I started the day by going to the Broken Yolk Cafe.  Adam did a challenge there that required eating a 12-egg omelette.  I had an omelette that was allegedly a four-egg omelette.  I got one with lots of vegetables.  I was definitely eating some unhealthy foods on the trip, so I wanted something healthier.  I had a few issues with the omelette.  First, they went way too heavy on the vegetables.  Second, it was like an egg version of a crepe.  It was very thin and didn't seem like four eggs.  And going along with that, the egg made like a little sleeping bag for the vegetables, they weren't mixed in with the egg at all.  So you might say that I didn't really like it because I made a bad decision with my order, but I don't think I would have liked one of their omelettes with more delicious ingredients.  So the Broken Yolk finishes third of the three San Diego Man vs. Food spots.

Then I walked to mass at St. Joseph's Cathedral.  It was kind of on the way to the San Diego Zoo, which was my last stop.  The San Diego Zoo has to be one of the two most famous zoos in the country, right?  The Bronx Zoo is the other one.  And I think the San Diego Zoo is the more famous of the two.  Tickets for the San Diego Zoo are about 1.4 times the price of the Bronx Zoo (at least for adults).  I saw some cool animals, but I didn't really see how it was any better than the Bronx Zoo (I was last there on a field trip in 2013).  It's probably bigger than the Bronx Zoo, but I wouldn't say that's worth being 1.4 times the price.

St. Teresa of Calcutta and St. John Paul II

Leigh Ellis is right, the giraffe is a very graceful animal.

I went to the airport very early for my flight.  I was hoping to watch the Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball on my iPad.  The Dodgers were down 1-0 in the ninth.  Chase Utley had an infield single and a stolen base.  He scored on a Yasiel Puig single.  The Giants took the lead in the 11th.  Chris Taylor led off the bottom 11th with a groundout, which put the Baseball-Reference win probability for the Dodgers at 11%.  Then Corey Seager doubled.  The Giants put Justin Turner on first base with an intentional walk.  Cody Bellinger had come out of the game in a double switch so Kyle Farmer came up to pinch hit for his first career at bat.  Of course, he doubled to win the game.  It was another awesome win and the Dodgers swept the Giants.

I was able to get to the airport version of the third Man vs. Food spot, Phil's BBQ.  I had the same thing Adam had, the El Toro sandwich, which has tri-tip and barbecue sauce.  When I watched the episode, I suspected that the sauce was a little too thin for my tastes.  I usually like a thicker barbecue sauce.  I have a co-worker who makes his own barbecue sauce.  His is thin (but probably thicker than this one) and it's really good.  But in this case, my suspicion was correct.  I didn't love the sauce, but the sandwich was still pretty good.  I had that at the beginning of the Dodger game as I watched on a TV at Phil's.  Around the eighth inning, I went to Red Mango for some desert.  I had their mango frozen yogurt and it was really good.  It had me googling Red Mango to see where they were on Long Island.  None of them are all that close to me, but they are around.

The El Toro at Phil's BBQ

Before I wrap this up, I have one note to make on the new Man vs. Food, which just started with episodes in New York and Milwaukee.  I've been to a ton of Man vs. Food spots, but surprisingly, I don't think I've been to any of the nearby spots from the original run.  Adam did New York, Brooklyn, and Long Island episodes.  I've never been to any of those places.  He did a Philadelphia episode.  I've never been to any of those places.  The only Boston spot I've been to is the Barking Crab, but that was just to drink Summer Ale.  And the only Washington spot I've been to is the Nationals Park version of Ben's Chili Bowl.  I don't think I'll be going to any of the New York spots from the new version.  One was on Staten Island, which is pretty much a foreign country.  One was a pizza place.  What Casey (the new host) had there was ridiculous (a pizza topped with pizza in a box made out of pizza).  It did seem like there were some good pizza options there, but I can find good pizza options in a whole bunch of other places around here too.  And the other spot was Clinton Hall, where he had a fondue burger.  The fondue burger seemed absolutely ridiculous, but it might have other interesting burger options (it's also a beer hall) so we'll put Clinton Hall down as a maybe.  I'll keep watching the new Man vs. Food, but I'm a little worried because Casey already looks like Adam did in his last season.

So that was my last big trip of the summer (there was another quick baseball trip that I'll get to later).  It looks like I'm not going to any Notre Dame football games this year.  After last year, I didn't want to go to any home games.  I applied for the Boston College game in the lottery, but I lost.  This looks like it will be the first year since I graduated that I don't get to a football game.  So I don't know when I'll be on a plane again.  My guess is I'll do something next year for my February and/or Easter vacation.  Hopefully I can spend the fall enjoying Notre Dame football (I'm not optimistic) and the Dodgers making a World Series run (I'm more optimistic).  Go Irish!  Go Dodgers!

No Kershaw, No Problem

I was back in California for my second time this summer.  It was my fifth trip to Los Angeles (starting in 2011), but my first trip in almost two years.  I targeted the last week in July for two reasons.  The Wednesday game was Clayton Kershaw bobblehead night and the Friday game was against the Giants and it was Friday Night Fireworks, where you get to go on the field after the game.  When I planned the trip, I didn't know that Sean would be living out there.  He joined us for the first game.

The Dodgers entered the Wednesday game on a four-game winning streak.  I had been to Clayton Kershaw bobblehead night once before.  My favorite student likes the Giants for some reason.  She just graduated this year, but I told her that when she comes to visit, I'll give her the bobblehead from this game.  It's Kershaw batting.  I like to think that it's Kershaw about to hit a home run against George Kontos on Opening Day in 2013.  Since it was Kershaw bobblehead night, his two-year-old daughter Callie threw out the first pitch and it was adorable.

This was our view from the Top Deck of Cali Kershaw throwing out the first pitch.

For the game, it was Brock Stewart against Ervin Santana.  I was on a streak of 15 games dating back to 2012 where the Dodgers won every game I went to that Kershaw started and lost every game that anybody else started (6-9 in those games).  So I was a little worried.  Stewart had not given up an earned run in limited relief innings, but this was his first start of the season.  I didn't expect him to last very long and he didn't.  He gave up five runs in three and two-thirds, but they were all unearned.  The Twins led 5-0.  Pete asked what I thought the chances of the Dodgers winning were.  I said they still had a chance to come back, but really, you shouldn't win when you're down 5-0.  Baseball-Reference's box score gave the Dodgers a 7% chance of winning when Cody Bellinger flied out for the second out of the fourth inning.  Then Joc Pederson hit a home run to make it 5-1.  And the comeback was on.  Yasiel Puig hit a home run in the fifth to make it 5-2.  Chase Utley hit a pinch hit two-run double with two outs in the 7th to make it 5-4.  The Dodgers tied it in the eighth on a weird play.  Logan Forsythe was hitting with runners on the corners and one out.  Kike Hernandez ran on the pitch and Forsythe hit a fly ball to center.  I was thinking double play because the ball was going to be caught.  Fortunately, the center fielder was thinking the same thing and didn't look at the first baseman, who was getting in position to be the cut off man.  The throw went to first with nobody there and the Dodgers tied the game.  In the ninth, the Dodgers had runners on first and second with two outs.  Justin Turner won the game with a base hit through the hole on the left side.  I was at Opening Day in 2013 (the Kershaw home run/shutout game) and in 2011 I saw Matt Kemp win a game in the 11th with a home run after the Dodgers had been down 4-0 early in that game, but this was probably one of my five favorite baseball games that I've been to.

I also managed to cross Arizona off my beer list with a Kilt Lifter Scottish Style Ale from the Four Peaks Brewing Company in Tempe.  The guy at the concession stand gave us a hard time for getting a beer from Arizona.  And that thought did go through my mind, but I was okay with it because the Dodgers weren't playing the Diamondbacks.  I had two Dodger Dogs that were good.  I feel like I don't really have a choice when it comes to food at Dodger Stadium.  At most, I'm getting to two games a year.  I have to go with the Dodger Dogs.  And that's not a bad thing.  Dodger Stadium gets credit for having real mustard (they also have terrible yellow mustard, but the real stuff is there), which can be hard to find outside of the Northeast.

The Dodgers were off on Thursday, so I just kind of hung out.  Pete had to work for most of the day.  I got Pinkberry in Santa Monica (blueberry muffin yogurt that was excellent) and I took a walk down to the beach and pier.  We went to Father's Office for dinner.  I had been there with my brothers back in 2011.  The burger was very good.  We finished the night at Santa Monica Brew Works for some local beer.  I had an Amber Waves American Red Ale and a 310 California Blonde Ale.

Southern California is the best.

My last full day in the Los Angeles area was Friday.  Pete and I went to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.  I happen to share a birthday with Richard Nixon.  Nixon was definitely complicated.  Watergate wasn't good.  The 1970s in general weren't good and he was president for almost the first five years (although the second half of the decade was probably even worse).  But he did some good work with China.  China is definitely still in need of political reforms, but the economic changes in China since Nixon's visit have been good for both China and the US.  The museum was good.  Nixon and his wife are buried nearby.  We also saw the house where he was born.  It was definitely a small house for a big family.  And they had the helicopter that he left Washington on after resigning.  Like Air Force 1 at the Reagan Library, we got to go inside, but we couldn't take pictures inside.  As we were leaving, we saw Edward Nixon, the last surviving Nixon brother.

Outside the Nixon Library

At the desk in Nixon's Oval Office

I had seen this picture before, but I can't get enough of it.

Nixon and Zhou Enlai meeting in China in 1972

The house where Nixon was born on January 9, 1913

The helicopter Nixon took out of Washington after resigning as president

After the Nixon Library, we stopped at In-N-Out.  It's good, but the fries are definitely lackluster.  I still say that Shack Shack is the best and Five Guys is better also.  I was a little worried about making it to Dodger Stadium in time for the game.  It turns out that we could have been fine.  We drove right past Dodger Stadium before the game started.  But we had Katie's ticket.  So we met her at a coffee shop about a mile and a half from the stadium.  We got there first and we were a little worried about how long we'd have to wait for her.  It didn't take her long to get there and we left probably about a half hour before the game started.  But Los Angeles traffic was unforgiving.  By the time we parked and walked from there into the stadium, I think it was the third inning.  When we finally got in, it was 1-1.  Corey Seager and Brandon Crawford hit home runs that we heard on the radio.  The pitching matchup was Alex Wood against Matt Moore.  Alex Wood had an RBI groundout to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead in the fifth.  But the Giants scored three in the top of the seventh to go up 4-2.  When the Giants scored their fourth run, Baseball-Reference says the Dodgers had a 17% chance of winning.  But we're talking about the 2017 Dodgers here.  Of course, they came back.  My old friend George Kontos came in when Moore got in trouble in the bottom of the 7th.  Yasiel Puig had a pinch hit RBI groundout.  Chris Taylor tied it with an RBI double.  That brought Corey Seager up with the go ahead run on second.  The Giants made a pitching change, bringing in the lefty Josh Osich to face Seager.  While he was warming up, I put on the Corey Seager shirzey that I had bought at the game with tag still on.  Seager hit a home run to give the Dodgers the lead and it was awesome.  Brandon Morrow worked an easy 8th and Kenley Jansen struck out the side in the ninth for the save.

They just added the Jackie Robinson statue this year.  He was safe.

We were one section over from where we were the night before.

I had a Dodger Dog and a Ballast Point beer (Long Beach, California).  I don't remember which one it was.  The good news was I got the beer late and I was able to enjoy it as the Dodgers came back and finished off the win.  We hustled down to the field for the fireworks.  It was so cool being on the field.  I've been on the warning track of several stadiums (Shea Stadium for Banner Day way back in the day, New Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium in 2011 before the blog, Minute Maid Park, Target Field before Dennis's wedding but no blog post, Chase Field, Coors Field, AT&T Park), but I had never been on the grass at a Major League stadium.  It was so cool to be down there.  We sat on the grass and watched the fireworks.  I remember on the Dodger Stadium tour they told us that the outfield grass was cut shorter than the infield grass.  They want the infield grass to slow down the ball for the fielders and they want the outfielders to be able to run.  But it was amazing how short it was.  And it was also very densely packed.  The combination of a comeback win (with Seager hitting the go ahead home run) against their biggest rival and getting to go on the grass in the outfield puts this game at least in my top 10 games that I've attended.  I was going to try to figure out a top 10 list, but it's probably just these two games, at least one of the games I went to in 2011 (my first two games at Dodger Stadium, both Dodger wins), and the rest just being Kershaw starts (with Opening Day in 2013 being number 1, of course).  Maybe the game I saw in 2007 when Chien Ming Wang was five outs away from a perfect game sneaks onto the list too.  Anyway, watching the fireworks with Pete and Katie definitely made me think back to the fireworks at their wedding.  It was a great way to finish the awesome second leg of my trip.

There would be deli mustard on this excellent Dodger Dog.  I would never defile the Dodger Dog with ketchup.

Pete and me on the field after the game

The fireworks were fun.

I took this just before we left the field.

Katie found this bar that had all these bobbleheads right before we left.  This picture shows a tiny fraction of them.  They had them for all teams, not just the Dodgers.