It has been a while since I made “my peace” with Alex Rodriguez and accepted him as the great baseball player that he was in a long career.
Two events completed the transition of my perception of him as a playoffs “bow wow” and spoiled modern athlete (just about all of them are from adolescence, just because this society values athletic feats , as if that virtue is a cure for disease), to what I consider him now a fine player. (As in PERIOD).
Mr. Rodriguez, twice hit home runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, to tie post-season games the Yankees eventually won, in the team’s run to their 27th World Series victory in 2009.
He still is not going to be recognized as a great clutch player, but again hitting is the most difficult thing to do in sports.
The other nice thing was his gushing tribute to the far greater player, Willie Mays when he passed the latter with his 661st home run. He evoked his late father and his love of watching Willie Mays. A classy gesture by a man, who should now go forth and help others, but likely will end up another non stop talking sports analyst.
No editorial, sometimes I think why bother vs the “oncoming train,” that is the eventual doom of this society, just a question?
Would Fox Network have gone out of its way to televise Dr. Jonas Salk (he is pictured above) administering his last polio vaccine?!! They did for a virtually meaningless August baseball game last night.
While it is truly remarkable, that the Chicago Cubs are 31 games over the .500 mark and 13 games ahead in the N.L. Central, do not start printing pennant and/or World Series shirts just yet.
All this does is give the Cubs the N.L. Central title and likely the one seed in the National League “bracket” (oh how sickening that it is a wild card included tournament!).
Remember last year the wild card Cubs knocked out the N.L. Central champion Cardinals in yet another absurd manifestation of the wild card presence.
Maybe this year the Cardinals will return the “favor.” I wonder if the lords of baseball, Fox television part of that heinous group would “allow” that. Surely they would not applaud it!
Nobody knows after that, but the Cubs will win the N.L. Central. Congrats on that but there is a tournament ahead!
To this point, the Chicago Cubs have won nine National League pennants, three each under Frank Chance and Charlie Grimm.
Of course Chance’s feats are far greater in that the team won its only 2 World Series with Chance as player manager in 1907 and 1908.
However, Mr. Grimm’s feat of winning 3 pennants and managing the first 81 games (then more than half, of what was actually a 152 game season in 1938) of another Cubs’ pennant winning team, is quite impressive.
“Jolly Cholly,” as he was known, guided the Cubs to the N.L. flag in 1932, 1935 and 1945, the latter the last time they won it.
Additionally Grimm’s Cubs were (45-36) –5 wins in 9 games pace), when he was replaced by Gabby Hartnett, who guided the Cubs to the N.L. flag, hitting his famous “homer in the gloamin,” along the way.
When the Chicago Cubs under Joe Maddon, themselves sans a World Series victory for 106 consecutive seasons, put an exclamation point on what will be the 54th of the Angels’ 55 seasons without a World Series appearance, (they did win it all in 2002 under current manager Mike Scioscia), some thoughts involving Maddon, Scioscia, and other teams came to the surface.
Maddon, as is the case with Dusty Baker, each the current managers of the top 2 N.L. teams record wise at this point, has been successful in the regular season (not as successful as Baker) and unfortunate at best, (not as unfortunate as Baker) in the post-season.
Scioscia considered a great manager at one point, can always point to 2002, but what has he accomplished since that point?
His record as Angels’ manager is a good one, not great. Almost any manager with a similar record would know his “fate,” but the Mike Scioscia “reign,” (certainly not great), with the Angels, seems to go on and on.
As cited in a previous post, in 3 of the 4 presidential elections in which major party nominees, Republican Thomas E. Dewey and Democrat Adlai Stevenson were denied the White House (in his fabulous book 11/22/63 which as you might have guessed, though a novel, deals with the assasination of President Kennedy, prolific and superb author Stephen King makes a point of spelling “White House” correctly), there was little hope of winning all along.
Other factors perhaps mattered, but their opponents Franklin Delano Roosevelt vs Dewey in 1944 and Dwight D. Eisenhower vs Stevenson in both 1952 and 1956, were virtually unbeatable at the time.
However, much was accomplished by Dewey and Stevenson in their campaigns.
Dewey came closer than one might expect vs a man seeking a fourth term as President during a World War. He went on to run and be nominated as the Republican Party candidate in 1948 and stayed a major figure in the Republican Party, helping Eisenhower get elected and essentially launching the national political career of one, Richard Milhous Nixon.
Stevenson, truly a man ahead of his time and one who would achieve fame as United Nations Ambassador under President Kennedy, raised the bar in political campaigns in both 1952 and 1956.
Issues were discussed and at least in 1952 while “Ike” successfully used effective, not negative early television ads, Mr. Stevenson did not, a lesson John F. Kennedy learned and used to his advantage in the 1960 election.
Paul Brown pictured above and Dwight D. Eisenhower were dominant figures in the 1950’s.
Oh if Joe Green, a friend among a gang of thieves and “roto rooters” (i.e. people who like other people, especially me to fail), albeit one, as with all of us, nowhere near perfect, was alive to see this U.S. Men’s basketball (1-6) record vs the spread.
I am not saying it, not even in saying, he would have said it!!
What I will and continue to say, is that having this men’s team with NBA players dismantle teams from other countries is a disgrace. There is no competition except with the “number.” (i.e. the point spread).
Speaking of numbers, U.S. team coach Mike Krzyzewski (another safe bet is I had to look up the spelling of his name,) trails only John Wooden in national titles.
That is an achievement, doing this Olympic massacre thing is not. That is my not so humble opinion.
Giuseppe Verdi, the brilliant opera composer, pictured above. “Joe Green” if you will.
All it does is virtually insure the N.L. Central title and increase their already high likelihood to be the N.L. one seed, but the current Chicago Cubs’ 9 game winning streak is impressive.
The streak began with a Sunday night, 12 inning, home win in a game started by the fine Seattle Mariners’ hurler Felix Hernandez (he won yesterday and the Mariners have won 6 straight games but unlike the Cubs are trailing in their division) and continued with 3 game sweeps vs the Miami Marlins and at Oakland vs the Athletics.
Yesterday the now (71-41) Cubs completed a 2 game sweep vs the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. “Chi” is five and a half games ahead of Washington (Nationals) in the race for the National League one seed.
Bot 7th: Phillies 3, Dodgers 1
Hoping to stay tied atop the NL West, LA scored first on Adrian Gonzalez’s double & Scott Kazmir has made it hold up. MLB.TV live
Almost unbelievable how long the “coffee break” is for whomever is running the MLB.com site today. This has been up for over 5 minutes and still is as I post it.
Obviously as the site itself notes with the underdog Phillies ahead, Kazmir, the L.A. pitcher has NOT made it hold up!
Of course they do, but is not anyone checking for them?
The fabulous C-Span, which even with the ongoing impasse between the two major political parties in this country which has derailed progress, still should be watched more often, as a view to our Congress, has aired some truly fascinating programs on presidential election history.
They will continue to do so, with Congress out of session.
The roles and significant places in history of both Republican Thomas E. Dewey and Democrat Adlai Stevenson were discussed.
Mr. Dewey and Mr. Stevenson each made major contributions to our society beyond presidential elections.
As nominees for U.S. President, Dewey and Stevenson combined to lose 4 straight Presidential elections in 1944, 1948, 1952 and 1956, with Harry Truman’s startling win vs Dewey in 1948, the only time either had a chance to win.
In a future post, I will delve further into some of the politics of those elections.
Last year, just before the Kansas City Royals were completing their run to a World Series crown (pun intended Royals’ Crown), the NFL Kansas City Chiefs were beginning a nice run of their own.
Of course the football Chiefs did not get anywhere near as far, but a 10 game regular season win skein in football especially, is nothing to sneeze at and in fact is truly remarkable.
K.C. was (1-5) when with the Royals crowned American League champions a day and a half earlier, when they began the winning streak vs the Pittsburgh Steelers (each team would win its wild card round game on the same day, perhaps the only time in the 26 year history of two wild card games in each conference, that two teams from the same conference would notch wild card game wins on the same day. Of course the schedule really never allowed such a possibility until last year?!) on October 25, 2015.
The next week on November 1st, a truly disgraceful late date for a World Series game to be played, the Royals completed their title season winning at New York vs the Mets in game 5.
That day the Chiefs were in London, England, easing to victory in a “morning time in the U.S. game,” the second of what would be 10 straight regular season victories, 11 counting a wild card game win vs the Houston Texans before losing in the “slots” (divisional round) in an Ian Eagle game at New England vs the Patriots.
Andy B Sports 