Please indulge the following excessive use of numbers.
They do involve a team, the Cleveland Indians, who have gone longer than any current baseball franchise sans a World Series win save (I do not know should someone considering their fans treatment of Mr. Bartman, years back?!!) the Chicago Cubs.
Back to the Indians, sans the title since 1948, they are currently (66-48) with 48 games remaining.
They very likely will win the A.L. Central and are close to first position for the A.L. one seed.
It is not so much startling but seemingly unrealistic and certainly unfair to me, that the “all-time value team,” the New York Giants, have as many super Bowl victories as the New England Patriots and Green Bay Packers.
The team from Moonachie or East Rutherford or old stand by, Hackensack, but not New York and certainly not Yankee Stadium or even Shea Stadium, where they outscored a beginning Dan Fouts S.D. Chargers team in 1975, was dominant in 1986.
Led by a maniacal, great player Lawrence Taylor, (the fact he was fueled by drugs bothers me less than the fact coach “Willie Boy” Parcells looked the other way and even that pales to the fact the media, led by “love the local sizzle,” Mike Lupica lauds Parcells to this day), “Hack” was (14-2) in the “reg” and dominated all three post season opponents.
Chalk (and they were (10 point Supe faves and they “buried” a NYC “book” called “Captain Ahab” by writer/bettor, Pete Axthelm, as seemingly all of N.Y. and New Jersey “laid it” that day) that one up for the Giants, a well deserved title.
I can not say the same for the other three, especially the last two. More on that in an upcoming post.
The Chicago Cubs are 32 games over.500, have a 14 game lead in the N.L. Central and now most relevant, I suppose, a 6 and a half game lead for the N.L. top seed.
They can win 116 games, which the 1906 version of the Cubs did and not have the home advantage in the World Series. That was decided in an exhibition game, thank you Bud Selig.
The former commissioner Selig, the current one someone named Manfred (Rob is his first name, baseball under him is such a far cry from its best days and not so arguably best, at least dramatic day (due respect to Brooklyn Dodgers’ associations, when Don Mueller, aka “Mandrake the Magician,” was instrumental in the 1951 pennant race conclusion) join two other sports league czars, that are actually even more lacking in integrity.
They are Adam Silver (he suspended a key player “keying” a title for Cleveland, they might otherwise not have won) and Roger Goodell. (he is so lacking in integrity, that he makes the others look tame by comparison–I will address that and the horrible suspension of Tom Brady in a future post).
When a hard driving, David Stern disciple, like Gary Bettman is by far the best of the lot, heaven help sports in this country. Guess what it will not!
My early read on the NFC East will follow.
It looks to me as if the Dallas Cowboys, three and a half point favorites, in their late afternoon, but for once not Sunday night opener vs the Hackensack/N.Y. Giants, are going to be my choice in the division.
The Giants, as is the case with the Cowboys, symbols of NFL greed with their respective venues and merchandising, are also a major threat to win the division.
While the race should be wide open, I give both the defending division champion, Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles less of a chance in the division race.
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.
Andy B Sports 