While it was not quite a “best of times/worst of times” Charles Dickens’ NFL Sunday, all four AFC division leaders won on Sunday and none of the four NFC division leaders could manage victory. The San Francisco 49ers, salvaging a very rare tie vs the St. Louis Rams, were the only NFC division leaders to avoid defeat.
The (8-1) Houston Texans prevailed in an inter conference battle of division leaders winning vs the NFC North leaders, the Chicago Bears on Sunday night. Elsewhere while AFC division leaders the Baltimore Ravens and Denver Broncos won comfortably, the AFC East leading New England Patriots struggled to beat the Buffalo Bills (37-31). The Patriots were just under two touchdown favorites in the game.
In other games involving NFC division leaders, the Cincinnati Bengals, with local Cincinnati Reds’ telecaster Thom Brennaman, another of the broadcasting “nepotism cases” assigned to the national broadcast, eased vs the NFC East leading New York Giants. The New Orleans Saints handed the Atlanta Falcons their first loss while the NFC West leading SF 49ers could manage only a tie in a home game vs the St. Louis Rams. The Niners were 13 point favorites in the game.
Tonight the Pittsburgh Steelers hope to move within a game of the AFC North leading Ravens when they host the Kansas City Chiefs. The Steelers host the Ravens in next week’s Sunday night game.
The Henrik Ibsen play, “An Enemy of the People,” still resonates as its main character, Dr.Thomas Stockmann, stands alone and hence is the strongest because he does so. Written in 1882, the play features the doctor, who learns that the lucrative bathes in a Norway spa town are contaminated. He wants to tell the truth but others worried about business losses try to curtail his efforts. Thus, Dr. Thompson becomes “an enemy of the people” in this riveting tale.
Boyd Gaines as Dr.Thomas Stockmann and Richard Thomas as his mercenary brother, Mayor Peter Stockmann, are the co stars. Each is magnificent as are Kathleen McNenny as the doctor’s wife Catherine, and Gerry Bamman as the “on the fence” printer and merchants’ association leader “Aslaksen,” whose continual calls for “restraint” pepper humor into the dramatic story. Rebecca Lenkiewicz has done a good job with this version of Ibsen’s work. The play is directed by Doug Hughes. One hundred thirty years after it was written, “An Enemy of the People” remains a gold standard in the telling of a courageous, selfless deed.
You can see “An Enemy of the People” at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre though November 18th.
http://anenemyofthepeoplebroadway.com/
Five teams are prohibitive favorites to win their divisions as the NFL season is just past the halfway point. It is possible things will go back and perhaps forth but I can make a pretty good case for naming ten of the twelve playoff teams. However, one good thing about the NFL is that just when one assumes–remember the configuration of assume–ass u me, warning that often when one assumes, one makes an ass of you and me–something, other than what one assumed often manifests.
The defending champion New York Giants, despite a home loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in their most recent game are five to one favorites to win a second straight NFC East crown. The Atlanta Falcons still unbeaten after eight games are overwhelming favorites to win the NFC South. The San Francisco 49ers are also overwhelming favorites to win a second straight NFC West crown.
There are two prohibitive favorites for divisional titles in the AFC. The Houston Texans in the AFC South and New England Patriots in the AFC East are in that category. Meanwhile, the Denver Broncos are also big favorites in the AFC West though their lead is roughly a game over the San Diego Chargers. However, I say “roughly” a game because the Broncos overcame a (24-0) deficit to win in San Diego on a Monday night and at this point, have the tiebreaker advantage.
Both North Divisions are considered virtual toss-ups. Though the Chicago Bears have a one and a half game lead over the Green Bay Packers in the NFC North, they are only slight favorites to win that division.The Packers beat the Bears in week two at Green Bay. Meanwhile the Baltimore Ravens, with a one game lead over the Pittsburgh Steelers, are also only slight favorites to capture a second straight AFC North crown. The two teams will meet twice within two weeks, the first a Sunday night tilt in Pittsburgh on November 18th.
This is the sixth straight season that either Ryan Theriot or Eric Hinske played on the World Series winner (that has happened four times; Hinske with the 2007 Red Sox and 2009 Yankees and Theriot, the last two seasons with the Cards and Giants) or played on a team that was beaten in the post-season by the eventual world’s champion (both cases it was Hinske, who struck out for the Tampa Rays as the Phillies clinched the title in 2008 and was on a Braves team that lost to the eventual champion Giants in 2010, but not before Hinske hit a go ahead, two run pinch homer in the bottom of the eighth inning of game three of the division series).
Jon Miller joins John Rooney as broadcasters with four titles doing so with three different teams. Miller and Rooney each were broadcasting nationally for one of the titles. Miller, who is a Hall of Fame broadcaster and “more important,” at least a better barometer, considered a good broadcaster by me (I like so few broadcasters, especially today) did the play by play on the national broadcast when the Angels beat “his” Giants in seven games in 2002. He was a 22 year old announcer, who did no World Series “play by play” when “his” Oakland A’s won a third straight World Series, beating the LA Dodgers in five games in 1974. Miller’s Baltimore Orioles dispatched the Philadelphia Phillies in five games in the 1983 World Series. Miller was doing the national broadcast in 2010 and this time the Giants (“his” Giants, as he was still a local broadcaster with SF) won in five vs the Texas Rangers, coincidentally the team that hired Miller back into Major League Baseball after A’s owner, Charles O. Finley had fired him. This year, Miller was doing the local broadcast and “his” team won in less than five, sweeping the Detroit Tigers in four games.
Rooney was a Twins broadcaster, who handled pre and post game assignments for CBS Radio when “his” Minnesota Twins took the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games to win the 1987 World title. John is the only local (White Sox) broadcaster to ever call a Chicago White Sox World Series title (coincidentally Miller was on national radio calling same) when they swept the Astros in 2005. Remember there were no radio broadcasts in 1917 nor 1906, the other two years that the White Sox won the World Series. Rooney broadcast locally with the Cardinals’ World Series winners in 2006 and 2011.
John Rooney
Jon Miller
During the Alabama/LSU game on Saturday, CBS play by play man Verne Lundquist erroneously announced that Oregon, one of four unbeaten teams that has a realistic title shot (Ohio State is ineligible and Louisville is just not going to be considered), had won its game (vs USC) by one point. Oregon, in fact won by 11 points as a seven point favorite. The margin of victory certainly means something in the voting and computer rankings which may well determine the title game matchup.
Lundquist’s mistake with a “one” involved, recalls a far greater mistake he made during an NBA telecast for CBS circa 1990. He said “we all remember where we were when Bobby Thomson hit his pennant winning home run in 1952.” Of course, the famous home run was hit in 1951. The certainty with which Lundquist said 1952 was scary. Is any sense of history required for these network announcers who make far more than teachers, city workers and nurses combined? Imagine if a teacher got up and said Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1493 and truly believed it as Lundquist did in his “cocksure” manner concerning the year of Thomson’s pennant winning home run. School principals would not have been as kind as the media critics and network executives, who allow this erosion of standards.
Verne Lundquist
The new World Champion San Francisco Giants navigated the baseball tournament waters flirting with disaster early in the event but then eased to seven straight victories including a four game sweep vs the favored Detroit Tigers in the World Series. Make it 22 of 27 wins for the team opening the World Series at home since 1985. That was the first year of the best of seven league championship series and also a year the Kansas City Royals won six must games to win the title. The Giants also won six must games and five others and have their second title in three seasons.
Pablo Sandoval was the MVP but how about Hunter Pence, who did not have gaudy numbers but contributed in three of the four wins while Sandoval only really mattered in game one. Is Matt Cain the first pitcher to start in his team’s series clincher in all three rounds of the expanded baseball playoffs, again a veritable tournament? Cain joins Paul Derringer in 1940 and Sandy (not the hurricane although he had that kind of power and is the best pitcher since Lefty Grove) Koufax in 1965, as pitchers to win the All Star Game and a seventh game in the same season. Derringer and Koufax won Game seven of the World Series while Cain won game seven of the NLCS.
It was a masterful managerial job by Bruce Bochy using his deep bullpen which was nearly flawless. The Giants are a nice team but think about it: they have two titles in three seasons, and their predecessors of the ’60’s with Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Willie Mc Covey and three others won nary a title. They had to finish first in a super National League and did that only once. That year, 50 years ago, they lost (1-0) in game seven to the Yankees.
Hunter Pence
The television reception came back after “Hurricane Sandy” had disrupted it and so did the factual errors by sports networks. While watching a “countdown” show on MLB Network which was comprised of the so called greatest League Championship Series games ever played, I noticed a caption that was wrong. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ game three, 1977 NLCS comeback win, at Philadelphia vs the Phillies, was referred to as “Blue Monday.” The title should have read “Black Friday” because that was the day of the game and what that game is referred to in Philadelphia.
A really bright spot in the piece was the use of real play by play. The calls of four key plays in the LA comeback win were those of the great Harry Kalas. Though less enthusiastic than he would have been had the Phils won, Kalas displayed great emotion and credited the Dodgers for a great comeback win. Kalas was so great, I would drive in my car, use gas (only if Harry came back to life and maybe not then should one waste gas now) and listen to Phillies’ exhibition games during the innings he did the play by play. That is both a testimony to Harry Kalas’ greatness as a broadcaster and to an absence of having something more meaningful in my life.
Why did Justin Verlander stay on the air with the TBS announcers for the entire bottom of the third inning of game four of the ALCS vs the Yankees. He was allowed to cheer for his Tigers on a so called neutral broadcast? I do not like the managers or pitching coaches coming on for a minute but compared to what was allowed by TBS with Verlander, that every game occurrence is only a minor annoyance. By the way, imagine Vince Lombardi, the late, great football coach talking to a sideline reporter before a game. Alas the next insightful thing to come from a sideline reporter will be the first insightful thing.
Maybe the karma of doing all that talking and rooting came back to “get” Verlander, the high priced favorite and losing pitcher, in game one of the World Series. No matter, it was a “bush” act by a supposedly great pitcher.
As the New York area braces for a possible hurricane it is noteworthy that had the Yankees won the ALCS games Sunday, Monday and Tuesday would likely have been postponed. Those games would have been at Yankee Stadium.
The San Francisco Giants lead the Detroit Tigers two games to none in the 2012 World Series. In 2010, the Giants also won the first two games of the World Series at home and went on to defeat the Texas Rangers in five games.
The Giants offense was on display in their (8-3) win in game one. Pablo Sandoval, joined three greats as the only players to hit three home runs in a World Series game. The previous players were Babe Ruth, who did it twice, Reggie Jackson, and the still active, Albert Pujols, who did it last year. Game two showcased the Giant’s pitching as Madison Bumgarner combined with two relievers on a two hit shutout in the (2-0) SF win.
In their first two World Series appearances in 1907 and 1908 the Tigers lost the first two games. This is the first time in the Tigers nine World Series appearances since then, that they have lost the first two games. The Tigers lost the World Series in both 1907 and 1908. Their opponents? The Chicago Cubs! Those 1907 and 1908 World Series victories are the only ones in Cubs’ history. They have gone 104 years and within two weeks, 27 U.S. Presidential elections, without winning the World Series.
Madison Bumgarner
Pablo Sandoval
It will be the San Francisco Giants vs the Detroit Tigers in the 2012 World Series after the Giants completed yet another astounding series comeback beating the St. Louis Cardinals (9-0) in game seven of the NLCS. The Giants trailed for only two innings in the six must win games they faced in overcoming a two games to none series deficit vs the Cincinnati Reds in the best of five division series nor in overcoming a three games to one, NLCS deficit against the defending World Champion, Cardinals. Only the Kansas City Royals (remember them) in 1985 had ever won six games facing elimination in one post season, three in each series, to win said series. Their second comeback from a three games to one series deficit (as was the case with the Giants’ second comeback), was vs the Cardinals, and produced a Royals’ title, in what was their last post-season appearance to date.
The Giants have only made the World Series, and they will be underdogs vs the Tigers in the first ever major sports league final featuring the cities of San Francisco vs Detroit.
The San Francisco Giants are now (8-0) all time in Monday post-season games. Additionally, six of their eight post season series clinching wins were on a Monday including the World Series winner in 2010. SF has now clinched three pennants on a Monday, the others were in 1989 and 2002, in far more dramatic fashion. All three pennant clinchers were at home while the 2010 World Series clincher and division series clinchers in 2002 and 2010 were on the road. The other Giants’ Monday post season wins as the San Francisco Giants were on October 15th, fifty years apart, in 1962 and 2012. Both victories were at home to even series, game two of this just completed NLCS vs the Cardinals and game six of the 1962 World Series eventually won by the Yankees. One more note; the Giants actually won another playoff game on a Monday in 1962 but that game one of an unscheduled “playoff” with the Los Angeles Dodgers is considered part of the regular season in baseball records. The last Giants’ post season loss on a Monday was as the New York Giants in game four of the 1951 World Series vs the New York Yankees. For the record, it was October 8th and 1951, 1962 and 2012 have the same calendars. The Giants lost in the World Series in the other two and again will be underdogs, likely significant ones, vs Detroit in the 2012 Fall Classic.
Andy B Sports 