Subject: Baseball

Playoffs are starting to shape up. The AL wildcard and AL Central are all up for grabs. These races seem destined to be decided on the final day of the season. 

The NL wildcard race for the final slot is tight.  The Mets appear to be waiting for the final days before breaking their fans’ hearts. 

Cal Raleigh hit HR number 58 last night as Seattle took yet another road game in Houston. Raleigh’s latest monotonic peep puts him one step closer to winning the AL and MLB HR season titles in addition to setting season records for a catcher, switch hitter, and the Mariners (breaking Ken Griffey Jr’s old mark). 

When asked for comment, Raleigh said, “I keep checking the mail to see if Mr. Griffey has sent me his jock. I would really like to carry it.”  

Finally.................some 'real' umpires:

https://apnews.com/article/robot-umpires-mlb-2026-d70c6431d1cccfcf7a6e69e3ce47b417

I get several sports channels - including ESPN and The Deuce, and a few more lessor ones.  With all the playoff jockeying going on, I just figgered there'd be some baseball on TV last night - but no.  There was Monday Night Football, but baseball I couldn't find at all.  Very disappointing.  Hasn't been that long since one could find 2 or 3 on most nights.  Does everybody just stream baseball games now?  Is that what's going on?

Baseball coverage will begin to increase with the playoffs, but the regular coverage is disappearing. Amazon Prime covers one game per week, and games pop up randomly on other services. Having abandoned cable/satellite forever, I have a bit more space for streaming services. MLB.com is fantastic. Every game (with the exception of local blackouts). 

The Astros and Tigers are cratering. I was really looking forward to the last few days of the season, absolutely assured of chaos in the AL. Detroit and Houston are determined to uncomplicate things. 

Big ups to Seattle and Cleveland for being totally on fire at exactly the right time. Seattle is in the playoffs for sure with a magic number of 2 to clinch the AL West title. Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, and Houston are still in contention for the three remaining playoff spots. 

Six teams remain in contention for the remaining three slots in the NL. St Louis, Miami, and San Francisco need a lot of help (miracle). The Mets, Cincy, and D-Backs are in serious contention. 

Raleigh just crushed his 59th HR. In the AL, he is in the company of Ruth, Maris, and Judge. That’s pretty thin air. 

Walking Freddie Freeman to load the bases and face Teoscar Hernandez. Well, maybe. 

Um, no. Busted open. 

Last night, Shohei Ohtani became just the second starting pitcher to bat higher than eighth in the postseason. Babe Ruth – who was sixth in the lineup for the Boston Red Sox in Game 4 of the World Series in 1918 – was the first.

The Death Star is in ruins, and the Evil Empire has been vanquished. 

"And all God's chillun said 'Amen'"!

Wow.  Well, Tigers are cats............so there's a limit on how many lives even *they* can have.

Beating Skubal twice - wow.  And, the Big Dumper.  Can he accomplish what the Big Unit never did?

Excellent opener in Milwaukee. 

Seattle leads their series 2-0, headed back to Seattle. 

Dodgers won in BrewCrew's town.  In no way can that be "excellent" - unless you're referring to the uber-ridonkulous play therein.

The play in the top of the fourth with the bases-loaded, one out, on the long fly ball to center was crazy. Frelick (Brewers CF) gloves the fly ball above the HR line, but the ball slips out, bounces on the wall, and Frelick catches it again. Because it hit the wall, it's not an out. The runner at third takes off as Frelick throws the ball in; the relay gets to the catcher in time for the force at home for out #2. The runner at second is totally confused and never advanced, so the catcher trots to third for the unassisted out to retire the side. Strange double play for Brewers against Dodgers

Hopefully, this is shaping up to be an exciting few weeks of baseball. The Bluejays should get it together and wake up their bats, and the Brewers should flex their talent. 

The ball, when it bounced out of his glove, actually *hit* the bottom of HR line, or infinitesimally below it.  So what was essentially going to be a grand salami (but only **after** it hit his glove!) turned into one of the more bizarre double plays this observer has ever seen.   Frelick himself wasn't absolutely sure what had happened - which is an extreme rarity for an outfielder.   Major kudos to the relay man (SS), the SB-man for directing him so precisely, and the catcher for being fully aware the entire sequence.  Not sure how the karma of still losing the game after all that will ultimately play out - but makes one wonder......

Shohei. A singular performance. 

Toronto baseball team doing what their hockey team couldn't

I was pulling for the Mariners, seeing as how Toronto has already won it twice.............but as long as they take down the Dodgers, that'll be fine.  I'm about to start hating the Dodgers as much as the Evil Empire.  Not for any reason(s) beyond they've won it more than their share, coexistent with their being a big money market, thus those things feeding on each other.  'Twas an excellent series.

Grats to BJs 💙💙💙💙💙

I have no favorite in the series -- was pulling equally for the M's and the Jays. Toronto v L.A.? Just hoping for a competitive series. 

The Blue Jays have excellent bats, but the L.A. pitching is deeper. Doesn't bode well for Toronto.

Altho this is not (apparently) baseball-related, it fits into something we were discussing back in the summer about ESPN's bent towards gambling.  And so who could *not* see this kind of story coming:

Live updates: NBA’s Chauncey Billups, Terry Rozier and mafia figures charged in sports rigging and gambling probe | CNN

While this story is hoops-related, at least so far, the point still remains.  And there could well be more dirt to come.  Who knows.  I will say that the sophistication of the technology they used on the card games is pretty amazing.  Not all criminals be stoopid, I guess.  [obvious disclaimer:  ESPN has not been implicated (that I know of) in this matter.]

"And now..........for something completely different."

Trivia question:  Who was the first black pitcher to win a W.S. game?  (Answer below.)

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/joe-black/

Yeah, it's long - but read it all.  It's worth it.

As to last night's Game 2...........

WTH!? They interrupt a WORLD SERIES game for a mini- Jonas Brothers 'concert'!?!?  Baseball has not just lost its soul - they've purposefully given it away 🤕😟😤.  Sacrilege. 

Any (well, almost all, certainly) new or "crossover" fans they're attempting to gain will be extremely shallow and underinformed.

The Jonas Bros bit lasted only 90 seconds, and it immediately followed a Stand Up to Cancer thing with the live crowd and players. Fox reduced their between inning break to just one ad, so it wasn’t that unbearable.

What a freakin' game.  FAAAAR too many records to begin to enumerate, so I'll let the professional scribes compile their lists.  To give a slight linkage to freecell, it had excitement, drama, and intrigue in spades.  And unfortunately.........I predicted it's ending well before it came - without naming the inning like Ali would have.

💙🇨🇦🐦⚾

Interesting. On my phone, the middle emojis are a Canadian flag and the bluish white head of a bird. On my PC, they are simply the letters "CA" and a cardinal. 

outskirts is known to be "flighty", no? 😆🫣  [Calm down - just funnin'.....]

The Jays' pitching has been pretty solid, and their bats are hitting the Dodger pitching. Despite pulling for Toronto, this is not what I predicted. 

Trey Yesavage was with the Blue Jays' A affiliate in April and finally made his way to the bigs late in the season. He now has more MLB innings pitched in the post season than in the regular season. 

Manager John Schneider is such a calming influence. Over the past few seasons, the team has suffered through countless injuries and stretches of cold hitting and awful pitching. But, he was always the level head. No long rants or deflecting blame. Just quiet leadership. And hats off to Vlad, Jr for earning his big salary. 

We'll see if the Dodgers can right the ship. 

Yesavage is a remarkable story.  His splitter last night was almost unhittable.  Vlad, Jr. continues to amaze me.  While Ohtani's (hitting) "kill zone" is larger, perhaps, he misses sometimes.  Vlad virtually never misses when he gets what he wants - and his wrists are just almost supernatural.  Possibly even quicker than Aaron's and Wynn's, as unbelievable as that sounds?  And his defense has also been superb.  So, yeah, IF there's such a thing as earning that kind of salary, then indeed he is.  No chance they'd be where they are, or even alive, without him.  

Ohtani and Vlad, Jr. are truly elite at their profession, and I hope all observers are fully cognizant of their level of talent on display.  Certainly Ohtani has been getting his deserved share of pub; Guerrero perhaps, too.  But pub does not *necessarily* equate to appreciation.  In this case it should.

Glad I've employed my reverse jinx in this Series.  After that marathon Game 3, I pretended to take the emotional/psychic position of "well, it was a good run", and it's been paying off so far.  Hope this statement right here doesn't reverse the reverse jinx....

The W.S. continues, *almost* year-after-year, to produce must-watch baseball.  Delightful - altho I've heard there were some lightweight fans who didn't stick with Game 3 to its conclusion.  The W.S. isn't *quite* as demanding of being a (series of) (partial) national holiday(s) as March Madness, since it's spread out over at very least a week - but heavy consideration should be given to allowing work slacking for this purpose.  As I was growing up, and the games were still being played in the daytime..........it was sort of accepted that nods and winks were allowed for such.

Another great game in Toronto….

So many runners LOB on both sides. 

11th inning now…

And the craziness finally ends.  Wow on top of wow.  As they say.........."couldn't have written a script like that".  Jays snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

That's Entertainment

One of the Series-defining plays in the finale.............