This 'n That....

Cleaning out the Mental In-Box.....

News arrived earlier this week that the Alliance of American Football, the AAF, or, as some refer to it, The Aaaaaafffffff, was folding its tent and ceasing operations after seven weeks of its inaugural season.

This league seemed to have a lot going for it....Smart football people were involved (Bill Pollian) in running it, there was TV backing for it (CBS, NFL Network), and it had a reasonable sense of itself (it would work in concert with the NFL as a developmental league, rather than as a competitor).  Plus, there seemed to be a constant demand for football in the United States, right?

Well, apparently not.  

I did watch a game in the first weekend, but none since.  The quality of play was spotty, but I liked that they were using the games to test out new rules and ideas (no kickoffs, a variation of the onside kick, etc), and the games did move incredibly quickly in real time, so the NFL could definitely learn from that.  

However, it didn't even last full season.  I don't want to make light of it, since a lot of people - players, coaches, game officials, and office staffs - are now out of work.  That's never a good thing.  Also, if you are considering investing in the revival of Vince McMahon's XFL, scheduled to start in 2020, you might want to reconsider.  The demise of the AAF would pretty much doom the XFL, it seems to me.

I generally avoid any analysis of a baseball team's season until they play thirty games, or around 20% of a season, but based on only four games thus far, your Pittsburgh Pirates appear to be a team that will cause it's fans to gobble up antacid pills like ballpark peanuts as the season unfolds.  They sit at 1-3. In all four games, they led after six innings (they could be 4-0) before the bullpen, considered a strength going into the season, proceeded to blow those leads, and blow them in somewhat spectacular fashion.

Starting pitching has been good to very good, defense has been shaky, base running questionable, and the bullpen, as previously noted, awful.  Still, it's only four games, so no need to panic yet.  Let's check in again after that thirty game mark.

The Pirates home opener loss to the Cardinals, the 4-0 and 5-4 leads blown by the Bucs aside, was a perfect microcosm of all that is wrong about baseball at this point in the 21st century.  It took five hours to play, and while there were two extra innings involved, it took four hours to play nine innings. Managers Clint Hurdle and Mike Schildt (and if you'd have pointed a gun to my head before Monday and told me to name the Cardinals manager, I'd have failed miserably), did all that they could to slow this game down and turn it into an interminable slog.  

Consider this one sequence in the game.  Hurdle makes his slow walk out to the mound and calls in Francisco Liriano from the pen to face a left-handed batter.  Liriano makes his way in from the bullpen, takes his eight warm up pitches (after he'd already been throwing in the bullpen), and the proceeds to walk the batter he faces.  Hurdle then walks out to the mound, calls in another pitcher, who walks in from the pen, takes his eight warm up pitches....well, you get the idea.  Probably 12 to 15 minutes of real time elapsed and the only thing that actually happened was a base on balls.

Baseball as it is being played today is becoming almost unwatchable.  The old time baseball "purists" who rail and shout at the clouds about anything being done to "change the game" should be more worried about the game withering and dying from lack of interest due to the pure ennui that the game has become.  Rob Manfred's desire to make changes that will pick up the pace of play should be encouraged and embraced, not scorned by the people who long for the days of wool uniforms and teams traveling by trains.

The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament has gone pretty much according to chalk and have lacked the early round upsets hat everyone loves, and that was probably a good thing, since it produced some spectacular games in the Rounds of Sixteen and Eight.  We have become big fans of the University of Virginia Cavaliers as the Final Four approaches.  Should UVA  advance to the final game and win it on Monday night, Marilyn will be the winner of a prestigious Bracket Pool run by our pal John Frissora.  Even if the Hoos lose in the final, she will finish in second place, but to get there, they need to beat Auburn and its loathsome coach Bruce Pearl on Saturday.  So let's go UVA.  Make Mr. Jefferson proud.

And in a non-sports related item, I note that yesterday was the 97th birthday of actress Doris Day.  I made mention of this on The Facebook yesterday, both on my regular feed and on a couple of movie groups to which I belong.  All posts brought up numerous comments and "likes" from people expressing their regard for Miss Day.  As I said, who doesn't like Doris Day and what's not to like?  I hope that she spent her birthday, and is spending all of her days, in good health and comfort.