Sporting Thoughts

As Howard Cosell used to say on his radio spots, "Speaking of sports...."

Obviously, the big sporting news these days is the 2024 Olympic Games that opened in Paris over the weekend.

Apart from the red ballcap people and he Fundamentalists getting their bowels in an uproar over the parts of the Opening Ceremonies (and, Surprise!, they didn't know what they were talking about), we have been enjoying these first three days of coverage.  We have watched basketball and soccer games, swimming events and gymnastics, but one sport that I have found to be tremendously entertaining has been the sport of Rugby Sevens.

I admit to being totally unfamiliar with he sport, although if you watch for a few minutes you can intuitively pick up on the about 80% of the basics of the sport.  To learn the nuances of the game, I have been furiously texting back and forth with Linda's stepson (does this make him my step-stepson?), Jeffrey, who was a club rugby player at West Virginia University back in his younger days, and that has been very helpful.  Here's the most amazing thing about the sport.  A match consists of two seven minute halves divided by a three minute intermission.  Yep, an entire match is over in about 20-25 minutes, depending on stoppage time.  Oh, and the action never stops.  The men's competition is already over with France winning the Gold Medal.  The Women's Sevens is currently in Pool play, and the USA has strong squad.

Like I said, it's great fun to watch, and I probably won't see it again until 2028, although Jeffrey tells me that Sevens is growing in the USA.  Can Major League Rugby Sevens be far behind?

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This past Friday evening major league European Soccer  Futbol came to Acrisure Stadium when Liverpool FC of the English Premier League and Real Betis of La Liga played a "friendly" game match, we Yanks would call it a pre-season or exhibition game, here in Pittsburgh.  

We and over 42,000 others showed up at Acrisure to watch.  The crowd was decked out predominantly in the red jerseys kit of Liverpool, so it was decidedly a home field pitch advantage for the Liverpudlians, who won the game match 1-0 1-Nil.   I have to say that we enjoyed the evening a great deal, and one can appreciate the game much more in person than when watching on the telly, but, that is true of most sports.  Also, it is fun to see any sport when it is being played at its highest level, and Liverpool FC is at the top of the chain when it comes to European soccer.

As you can see below, I played my part in cheering on Liverpool, but if you look closely, you will see that my shirt paid homage to an even greater team that came out of Liverpool.

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The Pirates.  

Our Pittsburgh Pirates acquitted themselves quite well with several series (Brewers, White Sox, Phillies, Cardinals) that wrapped around the All-Star break and found themselves 1 game out of the final Wild Card spot in the National League.  They then hit a bump in the road in Phoenix, losing two out of three to the Diamondbacks, one of the teams ahead of them, this weekend.  This morning, they sit in third place in the Central at 53-52, seven games behind the Brewers.  More importantly, the WC race looks like this:

Two games out of the final slot, with two teams ahead of them.  They lost a major opportunist by not winning that series against the D'backs this weekend.

More significantly than the losses have been HOW those losses have been occurring.  Mainly, by getting horrible production form the offensive side of the ball club.  Paul Skenes has been THE talk of MLB since he arrived in Pittsburgh in May, but in all of his games, the Pirates have been able to score more than one run for him only once.  All of his other games they've given him either 0's or 1's.  Perfect case in point was last Tuesday night against the Cardinals.  8.1 IP, 8 K's and a 2-1 loss.  His record is now 6-1 with 97 K's in 74.2 IP and an ERA of 1.93 and a WHIP of 0.87.  He has been unbelievable to watch in this amazing rookie season, and he goes tonight against the Astros.  Can't wait to watch.

Of note is the fact that the MLB trade deadline is tonight and thus far the Pirates have done nothing  - NOTHING - to add some kind of offensive punch to a lineup that desperately needs it.  With the pitching that they have shown so far, they are definitely in the chase for a WC spot, and with starting pitching led by Skenes, Mitch Keller, and Jared Jones they would be dangerous for any team to take on in a short series.  If Ben Cherrington ends up doing little or nothing at the trade deadline, the heat will get hot, very hot, in his kitchen.