The Sports Weekend That Was

A quick whirl around the wide, wide world of sports from this past weekend....

• The finalists in the NCAA Men's basketball tournament have been determined with Virginia defeating Auburn and Texas Tech defeating Michigan State in two wildly amazing games.  What an improbable finish to that Virginia game with the kid sinking three straight free throws with .6 seconds left to eek out a 63-62 win.
• So as to avoid jinxing the situation, I will just say that we in this household are vigorously rooting for Virginia tonight.  Should the desired outcome be achieved, I will spell out the details at some point later in the week.
• After suffering two bad losses to the Cardinals last week,  the Pirates then proceeded to complete a four game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds and now stand at 5-3.  
• Yesterday's game featured a benches clearing hissy fit which caused numerous post game comments about baseball's hallowed "unwritten rules" and hand wringing about how certain players need to "respect the game."  What a bunch of horseshit that is.

• Chief hand wringer among the Pirates was relief pitcher Keone Kela (who was ejected from the game for his actions in the brouhaha).  Kela apparently broke his spring training "not gonna talk to the media" dictum to make his overwrought pronouncements.  Two of the Pirates three losses, by the way, came in large part because Kela twice surrendered home runs that erased leads that he was brought in to protect.  Maybe Kela should work on that little kink before declaring himself the Arbiter Of All Things Proper On A Baseball Diamond.
• It is becoming apparent that we are in the beginning of a season long journey wherein all broadcasts and telecasts will be a tribute to Steve Blass as he serves out his final season as a broadcaster.  I'm not a Blass Hater, by any means, but this is already getting tiring.  By what date in the season's calendar will Greg Brown begin to openly and unabashedly weep over Steve's pending departure? I say it happens after the All-Star Break, but before the July 31 trade deadline.
• The University of Pittsburgh unveiled it's new look, or new "branding" for its athletic teams.  The blue-and yellow color scheme of the Majors-Dorsett-Sherrill-Marino-Risacher Era of Pitt athletics will now be official.  As will the "Script Pitt" logo, which, in fact, came back about two years ago.  Also, a new Panther Head will also become the "secondary" logo for Pitt's teams.

• Much of Pitt's fan base, which has been kvetching for the return of the Script logo ever since the Evil Steve Peterson did away with them in 1997, acted predictably all across social media last night and today:  They hate the new look.  Oh the script is good, and the colors are okay, but the font of the numbers is awful and what's with that stupid new panther, they ask.  Some people are only happy, apparently, when they are unhappy.
• Me, I like the "new" Panther, but I'd like everything a whole lot more if HCPN could manage a ten or more win season in 2019.
• If you didn't watch the NCAA Women's basketball championship game last night, won 82-81 by Baylor over Notre Dame, shame on you.  For two and a half quarters, Baylor led ND by anywhere from ten to thirteen points. Then Baylor's best player, Lauren Cox, left the game with a bad injury, and Notre Dame proceeded to stage a valiant comeback that saw them take the lead late in the game, only to have Baylor play equally valiantly in fighting off the comeback and eventually winning the game and the championship.  Terrific game.
• The Penguins qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs which begin on Wednesday.  Time for me to hop on the bandwagon and start watching the Pens.  My prediction:  The Penguins to win it all, no series lasting longer than five games.  The only thing not certain at this point is the exact date for the victory parade. 
• And in football, Antonio Brown tweeted out that the person responsible for the Steelers not making the Playoffs last year was.....Juju Smith-Shuster.  Juju, you will recall, was voted team MVP by his teammates last year, and AB, apparently, has never recovered from this blatant act of disrespect.

So, what will this new week bring us?  This is why we follow sports.

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.