Adios August

Just like the rest of this year August has flown by and we are about to enter the final four months of 2021.

Where I live it was hotter than blazes at times, yet there were several cool evenings where we were able to party outside on the deck with friends and family.  And those evenings did not include any MLB or NFL which is getting ready to kick off a new year.

MLB and my beloved St. Louis Cardinals continue to bore the daylights out of me and apparently thousands of others.  I've been looking at attendance at Cardinals games and like many other major league teams, it is down significantly.  The problem is no one wants to sit around on a hot night waiting for something to happen.  The game has become little more than walks, strikeouts and home runs.  Gone are the days of small ball and strategy.  Many years ago the late Earl Weaver of the Baltimore Orioles said his strategy was to sit back and wait for a three run homer.  Unfortunately, most MLB teams appear to have adopted Earl's philosophy.

The NFL continues along on its arrogant way.  I used to know what the F stood for in that league's name but now I believe it stands for fools, or felons or freaks of fu*k ups.  I haven't watched a single play of preseason play because I could care less about the games.  The owners of the league do as they please without any repercussions.  But, that could change in the coming days.  The only thing I have been following with the league is the lawsuit filed againstit by the city of St. Louis.  The NFL allowed Rams owner Stan Kroenke to move his franchise to Los Angeles for what he claimed was a lack of support and St. Louis refusing to build him a new stadium.  The fact is St. Louis fans sold out every game until the final two years the Rams played in St. Louis when they could no longer tolerate the crappy product Kroenke placed on the field to escape his contract at America's Center.

Now the St. Louis lawsuit being heard in federal court in St. Louis has reached the point where owners have been told they must open their books to the court.  My guess is Stan Kroenke and his buddies in the billion dollar boys club like Robert Kraft, Jerry Jones and David Tepper won't want to be bothered with this inconvenience and will tell NFL lackey Roger Goodell to make the litigation go away.

Some so called experts believe making it go away will include granting St. Louis an expansion franchise.  My guess is that won't happen but the city will get a windfall of money, which it will then piss away instead of repairing its crumbling infrastructure.

What will happen with the lawsuit?  Stay tuned, the NFL is due in court again in September.  And who knows, baseball may get lucky and have one or two pennant races even though most everything else is all but decided.  On the positive side, college football kicks off this weekend.  The games are way too long because of instant replays and bazillions of commercials inserted into the game so you can watch it on cable TV for "free".  But, the game itself remains exciting when the players are actually playing.

Anyway, that was my August, I hope you had a good one and your September is even better. 

Rants and Rambles

Happy October!  The weather has finally cooled off to more seasonable temperatures and fall has finally checked in where I live.  Instead of highs in the low 90s temperatures are now in the upper 50s.  I welcome fall, but wait until this winter and I will bitch about how cold it is.

In no particular order here are a few things I have been thinking about.

-NCAA Football.  My beloved Missouri Tigers are 3-2 on the young season and play at Tuscaloosa this Saturday night against the top rated team in the country; the Alabama Crimson Tide.  'Bama is a 28 point favorite and the over under number is 74.  I think if I were a betting man I would take the over number.  Mizzou has generated offense in every game it has played this year, but it's secondary leaves a lot to be desired and will have a hard time getting stops against the Tide.

-Times of games.  The NCAA still needs to figure out a way to speed up its games.  They are way too long and I am getting tired of sitting in the stands at Mizzou games watching the teams stand around and do absolutely nothing.  For starters, when a 30 second timeout is called, make the teams stay at the line of scrimmage and start play 30 seconds after the timeout is called.

-Baseball has done absolutely nothing and despite all of the hype about limiting the number of visits to the mound the games are still way to long.  The playoffs have brought the games to a crawl, with too many now taking over four hours to play.  This is ridiculous.  As I wrote earlier this year, keep the hitters in the box and the pitchers on the rubber, and limit the number of commercials and the games will have more action.  Oh, and have the umpires call the strike zone as it is written in the rule book.

-Baseball Predictions.  I think it will be the Red Sox and Brewers in the World Series.  And I think the Red Sox will win it all.  The Sox won 108 games this year and seem to have it all.  I look forward to both of the League Championship series too. While I like the Sox and Brewers, I may be wrong since Houston and the Dodgers seem to be peaking at the right time.

Well enough for now.  But, I will leave you with a picture I took while on vacation of a spot I had always wanted to visit.  It is the new Yankee Stadium at 161st Avenue in the Bronx.  The view is looking down the first base side of the ballpark.  I hope you enjoy it.

The Games are Too Long

I am a fan of Major League Baseball and a fan of NCAA Football.  Each sport shares the same problem.  The games are too long and getting longer.

I've watched as much of the MLB post-season as I can, but I just don't have four hours a night to invest in a baseball game.  Last night's Game Five in Houston will go down as a classic, but because I was tired I could not stay awake and went to bed in the eighth inning.  When I watched the highlights this morning I saw what all the shouting was about. The game which started at 7:10 p.m. where I live, didn't finish until after 12:30 a.m.  Sure, it lasted ten innings but the time to play it was way too long.  Baseball needs to cut back on the amount of commercials between innings and keep the batters in the box and the pitchers on the mound.  That will go a long way to speeding things up.  But, something else that will help is having the umpires call pitches as the strike zone is defined in the rule book.

The NCAA is now apparently owned by ABC / ESPN.  That TV network keeps adding commercials to each TV timeout it imposes on the game.  Again, if the NCAA would cut back on the number of commercials allowed in its breaks and make the teams stay on the field when play is stopped, the games would not last three hours and 45 minutes on average.  I love college football, but the length of the games has me thinking about not renewing my tickets next year.

College Football Has a Problem

If you attend college football games in person you may already be aware of this.  But, as a season ticket holder at State U I am well aware of the length of the games.  Last weekend, my beloved Missouri Tigers lost to the Georgia Bulldogs 28-27.  The actual time to play the game came in three minutes short of four hours.  FOUR HOURS!!

It used to be a college football game could be played in a little over two and a half hours and about 2:45 if there were a lot of passes.  But, now there are even more passes but that is not the problem.  The problem for the long games is television.  You can blame ESPN and FOX for loading tons and tons of commercials into every game.

If you are at home you may not realize how many commercials there are because you are getting up to go pee or go to the kitchen to get a beer or sandwich.  But, if you're at the stadium then you notice just how many there are as an official stands on the 20 yard line with his arms crossed.  Until that man unfolds his arms, there's not going to be any football for those in the stands who have paid top dollar to see the game.

I noticed it again yesterday.  Missouri took on Delaware State and it took two hours to play the first half of the game.  TWO HOURS and Delaware State never scored.  It was 58-0 at the half.  Again the reason for the length of the game is greed.  Greed on the part of the Disney Company which owns ABC which owns all of the ESPN networks and greed on the part of the FOX networks.

This has got to stop.

How 'Bout Them Tigers!

My beloved Missouri Tigers ran their unbeaten streak to six this afternoon with a surprisingly easy 30-9 win over Texas A&M down in College Station. Missouri played, what I think is, their best game of the season to date. The offense, defense and special teams were outstanding. The Tigers jumped to a 16-zip halftime lead and tacked on two more TDs in the second half.

With the win the 19th ranked Tigers will come home next weekend to host the Oklahoma Sooners who are also undefeated. There are rumors that ESPN's "Game Day" will finally make it to Columbia and that the game will be on in prime time. (Even if it doesn't start at seven, ABC has said the game will begin at 2:30 as part of it's national coverage package).

So, yep, I am pumped about the Tigers. M-I-Z!!!