#who in fact got shutout 3-0

[aestheticvoyage2024]

Day 258: Saturday September 14, 2024 - "Spartan Saturday"

I have a cherished chiseled corner in my brain set aside for Spartan history and facts from fall Saturdays spent listening to the games on the radio, studying old programs from games I was taken to, and old cards of the old heroes. Its neat then when I get a chance to witness a little bit of Spartan history that we can all say "remember that one?" - Chuck Brantley ran one back from end zone to end zone in front of my parents who were at the game like old times. We ate Green Ice Cream as Sparty pitched a shutout on the day the old 65-66 teams went into the Hall of Fame. Im 43 now and still a Spartan Football Fan boy at heart and while I am not yet convinced of this new team there is definitely a buzz about this coaching staff and a fun change in the marketing celebrating lineman and scout players.... I was convinced enough to introduce him to William before the game... this is "our coach" - we set the bar high for them to do more than just call the plays; I sure hope 10 years from now we can be so proud of Coach Smith doing it the right way, still right there, back home. 3-0 start will be really up against it the next few weeks as we enter the deep waters of the best of the new Big Ten. We'll really know what we've got a month from now when they get their bye week.

Song: Spartan Marching Band - Pregame Fight Song

Quote: "I don't believe in higher walls, I believe in longer tables…" ~Chef Jose Andres

[liesofasilvertongue]

The big 1-0-0 in goals for Chucky!!

[kikiskeysgame]

While the Blackhawks looked like the better team during the first half of tonight's game, the Tampa Bay Lightning found a way to keep their win streak alive as they defeated the Hawks 3-2 in overtime.

Although the first period remained scoreless between both teams, Ryan Carpenter broke the scoreless drought and ended Andrei Vasilevskiy's shutout streak in the 2nd period with a short-handed goal (assisted by Brandon Hagel).

Alex DeBrincat scored his 12th goal of the season (with assists by Connor Murphy and Patrick Kane), extending the Hawks' lead to 2-0 and his point streak to 7 games.

However, during the 3rd period, the Lightning struck back with goals by Anthony Cirelli and Steven Stamkos, which tied up the game and sent it into overtime. 

Although Kevin Lankinen made some good looking saves during overtime, Alex Killorn scored in the final seconds of the period to give the Lightning another victory.

I was impressed with the way that the Blackhawks started off their game and how active they were, especially during the 2nd period, but I was not thrilled with how they squandered their 2-0 lead and allowed the Lightning to tie up the game.

Alex DeBrincat said it best in his post-game interview: "We can't be giving up points like that." 

I absolutely agree with that; as I've mentioned numerous times before in my past keys to the game, when the Blackhawks have the lead goal, they need to maintain it, not lose it because if they're not careful with it, the other team could take it away from them (along with their momentum as well).

Despite the loss, I thought that the Hawks had a much better start against Tampa Bay than they did when they first played against them back in January and they got at least got one point tonight which shows that they did something instead of nothing during the game. 

The team has come a long way since January and they continue to work hard no matter what the outcome of the game is to them.

Prior to tonight's game, I predicted either Alex DeBrincat or Patrick Kane would break Andrei Vasilevskiy's shutout streak, but by the 2nd period, I also decided to add Ryan Carpenter to my predictions because he did so well on Sunday night against Detroit and I was right about him scoring. 

Since Carpenter's been back in the line-up, he's been playing quite well and now he's on a two-game goal streak.

Once again, Alex DeBrincat found a way to keep his point streak alive and got his 99th NHL career goal. He has been on quite a roll lately and has been very productive when it comes to offense. I hope that he continues to keep up the great work that he's been doing lately.

I thought that Brandon Hagel was quite noticable tonight, especially during the first period and when it came to getting the assist on Carpenter’s goal. He also led all forwards with five hits during the game in 15:35 of ice time.

On a non-game related note, it was nice to see that Dylan Strome (who has been on concussion protocol) was at morning skate today. Although he didn’t play in tonight’s game and it’s uncertain when he’ll return to the line-up, the fact that Strome was back on the ice skating is a good sign and I’m looking forward to his return to the line-up.

After tonight's game, the Blackhawks and Lightning will face each other again tomorrow night. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Blackhawks are able to respond to the Lightning with a bounce-back victory. As Jeremy Colliton said in the post-game interview, "If we don't expect to rise to the challenge, then I don't know what we're doing."

Until then, go Blackhawks!

[cypher2]

NEW YORK — Hope Solo says France is the team to beat in this summer’s Women’s World Cup but feels the U.S.’s attack could boost the Americans to another title.

Speaking at the Street Soccer USA fundraising breakfast Tuesday morning, the former U.S. women’s national team goalkeeper chimed in about the eighth edition of the tournament.

“The team to beat is France,” Solo told the audience. “The only thing about France is the pressure playing on home soil.”

The defending champion and top-ranked U.S. has been dodgy, particularly its defense and backline since the beginning of the year with a 2-1-2 record after defeating Brazil, 1-0, in the final match of the SheBelieves Cup Tuesday night.

The Americans have surrendered seven goals in its two draws and a loss, while registering shutouts in the other two results.

Solo said she was concerned about the U.S. defense, but the squad could compensate for it in another way.

“I think they are lacking a little bit in the defensive area, but they can make up for it with the talent on the front line,” she said. “If they’re scoring goals, they can beat any team in the world.”

Which goes against the grain of many sports championship sides.

“We always believe that defense wins games,” Solo said. “You need a great goalkeeper going into the tournament. But I’m starting to wonder if the United States can actually outscore their opponents.

“So, the verdict is out. They have an easy group … It’s in the knockout round where you get challenged.”

The U.S. will meet Thailand and Chile in its first two Group F encounters before playing Sweden, a long-time nemesis in its final match. If the U.S. and France win their respective groups and Round of 16 games, they could meet in the quarterfinals.

Solo listed some of the other top teams in the competition.

“Sweden looks good,” she said. “Germany always is a strong contender but they are not as strong as they have been in the past.”

Solo, who backstopped the U.S.’s championship run to the 2015 title and to a pair of Olympic gold medals, said she watched the SheBelieves Cup. England won the tournament with a 3-0 victory over Japan in Tampa, Fla. Tuesday night.

The former international however, wasn’t as impressed as the results might have indicated.

“Japan and England and Brazil just aren’t as strong as they were a couple of years ago,” Solo said. “I think Japan has a new coach and England doesn’t look too fit for me, but they have that potential to be a winning team. Japan is just so young that they’re up and down.

“Brazil, they just don’t look great.”

Solo, who had her contract terminated by U.S. Soccer for calling Sweden “cowards” after the European side eliminated the Americans from the 2016 Summer Olympic soccer tournament and for several domestic incidents, said it was a while before she retained interest in the game.

In fact, she will be a commentator in France, although the 37-year-old Solo did not say for which outlet.

“I’m excited for the summer,” she said. “I didn’t know if I was going to get through that personal journey dreams I got fired and I want to be on the field in 2019 in France. It’s going to be a spectacular tournament all-around and with soccer venues and a soccer-sophisticated audience. I am just so happy.

“I took time away after 2016. Really, I needed to feel my own emotions about the game and coming back and being positive. Now I will be in France, on the ground, commentating and I’m very excited because I’m not involved in the game. I am watching women’s soccer game and I’m really enjoying it and really embracing it.”

[andrebearakovsky]

This Week in Caps: Week 13

Welcome to This Week in Caps, a weekly newsletter where I recap everything important that’s been going on in the world of the Washington Capitals this past week.

This Week’s Games

12/27/18 vs Carolina Hurricanes, W 3-1

The Caps came back for their first game after the holiday break with a divisional home matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes. Tyler Lewington was officially recalled from his paper transaction (and would sit the bench), and everyone else was back from vacation and ready to get back into hockey.

The game got off to a rather slow start, and as a result it was a rather boring first period. The Caps got a power play 1:50 into the game, and the Canes had a total of three power plays in the period, but no goals came of it, and nothing happened in the first.

The action really got started in the second. About three minutes into the front, the Canes lost control of the puck right in front of their own net and it slid right to Chandler Stephenson, who fired it home for a 1-0 Caps lead. A few minutes later, the Canes got themselves into a sticky situation. Rookie Andrei Svechnikov took a penalty, which the Canes killed off, but as he was exiting the box the puck went right past his feet and he played the puck from inside the penalty box, which is a no-no, and he went right back to the box for another penalty. Nothing came of either power play, but an oddity that’s not seen too often. However, the Canes got themselves in trouble with just a few minutes left in the period when they took another penalty, and that time it hurt them. John Carlson’s power play shot deflected off the stick of T.J. Oshie, who scored to give the Caps a 2-0 lead with less than two minutes left in the second.

Scary moment about halfway through the third period — Matt Niskanen got into a collision with Justin Williams and Clark Bishop, and they slid into the boards and Niskanen hit his head/neck/chest area and was down, and it did not look good. However, he was eventually able to get up and leave under his own power. He did not return for the rest of the game.

The Canes did get themselves back in the game — just a few minutes after the injury, Micheal Ferland got loose on a breakaway, which Braden Holtby saved, but Sebastian Aho buried the rebound to make it 3-1. The Canes came furiously for the rest of the period, even getting a late power play, but they did not score, and Carlson scored a late empty-netter to seal the 3-1 win for the Caps. The Caps had the shots advantage 33-29 and the faceoff advantage at 55.0%. The Caps converted on 1/4 of their power play chances, and the Hurricanes converted on 0/4 of theirs. Holtby saved 28/29 shots.

Both teams looked a little sleepy coming off their holiday breaks, but the Caps did good to outshoot the team with the most shots per game in the league. Hopefully Niskanen will have a speedy recovery, and the Caps defense will need to step up in his absence.

12/29/18 @ Ottawa Senators, W 3-2

The Caps returned to Ottawa for the second time in a week to take on the Senators yet again. There was a shuffling of defense to account for the absence of an injured Matt Niskanen — Madison Bowey was bumped up to the second pairing with Dmitry Orlov, and Tyler Lewington was slotted into the lineup paired with Jonas Siegenthaler, playing his second NHL game in the same building he made his NHL debut. Pheonix Copley would again get the start in the same building he recorded his first NHL shutout.

Seven minutes into the first period, Evgeny Kuznetsov drove into the zone and passed the puck to Tom Wilson in front, who tapped it in for a 1-0 Caps lead. Lewington got the secondary assist on the play, giving him his first NHL point. Later in the period, he followed it up with something better. Nicklas Backstrom gave him a drop pass and he cut up the middle and fired it into the back of the net, scoring his first NHL goal and making it 2-0 Caps.

The night of firsts would continue early in the second period. Just a minute into the frame, Bowey fired the puck from the point and finally, finally scored his first NHL goal. 3-0 Caps. Then things started to go off the rails just a tiny bit for the Caps. Three minutes later, Colin White stuffed the puck under Copley’s pads to get Ottawa on the board, 3-1. Seconds later, Bowey got into a scrap with Brady Tkachuk, and they both went off with a multitude of penalty minutes and no power play on either side. Then with just four minutes left in the period, Lewington and Zack Smith dropped the gloves and got into a hefty tussle, giving Lewington a Gordie Howe hat trick in his second NHL game.

The Senators controlled most of the third period play, and they cashed in for another goal late in the frame, with Mark Stone on the quick trigger in the slot, making it 3-2. But the Caps held strong and didn’t let anything else pass, and they would win by that score.

The Caps were outshot 33-24 and had the faceoff disadvantage at 42.9%. They did not have any power play chances, and the Senators went 0/1 on their one chance. Copley saved 31/33 shots.

In a night the defense had to step up, they went above and beyond with a night full of firsts. They had a Gordie Howe hat trick, which hasn’t been done by a Cap since 2011, and not by a Caps defenseman since 1991. In fact, there was actually a chance for three different Caps to get the Gordie Howe. Bowey was an assist shy, and Wilson was a fight shy.

Current record: 24-10-3

What’s Going on in the World of the Caps

Ovi Named Metropolitan Division Captain

On December 27 it was announced that Alex Ovechkin had won the fan vote and was named Captain of the Metropolitan Division for the 2019 All-Star Game in San Jose. This is Ovechkin’s 10th all-star nomination (and 8th appearance), and his second consecutive year captaining the division. The remaining divisions will be captained by Auston Matthews (Atlantic), Nathan MacKinnon (Central), and Connor McDavid (Pacific); Ovechkin is at least ten years older than every single one of them, making him the old horse of the group. Ovechkin was humbled by the honor. (x)

Niskanen’s Scary Injury

During the third period on December 27 against the Hurricanes, Matt Niskanen was involved in a collision with Justin Williams and Clark Bishop, and he ended up crashing face-first into the boards. It was a scary collision, though he was eventually able to get up and leave under his own power. He did not return to the game, and was afterward declared day-to-day. He traveled with the team to Ottawa, but did not play in the next game. He is still day-to-day at this point, and will likely not play on Monday. (x)

Caps Prospects at World Juniors

There are three Capitals prospects participating in this year’s World Junior Championship, which started December 26 and will run until January 5. Alexander Alexeyev, for Russia, Martin Fehervary, for Slovakia, and Tobias Geisser, for Switzerland. All are defensemen, and Fehervary is captain of his respective team. (x)

First NHL Goals

It was a night of firsts in Ottawa — both Madison Bowey and Tyler Lewington scored their first career NHL goals in the same game. For Lewington, it was only his second career game. For Bowey, it has been a long, long time coming, and it was evident in the ensuing goal hug.This marked the first time in Caps franchise history and the 19th time in NHL history that two defensemen from same team score their first NHL goals in same game. Alex Ovechkin made sure to grab the puck for Lewington, Kuzy grabbed Bowey’s puck, and Tom Wilson made sure to properly prank the both of them. (x, x)

Other Miscellaneous Happenings

The Twelve Days of Capsmas

Orlov’s dancing at the Russian Christmas party

The Caps wishing you happy holidays — Vrana, Holtby, Bowey

Nicklas Backstrom and fiancee Liza tried to get each other the same gift

Fan cries after Ovi tosses her the puck

DSP’s inspiration

Vrana on the road trip (1, 2)

The Caps’ celebrity twins

Player of the Week

It took 78 games, 74 shots, and 441 days, but after all that waiting, Madison Bowey finally scored his first NHL goal on December 29 in Ottawa.. But I didn’t pick him just because I’m proud of him, he has been playing very well. He also scrapped in a fight that game, getting two-thirds of the way to a Gordie Howe hat trick, doing it all while being newly promoted to the second pairing. Bowey has looked very good recently, and he’s stepped up excellently in the absence of Brooks Orpik and Christian Djoos (and recently Matt Niskanen).

Social Media Post of the Week

[Video link here]

Tom Wilson resumed his role as prankster and gave the customary stuff-to-the-face after scoring a first NHL goal — in this video, he delivers both a shake to the hat of Madison Bowey, and shaving scream to the face of Tyler Lewington.

Stars of the Night Season Leaderboard

Over the course of the season, I will be keeping track of the Caps stars of the night, translating them into points, and organizing them into a leaderboard.

1st star = 5 pts, 2nd star = 3 pts, 3rd star = 1 pt

1. Ovechkin — 38 2. Holtby — 37 3. Backstrom — 19 4. Kuznetsov — 17 5. Carlson — 16 6. Wilson — 13 T-7. Burakovsky — 11 T-7. Copley — 11 T-9. Connolly — 6 T-9. Kempny — 6 T-11. Lewington — 5 T-11. Orlov — 5 13. Oshie — 4 T-14. Niskanen — 3 T-14. Smith-Pelly — 3 T-16. Boyd — 2 T-16. Eller — 2 T-16. Vrana — 2 19. Stephenson — 1

Achieved and Upcoming Milestones

Tyler Lewington recorded his first NHL point (assist), goal, and fight, tallying a Gordie Howe hat trick in his second NHL game on 12/29/18 at the Ottawa Senators

Madison Bowey recorded his first NHL goal on 12/19/18 at the Ottawa Senators

Nicklas Backstrom is 1 power play goal away from taking sole possession of 5th in Caps history in power play goals

John Carlson is 2 power play goals away from being tied for 7th in Caps history in power play goals among defensemen (25)

Evgeny Kuznetsov is 2 points away from 300 career NHL points

T.J. Oshie is 2 goals away from 200 career NHL goals

Jonas Siegenthaler is searching for his first NHL goal

Next Week’s Upcoming Games

12/31/18 vs Nashville Predators (12:30 PM) 01/03/19 @ St. Louis Blues (8 PM) 01/04/19 @ Dallas Stars (8 PM) 01/06/19 @ Detroit Red Wings (5 PM)

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 57 - NYR - Burn the Tape

We came into this seven-game homestand with some needs: capitalize on your home-ice advantage and get into this playoff race in a more consistent manor. That mission didn’t start well for sure but whether it felt like it or not the Sabres win percentage went up. It was the ugly win-loss pattern that is torture to endure during a playoff race this tight but it was better than the losing stretches that prevailed before the bye-week. As this homestand went on it became clearer some switch had been flipped even if not always to successful ends. From the end of the Carolina game onward, maybe even the end of the Minnesota game in places, the Sabres defense has stepped up and fought tough matchups. If the Sabres were going to end this homestand on a high note it would take all cylinders firing properly. That Winnipeg game was closer than that final score would indicate and one bounce different against the Hurricanes and the standings look quite a bit different right now. The past is the past though and so is the Rangers Cup window. Yes, let’s do some Playoff Trash talk: Rangers, during your supposed Cup window you never looked close. In fact, having watched most of those years during the Sabres tank years I could see the truly dominant performances were rare. That’s how the Rangers win in the playoffs: barely. This season its very unlikely you make it and a matchup like this seems to take on a different flavor when its locked in together for 4-7 games. Sabres in 5. So, remember those positive things I said about Buffalo before the trash talk? The Sabres did not do those things. This was probably the most disheartening loss of the season, if not its damn close to the Home Opener shutout. This game made me not want to do these for the rest of the season. Nonetheless, I am your Sabre Soldier and won’t ever give up. This mess ended 6-2 Rangers. You know how we all thought the Rangers would be the easier New York team to beat? Yeah, fuck us, right?

This game was so bad its in a category of games that don’t even earn a full goal-by-goal recap. Spoiler Alert: Jeff Skinner scored all the Sabres goals this game. To be specific, he scored two goals. That was all we got this game. Yes, there were other opportunities. Jack Eichel rang one off the bar. Sam Reinhart was stopped by this young Bulgarian sensation in Rangers goaltender Alexsandar Georgiev. Tage Thompson missed two wide open nets right in front when the score was 3-2. Apart from a section of the second period and the last ten or so minutes of the third period this game looked like no one knew how to play hockey. Everyone was watching the puck, everyone seemed to bump into each other like they were all playing their own game. The Sabres had opportunities on a night New York was not playing a sound defensive game. Remember how we’ve been talking about the Sabres cleaning up play in their own zone the past three or four games? They took that and threw it out the window. I feel so bad for Linus Ullmark who you kind of feel was in the wrong place at the wrong time starting in this game. What goals are we blaming on him? Right, I said I wasn’t doing a goal-by-goal recap. Well fuck it with this game. For Ullmark’s sake let’s dissect this train crash.

4:09 into the first a grown man named Boo Nieves scored the first goal. This was a scrambled play no matter which way you cut it and Ullmark was screened maybe two different ways. The second goal came about ten minutes later when Vlad Namestnikov launched a shot from the blue line that got redirected in front of Ullmark by Jesper Fast. Ignoring the fact that he was screened the Sabres were playing basketball-style zone defense this period and it was not working. The Linus Ullmark fault counter is still at 0 now as the Sabres find themselves down 2-0 going into the second period. The Rangers are getting penalized frequently now, once for putting the puck over the glass in a delay of game. This Rangers team is bad. THEY’RE BAD! Luckily in the middle period the Sabres did respond a little. Jeff Skinner got the puck out alone in front and put it far side around Georgiev. The visitors responded because good things can never last with this Sabres team and Jimmy Vesey of all the hated little Eminem-looking motherfuckers tucks one in like a blot of lightning on a blown coverage. Ullmark had locked down the post. I am not blaming this one on him. Jeff Skinner got another goal, this time on the powerplay later in the period. This got me feeling maybe the Sabres could salvage something from this horror show. I mean if they can score a powerplay goal then why not? Why not, because we must be tortured with no frigging back-to-back wins for eternity! The Sabres poured it on late in the third and could’ve tied it on several shots. None beat the Prince of New York and Buffalo blew a d-zone coverage in their own zone to allow Pavel Buchnevich to tap it in. That goal is the only one you can sort of blame on Ullmark. The air left the building and I turned the radio off full of disappointment and hopelessness. Okay, so the first of the two remaining goals could also be blamed on Ullmark if you feel the need. The net was wide open for Namestnikov, but the 6-2 goal is literally an empty net. 6-2 Sabres but 2-2 if we’re only counting the goals Ullmark gave up. That thing stung.

There was other stuff that happened in this game on top of defensive breakdown, horrible play in their own end and generally unacceptable performance. Uhh… Kyle Okposo fought. He probably shouldn’t be fighting, and it looks like he got hurt doing it. No updates on his condition as of the posting of this but a cursory look over his history tells you exactly why its so scary that this fight happened. You know what, there really isn’t anything redeemable about this game. Burn the tape! Burn the tape and well you’re at it Fire Housley. There is no way this team not being able to beat lesser opponents consistently, except for Detroit, is not a problem of coaching. Housley said they played soft after the game: You think, Phil? Something has got to change. I said I’m on this crazy rollercoaster until the end but boy did I want to get off after this game. After New Jersey tomorrow night, you have the Leafs, Caps, both Florida teams, and the Penguins in the following six games. There was no help on the out-of-town scoreboard last night and the Sabres now sit five points out of the last playoff spot and five points back of the first team out in Carolina. This was hot trash last night and I don’t know if I have any confidence this team won’t continue to be hot trash and fall out of the playoff race in the coming weeks. I guess we’ll have to find out! Like, share and comment: I feel bad asking after this mess. Enjoy your weekend maybe not thinking about the Sabres.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. Imagine if Jeff Skinner isn’t on this team. Yeah, its like last season all over again.

[pint4punt]

How Fucked are the Las Vegas Raiders???

The year was 2013. Fresno State had just wrapped up a historic season at the conclusion of the albeit, not so great, Las Vegas Bowl (Perhaps this was an omen). Despite the unsatisfying end to the Bulldogs’ run, records were set that still hold to this day. Quarterback Derek Carr had just thrown for 5,082 yards and 50 touchdowns, while Wide Receiver Davante Adams found himself on the other end of 131 receptions for 1,718 yards and nearly half those scores.

If you had told Raiders’ fans last year this duo would be reunited under a 5-time Lombardi Winning Coach following their close playoff loss to the reigning AFC Champions, they probably would’ve bought tickets to Super Bowl 57 on the spot. Fast forward to Week 9 of the 2022 Season and it’s abundantly clear that Raiders Nation hasn’t been ripped off this badly since the infamous ‘Tuck Rule’. Raiders of Las Vegas? More like Raiders of the Lost……..season.

What happened: Everything was pointing up for the Raiders coming into the 2022 season. The AFC West was shaping up to be an arms race, but Las Vegas had an Ace in the Hole in Davante Adams. The team was riding a hot streak from a strong 2021 finish, was returning stars like Darren Waller, Hunter Renfrow, & Maxx Crosby, and had an offensive shark in Josh McDaniels to string it all together.

Week 1: Vegas drops a close one to the division rival Chargers. ‘Nothing to panic about, the first month is basically the preseason right?’

Week 2: the Defense collapses at the hands of Kyler Murray. ‘That stings a little, but with so many new pieces the team just needs time to gel. It’ll be fine.’

Week 3: ‘0-3 really sucks, but the Defense pitched a shutout in the second half, if we’d only gotten that 2 point conversion!!!’

Week 4: ‘Finally a team more dysfunctional than us, Broncos Country, let’s ride hahaha!!!’

Week 5: There’s the Carr to Davante connection we’ve been waiting for all year, what a bomb!!! WAIT WHY ARE WE GOING FOR TWO WITH FOUR AND A HALF MINUTES LEFT AGAINST MAHOMES, WHAT IS MCDANIELS THINKING???!!!!!

Week 6 (Bye Week): At least we can’t lose this week! Did we fuck up hiring this guy???

Week 7: Phew at least we can still beat the Texans, just win baby, let’s go Raider nation!!!!!!!

Week 8: ‘Alright the Saints are 2-5 and are starting Andy Dalton, we got thi…….24-0?!!!!!! BRO ARE YOU SERIOUS????? WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?!!!!!!’

Immediate Outlook: To say it hasn’t been pretty would be a hilarious understatement. That shutout loss to the Saints (their first since Carr’s rookie year in 2014) had to have hurt more than a punch from Tyson and it was fair to wonder if Mark Davis had ripped out Josh McDaniels’ tooth in their lengthy post-game meeting following said loss.

The fact of the matter is Raiders Nation is sobering up quickly and the hangover of their wild off-season isn’t going away anytime soon. Vegas is currently dead last in the AFC West with a 1-2 record in the division, their Defense (25th in the league) is playing like they got roofied, giving up 366.7 yards/game, and that famous Carr/Davante connection has hardly been coming up 7-7-7.

Upcoming Schedule: Their next 5 games include a road-trip to Jacksonville, home for the Colts, followed by back-to-back road tilts against Russell Wilson and the suddenly resurgent team that dumped him, before a homecoming date with the Chargers who dealt them a loss in the season opener. That’s not exactly a Royal Flush they’re going against, but everyone is starting to ask if Mark Davis went all in on a bad hand with Josh McDaniels and every team is prepared to call the Raiders’ bluff at this point.

Playoff Hopes: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, which is especially true for the 2022 Raiders as Patrick Mahomes continues to be the Bouncer keeping them out of the Division Champions club like that one guy who’s had entirely too much.

Short of slipping the Refs some Benjamins, at this point, Vegas is going to have to sneak in through the Wild Card if they hope to play deep into January. Three of their upcoming opponents are ahead of them in the Wild Card race in the Colts, Broncos, and the current 7th seed Chargers. If this team hopes to get past the velvet ropes of the regular season, there is no room for error, they have to win every one of those games. As it stands the Raiders currently have a 14% chance to make the playoffs which, optimistically, is slightly better than the odds of hitting a straight.

Ability to Turn Things Around: Teams that start 0-3 (as these Raiders did) have about a 3% chance of making the playoffs. That being said, the Raiders do have a couple things working in their favor. Their remaining strength of schedule ranks near the bottom of the league with their upcoming opponents featuring a combined winning percentage of .461.

Additionally, they still have one matchup left with each team in their division and are within 2 games of every team in front of them for the 7th seed. Make no mistake, the road ahead is dicey. But hey you can’t be a renegade team in Sin City if you aren’t willing to roll the dice right?

Long-Term Outlook: Derek Carr and Davante Adams are tied together for at least the next three years while Mark Davis proclaimed that Josh McDaniels will be the team’s Head Coach ‘for years to come’ despite the turbulent start to his Vegas Residency.

Sometimes what a team needs more than anything, is continuity in order to succeed. Raiders’ fans are undoubtedly hanging their hopes on time and reps under the new regime fixing their 2022 woes. That being said, if these trends continue, Raiders tickets are going to be cheaper than a Vegas Hooker and Mark Davis is going to be late on some of those payments for his shiny new ‘Death Star.’

Verdict:

We’ve all made questionable decisions in our lives and the reckless abandon of Las Vegas certainly doesn’t inspire caution and practicality. Which is why it’s easy to justify Mark Davis hiring Josh McDaniels despite his 11-17 record with the Broncos and the tumultuous history of Belichick’s disciples. You don’t move a franchise with the reputation of the Raiders to Sin City to make a series of conservative moves aimed at long-term sustained success.

You do it to bet your left nut and everything you own on one fucking hand for a shot at glory! That being said, sometimes even when the Pocket looks good, you get Rivered and your shot at glory turns into….shots. The Raiders had arguably the most exciting offseason in the league and maybe brighter days are ahead. But unless the genius McDaniels is trapped on a hotel roof somewhere (keep an eye out for stray mattresses Raiders’ fans) the 2022 Raiders are as fucked as a guy waking up with a tiger in his bathroom after a long night out. But hey as a wise man once said, ‘We all do dumb shit when we’re fucked up.’

[bowljet]

I love coming to Austin — It’s a charming city with perhaps the most gracious fans in the country.  This was my second time attending a game at the University of Texas, my first was back in 2014 when the Longhorns hosted BYU.   They say everything is bigger in Texas, and the first thing you think as you approach Darrell K. Royal Stadium is just how big it is.   It’s one of  the biggest stadiums in the country, seating over 100,000 fans.  The gameday experience is fan-friendly with all kinds of interactive things for fans of all ages, and the tailgating scene is vibrant around the stadium and into Downtown Austin.  With No.13 West Virginia in town to face the No.17 Longhorns, I expected a good game.  I told a friend I was with that I expected a shootout and that the last team with the ball would win.  That’s exactly what we got!

Gameday in Austin

TEXAS FOOTBALL BEGINS

The University of Texas fielded its first permanent football team in 1893 managed by Albert Lefevra, the secretary-treasurer of the UT Athletic Association.  The team played four games, two in the fall and two more in the spring, winning all four while shutting out every opponent.  The first was played at the Dallas Fair Grounds against the Dallas Football Club that claimed to be the best in the state.  The game attracted a then-record 1,200 onlookers.

Texas officially hired its first coach, R.D. Wentworth for a salary of $325 plus expenses.  Wentworth’s teams shut out their first six opponents, outscoring them 191–0 before losing their last game of the year to Missouri 28–0.  There were a number of firsts in Wentworth’s one season as head coach at Texas.  The first ever meeting against Texas A&M, which resulted in a 38–0 shutout victory for Texas and the first ever meeting against Arkansas, which was a 54–0 Texas victory, setting the stage for long rivalries with the Aggies and the Razorbacks.

LEGENDARY COACHES

The Longhorns have had a rich tradition of coaches that have strolled the sidelines. Clyde Littlefield was the first to play for and coach the Longhorns.  He was head coach from 1927-36 and led the Longhorns to a 44-18-6 record during his tenure that included two Southwest Conference Championships.  During the Great Depression, Dana X. Bible was hired to be the coach and athletics director.  Bible previously had tremendous success at Nebraska and Texas A&M.  It was a bold move by the university and a decision that would lay the foundation for Texas Football.   In 1937, the Bible era debuted with a 25–12 victory over Texas Tech in Austin.  Texas would only win one more game in Bible’s first year, a stunning 9-6 defensive battle over 4th-ranked Baylor.  The 1938 season would not be any better as the Longhorns only victory of the season was in the final game of the season, a 7-6 win over Texas A&M in Austin.  Fans grew anxious, wanting Texas to dominate the college football scene.

Earl Campbell

Bible proved to be an outstanding recruiter as he brought several outstanding players to campus.   After two rough seasons where Texas won a total of three games, Bible successfully transformed Texas into a national powerhouse.  It began with the 1939 season, as Texas opened with a shutout win over Florida 12–0, followed by a 17-7 victory at Wisconsin.  Then the turning point came in October 1939 when Texas was playing Arkansas in Austin.  Down 13–7 with under 30 seconds to play, and fans heading for the exits, Longhorns Fullback R.B. Patrick flipped a short pass to Halfback Jack Crain who ran 67 yards untouched, to tie the game at 13.  Those same fans that were leaving the stadium came pouring back in and onto the field.  After the field was cleared, Crain booted the extra point and Texas defeated Arkansas 14–13.  This game became known as the “Renaissance Game” of the Dana X. Bible era.   The 1939 season was pivotal in providing momentum for the following decade as Texas would again become one of the most successful teams throughout the 1940’s.  National Championship talks began as Texas compiled their first All-American’s with Malcolm Kutner, Jack Crain, and Noble Doss.  Bible finished his coaching career with a 63-31-3 record, with three Southwest Conference titles.  He would later hire Darrell Royal to serve as head coach.   Darrell K. Royal, a native Oklahoman, coached at Mississippi State and Washington before being hired in 1957.   Royal would return the Texas football program to national prominence, winning Southwest Conference titles six years in a row, and making six straight Cotton Bowl appearances.  During his 20-years at Texas, the Longhorns never had a losing season.  He led the Longhorns to three National Championships, 11 Southwest Conference titles, 16 bowl games, and nine Top-5 poll rankings.  They would have streaks that included 30 straight victories, and 42 consecutive home wins, a run that lasted 1968–1976.  He retired as the most successful coach at the University of Texas, with a record of 167–47–5.   In 1998, Mack Brown was hired away from North Carolina and he quickly became a fan favorite. Brown had a tremendous career in Austin, as he led the team to a 158-48 record.  Under his direction, the Longhorns won two Big 12 Conference Championships, a BCS National Championship, and held a 3-1 record in BCS games.  He finished his career at Texas second in wins only to Royal.

Hook ‘Em Horns

FUN FACTS ABOUT TEXAS FOOTBALL

Texas has a lifetime record of 909-370-33  and a .703 winning percentage.

The Longhorns have won 32 Conference Championships.

Texas is the only football program that posted at least 10 wins every year from 2001–2009 seasons.

Texas ranks first in the Big 12 Conference for bowl game appearances and victories.

Texas holds the Big 12 Conference record for consecutive conference victories with 21 from 2004–2006.

Texas won the most Southwest Conference Championships with 27.   Texas won a record six straight Southwest Conference Championships from 1968–1973.

Texas ranks sixth among NCAA teams with 32 total conference championships.

The Longhorns were the first college team to implement the famous Wing-T and Wishbone offenses.

Texas has had 108 winning seasons out of 119 total seasons of football.

The Longhorns have had nine undefeated seasons, and 26 seasons they finished with only one loss and/or tie.

The Longhorns have had two Heisman Trophy winners, Running Backs Earl Campbell in 1977 and Ricky Williams in 1998.

Seventeen Texas players are in the College Football Hall of Fame, and four are in the NFL Hall of Fame.

Family photos with Bevo

BEVO

Tradition is rich here! I was absolutely blown away with the pre-game and in game fun! Bevo, a Texas longhorn steer, is one of most famous mascots in the country.  He first appeared during a 1916 Thanksgiving Day game against Texas A&M.  The first Bevo was actually named Bo but came to be called Bevo, after the campus magazine referred to him as Bevo.  The school did not have the money to take care of Bevo and he was not tame enough to be allowed to roam the campus.  He would be fattened up, and served at the football banquet in 1920.   There have been a total of 14 Bevo’s.   Bevo XIV has served since the 2004 season.  Over the years, there have been several great Bevo stories.  Bevo II charged a SMU cheerleader, who defended himself with his megaphone.  Bevo III escaped from his enclosure and ran amok on the campus for 2 days.  Bevo IV attacked a parked car, and Bevo V broke free and caused the Baylor band to scatter.

Big Bertha

THE BAND AND TRADITIONS

The Longhorn Band has two songs that capture the crowd. “Texas Fight” is the official fight song of the university, and it is sung to a fast tempo version of “Taps.” The schools alma-matter is “The Eyes of Texas,” sung to the tune of “I’ve been Working on the Railroad.”

Hook ‘Em Horns – the school hand signal, was introduced at a pep rally in 1955. The hand signal is known throughout the entire country and Sports Illustrated featured the Hook ‘Em Horns gesture in front of a Texas pennant on the cover of the September 10, 1973 issue.

Smokey the Cannon, a replica of a Civil War cannon is fired before kickoff and after Texas scores.

The Sweetheart of the Longhorn Band is actually a drum that measures more than 10-feet high.  Big Bertha is considered to be the world’s largest drum (actually second largest) and it is played at halftime and after Texas touchdowns.

Lighting the Tower (also known as the Main Building) in orange for various types of sporting victories. After National Championship victories, windows are lighted in the main building to display a large number 1.

RIVALRIES

West Virginia fans captured a classic

OKLAHOMA  – The “Red River Rivalry” with Oklahoma is one of the oldest and best known college football rivalries. The rivalry originated in 1900, and the schools play at a neutral site, the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, during the Texas State Fair.   The stadium is split, with each team having an equal number of supporters on each side of the 50-yard line. Texas state flags fly around the Longhorn end of the stadium and Oklahoma state flags on the Sooner side.    The meeting in 1976 was a heated affair as the Oklahoma staff was accused of spying on Texas’ practices, a move later confirmed by former OU head coach Barry Switzer.  Texas leads the all-time series 62–46–5.

ARKANSAS – These two schools are old Southwest Conference combatants first meeting in 1894.   The Longhorns blew out the Razorbacks 54-0 that first game.  Since then, the two programs have met 77 more times, with Texas holding a decisive 56–22–0 advantage.  The seriest have featured many big games, including the meeting in 1969 known as the true Game of the Century commemorating the 100th year of college football,  This game still does not sit well with Razorback fans to this day.   Arkansas lead the game throughout only to have Texas come from behind and win in the final minutes, 15–14, which led to the Longhorns 1969 National Championship.    The game was attended by President Richard Nixon who crowned the Longhorns the National Champion in the locker room.

TEXAS A&M – The Longhorns won the very first game against the Aggies back in 1894, a 38-0 victory, and actually won the first seven games in this series, all by shutout!   The Aggies decision to join the Southeastern Conference in 2012 effectively ended the 118-year rivalry, with   Texas leading the series 76–37–5.

Thrilling finish

OUR GAME

West Virginia’s Will Grier hit Gary Jennings with a 33-yard scoring pass with 16 seconds left and then ran for a two-point conversion to lead the Mountaineers over the Longhorns 42-41.  Grier’s heroics came just two minutes after Sam Ehlinger had connected with Devin DuVernay on a 48-yard pass, breaking a 34-34 tie.   There were nine lead changes in a game that featured 1,098 total yards and 56 first downs.   It was the best game I have seen this year.

Ready for football!

Fans from all over

Willie Nelson tribute

Willie Loves Texas

My Gameday experience in Austin . . . Horns Hooked by Mounties I love coming to Austin -- It's a charming city with perhaps the most gracious fans in the country. 

[kikiskeysgame]

Not only were the Blackhawks able to break their three-game losing streak and ended the Dallas Stars' seven-game winning streak, they were able to get their first shutout victory of the season.

The Blackhawks had a pretty good start to their game. In the first period, Brandon Saad scored his 7th goal of the season (and his 100th NHL career goal) with assists by Erik Gustafsson and Alex Nylander, giving the Hawks a 1-0 lead. The Blackhawks continued to maintain their 1-0 lead during the second period and going into the third period.

In the third period, after Alexander Radulov got a penalty for high-sticking, Patrick Kane capitalized on the power play as he scored his 12th goal of the season (with assists by Alex DeBrincat and Andrew Shaw), extending his point streak to 13 games.

As the third period was winding down, the Dallas Stars pulled their goaltender and Connor Murphy made it a 3-0 game as he scored an empty goal and his second goal of the season. I would say that the Blackhawks had a much better start to yesterday's game than they did last Saturday. They looked more lively and they didn't get outshot by the other team early on in the game; in fact, they outshot the Dallas Stars 38 to 32.

Once again, the Hawks' goaltenders came up big and Corey Crawford definitely had a fantastic night as he made some great looking saves, fended off all of the Stars' shots on goal & kept the Stars off the scoreboard. 

It's great to see Crawford and Robin Lehner playing on their "A" game, and when the Hawks have both goaltenders playing like that, the outcomes of their games could look potentially bright for them. It was quite a surprise to hear that Dylan Strome wouldn't playing last night and he has been placed on concussion protocol. When I found out about it, I thought, "This is going to be quite a blow to the Blackhawks' second line" because the second line (which consists of Kane, Strome and DeBrincat) has been playing very well together. I'm not sure how long Strome will be out of the line-up, but I just hope that he feels better. With Strome unable to play last night, Kirby Dach was moved to the second line with Kane and DeBrincat, and Matthew Highmore (who was recalled from the Rockford IceHogs on Monday) got his chance to play in the game even though Coach Colliton originally stated that he would stick to the same line-up & Highmore would be a healthy scratch. I thought that both Dach and Highmore played okay during the game, although I wasn't able to get a good vibe on Highmore yet since it's been quite some time since he's played with the Hawks, but I thought Dach didn't look so bad on the second line and I'm curious to see if Colliton will keep him there until Strome is able to play again. After last night's game, the Blackhawks' next game will take place on Friday afternoon (the day after Thanksgiving) as they play against the Colorado Avalanche for the first time this season. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Blackhawks can build off from their shutout win and get themselves back on track again. Until then, go Blackhawks!

[ieatedthepurpleone]

KILL THAT GOOSE! The humorous historical origin of baseball’s foremost feathered antagonist.

When a goose flew onto the outfield grass during a sixth inning rain delay at Detroit’s Comerica Park last Wednesday, few could have guessed it would prove a harbinger of good fortune for the Tigers—a team slowly finding its own wings a third of the way through the season.

Chased by the grounds crew, the goose struggled to generate the lift necessary to take off (not unlike the rest of the AL Central). When it finally got airborne, it almost immediately careened into a video banner. Falling to the lower deck, it was scooped up by a veterinarian in the crowd who took it to Michigan State’s wildlife ward where it eventually released safely back into the wild.

But the goose had made its presence known.

When play resumed, the Tigers rallied for 5 runs against the Angels to snatch a win—the first in a string of four straight victories, each one ascribable to nothing if not the enigmatic power of newly-christened “Rally Goose,” which had manifested itself once more in the form of a plastic goose decoy players perched in the dugout.

A loss to the Blue Jays on Sunday drew assurances from Tigers players that the Rally Goose is here to stay. A long look back at baseball history, however, and it’s clear the goose has been with us since the very beginning.

Down through the years, a menagerie of goats, cats, monkeys, bees, possums and, most recently, eagles, have infested the margins of baseball lore, but the goose holds a special place of distinction—not as a good luck charm or pesky inter-innings antagonist, but rather as a full-blown agent of anarchy whose fickle reign of terror traces its origins to the dawn of the National League.

Chronicling the inaugural season of his hometown Louisville Grays with a good-natured enthusiasm befitting one who would eventually earn the distinction of being the only writer to play in a game he was also covering, Louisville Courier-Journal baseball reporter John Haldeman frequently invoked the specter a goose that stalked the league, doling out “goose eggs” to teams with reckless abandon.

In fact, if you had to identify a unifying thread that ran through the Courier-Journal’s coverage of the hometown nine, it would be the comings and goings of the infernal goose—wholly a character of Haldeman’s own creation, but one which, by October of that year, had taken on a life of its own.

The goose first ran amock on April 27 when the Chicago White Stockings dropped Louisville 10-0 in a “badly contested game.” Haldeman sought to cover for the young club—and provide a hit of comic relief—by ascribing Louisville’s “wretched” luck to fowl play:

“ O O O O O O O O O ”

“The above goose-eggs were a few days ago presented to Louisville by Chicago,” he wrote in a May 7 recap of league-wide action. “Louisville turned them over to St. Louis to be returned, and yesterday at Grand Avenue Park, they were handed back to the Garden City boys [Chicago] by the Brown Stockings, about 2,000 spectators evincing their appreciation of the act by loud and continued applause.”

“If anyone is anxious to ponder over the uncertainty of base-ball,” Haldeman went on to note, “let him take into consideration the fact that Chicago whitewashed Louisville, Louisville treated St. Louis in the same way, and St. Louis in turn goose-egged Chicago.”

Indeed, in baseball, any outcome was possible on a given day, but Louisville would soon learn St. Louis had goose eggs to spare.

On May 9, following a 5-0 whitewashing at St. Louis that saw Louisville’s record drop to 2-5, Haldeman again deployed humor to express his mounting dissatisfaction with the club’s lack of offense, this time in gastronomic terms: “As an article of diet, we must candidly confess that ‘goose-eggs’ are not at all to our liking, but, if they are forced down us, all that we can do is to make a wry face and grin and bear it just as pleasantly as possible.”

The very next game, however, Louisville once more succeeded in “incubating a symmetrical series of ciphers on the grounds of the Browns.” Haldeman ran the headline: “KILL THAT GOOSE!” while speculating, “the principality of ‘goose-eggdom’ must be situated somewhere in the neighborhood of St. Louis.”

Even at that early stage of the ‘76 season, Haldeman’s assessment was not far from the mark. Over the season’s course, St. Louis’ George Bradley would prove a master at coaxing eggs from the goose and foisting them on opponents, tossing a league-leading 16 shutouts, including the league’s first no-hitter on July 15. (Louisville’s own Jim Devlin barely missed being the first to throw a no-no months earlier, taking a no-hit bid into the eighth against the Athletics at Philadelphia on May 23.)

On the back of a goose-addled 1.23 ERA, the 23-year-old Bradley would lead the Browns to 45 wins against 19 losses—good for third place in the eight-team league.

Louisville departed St. Louis for Chicago early the morning of May 12 with no runs to show for their visit and a day later fell to the White Stockings 4-2. In spite of the loss, the Courier-Journal triumphantly declared, “THAT GOOSE COOKED.”

A second loss in Chicago would drop Louisville’s record to a disappointing 2-8, but even though the Grays had failed to cover themselves in glory on what amounted to a 1-5 road trip, Haldeman relished in reporting that the goose had stayed in the vicinity of St. Louis.

He related “a very amusing incident” that took place in the game between the Browns and Cincinnati on Saturday, May 13:

“A goose, which had been feeding in a remote corner of the park, strayed down and stood so close to Snyder, of the Cincinnatis, at left field, as to incommode him. The umpire accordingly called time and Snyder, without outstretched arms, proceeded to run the goose off the field, while the crowd was convulsed with laughter.”

“Now, it happened that this was the very goose that has been laying all the eggs which clubs have been treated to here, but of course Snyder didn't know anything about it. If he had killed the goose and stopped the supply of eggs, the game would have terminated differently.”

“That goose,” Haldeman added, “has layed thirty-six eggs in eight days, and she hasn't got through yet.”

Indeed, the goose was only getting going.

The Grays steered well clear of further encounters until May 27 when the Athletics handed them a 9-0 result at Philadelphia and the Courier-Journal reported, “Louisville Succeeds in Capturing a Handsome Goose.” A month later, “THAT FESTIVE GOOSE” was at it again, with Louisville “securing nine eggs” to Hartford’s eight; Hartford breaking the eggy deadlock in the ninth, “pasting” Louisville’s Jim Devlin “quite merrily” for three runs on four hits while Haldeman reported the Grays failed to “paste” Hartford ace Tommy Bond “worth a cent.”

“Let us have many more such exhibitions as we were treated to yesterday,” he wrote in his recap of the game. “With one run on our side, we will not complain. We don’t like goose-eggs.” The same day, the Athletics “took a nest” from St. Louis, all thanks to generous throwing hand of George Bradley.

By September, Louisville had managed to pick up their play somewhat (in their better moments, Haldeman styled them the “Bluegrass Giants”), but still found the goose difficult to wrangle.

“This time, the Louisvilles are the distributors of the fruit of the goose,” Haldeman crowed after the club blanked the Athletics 3-0 at Philadelphia on September 15. “The boys, who won’t be able to fulfill their engagements by coming out West and finishing their series of games were given, as parting gifts, nine ovals of pearly whiteness.” The Athletics would later be expelled from the NL for failing to uphold their end of the schedule.

Even with the aid of stellar pitching and hitting from Jim “Terror” Devlin, who logged 622 IP with a 1.56 ERA and, though wracked by injuries, batted a team-leading .315, Louisville never got clear of the specter of the goose, which followed them all the way to season’s end.

Hosting Hartford on back-to-back days to close the season at home in early October, the Grays dropped the first game 6-0, prompting Haldeman to opine, “That goose still hovers near us. An old friend—that everlasting goose.”

With their last game looming on the chilly afternoon of October 5, Haldeman advised, “the Louisville boys better kill her to-day,” offering the home nine the sort of acerbic advice that could only be expected to drip from the pen of a reporter weary from covering a middling team whose offensive foibles he knew all too well: “If the Louisville boys besmear themselves with snake oil this morning it may neutralize the effects of any goose that may be prowling around on the grounds this afternoon.”

Haldeman then added: “No matter how the game may turn out today, Louisville will take first place on the number of goose-eggs received.”

Later that day, before a small crowd and “a trio of half-frozen scorers,” the Hartford club succeeded in turning the goose loose on Louisville through five innings before rookie catcher Bill Holbert stepped to the plate with two outs in the sixth, “resolved to crack that goose in the eye.”

Holbert laced a hard grounder down the left field line and, with a throwing error on the play, “barely succeeded” in scampering to third. “The goose was now in dying condition,” Haldeman reported with equal parts snark and satisfaction.

Next up, the Grays’ aptly-named first baseman “Move Up” Joe Gerhardt sent a “ground-hit past second, which brought Holbert home, and simultaneously with the stroke, her gooseship fell flat on her back, two feet flew up in the air, they gradually stiffened out, and for the first time this season her heart ceased to vibrate, and she was really dead.”

Like the greatest of mythological monsters, Haldeman’s goose left a looming legacy: “Seven or eight wee goslings mourn their mother’s untimely end and swear vengeance, but they will not be able to accomplish much until they attain their full growth, which will not occur until next spring.”

Colorful reportage aside, Haldeman was on to something despite little to no historical precedent and only the most rudimentary of data sets. A “goose” really did stalk the NL in 1876 in the form of an outsize number of shutouts. A century and a half of baseball bears Haldeman out.

The NL’s 1876 campaign is tied for 13th all-time in total shutouts by team at 9% total games. Thirteen of the top 16 years coincide with the Dead Ball Era, c.1900-1919, while 1968’s “Year of the Pitcher” and 1972 are the only other outliers (1972 holds the record for most shutouts in single day with eight recorded on June 4). The only other 19th century campaigns that come close are 1880 and 1881 at 8% team shutouts (2018 is right behind them at 7% of games).

Flash forward to the present. Detroit might have temporarily harnessed the power of the Rally Goose, but all thirty teams have been playing in the goose’s shadow this season. And it could be worse than we think.

As Sarah Langs of ESPN Stats and Info points out, there have already been 25 no-hit bids through six innings this season (compare that to 24 over the whole of 2017), and last Friday witnessed five teams throw combined shutouts—the most on any day this season.

Commissioner Manfred might want to take notice. That everlasting goose is up to its old tricks.

Matthew Leib is a Seattle-based writer currently working on a historical novel about the 1876-77 Louisville Grays and the founding of the National League. A lifelong Mariners fan, he tweets about the team at @Safeco330.

[rosssiler]

The Home-Away-From-Home Team

If you told me when I went to spring training in February 2020 that I would be watching a seven-inning doubleheader in Buffalo, N.Y., featuring the Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays in July 2021 … well, I certainly would have had some questions.

Now? It all makes sense after COVID-19 wreaked havoc on the world and Major League Baseball, reducing the 2020 season to just 60 games.  But 17 months ago?  I would not have believed that Buffalo would soon be hosting MLB games.

After all, in the last century, Buffalo’s greatest claim to baseball fame was as the location where “The Natural” was filmed at old War Memorial Stadium, with sparks raining down on Roy Hobbs as he circled the bases after his immortal home run.

Otherwise, Buffalo was last home to a Federal League team in 1914 and 1915.  And before that, the Buffalo Bisons (featuring Hall of Famers Pud Galvin, Dan Brouthers, and Deacon White) played in the National League between 1879 and 1885.

That’s why this year’s baseball trip had to be to Buffalo.  What better represents the last two years of pandemic baseball than seeing the exiled Blue Jays playing home games at Triple A Sahlen Field—less than five miles from Canada, yet so far from returning?

I followed the back and forth for weeks over the Blue Jays’ request to the Canadian government to return to Toronto.  The Blue Jays played their last 26 games of the 2020 season in Buffalo with the border closed and then opened the 2021 season at their spring training home in Dunedin, Fla.

They returned to Buffalo for a series against the Miami Marlins beginning June 1, 2021.  Unlike in 2020, local fans were able to attend this season’s games at Sahlen Field.

Finally, on July 16, the Blue Jays received permission to return to Rogers Centre for a 10-game homestand beginning in two weeks on July 30.  That left six games to say goodbye to Buffalo.  And I was determined to make it before the Blue Jays left.

I booked the trip at the last minute—a flight from Seattle to Pittsburgh, then a 3��-hour drive to Buffalo.  After their July 17 game was rained out, the Blue Jays played a seven-inning Sunday afternoon doubleheader against the Rangers on July 18.

The Blue Jays clobbered Texas by a combined score of 15-0 over the two games—5-0 in Game 1 as Hyun Jin Ryu pitched a shutout and 10-0 in Game 2 as Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hit a grand slam for one of Toronto’s (Buffalo’s?) four homers off Mike Foltynewicz.

Even with the blowouts, it was one of my favorite baseball experiences ever. To watch a big league game (two of them) in a city that hasn’t had a team in 106 years was wonderful.  And a major-league game played in a Triple A park felt like seeing a big-name band play a club show.

The amount of work that went into hosting 49 games over two seasons in Buffalo was easily apparent.  Whether it was the Blue Jays, MLB, or the Triple A Buffalo Bisons, millions of dollars were clearly spent.

The Bisons (a Blue Jays affiliate) relocated to Trenton, N.J., so Toronto could move in.  The Blue Jays plastered Sahlen Field with “Home of the Blue Jays” signage—from the stadium gates to the signs along the concourse (which directed fans to the very Canadian “washrooms”).

They constructed an entire visiting team clubhouse and other facilities in temporary tents in center field.  They also renovated the home clubhouse and turned the Triple A visiting clubhouse into Blue Jays’ coaches’ offices.

The Blue Jays also replaced all of the stadium lights and brought the field up to major league standard.  You don’t think about the drainage necessary for a major league stadium until it rains 3 inches in a day (which led to the doubleheader).

For what it’s worth, the seven-inning doubleheader, intended to reduce time at the ballpark for teams amid COVID-19, created a game with minimal rhythm.  It seemed like everyone double-checked to make sure the game was really over after the last out.

The first game took just 1 hour 48 minutes, while the second game was three minutes longer.  And for the record, they sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as part of a fifth-inning stretch during the seven-inning doubleheader.

As for the park, Sahlen Field opened in 1988 and preceded even Camden Yards in the trend of retro downtown stadiums.  Originally named Pilot Field, the stadium was built in the hopes of Buffalo landing an MLB expansion team, which went to Florida and Colorado in 1993.

The park is starting to show its age after 33 years—it is not comparable to the Triple A stadium built in Reno, Nev., that opened in 2009--but it felt like the Blue Jays’ home with all of the signage and upgrades, as opposed to just temporary housing.

The doubleheader drew 12,335, the largest crowd of the season to date in Buffalo, which was eclipsed the very next night when the Blue Jays hosted the opener of their last three-game series at Sahlen Field against the Red Sox.

There were long lines to get into the Blue Jays’ temporary team store—the Bisons’ store was nowhere near large enough—and the concourse was jammed between games of the doubleheader.

For the record, the Blue Jays averaged 7,733 fans for their 22 home dates in Buffalo for the 2021 season, better than three major-league teams (Tampa Bay, Oakland, and Miami). 

If you tuned in on TV, you would have thought the game was played in Canada. The advertisements on the outfield wall and behind home plate were distinctly Canadian (Pizza Nova?  Home Hardware?  MNP?  Sobeys?) and looked like Rogers Centre.

They played both the Canadian and U.S. anthems before first pitch.  I had a Labatt Blue Light, though I think that’s a staple at Sahlen Field even without the Blue Jays.  Beyond left field was a sign for I-190 North heading to the Peace Bridge and Niagara Falls.

My one disappointment was how little Buffalo color there was, despite the game being played in the city’s downtown.  After receiving permission from the Canadian government to return, the Blue Jays did put “Thank you Buffalo” signs on the two dugouts.

But there were no advertisements for Buffalo car dealers or banks or personal injury attorneys or any of the staples of ballparks across the country.  Other than the stadium being Sahlen Field—and I enjoyed a Sahlen hot dog during Game 2—it didn’t feel like Buffalo.

There was one exception.  Rangers catcher Jonah Heim grew up in Amherst, N.Y., and became the first Buffalo native to play a major-league game in the city since John Gillespie played for the Buffalo Bisons in the short-lived Players League in October 1890.

Heim singled off Steven Matz in Game 2 and got a huge ovation from the crowd. You wondered how many fans knew Heim (I saw a couple of jerseys and shirts) and how many were just acknowledging the hometown kid.  But it was a true Buffalo baseball moment.

There was also a great fact noted in The Buffalo News:  With the Blue Jays’ temporary relocation, Buffalo became one of just 15 cities to host big-league baseball teams in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.  Who knows what the 2100s will bring for Buffalo baseball?

Ultimately, if the mission was to provide a home away from home for the Blue Jays—with close-to-major-league facilities for the players and a Toronto feel for the television broadcasts—then Buffalo more than delivered.

I was so glad to make it with three days to spare, to watch MLB games in a city that I could not have imagined just two years ago.  

[livescoreblogs]

Blowouts in Youth Football

The majority of us have seen that goofball coach up big, still blitzing every play, starters in, trying to widen his blowout lead. I've seen 30 yard pass plays labeled on the last snap of 50-0 games after a timeout, BY THE TEAM THAT IS LEADING 50-0. My first twelve months of coaching youth football, I was an assistant on an expansion team of 8-10 year olds. Our kids were all rookies and playing our first game resistant to the defending League Champions. As most expected, we didn't have fun with very well and lost 36-0. Late in the fourth district of that game, we did move the ball certain and with less than a minute left in the game, got the baseball to the other teams 10 yard line. Our kids, although affordable 36-0 were very excited about the prospects of reviewing our very first touchdown. Our enthusiasm was crushed however when the opposing team took a timeout and reinserted their 6 best players to preserve the shutout. When time ran out we were still on the 10 landscape line. As our dejected kids were packing on their cars in the parking lot we noticed everyone on the other crew was eating doughnuts. It seemed a little odd because the device was in the afternoon and doughnuts seem like a dinner item. One of the opposing players cars was right adjacent to ours, I asked him "Great game boys, you individuals played real well, what's with the doughnuts? " the guy replied, " Coach gets us doughnuts for every shutout". So this coach reinserted his first teamers so he could get his coveted shutout, and pass out doughnuts, good work coach. Maybe this would be great break-room fodder come Tuesday where he could brag to his co-workers about his / her great defensive coaching skills, he could brag about his particular shutout of an all rookie age 8-10 expansion staff. Maybe he's thinking the Dallas Cowboys might be scouting the youth leagues for good defensive coaches and his shutouts may put him in the running. Great job coach, see you in the NFL. Now before you think I'm some kind of soccer prefer to-be communist, don't. I believe the game should be played towards win, but I'm also a big believer in sportsmanship. We play in a competitive league that has spawned together a Heisman and Outland Trophy winner. Teams within league have gone down to Daytona and won the Top Marker Unlimited Select Division National Championship on numerous occasions. Now i am there for my kids first, but I'm at the same time there for the other teams kids as well. Nothing will have been hurt by keeping his reserves in and helping our kids to score a late and meaningless (meaningful for our kids) touchdown. I didn't hassle that coach as well as say anything, it was our job to prepare our kids, however , he acted like an immature ogre. I never forgot that. In 1999 we were playing the Gladiators in the next to last game of the season. We were undefeated they usually had not won a game. In fact they had not even scored a new touchdown and had lost some real lopsided games, 60-0, 52-0 etc etc . The last game of the season for those Gladiators was the second place team that was showing certainly no mercy to anyone. So the Gladiators and their parents had been fully expecting they would go through the entire season without getting runs a touchdown. This 7m.live football team was minuscule and very slow but they kept showing up. The Gladiators are fantastic people and they have a very nice lighted field that we have been going to play on in an unusual Thursday night game, then simply we had our last league game on Sunday. People put all of our second teamers in as starters for doing it game and even brought up a few younger players from a further of my teams to play and sat our starters. We didn't want to tell our kids not to play, so we experienced our backups, younger kids and kids out of position. Keep in mind all that and calling plays we hoped wouldn't fit nicely, we were up 18-0. All week we had worked on our "Special Play", it was a set play we used when we were being on defense where we did not wrap up the ballcarrier and seemed to just miss him on lots of snorkeling tackles. We looked very good doing it, no one but individuals had any clue we were not tackling on purpose about play. Late in the 3rd quarter we signaled with "Special Play", the Gladiator ballacarrier went around terminate for a 70 yard TD run. Their team, and their sidelines went crazy, you would have thought they had basically scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl! I'm just talking parents jumping, hugging, crying, I kid you not. We were so believable in fact that they tried an hit a brick wall onsides kick on the ensuing kickoff. The final score was initially 18-6, they got their score, we got our a backup and some young kids some playing time, lots of different kids got to keep the ball and our kids learned a lesson around compassion and humility. Three days later our rested starters went out and played the best game of their season with the third place team. After the Gladiator game, their motor coach buses were very appreciative. They even did us a major favor the next year, our home field was overly muddy to play so they opened their park up with most of their people working the clock and concessions just so 2 of my teams could get our games in. Most of their field is very nice and they let us tear it up the, so our kids could play, that's cooperation. The Single Side Offense is a very prolific scoring offense. My youth baseball teams consistently average in the high 30's-40 points each and every game and in most seasons it could easily be 50-60, but I'm not a believer in humiliating little young people. Last season we scored 3 touchdowns in the FIRST OF ALL QUARTER of 9 games. Many youth football motor coachs that use my system aren't used to scoring lots of areas, so you need to prepare a plan for when you do. We sub premature and often and when up by 3-4 touchdowns in most cases warning to the other team we are calling off the dogs by taking your timeout and setting up our backups in the offense or simply defense. We will however always let the first team engage in the first possession of the 3rd quarter to get a few football runs in. Other proven methods to let up on the other workforce include playing players out of position, letting non bowling ball carriers carry the ball, stop blitzing, run the very ball inside, play with 10 or 9 on defensive or go to a running clock. If we are up great I always tell the white hat at halftime to assure and let any contested balls go to the opposition. We hardly ever want to go over 50 points and in most cases try and keep it under 40, so I will even ask him to pitch a phantom flag to insure that doesn't happen. When i explain to our parents why we do this before the months starts to set expectations. We also use the "Special Play" to try and avoid shutouts. Our parents call our kids "Little Academy Award Winners", they act it out so well, not everybody but us is the wiser. If you have our 2006 Game DVD you will see us play great defense and handle well right up until that 4th quarter when all of a sudden the other one team reels off a long TD run where 3 of our kids seemingly miss the "tackle". Who cares, the video game ends 36-6 instead of 36-0. That's why our scores all types of end with a 6, 38-6, 40-6, 38-6 etc .

[mrtroy]

The Scores Have Changed, My Childhood Is Over, and I Think I Might Understand How Other People Look At Sports

Originally from December 5th, 2010

To say that the last twenty plus years of my life have been completely and  hopelessly consumed by sports may be the grossest understatement I have ever put into print, yet until just recently, I don't think I had a grasp on what a more "normal" sports following could be like. I'm still not sure I am willing to accept this concept of "social sports fan-dom" as I'll call it, but it might be worth a prolonged look.

Let me explain.

I suppose that to best understand where I'm at now, it might be best to understand where I am coming from. I think I need to blame my mom for setting me off on this crazed obsession, or maybe the blame should go the  Oakland A's for the utterly disappointing display they put on in the 1990 World Series. As I had really started to get into baseball in the Summer of '90, Mom had the great idea of taping the World Series. While other 5 year-olds were perfectly content watching Mr. Rogers zip up his cardigan every morning, Mom knew that if she was lucky a good World Series could provide my baseball fiending mind with seven games of pure VHS-driven bliss. At roughly 3 hours a game, played back ten times each, Mom would have 200 hours of fodder to answer the question, "Mom, when are they going to start playing new games again."

And then, Jose Rijo, Barry Larkin, Chris Sabo and the Don't Stand A Chance Reds had to ruin everything. It wasn't so much the fact that they won the series as it was that they did it in such decisive fashion that added insult to injury. Four games, and it was over. The minimum. The very least. And worse, Game 1 was a 7-0 blanking, and Game 3 was a convincing 8-3 rout in which the Reds put up 7 in the third, and the rest of the game was a mere formality. Translation: My to-be friends of 18 years later,  Nathan Clinkenbeard, and Nate Kohrs, rejoiced as their Reds won it all, but more relevant to the situation at the time, I was left without much good winter baseball to tide me over until April.

I watched the tape, and all I wanted to do was to be able to break a bat on my back the way I had seen Reds journeymen outfielder Glenn Braggs do it. I emulated the overly pronounced batting crouch of Rickey Henderson, and began to wonder how Harold Baines could hit a ball so far, despite never looking like he was even swinging hard enough to hit the ball as far as I did in T-Ball.

In '91 things worsened. For some reason I got the Pittsburgh Pirates lineup in my head, and every day in the back yard I would  throw the ball up to myself, hit the ball, run around imaginary bases, take a break to become an imaginary outfielder to retrieve the ball, and then switch back to being the base runner to continue running. Every day, it was Cubs and Pirates. I can remember getting mad at myself, and actually sitting down and pouting for extended periods of time because when it came time for Sid Bream's at-bat I ran too fast. Sid was a notoriously slow runner in real life, and I wanted to maintain a certain level of realism in my one-man re-enactments. Apparently in my excitement  I had forgotten who I was supposed to be impersonating, and run too fast. In my six-year old world, this was enough to ruin my day.

The Fall came, and with it a Fall Classic for the ages. Why Mom didn't tape this one, I'll never know. Although, if she had, I may still be watching it. The Braves and Twins treated me to seven games of pure ecstasy. Although, all I cared about was the sweet headstand that Greg Olsen went into after a collision at the plate. Sports Illustrated put Olsen on the cover, and I spent all winter trying to duplicate the feat in my basement. Here's a look at the photo; it's a miracle I didn't break my neck. ( http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/featured/9301/index.htm )

It was also in '91 that I first realized there were other sports other than baseball, as the Bulls were on their way to capturing their first title. I don't remember much of the season, other than laying on the floor with a basketball in my hand trying to mimic the Michael Jordan poster in my room.

History seemed to repeat itself over the next few years. The Bulls won another title and the Braves were in the World Series again in '92. I was incredulous to the fact that Otis Nixon would try and bunt his way on while representing the Atlanta's last shot to extend the series. I was mad about that until about March of '93 until  Mom and Dad packed my brother and I into a conversion van and we set our sites on Mesa, Arizona for Cubs spring training. We ran into Cubs' pitcher Mike Morgan in the parking lot, he gave my mom his hat, and sent me into a swoon of idol-worshiping that would last even longer than Morgan managed to bounce around the big leagues.

**Side Tangent** I remember being in a bar in the Phoenix area eating dinner, and everyone was going crazy about the Phoenix Suns as they were on their way to meeting the Bulls in the Finals. And yet, all I cared about was that Steve

Buechele, Cubs third baseman was sitting a few tables away. I remember my French fries getting cold because I was too mesmerized to eat.  

Later in '93 the Toronto  Blue Jays won another World Series, and I began to understand for the first time what it was like to feel compassion. Mitch Williams gave up the famous home run to Joe Carter that sent  Canada into a a frenzy, and while everyone was celebrating, all I could think about was how mad people were going to be at Mitch Williams for blowing it.

1994, my life almost came to a screeching halt. The day before I turned 9, the Major League Baseball Players strike started, and eventually culminated with the cancellation of the World Series. You may as well have cancelled my birthday, Christmas, New Years, Easter and any other meaningful holiday. We're talking total devastation.

Luckily in '95 baseball came back with a new playoff system, and I had spent the entire off season reading. It was about this time in school that we had to do free reading every day, and we had to write about it. Our school library had a seven or eight book series highlighting the different aspects of baseball that someone could be good at. The books were entitled, "Speed," "Power," "Pitching" etc. I read these books over and over. They were large format books that I think I would consider to be rotating coffee table material if I came across them today. Little matter, I read them cover to cover, and they had these charts that listed the all-time leaders in many of baseball's statistical categories. After a while, I'd just read the charts. Time, and time again. For some reason, knowing who was the best at certain things excited me. Even if this person had been dead for 60 years. The pages came alive in my mind, and even though I had never seen Ty Cobb play, never known anyone who had, or had any rooting interest for his team, the Detroit Tigers, I was fascinated by what  the numerical data next to his name could teach me about him. I would later go on to read that Tyrus Raymond Cobb (I developed a penchant for knowing players full names) was not so much of a good guy, but actually was a mean spirited bigot. It was at this time that I remember being glad that many of his most hallowed records had been broken.

Around this time I also discovered that each morning the glorious, glorious sports editors at The Chicago Tribune published box scores for all the major sports action from the night before. It was an unbelievable development. Now I had happened upon a way to read new and evolving history, every morning. League leaders in all the statistical categories, short recaps of what had happened, and overall numbers galore; every day was better than the last. Ken Griffey Jr. was tearing up the American League with home runs on what seemed to be a daily basis. On the other side of the page in the paper, Greg Maddux was shutting down the National League, and further cementing himself as the best pitcher of his generation, (in my mind at least) and elevating himself to Greek God-like status in the mind of my father.

It was at this time that the foundation for my current sports revelation first planted its seeds. Although, I didn't know it at the time. I was too busy counting home runs to realize what was going on, but inside there was also this great love of Maddux developing as well. This really had nothing to do with Maddux himself, as he had moved on from the Cubs to the Braves a few years earlier, and I could no longer watch him on a day to day basis. This had all to do with Pops. Seeing my father get such enjoyment out of simply reading that Maddux shutout another opponent was very cool to me. And, as is the case with many father-son duos, I loved Maddux because Pops loved Maddux.

These trends continued. I read as much baseball statistical data as I could get my hands on, and I looked to Pops to find new interests to follow in the paper each morning.

Lots of guys rose to prominence at this time. But it wasn't necessarily the guys that were established that caught my eye. It was the young guys. Despite the fact that Maddux would go on to play for more than twenty years, he was old news by the time I really got into following this sort of thing. He was Pops' guy. Pops didn't much care for the new-age stars like a Ken Griffey Jr., but we could agree on a guy like Chipper Jones, the all-American can't miss kid, or Derek Jeter the emerging star of the Yankees. We weren't fans of their teams, but they were in the post season every year, and it was easy to watch them progress.

Then came the star of stars for Pops and I. Tiger Woods. Pops had been reading up on him for years, and by the time he burst onto the scene in '96, Pops had already drank about six quarts of the Tiger Koolaid. Every week our love grew, with every major championship, it wasn't just that Tiger had won, it was as if Pops and I had won. We won because we had followed him, we had read about him, and along with millions of others, we knew  he was going to be good. And, every time he won, he elevated himself further into this land of unthinkable admiration. Never before had there been an athlete of whom I had come to expect so much from that had actually been able to deliver. Not only had he been able to deliver, but each time he delivered, he seemed to do it in such a way that I couldn't help but just think, man, I love this guy.

Time continued on, and my enthrallment with the games that these men played continued to grow. '96 marked the beginning of the Yankees run of dominance, and with it much reading of Yankee lore. Also I remember teaching Mom how to keep a proper score book for a baseball game. We'd watch the World Series, and while she didn't know Mariano Duncan from Duncan Hines, she came to learn that if there was a ground ball to Mariano at second, she would enter a 4-3 in the score book as soon as he recorded the out at first base.

As the  numerical world inside my head  expanded further, It may not shock you to learn that my abilities on the field experienced an inverse reaction. Once in possession of an above average fastball and an hefty appetite for shagging fly balls, by the  time freshmen year of high school rolled around, my role on the high school baseball team had been reduced to pencil pushing scorekeeper, infield practice facilitator, and blowout mop-up inning specialist. This didn't so much bother me, as I recall an instance where I rushed out of an early season practice so my mom could drop me off at a fantasy baseball draft where I was the youngest guy in the room by about 30 years. (I picked up  Mike Sweeney late in that draft, and was smiling cheek to cheek all season as he hit well over .300) My uncle Tony was nice enough to let me tag along in his fantasy league for years, and I remember the best day of the week being when the old stat packets would show up in the mail, and I'd spend all afternoon breaking down what the other team owners were doing, and what we could do to improve on our perpetual 7th place standing. This was before all of the fantasy sports had moved to the Internet, and while I have come to appreciate the ease in which I can stay connected to fantasy sports nowadays, there was something magical about tearing open that envelope to find out that we'd moved up a half a point, and were now only a point and a half out of 6th place!!

Eventually the Internet won out for statistical tracking, and while I was sad, this transition gave me access to entire portals of data that were completely dedicated to my passions. Living with my buddy Ed Liss my freshmen year of college, he must have thought I owned a partial stake in www.basketball-reference.com. While I wasn't much of an NBA fan at this point, the historical standings, all-time leader boards, and player searching capabilities kept me occupied for hours on end. In fact, my choice of the University of Illinois to go to college in the first place was a choice that I made in large part due to the Big Ten sporting atmosphere that I knew I'd experience while I was there.

Jeff Renfro and I lived and died along with every play of the Illini's historic run to the Final Four in 2004-05, and  I'll never forget going to games in the years following with Melissa Colgan, Suzan Balch, Gregg Conn, and countless others. I wore my Luther Head # 4 shirt to every game, and for something like 41 times in a row, if I wore the shirt, the team didn't lose. It was unbelievable.

In 2008, the Illini football team made a rare appearance in the Rose Bowl, and took on the heavily favored Trojans of USC. The family made the trek out to Pasadena for the game, only to watch our team get  thoroughly trounced. Walking out of the stadium, if I would have had a tail, it would have been tightly tucked away between my legs as if I were a puppy who had just ruined a garden full of freshly planted petunias. The Illini had been humiliated, and so too had I.

I'm not sure if my transformation really started because the teams I rooted for never won, or if it was just gaining a new perspective that can only come with growing up, but I started to realize, maybe the keys to the games didn't so much lie in the encrypted world of statistics.

Time passed and one by one, the sports heroes of my childhood faded away. Maddux retired after the '08 season, and watching Ken Griffey Jr. limp through his final days in Seattle early in the 2010 season really put the nail in the coffin of my childhood. Sure, I was 25 years old at this point, and far from actually being a child, but here was the guy whose jersey I had, baseball cleats I had, video games I played, baseball cards I collected, and the guy who I had simply first known as "The Kid." And here he was, 40 years old and unable to keep his legs healthy enough to play every day. I may not have been a kid anymore, but Ken Griffey Jr. was my childhood.

And so I thought, "This is what it was like for Yankee fans as they watched Mickey Mantle hobble around the bases in 1968? This was the anguish of watching Johnny Unitas try and hang on with the Chargers, or Willie Mays with the Mets?" The unmistakable ending of an era, right before your eyes.

It was awful.

No amount of statistical data could save me, either. On the stat sheet, Griffey Jr. may have hit 630 career home runs, but that was just it, at this point, those were just stats. They were history. The guy who could never get old, got old. And just like that, he was gone. Next thing I knew, Chipper Jones tore his ACL, and there is a good chance his career could be  coming to an end shortly. Somehow Derek Jeter is 36 now and has just negotiated the final contract of his career. All of these guys that I associated with my childhood, they're old. Sure, there are always new players, and there will always be guys to make assaults on the record books, but unfortunately for me, for every new young star that comes along, I'm no longer going to be that little boy who  doesn't know any better than to worship the ground on which he stands. The innocence it takes to one day envision yourself running the bases at Wrigley Field or Yankee Stadium, these thoughts can only be conjured up by the mind of a pre-pubescent teen. I'm sure a new young star will enter the game in the coming years, and there's a good chance I'll admire the level at which he's honed his skills, but there's no way he'll turn me into a major leaguer, the way I thought Ken Griffey Jr. could.  

Maybe that's why golf, despite being what most would call a boring game, has endured over time and remained relevant. In no other sport can a guy like Jack Nicklaus win major championships 24 years apart, or a guy like Tom Watson compete a few months shy of his 60th birthday for an Open Championship. For any average 50 year-old watching Watson toil at Turnberry, an opportunity arose for them to remember back to when the same guy did they same thing at the same course- when they were in high school. Just think of that.

All of this leads me back to Tiger Woods. My sports equivalent to a Lord and Savior. Mine and Pops guy. The same guy who prompted Pops to call me in June of 2008 when I was at the College Baseball World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, just so Pops could channel his inner Dan Hicks and give me the play by play of Tiger's famous  putt.

"He's lining it up. Now he's walking around it. You know, looking at it from every angle, like he always does. He really seems to be taking longer than he usually does on this one..."

At this point, the baseball game I'm watching is in between innings, and not much was going on, but Pops continued.

"Alright, I think he's finally ready. I think it's about 18 feet or so. He putts it. And....Ohhh my gosh Matt, HE MADE IT. HE MADE IT. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. HE MADE IT!!"

At this point, I let out a loud cheer 450 miles away in Omaha. I'm sure the people around me were looking at me like I was crazy, but at this point, I didn't care. Tiger had done it! The guy was playing with a torn ACL, and a broken leg, and the next day he would go on to with the U.S. Open. This is the kind of legend that Mark Twain couldn't write, and Steven Spielberg couldn't make any more sensational.

A year and a half later when the world came to find out that Tiger wasn't exactly the guy everyone thought he was, I was crushed. While his feats on the golf course should not be diminished in light of the details that came out of his personal life, the mystique and the aura that he carried with him could never be the same. Steroids rocked baseball, the NBA after Michael Jordan lacked the luster that it once had, the NFL, while great, had never had quite standing in my sports universe, but this was more than those combined. This was fifteen years of bonding between my father and I that all the sudden seemed hollow. Sure, those events that we cheered about still happened, but the big part of what made it so special was the fact that it was Tiger, and up to that point, he had represented all of the things that my parents had tried to teach me to be. A hard worker, a fierce competitor, and a well-rounded individual away from sports. I should be clear in emphasizing that my parents never told me to emulate Tiger, or any athlete for that matter, yet his case just so happened to be one was easily relate-able. With the deeper meaning of what Tiger meant to my father and I now in question, I was sent searching.  

This all helped me realize that being a sports fan is not about the people who play them, or the stats they accumulate.

You can say that I'm going "soft," or that in this moment in time I must be feeling overly sentimental, but, I think I'm ready to come to grips with the fact that being a sports fan is about sharing your rooting interest with those around you.

Really? You had to spend thousands of words to figure that out, genius?

I never thought I'd say it, but being able to share these moments with others means more than a box score ever could. Sure winning helps, but the jubilation I watched my friends experience when the White Sox won the World Series in 2005, or the way people partied when the Bears advanced to the Super Bowl after the 2006 season, none of that would have existed in a vacuum. Sure, you'd be excited if a team you'd rooted for your whole life finally achieved their goal and won something, but being able to call up your dad, or party with your buddies, or text your uncle, those are the things you remember.

I look back fondly on that U.S. Open, not for how it turned out, but for the memories I have with my father. I think back to the Final Four with Renfro reduced to tears as we watched players from North Carolina cut down the nets. I remember an Illini basketball game where it appeared as though Rich McBride had hit a last second shot to beat Penn State. The shot was later overturned, but my memory of clutching the arm of my friend Jessica Young, hoping against hope that somehow they'd overrule the call can't be taken from me. The Rose Bowl from '08, my most indelible memories are of my friends Tim and Meghan Michaels having a comical battle with their GPS as we drove around LA. To this day I don't watch an Illini fooball game without thinking of Steve Contorno and his detest for my old E.B. Halsey Illini football jersey. Halsey has moved on, and the jersey is gathering dust in my closet, but that one little morsel of a fact has been enough for Steve and I to remain friends five years after the fact.

The fantasy sports I play today, I no longer have  rabid tendencies to devour stats, or prove to anyone that I'm smarter than they are. In fact, the playful ribbing of a Steve Hild, or the incessant banter of Jeff Lizzo, Kevin Barry and Drew Stiling mean more to me than winning a fantasy league title ever could.

I often wondered as people sat in the stands at games, or watched on TV, how they could fully enjoy the experience without knowing that the last time there had been a statistical oddity like this or that was in 1974, and before that 1921, and so on and so on. Rather, I've moved on. Beyond all the statistics, and all the analysis lies the significance of human emotion. And while I may never be able to quantify it, and it may have taken me longer than most to come to this conclusion, it really is what sports are all about.