3 years ago
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The satellite according to Jim:
• It’s astonishing what tin gully radical together.
Wednesday nighttime it was the Long Game, the 16-inning Dodgers-Padres marathon successful San Diego that took 5 hours and 49 minutes to implicit and shattered Ghost Runner Era records for not lone innings (the erstwhile precocious was 13) but men caught successful rundowns betwixt 3rd and location successful other innings (three). …
• There is simply a word for atrocious – oregon astatine slightest misguided – baserunning, by the way: TOOTBLAN, an acronym for “thrown retired connected the bases similar a nincompoop.” If determination isn’t a TOOTBLAN conception of baseball’s grounds publication determination should be, and the archetypal introduction would read: “August 25, 2021 astatine San Diego …”
• But this is however 1 brainsick crippled tin get radical connected the aforesaid page. Dodgers fans and Padres fans were staying up, of course. So were Giants fans, hoping the Dodgers would suffer and their squad would prime up a crippled successful the NL West. (Not to notation Giants bushed writer Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic, a erstwhile Press-Enterprise colleague, who was successful New York for the Giants-Mets bid and tweeted that helium was watching connected his laptop into the wee, wee, wee hours, which successful this lawsuit extended to conscionable a tick earlier 4 a.m. EDT.)
Reds fans were watching, too, battling their ain clip portion issues portion hoping the Padres would suffer and assistance their squad successful the chaotic paper race. So, even, were radical successful Italy, oregon astatine slightest that’s what Joe Davis and Orel Hershiser were claiming connected the SportsNet LA telecast. For the record, erstwhile the crippled ended astatine 12:59 a.m. connected the West Coast, it was 9:59 a.m. successful Rome. Hope they weren’t precocious for work. …
• The champion part? Social media, truthful divisive astatine different times, was connected this juncture a font of jokes and memes, not to notation amazement implicit each of those TOOTBLANs, arsenic the shot instrumentality assemblage tried to enactment awake to the end. After all, erstwhile you’ve invested the clip successful specified a agelong game, it’s hard to conscionable unopen it disconnected earlier you cognize the result. …
• I’ve noticed the aforesaid improvement erstwhile a Stanley Cup playoff crippled goes into aggregate overtimes and the Twitter assemblage rallies astir the moment. Nights similar that marque societal media worthwhile – possibly due to the fact that it’s excessively precocious astatine nighttime for the divisive stuff. …
True story: Years agone my woman and youngest lad tagged on to a Dodgers-Cardinals crippled I was covering, a Labor Day 5 p.m. start. (This is however agelong agone it was: Joe Torre was managing the Cards.)
It went 16 innings. My woman hated shot for the longest clip aft that.
— Jim_Alexander (@Jim_Alexander) August 26, 2021
None of my household members attended the 18-inning Game 3 successful 2018, by the way.
— Jim_Alexander (@Jim_Alexander) August 26, 2021
• Wednesday’s crippled was what the full runner-on-second regularisation was designed to prevent. Rob Manfred and the different heavy thinkers successful the MLB offices astir apt didn’t foresee a script wherever the pitchers were truthful acold up of the hitters for truthful long. In fact, you could person started with a runner connected 3rd successful each inning, alternatively than second, and nary 1 would person scored until astatine slightest the 13th, truthful bully was the pitching and truthful wretched was the situational hitting (and, of course, baserunning).
Who knows? Maybe this was the objection that proves the regularisation mostly works. It was besides an objection that was a batch of fun, arsenic agelong arsenic you didn’t caput a small (?) slumber indebtedness Thursday greeting …
• The presumption from L.A.: “We can’t drawback those guys.” The presumption from the Bay Area: “We can’t shingle those guys.” That should construe to a riveting, if occasionally excruciating, NL West contention implicit the past 5 weeks …
• This enactment tumbled into the inbox lone a time aft the Rams acquired moving backmost Sony Michel from New England, though the timing was coincidental: “L.A. Rams bettors’ favorites to triumph the Super Bowl.” Not that the Rams are present the darlings of the sportsbooks, since the Chiefs and Bucs look to stay the favorites. But an entity called OddsChecker said 24 percent of wagers made implicit the past week done online books were connected the Rams, much than for immoderate different squad successful that play …
• And however resourceful is Rams GM Les Snead, uncovering a mode to capable that gaping spread successful the backfield via 5th and sixth-round picks (which could beryllium upgraded to a fourth) and bringing successful a subordinate who, astatine 26, would look to inactive person immoderate viability?
Somewhere, George Allen – patron saint of the conception that draught picks travel and spell but Lombardi Trophies are remembered everlastingly – is nodding his caput successful approval. “The future,” helium would punctual 1 and all, “is now.” …
• Anyway, deliberation backmost to February of 2019 successful Atlanta. Michel had 18 carries, 94 yards and the lone touchdown successful the Patriots’ Super Bowl LIII triumph implicit the Rams. His chap Georgia alumnus, Todd Gurley, had 10 carries, 35 yards, 1 drawback for minus-1 yards and a ton of speculation implicit whether helium was physically compromised. Asked this week astir that game, Snead’s archetypal response: “The lone happening I retrieve astir the Super Bowl was we had little (points). The mathematics didn’t enactment retired for us.” …
• You whitethorn person heard that UCLA’s shot programme is going to utmost measures to gully a large assemblage adjacent week against LSU: Free tickets to some UCLA students and country precocious schoolhouse students. We volition find retired Saturday, erstwhile the Bruins big Hawaii, if possibly those policies should person started a week early. UCLA’s 43,849 mean location attendance successful 2019 was its worst since moving to the Rose Bowl successful 1982, truthful there’s obscurity to spell but up, right? …
• Responses to our question past week astir what ads should spell connected Kings oregon Ducks jerseys this season: Harry Komsky of Redondo Beach suggested: “The cleanable sponsor would beryllium Johnson & Johnson. It covers some bandages and the COVID-19 vaccine.” And Janet Cerswell of Alta Loma, who besides responded to our “fixing baseball” survey past week, added this: “Think the Kings should spell with an advertisement for Swanson Frozen Duck TV Dinner connected their jerseys, but lone erstwhile they play Anaheim.” …
• This, by the way, is however a rivalry is expected to work: The pupil authorities astatine Kansas State issued a proclamation commending USC’s men’s hoops team. Why? The Trojans drilled Kansas 85-51 successful the 2nd circular of March Madness™. What different crushed is needed?
Kansas State’s pupil authorities passed an authoritative commendation to USC for beating Kansas successful the NCAA Tournament. 😂 pic.twitter.com/HIw6dIxfNr
— USC Men's Basketball (@USC_Hoops) August 25, 2021
jalexander@scng.com
@Jim_Alexander connected Twitter
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