My frustration with baseball grows and deepens as the owners continue to shove a shortened and gimmicky season at players and fans as one of many things that cause me to feel like the game is eating itself on the way to disinterest.
Forcing the universal DH for the 2020 season is one thing, it's another to keep it for 2021.
When you work any job or deal with a government, you realize one general rule- Something added is seldom to be taken away.
There is almost a one hundred percent chance that we have seen the last game played under the original player lineup with the nine players on the field all in the batting lineup and I think that is sad.
I know there is a place for the designated hitter and I'm not really a DH hater, but I do prefer the National League game.
There is more than one flavor or style of anything, and there could be room for both versions of the game, and if it shortchanges a few teams (from both leagues) during interleague play, so be it.
Take this, the changes that have been sampled in the minors (but not installed), the looming destruction of the minors, and the other ridiculous ideas that Rob Manfred's office has considered and you have a recipe for a game that I don't recognize.
Rob Manfred continues to chase a fan that baseball will never catch as he snatches the game that long-time fans love away as Lucy moves the football from Charlie Brown.
Ohio State signed an agreement to play Alabama in football for the 2027 and 2028 seasons as the best programs of their conferences will battle in the regular season for only the second time and for the first ever at their school site.
The two played in the now-defunct Kickoff Classic at Giants Stadium in 1986 with Alabama winning.
The 2027 game will be in Columbus with the return engagement in Tuscaloosa in the following season.
I always like these games as it's good for the best to try to play the best, but the best part is the campus sites as often these are the dreaded neutral site games that take away from the grandeur of the game.
The Athletic ranked the various local broadcasting crews for baseball and the folks that I like fared well in the rankings.
The Giants team of Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, and Amy Gutierrez ranked a very close second to the Mets team of Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez as the two were only 0.03 apart for the win at 4.91 to 4.88.
Other favorites- Brewers play-by-play man Brian Anderson helped the Milwaukee team to a sixth-place finish, Cubs analyst Jim Deshaies and his unit ranked in seventh, Tampa's extremely underrated group of Dewayne Staats, former Indian (the other) Brian Anderson, and Tricia Whitaker landed in the eighth spot overall.
Two TRS favorites that received excellent reviews despite their team finishing deep in the pack were Bob Carpenter of Washington (23rd), Emily Jones of Texas (25th), and Dan Shulman of Toronto (26th), all were mentioned fondly by their fans voters.
The Indians team of Matt Underwood, Rick Manning, and Andre Knott finished in the middle of the league in the 18th position.
As for me and what I've been doing since baseball isn't around and despite the easing of some of the Covid restrictions, I still don't really want to test the other people right now.
I don't see where wearing a mask hurts anyone and it seems like it is more of a "don't tell me what to do" thing than it is a real issue in wearing it.
Feel free to take your chances, just stay away from me (within reason).
I've messed around with the metal detector once, working on clearing the yard of brush that has accumulated for years and nuisance trees that weaken and fall during winter ice and snow and summer thunderstorms, and believe it or not- I did get a reading of something metal under the brush!
I figured that for just a dirt patch, and I haven't been able to access the area directly, but I am excited to test that area when everything is moved out!
As for television, I'm still watching the same shows as I mentioned last time out- Once Upon A Time (Just started season six), Without A Trace (middle of season two), and the Spanish with sub-titled Monzon (episode three).
I have to really have time to concentrate when watching Monzon as I have to read the subtitles, so I usually watch alone and not when doing anything else.
In the gaming world. I've been stuck in the basketball world with the ABA and the Kentucky Colonels.
The Colonels had to win their last game to finish in a tie for second in the Eastern Division with St.Louis and hold homecourt advantage in their first-round playoff matchup against those Spirits.
They did so and grabbed the second seed clinching a winning record at 43-41.
Considering in real life, those same Colonels won 58 games (losing only 26) and won the division over the New York Nets (the division winners by six games over the Colonels and Spirits in this replay) by winning a one-game tiebreaker against the Nets.
The coaching by your humble author likely contributed far more to the sixteen extra losses than the luck of the game, but as the season moved on, I improved in my in-game coaching.
I'm interested to see the results of my next basketball project to evaluate my coaching.
Anyway, I have been playing the entire playoffs and of this writing, I finished the Western semi-finals earlier tonight at the road office.
Here are the playoff results
Eastern Division
Semi-Finals-Best of Five
New York (1) over Memphis (4) 3 games to 2
Kentucky (2) over St.Louis (3) 3 games to 0
Finals-Best of Seven
Kentucky (2) over New York (1) 4 games to 2
Western Division
Semi-Finals-Best of Five
Indiana (1) over Utah (4) 3 games to 1
Denver (3) over San Antonio (2) 3 games to 2
Finals-Best of Seven
Indiana (1) over Denver (3) 4 games to 3.
This places Kentucky against Indiana in the ABA Finals- the exact matchup that the real finals saw.
The real fun was in the Western regular season where Indiana and San Antonio finished with the exact same record (52-32) with Denver only one game behind.
All three would have easily won the Eastern Division.
I've played two hockey games with the 1974-75 Kansas City Scouts since the last update, losing to the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 in Chicago and stunning the eventual Stanley Cup champion Philadelphia Flyers with three goals in the first ten minutes and holding on desperately for a 3-2 win at home.
The Scouts are 6-18-1 for 13 points and last in the Smythe Division, trailing the next team above them, the St.Louis Blues by nine points.
The Scouts and fellow expansion team Washington have the fewest points in the league with the California Golden Seals one point ahead, but Washington has played two more games and California three more at this writing.
I haven't played baseball, but I've been working on adding players, logos, and ballpark pictures as a gentleman that helps at a site for Action fans made "homebrews" of all the 2019 minor leagues.
I've never seen those before, so I downloaded the South Atlantic League, Carolina League, and Eastern League to be able to play those leagues!
I'm really looking forward to giving those a shot, particularly since it looks like it will be the last year of the Hagerstown Suns.
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