The biggest story of this year’s MLB Playoffs is, of course, the absence of Joe Kelly. It’s the first year since 2015 that the game’s most electric player isn’t active in October, and while so far, they seem to be going ahead with the whole thing, the risk that someone will cancel the World Series out of grief is still real and present. It’s hard playing a game with the player for whom the game was made over there sidelined, kept off the field through the White Sox being the White Sox.
Thankfully, both Joe Kelly’s metaphorical children are playing, and they’re playing one another. It’s a family affair, this ALCS.
Joe Kelly’s fatherhood of the Astros is well-documented. No need for Maury Povich. He’s their dad, plain and simple. What’s mentioned less often is that Joe Kelly is also the Yankees’ dad.
Consider 2018: Joe Kelly started that whole championship run for the Red Sox by avenging Tyler Austin’s spiking of Brock Holt, hurting the ill-fated journeyman first with a fastball and then with his fists and finally with vibes. Come the postseason? It was the Yankees themselves that Joe Kelly washed out in the Division Series, emphatically (with Brock Holt absolutely tormenting them, we should add).
Consider 2022: Remember that whole Josh Donaldson debacle earlier this year where Donaldson said something like, “Well I think redlining was really good and cool,” and Tim Anderson said, “That’s fucked up, man.”? It was Joe Kelly who settled it, picking Aaron Hicks off in a proxy war and taunting the ill-fated journeyman all the way back to the dugout. Racism? Fixed. No wonder the Yankees had such a bad August.
So, yes, we’re all having way less fun than God would like us to have right now. But sometimes the devil (Tony La Russa) wins, and when that happens, at least we can enjoy seeing Joe Kelly’s offspring slap it out themselves. I’m sure he’s very proud.
Don’t Fear the NCAA
We won’t get into all the counterpropaganda we have prepared if the NCAA does expand its “tournament,” encroaching on the NIT’s current space, but rest assured, we have plenty. We’re ready for the information war. Not ready for a literal war—evidently I made that a little unclear earlier, none of us owns so much as a gun, let alone a nuke—but a war of words? Good luck, NCAA. Your own name isn’t even a word. It’s just a collection of letters. You dumb idiots.
Ok But It Wasn’t Zach LaVine
The Bulls won last night, making me look like a real dumbass, but they did it without Zach LaVine, who rested as part of the team’s strategy to manage his left knee, which was the subject of offseason surgery. It’s weird that they rested their alleged best player on opening night, but what’s less weird is that this team has a better vibe without Zach LaVine. That isn’t anything against LaVine—he seems like a top-20 player tasked with being a top-10 player—but the Bulls at their best are DeMar DeRozan’s team, and a Bulls team grittily contending with DeRozan running the show and Ayo Dosunmu playing beyond his years at the point is more believable than a Bulls team stepping up and contending conventionally with a 1-2 punch that’s worse than something like six other 1-2 punches in the East.
So, keep it up with the load management. And again, nothing against LaVine he’s just playing against a stacked deck.
Burnley!!!! (Exasperated Voice)
Burnley had one of those games yesterday where they didn’t play well but almost won but then didn’t win, which would be relieving if the order of goals went differently but was frustrating because of how it actually went. Sheffield United and Norwich have struggled lately, so Burnley’s still in great shape overall, but you really don’t want your identity to be that of a team who repeatedly blows games late. That’s a bad identity to have. Bad vibes, for sure.
So, fingers crossed the lads get the good vibes back on Saturday against Sunderland. Still a long way from being halfway through the season. Got a whole transfer window coming up.
Trying
Same list as yesterday for things I need to get done:
- Get on top of merchandise, including 2022 NIT pool prizes
- Get the blog active again on Instagram and TikTok (and set up the Facebook page)
- Do License Plate Bracket III
- Launch 2023 NIT Season-Long Challenge?
- Train Fargo so she stops trying to bring sticks into the apartment when we’ve clearly negotiated a set of rules where those have to be chewed on the balcony
- Fold the laundry (!)
- Build the latest database of NIT alumni in the NBA
- Resurrect MilkTime
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Viewing schedule:
7:00 PM EDT: Sens vs. Capitals (ESPN+)
Two questions here. The first is whether the Senators can stay undefeated at home, and also what the deal is with this Reverse Retro jersey thing (has to be included in the first question because I forgot about it and said there would only be two but there were actually kind of three but now it’s only two again). The second is how hard to pronounce the last syllable in Ottawa. Is it as simple as making the last vowel rhyme with the first vowel? I feel like when I hear Canadians say it, it sounds just a little different than when I hear myself say it. Help would be appreciated.
7:37 PM EDT: Yankees @ Astros – Game 2 (TBS)
No small irony that our two biggest enemies are playing on the channel best-known for running reruns of Friends. (I’m probably gonna tweet that later.)
