Miguel Cabrera is currently trying to record his 3,000th hit. Trying right now. As I write this. He’s batted twice, he hasn’t gotten it yet, but we’ve got the gamecast open and every time he comes to the plate, we flip the channel to watch him hit.
I don’t have much of a personal feeling or connection to Cabrera. To be honest, I don’t know that much about the guy. He’s almost always been around since I’ve been old enough to pay attention, I know a lot of Tigers fans adore him, I imagine that if Marlins fans exist a few of them have great feelings about him as well. He’s one of the best players of his generation, I’ve seen mention of him meaning a lot to Venezuelan baseball, I think that covers the emotional side of Cabrera fine enough for this.
What I do know is that I’m enjoying the chase!
There’s something timeless about these milestones, and there’s something really fun about the any-moment nature of the pursuit. It’s fun to have cut-ins on ESPN and MLB Network. It’s fun to hear the fans hold their breath with every swing. It’s fun to see the big, physical hit tracker (analog, not digital) at Comerica Park stuck on 2,999. I’d imagine that even if you don’t like the guy (and there are reasons not to like him), you could get invested, because there’s drama involved in the most regular-season-baseball way possible: It could take seconds. It could take days.
When Barry Bonds was chasing Hank Aaron’s career home run mark, I was cheering against him. I’m more conflicted about that now, since the steroid era wasn’t really as black and white as it felt as a kid (Bonds was such a good villain, though—credit to Bonds for being an incredible villain), but at the time, I was cheering against him.
And it was still fun!
Anyway, hopefully Cabrera gets number 3,000 today. I want to see them stop the game. I want to see him hug his teammates and his family. I want to watch a little history and watch the Tigers crowd go bonkers for it. It’s fun, and it’s something uniquely prevalent in baseball, where for both natural reasons and thanks to what I’d argue has been good stewardship by the sport’s leaders (in this regard), the game is comparable enough to its ancient self that the numbers mean a lot. This is fun.
Please Win, Burnley
Everton really hit us in the nuts yesterday, scoring in stoppage time to draw with Leicester and get a much-needed point which Burnley much may have needed them not to get. Today, Burnley tries to gain ground, hosting Southampton in a few minutes. Still no new manager. I wish they’d have named Ben Mee the guy until they get an official interim guy. Do it by committee and all, but that would’ve been fun.
The Milk Has Been Selected
IndyCar drivers have designated which milk they’d like, should they win the Indy 500, which means two things. First, the Indy 500’s getting closer. Second, we all get to be reminded the original guy (Louis Meyer) drank buttermilk and the Indiana Dairy Association still isn’t offering it, for reasons unbeknownst to me. Just make buttermilk, guys. What the hell?
NIT-NBA Guide to the Evening
The Timberwolves play the Grizzlies, right? I’m not messing that up? If so, another matchup between two types of NBA teams: Those built around a few players with insanely good NIT pedigrees (Desmond Bane and John Konchar, in the case of the Grizzlies) and those built around a lot of players with NIT experience but few hits (seven T-Wolves played in the NIT). In actuality, the Timberwolves aren’t getting enough credit when we break it down like that (Jordan McLaughlin is a bit of an NIT legend, doing what he did in the face of Andy Enfield being a hater; Taurean Prince won a ring and you can’t not notice that; Josh Okogie was on the Josh Pastner team), but that’s the general idea. In Warriors/Nuggets, it’s the Greens (Jeff and JaMychal, each of whom played in the NIT and one of whom was great in it) vs. a few guys-who-played-in-the-NIT (Klay Thompson, Steph Curry, Damion Lee, none of whom excelled in such a difficult competition). In Mavericks/Jazz, the Mavs bring the heat with Dwight Powell (champion) and Marquese Chriss (stud) plus a few others, while the Jazz rely on guys who were there but didn’t make much noise.
Great NITe ahead, friends.
***
Viewing schedule, second screen in italics:
- Yankees @ Tigers (1:10 PM EDT, Regional TV)
- Southampton @ Burnley (2:45 PM EDT, USA Network)
- Ghosts of NIT’s Past (7:30/9:00/10:00 PM EDT, TNT/NBA TV/TNT)
- Pirates @ Cubs (7:40 PM EDT, Regional TV)
Go Miggy, go Burnley, go Cubs, go NIT. The big four (today—usually it would just be three of those).
