There are villains, and then there are these guys: Villainous in ways, but not quite spiteful enough, or too impotent, or unable to find joy in their own villainy. The ALCS is Villain vs. Villain, but it’s a pretty lame set of villains.
This calls to mind, of course, the 2016 presidential election, when the two candidates who received the most votes were 1) a pervert with daddy issues who managed to break norms in an already corruption-riddled industry and 2) an entitled loser from New York riding the accomplishments of a stronger villain who bore the same name in the past. 2016 wasn’t Voldemort vs. Mussolini. 2016 was Dolores Umbridge vs. Marv from Home Alone. A similar feeling overshadows tonight’s ALCS. Could they just both lose, please?
One nice thing about this specific matchup is that it’s easy to tune out the fanbases involved. Each has already established itself as delusional, and the closest neighbors to them both—Mets and Red Sox fans on one side, Cowboys fans on the other—are similarly addled, which erects a nice buffer for the rest of us. I live in Texas, part of my job involves making fun of the Astros online, and I’m unconcerned about hearing from Astros fans if the Astros win this World Series. The only people who like the Astros either know better than to say so in public or stopped getting invited to socialize long ago. The Yankees, meanwhile, are a bigger underdog in some projections than even the Padres, who lost Game 1 of the NLCS. They aren’t a real threat yet. 2016 sucked in part because the few good guys there were didn’t stand a chance. This is different. We still have the Padres, we still have the Phillies, and worse things could happen than the Yankees being incentivized to double down on their mediocre roster or the Astros receiving the piece of metal from Rob Manfred as he tries to seem both excited and not too excited on the stage.
But, you know. It would’ve been nice if the Guardians had won yesterday.
The Bulls Start Their Season Tonight
The Bulls play the Heat tonight, Jimmy Butler going against a lot of guys who aren’t as good as Jimmy Butler.
I’m not going to pretend to be a Bulls expert, but I will say this: The vibe is bad. This is a Bears/White Sox vibe. It might even be a 2021 Cubs vibe, where Chicago’s hoping on the Bulls to be good but everyone one hundred percent knows the Bulls are not good. They’ve put the franchise into the hands of a 1-2 punch where one half is too old to be the alpha and the other is too bad at basketball to be it himself. They also don’t have a point guard right now, which is something most teams need. This has taken their ceiling down from being a 6-seed in the East to being, I don’t know, the 8-seed? It feels like the Bulls got through the lottery portion of the rebuild and are now back to where they started, which is competing to barely make the playoffs and then get rocked by a competent franchise.
That’s just my opinion, though.
Sens-ational
Never gets old.
The Sens played a rollicking one last night at the Canadian Tire Centre, with some (me, who’s been a Senators fan for only three years after thinking it would be fun to become a fan of the most irrelevant Canadian hockey team) going so far as to call it the loudest they’ve ever heard the place. The Ottawa brass got newly ordained Hall-of-Famer Daniel Alfredsson to make a surprise pregame appearance, and then the Sens scored seven goals while allowing five and none of those were empty-netters so yes, this game was exactly what you expect from Ottawa.
Next one tomorrow against the Capitals. Need to figure out if the Capitals are good.
How Do NASCAR Drivers Not Always Get Road Rage?
The big NASCAR news right now is that Bubba Wallace has been suspended one race for risking Kyle Larson’s life on Sunday in Las Vegas, and not in the normal way that you risk someone’s life in Las Vegas. In this way, Wallace retaliated for Larson running him into the wall by swinging down the track and nailing Larson’s back quarterpanel (or thereabouts), ending both of their days as well as that of Wallace’s semi-teammate, championship contender Christopher Bell.
It was a bad look for Wallace, partially because while this stuff happens now and then in NASCAR, right now we’re in the middle of a widespread tacit acknowledgment that this year’s new cars are way too not-absorbent of hits and there isn’t time to change that without canceling races. Wrecking someone because you’re mad at them is one thing if the car can take it. Risking giving that someone a serious concussion is something else.
Anyway, what I really want to talk about here is how it’s bonkers that NASCAR doesn’t have this happening all the time. These guys drive as many as six hundred miles in a day. I drive maybe eighty a day on a big rideshare outing and I’m homicidal at least twice. Maybe it’s because you can at least bump other cars in NASCAR. Maybe I should ask the police to let me bump people.
Burnley Goes to Birmingham
It’s always weird to me that a team from Alabama plays British soccer, but here we are. Burnley’s headed to Birmingham today for an afternoon kick.
Among other funny things about Birmingham, their logo includes a volleyball and they’ve managed to spend almost ten years now finishing in the bottom half of the Championship but not getting relegated, which is very Burnley-esque but on the smaller stage. They’re in 15th place right now, but they’re hot, winners of four and losers of just one over their last seven contests. Burnley, of course, is also hot, looking to regain first place with a victory.
Our guys Ian Maatsen and Jordan Beyer are both out, but Connor Roberts is back in the lineup and I don’t remember him stinking although I may have been deceived by his eternal willingness to fight people. Jay Rodriguez is continuing his Barry Bonds era, blossoming at the very end of his career but hopefully without the (alleged) steroids.
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 sniffing strangers’ crotches when she sees them in the hallway
- Fold the laundry
- Build the latest database of NIT alumni in the NBA
- Resurrect MilkTime
**
Viewing schedule:
2:45 PM EDT: Burnley @ Birmingham
Interesting that ESPN isn’t showing this on ESPN+. Looks like they opted for Watford @ Millwall instead. Guess the SEC rights package didn’t include this particular Alabama team.
4:35 PM EDT: Phillies @ Padres, Game 2 (FOX)
7:37 PM EDT: Yankees @ Astros, Game 1 (TBS)
I think that what I want to happen is for Kyle Schwarber to hit a ball so hard it orbits the earth enough times to line up with both Justin Verlander and…hmm. Is Giancarlo Stanton the most unlikable Yankee? They’re really a boring group. Guess we’ll have to go with more Rick Porcello jokes. Those seem like they’d bother everyone involved.
7:30 PM EDT: Bulls @ Heat
The Bulls should get Ömer Aşık courtside tickets. As a callback joke. Unless Ömer Aşık is a Recep Erdoğan stan in which case, CANCELED, AM I RIGHT!
