October 10 – 10 run 1st inning?

10 run 1st inning?
grand slam in the 10th? You choose …
zugzwang at the park!

Atlanta fans for once did not wake to the news that, once again, their team did not go down in flames. (Just what did Sherman start here?)

Because the Braves played at 4:30PM and it was all over by 5PM and Atlanta fans went to bed knowing what had happened to yet another pretty good baseball team.

Later that night, the Los Angeles Dodgers lost in the 10th inning on a grand slam home run.

Atlanta Braves brains considering zugzwang of Oct 9th

10 runs in the first inning or a grand slam in the 10th.

Nice symmetry of the number 10 and it is October 10th today.

This was also the 10th consecutive playoff series loss for the Braves.

Recently I have been made aware of the chess term, zugzwang.

A situation in which the obligation to make a move in one’s turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage.

In other words, you have to make a move but all moves are bad and most likely make the situation worse.

So many times in life fit in with zugzwang.

Almost of all sports is.

Tony La Russa once said, “There isn’t much I can do to win a ball game but there are a lot of things I can do to lose a ballgame.”

Or as one writer put it (it may have been Roger Angell), “Go to a bullpen filled with convicted arsonists?”

Zugzwang.

So to the original question.

10 runs in the 1st?

4 runs in the 10th?

Both win or go home games.

Would you rather have it be over almost before it started?

Or snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?

Give up 10 runs in the 1st?

Are you kidding?

On five hits?

Is that even possible?

Who does that?

Who can do that?

Well, besides any Atlanta team.

My Dad often said he liked his team to get a big lead and steadily pull away.

Or a grand slam in the 10th after being up 3 to 1 earlier in the game.

That seems to have happened more often.

The 10 runs in the 1st was a new record.

A record one team wants no part of.

That’s what nightmares are made of.

A grand slam in the 10th.

That’s what dreams are made of.

September 22 – Unexplainable?

Unexplainable?
Unexcuasable? Michigan?
Writers saw same team.

Michigan, as a football team, stunk up the joint yesterday.

Michigan, as a football team, stinks.

Michigan, until about 2PM Saturday afternoon was thought to be one of the best teams in the county.

A top ten team.

Michigan changed everyone’s minds with their game play at Wisconsin.

Their performace was unexplainable.

Their performance was unexcusavke.

They were pretenders.

They were a fraud.

Now wait just a minute.

The only reason most of us had any idea that Michigan was a top ten team was because the people who are paid to know such things told us such things.

Like Will Rodges, all I know is what I read in the papers.

What, where, who, how and why did the collective sports world think Michigan was so good?

And because the sportwriters thought so and wrote so and said so, it is Michigan’s fault that the team is not as good as the sportwriters thought?

How dumb and I to listen to sports writers?

At the end of the day, I am a Michigan Man, so called.

A winning football team would be better than a losing football, but I do not consider myself a Michigan Man because OF the football team.

While in no way comparable, I am reminded of the Iron Brigade in the Civil War.

The Iron Brigade was the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac.

The wore distinctive black hats called a Hardee Hat which looked like a Lincoln stovepipe hat with a wide brim, pinned up on one side, aussie style.

This in the Army of the Potomac, the army of the Eastern United States, was made up of regiments from Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan.

It was recognized as one of the hard fighting units in the army and was famous throughout both the armies if the North and South.

At Gettysburg, when the Iron Brigade came into view, Confederate soldiers were heard to say, ‘It’s those Black Hat fellers again.’

It was at Gettysburg that the Iron Brigade was wrecked.

In the first day at Gettysburg, the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the 1st Corps of the Army of the Potomac lost two thirds of its effective strength of 1800 men.

“And,” wrote Bruce Catton in Glory Road, his thee volume history of the Army of the Potomac, “for the rest of the war, it existed as a shadow, always a great name but never again a mighty force in battle.”

Like I wrote, the state of Michigan Football cannot in anyway be compared to the Iron Brigade.

But the simply poetry of the phrase, always a great name, appeals to me.

I hope I am wrong.

I hope the eggheads in the Athens of the West can collectively come up with a Coach who can prepare a team of athlete’s to compete on the big stage.

If not, win or lose, always a great name.

I can live with that.

September 12 – Yogi Berra wrong?

Yogi Berra wrong?
not over, but it’s over
Aussies keep Ashes

Mr. Berra is credited with saying something like, “It ain’t over, until it’s over.”

Many times in sports and in life, this rings true.

No surprise that, in the Ashes, it doesn’t apply.

The Ashes is a test cricket series between Australia and England that is played every other year and alternates sites between England and Australia.

A test cricket series is made up of 5 test cricket matches.

Each match can last up to 5 days with breaks each day for lunch and tea.

A cricket match can end as a:

WIN: One team has more runs at the end of the match

Tie: Both teams have the same amount of runs and wickets at the end of a match.

Draw: If a match ends with one team not being able to complete their innings at bat before the end of play.

No Result: Match has started but due to weather or light or something else cannot be completed.

Abandoned: Match never stated.

One quirk of Cricket is that the Ashes is a best of five series, but regardless of results, all five matches are played.

If this was a World Series, all seven games would be played even if one team won the first four.

Another quirk of the Ashes is that in case of a series draw, the team holding the Ashes, gets to keep the trophy.

This year, Australia won Test 1 and Test 4.

England won Test 3 (in dramatic fashion)

Test 2 was a draw.

The best England can do is a Draw for the 2019 Series.

So it’s over and Australia keeps the Ashes.

But Test 5 still has to be played.

So it’s not over.

That’s Cricket!

August 16 – outside the off stump

outside the off stump
bowled, L B W
65 for 3

Hard to get my creative conscious to focus away from cricket when I am listening to the 2nd Test of the 2019 Ashes from Lords.

I used the cricket term, L B W which stands for Leg Before Wicket.

Leg before wicket (lbw) is one of the ways in which a batter can be dismissed in the sport of cricket. Following an appeal by the fielding side, the umpire may rule a batter out lbw if the ball would have struck the wicket, but was instead intercepted by any part of the batter’s body (except the hand holding the bat). The umpire’s decision will depend on a number of criteria, including where the ball pitched, whether the ball hit in line with the wickets, and whether the batter was attempting to hit the ball. (Wikipedia)

Names and Numbers on the shirts for the first time

I have to point out that, from a Haiku point of view, using the initial, W, instead of the word, WICKET, uses more syllables.

I am reminded of the time at WZZM13 that I was asked to write out a tag line about the website for use on air.

I was told to keep it simple.

So I wrote out, ‘Go to Double You Double You Double You dot Double You Zee Zee Emm Thirteen dot com for more information.’

If I remember right, the producer put it in the script like that which made the anchor laugh out loud on air.

Then he read the tag, slowly.

August 1 – The Ashes!

slips and a gully
mid on, mid off, driven left
and there is no run

Imagine if every two years, Michigan and Ohio State told that sporting world that they were taking time for a private contest.

Then for five weeks, they played a match that was the best of five games.

The games wouldn’t be sanctioned by the Big 10 or the NCAA.

This was a just between them and they were going to play.

That is the Ashes.

A private sporting contest between England and Australia every two years, alternating between countries.

And its test match cricket.

Five days are reserved for play.

Two sides of 10 batters and all 10 batters bat until they are out for one inning and there two innings.

Breaks for lunch, tea and drinks.

And don’t tell me that cricket doesn’t keep up with the times.

This year, for the 1st time ever, players have names and numbers on their … jumpers.