A followup to Sports

Well. Shit.

Saturdays Sports Saturday!! Sports!!!

I worked in grocery for so long, where weekends off were few and far between, that having a Saturday afternoon free to watch football is still a novelty.  Tennessee plays hated Mississippi State this afternoon in Starkville.  It still feels very weird to be able to sit my ass on the couch and watch a football game, if I want, without having to move Heaven and Earth to have gotten that weekend off.  (And funny thing?  if I did have that weekend off, it's usually because I had something else going off that I needed the time off for, so I wasn't watching the games then, either).

When I was with the store, there was a long period of time that we would pipe the radio broadcast over the PA system.  That was made to halt somewhere around 2012, when the Director who would fuck me over a a couple times said we couldn't play the game on the PA, since there were ads for competitors in the commercials.

So, so much for trying to inject a small bit of joy into your life on a Saturday afternoon in the South, where college football is just as important as God, Family, Food and The Second By God Amendment.

There were so many reasons to dislike Big Jim.  That barely ends up in the top 5.

------

Tennessee does look good this year.  Prior to the season, I was thinking that an 8-win campaign was in the cards, given the uncertainty with the quarterback situation, after Nico Iamaleava misread the room and fucked off down to UCLA.  Didn't know if Aguilar would have the speed, or the receivers the ability, to run Heupel's system right off.  Fuck me, I guess, because they're a missed field goal against Georgia from being 4-0 right now, with a schedule of games that looks a little more winnable with the offense firing on all cylinders.

-----

But!  It's still baseball season.

2 Games left in the season.

The Cubs clinched a playoff spot 9 or 10 days ago.  They then went into a 5-day hangover, getting swept by the Reds, who are likewise fighting for a spot, in 4 games.

They've shown a little life in the bats, with Kyle Tucker returning to the lineup for the first time since September 2 or so yesterday.  The put 12 on St. Louis yesterday, with Seiya hitting a grand slam.  

Anything can happen on the field.  Maybe the Cubs can figure out what made them so successful 4 months ago, and do that.  I look at a lineup of guys hitting .245 with 30 home runs, and would be more satisfied, I think with guys hitting .275 with 18 homers.  But that's not the game they play.

That all said, my gut isn't optimistic over how this postseason goes, but I also am not so impressed by any of the teams likewise making the playoffs that I see any of them as unbeatable.  Even Milwaukee, which was so hot from Memorial to Labor Day, lost the season series to the Cubs, so there's always a chance.

And then there's the psychic I read about predicting a Blue Jays/Cubs World Series.....

So, I'm rooting for the Cubs.  And I think the Mariners, over in the A.L.  But I'm digging how the leagues are shaping up, though I'd prefer the Astros be kept out of the final 6, if at all possible......

Random Thoughts

 Sitting here on a lovely late summer afternoon, watching the Cubs clinch a spot in the postseason.  First time since 2020, the teevee tells me, though it feels longer.  That stretch from 2015-2020 was special.  And it was too easy to take for granted.  I think I bullshitted myself into thinking the rebuilding following the dismantling of 2021 wouldn't take long.

Damn, it's felt long.

Not gonna count any chickens before they hatch.  I haven't felt confident about this team's ability to score runs since before the All-Star Break.  And indeed, they've been just a few games over .500 since mid-June.  They've shown flashes of it the last week, but largely we're leaning on Shota, Cade Horton and Matthew Boyd (with Boyd looking very, very tired his last couple or three outings, including his start this afternoon), and a bullpen that's turned itself around nicely since being the only big question mark early in the season.

But I also feel like there's nobody entering this postseason on the National League side that is locked and loaded, that is unbeatable.  Milwaukee has regressed from superhuman the last few weeks, and nobody seems to want to win the West.  I don't think the Mets have the pitching.  The Phillies have looked alive the last couple weeks, but they can fade just as quickly.  It's just gonna take somebody getting hot.

Seiya was back in the lineup.  Hoping Kyle Tucker comes back by this weekend.

Maybe.

Just maybe.....

----

Took Thomas to see the movie The Long Walk, which adapts Stephen King's novel (written as Richard Bachman).  It's been one of my favorite novels for a while.

The flick is a pretty solid adaptation of the novel.

It's fucking brutal.

Especially after the week we had in America last week.

It's good.

But it might be one of those movies I don't watch again for another several years.....

-----

My favorite Robert Redford Movies:

1.  The Sting

2.  The Natural

3.  Captain America:  Winter Soldier

4.  All is Lost

5.  Sneakers

6.  Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

7.  A Walk in the Woods

Putting Winter Soldier up there is probably blasphemy to some.  But it's a good flick, and he's good in it.

All is Lost is a great flick, and I once owned it on DVD, but I don't have it anymore.  I'm thinking I loaned it to my buddy Marty, who died.

In fact, I'm sure of it.

I haven't thought about that DVD in 7 years, until news that Redford passed.

Anyway.  A Walk in the Woods is an underrated little flick.  Shouldn't work.  But it does.  Especially as I wander further into middle age.....

His last movie role was Avengers: Endgame, unless I'm mistaken.  But he did appear, uncredited, in an episode of The AMC show Dark Skies, playing chess with fellow producer George RailRoad Martin.....

Redford seemed like a good dude, and he left an impressive body of work.  May he rest in peace.

------

Stopped at lunch at a Burger King today.  I like getting the Impossible Whopper.  I've cut my red meat consumption considerably since my hospital stay in 2022.  I eat it maybe once a month.  But when they do it right at the BK, the Impossible Whopper is nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.

Had a small bit of consternation when I stopped at one in Cleveland, TN:  they said they no longer sell the Impossible Whopper.

When I got to the window to pick up the chicken sandwich I ordered instead, I asked if that was a company-wide decision.  

"I don't know," the young feller at the window replied.

Nothing online showing a company-wide removal of the product.  Hopefully I can still get one, somewhere.....

 It's a weird world.  And only getting weirder.....

A baseball trip

Wandered down to Truist for the Cubs and Braves last night.  The tickets were a Christmas present from my Brother-in-Law and sister.  I was looking back at the MLB Stadium app, and it's possible I haven't seen the Cubs in person since the home opening series for the Braves in 2019.  Now, I say that, and will admit that there's a good chance I saw them in either 2021 or 2022 and simply didn't note it in that particular app.

I'll be honest about something.  I was a little iffy on going.  Trying to save up some money to pay some bills and be ready for Christmas.  But when I mentioned it to Shyam, she was pretty excited about going, so we made plans to wander down.

One of the things I was really looking forward to when the Braves moved to their new stadium was maybe attending a game on a whim.  At the time, I was working in Cleveland, and it was conceivable that I could get out of work around 4, and make it to Marietta in a couple hours, in time for a game, from time to time.   That plan only worked that way once.  Not long after the Braves moved to Atlanta, the situation at Food Lion went sideways, and stayed sideways.  We were a manager short, or I had to help out all over creation, or I was working under a manager who was trying to make me quit.  Or there was a little something called Covid.

But despite my misgivings about taking the team away from the city it's named for, I do enjoy that I don't have to drive all the way through Atlanta to get to the stadium.  We left the house a little after 4 yesterday, and with near perfect traffic conditions, made it to our parking just after 6.

It was pretty night.  The truck thermometer showed 83 on the way down, but by the time we made it to our seats in 337, the stadium board was showing 76.7 degrees.  It would drop into the high 60's with a light breeze.  All in all, a beautiful night for a ballgame.

This is the only visit to Atlanta for the Cubs.  Bitching about the schedule doesn't do any good, but I miss the days 30 years ago when they'd wander down twice a year, so that if you missed their visit, you might try again in a couple months.  Nowadays, you have one shot, and if it's at an inconvenient time, you can hope for the postseason, or wait until next year.  The last couple of seasons, the Cubs visited during a busy time of year.

That's also the case for Shyam and me going to games.  This is the first game in at least a couple years that we've hit at the Major League level together.  Given that our business's busy season coincides with the bulk of the baseball season, it's tough for both of us to get down (and not be exhausted in the doing).  After Labor Day is our best opportunity.  I don't know if April and Lee remembered that, or if it was just coincidence.

The game itself?  Well, I don't want to spoil an all too rare blogamathing post by griping about how little the Cubs are hitting as they limp toward the postseason, nor will I mention too much the oddly haphazard way they deal with injuries to Kyle Tucker.....

The past couple of months, they hit worse with runners in scoring position than just about any Cubs team I've seen.  And last night was no different, except that runners in scoring position were tough to come by.  Atlanta's Elder baffled the lineup the first time through the lineup, with Willi Castro providing the only hit of the first 3 innings....

Shota Imanaga went for the Cubs, which was what I most looked forward to about the night.  I like how the guy pitches.  He depends on being smarter, rather than stronger.  He took the Loss last night.  It looked from my vantage point up in the third level that he didn't look comfortable in the first inning, which was when he got rocked for 3 runs.  Watching the pitch chart the Braves leave on one of their display boards, it looked like he wasn't getting any movement on his splitter....  But that may just be my interpretation from the left field foul territory.

The Cubs lost.  Third in a row.  

But we had fun.  Shyam and I haven't gotten to do as much fun stuff this year.  We made a few movies, and we did our book club with our friend Jill.  But working together, and having a handicapped cat at the house cuts down on a few opportunities to go do.

We both enjoyed ourselves, though.  And promised to go find another outing now that it's cooling down.....

(There is a new mini-golf course near us that we need to try soon.....)

The end of the world as we know it

This was really enjoyable.   As fun as I'd hoped.   A couple of real bangers in there. 

I'll write more.   But this was fun.....