Ignoble Endings - Babe Ruth

 

Ignoble endings: A periodic series examining the sad conclusion to the careers of some of the greatest sports icons in history.

Babe Ruth’s impact on baseball is impossible to overstate. Beyond the statistics (about which we will have more to say below) all he did was single-handedly revitalize the game after the so-called Black Sox scandal, end the dead ball era and marshal in the modern version of the sport still played today, start the Yankees’ century of dominance by leading the team to four World Series titles, and oh yeah, his trade from the Red Sox (where he won three World Series titles in the 1910s) to the Yankees triggered the most famous curse in all of sports, one that began when Woodrow Wilson was President and did not end until George W. Bush’s first term and defined an entire region (and rivalry) for more than 80 years.

Today, Ruth is primarily known for his home runs, the number 714 is one of the few that is etched into baseball lore and understandably so. Ruth’s power was sui generis. The sport of baseball had never seen someone so prolific with the long ball. Consider that the all-time home run leader before Ruth was a 19^th century player named Roger Connor, who belted 138 home runs in a career that ran from 1881 to 1897. Ruth, in three years in the 1920s, hit more home runs than Connor did in 17 and his final tally was more than five times Connor’s effort. To put that into context, five times the current record of 762 home runs would require someone to hit 3,810 dingers, that is how far ahead Ruth was of everyone else in his day.

But home runs only tell part of the story. Ruth’s batting statistics are insane. Whether you look at traditional metrics like batting average (he hit over .370 *six* times (!) including a career high .393 in 1923), runs batted in (collecting more than 150 RBI in six seasons, and more than 160 RBI in three seasons, including a career high 168 in 1921) and slugging percentage (seven seasons above .700, including three above .800) or advanced metrics like OPS (16 consecutive seasons above .900 and fourteen above 1.000) and WAR (nine seasons with a WAR above 10 and a career WAR of 182). This is on top of the years he spent pitching, where he collected 94 wins against just 46 losses with a career ERA of 2.28. Added to that was Ruth’s larger than life personality. He was, in his way, an avatar for the Roaring 20s. His play on the field was matched by his excesses off it. He was a notorious drinker, womanizer, and gambler who spent money as quickly as he earned it.

As the 1920s gave way to the 1930s, the hangover kicked in. The country was in a depression, Ruth and the core of the Yankee teams that had dominated the previous decade were aging and fighting off the Philadelphia A’s for American League dominance. In 1932, Ruth led the Yanks to a World Series win over the Cubs, which included his famous “called shot” at Wrigley Field, but 18 months later he was no longer wearing pinstripes. What happened?

Ruth recognized his skills were diminishing and since the designated hitter would not be an option for extending careers until the 1970s, he was looking for what was, at the time, a fairly conventional exit strategy – managing.  His problem was that the owners of the Yankees were unwilling to fire the incumbent and replace him with Ruth and other owners, leery of Ruth’s off-the-field reputation, did not think the cost/benefit of hiring him as their skipper was worth taking. After a disappointing end to the 1934 season, Ruth toured Japan where he was feted like a king while back home, the Yankees were about to do something that would have once been unthinkable – trade Babe Ruth.

Ruth, by this time, was nearing 40 years of age and since no team was willing to make him their manager, his remaining value was as a gate attraction, which was exactly what Boston Braves owner Emil Fuchs was looking for to goose attendance for his awful baseball squad. The Braves (who would eventually move first to Milwaukee and then Atlanta, and yes, if you’re wondering, that means this franchise can claim two of the three all-time home run hitters as their own) were a weak sister to the crosstown Red Sox, playing to small crowds and routinely finishing at or near the bottom of the National League standings.

Ruth, given some vague promises that he might get partial ownership of the team, signed off on the deal and so it was that on April 16, 1935 he trotted out to left field for the Braves’ home opener against the New York Giants. The early returns were promising. Ruth went 2 for 4 with a home run and 3 RBI that day and followed it up by going 2 for 3 in the Braves’ second game of the season. But the moment did not last. His advanced age and weight made him a liability in the field and he was frequently overmatched at the plate. In the Braves’ next 17 games, Ruth collected just three hits, two singles and a solo home run, while his batting average plummeted to an unthinkable .149. In short order, Ruth also came to realize that Fuchs’s ownership offer was not going to be honored. The handwriting was on the wall.

In late May, the Braves visited the Pittsburgh Pirates for a three-game series at Forbes Field. Ruth did not do much in the first two games, going 1 for 8 with two punch outs, but in the finale on May 25th, he swatted three home runs - the final ones of his career - including the first to ever leave that ballpark entirely. Decades later, Ken Burns's documentary Baseball would claim this as Ruth's final game, an apt swan song for the man whose name is synonymous with the long ball, but that is not true. Ruth continued on the team's road trip, going hitless in his final five games, before retiring, unceremoniously, on June 1st. In the end, Ruth played just 28 games for the Braves, with career lows in batting average (.181) and home runs (6). He managed just 13 hits in 72 plate appearances while striking out 24 times. His play in the field was even worse, with Boston pitchers threatening to sit out games if he was in the lineup. Ruth, the greatest player of his, and possibly, any, generation, ended his career with a whimper, the man who once dominated the sport exiting it in rank humiliation.

Of course, that was not the end of Ruth’s story. Less than a year later, he entered Cooperstown as part of its inaugural class of inductees, a group still considered the greatest in the history of the Hall of Fame (which is understandable considering the other players were Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and Honus Wagner). After that, Ruth went into a steady decline brought on by throat cancer. On June 13, 1948, the Bambino returned to Yankee Stadium for a ceremony to retire his number. Ruth donned his iconic #3 jersey, which sagged off his now shriveled frame, his body so weak he needed to use a bat as a cane to hold himself upright. Ruth received a roaring ovation from the more than 50,000 fans in attendance and spoke briefly before disappearing into the dugout. He would be dead two months later.  

 

 

Ten NFL Takes - Week 15

 

Take number one: Ric Flair famously said “to be the man, you gotta beat the man” and if you beat the teams with the best records in both the AFC and NFC convincingly, I say, “you’re the man” at least until the playoffs start and you inevitably poop the bed because you’re Buffalo and that’s just what you do.

Take number two: It pains to say the Eagles are the best team in the NFC, it does, but the Eagles are the best team in the NFC. Complete top to bottom, and with an edge the rest of the country finds annoying but defines the city in ways only people who live there appreciate, they manhandled and outclasses the Steelers on a day Saquon did very little and Kellen Moore seemed to say “you don’t think Jalen Hurts can beat you with his arm? Watch him.”

Take number three: What appear to be reckless decisions that look great in retrospect because they work can also look idiotic when they do not. Case in point? Detroit. Down 10 in the fourth quarter to the aforementioned Bills with roughly 12 minutes left to play, the Lions went for an onside kick and it blew up in their faces. Couple that with still more injuries on a defense that was already depleted and a conference top heavy with other contenders breathing down their necks, the Lions may not even win their division, much less get the number one seed (and bye). Did that one play cost them the game? Probably not, but it certainly didn’t help.

Take number four: The speed with which the 49ers window for winning a Super Bowl went from “wide open” to “probably closed” made my head spin. Ten months ago, they were <this close> to winning it all and now they will probably not make the playoffs, the team suddenly looks old, the future is uncertain, and there are legitimate questions about whether (or how much) they should pay Brock Purdy.

Take number five: I admire Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi for rolling the dice at the end of the game where he team just scored a touchdown and saying “screw it, let’s go for two and the win.” As a Commanders fan, I’m glad his offensive coordinator picked an awful play to call that the Commanders defended easily, but as a fan of sports, I appreciate the gamble. Your team is not going anywhere, why not give them a chance to win the game.

Take number six: I love Lamar. He is probably my favorite player in the league and watching him operate an offense when it is clicking on all cylinders is like what I assume watching Michelangelo looked like back in the day. 100 games played and he just notched his *sixth* game where he threw five touchdown passes. Granted, the Giants are terrible, but he just makes things looks so effortless it is a shame his team keeps committing stupid penalties that may not have hurt them against an inferior team like New York, but is going to bite them in the backside in the playoffs.

Take number seven: The Texans won the AFC South yesterday and it barely caused a ripple which speaks both to the expectations they have not lived up to (good? Yes. Legitimate Super Bowl contender? Not so much.) and the weakness of their division (it helps when two of the other three teams are among the worst in the league). The other teams have coaches and those coaches have done a better job scheming against CJ Stroud while Stroud and last year’s wunderkind Bobby Slowik, have not come up with effective counters. The NFL is a constantly evolving game of cat-and-mouse and that Texans offense is still trying to figure things out fourteen games into the season.

Take number eight: I cannot remember there being less confidence in a team with one loss this late in the season but when your all-world quarterback hobbles out of the game on a bad ankle and you have been winning with smoke and mirrors all season while your one loss came to a team that stomped you out, it does not actually matter that it is the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs. It may be that lots of money is lost betting against them in the playoffs, but they play Saturday and then next Wednesday. If they go 2-0, they lock up that one seed and can get rested for the playoffs, but 1-1, or 0-2 (with the possibility of Carson Wentz starting for them?!) and that three-peat seems less and less likely.

Take number nine: Can you guess who is the only team with wins over Detroit and Philadelphia this year? If you said the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you are right! 2-0 against teams who are 24-2 against everyone else they’ve played and yet does anyone think of Tampa as a legitimate threat in the NFC? I don’t know. Baker’s having a great season (although his tendency to toss INT’s has crept back in recent weeks), they have a great rookie in Bucky Irving and a stout defense. I think it speaks more to the fact the NFC is deep this year, but keep an eye on the Bucs.

Take number ten: NFL-adjacent take. I do not think the Bill Belichick experiment at UNC is going to work. Why? A couple of reasons. First, Belichick’s pitch was that he would replicate an NFL-style program which will attract top talent who want to prepare for playing professionally. Ok, but every major college football program is already this and has for years. Belichick is playing catch up against schools like Georgia, Alabama, Oregon, Texas, and Ohio State (to name just a few) who already have the pro-level practice facilities, the nutritionists, the sports psychologists, and on and on. Second, the idea that Belichick will just dazzle recruits or players in the transfer portal with his credentials is overblown. Yes, Belichick can dump his eight Super Bowl rings on the table, but there are plenty of head coaches and coordinators in the college game who have NFL experience and while the pro game used to influence the college game, the opposite has become far more prevalent, especially on offense, in recent years. Moreover, Belichick has done zero recruiting at the college level and the first guy he brought in – Mike Lombardi – has been out of the pro game for almost a decade and has no college experience whatsoever either. If we learned anything from Belichick’s time as the de facto Patriots GM, he is actually not a great evaluator of college talent. His drafts, particularly the last five years or so at New England, were terrible. The third problem is related to the second. If this was 20 years ago, then yes, simply flashing those rings might work on recruits, but in the NIL and transfer portal world where college football is basically a professional sports league WITH NO SALARY CAP, UNC is at a distinct disadvantage financially. Sure, it has wealthy boosters and alumni, but consider SMU. SMU has so much money sloshing around its football program, it joined the ACC while agreeing to be cut out of the TV revenue sharing among the schools in the conference. And guess where SMU is right now? In the college playoffs. My point is that other schools with deeper pockets, good coaching, and a track record of getting players to the NFL are not going to roll over for Bill Belichick. Which brings me to my final reason. The dude is old. At 72, other schools will recruit against both his age and suggest he might try and get one last crack at the NFL because he is so close to getting the all-time wins record. Add it all up and I think he lasts two years, maybe three, and then either retires for good or some NFL owner desperate to retool his franchise throws a bunch of money at him to coach.

Ten NFL Takes - Week 14

 

Take number one: A blocked field goal is rarely noteworthy enough to be mentioned here, but not every blocked field goal is executed by 1) a 300 pound defensive lineman who 2) leaps over the long snapper without touching him and 3) lands on his feet on the other side of the line of scrimmage so he can 4) jump *again* getting 5) just enough of his hand (invariably referred to as a “paw” when you are that big) up in the air to 6) block the attempt that would have tied the game with like 20 seconds left in it. Yes, I know it was an irrelevant win in a game contested between two teams who won’t come close to sniffing the playoffs, but as a sheer feat of athleticism, it was off the charts. Kudos, Bryan Bresee.

Take number two: Exactly one-quarter (eight) of the league has three or fewer wins. I know there are bad teams every year, but I do not remember a season with this many god awful teams. I don’t know if it’s bad players, bad coaching, bad drafting, or bad general manager-ing (probably a combination of one or more of those things in most situations) but how do you justify asking fans in say, Jacksonville, to shell out good money to watch a 10-6 rock fight against the Titans?

Take number three: The “V” in MVP stands for “valuable” and as I said last week, while Saquon Barkley is having a great season, the Eagles, with a league average running back would still be good. Take Josh Allen off the Bills and replace him with a league average quarterback and Buffalo is probably one of those three win teams I mentioned above. You want to give Barkley offensive player of the year? Be my guest. But MVP? Six touchdowns, more than 400 yards from scrimmage and almost single-handedly dragging your team to a win in a shootout with the Rams? Color me impressed.

Take number four: Nothing encapsulates the Aaron Rodgers experience with the Jets quite like tantalizing ownership into bringing him back next year by having (by far) his best game of the season in a loss that officially eliminated them from the playoffs. Chef’s kiss.

Take number five: The Chiefs are a Rorschach Test for pundits. They are either inevitable or historically lucky in a way that will be exposed in the playoffs and there does not seem to be much nuance in between, except we forget they lost their top two wide receivers very early in the season, were without their number one running back for like eight weeks, and have been putting the offense together on the fly ever since while never solving their left tackle problem. We expect Mahomes Magic and he delivers it when he needs to, but gets questioned when he is not putting up video game stats. The AFC is still the Arrowhead Invitational and I just think we need to ask ourselves whether it is more or less likely they can scratch out two wins at home in January or lose one. My money’s on the former.

Take number six: The Falcons are hip deep in the sunk cost fallacy and I wish someone would explain to Raheem Morris that he has dynamic weapons at wide receiver, tight end, and running back but a guy with the mobility of a slab of concrete behind center and maybe, just maybe, it would be a good time to see what the dual threat talent the team drafted in the first round who has a cannon attached to his left arm can do before the season slips away entirely.

Take number seven: Can Hard Knocks just follow around Mike Tomlin all day? Like, here is Mike hyping the team at Starbucks where he gets his coffee. Here is Mike pumping up his dog’s vet after a check up. The absolute star of this version of Hard Knocks and a good example of why football is both so fun and so profound. It is a game but it is also a low key form of deep male bonding, exercises in leadership, and sacrificing yourself for the greater good. I hate the term “leader of men” but watching Tomlin cook in that Steelers training facility and prowling the sidelines on Sunday is inspiring.

Take number eight: I have no idea if Sam Darnold is a mediocre quarterback being elevated by the talent around him in Minnesota or a good quarterback who just needed the right team and system to unlock his talent, but I do know some GM is going to cut him a very large check in the off season to find out.

Take number nine: I do have an idea that Jameis is who we thought he was. A roller coaster talent who can make a couple of plays a game that only the most gifted quarterbacks can make but will also toss a couple of back breaking interceptions that make you question how he has a roster spot. He’s started more than 100 games in his career and averages more than one interception per game. He has thrown 14 pick six interceptions. His arm talent means he will stay in the league well into his 30s, but his decision making means he will never be more than a back up.

Take number ten: Non-football. It sucks when good players leave your team. It is exponentially worse when they sign with teams in your division. The Nats were a joke when they came to DC in 2005 and then clawed their way into relevancy by drafting well, making strategic trades, and signing free agents. They won more regular season games than any other team in the 2010s except the Dodgers and ended the decade by winning the World Series. And then … they slid into irrelevance and don’t seem to be too eager to do much about it while the freaking Mets just cut Juan Soto a check for three-quarters of a billion dollars and he will come to Nats Park in their uniform for the next 15 years while Bryce Harper is now in like year six of playing for the Phillies. Just infuriating.

Ten NFL Takes - Week 13

 

Take number one: Pretty sure it’s a fireable offense to toss your $55 million quarterback whose non-throwing shoulder is still wonky, out on the field in a meaningless game when you’re 2-9, but I’m not Doug Pederson. But if that is not a fireable offense, then surely it is when he gets hit late, his head bounces off the turf like a basketball and he’s carted off with a concussion. 

Take number two: Not gonna lie, I was nervous about the Washington game against the, yes, god awful Titans, but also a team that has a top 5 defense (it’s true, look it up!) But a blow out and a bye will hopefully right the ship and the team will get to the playoffs.

Take number three: Another one I can’t believe is not on the unemployment line? Joe Schoen. Your boss literally says - ON CAMERA - that if a player you decide to let walk (Saquon Barkley) ends up doing well with one of your division arch rivals, you’re not going to be happy and he not only does well but is a top 3 MVP candidate, and yet. Add that to another guy you traded away (Leonard Williams) and let walk in free agency (Xavier McKinney) who are also balling out and you just released the quarterback you handed $80 million to the mix, and the Schoen family will surely be looking for new housing come January. 

Take number four: It is too bad Brock Bowers plays for one of the three worst teams in the league because on paper he should be getting more rookie of the year hype. He is going to set the rookie record for catches by a tight end, which may end up being north of 100, while catching passes from (checks notes) Gardner Minshew, Aiden McConnell, and Desmond Ritter. 

Take number five: Nice to see Bryce Young bouncing back from the struggles he had as a rookie and early into his second season. Good reminder we should not give up on talented players just because it takes them a little longer to pick up the pro game.

Take number six: You have to feel bad for Joe Burrow. I saw a stat on ESPN noting he has thrown for more than 300 yards with 3 touchdowns and zero interceptions five times this year and the team’s record is 0-5 in those games. He’s got 30 TDs and 5 INT’s and is already well over 3,000 yards passing and yet he’s saddled not just with a terrible defense but a franchise with a long history of coming close to winning it all and then going into a slow and steady decline. 

Take number seven: Had the Bears not fired Matt Eberflus the day after their awful loss on Thanksgiving it would have dominated the NFL discourse all weekend but they lanced the boil and got rid of a guy who well deserved it. You can’t lose that many games in that many embarrassing ways (four losses that came down to the literal final play of the game!) and keep your job. Some coaches are just not cut out to be anything more than coordinators and that’s fine. Eberflus can have a long career as a respected DC, but handing him the big job ever again? Um, no.

Take number eight: The Chiefs and Ravens are weird. The former is winning close games late at a rate rarely seen and the latter spit the bit any time they lose momentum in big games. I know people have lost a lot of money over the years betting against Mahomes (and made money betting against Lamar) but do you trust either of these teams, the former with a wonky offensive line, anemic offense, and defense starting to fade, and the latter, that looks unstoppably one week and pedestrian the next whose HOF kicker looks like he has the yips, and a history of coming up short in the playoffs? 

Take number nine: Eagles record after 12 games in 2023? 10-2. Eagles record after 12 games in 2024? 10-2. Bills record after 12 games in 2023? 6-6. Bills record after 12 games in 2024? 10-2. Don’t tell me Saquon is MVP when the team he plays for has the exact same record it did last year and have a far better defense this year than last when Josh Allen, with less talent on offense and defense than last year has the Bills four games better while rarely turning over the ball and throwing/running for 27 TDs.

Take number ten: Non-sports related. I love women’s college volleyball. Great athletes, fast paced, passionate fan bases. It’s a sport on the rise to the point where ESPN did a selection show for the NCAA tournament that starts on Thursday. But the worldwide leader really messed up this show and it made me so mad. The production was amateur hour - graphics that came up too early, showing three of the four top seeds but not the fourth which probably made little sense unless you knew A LOT about the game, the reaction shots from the teams when they got announced not syncing with the actual announcement, shaky sound on the interviews (which were not illuminating in the least and too short) etc etc. They did not put their best foot forward and that is a real shame because the sport deserves more attention.

Ten NFL Takes - Week Twelve

 

Take number one: Being a Commanders fan is not fun. The team has been irrelevant for 30 years and ownership was an embarrassment. The team gets sold, they draft a quarterback who appears to be a generational talent and jump out to a 7-2 record, giving us something we have not had since the early 1990s … hope. And then they lose two straight, albeit to two playoff caliber teams, and you think, that’s ok, Dallas is coming to town, they stink, total get right game. Well. And to add insult to injury, you wake up the next morning and every sports talking head is slobbering the equally hated Eagles and you just want to stick your head in the oven. 

Take number two: The old man, get off my lawn side of me is enjoying the resurgence of running backs. The game I watched as a child and teen is back, if only for one year. The best teams have solid running games and offensive lines that maul defenses. Not one but two runners may top 2,000 yards and suddenly everything old is new again. Kudos to Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley, to David Montgomery and Jhymeer Gibbs, Josh Jacobs, and the rest of the undervalued running backs making the game look like 1977 again.

Take number three: Is there a worse team to root for than the Dolphins? When your quarterback is healthy, you’re at worst a playoff team and at best a Super Bowl contender but the problem is the next time he takes a hit to the head, his career might be over and you have no back up plan if that happens. If you root for a team like the Giants or Raiders, you know your team is tanking and will try to reset next year but the Dolphins are in a sort of purgatory where they are totally reliant on this one player whose career could end tomorrow. Oh, and you can't win a game when the temperature is below 40 degrees. Seems like a problem!

Take number four: The Ravens are simultaneously the most enjoyable and most frustrating team in the league to watch. They can march into a game against an up and coming team like the Chargers, have Lamar do Lamar things, a couple of highlight quality plays literally no one else can make, Derrick Henry steamroll people, and their defense play well enough and you think, “no one can beat this team, they are a thing of beauty” not one week after they looked inept and impotent against the Steelers and you think “what is wrong with this team?” In the end, the sloppy play (the Ravens get penalized way too much), uneven defense, and questionably play calling in big games will likely result in their season ending short of the Super Bowl and it will be a shame.

Take number five: The other side of the Ravens coin is Kansas City. They take their first loss of the season and are outplayed in Buffalo and then play with their food in Carolina, let an inferior team hang around for the entire game, and then scratch out a win. Impossible to make heads or tails of this team, whether they are just using the regular season to figure out what works best in the playoffs or if the defense is regressing or the offense is stuck. Strangest 10-1 team in recent memory. 

Take number six: The Bears keep finding new ways to lose and their fan base must be furious. They went into their bye week 4-2 and then it all fell apart. The Hail Mary loss to Washington followed by two awful losses to Arizona and New England where the team did not look competitive, somewhere in there the offensive coordinator gets fired and then they lose a game to their oldest rival on a blocked field goal and then lose their next game to another division rival after coming back to tie the game in the last two minutes. That great start to the season is now long forgotten. 4-7 with a trip to Detroit to play the best team in the NFC on a short week knowing your whole coaching staff is likely out the door at season’s end. 

Take number seven: The NFC South and NFC West are the poster children for what the powers that be in the NFL want - parity. Both of these divisions are perfectly mediocre and each division winner will likely not be known until the final week of the season. Competitive? Yes. Entertaining? Not so much (Baker’s weird DeVito homage notwithstanding). 

Take number eight: Have you heard about the team that has won six of their last seven, their only loss being to the 10-1 Lions? No. It’s Green Bay. Keep an eye on them.

Take number nine: If someone needs 17 games to break a record that was set in 16 games, it is not a record. I will die on this hill. Statistics and records play such a big role in how sports are covered and yet, to use one example, if Saquon Barkley needs an additional game to break Eric Dickerson’s record, it, does not count, sorry. Start keeping records based on the number of games that were played, Rewrite the record books so there are season leaders for when the league played 12 games, 14 games, 16 games, and now, 17 games. 

Take number ten: I was trying to think back to the last time I celebrated a traditional, sit-at-the-family-table Thanksgiving and I came up with 2008. It can be isolating to be estranged from your family and losing another one to divorce, but on the flip side, no travel drama, no talk of politics at dinner, and I can sit at home with a pizza the size of a wagon wheel and watch football all day without anyone yelling at me. 

The Greatest World Series Play You’ve Never Heard Of

 

The indelible image of the 1975 World Series is of course Carlton Fisk’s walk off home run in the bottom of the 12th inning of Game Six. Even if you are not a baseball fan you have undoubtedly seen a highlight of Fisk connecting on the pitch, then swinging his arms in the air, directing the ball to stay fair, and then sprinting through a mob of fans who stormed the field when the ball hit the foul pole to send the series to a seventh and deciding game. But while that may be the most memorable image of that series and arguably one of the most memorable plays in the history of baseball, the most important play of the 1975 World Series took place roughly twenty hours later. It was a play that in any other game, with any other teams, would have meant far less, but in this game, with the histories of these franchises at stake, a routine ground ball that should have been turned into a double play altered baseball history, and few people even remember it happened. 

For the first five innings of Game Seven, Red Sox starter Bill “Spaceman” Lee held the vaunted Big Red Machine scoreless. As he took the mound for the top of the sixth, Lee and his teammates were ahead 3-0 and a mere 12 outs away from claiming their first World Series title in 57 years. Holding that lead would not be easy. Lee would face the top of the Reds order, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and Johnny Bench. If any of the three got on base, the clean up hitter, Tony Perez, would come to bat. All four of these Reds players would one day be (or should be) in the Hall of Fame. So Lee certainly had his work cut out for him.

Rose, a switch hitter, was batting right handed against Lee, a southpaw. Running the count to 2-1, Rose slapped a grounder through the right side of the infield for a base hit. Morgan strode into the batter’s box, fouling off Lee’s first offering before taking two pitches. Another 2-1 count. But this time Lee prevailed, inducing a weak fly out to shallow right that failed to advance Rose. With one on and one out, the Reds’ all-star catcher came to bat. After fouling off Lee’s first pitch, Bench hit a textbook double play ball to shortstop Rick Burleson, who fielded the grounder cleanly and flipped the ball to second baseman Denny Doyle to start what should have been an inning ending double play. But Rose, living up to his Charlie Hustle moniker, had a full head of steam and, although he was at least five feet short of the bag, slid hard, forcing Doyle to bunny hop out of Rose’s way. Doyle’s throw to first was off target, keeping the inning alive. Perez then launched Lee’s 1-0 offering, a so-called “eephus” pitch, a slow moving, high arcing curve, over the Green Monster and out of Fenway, cutting the Red Sox lead to 3-2. The Reds would go on to add a run in the top of the seventh and the top of the ninth, winning the game (and the championship) 4-3. 

After winning the 1975 World Series, the Reds, playing with the confidence of world champions, cruised to 102 regular season wins and then swept both the NLCS and World Series, cementing the Big Red Machine as one of the greatest teams of all time. But what if Rose failed to break up that double play? It is not hyperbolic to say that the course of the game, as well as the course of baseball history, might have looked much different. If the Red Sox turn that double play, the inning ends and the Reds are still losing 3-0. Perez comes up in the top of the seventh but perhaps it is not Lee he’s facing but one of the Red Sox’s relief pitchers (one was warming up in the bullpen in the sixth) and regardless, no one would have been on base. The Reds only scored two additional runs as the actual game unfolded; if the same occurred in an alternate universe where they are held scoreless in the sixth, the Red Sox win the game 3-2. 

Now consider the chain of events that would have unfolded. For the Reds, this would have been their third World Series loss of the decade (they also lost in 1970 and 1972) in addition to losing the NLCS in 1973. Losing to the Red Sox would have led to an off season of questions about the team’s ability to win the big one, tagging them with the dreaded term “chokers,” and likely ending with major changes, including firing Sparky Anderson and trading Perez, who the team tried to deal before the 1975 season but failed to do. It was nothing against Perez, but the team lacked a third baseman (Rose was called into service but was not his preferred position) and Perez was dangled as trade bait to the Yankees and Royals, in hopes of dislodging their then-young stars Craig Nettles or George Brett (which would be a whole OTHER alternate universe discussion). Instead of entering 1976 as cocky champions, the Reds would have been shell shocked by their repeated failures. With full free agency starting around MLB after that season, even if the Reds had won that lone title in 1976, the team would be remembered more like the Braves of the 1990s - a team loaded with talent that only won it all once but is not considered one of the greatest teams of all time - as opposed to how history remembers them, as a dynasty. 

The arc of Red Sox history would have been even more profound. The dreaded Curse of the Bambino would have ended in 1975, not 2004. It is possible that with the pressure taken off the team, it does not give up a 14 game lead to the Yankees in 1978 before losing a one-game playoff to them and Bucky Bleeping Dent. It is possible John McNamara feels no need to keep Bill Buckner in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series so he can be on the field when the curse is broken and replaces Buckner with Dave Stapleton, who cleanly fields Mookie Wilson’s grounder. Who knows, maybe Grady Little pulls Pedro in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS a few hitters early, and Aaron Bleeping Boone does not complete this trilogy of gut punches the Red Sox experienced after their loss in 1975. 

And here’s the thing, even if all those things still happened, they would have been tempered by the fact that the Red Sox had won in 1975. Would they have still been painful? Of course, but fans would have been able to hold onto the memories of Pudge’s Game 6 heroics and a tight victory in Game 7 to clinch that title. Instead, the Fisk home run is a highlight that will be shown as long as baseball is played, while Rose’s break up of that sixth inning double play can only be found not as a clip on You Tube, but simply part of the entire game’s broadcast. It is rarely mentioned in baseball lore, but this little bit of fundamental base running might have been the most consequential out ever recorded in World Series history.

Michael Clayton - 17 Years Too Late

 

Michael Clayton was one of those “I can’t believe you haven’t seen it” movies for me, so, 17 years late, I finally watched it. It was … fine, but I think my lack of enthusiasm for it was due to two things. First, the movie advertises Clayton (played by George Clooney) as a “fixer” who has to get a partner at his law firm under control after the man suffers a mental breakdown during a high stakes, multi-billion dollar class action case involving a cancer-causing pesticide. To me, “fixer” has a very specific connotation – a person who comes into a messy situation and cleans it up discreetly, with no fingerprints so to speak, and does not linger over the morality of what they are doing. The perfect example is Pulp Fiction’s Winston Wolf.

Here however, it is hard to call Clooney a “fixer.” Early in the movie, he is called out to a mansion in Westchester County because one of the firm’s clients was involved in a hit and run and fled the scene. Now, a true fixer would have a 24-hour tow service on speed dial, removed the offending vehicle from the residence and turned into a metal cube while the fixer constructed a believable alibi for the offender while also checking to make sure no traffic cameras might have caught him in the act. But that’s not what happens. Instead, Clooney basically tells the guy he (Clooney) can’t help him other than to tell him to get a good criminal defense lawyer. Uh, duh.

But Clooney’s primary mission is flying to Milwaukee to babysit the rogue law firm partner and he fails miserably at that too. The attorney, Arthur Edens (played by Tom Wilkinson) gives Clooney the slip in his hotel room and flies back to New York City. Clooney does eventually find him, but it does no good because the evil corporation’s general counsel, Karen Crowder (played beautifully by god-tier actress Tilda Swinton) has hired *actual* fixers who track Edens, put him under surveillance, and ultimately murder him, making it look like a suicide.

(There is also a whole sub plot going on showing Clooney to be a degenerate gambler who is also in hock because a restaurant he opened with his drug addicted brother went under and he doesn’t have enough money to pay off his creditors. He’s also divorced with a son, which is another sub plot that does not really go anywhere.)

In the end, Clooney does one fixer-like thing – he gets his other brother (a cop) to give him a police seal so he can break into Edens’s apartment after his death, search it, and then replace the broken seal so no one knows he was there. Of course, the evil fixers still have the apartment under surveillance and call the cops, who arrest Clooney and put his brother’s job in jeopardy; but Clooney does find a receipt in a book Edens bought at Clooney’s son’s recommendation showing he had 3,000 copies of an internal, evil corporation memo acknowledging the pesticide was dangerous (I should note the receipt said it was a COD job and Clooney’s financial problems beg the question of how he paid for them.) Obviously, the memo is extremely damaging to their case, but instead of burying it (which an actual fixer would do) Clooney leverages it to get Crowder to pay him off for his silence only instead of doing that, what he was actually doing was getting her on tape offering him a bribe. Clooney’s brother and other cops swoop in, arrest her, and the memo is presumably used by the plaintiffs to extract a massive settlement.

Which brings me to my other problem with the movie, and perhaps it is one borne of the fact I’m a lawyer – the legal stuff made NO sense. For one, Edens’s multiple contacts with the lead plaintiff would have been a clear violation of rules of professional conduct. So too would have been his decision to leak the internal memo. There was some vague mention of potential legal malpractice, but that had to do with Edens’s meltdown during a deposition, not his other, flagrant violations of the rules of professional conduct. Possession of the internal memo and its use by the client’s own law firm against it would have been another problem in the real world, but was required as a narrative device for the story.

The whole thing would have made more sense if Clooney was not marketed as a “fixer” or instead, actually was a fixer who did evil stuff on behalf of the evil corporation. I think the movie could have also worked better with an ambitious younger lawyer who becomes disillusioned when they find out the evil corporation is in fact evil, and turns into a whistle blower. To me, this is a two, maybe two-and-a-half star movie.  

Ten NFL Takes - Week Eleven

 

Take number one: Call him what you will, Playoff Lamar, Bizarro Lamar, January Lamar, regardless, that guy, and not the incandescent talent who has already won two MVP awards and appeared on a glide path to a third, showed up yesterday in Pittsburgh. I have no idea why this version of Lamar – the one who is trying to force big plays, making bad decisions, turning the ball over, and generally looking lost – shows up at the most inopportune times, but boy howdy did it resemble that 2024 AFC Championship game against the Chiefs and to a lesser extent, Lamar’s other post-season turkeys. Maybe it’s the coaches who are unable to make adjustments or Lamar feeling like a Ferrari being asked to drive the speed limit through a school zone but for a team that looked like the league’s best, they are suddenly sitting at 7-4 and may be at risk of not making the playoffs! Four of their last six games are against teams that are either locks for the playoffs (Philly, Pittsburgh, and Houston) or challenging for a wild-card (Chargers) and while their defense looked great yesterday against a “meh” Steelers offense, should we expect a similar level of play? If not, and Bad Lamar rears his head again with Tucker suddenly losing his kicking mojo, this entire season will have been wasted.

Take number two: I’m marveling at the Steelers. I am. Their defense just throttled Baltimore, there is no other way to describe it. T.J. Watt wrecked that game from the first snap to the last, their secondary was sticky and aggressive, and their linebackers didn’t give Lamar any space to operate. Russ may only be cooking at a low simmer, but apropos of take one, this is a team that knows who it is and is willing to slug it out, grind out three yards and a cloud of dust, and kick six field goals if that is what it takes to win.

Take number three: Did that Josh Allen scramble to seal Buffalo’s win yesterday break the spell the Chiefs have over them? Yes, I know regular season Josh has a winning record against regular season Pat, but the Bills were the better team yesterday and it was not particularly close and that was without Allen’s full complement of receivers. The question remaining for the Bills is whether they want to make a push for the one seed or start load managing some of their players. The division is all but clinched so it’s really more the risk/reward of getting that one week bye versus sneaking in some rest for players down the stretch but playing an extra game and not having home field for the conference championship.

Take number four: Chiefs kingdom should not overreact to yesterday’s loss but they should not dismiss it either. The glaring shortcomings of this team have been on display all season but it was not until yesterday that a team exposed them so thoroughly and then went for the jugular when they had the chance. That said, the remaining schedule has three cupcakes, including the next two, against Carolina and Las Vegas, and four competitive games against the Chargers, Broncos, Steelers, and Texans. Three and oh against the cupcakes and a split with the good teams gets the Chiefs to 14 wins, which should be good enough for the one seed, but does not guarantee it.

Take number five: The Commanders are just toying with our emotions. It’s like that girlfriend you finally broke up with and moved on, but then you run into her years later and all the stuff that made you leave in the first place seems less important and you focus on the good times you had and then two weeks into the reconciliation you are shocked back into reality. Two losses in five days, albeit to playoff teams, is concerning, as is Jayden Daniels’s apparent regression and the return of the second half of the season Kliff Kingbury fade. With the punchless Cowboys up next, the team better right the ship.

Take number six: Sports are cruel, they just are. Imagine you’re a Bears fan right now. Your season started out with so much promise and then within the span of a few weeks, instead of stealing a game on the road in D.C. you lose an a Hail Mary that will be replayed over and over as long as you live, you got pummeled in the desert by the Cardinals, and then, after all the sturm und drang, the o/c firing, the whispers in the locker room, the dead man walking watch on your head coach, you outplay your oldest rival on your home field, your rookie quarterback who had looked lost for the past three weeks leads a picture perfect two-minute drill while flashing all the talent that sold you on him in the first place, you milk the clock down to three seconds, line up for the winning field goal and … it’s blocked. Not only is your season effectively over, but you have now lost twice in the last month on the last play of games you should have won. Brutal.

Take number seven: Good teams beat bad teams. Great teams pummel bad teams into oblivion. That is Detroit right now. And yes, I know they lost another key piece on their defense, but I am pretty sure what they did to Jacksonville is illegal in twenty-three states.

Take number eight: Sneaky Bo Nix for rookie of the year candidacy brewing. I won’t lie and claim to watch enough Broncos football to speak with real intelligence about what this kid is doing right, but the results speak for themselves. Sean Payton may be an arrogant jerk, but that dude has cleaned up a franchise that was adrift and set it on the right path.

Take number nine: Speaking of arrogant jerk coaches, Jim Harbaugh also doing a bang up job with a team that had become the poster child for giving up fourth quarter leads and generally spitting the bit in close games. You think the good people of Chicago aren’t steaming right now that ownership didn’t dump Eberflus in the offseason to make a run at a guy who used to play for them?

Take number ten: Thoughts and prayers to all those who will need to spend more time with their families on Thanksgiving because the late afternoon match up of the Cooper Rush-led Cowboys playing the Tommy DeVito-led Giants will test the patience of even the most die-hard sports fan.

A Note To My Blue Sky Followers

Greetings! If you made the exodus from Twitter to Blue Sky with me, let me first say thank you for following me, whether you did so recently or have been with me since I started tweeting in 2010 or jumped on the bus sometime in between. I am posting this as a public service announcement so you can decide if you want to continue on this social media journey with me.

First, I am not leaving Twitter. I am keeping my account there for a couple of reasons - on the off chance Elon dumps it and it goes back to being a decent platform, because I have accounts I follow and enjoy on the site and who are not migrating elsewhere, and also because hey, let’s face it, there is no guarantee Blue Sky survives long term and I don’t want to start from zero (again). I will keep posting on Twitter, although with far less frequency.

Second, I will not be posting nearly as much about politics or the media as I did on Twitter. For one thing, the idea of rubbernecking past democracy’s end does not hold that much appeal to me. I used to say that politics had become pro wrestling, but it’s worse now because in pro wrestling the performers know the outcome, the audience does not. In a check-and-balance free world, which is what Washington, DC will be once Trump is inaugurated, the performers *and* the audience (us) know what will happen. On any given topic, be it the budget, a Supreme Court nominee, or any of the myriad of other things that involve one or more of the three branches of government, Trump is going to win, Democrats (and the country) are going to lose and the media will cheerlead the former and ask why the latter is impotent. It’s just not that interesting to me. 

Third, I do plan on using my Blue Sky account more like how I used my Twitter account when I first signed up - as an outlet for discussing things happening in my life, what I am interested in, and linking to my long-form blog posts. If that’s not your cup of tea, I will not be at all offended, but I just want everyone to know ahead of time that this account will not simply mimic what I had over on Twitter. 

Finally, feel free to reach out! It is going to take me a little while to get the hang of this new account and who did (and did not) come over from Twitter. Let me know if you’re here so I can follow you back or point me to others I might have missed. 

Ten NFL Takes - Week Ten

Take number one: When your quarterback tosses five picks on the road against a team that won its division last year (and will probably win it again this year), you're down sixteen points at halftime, but come back to win because your kicker (who was in the equivalent of the pro football minor league last spring) burns the uprights not once but twice, it just might be your year. We need to get our heads around the idea one of the few teams never to have made a Super Bowl, much less win one, might change both of those things this year. Great win, Detroit.

Take number two: I have written about how Kansas City's secret sauce is its scouting and drafting. Consider that they have *three* future Hall of Famers on their roster who they drafted out of college (and traded away a fourth a few years ago for a haul of picks) on top of other key contributors like Creed Humphrey, Isaiah Pacheco, Trent McDuffie, George Karlaftis, and Rashee Rice (pre injury) and you understand why someone most of us have never heard of (Leo Chanel) steps up at the end of a game they should have lost, blocks a field goal and saves their undefeated season going into the game of the year at Buffalo next weekend.

Take number three: Maybe we should not have been surprised that the rap on a quarterback prospect coming out of college was that he was inaccurate and did not perform well if his offensive line was leaky would struggle with accuracy in the pros when his line could not protect him. People forget that in limited preseason action, Caleb Williams was a 50% passer. A couple of good games against bad teams led people to believe Williams had "figured things out" but he has regressed back to the hold-the-ball-too-long, is-not-reading-defenses rookie he was for the first few games earlier this season. Twenty three drives since losing to the Commanders have resulted in precisely zero touchdowns and since their bye, they have scored twenty-seven points in three games. In retrospect, the Bears should have traded up from the ninth pick and taken a bookend offensive lineman (of which three were available) instead of another wide receiver when their offense already had plenty of weapons. 

Take number four: When you live on the east coast and don't shell out money for the Red Zone, west coast teams sometimes slip below your radar. This year, the Chargers, Cardinals, and Broncos have all quietly put together solid seasons. I saw the Cardinals for the first time yesterday because local CBS forced me to watch the Jets play them and it was not even a contest. Great example of a *team* that does not have a lot of household names or big contracts, absolutely dog walking another "team" with plenty of big names but zero identity. The Cardinals are a bit of a knock off Ravens team on offense. They bully you in the trenches with a great run game and have a dual threat at quarterback who it is almost impossible to scheme for. Their defense is full of no names put get after the ball and have not given up a touchdown in the last three games. Not too shabby.

Take number five: Is it too soon to look at the off season coaching carousel? The Jets and Saints have already fired their head coaches and barring massive turnarounds, the Jaguars, Bears, Cowboys, and maybe the Browns, Raiders, and Giants will all be moving on from their head coaches too. These are not terrible rosters but to a team, the culture, the vibes, the whatever-you-want-to-call-it just is not there.

Take number six: In addition to the coaching carousel, if we're being real, most of the playoff intrigue is already gone, and it is only week ten. In the AFC, the Chiefs, Bills, Texans, Steelers, Ravens, and Chargers are somewhere between mortal locks and very good chances, leaving that seventh spot (currently occupied by the Broncos) open. In the NFC, the Eagles, Commanders, Vikings, Lions, Packers, Falcons, are in that same position, leaving the three teams in the NFC West probably needing to win the division to get in. 

Take number seven: Ten weeks in, you just know who the bad teams are. You do. Congratulations Carolina, you won two straight, but you're still awful. Ditto the Saints. You won one for your interim coach who was so nervous before the game he clogged the toilet in the coach's bathroom. Start your off season scouting at the top of the draft, G-Men, Cowboys, Raiders, and Browns.

Take number eight: Football can be a cruel sport. A guy like Baker Mayfield, who takes A JOURNEY from first overall pick to cast off *from Carolina* only to rehab himself in L.A. and then find his groove in Tampa, is leading a team playing without their two top wide receivers and they scrap and claw and fight only to lose three straight by one score to superior competition. You deserve a better fate, six.

Take number nine: Speaking of cruel, my hometown Commandos (again, HATE Commanders name) showed why it is a game of inches. A few inches short on a fourth down to keep a drive alive to win the game. A few inches too far when the Steelers go to a hard count that gets us penalized for offsides and a game the R-words should have won ends up as a loss with a quick turnaround up to Philly for a Thursday night game against maybe the hottest team in the league right now. Woke up Sunday 7-2, may wake up Friday 7-4 and no longer leading the division. Tough stuff.

Take number ten: I have nothing to say about the Cowboys play on the field. It's awful, but what I do have something to say is how stupid do you have to be to spend a billion dollars on a stadium and miss a glaring (pun intended) design flaw that results in blinding sunlight shining through the glass on one side of the stadium for an hour plus making it almost impossible to run your offense and why, for the love of god, did you not construct some sort of louver system that could block it out?