Fargo bringing it this season

I’ll admit that baseball’s LCS has not exactly brought drama as far as the series themselves. A few good moments and a few good games, but last night I had one game end 14-2 and the other end with one team poised for a sweep.

Let me say thank god for Fargo.

You watching Fargo this season?

If you missed last season, don’t worry. Somehow Season Two really has nothing to do with Season One. No matter, the Coen brothers and co. have brought it yet again, even more so than last season. Does it feel as though they’ve stolen a few elements from Breaking Bad? Absolutely. But you know what show I really liked? Breaking Bad. (And one might say Breaking Bad took a few elements from Fargo in its day.)

Here’s hoping for another dramatic World Series this year…

Fargo is setting the bar high.

Mets, Jets

Someone alert the hippies… it is 1969. Was that Tom Seaver I saw on the mound yesterday for the New York Metropolitans? Was that Joe Namath quarterbacking the New York Jets?

There was a time in my life I used to root for New York sports teams. Somehow, yesterday, I found myself on the losing end of such contests all day, and I’m thinking those ways will continue. Stay tuned.

LCS match-ups set

Baseball’s final four is set, and we’ve got the blue-and-white teams facing off to play the winner of the blue-and-orange teams. Experienced money has got to be with the K.C. Royals, while sabermetric money probably lies with the Jays. Sentimental money obviously goes with the Cubbies, but I think the smart money right now is with the New York Mets. When you let your closer bat for himself in the top of the ninth inning with only a one-run lead and the move works perfectly…

Get the champagne ready.

‘Skins somehow always disappoint

Much as I love seeing my hometown Washington Redskins play reasonably well I can’t help feeling a bit a bit nostalgic for games of yesteryear, when I assumed they had no chance of winning. Games such as that played yesterday, which raise my hopes for not for a fleeting moment or two but for 97 percent of the game are no doubt more disappointing than the one-sided drubbings to which I’d become accustomed.

Just sayin’.

New album celebrates “birthday”

This past Wednesday I turned 33 and 1/3 years old. Not exactly a milestone, but noteworthy nonetheless. I’m happy to say that in conjunction with said “birthday,” my new album, Still Playing at 33 1/3, will be available for sale at iTunes/Amazon/Spotify, etc. in the next few days. Here’s a mock-up of the cover art and disc itself, and yes, that CD is meant to look like a vinyl record. Get it? Still playing at 33 1/3? A full review of my own album will soon follow on this very blog.

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Game 163 kind of looked like 160, 161, 162

Well, at least I got to sit down and actually watch one full baseball game this season. Unfortunately it went pretty much as I expected.

I’ll admit I got to see only an embarrassingly-small number of baseball games this year. I get to see the Yankees play only when they’re on national TV or they’re playing the Orioles, and this past weekend was the first time, really, I concentrated on at least a few innings of a few games in a row. None of it made me feel too good. I barely recognized half the players and a lot of them were a decade younger than I was. Ouch.

Enter an even younger opponent I still have trouble remembering is in the American League and you’ve got those errors compounded by about a million. Guys I never heard of who graduated from high school in 2012 and are ruining my evening.

Bring on football or something.

Weekend roundup

How did I spend my weekend?

Watching sports, natch.

On Saturday I was treated to the most dominating pitching performance I’ve ever seen. On Sunday I had 14 hours of NFL games, capped by a Sunday night classic that rivaled, well, my most recent post about the NFL’s most recent primetime game. Sandwiched in there was a thrilling Redskins comeback that brought them to… wait for it… tied for first! in the NFC East.

As a bonus I got to see my beloved New York Yankees slide ass-backwards into the playoffs through a series of final-day-of-the-season confusion executives dream of in February.

Yeah, sports are good.

October still means football

Proof again that football is taking over more and more of our lives, the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers played an instant Thursday night classic last night at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, like most of America (it seemed) I was rooting for the Steelers. And let’s face it, really I was rooting for Mike Vick. Add him to the list of how-did-these-guys-become-lovable-underdogs? with A-rod, LeBron James, Tiger Woods, and Tom Brady.

And… 2015’s latest MLB playoffs entrant: the New York Yankees.

Thirty days had September

This September was not one to remember for my hometown Washington Nats. What should have been a month-long coast to a division title became, rather, a struggle to stay alive that turned into an undignified total collapse. Teammates literally coming to blows in the dugout brought out tags usually reserved for that other dysfunctional Washington-based franchise… the one with the politically-incorrect nickname.

Well, as they used to say in this town and elsewhere…

Wait ’til next year.