This is why they play all nine innings

Proof that one should never give up on anything, especially baseball games with mediocre teams.

Witness last night’s contest between the Washington Nationals and Miami Marlins, a game which the visiting Marlins led 9-0 early on, won by the home team 14-12 several hours later.

The Nats, actually, had every chance to blow this game. After said 9-0 hole and my hometown team’s two touchdowns to go up 14-9, Nats relievers did give up three runs in the top of the eighth to make the game 14-12. Sometimes unhittable closer Sean Doolittle gave up two hits in the top of the ninth to bring the go-ahead run to the plate, but was able to strike out Derek Dietrich to end the game.

Nothin’ to it.

Happy Fourth!

I’m back!

And just in time to celebrate one of my favorite days of the year. The day that everyone does what I would do every day of the year: hot dogs, baseball, music, fireworks, and all things American.

Yeah, that’s my kind of day.

See ya!

Leaving today on a little vacation to a place where the Internet is spotty at best. Expect no posts until July 3, during which time you might peruse our archives.

Quick reminder, on July 4 I will be presenting my annual public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Sterling Park, details here.

See ya!

9-5 sports

One of the benefits of having an unusual work schedule is that one might find himself free at 2:00 in the afternoon on a Monday to watch a futbol match from several time zones away. I’m still reeling from England’s stoppage-time victory over Tunisia in Monday’s World Cup action, an event whose thrilling conclusion was topped only by the fact that it took place while most Americans were at work.

Oh, Americans and their work, work, work.

Group action begins at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time today with Portugal vs. Morocco. The Spaniards take the pitch at 2:00 today for those of you sneaking out early.

I won’t tell.

Second-tier sports take center stage

Gotta hand it to the folks at Fox. The two biggest sporting events on Earth yesterday and they had ’em both. World Cup soccer and the U.S Open (that would be golf) and both of them were exciting to the end. Literally the beginning to the end, as that beautiful time difference between here and Russia has given us soccer (elsewhere they call it futbol) every day from eight in the morning. Hacking around Shinnecock Hills takes about eight hours too, so we were covered on sports right up until dinnertime.

Then baseball starts. On ESPN. You know that old channel. And baseball… you know that one? It’s like golf but they throw it at you from 60 feet away.

It’s what Americans used to do before soccer showed up.

Father’s Day

Sunday, of course, is Father’s Day. That admittedly silly holiday that falls so close to my birthday it feels to me like a seamless 10-day celebration of self. No complaints.

Every day I become more and more aware of the fact that I am becoming my own dad. This used to scare me, but I’m now completely comfortable with it.

On a recent trip to my hometown of Binghamton, New York, seeing some friends I hadn’t seen in a while, I came to an even more startling (or perhaps not so startling) discovery…

We are all becoming our dads.

Yup. Every guy I know in 2018 is basically the picture I have of his dad in 1989.

And I’m fine with it.

Last day?

‘Round these parts today is the last day of school before summer vacation.

Summer vacation. Ha! What a silly, 20th-century notion.

Summer camp starts tomorrow, and as I’ve noted before, what with cellphones, travel sports teams, and organized “play dates,” there’s really not much to summer vacation any more. Remember when you’d go three months without seeing people from school? Nobody under 27 does.

Well, here’s to the next phase anyway, and maybe to unplugging a bit on our phones.

I think there’s an app for that.

Seven years in the making…

Still riding high off the Capitals’ Stanley Cup-winning victory last Thursday I give, as a gift to anyone who cares, the 319th episode of Politics After Dark. Why do I announce this one? It’s the first in nearly seven years.

For those of you who perhaps do not know the backstory, I hosted a weekly program on public access television in Binghamton, New York, from 2004-2011. The name of the show was Politics After Dark, and there were actually two separate stints, Version 1.0 and Version 2.0. In all I aired 318 episodes during those years, and in December 2011 vowed never to do another.

Well…

Not on public access but available to all via the magic of YouTube (I was doing YouTube before there was a YouTube), I give you Politics After Dark Version 3.0.

This is Episode #319: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFCgdC0wCYE.

C-A-P-S Caps Caps Caps

Forty-four years in the making. And now it is here. The Washington Capitals are Stanley Cup champions.

It’s Mardi Gras, the Fourth of July, and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one in D.C. right now and I’m happy to be a part of it. Yeah, I’ve only lived here since 2011, but I did watch playoff heartbreak for six years in a row before this one. The “almost” Capitals of the Ovechkin/Rock the Red era are “almost” no more. Cross them off the list of greatest teams never to win a championship. This one can’t be taken away.

As a personal aside, I should mention that yesterday was also my birthday. Number 36 if you’re keeping track. Pretty good birthday present, eh? Interesting that it was June 7, 2011, that my then-hometown hockey team, the Binghamton Senators, won the Calder Cup on the road in Houston. It was Binghamton’s first championship after 30-plus years of hockey struggles.

June 7 is just my lucky day for hockey I suppose.

You know I’ve never put on a pair of ice skates in my life?

Maybe Birthday 37.

“Greatest” is not a word I use lightly

Hard to think about baseball during times like these, what with NBA and NHL finals in play, but the following piece has been due for some time.

I’ve said before, on this blog and elsewhere, that Ken Griffey Jr. is the greatest position player I ever saw. No question. Hasn’t changed in 20 years.

Pitchers, however, are a different story. I don’t really have a definitive answer for who’s the greatest pitcher you ever saw?

The “Mount Rushmore” of ’80s/’90s/’00s pitchers is generally considered to be Maddux, Clemens, Pedro, and Randy Johnson. No arguments there. But would I place any one of these pitchers unequivocally above the others? The race is too subjective and too close to call.

It would take a lot for someone to surpass Griffey in my mind, but I could see a pitcher eclipsing the aforementioned quartet. The most obvious possibility is Clayton Kershaw, barely 30 and three Cy Youngs in. But Kershaw hasn’t been as effective thus far this season, and it’s not as though he could hang it up at 30 and be in the conversation. He ain’t Koufax.

Enter Max Scherzer. Also three Cy Youngs, including one in each league. He’s 10-1 this year (NL pitcher of the month in both April and May), and barring injury is likely to win his third straight Cy Young this season. He’s 33, has pitched about the same number of games as Kershaw, with the same number of wins. Amazingly they’ve pitched almost the exact same number of innings in their careers, and it’s actually Scherzer who’s got more strikeouts. Yes, Kershaw’s got a better ERA, but let’s face it… they’re both pretty unhittable.

Max Scherzer’s performance last night, though not as historic as one of his no-hitters or 100+ game score gems, was pretty damn good. Over eight innings he gave up only two runs on five hits with no walks and 13 strikeouts. He faced 28 batters and threw 99 pitches. Eighty-one for strikes. Eighty-one! That’s less than one a batter. The average batter last night saw 0.64 balls out of the strike zone. That’s unheard of. Batting practice pitchers don’t have that kind of control.

Every time Max Scherzer steps on the mound I think he can throw a perfect game. That’s the bottom line. It’s been true since the day he signed a fat contract to play here in D.C. Know how much money the guy makes? About a million dollars a start. And he’s worth every penny.

No question Scherzer’s a leader and a team player. (A great D.C. guy too; he was in house and in full Capitals regalia for their win Monday night.) In last Saturday’s (baseball) game he entered as an emergency pinch hitter in the 14th inning of a tie game. Got a hit… and scored the go-ahead run on the next batter’s triple. Wasn’t running the bases with a jacket on… he was just running the bases.

Will I one day refer to Max Scherzer as the greatest pitcher I ever saw?

A World Series ring would really help his chances.