My sunny weekend in October

     Those expecting a melodramatic write up of the Yankees A.L.C.S. loss to the Houston Astros should remember this--NYY won 91 games this season while Houston topped out at 101 victories and almost caught the Cleveland Indians for the best record in the American League. While the Yankees failed to catch Boston on the last weekend of the regular season, they did remarkably better against the Astros than did the Red Sox. New York had the best home record in the A.L., played with a number of rookies or second year starters and still managed to overwhelmingly reserve home field to their advantage for the A.L. Wild Card game. They did have the A.L. Rookie of the Year in Aaron Judge, and he may well be either first or second the the A.L. M.V.P. voting. Greg Byrd made it clear that, after his recovery from ankle surgery, that he will be the starting first baseman for years to come. Didi Gregorious had a career year at shortstop. Todd Frazier, Tommy Kahnle and David Roberstson all had significant impacts on the team once they arrived via trade from the White Sox. Aaron Hicks improved measurably. Starlin Castro batted .300. Gary Sanchez followed his incredible rookie season with 33 homers. Luis Severino is in the top 10 of A.L. starting pitchers. Jordan Montgomery is a very promising lefty. Masahiro Tanaka became the clutch pitcher we all expected. C. C. Sabathia outraced Father Time by the way he pitched. The list goes on and on.

     Remember this--the Astros may have the A.L. M.V.P. in Jose Altuve, and he showed how good he is in the field as well as a hitter. Carlos Correa is one of the top two shortstops in the A.L. if not in Major League Baseball. George Springer made catch after catch in center field and is a very, very good batter. At every position, the Astros are loaded. Plus their pitching is unreal. Justin Verlander at age 34 showed us why he is a Hall of Fame candidate. Dallas Kuechel and Lance Mc Cullers, Jr. will be All Stars for years to come. Charlie Morton is a poor fourth on the Astros' starting pitching list--and look how he pitched in Game 7. And I like A.J. Hinch as a manager. This, in summary, is a great team which will be in contention for World Championships for years and years. Losing in 7 games to this bunch is a solid accomplishment.

     So what if the Yankees looked like they could have auditioned for the movie Trouble With The Curve. For a youthful team with the exception of a few veterans like Sabathia, Brett Gardner and Todd Frazier, the upside is enormous. As FOX broadcaster Joe Buck reminded us, the Yankees contended ahead of schedule. The blend of so many young stars and a stocked minor league farm system bodes well for this team. There are plenty of decisions to be made starting with the rehiring of Joe Girardi and what to do about Sabathia and Tanaka among others. General Manager Brian Cashman was extraordinarily successful this season in the moves he made, so there is a budding confidence he will engineer this team to a place where success can be continued in 2018.

     Enjoy the moment, fellow Yankees fans. Do not lament on what could have been. The future is the brightest we have seen in years.

     So even if I would not be extolling about the Yankees in Game 7, then surely I would be spending my time on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights "upset" of the Purdue Boilermakers at High Point Solutions Stadium. Rutgers--on a winning streak of 2! In the Big 10 no less!! Maybe they can beat #2 Penn State in a couple of weeks? If they just had defeated Eastern Michigan and/or Nebraska, would a bowl bid be on the horizon??

     "Not so fast," as the iconic ESPN broadcaster Lee Corso likes to repeat on Saturday mornings. Baby steps for RU, PLEASE!! At least they are starting to be more competitive with the lower to middle part of the Big 10 hierarchy.

     But this was anything but a thumping of Purdue. The margin was difference of a failed 2 point conversion coupled with Purdue also not recovering the ensuing onside kick. It wasn't as if RU outplayed the Boilermakers. Instead, RU scored at the right time, and played just enough defense to win this game.

    The upcoming schedule is unquestionably not very easy. Next up is a trip to Ann Arbor where Michigan Head Coach Jim Harbaugh and 100,000 of his friends in attendance will want blood after Saturday night's humiliation on ABC in State College at the hands of Penn State. The Maryland-RU game has been moved from Yankees Stadium, citing Yankees' playoff concerns, which are no longer valid (see above). Notwithstanding the $750,000 RU now gets to keep given its cash-starved status withing the Big 10, this becomes another winnable contest at High Points Solution Stadium. Unless the unimaginable happens at Penn State on November 11, RU ends the season with 2 more games they can win--at Indiana and home to Michigan State.

     Win 3 and the Scarlet Knights are bowl-eligible. Win 1 or more and the season has become relevant and the future is brighter. There are recruits de-committing and the quarterback position, among others,  is unclear. Yet there is once again promise in Piscataway. The days of upsets like they pulled on a Thursday night against a really good Louisville squad in 2006 might start to happen on a more regular basis. Those pre-game tailgates and post-game dinners will be a lot happier, RU fans, when the wins start coming in droves.

     We spent a large portion of our Saturday journeying to Lancaster to see the unveiling of Shadek Stadium on the campus of my alma mater, Franklin and Marshall College. The Shadek name goes deep into the last 45 or so years of F&M history. Starting with my classmate, Larry Shadek, our football quarterback and my teammate in baseball who played shortstop, the Shadek family has played a critical role in sustaining and moving F&M into the 21st century.

     So it was no surprise that Larry, his family and the Shadek Foundation were the big donors when F&M decided to upgrade its venerable, old, worn down Sponaugle-Williamson Field, which was directly next to Mayser Center, the F&M multi-purpose gymnasium and part of the major portion of campus. A lengthy campaign culminated in the building and opening of the gleaming new edifice where factories and rail yards  recently still were eyesores. The over $15 million in donations appears to be well-spent.

     As a disclaimer, I lettered in football at F&M, not as a player, but as the statistician and news reporter for 3 years; I attended the Washington Semester at American University the fall of my senior year. I worked under two coaches--Bob Curtis, the tough yet caring linebacker from St. Lawrence University, and Dave Pooley, whose two years of losing led to the elevation of Frosh Coach Curtis, who led F&M to a myriad of success. It was a no-brainer for me to help underwrite, in a small way, the spectacular, state of the art, brand new Press Box, which was named for the late Coach Curtis.

     We went on a tour of the facility--it really is beautiful. The home stands and boxes are top notch. Underneath the stands, the locker rooms and other rooms were first class. Inside of the football locker room was a reserved space for the Conestoga Wagon Trophy, which F&M and arch rival Dickinson College were playing for. All of the amenities, including the lights, scoreboard with video screen, and the colorfully-alternating green shades of the AstroTurf field were as good as it gets.

     This is a gem, the next step in the transformation of the athletic facilities at F&M. Eventually, the Sponaugle-Williamson Field track will be relocated nearby. Both the baseball and softball fields will be uprooted to near Shadek Stadium. And many of the sports housed in Mayser Gym will be installed in a new building attached to the Alumni Sports and Fitness Center (ASFC), thereby placing all of F&M's athletic teams in a strategically and centrally located area across Harrisburg Pike from the main residential and academic campus.

     Thus, on a sun-splashed day with a high near 80 degrees, after attending the ceremonial dedication and ribbon cutting, we watched F&M dismantle Dickinson 56-0, accumulating a 49-0 halftime lead and limiting the Red Devils to very little yardage in total. The overflow crowd of 3,722 in attendance (I don't know how they come up with the figures given that fans are not charged to attend) at the 2,500 seat venue saw the Diplomats rebound from being stomped by #23 Johns Hopkins and tie the Blue Jays for first place in the Centennial Conference with a 4-1 record as co-leader Ursinus lost to Susquehanna. While new policies were imposed regarding bringing food and drink into Shadek Stadium (there now is a full-fledged concession stand and somehow the water fountains were not working so that one could not  refill the one bottle allowed into the arena), leading to a cadre of grease trucks parked behind the ASFC; that nets are needed to keep kicked balls inside the stadium grounds; and that it was patently unfair to have the visitors trek at least the length of three football fields from the ASFC; there was precious little to grouse about the new home to F&M football and men's and women's lacrosse. No more dogs loose on the turf. The new toilets were glistening, clean and eco-friendly; far better than the troughs still in use downstairs in Mayser. I even enjoyed the party held by the Turner Company in their construction office, for a job well done. What more could this alum have wanted?

     Leave it to the Jets to finish my sports weekend. Which they did. In grand fashion...after blowing a 14 point 4th quarter lead. By throwing an ill-advised pass into double coverage on the sideline. In NYJ territory, no less, thereby giving Miami's place kicker, who hasn't missed a field goal attempt this season and had 2 winning FG's in his resume, all the opportunity to win the game. Which he did.

     My expectations for this team were dreadfully low coming into the season. The fact that they have won 3 games is a mini miracle. They even should have beaten New England last week. This game was destined for overtime had the Jets played things more conservatively. Alas, that was not the case. Another Dolphins win at the end of the game. How appropriate that there was a shot of Dan Marino, the Hall of Fame QB who routinely made life miserable for the Jets including the infamous fake spike play for a TD, which haunts Jets fans to this day. And for good measure, WR Richie Anderson tossed his helmet in frustration with the interception thrown by Josh Mc Cown, which resulted in a 15 yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct after the kickoff.

     What a team!! My team no less. We'll brace ourselves for the Atlanta Falcons coming to East Rutherford next Sunday; the Falcons need a win to end the hangover that occurred as a result of the dramatic loss in the Super Bowl to Tom Brady, With this Jets team, we never quite know what direction they are headed. Yet a win would make them 4-4, a feat no one could have foreseen. I want to say they are a glass half full, but I think that they are nearly all or nothing by the way that the Jets play. The bigger questions are twofold--when will die hard fans give up on this team? And has management endangered any chance to obtain a really good QB through the draft or even in free agency?

     Finally, don't look now, but perennial doormat in the Ivy League, Columbia University's football team is 6-0 overall, and 3-0 in the league after handling Dartmouth on Saturday in Hanover. Sure, they play at Yale on Saturday in the historic but dilapidated Yale Bowl, a house of horrors for the Lions. Then a 3-3 Harvard squad travels to Robert K. Kraft Field (yeah, that's the New England Patriots owner who is a major CU benefactor). And Columbia has to travel to Ithaca to take on Cornell before ending the season in New York with cellar dwelling Brown coming to town.

     If ever there is a team to show all Yankees, Rutgers, F&M and Jets fans that there is hope--it is Columbia. From here on, I am rooting for them to win the Ivy League. It probably is simply a feel good story and Yale will win the Ivies again; I just want to say great job, Lions...we long-suffering New York fans all understand what you have gone through and express our gratitude for giving the downtrodden in the NYC Metropolitan area reason to believe...