Maybe I Will Get It Right This Time

  For the sports maven some people mistakenly think I am—there are a lot more people more knowledgeable about the sporting world than me. Like a lot of others, I have opinions about what I see and read. 

What I do know is that, even with the rigorous demands of retired life (ask some retirees other than the rich ones sipping Pina coladas on their yacht anchored in some sub-tropical area and have so many others doing so much for them), I find time for sports. It’s just sometimes being in the right place at the right time for an event—live or on TV. 

Example #1: Georgia at Alabama last Saturday night. Alabama absolutely swamps the Bulldogs into the fourth quarter. I went to bed. I figured game over. Georgia wasn’t going to make a comeback. 

Was I ever dead wrong on that thought. Georgia came all the way back and actually started to celebrate an improbable victory. Except that the Crimson Tide have this incredible 17 year old wide receiver who is electric when he touches the ball. 

His name? Ryan Williams, who is listed at 6’0”, 175 pounds, a recent graduate of Saraland High School who happened to be Mr. Football in Alabama in both 2022 and 2023. He wears #2 for now, as he is headed to the NFL as a high draft choice when he is ready to leave Tuscaloosa. 

In four games, he has caught 16 passes, five of them for touchdowns, while averaging 28.9 yards per reception. There will be many more highlights this season. 

But none will be more important than the last one he caught from Tide QB Jalen Milroe. Taking a simple pass, he used a bevy of moves to get past Georgia defenders en route to a game-winning 75 yard touchdown. 

Which I had to see on Sunday morning. Because I gave up on the game. I had to get some sleep, as I had errands to do before going to the Meadowlands for Denver and the New York Jets.

Example #2: Denver and the Jets on Sunday afternoon. It was a rainy, gloomy day—for a plethora of reasons. None more than the game itself.

While the weather forecast called for the misty rain to end around 1:00, a fact a drunken fan in the row below me continually harped on, I was soaked through my poncho and deck shoes by the time I left Met Life Stadium. 

Denver is not a good team. Rookie Denver QB Bo Nix only threw for 60 total yards and 1 TD. Yet he did better than veteran Aaron Rodgers, who tried to keep his Jets team in the game with his passing and running—only to leave the game bruised and battered in a brutal loss to the Broncos. 

With Denver ahead and driving towards another score, my friend, Fan X, and I had seen enough. When we came out of the men’s room, we checked the video screen in the concourse, only to watch Denver miss a 50 yard field goal which, if successful, would have required the Jets to score a touchdown to win. 

What did we do? We scampered back to our wet seats to watch the Jets get into field goal range without any timeouts remaining. Whereupon the Jets kicker missed from the same distance in the opposite direction. Talk about timing and choices gone wrong. 

Example #3: Mets and Braves Game 1 Monday afternoon. I tuned in to see Atlanta go ahead. Only to go elsewhere and see from a MLB Network notification that the Mets had forged ahead. 

So I watched more of the game—specifically the bottom of the 8th inning. Where the Braves went ahead again. 

Only to have to do something which made me miss Francisco Lindor’s dramatic ninth inning home run which put New York ahead for good. I was back in time to see the bottom of the ninth and the Mets clinch a Wild Card berth. Karma wasn’t with me on Monday, either. 

Example #4: Monday Night Football. I missed the entire Tennessee-Miami game. I never saw Jared Goff go 18 for 18 passing nor did I see him catch a touchdown pass. Instead, I saw the end of the game, which was just ugly. Once more my timing was off. 

Example #5: Mets and Brewers Game 3 Thursday night. I saw Milwaukee inch ahead in the seventh inning after Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick slugged back-to-back home runs. But I didn’t stay with the game. Which meant that I missed Pete Alonso’s opposite field home run which catapulted the Mets into the NLDS against Philadelphia. Nope, all I saw was the bottom of the ninth when NYM closed it out. 

Example #6: Buffalo-New Jersey NHL opener, Friday in Prague, Czechoslovakia. I watchedalmost the entire first period and I managed to see only one goal. Same thing as I periodically checked in the contest, a 4-1 NJD win. Only saw that one goal. 

Six examples of why I have missed some pretty good stuff live. It is not to say that I didn’t see all the Yankees games from Oakland, versus Baltimore and against Pittsburgh—where I saw all the scoring plays I chose to watch. Plus when I was home from the Jets game I saw the Kansas City— LA Charges game and I tuned into the Tampa Bay—Atlanta game in time to see the Falcons tie the game then win it in OT on Thursday night. 

You simply cannot spend enough time watching games. That is why sports fanatics like me rely on the  influx of ESPN and other networks showing replays of what I missed. Although it still is better to see it in real time. Unless you stupidly opt to go back to your seats to watch the Jets. After 47 years, I should have learned by now. 

Some nuggets from this week. First, my son is in South Florida this weekend, for an event related to the University of Miami, where he attended law school. The Hurricanes football team, ranked #9, traveled a long way to Berkeley, California to play the Cal Golden Bears in one of those ridiculous makes no sense distance-wise ACC matchups. 

ESPN decided to have its College GameDay program originate from Cal’s campus. This is the first time ESPN has had its pre-game show go there. 

What is even more unique is that of all the FBS schools, only six schools have never hosted ESPN before a game. Who are those lucky schools? SMU, Rutgers, Maryland, Virginia, Illinois and Syracuse. And I wouldn’t hold my breath for any of them to become a host this season. 

In another wacky meeting, UCLA, in its first year in the Big Ten, travels to State College, Pennsylvania to face Penn State. That absurd distance to travel for a conference game is too much. 

I looked at Penn State’s all-time records in football. The teams they played the most were Pitt, West Virginia, Maryland, Syracuse and one that I would not have thought of—the University of Pennsylvania, with the last game between the two taking place in 1958. 

Most of the Big Ten rivals have become staples of the PSU schedule. Not anymore with the likes of Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA in the conference. Those are made-for-TV games, not anything realistically resembling a rivalry. Unlike the Western Pennsylvania battle with Pitt, where both schools can’t seem to make a continuous affair lest they lose a precious non-conference date, where, ostensibly, they shell out money to come in to be thrashed. It would have made a lot more sense to include Pitt and Syracuse in the Big Ten way back when before they had to settle by joining the ACC.  

Switching gears completely, two very different and unique individuals from basketball and baseball passed away this week. Dikembe Mutombo and Pete Rose. I mourn them both for very different reasons. 

I had followed Mutombo since he burst upon the collegiate basketball scene at Georgetown, following Patrick Ewing and growing under the tutelage of Head Coach John Thompson. He was a great basketball player. He used his college education from a great school to help others after his marvelous playing days ended and after his worthy enshrinement into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. I was deeply saddened to see this robust man, an international ambassador of good will, tragically die of brain cancer at age 58.

On the other hand, Rose was a true enigma. There wasn’t a lot to like about him as a person. He lied. He cheated. He gambled and that cost him a spot in Cooperstown. Maybe forever. 

What he could do was play baseball. And he knew how to hit and run hard. He earned the nickname “Charlie Hustle” from his take-no-prisoners style of play. When Rose left the game as a player, he had the most hits ever. An exceptional achievement from a great ballplayer. 

My sadness about Rose dying is twofold. Had he been honest and not broken the rules, he would be in the Hall of Fame. Such a shame. 

Moreover, another piece of my teens into my twenties is gone. I know it’s inevitable that all of the stars of that era will leave us. That’s a fact of life and growing older. 

I still have the present. Beginning with a full slate of college football and the Divisional Series in both the American and National Leagues. And pro football kicks off with a 9:30 am EDT start Sunday when the Jets play Minnesota and the resurgent, former NYJ QB Sam Darnold in London. Plus Dallas-Pittsburgh on Sunday night and another Chiefs game on national TV on Monday night. 

Maybe I will get it right this time and see a majority of the real action. I might even see Taylor Swift cheering her beau if I am so lucky.