Birthday Gifts

  Saturday was my 75th birthday. It was a fun day with family and friends. Good food. Good times. It was everything I wanted, including the Katz’s Delicatessen apron gifted me by my editor and her husband. I felt blessed.

But this is primarily a sports blog. For I love sports. And I love to talk and report on the topics related to the sports world. 

So on my birthday, I had three football games to monitor and another one on Sunday to complete the weekend. The Saturday games were Rutgers at Purdue; Franklin and Marshall visiting Ursinus; and Jonathan Dayton High School, located just around the block, hosting arch rival Brearley. Sunday’s match involved the New York Jets traveling to Cincinnati to take on the Bengals. Plus the New Jersey Devils were hosting Nathan McKinnon and the ever-dangerous Colorado Avalanche at the Prudential Center in Newark. 

The odds of all of the games resulting in wins for the teams I was rooting for was astronomical. After all, Rutgers had been free falling in the Big Ten standings, and even a visit to a woeful Purdue Boilermakers squad was anything but a gimme for the Scarlet Knights. 

F&M was tied with perennial Centennial Conference top dog Johns Hopkins atop the CC Football Standings. Ursinus had amassed a 4-2 record heading into the clash, although the team was coming off a trouncing in Baltimore at the hands of Hopkins. The Diplomats came to Collegeville sporting a 5-1 mark, slightly deceiving in that F&M barely defeated Muhlenberg and Dickinson in the previous two weeks. 

Dayton had suffered only a loss to my alma mater, Highland Park High school to mar its record. JDHS had demolished the Dunellen Destroyers by a score of 48-0. Brearley had a pedestrian 4-4 record entering the game; one of the wins was against my HPHS Owls by a point. 

The Devils were streaking, winners of seven in a row after an Opening Night loss at Carolina. The Ads came to New Jersey with only one loss in the early season. 

And the putrid 0-7 Jets were faced with starting Justin Fields at quarterback after owner 

Woody Johnson and Head Coach Aaron Glenn showed little faith and patience in him, only because backup QB Tyrod Taylor was unavailable due to injury. New York was facing old friend now foe Joe Flacco, substituting under center for the injured Joe Burrow; Flacco had looked young again in a loss the week before. 

How did all of this shake out? You would be surprised. Really surprised. As was I. 

The only loss was the one game I was least invested in—the high school contest. Brearley eked out a win over the Dayton Bulldogs, securing a playoff spot based on Power Points, a method devised by the NJSIAA to secure the best teams in the post-season by group. Brearley moves on to face Mountain Lakes. Dayton has to settle for a consolation game and now has a 6-2 record. 

Rutgers felt like they owed Head Coach Greg Schiano a much-needed victory for all the effort Schiano invested in this team preparing them for each game. For once, and on the road, RU played with poise and determination. 

Still, it took some late game heroics and a field goal with no time left to secure a victory and a happy plane flight back to New Jersey. Whether this is the last game RU wins this season or not, the team could savor the moment and have some renewed energy when they began practice in preparation for a road game this Saturday at Illinois. 

How did F&M do? Did the Diplomats escape with another victory? Did they remain tied with JHU for the CC lead? 

Yes, the Diplomats downed the Bears. It wasn’t close, for a change. F&M dominated Ursinus and gave its remaining CC foes (Mc Daniel, Carnegie-Mellon and Johns Hopkins at home which could be a Centennial championship showdown) something to think about. Some pollsters were so impressed that F&M was actually ranked in one poll. 

It took overtime for the Devils to prevail and extend their winning streak to eight on Saturday afternoon. That streak would end abruptly when the team traveled to Denver where the hosts attained revenge by an 8-4 score. 

Thus, I was happy where I stood entering Sunday’s last game. My sense of appreciating the Jets this season led me to believe that there was little-to-no chance the Green and White could pull off the upset. 

Maybe it was karma. Or the dedication of the game to former Jets star Nick Mangold, who lost his battle with kidney disease the night before in New Jersey. Mangold was a huge human being who I saw up close when he brought his daughter to swim school adjacent to the gym I belonged to in his adopted home town of Florham Park. Losing him so young was so tragic. He is already in the team’s Ring of Honor. I hope he is posthumously elected this year to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as a worthy tribute to his legacy. 

Fields played his best game of the season. The team excelled in almost all areas. Yet it took a Nick Folk field goal after a great drive led by the embattled quarterback to get into field goal range with very little time left. It also was fortunate that for New York that Flacco was injured and unable to do more, giving the Jets just enough opportunity to shrink the demons following the team.

Final score: NYJ 39 CIN 38. Whatever momentum this game gave the team is muted by this week being the team’s bye week. Still, it was an exciting game that had me out of my seat repeatedly. 

I add in the Kansas City Chiefs win over a depleted Washington team on Monday night and only by mere three points did I not have all my teams win. I cannot remember being so lucky. 

Switching to baseball—if you have been out of the loop regarding the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers meeting in the World Series, then shame on you. For this has been one of the most exciting Fall Classics in recent memory. 

The level of play has been outstanding from the start to where we now stand entering Friday night’s Game 6 in Canada. Both teams sport a number of future Hall of Fame players. Most of them are excelling. 

So many records have been set for World Series and post-season play. Listing them would take too much time and space. 

Vlad Guerrero, Jr. has shown the baseball world why he remained in Canada and is driven to play for his hometown team. The guy is a monster who has an infectious enthusiasm which his teammates absorb. 

What’s not to say about Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese multi-talent who has raised his game to new heights, even if he was almost mortal in Game 4 as the starting pitcher for the Dodgers? 

These teams are so invested in playing hard that Game 3 lasted an outrageous 18 innings before LAD first baseman Freddie Freeman, born in Canada but reared in Southern California, sent everyone home with a walk off blast to give LAD a 6-5 win. Almost everybody on the two squads played in that epic affair. I certainly wasn’t awake when it ended near 3:00 am on the East Coast. 

Even if the Blue Jays win on Friday over an exhausted Dodgers team which seemed flat on Wednesday night and had to endure a long flight facing elimination, it should not diminish what has played out thus far. Far from it. 

There are these names to remember. First, Trey Yesavage, the young Toronto hurler who began the year in Single A ball and set records in the post-season. Then there is Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who has emerged as a star pitching for LAD. The Dodgers’ fate on Friday night is in his hands. And Toronto outfielder Addison Barger has made a name for himself in this Series.

I know I will be watching on Friday night. And maybe Saturday if we are so fortunate. Could there be another walk off homer on the same field where Joe Carter did that to give Toronto its only World Championship in 1993? Who knows?

This is for sure. I am having a blast watching the games I care about. That is what sports is all about. Especially when they are birthday gifts.