2021 Australian Open

Ladies

(3) Osaka 6/6 - 4/3 (22) Brady

I didn't see any of the ladies' final but I did see a little of each of these players earlier in the tournament. I thought (14) Muguruza had Osaka beat in the 4th round: she was up a break in the 3rd, felt like she was cruising, but I kept thinking this Osaka girl gets to every ball--she returns everything! Sure enough, Osaka pulled some Jedi mind shit, got her break back and swept the last three games when Muguruza was serving for the match.  Nice. Osaka is the shit, I was not surprised she housed Serena, nor was I shocked by the final over Brady. 

I watched Brady over Pegula in the Quarters, but honestly I thought Pegula was the better player. Brady made timely plays but I felt like Pegula faltered more than Brady bested her. I will say Brady looked pretty good in the highlights I saw of the Final, she looked intense and engaged and made some plays. But Osaka is the shit right now, no shame in going down to her. 

I was surprised Serena dispatched Halep so easily in the quarters and that Barty fell to Muchova. I watched Muchova beat Pliskova and I was impressed because I was expecting Pliskova (back to back Aussie semifinals) to make a run, but Muchova controlled the match, probably should've made the Final. Barty strikes me as quite capable of winning big matches, she's got a no-nonsense quality and competitive spirit that seems well built for deep runs, but she is allergic to the Aussie, I don't get it. 

Dudes

(1) Djokovic 7/6/6 - 5/2/2 (4) Medvedev

The first set was fun, Djokovic went up a break early, Medvedev got it back, but then faltered late and Djoker stole it from him. Felt like it was gonna be a match, though, especially when Medvedev took a quick break in the second; then Djokovic turned it on, got his break back, then another, and it was pretty much over right there. Medvedev started looking to his wife and muttering out loud from that point on and he was out of it. (Can I say something racist? Russians, man, big talent but they go out like Richie Tanenbaum every time) Medvedev is a helluva player but Djokovic is strengthening his grip on GOAT status (yeah, I think I'm there, he's better then Federer, Nadal, Sampras, Borg, Connors, McEnroe, Edberg, Becker--best I ever saw), and Medvedev's unraveling made this a relatively easy tourney for Djokovic. 

I also watched Djokovic in the semis against Karatsev, fun player (qualifier got all the way to the semis), but you could see right away that he just wasn't gonna beat Djokovic. Karatsev was a qualifier that smoked his way through (8) Schwartzman, (18) Dmitrov and (20) Auger-Alisiama but you could tell right away that Djokovic was gonna stomp this guy. Going through (6) Zverev and (14) Raonic was enough to get Djoker up to speed, but avoiding (3) Thiem, (7) Rublev and (2) Nadal pretty much handed him the trophy. 

I watched Medvedev over (5) Tsitsipas in the semis and I gotta say: Tsitsipas had the win of the tourney coming back from two sets to beat Nadal, but I wasn't impressed with him at all in the semis. Felt like Medvedev was in control throughout the match. I also watched Medvedev over (7) Rublev in the quarters and, uh, yeah, Rublev was even more Baumer than Medvedev was in that one. 

Nice to have tennis back, I was skeptical and this tourney got off to a shaky start, but once they got going this was good fun. 

2021 Super Bowl (post)

Chiefs 9-31 Bucs

Looking back in my previous post over my description of what I thought this game would be, I kinda got it right. Or at least I was right about the Bucs, but not so right about the Chiefs. 

The Chiefs just never got any offense going and we haven't seen that in ages. Deep into the 4th quarter, the Chiefs haven't moved the ball at all, Mahomes has been running for his life all night, I still expected them to score two TDs. That's what didn't happen, that's what we've been watching the Chiefs do for a while now and it just did not come together on this night. 

It really is kinda shocking that they couldn't figure out how to use Hardman or Pringle or LaVeon Bell (did he even play?) or Edwards-Helaire, they couldn't figure out how to get Hill loose for one big play. The Chiefs haven't shown that kind of ineptitude in a long time. That banged-up offensive line really stung them. By the 4th quarter Mahomes was looking for defenders rather than receivers, he struggled through, played like a champ but just couldn't get out of the mud he was running in. He looked like he was drunk by the end of the game. 

As for the Bucs, their D-line was excellent and those LBs were magnificent. Their front 7 gave an amazing performances against a great offense. Mahomes didn't have his usual sure-footedness and the Bucs took full advantage. They were after him all night. 

On the other side, Brady was Brady. The Bucs ran the ball well--really impressed with Fournette all through the playoffs, he had a great post-season (*)--and went with a rather old timey looking balanced offense to control the clock, eke out 1st downs and wear out the Chiefs D. (**) Brady is the GOAT-est. 

Bric-a-brac: The Chiefs calling timeouts before halftime was mystifying to me. What did they think they were gonna do if they got the ball back? They were better off running out the clock and getting the Bucs off the field and for them to think otherwise is...uh...inexplicable. 

For that matter, why wasn't the Punter ready to play? I get that he's only punted like, 8 times, all year or whatever, but this game is the final game, the only game that matters. You've got to be ready for all occurrences and that means pumping the P if need be. His shank was a godsend to the Bucs. 

I would've given the MVP to the Bucs D-line but that never happens in football. And even though Fournette, too, was great, the QB always gets the MVP, so I'm cool with Brady.  

This reminded me of the 2015 Championship: Ohio State suffocated Oregon. The game wasn't a blowout but in the 4th quarter the Ducks just gave up on even trying to move the ball. They were spent and that's how Chiefs looked. 

Early predictions. I'll take the Chiefs to be back next year. The Browns and Bills aren't going away but I think the Chiefs are better and will be better. We'll see about the Ravens, I can't tell if they're headed up or down. And the Pats won't suck, I guarantee it. Gonna be quite the QB carousel this off-season, I suspect the Colts (and maybe the Steelers) to be the best positioned to make a spicy pickup.

I guess the Bucs will be good, but like this year, they'll probably be spotty for 12 weeks and everyone will think they suck and then they'll try to turn it on down the stretch; might work, might not. I think the Rams will be good, the Packers will be the Packers, and I got a weird feeling the Cowboys will be good. And the Seahawks won't suck. We'll see how the QB carousel turns, feels like everyone else in the NFC will act like they need a new one.

Next season looks to feature a bunch of QBs in new places and of course rookies and 2nd year QBs (Burrow, Herbert, Tua) that keep football unpredictable. I'm ready for baseball now but I'll be ready for football when the time comes. 

(*) Hmmmm....can you see him a Patriots jersey next season?

(**) There was some complaint about all the defensive penalties on the Chiefs: hey, man, I thought the refs were letting a lot of grabbing go all through the playoffs (Bucs-Packers, for example, was particularly grabby in both defensive secondaries). So if the Chiefs have a complaint it is that the refs suddenly tightened up in the final game. I'm not saying the Chiefs didn't commit those penalties (although that one PI up the sideline where the defender fell down, I'm not sure there was any contact and it was certainly not a catchable ball), I'm saying they've been committing those penalties and not getting called (any Bills and Browns fan will tell ya). 

2021 Super Bowl

 Chiefs (-3) @ (*) Bucs (o/u 55.5). I thought that line would be down to -2 but still at a solid FG, 40 minutes before game time.

Tom Brady is the unquestioned GOAT. Brady has been to 14 final fours in 19 seasons. Dude...that's just...that's just stupid. That's Magic Johnson territory, Bill Russell territory, that's John Wooden and Vince Lombardi kinda shit. There are no NFL QB's that even come close to that. And he'll retire as the greatest in the playoffs and regular season, by far. 

Patrick Mahomes is the one dude that seems capable of catching him. That's part of what makes this matchup so compelling. I watch every Super Bowl but I don't look forward to them as much as I've been anticipating this one. This is a good match between the right teams. I thought it would be the Packers instead of the Bucs, but while the Packers pretty much stomped everyone they played this year, for some reason they just couldn't beat the Bucs. The Bucs have been getting better over the last 8 weeks or so, they're peaking at the right time, and they had the magic to dispatch Aaron Rodgers.

I think they can do that to Mahomes, too. The Chiefs are now 16-2 (16-1 with Mahomes) this season. That comes after winning the Super Bowl and a shit ton of games last year. so they're in Crimson Tide territory in the ridiculousness of their recent dominance. That said, for a dominant team they have to eke out victories in the 4th quarter an awful lot. That's not a bad thing, just that they're method of winning games tends to leave a lot of room for mistakes. 

The fact that the Chiefs don't win til the 4th quarter gives the Bucs a lot of room to put up some points. And I think they will. And I think the Bucs D-line will get to the makeshift unit the Chiefs have going tonight (their one clear weakness) and Mahomes will be bad scrambling more than good scrambling. Either Hill or Kelce will put up numbers but--unlike the Bills--I think the Bucs will shut down one or the other and minimize the damage. That pass rush will slow down the onslaught to give the Bucs a lead going into the 4th quater.

I think the game will still be fun deep in the 4th quarter but I think the Bucs will put up too much of a lead to come back from. I'll say Bucs 34-30 (Bucs and the over). 

That said, I can see the Chiefs doing the same thing to the Bucs. I can see the Chiefs pulling it out late, I can see the Bucs coming back and winning late. I can see either team winning close but what I don't see is a blowout. I think this one stays close throughout, should be a final possession kinda game. Ahhhhhh....that sounds good. 

(*) Literally.

2021 MLB Hall of Fame Voting

Newly enshrined: (none) 

Well since last year's festivities were postponed, I guess Jeter, Walker, Simmons and Mitchell will get their own day after all.

Maybe next year: Curt Shilling, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Scott Rolen, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, Todd Helton, Gary Sheffield, Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Manny Ramirez, Sammy Sosa, Andy Pettite, Mark Buehrle, Torii Hunter, Bobby Abreu, Tim Hudson

(I think they ought to be in) Curt Shilling, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Sammy Sosa, Andy Pettite, 

Yup....all the same dudes as last year.  And the year before. When are the baseball writers gonna do their jobs? Why do they spend so much time denigrating their own sport?  Barry Bonds is arguably the greatest player of all time, what is the point of a Hall of Fame that doesn't have him in it? Why are they starving the Hall of Fame? (*)

(I'm undecided) Todd Helton, Bobby Abreu, Tim Hudson

Again, same as last year. Helton was one of the best hitters in the game for most of his career, albeit in a hitter's park. That's gotta be worth something, right? 

Abreu had 8 seasons with 100 BBs, 100 Runs, 20 home runs; 9 season above .290 BA; 10 seasons of 100 RBI; 12 seasons with OBP above .390; 13 seasons with at least 20 SBs. But never in the top ten for MVP voting, when I remember him as much more feared at his peak. I dunno, close call but I think he deserves more support than others (*cough* Jeff Kent). 

Tim Hudson had seriously superior years and played for some really good teams. Had double digit W's in 15 of his first 16 seasons, made four all-star games, finished top-4 for Cy Young three times and won a World Series (2014 Giants). Starting pitchers just don't pile up numbers the way they used to. I can see Hudson being reevaluated as pitching stats steadily deflate. 

(I don't see Hall of Famers) Scott Rolen, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Mark Buehrle, Torii Hunter

Rolen, Vizquel, Wagner, Buerhle were good solid players for a long time, guys you'd be more than happy for your team to get in free agency. But none of them ever struck me as all-time greats. 

Hunter and Jones both started off well but neither really blossomed into the stardom that seemed ahead of them. 

I'm still flabbergasted that Jeff Kent is on this list 8 years in--who is voting for this guy? I watched Jeff Kent's prime and he was never anywhere near as dangerous as Bobby Abreu and yet Abreu's is struggling to stay on the ballot. Why? What is the BBWAA's obsession with Jeff Kent? (He's the anti-Schilling, I suppose?)

10th and final ballot: (none)

One and done: Aramis Ramirez, LaTroy Hawkins, Barry Zito, AJ Burnett, Shane Victorino, Dan Haren, Michael Cuddyer, Nick Swisher

Yeah, I can't make much of an argument for any of these guys. Zito won a Cy Young and was a minor (at best) piece of a Series winner (2012 Giants), and Burnett was a good starter on a World Series winner (2009 Yankees), but that's about all I can say for any of this batch. 

The headliners for the 2022 ballot include Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz...so two more of the greatest ballers I ever saw that won't be going to the Hall of Fame?

(*) My real complaint: I didn't even like Sammy Sosa and honestly I'm not sure if Pettite truly was Hall-worthy--but we're never gonna get those discussions! When you make the argument solely about phony baloney morality jibba-jabba then we're not getting statistical analysis any more. We're not properly separating the wheat from the chaff. We're just leaving out guys that the writers don't like and that's stupid. Plain fuckin' stupid. 

Sports in 2020

2019-20 in Sport will be remembered as the Covid-19 year. Yeah, and 2020-21 will be, too. Hopefully, 2021-22 will not be but we'll see....

I took 2019-20 off from Sport. Oh, I still watched a ton of all kinda of Sport but giving it my deeper attention just didn't happen this year. It wouldn't be fair to completely blame Covid-19, I was already a little less into Sport than previous years. For example, in my to-do box from March are a post-Oscar wrap up I just never wrote, some Champions League takes that were already boring to me and some end of season NBA stuff that was less productive than usual. I don't expect my interest to remain steady. It will wax and wain and 2020 was already shaping up to be a less than stellar year. I can't help thinking a deep dive on stats and rosters at the moment just seems like wasted motion--or perhaps I'm missing the greatest statistical year of my life! I feel like until everything gets back to "normal" then nothing that happens is meaningful going forward. And the carry-over into 2021 is already giving me the blues.

But that's not true. 

That paragraph was unnecessarily dire. I'm still watching a ton of sport (NBA, Bundesliga, NFL, watched a lot more NCAA football than I expected to, tennis when I can find it, NHL every once in a while, been watching Caribbean baseball this week, looking forward to Champions League and still hoping we get some kind of NCAA tourney) and loving it, admiring it, being as fascinated by it as ever. I've lost my taste for the business side of it, but I'm confident it'll pass when the Covid stops hanging over everything. The games themselves are as good as ever. I'm impressed and I'm glad. 

Covid-19 stopped everything cold back in March when we learned the NBA was shutting the season down. And the shit really hit home when we got no March Madness. Then sports disappeared completely for three months or so and we obsessed over how it would return. It did return. The players played and the corporate suits did their best to get those games to the fans and it was pretty cool to see everyone doing what needed to be done to get back to normal. It wasn't "normal" though, so even though I appreciated its presence, what I watched wasn't normal. It was weird, it was a simulacrum of Sport. 

When the Covid first became a thing back in March, I figured it would take 18 months to get back to "normal". September 2021 felt like the time when things would settle in. Since I am a sports nerd that no longer goes to school, my sense of the calendar naturally revolves around sports. Fall means football and that seems like just the thing to settle the citizenry.

I was surprised by the return of the other sports in 2020 because in March I didn't think any of the sports except the NFL would get back on track. I didn't think MLB would be feasible without fans (they need the gate, man, they need to sell ten thousand Cokes every night to make that shit work), NBA and NHL bubbles seemed fanciful at best, and I wasn't sure we'd have college of any kind in the fall of 2020, much less college sports. 

I figured the NFL would be back because 1) those games make so damn much money, they pretty much have to be played; 2) when have we ever cared about the health of football players?; 3) because football is as popular (re: culturally necessary) as pretty much anything in American culture. People dropped everything to fight the virus, but football is on the short list of things we'll make happen no matter what crisis is taking place. 

I figured, too, some European soccer, like NFL, would be valuable enough to necessitate gameplay regardless of the state of society. The first sport to return was German soccer (actually Korean baseball never went away and for a hot minute was strangely popular among gaming starved degenerates). As I am an avid watcher of the Bundesliga, I was happy to partake of sports as soon as possible. A random observation: playing in cavernous empty stadia with no background noise of any kind was actually unnerving to hear. It was loud and weird and yet you still couldn't make out what they were saying so it wasn't helpful or enlightening. It was just weird. Playing music or piping in crowd noise actually makes a lot of sense for the TV viewing, which is something that never would have occurred to me before. 

The first American sports to return was the MLS in the form of a bubble tournament that showed the way for the NBA and NHL. And it was surprisingly fun (*), but the constant advertisement for the Disney campus, a vacation spot in a time when no one is allowed to leave their homes, seemed like bizarre filler from another time, annoying at first and then just laughable after a while.  

The NBA bubble was a bizarre experiment but at the time we needed it. Americans needed to see how life was supposed to be re-learned. The players had their ups and downs, for example the Suns looked better than ever, but some players (*ahem* Paul George) clearly did not look at ease or anything like normal. But the level of play was really good (hmmm, I like not having fans on the floor) and the commitment to getting it done was heartening. And though it still made for weird play, it was good and I'm glad it happened. 

I don't mean to suggest that the Lakers didn't earn their victory over the Heat--they absolutely did and I think the Lakers are the deserving champs. But its hard not to notice how untimely injuries decimated the Heat. In there of the games (1,2,6) the Heat had no chance but in the other three games (3,4,5) they went 2-1 and probably should've gone 3-0 (indeed, it was rare late game heroics from Lebron that pulled it out for the Lakers in Game Four). So while the Lakers were clearly the better team, it wasn't the blowout that it might look like, that series could've and should've been a lot closer.

I was glad to see baseball back--and I gotta say I love baseball as much as ever. Again, the weird conditions made for a weird year but you gotta go with what you got and the Dodgers-Rays Series was a good one. The Dodgers overwhelmed the Rays in a way that I think the Yankees might've been able to withstand. The Dodgers were on base all the time, it was just too much for the Rays to keep up with (and taking out your ace in Game Six of the World Series because the bean counters decreed it is...uh...just fucking daffy). Wouldn't be surprised to see a Dodgers-Yankees Series in 2021, might be just what the doctor ordered come autumn. (And I got a feeling it might be Yankees-Dodgers for, like, the next ten years)

As for NFL, I've been fine without the fans but it is different. For example, in Week One the Packers played the Vikings in an empty stadium. Packers built a comfortable lead but in the 2nd half the Vikings offense started putting points on the board and I couldn't help wondering if a cheering audience could've worked some magic for the Vikings. What is the effect of the fans on an NFL game? I dunno but this has taught me: when a football falls in a forest, everybody hears about it. 

I feel bad for the college kids whose seasons were screwy. They don't get a lot of chances to do their thing and this year will be a stunted (at best) experience for most of them. College football is strangely exposing how much the big boys need the little fish to make them look bigger by comparison. Yes, we know the titans dominate every year but the sheer amount of teams and games keep everyone involved even when we know they're far from the center of power. Without the wide variety of schools, the BCS feels like the football equivalent of the Grammys: a miniscule portion pretending to be the whole shmeer. 

How does 2021 look now? Well....NBA is good but the Covid lay-offs are gonna make for another weird post-season. We'll see if the Champions League is any different. NHL is fine but just got started. MLB is already having labor strife (kinda surprised last summer's strife wasn't worse) and I'm not yet convinced we'll even have a season this year. Aussie Open seems on the verge of collapse and I don't really see how tennis gets going. March Madness is gonna be weird no matter what happens (**). 

The Masters should still be good, though. So there's that and the other stuff will still be worth watching even if its weird. 

And by September I fully expect the NFL to keep rolling no matter what's going on in the world. I've been on the 18 month timeline since March, with the vaccine on its way, herd immunity steadily becoming a reality and everyone getting increasingly comfortable with the social distancing combined with the timeless dependability of football, I think that time horizon still holds. 

2020 required me to reevaluate my daydreams. I spent intellectual capital on things other than sports and while you probably think that's a good thing, I think I've learned once and for all that it is not a good thing. Science is vastly overrated, Politics is for charlatans and fools, the Markets are just like sports but less fun, video games have never grabbed me and Cinema has become more useful to me as as a look to the past rather than an eye on contemporary culture. 

Sports has outcomes, sports encourages statistical evaluation and problem solving, sports is gripping drama and ongoing soap opera. Sport is enlightening and enjoyable, it is the ideal meld of competition and cooperation. I'm ready to admit it: Sports are just better than everything else. And I'm ready to get my life back. 

(*) Gotta be honest I remember the semifinal better than the Championship. Nani had two killer goals in the semifinal that were just nasty. Just one heads-up vet making the game his own in a way that we just hadn't seen in months. A thing of beauty. But then Orlando lost in the Final. Oh well, great semifinal at any rate. 

(**) Put your money on Gonzaga.