Getting to First Base

In a traditional day-after-Thanksgiving matchup, my Nebraska Cornhuskers hosted the Colorado Buffalos (whom I despise). The Buffs got out to an early lead, and I fell into a despair from which only Dr Pepper could rescue me. Late in the game, Colorado had the lead, 31-30.

After a series of not-so-great plays and about 2 minutes left, Nebraska found themselves in a 3^rd and 25 situation. Joe Ganz tosses the ball up the middle for Mike McNeill. At first I thought he caught it – still well short of a 1^st down – but it had actually bounced off his hands.

That brings up 4^th and 25, and Nebraska coach Bo Pelini calls a time out. My family agrees that the Huskers HAVE to go for it at that point. Down by 1 with that little time left? Had to go for it.

Come out of the timeout and….kicker Alex Henery is on the field? What? That would be a FIFTY-SEVEN yard attempt. Earlier in the game NU ran a fake FG play on 50-yarder because it was “out of Henery’s range.” That play was a bad decision, because NU ran it just 2 weeks ago so Colorado knew what was coming. As soon as holder Jake Wesch tossed the ball over to Henery, the Buffs’ defender was right there to take it and run it all the way back for a TD.

So there was no way the Huskers could run a fake play now, and…..57 yards, really? No way! The team lines up, and it is indeed not a fake. Henery kicks the ball and it’s in the air for at least 4 years. The ball wobbles, heading toward the right side up the uprights. If Henery misses this kick, Colorado will most assuredly win the game. Ewwww! It keeps flying, flying, flying, slowly meandering toward the goalposts.

And then…the ball sneaked into the bottom-right corner and the officials raised their arms – it’s good! 33-31 Nebraska.

Now it’s time for the defense. If they fail here, and Colorado scores, there’s no time for a comeback after that. And BOY did they come through: Zach Potter tipped the pass from CU QB Cody Hawkins, and Ndomukong Suh snatched it from the air and lumbered to the endzone. On his way, he crossed paths with Hawkins, and destroyed him with an expert stiffarm.

After both the field goal and the Suh pick-6, I was elated and screamed and hollered an embarrassing amount, given that I was indoors. Sure, it shouldn’t have come to that - Colorado scored two touchdowns in the first few minutes of the game even though their offense is awful - and I had hoped the Huskers would run away with a big win. But if it had to come down to late-game shenanigans, the way it unfolded was a perfect. A perfect mess.

As CBS pointed out, Nebraska - 18-point favorites in Vegas - set themselves up for disaster “thanks to a couple big offensive plays in the first quarter, a botched Nebraska fake field goal that led to a CU touchdown and Ganz’s fumble early in the fourth quarter.”

Yes, the Huskers should have won by more. But golly, it was still fun to win like that instead.

I didn’t eat a single bite of turkey today, nor did I watch any football. Does that make me a bad American?

(For the record, I would love to have seen some Thanksgiving football, but I was helping my parents put Christmas decorations up in their home, and we normally have about twice the number of helpers we had today. So I didn’t have a spare moment for football. That, and I don’t have the NFL Network so I couldn’t have watched the Cardinals and Eagles anyway.)

I can’t, for the life of me, remember EVER playing football in the yard with the family on Thanksgiving. Apparently everybody does that, so I guess my family is strange. We play football together when we can, along with baseball, Frisbee, whatever. But never on Thanksgiving.

And really, how did football get to be such a huge part of the national T-giving tradition anyway? The feasting, I understand. I mean, the pilgrims and Native Americans gave us a pretty strong historical precident for gulping down lots of turkey and all kinds of other foods. But who decided that the whole nation would care about watching the Detroit Lions, and then channel their inner QB with the family in the yard? Is it just because football is so American? Is it just an extension of our collective nationalism, so we have to watch and play American football on this American holiday? Or is it just because this is the only time all the uncles are together and the beers in their bellies make them think they’re Brett Favre trapped in Uncle Bill’s body? (Ahhh, stereotypes. Nobody in my family is like this at all.)

I’m not saying football on Thanksgiving is a bad thing; who am I to argue with people engaging in and watching my 2nd-favorite sport all day? I just don’t know why it’s so strongly tied in with the tradition of the holiday.

Anyway, I hope y’all had a nice, happy Thanksgiving, and if you tried to flash-fry your turkey it didn’t burn the house down. And to you non-Americans, I hope you had a nice, relaxing…uhhh…..normal Thursday!

(Unrelated side note: Both of my dogs are sleeping in the room here with me, and the 2-year-old black lab/collie, Annie, is on the floor…and she’s going absolutely crazy. She’s obviously dreaming about chasing something, because her paws are flying all over the place, her ears are flapping around, and she’s even barking a little bit. Must be an exciting dream.)

In this crazy world of millions of whippersnappers blogging from their homes instead of press boxes, the importance of access is always a big issue. I have had Drew Magary’s column on the topic bookmarked since the day he wrote it.

[Rick] Reilly assumes that, if you haven’t been in a locker room, if you’ve never had access, then you can’t possibly have any sort of valuable insight to offer on sports. This is wrong, of course. I’m pretty sure Bill James didn’t set foot into a locker room before changing the fundamental nature of baseball scouting forever.

The quote goes on, but I try to keep the language here family-friendly. This week, since I had the ear of a writer who has access (but who also blogs), I thought I’d ask. I figured it was very possible that Magary (and Will Leitch, and I, and everyone else who reads/writes sports blogs) is biased against press access. Below, Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star addresses the issue of press access, and the “blogs vs. traditional media” issue.

If you missed it, here’s Part I. Read on for Part II: Read the rest of this entry »

I get the feeling I’m walking into a deathtrap by writing a term paper about sports blogs, because this professor of mine seems to despise blogs and the people who write them. So I thought I’d bolster my paper with thoughts from someone whose excellent work appears in print as well as online. Sam Mellinger is one of the many talented sports writers for the Kansas City Star and writes Ball Star, an insightful Royals blog. He is officially awesome, because he gave me some thorough, thoughtful answers that were too good to not share.

Here is Part I:
Minda: When did the Star start supplementing its regular sports section with blogs? What, to your knowledge, prompted the paper to start publishing blogs?

Sam: Not sure I can give you a date. More than five years, for sure, though there’s been an increased focus the last year or two. I’m sure what prompted it is the same as everywhere else — a belated realization that our online product is not only the future, but the present. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s well-documented how much I despise winter. To me, it’s too long between the time the World Series ends and Opening Day. Football is great, and I loves me some college basketball, but those things are just placeholders in my life - no sports season feels as complete to me as baseball season. I’m lost without baseball.

However, every year I begrudgingly accept the fact that winter has to happen, and try to manage. This weekend might have been the most perfect solution to the problem of winter. . . I went to a hockey game on Friday, watched football in a bar on Saturday, went to another hockey game after that, and went to a Nebraska basketball game today. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chiefs/Chargers game wasn’t televised here yesterday, so I didn’t see most of it. But CBS (I think?) switched to coverage of that last :51 of the game, right as Kansas City was down by 7 and pushing to score. They did score a touchdown on a Tyler Thigpen pass to Tony Gonzalez, and I settled in for the overtime that was sure to come after the extra point was kicked.

But then…Thigpen and the rest of the offense stayed on the field. They lined up to go for a two-point conversion to win the game, and it failed. Another loss for those hapless Chiefs. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most-speculated players of this Hot Stove season is Matt Holliday, the left fielder for the Colorado Rockies. Rumors have linked him to just about every team, and it seemed that the Rockies’ demands for him were steep.

All along, I wondered if teams would be suckered into giving up more than Holliday is worth. His offensive numbers certainly LOOK fantastic, but a closer look quickly reveals that he benefited greatly from playing in a hitter’s park.The 28-year-old righty has hit 128 homers in his five seasons in the Majors, but 84 of them - that’s over 65% - have come at home. Maybe I’m wrong here, but it seems like that number is disproportionately high given that a team’s schedule is split roughly in half between home and road games.

Is Holliday a formidable hitter? Oh yes. But should the A’s realistically expect him to hit near as many homers in their Coleseum as he did at Coors Field? That would be beyond foolish. I hope they adjust their expectations and how much they give up for him according to how good he actually is, rather than according to how he performed in an extreme hitter’s park.

As of this posting - about 4 p.m. Central - we don’t know who Oakland is sending to Colorado for Holliday. This page will be updated as those facts come out.

Two weeks ago, I accompanied my little brother to an event that’s considered life-changing around here. My father was with me for mine when I was 13.  A child’s first Nebraska Cornhusker football game is a Big Deal around here.

Ask any one of the 85,000 fans in Lincoln’s Memorial Stadium, and they all remember when their first Husker game was. Maybe it was decades ago, in the early part of Nebraska’s incredible streak of 296 consecutive sellouts*. Maybe, in the case of a guy in my row today, it was only a few years ago because he grew up in Virginia and married into Husker Nation. Read the rest of this entry »

I AM excited for tonight’s Game 5 of the World Series. Really. Cole Hamels vs. Scott Kazmir? This could be a lot of fun!!

BUT. As I sit here and wait for one last commercial break (Flomax, Viagra, and DirecTV, oh my!), I must acknowledge with great sadness that this could be the last MLB game I watch this fall. If the Phillies win, that’s it; the fat lady sings and we’re left with no baseball until Spring Training. Sure, I’ll be glad to be rid of Joe Buck (whose broadcasts might be more outright offensive than Joe Morgan’s) and Tim McCarver, but I will miss baseball! Read the rest of this entry »

This is just a rumor so far, but I’m already imagining future Sunday nights, with happy feelings and lower blood pressure and no need to assault my mute button every 30 seconds. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself until it’s official, but the New York Daily News has word that Joe Morgan will no longer be a part of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts.

Could the 19-year “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcasting partnership of ESPN’s Jon Miller and Joe Morgan be coming to an end? And will their ESPN Radio call of the Rays-Phillies World Series be the final chapter?

Well-embedded baseball moles contend the answer is “yes” to both questions.

In a word: Woooooooo!

In more words: Read the rest of this entry »