Settling in to watch sports on a weekend doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen. Last weekend was one of the big ones – great college football plus super baseball playoffs that could monopolize every minute if you were so inclined. And I was.
Thank God for allowing man to invent the remote.
With football starting at noon, I had an early lunch and was rushing toward Michigan-Penn State. I don’t know what my lunchmates were targeting. We discuss our plans, but I never seem to remember theirs. Of course, when I mention football, their eyes roll.
By noon, I was comfortably in my lounge chair, printed television sports schedule at the ready, remote in hand. Of course, I dialed up the wrong channel for the Michigan game, but that was quickly corrected.
I’m an Ohio State fan. Big time. The unbeaten Buckeyes (6-0) weren’t playing Saturday. But unbeaten Michigan was. We Buckeyes have a problem with that school up north. We want them unbeaten when we trounce their behinds late in November. But we have a hard time rooting for them in the meantime. I guess I’d like a tie. (Yes, I know Michigan won last November. But that won’t happen again in my lifetime.)
Michigan has a good quarterback in J.J. McCarthy, but so does Penn State (5-1 after Oct. 15) in Sean Clifford. Consequently, Michigan held only a 24-17 lead at one point. And that got my attention. However, that lead grew to 31-17 in the third quarter and by the end, Michigan (7-0) had won in a rout, 41-17.
Our neighbor, the University of Miami, has been having problems, as in losing three in a row, so I thought I’d better check in on them. Hey, it was 20-0, Miami, early in the second half behind quarterback Tyler Van Dyke. I watched the rest of the game because Miami didn’t look that strong. And they weren’t. I thought I could help them with a little cheering. Virginia Tech scored early in the second half and then scored again while Miami couldn’t get anything going. It was a close 20-14 the rest of the way and ended with that score. Miami is now 3-3, Virginia Tech 2-5.
Alabama was supposed to get a real test from unbeaten Tennessee, which had lost 15 straight times to Alabama. And the Tide did get a test before a full house of 102,000. Back and forth they went, with Tennessee holding a small lead most of the time. Late, it was 42-42 and then 49-49 as Bama’s Bryce Young showed why he won the Heisman Award last season. With but two seconds left, Chase McGrath lined up a 30-yard field goal. I didn’t think my nerves would allow it, but McGrath’s did. Right through the uprights. 52-49 for Tennessee. Not much of a defensive effort by either team, but Tennessee outlasted the perennial champion (6-1). Naturally, the Tennessee fans stormed the field and the SEC fined the university $100,000 as was its right. There’s a bigger issue for 6-0 Tennessee: Replacing torn-down goal posts for this week’s game — at a cost of $150,000.
Yes, I checked in on several other football games, but I had to tune in for the baseball playoffs between the heavily favored New York Yankees and the now-Cleveland Guardians. My collected jerseys are all Cleveland Indians, the team’s former name. I may never get used to calling the team Guardians, but I rooted for them just the same. On Saturday, the teams had each won a game in the best-three-of-five series and the Yankees led 5-3 in the ninth and final inning. But the Guards pecked away with a run here, a run there and finally a winning run that led to an explosion, not only in the crowd, but also a celebration on the field. It was great that the Guardian rally happened in Cleveland. However, the next night, with a victory hanging out there for the home team, the Yankees pulled off a 4-2 win, tying up the best-of-five series at two games apiece as the teams headed back to New York.
I concluded the day (and night) with the baseball playoff involving the Los Angeles Dodgers at the San Diego Padres. My daughter, Molly, and her husband, John, were in the stands and we spent too much time texting, trying to locate them.
Finally, weary, I went to bed.
The next morning I texted Molly for the final score. “3-5,” she replied. I could only assume that meant the Dodgers had beaten her Padres. But I was wrong. The Padres had won by that score and advanced to the next round of the playoffs against the Phillies. Ah, what fun.
