The End To The Baseball Season.

Last night after the Yankees scored 5 runs through the first 4 innings, I looked over at my buddy through a mountain of NA Craft Beers and empty frozen organic pizza boxes and said,

“Looks like we are headed back to LA for a game 6.”

I had confidence in what I was saying because the Yankees seemed to have confidence with Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton all hitting home runs which did nothing but make The Yankees fans as ornery as ever. You could feel the energy of the stadium pulsating off my LG TV screen. Plus, Garrett Cole was out here pitching an all-time World Series gem of a game with a no-hitter through 4 innings. I thought there was no way this series wasn’t going back to LA. But not going to lie my analysis didn’t age well because about an inning later Lee Corso showed up in my living room with a sly smile on his face, leaned over to poke me with a mechanical pencil and whisper in my ear,

“Not So Fast My Friends.”

That’s when The Dodgers went on to score 5 runs in the 5th inning on the back of countless Yankees defensive errors. Both my buddy and I sat in silence with our mouths wide open as we couldn’t believe what we were watching. Garrett Cole, who had built a flawless Roman Empire through 4 and a half innings watched everything come crumbling down in a matter of minutes. First, Aaron Judge dropped a routine fly ball in center field allowing runners to advance. Second Anthony Volpe threw a routine ground ball at the feet of Jazz Chisholm which allowed the bases to become loaded.

Finally, Anthony Rizzo and Garrett Cole had a miscommunication on who was going to end up at first base to try and get Mookie Betts out. Betts hit a ground ball up the first baseline right to the 1st baseman Rizzo while Cole thought it was a good idea to just stand and point at first base while Rizzo fielded the ball and jogged lightly to first to try and beat out a sprinting Betts. It’s like Rizzo and Cole both looked at each other and decided that the 5th inning was a good time to take a stroll through central park and point at all the ducks in the pond on their way to first base.

“Oh look, it’s a Female hooded merganser.”

“Isn’t that nice. Shouldn’t we be getting to first?

“In due time…”

I’ve seen more urgency out of a Koala after consuming a dump truck worth of eucalyptus leaves than those two trying to get to first.

Normally when a team scores 5 runs in an inning you chuck it up to hey that’s baseball but when you have egregious error after egregious error you chuck it up to a collapse of epic proportions. The Yankees cooked up t-bone steaks for the entire Dodgers team and served it to them on the finest of handmade china east of the Mississippi. The Yankees weren’t done yet though. They got another run in the 6th to take the lead 6-5. But then the 8th inning came around. The Yankees just needed to get through the bottom of the Dodgers order to find themselves in the 9th inning with a lead. But that didn’t happen. The Dodgers bottom of the line up found a way to get the bases loaded for both Gavin Lux and Mookie Bets to hit sacrifice fly balls into the late October New York sky to take the lead 7-6. From that point on The Yankees had no more fight to give.

The Dodgers went on to win the game and the World Series by a score of 7-6 and I came away saying something that I thought I would never say,

“Wow what a fantastic baseball game that was. Man, I wish the season didn’t just end.”

What a wild ride these MLB playoff games have been. For the first time ever, I found myself turning off NFL football games to watch the underdog, highest payroll in baseball, Grimace lead Mets and their crazed fans try and make a World Series run. The Atmospheres in every stadium throughout the playoffs were second to none. It was incredible to watch.

How could you not enjoy the MLB Playoffs this year? We had division rivals going head-to-head in The Detroit Tigers and The Cleveland Guardians. We had two great sports towns battling it out in The New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. We had two passionate Southern California teams dueling for the right to be called the best team in So Cal with The LA Dodgers and The San Deigo Padres. But to top it all off we had The World Series that baseball has been dying to see since 1981 in The Yankees and The Dodgers. Did it live up to the hype? No nothing ever does because it ended in 5 games but boy were those 5 games full of drama, grand slams, great pitching, the best player in the world, and passionate fans trying to steal balls out of player gloves. Baseball has been slowly working its way out of my heart valves for quite some time now, with the length of games and the lack of drama but with the new pitch clock, Grimace, a modern-day Babe Ruth and a postseason full of great sports towns mixed with a little intrigue and drama, it’s safe to say,

“Not So Fast My Friends, Baseball Is Back!”

Thanks For Reading and MLB We Will See You In The Spring!

Sparking NFL Teams.

“Where the hell is that outlet?”

I said as I fumbled a white iPhone wall charger in my hands while leaning off the corner of my bed, feeling the wall up for an outlet in the dead of night.

“It must be around here somewhere. It’s not like these things move.”

Instead of getting up to turn on a light, my lazy past midnight brain and I decided it was a good idea to reach for a knife coated in Skippy Natural Chunky Peanut Butter from earlier when I sliced my midnight PB&J sandwich in half.

“I know, I’ll use the knife to locate the outlet and just follow the peanut butter trail with my fingers which will lead me right to the outlet. Darn it Brett, sometimes even my own genius surprises me.”

I said as I started to paint the wall with such fine-tuned brush strokes, that even Picasso would be proud. That was until my hand slipped and I inserted the knife into the left eye of the sockets face.

Sparks began to emerge out of the socket like a 4th of July sparkler that your cousin Eddy strapped to his nipples as he pretended to be in Magic Mike, drunk on a 30 rack of Miller Lite and Merlot dunked cheese. I began to feel a tingling shoot up my right arm as my brain started to picture Katy Perry dancing with a school of sharks on a beach at the Super Bowl halftime show singing,

“You just gotta ignite the light

And let it shine

Just own the night

Like the Fourth of July

'Cause baby, you're a firework.”

You know how people say your life flashes before your eyes during a near death experience? That wasn’t the case for me… As Katy Perry serenaded my electrocution, my brain decided to go through a photo album of all the moves NFL organizations recently made in hopes they would spark a dried-out Christmas tree sized fire underneath their teams’ cold bottoms.

When I finally extracted my charbroiled hand from the knife all I could think of was a toasted peanut butter sandwich and who in their right mind would trade Deandre Hopkins to the Chiefs. It’s not like the Chiefs need any more help to win a Super Bowl. They won last year with a bunch of no name receivers they found at truck stop just outside of Anchorage, Alaska with a flickering yellow Shell Gasoline sign. What are we doing Tennessee? I get that you’re not having the year you wanted and Will Levis seems like his eyes are coated in Dukes Mayo every time he drops back to pass but you can’t be desperate enough for a fifth-round pick that you break the entire league by giving Patrick Mahomes in actual weapon to play with. It’s like giving Jackie Chan a gun. He doesn’t need it but if he has it, you better put the whole world on alert.

That’s not the only move that baffled my brain during my electrocution. I also couldn’t believe that Aaron Rodgers (allegedly) got his coach fired and then traded for his long-time friend Devonte Adams and the Jets still stink. It’s been over 1,000 days since Aaron Rodgers threw for over 300 yards passing in a game, and he is out here talking about how the team needs to make peace with the darkness. Hey Aaron, how about you make peace with the fact that you can’t move like you used to and you’re just not the same quarterback that you once were. It happens to everyone (except Tom Brady), getting old sucks and watching the greatest quarterback I’ve ever seen struggle isn’t fun for anyone, even though it comes at the expense of the Jets, which is hysterical to say the least… I get the Jets trying to find some sort of spark by firing a coach and bringing in Aarons friends, but they are all out of moves now. This is the final product, and someone might need to put a peanut butter knife in a socket to help generate some sort of fire underneath these players. Everytime I see The Jets lose I just picture Zach Wilson Pillsbury Dough Boy poking Sean Payton's belly and laughing while saying,

“Can you believe I had a better record last year?”  

The Steelers may have made the most baffling move of all though, by benching 4-2 Justin Fields for a 35-year-old Russell Wilson who hasn’t looked great in a couple years now. But so far Russell Wilson has been great. He has sparked a dormant passing offense into a deep ball throwing juggernaut over these last two games. Geroge Pickens has stopped complaining. Well, he has complained less. Even The Steelers average rushing yards per game are up over the last two games. I thought maybe Mike Tomlin was losing his touch a little after benching Justin Fields, but he was seeing something we weren’t in practice. I’m not the biggest Fields fan as you may know, but even I was a knife in the outlet shocked by this move. Fields hasn’t been anything special but for the first time in his career he was winning and not turning the ball over. That is a Carl Lewis sized leap forward for someone with a career win percentage of 32%. With a coach I will never question again, and his newly found Russell Wilson offensive spark mixed with a ferocious defense led by T.J. Watt, The Steelers might find themselves in a legit Super Bowl race.

It seems like every team that is in contention in the AFC made a dramatic move to try and spark their teams past the Chiefs. Bills went out and got a stud receiver from The Browns in Amari Cooper, who just so happened to catch a touchdown pass in his first game as a Bill. The Baltimore Ravens traded a sixth-round pick to the Carolina Panthers for Diontae Johnson. Which gives Lamar another option to throw too in an already electric offense. The Browns started to eat W’s against The Ravens by starting Jameis Winston after Deshaun Watson went down with an Achillies injury. The Colts decided to bench Anthony Richardson in favor of Joe Flacco after Richardson tapped his helmet asking to leave the game because he was tired and maybe the fact that he has a 44% completion percentage. But if you’re Richardson in that spot, you can never admit that you were tired. You have to fake some sort of injury before admitting that you were tired. I don’t care if you fake grab your Achillies so much so that you need to see a specialist in Germany to figure out what is wrong. You just can never admit that you left the game because you were tired. Your teammates will never trust you again.

While the AFC has been busy, all the teams in the NFC must have taken out their spark plugs because there have been little to no moves happening in that conference. Maybe it’s because they don’t have a Patrick Mahomes to go through or maybe they are just content with their teams at the moment. But some teams might need to find a new set of spark plugs by the trade deadline because those Lions look borderline unstoppable. Not even an Aidan Hutchinson sized bucket of water could put out that spark fueled fire over in Detroit. They are beating teams every way possible. If it’s not offense it’s the defense, if it’s not defense its special teams. The Lions won a game 52-14 over the Titans with Jared Goff only throwing for 85 yards. These aren’t your 0-16 Lions from 2008. These are the new school Lions from 2024, and they just might be the most complete team in the NFL and that’s scary for the rest of the NFC.

There are so many strategies that NFL owners and GM’s use to ignite sparks underneath their players and coaches. They sometimes fire a coach who has lost the locker room. They sometimes make a trade to bring in a player who was on a bad team and is just hungry to win. They sometimes make quarterback change to quarterback that loves to lick his fingers and eat a W. There are a million ways to motivate players and coaches but there is one way I wouldn’t suggest and that’s listening to your brain after midnight as you put your peanut butter dipped metal paint brush in the left eye of a sockets face.

Thanks For Reading and I Hope I Sparked Up Your Day…

A Cowboys First Time

This morning as I was showering, I reached for the Apollo Axe body wash, grabbed it, squeezed a glob on to my hand and started playing with it like Robin Williams in Flubber… You know, like any grown man normally does, but instead of lathering it all over my body which smelt like regret from the previous days diet of 3 Diet Dr. Peppers, a frozen pizza and a (or two) chocolate doughnuts with Halloween themed sprinkles from Cub Foods bakery, I accidentally put the lady deterrent in my 1980’s Danny Noonan styled hair. I didn’t realize what I had done until my hair started to smell and feel like a 7th inning bathroom urinal cake at a Milwaukee Brewers game on dollar daiquiri night… I don’t know if I was tired from staying up too late watching Aaron Rodgers blow yet another late game comeback attempt because Mike Williams can’t turn his head around for the second week in a row or if I was just groggy from all the preservatives in that 5th slice of frozen pizza I consumed. Ok 6th slice of frozen pizza I consumed… I don’t have the slightest clue what caused me to stick Axe Body wash in my hair, but it definitely was the first time I had ever done that in my life.

Which got me thinking of other first times in my life. Like the first time I drove a car with my knee while trying to unwrap a McDouble or the first time I brushed my teeth with Benadryl.

What? Why are you making a disgusted face while reading this? Oh, so I’m the weird one for thinking the pink cream in a white tube looked like bubblegum flavored toothpaste. You try telling the difference between toothpaste and Benadryl after a night out in northern Minnesota bar doing nothing but shots of Goldschläger out of an ice luge…

Where was I? Oh yeah, first times. This is the first time that I can remember the Dallas Cowboys having zero, zilch, nada, diddly-squat, zippo, a goose eggs worth of Super Bowl expectations. After the Lions took a 47-point light saber to Jerry Jones evil empire on Sunday, The Cowboys Super Bowl odds fell from +1800 at the beginning of the season to a staggering +3500 now. That puts them below teams like the Kirk Cousins torn Achilles lead Atlanta Falcons (+2500) and the Aaron Rodgers torn Achilles lead New York Jets (+3000). If you thought that was bad it gets worse, The Cowboys also have a 2-4 record which ties with the Danny Jones lead New York Giants for last place in the NFC East.

But even that’s not the worse news, The Washington Commanders who have been awful since my existence on this planet are now atop the NFC East with a 4-2 record and may have found the one thing everyone is chasing: a quarterback. The Cowboys have been walking through that division for the last umpteenth years and after one draft The Commanders already look better than the Cowboys have in a decade. Which must just drive Jerry Jones mad so much so that… has anyone looked in outer space lately? There isn’t a handful of cranes just hanging out at the Home Depot on the corner of Orion’s Belt and The Big Dipper is there? I’m a little concerned that Jerry might actually be building a Death Star just so he can destroy Northwest Stadium in Washington D.C. On second thought, you go for it Jerry, you would be doing us all a favor, that stadium is awful.

I’m sure being a Dallas quarterback comes with its perks. You get to throw to great wide receivers that wear #88, you get to eat at any the fine Dallas steakhouse for free, you get to date Jessica Simpson after the MTV show newly weds and you can get any media job you want once you tie a bow on your career. It’s not all “Boots Are Made For Walkin’” through flat fields of roses and daisy’s being the Cowboys quarterback it also comes with a few bumps and a couple spurs in your back from being a stomping bag for Jerry’s problems. You see what I did there? Jessica Simpson made a song called “Boots are made… for…” ahhh you get it I don’t need to explain it…

Since that joke went so well, I think I’ll try a whole set for the first time…

I don’t think Dak deserves all the criticism this time around. The Cowboys are 3rd in the league in passing yards even with being ranked 32nd in rushing. Zeke should be eating in an offense with that kind of passing attack. He must be full from all the yards he had with the Patriots…

“No Rim Shot? Really? Damn I thought that was a good one…”

But a Zeke full on yards isn’t the only problem in big D. The Cowboys are ranked 24th in total team defense by giving up 356 yards per game. Which includes a staggering 143 yards rushing per game. I wonder if Zeke eats more during practice against that mouthwatering rush defense.

“Ba dum tshh…” “Nailed it.”

Now I know Micah Parsons is hurt and that’s a giant loss, but that’s not an excuse for being at the bottom of the barrel in rushing yards given up. There are more holes in that defensive line than a pair of jeans from Hollister…

“Booooo!”

 “I deserve that; that joke was forced.”

This is not the Mike Zimmer coached defense I remember from his years with the Vikings, far from it. Mike Zimmer led defenses used to even make prime, roll out, 60-yard flick passing Aaron Rodgers crumble to his knees. But now quarterbacks aren’t crumbling against Zimmer they are baking overpriced crumbled cookies in Jerry’s house.

“Booo! Get off the stage!”

“Well, my first time trying comedy didn’t go well…"

I don’t know what you do if you’re The Cowboys. All the pieces are there. But going on Dallas local radio and threatening to fire a radio host because you don’t like his questioning is not the answer... Jerry. It’s not like they aren’t trying to get better. Jerry just spent almost half a billion dollars on a quarterback and maybe the best wide receiver in the league. But when it comes to America’s Team that’s not enough. The fans in Dallas are unruly when it comes to their team being 2-4. Hell, they are unruly when the team is 6-0. I get it! Trust me, I do. You have the team; you have quarterback, and you are last place in the division. But take it from a Denver Broncos fan who has had a real rough go of it lately with the whole Russell Wilson debacle, it might be time to start tempering expectations a little, otherwise you might end up brushing your teeth with Benadryl and putting Axe body wash in your hair for the first time…

Thanks For Reading and Watch Out For Falling Death Star Debris…