— Wednesday was the Cleveland Guardians’ last home game this season, the last home game for manager Terry Francona, who is retiring after this season.
Francona has had a great career as a manager; he seems to be universally loved by people who cross paths with him, especially the Cleveland TV guys. I’d like for him to get job at FOX or ESPN, so we can learn from him over the next few seasons.
Francona’s managerial career:
1997-2000— Phillies 285-363, not so good
2004-11— Red Sox— 744-552, won two World Series
2013-23— Indians/Guardians— 919-755, won AL pennant in 2016
This is a Hall of Fame career; hopefully, he’ll get voted in.
Oh yeah, he also managed the Birmingham Barons the year Michael Jordan played for the Barons. That had to be quite an experience.
— It is early in the season, but here is so info on how NFL teams are doing on drives that start 75+ yards from the goal line— both offense and defense.
Lot of times, teams score on short drives or on defensive TD’s, but can an offense drive 75+ yards for a TD? That way, a team can still score points, even if they don’t get lot of turnovers.
— Offenses with best points/drive on drives that start 75+ yards from goal line:
Dolphins 4.23
Chargers 3.12
Cowboys 2.93
Mariners 2.60
Vikings 2.54
— Defenses with best points/drive on drives that start 75+ yards from goal line:
Browns 0.04
Steelers 0.54— Defensive TD’s count towards these numbers.
Bills 0.68
Cowboys 0.69
Patriots 0.81
— Offenses with worst points/drive on drives that start 75+ yards from goal line:
Jets 0.22
Giants 0.67— They gave up a defensive TD and a TD on a blocked FG.
Commanders 0.73
Browns 0.77— Gave up two defensive TD’s to the Steelers
Jaguars 0.89
— Defenses with worst points/drive on drives that start 75+ yards from goal line:
Broncos 3.61— They’ve given up 105 points in last two games.
Chargers 3.13
Raiders 3.00
Bears 3.00
Seahawks 2.83
— Chargers won 28-24 in Minnesota Sunday, despite losing field position by 16 yards; you almost never see a team win a game with such a disadvantage in field position.
— Word of the Day: Impasse— a situation in which no progress is possible, especially because of disagreement.
— Was reminded Monday night that when the Rams lose, I need to stay away from social media, because there are a lot of front-running, disloyal jerks out there.
Rams lose to the Bengals 19-16 Monday night, and all of a sudden, there are a lot of geniuses on Twitter ripping Sean McVay for various things, because hey, they know more about football than he does.
Oy.
— There was a big trade in the NBA Wednesday:
Milwaukee got Damian Lillard— he is 33 and has $200M left on his contract.
Portland got Jrue Holiday and DeAndre Ayton- they figure to trade free agent-to-be Holiday.
Phoenix got Jusuf Nurkic
Does this trade make the Bucks the preseason favorite for this year?
— Miami Marlins are contending for a playoff spot, the Mets have had a dismal season and right now, the Marlins are steamed because their game in New York Tuesday was rained out, because the Mets’ ground crew didn’t put the tarp on the field at Citi Field Saturday and it rained a lot, so the field was supposedly still unplayable Tuesday.
Miami wanted to use P Braxton Garrett Tuesday and then again Sunday, the last day of the season, but now they won’t be able to, unless he goes on three days’ rest Sunday. Not ideal.
The Mets say they just made a mistake, nothing intentional about it.
— Bill Dickey was a Hall of Fame catcher a long, long time ago; he lived in Little Rock, AR, where for a while, his paperboy was a young man named Brooks Robinson.
— The father of Diamondbacks’ OF Alek Thomas was the strength coach for the White Sox for like 20 years, so had to be weird this week for Thomas to be playing against the Pale Hose, like coming home again.
— Michigan State officially fired football coach Mel Tucker, which should keep lawyers for both sides busy for a while. Tucker was making $9.5M a year; they fired him for cause, ‘cuz they do not want to give him any more money.
— Glad to hear that the writers’ strike in Hollywood is over; now TV shows/movies can resume production.
