On the Absence of Any Alternative to The Fall Classic
The Romans knew it: Bread and circuses were the key to domestic tranquility. Bread--nowadays, the economy--is a subject for another day, but the meaning of circuses here and now is our own sporting industry, competitive and gladatorial. It is almost a national necessity to ensure that the events continue despite any circumstances. At least in peacetime.
The Fall Classic, of course, is the World Series of our Major League Baseball. In 2021, we had a relatively normal one, after a surprisingly normal regular season and an exciting set of playoff series. The victory by the Atlanta Braves was a relatively just finish, despite their fans' somewhat odious chant ('The infamous 'Tomahawk'. Really, it just needs to be re-imagined.) The franchise did some great things in 2021 to rise from a bad midseason position (trailing, and losing their best player, Ronald Acuna, Jr. to injury); they picked up no less than four quality replacements who showed up in the postseason.
So, a bad time to take on the needless anxiety for the 2022 season arising from the lockout of the majors' players by the owners now (a lack of a new union contract). I think I will await some progress on the negotiations, which have just been agreed to begin shortly after 45 days, with about as many to get a deal. Meanwhile, back to the main topic.
The Aussie Should Move to November
That is my outrageous suggestion, one which I make with all seriousness for consideration by the sport of pro tennis.
I would suggest putting it 3-5 weeks before the current year-end, match-play style tournaments in early December. In other words, early November. I think it would add some needed luster to the season's mediocre ending and would end up making the first two months of the calendar year a true vacation, one that I think would enhance the consistency and health of the players in the other ten.
It's no real challenge going from Melbourne, Australia to anywhere in the world for the top eight men and top eight women, with a couple of weeks and today's private jet services. The challenge would be the time zone adjustment and preparation time needed in Australia--just as it is now, but with this change, having a good month or more after the current last Grand Slam of the season, the US Open in September, for those who wished to take on the challenge of the new climax of the season.
The big benefit, though, will be to the Australian Open itself. Instead of the fourth of the grand slams, it would be on more equal footing in terms of significance. Then, there is the climate factor: each year, the heat during this time of year (think: hotter than the Fourth of July) has been getting worse, and more consistently worse for that matter. Moving it to a lovely spring period might present some precipitation challenges, but that's what being a modern big-time sporting venue sometimes requires.
I think there is no better sport for the Australians to show their sporting hospitality prowess. It is certainly nothing like the grudge match with England in cricket. OK, maybe like rugby. So, what is this stupidity about Djokovic and his lack of immunity? We all know when Novak (the new moniker is 'no-mask') had it: it was in the first summer of Covid, 2020. If we could only think back to then....but he's been isolated in his hotel long enough that if he had omicron, it would show. Unfortunately for him, the national PM has a point to make as he looks toward a tough re-election battle based on the success of his heavy lockdown approach.
All right, forget tennis as the replacement, but I will comment below on its competitive situation. Next?
Breaking News in Football: A Tie Can Be Better than Kissing Your Sister
Football pretends to be a fall sport, but its focus is really in the winter. At least, the NFL's is. The transition from the useless preseason games into the real season is hardly noticeable, and I can barely pay attention to the oversensitive retired jock blather through much of the regular season. As playoffs and the season itself continue to expand, there is less pressure on coaches and their teams in the early-going. Lots of time to work things out, if your team is competitive; the season still doesn't have that many games but there's room to lose a couple here or there in the fall. The crunch comes in the last three weeks of the season, when the arcane tiebreaking scenarios and their resolution give games artificial significance.
In this "Biggest Season of All", the regular-season crunch now has moved ever later, into the holidays and the new year. In recent years the NFL has expanded the season with the bye week, expanded the number of days nationally televised games are available, added yet a 17th regular-season game (taking away a preseason one, I hope) and now, the number of teams making the playoffs (from six to seven, for each conference). All of the other moves worked spectacularly well for the industry; the public has not reached saturation, somehow, and the NFL's product marketing remains excellent.
The audience attraction for the last weekend ended up being the battles for those two seventh-and-last spots, set up by some of the recent surprise results. On the NFC side, the 49ers produced the largest comeback of the season (17 points at halftime) to win their berth. The AFC spot came down to the very last game to be played in the schedule. The Raiders, who have finally found a home for their renegade marauding, in Las Vegas, hosted the Chargers, who broke San Diego's heart recently by moving to a megastadium near L.A.
The winner of the game would get the spot, the loser eliminated. There was one wrinkle, though; in the NFL regular season they now play an overtime period, 10 minutes or less. Most of the overtime games end with one team scoring more or sooner, but it is possible for there to be a tie--it happens typically once or twice a season. The Pittsbugh Steelers, who won a game in overtime earlier on Sunday, were one of those teams with a tie in their record this season. Their win Sunday afternoon would put them into the playoff brackets. Unless....unless the Raiders and Chargers should tie. In that one odd case, both those teams would make it in, and the Steelers would be out.
To make the story as short as I can, I jump to the crux of it. Through a combination of relatively unlikely occurrences, without really aiming to do so the Raiders-Chargers result collided at the improbable football score of 29 each at the end of regulation time. In the overtime, each team's first possession ended in a 3-point field goal. The Raiders found themselves with the ball, near midfield, with a couple minutes left, and the score tied at 32. The next score would win, but, if neither team scored anymore, they would both get through.
At this point, Raiders coach Rich Bisaccia (his success to this point itself a major story, as he was named head coach in a disastrous situation in the middle of the season) had to decide whether to take the pragmatic strategy, three running plays to run out the clock and take the tie, or allow the natural competitive juices to flow and go for the win, taking the risk of an adverse outcome. They ran a couple of running plays, seemingly willing to take the tie. At this point, Chargers' coach Brandon Staley, who had shown himself earlier in the game to be an outlier risk-taker, took a timeout to stop the clock, with about a minute left. Why? Possibly he was thinking to get the ball back and make his bid to win, for some reason. After that, though, the Raiders ran one more successful play, which put them in the outer range of their field-goal kicker.
Again, a decision for Bisaccia: Go for the field goal and the win, with its concomitant risks (the attempt could be blocked, or run back by the defensive team), or, having countered the Chargers' bluff, take a knee and the tie. They went for the kick, it barely went through, and the Chargers were out and the Steelers saved. Score one for competitive integrity, minus one for game theory.
The change to add the seventh team to the playoffs is a winner from the start. It adds two more nationally-televised games to the frenzied Wild Card weekend, and it places additional emphasis on the challenge to be the best team in the conference and get the bye in that weekend, a week of rest and recovery. The seeding may not turn out to give those #1 seeds so much advantage: they will have a week of down time, then face the lowest-seeding team in the next round, but that will be a team that has scrapped to get in and then won their first game. We have seen in baseball that is a formula for a likely upset.
As for college football, they miss few chances to get it wrong. I'm hearing a debate about whether to expand their playoffs (currently four teams, nearly always with controversy about the last one or two) to eight or 12, or leave it as it is (the preference of the big schools and their conferences). The correct answer is 6, or imitate the NFL and go for the touchdown with 7.
My loony idea for football: Blind-side shocks damaging the brain and spine are the biggest long-term issue for the issue (credit to the brilliant Michael Lewis for his essay on the subject in his book named "The Blind Side"). Protective helmet technology has come a long way, but I see a radical fix for the problem: a rear-view camera in the back of the helmet, and a small video capability up by the brow. Quarterbacks and other skill positions (running back, wide receiver) will be able to use it and brace themselves for those mind-killers.
Footie: Coming to America, Part Deux
The game we Americans know as soccer, most of the world calling it some form of 'football', has remained an import most of us have regarded with distrust throughout its history. There have been efforts to install it as a major draw before (remember Pele on the Cosmos?), then there was the World Cup here in 1994 which briefly raised its profile.
The current version of the men's professional league (MLS, or Major League Soccer) has lasted a couple of decades and does have significant support, locally, for its franchises. Those running it have been smart enough to keep their ambitions within their revenues, so far.
I see a good chance that the game may be lifted up to about the level of fourth place in the US professional sports hierarchy, passing ice hockey (also an import not congenial to most of the country). The reasons are as follows: 1) The Women's national team's successes have raised our awareness; 2) Youth leagues and high school teams continue to grow (partially assisted by parents' fears of American football injuries to their children); 3) The US will be hosting the men's World Cup again in 2026 (with Canada--something that has not penetrated general awareness yet); and 4) Christian Pulisic.
Pulisic may be the best men's player the US has ever produced; he is, for my money, clearly the most exciting one. He doesn't just "play like an American"--he has been coached in the international style and has proved himself, first in the German Bundesliga and now for my team, Chelsea, in the English Premier League. This spring, he became the first American to feature on a team winning the European club championship. He is the undoubted star of the US Men's National Team, and I'm gunning for them to equal or surpass their modern best performance, the quarter-finals of the tournament, in the ridiculous, but neutral, arenas of Qatar, the host for the 2022 World Cup.
As for me, I now have an MLS team, NYCFC (an expansion team, which uses the English "Football Club" in its handle). For now, they play in Yankee Stadium (the Yankees are part-owners) when the baseball team isn't there. They surprised everyone and won the MLS Cup through penalty kicks recently.
The Future Is Encouraging
All these sports are showing impressive talent rising from our youngest adults, who are moving to push the aging veterans out of their positions at the top. Soccer always has them, but now they are arising from more parts of the world than ever. American football has the likes of rising, highly skilled quarterbacks Justin Herbert, Taylor Lawrence, Lamar Jackson, and Joe Burrow, recent graduates from the college game who have already proven they can stand up against the Tom Brady/Aaron Rodgers/Ben Roethlisberger axis in the pro passing game. Similarly, basketball has Ja Morant, Trae Young, and Giannis Antetokounmpo to challenge Lebron, Chris Paul, and the other Old Guard hoopsters. And tennis, with the Big 3 finally near to moving on (except Djokovic, who will have to be shoved off the court), shows rising stars like Carlos Alcazar (the "new Rafael Nadal", only bigger physically), Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, and a host of Eastern European and Americans rising through the ranks. In last year's dramatic Olympics and US Open, Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev showed that Djoko is no longer invincible in Grand Slam finals.
And, the professional leagues are generally showing more balance, if not quite parity, with several teams capable of performing at the highest level. Generally, they are the ones with the highest payrolls, but not always so.
Postscript:
I am encouraged by the report from yesterday's first formal negotiations between the baseball players' union and the team owners. The players are seeking earlier free agency and a larger cut of the pie, the owners are suggesting measures for a bigger pie. In particular, I note the owners' offer of an expansion of the postseason to 14 teams (from the current 10). Not exactly the magic 7 (per league) the NFL found, though; I expect it would be a play-in tournament of teams 4-7 (one game, or at most 2-out-of-3), while the three division winners get a week off to recover and line up their starting rotation. The solution always seems to be to lengthen the season, give the fans more.
What I really see from this is that The Fall Classic for 2022 should be safe, and maybe the season will even start on time.
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