Sports Weekend
I've generally followed University of Texas and University of Houston football since my graduations. Both had one-loss seasons going into yesterday's nationally telecast games. Houston was facing its unbeaten American Conference rival South Florida at home; it opened the game with 2 touchdowns in 5 minutes and looked like it was headed to a blowout, but Barnett, a transfer quarterback from Arizona State and Alabama, with his scrambling ability (like Houston's King) and deft passing, narrowed the lead by the end of the half. Then Houston began the second half in probably the worst start I've ever seen, getting pinned down on its own 2-yard line after a bad-roll punt. King floated a pass on a busted pass pattern by Houston receivers and a safety was called. Houston had definitely lost its mojo as it looked like South Florida quickly advanced to the red zone following the free kick, but Houston kept them from a touchdown. That turned out to be as close as South Florida would get as King regained the offense's mojo, including a remarkable fourth-and-7 conversion and while Barnett and South Florida had its offense moments, Houston pulled off a 3-touchdown win, holding USF scoreless in the final quarter.Texas, who had beaten traditional rival Oklahoma by a field goal, lost by a field goal on the road to Oklahoma State, which has a history of upsetting the Longhorns since the latter joined the conference.
But the real story has to be the World Series. Friday I had gotten up early on little sleep and had worked a long day, normally a flex-day off, before sitting down to see the then 2-0 Red Sox play the first game in Los Angeles. I had no clue I would be sitting through the longest time (wall time and innings-wise) I can recall watching ever. The Red Sox had rallied to tie the game by the ninth inning and took a twelfth inning lead, only to lose it with an errant throw to first base. Other than that inning, the pitching was really spectacular in extra innings, until Los Angeles got a walk-off home run in the bottom of the eighteenth evening, to cut the Series lead to 2-1. I slept in until noon, which I almost never do.
Saturday's game featured the Red Sox's legendary two-out offense. The Dodgers' pitching had largely stymied the Boston bats until a pitching change in the seventh, seeing their 4-run lead evaporate and then go out of reach with a ninth inning Sox rally. The Sox up 3-1.
The finale was tonight, but all the runs they needed came from a home run shot in the first inning. All the remaining runs came off solo home run shots as Boston won 5-1. Familiar readers know I'm a Twins fan (my first little league team name), and I always root for the American League in the Series, so I'm happy.
More in the scripted sports entertainment of pro wrestling, WWE has been heavily promoting its first all-women's PPV, even bringing back some of their "Hall of Fame" retired female wrestlers. I've never really cared much for the product (fairly much for lady performers in general: basketball, tennis, golf, etc.) As for the WWE, probably the one match I would like to see is Asuka v Rousey
It Seems Each Year Christmas Season Keeps Coming Earlier
It's not just that the two Hallmark channels started their holiday movie countdown to Christmas this weekend--before Halloween and Thanksgiving. But they're not alone. On my last visit to Sam's Club a few weeks back, I saw various holiday gift tins already stocked on the shelves.I'm not going to go onto a rant here on how Jesus is the reason for the season or how the holiday has become too commercialized. I'm really not interested in shopping this soon, and Hallmark has too thin a stock of cable movies to stretch out their season without heavy rotation. They're promising 22 new movies. Hopefully their writing has improved. But they are still a relief from constantly rerunning decades-old sitcom.
