Since it can’t be ignored really in these weird times, just a brief mention of the oversized pachyderm in the room. Then I’ll move on. Or, at least, try to.
I miss the NBA playoffs, as I missed the culmination of the college hoops season, as I miss baseball, college and MLB.
Oh, for a day, catching the Cardinals at The Jim.
Sigh. Continue reading Random Thoughts on the World of Sports
It is for me the most charming aspect of The Jim, where the Louisville Cardinal nine under normal circumstances spends spring evenings, whiling away at America’s pastime.
I’m not referring to the bucolic berm beyond the fence where a caught fly ball is marked 7 on your scorecard, the one where kids play tag and catch and push each other down the slope and sometimes pay attention to the game.
Nor the crossed Louisville Sluggers outside, a sign of our city’s significant contribution to the the game.
I’m talking about the railroad tracks beyond the fence in right, where the screeching and whistling of commerce on wheels harkens back to that more pastoral time when baseball and traveling from sea to shining sea were new and adventurous.
A great lament for U of L athletics is what might have been for this season’s loaded baseball team? It’s certainly worthy of consideration, yet that’s not really what this is about.
In fact, mea culpa, the lede is a ruse of sorts, a way to hoodwink Glorious Editor of cardchronicle.com that this is within the parameters of the purpose of our fan site. As well as his bosses at the home office. It’s one of the sites where I double post these sports musings along with my vanity sports blog.
What this is really about is how for my generation — We were the war children/ Born 1945 — baseball was the American imperative. Continue reading Dads/ Sons/ Baseball: An Essay for My Father
There was, as any sad U of L Cardinal fan understands, a consensus. A healthy consensus, and almost universal belief.
That Luke Smith, who again hurled brilliantly in this 2019 post season — three hits, none after the 3d, ten strikeouts, but one walk, and a single score on 106 pitches — should have been pulled after those eight masterful innings.
Should have been pulled because his competitive bile at the end of that half inning — hurling antagonistic invective toward the Vandy dugout and Julian Infante whom he’d just struck out — could well awaken the beast that is Vanderbilt. Should have been pulled because the Cardinals have not one but two shutdown closers. Michael McAvene with his 5/1 K/BB ratio and 7 saves. Michael Kirian with his 1.68 ERA, 4/1 K/BB ratio and 5 saves.
Or, at the very least, pulled in the 9th after walking JJ Bleday, the nation’s best basher, on five pitches, after getting leadoff Austin Martin to ground out to start the Commodore half.
That consensus however does not include Dan McDonnell, the successful Louisville mentor, who has turned the Cardinals into a national baseball power.
McDonnell, with a look on his face that was kind of difficult to comprehend — it looked like indecision mostly — stayed with his starter. (One of the advantages of good TV coverage, are those close ups in those tense situations.)
I, like most, think it was, at the time, and in retrospect, an egregiously wrong choice. You gotta trust your closers.
But Smith stayed on the mound. Continue reading Reflections on U of L’s Last Hurrah in CWS
Sometimes you eat the bear. Sometimes the bear eats you.
Prior to Thursday night’s season-saving, Final Four-elevating 4-3 walk off by the Louisville Cardinals, 28 of the 52 victories in 2019 by the heading back to Dudy Noble Field Mississippi State Bulldogs have been of the come from behind variety.
In a little tit for tat, the Cards ended the season of their former assistant coach’s nine By. Coming. From. Behind.
As the number of the trailing, lifeless at the plate Cardinals’ outs was diminishing, the way too glib announcing team of Kyle Peterson, Eduardo Perez and Karl Ravech started hypothesizing about Bulldog/ Commodore pitching matchups for Friday night.
They weren’t the only ones who thought the game had a fait accompli feel to it.
In the top of the 7th, even before Tanner Allen’s “insurance” RBI single gave State a 3-0 lead, I — yeah me, ever the pessimist — texted my pal and declared, “This season is over.”
A win is a win is a . . . you know . . . win.
Louisville, 41-1 when leading after six, 42-0 when leading after seven, hung on despite itself to eliminate Auburn’s Tigers from the CWS, and live for the proverbial another day.
The Cards will meet the vanquished of Mississippi State/ Vanderbilt Thursday evening.
U of L, with a 4-1 lead, endured a 20:07 rain delay before action resumed in the top of the 5th at 11:00 AM Omaha time Wednesday. In front of a “crowd” at first pitch you could count on fingers and toes, both the Cardinals and Tigers sleep walked through 2 1/2 innings before any energy sparked.
Given how well Adam Elliott was pitching, Dan McDonnell yet again made one of his patented curious post season pitching decisions, bringing in ace reliever Michael McAvene to hurl the top of the 7th. The Cards closer certainly needed to knock off some rust. Following his suspension during the regional, two laughers over East Carolina when he wasn’t needed and a DNP in the CWS opening L to Vandy, he hadn’t taken the mound since June 2.
But Elliott was on, and surely could have gone another inning at least. Continue reading Cards Survive Rain & Auburn, 5-3, Advance
Louisville 12, East Carolina 0.
It is at somewhat incomprehensible moments like this, that the writer’s craft and focus run off and hide.
How to explain in an ebullient but professional way how your favorite school’s baseball team has just drawn and quartered the tenth best squad in the land by scores of 14-1 and 12 zed to be the first to punch a ticket to the College World Series.
What hook to use? Where to start? Does it really matter if you get the essentials and the peripherals onto the page.
So . . .
. . . this morning, while cruising the interweb, before heading out to The Jim, I came across a mention of Peyton Manning. Who, as you might recall, used a barked “Omaha” as a trigger to his teammates that he was changing the call at the line of scrimmage.
So, should the Cards prevail, I thought I might start with that angle, and work from there, maybe talk about how the Cards pulled a Peyton Manning. Which the observant among you will notice I have done.
Then there’s the more obvious storyline, which if I weren’t such a contrarian, I would have put at the beginning of the lede.
Bobby Miller. The righty is U of L’s third starter, but got the nod on Saturday noon. And all he of the 6-1, 4.37 ERA (4-0, 3.12 at home) did was totally throttle the hard hitting Pirates. Continue reading Louisville Rampages Way to Omaha, 12-0
So, I’m at the cable store the other day, getting a box that fritzed changed out.
As the no fuss transaction is almost done, I ask my friendly, very helpful clerk Taylor, “Do you know if Spectrum is going to be carrying the ACC Network or not?”
At which point she looks up, smiles, then starts laughing, as does the clerk taking care of the customer next to me.
“I guess I’m not the first to ask, huh?”
Taylor: “Every day.”
The clerk next to her: “Every single day. Every single customer.”
Of course, neither had the answer, but it’s impossible to conceive that it won’t be carried since Louisville is the biggest college basketball market in the country, and has been for a number of years now.
But, an announcement would be nice.
* * * * *
I used the occasion of spending last weekend at The Jim, covering U of L baseball in the NCAA Regional, to chat up other media heads to see if anybody had tried to track Bobby Petrino down for any comments the former U of L football coach might wish to share about last season and his departure? Continue reading Wednesday Seedy KO’s: Nwora, Network, Coach Nowhere to be Found ++
It was a throwback, this tussle to decide which feisty squad moved on for another weekend of play in the national championships, and which trundled home, its season done.
The rare weekday afternoon game. More kids than usual for a non-weekend affair. Sun high in the summer sky. Business folks sneaking out of the office. Retirees. Second shifters.
Forget digital, this game was a daguerreotype, in sepia. The only thing missing was a couple of old codgers wearing starched shirts, suspenders and straw boaters, arguing over who was better, Double XX or The Georgia Peach?
Heck, there was a half inning when the home team bunted three straight times. Old timey it was, I’m telling you.
Plus the Louisville Cardinals and the Illinois State Redbirds played one as close as their nicknames. Continue reading Cardinals Abide, Walk Off to the Supers
OK, I’m racking my brain decades later to see if I can remember any of the laws of energy, Mr. Brashear tried to impart to us in 1st period Physics in H.S.?
Law of Conservation of Energy maybe? Potential energy is a concept I recall. Zeroth Law, is that a thing? Ya know, it’s not like I’ve thought a lot about theories of thermodynamics through the years.
But, seeing as how the energy of the Louisville Cardinal nine accelerated through yesterday’s twin killing of Indiana and Illinois State to force a decider Monday for a spot in the Supers, I have conceived a new hypothetical.
Who needs Stephen Hawking anyway?
For your consideration, I offer Seedy K’s Law of the Propagation of Energy. Continue reading After 11-2 Romp, Cards a W away from Supers
Survive and advance.
One down, two to go, starting with a 6:00 PM Ernie Banks” Let’s Play Two first pitch against Illinois State.
It was a day when the Cards’ post season bats finally woke up in the bottom of the 2d. A Danny Oriente double in the gap tallied two. After a walk and a sacrifice bunt, a Justin Lavey single plated two more.
The Hoosier loaded the sacks in the top of the 3d. But, coming up huge, starter Bobby Miller struck out the next two IU batters, then induced an inning ending fly out to center to end the threat.
The Cardinals added two more in their half on an Alex Binelas homer.
Miller quelled another potential rally in the top of the 5th, striking out two to end the inning.
Really aggressive base running by Tyler Fitzgerald — He scored from 2d on a routine infield out — gave U of L a 7-0 lead after five.
IU came back with 4 in the 6th, but Adam Elliott calmed things down somewhat. Continue reading Cards Outlast Hoosiers & Umpire, 9-7