World Series got derailed with bad pitcher decision
What was worse? Kevin Cash pulling Blake Snell after 73 nearly-brilliant pitches in Game 6 of the World Series or the Tampa Bay manager handing the ball to beaten- up reliever Nick Anderson.
One crime against baseball led to yet another, which led to defeat in the World Series.
Pulling Snell was scripted and foolish and that’s what so much of what Major League Baseball has become. You don’t play the game as much as you plan it out. You check the spreadsheets and the printouts and the algorithms and somehow that heartbeat of sport — what draws us in, what makes us love it — gets trampled on as the human element is again defeated, just as Tampa Bay was in Game 6.
Against a terrific hitting Los Angeles Dodgers team, Snell couldn’t have been better. He faced the top three hitters in the lineup twice, struck all six batters out. And then Cash chose to pull him after just 73 pitches, his lowest total of his six post- season starts, in a game in which he was unhittable.
Anderson, meanwhile, had given up earned runs in his six previous playoff appearances. Anderson, who had given up just one earned run during the shortened regular season, displayed none of that dominance in the playoffs.
Snell out, Anderson in, emotions be damned: Series over.
And without a rooting interest of any kind, I felt robbed, robbed of a proper conclusion, robbed of the individuality and pure emotion of what makes sports so special.
In a matter of days, Mitchell Miller went from being drafted by the Arizona Coyotes to being dropped by both the Coyotes and the University of North Dakota hockey team.
And through all of it I couldn’t stop wondering: Where were his parents all this time?
Where were they when Miller was charged with assault and violating the Ohio Safe Schools Act after he and another student were caught bullying an African- American classmate with a learning disability.
A lot of us made mistakes when we were kids. A lot of us did the wrong thing. A lot of us didn’t understand consequences or our actions. But along the way, a lot of us were taught by our parents and influenced by our peers and our friends and our teachers, and were made to understand there were consequences for actions, that unacceptable behaviour would not be tolerated.
Why didn’t someone make Miller apologize to Isaiah Meyer- Crothers, after a judge ordered him to apologize, after he continued his bullying ways? Miller found a way to write a letter to all NHL teams attempting to explain his behaviour, but no letter found its way to Meyer- Crothers.
In fairness to the forever messed up Coyotes, this was a mistake corrected rather quickly. It is a privilege to play in the National Hockey League. It is a privilege to get drafted. It can be a life- changing experience for those involved.
But sometimes along the way, some of us need help, especially the bad ones, the troubled ones. The kind of
help you should get from mom and dad. The kind of help that Mitchell Miller may have needed long before Arizona drafted him.
For years, Cito Gaston couldn’t stand Tony LaRussa. But apparently in recent times, the two have kind of made peace with each other. A few years ago, Gaston would not have been happy about Larussa signing on to manage the Chicago White Sox. Now he’s seemingly OK with it ... Larussa will manage in
his 34th big league season next year. Gaston lasted 12 seasons with the Blue Jays in two stints and won two World Series. Larussa has won three. It has long bothered Cito that he never got offered another big league job ... As COVID- 19 continues to play havoc with our lives, we haven’t turned to professional sports the way you might have thought we would: The World Series was the least watched ever. NBA and NHL playoffs were significantly down in television numbers. Even the usually impenetrable NFL numbers are down slightly.
Canadian Andre De Grasse would have had little chance of winning the 100 metres at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, assuming there is a Summer Olympics, had American Christian Coleman been available. But Coleman has been banned for two years, not for testing positive, but for not being found to get tested. De Grasse is now a contender, not necessarily a favourite for the Olympics’ biggest prize.