Year in Preview
Rumor has it that these are some of the things you can look forward to next year
Tim Wilkin humbly submits his predictions for sports news in 2019.
Lots of rumors. That’s what we had in the Capital Region’s sports scene in 2018. Remember?
Here are a few examples.
For a time, it was rumored that Rick Pitino, the Hall of Fame coach, might be interested in taking the job at Siena College. Turns out he wasn’t. Or Siena wasn’t interested in him.
Before Triple Crown champion Justify was retired, there were murmurs that he just might show up and run in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. We all know how that worked out.
You get the idea. As we prepare to turn page 2018 to 2019, who knows what might be on the sports horizon for the 518? Fear not. I am here to let you know who will be the winners and who will be the losers.
And, of course, there will be plenty of rumors that will come our way before the next 12 months are spent. Why wait? As one of many public services to the area, I humbly submit what will happen over the next 365 days in the world of sports. Most of it is for right here, but we’ll get a few national tidbits in there for you, too.
So, as you prepare to bid adieu to 2018 and welcome in 2019, take a look at what is in store. And a Happy New Year to you all!
January
■ College football’s national championship brings two old friends together as Alabama and Clemson meet for the title for the third time in the past four years. And, for the third time, it’s close, but it’s Clemson that pulls off another upset, beating the Bammers, 47-41. Maybe in overtime.
■ Some things never change. Former Siena basketball coach Jimmy Patsos is now a part of the Washington Wizards’ studio team. After the Wizards beat the Milwaukee Bucks, Patsos mentions Giannis Antetokounmpo, Barney Rubble, Walt Kowalski, Gumby and Pokey, Simon Bar Sinister, Abraham Lincoln, Perry White, Mary Poppins, Justify, Willem Dafoe, Bryce Harper, John Mcclane, Floyd the Barber, Rip Van Winkle, George Bailey, Wonder Woman, Charlie Brown, Red Auerbach, Odell Beckham Jr. and Ralph Kramden in the first five minutes of his postgame studio show.
■ After it had been rumored for weeks, Siena basketball coach Jamion Christian announces that a new player, Dean Winters, has been deemed eligible for the rest of the season. He is known as “Mayhem” in the Allstate commercials, and
Christian figures he’ll fit right in with his, ah, mayhem style of play. Only this “Mayhem” can’t dribble, shoot or defend and his conditioning is awful. Mayhem quits the team in the second half of a game against Niagara, but not before the scoreboard at Times Union Center explodes.
February
■ In a repeat of the epic Monday night game earlier in the season, the Kansas City Chiefs and
Los Angeles Rams meet again in Super Bowl LIII. And, like the Rams 54-51 win in L.A. in November. this game is highly entertaining. The Chiefs get this one, winning 61-55 in overtime! ■ At the end of 2018, Ualbany men’s basketball coach Will Brown said coaching this year’s Danes would cause him to go bald. Bingo! It happened. Brown came on the court before Ualbany’s game with Stony Brook sans hair. Athletic director Mark Benson, never one to miss a promotional opportunity, calls the Danes’ final home game “Will Brown Chia Pet Night.”
■ “Will Brown Chia Pet Night” goes all wrong. Benson’s righthand man Charlie Voelker brings in Engine One from the Albany Fire Department to douse Brown’s Chia Pet mixture and they water him down so badly that the coach begins looking like the second coming of Bigfoot. He retreats out of SEFCU Arena and seeks safety under football coach Greg Gattuso’s desk.
March
■ No magic for the Ualbany or Siena men’s and women’s basketball teams. All four go silently into the night in the America East and MAAC tournaments.
■ After RPI hockey coach Dave Smith passes on giving “Mayhem” a look, Union coach Rick Bennett has a similar opinion, but does allow “Mayhem” to drive the Zamboni at Messa
Rink between periods of the Dutchmen’s playoff series with Princeton. “Mayhem” drives the ice bus straight through the wall underneath the press box, rendering the rink unplayable. ECAC officials rule Union has to forfeit, bouncing it out of the playoffs. Bennett takes off after “Mayhem” in a snowmobile.
■ The New York Racing Association confirms the rumor that the Saratoga meet will begin on St. Patrick’s Day and run forever.
April
■ The Baltimore Orioles, who finished 61 games out of first place in the American League East in 2018, start the season with 27 straight wins and will go on to win the World Series. The New York Yankees, despite signing former Oriole Manny Machado, can’t catch the Birds. Other free agents signed by the Bronx Bombers include Willie Mays Hayes, Bingo Long, Jake Taylor and T-rex Pennebaker.
■ Rumors abound that more teams will be added to the Arena Football League, which went through the 2018 season with four. One is a team from Colonie, coached by WNYT sports director Rodger Wyland and owned by his wife, Kelly Lynch. Albany Empire coach Rob Keefe balks at such buffoonery and challenges Wyland to a chin-up contest. Keefe stops at 126; Wyland maxes out at two.
■ Will Brown still hasn’t been seen since exiting SEFCU Arena on “Will Brown Chia Pet Night.” Rumor has it that Ualbany football coach Greg Gattuso has sort of adopted the hairy edition of Brown and the Chia Pet coach is now best friends with the football mascot, Blitz the dog.
May
■ The first Saturday in May rolls around! Trainer Bob Baffert saddles an unheard of seven thoroughbreds in the Run for the Roses, but it’s the Chad Brown-trained Complexity that wins the Kentucky Derby. Baffert wins the Preakness with Improbable and people start complaining again that it’s too hard to win the Triple Crown.
■ “Mayhem” shows up at the Freihofer’s Run For Women and makes a mess of things when he tries to replace all the Freihofer’s chocolate chip cookies with Oreos. Just when “Mayhem” disappears into the crowd, Union hockey coach Rick Bennett shows up in a chariot wearing Roman gladiator garb, intent on catching his new nemesis.
■ The Albany Empire play host to the Colonie Cream Puffs at Times Union Center. Rodger Wyland is playing wide receiver as well as coaching, something his owner/wife Kelly Lynch was not told before the game. Wyland misses all eight passes sent his way by quarterback Paula Mahan in the 71-2 loss. Immediately after, Kelly Lynch trades her husband to the Washington Valor for a football ball bag and a used spare tire for the team bus.
June
■ Improbable wins the Belmont Stakes, giving him two legs of the Triple Crown. Rumor has it that Baffert will send him to the Travers on the 23rd Saturday of the current Saratoga meet.
■ The Baltimore Orioles’ lead in the AL East is a mind-boggling 37 games over the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees, now 46 games out, try to make a run by signing free agents to be Kelly Leak and The Whammer. The Whammer strikes out in his first 24-at bats, all of them looking. ■ Rodger Wyland does not work out in Washington and is cut from the active roster after one practice. However, he is invited to stick around and wear the costume of Blitz, the Valor mascot (no relation to Blitz the dog). Wyland accepts and becomes a cult hero in the nation’s capital.
July
■ The Tri-city Valleycats are once again packing Joe Bruno Stadium and doing quite well on the field. Part of the reason for the success is the addition of first baseman “Mayhem.” He leads the New York-penn League in home runs. However, on the Fourth of July, the fireworks go haywire and one rocket does a nosedive onto the field, creating an 80-foot crater at the pitching mound. Joe Bruno himself bans “Mayhem” from his field.
■ Saratoga, now into its fourth month of the forever meet, draws a crowd of 1,863 on July 19, which would have been the traditional opening day for the “Summer Place to Be.”
August
■ The Albany Empire win the Arena Bowl in their second year of existence, taking care of the Washington Valor, 67-66 in the finale. After the game, Rodger Wyland announces he is quitting the arena mascot game but will stay in the D.C. area and open a car wash.
■ Chad Brown, who has already set a record for wins at the Saratoga forever meet with 106, wins the Travers with Complexity.
■ Ualbany’s football team open its season with a 31-17 win at Central Michigan. Things are looking up for coach Greg Gattuso.
September
■ RPI’S football team, coming off one of its best seasons ever, starts the season 5-0 despite losing 13 starters from the 2018 NCAA team.
■ The Arena Football League announces there will be 12 teams in the league for the 2020 season. The Colonie Cream Puffs will not be one of them.
■ Negotiations resume regarding the Albany Cup, the popular basketball game between Ualbany and Siena. At least from Siena’s side. No one has seen Will Brown, the Danes, coach, in months.
October
■ Saying he might regret it in the future, Siena basketball’s Jamion Christian gives “Mayhem” another chance. The coach is impressed that “Mayhem” has improved a little bit and can even knock down a jumper or two. The good times end, however, when the Siena team bus blows a pair of tires on the way to a preseason scrimmage.
■ Ualbany’s football team has totally turned things around and is 6-2.
November
■ The Dutchman Shoes game, the annual football game between RPI and Union, is canceled because Schenectady’s Frank Bailey Field, site of this year’s game, has been turned into a massive tulip garden by the Union faculty. And the game can’t be played at RPI because East Campus Stadium is overrun with windmills, part of the Dutch Awareness Month in the Collar City.
■ Complexity runs third behind the Bob Baffert-trained pair of Mckinzie and Imperative in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita.the long-lost Will Brown finally resurfaces at Ualbany’s first home game of the season, his first appearance since the Chia
Pet incident. Brown isn’t the hairy man he used to be and his new do is a cross between Moe Howard and Shaggy from Scooby Do.
December
■ On the night before Christmas, “Mayhem” has hijacked Santa Claus’ sleigh, just as he touched down in front of former Albany mayor Jerry Jennings’ house. He needs to get out of town and start his mayhem in another city in 2020. After “Mayhem” lifts off and heads off into the clear Yule sky, the roar of another flying contraption can be heard. And it is indeed Union hockey coach Rick Bennett (complete with Santa hat and a bulky red and white coat) in hot pursuit with his turbo charged Zamboni sleigh, which is led by eight gazelles wearing Union hockey masks.