Weekend winners
Baseball, in general, Chicago and Cubs fans everywhere in particular, and specifically pitcher Kyle Hendricks. Not often do the powers that be in a major sport toot against an L.A. or New York City team, but baseball getting the Cubs in the World Series makes the next week or so a must-see event. And it's hard to remember a non-Olympic event where one team will have this much of the country's support. But the scenes and the reactions from Cubs fans was truly special after Chicago won the NLCS Saturday night, clinching the Cubs first World Series trip since 1945. And they got their behind the array of pitches and the crafty style of right-hander Hendrick, who outshined Clayton Kershaw in the Cubs' 5-0 win. (Side note: The scalpers in both Cleveland and Chicago are reaping the rewards of two title-starved fan bases. The ticket prices for Games 3, 4 and 5 in Chicago are surpassing Super Bowl prices.)
Alabama. Wow. What else can you say other than wow. Especially on a weekend when the next best team in college football stubbed their toe at Penn State. Alabama played no better than a C-plus game - and a lot of that was because of the schedule of playing eight games in eight weeks - and still best an undefeated, sixth-ranked Texas A&M by 19 points. So yes, a less-than-its-best Bama just whipped the next best team in the SEC by three scores. Book you tickets to Atlanta folks.
Tom Brady's Double Bird to the NFL Tour. The numbers weren't over-the-top awesome like the first two weeks, but Brady was excellent again as the Patriots pulled away from an early Steelers charge. Brady completed 73 percent of his passes and threw for two more scores in Sunday's 27-16 win over Pittsburgh. Brady, in three games, has completed 76-of-101 throws for 1,003 yards and eight TDs with no picks.
Vegas. Every time any of us think, "wow, what's Vegas thinking" we need to remember this weekend in college football. Every. Single. Time. There were three lines/totals out there this weekend that made a lot of folks wonder. And each time, Vegas was right. We wondered about a record-setting over under of 90 in the Oregon-Cal game. There were 101 points scored. We wondered about how in the world was Auburn giving double digits to an Arkansas team ranked ahead of the Tigers in the poll. Auburn annihilated Arkansas 56-3 in a game that was not that close. And of course we all wondered about Alabama giving up 18 to Texas A&M, and of course the Tide won by 19. Vegas, baby. Vegas.
UTC. We have consistently said that the place Russ Huesman and Co have lifted the program is staggering to a lot of us who saw it at it worst less than a decade ago. Saturday was another round of "Well, that would not have in the B.R. (Before Russ) era." UTC was without its leading rusher from the start and then its quarterback gets hurt. And the Mocs still dropped a 30-13 hammer on VMI. Yes, it's VMI, but still the layers of capable and talented players in the program deserves to be commended.
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck (12) celebrates with running back Frank Gore (23) after Gore scored a touchdown on a 3-yard pass reception against the Tennessee Titans in the first half of an NFL football game Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski) Weekend losers
Charlie Strong. Another Saturday, another loss. Yes, Kansas State is solid and a 24-21 road defeat in conference is not like falling to a directional school, but still. Does anyone think Strong survives to see signing day at this point?
Anirban Lahiri. You are rightly asking, "Who" but the PGA Tour player held a four-shot lead when he teed off Sunday. His tee shot on the par-5 third hole got stuck in a tree (It's good luck. In Haiti.) and he took a 9. A four-shot cushion at the start became a two-shot deficit heading to the fourth tee.
Titans and Falcons. The two NFL teams within a two-hour drive lost home games to road underdogs. The Titans were unable to corral Andrew Luck and the Colts; the Falcons fell victim to Philip Rivers and the Chargers in overtime. The Falcons are still in front of a very blah-tastic division, though. As for the Titans, something tells us this loss will be discussed in December when the ever bad AFC South postseason positioning is discussed.
Kicking in general. Man, what was that Seattle and Arizona. A completely unpredictable 6-6 tied was highlighted - or in this case lowlighted - by first-class shanks by each team's kicker. Also of note, the Titans kicker missed a PAT putting Tennessee behind the scoring scale. We asked this last week and continue to believe it, but it surely seems kicking in the NFL is as bad as we can remember it.
The Big Ten in general and Ohio State in particular. THE Ohio State went to Happy Valley and got sad Saturday night, losing to Penn State on a blacked field goal that was returned for a TD. THE Ohio State was ranked No. 2, and this side of Alabama, was considered one of the sure-things for the college football playoff. Now, that's out the window as THE Ohio State, even with its big dates with top-10 foes will need help if it wins out. And that's the rub for the Big Ten. Ohio State will be favored in all of its games coming home, but if a one-loss Big Ten champ climbs an unbeaten Big 12 champ - either West Virginia or Baylor potentially - for the final spot, well, Katie bar the door.
Clayton Kershaw. Yes, the Cubs were the better team, and yes, Kyle Hendricks was outstanding. But, yes there's a but, Kershaw is the best pitcher in the game and makes more than $30 million per year. Dude is supposed to take the ball and dominate. Period. Not allow five runs in five innings. Case in point: Kershaw made more $34.57 million this year and pitched in 26 games (playoffs included). That's more than $1.32 million per game. Kendricks made $541,000 this year. Total. Crunch those numbers.
Bonus: SNL. We grew up loving SNL, even in the awful years that included Robert Downey Jr. and Michael Anthony Hall. But that show is downright unwatchable now. And this is with the target rich environment of a presidential election. We tried Saturday night, and we it was dreadful.
Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott (21) celebrates after running for a first down against the San Francisco 49ers during the second half of an NFL football game in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 2, 2016. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) Interesting NFL numbers
There are always great numbers to be dissected from almost every NFL Sunday.
There's the number 10, which is the number of TDs Chargers running back Melvin Gordon has through seven games. Last year as a rookie, Gordon had as many TDs as you did, unless of course you are an NFL player reading the 5-at-10 by chance and, you know, actually scored an NFL TD in 2015.
There's the number five, which was how many players my fantasy football opponent used out of the eight spots and still managed to topple my injury-riddled bunch. There's more of course and several of them are as intriguing as Bill Belichick's gameday attire.
But let's discuss this one, shall we. The number is 102.4, which could be Dan Quinn's temperature after failing on that fourth-and-1 in overtime that set up the Chargers' game-winning kick. It's actually, the percentage of attendance for the San Francisco 49ers this year. The 49ers are one of 12 NFL teams with fans giving more than 100 percent, and several of these new stadiums like Jerry's World in Dallas (which is operating at better than 114 percent) have concourses with sports bars and such that you can buy a ticket and go watch it there but you don't have a seat inside the stadium. Seems somewhat silly, but then again we're talking about diehard NFL fans, who make the Cameron Crazies seem sane.
As for the 49ers, specifically, we have some issue with that number. San Fran is terrible, arguably the worst roster in the league since Cleveland has Joe Thomas, a future Hall of Fame tackle.
Let's explore.
We don't know whether to file 102.4 percent under the lies, dang lies and statistics category or ponder the question about potential side effects of Colin Kaepernick's protests or even just another example of the NFL banging its collective head against the ceiling of popularity, but look at this.
And we'll offer this without editorial comment: Here was the view of the crowd at kickoff of San Francisco's home game Sunday against almost-as-bad-as-the-49ers Tampa Bay.
Now know that a) Levi Stadium is all of two years old, and b) According to this chart San Francisco is operating at more than 100 percent attendance, including yesterday. Yes, we realize almost every team in almost every sport counts 'attendance' as the number of tickets sold not the number of people in attendance, which begs the question of why is it called 'attendance' rather than ' 'tickets sold' but whatever.
And with the exception of the rabid fan-bases of less than half the organizations in each of the major sports, the fight to get fannies in seats is a bigger and bigger challenge.
The TV experience is better than ever, and while the major sports currently make a monstrous payday from those revenues. But that money is for the entire group, be it a league or a conference. The teams make their margins by home attendance, and while the NFL is printing money currently - the TV contracts cover almost all expenses - individual teams bank ticket sales and stadium revenue.
And we have debated around these parts before about the college football bubble and how the ESPN phenomenon with fewer and fewer subscribers could hamper that greatly in the next generation or so.
How about this bubble for all of professional sports?
Tickets are being sold and unused obviously. And San Fran is certainly not alone. Did you see the 'attendance' at Turner Field this year? There were a lot of mid-summer games that looked like a mediocre high school football crowd, and now guess what the average 'attendance' was this year?
Where did you start? At 12K. Maybe 15K.
Nope the Braves average 'attendance' was a Wally's lunch crowd less than 25K this year. The number for 81 home games was 2,020,914 tickets sold for an average of 24,949. And if you scanned the crowd on TV, then 23,949 of those folks were sitting in the shadows of the upper deck on most occasions.
Again that is tickets sold - or dealt in exchange for say advertising, promotional giveaways or what have you - and that's where today's lesson comes in. Right now, businesses can write off a large part of sporting event tickets as part of doing business. They give to customers or as a marketing enterprise. It's a common practice, especially in bigger cities and for professional events.
So in some ways, while the owners of these leagues are campaigning for direct city and state tax dollars for new stadiums, these rich dudes and power conferences are also getting federal breaks to sell tickets that are obviously going unused in half-empty venues like Levi Stadium and Turner Field but have 'attendance' in the eye-popping realm.
Yes, the TV/ESPN broadcasting fees is the bubble for entire leagues; the tax deduction for season tickets is one for the individual teams. (And yeah, not sure how we got this far down the rabbit hole, but so it goes sometimes around these parts, right?)
This and that
- On a roller coaster sports weekend, the Fab 4 (times two) picks started 4-0 and went 4-4 this weekend. Alas. Justin Thomas went on to win the event.
- Speaking of golf, late last week Tiger Woods confirmed that he will return to competition in December in the tournament he hosts in the Bahamas.
- Chuck Berry turned 90 a week ago tomorrow. Ninety. Dude can remember the Cubs being in the World Series for crying out loud. Today, Berry announced he's releasing a new album. To that, we say good on you Chuck. Johnny B Good for sure.
- Correct me if I'm wrong but tomorrow is the biggest day in Cleveland sports history, right? The Cavs open the season as they hang the first banner in the city since 1964 and the Indians host Game 1 of the World Series. Buckets of beer, downtown Cleveland will be rocking for sure.
- Here is Russell Westbrook as Joe Dirt for Halloween. Well-played, Russell. Well-played indeed.
Today's question
Weekend winners and losers. Whatcha got?
If you need some more, well, let's try this one. Today is Kevin Kline's 69th birthday. We'll take a Rushmore of Kline movies if you'd like, and one of his enjoyable roles was in "Dave." Since we have that, and a presidential election that seems more dreadful by the day, let's go Rushmore of movie presidents.
Who ya got?