Is it really Sept. 21? It feels like I’ve been back in Charlottesville for a week, not a month. Time flies. Friends are already talking about where to live next year. Virginia football’s season is already over. I even had a test last week, though I don’t have all the books for my classes yet.
Anyways, it’s the end of September and I would venture to say that the forefront sports issue for most people right now involves the phrase “U.Va. quarterback controversy.” While I am excited to see Jameel Sewell for 20 minutes, then Christian Olsen until halftime, with John Phillips, Scott Deke and maybe even CavMan taking some snaps against Georgia Tech Thursday night, the fact that football is the first thing that comes to mind right now does well to prove my point.
The end of September is the stretch run in Major League Baseball, where every pitch in every inning really starts to mean something. The problem is no one seems too excited about it.
I will be the first to admit that I have let baseball slip to the backburner. My excuse is that my favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, threw in the towel during a five game series against the New York Yankees a month ago. With the Sox off the radar as far as playoff aspirations, my usual baseball routine of watching games on T.V. and online plus catching up on all of the night’s action on “Baseball Tonight” was traded in for the new seasons of primetime T.V. shows, homework (not really) and of course football.
It’s become apparent that football now overshadows “America’s Pastime” in our society. This is not exactly a recent development, but both college football and the National Football League have fully entrenched themselves as “America’s Passion.” America really embraces the once-a-week, every-game-is-meaningful nature of football, a stark contrast to the marathon baseball season. It doesn’t hurt that football is a contact sport where scantily-clad cheerleaders roam the sidelines, a perfect fit for our action-crazed, sex-sells culture.
Furthermore, baseball has fallen out of favor in recent years as a result of the ongoing steroid investigations and the commonly held belief that the past 20 years have been a tainted era. Accusations and doubt are now injected into every conversation about the past two decades of the game.
With all of that said, there are two weeks of baseball left to be played. Four out of the eight playoff spots are still up for grabs, and the frantic scramble to make it to the postseason has the potential for a truly dramatic and magical conclusion to the season.
On Monday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers showed why I can make such a claim. Taking on the West-Division-leading San Diego Padres, Los Angeles came back from multiple deficits throughout the night. The climax of the game came in the ninth inning, when the Dodgers hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back homeruns to tie the score. Then, Nomar Garciaparra won the game for L.A. with a walk-off homerun in the 10th. The win pushed the Dodgers into first place in the division and proved that there was still a little bit of excitement left in the MLB.
For much of the season, the National League Wild Card race has been a bigger logjam than ISIS in early August. Now it seems to have settled into a two team race between the team that doesn’t win the West Division and the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies are led by their young MVP candidate Ryan Howard and his .313 batting average, 57 homeruns, and 140 runs batted in. Philadelphia does not play another team with an above-.500 record and looks to take advantage of their schedule to gain a spot in the postseason.
In the American League, three Central Division teams are vying for two playoff spots. The Detroit Tigers are leading the division by one-half game over the Minnesota Twins, who lead the A.L. Wild Card by four-and-a-half games over the Chicago White Sox. Detroit can maintain its lead by taking care of its six remaining games against the lowly Royals. The Twins end the season with a couple of cupcakes (Baltimore and Kansas City) before a three-game showdown against Chicago. The White Sox also play two sub-.500 teams before that monster series in Minnesota.
The stage is definitely set for some riveting baseball. Missing that amazing Dodgers gem of a game made me realize that I had been neglecting the most crucial time in my favorite sport.
So if you can find some way to take a break from all of your late September activities, maybe you could get an update on the race for the baseball playoffs. You might even get hooked as I have a feeling the stretch run will not disappoint.
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