NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.
October 25, 2024: Game 1 of the World Series was played at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Dodgers were looking to win the World Series, as they had done in the "COVID Bubble" season of 2020, but not in a full season since 1988. The New York Yankees were looking to win the Series for the 1st time since 2009.
The Yankees needed baserunners, and didn't get enough of them. Juan Soto drew a walk in the 1st inning, and was stranded. Anthony Rizzo led off the 2nd with a single, got to 2nd base, but got no closer. Gleyber Torres singled to lead off the 3rd, but was erased on a double play. Alex Verdugo, who went on to make 2 great catches, singled in the 5th, but was stranded.
With the Dodgers leading 1-0, Soto led off the top of the 6th with a single. Aaron Judge struck out -- his 3rd of the game, and his 2nd with Soto on 1st. Then Giancarlo Stanton hit a long drive down the left-field line, and out. 2-1 Yankees.
Jazz Chisholm singled. But Rizzo struck out. Anthony Volpe was intentionally walked, and Austin Wells singled. Bases loaded. This could have been where the Yankees broke the game wide open. But Verdugo struck out to end the inning.
At the age of 32, Judge finally got his 1st World Series hit, a single, with 2 out in the 7th. But Stanton, who has been doing in this season what we had hoped Judge would do, flipped the script, and stranded him by striking out.
The Dodgers tied the game in the 8th. With 2 out in the top of the 9th, Torres doubled, and Soto was intentionally walked to set up the force play. Walking somebody intentionally to pitch to Aaron Judge? In the postseason, it works: Judge popped up.
The game went to extra innings. The hated "ghost runner" rule, instituted in 2020, is not used in the postseason. Stanton struck out. But Chisholm stole 2nd. Rizzo was intentionally walked. Chisholm stole 3rd. Volpe grounded to short, and Tommy Edman, the Most Valuable Player of the National League Championship Series, couldn't make the throw to home plate, opting to go to 2nd base instead. Rizzo was out, but Chisholm scored, and Volpe was safe at 1st. Then Volpe stole 2nd. This could have been a big inning. Then Wells struck out.
If the top of the 10th felt like a return to the Joe Torre era, the bottom of the 10th was pure Brian Cashman "gutless wonder" baseball, with a bit of Aaron Boone "Baboone" managing thrown in. After Luke Weaver got out of a jam in the 8th with only 1 run, and pitched a scoreless 9th, Boone brought Jake Cousins in to pitch the 10th. He got Will Smith to fly out, but walked Gavin Lux. (Sounds like the real name of a comic book villain.) Edman grounded to 2nd, and Oswaldo Cabrera, having replaced Torres, couldn't make a throw.
A 1-run lead, but men on 1st and 2nd, 1 out, and the next 3 batters are Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Career regular-season OPS+'s through the 2024 season, respectively: 157, 138 and 142. Career home runs? Ohtani 225 at age 30, Betts 271 at 32, and Freeman 343 at 35. Barring further injury, all 3 of them are likely to finish with at least 400, and Ohtani may well top 500.
Boone could have brought in Tim Hill, who has been very effective in this postseason. Instead, he (apparently) looked at stats only for Yankee pitchers against Ohtani, and brought in Nestor Cortés, who, due to injury, hadn't pitched since September 18. The Yankees have a history of unlikely postseason heroes, but this move looked really unlikely.
Ohtani sliced one into the left-field corner. It looked like a sure double, to tie or even win the game. Instead, Verdugo ran over and made a great catch, then managed to throw back and hold the runners. If Cortés had managed to get 1 more out, and the Yankees ended up winning the Series, it would have been a play that lived forever.
It lived just 2 more plate appearances. Boone made the mistake of ordering Betts walked to load the bases, and set up the out at any base. The next batter was Freeman, who has already won a World Series with the 2021 Atlanta Braves, and has been key for the Dodgers ever since.
He hit a no-doubt-about-it game-winning grand slam, landing in the right field pavilion, roughly where the ball that Kirk Gibson hit to win Game 1 of the 1988 World Series landed, the 1st homer to be called a "walkoff." Dodgers 6, Yankees 3.
The Yankees were 1 out away from taking home-field advantage away from the Dodgers. But they lost this game because Boone made the wrong strategy choices, and because, in innings 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 combined, they got only 5 singles and 2 walks, 1 of those intentional.
Indeed, as the Series went on, each team had only 1 player who really produced: Stanton for the Yankees, Freeman for the Dodgers. Freeman was a little bit better, and, like that aforementioned 1988 Fall Classic -- and a few others, including in 1954, 1966, 1970, 1972, 1990, 1998, 2000 and 2007 -- the 2024 World Series was basically won in Game 1. And Freeman was rightly named its Most Valuable Player.
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October 25, 2024 was a Friday. There were 3 college football games played:
* Also between teams from the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, the University of Southern California (USC) beat Rutgers, 42-20 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 5 miles south of Dodger Stadium.
* Number 17 Boise State beat the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV), 29-24 at Allegiant Stadium in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada.
* And the University of Louisville beat Boston College, 31-27 at Alumni Stadium in the Boston suburb of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Louisville scored 14 points in the 4th quarter to come from behind.
There were 10 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Indiana Pacers, 123-98 at Madison Square Garden.
* The Brooklyn Nets lost to the Orlando Magic, 116-101 at the Kia Center in Orlando.
* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Charlotte Hornets, 125-120 at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. Trae Young scored 38 points.
* The Houston Rockets beat the Memphis Grizzlies, 128-108 at the Toyota Center in Houston.
* The Toronto Raptors beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 115-107 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons, 113-101 at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse (now the Rocket Arena) in Cleveland.
* The Chicago Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 133-122 at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
* The Golden State Warriors beat the Utah Jazz, 127-86 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, 123-116 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, 3 miles south of Dodger Stadium. Anthony Davis scored 35 points.
* And the New Orleans Pelicans beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 105-103 at the Moda Center in Portland.
There were 4 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Islanders beat the New Jersey Devils, 4-3 at the Prudential Center in Newark. These teams are metropolitan rivals, but not arch-rivals: Each team's arch-rival is the New York Rangers. Bo Horvat scored the winning goal with 3:51 left in overtime.
* The Nashville Predators beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 3-2 at the United Center in Chicago.
* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0 at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
* And the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Ottawa Senators, 6-4 at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada.
And in New Jersey high school football, my Alma Mater, East Brunswick won away to South Brunswick, 24-14.
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