Touch 'Em All: A Wild ALCS Game 3, Grimace Chugs Booze & Climate Change Goons Don't Want A New D-Backs Park
Let ALCS Game 3 Ease Your Doubts On Whether Playoff Baseball Can Be Exciting
Every so often, I come across an individual who says he or she doesn't like baseball. There’s nothing wrong with that; not everyone has to like every major sport in existence. Heck, I despise the NBA, and there are tons of people who’d be ready to throw hands with me for saying that.
But most of the time, people say they don’t like baseball because they find it boring. And that’s something I just can’t agree with.
People will say "oh it’s too slow and there’s not much action." The first part is invalid thanks to the pitch clock, and the second is a narrow-minded assessment of the game. There’s a never-ending chess match between pitcher and batter as they battle to outwit each other. Defenses are mapping out endless scenarios in their heads to keep the score even. And once you reach the end of the game, the magnitude and pressure of all those scenarios increases.
This 2023 hype video from the San Francisco Giants says it all about what makes this game great. Yes, it's specifically about the Bay Area club, but this applies to all 30 teams.
Granted, the excitement isn’t as constant as in other sports, it's more of a slow-burn tension that builds up to several moments of insane drama (you get the same feeling when you’re watching "Memento," one of the best movies in existence). Those types of games don’t always happen, but when they do (especially in October), there’s nothing like it.
We got one of those games on Thursday.
The Cleveland Guardians trailed the New York Yankees 5-3 in the ninth inning with two outs and a runner on second. If pinch-hitter Jhonkensy Noel (what a name) could not deliver, the Yankees would take a 3-0 lead in the ALCS, and it would be all over but the crying for Cleveland.
Well, Noel wasn’t in the mood to be shedding tears. Instead, he sent a Luke Weaver changeup wayyyy into the bleachers at Progressive Field.
You probably noticed that TNT play-by-play announcer Brian Anderson made clever use of Noel’s Christmas-themed name on the call, a touch of broadcaster brilliance in my opinion. But wait until you hear the Spanish broadcast call of the moment. It was almost as epic as the home run itself.
Don’t you just love the energy of Spanish announcers? They could make watching turtles race fun.
And then, of course, we saw David Fry hit a walk-off blast in the bottom half of the 10th to keep the Guardians’ season alive. Andersen once again delivered an electric call.
And if you want another video to give you chills, check this video of the ballpark erupting in glee after his dinger.
This is what makes the playoffs awesome. Sometimes, you have to wait for these moments and deal with not being instantly satisfied (a challenge for most people in my generation, I know). But when you do get them - after the back-and-forth of nine innings and the stress you work through from start to finish - they give you an adrenaline rush like no other sport is capable of. (Cleveland now has work to do to get more moments like this though - the Yankees hold a 3-1 lead in the series).
The America columnist George F. Will once brilliantly mused that, "Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal." Truer words were never spoken.
The New York Mets Are Making Grimace Have A Drinking Problem
On the flip side, this game can be heartbreaking. You go through the grind of a 162-game season, and then the success of your year is often determined in just a few short weeks of a micro-season in the most intense pressure-cooker in the sport. Only one team makes it to the end, and the rest have to wait for next year.
On Thursday night, the New York Mets looked like they weren't going to make after falling behind to the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-1 in the series.
After the Mets played Game 4 of their NLCS matchup (which New York lost 10-2), Grimace, the team’s adopted mascot, was in utter shambles emotionally. I wouldn’t blame him, his team had beaten insane odds just to be in this series, only to run into the talent buzzsaw that is the Dodgers. The Mets, for all their scrappiness and star power, looked outmatched by Los Angeles’ boatload of All-Star talent.
And that sent Grimace (or at least, a fan who was dressed up like him) to find solace in one of America’s favorite liquids: beer.
Yeesh, that’s a rough look. I get it, a miracle season for the Mets was on the brink of ending, and that’s a hard thing to accept when you’re a diehard fan of the team.
But hey, you should down a few drinks in celebration too. I mean, the Mets started the season 0-5, dealt with a slew of injuries, had to clinch a Wild Card berth on the last day of the season, and hit a home run in the top of the ninth of their elimination game against the Milwaukee Brewers just to get here. Plus, the season isn't over yet! New York thrashed LA 12-6 in Game 5 to stay in contention.
However, we now have reason to believe that if the Mets don't make it, Grimace might reach the bottom of a few bottles. That's perfectly fine, we all need to deal with sadness somehow. But someone needs to make sure he doesn’t go Jay Cutler on us when he’s done.
Climate Change Activists Don't Want The Arizona Diamondbacks To Build A New Stadium
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of climate change activists telling the Arizona Diamondbacks that they can’t renovate their stadium.
No seriously.
The Diamondbacks want to renovate Chase Park, but there are several arguments that opponents of the stadium are making against it. The first one to make sense; the city is hesitant to make citizens pay for the estimated $400-$500 million complex that they have planned. I don’t think taxpayers are gonna want to make an increase to their already ludicrous taxes just for the ballpark.
But even if the team and the city of Phoenix were somehow able to get past that hurdle, there’s another one that climate change activities are proposing. Evidently, they think that it will be too hot to play baseball in Phoenix by 2100.
"Heat, like what fans of the Rangers and Diamondbacks are up against, isn’t the only concern. As the climate warms up, air quality diminishes, which is a problem for both athletes and spectators alike. Problems with air quality are spurred by everything from pollution to wildfires, and those problems are impacting stadiums all over the world," Stephanie Kaloi wrote in her article.
OutKick’s Ian Miller wrote a phenomenal summary of why this argument is ridiculous, and I largely agree with his assessment.
The first reason why this argument doesn’t make any sense is that it’s not always hot for home games in Arizona. Sometimes the diamondbacks play games at times of year where the temperature is actually quite enjoyable. Second, not every game is at home. So it’s not like Diamondbacks players or fans or subjugated to crazy temperatures for the entirety of the season.
Additionally, the stadium does have a dome. Yes, it is sometimes hard to keep things cool enough for everyone in the dome, that doesn’t mean it’s a problem for every game.
Also, the problems Kaloi is focusing on will exist regardless of if the team builds a new stadium. After all, you’re already having trouble keeping the inside temperature cool now, why would it be a big deal if they want to build a new one? You’re playing ball games in the middle of a freaking desert. I’m pretty sure the whole point of a desert is to be unbearably hot.
Lastly, the problems that Kaloi claims will exist won’t happen for another 75 years. That means that temperatures rise to the levels that these climate change activists fear (which I doubt they will since nearly all global warming predictions have turned out to be false) it’s a problem that won’t have to be addressed until two generations from now. So why are we holding off building a new ballpark for something that probably won’t happen seven decades from now?
Again, I’m not saying the stadium has to be built. But if Arizona lets a bunch of nut job climate activists tell them it's going to be too hot in an already incredibly hot environment to build a new one, they should be ashamed of themselves.
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Is playoff baseball as exciting as I'm making it sound? Should the Diamondbacks build a new stadium, climate change or no? Can someone volunteer to check in on Grimace? Let me know at john.simmons@outkick.com, and make sure you have a great weekend!