Tag: sports

Extra catch up: Sun and Fever WNBA game

Barbara wanted to go to a Fever game, and being that it was in Indianapolis, that meant taking her nephew and roommate. Well, call it a mini vacation.

Of course, she is caught up in the Catalin Clark craze. Personally, I had long wanted to see a WNBA game so now was my chance.

I admitted that, while I expected to enjoy the game, I enjoyed it more than I thought that I would.

Upshot: the Sun (undefeated as of this writing) won 84-82 but the Fever played hard and well. And while Clark IS a good rookie, I’d honestly say that she was not the best player on the court or even on her own team. Kelsey Mitchell (no. 0) had some great slashing drives to the basket.

I’d say that Alyssa Thomas, no. 25 of the Sun, was the best player on the court.

Still the crowd was lit, the game was very well played; high energy from both teams.

In case you were wondering: with fees: 82 dollars a ticket for section 107 (club) row 1. One could get in for 10 dollars had one wanted to sit in the upper deck, but this was special for Barbara.

Commentary Much has been said about the C. Clark craze and some of the resentment it has brought out.

Yes, too many CC fans were naive in thinking that she would just show up and dominate like she did in Big Ten play. Yes, I remember Larry Bird leading the Celtics from 24 wins to 61 in his first year and to the title in his second, and Magic Johnson leading the Lakers to the 1980 title in his first year (0k, they also had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but the Lakers had sucked for 4 years with him) but those guys were generational talents. To expect that from a rookie is to be delusional.

Then there is probably some resentment about this new rookie getting so much publicity …when other, currently better players aren’t getting nearly as much.

And there is the whole “PR package too” : attractive white gal with a conservative appearance (no rainbow colored hair, no nose ring, no body full of tattoos, no outlandish eyelashes). One would have to be crazy to deny that this contributed to her popularity.

And so, I’d expect that she get a bit of “welcome to the WNBA, Rookie” treatment from time to time.

From our trip:

Extra catch up/baseball

Here I’ll talk about the Chiefs Sunday game, then the Chiefs games on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Sunday’s afternoon 4-2 loss was a bad end to a brutal series to the Whitecaps. The Chiefs had good enough pitching and fielding to win most of the series games, but only scored a grand total of 10 runs for the 6 games. The lone win was a 1-0 win on Tuesday.

Tuesday: The Chiefs fell behind 4-0 after 1 and 6-2 in the top of the 6’th but rallied for 4 runs in the bottom of the 6’th. That is how it ended after 9 innings, but in the 10’th, the Kernels (one of the league’s finest teams this year) got 2 to win 8-6. It was a loss, but at least the Chiefs got some hits.

Wednesday: attendance was tiny..one of the emptiest I’ve seen it for a great weather game. Barbara went with me again. This one was close, low scoring affair with each team getting one run in the 1’st and 5’th. But in the bottom of the 9’th, the Chiefs got a runner to second and a chopping ground ball single drove in the winning run.

Thursday: This one was bizarre. The Kernels starter pitched 6 perfect innings and their reliever pitched 2 more. Meanwhile, it was batting practice for them. It was a humiliating 8-0 going into the bottom of the 9’th. But then the Kernel’s pitching fell apart. Walk, then a hit..and before you know it, the Chiefs loaded the bases. It turns out that the Chiefs got 5 runs and had a runner on base when the second Kernel reliever got a strike out.

I went from “maybe a perfect game for them” to “maybe an epic comeback for the Chiefs” to seeing a mundane 8-5 loss.

I’ll talk about the WNBA game in the next post.