BRONX, NY – As my colleague in blogging poverty Ben Whitney mentioned yesterday, there’s actually quite a bit of sports news percolating these dog days of summer. It turns out that not a single NBA player in the Bubble tested positive for COVID-19 during the most recent round of tests, so I’ll continue to leave that story to others to cover as play resumes, ordering out gets interesting, and “Ugly Anna” presumably remains on speed dial. Instead, let’s talk some baseball, unsurprising football news, and one little bit of hockey hilarity.
New Mets Skipper. I’m just gonna come out and say that I can’t, for the life of me, commit the name of the Mets’ new manager to memory. I have to look it up constantly. (*looking it up now*) I’m sure the longer he manages the Mets, the easier it will be for me to remember… (*sh!t, why didn’t I keep that google tab open) Luis Rojas!
Yessir, Luis Rojas will be at the forefront of my mind in no time, especially if he decides to keep hitting Robinson Cano third. I sincerely hope this is just Luis Rojas have a little late Spring Training fun, and he’s not actually considering doing this during the regular season, because that would suck. If Luis Rojas turns out to be some sort of Cano fanboy, then you can bet you will be hearing Luis Rojas’s name from me plenty. But, for now, I’m willing to give Luis Rojas the benefit of the doubt. Carry on, Luis Rojas.
Giants + Jets = No Fans. According to an executive order from New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, there will be no fans allowed at Giants and Jets football games (if there are football games) until further notice. Murphy’s no dope. The hope here is to keep ridiculously overly-optimistic fans home early in the season and then loosen the restrictions around mid-November, when no one will be showing up to watch either team anyway. Now THAT’S leadership.
A Team Without a Country. As of this writing, the Toronto Blue Jays are still trying to figure out where to play their home games this year, after Canada denied their request to host games at their stadium in Toronto. Apparently it’s called The Rogers Centre, eh? Anyway, their initial two choices were to play either in Buffalo, New York or Dunedin, Florida. Ha! Wow, talk about a wealth of awesome opportunities! “Would you guys prefer crippling depression or to roll the dice in Ron DeSantis’ COVID Casino?” You know it’s bad when Pittsburgh starts looking great. Seriously though, PNC Park is one of the nicer stadiums I’ve visited in recent years. They clearly could do a LOT worse. For some reason, this whole mess with the Blue Jays put me in mind of Ogie Oglethorpe. It’s tough when Canada doesn’t want you.
Bubble Hockey. Speaking of hockey, in case you haven’t seen it, I wanted to leave you with this inspired piece of stupidity. This clip has been used for laughs elsewhere, but it really worked great for the NHL restart. Kudos to whoever wrote the subtitles.
OK, that’s it for this Wednesday. I think Buddy Diaz is up tomorrow, unless Management has decided to institute the DH here as well. Check for yourselves.
