I’ve Joined A New Club …

Let me lead today with a personal note/announcement.  Over the weekend, I had a birthday and that birthday inducted me as a member in good standing of the Octogenarian Club.  I hear it is an exclusive entity – – but its benefits are not clearly stated.    One day at a time …

I received a call from #2 son last weekend for two reasons; the first was to wish me a happy birthday and the second was to tell me about a happening in an international cricket match that he knew I would miss.  Let me set the stage here:

• On a trip to Australia in 2012, our tour leader patiently and in great detail explained the rules and the scoring of cricket to me.  By the time I left to go home, I had the most rudimentary understanding of the game.
• When our plane landed at Dulles Airport, I probably retained 90% of that rudimentary understanding.
• Today, it is probably at 5%.

The story here deals with an international cricket match between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.  A Sri Lankan batter was “timed out” – – which in an analogy to American baseball means he was declared out and sent back to the dugout – – because he was not ready to bat within 2 minutes of being on the pitch (field).  The chin strap on his helmet broke as he was tightening it and by the time he got a new one and adjusted it and the like, more than 3 minutes had elapsed.  Evidently, there is a 2-minute clock in cricket and when the Bangladesh bowler – – the analog is a pitcher in MLB – – asked the umpire to “dismiss” the batter, the umpire consulted with his colleagues and sent the batter off.

I can anticipate your thought at this point:

• Why is this interesting?

Glad you asked, this is indeed the rule in cricket.  However, this batter – – named Angelo Matthews – – is the first batter ever to be “timed out” and “dismissed” in an international cricket match, and international cricket has been played since 1844.

Here in the US, there was a lot of sturm und drang over the idea of instituting a “pitch clock” in baseball.  In cricket, which many consider to be an ancestor of baseball, they have had a “batter clock” on the books for 180 years and just now was the first enforced violation of that rule.

Another unusual sporting situation happened over the weekend.  In an English Premier League game between Luton Town and Bournemouth, the Luton Town captain, Tom Lockyer suffered cardiac arrest on the pitch in the second half of the game.  Fortunately, medical personnel were able to attend to him and Lockyer was reported to be “stable and undergoing further tests” in a nearby hospital.  As I read the reports of this incident, I got to this point and thought that it was great that the medics were as successful/competent as they must have been, and I recalled the Damar Hamlin incident from a year ago in the Bills/Bengals game.

However, in the later part of the report about the EPL game, it turns out that this is Lockyer’s second cardiac arrest incident.  Earlier this year, Lockyer also collapsed on the pitch in the game that Luton Town won that earned them promotion to the Premier League.  Over the summer he underwent heart surgery, cleared rehab and returned to the team.  Now this …  I hope this sequence of events is not an omen regarding Damar Hamlin and his future health status.

• Absit omen!

The EPL made the rational decision to “abandon” the game with the score tied at 1-1.  I do wonder how they might handle that in the final standings for this year given that Luton Town is currently in the relegation zone but has had one less game recorded in the standings than the rest of the league.

• At the end of the year, will this game count as a draw?
• Will it be replayed from the start?
• Will it take up from where it was “abandoned”?
• Will it just be ignored?

Moving on …  Kyle McCord was the starting QB for Ohio St. in every game in 2023.  Yesterday, McCord announced that he has decided to transfer to Syracuse next year.  His season stats were 3,170 yards passing with 24 TDs and 6 INTs and those numbers seem positive to me.  So, I am a bit surprised that he would choose to take a step down from Ohio St. to Syracuse – – no offense to Syracuse fans but in the hierarchy of college football over the last 40 years …

Finally, as I contemplate writing these rants at the start of my ninth decade in residence on this planet, let me close with these words by English author, Jerome K. Jerome:

“I like work; it fascinates me.  I can sit and look at it for hours.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………