Yesterday, I mentioned that Rob Manfred has lifted the “permanent ban” on Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson choosing instead to see their banishment as a “lifetime sentence”. I believe the beneficiary of that action is neither Rose nor Jackson but the Hall of Fame itself, which now has the opportunity to include two players whose on-the-field performances merit such inclusion. Be aware; the ban on Pete Rose does not mean that some of his memorabilia is excluded from the museum portion of the Hall of Fame; there is plenty of that sort of thing on display there.
Clearly, my opinion is not universally hailed as a beacon of enlightenment. Today, Sally Jenkins’ column in the Washington Post leaves no doubt that she thinks Rob Manfred was in an anatomically impossible posture when he made that decision. Her column has this online headline followed by paragraph 1:
Baseball’s surrender on Pete Rose is a disgrace to the game
“Banning someone from baseball’s Hall of Fame is not a sentence to the electric chair, much as the worshipers of the emerald chessboard like to frame it so. It’s not a guillotine. It’s not denial of a second chance in life. It’s just a simple statement that says, ‘We will not enshrine you.’ We will not exalt and consecrate you, we will not immortalize you, we will not memorialize and reverence you under glass.”
Switching gears … The full NFL regular schedule for 2025 is now released and many people have parsed every aspect of the slate. Until we know which teams will be surprising – – both positively and negatively by the way – – it is hard to draw firm conclusions about many of the matchups and their timing. However, four general observations jump out at me:
- The Chiefs will have a prime-time game five times in the first half of the NFL regular season. I enjoy watching the Chiefs, but maybe this is a bit much?
- I am surprised that one of those early season prime-time appearances by the Chiefs is not on opening night against the Eagles in a Super Bowl rematch.
- The Vikes will play in two “international games” in consecutive weeks this season. The Jags did that last year.
- Both the Cowboys and the Lions will play on Christmas Day after both of them played on Thanksgiving Day. Why not “spread the wealth”?
Speaking of football scheduling, the folks in charge of the College Football Playoff have set the dates for the quarterfinals, semifinals and championship game. The schedule for the first-round playoff games – which produced nothing of interest last year – will be announced later. Here are the “main course” games:
- Quarterfinal Games:
- Wednesday Dec 31 at 7:30 PM ET – – Cotton Bowl
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- Thursday Jan 1 at Noon ET – – Orange Bowl
- Thursday Jan 1 at 4:00 PM ET – – Rose Bowl
- Thursday Jan 1 at 8:00 PMET – – Sugar Bowl
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- Semifinal Games:
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- Thursday Jan 8 at 7:30 PM ET – – Fiesta Bowl
- Friday Jan 9 at 7:30 PM ET – – Peach Bowl
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- Championship Game:
- Monday Jan 19 at 7:30 PM ET – – Game is in Miami FL.
That schedule returns college football to prominence on New Year’s Day. When I was a kid and you could count the number of college football bowl games on two hands, there were four games scheduled for New Year’s Day and it was the biggest football orgy of the year.
- There will be no NFL Thursday Night Football game on Jan 1, 2026, meaning that the day will belong to the “amateurs”.
- All the NFL regular season games in Week 18 will take place on Sunday Jan 4. So, there is no direct competition with the college guys for the semifinal games either.
- It’s enough to make me wonder if those two sets of “scheduling mavens” had a few chats” as they were doing their jobs…
Moving on … The LA Dodgers are about to activate Clayton Kershaw and have said he will make his first start for 2025 on Saturday. Kershaw underwent surgeries on his knee and his big toe in the offseason and has been working in Triple A games as part of his rehab work. In five Triple A appearances, he threw 21 innings allowing 6 runs striking out 16 batters and walking four. This will be Kershaw’s 18th season in MLB – – all with the Dodgers by the way. Over the course of that career, he has thrown 2742.2 innings in the major leagues and has struck out 2968 hitters – – more than one per inning.
Finally, these words about schedules from Henry Kissinger:
“There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………