I’m Back …

So much for the drama provided by a final playoff game in the wildcard round of the MLB playoffs this year.  All four series ended as 2-0 sweeps for the winning sides.  Baseball does not have a long history of expanded playoffs, but this is the first time that has ever happened.  That means all the teams moving on to the next round get today and tomorrow off and the next tranche of games will begin on Saturday afternoon.

The Twins won their series over the Blue Jays and by doing so they snapped a huge losing streak in post-season games.  Before this year, the last time a Twins team won a playoff game was back in 2004; the Twins had lost 18 playoff games in a row since then.  Now they have a two-game winning streak in post-season play.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Rays.  Not only did they lose their series 2-0, but they were also outscored 11-1 in those two losses to the Rangers.  The Rays started the season winning their first 13 games; they just missed winning 100 games over the course of the regular season and now they are out of the playoffs after two embarrassing losses.

The Phillies saw Bryson Stott hit a grand slam home run to seal the win in Game 2 of their series against the Marlins.  Stott has not hit a grand slam in any regular season game in his career, but he now has one in the playoffs.

The next round of the playoffs sets up like this:

• Orioles/Rangers
• Astros/Twins
• Braves/Phillies
• Dodgers/D-Backs

Before I leave the broad topic of the MLB playoffs, I have to note an embarrassing and recurring problem for MLB.  The Tampa Bay Rays were the host team for the series against the Twins; the Rays won 99 games in the regular season; they are “regulars” in the post-seasons of recent years.  For the first game of this year’s playoff series, the attendance was an embarrassing 19,704 people.  Here is some perspective on that attendance figure:

• For the 2023 regular season, 26 of the 30 MLB teams had an average attendance greater than 19,704 people.
• For the regular season, the Rays average attendance was 17,781.  The fact that there was a playoff game in town only added about 250 fans to the audience.
• Ignoring the playoffs in 2020 that had the overhang of the COVID-19 pandemic, the last time there was a baseball playoff game with a smaller attendance was all the way back in 1919.

The Rays have had attendance issues ever since the franchise came into existence.  The location and the ambience of the existing park has been identified as the cause of the poor attendance leading to the tacit assumption that a new park in a new location will cure “the problem”.  Well, maybe that is the case and maybe not.  And I suspect that the Rays and the city fathers in St. Petersburg do not think that a new stadium is a panacea; here is why:

• The new stadium design in St. Petersburg announced a couple of weeks ago calls for a seating capacity of 30,000 people.
• Seventeen of the thirty MLB teams had an average attendance greater than 30,000 folks in 2023.

Moving on …  FIFA had two serious competing bids in hand for the 2030 World Cup.  Both bids involved three countries:

1. Argentina/Paraguay/Uruguay bid to host those games citing the fact that the first World Cup tournament ever was played in Uruguay in 1930.
2. Morocco/Portugal/Spain bid to host the games citing the fact that it would be the first time the games would be played on two different continents.

FIFA announced that the Morocco/Portugal/Spain bid was the one that would proceed BUT to honor the historical significance of the centennial anniversary of the World Cup, there would be three opening round games played in Argentina/Paraguay and Uruguay.  Somewhere, King Solomon is smiling …

You need not shed crocodile tears for those three countries in South America for losing this bid to host the World Cup.  The fact is that hosting huge events like the World Cup and/or the Olympics is usually a significant drag on the economies of smaller national economies.  Two examples:

1. When Brazil hosted the World Cup in 2014, the country invested multiple millions of dollars building stadiums that would be appropriate for such a big event.  One of those stadiums is currently used as a parking lot for trucks and school buses.
2. When Greece hosted the Olympics in 2004, it invested multiple millions of dollars building a venue for the Opening Ceremonies and for a Velodrome.  Just this week it was announced that both facilities must be closed for safety reasons.  In less than 20 years, they have fallen into disrepair – – caused by a lack of usage of the facilities – – such that they are now a safety hazard.

Finally, I’ll close today with these words from former Harvard president, Dr. James B. Conant:

“There is only one proved method of assisting the advancement of pure science – that of picking men of genius, backing them heavily and leaving them to direct themselves.”

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