The Basement View

Instead of limited myself to only “in the moment, 280 character, probable overreactions” on Twitter—I will combine my various tweets with a running game diary of Game Two of the ALDS between the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees. So, here we go, here’s a look into my brain as Game Two unfolded before me: 8:05 PM (ET)— I’m still in my zoom lecture and have the game on silent (given that it’s postseason baseball I prefer watching the game this way anyway) in the background as I finish downloading the files need for class.   8:08— TBS shows a Tyler Glasnow feature I momentarily unmute the volume to hear Glasnow go on about how he throws his fastball while being mesmerized by how freakishly big his hands are holding a baseball (it’s like Kawhi Leonard holding a basketball), I mistook Glasnow for the Donkey Kong holding an apple, just for a moment. 8:10— Tyler Glasnow hums a 98 MPH fastball for a ball as Game Two gets underway while the blood in my body starts to warm with antic...

  Football is back. Usually, the return of football is like a breath of fresh air, and the excitement of doing your fantasy draft and watching your favorite team on Sunday’s returns. This year however, it oddly feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I cannot place the exact feeling from one of their episodes, but while the world is still crumbling around the sports world with the pandemic and continued social justice fight. But, hey, we have got football! It has been well documented that I am not 100% all in on any of the sports coming back, but I will cautiously enjoy this football season, for however long it lasts. Staying in the cautiously optimistic mindset, let’s take a look at the over/unders for the teams on the first day of the COVID NFL season. If you are new here, I will be giving three overs and three unders that are most likely to hit and make you some cash, without further ado: *All of these odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook New York Giants 7.5 O (+26...

Again, I am late to recapping these games but here is the last game against the Baltimore and the entire Red Sox series. 7/30/20: A rain-soaked Camden Yards almost ended another Yankee game in 2020 with another rain shortened game, but after a prolonged delay, the Bombers ended their second series of the year with a sweep of the O’s. For this day forth I will not try to say anything positive about J.A. Happ. For the most part I try to give the benefit of the doubt to athletes, but for Happ he has completely run out of rope (he ran out of rope halfway through last year, but hey 2020!), Happ just straight up stinks. I don’t have a nickname for Happ like I had for Chase bleeping Headley, but this Baltimore start officially cemented Happ in my love-hate Yankee rolodex. Thankfully for the rest of the Bomber bullpen, they road the ship and helped deliver a sweep at Yankee Stadium south. Along with that, Luke Voit hit his first Major League grand slam to help power the Yanks to another ...

Nine to three. A blow out. Let’s go deeper than the box score because this game was more enjoyable than just a standard nine to three blow out. With all the things happening in 2020 one thing that seems to be constant is if Gerrit Cole pitches he wins. This is nothing new for Cole since he has lost just two games dating back to May of last year he has been as sure of a thing as anything can be. To not overreact too much, Cole has given the Bombers so far the ace they have missed since the early 2010’s when C.C. Sabathia was dominating the game. The confidence that a club has knowing they have someone as incredible as Gerrit Cole is irreplaceable. Now, in last night’s start he didn’t have his Cy Young stuff, but it was still good enough to go six and a third innings. Cole ran out of gas in the 7 th after he retired 14 straight, he gave up three consecutive hits including a two run homer by Dwight Smith Jr. with the evening getting off to a rough start as well. Cole threw 21 pitc...

No game tonight because of the outbreak of COVID-19 that the Miami Marlins have had in their clubhouse with five more players testing positive for COVID-19 bringing the total to 14 people in the Marlins organization who have tested positive. The Marlins are still in Philadelphia and have cancelled their home opener today against Orioles. From the outset of the plan to bring back baseball this year what the Marlins are going through was one of the biggest questions to answer. The solution before the question was a reality was to expand the rosters to 30 players, now the number of players isn’t important, the health of an entire ball club is. The outbreak with the Marlins was one of my biggest concerns with bringing back any sports in 2020 with the COVID-19 Pandemic and why I have been cautious with all of my excitement around sports since all of the plans have been finalized, but now again, the ball is in the glove of the owners to react correctly to the situation that is causing a ...

Since I’m late to the party for last night’s affair, this column will be a recap for both the Saturday and Sunday. Games like last night happen all the time. I don’t say that to dilute the awful outing that Paxton had, but to bring you back to reality, in a 162 game season a clunker happens routinely.   Really it’s just game two of 60, this game won’t matter. I have heard the numbers that say every game of this season is like three games in a 162 game season, but with the addition of the two playoff teams for 2020, this game doesn’t matter to the Yanks. Washington was just better. They’re the world champs and with that roster they’ll play like they are more nights than not—tonight the played like it.   The showed the same resolve that they did in October and pounced on every opportunity they had.   The Nats were 4-10 with runners in scoring position, but hit three homers in the process, I will tell you watching the game it didn’t seem like only 4-10. The shaky but stu...

We finally witnessed it. Opening Day. It’s the day that I look forward to every year! This is the day when I was a kid that I would avoid everything baseball at all costs (except being decked out in my Yankee gear going to school) until 3:00 when I would get home—shutting out the world—and soaking in every moment of the first day of baseball. Even now, on Opening Day I don’t really pay attention to anything but baseball. Opening Day is my New Year. I don’t need half-baked resolutions, or a countdown, or crappy champagne that someone bought last minute on their way over to a party (a beer will do just fine for me), all I need is baseball. Opening Day in 2020 isn’t normal, because life in 2020 is anything but normal, but maybe Opening Day this year will give us the normalcy we have been craving to have back for so long. Even though it doesn’t look or feel like the usual Opening Day (I say that writing this drinking a cup of coffee in my dining room with all the windows open) it is the ...

Every music fan understands the uncontrollable anticipation one has when they are waiting for their favorite artist to release a new album. Sports fans are now in that phase with their favorite sports league. Much like almost everything during the COVID-19 Pandemic for us fans its uncharted territory and the anticipation feels like crippling anxiety. However, fans should realize how special a time we are living in, in relation to the return of sports in our lives. The excitement that will return with sports coming back into our lives will be like nothing any fan has lived through. The interest in going and see sports in person will go up astronomically with the money that has been lost collectively will flood back into the pockets of the greedy owners. The coverage of sports and the consumption of every snippet of sports will have ratings on par with the Jordan documentary. Owners and players as well will return to the days of seeing millions of dollars enter their respective ban...

Jets fans live in that awful Tom Cruise Groundhog Day remake, The Edge of Tomorrow. Every year they go through free agency and the draft getting new players that us Jets fans assume will help us finally reach the pinnacle of football—the Super Bowl. Alas, we always wake up on schedule announcement day to a rocket exploding right in our face, and killing the dream of a Super Bowl win for yet another year. In 2020 Jets fans are still costarring with Tom Cruise. As good as the “experts” graded Joe Douglas’ first draft and how highly regarded the free agency moves have been, the NFL has given one of the worst teams in the league a top-10 hardest schedule based off the winning percentage of the teams from last season. Let’s not lose this one fact in revisionist history from the year that gang green had last season; that being how atrocious the coaching job was from bug eyed Adam Gase. Gase proved to the entire football world that he could not manage the responsibilities it takes to coa...

The New York Knicks could be good next season. It’s at least a possibility. Whether or not James Dolan and the rest of the Knickerbocker brass will let that happen, only time will tell. The difference maker in all of this is Leon Rose. The former CAA agent is stepping through crime scene tap to try to figure out how he can be the man that changes the course of a franchise that is laughable to the point where it hurts to believe the blunders are real life. Many people think they have the hardest job in their respective field, well the job that Rose is volunteering for is the hardest job in sports—undoubtedly. However, there is a road map that Rose can use to make the Knicks fun again and competitive. This road map leads to the dream of landing Giannis Antetokounmpo in free agency in July of 2021. What the quick turn around will need is an old friend. Rose has a great relationship with this player because he previously represented him at CAA. That’s right Carmelo Anthony. Befor...

The day after Opening Day is always a weird day for me. From the euphoria of Opening Day and coming down from that high of just a day filed with optimism and hope to just nothing. The same crushing reality is painfully apparent today. However, today feels more forever than in years past. Watching old games from 8:30 AM and sipping on coffee (which is awesome I know understand why my dad wants to retire in San Diego), to re-watching the 8 th inning of Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS, to wanting to finish the 12-pack of beers I was sipping on while the Kershaw no-hitter was finishing up because today’s brutal reality was starting to hit me. Even though I watched most of the games being shown yesterday I still got a similar euphoric feeling that I would usually get on a regular Opening Day. I felt the same feeling to just shout out the window “Happy New Year” to anyone would listen because it was Opening Day again. But as the bottom of the 8 th was wrapping up in that Dodgers-Rockies ga...

When thinking about the Hall of Fame every year I struggle with this question: What does it mean to be a Hall of Famer? The reasoning behind my frustration and confusion because by saying someone is a “Hall of Famer” it brings upon certain elite criteria and preconceived notions about how dominate said player has to be in order to get into the Hall of Fame. What also happens is people start comparing the player you bring up with the best of the best in the Hall of Fame. The type of players that make it impossible to finish the conversation. However, that conversation needs to be had because what I think is missing thanks to some of the writers and majority of the veteran’s committee is a solid baseline to make sure the player about to walk into the doors of immortality stack up with the rest of the men already invited into the party. Last year in my 2019 ballot I created what I thought to be the new baseline for the Hall of Fame. I selected five players: Andy Pettitte, Roy Holiday,...