World Series 2021: Trashcan Bangers Vs. Choppers

 The World Series is upon us starting today. I don't really have a dog in this fight, so it's hard to root for any of the teams.

On the one hand, you have a squad that started in the National League as the Colt .45s (can you get a more Texas nickname?), became the Astros and later migrated the the American League. Their most recent claim to fame? Stealing signs, banging on trash cans to alert hitters and, essentially, cheating their way to the 2017 World Series title.

Houston, we have a problem. Just can't root for these cheaters. Especially since the players who did the misdeed were not punished. Major League Baseball should have stripped them of the '17 title.

On the other hand, we have a team that's in it's third city. Once the Boston Braves, in 1953 the club moved to Milwaukee and was embraced by Wisconsin. Fans loved guys like Eddie Matthews, Hammerin' Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn ... even Bob Uecker! The squad won a World Series and just missed out on another, then packed up their bags and moved to Atlanta in 1966.

The move broke hearts throughout Wisconsin, gave the Chicago Cubs inroads thanks to WGN television and, eventually, led to Bud Selig snagging the bankrupt Seattle Pilots and creating the Milwaukee Brewers.

I have, essentially forgiven the Braves for skipping town. Most of us have. But I sure wish they would 86 the tomahawk chop (and while we're at it, maybe the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL could do the same?)

In picking the lesser of two evils, let's pull for Atlanta to win this Fall Classic.

Getting An Education At The High School Level

 I look at odd little things so you don't have to. By the way, no thanks are necessary.

Got to wondering again this week about the state of high school football in Wisconsin amid the continued Covid-19 influence.

It's not good, folks.

There were 189 scheduled games this past weekend. Of those, seven were cancelled, one played to a 0-0 tie (or did they? Am thinking it was a mutual decision with neither team able to field a squad) and 19 -- or roughly 10% -- resulted in teams winning 2-0.

That 2-0 score tells me that one team had too many players missing due to positive tests or illness to compete.

I SPENT SOME time in Louisiana in the mid-1980s as sports editor for The Opelousas Daily World. Have kept in contact with several of my friends from there and consider myself an honorary Cajun.

Guess that's why I was happy to see the October issue of Sports Illustrated with a nice feature on Dustin Poirier of Lafayette, just a few minutes south of Opelousas and home of the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns.

Poirier is a very successful UFC fighter who twice in 2021 defeated Conor McGregor, once considered one of the gold standards of the sport.

Poirier is a guy with a big heart, and has given a lot back to the Lafayette community and area. So much so that he was given the inaugural Forrest Griffin Community Award by the UFC last year.

SAW THAT ATTENDANCE for the MLB was down this year. Well, duh! So many teams opened the year with a cap on their stadium attendance (I was lucky to be part of the chosen 11,900 or so to see the Milwaukee Brewers' opener) that, of course, overall attendance is going to be down. Hell, for the first part of the season, the Toronto Bluejays called Buffalo home!

Still, Milwaukee finished 10th among the 30 MLB squads with 1,824,282 fans (an average of 22,522). At the bottom of the pile? The playoff-bound Tampa Bay Rays (28th; 9,513), Oakland (29th; 8,767) and dead last Miami (7,933).

And the Brewers will get to add to that total starting Friday with the playoffs!

TELEVISION EXECUTIVES with broadcast rights to the American League Wild Card play-in game had to be over the moon with the prospect of a one game matchup between the hated New York Yankees and the equally hated Boston Red Sox.

That subjects the country to yet ANOTHER nationally televised game between these two darlings of ESPN and the MLB.