Congratulations to the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros for finally giving the world what it truly needs this year, an all-Southern World Series! It’s the Southeast vs. the Deep South as Houston tries to beat Atlanta and win their second World Series title. Meanwhile, for the Braves, this is their 1st World Series appearance since 1999.
I have to cheer for the Astros because they’re from my homestate but I won’t blame anyone who is cheering for Atlanta! I think either team could win. With Game 5 scheduled for October 31st, the Series might even be decided on Halloween!
The Great Pumpkin has been good to us this year!
Congratulations to both teams and good luck next week!
And who knows? Maybe next year, my Rangers will finally get it together. Things have to turn around sometime, right?
When I first heard that the Yankees and the White Sox were going to be playing a game in a stadium built next to the field that was used in FieldofDreams, my first thought was that it sounded really corny.
“Is Kevin Costner going to come walking out of the corn field?” I thought.
That’s exactly what happened. At the start of tonight’s game, Kevin Costner emerged from the cornfield surrounding the stadium and walked out to the mound. He was followed by the members of the Yankees and the White Sox. They all emerged from the cornfields and took their positions, just like in the movie.
And it was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen. I may have thought it was going to be corny and maybe it was but when it actually happened, it was impossible not to get swept up in it. As I watched the players emerge like wandering spirits who had finally found their home and as I listened to the crowd cheer, I thought to myself, “This is what baseball is all about!”
I may have started off with some doubts and neither the White Sox nor the Yankees are my team (I’m an AL West girl) but the Field of Dreams Game was still one of the best games that I’ve ever seen. From the minute the first home run disappeared over the fence and into the cornfield, the Field of Dreams Game captured my imagination and it didn’t let go for the next three and a half hours. This game reminded me of why I fell in love with baseball in the first place. There were no big bands or fancy scoreboard or anything else that we associate with modern sports. Instead, there were just two teams, playing in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd. It was perfect Americana, a present to all of us baseball fans on Baseball Fan Day. After watching this game, I now think every stadium should be redesigned to look like it’s sitting in cornfield. It’s just how baseball was meant to be played!
(Of course, you may have to be a baseball fan to really get it. My sister was in the room when one home run was hit and she interrupted my cheering by making a joke about the Children of the Corn.)
It was a good game too. The White Sox won by one run in the ninth inning. I was cheering for the Yankees but the White Sox played a good game and I can’t complain about their victory.
This was a great game and exactly what I needed tonight! I hope this is an annual event because I can’t wait for the next Field of Dreams Game!
Let’s just admit that the Super Bowl was weird this year.
I’m not talking about the game. To be honest, I could really hardly care less about the game. When it comes to winners and losers, I’m one of those people who wishes that both teams could win. I think the coach of the winning team should let the losing team score a touchdown so that no one’s feelings get hurt. I worry about concussions, broken ankles, and compound fractures. I can handle some of the most graphic zombie films ever made but football just freaks me the fug out.
Instead, I’m one of those people who watches for the commercials and this year, the commercials were odd. I guess that’s to be understood, all things considered. But even when you take into account the pandemic and the general sappiness of modern American culture, the commercials felt weak. There were a lot of inspirational commercials. Bruce Springsteen gave a two-minute monologue about America while sitting in a jeep. There was a Ford commercial about how we’re all in this together or something like that. The beer commercials were less surly and more cringey this year. There were a lot of commercials with celebrities where the whole joke seemed to be, “Hey, look! A celebrity!”
There were precious few commercials for any upcoming movies or TV shows. In fact, there were four. FOUR! Every previous year, I’ve worked myself to a beautiful exhaustion trying to keep up with all the movies being advertised during the big game. This year, I wrote a few — very few — words about Coming 2 America, Old, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Raya and the Last Dragon.
Anyway, with all that in mind — here are 6 commercials that I did enjoy. I don’t know if it’s right for me to say that any of these really qualify as a “favorite” because I really didn’t have any favorites this year. But, the important thing is that I enjoyed the commercials below.
6) Edgar Scissorhands — Cadillac
I guess Edward is dead or something? Because Edward’s definitely not in this commercial. I can only assume that he died or he moved to Paris and was later judged to be too problematic to be invited back to appear with his son. Well, regardless, this is a cute commercial. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a good commercial because people are going to remember Edgar on the bus more than they’re going to remember the Cadillac but still, it was nice.
5) Adam Levine Sets Up Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton — T-Mobile
But if not for the spotty network, Gwen and Blake never would have gotten together! Oh well. What matters is that Gwen and Blake are a cute couple.
4) Jason Alexander Hoodie — Tide
This was actually kind of a disturbing commercial but then again, I like the idea of clothing that screams at you.
3) Doritos — Flat Matthew McConaughey
It was weird enough to work.
2) Alexa — Michael B. Jordan
It was sexy enough to work.
Reddit
This made my night. This ad was short. It wasn’t pretentious. It didn’t pretend that it was going to bring America together. It didn’t feature Bruce Springsteen doing his Kerouac imitation. Instead, it popped up for five seconds, it freaked a lot of people out, and it kind of gave the finger to the whole silly culture that’s sprung up around Super Bowl advertising. That was brilliant. (Considering that Reddit has now become the favorite scapegoat of the establishment, I applaud them for raising their profile as opposed to just meekly waiting for the storm to pass.)
Reddit wins the night! And, just in case the above video gets taken off of YouTube for some reason, here’s the ad:
The Super Bowl just ended and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have won their 2nd Super Bowl! Tom Brady has won his seventh. Though the Chiefs scored first with a field goal, there was never really any doubt as to who was going to win the Lombardi Trophy. As soon as I saw Tom Brady’s face after the Chiefs got those three points, I knew he was going to be unstoppable.
The final score was 31 to 9. Though the Chiefs may have fallen short, Patrick Mahomes showed that he is the quarterback of the future. He’s scary good. He may not have won tonight but he’ll definitely get another chance to win his second super bowl.
For now, though, the Buccaneers are your Super Bowl champions and Tom Brady has added another chapter to an already amazing career. Congratulations, Tampa Bay!
Since the game is just a few hours away, I guess I should make my prediction as to who is going to win the Super Bowl.
This is exactly the type of Super Bowl that I’ve always wanted to see. Tom Brady is the best quarterback of his generation and probably the best quarterback of all time. Patrick Mahomes is the best quarterback of the next generation. This season, Brady proved that he can lead more than one team to the Super Bowl. Mahomes seems like he has the same type of talent. This is the best vs. the best.
I think the Buccaneers are going to win. I think the Chiefs are going to give them a good game. It’s not going to be easy for either team. But I think Tampa Bay is going to win in the end. The Buccaneers are playing at home, which is going to be a huge advantage. And I just have an unquestioning faith in the ability of Tom Brady to win Super Bowls. I know that’s not a very scientific analysis but Tom Brady has a talent that sometimes seems to defy everything that we’ve been led to assume about football. Tom Brady went from being nearly undrafted to winning 6 Super Bowls. At an age when most football players have already retired, Brady is still playing like a man in his early 30s. The rest of the team is going to have to do their part but I still see Tom Brady and the Buccaneers winning this game.
Final prediction:
Buccaneers — 24
Chiefs — 21
The game will be won by a last minute field goal that Tom Brady will probably volunteer to kick himself. Having won his 7th Super Bowl and led two separate teams to victory, Tom Brady will then win a Nobel Peace Prize and write a memoir that will be turned into an Oscar-winning film. Brady will then be elected governor of whatever state he decides to run in. Eventually, President Tom Brady will bring about world peace along with ending climate change and personally overseeing the first manned mission to Mars. After you win seven Super Bowls, there’s nothing you can’t do.
If the Buccaneers somehow lose, it will mean the winter is coming.
Tonight, the Los Angeles Dodgers won Game 6 of the World Series and another MLB post-season came to a close. The last time the Dodgers won the World Series was in 1988. It’s been a long and difficult road since then but this season, they played strong and they earned the victory. Even though I was cheering for the Rays because they were the AL team, I’m very happy for both the Dodgers and the city of Los Angeles. Here’s hoping that, next year, my Rangers will finally get their act together.
Of course, the real winner tonight was Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. With the pandemic changing everything this year, the city of Arlington and the state of Texas stepped up and hosted the entire World Series and they did a great job. No matter what the world looks like next year, every future World Series should be played at Globe Life Field.
Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on their amazing come from behind victory in the Super Bowl tonight! I thought that the 49ers had it all wrapped up until the final six minutes of the game when the Chiefs came alive and scored two touchdowns, giving them a 31-20 victory and their first Super Bowl title in 50 years! It was a great game.
And now that the football season is over with, bring on baseball!
Most people these days think of Boston (and the Northeast as a whole) as a modern Athens, the standard bearer for progressive, liberal thinking. But it wasn’t always so. The City of Boston in the 1950’s and 60’s was a hotbed of racial tensions, with frequent rioting over such issues as forced busing and integration. While Jackie Robinson was the first black player to break the Major League Baseball color barrier in 1947, the Boston Red Sox (owned by avowed racist Tom Yawkey) didn’t add a player of color until 1959. That player’s name was Elijah “Pumpsie” Green.
Green was born October 27, 1933 in the small town of Boley, Oklahoma. As a youth, he excelled at sports, as did his brother Cornell, who wound up playing 13 seasons as a Defensive Back for the Dallas Cowboys. After playing college ball at Contra Costa, Pumpsie turned pro in 1954, and…
This series is special to me. It’s the first I ever reviewed for this site. It was awesome- Read Here
I have watched every episode of this series. The first season was epic and even engendered a ride at Universal Studios. Season 2 was a show that was aired on Netflix with Sean Astin. This season has a new big bad who looks a lot like last years big bad. So….I hope it’s better than last year’s terribleness. This episode opened with a bit of meh, but better than Season Two’s sophomore slump. I’m guessing that it will be kinda of fun to watch. In any case, I write for an entertainment blog, so this is happening!
Cold Open: The Russians are trying to open the gate and they are EVIL! One guy goes full on Ivan Drago (Rocky IV) and lifts a guy by the neck and chokes hims to death! Their experiment apparently releases the smoke monster again and he’s pissed at Hawkins!
Our older heroes are really not doing well. Nancy is a gopher at a sexist newspaper. Jake Busey is one of the reporters. I’m not sure if Jake knew this was a role or if he thought, “I’ve always wanted to work at a newspaper in a dying town!” and just ran with it. Creeper has found his niche working as a creepy photographer for a creepy newspaper. We’re better off without elitist journalists anyway. All Hail The Bloggers!!!!
Steve is working at the mall at a terrible ice cream shop and striking out with every girl in Indiana. I suppose this is possible. He wears a dorky outfit, but he’s still Steve. I kinda doubted this whole constant rejection he’s getting. I think it’s the writers were thinking that the moment good looking people leave high school, they are nobody. This doesn’t make sense because IRL beautiful people make tons of money as actors and generally do pretty well getting dates. It takes me out of it a little.
The gang is all about their hormones. Mike and El are constantly making out and disrespecting Hop, which I really can’t stand. Hop is troubled by and turns to his unrequited love Joyce who tells him to get to get all kumbaya and I just can’t watch. This comes to a head at the end of the episode where Hop loses it and I’m hoping he smacks Mike around- in a nice way.
Dustin returned from science camp and he built a Radio Tower to speak with his girlfriend in Utah. Everyone keeps acting totally shocked that Dustin could have a girlfriend. This came across as mean and dickish to me. I mean Dustin isn’t Brad Pitt, but he’s smart and nice. Anywho, they erect the radio tower and Dustin can’t reach her, giving his girlfriend claim a “My girlfriend is in Canada” feel to it. To my Canadian readers, we down south have been claiming that you were our girlfriends for generations. I know this sounds weird, but here we are. He does pick up a signal from the Russians and they are trying to open their own gate to evil town.
Ok, Cara Buono is at the pool as is Mullet-guy. Mullet-guy is now the lifeguard and they going to have an affair. This all seems to be ready to go, but the smoke monster is taking up space in the abandoned Steel Mill and eats him or something. Why a Steel Mill? Well, the Smoke Monster is really into depressed real estate and factories can be converted into lofts for the hipster set. It’s really forward thinking on Smokey’s part.
I would say this episode is a bit clunky, but good. Is it the thrill ride of the first season? NO NO NO, but honestly what is?! Stranger Things season 1 was a television event up there with The Stand, Shogun, or It. In fact, it was never meant to be a recurring series until the last minute, but hey it’s better than watching re-runs of Parks and Rec.
Major League Baseball’s Opening Day has finally arrived! It’s a tradition as American as Apple Pie, and so is IT HAPPENED IN FLATBUSH, a baseball movie about a lousy team in Brooklyn whose new manager takes them to the top of the heap. The team’s not explicitly called the Dodgers and the manager’s not named Leo Durocher, but their improbable 1941 pennant winning season is exactly what inspired this charmingly nostalgic little movie.
When Brooklyn’s manager quits the team, dowager team owner Mrs. McAvoy seeks out ex-player Frank Maguire, who seven years earlier was run out of town when an unfortunate error cost the team the pennant. She finds him running a club out in the sticks, and convinces him to come back to the Big Leagues. He does, bringing along his faithful bat boy/sidekick ‘Squint’, and just before the season’s about to begin, Mrs. McAvoy abruptly dies. Her family…
Through the Shattered Lens 