Sundays in September are a wonderful time.
Baseball is closing in on the postseason. Football – both college and professional – is starting up. Basketball and hockey teams are starting training camps. There is autumn in the air.
Start the day with brunch, maybe accompanied by a Bloody Mary eye-opener. Then take a nice leisurely walk in the park under a cloudless blue sky. Then back home in time for the games.
And that’s when it all came apart the other day.
Start with the Jets, the new era Jets with hotshot Sam Darnold at quarterback. They beat up Detroit in the opener and now they were at home in the friendly confines of Met Life Stadium And they threw the fans a stinker. They were down 20-0 at the half. It was ugly football, troublesome football because just when you thought this was a brand new team with a fresh outlook they looked like – dare we say it — the same old Jets.
No problem. Up the dial are the Mets, the warm and fuzzy Mats, playing for nothing but throwing Jacob deGrom who is playing for plenty like the Cy Young Award.
DeGrom has enjoyed a brilliant season with an earned run average well below 2.00. But because the cute little Mets somehow can’t score any runs when he pitches, hr has a sub .500 won-loss record, something the Cy Young voters may frown upon.
DeGrom broke a 108-year-old record with 26 games allowing three or fewer runs. This would be No. 27. Tough luck. The Mets again fail to score for him and he leaves with another no-decision thanks to his team’s Little League level offense.
The Mets lose. Of course, they lose. It is what they do. This was their 80th loss of the season. With just 13 games to play they will fall short of 100 losses. Phew!
Thankfully, there is a baseball alternative for the New York sports fan. The high and mighty Yankees have enjoyed a banner season with the third best record in all of baseball. Sadly, though, they have been chasing the Boston Red Sox all summer and have fallen into a September snooze, which could complicate their wild card plans.
Oakland is hot on their trail and if the A’s overtake them, the Yankees will have to fly from Boston to Oakland for the wild card game and if they win – no guarantee based on their sleepy September — they would have to fly back to Boston for the League Championship Series. That’s why the 3-2 loss to lowly Toronto is so aggravating especially after they had the lead in the late innings.
Three down, one to go. The Sunday main event was a prime time nationally televised game between the Giants and Dallas Cowboys. The Giants, however, failed to show up.
They never made it over midfield in the first half. Eli Manning was sacked six times. They did not score a touchdown until the final two minutes of the game. The loss left them 0-2, the fifth time in six years they’ve started the season with consecutive losses.
Maybe another Bloody Mary might help
.