The 2020 NFL Week 3 Roundup | It Happened One Night
Ehhhhhh Battttah, Ehhhhh Battttttah Batttah…Swinnnnnggg Battttttah Battttttah!
Monday, August 17th, 2020 was by all accounts a typically Lone Star-Summer sweat-laden affair down in Arlington, TX where enshrouded in steamy 93 degree partly cloudy heat, the visiting San Diego Padres were taking on the Texas Rangers. Oh it was a stinker of a game if you were a Rangers fan — or player — or Baseball enthusiast for that matter. In the end, the Padres ran up the final score to 14–4. What unfolded as the 8th inning tipped off, however, ignited a tempestuous firestorm that within 12 hours had scorched and cast aflame the enterprise that is MLB, its rigid allegiance to air quote unwritten rules and Baseball’s desperate need to modernize and make ultra-accessible America’s Pastime. It took all the might and power of Globe Life Park Stadium’s state of the art Eaton Ephesus LED Lighting System AND the biggest generational prospect to come along in ages to expose in all their nude glory the rules (there are 30 of them) that are apparently wayyyy too sexy for ink.
If you haven’t already had the thrill of witnessing the pure undiluted vision of MLB’s future sinewy self, please meet Fernando Tatis, Jr., aka El Nino. A position player deployed dazzlingly at Short Stop and the son of a legend in his own right Fernando Tatis Sr (of the groaning Rangers, Cardinals, Expos, Orioles and Mets over the course of a prodigious 13 year career), El Nino is but 21 years old but plays with the joyous enthusiasm of 1000 suns. Fernando found himself sunning in San Diego the product of a seminal 2017 sweetheart trade that saw his being cast off dismissively by White Sox express. As Julia Roberts would say: Big Mistake. In his 3 short years with the perennially rotten Padres, Fernando has developed into a fearless superstar replete with personality and is yanking his Team along for the ride. Whether his ability to leap at the seeming unreachable, his verve for laser-focused base stealing or his alacrity at artfully blending ballplay on both sides of the base, Fernando has tongues wagging all over the League; a true MVP in our midst. He’s playing on the level Patrick Mahomes or Lamar Jackson, such is the dynamite he packs day in and day out. This season he is on course to lead Major League Baseball in Home Runs as he confidently and playfully dusts $425M HR king Mike Trout in the rearview mirror.
Well it was just this penchant for Home Runs that Fernando set in motion on that tropical evening a reckoning by breaking MLB’s Unwritten Rule #1: Don’t’ Swing on 3–0 pitches when up by a large margin deep into the game. Exactly. Mushy doesn’t begin to describe the setup here. The purpose of this Rule is to make for a Gentleman’s game akin to the Mercy Rule found in Little League where games are called when the margin exceeds 15 runs. In reality, it papers over the naked unpreparedness and watered-down ambition of a losing team. But these are the major leagues after all where no amount of Mercy Rule-lites can begin to disguise the reality of grotesque gameplay and hurt feelings. In fact, no one really knows when in Baseball’s 151 year history this Rule was enacted nor what defines “large margin” or “deep in the game”.
Precisely the bedrock you would want to firmly affix finger-pointing upon when Fernando blasted a grand slam Home Run at a 22 degree launch angle with an exit velocity of 109.8 mph 407 feet deep into to the vacant Right Field stands. If you’re gonna break a Rule, you’re gonna do so with an exclamation mark. Fernando brought 407. Trouble is he didn’t know he’d broken any rules, much less an imaginary one. Fernando after rounding Home base, ecstatically dapped up and danced with his teammates unaware of Padres Manager Jayce Tingler’s steely side-eye glance devoid of warmth yet teeming with disapproval. Tingler and quite naturally, the Rangers, would by the next day join a chorus of baseball afficionados casting aspersion upon the phenom. Really it didn’t even take that long. Fernando was made to appear slunkenly before cameras post-game to contortedly apologize for his air quote transgression of playing Baseball. OH it was a sobering affair to foist an innocent before the judge and jury to UNexplain common sense. And quite deflating to watch.
But then after digesting the ridiculousness the Chattering Class has boxed Fernando into, one by one they fell over themselves to completely and fully reverse their positions almost as if an imaginary trip wire had been triggered overnight as they rushed to right the listing ship. First hist own manger in Jayce Tingler, then Rangers manager, Chris Woordward, then the punditry admitted that there is no crying in baseball after all, that Fernando did the RIGHT thing. All of sudden, to them Fernando was a rock star once again just doing what he knows best: Playing Ball. How about thattt? It probably didn’t hurt to have icon Reggie Jackson come to his full-throated defense. In an instant, a make-believe pink pearl eraser was taken to Unwritten Rule #1 scribbled in make-believe with just 29 more to go. When asked to respond to all this nuttiness, Fernando replied with his trademark mischievous smile belying a million words.
All this is to say that sometimes it takes a manufactured crisis to call into question the arcane. Sometimes it takes the serendipity of 21 year old soulful superstar to wilt 151 years of previously unquestioned overgrown-beanstalk tradition. Moreover, sometimes it takes the unexpected to remind us all that while the Game and all its trappings have grown to outlandish grandiosity (and in this case ridiculousness) as Baseball enters its 152 year, memories of unencumbered joy that we all enjoyed down at the Sandlot on any given late gauzy summer day are NEVER far off. For that and all of the above, we are reminded of (and thankful for) Fernando Tatis, Jr.
[The San Diego Padres exit the Regular Season as the Breakout Team of a wild 2020 and enter the Playoffs with the 2nd best record in the sport and are on a clear NL collision course with DodgerNation].
Turning now to Week 3 in the NFL and talk of phenoms, last night’s much heralded showdown between the two current reigning megastar QBs of the League resulted with the luster tarnishing a bit for but one of them. Said QB would not turn out to be Patrick Mahomes who turned in yet another 5-star otherworldly performance exhibiting all of the machined precision, measured discipline, striking efficiency and boisterous fun he’s become famous for in his 3 short years in the league. He turned 25 just 12 days ago, is signed to to blingy $500M KC contract and yet maintains the approachability of the kid next door. That approchability is what drew the Baltimore City Birds (and home to the League’s top-rated Defense) IN where they were promptly DONE-IN and defeathered. Caught up in the feather storm was fan-favorite Lamar Jackson whose trademark athleticism and deftness were left unrecognizable, soaking wet and just plain drab. Every bird has a bad day so we’ll see If the Ravens can cast off their performance as a one-off fluke. A team that at Week 3 CANNOT cast off their performance as a one-off fluke is the hilariousness that is the Atlanta Falcons. These silly gooses hold the dubious distinction of allowing to evaporate 15 point leads heading into the 4 quarter in back-to-back weeks. The epic disastrous implications of this fete cannot be underestimated such is the wholesale deplorable gameplay on offer. This despite matching up against a Bears Team with ginormous issues their very own; not the least of which stems from their formerly-starting QB Mitchell Trubisky who delivered yet another in a string of horrible outings (13/28 128 1TD 1INT). He was ultimately sacked by his own Team which quickly moved to put in Nick Foles who effortlessly helped color in the Falcons comic book, 30–26. Pitty poor Mitchell who might have to field unemployment forms in short order as Nick has been named starting QB moving forward.
Over at the Mercedes Superdome, the Green Bay cranked out another minty new W and cruise along nicely with an unbeaten record. The Aaron Rodgers storybook sings right along on tune. Drew Brees and his Saints, let down by a relatively week Defense, are rapidly showing signs of rust as they slink oh-so-uncharacteristically to 1–2 on the Season. The Saints may go marching in, as the song goes, but where to exactly? Certainly not the post-season at this rate. Definitely on an unstoppable roadshow to the post-Season are the Seahawks who, led by incomparable Russell Wilson, offered a reckoning day to Dallas, 38–31, just not the reckoning America’s team envisioned. Russell glittered with yet another MVP-caliber performance and has set an NFL record for the most TD passes (14) over the first 3 weeks of any Season in history. Dak and his Cowboys were left speechless and devoid of answers as their record sinks to 1–2. While DAL was rendered speechless, the Bronos are without a voice after Tom Brady recoveed his footing if not a bit of his magic with a much-needed BUCS win. That it came at the expense of a DEN team at a crossroads must temper the already-heightened expectations of your casual TB fan. Meanwhile the Rams met the Bills and found out who he true Josh Allen is, a burgeoning super start this Season with yet another in a barnburner of an outing. An over the top outing punctuated with some questionable and self-inflicted outright bewildering choices (fumbles, mask checks, you name it). That the Bills almost blew a 25 point lead and were saved by some bizarre pass interference call is to be of little consequence to official League score keepers. But to BUF fans, those are just buffalo flies in the ointment; that better still, a renaissance is in the offing. Time will tell on THAT one.
And finally in our Round Robin, the lowly Giants managed to outdo themselves in losing — yet again — to a Team who piratically has a Now Hiring sign hanging out front. The 49ers, without Jimmy G, their starting RB, WR, TE, CE, 2 DEs and CB, slammed New York, 36–9. Both teams have long, winding roads ahead of them clearly. Cinci at Eagles resulted in that much-dreaded tie and in the process both became Post Children for how NOT to play football. Listless, lethargic, languid. lazy. These are the words used to describe the level of gamelay on display. And those are just the L words. There are more words where those came from but really the less said about this matchup the better. Derek Carr and his Raiders pulled in a Win over a tempered Cam Newton-led Patriots squad. Besides allowing a rare loss on home field turf, the Vegas-NE game was perhaps most noteworthy for John Gruden’s employment of a traditional gaiter over last week’s $100,000 decision to wield of the world’s smallest face mask that struggled mightily to cover his nostrils and mouth. I guess what happens in Vegas should NOT be designed in Vegas? And lastly, our beloved Brownies and a not-bad Baker Mayfield dug out a fresh grave for our once-resurgent WAS Team, 34–20. 1–2 on the Season, WAS is miraculously #1 in the NFC East, a chest-thumping snapshot of being the best of the worst but for a moment in time as the whole of WAS, DAL, PHL and the Giants encircle the proverbial drain. Too soon?
