Alfred Lord Tennyson didn’t know what he was talking about
Join us today in silent prayer for the Cincinnati Reds. While you’re at it, ckout FreeForAll Thursday, in which we thank the faithful with a gratis day of The Morning Line. If you love it, it’s $8/month or $80/year for 5 TMLs a week. Even if you don’t pay-subscribe, we’ll do our best to get you to heaven. Enjoy.
*
“ ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” is from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “In Memoriam.’’ Tennyson was writing about the too-soon death of a young friend, not the Cincinnati Reds gut-crushing work the last two nights against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Dude might have been an expert on relationships. He didn’t know jack about being a sports fan in the Republic of Cincinnati.
Ann
Unless the lover in question was, I dunno, Ann-Margret (lookerup), I vote for Never To Have Loved. If I’m a Club fan this morning, I’m calling in late for work, because I’m still looking for my missing heart.
I mean, come on.
If things stand as they are now, the Reds will have missed the postseason for want of a couple big hits. Tuesday’s 2-4 L to the Pirates Who Suck was bad enough. Wednesday’s 3-4 overtime defeat was tragic in a way only sports can be.
Tyler Stephenson had a monster game, but he will be best remembered on this night for missing a homer by thismuch. Miguel Andujar has been Mr. Automatic since arriving at the trade deadline. On this excruciating evening, he’ll be recalled for missing a game-winning pinch single down the line in left by thatmuch.
There’s nothing you can do about fate. Not even if you’re Aaron Judge or Paul Skenes. Sometimes, there’s just no explaining things. At the moment, the only knowable thing about the Reds is, they’re one game out with four games to play.
All is not lost. The Mets continue to need the Heimlich every game, the D-backs are playing the Dodgers today and San Diego three times over the weekend in Petco Park. The Reds still own the tiebreaker. If they can avoid the inexplicable for a change this afternoon, they’ll head to Milwaukee for the final three over the weekend. And we’ll see.
This isn’t meant to excuse the Reds. Frequent Perusers might know I’m not very good at that. This is a team that has neither over- nor under- achieved. Its need for mid-lineup sock was obvious last winter. Nothing was done about it. On Wednesday, the Reds were 1-10 with runners in scoring position.
“I think we all feel like we can be better in situational hitting,” Gavin Lux said in the understatement of the millennium. “We’re a fairly young team, so I think we’ll continue to get better at it.”
Oh, really?
And the Pirates have a bench-ful of Father Times?
A team in the midst of a playoff dream can’t lose twice at home to the Pittsburgh Pirates. As is stands, this year’s final wild-card qualifier likely will finish with a thoroughly mediocre record. It will benefit from a Mets meltdown that would be bigger news if the Detroit Tigers weren’t even more epic losers.
The Mets are trying to give you a playoff spot, Reds. Do your part and beat Pittsburgh at Pretty Good American Ball Park. K?
And for the love of Doubleday, no Matt McLain. Bless him, he’s a good defender and base runner still, but how many times do we have to watch him swing-n-miss at pitches off the plate?
In the last two games, he’s 0-for-9 with four strikeouts. He’s hitting .220. Baseballreference.com has a stat called RAA, Runs Above Average. It calculates the number of runs a player is above or below league average for his position. McLain in minus-17.
Maybe next year, his shoulder will be new again. This isn’t next year.
Twelve-forty first pitch today. You go, Nick Lodolo. A win today might keep your hearts engaged, RedsFans. If you can find them.
Now, then. . .
HOW ROWDY AT THE RYDER?
What’s acceptable fan participation at the world’s foremost golf competition? That’s a question asked every two years, when the Yanks and the Euros convene for three days of jingoistic madness.
It’s gonna be front and center this Friday-Sunday, because the venue is a public course in New York, Bethpage Black, a course not in a zoo, but rather a state park on Long Island.
New Yorkers generally like to think they’re special. This event is no different. Count on their excessive boorishness all weekend.
Is this OK?
Yes and no. I’ve never understood why golfers get to play in library-like conditions no other athletes enjoy. What makes them so special they can demand absolute quiet while performing? Tom Brady never got that. He seemed to do OK.
Howevuh. . .
This is the Ryder Cup. US against the world. And it isn’t like the Euro-crowds have been Miss Manners when the event is Over There. As caddie-turned-TV-analyst Bones McKay said recently, “I can tell you that the U.S. team was getting absolutely blasted out there by the crowds’’ at the last Cup, in Rome.
There is a micro-fiber line between home-course advantage and moronic fandom. Bethpage patrons seem certain to cross it. Dis is Noo Yawk, bro.
As Euro Ryder Cupper Justin Rose explained to Sky Sports, “New Yorkers are crazy, and I think they become sort of caricatures of themselves. I think they feel like they have to live up to that reputation. So, fully expect absolute chaos.’’
Or, as the Athletic’s Ian O’Connor wrote, “At Bethpage, Europe versus the USA should take on the vibe of an old-school Yankees-Red Sox series in the Bronx. In the end, no matter who tries to establish the terms of engagement, this Ryder Cup figures to be the biggest, loudest, most tumultuous golf tournament ever played.’’
Let’s hope it doesn’t become just another Waste Management Open. That would diminish the quality of an event that doesn’t need a calliope and a circus to be compelling.
It’s the only event I’d root for Bryson DeChambeau to do anything but three-putt every green. I want him to smash Rory McIlroy.
It’s the only time I want Scottie Scheffler to drain the drama from every footlights moment. I hope Jon Rahm gets his LIV-lovin’ heiny crushed.
Heiny?
Tommy Fleetwood seems like a heckuva bloke. I loved it when he won the FedEx Cup. This weekend, I hope he plays like I do. I hope he plays like Mick Fleetwood. Damn right I do.
But let’s keep it civil, shall we? Let the strokes do the chirping. Act like we’ve been there before. Even if Europe has won 13 of 19 Ryder Cups.
A REMINDER to please get your Bengals picks to me tomorrow. I’ll be heading to Italy Saturday for two weeks; I’d like all the picks to be in the same place, by the end of the Friday workday. Winner, total points, right here in This Space. Thank you.
BECAUSE TV IS MY LIFE, I love fall, when Idiot Box-watching is at its finest. We just finished The Girlfriend, a six-part drama on Amazon Prime starring and directed by Robin Wright. TML sez ckout that psycho-thriller. Now, we’re on to Black Rabbit on Netflix, equally watchable in an entirely different way.
Jason Bateman and Jude Law as brothers running a NYC restaurant. They’re both creeps. In fact, everyone in this show is a creep, which complicates the rooting process. But well-written and acted and following the serpentine plot only slightly fries your brain.
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . I spent years looking for this version of After Midnight, after a slice of it appeared in a Michelob Lite TV ad in the 80s. After Let It Rain, this is my favorite Clapton tune. He slows the original, jangly version (Delaney and Bonnie, I think) and shapes it into a blues-guitar masterpiece. See if you agree.