The leaves are falling, and baseball and football fill the air. Sports are all around us right now during this autumn of 2012, and I'm trying to take it all in. It is truly amazing what is going on in the world of sports right now in baseball and football, at both the collegiate and professional levels.
In baseball the playoffs are underway, and the new wild card system worked out just the way Bud Selig wanted it. All four division series went the distance of five games, with multiple games ending in dramatic fashion. The Tigers went up 2-0 in its series against the Athletics before losing the next two on the road setting up a game 5 with Justin Verlander on the mound. Verlander delivered with a complete game four hit shutout of Oakland, and sent the Tigers to the ALCS for the second year in a row. In the other American League series the Yankees and Orioles went back and forth, much like the two sides did down the stretch of the regular season, with neither side giving an edge. The heroics of Raul Ibanez may have saved the Yankees, as he both tied and won game 3 with home runs. The Yankees took game 5 of the series at home with a complete game effort by their ace C.C. Sabathia. In the national league the series are equally exciting.
The Washington Nationals were in the playoffs for the first time in...a really long time. They took on the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals, who found away to get into the playoffs as a wild card. The series went back and forth much like the Yankees-Orioles series, and with similar dramatics. In game 4 Jayson Werth hit a walk-off home run to send the series to a deciding game 5 in Washington. Game 5 did not disappoint. The Nationals quickly jumped ahead 6-0 with the help of the long ball. However, by the time the game got around to the bottom of the 8th inning, the Cardinals had crept back to close the gap to 6-5. The Nationals got an insurance run in the 8th inning, and had the Cardinals down to their last strike with Carlos Beltran on third base. The Nationals closer, Drew Storen, proceeded to walk the next two batters, Yadier Molina and 2011 playoff hero David Freese. This set up little known second baseman Descalso to deliver a game-tying two-run single, which was followed by another two-run single from shortstop Cozma. The Cardinals advance to face the San Francisco Giants who came back from an 0-2 deficit, to win three straight games on the road, and move on the NLCS.
While all of this baseball has been going on I have also been able to enjoy watching, the always exciting, college football. Now as a college football fan I do not really have a favorite team. I kind of have my favorites from each major conference, and root for those schools, while also enjoying other ranked matchups throughout Saturday. This college football season, like every other, has been filled with upsets of top-ranked teams. Most recently the number 3 school, South Carolina, fell to the LSU Tigers (my favorite from the SEC) in Death Valley. Also the number 5 team in the nation, the West Virginia Mountaineers, got destroyed on the road at Texas Tech. This now has left us with a top five of very familiar teams. At number five are the Notre Dame Fighting Irish who have not been this relevant for years. At number 4 there is Kansas St. which has quietly gone undefeated thus far. Numbers 1-3 are used to being at the top, Florida, Oregon (my favorite team from the Pac-12), and defending National Champion Alabama. Its all setting up for another fantastic college football season, and surely there are more upsets to come in the second half of the season.
Professional football has been confusing to say the least, some teams have done what we thought they would, and others have been questionable at times. Most expected the Texans and Falcons to be very good this year, but I don't know i they thought they would be this good. Both are undefeated, with the Falcons sitting at 6-0, and the Texans at 5-0, with a Sunday night football matchup with the Green Bay Packers just about to begin. The Packers were a squad many expected to have another strong season, despite losing early in the playoffs last year. This was still a team that went 15-1 in the regular season, and, headlined by a missed call at Seattle, have fallen to 2-3 and are in need of a victory tonight. Another team many expected to replicated the success of last year, the New England Patriots. The Patriots finished the regular season 13-3 last year, and made it all the way to the Super Bowl, before losing to the New York Giants. This year, However, they have struggled to stay consistent. The offense has looked unstoppable at times, and the defense arguably better than last year. But, the Patriots are now 3-3 after losing to the Seahawks in Seattle this afternoon, and questions will be swirling in New England all week long.
I am now going to leave so that I can watch both game one of the NLCS between the Cardinals and the Giants, and Sunday Night Football between the Packers and the Texans. This time of year may be the best for a sports fan. Heck, I even got to watch the Knicks play the Celtics last night in an exhibition game. Theres nothing like sitting on the couch and watching sports for hours...and then remembering you have homework due the next morning. It's going to be a long night.
