STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS
1 – JAYS AND RAPTORS – It’s perhaps extra fitting the Toronto NBA team is named after a dinosaur because the franchise is on the brink of extinction if the United States figures out a way to keep professional sports alive while Canada continues to just sit on its hands. Word got out this week about the Raptors playing the 2021 season in Louisville, Kentucky and fans are up in arms. However, if the federal government (to much applause of the Canadian public) wouldn’t allow the Blue Jays to participate when coronavirus cases were at their low, why would anyone think the feds are going to say it’s okay for the Raptors or Blue Jays to play now? It’s not happening. The border isn’t opening (although it’s open now, Canadians just don’t understand that) for a long time and even if the world starts towards a path of normality, Canada will be well behind everyone else because that’s just how we are and whether you agree or not Justin Trudeau has extra motivation to keep us confined for as long as possible and he will.
2 – SPORTS IN CANADA – I’ve said for years Canada isn’t a sports country. Yes, we have a great track record when it comes to producing hockey players and the occasional superstar athlete in other sports but when you look at the carnival like atmosphere in other countries for their national past-times and then compare it to Canada, you can see we just don’t care nearly as much. In the US, entire towns will shut down when their high school football team has a game, meanwhile we have SJHL and WHL centres that are forever struggling to put bums in the seats, university sports that can’t draw flies in some places, and CFL teams that are constantly struggling to stay afloat because of fan indifference. It’s not a criticism of anyone, it’s just how it is and now that sports is on the hit list as far as things being cancelled due to the virus, there isn’t anyone anywhere in Canada putting up a fight to figure out a way to keep them going like there is in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Again, not a criticism. Just a fact. I suppose you could say it’s the necessary price to pay to keep Canadians safe. So be it. I recognize I’m in the small minority or I’d be seeing a lot more publicly from people.
3 – NHL SITUATION – If the National Hockey League gets up and running in January there is almost no chance at all of the Canadian teams being allowed enough fans in order to salvage their business. I am of the belief they can’t play without fans but I guess we will see. Is it possible the NHL tries to find temporary American homes for the seven Canadian franchises? My guess is that it would be possible, especially if there is some sort of formula where partial crowds are permitted and the numbers add up enough so that the financial losses are tolerable. There are crowd friendly governments in Ohio (Cincinnati), Missouri (Kansas City), Texas (Houston), Indiana (Indianapolis), North Dakota (Fargo), Georgia (Jets move to Atlanta?), and Florida (Jacksonville) to name just a few and all of those places wouldn’t have any problem putting 7500-10,000 fans in the seats.
4 – LENNOX LEWIS – The thought of elite Canadian athletes in other sports immediately brought the name Lennox Lewis to mind. I think he may be the most under appreciated pro athlete from Canada in my lifetime. I know that after he won Olympic gold in heavyweight boxing in 1988, he turned professional and billed himself as being British, but he is and always will be Canadian. Lewis went 41-2-and-1 in his pro career and both of his losses were because he didn’t take his opponent (Oliver McCall and Hahsim Rahmad) seriously. He beat both of them in rematches and one of his last fights ever was an eight round beating of Mike Tyson. The era of Lewis, Tyson, Holyfield, Ruddock, etc was one where I followed very closely however it was also the day and age of very expensive pay-per-views so I often didn’t get to see the fights until well past the actual date of occurrence. Lewis/Tyson I saw for the first time just a few months ago. I have to say Lewis was probably the best of them all.
5 – FITZMAGIC SHOW CANCELLED – The Miami Dolphins have pulled the rug out from underneath Ryan Fitzpatrick, making him the back-up quarterback once they return after their bye next week. Fitzpatrick has led the team to a serviceable 3-and-3 record and has played solidly. This is where I am always befuddled with professional organizations who fail to communicate with their loyal employees. Fitzpatrick is no dummy and he knows he’s keeping the seat warm for Tua Tagovailoa. So why didn’t the Dolphins sit Fitzpatrick down this past offseason and map out a plan for the transition rather than just blindsiding him in a Zoom call? With 6 TD passes and 2 INTs and two wins in the last two weeks, I think Fitz has every reason to feel slighted here.
6 – LAME DUCK ORGANIZATIONS – Players who have no intention of re-signing with their original teams once they hit free agency should always be moved once it has become apparent the organization has no chance of keeping the player. Originally, I was upset with the Boston Red Sox trading Mookie Betts because I felt once he hit free agency, they could outbid anyone else and keep him in the fold. However, Betts only proclaimed to want free agency because he didn’t want to upset the Boston fan base. The reality was that he never ever was going to re-sign with them and that was obvious after he did put his name on ink to paper on a long term deal with the Dodgers before the season restart. In retrospect, the Red Sox did very well in this trade by securing a good outfielder in Alex Verdugo, a decent prospect in Jeter Downs, a lotto ticket in Connor Wong, and they also rid themselves of David Price.
7 – LAINE SITUATION – The point above brings me to the Patrik Laine situation and if it’s reached the point of no return with him, they have to trade him and it has to happen soon. I guess one of the things that bugs me about this is that Evander Kane was chased away (possibly for good reason), Jacob Trouba was shown the door (possibly for good reason), Dustin Byfuglien went away (possibly for good reason), and now Laine may follow suit. It’s either time for the Winnipeg Jets to start drafting better people as far as characters go or else they need to look in the mirror and figure out why this problem has turned into a pattern. What is apparent is that Blake Wheeler and Mark Scheifele want to play together and since Laine and Wheeler play the same position, there is no hope of him being on the top line. My opinion is that it’s time for Laine to supplant Wheeler and make Wheeler either a second line centre or a second line right winger. I wonder who’s really the problem. Is it Laine, Scheifele, Wheeler, Paul Maurice, or Kevin Cheveldayoff? He’s been my favorite Jet since day one, but the optics on Wheeler right now are not good. The optics on Chevy aren’t bad as he went out and got Paul Stastny, a second line centre Laine was happy with two years ago. Still the tail should not be wagging the dog.
8 – GAME TWO WORLD SERIES – Painful. I only watched it because I wanted to write about it in this column. The bloated payroll Dodgers used an opener and it failed badly. Somehow MLB has gone from using an opener as a means to get through a game when there is a starter unavailable to it being an actual strategy to win. Analytics has truly destroyed baseball. It was 1-0 Tampa in the fourth, yet the Dodgers went through four different pitchers. The game dragged terribly and wasn’t fun to watch. Tampa, which also loves to get their starters out of the game as quickly as possible, had their ace-Blake Snell, on the mound. The problem with Snell is that he seldom goes longer than five innings. He was pitching a no hitter through four but never got out of the fifth as he was completely out of gas after 75 pitches.
9 – OTHER BASEBALL ISSUES – The diminished importance of a starting pitcher is only one problem baseball has and I feel it’s worth noting that as recently as 2005 the Chicago White Sox won a five game series against the Angels and they only used one reliever the entire series and he pitched ⅔ of an inning (Neal Cotts). Jose Contreras pitched two games, 8 ⅓ in one and a complete game in the other. Mark Buehrle, Freddy Garcia, and Jon Garland all threw complete games in the others. Then in the World Series sweep of the Astros, all four of those starters went a minimum 7 innings in each game.
10 – SPEED IT UP – I’ve long said a clock isn’t necessary and while I still believe that, the reality is that umpires are not going to tell pitchers and batters to hurry up. So I think there needs to be a 20 second clock and whoever isn’t ready within that time has a ball or a strike called. The other problem is that watching a strikeout or a home run isn’t my idea of fun. How to fix this isn’t easy but I miss the strategy of traffic on the bases and using the gaps to score runs. If I go back to 2005, Scott Podsednik stole 59 bases on the World Series Champion White Sox. Of their nine regular batters, only three struck out more than 100 times and each of those three were barely over the century mark. AJ Pierzynski fanned just 68 times in 500 plate appearances. Meanwhile, the 2019 World Series Champion Washington Nationals had 7 of their 8 regulars whiff more than 100 times. If you combined the catchers (Kurt Suzuki and Yan Gomes) they are also well over 100 Ks. Two of them, Victor Robles and Juan Soto were well over a 100 and both are considered young elite MLB hitters.
BONUS – If you really want to see how much the game has changed as far as strikeouts here are the season strikeout totals for the players on the 1985 Blue Jays, who won the AL East: Ernie Whitt 59, Willie Upshaw 71, Damaso Garcia 41, Tony Fernandez 41, Rance Mulliniks 54, Garth Iorg 26, George Bell 90, Lloyd Moseby 91, Jesse Barfield 143. Garcia, Fernandez, Bell, Moseby, and Barfield also exceeded 600 plate appearances, which is something else you don’t see anymore from these coddled players either.
(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)
