STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS
1 – IDEA FOR THE CJFL – Football is being played issue-free in the United States and the way the crowds are admitted to the stadiums, it tells me the CJFL (specifically the PFC) has a very direct path back to a season and my idea would be to have the cancelled 2020 season in the Spring of 2021 and then have the regular 2021 season pretty much on the normal time frame. Most of these teams play in big facilities and if they don’t, I’m sure it could be arranged to have them play at the CFL homes (Saskatoon being the only one that doesn’t really have a massive stadium to use) and you can easily admit 2500 or so fans to watch the games. My proposal would be to call players back to a training camp in late March. Schedule games beginning April 15th-ish and play 4 games (Calgary, Edmonton Huskies, Edmonton Wildcats) within a division (Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg) and then have a playoff where 2nd plays 3rd and 1st gets a bye. The division winners would then meet in a championship. You should be able to have all of this done by June 1st. The 2021 season could begin after an 8 week break and you could play the normal 8 games. Maybe I’m oversimplifying it, but I don’t think so.
2 – LETHBRIDGE EXPANSION – There is an application from Lethbridge to join the Prairie Football Conference and whether there’s enough time to have them play for 2021 I won’t proclaim to know. Either way, it’s a great sign for junior football and I think there’s a market for this but communities just need the right people in charge. Brandon, Manitoba is the other city that comes immediately to mind.
3 – 2021 CASUALTIES – The Boston Marathon, axed in 2020, is also on the chopping block for 2021 as it was announced the event will be postponed (it’s October 2020) from April to the Fall. Don’t bank on it happening then either. But Tokyo thinks there is going to be an Olympics?
4 – NEW START DATES – There are rumblings the NHL and NBA are looking at getting their seasons started, perhaps, a little sooner than previously thought and the reasoning behind that is because both leagues want to ensure they are back on normal dates by the Fall of 2021. Is it wishful thinking? I still don’t think these leagues can go much further in a format where fans aren’t involved but maybe owners are willing to lose money if they feel strongly about being able to get back to normal by Fall 2021. The longer we go without normal the harder it will be to restore it. That applies to sports but also to everything in life.
5 – RAPTORS/JAYS – I’m not coming off my opinion that Canada will be very slow to react as far as what happens in the United States. The NBA is making plans to move the Raptors to a home in the US so they can avoid the border issue in 2021 and my guess will be Major League Baseball does the same as far the Blue Jays are concerned. I even think if things are rolling normally in the US by 2022, we will still be very cautious up here and three years without professional baseball and basketball in Canada by that time won’t be much more than an afterthought and also far too late for anyone to do anything tangible about it. So is there a potential for Canada to lose these teams permanently? I believe there is, especially when it comes to the Blue Jays.
6 – MAJOR JUNIOR PROPPED UP? – Should the major junior ranks get themselves to the point where they can play but not enough fans are allowed for them to be successful, would the National Hockey League see it as a worthy investment for their future workforce to throw a bunch of money at it in order to keep everyone afloat? Again, I won’t proclaim to know that answer but if the NHL itself is in financial trouble then I’m going to speculate the answer would be ‘no’. However, if you don’t have quality players on the way what do you have for a future product in the event pro hockey doesn’t just end up on the North American industry chopping block?
7 – ONTARIO HOCKEY – I don’t watch news anymore so I’m not sure if this has legs or not but a former coach and current scout in Ontario tells me the OHL is looking at allowing the league to move forward on a return to play in January but it will be 4-on-4, no face-offs, penalty shots instead of penalties, and several other gimmicky aspects will be added in the interest of ‘safety’. I have a newsflash for people coming up with these ‘solutions’: this isn’t hockey.
8 – TURNER COVID – Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner was removed from the World Series clinching game on Wednesday night in the sixth inning because he returned a positive Covid test. Heads exploded everywhere because Turner had an inconclusive test earlier in the day and many felt he should not have played and perhaps the entire game itself should have been called off in the interest of ‘safety’. Now, again I don’t watch sports anymore beyond actual game play but it sounds as though Turner returned for the celebration and is in the front row of a team picture and nobody is wearing a mask. Again, cue the exploding heads. But, chances are pretty good if Turner was contagious he has passed the virus on long before the team photo and since the season is over, the players all have plenty of time to go into isolation. It also shows me that physically fit professional athletes don’t (nor should they) take this virus seriously. As a reminder, much was made about Atlanta first baseman Freddie Freeman having a high fever for a couple of days and maybe he’d suffer from long term effects. He’s quite likely the Most Valuable Player of the NL. So much for that. He recovered just fine.
9 – TURNER LONGEVITY – Turner, who tests positive for Covid and is removed in the sixth inning, stayed in the game longer than Tampa’s starting pitcher, Blake Snell, who was throwing a gem through 5 ⅓ innings but his looney tune manager doesn’t have a functional brain with which to make in-game decisions. Rays bench boss Kevin Cash obeys a computer program that tells him how to best win ball games and there’s an analytical formula somewhere that says Snell should not face the same hitter more than twice in a game no matter how well he’s pitching. In Cash’s defense, he’s not the only cowardly manager to subscribe to analytical ways of running a ball team but it’s the wrong way to do it. Analytics work great for average players but once you get stars or above average performances involved, analytics are totally useless and will make you look every bit the fool Cash deserves to look today.
10 – NICK ANDERSON BURN OUT – I am pretty sure I wrote about this before, but it bears repeating because Cash is such a disciple of analytics: Nick Anderson appeared in 19 games during the regular season and averaged less than 1 inning in each game as he finished with 16 ⅔ innings pitched. In the playoffs, he got scored on in each of his last seven appearances but he also pitched over 14 innings in just 9 games. He wasn’t used the same way at all so how can they expect the same results? One final thing that is not related to Anderson but bears mentioning: Tyler Glasnow was left on the mound for 112 pitches in game five despite the fact he wasn’t nearly as sharp as Snell, who was hooked after 70 dominating tosses. Baseball is truly broken.
(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)
