Skip to main content

ENJOY LIFE: Watch Sports on TV

A grand weekend of sports watching is here.  While this has little meaning for many, sports on TV, with some actual golfing on the side, are important parts of my life, with eating, sleeping and other viewing pleasure from Netflix/Prime and the like.  And in my case, I will only live this once.

One sport possibly only important in Hawaii, is volleyball.  The NCAA Women's season begins tonight with #3 Pittsburg vs #1 Nebraska and #16 Florida vs #6 Stanford, both available on FOX.  Hawaii has a new team, is not in the top 20, and plays Marquette next Friday, August 29.

Week Zero of NCAA football is this weekend.

  • The first game of the season is always exciting because you are undefeated and could possibly go on to a perfect season.  Hawaii almost did that in 2007, and went on to play Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on 1January2008.
  • Looking ahead, Saturday, November 1, looks good, with Alabama vs LSU, Penn State vs Ohio State, Georgia vs Florida, Miami vs SMU, South Carolina vs Mississippi, Oklahoma vs Tennessee, Arizona State vs Iowa State and Texas Tech vs Kansas State.  
  • Next weekend, August 23, the first weekend when almost every team plays, looks particularly exceptional, with #1 Texas at #3 Ohio State, #8 Alabama at #10 Florida State and #9 LSU at #4 Clemson.
  • The season begins tomorrow, August 23 in Dublin, Ireland at noon, Eastern Daylight Time, when Iowa State plays Kansas State on ESPN.  Stanford at Hawaii at 7:30PM EDT on CBS ends NCAA football this weekend.  Incredibly enough, Hawaii is favored by 2.5 points.  However, next weekend we go to #11 Arizona.
In tennis, the U.S. Open begins play on Sunday, August 24.  This the 145th edition and the fourth and final Grand Slam event of the year.
  • At the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York.
  • Jannick Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka are the former singles champions.
  • Prize money of $90 million, with each singles champ winning $5 million.  Even losing players in the first round of qualifying will receive $27,500.
  • American players hoping to do well are Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Madison Keys, Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton.  The last U.S. men's champ for this tournament was Andy Roddick in 2003.  However, it was only two years ago that Coco Gauff won the women's championship.
  • Select matches can be found on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, as well as every match on ESPN+.

The Golf Tour Championship opened play yesterday at Atlanta's East Lake Golf Club, which has annually hosted this even since 2004.  Is 7440 yards long, with a par-70 and two par-5s.  The top five after yesterday were all Americans.  After the second round today:

There is one major change to this year’s tournament. The Tour eliminated the controversial starting-strokes format from the Tour Championship in its latest attempt to make its season-ending tournament more compelling and climactic. All 30 players in the field will start at even par in a stroke-play tournament. The winner after 72 holes will capture the FedEx Cup and collect a bonus and five-year PGA Tour exemption.

The weather is projected to be fine, but thunderstorms are difficult to predict and the temperature could get up to 93 F on Sunday.  The favorites before play started was Scottie Scheffler (3/2, or 40% chance of winning) and Rory McIlroy (17/2, or 11%  chance).  After two rounds, Scheffler is at -8 and McIlroy is -7.

The first regular season game of the National Football League will be on Thursday, September 4 on NBC, Dallas Cowboys at Philadelphia Eagles.  Super Bowl LX will be a little more than five months later, 8February2026, in Levi Stadium, Santa Clara, California.

Major League Baseball has around five weeks left.

  • American League.
    • East:  Blue Jays hold a comfortable lead.
    • Central:  Same for Tigers.
    • West:  Astros and Mariners are vying.  
    • Wild Card:  Yankees currently looking good, but watch out for the Mariners and Royals.
  • National League.
    • East:  Phillies are ahead of Mets.
    • Central:  Brewers in a commanding lead.
    • West:  A battle between Dodgers and Padres.
    • Wild Card:  Among Dodgers, Padres, Cubs and Mets.
  • Top home run hitters are C. Raleigh (47), K. Schwarber (45), S. Ohtani (44) and A. Judge (40).
  • Batting Average:  A. Judge .329, J. Aranda .316, and J. Pena .306.
  • Stolen Bases:  J. Caballero 40, J. Ramirez 36 and C. Simpson 36.
  • Pitching Wins:  F. Peralta 15.
  • ERA:  P. Skenes 2.16.
  • Strikeouts:  T. Skubal 200.
  • Saves:  C. Estevez 33.
  • Holds:  A. Uribe 33, J. Adam 27 and T. Santillan 27.
  • The regular season ends, and the Wild Card tournament follows.  Kind of complicated, but:
The system was changed in 2022 to add a third wild card team from each league (expanding the playoffs to 12 teams).  First, 8 teams in a best-of-three Wild Card Series featuring the 3 wild cards from each league, plus the lowest record division team.  The winners each play the two better league champions in a best-of-five Division Series. The victors advance to a best-of-seven series to determine the champions of each league. The final two teams play each other in the best-of-seven World Series.  This was the MLB bracket last year.
  • The World Series begins on Friday, October 24, with the champion needing 4 wins.  There is potential for Game 7 to be played on Saturday, November 1.

Netflix streams the boxing match between Saul Canelo Alvarez and Terence Bud Crawford on September 13.  First time these two dominant fighters of their era will meet.  All this for FREE, if you subscribe to Netflix.  Coverage begins at 3:30PM EDT, with main event at 9PM.

Netflix will also stream two NFL games on Christmas Day.  Dallas vs Washington and Detroit vs Minnesota.  Plus, Amazon Prime will this Christmas Thursday show Kansas City vs Denver.

- 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota.  Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north.  Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge.  If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic.  Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing.  The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University.  Caught a bus. Was called the  Century 21 Exposition .  Also the Seattle World's Fair.  10 million joined me on a six-month run.  My first. These a...

OSAKA EXPO: Day One

Well, the day finally came for us to go to the Osaka Expo.  We were told ahead of time that the long walks would be fearful, giant lines will need to be tolerated just to get into the Expo, with those ocean breezes, it would really be cold, and so forth. Maybe it was pure luck, but we avoided all the above warnings  We had a grand day, and are looking forward to Sunday, our second day at the Expo.  So come along for an enjoyable ride. Our hotel is adjacent to the Tennoji Station, a very large one with several lines.  We upgraded our Suica card and caught the Misosuji red line towards Umeda. Transferred to the Chuo green line at the Hommachi Station.  This Osaka Metro train took us to the Yumeshima Station at the Expo site.   It was a very large mob leaving the train and heading to the entrance. Took only a few minutes to get to the entrance.  This mob was multiplied by at least a factor of  ten of those already waiting to enter.  However...

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP on THE ECONOMY and OTHER MATTERS

 President Donald Trump said this weekend: Is not joking about a third term .  Which is better for the U.S. than he unilaterally just becoming a dictator. Will absolutely deliver on his massive  reciprocal tariff plan on April 2 .  He dubs it Liberation Day. Reasserted that the  U.S. would 100% annex Greenland . Will ban refugees....except for White South Africans .  Guess from where comes Elon Musk?  If so, how many refugees has so far expressed interest?   67,000 . Will approve Canadian firm, The Metals Company, to  mine the deep seabed , circumventing international law, drawing denouncement from 40 countries. Lethargic help to Myanmar  recovering from the damage caused by a 7.7 earthquake.  USAID cuts reduces our ability to provide assistance worldwide. Very angry and pissed off at Vladimir Putin  for continuing the Ukraine-Russia War, a first for Trump, who has been giving the Ukraine house away. From the New York Time...