By Bo Allegrucci
It's fall, and fall is when I fall in love with sports all over again. Some people don’t understand why I love sports the way I do. They just can’t fathom calling in sick to watch game seven. They can’t empathize with a fan spending his entire vacation and most of his savings to follow his alma mater to the college world series. They can’t believe I schedule my entire Saturday around Miami Hurricane games throughout the fall. They can’t relate to a person whose wardrobe allows him to go half the year without wearing the same jersey twice. They would never be able to justify the cost of season tickets. Sure, real life is more important than sports, but they were dumbfounded when I found that dumb. They could never rationalize spending an entire Thanksgiving on the couch in front of a TV, and they can’t comprehend someone making $25,000 as a sports writer instead of $50,000 as a sheep.
When faced with the obligation of such a complex explanation, I often resort to poetry, and that’s when they know it’s me … that’s when they notice me. Sports may not make cents to them; sports might not mean much to them; sports isn’t school, church or work to them, but sports are to me what all those are to them. I study sports in lessons, I work within sports for little or no wealth, I have few favorite teams but I worship the game itself. When you have an athlete in your blood and a fan in your heart, sports are your life, and ‘til death do you part.
I love sports because basketball, football and hockey teams all have centers, and Notre Dame, Holy Cross and St. John’s all have sinners.
You don’t always pick on someone your own size because size doesn’t always pick the winners.
I love sports because guards are big on the football field yet small on the basketball court, and the NBA is short on true centers but a true center will never be short.
I love sports because driving the lane has nothing to do with your car, and even the worst player in the pro’s was a high school star.
La Crosse is both a game and a town, and “pitch” can be a verb or a noun.
I love sports because good coverage has nothing to do with insurance, and perseverance at its purest comes at the end of your endurance.
I love sports because folks without green cards get yellow and red cards, and your favorite player will buy a dozen homes after he gets a thousand yards.
I love sports because you always know what the game looks like but you never know what you'll see. Free throws are often costly and free agents are never free.
I love sports because 100 miles-an-hour won’t get you a ticket, and they even named an insect after a game called cricket.
I love sports because you can foul out in baseball and bat four more times, but foul out in basketball and you’re riding the pine.
A benchwarmer shoots 30 percent from the 3-point line but an all-star hits a baseball 30 percent of the time.
I love sports because your rival tomorrow was your teammate today, and ‘Magic’ was an expansion club in Orlando but a legend in L.A.
I love sports because men cry their eyes out and slap each other on the butt, but they only stop bleeding when they finally get cut.
I love sports because the drunk guy behind you always has a point when he opens his mouth, and the great-grandchildren of slaves and slave-owners wear the same colors in the same section every Saturday in the south..
I love sports because ‘tackle’ can be a noun or a verb, an ace can be a pitcher or a serve, and some saves take a tenth of a second while others go an inning and a third.
I love sports because there’s a Hurricane in Tulsa and a hockey team in the desert, and wherever your team calls home there will always be storms to weather.
A safety can score a safety, and if your offense is struggling like that you won’t want to debate me.
I love sports because a pre-game shot in the elbow can help you hit the game-winning shot from the elbow, and it can’t be a foul ball if the ball hit the foul pole.
You can have a 1-0 lead in anything but football, and while you avoid the penalty box in hockey, you do your best to get there in futbol.
I love sports because Dominican immigrants with broken English and black men with high school diplomas make $100 million over four years. You’re in your prime by 29 but age 38 seems to crumble careers.
I love sports because you must know who’s playing to know the score, and you’re only a seasoned veteran because of last season’s war.
A struggling baseball team might get its order sacked, while a nickel or a dime might be enough change to waste your quarterback.
I love sports because all the players want a ring on their finger, and Keena Turner was neither a woman nor a singer.
Goal tending is illegal in basketball but vital in hockey and soccer, and if my girlfriend tries to understand that I won't try to stop her.
I love sports because field goals are up to 63 yards on the gridiron but less than 94 feet on the hardwood, and a credit card couldn’t put your kids through college back when a baseball card could.
I love sports because they’ll fire your manager if you don’t produce, and love equals zero but match point can never be deuce.
I love sports because statistics never lie, and we all know that isn’t true.
I love sports because I can hate your team and still love you.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
A Hurricane Warning Has Been Issued
I'll preface this post by admitting I'm a lifelong Miami Hurricane fan, and for those who aren't, the Canes, the U, Miami (Fla.) is back. They might not be back where they used to be, but they are indeed back as far as college football is concerned, and college football is a better place (and product) because of it.
The brash, braggadocios, ultra talented, unbeatable, unapologetic Miami teams of the 1980's and 90's helped make college football what it is (and is not) today, and whether you love them or hate them, the sport itself needs the Canes. If you love them like I do, then you need that anti-establishment, dark-side-of-the-force, indomitable athletic powerhouse to pull for every weekend throughout the fall. The modern college football game has become bogged down by a suppressive, stifling, unimaginative, politically correct rulebook and its subsequent status-quo officiating. The modern college football culture is mired in BCS corruption and plantation hypocrisy left over from the good ol' boy networks of the deep south.
If you hate the Miami Hurricanes, then chances are you still cling to every institution I just trashed, and you need that villainous anti-christ to root against every Saturday. I became a Miami fan growing up in Kansas in the 1980's. How the hell does a midwestern boy become a Miami Hurricane fan? Simple: I loved football from an early age, and our football in Kansas sucked at the time. Kansas State was still a decade away from Bill Snyder's rapturous resurrection, and with Wichita State cancelling its entire football program after the 1986 season, one of the only college programs worse than K-State at the time was KU. I grew ill watching Oklahoma and Nebraska obliterate KU and K-State week after week, season after season, but I found my salvation on New Year's night, 1984.
Suddenly the top-ranked and seemingly invincible Nebraska Cornhuskers were losing 31-17 in the fourth quarter of the Orange Bowl, at the Orange Bowl, to the hometown Hurricanes. Everyone remembers Nebraska's frantic comeback and Tom Osborne's fateful decision: a two-point conversion in the final minute that would've given the Huskers a one-point win and a national championship. I was four years old at the time, and the pending call on TV was one of my earliest memories of life: "This is for the national championship for Nebraska...".
With the ball on the 3 at the open end of the Orange Bowl, Nebraska quarterback and current Buffalo University head coach Turner Gill rolled right and flicked a pass toward an open receiver in the end zone. Miami safety Ken Calhoun got their first, deflecting the ball off the Nebraska receiver's facemask and onto the ground for an upset that changed college football forever.
Beginning with that night, Miami has won (and lost) more national championship games than any other college program in the last quarter century. The Canes beat Oklahoma in the regular season in 1985 and '86 before tricking another national title on Vinny Testaverde's late interception against Penn State in the '86 Fiesta Bowl. That was the game when Vinny and the Canes got off the plane in Phoenix wearing Army camouflage fatigues, and that was a microcosm of the Miami mystique. They knew they were going to beat you and you knew they were going to let you know about it afterwards. If you beat them, you just happened to catch them on a lucky night, and they'd get you back next season.
Throughout the 1980's and early 90's, Miami Hurricane football players were the kings of a city that was becoming the east coast's version of Hollywood. Future first-round draft picks and NFL hall-of-famers were regulars onstage at 2 Live Crew concerts and VIP's at South Beach nightclubs. They danced in the end zone after touchdowns, they took their helmets off and smiled for the cameras after interceptions, they stood celebrating over pulverized enemies after quarterback sacks, they taunted the Texas players, coaches and fans leading 46-3 on national TV in the 1990 Cotton Bowl.
The Hurricanes did all the things that draw 15-yard penalty flags now days, and in fact, the Miami football program is the very reason those acts draw 15-yard penalty flags now days. Me personally, I loved every minute of it, and I long for it all over again. Miami had me hooked after their 31-30 defeat of Nebraska in the 1984 Orange Bowl, and the adoration only grew as I did. I loved everything about the U ... the unique orange & green colors, the Ibis mascot, the smokescreen through which they entered the field before kickoff, the contrast of players having skin so dark their faces were indiscernible beneath their bright white facemasks and helmets. And all this unfolding in their fabled homefield inside the Orange Bowl, where some of the greatest college and pro football games of all-time were played, and the east end of the stadium opened up to palm trees and Little Havana with downtown Miami off in the background.
The Hurricanes won an NCAA record 58 consecutive home games between 1985 and 1994, and they continued to capitalize on their homefield advantage in the postseason. Miami beat Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl for the 1987 national title, and the Canes overcame regular-season loss to Florida State to win it all again in 1989. Miami mauled Nebraska again on their homefield in the 1988 and 1991 Orange Bowls, with the latter bringing the U its fourth national championship in less than a decade. The Hurricanes were closing in on back-to-back titles in 1992 before being upset by Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, a game I still believe to this day Miami tanked intentionally.
Nebraska finally conquered the Canes for a national title in the 1994 Orange Bowl, but after enduring a brief probation in the late 1990's, Miami got its revenge by embarrassing the Huskers for their fifth national title in the 2001 Rose Bowl. The Hurricanes again had a shot at back-to-back titles before the worst pass interference call in NCAA history helped Ohio State steal the Sears Trophy at the 2002 Fiesta Bowl.
Miami slowly faded from the football forefront again in the last couple seasons, but now there's a storm steaming towards the south Florida shores once more. As a lifelong Hurricane fan, I didn't used to get excited about beating Georgia Tech at home on a Thursday night. It used to take a 27-10 rout of top-ranked Notre Dame, or a missed kick at Florida State, or a four-touchdown comeback over Florida to get me excited, but after going without my beloved Canes for a few years, I can tell when they boys are back in town. I know Miami football when I see it, and I saw it last night when they beat G-Tech 33-17 in a game that wasn't that close.
The Hurricanes had lost four straight games to the Yellow Jackets, including an embarrassing 41-23 beating last year in Atlanta that was as much indicative of Miami's loss of conference control as anything else. The Canes' defense -- once the most feared in college football year in and year out -- had been undisciplined in recent years, with poor tackling and blown assignments a regular occurrence. Their offense -- once the most dynamic and futuristic in the college game -- was even worse than the defense, with talent and play-calling a major issue over the last couple recruiting classes and offensive coordinators. The same program that once had a record six first-round picks in one NFL draft couldn't keep its good local high school talent to itself anymore.
But it's now 2009, and Miami has always fared well in odd-numbered years. Offensive coordinator Mark Whipple and sophomore quarterback Jacory Harris have the Orange & Green daydreaming about the past and the future in one swell vision. Meanwhile, Miami's defense -- which won five national titles because it could disintegrate an option play with its defensive line alone -- suffocated the Ramblin' Rec's trendy option offense Thursday night like a banana in a tailpipe. Now the '09 Hurricanes are 2-0 and halfway through their four-game murderer's row schedule to start the season. If the Canes can beat Virginia Tech on the road next week and take Oklahoma down in Miami Oct. 3, then it's time once again to start talking about Miami as a national championship contender (whether you like it or not). If Miami loses these next two games, or wins just one of the two, then the young Canes are still a year away, but the weak ACC is still winnable this season.
My Miami has almost returned to the promiseland of prominence it left behind earlier this decade, but there's one element that sadly will never return: the Orange Bowl. Miami once played before 75,000+ just a few miles from its campus in a one-of-a-kind, landmark venue. Now they play before an unpacked house at the stadium formerly known as Joe Robbie, which is about 93 million miles north of downtown Miami and the Canes' Coral Gables campus. The U might as well play their home games in Havana, and I know because I've been seen the set-up first-hand.
In September of 2004, I made a pilgrimage to Miami with my girlfriend, Nancy. She lives there now, and she's married to an Italian alien, but that's neither here nor there. At the time, Nancy and I had just graduated college, and I scored tickets to the Miami-Florida State season opener in the Orange Bowl on Labor Day night. That was the year Hurricane Francis trashed Miami the week of the game and killed Bobby Bowden's son-in-law and nephew. Nancy and I stayed with my aunt and uncle in Georgia for a few extra days and then drove through the remnants of Francis to get to Miami for the game, which was moved to the following Friday.
I remember the feeling that came over me on gamenight as the Orange Bowl came into sight. I felt like a Muslim in Mecca, and we got to the stadium an hour before kickoff so I could tour the site. We ran into another couple visiting from Las Vegas, and each of us took pictures of each other to mark the occasion.
That was an unforgettable night in one of America's irreplaceable modern coliseums, and Miami Hurricane football needs a new home to call its own as it enters a new era of dominance in the 21st century. I was sad when I heard the Orange Bowl would be closing, and even sadder when the Canes ended the Orange Bowl era with an unceremonious and uncharacteristic 48-0 loss to Virginia in 2007. Now The U shares a homefield with the Miami Dolphins, just as they did before the 'Phins abandoned the Orange Bowl for Joe Robbie in the mid-80's. While I was in Miami in 2004, I took a busride out past the swampy suburbs to catch a Marlins game in Joe Robbie (now known as LandShark Stadium!?), and while it is a grand structure, it's no place for Miami Hurricane football.
The Florida Marlins also call LandShark home, but not for long. They finally got the city of Miami to help facilitate a new baseball stadium downtown, and the University needs to do the same for its famed football program. Now days, Hurricane home games are a 30 to 45-minute drive for the college students, and the joint is barely half full for the average ACC conference clash. That's unacceptable by anyone's standards, let alone Hurricane heritage. The U needs a football facility overhaul from top to bottom, but they need to start with a stadium to call their own. The city of Miami -- long smothered and subsidized by organized crime and Caribbean cartels -- should also spend a little of its laundered money to help bring one of its most indelible institutions back inside the city limits.
The brash, braggadocios, ultra talented, unbeatable, unapologetic Miami teams of the 1980's and 90's helped make college football what it is (and is not) today, and whether you love them or hate them, the sport itself needs the Canes. If you love them like I do, then you need that anti-establishment, dark-side-of-the-force, indomitable athletic powerhouse to pull for every weekend throughout the fall. The modern college football game has become bogged down by a suppressive, stifling, unimaginative, politically correct rulebook and its subsequent status-quo officiating. The modern college football culture is mired in BCS corruption and plantation hypocrisy left over from the good ol' boy networks of the deep south.
If you hate the Miami Hurricanes, then chances are you still cling to every institution I just trashed, and you need that villainous anti-christ to root against every Saturday. I became a Miami fan growing up in Kansas in the 1980's. How the hell does a midwestern boy become a Miami Hurricane fan? Simple: I loved football from an early age, and our football in Kansas sucked at the time. Kansas State was still a decade away from Bill Snyder's rapturous resurrection, and with Wichita State cancelling its entire football program after the 1986 season, one of the only college programs worse than K-State at the time was KU. I grew ill watching Oklahoma and Nebraska obliterate KU and K-State week after week, season after season, but I found my salvation on New Year's night, 1984.
Suddenly the top-ranked and seemingly invincible Nebraska Cornhuskers were losing 31-17 in the fourth quarter of the Orange Bowl, at the Orange Bowl, to the hometown Hurricanes. Everyone remembers Nebraska's frantic comeback and Tom Osborne's fateful decision: a two-point conversion in the final minute that would've given the Huskers a one-point win and a national championship. I was four years old at the time, and the pending call on TV was one of my earliest memories of life: "This is for the national championship for Nebraska...".
With the ball on the 3 at the open end of the Orange Bowl, Nebraska quarterback and current Buffalo University head coach Turner Gill rolled right and flicked a pass toward an open receiver in the end zone. Miami safety Ken Calhoun got their first, deflecting the ball off the Nebraska receiver's facemask and onto the ground for an upset that changed college football forever.
Beginning with that night, Miami has won (and lost) more national championship games than any other college program in the last quarter century. The Canes beat Oklahoma in the regular season in 1985 and '86 before tricking another national title on Vinny Testaverde's late interception against Penn State in the '86 Fiesta Bowl. That was the game when Vinny and the Canes got off the plane in Phoenix wearing Army camouflage fatigues, and that was a microcosm of the Miami mystique. They knew they were going to beat you and you knew they were going to let you know about it afterwards. If you beat them, you just happened to catch them on a lucky night, and they'd get you back next season.
Throughout the 1980's and early 90's, Miami Hurricane football players were the kings of a city that was becoming the east coast's version of Hollywood. Future first-round draft picks and NFL hall-of-famers were regulars onstage at 2 Live Crew concerts and VIP's at South Beach nightclubs. They danced in the end zone after touchdowns, they took their helmets off and smiled for the cameras after interceptions, they stood celebrating over pulverized enemies after quarterback sacks, they taunted the Texas players, coaches and fans leading 46-3 on national TV in the 1990 Cotton Bowl.
The Hurricanes did all the things that draw 15-yard penalty flags now days, and in fact, the Miami football program is the very reason those acts draw 15-yard penalty flags now days. Me personally, I loved every minute of it, and I long for it all over again. Miami had me hooked after their 31-30 defeat of Nebraska in the 1984 Orange Bowl, and the adoration only grew as I did. I loved everything about the U ... the unique orange & green colors, the Ibis mascot, the smokescreen through which they entered the field before kickoff, the contrast of players having skin so dark their faces were indiscernible beneath their bright white facemasks and helmets. And all this unfolding in their fabled homefield inside the Orange Bowl, where some of the greatest college and pro football games of all-time were played, and the east end of the stadium opened up to palm trees and Little Havana with downtown Miami off in the background.
The Hurricanes won an NCAA record 58 consecutive home games between 1985 and 1994, and they continued to capitalize on their homefield advantage in the postseason. Miami beat Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl for the 1987 national title, and the Canes overcame regular-season loss to Florida State to win it all again in 1989. Miami mauled Nebraska again on their homefield in the 1988 and 1991 Orange Bowls, with the latter bringing the U its fourth national championship in less than a decade. The Hurricanes were closing in on back-to-back titles in 1992 before being upset by Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, a game I still believe to this day Miami tanked intentionally.
Nebraska finally conquered the Canes for a national title in the 1994 Orange Bowl, but after enduring a brief probation in the late 1990's, Miami got its revenge by embarrassing the Huskers for their fifth national title in the 2001 Rose Bowl. The Hurricanes again had a shot at back-to-back titles before the worst pass interference call in NCAA history helped Ohio State steal the Sears Trophy at the 2002 Fiesta Bowl.
Miami slowly faded from the football forefront again in the last couple seasons, but now there's a storm steaming towards the south Florida shores once more. As a lifelong Hurricane fan, I didn't used to get excited about beating Georgia Tech at home on a Thursday night. It used to take a 27-10 rout of top-ranked Notre Dame, or a missed kick at Florida State, or a four-touchdown comeback over Florida to get me excited, but after going without my beloved Canes for a few years, I can tell when they boys are back in town. I know Miami football when I see it, and I saw it last night when they beat G-Tech 33-17 in a game that wasn't that close.
The Hurricanes had lost four straight games to the Yellow Jackets, including an embarrassing 41-23 beating last year in Atlanta that was as much indicative of Miami's loss of conference control as anything else. The Canes' defense -- once the most feared in college football year in and year out -- had been undisciplined in recent years, with poor tackling and blown assignments a regular occurrence. Their offense -- once the most dynamic and futuristic in the college game -- was even worse than the defense, with talent and play-calling a major issue over the last couple recruiting classes and offensive coordinators. The same program that once had a record six first-round picks in one NFL draft couldn't keep its good local high school talent to itself anymore.
But it's now 2009, and Miami has always fared well in odd-numbered years. Offensive coordinator Mark Whipple and sophomore quarterback Jacory Harris have the Orange & Green daydreaming about the past and the future in one swell vision. Meanwhile, Miami's defense -- which won five national titles because it could disintegrate an option play with its defensive line alone -- suffocated the Ramblin' Rec's trendy option offense Thursday night like a banana in a tailpipe. Now the '09 Hurricanes are 2-0 and halfway through their four-game murderer's row schedule to start the season. If the Canes can beat Virginia Tech on the road next week and take Oklahoma down in Miami Oct. 3, then it's time once again to start talking about Miami as a national championship contender (whether you like it or not). If Miami loses these next two games, or wins just one of the two, then the young Canes are still a year away, but the weak ACC is still winnable this season.
My Miami has almost returned to the promiseland of prominence it left behind earlier this decade, but there's one element that sadly will never return: the Orange Bowl. Miami once played before 75,000+ just a few miles from its campus in a one-of-a-kind, landmark venue. Now they play before an unpacked house at the stadium formerly known as Joe Robbie, which is about 93 million miles north of downtown Miami and the Canes' Coral Gables campus. The U might as well play their home games in Havana, and I know because I've been seen the set-up first-hand.
In September of 2004, I made a pilgrimage to Miami with my girlfriend, Nancy. She lives there now, and she's married to an Italian alien, but that's neither here nor there. At the time, Nancy and I had just graduated college, and I scored tickets to the Miami-Florida State season opener in the Orange Bowl on Labor Day night. That was the year Hurricane Francis trashed Miami the week of the game and killed Bobby Bowden's son-in-law and nephew. Nancy and I stayed with my aunt and uncle in Georgia for a few extra days and then drove through the remnants of Francis to get to Miami for the game, which was moved to the following Friday.
I remember the feeling that came over me on gamenight as the Orange Bowl came into sight. I felt like a Muslim in Mecca, and we got to the stadium an hour before kickoff so I could tour the site. We ran into another couple visiting from Las Vegas, and each of us took pictures of each other to mark the occasion.
Our seats were on the very front row of the upper deck, just off the corner of the end zone in the open end of the stadium along the Miami sideline. The Miami-Florida State rivalry is one of the fiercest in all of sports, and you have to see it for yourself to understand the underlying tensions. There were no fewer than nine fights that night in the Orange Bowl before, during and after the game, and no fewer than 33 people arrested or escorted from the stadium (I counted).
Our seats happened to be amongst a group of middle-aged men who had been coming to Hurricane games since the glory days of the early 80's. I remember two of them in particular: a tall, raspy-voiced, Dutch-South African-lookin' dude and a heavy-set Hispanic fellow who claimed to have been a center on Miami's 1987 national title team. They told stories all night long about Wide Right II and III against Florida State, and the Notre Dame game in 1985 when they spilled a full beer all over the Fighting Irish fan in front of them. I remember watching that game on TV as a little boy: Notre Dame entered with eventual Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown, but Miami shut them both out 24-0.
Back to 2004, where these guys showed us how Miami gets down. They shared some travel-sized bottles of Skyy vodka with us throughout the game, and whenever they came back from the concession stand with one too many hot dogs, they gave us the surplus. The tall, raspy-voiced, Dutch-South African-lookin' guy had a thing for my Nancy ... he would check her out every so often when she stood up to cheer or go to the restroom, and he even gave her an orange & green, Mardi Gras-style necklace with footballs on it. She gave it to me after the game.
As for that game, it was another classic between Miami and FSU. Sophomore Devin Hester blocked a field goal that would've put the game out of reach late in the fourth quarter, and Miami drove the other direction and forced overtime when Sinorice Moss took a flanker screen 33-yards for a touchdown to tie the game at 10 in the closing seconds. I remember sailing out of my seat and nearly falling to my death over the front edge of the Orange Bowl's upper deck as Santana's little brother crossed the goal line. That would've been a fine way to go as far as I'm concerned.
The Hurricanes held Florida State scoreless on the first overtime possession, and senior Frank Gore scored untouched from 25 yards out on the first play of Miami's OT possession to win the game, 16-10. I used an old-school disposable camera to snap a picture of the Canes' sideline as it emptied onto the field in celebration.
That was an unforgettable night in one of America's irreplaceable modern coliseums, and Miami Hurricane football needs a new home to call its own as it enters a new era of dominance in the 21st century. I was sad when I heard the Orange Bowl would be closing, and even sadder when the Canes ended the Orange Bowl era with an unceremonious and uncharacteristic 48-0 loss to Virginia in 2007. Now The U shares a homefield with the Miami Dolphins, just as they did before the 'Phins abandoned the Orange Bowl for Joe Robbie in the mid-80's. While I was in Miami in 2004, I took a busride out past the swampy suburbs to catch a Marlins game in Joe Robbie (now known as LandShark Stadium!?), and while it is a grand structure, it's no place for Miami Hurricane football.
The Florida Marlins also call LandShark home, but not for long. They finally got the city of Miami to help facilitate a new baseball stadium downtown, and the University needs to do the same for its famed football program. Now days, Hurricane home games are a 30 to 45-minute drive for the college students, and the joint is barely half full for the average ACC conference clash. That's unacceptable by anyone's standards, let alone Hurricane heritage. The U needs a football facility overhaul from top to bottom, but they need to start with a stadium to call their own. The city of Miami -- long smothered and subsidized by organized crime and Caribbean cartels -- should also spend a little of its laundered money to help bring one of its most indelible institutions back inside the city limits.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
What Classic?
By Bo Allegrucci
KANSAS CITY--It's hard to have a showdown when only one team shows up.
The eighth annual Fall Classic -- perhaps the premier Division II football rivalry, played each season in Arrowhead Stadium between MIAA heavyweights Northwest Missouri State and Pittsburg State -- did not live up to its billing ... again.
No. 7 Northwest Missouri dumped 20 first-quarter points on fourth-ranked Pittsburg and slammed the door with a fourth-quarter touchdown that made the final 30-10 Saturday in the home of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Northwest has now won six straight over Pitt State and 13 of the last 16 dating back to the mid 1990's, and while PSU needed a win over the Bearcats, Northwest needed this game this season (and wanted it) a little more than the Gorillas.
"Only" 20,813 fans -- the third lowest total in the rivalry's nine-year stay at Arrowhead -- met in KC this time around, and most of the Pitt State faction was headed for the exits midway through the fourth quarter. The Gorilla defense actually kept itself in the game, but the Northwest defense kept the game to itself.
The Bearcats' defensive line squashed everything that moved, and their pursuit pushed Pittsburg quarterback John McCoy into a pair of costly first-half interceptions. Northwest cornerback Aldwin Foster-Rettig made the first INT at the Pitt 33-yard line midway through the first quarter, which led to LaRon Council's one-yard score and a 7-0 Bearcat lead four plays later.
After a Pittsburg 3-and-out, Northwest converted two third downs on its next drive before tight end Kyle Kilgore capped the 62-yard march with a 2-yard touchdown reception from Blake Bolles. The Gorillas blocked the extra point, but Bearcat safety Marcus Martin intercepted McCoy three plays into the next PSU possession and took the rock 38 yards down the right sideline, leaping over McCoy into the end zone in front of the Bearcat faithful for a pick-6 and a 20-0 lead.
KANSAS CITY--It's hard to have a showdown when only one team shows up.
The eighth annual Fall Classic -- perhaps the premier Division II football rivalry, played each season in Arrowhead Stadium between MIAA heavyweights Northwest Missouri State and Pittsburg State -- did not live up to its billing ... again.
No. 7 Northwest Missouri dumped 20 first-quarter points on fourth-ranked Pittsburg and slammed the door with a fourth-quarter touchdown that made the final 30-10 Saturday in the home of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Northwest has now won six straight over Pitt State and 13 of the last 16 dating back to the mid 1990's, and while PSU needed a win over the Bearcats, Northwest needed this game this season (and wanted it) a little more than the Gorillas.
"Only" 20,813 fans -- the third lowest total in the rivalry's nine-year stay at Arrowhead -- met in KC this time around, and most of the Pitt State faction was headed for the exits midway through the fourth quarter. The Gorilla defense actually kept itself in the game, but the Northwest defense kept the game to itself.
The Bearcats' defensive line squashed everything that moved, and their pursuit pushed Pittsburg quarterback John McCoy into a pair of costly first-half interceptions. Northwest cornerback Aldwin Foster-Rettig made the first INT at the Pitt 33-yard line midway through the first quarter, which led to LaRon Council's one-yard score and a 7-0 Bearcat lead four plays later.
After a Pittsburg 3-and-out, Northwest converted two third downs on its next drive before tight end Kyle Kilgore capped the 62-yard march with a 2-yard touchdown reception from Blake Bolles. The Gorillas blocked the extra point, but Bearcat safety Marcus Martin intercepted McCoy three plays into the next PSU possession and took the rock 38 yards down the right sideline, leaping over McCoy into the end zone in front of the Bearcat faithful for a pick-6 and a 20-0 lead.
Northwest Missouri defensive end Tyler Roach (91) ends up horizontal as he attempts to block a Pittsburg State punt Saturday in the first quarter. Below, Bearcat tailback LaRon Council (27, who had 22 touches for 131 all-purpose yards and a rushing touchdown) elevates to catch a key third-down pass during Northwest' second scoring drive.
Northwest added a second-quarter field goal to make it 23-0, but Pitt State finally found its way home with a 13-play, 79-yard drive and an 11-yard McCoy touchdown run with 24 seconds on the first-half clock. The Gorillas seemed to have a faint trace of momentum heading into halftime, but only a pair of third-quarter interceptions by the Pitt State defense kept things from detiriorating into all-out embarrassment after the break.
The Bearcats took the second-half kickoff and were headed in for a certain score before Gorilla cornerback Bryan McMurtrey snatched a Bolles pass out of the air at the PSU 2-yard line. After the Pitt offense was stopped on downs near midfield, Pittsburg's other corner, Dustin Heckroth, intercepted Bolles on the first play of the fourth quarter inside the Pitt 30.
The Gorillas pushed all the way to the Northwest 3-yard line before settling for a 20-yard field goal that closed the gap to 23-10 with 11 minutes remaining. After a Northwest punt, McCoy threw another INT to Foster-Rettig midway through the fourth quarter, and Bolles converted that pick into a 12-yard touchdown toss to Brian Shannon with 6:32 remaining.
Bolles finished 17-of-29 for 193 yards, two TD's and two INT's, while McCoy was just 7-of-18 for three interceptions and three sacks. McCoy can thank the Bearcats' dominant D-line for most of his troubles: ends Tyler Roach and Kyle Sunderman, tackles Shayne Shade and Josh Lorenson, and back-ups Sean Paddock and Micah Wilson.
Kyle Sunderman (94), Josh Lorenson (99), Sean Paddock (97) and Tyler Roach (91) look to the sidelines for their defensive call Saturday in second half. Below, Shane Shayde (98) needs no helmet to pursue Pitt State quarterback John McCoy as Paddock gathers McCoy's legs. This sack moved Paddock to within one of the school's career sack record. 
Northwest is now 2-1 on the season and 2-0 in the MIAA, with a 16-point first quarter at second-ranked Abilene Christian (in a 19-14 loss) the only thing between them and a perfect record with Nebraska-Omaha's coming to Maryville Saturday.
Pittsburg State is also 2-1 overall but 0-1 in conference, and the Apes hope to rebound this week at 18th-ranked Central Missouri State -- Pitt State's fourth consecutive ranked opponent to start the season.
MORE PHOTOS FROM SATURDAY'S FALL CLASSIC VIII IN ARROWHEAD STADIUM
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Pittsburg State vs. Northwest Missouri State: The Fall Classic of Division II Football
WHY FOOTBALL MATTERS
As is the case with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, football has always been – and will always be – a big part of life in Pittsburg, Kansas. Unlike its more metropolitan namesake, Pittsburg, Kansas, has no ‘H’ at the end, and this town of just under 20,000 is located northwest of Joplin, Missouri, across the state line in southeast Kansas.
Pittsburg sits off the northwest corner of the Ozark Plateau, and the area is heavily wooded – even swampy in some parts – with another organic feature similar to western Pennsylvania: coal mines. These mines once dense and rich throughout southeast Kansas offered employment for European immigrants coming to America around the turn of the 20th century, and many Italians, Austrians and other Balkan refugees found their piece of the American dream in the middle of the Midwest. They poured into southeast Kansas (commonly known as SEK) from Ellis Island by the hundreds leading up to World War I, giving Pittsburg its strong ethnic identity and a heritage that still lingers today.
These immigrants embraced the new American game of football in Pittsburg, Kansas, just as they did in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the distinct European last names still fill the area’s high school football rosters today. They play football in Pittsburg and they play it well. Pittsburg High School has won four football state championships in class 5A, while Colgan – the town’s catholic high school once known as St. Mary’s – has won seven state titles in class 2A while setting a state record with 66 consecutive victories from 2001 to 2004.
Frontenac – a suburb of sorts that is to Pittsburg what Fort Worth is to Dallas or St. Paul is to Minneapolis – has won two state championships in class 3A, and when football is this good and this important to a town and its culture, inevitably so too are the football rivalries. Colgan and Frontenac have become the archest of rivals through the generations, and the two schools genuinely have little use for one another on or off the field. The Dragons of Pittsburg High have had longstanding regular-season rivalries with Columbus, Fort Scott, Coffeyville and Missouri powerhouse Webb City through the years, and Pittsburg has revolving postseason rivalries with other prominent 5A programs around the state.
Football is much more than fun and games in Pittsburg. I know because I was born there. I’m the grandson of Italian immigrants, and some of the first things I learned about life I learned at a football game. My father and brother both played for great Pittsburg High teams, and the procession of touchdowns and extra-points taught me all the multiples of seven long before I ever turned seven.
This is life on fall Friday nights in small Kansas towns. The lights go up when the sun goes down. It’s the marching bands, the stands full of fans and the teenage kids who give it everything they can. Little boys in Pittsburg dream of being the next big thing, the next gridiron star at whichever high school their family pledges its allegiance to. Babies are bundled up in layers long before kickoff and long before they’re old enough to understand why. Little girls in Pittsburg wear the same cheerleading outfits the older girls wear, complete with face-paint, pom-poms and ribbons through their hair.
Homecoming parades funnel through downtown . Friday afternoon caravans follow the team buses to a big game out of town. Lettermen wear their letterjackets when it’s 60 degrees, while businesses bid good luck with their neon marquees. Cousins and brothers play side-by-side on crisp, Autumn nights. Sons and nephews follow their fathers and uncles into the record books. Grandparents watch the generations fill up the trophy cases and add to the annals.
With three high schools, Pittsburg residents are sometimes divided by the calamity and clash of Friday night football, but they have always worn – and will always wear – the same colors on Saturday afternoon. Pittsburg State University is a football powerhouse that has stood the test of time as one of the Midwest’s greatest small-college programs. The Gorillas won NAIA national championships in 1957 and 1961 under head coach Carnie Smith (the man for whom their stadium is named today), and an NCAA Division II title in 1991 under Chuck Broyles (the man by whom their team is still coached today). Broyles took over for Dennis Francione in 1989, and while Francione went on to higher-profile gigs at TCU, Alabama and Texas A&M, Broyles has guided Pitt State to 15 playoff berths and three other national championship games (1992, 1996, 2004) since winning it all in ‘91.
What does that mean to a town like Pittsburg? Brandenburg Field at Carnie Smith Stadium was remodeled in 2001 to seat over 8,300 Gorilla fans, which is more than 40 percent of the town’s total population. To match that ratio, Soldier Field in Chicago would have to seat about four million fans for Bears games every Sunday.
Brandenburg Field has been known over the years as ‘The Jungle’, and more recently ‘The Pitt’, and while the Gorilla mystique is self-evident in the program’s accomplishments through the years, much of the program’s regular-season success has ended in postseason disappointment. Pitt State won a college football-record 56 consecutive regular season games between 1985 and 1991, but the Gorillas didn’t even make the national championship game during that run until they won the title in 1991. PSU had a chance to repeat the following year before losing a championship game rematch to Jacksonville State (17-13), and the Gorillas are 0-2 in national title bouts since, having lost to North Alabama in 1995 and Valdosta State in 2004.
The Valdosta loss in ’04 still stings Pittsburg State and its fans. At 195-41-2, Broyles has the highest winning percentage of any active Division II coach (.826), and he has won or shared nine conference titles and three national coach of the year awards in two decades on the job. The Gorillas have had more “down years” in the last decade than they’re used to, but each time the townsfolk grumble about the SEK native losing his touch (Broyles was born in nearby Mulberry), he comes up with another legendary team like the 2004 squad.
The ‘04 Gorillas set several conference and national records for points per game, margin of victory, total offense, etc., and they led Valdosta State 14-0 in the first quarter of the national title bout before a fateful first-half interception. Valdosta State picked off a pass near midfield early in the second quarter and returned it inside the Pitt State 10-yard line, and the Gorillas lost not only the momentum but their starting tailback on the play.
Valdosta scored a two plays later and eventually went on to spoil Pittsburg’s perfect season with a 36-31 upset, and many say the program hasn’t been the same since.
Such is life in places like Pittsburg, Kansas. The coal mines have all dried up and the town’s population has more than halved after peaking at better than 40,000 during the Great Depression, but the The Pitt is still the capital of southeast Kansas. It’s twice as big as the next biggest SEK towns, and just as that modern cultural importance comes from Pittsburg’s history and thriving university (7,000 enrollment), that thriving university owes much of its importance to the football program and its championship history.
The town of Pittsburg has undoubtedly seen its golden age come and go, but Pitt State football has been an everlasting force. After dominating the Central States Conference at the NAIA level, PSU climbed to NCAA Division II in 1989 and joined the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic conference (MIAA), where the Gorillas wore the league crown in four of their first six seasons. The Apes were indeed the king of the jungle, but they would not go unopposed for long.
THE ARRIVAL OF A RIVAL
Northwest Missouri State wasn’t exactly a football school when Mel Tjeerdsma (pronounced CHURCH-ma) became the head coach in 1994. The Bearcat football program had a middle school-quality stadium in Maryville, Missouri, (population 11,000) and exactly two playoff appearances in roughly ninety years of play (they lost in the first round both times).
Tjeerdsma, however, had been a winner at every stop of his coaching career on every level of football. He won the 1972 Iowa state championship as the head coach of Sioux Center High School, and the 1983 NAIA national title as the offensive coordinator at Iowa’s Northwestern College. It then took him just 10 years to become Austin College’s (TX) all-time winningest coach before he returned north to assume the reigns at Northwest Missouri State.
The Bearcats went 0-11 in his first season (’94), but they’ve lost just 30 games in the decade and a half since. The rivalry with Pittsburg State began escalating after the 1996 season. Northwest climbed to No. 2 in the polls – its highest national ranking ever – late in the ’96 season, but defending national runner-up Gorillas came to Maryville ranked seventh in the country and embarrassed the Bearcats 40-0 on an unseasonably rainy Saturday afternoon.
It seemed at that point Northwest still had a psychological barrier to break against the Pitt State, but they broke it in a big way the following season by taking a No. 5 ranking into Pittsburg and clipping the second-ranked Apes 15-14. It’s been on ever since. After reaching the quarterfinals in the ‘97 playoffs, the Bearcats beat Pitt State again in the 1998 regular season before going on to capture the school’s first national championship in any sport with a 24-6 rout of Carson Newman.
Northwest beat Pittsburg again in the 1999 regular season and eventually defended the Division II throne with an unforgettable 58-52, quadruple overtime triumph over Carson Newman in a title game rematch. It was the longest NCAA football championship ever played at any level.
Tjeerdsma and the Bearcats returned to the national championship game in 2005, but they’ve suddenly become the Buffalo Bills of Division II football, losing each of the last four national title bouts in gut-wrenching fashion:
2005: Lost to Grand Valley State 21-17 after the Lakers scored with 4:35 left and stopped Northwest at the 4-yard line as time expired.
2006: Lost again to Grand Valley state 17-14 as the Lakers scored early in the fourth quarter to secure their fourth national title in five years.
2007: The Bearcats finally beat Grand Valley 34-16 in the national semifinals before falling to Valdosta State 25-20 in the championship game. Northwest rallied from an early 14-3 debt only to surrender the game-winning touchdown in the final minute of regulation.
2008: Minnesota Duluth scored in the final minutes and then held off Northwest in the closing seconds for a 21-14 win.
Losing four straight championship games stretches and strains the Bearcat psyche much worse than Pittsburg’s 2004 loss to Valdosta scars the Gorillas, but it’s also a good problem to have. It means Northwest Missouri State keeps coming back for more. It means they’re an undeniable force on the national level. The Bearcats have made the playoffs in 11 of the last 13 seasons, and their 26 playoff victories during that stretch have made their coach the winningest postseason coach in NCAA Division II history. Tjeerdsma is 218-79-4 overall and 158-41 at Northwest Missouri State, ranking him fifth among active coaches in wins and second in win percentage. He is a nine-time MIAA coach of the year, and seven of the 12 MIAA teams to finish a conference season undefeated were coached by Tjeerdsma. His program might be in a championship-game funk right now, but as long as Tjeerdsma stays at Northwest, the Bearcats are here to stay.
Pittsburg State has long been here to stay, and the two teams have won or shared 17 of the 20 MIAA conference titles since the Gorillas joined the league. PSU and Northwest are still the only two MIAA football teams to win – or even play for – the Division II national championship. Pitt State leads the all-time series 21-20, but Northwest has won five straight and 12 of the last 15.
ARROWHEAD STADIUM: WHEN, WHY AND HOW?
Pittsburg State and Northwest Missouri each began a series of much-needed renovations to their football stadiums in 2001, and in 2002, Bearcat Stadium remained under renovation and was unable to host the fifth-ranked Bearcats’ Oct. 17 battle with No. 11 Pitt State. Legend has it school officials from both sides got together with then Kansas City Chiefs general manager Karl Peterson and agreed to give up one home game apiece to play the 2002 and 2003 regular season games in Arrowhead Stadium. It was little more than an experimental compromise at the time, but when 26,695 fans turned out for the ’02 match-up (the largest crowd ever at an MIAA sporting event), Arrowhead became the rivalry’s new home.
Most of the lower bowl on Chiefs’ 78,000-seat stadium was filled as Northwest handled Pitt State 29-7, and the spectacle was renamed the Fall Classic by the following season (the first game had been dubbed “The Clash of Champions”). Northwest ran its win streak over the Gorillas to seven with a 20-19 win in 2003, which remains the only meeting between the two where both schools were unranked. Pitt State regained the initiative in 2004 when the two teams met in Arrowhead for the regular season finale ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the nation. The top-ranked Gorillas scored late in the fourth quarter to take a 21-17 decision and the MIAA title. Two weeks later, they met in Pittsburg for a rematch in the national quarterfinals, and Pitt State won 50-36 … only to lose to Valdosta State two weeks after that in the national championship game.
Pittsburg beat Northwest in another barnburner during the 2005 regular season, but this time the Bearcats got their revenge in the quarterfinals, and they haven’t lost to the Gorillas since.
YEAR SCORE ATTENDANCE
2002 #5 Northwest 29, #11 Pitt 7 26,695
2003 Northwest 20, Pitt 19 20,324
2004 #1 Pitt 21, #2 Northwest 17 25,542
Playoffs: #1 Pitt 50, #4 Northwest 36
2005 #14 Pitt 56, #16 Northwest 35 21,044
Playoffs: #21 Northwest 21, #23 Pitt 10
2006 #2 Northwest 41, #8 Pitt 14 22,561
2007 #9 Northwest 37, #16 Pitt 34, OT 19,103
2008 #7 Northwest, #6 Pitt 10 21,316
Playoffs: #3 Northwest 38, #10 Pitt 35
Not only have the Kansas City Chiefs and both universities profited from the games played in Arrowhead, but the already-prosperous football programs now have yet another card to play in terms of recruiting and media exposure. The Fall Classic is a one-of-a-kind experience for players, coaches and fans at the Division II level, and perhaps the only real drawback is the fiscal loss of one home game every other year for local businesses in Pittsburg and Maryville.
The drive to Arrowhead is less than two hours for each school, and as good as these two programs have been at home over the years, it makes either perfect sense or absolutely no sense for them to meet on a neutral field where both fan bases can have their cake and eat it too. Pittsburg State has won 118 of its last 126 home games, and Northwest Missouri State has been responsible for three of those eight home losses. After the Gorillas nearly doubled the capacity of their football stadium in 2001, a record 11,862 fans overfilled “The Pitt” on Oct. 13 to watch Northwest beat the Gorillas 35-31.
Meanwhile back in Maryville, where Bearcat Stadium didn’t even have lights or a visitors’ grandstand until earlier this decade, Tjeerdsma’s teams have won 32 straight home games and 28 straight conference games overall. Northwest’s homefield – which is the longest continually running home site in Division II – now holds 6,500 (more than half the town’s population!), and the second biggest crowd in school history (9,250) gathered on Sept. 16, 2000, to watch the Bearcats beat Pittsburg 35-28.
THE STAKES THIS SATURDAY EVENING
The Bearcats started the 2009 season ranked second in the nation, but a filthy first half cost them dearly in a 19-14 season-opening loss at No. 5 Abilene Christian. Northwest also lost its 2008 season opener to Abilene Christian before taking revenge in the playoffs, and the 2009 Bearcats recovered in time last week to open conference play with a 49-14 rout of Southwest Baptist. Northwest is ranked seventh in this week’s poll, but they now find themselves a slight underdog heading into the eighth annual Fall Classic.
Pittsburg State was ranked seventh in the preseason poll, but the Gorillas are a heavy 2-0 after bombing both No. 16 Central Oklahoma (42-13) and No. 7 Chadron State (41-13) at home to start the season. The Apes are ranked fourth in the country, and needless to say, they’re due against Northwest Missouri State. Saturday’s 5 p.m. kickoff will be the ninth meeting in this rivalry with both teams ranked in the top 10, and it will be the first time since the game moved to Arrowhead that the MIAA giants have crossed paths before October.
25,000+ are expected Saturday in KC, and the line between the two sides will be unmistakable, as well it should be with two warring factions. Even their school colors clash, with Pittsburg State’s red & yellow on one side of the stadium and Northwest Missouri State’s green & white standing in stark contrast across the way.
With this autumn war having clearly outgrown each team’s hometown, the two armies now meet again on a Kansas City battlefield to continue one of the best rivalries in small-college sports. Check back Sunday to see how Fall Classic VIII plays out.
As is the case with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, football has always been – and will always be – a big part of life in Pittsburg, Kansas. Unlike its more metropolitan namesake, Pittsburg, Kansas, has no ‘H’ at the end, and this town of just under 20,000 is located northwest of Joplin, Missouri, across the state line in southeast Kansas.
Pittsburg sits off the northwest corner of the Ozark Plateau, and the area is heavily wooded – even swampy in some parts – with another organic feature similar to western Pennsylvania: coal mines. These mines once dense and rich throughout southeast Kansas offered employment for European immigrants coming to America around the turn of the 20th century, and many Italians, Austrians and other Balkan refugees found their piece of the American dream in the middle of the Midwest. They poured into southeast Kansas (commonly known as SEK) from Ellis Island by the hundreds leading up to World War I, giving Pittsburg its strong ethnic identity and a heritage that still lingers today.
These immigrants embraced the new American game of football in Pittsburg, Kansas, just as they did in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the distinct European last names still fill the area’s high school football rosters today. They play football in Pittsburg and they play it well. Pittsburg High School has won four football state championships in class 5A, while Colgan – the town’s catholic high school once known as St. Mary’s – has won seven state titles in class 2A while setting a state record with 66 consecutive victories from 2001 to 2004.
Frontenac – a suburb of sorts that is to Pittsburg what Fort Worth is to Dallas or St. Paul is to Minneapolis – has won two state championships in class 3A, and when football is this good and this important to a town and its culture, inevitably so too are the football rivalries. Colgan and Frontenac have become the archest of rivals through the generations, and the two schools genuinely have little use for one another on or off the field. The Dragons of Pittsburg High have had longstanding regular-season rivalries with Columbus, Fort Scott, Coffeyville and Missouri powerhouse Webb City through the years, and Pittsburg has revolving postseason rivalries with other prominent 5A programs around the state.
Football is much more than fun and games in Pittsburg. I know because I was born there. I’m the grandson of Italian immigrants, and some of the first things I learned about life I learned at a football game. My father and brother both played for great Pittsburg High teams, and the procession of touchdowns and extra-points taught me all the multiples of seven long before I ever turned seven.
This is life on fall Friday nights in small Kansas towns. The lights go up when the sun goes down. It’s the marching bands, the stands full of fans and the teenage kids who give it everything they can. Little boys in Pittsburg dream of being the next big thing, the next gridiron star at whichever high school their family pledges its allegiance to. Babies are bundled up in layers long before kickoff and long before they’re old enough to understand why. Little girls in Pittsburg wear the same cheerleading outfits the older girls wear, complete with face-paint, pom-poms and ribbons through their hair.
Homecoming parades funnel through downtown . Friday afternoon caravans follow the team buses to a big game out of town. Lettermen wear their letterjackets when it’s 60 degrees, while businesses bid good luck with their neon marquees. Cousins and brothers play side-by-side on crisp, Autumn nights. Sons and nephews follow their fathers and uncles into the record books. Grandparents watch the generations fill up the trophy cases and add to the annals.
With three high schools, Pittsburg residents are sometimes divided by the calamity and clash of Friday night football, but they have always worn – and will always wear – the same colors on Saturday afternoon. Pittsburg State University is a football powerhouse that has stood the test of time as one of the Midwest’s greatest small-college programs. The Gorillas won NAIA national championships in 1957 and 1961 under head coach Carnie Smith (the man for whom their stadium is named today), and an NCAA Division II title in 1991 under Chuck Broyles (the man by whom their team is still coached today). Broyles took over for Dennis Francione in 1989, and while Francione went on to higher-profile gigs at TCU, Alabama and Texas A&M, Broyles has guided Pitt State to 15 playoff berths and three other national championship games (1992, 1996, 2004) since winning it all in ‘91.
What does that mean to a town like Pittsburg? Brandenburg Field at Carnie Smith Stadium was remodeled in 2001 to seat over 8,300 Gorilla fans, which is more than 40 percent of the town’s total population. To match that ratio, Soldier Field in Chicago would have to seat about four million fans for Bears games every Sunday.
Brandenburg Field has been known over the years as ‘The Jungle’, and more recently ‘The Pitt’, and while the Gorilla mystique is self-evident in the program’s accomplishments through the years, much of the program’s regular-season success has ended in postseason disappointment. Pitt State won a college football-record 56 consecutive regular season games between 1985 and 1991, but the Gorillas didn’t even make the national championship game during that run until they won the title in 1991. PSU had a chance to repeat the following year before losing a championship game rematch to Jacksonville State (17-13), and the Gorillas are 0-2 in national title bouts since, having lost to North Alabama in 1995 and Valdosta State in 2004.
The Valdosta loss in ’04 still stings Pittsburg State and its fans. At 195-41-2, Broyles has the highest winning percentage of any active Division II coach (.826), and he has won or shared nine conference titles and three national coach of the year awards in two decades on the job. The Gorillas have had more “down years” in the last decade than they’re used to, but each time the townsfolk grumble about the SEK native losing his touch (Broyles was born in nearby Mulberry), he comes up with another legendary team like the 2004 squad.
The ‘04 Gorillas set several conference and national records for points per game, margin of victory, total offense, etc., and they led Valdosta State 14-0 in the first quarter of the national title bout before a fateful first-half interception. Valdosta State picked off a pass near midfield early in the second quarter and returned it inside the Pitt State 10-yard line, and the Gorillas lost not only the momentum but their starting tailback on the play.
Valdosta scored a two plays later and eventually went on to spoil Pittsburg’s perfect season with a 36-31 upset, and many say the program hasn’t been the same since.
Such is life in places like Pittsburg, Kansas. The coal mines have all dried up and the town’s population has more than halved after peaking at better than 40,000 during the Great Depression, but the The Pitt is still the capital of southeast Kansas. It’s twice as big as the next biggest SEK towns, and just as that modern cultural importance comes from Pittsburg’s history and thriving university (7,000 enrollment), that thriving university owes much of its importance to the football program and its championship history.
The town of Pittsburg has undoubtedly seen its golden age come and go, but Pitt State football has been an everlasting force. After dominating the Central States Conference at the NAIA level, PSU climbed to NCAA Division II in 1989 and joined the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic conference (MIAA), where the Gorillas wore the league crown in four of their first six seasons. The Apes were indeed the king of the jungle, but they would not go unopposed for long.
THE ARRIVAL OF A RIVAL
Northwest Missouri State wasn’t exactly a football school when Mel Tjeerdsma (pronounced CHURCH-ma) became the head coach in 1994. The Bearcat football program had a middle school-quality stadium in Maryville, Missouri, (population 11,000) and exactly two playoff appearances in roughly ninety years of play (they lost in the first round both times).
Tjeerdsma, however, had been a winner at every stop of his coaching career on every level of football. He won the 1972 Iowa state championship as the head coach of Sioux Center High School, and the 1983 NAIA national title as the offensive coordinator at Iowa’s Northwestern College. It then took him just 10 years to become Austin College’s (TX) all-time winningest coach before he returned north to assume the reigns at Northwest Missouri State.
The Bearcats went 0-11 in his first season (’94), but they’ve lost just 30 games in the decade and a half since. The rivalry with Pittsburg State began escalating after the 1996 season. Northwest climbed to No. 2 in the polls – its highest national ranking ever – late in the ’96 season, but defending national runner-up Gorillas came to Maryville ranked seventh in the country and embarrassed the Bearcats 40-0 on an unseasonably rainy Saturday afternoon.
It seemed at that point Northwest still had a psychological barrier to break against the Pitt State, but they broke it in a big way the following season by taking a No. 5 ranking into Pittsburg and clipping the second-ranked Apes 15-14. It’s been on ever since. After reaching the quarterfinals in the ‘97 playoffs, the Bearcats beat Pitt State again in the 1998 regular season before going on to capture the school’s first national championship in any sport with a 24-6 rout of Carson Newman.
Northwest beat Pittsburg again in the 1999 regular season and eventually defended the Division II throne with an unforgettable 58-52, quadruple overtime triumph over Carson Newman in a title game rematch. It was the longest NCAA football championship ever played at any level.
Tjeerdsma and the Bearcats returned to the national championship game in 2005, but they’ve suddenly become the Buffalo Bills of Division II football, losing each of the last four national title bouts in gut-wrenching fashion:
2005: Lost to Grand Valley State 21-17 after the Lakers scored with 4:35 left and stopped Northwest at the 4-yard line as time expired.
2006: Lost again to Grand Valley state 17-14 as the Lakers scored early in the fourth quarter to secure their fourth national title in five years.
2007: The Bearcats finally beat Grand Valley 34-16 in the national semifinals before falling to Valdosta State 25-20 in the championship game. Northwest rallied from an early 14-3 debt only to surrender the game-winning touchdown in the final minute of regulation.
2008: Minnesota Duluth scored in the final minutes and then held off Northwest in the closing seconds for a 21-14 win.
Losing four straight championship games stretches and strains the Bearcat psyche much worse than Pittsburg’s 2004 loss to Valdosta scars the Gorillas, but it’s also a good problem to have. It means Northwest Missouri State keeps coming back for more. It means they’re an undeniable force on the national level. The Bearcats have made the playoffs in 11 of the last 13 seasons, and their 26 playoff victories during that stretch have made their coach the winningest postseason coach in NCAA Division II history. Tjeerdsma is 218-79-4 overall and 158-41 at Northwest Missouri State, ranking him fifth among active coaches in wins and second in win percentage. He is a nine-time MIAA coach of the year, and seven of the 12 MIAA teams to finish a conference season undefeated were coached by Tjeerdsma. His program might be in a championship-game funk right now, but as long as Tjeerdsma stays at Northwest, the Bearcats are here to stay.
Pittsburg State has long been here to stay, and the two teams have won or shared 17 of the 20 MIAA conference titles since the Gorillas joined the league. PSU and Northwest are still the only two MIAA football teams to win – or even play for – the Division II national championship. Pitt State leads the all-time series 21-20, but Northwest has won five straight and 12 of the last 15.
ARROWHEAD STADIUM: WHEN, WHY AND HOW?
Pittsburg State and Northwest Missouri each began a series of much-needed renovations to their football stadiums in 2001, and in 2002, Bearcat Stadium remained under renovation and was unable to host the fifth-ranked Bearcats’ Oct. 17 battle with No. 11 Pitt State. Legend has it school officials from both sides got together with then Kansas City Chiefs general manager Karl Peterson and agreed to give up one home game apiece to play the 2002 and 2003 regular season games in Arrowhead Stadium. It was little more than an experimental compromise at the time, but when 26,695 fans turned out for the ’02 match-up (the largest crowd ever at an MIAA sporting event), Arrowhead became the rivalry’s new home.
Most of the lower bowl on Chiefs’ 78,000-seat stadium was filled as Northwest handled Pitt State 29-7, and the spectacle was renamed the Fall Classic by the following season (the first game had been dubbed “The Clash of Champions”). Northwest ran its win streak over the Gorillas to seven with a 20-19 win in 2003, which remains the only meeting between the two where both schools were unranked. Pitt State regained the initiative in 2004 when the two teams met in Arrowhead for the regular season finale ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the nation. The top-ranked Gorillas scored late in the fourth quarter to take a 21-17 decision and the MIAA title. Two weeks later, they met in Pittsburg for a rematch in the national quarterfinals, and Pitt State won 50-36 … only to lose to Valdosta State two weeks after that in the national championship game.
Pittsburg beat Northwest in another barnburner during the 2005 regular season, but this time the Bearcats got their revenge in the quarterfinals, and they haven’t lost to the Gorillas since.
YEAR SCORE ATTENDANCE
2002 #5 Northwest 29, #11 Pitt 7 26,695
2003 Northwest 20, Pitt 19 20,324
2004 #1 Pitt 21, #2 Northwest 17 25,542
Playoffs: #1 Pitt 50, #4 Northwest 36
2005 #14 Pitt 56, #16 Northwest 35 21,044
Playoffs: #21 Northwest 21, #23 Pitt 10
2006 #2 Northwest 41, #8 Pitt 14 22,561
2007 #9 Northwest 37, #16 Pitt 34, OT 19,103
2008 #7 Northwest, #6 Pitt 10 21,316
Playoffs: #3 Northwest 38, #10 Pitt 35
Not only have the Kansas City Chiefs and both universities profited from the games played in Arrowhead, but the already-prosperous football programs now have yet another card to play in terms of recruiting and media exposure. The Fall Classic is a one-of-a-kind experience for players, coaches and fans at the Division II level, and perhaps the only real drawback is the fiscal loss of one home game every other year for local businesses in Pittsburg and Maryville.
The drive to Arrowhead is less than two hours for each school, and as good as these two programs have been at home over the years, it makes either perfect sense or absolutely no sense for them to meet on a neutral field where both fan bases can have their cake and eat it too. Pittsburg State has won 118 of its last 126 home games, and Northwest Missouri State has been responsible for three of those eight home losses. After the Gorillas nearly doubled the capacity of their football stadium in 2001, a record 11,862 fans overfilled “The Pitt” on Oct. 13 to watch Northwest beat the Gorillas 35-31.
Meanwhile back in Maryville, where Bearcat Stadium didn’t even have lights or a visitors’ grandstand until earlier this decade, Tjeerdsma’s teams have won 32 straight home games and 28 straight conference games overall. Northwest’s homefield – which is the longest continually running home site in Division II – now holds 6,500 (more than half the town’s population!), and the second biggest crowd in school history (9,250) gathered on Sept. 16, 2000, to watch the Bearcats beat Pittsburg 35-28.
THE STAKES THIS SATURDAY EVENING
The Bearcats started the 2009 season ranked second in the nation, but a filthy first half cost them dearly in a 19-14 season-opening loss at No. 5 Abilene Christian. Northwest also lost its 2008 season opener to Abilene Christian before taking revenge in the playoffs, and the 2009 Bearcats recovered in time last week to open conference play with a 49-14 rout of Southwest Baptist. Northwest is ranked seventh in this week’s poll, but they now find themselves a slight underdog heading into the eighth annual Fall Classic.
Pittsburg State was ranked seventh in the preseason poll, but the Gorillas are a heavy 2-0 after bombing both No. 16 Central Oklahoma (42-13) and No. 7 Chadron State (41-13) at home to start the season. The Apes are ranked fourth in the country, and needless to say, they’re due against Northwest Missouri State. Saturday’s 5 p.m. kickoff will be the ninth meeting in this rivalry with both teams ranked in the top 10, and it will be the first time since the game moved to Arrowhead that the MIAA giants have crossed paths before October.
25,000+ are expected Saturday in KC, and the line between the two sides will be unmistakable, as well it should be with two warring factions. Even their school colors clash, with Pittsburg State’s red & yellow on one side of the stadium and Northwest Missouri State’s green & white standing in stark contrast across the way.
With this autumn war having clearly outgrown each team’s hometown, the two armies now meet again on a Kansas City battlefield to continue one of the best rivalries in small-college sports. Check back Sunday to see how Fall Classic VIII plays out.
Monday, September 7, 2009
College Football State of the Union
So what did we learn from the first week of college football action in 2009?
BYU proved that Hawaiians and 26-year old white men can still comprise a quality college athletic program, and Boise State now has company at the front of the line to crash the B(C)S party. Casual observers will cite the injury to Oklahoma's Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Sam Bradford as the reason for BYU's 14-13 upset Saturday, but the Mormons were already giving the defending national runner-up plenty of trouble before Bradford went down in the second quarter. BYU turnovers were all that kept the Sooners in the game in the first half, with a fumbled punt inside the Cougar 10 setting up Oklahoma's first TD and a fumble inside the Sooner 10 sabotaging a certain BYU scoring drive.
The Sooners are clearly not the team they were a year ago, especially on offense, and they're likely to have another nightmare when they return to Dallas Oct. 19 for the Red River Shootout wtih Texas. First things first for OU, though: With or without Bradford, OU has two more troubling non-conference matchups (Sept. 19 vs. Tulsa and Oct. 3 at Miami).
Speaking of Miami, we learned on Labor Day night the Hurricanes are on their way back to college football's center stage. The Canes survived yet another classic clash with Florida State Monday evening in Tallahassee, escaping on the final play of the game when Seminole receiver Jarmon Fortson dropped a sinking Christian Ponder pass in the end zone. It wasn't Wide Right V or Wide Left II, but Miami's upset was as big a win as the program has had in the last half-decade. Facing the nation's toughest four-game stretch to open the season (Georia Tech, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma still to come, in that order), the Canes needed this victory more than Florida State did. Miami also wanted it more. The Seminoles could've managed the clock better in the final minute of the game, and Fortson could've made the game-winning catch as time expired, but the Hurricanes could not have played any better.
This was the best rivalry in college football -- and one of the best rivalries in all of sports -- from 1985 to 2003, and it may soon resume that premier status. As for this season, FSU will be fine, and the U will be back. Whether you love either of these teams or hate them both, college football is a better place when Miami and Florida State are heavyweight contenders, and god knows the ACC needs its two top dogs guarding the house.
Out on the other coast, rookie head coach Steve Sarkasian and the Washington Huskies played LSU every bit as tough as BYU played Oklahoma, but Washington paid a steeper price for its turnovers. An interception inside the red zone and another fumble inside the Tiger 10 undermined a pair of Husky scoring drives, but Washington came that close to stunning the Bayou Bengals in a 31-23 loss.
The Pac-10 needs Washington back at full strength, because the rest of the league has been stuck in second place behind USC for almost 10 years. Sarkasian was USC's offensive coordinator before taking the head job in Seattle, and not only could his Huskies be getting in USC's way again very soon, one of the Pac-10's proudest programs might be ready to Bark for Sark on the national scene sooner rather than later. First things first for U-Dubb, though: The Huskies need to break their 15-game losing streak.
The Pac-10 also needs some positive publicity after Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount promised an ass-whipping for Boise State Thursday, then rushed for -5 yards and a safety on eight carries, and finally punched a Bronco defender in the face before attempting to charge the BSU student section after the game. Blount learned the hard way that bullshit will not be tolerated in the NCAA (unless it makes money for more people than it embarrasses), and the punishment (suspension for the rest of his senior season and thus the end of his college career) actually fit the crime this time.
There were some conferences that took a couple right-crosses to chin this weekend as well, with week 1 further exposing the ACC and Big 10 for the junior varsity conferences they are. The Atlantic Coast's opening statement speaks for itself: Virgina and Duke lost to I-AA Richmond and William & Mary, respectively, while Virginia Tech's 34-24 loss to Alabama was worse than the final score. Wake Forest lost at home to Big 12 doormat Baylor, Maryland was buried alive at California, and North Carolina State scored three points in a home loss to South Carolina. If the ACC gets and automatic BCS bid, can someone please explain to me why the Mountain West(BYU, Utah, TCU) and WAC (Boise State, Fresno State) do not? Tune in next week when Virginia tries playing William and Mary one at a time and Duke tries to bounce back against the Appalachian Pop Warner All-Stars.
Meanwile, half of the Big 10 is stuck in 1955 while the other half stopped in 1985. Iowa had to block not one, but two field goals in the closing seconds to survive I-AA Northern Iowa, while Minnesota needed a gift of an overtime interception from a Duke point guard to beat Syracuse in the Carrier Dome. And let's not forget perennially overrated Ohio State coming within a two-point conversion of overtime with Navy in their home opener. Look for THE Ohio State University to suffer another demoralizing loss in a big game this Saturday when USC comes to Columbus in prime time.
BYU proved that Hawaiians and 26-year old white men can still comprise a quality college athletic program, and Boise State now has company at the front of the line to crash the B(C)S party. Casual observers will cite the injury to Oklahoma's Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Sam Bradford as the reason for BYU's 14-13 upset Saturday, but the Mormons were already giving the defending national runner-up plenty of trouble before Bradford went down in the second quarter. BYU turnovers were all that kept the Sooners in the game in the first half, with a fumbled punt inside the Cougar 10 setting up Oklahoma's first TD and a fumble inside the Sooner 10 sabotaging a certain BYU scoring drive.
The Sooners are clearly not the team they were a year ago, especially on offense, and they're likely to have another nightmare when they return to Dallas Oct. 19 for the Red River Shootout wtih Texas. First things first for OU, though: With or without Bradford, OU has two more troubling non-conference matchups (Sept. 19 vs. Tulsa and Oct. 3 at Miami).
Speaking of Miami, we learned on Labor Day night the Hurricanes are on their way back to college football's center stage. The Canes survived yet another classic clash with Florida State Monday evening in Tallahassee, escaping on the final play of the game when Seminole receiver Jarmon Fortson dropped a sinking Christian Ponder pass in the end zone. It wasn't Wide Right V or Wide Left II, but Miami's upset was as big a win as the program has had in the last half-decade. Facing the nation's toughest four-game stretch to open the season (Georia Tech, Virginia Tech and Oklahoma still to come, in that order), the Canes needed this victory more than Florida State did. Miami also wanted it more. The Seminoles could've managed the clock better in the final minute of the game, and Fortson could've made the game-winning catch as time expired, but the Hurricanes could not have played any better.
This was the best rivalry in college football -- and one of the best rivalries in all of sports -- from 1985 to 2003, and it may soon resume that premier status. As for this season, FSU will be fine, and the U will be back. Whether you love either of these teams or hate them both, college football is a better place when Miami and Florida State are heavyweight contenders, and god knows the ACC needs its two top dogs guarding the house.
Out on the other coast, rookie head coach Steve Sarkasian and the Washington Huskies played LSU every bit as tough as BYU played Oklahoma, but Washington paid a steeper price for its turnovers. An interception inside the red zone and another fumble inside the Tiger 10 undermined a pair of Husky scoring drives, but Washington came that close to stunning the Bayou Bengals in a 31-23 loss.
The Pac-10 needs Washington back at full strength, because the rest of the league has been stuck in second place behind USC for almost 10 years. Sarkasian was USC's offensive coordinator before taking the head job in Seattle, and not only could his Huskies be getting in USC's way again very soon, one of the Pac-10's proudest programs might be ready to Bark for Sark on the national scene sooner rather than later. First things first for U-Dubb, though: The Huskies need to break their 15-game losing streak.
The Pac-10 also needs some positive publicity after Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount promised an ass-whipping for Boise State Thursday, then rushed for -5 yards and a safety on eight carries, and finally punched a Bronco defender in the face before attempting to charge the BSU student section after the game. Blount learned the hard way that bullshit will not be tolerated in the NCAA (unless it makes money for more people than it embarrasses), and the punishment (suspension for the rest of his senior season and thus the end of his college career) actually fit the crime this time.
There were some conferences that took a couple right-crosses to chin this weekend as well, with week 1 further exposing the ACC and Big 10 for the junior varsity conferences they are. The Atlantic Coast's opening statement speaks for itself: Virgina and Duke lost to I-AA Richmond and William & Mary, respectively, while Virginia Tech's 34-24 loss to Alabama was worse than the final score. Wake Forest lost at home to Big 12 doormat Baylor, Maryland was buried alive at California, and North Carolina State scored three points in a home loss to South Carolina. If the ACC gets and automatic BCS bid, can someone please explain to me why the Mountain West(BYU, Utah, TCU) and WAC (Boise State, Fresno State) do not? Tune in next week when Virginia tries playing William and Mary one at a time and Duke tries to bounce back against the Appalachian Pop Warner All-Stars.
Meanwile, half of the Big 10 is stuck in 1955 while the other half stopped in 1985. Iowa had to block not one, but two field goals in the closing seconds to survive I-AA Northern Iowa, while Minnesota needed a gift of an overtime interception from a Duke point guard to beat Syracuse in the Carrier Dome. And let's not forget perennially overrated Ohio State coming within a two-point conversion of overtime with Navy in their home opener. Look for THE Ohio State University to suffer another demoralizing loss in a big game this Saturday when USC comes to Columbus in prime time.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Recognize Game: Zack Greinke
Alright Kansas City Royals fans, gather around. It's becoming more and more obvious ... hello? Kansas City Royals fans? Anyone there? Kansas City? Royals? Fans? Hello?
Okay then, baseball fans everywhere else, listen up. It's time to start talking seriously about Zack Greinke for the American League Cy Young award. Stop laughing. Have you seen Greinke's last two outings? They were a lot like the rest of his 27 starts, only he got a few timely hits and a couple manufactured runs from his offense, and we wouldn't be having this discussion had that been the case all season long. The 2009 Royals have a triple-A offense, but don't bother calling on them when you're stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire. Greinke hasn't even been able to call on his offense each time he needs three measly runs to keep another quality start from turning into another no-decision.
Greinke struck out a franchise-record 15 Indians Aug. 25 in KC and followed that with a complete-game one-hitter in his next start at Seattle. Those back-to-back beauts' raised his record to 13-8, with a WHIP of 1.08 and an American League-leading 2.32 ERA, a major league-leading six complete games, a major league-leading three shutouts, a career-high 202 strikeouts in a career-high 190 innings pitched. With the exception of that win-loss record, those numbers are inarguably Cy Young-quality. 13-8, however, is a middle-of-the rotation mark, so this is where the subjectivity of human voters must serve its purpose. Baseball writers must look behind Greinke's win-loss record to see exactly what's dragging it down, and when they do so, they'll realize they shouldn't punish Greinke for his team's inablitiy to support him.
For some reason, individual award winners almost always come from contending teams, and while an offensive player vying for the MVP or batting title or homerun crown needs runners on base in front of him and protection in the lineup behind him, a pitcher's stats are far more dependent on his teammates' performance. Even the most assailing ace needs a good defense around him, a good offense beside him and a good bullpen behind him to put up award-winning statistics.
If Greinke pitched for a team that could hit AND defend, he would probably be 27-0 right now. If he played for a team that could hit OR defend, he would probably be about 18-3 right now. If he played for the Yankees or Red Sox, which he will almost surely do when his contract expires in 2012, he would be set to receive the Cy Young award this weekend in a special Labor Day ceremony broadcast live from Bud Selig's personal yacht to every jumbotron in every major league stadium.
Back to reality, though: Greinke pitches for the last-place, 51-81 Royals in Kansas City, Missouri, and odds are C.C. Sabathia (15-7, 3.56 ERA, 1.13 WHIP for first-place New York) or Justin Verlander (15-7, 3.38 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 215 K for first-place Detroit) will win the 2009 American League Cy Young. Don't count out Anaheim's Jered Weaver, Toronto's Roy Halladay, or even Boston's Josh Beckett, Tim Lester or Tim Wakefield if one of them gets hot down the stretch. Greinke is scheduled for five more starts this season, including early free-agent auditions against the Red Sox and Yankees in the final week of the season. If he wins all five of those starts, I rest my case. If he loses all five, I shut my mouth. If he goes 2-2 with a no-decision, which is unfortunately probable, chances are his team is to blame.
No Royal has won the AL Cy Young since Bret Saberhagen won his second in 1989, but not only was Greinke the American League's Pitcher of the Week, he's the pitcher of the year. Stay tuned, baseball fans. Hold your breath, Royals fans, and pray for the big-market, east-coast bi ... hello? Royals fans? Hello? Anyone there?
Okay then, baseball fans everywhere else, listen up. It's time to start talking seriously about Zack Greinke for the American League Cy Young award. Stop laughing. Have you seen Greinke's last two outings? They were a lot like the rest of his 27 starts, only he got a few timely hits and a couple manufactured runs from his offense, and we wouldn't be having this discussion had that been the case all season long. The 2009 Royals have a triple-A offense, but don't bother calling on them when you're stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire. Greinke hasn't even been able to call on his offense each time he needs three measly runs to keep another quality start from turning into another no-decision.
Greinke struck out a franchise-record 15 Indians Aug. 25 in KC and followed that with a complete-game one-hitter in his next start at Seattle. Those back-to-back beauts' raised his record to 13-8, with a WHIP of 1.08 and an American League-leading 2.32 ERA, a major league-leading six complete games, a major league-leading three shutouts, a career-high 202 strikeouts in a career-high 190 innings pitched. With the exception of that win-loss record, those numbers are inarguably Cy Young-quality. 13-8, however, is a middle-of-the rotation mark, so this is where the subjectivity of human voters must serve its purpose. Baseball writers must look behind Greinke's win-loss record to see exactly what's dragging it down, and when they do so, they'll realize they shouldn't punish Greinke for his team's inablitiy to support him.
For some reason, individual award winners almost always come from contending teams, and while an offensive player vying for the MVP or batting title or homerun crown needs runners on base in front of him and protection in the lineup behind him, a pitcher's stats are far more dependent on his teammates' performance. Even the most assailing ace needs a good defense around him, a good offense beside him and a good bullpen behind him to put up award-winning statistics.
If Greinke pitched for a team that could hit AND defend, he would probably be 27-0 right now. If he played for a team that could hit OR defend, he would probably be about 18-3 right now. If he played for the Yankees or Red Sox, which he will almost surely do when his contract expires in 2012, he would be set to receive the Cy Young award this weekend in a special Labor Day ceremony broadcast live from Bud Selig's personal yacht to every jumbotron in every major league stadium.
Back to reality, though: Greinke pitches for the last-place, 51-81 Royals in Kansas City, Missouri, and odds are C.C. Sabathia (15-7, 3.56 ERA, 1.13 WHIP for first-place New York) or Justin Verlander (15-7, 3.38 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 215 K for first-place Detroit) will win the 2009 American League Cy Young. Don't count out Anaheim's Jered Weaver, Toronto's Roy Halladay, or even Boston's Josh Beckett, Tim Lester or Tim Wakefield if one of them gets hot down the stretch. Greinke is scheduled for five more starts this season, including early free-agent auditions against the Red Sox and Yankees in the final week of the season. If he wins all five of those starts, I rest my case. If he loses all five, I shut my mouth. If he goes 2-2 with a no-decision, which is unfortunately probable, chances are his team is to blame.
No Royal has won the AL Cy Young since Bret Saberhagen won his second in 1989, but not only was Greinke the American League's Pitcher of the Week, he's the pitcher of the year. Stay tuned, baseball fans. Hold your breath, Royals fans, and pray for the big-market, east-coast bi ... hello? Royals fans? Hello? Anyone there?
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
It's spelled Zackkkkkkkkkkkkkkk Greinkkkkkkkkkkkkkkke, with 15 K's
Even the most starved and beleaguered sports fans claim some obscure benefits when their hometown team is perennially cellar-dwelling in what is perhaps baseball's thinnest division (the AL Central). Two days ago at 4:47 p.m., my roommate Daniel and I decided to fill another lifeless Tuesday with a trip to the Royals-Indians game that evening at Kauffman Stadium, recently renovated and now known around town as 'The K'.
After a quick workout and an even quicker dinner, we left for The K shortly after 6:23 p.m., hoping somehow to avoid Kansas City's rush-hour traffic and still arrive in time for first pitch at 7:05. Neither objective was an obstacle. With the Royals roughly 20 games out of first (19 entering Tuesday) and exactly 30 games below .500 (47-77), there was no discernible automotive convergence on the Truman Sports Complex, which is located due east of downtown KC and holds both The K and Arrowhead Stadium, where the town's other lovable losers languish longingly. Most of the city's worker bees had fled their 9-to-5 by the time we passed through, and very few of them were headed to the Royals-Indians game. Travelling along I-435 from our apartment in the southwest suburbs on the Kansas side, the 25-minute drive took an astonishing 25 minutes. That's one of those obscure benefits you claim when your hometown team is perennially cellar-dwelling in what is perhaps baseball's thinnest division.
We met little or no resistance (not even a line of cars) as we cruised up to the outer gates and vomited the $9 parking fee before sailing into a parking spot towards the front of a half-full parking lot (I'm not normally a parking lot half-full kind of guy, but this would prove to be the beginning of a very pleasant evening, so let's not break the vibe).
We exited the vehicle and found our immediate vicinity full of young, single people tailgating and carrying on, slamming beers from bottle and can alike as they threw both football and baseball to and fro. It occurred to Daniel and me as we approached the stadium that we still did not have tickets for the evening's affair, but luckily for us, luck wasn't gonna' let us down now. Before we made it to the ticket window on the southwest corner of The K, a man walking the other way somehow picked us out of the crowd and asked if we need tickets.
"How much?", I answered/asked.
"Five dollars," he said.
"Five dollars?!" I echoed.
"Yep ... five dollars will get you in, and then you can move down to some better seats after that. These are 18-dollar tickets, but I'm selling 'em for five now."
I looked deep into the man's eyes and then down at the tickets in his left hand to see if they had the proper date, time and opponent. I'd had good luck with scalpers in the past, but this crazy fool was un-scalping these tickets. I guess this is another one of the obscure benefits you claim when your hometown team is perennially cellar-dwelling in what is perhaps baseball's thinnest division.
"Sold ... give me two of 'em," I said as I reached into my pocket for the 10-dollar bill I knew was there. We made a crisp exchange in broad daylight, and suddenly Daniel and I were headed up the escalators to the 18-dollar seats we had commandeered for five after a 25-minute drive that actually lasted 25.
To make matters better, it was free T-shirt night for the first 20,000 fans, whom would likely be the only 20,000 fans, and we were each presented with an extra-large, powder blue Royals T as we passed through the turnstiles, compliments of AT&T. We got to our seats without asking more than two ushers where our seats were, and our plastic blue chairs happened to be in my favorite part of any major league stadium: on the front of the upper deck down the third base line, with a video-game quality view of all the action. These seats are particularly convenient in The K, where an August sunset blinds the people on the right field line for the first three or four innings of the game. We've been having an unseasonably cool summer here in the middle of the Midwest, but it was nice and stuffy on this particular evening as we settled in for first pitch, which was six minutes late at 7:11 p.m.
Zack Greinke threw that first pitch, and while Daniel and I had no idea the Royals' ace was even throwing that night, no one in the half-full stadium had any idea what they were about to witness. I'm not usually a stadium half-full kind of guy, but just keep reading.
Greinke struck out four of the first six Indians he faced, and after fanning just one in the top of the third, he K'd two in the fourth and struck out the side in the fifth to make it 10 K's through five IP. He struck out a pair in the sixth and seventh to establish a new career-high at 14, throwing one curveball as slow as 69 mph before squeezing off consecutive 97 mph fastballs in the top of the sixth to strike out Matt LaPorta.
Kauffman Stadium's new, bigger and better jumbotron in left-center lists each batter's previous at-bats each time he comes back to bat, and the oversized pixels started listing "Struck out swinging" and/or "Struck out looking" for almost every Indian hitter as the game went along. Kelly Shoppach and Shin-Soo Choo struck out three times each, and all nine Cleveland starters wiffed at least once.
In the top of the eighth, Greinke struck out Indian third baseman Andy Marte -- who had broken up the shutout with a solo homer in the sixth -- to set a new franchise record nearly 21 years to the day when Mark Gubicza struck out 14 Twins on Aug. 27, 1988.
The ball went to the dugout, but the bashful Greinke did not acknowledge a standing ovation from the half-full stadium, and he was denied his 16th strikeout on a 2-2 count later in the inning when Royal center fielder Josh Anderson made a horizontally immaculate diving catch to end the inning.
Greinke allowed just two earned runs in eight innings to further reduce his league-leading ERA to 2.43, and he actually got some run support this time, leaving with a 6-2 lead that would ultimately be the final. The crowd booed when Greinke did not reappear for the top of the ninth after 117 pitches, but those boos soon switched to a standing ovation, which Greinke naturally refused.
All this historic action prove to be a bit too much for Daniel and I. Ordinarily, we'll leave our seats at some time in the game and creep closer to the field no matter how much we liked the seats we paid for. If somehow we ever get our butts into front-row seats, we'll probably try sneaking into the Royals dugout during the seventh inning stretch. On this record-setting occasion, however, we downgraded our seats during the seventh inning stretch by moving up. The K's upper deck was less than a quarter full, which is typical for a weeknight whenever the Royals have been out of the pennant race since June, so we went to the top of the stadium and sat down next to a pillar on the very last row. I reached into my pocket to discover the night's only botched execution: the blunt I had rolled up the night before had somehow unravelled from the paper towel I'd wrapped it in and spilled half its guts out into the cellphone pocket of my white Dickies shorts. It was a tragic disappointment to be sure, but it was the only blemish on an otherwise spotless night.
I pulled the black Bic lighter out of that same cellphone pocket and lit what was left of our recreational utensil, passing it to Daniel after a few puffs and then surveying the stands below us for stadium personnel or law enforcement. There were some cops about a hundred yards away at 3 o'clock low in the middle of the upper deck, but they were too busy clapping for Greinke to worry about us. So there we sat, smoking a scaled-back spliff atop Kauffman Stadium while the Royals' only all-star had his way with the Cleveland Indians. I realized at that moment how impossible that moment would be if the Royals were a good baseball team or if we lived in a bigger city where more people came to the games based on sheer population and weeknight boredom. The upper decks at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park and Wrigley Field were surely filled to the brim on that very same evening, and while those fans get to watch good teams year in and year out, they can't get stoned at the top of the stadium like we can here in KC. I guess it's another one of those obscure benefits a beleaguered and starved sports fan claims when his team is perennially cellar-dwelling in what is perhaps baseball's thinnest division.
That's all we have to cling to here in Kansas City these days. Greinke was a puppeteer on the mound Tuesday, throwing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to whichever Indian was in the batter's box for eight full innings. Daniel and I returned to our seats in the eighth before Royal reliever Robinson Tejada struck out another Indian in the ninth, making it a season-high 16 K's for the Tribe, which also tied KC's franchise record for a nine-inning game).
Greinke's performance also moved him past 700 K's for his career and a personal best with 197 strikeouts this season, but sadly for Kansas City and all its sports fans, our young ace probably won't return to the Royals after his 4-year, $38 million contract is up in 2012. By then, he'll be 28-years old, and ready to begin the prime of his potentially hall-of-fame career. Tuesday night he exhibited full command of two different fastballs, a slow, 12-6 curveball, an 89 mph slider, and even the occasional changeup, and those five pitches should earn him nine digits from the Yankees, Red Sox, or whichever coastal, big-market team bids the most for him. That's life in today's sporting landscape, and we here in Kansas City have grown grudgingly used to it.
I've lived all my life within two hours of KC, but I've never been loyal to the Royals because their front office has proven itself incompetent and misguided time and again over the last two decades. Dayton Moore and the new administration is doing a better job than previous general management groups, but progress is still not promised for the smallest of small-market teams in a small-market division.
In a perfect world, the Royals starting outfield right now would also be the top three hitters in their lineup, and it would go something like this: Johnny Damon leading off in Left, Carlos Beltran batting second in Center, and Jermaine Dye batting third in Right. Damon and Dye have multiple all-star appearances and three World Series rings between them, and Beltran single handedly carried the Astros to the World Series in 2004. The Royals like to sign and re-sign one-dimensional jokes like Mike Sweeney instead of four and five-tool all stars like Damon, Dye and Beltran. Consequently, Kansas City hasn't made the playoffs since winning the World Series in 1985, and they have just two winning seasons in the last decade and a half: 2003 and the strike-shortened 1994.
Now do you see why Zackkkkkkkkkkkkkkk Greinkkkkkkkkkkkkkkke's performance Tuesday night is so special to a fan base that has been so deprived and depraved for so very long? Do you see why it hurts to know he'll be playing for another team in four years, just like all the other all-stars we've raised through our farm system only to watch leave through free agency? Now do you see why we get stoned in the stadium during the seventh inning stretch?!
Naturally, we were hungry by the end of the game, but responsible consumers don't pay $3.25 for a hot dog and $4.75 for a bottled water under any circumstances. When they announced Tuesday's official attendance to be 17,753, it occurred to me there were 2,247 unclaimed powder blue T-shirts somewhere on the premisis. On the way out, I asked stadium personnel if I could have a few more XL's to give to my friends, but they just looked at me like I was high.
After a quick workout and an even quicker dinner, we left for The K shortly after 6:23 p.m., hoping somehow to avoid Kansas City's rush-hour traffic and still arrive in time for first pitch at 7:05. Neither objective was an obstacle. With the Royals roughly 20 games out of first (19 entering Tuesday) and exactly 30 games below .500 (47-77), there was no discernible automotive convergence on the Truman Sports Complex, which is located due east of downtown KC and holds both The K and Arrowhead Stadium, where the town's other lovable losers languish longingly. Most of the city's worker bees had fled their 9-to-5 by the time we passed through, and very few of them were headed to the Royals-Indians game. Travelling along I-435 from our apartment in the southwest suburbs on the Kansas side, the 25-minute drive took an astonishing 25 minutes. That's one of those obscure benefits you claim when your hometown team is perennially cellar-dwelling in what is perhaps baseball's thinnest division.
We met little or no resistance (not even a line of cars) as we cruised up to the outer gates and vomited the $9 parking fee before sailing into a parking spot towards the front of a half-full parking lot (I'm not normally a parking lot half-full kind of guy, but this would prove to be the beginning of a very pleasant evening, so let's not break the vibe).
We exited the vehicle and found our immediate vicinity full of young, single people tailgating and carrying on, slamming beers from bottle and can alike as they threw both football and baseball to and fro. It occurred to Daniel and me as we approached the stadium that we still did not have tickets for the evening's affair, but luckily for us, luck wasn't gonna' let us down now. Before we made it to the ticket window on the southwest corner of The K, a man walking the other way somehow picked us out of the crowd and asked if we need tickets.
"How much?", I answered/asked.
"Five dollars," he said.
"Five dollars?!" I echoed.
"Yep ... five dollars will get you in, and then you can move down to some better seats after that. These are 18-dollar tickets, but I'm selling 'em for five now."
I looked deep into the man's eyes and then down at the tickets in his left hand to see if they had the proper date, time and opponent. I'd had good luck with scalpers in the past, but this crazy fool was un-scalping these tickets. I guess this is another one of the obscure benefits you claim when your hometown team is perennially cellar-dwelling in what is perhaps baseball's thinnest division.
"Sold ... give me two of 'em," I said as I reached into my pocket for the 10-dollar bill I knew was there. We made a crisp exchange in broad daylight, and suddenly Daniel and I were headed up the escalators to the 18-dollar seats we had commandeered for five after a 25-minute drive that actually lasted 25.
To make matters better, it was free T-shirt night for the first 20,000 fans, whom would likely be the only 20,000 fans, and we were each presented with an extra-large, powder blue Royals T as we passed through the turnstiles, compliments of AT&T. We got to our seats without asking more than two ushers where our seats were, and our plastic blue chairs happened to be in my favorite part of any major league stadium: on the front of the upper deck down the third base line, with a video-game quality view of all the action. These seats are particularly convenient in The K, where an August sunset blinds the people on the right field line for the first three or four innings of the game. We've been having an unseasonably cool summer here in the middle of the Midwest, but it was nice and stuffy on this particular evening as we settled in for first pitch, which was six minutes late at 7:11 p.m.
Zack Greinke threw that first pitch, and while Daniel and I had no idea the Royals' ace was even throwing that night, no one in the half-full stadium had any idea what they were about to witness. I'm not usually a stadium half-full kind of guy, but just keep reading.
Greinke struck out four of the first six Indians he faced, and after fanning just one in the top of the third, he K'd two in the fourth and struck out the side in the fifth to make it 10 K's through five IP. He struck out a pair in the sixth and seventh to establish a new career-high at 14, throwing one curveball as slow as 69 mph before squeezing off consecutive 97 mph fastballs in the top of the sixth to strike out Matt LaPorta.
Kauffman Stadium's new, bigger and better jumbotron in left-center lists each batter's previous at-bats each time he comes back to bat, and the oversized pixels started listing "Struck out swinging" and/or "Struck out looking" for almost every Indian hitter as the game went along. Kelly Shoppach and Shin-Soo Choo struck out three times each, and all nine Cleveland starters wiffed at least once.
In the top of the eighth, Greinke struck out Indian third baseman Andy Marte -- who had broken up the shutout with a solo homer in the sixth -- to set a new franchise record nearly 21 years to the day when Mark Gubicza struck out 14 Twins on Aug. 27, 1988.
The ball went to the dugout, but the bashful Greinke did not acknowledge a standing ovation from the half-full stadium, and he was denied his 16th strikeout on a 2-2 count later in the inning when Royal center fielder Josh Anderson made a horizontally immaculate diving catch to end the inning.
Greinke allowed just two earned runs in eight innings to further reduce his league-leading ERA to 2.43, and he actually got some run support this time, leaving with a 6-2 lead that would ultimately be the final. The crowd booed when Greinke did not reappear for the top of the ninth after 117 pitches, but those boos soon switched to a standing ovation, which Greinke naturally refused.
All this historic action prove to be a bit too much for Daniel and I. Ordinarily, we'll leave our seats at some time in the game and creep closer to the field no matter how much we liked the seats we paid for. If somehow we ever get our butts into front-row seats, we'll probably try sneaking into the Royals dugout during the seventh inning stretch. On this record-setting occasion, however, we downgraded our seats during the seventh inning stretch by moving up. The K's upper deck was less than a quarter full, which is typical for a weeknight whenever the Royals have been out of the pennant race since June, so we went to the top of the stadium and sat down next to a pillar on the very last row. I reached into my pocket to discover the night's only botched execution: the blunt I had rolled up the night before had somehow unravelled from the paper towel I'd wrapped it in and spilled half its guts out into the cellphone pocket of my white Dickies shorts. It was a tragic disappointment to be sure, but it was the only blemish on an otherwise spotless night.
I pulled the black Bic lighter out of that same cellphone pocket and lit what was left of our recreational utensil, passing it to Daniel after a few puffs and then surveying the stands below us for stadium personnel or law enforcement. There were some cops about a hundred yards away at 3 o'clock low in the middle of the upper deck, but they were too busy clapping for Greinke to worry about us. So there we sat, smoking a scaled-back spliff atop Kauffman Stadium while the Royals' only all-star had his way with the Cleveland Indians. I realized at that moment how impossible that moment would be if the Royals were a good baseball team or if we lived in a bigger city where more people came to the games based on sheer population and weeknight boredom. The upper decks at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park and Wrigley Field were surely filled to the brim on that very same evening, and while those fans get to watch good teams year in and year out, they can't get stoned at the top of the stadium like we can here in KC. I guess it's another one of those obscure benefits a beleaguered and starved sports fan claims when his team is perennially cellar-dwelling in what is perhaps baseball's thinnest division.
That's all we have to cling to here in Kansas City these days. Greinke was a puppeteer on the mound Tuesday, throwing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to whichever Indian was in the batter's box for eight full innings. Daniel and I returned to our seats in the eighth before Royal reliever Robinson Tejada struck out another Indian in the ninth, making it a season-high 16 K's for the Tribe, which also tied KC's franchise record for a nine-inning game).
Greinke's performance also moved him past 700 K's for his career and a personal best with 197 strikeouts this season, but sadly for Kansas City and all its sports fans, our young ace probably won't return to the Royals after his 4-year, $38 million contract is up in 2012. By then, he'll be 28-years old, and ready to begin the prime of his potentially hall-of-fame career. Tuesday night he exhibited full command of two different fastballs, a slow, 12-6 curveball, an 89 mph slider, and even the occasional changeup, and those five pitches should earn him nine digits from the Yankees, Red Sox, or whichever coastal, big-market team bids the most for him. That's life in today's sporting landscape, and we here in Kansas City have grown grudgingly used to it.
I've lived all my life within two hours of KC, but I've never been loyal to the Royals because their front office has proven itself incompetent and misguided time and again over the last two decades. Dayton Moore and the new administration is doing a better job than previous general management groups, but progress is still not promised for the smallest of small-market teams in a small-market division.
In a perfect world, the Royals starting outfield right now would also be the top three hitters in their lineup, and it would go something like this: Johnny Damon leading off in Left, Carlos Beltran batting second in Center, and Jermaine Dye batting third in Right. Damon and Dye have multiple all-star appearances and three World Series rings between them, and Beltran single handedly carried the Astros to the World Series in 2004. The Royals like to sign and re-sign one-dimensional jokes like Mike Sweeney instead of four and five-tool all stars like Damon, Dye and Beltran. Consequently, Kansas City hasn't made the playoffs since winning the World Series in 1985, and they have just two winning seasons in the last decade and a half: 2003 and the strike-shortened 1994.
Now do you see why Zackkkkkkkkkkkkkkk Greinkkkkkkkkkkkkkkke's performance Tuesday night is so special to a fan base that has been so deprived and depraved for so very long? Do you see why it hurts to know he'll be playing for another team in four years, just like all the other all-stars we've raised through our farm system only to watch leave through free agency? Now do you see why we get stoned in the stadium during the seventh inning stretch?!
Naturally, we were hungry by the end of the game, but responsible consumers don't pay $3.25 for a hot dog and $4.75 for a bottled water under any circumstances. When they announced Tuesday's official attendance to be 17,753, it occurred to me there were 2,247 unclaimed powder blue T-shirts somewhere on the premisis. On the way out, I asked stadium personnel if I could have a few more XL's to give to my friends, but they just looked at me like I was high.
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