Tag Archives: baltimore

Narrow Margin Monday, take 2

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We find ourselves late on a Monday after another weekend of close games. On Saturday, woefully underachieving Michigan State lost in overtime to Iowa as a result of what one local radio host called the worst coaching he had ever seen in his life, and the man is neither young nor inexperienced in the field. In a real upset, LSU threw a monkey wrench in the SEC East race and beat South Carolina 23-21, Kansas State escaped Ames with a 27-21 win over Iowa State, Notre Dame beat Stanford 20-13 in overtime, and Texas A&M squeaked by Louisiana Tech 59-57. Even the Florida-Vanderbilt game was close into the fourth quarter before the Gators and their quarterback ran away with it. More on that game later this week.

Saturday had its share of blowouts, naturally, and the notable ones included Alabama’s 42-10 win at Missouri, which remains winless in its new conference, Texas Tech’s 49-14 embarrassment of one-time national championship contender West Virginia, still-undefeated Oregon State’s 42-24 win over BYU, and Michigan’s 45-0 muddy execution of Illinois on Wolverine homecoming. Michigan hosts Michigan State in another ALDLAND outing, more on which toward the end of the week.

The NFL had its share of close contests too, including the Lions’ overtime win over hapless Philadelphia, Buffalo’s 19-16 overtime win over Arizona, whose kicker hit a 61-yarder to tie the game but subsequently missed a 30-something yard kick to win the game in the final seconds, the Seahawks 24-23 win over New England, Atlanta’s come-from-behind win over Oakland to become the league’s final undefeated team, Miami’s 17-14 victory over the Rams, and Baltimore’s 31-29 capitalization on the Dallas (ongoing) Disaster. Baltimore payed a long-term price for its win, though, sacrificing defenders Ray Lewis and Ladarius Webb at last to the football devil (no, not the commissioner– separate office) in payment for their past defensive successes. Lewis and Webb are out for the season. Other high-flying teams went down in spectacular fashion on Sunday, including San Francisco, 26-3 at the hands of the Giants, and Houston, 42-24 to Green Bay on Sunday night.

In off-field NFL news, Jonathan Vilma, the embattled New Orleans Saint, reportedly will be allowed to play as soon as this weekend, although it isn’t clear if he will. Vilma continues to maintain a defamation suit against Roger Goodell.

In baseball, the final four is set and in motion. Detroit seized a 2-0 lead over the Yankees as the series heads to Detroit with AL strikeout kings Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer yet to pitch for the Tigers. The other road team, St. Louis, has a 1-0 lead in the NLCS battle of the two most recent defending World Series champions, though the Cardinals are down 5-1 in the fourth as I write this.

ALDLAND Podcast

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ALDLAND is back with its most intense baseball podcast yet.  We have playoff predictions.  We have triple crown coverage.  We even speak about the elusive quadruple crown.  Also covered: a stupid sport with stupid players and owners that isn’t even going to play a season this year.  Someone else needs to step up and listen to this while Pax is in the Alps.  Will it be you?  It better be.

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

ALDLAND Podcast

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After another short-ish break, Aldland is back with another podcast, this time featuring blog creator AD.  We have doubled the number of listeners to our podcast, and are producing an appropriately epic podcast to honor the occasion.  Listen as we talk baseball, Saints bounty program and obviously, about the biggest news story of the year.  Click that play button!

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

Might as well face it, you’re addicted to glove: Josh Hamilton’s epic night, and a lesson learned

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Lately, it seems like an epic Josh Hamilton night is likely to be of the not-so-good variety, but last night was epic and historic in a very on-the-field, baseball kind of way:
https://twitter.com/#!/Espngreeny/status/200170998681710592
Hamilton hit four home runs in a game against the previously self-defying hot Orioles, which also is historic because it probably is the best night anybody’s had in Baltimore since the days when Gram and Emmylou were singing “Streets of Baltimore.”

And this time, I was the one learning a lesson after a Josh Hamilton epic night, finally getting an answer to a question I’d had since I was a kid: When you hit a home run, do you get an RBI for yourself? The answer is yes, and it came courtesy of the radio call that declared Hamilton had four two-run homers, an eight-RBI night. I can do that math.