Chip Shots: It’s A (Column)… About Nothing
August 12, 2022 at 10:47 p.m.
Chip Shots: It’s A (Column)… About Nothing
By Chip Davenport-
This week I’m sharing a column about nothing.
My apologies to my editor and general manager for those people who move to the next headline after they read the first two sentences. I have a hunch, on the other hand, there are enough people who might still read on just to see how my brain is working this week.
It seems to be fashionable around here for folks to thumb their noses at the coasts, but I enjoy following Major League Baseball when the biggest markets are on top. MLB, as a business, and as a TV product becomes increasingly watchable when the largest markets are at the top of the standings.
This is a good baseball season to date for large TV markets.
The top 12 division title and wild card leaders are comprised of 6 teams among 5 top market cities:
New York (#1, Yankees and Mets), Los Angeles (#2, Dodgers), Philadelphia (#4, Phillies), Atlanta (#7, Braves), and Houston (#8, Astros).
If this pace stays in place TV ratings for late-season playoff races and postseason should be pretty good in relative terms.
Are baseball playoff games dwarfed by even the worst of NFL regular season games? They certainly are, and I’m too casual a fan to suggest how MLB can tweak their televised product to attain greater ratings. The current state of standings, and colorful, interesting players like Juan Soto and Shohei Ohtani, however, recently drew me to catching additional tranches of televised baseball action than in seasons past.
I’m also interested in the pace both New York teams, the Astros, and now the red-hot Dodgers are moving toward 100-win seasons. The Dodgers have sneaked their way on top of the majors on a pace to win 112 games, followed by the Mets and Yankees (104), and Houston (103).
For those of you who want to figure out what teams are on pace to win 100 games, but don’t want to take off your shoes and socks to use extra digits for the math, look in the standings, and take note of teams currently winning at a 0.617 won-loss clip.
Parents of senior athletes, I’ll give you some unsolicited advice. Embrace and enjoy every iota of your child’s senior season because those 8 to 12 weeks (on average) of regular and post season action will move more quickly than you can imagine. Suddenly, it’s the last time you’ll see your kid on the field, pitch, hardcourt, oval, or diamond (for most of you).
Football parents, your senior just finished his last career high school scrimmage last night. Senior Night arrives in 8 more Fridays, 54 calendar days. Soccer and volleyball have a comparable timeline to football. Golfers? You’re already on the clock, and the trees will still be mostly green when the state championship tournament is completed. Cross country? Don’t blink.
Fans of all sports among all seasons, please say a bedtime prayer each night for increased visiting teams’ attendance at Tiger athletic events. Guest gate and concession revenues are the extra push to fuel the operations expenses among all high school sports. It’s a huge reason Mishawaka joined the Northern Lakes Conference. At least half of the conference teams have fan bases known for traveling well as opposed to being able to hand-count South Bend Riley fans (and other Northern Indiana Conference schools) in big, beautiful Steele Stadium.
I’m pleased to report I’m Skittles-free since June 4, 2022, not even a reach.
Call me out if you see me reach for them at the concession stands. I’ve learned Skittles has, relatively speaking, a lot of titanium dioxide, an additive used in the plastic building products industry to keep darker-colored systems from chalking.
I’m headed to Cleveland August 21 for the Browns’ exhibition game against Philadelphia. It will be week two, and the expanded regular season schedule will make the probability of seeing the first teamers on the field pretty low. I’m eager to go, though, because there will still be plenty of daylight following the 1 p.m. game to take my son out to the village where I spent most of my childhood.
I don’t expect him to be in awe of my childhood haunts, but I am hoping he understands why I look at him and his sister cross-eyed when they grouse about sharing space in my current house. There is a very good Mexican restaurant near the village, though, and I’d rather eat there than fight the postgame crowds heading toward the Cleveland restaurants.
I also plan on taking my son through Old Brooklyn, the neighborhood where I was born. He’s seen it before, and some of my maternal relatives still live there so he’s been there before. I still enjoy hearing him say as we drive through the areas at the bottom of the hills, “You walked THERE to get a shake at night when you were HOW OLD?”
I wish each athlete, coach, athletic staff member and all the fans, friends, and families among our Times-Union readership’s school districts a safe, fun, and successful scholastic and academic school year.
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This week I’m sharing a column about nothing.
My apologies to my editor and general manager for those people who move to the next headline after they read the first two sentences. I have a hunch, on the other hand, there are enough people who might still read on just to see how my brain is working this week.
It seems to be fashionable around here for folks to thumb their noses at the coasts, but I enjoy following Major League Baseball when the biggest markets are on top. MLB, as a business, and as a TV product becomes increasingly watchable when the largest markets are at the top of the standings.
This is a good baseball season to date for large TV markets.
The top 12 division title and wild card leaders are comprised of 6 teams among 5 top market cities:
New York (#1, Yankees and Mets), Los Angeles (#2, Dodgers), Philadelphia (#4, Phillies), Atlanta (#7, Braves), and Houston (#8, Astros).
If this pace stays in place TV ratings for late-season playoff races and postseason should be pretty good in relative terms.
Are baseball playoff games dwarfed by even the worst of NFL regular season games? They certainly are, and I’m too casual a fan to suggest how MLB can tweak their televised product to attain greater ratings. The current state of standings, and colorful, interesting players like Juan Soto and Shohei Ohtani, however, recently drew me to catching additional tranches of televised baseball action than in seasons past.
I’m also interested in the pace both New York teams, the Astros, and now the red-hot Dodgers are moving toward 100-win seasons. The Dodgers have sneaked their way on top of the majors on a pace to win 112 games, followed by the Mets and Yankees (104), and Houston (103).
For those of you who want to figure out what teams are on pace to win 100 games, but don’t want to take off your shoes and socks to use extra digits for the math, look in the standings, and take note of teams currently winning at a 0.617 won-loss clip.
Parents of senior athletes, I’ll give you some unsolicited advice. Embrace and enjoy every iota of your child’s senior season because those 8 to 12 weeks (on average) of regular and post season action will move more quickly than you can imagine. Suddenly, it’s the last time you’ll see your kid on the field, pitch, hardcourt, oval, or diamond (for most of you).
Football parents, your senior just finished his last career high school scrimmage last night. Senior Night arrives in 8 more Fridays, 54 calendar days. Soccer and volleyball have a comparable timeline to football. Golfers? You’re already on the clock, and the trees will still be mostly green when the state championship tournament is completed. Cross country? Don’t blink.
Fans of all sports among all seasons, please say a bedtime prayer each night for increased visiting teams’ attendance at Tiger athletic events. Guest gate and concession revenues are the extra push to fuel the operations expenses among all high school sports. It’s a huge reason Mishawaka joined the Northern Lakes Conference. At least half of the conference teams have fan bases known for traveling well as opposed to being able to hand-count South Bend Riley fans (and other Northern Indiana Conference schools) in big, beautiful Steele Stadium.
I’m pleased to report I’m Skittles-free since June 4, 2022, not even a reach.
Call me out if you see me reach for them at the concession stands. I’ve learned Skittles has, relatively speaking, a lot of titanium dioxide, an additive used in the plastic building products industry to keep darker-colored systems from chalking.
I’m headed to Cleveland August 21 for the Browns’ exhibition game against Philadelphia. It will be week two, and the expanded regular season schedule will make the probability of seeing the first teamers on the field pretty low. I’m eager to go, though, because there will still be plenty of daylight following the 1 p.m. game to take my son out to the village where I spent most of my childhood.
I don’t expect him to be in awe of my childhood haunts, but I am hoping he understands why I look at him and his sister cross-eyed when they grouse about sharing space in my current house. There is a very good Mexican restaurant near the village, though, and I’d rather eat there than fight the postgame crowds heading toward the Cleveland restaurants.
I also plan on taking my son through Old Brooklyn, the neighborhood where I was born. He’s seen it before, and some of my maternal relatives still live there so he’s been there before. I still enjoy hearing him say as we drive through the areas at the bottom of the hills, “You walked THERE to get a shake at night when you were HOW OLD?”
I wish each athlete, coach, athletic staff member and all the fans, friends, and families among our Times-Union readership’s school districts a safe, fun, and successful scholastic and academic school year.
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