Your “I Think Baseball Is A Gateway Drug” Wednesday Evening Open Thread

NFL Notes:

• OOOHHH – BEEF!
  • Pete Carroll had things to say about Richard Sherman & Michael Bennett having things to say on their way out of the Emerald City.
    • The money quote from the interview is Carroll claiming “sometimes guys can’t hang with what’s expected.”
    • Oh, and about any malcontents?
      • “And the best thing I can tell you is, that they’re not here.”

• SHOCKING! Gronk says he’ll be back for the Patriots in 2018.
  • HOWEVER!, in a conspiracy theory devised via a media 69 you don’t ever want to picture, Florio is reporting that Peter King has it on good authority (the purser in the Acela Quiet Car) that if Gronk wasn’t committed to this season, the Patriots were going to trade his rights to someone else.
    • So Gronk had to make his call if he wanted Gisele to keep feeding him models.

• DELIGHTFUL! Saquon Barkley & his girlfriend had a baby girl yesterday.
  • If the Bengals picked first, I would say it might affect his draft stock, because “character issues” and “Mike Brown is a stupid, stupid man”.
  • On the “character issues” topic, Deadspin is saying that ESPN is claiming Baker Mayfield is one, and coincidentally Mayfield is refusing to do live shots during the Draft.

How DARE he have a mind of his own. He’ll never survive in the NFL if he doesn’t realize his time is a precious commodity that must be sold to the highest bidder. Did the NCAA teach him nothing? What was he there for – a degree?!

I have a shameful secret to share.

I’m addicted to cricket.

More directly, I can’t start my morning without watching the opening overs of the Indian T-20 tournament going on right now.

The games are live; they start at 8:00PM India time, which is 7:30AM in Vancouver, so it’s a perfect 45 minute watch before I get in the car & head to school. Plus, they are being called by the most Australian & New Zealander of people, guys who make the AFL broadcasters sound like Jim Ross.

There’s eight teams, a salary cap, and from what I gather they can each have eight imported players (with maximum four active in any game), who are usually pretty easy to spot because they are either the white guy (English), the whiter guy (Australian), the whiterer guy (New Zealand), the whiterest guy (South African), or the black guy (West Indies).

I can’t explain why I find it so intriguing. Maybe it’s because of how foreign it is, and yet a modern take on a colonial export. Every weekend, there’s a group of West Indians that gather at the field near my house & play a T-20 style match. They’re there for four hours, and never seem to get bored watching each other.

The IPL does have cheerleaders, who I don’t think count against their import restrictions.

It also seems like they threw away the boring parts of baseball & traditional cricket & just made the game go faster. Or it could be that it’s a welcome break from the repeats of last night’s highlight shows.

Finally, Vancouver has a large Indian & Sikh population, and there are a few kids who also watch it, so we can have some common talking points, which is a BIG bonus when working with 16-18 year-olds you otherwise want to beat to death for their overwhelming ignorance.

For you GAMBLOR devotees, there are odds sites and there is daily betting. Plus, two teams were suspended for two seasons after the 2015 season for a match-fixing & betting scandal, and one of the captains of those teams – Steve Smith of Australia – was also recently implicated in a ball-tampering incident during an international test between Australia & South Africa and banned from national & international play for one year.

Tonight’s sports:

• NHL:
  • Leafs at Bruins – 7:30PM | NBCSN / CBC – GAME 7 BAY-BAY!

• NBA:
  • Pacers at Cavaliers – 7:00PM | TNT (Game 5; series tied 2-2)
  • Wizards at Raptors – 7:00PM | NBA TV / TSN (Game 5; series tied 2-2)
  • Timberwolves at Rockets – 9:30PM | TNT / TSN (Game 5; Rockets lead 3-1)
  • Jazz at OKC – 9:30PM | NBA TV / (Game 5; Jazz lead 3-1)
• MLB:
  • Cubs at Indians – 7:00PM | ESPN / TSN3
  • Red Sox at Blue Jays – 7:00PM | Sportsnet
• Futbol:
  • 2018 CONCACAF Champions League:
    • Final – Leg #2: Chivas vs. Toronto FC – 9:30PM | TSN2 / Univision Deportes
      • Chivas leads 2-1 on away goals

Horatio’s got you tomorrow for the Draft. FIVE BUCKS SAYS THE BROWNS PICK A DEAD GUY!