Bowl Premonitions

Happy New Year. Did you stay up until midnight? I didn't, but did make it to the end of the Fiesta Bowl because I was doing other stuff. 

Wednesday morning I had a premonition: I know I picked Oregon but if the Buckeyes play like they did last week they could pull the upset. But Ohio State has a recent history of flopping in big games. 

I know Bama had at least 9 players missing from the bowl game. Not sure about that South Carolina / Illinois Cheez Itz Bowl. Something about players signaling each other when there’s not going to be a kickoff return, then SC faked the signal and ran the kick back.

Refs didn’t call targeting on Texas (it was a close call) which may have been the difference in the Peach Bowl. Sun Devils missed 2 field goals and missed out on a TD, but still tied it up in regulation. Some game.

The Sun Devil star gives glory to God. So does the Buckeye QB, and later the Notre Dame QB. Previously it was the Texas QB and the UGA QB. Also the Boise State head coach. The Colorado head coach has been known to glorify God. And Clemson's head coach and QB. Quite the trend. 

Because of the Peach Bowl overtime, few watched the first quarter of the Rose Bowl that ESPN paid almost $8 billion to televise. Rose Bowl wants to kick off at 5 pm eastern because of the beautiful sunset on the San Gabriel mountains.

Thursday morning I had another premonition: just like my feeling about Ohio State turned out to be true, I had a feeling that with the delay, Notre Dame would find a way to win. Guess I should go in to fortune telling, huh? UGA was missing 12 players. Kirby’s father fell there in New Orleans and is in the hospital. Not good indicators.

1.03 0400 N Tex vs Tex St

1.03 0730 Minn vs Va Tech

1.04 1100 Liberty vs Buffalo

1.04 0430 Browns @ Ravens

1.04 0800 Bengals @ Steelers

1.05 0100 Panthers @ Falcons

1.05 0100 Jaguars @ Colts

1.05 0425 Chargers @ Raiders

1.05 0425 Chiefs @ Broncos

1.05 0820 Vikings @ Lions

1.09 0730 Notre Dame vs Penn State

1.10 0730 Ohio State vs Texas

NEWS: click here to watch the little project I compiled all last year – 366 one second long daily photos of my year, one for each day. Six minutes long. Happy with the result. Hope to make the 2025 version even better. Have I shared this yet?  

Denison on the terrorist attack in New Orleans: we ask how an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God could allow such a tragedy (Habakkuk 1:13). God created humans to love him and each other (Matthew 22:37–39). God endowed us with the freedom necessary to make this choice (Joshua 24:15). When we misuse this freedom, the consequences are not his fault but ours.

MICKEY MANTLE [SABR Bio] has the most career RBI in the World Series: 40. Yogi is right behind him with 39. Mantle broke Babe Ruth’s career regular season strikeout record in 1964 and held it (1710) until 1978 when Willie Stargell passed him. There are now 40 players with career K totals greater than Mantle’s. He hit .353 in 1956, by far his highest to that point. He also led with 130 RBI that year. His 52 HR to give him a Triple Crown. 1956 was the only time The Commerce Comet led in either batting average or RBI.

Game Notes: Sugar Bowl

Game notes: two lost fumbles. Kickoff return for a touchdown. Notre Dame scores 17 quick points. UGA gets in a 3rd and long and has to burn a valuable time out. Not winning football. Early in the game it was the Irish committing penalty after penalty. Then Riley Leonard started running the ball like GT QB Haynes King. If Riley was so good, why did he have to transfer? At least he's a Christian.

Then after the Irish scored on the kickoff return, the Dawgs try to run the kickoff out of the end zone. It didn't turn out well. 

Cash Jones missed most of the first half, then came back to score a TD. WR Bell also missed time. Dawgs weren't able to capitalize on two long drives. First lost fumble all year by Etienne. Wide open receiver drops another pass, making for a second and long. The poor play carries over to the second half. Offsides on a 4th down play. Dawgs not tackling well, or taking good angles to the ball. 

Pretty sure I saw a couple of Notre Dame players in the white border during the kickoff return TD. Later announcer Greg McElroy got into an on air argument with the rules official - weird. Sean McDonough had to break it up. 

For the most part Gunner Stockton played well. Really zipping passes to his receivers. Didn't get much help from the running backs, wide receivers, and offensive line. Tight ends did good.

Huge gamble by UGA on 4th and 13 pays off with the obvious pass interference. But the Dawgs can't cash in. Replace two missed 4th down conversions with two field goals, and it's a 7 point game.

Give credit to the Irish kicker for nailing all his field goals. 

Guess all the experts were right: Dawgs can't beat the Irish with an inexperienced backup QB. First time Notre Dame ever beat Georgia. First Irish team to win the Sugar, Rose, or Orange since 1974. Can the Irish beat Penn State...on two days less rest? 

Announcer Matt Stinchcomb said earlier this week that most of the Irish players he'd met were nice gentlemen, most probably future corporate executives. So they have that going for them.

Walkons: Cash Jones. That UGA LB #17. That Arizona State do everything RB. Clemson WR Hunter Renfroe drafted by the Raiders. Was Ladd McConkey a walkon? What do they all have in common?

That poor #39 on the sidelines. I'm probably wrong, but it didn't look like he was on the white border to me. Maybe the official just hit the kid's arms.

Maybe the official was too close to the Georgia team. A tough penalty. After that the border was clear on both sidelines. 

Did Kirby actually write his tweet? A nice sentiment but it seemed uncharacteristic for him, as uber focused as he is on football. Also kind of wordy. Maybe Kirby spoke those words. 

Irish defender loses a shoe and sprints toward the sideline - then drops to the ground faking an injury. Nice.

Never realized both Notre Dame and Auburn have the same fight song.

I liked Notre Dame better when they wore black shoes and didn't have the names on the backs of the jerseys. 

Glad they moved the Sugar Bowl playoff semifinal to 4 pm so the Duke vs Ole Miss Gator Bowl could stay in prime time. At least either the SEC or the ACC will finally get a bowl win.

Guess I shouldn't have left work early to watch the game at home. 

All four top teams given a playoff bye lost. Guess UGA should've been treated like FSU and been left out of the playoff, since their starting QB was out. Not!

Tomorrow: more bowl observations.

Got a lot done at work today because it was so quiet. Still tons to do. Brad gets all his flu shots but keeps getting Covid and the flu. But he keeps running every day. I'm going to be sure to take my vitamins. 

Young dad Marty took a job with a competitor. Probably closer to home, higher paying, and easier than what he was doing. Can't blame him. Poor Sherryl is going crazy. It's not SAP but all the extra work she's having to do with the new slitter being broke. She was already overworked. 

Lots of craziness going on in the US and the world. Seemed like the FBI knew in advance there was a bomb in the cooler. Vegas bomber was burned beyond recognition with a gunshot wound to the head but his two ID's were intact? A supposed bomb making expert who loved his country and Trump. Could he have been killed and placed in the cybertruck before it was exploded? Two suspects both from Ft Bragg. Lots of double talk from the government. Plus all this fog business. I don't want to go outside, and I don't want to look up. The year isn't starting off well.

Appropriately my library reservation for George Orwell's  "1984" just became available for me to check out.

How My Blog Posts Come Together

A couple of friends asked me about my blog. I am someone who needs to explain things, so here’s how and why I write this blog. Typing out things helps me figure out what I think and how I feel about things. Not long after I got email at work in 2000, I started swapping emails with my friend Reid Whitaker every day. He’d always talk about where and what they are, so that’s been an ongoing topic of discussion. We’ll hit on sports and church and family, sometimes on personal matters.

In 2005, I read about blogs, and decided to start one – mostly to have a record of family activities and what was going on in my life: https://sacrificefly.blogspot.com/ I liked how the concept of baseball’s sacrifice fly had connotations to real like, so I stuck with the title. Probably not a good idea to share so much on line, but I try to edit out any personal information. Back then I was emailing our parents the recaps of our kid’s games and other activities. These also became blog posts. What used to be little league and ballet have become weddings and grandchildren.

If there’s something on my mind, perhaps on sports or work or politics, I’ll often share them with Reid. At the end of each day I’d edit these emails into a daily blog post. I’ll organize them with the most interesting as the lead paragraphs. It’s become a daily habit. I try to not be too political, but in an election year like 2024 I may have posted more political content that usual.

For me this is a creative activity. For 13 of the past 14 years I have been able to post most every day. A typical post will usually be a mish mash of various topics, from mundane details of my day to thoughts on various world events. For sure it is heavy on whatever sport is in season. With my busy job and things to do at night, I try to not let the blog take up too much of my time. For this reason the quality of the content isn’t as great as it could be. I try to keep posts between 500-800 words. By the end of the week I may split up extra content into posts of equal length for Friday Saturday and Sunday. If I’m too busy or have nothing to share, I can always post several photos and memes I have saved.

I won’t say that I’m always on the lookout for content, but quite often there will be a subject that I’ll want to write about. If I come across an interesting article or tweet, I’ll share it on a post. When I have time, I may take notes on the article to share the details. Most are things that I want to remind myself of. Occasionally my kids will check the blog history to check details on something that happened years ago, which thrills me.

A few years ago I started back taking sermon notes. I’ll peck out the notes as an email on my phone, and at the end of the sermon email them to Reid, who loves sermon notes (he’s got a collection of hundreds, if not thousands). So these sermon notes get turned into blog posts. Our Sunday School lessons are so good, that often I will take notes on them as well. Also some notes from what we’re learning in small group. I receive a daily email devotion for former SPdL pastor Jim Denison, who often gives his Biblical take on current word events. I’ll often share a key paragraph and link to his devotional.

I’d like to think that this whole blog thing is a record of me: what I’m thinking and feeling and experiencing. It may not be pretty or polished and certainly not perfect, but that’s okay. Neither am I. I’d like to think that over the years I have become a better writer, though it’s easy to read what others write to see that I still have a long way to go.

Most of my posts only receive 10-20 views. I could share my posts on social media, but rarely do. Only when a topic is being discussed that I have written about (like football’s rare fair catch kick) or the monthly list of bobblehead giveaways, will I share on Twitter. Then the views might crack triple digits. My list of Augusta National members seems to receive views every month, but it has yet to click the top ten (it’s #11).

It took well over 15 years to crack one million views. Not many, considering I’ve published over 6800 posts. Of course that’s not why I do this. I probably should be worried that 345,000 views have come from China (more than from the US) and 150,000 from Hong Kong, but I haven’t been hacked. Yet. I don’t think.

My friend Reid turns 90 in March. Sometimes I wonder what I will do when he’s not around to share things with. I recently shared this with my young nephew Joe, and his reply was something I’d already been thinking: play it forward with someone younger. Perhaps one of my kids, or at some point, my grandkids. When I retire I hope to be spending less time in front of a keyboard. Not sure what that means for this blog.

Most days I receive an email quiz from SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. I’m not a member – while interesting, it’s not something I want to devote such a large chunk of time to. But I edit the quiz into a paraqraph for my blog, to share info about various ballplayers. Such as…

RALPH KINER [SABR Bio] is the only Pittsburgh Pirate slugger to lead the National League in home runs in consecutive seasons. Kiner led the NL for 7 consecutive seasons: from 1946-1952. He led the majors from 1947-52. His yearly totals were 23, 51, 40, 54, 47, 32, 47, in the first 8 seasons of his career. On 13-Oct-1951, he married California tennis star Nancy Chafee. They had three children, but they divorced in 1968. Following his retirement, Kiner served from 1956-1960 as general manager of the Pacific Coast League San Diego Padres.

My top eleven blog posts. Some were shared on social media or a website like Uni Watch, others had catchy titles. Once in my top ten, it’s easier for them to receive extra views.

1. 8.07K Nike Roshe Run, a sneaker  

2. 6.87K Braves uniform history

3. 3.14K SunTrust Park Open House

4. 3.06K May 2017 bobbleheads

5. 3.05K April 2017 bobbleheads

6. 3.02K Better Than the Ted (SunTrust Park)

7. 2.82K June 2017 bobbleheads

8. 2.75K Banana Smash, a game played by my youth group

9. 2.72K recap of a UGA, GT, & Clemson game

10. 2.58K highest pail athletes

11. 2.09K Augusta National Members