The Saskatchewan Roughriders earned their first win of the season on Friday night, edging the unbeaten Ottawa Redblacks 30-29, thanks to a 53-yard field goal with just over a minute remaining in the fourth quarter. Back-up quarterback Mitchell Gale (I call him The Perfect Storm) showed some promise, throwing for 350-yards. He made a couple of mistakes, but it also appeared on a couple of his ‘mistakes’ that receivers had run the wrong routes. There were some typical Rider screw-ups that we’ve come to expect with any Rider team (no matter who’s coaching), including four or five brutal snaps from center. It should have been a real captivating contest, but the life was sucked out of it because of frequent coach challenges, horrible officiating, and television commercial breaks. If the CFL wants to ramp up the entertainment quality (and the quality of the game itself has been very good this season), they need to abolish coach challenges altogether. Many of them solve nothing anyway and the fan is still left to interpret what was seen by the human eye ball. I would also eliminate some of these commercial breaks. There are enough injuries throughout the course of the game that you could schedule something around that. The league should try to get games to last no more than three hours. We are well over 3 ½ in a lot of instances now and that’s too long. It also wouldn’t kill the budget at TSN to have a couple of weekly magazine shows for fans to watch. Surely, we don’t need to watch Europe’s Top 50 Goals more than a CFL hot stove.
Speaking of replays, there is continuing talk in Major League Baseball on how to shorten games and I’d eliminate the coach/manager challenge in that sport too. Actually, I’d do away with it in every sport and have an independent eye in the sky who reviews everything and orders reviews only in the most outrageous cases of offense. A guy sliding with his momentum carrying him off the bag by an inch long after he’s shown to be safe isn’t something we should be allowed to challenge and win based on a technicality. It’s much like the borderline offside call in hockey. To have the ability to call back a goal because a portion of a guy’s skate blade is too far over the blueline is ridiculous when you consider a missed cross check in front of the net when a player is ready to accept a pass and shoot the puck into an open net can’t be challenged. Baseball could also do itself a favor and institute a pitch clock since umpires have already abandoned the practice of preventing batters from stepping out of the box to adjust equipment.
Chris Sale, the star pitcher of the Chicago White Sox, told his bosses on the weekend that he didn’t want to wear a special throwback jersey while he pitched. To get his point across, he cut the jerseys up so they had to go in the garbage. This is a grown man making $13-million a year. What’s most astounding about all of this is that there are many teams trying to trade for this guy who don’t see this is a yellow flag at all. Frankly, I wouldn’t want this player no matter how good he is. He also has a previous history of being insubordinate through voicing displeasure over the team’s policy to remove children from the clubhouse. This guy is psycho.
Another week and plenty of killing in our world once again. Sunday there was another mass shooting in Florida, although there is no problem with guns. Yes, I know if you banned guns, the person would have found some other means to carry out the crime. I get it. I’ve heard the excuses. I give up. No gun problem.
In Germany, I lost track of the incidents that occurred over the weekend. Three or four of them, to be certain. None of them are terrorist related though, so you can relax. In one case, it was a guy with a tan (true story based on a main stream media report). In another it was just some dude with an illness who was fixated on mass killing. And, then there was one where a poor refugee had been refused entrance to a music festival so he returned with a bomb strapped to himself and he blew himself and whatever else was nearby to bits. I mean that’s regular behaviour right? You get refused entry to a bar or something and so you come back and commit an attempted mass murder. Doesn’t seem terror related at all. There’s a significant portion of our population that will deny to accept what’s happening at all costs.
Nice person mentions this week: Trent Cey, Therese Brass, Tracy Turner, and Renee Waldbauer.
