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Big Z

On the Road Again? No Better Place to Be for Game 7

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NOTE FROM BIG Z: I wrote this piece almost five years ago. Tonight is the first Game 7 in any sport since I wrote this piece. I think it holds up quite well. One nugget to add – road teams across the NHL, NBA and MLB have won six straight Game 7’s going back to the 2014 World Series. The road team has won the last three Stanley Cup Final Game 7’s. The last home team to hoist the Cup after a Game 7 was the 2006 Hurricanes.

As I’m sure you heard last night, this 2019 World Series was the first best-of-seven postseason series in the history of major North American sports where the road team won all seven games. Pretty remarkable. What’s also remarkable is how well road teams have fared in winner-take-all Game 7’s over the past decade. Not all that long ago you could bet your house on the home team in Game 7. Not any more.

When the Pittsburgh Penguins won Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final they were the first team in any of the North American major men’s sports leagues to win a Game 7 of a championship round on the road since, fittingly, the Pittsburgh Pirates won Game 7 of the World Series on the road in 1979. For nearly 30 years, no road team won a championship round Game 7 on the road.

For the Penguins, they were the first NHL team to win a Stanley Cup Final Game 7 on the road since 1971. During the 38 years in between, road teams were 0-6 in Stanley Cup Final Game 7’s. Since 2009, road teams are 3-0 in Stanley Cup Final Game 7’s.

The San Francisco Giants got Major League Baseball road teams off the Game 7 schneid in 2014, when they defeated the Kansas City Royals in Game 7 of the World Series in Kansas City. In between the 1979 Pirates and 2014 Giants, road teams were 0-9 in World Series Game 7’s. Since 2014, road teams are 4-0 in Game 7 of the World Series.

More recently, the Cleveland Cavaliers got NBA teams of the Game 7 schneid when they defeated the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals. The last NBA team to win Game 7 of the Finals on the road had been the Washington Bullets in 1978. In the 38 years between, road teams went 0-6 in Game 7’s. The 2016 NBA Finals was the last NBA Finals to go seven games.

Across all three leagues (because the NFL, obviously, does not play series), no road team won a Game 7 in the 1980s (0-for-7) or the 1990s (0-for-4). Road teams were nearly blanked in the 2000s (1-for-8), too, until the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins won the Cup in Detroit. That means road teams lost a mind boggling 18-straight winner-take-all Game 7’s. They’re 7-3 this decade, and have won the most recent Game 7’s in all three leagues. That includes the last NBA Finals Game 7, the last three Stanley Cup Final Game 7’s and the last four World Series Game 7’s.

After losing 18-straight Game 7’s from 1982-2006, road teams in all three leagues are 8-3 in championship round Game 7’s since.  So what changed? Some ideas:

  • Air travel is much easier today than it was in 1984 when the Lakers had to fly to Boston for a Game 7 in the (presumably 94°) Boston Garden (the NBA still followed a 2-2-1-1-1 format at that time). The Cleveland Cavaliers probably had a bit of an easier time flying to the Bay Area in 2016 when they defeated the Warriors on the road in Game 7.
  • With more players changing teams more frequently, there may be less of a home-field advantage. Justin Verlander didn’t pitch in Game 7 on the road in in 2017, but hear me out. He got traded from Detroit to Houston on August 31st that year. If he had pitched in Game 7 of the World Series in LA, would it have been much different for him than if he had pitched in a Game 7 in Houston? He was traded there less than two months earlier. I know that athletes don’t live like us, but his pad in Houston in October 2017 was probably more like Ryan Bingham’s condo than he would care to admit. He probably wasn’t rolling out of bed in a mansion in Houston at that time before he rolled up to the ballpark. Derek Jeter, on the other hand, had quite the home field advantage. In 80 career playoff games at home he hit .332 in with 12 home runs and 29 RBI in 322 at bats. In 78 road playoff games, he hit .284 with just 8 home runs and 27 RBI in 328 at bats. Playing for one team for 20 years gets you a really nice routine, I suppose.
  • It seems as if home teams have been awfully tight at home in Game 7’s recently. The Bruins at home against the Blues just four months ago seems like a pretty good example of that. I don’t know how/why the psychology of playing at home would change over the last decade, but maybe fans tweeting on their phones all game and taking selfies has changed the energy levels in these venues? That would certainly seem to hurt the home teams more than the road teams.
  • A combination of point #1 and #3. With air travel being easier (and cheaper) than ever, maybe more fans are following their teams on the road for Game 7? I bet the Boston Garden was 98% Celtics fans in 1984’s Game 7. What percentage of Minute Maid Park last night was Nationals fans? I’m not sure, but I bet it was substantially more than 2%. That could certainly change the vibe of a building, too.

Whatever the reason, one thing is certain. Boy am I glad I don’t bet on baseball.

 

Arizona/Philly. Game 7. Who ya got?

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Game 7 of the National League Championship Series is in Philadelphia tonight, and I am torn. Pulling for Texas in the American League Championship Series was a given. Picking a team to root for in the NLCS is a lot harder.

A lot of times in games like this, games that do not involve Boston and have no implications for a Boston team, I want both teams to lose. A recent example of that was last years Chiefs/Eagles Super Bowl. That’s not the case for tonight, though. There are good reasons to pull for each side tonight. Even Philly!

First, let’s take a look at Arizona. They are easy to root for because they are (checks notes) not from Philadelphia. It’s also fun to root for an underdog. Arizona was the last team in the playoffs this year and are one game away from the World Series. And while their current uniform offerings are a bit of a mess, millennials everywhere look back fondly on these beauties:

The Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen is also a local guy and former Red Sox front office executive. If that’s not enough, he recently re-upped with the D-Backs instead of potentially returning to the Nightmare on Jersey Street. Good for him, and enjoy the warm winters in the desert. And that brings us to the case for the Phillies…

Hazen’s last year in Boston was 2016, when he worked under Dave Dombrowski. Dombrowski of course is now the head baseball man in Philly. There are lots of reasons to root against Philadelphia in anything, including but not limited to the abhorrent behavior of so many of their fans. I’d sooner wear a Red Sox hat in the Bronx than a Patriots jersey to Lincoln Financial Field. But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about reasons to root for each side, and a win for Dombrowksi and the Phillies would be a great way to stick it to John Henry and the Red Sox.

Dombrowski was Boston’s top baseball man for nearly four full seasons (2016-2019). In those four seasons, the Red Sox won 58.3% of their games, including a team record 108 in 2018, three consecutive division titles for the first time in team history, and the 2018 World Series. He also hired Alex Cora in 2018, one of the top managers in the game today. In the midst of all that winning, though, I guess he didn’t pay enough attention to the farm system. And winning isn’t cheap. So for those crimes he was fired in September of 2019.

Dombrowski is a hall of fame executive. He is one of the last old school baseball guys and not an analytics-obsessed GM. It’s hard to forget how dirty the Sox did him when they showed him the door. His successor in Boston, Chaim Bloom, also met a similar fate as the Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer. While Bloom didn’t have nearly the success Dombrowski did in Boston, it’s tough to see a guy get fired for doing what he was asked to do (cut payroll, rebuild a farm system, and still field a somewhat competitive major league team). I say that as a guy who is only somewhat more hesitant than peak George Steinbrenner when it comes to making firings.

Which is why the Red Sox find themselves where they are today. There appears to be little interest from qualified candidates for what should be one of the best jobs in North American sports. So a win for Philadelphia tonight could be seen as a rebuke of the way business is being done in the Fens these days.

That being said, it’s also never a bad day when Philly loses. I just hope the light poles are greased.

The 300s Reviews Taco Bell Chicken Nuggets

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Earlier this week I heard whispers of a new Taco Bell menu item being rolled out in a select market. As David Letterman used to say, “I just pray to God that your city has been selected.” Well, the fast food gods were smiling on me because my market was selected and that’s how I got my hands on the latest innovation from Taco Bell.

Well, it’s not really an innovation. The Bell certainly didn’t reinvent the wheel to pump out chicky nuggies. Even nacho fries, which I love, were a little more innovative. If anything, the dipping sauces were more innovative than the nuggets themselves.

My first thought when opening the box was “oh shit.” These nuggets looked strikingly similar to the worst fast food nuggets I’ve ever had the displeasure of eating (congrats Sonic!). But they were actually somewhat juicy and tender, and not covered in a Michelin Tire-like coating.

The nuggets themselves were not that much of a departure from your standard (non-McDonald’s) nuggets. I didn’t sense any special seasoning on them, like there is on nacho fries. But the sauces were surprisingly good. The two nugget dipping sauces were “Bell sauce” and a jalapeno-flavored honey mustard. The Bell Sauce tasted like thicker Taco Bell sauce you’d get out of the packet and was the better of the two, but the honey mustard packed good flavor and wasn’t too spicy.

Eating the nuggets dipped in the sauces was actually a similar experience to boneless wings at Buffalo Wild Wings.

So what’s the verdict? I wouldn’t go out of my way to grab Taco Bell chicken nuggets the way I would a Crunchwrap Supreme. But I won’t go so far as to say they serve no purpose. My guess is that Taco Bell chicken nuggets will be most popular in late night group orders. A good add on, or an option for the one guy in the car at 1 AM who doesn’t want a taco. I can’t imagine them being too popular with the younger set, though. (Sorry, dads who would rather a Chalupa than a Quarter Pounder when grabbing chicky nuggies for the kids.)

I didn’t order the meal, as I wanted 10 nuggets to try both sauces (could only do a meal with five nuggets). A 10-piece with both sauces ran me $6.99 before tax. Overall, I give the Taco Bell Chicken Nuggets a 5.8. Good, not great. Won’t go out of my way to grab these again, but I could see myself eating a few in addition to my next quesadilla. The dipping sauces helped the score. McDonald’s and the other chicken fast casuals do not need to press the panic button.

The Lockout is Over!

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Photo by Steshka Willems on Pexels.com

While my life would not be terribly impacted by a protracted baseball labor dispute, it is good to see that we will be getting a relatively normal baseball season this year. While the season may be starting a few days later than originally planned, I consider that win. Who wants to watch baseball in Cleveland in March anyway? My ideal opening day is actually the same day as the NCAA men’s basketball National Championship game. It won’t work out that way this year, but if it gets us out of Cleveland in March I’ll take it.

It’ll be good to have more than a dozen games to choose from on most nights. I’d rather watch a few innings of a Cubs/Cardinals game than scroll to the bottom of Netflix just to watch “The Comeback” for the 300th time.

Also, I’ll be a part of that thirty-something bachelor party Joe talked about a few weeks ago (no word if I’m a Stu or a Phil) and am thankful that baseball will be played that weekend. It’s always nice to have a sporting event to build those weekends around. Especially in flyover country. It’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper to put back some beers at a baseball game I won’t pay attention to than at a country music concert I won’t pay attention to (which was the backup plan).

But in addition to just getting baseball back, and some important financial gains for players, it sounds like there will be some improvements to the on-field product as well. A subtitle for this CBA could well be The Base Ball Modernization Act of 2022.

  • I am all in favor of the Universal Designated Hitter. If Shohei Ohtani wants to hit on days he pitches, he still can! That is fun to watch, and it’s always fun to see a pitcher go deep! But that so rarely happened. Most plate appearances for pitchers were perfunctory bunts, strikeouts, or groundouts. This adds more action to the game by replacing these plate appearances with more competitive plate appearances. It also speeds the game up by reducing pinch hitters and pitching changes.
  • I could go either way on expanded playoffs. A 12-team playoff sure beats a 14 or 16-team playoff, though. I’ll miss the potential for chaos with no more tiebreaker games, but if that means the playoffs can start the day after the regular season ends I’m for it. Also of note, the playoff teams in each league will not be reseeded after the first round. Not sure why hockey and football reseed, while basketball and now baseball don’t, but I am firmly against reseeding. If #8 beats #1, they shouldn’t be rewarded with #2 in the next round. They’ve earned the right to take on the #4/#5 winner.
  • Starting in 2023, every team will play every other team every year. This is a huge step forward. While it might not mean every team visits every stadium each year, at least you’ll get to see everyone else at least once. There’s no need to play half of your games against your four divisional opponents any more. Variety in scheduling is good, and allows MLB to schedule more creatively if/when necessary. Red Sox fans in Colorado and Phoenix rejoice!
  • Also in 2023 we could see larger bases, the dreaded pitch clock, and the shift banned. I have absolutely no opinion on the size of the bases. I do not care. I don’t love the pitch clock, but it has become a necessity. I am 100% in favor of banning the shift. You can’t play zone defense in the NBA. You can’t drill the center on special teams plays in the NFL. Ban the shift, improve the game, and move on.

It took longer to get a deal done than fans and players wanted, but it seems like there is enough here to make it worth it. I’m ready for winter to be over and to throw back some crispy boys at the ballpark. Let’s go.

COUNTERPOINT: Red Sox to Participate in UCLA Cosplay

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Gonna have to go ahead and disagree with Red on this one. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, I hate these uniforms. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate these uniforms.

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Red and Big Z weigh in on the newest Red Sox uniform.

The one constant through all the years, Red, has been baseball. For the past 90 years, the Red Sox uniforms have been nearly as constant. Sure, the Bosox font on the front of the jerseys and on the cap has been tweaked a bit since the days of Ted Williams, they wore red hats for a few years in the ’70s, and refreshed the road unis in the early ’90s. But you could watch any Red Sox game since World War II and immediately recognize them. This uniform feels like a stunt. A stunt better left to the Astros, Brewers and Rays of Major League Baseball.

This design just doesn’t do it for me. I understand the reference to the Boston Marathon (even though it won’t be run on Patriots Day this year), but couldn’t they use a little more, um, red for the Red Sox uniform? This looks like a random Boston shirt you could buy above Park Street. It’s a Boston Marathon softball uniform, not a Red Sox uniform.

What’s even more irksome is that this uniform feels like it is trying to one up the most significant addition to the Red Sox wardrobe since they ditched the pullovers after the Bucky Dent game. The original (This is Our Fucking) City Connect jersey:

Boston Waves Goodbye to David Ortiz: 3 Reasons We'll Never Forget Big Papi - The Prompt Magazine

No word if UCLA and/or Adidas will try to block this obvious copyright infringement:

UCLA Baseball: Bruins are the #1 team in the country

I know the Sox are trying to stay under the luxury tax threshold again this year. Hopefully they can sell a few of these jerseys at the souvenir store to raise a few more bucks. I know times are tough for John Henry and company. Maybe they could have a bake sale next.

Rovell says six more teams will unveil similar City Connect uniforms this season. Let me know when teams like the Dodgers, Yankees and Tigers participate in these shenanigans.

RIP Jessica Walter

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Sad news this afternoon as we learned that Jessica Walter, a.k.a. Lucille Bluth, has passed away at 80 years old. Reading her obit in Variety, it’s obvious she did a lot more than just play Lucille Bluth and I will definitely have to brush up on many of those performances. Still, to a generation of television viewers, especially early-middle millennials like myself, I can’t see her and not think of some of the best comedic lines ever spoken on broadcast television.

I’ll be sure to make myself a vodka rocks and a piece of toast for breakfast this weekend in her honor. Until then, I’ll be rewatching some of her best moments from Arrested Development.

Cam Newton Is Coming Back

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How’s it going today, Patriots fans?

The longer the Patriots were on the market for a quarterback, for a second straight year, and as they continued to dawdle, the more this move felt like a possibility. Not exactly a home run move by Bill Belichick. More of an opposite-field single with no runners on base and two outs in the 8th, down by three.

First, let’s consider the upsides. This move comes on March 12. Last year, the Patriots didn’t sign Cam Newton until July 8. In addition to already having one season with the Patriots under his belt, this gives Newton four more months to prepare for the 2021 season than he had to prepare for the 2020 season. Additionally, with COVID-19 hopefully on its way out, maybe a more regular offseason will benefit Newton and his teammates as they prepare for the 2021 campaign. (Let’s also not forget that Newton had COVID himself during the season. Fewer in-seasons disruptions and health scares will help, too.) And among his teammates this season will be all eight of the Patriots who opted out last season. That should be a big boost for the team on both sides of the ball.

Now the downsides. Newton is a former Heisman Trophy winner and NFL MVP, but that feels like ages ago. Here’s how he closed out his 2020 campaign:

Also, what types of weapons will Newton have to work with? Even before Julian Edelman went down last year the Patriots cupboard seemed bare and the offense felt slow. Edelman’s status for 2021 is up in the air at this point but even if he came back Week 1 healthy as horse, how much can you expect out of a 35-year-old wide receiver who isn’t Jerry Rice?

With that in mind, my ambivalence about today’s move is less about Newton and more about Bill. It seems like Belichick is afflicted by the same condition that afflicts Danny Ainge, which causes him the strong desire to only make trades when he can bury his trading partner. That would explain why he won’t play ball for Jimmy Garoppolo. I’m not advocating for a Matthew Stafford-like deal, but at some point you have to spend money to make money. How many times has Belichick traded down or out of the first round (or had other high-round picks seized by the league office)? Why not package some of the picks you were just gonna use on a guard from Navy or a lacrosse player from Penn and get the guy you really want?

The Patriots have a lot of blank spaces to fill in and questions to answer as they build their roster for the 2021 season. While this move fills in a blank space, it doesn’t answer many questions. In fact, it accentuates the other questions that were already there. What is the plan (or is there a plan) at running back, tight end, and wide receiver? I’ll be rooting for Newton, but unless the Patriots surround him with a better supporting cast, 2021 could be a rerun of 2020.

Seven Thoughts As Brady Goes For Seven

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  • Tom Brady is the only NFL player, and one of only 64 North American professional athletes, to win at leas six championships. There are no NFL players, and only 30 North American professional athletes, who have ever won more than six. Of those 30 athletes, only two never wore pinstripes, green and white, or bleu blanc et rouge. (Red Kelly won eight Stanley Cups in the ’50s and ’60s [four with Detroit and then four more with Toronto], and Robert Horry won seven titles while moving from dynasty to dynasty in the NBA in the ’90s and 2000s [Houston in 1994 and 1995, the Lakers in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and San Antonio in 2005 and 2007]. )

    A win on Sunday would serve to strengthen the claim that the “Patriot Way” is/was really the “Brady Way.” A win on Sunday would cement Brady’s legacy as a one-man dynasty. With a win, he would pass Michael Jordan and tie Babe Ruth with seven championships. While 20 men could still claim more than seven rings, Bill Russell and Joe DiMaggio may be the only two who could credibly claim to be primarily responsible for more team championships than Brady. Brady is already on the Boston sports Mount Rushmore. He’s already on the NFL Mount Rushmore. If he’s not already on it now, a win on Sunday would solidify his spot on the North American sports Mount Rushmore.

  • Should Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lose on Sunday, that shouldn’t impact Brady’s legacy. I don’t want to hear the argument that 6-0 (Jordan) or 4-0 (Montana) is better than 6-4 in the championship. That gives Jordan more credit for losing to the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference playoffs three years in a row. It gives Montana more credit for his four one-and-dones. Whether it’s 6-4 or 7-3, Brady should get more credit for likely taking some teams further than they had any business going.

  • I’ll admit it, I wasn’t driving the Brady/Gronk Bandwagon this season but I will be pulling for them on Sunday. It’s not that I was rooting against them this season. I’ve got no problem with a couple of guys who want to switch jobs or move to a different company. Their departures were no where near as acrimonious as the departures of Bill Parcells, Roger Clemens or Johnny Damon. It’s just not that easy as a fan to switch allegiances. I wish it were, though. No state income tax and seventy-degree days in January and February sound awfully nice. Can’t blame Brady and Gronk for seeking greener pastures.

    Like Jerry Seinfeld said, at some level, we’re all just cheering for the clothes.
  • While Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs still have a long way to go to catch up with Brady and the Patriots, they do look like the type of team that could rip off three championships in a row, or four in five years. As a Patriots fan, I don’t want to see that happen. I’ve got no issue with Mahomes, Andy Reid, or the Chiefs, but I don’t want to see my team challenged like that. Not in the historical context, or even just next year in the AFC. As a fan, I like knowing that the Patriots were the last team to go back-to-back, and that nobody has ever won three in a row. So those are a few more reasons why I’ll be pulling for the Buccaneers on Sunday.

  • For Kansas City, after a trip to the AFC Championship Game two years ago and now back-to-back trips to the Super Bowl, this will be their 56th game in the last three seasons. That feels like a lot of football. The Patriots were actually in the exact same position three years ago in Minneapolis. After losing to Denver in the 2015 AFC Championship Game, they won Super Bowl LI over Atlanta a year later and got back to the big game the following year. Memorably, they couldn’t finish the job and fell to Philadelphia in Super Bowl LII.

    Only a few years prior, Super Bowl SLIX was the 55th game in three seasons for the 2014 Seahawks who were also trying to defend a title against Brady. The Patriots scored 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, and made the best goal line stand of all time, to deny the Seahawks in their bid to repeat.

    Brady doesn’t just start dynasties, he ends them too. Just ask Marshall Faulk and Pete Carroll. The Chiefs could be the next dynasty/near-dynasty to get derailed by Tom Brady.

  • In all of the Patriots Super Bowl losses in my lifetime, there seemed to be some drama or general weirdness leading up to the game in retrospect. Before Brady, Parcells had one foot out the door before the Patriots fell to Brett Favre and the Packers in 1997. The first Super Bowl against the Giants had the weight of a potential perfect season crash down on the Patriots, and they couldn’t shake that off in the rematch four years later. (The Giants and Tom Coughlin may just be Bill Belichick’s two bugaboos.) And who could forget the time Belichick lost a Super Bowl on purpose just to make a point when he benched former Super Bowl hero Maclolm Butler in Super Bowl LII?

    Maybe things are just tamer this year with COVID precautions, but it doesn’t feel like this year’s Tampa Bay team is engulfed by any similar dramas or weirdness.

  • It feels like the Buccaneers have already played their toughest games this postseason, winning three straight road games to get back home. While it won’t be a home game in the traditional sense, how could it not be a huge advantage to play a COVID Super Bowl in your home city, getting to avoid the hassle of traveling in the time of COVID? It also feels like the Chiefs have played a lot of football over the last few seasons, and oftentimes teams in that situation can run out of gas.

    I’m taking the Bucs -3 and betting the total goes over 56 points. I’m expecting a classic shootout, with the old man getting the last laugh.
Image result for brady bucs gif

Remembering Alex Trebek

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It’s a sad day at The 300s as we mourn the loss of Alex Trebek. He was a television legend, a first-ballot game show host hall of famer, and a prominent face on the Mount Rushmore of game show hosts. Trebek had been on U.S. television since 1973, and behind the Jeopardy! lectern since 1984. He fought pancreatic cancer over the last year and a half with courage, candor, and dignity. He passed away today at the age of 80.

It goes without saying that Alex Trebek was one of the greatest television game show hosts of all time. In 2014, Guinness World Records presented him with the world record for most episodes of a game show hosted, with 6,829 at the time.

Trebek was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host a record 31 times. His seven Emmys are second only to Bob Barker’s whopping 14. He is one of only two people ever nominated for this Emmy for two different game shows. The other was the undisputed Dean of Game Show Hosts, Bill Cullen. In 1990, he was the only person ever to be nominated for this award for two shows in one year (Jeopardy! and Classic Concentration). In 1991, he became the first person to host three American game shows simultaneously (To Tell the Truth, in addition to the aforementioned Jeopardy! and Classic Concentration).

As a game show fan, this is a very sad day. As a television viewer, it’s also sad for me to say goodbye to another person who has been on television every weekday of my life. With David Letterman’s retirement in 2015, and Bob Barker, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw all retiring in the 2000s, I can’t think of many people left on television who have been on television my whole life. Pat Sajak and Vanna White may be the only people left on that list for me.

While game show hosts aren’t members of our families, and we don’t root for them the way we root for athletes and our favorite sports teams, they do come into our homes on a regular basis and can make profound impacts on our lives, as recent champ Burt Thakur shared:

Yet another cruel side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic was the sidelining of Alex Trebek during the last few months of his life. The man was itching to get back behind the lectern, but it simply wasn’t feasible in the early stages of the pandemic. That’s not to sound greedy, as if I needed even more from him, but I know it was something Trebek loved to do. Maybe, for thirty minutes at a time, it allowed him to focus on something other than his health.

And unfortunately, as is all too common with game show hosts, his final words on television may very well be “we’ll see you tomorrow.” It’s not often game show hosts get to hang ’em up on their own terms. Barker in 2007 was more the exception than the rule.

But today we pause to remember Alex Trebek, are reminded of the indelible impact he left not only on television but on this nation, and are thankful for all of his contributions. We love you, Alex.

The Price is Right Returns Tomorrow Night, Sans Audience

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It will be quite a site tomorrow night, when The Price is Right returns from its coronavirus shutdown for a primetime special but without it’s rambunctious crowd. How will contestants know the prices of cars and lawn mowers, when to bid one dollar, or whether or not to spin again with 50 cents without the advice of 300 strangers? That all remains to be seen, but credit to the producers and staff of The Price is Right for their willingness to accept this challenge head on.

On Jeopardy! all the producers had to do was move the furniture around. On Wheel of Fortune they’ve just asked the contestants to stand an extra few steps apart behind the wheel. The Price is Right has been on for nearly fifty years, and Drew Carey has been host for the last 13 years. It would have been relatively easy for them to ride this out in reruns. But they recognize that in times of trouble and uncertainty, America needs The Price is Right.

People will come, Drew. They’ll come to Hollywood for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up at the Bob Barker Studio not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at the big doors as innocent as children, longing for the past.

They’ll walk out into the studio; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect morning. They’ll find they have seats somewhere behind Contestants Row, seats they saw when they watched with their grandmother as children and cheered contestants. And they’ll watch the games and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

People will come Drew. The one constant through all the years, Drew, has been The Price is Right. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But The Price is Right has marked the time. This stage, these games: it’s a part of our past, Drew. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again. Oh…people will come Drew. People will most definitely come.