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Your Daily Dose of 90s Nostalgia

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Beloit College Mindset List – This year’s entering college class of 2021 can’t remember when a “phone” wasn’t a video game and research library. Mostly born in 1999, they’ve always been searching for Pokemon. They’ve never read a Peanuts strip that wasn’t a repeat and they never had the privilege of a Montgomery Ward catalogue as a booster seat. They have persevered in a world without Joe Dimaggio and brightened by emojis. If you ask them about the whine of a dial-up modem, expect a blank stare. 

These are among the items in this year’s Beloit College Mindset List, the 20th such release since the list was first compiled in 1998. The List’s current subjects are the last class to be born in the 1900s – the last of the Millennials.

I usually don’t pay too much attention to lists like this one. When I see them covered on evening newscasts for 45 seconds it seems like cheap, lazy, hackneyed journalism. The Mindset List seems like a BuzzFeed list that is more important only because it was written by college professors.

I’ll make an exception for this year’s Mindset List for two reasons. First, it’s hard to believe there are college students that remember the stuff that happened in 1999 the way I remember the Iran-Contra affair. Second, because 1999 really was a fire year: American Pie, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, American Beauty, All the Small Things, Blockbuster Video, Y2K, N64, Clinton Acquitted, Britney and Christina.

Maybe I also remember 1999 as a fire year because I can vividly remember the best Red Sox season of my lifetime up until that point. Nomar’s three home runs, two grand slams and 10 RBI on May 10. The All-Star Game in Boston where Pedro stuck out five NL All-Stars. His one-hitter in New York in September. Troy O’Leary’s two home runs against Cleveland in Game 5 of the ALDS. Pedro’s heroics on the mound in Game 5. His 12 strikeouts against the Yankees in the ALCS as the Red Sox roughed up Clemens and won their only game of that series. Pedro winning the Cy Young.

Okay, maybe a lot of my good memories of 1999 have to do with Pedro’s dominance. I guess Terence Mann was right when he said that “baseball has marked the time.” I’m an optimist, so I’ll also agree that it “reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”

Friday Morning Randomness – Allston Christmas

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Merry Allston Christmas! If you’re partaking, may the previous tenants of your new residence be long gone and may the meter maids mind their own business.

This video is evidence of a high-tech engineering success story. I strongly disagree with the guy who posted it calling it “red neck couch moving.” If MIT were in Allston, I know that Allston Christmas would be a little bit more orderly with all the engineering kids moving furniture more efficiently than Ross and Rachel.

I myself am not an engineer. That is why I a cracked a box spring in half one Allston Christmas, to prevent holding up the entire building. I am also not a great planner. That is why I once switched units on Allston Christmas between 10 PM on August 31 and 4:30 AM on September 1. Moving in the middle of the night like the Baltimore Colts baby.

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AL East on the Line in the Bronx This Weekend

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The Red Sox are in the Bronx this weekend with a chance to put the Yankees to bed in the AL East. It didn’t seem like that would be possible just 72 hours ago. As the Red Sox were getting swept by the Orioles last weekend, the Yankees were taking two out of three against the Mariners. On Monday morning, the Yankees were just 2 1/2 games behind the Red Sox.

Since Monday morning, though, the Red Sox got three solid starts from its pitching staff and won all three games against the Blue Jays in Toronto. Meanwhile in New York, the Yankees had their momentum come to a screeching halt as they got swept by the Cleveland Indians. Losing both ends of a doubleheader yesterday as the Red Sox won again in Toronto meant that the Yankees fell 1 1/2 games further behind the Red Sox in the AL East. The Red Sox now lead the Yankees by 5 1/2 games, their biggest lead in the division this season.

Despite the blip against the Orioles, August has been the best month of the season for the Red Sox. The Sox are 18-8 this month and 19-8 since stumbling out of the gate 7-10 after the All-Star break. That works out to 26-18 overall since the break, which is a higher winning percentage (.591) than the team posted in the first half (.562).

The Yankees have been trending in the opposite direction, as their best month was April. After going 30-20 in April and May, they got out to a 4 game lead in the division by June 12. But since the beginning of June the team is 40-42.

The Yankees really need to take at least three games this weekend to have any shot in the division race. [They could also use three wins to get some breathing room in the Wild Card race. They are just one game up on the second Wild Card team, the Twins, and just two games up on the third-place team in the Wild Card race, the Angels.] A split of this series would mean the Yankees would have only 26 games to make up 5 1/2 games on the Red Sox.

Clearly, it wouldn’t be impossible for the Yankees to catch the Red Sox if they were 5 1/2 games back on Labor Day but they would need to have their best month of the season. There have been no signs that the Yankees are ready to rip off six in a row, or 12 out of 15. And the Red Sox can only be caught if they stumble.

The Red Sox have a favorable schedule after Labor Day. Of their final 25 games, 16 will be at Fenway Park. The farthest the Red Sox will travel in September is to Cincinnati, and the Red Sox are 13-4 in interleague play this season. They’ll close out the season at home with four games against the Houston Astros who might have the top spot in their division, and the league, wrapped at that point.

The panic button is out, but it’s now in the hands of Yankees fans.

Domino’s to Test Self-Driving Delivery Cars

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CNET – If you’re one of a lucky few Michiganders within range of one specific Domino’s Pizza location in Ann Arbor, your next pizza could show up in a self-driving car… sort of.

Ford and Domino’s announced Tuesday that the two companies have partnered up to gauge customer reaction to self-driving cars. Instead of just asking folks on the street how they view autonomous vehicles, Ford wants to integrate one of its cars into the pizza delivery process.

After ordering Domino’s in the Ann Arbor area, the customer may receive a phone call asking if they’d like to participate in this study. If the recipient says yes, Domino’s will load the customer’s order into Ford’s self-driving car. The recipient will receive a notification when the vehicle arrives, at which point they’ll have to walk outside, input a code into a device on the side of the car, and then they can retrieve the pizza from a special window designed to keep the pizza warm on its trip.

There are two qualities I value above all others in the fast-food game: self-awareness and creativity. That’s why I love White Castle and Taco Bell. Today, I’m adding Domino’s to that list.

White Castle is the place for stoners to get sliders at 4 in the morning and breakfast at 4 in the afternoon. Taco Bell is the place where cost-conscious consumers people too broke for Chipotle go to sample an ever-evolving menu of Mexican offerings. White Castle and Taco Bell aren’t trying to fool anyone. You won’t see Frescata sandwiches there.

Domino’s has long displayed a keen sense of self-awareness. In 2009, they launched an ad campaign to apologize for how lousy their pizza had gotten over the years (though it was never bad enough to stop me from downing two thirds of a the 5-5-5 deal on a weekly basis in college).

More recently Domino’s Instagram has gotten attention for its brutal honesty. You won’t see anything like the pristine Big Mac that has never been witnessed in the wild on the Domino’s Instagram feed.

Domino’s has never been afraid to mix things up with their side offerings, either, but self-driving delivery cars takes their creativity and ingenuity to a new level. If Domino’s offered delivery pizza identical to all other delivery pizza on the market, you better believe I’d choose Domino’s just for the driver-free delivery experience. No awkward small talk with the delivery guy. No judgement on the size of my order for one. And no judgement on the amount I tip.

I only have one major concern. If this self-driving car is making multiple stops on one trip, how do I know the guy before me isn’t going to swipe my Kickers? Hopefully the food is more secure than the newspapers inside newspaper boxes.

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Oh yeah, I hope the cars don’t crash either. That would be bad. But I’ll leave that problem to Ford to iron out. For now, I’ll just give credit where credit is due. Domino’s is stepping up their game, again, and I’m on board. Sorry, Papa John.

Don’t Panic, But Don’t Not Panic Either

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After Chris Sale got roughed up on Thursday night, I wrote that it was not the time to panic. After the Red Sox got swept by the Orioles I considered panicking, but remembered that the Orioles always play the Sox tough. The Red Sox are just 59-75 against the Orioles since Buck Showalter took over as O’s manager in 2010.

Monday night, Drew Pomeranz left the mound after the sixth inning with the Red Sox trailing the Blue Jays 3-2 and I started to dust off the old Bob Lobel panic button. But then the Red Sox offense sent nine men to the plate in the seventh and put four runs on the board to give Pomeranz a lead and a shot at a win. Everything looked good.

The bullpen got it to Craig Kimbrel who got the job done, but not before giving up a two-run blast to Justin Smoak to make things a lot more interesting. Instead of talking about the Red Sox come-from-behind win today, we’re talking about how they barely hung on to beat the last place Jays.

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Because they found a way to hang on and snap their four-game skid, I won’t plug in the panic button just yet. But I’m not putting it away either. Doug Fister has been solid in place of David Price over the last month, and the Sox have won 10 out of Pomeranz’s last 12 starts. But Eduardo Rodriguez is just 3-5 with a 5.08 ERA since coming off the DL and Rick Porcello’s up and down season hit a new low Friday night. It seems like Porcello just can’t catch a break some nights.

I focus on the pitching because it will likely be the pitching that has to carry this team. This offense is like the tide, as Johnny Drama would say. It comes and goes as it pleases.

This team doesn’t have a single hitter with more than 19 home runs and is still dead last in the American League in home runs with just 139. The next closest teams to the Sox in home runs in the AL (Angels, White Sox) have 147 each.

Chris Sale will look to get back on track tonight and Porcello will have a chance to close out his August on a better note tomorrow. Strong performances from those two would position this team well heading into September. The Sox start September in New York with a four-game set against the Yankees this weekend.

Edelman Out, but the Work Goes on for the Patriots

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As was suspected Friday night when Julian Edelman left the Patriots’ third preseason game with an injury, Edelman tore his ACL and will miss the entire 2017 season.

A lot of fans on social media were quick to decry the NFL preseason but the truth is that this injury could have happened at any time. Tom Brady didn’t play at all in the 2008 preseason and suffered a season-ending injury in Week 1 of the regular season. Wes Welker tore his left ACL and MCL in Week 17 in 2009. Rob Gronkowski has suffered a wide range of injuries during his seven year career, including a broken arm while playing on field goal protection (!) against the Colts in Week 11 in 2012.

Time and again, the Patriots have shown the ability to adapt and not only survive, but excel. The Patriots won the Super Bowl last season despite not having Gronkowski for the last five games of the regular season or the playoffs. They won the Super Bowl in 2003 after cutting Lawyer Milloy four days before the start of the regular season. And they won 11 games in 2008 without Brady, becoming the first 11-win team to miss the playoffs in more than two decades.

This season will be no different. It’s always disappointing to see a star player go down, but Bill Belichick never lets emotions affect his team’s play. The Patriots still have a very talented wide receiver corps that includes Brandin Cooks, Chris Hogan and Danny Amendola. Future hall of famer Rob Gronkowski is apparently healthy and ready to go, and the Patriots should still be able to cobble together a pretty good running game (to the chagrin of fantasy football players). With the AFC East still consisting of the Jets, Bills and Dolphins, it’s hard to bet against this team making it back to at least the AFC Championship game in January.

If you’re still down about Edelman, though, rest assured. He will be back, and it will be a hell of story in the updated afterword to his memoir in a few years.

Sox Take 2-of-4 in Cleveland, and I’ll Take That, Too

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It’s never a good thing when your ace gets shellacked like Chris Sale did in Cleveland last night. Sale gave up seven runs on seven hits and three walks in just three innings as the Red Sox fell to the Indians  13-6. But now is not the time to panic.

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The Red Sox still took two out of four games against the Indians in Cleveland, a team that has played them tough over the past two seasons. It could have easily been three out of four, if not for a bullpen implosion on Monday night. Those happen every once in a while, even to good teams. But Doug Fister and Drew Pomeranz both pitched very well, and Eduardo Rodriguez pitched more than respectably.

Again, it sucks to see Sale get knocked around but we know he’ll bounce back. Sale is not something the Red Sox need to concerned about going forward. David Price’s elbow and Dustin Pedroia’s knee are things they need to be concerned about.

Even though this series was just a split, the positives that come out of it – Rodriguez, Fister and Pomeranz pitching well – far outweigh the negatives – Sale’s bad night.

Baltimore comes to Fenway tonight and Rick Porcello takes the mound for the Sox. It’s been a strange season for Porcello, but he’s 4-0 with a 4.07 ERA in August. It’d be nice to seem him keep that trend going against the O’s.

Friday Morning Randomness

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Losing a a perfect game or a no-hitter in the 10th inning of a scoreless game has to be the most heartbreaking experience for a pitcher. I’d rather give up a walk-off grand slam in a three-run game than lose like Rich Hill did on Wednesday night. There can’t be anything worse than being almost perfect, and still losing.

Obviously, it reminded me of Pedro’s night in San Diego in 1995. Though at least Pedro got some run support in the top of the 10th inning and still got the win.

Rob Manfred Getting His Stadium Hustle on in St. Pete

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AP — Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred wants Tampa Bay to work a little quicker on getting the Rays a new ballpark.

Rays Principal Owner Stuart Sternberg has been working for nearly a decade to get a new stadium for the club…

The Rays were averaging 15,815 fans per game before Wednesday night’s contest against the Toronto Blue Jays. That is just over half the major league average of 30,470. Tropicana Field and its location have been almost universally blamed as the reason for the poor attendance. Paid attendance Wednesday was 8,264, the lowest for a Rays home game since 2006…

Manfred said Major League Baseball “doesn’t have a firm timetable” for what steps to take if the Rays fail to get an agreement to build a new stadium in the Tampa Bay area, but added that “it is a topic of discussion in the industry, the lack of progress.”

I’ll give you a firm timetable, Mr. Commissioner. 2028. That’s because the Rays’ ironclad lease agreement with Tropicana Field runs through the 2027 season, and doesn’t even allow the Rays to explore other options.

With a lease agreement like that, it’s no surprise that the St. Petersburg City Council has basically given Stuart Sternberg and the Rays the Michael Corleone treatment.

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As I said in my review of Tropicana Field earlier this month, it’s hard to believe that Major League Baseball actually agreed to put a baseball team there 20 years ago. Was Bud Selig that desperate to add a second team in Florida? Other cities vying for an MLB team in the mid-1990s included Orlando, Buffalo, Vancouver, Washington, D.C. and Nashville.

Obviously D.C. got its team a few years later when the Expos left Montreal. An expansion team in D.C. prevents the Expos from moving to D.C., but it probably doesn’t keep them in Montreal either. Wherever else the Expos could have landed couldn’t have been worse than Tropicana Field.

And the NFL, NHL and NBA have all set up shop in Tennessee since 1998. With a little foresight, Major League Baseball also could have become a part of the burgeoning sports scene in Tennessee. Alas, not much foresight went into this decision. How much foresight was needed to see that the concrete multipurpose venue was going out of vogue? Still, MLB planted the Rays in one. For 30. Effing. Years.

My advice to the Rays and MLB is to grin and bear it. You made some awful, shortsighted decisions and now have to live with the consequences. You may play in dump, but you can still try and make the best of it. Nobody likes to hear owners worth $800 million complain.

I’d have more sympathy for the Rays and MLB if not for all the other taxpayer-funded stadium boondoggles. And even if construction on a new stadium could start tomorrow, it probably wouldn’t be ready before 2020. What’s a few extra years at that point? At least by 2027 the Trop will be 37 years old, making a new venue somewhat reasonable.

And take heart, Rays fans. Not too long ago the New England Patriots were locked in an ironclad lease to a dump of a stadium. That ended up working out for everybody.

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P.S. – Manfred chose to go on a fact-finding mission at Tropicana Field on a Wednesday night Rays/Jays game at the end of August? Bonus points for picking the best night in over a decade to complain about how awful that place is. Announced attendance 8,264.

Woof.

Meanwhile in Cleveland…

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While Trader Danny and the Celtics grabbed most of the attention in Boston (and across the nation) last night, Doug Fister was doing his best Billy Chapel impression in Cleveland.

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After giving up a home run to Indians leadoff hitter Francisco Lindor on just his third pitch, Fister did not allow another hit the rest of the night. For the game, Fister faced just two batters more than the minimum and retired the last 14 batters in order. It was his eighth career complete game, and his first since 2014.

Fister has now started four games in place of David Price since Price went on the disabled list on July 28. In those four starts, Fister is 3-1 with a 3.62 ERA.

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It’s also worth noting that three of those four starts have come against the Cleveland Indians. Two have been very good, while one was less than stellar. But even in his less than stellar start against Cleveland, Fister got into the fifth inning. David Price couldn’t say that about his loss against Cleveland in the playoffs last year.

I bring this up because it is very likely that the Red Sox and Indians will meet in the first round of the playoffs again this season. I won’t go as far to say that the Red Sox are better without Price, but I don’t hate my chances with Doug Fister against the Tribe in October.