Mental mini-games

Monday 9/22/25

The Red Sox had a golden opportunity to boost their chances of getting into the playoffs last night and they couldn't do it against the Rays. A very winnable game. But the Red Sox struck out 14 times, leaving 10 men on base, and a bad Alex Bregman throwing error early was the difference. The Rays beat themselves the day before, whereas the Red Sox handles those honors last night.

Had the Sox won, they would have been in a good spot. This last week--which begins tomorrow--could be wild, it could fizzle out and the Red Sox could essentially fizzle in, if you will, to the postseason. That final series at Fenway against the Tigers could be a de facto playoff series with one team getting in as a result of winning the series and the other being the last team out. It's hard to know with the various head to head match-ups how this might go, but we have what will be the most eventful final week of the baseball season in some time, especially for Red Sox fans.

Was talking to someone yesterday who said to me that there must be a lot of chatter in Boston about the Red Sox, and I said no, not really. Most people just care about football. As I wrote in that recent Chicago Tribune op-ed, as Americans get dumber and bigger, football becomes more popular. And also with how delusional Americans are. People prefer fantasy to reality, especially as they become weaker and less mentally sound, less mentally capable, less able to deal with truth.

You have all of these guys who think they're an actual GM--or could be--in their fantasy leagues. They take it very seriously. Once fantasy football achieved the hold that it did, it was inevitable that legalized sports betting would follow. Because, again, delusional, dumb people think they're experts and could be "running the show." They know, in their minds, when they know next to nothing about anything. Legalized betting wasn't just about strike while the markets hot, but strike while the market is stupid.

Baseball is the best sport in the world, but you must think to get as much as possible from it, and you need to be attentive, or, at least, somewhat aware. It's less of a "highlights will do" sport. The guy hits the bases clearing double to the gap, but how did we get there? The pitcher was falling behind, the batters were working good at-bats, someone took the pitch to right rather than tried to pull it, a base runner made the right read on the ball and was thus able to come all the way around from first, etc. Baseball is a series of games within the game. Mini-games, many of which are mental mini-games.

Thus, in Boston, with this exciting pennant race, for most it's Patriots, Patriots, Patriots, Patriots, Patriots. I was going to say for most sports fans, but the term "sports fan" often means "football fan," which often means "I like to eat and drink on the couch as this weekly ritual plays out," with that ritual often itself eating up fifteen, twenty, twenty-five hours of the week because of the plethora of games and the nature of sitting there eating and drinking, which begets more of itself.

The Red Sox have become what the Bruins were for a long time (and still are)--a team with niche fan base. A pocket. I wouldn't say of diehards because I don't believe people have the requisite passion anymore to qualify as such a thing, but it's a bit like a sect. Call it a particular neighborhood of a city rather than urban sprawl.

The Patriots fell to the Steelers yesterday in what I'd call a godawful performance but other Patriots fans won't because they'll be happy about Drake Maye who lost yet again. Whereas the K's, men LOB, and the error were the story of the Sox loss, five--five!--Patriots turnovers were the story of theirs.

They dominated the Steelers statistically, but were a disaster fundamentally. The Steelers aren't a good team. The Patriots don't have much on their roster. Very few, if any, impact players. But if you play sound football and get some decent to good quarterback play, you can win more games than you lose in that league right now because there are so few good teams and plenty of bad ones.

The Patriots have been worse through three games under Vrabel than they were in their first three under Mayo.

That's not good.

The NFL product keeps getting worse. Look at that Chiefs-Giants game last night. But people don't care. They just want their football, their food and beer, their fantasy, their bets, their talk, as such, with each other, because what else are they going to talk about? Rimbaud? The categorical imperative? The importance of vulnerability? Their honest thoughts and feelings and fears and how they are really doing? They're going to really want to listen to someone else and try to better understand where they're at?

They're not going to do any of that. And you could say the same goes for baseball fans, because the same goes for everyone now, and I wouldn't expostulate. But there is this wiser aspect to baseball. The (im)mutability of the pennant drive as the days grow shorter has a kind of Nick Drake-esque aspect to it. I think so, at any rate. Time is telling you. And then you are telling yourself what you need to know, which keeps changing. The games within the game.

The Patriots had it set up for them to go 3-1 this month, which really could have sent them on their merrier way. Next week's game against Carolina becomes near must-win; 2-2 in September is going to be a lot different than 1-3. With the former, it'll prove that much more doable to hang around deeper into the season for a playoff spot, whereas with the latter you're starting to chase having a decent/respectable season early, and teams with this kind of roster don't ever seem to get there. You could be talking the different between 9-8 and 6-11 come the close of the year.

The plethora of that (predictable) Vrabel hype. Vrabel will fix it! He's the man! A manly man! A gruff man! A throwback man! A Patriots man!

All of these New England retreads and the cronyism. It doesn't work.

Vrabel has a personality issue. He's petty and passive aggressive and it gets in the way of the job. Bill Parcells was a dick but with him it helped in the job. He was a different kind of dick. Vrabel comes off as insecure. I think I summed him up well before.

To say, as Vrabel loves to, that penalties don't matter is crazy to me. It's basically dereliction of duty so far as I'm concerned.

Are you that obtuse? Because I'm watching your team play, I'm watching them commit a ton of penalties, and I can tell you that they sure as hell have mattered. It's like he's flaunting some general--very general--analytics printout covering a couple decades or something that happens to say teams that won could have more penalties if they did well in areas A, B, and C. Like, if their quarterback was great and they turned the ball over less.

Well, no fucking shit.

But that means that penalties are fine?

No biggie, brother. Make as many as you please, boys, they ain't gonna do us in!

What type of dumbass thinks that committing fifteen penalties to another team's half of that doesn't make that game on that day with your talent-limited roster that much harder to win?

I don't like what I'm seeing.

To close with a baseball note: This had been a lost year for Mookie Betts that he managed to somewhat salvage, as discussed in these pages. Despite that recouping, I find it strange and telling that Shohei Ohtani only has twenty more RBI than Betts.

In a paradoxical way, 53 homers and 99 RBI is kind of an ugly line. Heresy, I know. And yes, I'm aware that he bats lead-off. but 53 home runs and less than 100 RBI? You don't think that says anything about a player? It's...fine? Has nothing to do with him?

Yeah...I just can't believe that. Ohtani could end up with 55 homers and 104 RBI, and if people want to choose to ignore that or it doesn't suggest to them a sizable flaw in what's supposed to be an all-time great offensive game, that's akin to choosing to be ignorant because there's no way--I don't care where you're batting--that you should barely have 100 RBI with that many home runs. It's almost impossible to do.

Having said that: Ohtani's last two homers were opposite field jobs, one on a line, the other with more air under it. Both looked like the easiest thing in the world to him. You rarely see that kind of casual "Oh, there it goes out of the yard the other way" effortless power.