The show has been around on NBC for a few seasons, but only today as I awoke from a snooze brought on by 49ers, Raiders and Packers losses did I discover Football Night in America. It’s the show that airs before the Sunday night NFL game of the week, and I can’t recall watching it before.

The show, featuring the entertaining Dan Patrick, Peter King from Sports Illustrated and others, is pretty good. But I object to the title, a thinly veiled rip-off of the great, long-running CBC series, Hockey Night in Canada.

NBC, can’t you come up with something a little more original, eh?

WordPress, which I dearly love, recently introduced PicApp images for use on our blogs. I just signed up and in my first search – for “baseball” — was pleased to find photos of celebrities and athletes wearing baseball caps and golf caps.

The first image to catch my eye was this one of singer Katy “I Kissed a Girl” Perry wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers cap.

PicApp’s caption, however, misidentifies it as an LA Lakers cap.

Sheesh.

Friday was an off day for the 2009 World Series, a reminder that the season is nearly over. Baseball is the daily game, and its rhythm regulates our lives most of the year. It’s the oldest and most established of our spectator sports, and I find it the most American of all.

There’s a doctoral thesis waiting to be written about the connection between baseball and our agricultural heritage: The games starting as the blossoms set on the trees in spring, the play flourishing under the summer sun, the shadows lengthening on the diamonds as the cool autumn harvest arrives.

As we’d visit my grandparents in the 1960s, my father often pointed out the places he and his buddies had played baseball when they were kids in the 20s and 30s. “There was a ball field there,” he’d say, pointing to an expanse of grass or a meadow as we drove past. At another plot, “We used to play there.”

Baseball changed as America changed, and urbanization is really what developed the sport into what it is today. While my dad and the other sons of miners in Pennsylvania were playing their games, city kids were playing stickball on the streets of Brooklyn.

In these days of luxury suites and retractable-dome stadiums, it’s important to remember that the game’s roots reach deep into a heritage of farm boys and miners’ kids playing pickup in any scrap of open field they could find.

The highlight of Game 2 for me, the fan sitting in the recliner in front of the 36″ screen in his family room, was the Yankees fans chanting “Who’s your daddy?” to taunt Pedro Martinez.

The self-proclaimed most influential man ever to set foot in Yankee Stadium took the loss.

This is a fun series.

Cliff Lee pitched brilliantly tonight as the Phillies defeated the New York Yankees 6-1 in Game One of the World Series. The only run Lee gave up was unearned, in the ninth inning when Jimmy Rollins made a throwing error that allowed Derek Jeter to score.

The New York media will go into convulsions, blasting the lineup for being unable to hit in clutch situations and the bullpen for allowing the Phillies’ lead to expand. But the Yanks can turn it around quickly with a victory in Game Two. I note that Jeter got the Yankees moving in the ninth inning tonight with a single that fell at the feet of hard-charging Shane Victorino.  The Yankee hitters will produce. Count on it.

Besides, I don’t put too much meaning into a Game One victory. In 1982, the Milwaukee Brewers creamed the St. Louis Cardinals 10-0 in Game One, only to lose the series in seven games.

As Lawrence Peter Berra has been known to say, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

1985: The Cardinals and the Royals meet in an all-Missouri matchup, and it’s the I-70 World Series.

1989: The Giants and Athletics endure an earthquake to play in the Bay Bridge Series.

2000: The Bronx Bombers rumble with the Metropolitans of Queens in an all-NYC Subway Series.

This is 2009, Yankees versus Phillies, and there’s only one possible name for it: The Jersey Turnpike World Series!

It’s time the Garden State gets its due with a World Series of its own. New Jersey connects Manhattan’s George Washington Bridge in the north to Philadelphia’s Ben Franklin Bridge in the south. In between, millions of baseball fans from area codes 201, 609, 732, 908, 973, et al. are passionate the Yankees, Phillies or (rarely) both. From the Delaware Water Gap to Cape May, the people of New Jersey will be watching these games intently.

So come on, America. Recognize this series for what it is: A celebration of New Jersey!

 

Cliff Lee warming up

Originally uploaded by DDay209

Fans of the Cleveland Indians (count me among them) will be in a rueful mood when the World Series opens Wednesday night in New York. Not long ago, the starting pitcher for each team sported an Indians’ cap.

Cliff Lee, who gets the start for the Phillies, has put together two consecutive spectacular seasons. I watched him carve up the Athletics at the Oakland Coliseum early in the 2008 season. (The photo shows him warming up in the bullpen before the game.) He was a terrific acquisition by the Phillies this year.

Starting for the Yankees will be C.C. Sabathia, who left Cleveland for Milwaukee late in the 2008 season and dominated for the Yanks this year.

Cleveland fans are accustomed to watching players they’ve seen traded away shine for other teams in the post-season, and the Yankees seem to have benefitted particularly with players like Roger Maris, Graig Nettles and Chris Chambliss.

Perhaps one of these years an ex-Yank or ex-Philly will make a difference for the Tribe.

Pro football is a fickle business. Shaun Hill won the San Francisco 49ers’ starting quarterback job with strong performances during the latter half of the 2008 season. He prevailed over Alex Smith in the exhibition season this summer and the team got off to a fast start.

But they played terribly against the Atlanta Falcons. Even after their bye week, the Niners were listless against the Houston Texans in the first half Sunday. So Coach Mike Singletary made a change, inserting Smith into the lineup.

And pow! The Niners scored three touchdowns and were seemingly on their way to a fourth when the Texans intercepted the ball to preserve a 24-21 victory.

Now today comes word that Smith will start the next game. The starting job is his to lose.

And the way things go in the NFL, he will lose the job eventually – to Hill or to some other quarterback who comes along.

I was lukewarm to Smith when the Niners picked him up as a top draft pick a few years back. He was inconsistent whereas with Hill at the controls, the 49ers seemed to move the ball. Hill isn’t flashy, but the team won more often than not.

I give Smith tremendous credit. He has not sulked or demanded a trade or trashed his organization — as so many multimillionaire malcontents do. He’s kept his focus, and he was ready when called.

Even more, he delivered.

In the brutal world of the NFL, that matters most.

There’s only one plausible explanation for the rainout that postponed Saturday’s American League Championship Series game between the Yankees and Angels: The baseball gods are angry.

They’re angry that the mere mortals who run Major League Baseball would show such hubris to schedule the playoffs so late into the year. Assuming no weather delays and a seven-game series, the World Series this year is scheduled to finish on Nov. 3.

That’s right. In November, when the NFL season is headed toward its own playoffs and the NBA and NHL are well under way.

Baseball is the summer game, and it’s supposed to wrap up with the “Fall Classic.” November is technically in autumn, but it’s simply too inclement then in most major-league cities for the games to be played as scheduled and without significant disruption from the weather.

Major League Baseball needs to change its way. The gods demand it.

The top three Google results for “baseball” are mlb.com, the Wikipedia entry on the sport and — drumroll — The Official Site of the New York Yankees.

A mere hour or so after the Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Angels in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, what’s the lead video highlight on the Yankees’ site? The triple Robinson Cano hit to give the Yankees a short-lived lead in the game. Evidently the Yankees can’t handle defeat, so they settle for a mid-game highlight.