By Sylvester āNunnieā Robinson
The Major League Baseball playoffs are in full swing now with the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros battling to determine the American League representative in the World Series. Although the Astros had home field advantage, they dropped the first two games in the series to the Rangers.
In the National League, the Arizona Diamondbacks suffered a 5-3Ā defeat in game one against the red hot Philadelphia Phillies led by Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos and Trae Turner. As mentioned last week, the teams with the best regular season records arenāt guaranteed success in the postseason. 2023 was no exception as the 4 teams with the best regular season records were summarily eliminated: Atlanta and Los Angeles in the National League and Baltimore and Milwaukee in the American League. All were eliminated because of great pitching, solid defense and timely hitting. This is a great time to be a baseball fan. The League Series and World Series are 7 game series, giving Houston and Arizona a fighting chance.
The Marlins canāt seem to get it right off the field. They lost Derek Jeter and it appears that history making female General Manager Kim Ng has resigned. After Jeterās sudden departure, she didnāt miss a beat,hiring Manager Skip Shumaker, signing key players, catapulting the Marlins into the playoffs as one of the Wildcard contenders. Allegedly, the top Marlin brass wanted to hire a president who would have ultimate authority over her. Rather disdainful, I believe.
With high school football on a fast track toward district and state playoffs, letās take a look at the Broward and Miami-Dade rankings according to the Miami Herald: 1. Hollywood Chaminade (7-0); 2. Miami Norland (7-0); 3. Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas (6-1); 4. Plantation American Heritage (5-1); 5. Miami Central (3-3); 6. Homestead (5-1); 7. Miami Columbus (7-1); 8. Coconut Creek (5-2); 9. Miami Palmetto (6-1); 10. Miami Booker T. Washington (5-2). Other rankedĀ Broward teams include Cardinal Gibbons,Ā Monarch, Blanche Ely,Ā Dillard, Western, and South Broward.
I traveled to my alma mater, Tuskegee, for homecoming this past weekend. Unlike many alumni, the game is always paramount for me. We unfortunately lost a heartbreaker to Edward Waters on a real Hail Mary with 2.2 seconds left and 4th down. I am absolutely assured, however,Ā thatĀ this weekās clash between EWU and Albany State in Jacksonville will be highly competitive and contested, one for the Division II ages.
