2025: noviembre
Image generated by Google Gemini.
I know it’s not much, but I have nothing else fit for a King.
I missed my blog post last month, marking the first time since I began this operation that I forgot to publish a monthly blog entry. I know that my one reader was lost without it. I’m sorry for letting you down. October was a busy month for me and my day job. Historically, it has always been a busy month in my line of work. In addition to a heavier work load, it’s football season, which means I’m recording and editing our weekly fantasy football league-centric podcast.
You may not be able to tell from the finished product, but the entire process, from the recording to the completion of the post-production, takes me three nights. I put in a couple of hours each night after the day job and dinner, so that’s around six hours of work I dedicate to the Any Given Sunday Podcast for 18 to 20 weeks a year. Of course, that’s not my only passion project. My cousin, FarFromProfessional.com staff writer C.A. Ramirez, and I are working on a together, so there’s that. That’s just what I would consider “work” on my plate. I haven’t touched the “life” stuff, but I bring all this up to make an excuse for myself and attempt to explain how I could have forgotten about my blog. Halloween and Game 6 of the World Series were the nail in my October blog’s coffin.
I’m here for November, though, homies. There are two specific things that I want to speak on this month. One event was at the beginning, and the other here at the end. Except for last month, I’ve been lamenting the passing of this calendar year in every blog post, knowing full well that we would be sitting on December’s doorstep before we knew it (if we were blessed enough to make it). Well, here we are.
Game 7
Did you forget that the Major League Baseball World Series ended on November 1st this year? Game 7 was the most stressful couple of hours of my life, breaking the 24-hour old record previously held by Game 6. For the majority of Game 7, I thought the Dodgers were cooked. Bichette’s three-run dinger seemed to be the early dagger to the heart, but the Dodgers hung on long enough to outlast the Blue Jays in eleven innings on a razor thin margin. Both teams were pushed to their limits, but the Dodgers had just enough in their tanks to win.
The Blue Jays had electric mojo for the entire series, crushing the Dodgers in all three of their victories. The hit better and pitched better, even in the games they lost, but they couldn’t squeak out a close when their baseball lives depended on it. Two chances to close the Dodgers out at home. Two fails. The Rogers Centre went silent, except for the smattering of cheers for the Dodgers’ fans who flew east on nothing but hope and a prayer. That was Game 7 for the Dodgers, the back-to-back MLB champs!
Top Playoff Moments
5. Dodgers steal the NLDS.
That headline makes it sound like the Dodgers didn’t earn their series victory against the Phillies. False. The Dodgers won both road games in Philly in spite of the shittiest fans in the world and a very talented Phillies roster, but they won the deciding game on a terrible baseball decision by Phillies pitcher Orion Kerkering in the 11th inning of a tense deciding game. That’s a tough way to lose and a hell of a way to win.
4. Miguel Rojas with the wood and leather (pause).
This is not some nasty kink. It’s Miggy Ro coming off the bench to start in Game 7 and delivering a game-tying home run with only two outs left in the Dodgers’ season.
Then, he saved the Dodgers’ season again with his clutch fielding on a play that appeared to be the final nail in the Dodgers’ coffin. Damn! Miggy Ro came through and became a Dodgers World Series legend.
3. (Uh!) Double-up (Uh! Uh!)
The Dodgers had to win Game 6 in order to thrill us with Game 7, and it came down to a once in a lifetime 7-4 double play to force the final game in a heavyweight brawl of a World Series.
2. Ninja Assassin
Yoshinobu Yamamoto got touched up a bit by the Phillies in Game 3 of the NLDS, and then he was untouchable after that. He threw nine innings against the Brewers in the NLCS and got the win. Then he threw 17.2 innings (all on the road) against the Blue Jays in the World Series and got 3 wins (two starts and one in relief). Nine of those seventeen innings were in Game 2. Yoshi was ready to rock in the Game 3 18-inning marathon game but never got the chance. His pitching earned him a spot in Dodgers’ lore.
1. The best of the best having the best game in playoff history.
Not sure if the last part is a fact, but Shohei Ohtani went 3-for-3 with three dingers and then pitched for six innings, allowing no runs and throwing ten motherfucking strikeouts! That seems historic. I’m not even looking it up to see if it is. My guy was feeling good, single-handedly winning the National League pennant by himself.
Special shoutout to the Andy Pages’ catch that ended the bottom of the 9th inning. Andy trucked Kiké to make the play that saved the Dodgers and eventually opened the door for Will Smith to knock the piss out of Shane Bieber’s sorry ass slider into the left field seats.
Farewell to the GOAT
Thanksgiving
The fam flew up to Portland to spend the holiday with Grammy in Vancouver, Washington. The weather was cold and dreary, as expected, but it was a welcomed change of pace for us folks from Southern California. It was good to see my mom and watch her interact with her grandkids. My wife and my mom get along well, so they always enjoy their time together. My wife’s easy-going nature is the perfect companion to my mom’s aloof good-hearted sentiment. I pray for the patience to roll with the figurative punches my mom throws, but I always fall short of being cool. I didn’t crash out on her during this visit, which is a major accomplishment on my end. Prayer has been powerful in this regard.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I’ve probably said this in every November blog I’ve ever written. I love the fact that we have a holiday that focuses on gratitude and attitude and shaping one to revere the other. We all need to be grateful for what we have, not measured in things but in people and love, in health and happiness. I am blessed to be able to sit here and write these words even though no one reads what I write and publish. The fact that I have the time and ability to do something silly like this is evidence that I am blessed. Praise God! If you’re reading this, then you are blessed as well. You have a phone or a laptop or some device, and you have the time to relax and read something at your leisure. That’s a good place to start. Think about all that you have in your life, even if it isn’t all that much. You are blessed!
Saturday Night Special
Episodes 70 through 72 dropped. Thank you to the folks out there watching it.
Check out the page right here for quick access to all episodes.
