World Readable: a personal blog about anything that comes to mind for anybody who cares to read it.
And look at this, the Bucs scored 31 points in every playoff game except the divisional round against the Saints where they scored 30:
I know I’ve said this a lot, but what a crazy sports year 2020 has been. The Lightning win the Stanley Cup, the Rays went to the World Series, and now the Bucs have won the Super Bowl. Amazing. Go Bucs!!
The Browns played a fantastic game against the Chiefs yesterday in the NFL playoffs divisional round, but just couldn’t stage the comeback they needed, losing 22-17. So close! But what a fantastic season.
Tom Brady and the Bucs, on the other hand, walked all over Drew Brees and the Saints at the Superdome, eliminating them 30-20. On to Green Bay! I hope Brady hasn’t gotten too used to our warm Florida weather now that he’s heading back to colder climes in January! Bring on the Packers! Go Bucs!
2020’s sports season continues to deliver. Both of my teams finished the regular season 11-5 and ended long playoff droughts. It’s been a long time since I got to watch my Bucs and Browns play football past early January but both of them won their wildcard games this past weekend and are advancing to the divisional round this Sunday!
The Browns last played in a playoff game in 2003 (losing to the Steelers) and before that was 1995 where, with head coach Bill Belichick, beat Bill Parcel’s Patriots (but then went on to lose to the Steelers) and last won a playoff game on the road back in 1969. So beating the Steelers two weeks in a row, in Heinz Field, eliminating them from the playoffs, despite all the COVID-19 issues, is sweet revenge (ok sure, no fans or terrible towels). The Browns now have to face the defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs (another old rivalry from the Marty Schottenheimer days).
Tom Brady continued his playoff streak, guiding the Bucs to their first playoff appearance since 2007 and first playoff victory since 2002 (the year they won the Super Bowl). It was hard to believe that with an 11-5 record they had to play a road game against the 7-9 Washington Football Team (wow, the NFC East was terrible this year), but they won and will face Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
With Super Bowl LV here in Tampa on February 7, you know I’m pulling for both teams to make it, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Both teams have a tough road ahead.
Go Bucs! Go Browns!
2020 may be an overall dumpster fire (with literal fires!) but the return of sports continues to be good to me. Except that I can’t actually go see any games in person! Oh well, I’ll take what I can get, and I’m getting a lot:
Go teams!
Happy New Year!
Last year on New Year’s Eve my Cleveland Browns finished their perfect 0-16 season. They closed out the 2018 season just shy of a winning season with a 7-8-1 record and Baker Mayfield broke the record for most touchdown passes by a rookie quarterback in his first season.
Both the Browns and Bucs will be looking for new coaches this year (Hue Jackson was fired back in October and Derek Koetter was fired on Sunday after the Bucs finished with another 5-11 season).
The Lightning closed out December “unbeaten” (just a single overtime loss) and are the #1 team in the league going into the new year.
The Cavs are back to losing now that Lebron James is gone (again), sitting at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with an 8-29 record.
The Rays aren’t getting a new stadium anytime soon, which is making people wonder how much longer they’ll be in Tampa Bay.
Coming up in 2019, the Indians will host the All-Star Game for the first time since 1997 when Sandy Alomar, Jr. hit that homer and was named the game’s MVP (I was watching down at the Field of Dreams at Nautica). I hope to get up to Cleveland in July to attend (I’ve already got my annual Arizona spring training trip planned).
What about my New Years’ resolutions? I’m going with something counter to the norm. Instead of drinking less (which I don’t do a lot of anyway) and inspired by the drinks I had on our Thanksgiving cruise, I’m going to learn how to make more cocktails! 😀
September is winding down so it’s time for October playoff baseball, week 3 of NFL football, and the impending start of the hockey season.
But can you believe it? Thanks to their game 1 tie with the Steelers and their incredible first win in 635 days over the New York Jets this past Thursday night the Cleveland Browns currently have a better record than the Patriots and the Steelers!! I’ll enjoy this while it lasts (“we’re #1-1-1!”).
The Bucs are undefeated as well and take on Pittsburgh tonight on Monday Night Football. Let’s hope for some more Fitzmagic!
Meanwhile, over in baseball-land my Indians clinched the AL Central (for the third time in a row) two weeks ago. The Tampa Bay Rays, who have the same record as the Tribe, however, are going to miss out on a wild card spot thanks to their position in the tougher AL East (the Red Sox are on fire this year).
Still, not a bad showing this season for Tampa Bay.
Go October sports teams! 😀
Three years ago we went on our first cruise (on the Disney Dream) right before Thanksgiving. This year for Christmas, we decided to go on an eastern Caribbean Very MerryTime holiday cruise. After months of planning and preparations, we just got back from a week of relaxation and recreation on the Disney Fantasy, and we had an incredible time.
First the Cleveland Browns worked their magic and picked Johnny Manziel (aka, Johnny Football or LeBron James in Cleats?) in the first round (22nd overall). Reports have it that Manziel will be hometown hero Brian Hoyer‘s backup, not the starter, but hopefully this time around picking a quarterback finally works out for the Browns.
Then the Cleveland Cavaliers won the first round draft pick in the lottery (a 1.7% chance) for the third time in four years. Who knows if they’ll use it, or trade it, but this has got to be a sign of things finally turning around for the Cavs, right? I don’t really want LeBron to come back (I’d rather see Cleveland win a championship without him at this point) but it’ll be interesting to see what plays out with this fantastic bargaining chip.
Finally a stroke of good luck for my Cleveland teams? Let’s hope they don’t squander it …
My recent Florida vs. Ohio sports contests ended up in Ohio’s favor 2-1.
It started two weeks ago when my hometown Indians lost to my current town Rays in the AL wildcard game. Yesterday we drove over to Orlando to see the Cleveland Cavaliers take on the Orlando Magic in pre-season play. The Cavs were down by 18 at one point but came back in the 4th quarter to win 110-105.
After breakfast at The Old Spanish Sugar Mill & Griddle House (where you cook your own pancakes on a griddle at your table) in De Leon Springs State Park we were in DeLand to see our alma mater Dayton Flyers take on the Stetson Hatters. This is the first season for football at Stetson since 1956 and (as I expected), the Flyers won 49-20.
So both Ohio teams won the games I attended. I wonder if the current ALCS would have been different if I had flown up to Cleveland for the wild card game. 😉
On the way home from DeLand we stopped at Epcot for dinner at the 2013 Food & Wine Festival. Yum.
Today is my birthday and while it’s not as cool as past ones, there is a ton of stuff going on today.
But the best gift is post-season baseball, and this year it’s a mixed blessing. Two years ago, the Rays’ push for October baseball came down to the last day. This year, the last day of regular season play on Sunday had three teams all fighting for the two AL Wild Card spots. My hometown team, the Cleveland Indians ended up clinching one of them but my current town team, the Tampa Bay Rays, ended up tied with the Texas Rangers. But last night, the Rays beat the Rangers 5-2 in the tie-breaker game in Arlington. The Rays now travel to Cleveland for another one game playoff, the winner of which continues on to play the Boston Red Sox in the ALDS.
That’s right, my two favorite teams finished second in their respective divisions, are in the post-season, and they’re playing each other in a single game tomorrow night. It seems like a win-win situation. My Indians haven’t played October baseball since 2007 when they lost to the Red Sox in the ALCS. My Rays had eliminated by the Rangers on their last two October pushes in 2010 and 2011 (so it was a welcome victory in game 163 for multiple reasons). Either way, I’ll have a team to root for when the ALDS starts on Friday. The Indians are my childhood team, and I still haven’t lived in Florida as long as I lived in Ohio, so tomorrow night I’ll be wearing Wahoo and cheering on the Goon Squad. Go Tribe!
As if that weren’t enough Cleveland/Florida sports excitement, both my Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers are dealing with quarterback controversies early in the season having recently benched their starters in favor of new blood. This has worked out better for my Browns (who are now 2-2 and will be starting Brian Hoyer for a third time) than the Bucs (who’ve started out 0-4 and have now announced (leaked?) that Josh Freeman has ADHD).
Quite a first day of October! Oh, and thanks, Google, for the custom birthday Doodle! 🙂
