Carrie Underwood Is Enjoying Fall, Alex Bregman's Wife Stops By & The Ultimate Urban Meyer Halloween Costume
I had one of those dad moments last night and it didn't revolve around my child having success on a sports field
Growing up, I loved sports. Absolutely couldn't talk about much else besides sports, playing sports, watching sports, working for sports teams, writing about sports. Adults liked to yammer on about how one day I'd have kids and they'd be into sports because of my passion.
And now here I am, all these years later, getting more enjoyment from my oldest child finding success in his 3rd grade classroom. Last night, my wife was going through Jack's work binder and said I had to read a paper that my son had written. It was a fiction assignment where he had to write a quick story.
It damn near brought me to tears. In his piece, he writes about a character wishing for snow on Christmas Eve and how in the middle of the night the snow comes and crashes into the roof. A huge snowfall. There were well-placed commas. Question marks are in the right spots. Yes, there were a few misspelled words, but he's understanding story structure and how to pack in the action and then get out.
In other words, it was pretty much the perfect 9-year-old blog post. I've had people email me looking for jobs who couldn't do it better.
Does this have me thinking about handing off the Morning Screencaps empire in a decade like Jack Buck handing over the World Series to Joe? I'd be lying if I said that thought hadn't crossed my mind. The Morning Screencaps empire could carry on and I could slide right into the emeritus role. He could recruit college buddies to be special correspondents on college campuses across the country and the legend of Screencaps can live on like a car dealership handed down on Main Street USA.
Or he might get tired of writing and decide to go get an engineering degree. Time will tell. The emeritus thing might have to wait until the 4-year-old passes my blogging tests.
• MLB HAS LOST ITS MIND! Game 2 of the World Series went THREE HOURS AND ELEVEN MINUTES. That one absolutely flew by. You had to figure it was the Astros' night when Altuve leads off with a double and Bregman brings him in with a sac fly to get the offense humming along. Altuve added a 7th inning solo shot and we have a 1-1 Series heading to Atlanta where, as I've noted, you better be ready to unload the savings to buy a ticket. Friday night's get-in price is still over $1k for a single.
• I received word Wednesday that Mike T. in Idaho and Cindy T. are back home from their three-week bender vacation across Michigan, New York, Vermont, and from there I lost track of their journey. Now it's time for Mike T. to throw some heavy lumber on the massive fire pit in his backyard as the nighttime lows start to drop in Eagle, Idaho. That's right, it's hunker down time for the Ts.
• Speaking of hunkering down mode. Tonight marks the official end of the Thursday Night Mowing League season. One of the local weather guys has been writing about how 2021 will go down as the latest peak leaf dates in recorded weather history around these parts, or something like that. Leaves will be dropping as people are putting up Christmas lights. That's absolutely unheard of here.
I hope to hear from as many TNML members as possible as we close down the season, even if you just send a 'This is what TNML meant to me in 2021' email.
• I want to give you guys a heads up that it appears I'm getting back into the radio game. Tomorrow morning I'll be on with my old buddy Anthony Bellino across the state of Michigan & NW Ohio at 8:01 ET. Listen live - here or find a station on the dial.
Yes, I hate the show title, but Bellino was hired into the show. Not his call.
• I started doing Friday mornings in-studio with Bellino like six years ago. It's pretty much an extension of Morning Screencaps in radio format. If you love Screencaps, you're going to love my appearances. We've done Super Bowl week in San Francisco. We started a two-club golf tournament. We threw the best damn FIFA video game tournament this city has ever seen. We've had chipping contests into my pool where we had too many beers and destroyed my beautiful turf. We've had rowdy late nights. We've seen a few things. I cannot stand when he talks about the NBA. He cannot stand that I would take a bullet for the Buckeyes.
And here's the best fast fact of them all: as long as I've known Bellino, Michigan has never beaten Ohio State.
People have been wondering where I will go with Screencaps in 2022. We're going to start adding pieces. This is the first one. The scaling has begun.
• Now, let's get the day rolling. It's going to be a massive sports evening with the Packers in Arizona with all sorts of playoff implications. Have a great day and get after it.
Email: joekinsey@gmail.com