Tom Mayenknecht: The Chicago White Sox are historical losers.
Bulls of the week
Caitlin Clark added yet another major career milestone when she was named rookie-of-the-year in the WNBA — gaining all but one of 66 first-place votes just a few days after drawing an average U.S. TV audience of 2.54 million in a losing cause to the Connecticut Sun.
In one of the best starts to an NFL regular season in terms of TV ratings and social-media engagement, Kirk Cousins picked the right time to bring his A-game to Thursday Night Football, with his Atlanta Falcons downing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 36-30 in an overtime that would have been happy times for the programmers and accountants at Amazon Prime.
Pete Alonso of the New York Mets has made headlines before on the strength of his penchant for hitting home runs, including his two wins (2019 and 2021) in five appearances at the Home Run Derby at Major League Baseball All-Star Week.
Yet never has the Polar Bear come through in the clutch in as huge a fashion as he did Thursday night at American Family Field in Milwaukee. His three-run blast with one out in the top of the ninth inning keyed a 4-2 come-from-behind win for the Mets and extended the recent run of post-season disappointment for the National League Central-winning Brewers.
It came in the Mets’ fifth game in four days and established the NL East wild-card team as one of the big talking points — at least so far — in the baseball playoffs.
It also set up a pair of big matchups in the NL Divisional Series this weekend, with the Mets travelling to Citizens Bank Park to play the NL East-champion Philadelphia Phillies and the San Diego Padres hopping up the I-5 to play the NL West-winning Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine.
Throw in the American League divisional series — with the New York Yankees hosting the Kansas City Royals and the red-hot Detroit Tigers visiting the Cleveland Guardians — and the MLB has every reason to believe it will build on the terrific ratings it earned in the wild-card matchups. American audiences are up 16 per cent year-over-year and are the highest in seven years.
Does MLB fast-forward to a Yankees-Dodgers World Series or is this the year of small payroll teams such as the Tigers, Guardians or Royals?
Bears of the week
The Chicago White Sox have been the butt of jokes all year on their way to the poorest regular season in modern baseball history.
Their abysmal record of 41-121 left them 51 1/2 games behind the AL Central-leading Guardians and is the worst since the Cleveland Spiders in 1899.
The Houston Astros, who will be absent from the ALCS for the first time in eight years, had a bearish week on another front, losing to a Tigers ball club whose 26-man wild card roster payroll represented US$18.8 million, less than the US$19 million salary of Astros pitcher Josh Hader.
Yet don’t dismiss the Toronto Blue Jays from the list of biggest disappointments this season. With team president Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins apparently back next year, just how big of an off-season will the Jays need to create any sense of buzz and optimism for 2025?