The League Championship Series

Astros-Rangers. The Houston Astros met the Texas Ranges in an all-Texas ALCS. The series was noteworthy in that the away team won every single gsme! Rangers right-fielder Adolis Garcia was the clear choice for ALCS MVP, hitting five homers in the last four games.

The demise of the Astros meant that none of the six division winners will appear in the upcoming World Series.

The Rangers were certainly the sentimental favorite, as fans cannot forget the Astros' cheating scandal of a few years ago, nor should they. One of the feel-good stories of the 2023 Rangers is the success of their manager, Bruce Bochy. With the Rangers win in the ALCS, Bochy became the first man ever to manage three different franchises to the World Series.

I remember weatching Bochy during the 1992 season when he managed the Wichita Wranglers, the Double-A farm team of the San Diego Padres. I liked the way he handled his job, but I never could have predicted he would ever get to manage in the majors. But the Padres, to their credit, recognized his excellence asnd steadily promoted him within their system, until naming him as their manager for the 1995 season. He took the Padres to the World Series in 1998, and later managed the San Francisco Giants to the World Series three times in the 2010s.

Phillies-Diamondbacks. The Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks met in the NLCS. I was rooting for the Phillies earlier in the postseason, but here I had to cheer for the D-Backs, who are one of the great Cinderella stories of the 2023 season.

The Phillies set a record for most home runs in a single postseason with 24. Their three sluggers, Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Nick Castellanos, had five dingers each.

The Future of our Republic

242 years ago today, British General Cornwallis surrendered, ending the Revolutionary War, and paving the way for the establishment of our great nation, the only nation in the history of the world established on an idea, rather than on commonalities like race, ethnicity, or religion. Our challenge today is whether we can keep this great republic, which has been bequeathed to us by our wise and visionary Founders.

The reason for our current problem is that we have a significant group of people who refuse to accept the results of elections, and encourage violence against election oficials who are simply trying to do their jobs. We have a long history in this country of election losers graciously conceding to their victors, as exemplified by Jefferson in 1796, and Adams in 1800. That is no longer the case, which calls into question the viability of our system of government.

The Division Series

None of the four Division Series went to five games. Two ended 3-0, and the other two went 3-1. Three of the four teams with first-round byes lost in the Divison Series, suppporting my thesis that the time off is not helpful to the top teams.

The only bye team to advance was the hated Astros, who took care of the Twins three games to one. The Rangers swept the Orioles, and the Diamondbacks swept the Dodgers, with the Dodgers never holding a lead in the entire Series! And the Phillies elilminated the Braves 3-1, with Nick Castellanos becoming the first player ever to hit multiple homers in consecutive postseason games.

The Evils of the Catholic Church

Vatican archivist Giovanni Coco has discoverd a "yellowed letter" sent by the German Jesuit Lothar Konig to the Pope's private secretry in December of 1942, informing the Pope that "up to 6,000 men die every day" in the "blast furnace" at the Belzec concentration camp.

This puts the lie to the Vatican's long-standing position that Pope Pius XII never knew about the evils of the Holocaust. While this might be dismissed as the failings of one person, what cannot be dismissed are the repeated efforts of the Catholic church to beatify this guy. It has been widely believed that Pius XII must have known about the Holocaust, but now there is proof in black and white that he did. And yet, the Cathlic Church continues to be in denial. For shame.

And now I have learned that William Tyndale was executed by the Catholic Church for heresy, for the "crime" of translating the Bible into English. You wouild have thought that a truly Christian institution would have welcomed this, but not the Catholic Chruch, because the Catholic Church does not want its members to be able to think for themselves.

Many of the shortcomings of the Supreme Court in recent years is due to the prevalence of Catholics on the court. This number is currenly six of the nine, but has been even higher in recent years. Currently there are only two Protestants on the court, and that's being generous in counting the Episcopalian Neil Gorsuch, who was raised a Catholic, as a Protetant. The Catholic-dominated Court has repeatedly embraced the expansion of Executive power, to the point that the government is now free to make personal reproductive decisions for the women of this country.

The Catholic Church mandates fealty to a patriarchal autocracy, in which people are discouraged to think for themselves, and are instead commanded to allow the Pope to dictate their personal decisions. This emphasis on Papal infallibilty is decidely unchristian, as the Bible teaches us that we are all sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God, even the Pope.

Liberals have been consistent in advocating "diversity" on the Supreme Court, but this has turned out to be a sham. The liberals' idea of diversity mandates diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation, but ignores the most important kind of diversity, that of religion, resulting in an almost total elimination of Protestant values from the Supreme Court. Martin Luther's 95 Theses exposed the evils of the Catholic Church, and it's time we undertood this and acted accordingly.

First Round of the MLB Postseason

The MLB postseason started this week, with a new and improved playoff format after the awkwardness of last year's format. Now the first round consists of eight best of three match-ups in what is being calloed the "wild card" round, with the top two teamss in each league getting a bye into the division round.

All four match-ups resulted in two-game sweeps, and I was generally pleased with the results. The Rangers ousted the Rays 4-0 and 7-1. The attendance at the Rays stadium for the first game was a paltry 19,704, the lowest for a non-COVID playoff game since 1919! The lack of support this year by the Rays' fans is disgusting. The average home attendance this year was 17,781, ranking the franchise 27th out of 30. Tampa Bay doesn't deserve a team, and the rest of the league doesn't deserve to be forced to play on the atrocious artifical turf, in the monstrocity known as Tropicana Field. MLB shoud move the Rays to a city that will appreciate them, as they are one of the best-run franchises in the league. In addition, the Rangers deserve sympathy because they were leading their division for the last part of the season, only to have it snatched away from them by the hated Astros on the last day of the season.

The Phillies beat the Marlins 4-1 and 7-1. Here again, we have a franchise in the Marlins whose fans don't appreciate them. Average hone attendance for the Marlins was a pitiful 14,355, next to last ahead of only Oakland. When is MLB going to realize that the Florida teams need to be moved? Florida has proven that it doesn't deserve any MLB teams. The Phillies, by contrast, have notoriously unruly fans, but at least the fans there care about the team, averaging over 30K per game, good for sixth in the league. And the Phillies owner has done everything he can to field a winner, opening his checkbook to sign top-flight free agents such as Bryce Harper and others. They deserve postseasson success.

Twins over Blue Jays, 3-1 and 2-0. Both of these teams have good fan bases, but the Twins have an awesome new ballpark and have achieved a lot for a team in such a small markiet. In addition, the Twins had an incredible record of losing 18 straight playoff games, so it's good to see them getting off on the right foot this year, winning their first playoff series in more than 20 years.

Diamondbacks over the Brewers, 6-3 and 5-2. The D-backs had a great year, as expected after their good offseason moves prior to the season. But I like the Brewers also, so no strong feelings about this match-up, although on balance I guess I have would preferred the Midwest, blue-collar Brewers to the desert-dwelling D-Backs.