Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to the light.
Double, double toil and trouble: Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
– Shakespeare, Macbeth
Warning: The following column may contain pop culture references you have to Google.
I know you have been worrying about my weight loss goal since last week, so I’ll get that out of the way first.
No, I have not reached my target poundage and have not yet enjoyed that pizza with lots of cheese. Still 2.8 pounds to shed first.
Also, if you remember last week’s column, I mentioned that my dad took me to Avondale High School football games when I was a little boy.
In the course of research for that column, I happened to look up Avondale on the ghsfha.org site. I learned something interesting.
Avondale played its last football games in 2010 and finished 2-8. Among the losses was a 55-0 rout at the hands of Bill Malone’s Morgan County squad at Bill Corry Stadium in the second game of the season.
Among the wins, was a 14-6 victory over Clarkston. Coincidentally, my son went to Morgan County and my late mother went to Clarkston, where she played basketball for the Angoras (which is a kind of goat in this instance).
Speaking of goats, let’s test your memory.
Pop quiz, hot shot. You’re a male goat and you want to attract a female goat. What do you do? What do you do?
If you don’t know, see last week’s column for the answer.
But if you remembered, that’s excellent. Go to the head of the class, young scholar.
Actually, I could lay claim to graduating from Clarkston myself. You may find this hard to believe considering the literary giant I have become, but I failed senior English at Towers High School and had to go to the adult school located on the old Clarkston campus to make it up, just so I could graduate.
In those days people “kicked copies of Byron in my face.” And you probably thought I came into the world quoting Shakespeare and Milton.
Not quite. But I am living proof that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were right: “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”
Now that those loose ends are tied up. Let’s talk about baseball. The season is drawing to a close and it’s time to check the standings as I tend to do three times a day each September.
As I write this, the Atlanta Braves have 16 games left after beating Philadelphia (sweep) Sunday afternoon. By the time you read this, the Braves will be down to the final 12, including a huge series against the Mets from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2. After that the National League East, by far the closest race in baseball, should be settled.
The Cardinals have an eight-game lead over the Brewers in the Central, and the Dodgers sewed up the West on Memorial Day, I think. The Phillies, Padres and the Brewers are still in the mix for the remaining slots.
The Yankees are nearly a lock to win the AL East and the Astros have a 14-game lead in the West. The White Sox have a slim chance of catching the Guardians in the AL Central, but it’s fading fast.
The Blue Jays, Rays, Mariners and Orioles are all in the race for seeding in the first round of the AL playoffs, but the Orioles can’t lose another game the rest of the way.
Everybody else is done. If the Braves overtake the Mets, they can avoid the first round along with the Dodgers. If not, they would be seeded as the top wild-card team and would play the Phillies, Padres or possibly the Brewers in a best-of-three series.
Here’s my Atlanta-boy prediction: I believe the Braves will catch the Metropolitans, but it won’t matter. The Braves will still lose to the Dodgers in the NLCS.
I don’t want that to happen, but dare I hope for consecutive titles? I’m pessimistic because I was born in Atlanta with all the nightmarish memories that come with it.
For example: The Atlanta Falcons had a 24-10 lead on the Cowboys in the third quarter of a playoff game in 1981. They gave up 20 points in the fourth and lost 30-27. I still hate you, Danny White and Drew Pearson.
The ’96 Braves won two road games against the Yankees in the fall classic that year, only to get swept at home and lose to the Bronx Bombers in six. I still hate you Jim Leyritz and Derek Jeter.
There’s another dark memory of course, and you know what it is, but let’s just say I now regard “28-3” as hate speech.
Selah.