On Monday night, even I had given up on the Eagles making the playoffs this year. Their performance in the first half against a 2-10 Giants team was so pitiful that the Eagles looked like they were 2-10 instead of the Giants. The Eagles pass defense was terrible. They gave up two easy touchdowns to go down 17 to 3 at halftime. The offense wasn’t much better.
I don’t know what happened at halftime, but the Eagles came from behind, shut out the Giants, and pulled the game out in overtime 23 to 17. I hope they can play as well as they did against Washington and again in the final two games of the regular season. That's not asking too much, is it?
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In baseball news, most of the big free agents have already signed and it is not even Christmas yet. Compare that to last year when Bryce Harper didn't sign with the Phillies until February. I might start sounding old fashioned, but I am not happy the players are now getting over $300 million to play baseball.
No athlete should ever be paid that much money, but I admit I’m still going to watch for now.
The two best pitchers available were Stephen Strasburg from the Washington Nationals and Gerrit Cole from the Houston Astros. Strasburg went back to the Nationals for $275 million over 7 years and Cole was signed by the Yankees for a crazy $324 million over 9 years. I just hope they create their own foundations to use a LOT of this money for charitable purposes!
The Phillies got the Yankees' former shortstop Didi Gregorius to play for them for one year. I hope it goes well. It would be great to go into next year with high hopes for the Phillies.
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In the warm and wonderful world of golf (can you tell I am over winter before it even begins?!), the Presidents Cup competition is occurring this week at the Royal Melbourne golf course in Australia. This competition is every country, except for those in Europe, against the United States. During the entire 25 year history of this event, the U.S. has been dominant, only losing once. That may be about to change, because, after the first day of play, the International team is winning by a 4-1 margin.
I will be obviously be rooting for the United States to win, but I want the overall competition to be very close for the future success of the event. Tiger Woods is the first playing captain since the first competition. He revealed this week that the reason he took the captain's job in the first place was that he thought his career was over a year and a half ago, before his latest back surgery was successful. The final round is on Saturday afternoon on NBC and I will be watching.
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In college football, the final four who will play for the championship are LSU, Ohio State, Clemson and the only surprise team, Oklahoma. The playoffs will begin on December 28. I hope both games are competitive.
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A 2002 Cape grad and 2007 UD grad, Lewes resident Sumner Spence is one of the Cape area's biggest sports fans. Although he’s used a wheelchair his entire life, he has lived vicariously through his sports-playing father, brother, and friends, who gave him his love of sports. He hopes to provide new and interesting perspectives on the sports stories and issues of the day. Email Sumner at sumspence@gmail.com.
