A glimpse of what’s to come
I was watching the Monday edition of Baseball Tonight on ESPN for the fourth time the other night, when it dawned on me: Summer is the absolute worst time of the year for sports.
I have had this feeling before, but this year it has really set in.
It may be that I’m just coming down from the Pistons World Title run or maybe it’s me anticipating what is coming this fall. Either way, summer sports are boring me.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy watching highlights from one of the 162 games that a Major League Baseball team will play during the course of the season, especially in July when the games have so much riding on them.
It’s just that I don‘t enjoy watching highlights from one of the … well you get the point.
So on this night, as Peter Gammons explained to me why the Chicago White Sox losing to the Cubs on July 4 was going to affect the division race in September, I drifted off.
My slumber took me ahead in time, to Sept. 4, when the Brian Kelly era will officially begin at CMU. The Chippewas will travel to Bloomington Ind., to take on the Indiana Hoosiers.
While Indiana isn’t remotely considered a Big Ten contender, this game would be a good way for Kelly to come in and immediately assert himself as a Division I coach. It could also go a long way in erasing the memory of the meltdown CMU suffered at Indiana two years ago.
The dream continued to take me through time and stopped on September 11, in East Lansing. CMU is playing Michigan State today in a game that it is more than capable of winning.
Senior linebacker James King loves Spartan stadium. He blocked four punts there in 2001, and by spreading out the Spartan defense and forcing them to use more defensive backs, Kelly can expect sophomore running back Jerry Seymour to have a big day.
The very next day I ended up on the campus of Ball State, where the MAC will be introduced to CMU’s new women’s soccer coach, Tony DiTucci. The Chippewas open their MAC schedule against the Cardinals on Sept. 12.
The players were excited about the hire, and they should be. DiTucci is the Chippewas second head coach and knows the program and his team well, after being an assistant under Mark Salisbury for the last two seasons.
Another CMU coach will make his MAC debut on Sept. 22, when new volleyball front man Erik Olson leads the defending MAC West Division Champions onto their home floor to take on Eastern Michigan.
Even with the graduation of key players such as Shaleene Glombowski, Olson comes in with a wealth of talent, including last year’s MAC Freshman of the Year Meghan Moore.
My dream then took me to an unexpected spot on Sept. 24, when it dropped me off in Mount Pleasant for the Field Hockey team’s first home game of the season.
I had no idea that this was possible, but apparently, they have a field.
So now, still two months away from these occurrences, I am forced to wait, and watch highlights of one of the 162 games that a Major League Baseball team will play during the course of a season.
Life sports writer Paul Costanzo can be reached for comment at sports@cm-life.com.
