Cue Cards is a series designed to assist with the common small talk about high-profile recent sporting events that is so omnipresent in the workplace, the bar, and other social settings.
Yesterday — Tuesday, September 30
- Well now, baseball — The Kansas City Royals beat the Oakland Athletics 9-8 in a game that went into the 12th inning (past the normal nine), lasted four hours and forty five minutes, and ended well after midnight. It was a shockingly exciting game. Down 7-3, the Royals looked like their first playoff appearance in 29 years was going to be a short one. That’s before they starting hitting and running like there was no tomorrow (or like they wanted the game to keep going into tomorrow) and the crowd started screaming and stomping and the As started to wilt, just a little, under the pressure. It wasn’t a two act play though, this one had the full five acts of back and forths, rallies and missed opportunities. The final act became a redemption story when catcher Salvador Perez, who was 0-5 on batting attempts for the night, including two chances to win the game already, finally got his bat to the ball and hit in the winning run.
Line: If that’s what the baseball playoffs are going to be like, sign me up! - Soccer’s answer to the red zone channel — There were seven simultaneous games in the European Champions League tournament yesterday. The headline was Paris Saint-Germain winning 3-2 over the extraordinarily talent laden Barcelona. Beyonce, Jay-Z, and David Beckham (who, it must be said, at one point was actually a soccer player) attended the game and gave it an air of cultural happening. Italian living legend, Francesco Totti, became the oldest man to score in Champions League play while leading Roma to a 1-1 tie with Manchester City. German club Bayern Munich beat CSKA Moscow 1-0 in a weird setting. The game was in Russia but the stadium was completely empty. This was a punishment for CSKA Moscow because of “racist chanting by their fans last season.”
Line: Down goes Barcelona! It’s the group stage though, they’ll be fine.