Nocturnal Sports

I'm finally back. To tie up some loose ends and reflect on some previous episodes, I'm breaking down Mark Kotsay's first couple weeks as Oakland A's manager and ownership's deliberate efforts to tank attendance.

I do my best thinking in the car, so excuse the background noise and tune in as I talk about the Oakland A’s, my recent travels and high school football.

Darren Bush, Mark Kotsay and Bob Melvin are in over their heads. Let’s discuss. I also talk about roasting Marwin Gonzalez on national TV and the Sha'Carri Richardson situation.

This is a new thing I'm doing where I dump all my Oakland A's-related frustrations into a brief window.

What the hell is wrong with the Oakland Athletics? These first four games revealed a lot. Here's a short breakdown. It's like Quibi, except without wasting billions of dollars.

I absolutely love visiting different ballparks. With so much on hold right now in both sports and travel, I wanted to pay tribute to my favorite intersection of the two and explain what I love so much about the various parks I've visited. Tune in for capsules on the 16 stadiums (14 current and two former) to find out what I like and dislike about each of them!

I was inspired by a Wednesday night college football game. Here's an episode about it.

What do analytics, antifa and Russian bots have in common? When would I have taken Blake Snell out of the game? What's it like having the tables turned? Find out on this episode of Nocturnal Sports!

It's a somewhat bland weekly episode produced with the sole purpose of staying at the top of your feed, rather than to offer insightful commentary! This week, we look at what has to happen for either the Los Angeles Dodgers or Tampa Bay Rays to win the World Series, as well as try to figure out how such lousy games end up getting selected for primetime NFL slots. If details and angles that mainstream media outlets ignore is your thing, this is still the place for you. In the first segment, we take an in-depth look at the managerial decisions that Dave Roberts and Kevin Cash made during Game 5.

The World Series matchup is set, and either the Los Angeles Dodgers or Tampa Bay Rays will get over the proverbial hump! Let's talk about it! Stick around after that to hear about commercials I hate, the college football coach who's already deserving of a Coach of the Year award, bad clock management and some social cues that we can take from Australian football.

2020 was a supposed to be a year to forget for the San Francisco Giants. Instead, they actually turned out to be a pretty competitive team, fueled by the best offense the organization had seen in a long time. What put the Giants in position to make the playoffs before coming up just short? Let's talk about it in our final edition of So You Didn't Make the Playoffs!

The Philadelphia Phillies have Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto and a bunch of other really good position players. They have a top starter in Aaron Nola and some quality arms to back him up in the rotation. They also had one of the worst bullpens in history and missed the playoffs. Let's discuss.

For the first time in a long time, the Seattle Mariners have hope. No, they didn't end their postseason drought, but they finally have more to fall back on than the beer selection at their gem of a ballpark. With a stud in Kyle Lewis and other prospects on the verge of breaking out, the future is bright in the Pacific Northwest. Let's talk about it!

Nobody really cared what the 2020 Washington Nationals did. As the defending champions in a strange, stunted, mutated season, they sort of drifted in nothingness, free of any expectations or responsibilities. Let's talk about what they did!

It's time to review the 2020 Oakland Athletics. Tune in for a briefing on why Bob Melvin is a great manager for getting a team off the ground but not to take them to the promised land, as well as why the Tampa Bay Rays are balling on a budget and getting farther than the A's. Then stay tuned for individual player report cards for everyone who made an appearance for the 2020 A's, and finish things off by looking at a few free agent and trade targets for the upcoming offseason!

Ah, the Mets. Possibly the most chaotic, enigmatic team in all of Major League Baseball. In shocking fashion, they didn't make the playoffs this season. Let's talk about why!

No team made fewer headlines this year than the Kansas City Royals. They never really caught fire or floundered. Rather, they simply existed. Here's a breakdown of their 2020 season and what's in store for them in the near future.

Big names, lots of hype, a hot start and perennial underachievement. These are the ways of the Colorado Rockies. Ethan and Nick Clementi (@ClementiNick) break down why the Rockies are annually stuck in the mud.

Mike Trout is the best player in baseball. Anthony Rendon is one of the best third basemen in the game. Both played for the 2020 Anaheim Angels, and yet, they're featured in our series on teams that didn't make the playoffs, even though more than half the league made it to the postseason. So what went wrong? Ethan and Nick (@ClementiNick) break down one of the most dysfunctional franchises in all of professional sports, analzying what has kept Mike Trout out of the postseason yet again.

After consecutive 100-loss seasons, it would be easy to ignore the 2020 Baltimore Orioles. Fortunately, we didn't! They actually stayed in the playoff race for a few weeks and got some pleasantly surprising contributions from young guys, even without calling up Adley Rutschman yet. Ethan and Nick Clementi (@ClementiNick) break down a team that made serious strides towards contention, so be sure to tune in!.

The Cleveland Indians were eliminated from the postseason last week, but they won their own sort of game instead. Some teams don't play to win; rather, they play to achieve their own unique goal.

A team that always flies under the radar but never fails to make things interesitng, the Arizona Diamondbacks had a tumultuous ride this year. Ethan and Nick Clementi (@ClementiNick) break it all down, shining some light on a team that's usually left out of discussions by the national media!

Ethan and Nick (@ClementiNick) face the ultimate challenge: Try to break down what went wrong for the 2020 Texas Rangers without ripping on their new ballpark!

Heroes get remembered. Legends never die. But what if you didn't do anything heroic or legendary? Well, you get talked about on this episode of Nocturnal Sports. Join Ethan and Nick Clementi (@ClementiNick) to break down the 14 teams that won't be participating in MLB's expanded postseason. Want to just hear about one team? Don't worry! Each team's individual segment will be uploaded in its own separate form over the coming weeks.

The natural order of the universe has been restored as the Oakland Athletics won their 17th American League West Championship on Monday night. We're here to talk about it.

As if we'd give an episode released on September 21st any other name. This week, we're talking about Major League Baseball's positive tendency to learn from mistakes and avoid repeating them, as well as the negative tendency to try to solve problems that don't even exist. We'll also talk about the merits of different playoff formats as we're just a week away from playoff baseball!

We're talking more baseball this week, but we're not just looking at it through an A's perspective. After talking Giants with Steven Rissotto (@StevenRissotto) yesterday, today we've got Yankee fan Michael Baribault (@mbaribaultmedia) to discuss his team's up-and-down play over the past month, examine the nuances of postseason baseball and the importance of having Gerrit Cole at his absolute best.

We're talking more baseball this week, but we're not just looking at it through an A's perspective. While we will break down Matt Chapman's season-ending surgery, we're also welcoming in Giants fan Steven Rissotto (@StevenRissotto) and Yankee fan Michael Baribault (@mbaribaultmedia) to get perspective on two of the most interesting stories around the league and look at the upcoming playoff race! Both conversations went so long that we're splitting this week into two parts. Stay tuned for Michael's tomorrow!

This week, we're joined by fellow sportswriter Jesus Cano (@Juice_Cano) to talk about sports journalism, the Oakland A's, his background in sports, his recent move to Fresno and a random Q&A session! Stick around after the interview to hear Ethan go off on MLB's video review system.

Over the last five-plus months, we've successfully slowed the spread of the terms "in these uncertain times" and "in these unprecedented times". So why can't we do the same for "out of an abundance of caution"? We'll look at that, the Oakland A's COVID situation, the most unprofessional page on MLB.com, seven-inning doubleheaders, road walkoffs, the Seattle Mariners' newfound role as the team with the most Black players and more on a new episode of Nocturnal Sports! MLB Scoring Changes: http://m.mlb.com/promo/scoring-changes

We need to discuss the complex relationship between race and sports. I'm a white guy who's lived in upper middle class and upper class neighborhoods. That means I'm not speaking from the standpoint of someone who's experienced tons of racism, but I'm part of the target audience that needs to have these conversations.

What's the coolest way to end a baseball game? No, it's not a walkoff home run. This week, I'm taking a look at the coolest and lamest ways baseball games can come to an end, and revisiting a few old games as examples. There are a few tangents and rabbit holes throughout the episode, so come along for the ride!

Let's check in on all five California baseball teams and answer a few questions. Why do A's fans hate the Giants? Why can't Giants fans understand how rebuilding works? Why are the Angels in their current state? Is Chris Woodward the dumbest man alive? Tune in for all that and more!

With guests Drew Jones (@AmazinAsCraze) and Nick Clementi (@ClementiNick), we're looking at the fallout from Sunday's A's-Astros brawl, going down a Bobby Jenks rabbit hole and covering just about every other aspect of the sports landscape you could possibly get to in the span of one conversation between three A's fans. In the first 35 minutes, get to know Drew as he talks about what made him an A's fan despite living two time zones away, plus a bit about the Arkansas sports scene in general. After that, Nick joins the party and we get into breaking down not just the fight between the A's and Astros, but also the three-game series altogether and the first two-and-a-half weeks of Oakland A's baseball, as well as a quick look around the Major Leagues as a whole. Special thanks to @AsianAndy13 for this episode's special cover image!

Sports are back, and it's weird. Today, we're looking at how three major North American leagues are handling operations during These Uncertain Times™, plus looking a bit into social justice, foreign relations and disputed islands. If you just want to hear about baseball, fast forward to the second half of the episode, where we get into some of the rule changes in this strange MLB season, a look at a couple players who have started hot and a breakdown of what makes a good fantasy league.

With the return of sports finally on the horizon, I delve into the value of the journey versus the destination, the importance of championships and whether professional athletes love what they do or if they're just in it for the money.

A little about me and what I plan to use this forum for.