First Pitch: Weekend Recap & the First Presidential Debate

Happy Monday and happy October, Life from Left Field readers! It's been a crazy few days in sports and politics - let's recap the weekend and take a look at what we've got to look forward to this week.

NFL Week 4
The regular NFL referees were greeted in most stadiums as returning heroes, but the verdict on their performance based on Sunday's games: rusty. There were some blown calls, including a missed turnover on a kickoff in the Packers game, but most would agree they are a vast improvement over the replacements refs.

I was a New Orleans holding penalty away from going 0-4 on my Sunday picks. Looking at it another way, I was two bad play calls away in the Giants-Eagles game from going 2-2. The Packers-Saints game was close at the end and kicker Garrett Hartley appeared to kick a field goal to put the Saints up late, but there was a holding call pushing the Saints back 10 yards. After an encroachment call on the defense, Hartley hooked a 48 yard attempt left and the Packers were able to run out the clock after getting a first down. However, even if Hartley made it, it's probably safe to say that Rodgers would have driven the Pack down the field in the 3 minutes or so that remained on the clock.

It was a misguided attempt to try to convince myself that the Chiefs would beat the Chargers. I'm actually happy the Vikings beat the Lions (even though I picked the Lions), helping further build the NFC North storyline that that the Lions are a talented yet dysfunctional group with no sense of leadership or self-control. Even with wins over talented teams like the Lions and the 49ers, the Vikings are still not garnering a ton of respect around the league - probably because they lost to the Colts in Week 2.

I went on a mini-Twitter rant at the end of the Giants-Eagles game because of the baffling play calling down the stretch by the Giants. They were given a gift in the form of a first down on a phantom pass interference call on Nnamdi Asomugha. They had a 1 yd run on first down to set up 2nd and 9 from the 27 yard line with about 28 seconds left. Instead of running the ball on second down and then spiking the ball on third down to stop the clock, Eli goes for a 25 yard pass to Ramses Barden down the sideline, who pushes off and is (correctly) called for offensive pass interference. Tynes ends up missing two field goal attempts (he got a second try after hooking the first attempt due to Andy Reid trying to freeze the kicker and calling timeout), including the second attempt falling a few yards short of going over the post. All this could have been avoided had the Giants just RUN THE FOOTBALL. Even if they don't pick up any yards on the hypothetical run on second down, it still means that Tynes is trying a 44 yard field goal instead of a 54 yard field goal. I'm not even a Giants fan, and I'm frustrated (side note: I despise all Philadelphia sports teams).

Other Sports Notes
The Ryder Cup was held in the backyard of my hometown at Medinah Country Club. I admit that I didn't get to watch most of the Cup, but I had been following the highlights and did catch it late Sunday afternoon. I'm not going to pretend that I'm a golf analyst or expert, but I am very familiar with watching teams collapse - and this was quite the collapse.

The MLB regular season comes to a close this week - with the Cubs on the verge of another unremarkable, 100-loss season (currently at 60-99 with 3 games to play). While there are a lot of big story lines in the league this week, including playoff races and positioning, the one that I am most interested in is whether Miguel Cabrera can win the MLB Triple Crown. He currently leads or is tied for the lead in home runs, batting average and RBIs. I know he has had a troubled history off the field, but seeing how there hasn't been a Triple Crown since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, I hope he pulls it off.

And finally, NBA training camp kicks off this week. The Chicago Bulls open camp with media day today and have their first preseason game next week on October 9. I will be writing a Bulls preview before the start of the season, but I always recommend checking out official Bulls writer Sam Smith on bulls.com. He posted an article last Friday on ten questions facing the Bulls which is definitely a worthwhile read for Bulls fans.

Big game in big D tonight - let's go Bears. Sounds like Matt Forte will be a game-time decision, but unless there are any setbacks in warm-ups, my guess is that he'll play.

Politics Recap
You want to know when the real important stories come out this election season? Friday afternoon. This is when campaigns try to dump stories to the press that they don't want people to be talking about because they are politically or personally damaging. A few examples of this in recent weeks:

• Florida voter fraud - Last Friday, the RNC confirmed it had severed ties with a consulting firm after it was discovered that the firm was sending in fraudulent voter registration forms, including forms missing social security numbers and forms with incorrect house numbers and birth dates. The Romney campaign has tried to distance itself from the controversy, but that task gets increasingly difficult when considering the fact that the RNC had hired this firm to help register voters in several states across the country. So much for those Republican-controlled state legislatures passing voter ID laws to "stop voter fraud." Next time, they should try this.
• Libya attack re-characterized - Also last Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that U.S. embassy attacks in Benghazi on September 11 "were linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to, al-Qaeda." This is a marked shift from the original stance by the administration in which the attack was said to be unplanned and had happened in reaction to an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube. As an Obama supporter, there are certainly more questions to be asked regarding the intelligence available at the time and the action taken, and I'm sure the Romney campaign and the media will continue to press the administration on what happened. It is clear to see why this announcement was made Friday opposed to today, when the media will steer the conversation toward the debate instead of primarily focusing on an important story in relation to U.S. foreign policy.
• Romney's 2011 tax return - Two weeks ago, the Romney campaign released (on a Friday) the candidate's 2011 tax return, in which he paid a 14.1% percent tax rate, a rate which was only achieved by not taking the full deduction on his charitable contributions. In addition, Romney can amend his return after the election to take the full deduction. In an interview Romney did in July with ABC News' David Muir, he said "I don't pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president. I'd think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires." Again, there's a reason the Romney campaign released the return on a Friday.

Clearly politics has a lot to do with messaging and spin, so it is logical that campaigns do this. However, the debates won't allow candidates to shy away on issues they don't want discuss or only release statements based on political convenience, and this Wednesday at 9:00pm EST we will have the first of those debates. Here are a few things to look for on Wednesday:

1. How many "zingers" does Romney get in? A New York Times article from last Friday discusses Romney's preparation for the debates, in which it says that "Mr. Romney’s team has concluded that debates are about creating moments and has equipped him with a series of zingers that he has memorized and has been practicing on aides since August." The media has jumped on the article, and now expectations for Romney have been slightly raised. This is a stark contrast from what the Obama and Romney campaigns have been doing in recent days leading up to the debate, which is do downplay expectations from their side and praise the skills of the other. Body language, delivery, timing, and context will also be important, regardless of zingers.
2. Will Romney find time to explain the math? In an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan said that "I don’t have the ... It would take me too long to go through all of the math" when asked for specifics on how the Romney tax plan would be able to reduce taxes 20% without raising the deficit. If the moderator of the first debate, Jim Lehrer, doesn't press Romney on this issue, expect President Obama to do so. Aside from the fact that Ryan doesn't have the time to explain the math, his budget plan would also cut funding to education, that way he doesn't have to explain math (or anything else) to you. The real reason he doesn't want to "go through all of the math" is that doing so would show that their policies doesn't add up. Then again, this is the same campaign that said it wouldn't be dictated by fact-checkers.
3. How will Obama respond if Romney steers the conversation towards Libya and foreign policy? As I mentioned earlier, I expect Romney to try to bring up Libya in the first debate. He wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal yesterday talking about Middle East foreign policy. I think he should be careful, however, because there is a difference between having military strength and saying that the U.S. should be engaged in more wars abroad. Support for the war in Afghanistan is decreasing by the day, and the idea of going to more wars in the Middle East will gain little traction, especially considering our economy and our deficit. There is no math behind ideas in which we should go to war and spend more money in defense while cutting taxes 20% for everyone. Does this sound familiar?