At the Gates

I have been, and still am, swamped with school-beginning preparations. As the LACI director I have spent time this week helping several new LACI profs get geared up to teach a LACI discussion section.  I have also had to micromanage the enrollments of about 60 students, and I still have to prepare next Monday’s opening lecture.  I have one more syllabus to finish, in a class where I am going to write several elements of an on-line text to replace the main Conflict Resolution texts which never fit my class.  Today I have to meet freshmen, start hand-holding LACI lecturers, and figure out how to catch back up on Poli Sci assessment where I’m behind so our department is behind.  I still have to complete my peer review portfolio by Sept 15…

Anyway, my update-writing time has shrunk to the size of Mike Zunino’s batting average.  I apologize.  I hope you’ve been checking standings daily — those take me about 15 minutes, and I will do them every day.  Maybe someone else has the time/inclination to do clever, entertaining commentary?

Although, I don’t know why all of a sudden we’d start requiring commentary to be clever or entertaining.

Things I’m noticing here:

•  The Alleghenys have twice this season been repulsed inches from taking over a top EFL spot.  In June the Dragons held them out of first place by less than .001 percentage points.  Here is August the Wolverines held them out of second place by a similar margin.  Sort of like the Alleghenys are the Turks and Haviland and Old Detroit are Vienna.
• Yesterday, of the 7 Allegheny hitters who appeared, 5 combined to go 0 for 13 with no walks — a lovely cascade of zeroes — and Allegheny pitcher Rubby de la Rosa surrendered a nice, round 5 runs in 5 ip.  This was enough to give the Wolverines a nice lift this morning (and maybe the Dragons, too, if they pay any attention to such low-altitude stuff).

• Peshastin is trying to make things interesting again in the middle of the standings.  The Pear/Cottage Cheese game of leapfrog is on hiatus — there’s a Tornado between them — but perhaps it’s not yet over for this season.
• Canberra is eroding Old Detroit’s draft position by rising in the standings, or at least not falling far enough.  So thoughtless of the ‘Roos.
• Portland has won more games lately than is entirely wise.  The Rosebuds cling to the #1 draft pick by about 0.003 percentage points over the Phillies.  At the rate they’ve been going they risk dropping all the way behind the Drive in our daft order.