Category: Sports News

Aaron Nola continued his resurgence and Bryson Stott hit the bomb of his life to power the Philadelphia Phillies (78-60) to a 2-1 victory in the series opener against the Wild Card rival Arizona Diamondbacks (73-66) for their fifth straight win and 14th in their last 16 games.

Nola notched his sixth win of the season and third of August, lowering his ERA for the eight straight game to 4.93.

The Phillies capped off their tremendous August with their 21st victory of the month, the major’s best record for that page of the calendar.

Stott opened the scoring with a 2-1 moon shot off Brandon Pfaadt in the second inning that traveled 464 feet for his 10th home run of the season.

Bryce Harper extended the lead to two with an RBI double in the third, which also his extended his career-best on-base streak to 33 games. His single in the eighth made it his 25th multi-hit game over that span.

Nola entered the sixth inning at 92 pitches and left at 104 after giving up a hit and a walk with no outs. Alex McFarlane continued his dominant rookie campaign by bailing out Nola with a scoreless frame to lower his ERA to 0.87 in 10 appearances.

Orion Kerkering battled through a hit and a walk while getting a pair of outs and was rescued by Brooks Raley to finish the seventh inning.

Jose Alvarado held the eighth and Jhoan Duran, despite allowing a pair of weak infield hits to build a threat, saved his 29th game.

With 24 games to go, an Atlanta loss and a San Diego win earlier in the night, the Phillies sit 4.5 back from the Braves for the division and five games up on the Padres for the second wild card spot, with the Diamondbacks on the outside looking in.

Jesus Luzardo will face fellow southpaw all-star, Eduardo Rodriguez in the middle game of the series tomorrow night.

The Yankees seemed to be a team that could do no wrong on Sunday when they sent the Red Sox home with a 16-1 thumping that left many among their commentariat more than a little salty. That’s a heck of a win to build some momentum on as the final full month of the regular season awaits. Better yet, they got to fly out to Orange County to take on the lowly Angels, riding a seven-game losing streak and playing obligatory, meaningless ball.

But momentum is a fickle thing. Just because a team can catch fire after a great game doesn’t mean they will. It doesn’t shield them from a ridiculously poor performance the following night. That was perhaps a nice way of putting the Yankees’ effort in the series opener. Elmer Rodríguez plunked two batters with two outs before allowing both runners to score, José Caballero committed a pair of ugly errors in the field, and the offense checked out early in a 10-1 loss best placed in a filing cabinet in a dingy basement somewhere. The Bombers lost a game to the Red Sox in the Wild Card race, and remain 4.5 games back of the Rays in the AL East.

Rodríguez encountered his first bit of adversity in the third inning, allowing a leadoff double to ninth-place hitter Tyler Heineman. Heineman had allowed two Yankees to advance into scoring position back in the first when he lost track of a ball in the dirt. His starter Walbert Ureña worked around it, and the double made up for the mistake. But Rodríguez appeared well on the way to working around that double until he issued a two-out walk to Wade Meckler to extend the rally. Vaughn Grissom followed with a jam shot to center which found plenty of room in front of Trent Grisham, allowing Heineman to score for a 1-0 Angels lead.

An inning later, Elmer re-established himself by grabbing a pair of routine outs, including his fifth strikeout of the night against Josh Lowe. Then, he plunked consecutive batters on runaway curveballs to bring up the top of the order for the third time and get the bullpen to warm up behind him. Zach Neto had gotten his ticket punched each of his first two times up against Rodríguez, but the third time was the charm as he punched a single through the left side to bring another costly two-out run home.

The Bombers tried to grab the final out at third, but were unsuccessful, and Neto was able to slink to second in the meantime, giving Mike Trout an opportunity with two runners in scoring position. Now fully untethered from any semblance of command he had shown in the first three innings, he let a fastball leak over the inner half; all Trout had to do was flip it around. Two runs scored on his base hit, the Angels suddenly led 4-0, and Elmer was out of the game.

Hitting consecutive batters with two outs is a particularly exasperating unforced error. It’s particularly strange that the curveball, a pitch he seemed to have on a string early in the evening, was the culprit both times. He churned out two absolute jalopies off the assembly line in quick succession. That those dud curves happened to strike the eighth- and ninth-place hitters only made it more inexcusable, since it gave RBI chances to two of the only guys in the Angels lineup who can reliably cash in on those mistakes.

Ureña, on the other hand, took the missed Yankee opportunity at the top of the show and ran with it, retiring 11 straight batters after that little wild pitch. I’m sure the Yankees had watched plenty of film on the 22-year old righty, but facing his tricky pitch mix capped off by a dastardly changeup that misses barrels and keeps balls in the yard. Ureña used his mix to clip the Yankees’ wings for half the night, until a rocket from Spencer Jones got the Yankees out of containment and on the board.

Jones’ eighth homer of the year was an impressive clout, but it was just a solo shot, and didn’t give the Bombers any additional kindling to roar back to life. The Halos promptly responded with a leadoff chalk-hugging double from Grissom and a sinking line drive from Christian Moore that Jones, even with his long strides, couldn’t make up enough ground to grab. In a flash, the solo homer was nullified.

But this loss felt just a little too dignified. We needed a true circus play to expunge all the good vibes that might have accompanied Sunday’s evisceration of the Red Sox.

Fulmer tried to pick the speedy Moore off at second base. Caballero appeared to be looking elsewhere as the ball clonked off his glove and into center field. Moore aggressively cut the bag at third and dashed for home the wishes of his base coach, daring a defense caught on its heels to make a play.

The thing about the Yankees is those kinds of dares tend to work without any trouble. This gamble from Moore was anything but. Trent Grisham’s throw in from center had no juice on it, so Luis Garcia Jr. dashed over from first in an attempt to relay it home. He threw the ball roughly fifteen feet wide of home. I wish I could say that sequence surprised me, but I’m not exactly new here.

Luis Gil entering in the sixth inning to make his first Major League appearance since April 26th only served to give this contest an even more ersatz quality. Gil did his job and appeared to induce a routine double play ball to shortstop, which would have ended the inning. But Caballero had not done anything good in the field tonight, and he wasn’t about to start here. He booted the grounder, then rushed a low throw to first that Garcia failed to scoop. Inning-ending double play? Try no outs and another run scored.

I remind you this team shoved their biggest rival—and closest peer in the Wild Card race—into a locker yesterday. But those sorts of rousing victories in the past have never stopped them from pulling this kind of malarkey shortly afterward. Such was again the case here.

Jones’ home run in the fifth marked Ureña’s only blip as he continued his splendid rookie campaign with seven strong innings. The Yankees appeared as desperate to get this game over with as the poor saps who had stayed up to watch them. The Angels understandably wanted to make this moment last, so they grabbed three runs off David Bednar in the eighth to put themselves in double figures. Truly awful stuff from everyone involved.

Good news came in before first pitch tonight, as the Mets eked out a 3-2 victory over the Rays in St. Petersburg. Even as the Mariners blew a late lead against the Red Sox and let them escape with a win in the 10th, the Yankees still had a great chance to gain ground in the divisional battle. Shockingly, they refused to take advantage of the opportunity, losing a laugher to one of the worst teams in baseball; a team playing out the string on an utterly lost decade, dead in the water. The Yankees played necromancers tonight.

At least it’s Gerrit Cole bump night tomorrow. The Orange County native and UCLA Athletic Hall of Famer will take the hill at The Big A against a major what-if guy: Grayson Rodriguez. First pitch is once again due for the refreshingly honest time of 9:38pm ET on YES.

Box Score

The Yankees were defeated by the Los Angeles Angles 10-1 in the series opener on Monday night.

Here are some takeaways...

-- Elmer Rodriguez put together his best big-league outing to this point his last time out, but the Angels were able to take advantage of some ineffectiveness this time around. The youngster held them off the board in the first and the second, but two out hits in the third and fourth chased him from the ballgame. 

All in all, he allowed four runs on four hits, three walks, two HBP, and five strikeouts over 3.2 innings. 

-- The Yankee offense was held in check by Walbert Ureña over the first four-plus innings, but Spencer Jones provided them with some much-needed life, crushing a one out solo homer deep over the right-center wall in the top of the fifth to cut into the four-run deficit. 

The youngster is up to eight home runs on the season, five of which have been over his last 30 games. 

-- Michael Fulmer and New York's defense immediately gave that run back to the Angels. Christian Moore blooped in an RBI double that bounced away off of a sliding Jones' glove in shallow right, then scored a run of his own as a pair of throwing errors on a pickoff attempt brought him in from second. 

Fulmer was charged with his first earned run across six outings since joining the Yankees. 

-- Luis Gil was also hurt by the Yankee defense in his first MLB appearance as a reliever. Gil struck out three in his first frame, but not before Jose Caballero committed his second error in as many innings, forcing him to throw more pitches and bringing in LA's seventh run of the game. 

Gil followed that with a scoreless second inning, working around a one out HBP. 

-- David Bednar was called upon for the eighth inning in a six-run game, and he was roughed up pitching for just the second time over the last 10 days. Bednar gave up three runs, two of which scored on a Vaughn Grissom double, which gave him three hits and four RBI in the ballgame. 

Coming into the night, Bednar had allowed just two runs (one earned) in August. 

-- Other than Jones' homer the Yanks weren't able to get much else going against Ureña. The righty held them to just that one run on five hits while walking none and striking out eight batters across seven strong innings. His ERA is down to 2.85 during his impressive rookie campaign.

-- With the two miscues from Caballero, the Yanks lead MLB in errors from the shortstop position (39).

Game MVP: Walbert Ureña

The youngster continued his great rookie season with seven innings of one-run ball. 

Highlights 

Spencer Jones BLASTS one pic.twitter.com/4ICbATLhA6

— SNY Yankees (@snyyankees) September 1, 2026

What's next

Gerrit Cole (7-7, 3.19 ERA) takes the ball against Grayson Rodriguez (4-5, 6.03 ERA) in the middle-game on Tuesday at 9:38 p.m.

The White Sox disappointed in the first game of this four-game series in Houston, falling 6-3 to the Astros.

Things were calm until the third inning, when Anthony Kay saw a little base path trouble after a throwing error and a walk put two runners on. Yordan Alvarez sent Nick Allen in to score with a ground out, but a fly out straight to Sam Antonacci ended any further damage.

The White Sox knotted the score 1-1 right away, as Colson Montgomery doubled in the top of the fourth with one out, Chase Meidroth singlingand him home. Tristan Peters was plunked, and in a pickoff attempt, the ball got away, sending Meidroth to third. Antonacci picked up a walk (without being hit!) to load the bases with two outs. Houston starter Peter Lambert’s command in the fourth drastically dropped, as he walked Munetaka Murakami to force in the lead run. Miguel Vargas left the bases loaded with a liner to second, but the Good Guys were up, 2-1.

Braden Montgomery got caught in-between on a Cam Smith liner to right, and as has happened too frequently that ball skipped past him for a triple. Kay was frazzled by the three-bagger, so much so that Nelson Velázquez crushed a home deep and high to left, making it 3-2, Astros.

It got worse from there, as the White Sox mustered no offense while Houston added on. In the fifth, three singles loaded the bases, with just one out. Instead of a pitch that would prompt a ground-ball double play to end the inning and keep the score tight, Kay walked in a run. Kay bounced back with a K, but with two outs was pulled in favor of Trevor Richards, who surrendered a double to Smith double and stretching the deficit to 6-2.

Three walks sandwiched around a fielder’s choice out packed the sacks for the Sox with two outs. As old friend Bennett Sousa came into the game for Houston, righty pinch-hitter Randal Grichuk stepped up to the plate. But on the first pitch, Grichuk sent one straight to the glove of left fielder Taylor Trammell, ending the frame.

Colson Montgomery homered in the seventh to trim the lead to 6-3, but that was it for any offense. Richards managed to shut the Astros down for the rest of his outing, and Houston-area local Tyler Davis took the mound in the eighth for a 1-2-3 inning with his entire family cheering him on — a light moment in an otherwise frustrating game.

With two outs, Meidroth picked up Chicago’s 10th walk of the game, but Brenton Doyle went down swinging for his second K in two plate appearances, handing the Astros a win.

MVP
Colson Montgomery: 2 R, 2 H, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 2 BB

Runners-Up
Chase Meidroth: 1 R, 1 H, 1 RBI, 2 BB
Munetaka Murakami: 3 BB
Trevor Richards: 2 1/3 IP, 2 H, 2 K, 0 ER

Cold Cat
Anthony Kay: 4 2/3 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 5 K

Runners-Up
Andrew Benintendi: 0-for-3, 2 K
Braden Montgomey: Fielding woes, 0-for-5
Dysfunctional offense: 10 BBs but just two non-HR runs scored

A large portion of Diamondbacks fans didn’t seem ready to forgive and forget about Ketel Marte’s recent actions. 

The Arizona infielder was mostly booed in his first game back with the team following a drama-filled few weeks after he failed to show up for a game against the Red Sox in Boston, leading to the Diamondbacks briefly putting him on the restricted list. 

The fans let him hear it when he stepped to the plate in his first at-bat during Monday night’s game against the Phillies. 

He heard it again from the fans when he grounded out. 

Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo told reporters before the game that he was “a little bit” worried about the fan reception for Marte. 

“He’s an emotional kid. He’s a very emotional kid,” Lovullo said. 

Marte addressed reporters for the first time on Monday, explaining his decision not to show up to the game in Boston was a “moment of frustration.” 

“In that instance, I failed him by not showing up,” Marte told reporters. “That morning I woke up, my body was in pain and I just couldn’t react. No one made the decision for me. I’m the one who made the decision to not show up.”

Lovullo defended Marte prior to the game and told reporters that the infielder had a great appreciation for the fans in Arizona, despite not addressing a question about his view of the fans prior to the game. 

“I know that he loves the fans,” Lovullo said. “I know that he picks up on their energy. He pays attention to what the fans say and do, and love and support of him. Maybe he didn’t answer the question the way he would have if … he had a chance to really sit down and say what he wanted to say, but I know he loves his fans.”

One of the Mets’ top picks from the year’s draft class is already taking another step.

Third rounder Aiden Robbins has been promoted to High-A Brooklyn.  

Robbins generated some first-round buzz heading into the draft, but he ended up falling partially due to questions over his ability to hit breaking balls consistently. 

The slugger from Texas has shown no such issues to this point. 

He posted a strong .286 average with two doubles, four home runs, 16 RBI, and a .826 OPS over his first 20 games hitting towards the top of St. Lucie's lineup. 

Robbins spent most of his time in center, but also appeared in the corner spots.

The 21-year-old has already jumped up into the top-10 in some organizational rankings, and he only figures to continue rising if he can keep this success up to finish the year in Brooklyn. 

Robert Stock can sleep well Monday night knowing he accomplished something against the Tampa Bay Rays that he had never done before in his MLB career: pitch into the sixth inning.

Not only that, but after going a career-long 5.1 scoreless innings against the American League’s best team, the right-hander earned his first win since 2019 and his first as a starting pitcher following the Mets’ 3-2 win over the Rays.

“It’s really cool,” Stock said about getting the win. “It takes a whole team to win the game and we saw that tonight with how great the defense was, how good the hitters were in the second half of the game. It’s great when you step back and you look at how long it’s been and I can both feel good about the team and myself.”

Yes, the defense made some nice plays behind him like Christopher Morel’s leaping catch with the bases loaded to end the fifth inning, but Stock was in total control against Tampa Bay and was the best version of himself that New York has seen this season.

Even more impressive? The outing came with the Mets in a 1-0 pitcher’s duel for most of the night and right after a rough start against the Milwaukee Brewers (MLB’s best team) where Stock allowed 10 hits and seven runs.

“The stuff’s really good. It’s always been really good,” said interim manager Andy Green. “It’s strikes. When he forces them to swing he does really well. I think he maybe ran into Milwaukee where some balls found holes, but more or less when he’s in the strike zone he’s been really good for us.”

Overall, Stock owns a 5.88 ERA in six starts for New York this season. However, if his two worst starts are removed, the right-hander has allowed two earned runs in 19 innings, more than acceptable for a 36-year-old journeyman who hadn’t started a major league game since 2021 (ironically with the Mets).

Of course, Stock would love to go deeper in some of those starts, but at least now he “finally” knows what that feels like and perhaps has it in him again in the future.

“That’s the job you’re getting paid to do so I finally did it one time,” he said.

At some point, there is a conversation to be had about Yandy Diaz and his reluctance to challenges.

Tampa Bay, down one run in the ninth, Diaz came to the plate as the go-ahead run, with Richie Palacios on first.

Strike one was above the zone, and Diaz, as Diaz does, took a long glare at home plate umpire Austin Jones to say he disagreed with the call instead of simply tapping his helmet.

You can’t take the challenges home with you, as the Rays had both available.

Strike two was a forkball down the middle, and strike three barely grazed the zone, as Diaz went down looking, and the Rays went down valiantly, 3-2 in a close one at One Tropicana Drive.

How did we get to a 3-2 final, you may ask? Let me get you there.

The Metropolitans would strike first, as Mark Vientos would ground into a double play that scored Bo Bichette.

Tampa Bay had their big opportunity against Robert Stock, who had the best outing of his MLB career, when the Rays loaded the bases on three singles with no outs in the fifth.

They came up empty-handed.

Taylor Walls popped out, Diaz struck out swinging, and Jonathan Aranda lined out to former Ray Christopher Morel in left field.

Stock’s final line would go as follows; 5 IP, 4 R, 0 BB.

Vientos would announce his presence with authority again, as he jumped on an Ian Seymour changeup and deposited it into the left-center field seats. 2-1 Mets.

Seymour had another quality start, going 6.1 IP while allowing three runs and striking out ten, finishing the month of August leading the American League in punchouts.

The straw that broke the Flappy Boy’s back proved to be a Marcus Semien fly ball that left fielder Chandler Simpson got a bad read on, and didn’t take charge on, resulting in a Francisco Alvarez single that would plate another run.

We do it again at 6:40 EST from Tropicana Field, with Freddy Peralta toeing the slab against his former mates in orange and blue.

It’s a new week here at BCB After Dark: the grooviest hang for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Thanks for stopping by. It’s always nice to see a familiar face. There’s no cover charge and the dress code is casual. We still have a few tables available. The hostess will seat you now. Bring your own beverage.

BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.

Last week I asked you if you’d rather the Cubs re-sign Kevin Gausman or Matthew Boyd for next season. With the caveat that Gausman has made some noise about retiring, 48 percent of you would rather Gausman be back next year. One-third of you think Boyd is the better bet to re-sign and the rest of you think that the Cubs shouldn’t re-sign either one.

Here’s the part with the jazz and the movies. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. But if you don’t, you can skip it. Or you can skip the baseball part. You’re our guest.

We’re honored to feature another episode of Jazz Casual, the NET (forerunner of PBS) program hosted by jazz writer Ralph Gleason. Tonight’s featured performer is saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley. He’s got a heck of a band backing him up with his brother Nat Adderley on cornet, Joe Zawinul on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Louis Hayes on drums.

This is from 1961.

I went to see Coyote vs. Acme this weekend and I thought about that writing up, but I also watched the 1956 Douglas Sirk-directed melodrama Written on the Wind, and I know you’d rather I write about that. So . . . what’s that?

You know that there are a lot of people out there already who are writing about Coyote vs. Acme?

But Dorothy Malone won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Written on the Wind. Will Forte is not winning an Oscar.

OK, fine. Tonight we’ll talk about Coyote vs. Acme.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. Coyote vs. Acme is a terrific film. Not only is it funny, which is what is most important, but it’s also fresh and different. It’s a sharp satire of modern life with an existential twist. I had to sit through five or six previews for animated family movies before the film started (which is sad because there were no children at the showing that I saw) and during the last preview I turned to my wife and said “My god. They’re all the same damn film.” Well, Coyote vs. Acme isn’t the same movie as every other family film on the market. It’s got a point of view that’s all its own. I know that Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is the gold standard for any animated/live action hybrid movie. I re-watched Roger Rabbit last week and I think Coyote vs. Acme belongs in the same breath as that classic. It’s that good.

In case you don’t know the history of the film, it started as an article in The New Yorker way back in 1990. There were several attempts to make a film out of it over the next 25 years, but they were always blocked by Warner Brothers, who owns all of the rights to the Loony Toons cartoons. About ten years ago, director James Gunn convinced Warner Brothers to make the movie. The fact that Warner Brothers was actively trying to lure Gunn away from Disney at the time was probably what convinced them.

So the film was made with a script from Samy Burch and directed by Dave Green. It was finished, shown to test audiences and it scored highly. But then Warner Brothers was bought out by Discovery and new CEO David Zaslav decided that it was one of three films, along with Batgirl and the animated Scooby-Doo film Scoob! Holiday Haunt that would be written off as a tax loss. To get that tax write-off, these films could never be shown to the public.

Batgirl was unfinished and still needed tens of millions of dollars of CGI effects and re-shoots before it was completed. It was also, according to those who’d seen the rough cut, terrible. The Scooby-Doo movie was almost finished, but no one thought it was much more than the kind of direct-to-video kids film.

But people had seen the completed Coyote vs. Acme and publicly said how good it was. So there was a campaign to get Warner Brothers Discovery to reverse its decision and release it or sell it to another distributer. That went on for over a year as many platforms offered to buy it, but WBD wanted to make a lot more than the $30 million they’d get as a tax write-off. Eventually, tiny independent distributer Ketchup Entertainment agreed to buy the film for $50 million.

We need to thank the people at Ketchup. Will Forte stars as Kevin Avery, a cynical, downtrodden cartoon accident lawyer. He’s takes the cases of cartoon characters who are injured in one way or another and settles with the giant Acme Corporation for a few hundred bucks every time. Since they’re cartoon characters, they aren’t permanently hurt when they get hit with a falling anvil, so each case is only worth a few hundred bucks. For Acme, that’s pocket change so they pay them out immediately.

Wile E. Coyote sees one of the ads for the law firm of Avery, Jones & Maltese (named after three legendary men behind the Loony Toons cartoons) and decides to make a claim. But Wile E. doesn’t just have one claim. As anyone who’s seen a Roadrunner cartoon knows, he has thousands of claims against Acme products that malfunctioned. On top of that, Wile E. Coyote refuses to settle. Against Kevin’s strong advice, he refuses every settlement offer, pitching this tiny strip mall law firm against the most powerful conglomerate in the entire world.

On Mr. Coyote’s side is Paige Avery (Lana Condor), Kevin’s intern and niece. She has all the “let’s change the world” energy of someone fresh out of law school. She’s the only one in the office who wants to win this case.

Acme is represented by John Cena playing Buddy Crane, a far more successful old law school classmate of Kevin’s. Buddy is a bully, as is the entire Acme corporation. He’s constantly belittling Kevin and trying to get them to settle. In lieu of a settlement, he’ll settle for destroying Avery, Jones & Maltese. Buddy is the villain, but Cena has some terrific comic chops. His interrogation of Tweety Bird in Tweety’s lisp, for example, is laugh-out-loud gold.

Coyote vs. Acme plays out as a legal conspiracy thriller and we soon find out why Acme is so eager to settle. There’s a wonderful sub-plot involving “Peter Lorre” (one of the many stars of the ‘40s that the Loony Toons cartoons used to put in their stories) and Tweety’s Granny. Dr. Lorre is the cartoon threatening to expose “Project Sisyphus,” which behind everything that Acme does.

There’s a ton of wicked satire in the film about how the system is rigged against the little guy by corporations that own everything, including the government. You have to consider the anti-corporate message and especially the anti-conglomerate message could not have gone over well with David Zaslav. Acme is all-powerful because they own everything. There’s no way to beat them. But Coyote vs. Acme does get in a shot by calling Warner Brothers “A wholly-owned subsidiary of the Acme Corporation.” Maybe that’s victory enough.

That brings back that “Projects Sisyphus,” or the Greek myth of a man condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for all of eternity, only for it to roll back down when it approaches the top. You should be able to see the parallels between Sisyphus and Wile E. Coyote, who is condemned to endlessly chase the Roadrunner and never catch him. But it also takes a cue from Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, who argued that meaning is not gained through victory but through the struggle. To slightly mis-quote Camus, “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Wile E. Coyote happy.”

Not only is Wile E. Coyote Sisyphus, Kevin is as well. At the beginning of the film, he’s dead inside. It is only through taking on an impossible task that he can never win (along with the encouragement of his perky niece) does he find meaning and ultimately, happiness. Forte’s Kevin is the one character (well, maybe Wile E. Coyote) who has a real growth arc in the film and he pulls it off.

Coyote vs. Acme is primarily a comedy and not a philosophical tract, and it delivers in the comedy department. If you laugh at all the cockamamie devices that blow up in Wile E. Coyote’s face, they’re all here and more. Most of the Loony Tunes characters make an appearance and they all get to do their schtick. In fact, if you’re a Loony Toons fan, there are a ton of inside jokes that fly by so fast and furious you’ll probably miss some of them.

And that’s maybe the one sad part of Coyote vs. Acme. As I noted, there were no children that I saw at the showing that I saw, although admittedly it was a Sunday morning showing that was half-full. Four generations grew up watching these cartoons in the theaters or on television, but they are mostly unfamiliar to today’s kids who grew up on YouTube and a constant supply of new cartoons. Coyote vs. Acme is certainly funny enough even if you aren’t familiar with the Loony Toons universe, but it really goes to another level if you get the references.

Coyote vs. Acme is a little guy film that somehow took on an all-powerful corporation and won. No matter how much money it makes at the box office, Coyote vs. Acme is a winner.

Here’s the trailer for Coyote vs. Acme.

Welcome back to everyone who skips the other stuff.

The Springfield Cardinals, the Cardinals Double-A affiliate, announced they were changing their name for 2027. This continues a trend of minor league teams abandoning traditional names, especially ones tied to their parent club, in favor of unique and often offbeat nicknames.

So as of next year, there will be just nine teams left that share a name with their parent club.

Worcester Red Sox (Triple-A)

Dunedin Blue Jays (Low-A)

Iowa Cubs (Triple-A)

South Bend Cubs (High-A)

Syracuse Mets (Triple-A)

St. Lucie Mets (Low-A)

Fredericksburg Nationals (Low-A)

Palm Beach Cardinals (Low-A)

San Jose Giants (Low-A)

Dunedin, St. Lucie, Palm Beach and San Jose are owned by their parent club.

There are two others, the Reading Fightin Phils and the Lakeland Flying Tigers, that have names that sort of micmic their parent club.

The trend away from sharing a name with the parent club are driven by a few factors. The biggest was the affiliate “musical chairs” that used to happen before the minor leagues were re-organized in 2021. If a team called themselves the “Pirates” and then all of a sudden they were an Orioles affiliate, that was a problem. It’s not much of a problem anymore, but it was a big reason the trend started in the first two decades of this century.

Teams also want their own identity and branding to tie themselves to their community. On top of that, a lot of fans attending minor league games really have no idea what the minor leagues are, believe it or not. Gwinnett said one reason they changed their name from “Braves” to “Stripers” was because they found that many fans believed that it was actually the Atlanta Braves who would be playing in Gwinnett. Admittedly, these were probably not baseball fans who are just going with a larger group. But those people buy tickets and concessions.

Of course, the biggest reason why teams change their names is that they sell merchandise. I own a Smokies hat (Tennessee, not Knoxville) and a Myrtle Beach cap. I own Eugene and Boise caps from when they were Cubs affiliates. I haven’t bought Iowa and South Bend caps because they’re too similar to the Chicago Cubs hats I already own. Teams have “alternate” identities because they sell. Cute and goofy nicknames are also popular with children, who are the next generation of fans that the minor league should be trying to grow.

(They’re also popular with late-night talk show hosts.)

The Cubs affiliates have clearly resisted this trend. In fact, when South Bend went from a Diamondbacks affiliate to a Cubs affiliate in 2015, they changed their name from “Silver Hawks” to “Cubs” to further tie themselves to their new parent club. Iowa did the same thing back in 1982, going from “Oaks” to “Cubs,” but that was at least a decade before the off-beat name trend started. What’s more interesting is that the I-Cubs have resisted this trend and has kept their name the same for 44 years, even if they have had multiple “alternate” identities over the years, including throwback “Oaks” games.

(When the I-Cubs were founded, they were an Oakland affiliate, which helps explain the name, although they kept it through their stint as a White Sox affiliate and one year as a Cubs affiliate.)

So should the Cubs two affiliates change their name? Should one of them? Neither of them? Personally, I find it a bit frustrating to deal with Iowa and South Bend and having to call both of them the “Cubs” and keeping them and the parent club straight, although fortunately Iowa can be called the “I-Cubs.” (“SB Cubs” has never caught on.) It would make my life easier if South Bend went back to Silver Hawks or anything else, but they don’t ask me. I’d probably also be more likely to buy a cap if they were more different from the major league team’s. Do both need to change? Probably not. In my mind Iowa has seniority, but South Bend probably doesn’t see it that way.

So should Iowa, South Bend or both change their name? And if so, what? Give your suggestions in the comments.

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