Outside The Confines: It’s the last week of baseball

It’s Monday once again, BCB family, but it’s a bittersweet Monday for baseball fans, especially those of teams who will not be making it to the postseason. This marks the last Monday of regular season baseball, the beginning of the final week of games.

Yes, we have all of October to look forward to with playoff games, so baseball is sticking around a while longer, but for Cubs fans, we only have these final few days with our boys of summer.

So let’s enjoy, and bask in the warm glow of these last games, savoring every moment because it’s going to be a long winter before they’re back at Wrigley again.

Now, let’s see what happened in baseball over the weekend.

• An absolutely tragic story out of the weekend news as a mother and her toddler fell to their deaths at Petco Park. Reporting by Ben Pickman.
• Michael Rosenberg looks at the Trevor Bauer story, and what BDSM experts have to say regarding Bauer’s dubious excuses about his alleged violent actions.
• Aaron Dodson looks at the incredible road that brought Francisco Lindor to the majors.
• Will Leitch offers one main thing to look for with every team for the last week of the regular season.
• Rays rookie phenom Wander Franco is two games shy of tying the all-time on-base record for a player under 21, reports Adam Berry.
• Oh?

• Devan Fink would like you to know that Sandy Alcantara might be one of the best pitchers in baseball.
• The Brewers celebrated 50 years of Bob Uecker as their announcer.
• It’s not unusual to see brothers in the majors together, just look at the Romine brothers among others, but it’s rather unusual to see THREE brothers all in the majors. This weekend the last living Boyer brother, Cloyd, passed away, and Richard Goldstein recalls the man and his brothers for The New York Times.
• Mike Trout has been officially benched for the remainder of the season, and Rhett Bollinger looks at what a disappointment the 2021 season has been for Trout.
• Dan Szymborksi looks at the low number of active players currently with 2,000 hits, and the move towards the 3,000-hit club that may become rarer and rarer.
• Need a feel-good story to brighten your Monday? The Tigers helped make a young man’s dream come true this weekend.

• Luke Hooper looks at the pickoff artistry of Ryan Weathers.
• 16 in a row? Nick Selbe brings us the late-season surge surprising and delighting Cardinals fans.
• Bryce Harper is making a case for another MVP trophy, writes James Wagner.
• Amid all the kerfuffle over the change, Rob Arthur tells us that the three-batter rule for pitchers hasn’t really changed things all that much. (Baseball Prospectus Premium required.)
• Elvis Andrus has been sidelined with a fractured left fibula.
• At least Kevin Kiermaier has a good sense of humor about his brother taking better hacks.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.