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DALLAS, Texas – Rice Lake Weighing Systems has increased its support of AIM Vasser Sullivan driver Aaron Telitz in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Rice Lake Weighing Systems, a longtime supporter of Telitz’ racing endeavors, will be represented as the primary sponsor on Telitz’ No. 14 AVS Lexus RC F GT3 for the upcoming Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio on Sept. 25-27 and the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL on Oct. 9-10.

“I’m super-stoked to be bringing Rice Lake Weighing Systems as the primary sponsor of my No. 14 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3,” said Telitz. “When I joined the team last year for the endurance races, our collective goal with was to work towards running more races. Now I’m a full-season co-driver for the team with my long-time supporter Rice Lake Weighing Systems as the primary sponsor on the car!  It’s been since 2018 that I’ve been able to put together a full-season effort and I’m proud to be doing it in IMSA with Rice Lake and AVS.”

“Aaron has been a fantastic ambassador for the Rice Lake family over the years,” said Mark Johnson Jr., president of Rice Lake Weighing Systems. “We are proud to support Aaron in giving both him and us the opportunity to step up from running the endurance rounds to now running a full season with a winning organization like AVS.  We’re excited to be along for the ride as Aaron competes in all the remaining IMSA races this season.”

CROTHERSVILLE, Ind. – Don O’Neal is returning to dirt late model competition after spending most of the season on the sidelines.

O’Neal, who departed Clint Bowyer Racing at the end of the 2019 season, will take over driving duties of the No. 71 MasterSbilt House Car, effective immediately.

The MasterSbilt House Car was recently vacated by Don O’Neal’s son, Hudson O’Neal, who amicably split from MasterSbilt in mid-July.

The elder O’Neal will make his debut in the car this weekend during the Jackson 100 at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway.

“I’m really excited to return to racing this weekend at Brownstown,” Don O’Neal said in a statement on his official website. “I kind of had my mind made up after leaving the (Clint) Bowyer deal that I was just going to race here and there and go into semi-retirement mode. With all of this time off and only racing once this year; however, I really started to get the itch and I am ready to get back behind the wheel. I’m thankful for my relationship with Tader and Jerilyn (Masters), as well as with Jim Beeman, and look forward to racing with them for the rest of this year and kicking off 2021 down south during Speedweeks.”

Don O’Neal previously drove for the Masters family from 2009 to 2013, earning multiple crown jewel victories during that time period.

The Jackson 100 will be Don O’Neal’s second race of the season. He made his season debut on June 6 at Brownstown Speedway, finishing sixth in the MasterSbilt House Car.

A schedule for the remainder of the season for Don O’Neal and the MasterSbilt team is to be determined, but the the pairing is making plans to attend Speedweeks next February and contest a schedule of select events.

Tottenham's EFL Cup tie against Leyton Orient has been postponed after the League Two side suffered a widespread coronavirus outbreak in their squad.

The two sides are now locked in talks with the EFL over whether Spurs are given a bye into the next round or if the game can be replayed at a later date after a significant number of Orient players tested positive for COVID-19.

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Spurs paid for Orient to be tested ahead of Tuesday evening's game with official confirmation the match would not be played coming just two hours before kick-off.

"Tonight's Carabao Cup match between Leyton Orient and Tottenham Hotspur is not taking place this evening as scheduled," an EFL statement read.

"Discussions are ongoing between the relevant stakeholders in regards to the implications of the decision not to play tonight's game and a further update will be provided in due course.

"Leyton Orient, the EFL and the relevant authorities are conducting a thorough review of the club's COVID-19 secure procedures with the view to reopening the stadium and training ground as soon as possible."

Orient have been in lengthy discussions with the EFL and Public Health England ever since their players were tested for COVID-19 in the hours following last Saturday's 2-2 draw with Mansfield.

The testing of players in the Football League is not mandatory as it is in the Premier League with the authorities believing strict social distancing and hygiene measures to be sufficient.

Sources have told ESPN at least 15 players and staff have tested positive although the exact number is not yet known. The club shut their stadium and training ground as they sought to isolate the individuals involved and identify whether they could put a team together while following EFL protocols.

Sources have told ESPN the EFL initially indicated the tie would be awarded to Tottenham if Orient were unable to fulfil the fixture, as per competition guidelines, but the east London club have argued the exceptional circumstances should not rob them of vital revenue.

The match was due to be shown live on television and Orient owner Nigel Travis told Sky Sports: "We focused the players on getting a cup run this year because like most clubs, the coronavirus has dented our finances significantly. Before the coronavirus, 75% of clubs were losing money. This adds £1.5 million to our losses and this game would have contributed about £150,000 to offset those losses.

"We think the appropriate action is for this game to take place. Can you imagine the outrage if, say in the fourth round, Spurs and Chelsea [who are due to play each other if both win], one of those teams is impacted in the same way, if the game didn't take place? Can you imagine the outrage you'd hear on television and radio?

Two-time USWNT World Cup winner Tobin Heath has said she joined Manchester United because "it is the American team" in the Women's Super League.

Heath, 32, has spent the last seven seasons with the Portland Thorns and joined United alongside USWNT teammate Christen Press at the end of the WSL transfer window.

"I think a lot of people were kind of surprised," Heath told ESPN of her decision to move to England. "I was itching to play football, to play in an environment where you're trying to go for titles. For me it was massive there was interest from Manchester United.

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"To sign for such a club was important to me in my football career.

"Manchester United is like the American team in the Premier League, and everyone knows the weight of it back home," she said. "It is so exciting for me to wear a badge that is well known."

Heath and Press are the latest in a long string of players to come to the WSL from the U.S.-based National Women's Soccer League, with Sam Mewis and Rose Lavelle joining Manchester City and Alex Morgan joining Tottenham.

There was concern that this drain of talent would affect the U.S.-based league but Heath said she is optimistic about its future.

"It was a really impossible situation," she said. "I haven't played a real game of football since March and it was a long time to press pause on my career. It was a very tough decision because I have given so much of my career and my heart there.

"The NWSL is a great league. It's so competitive from every single team and every single game. They have the right people and they are invested in it. It's unfortunate that the outcome right now isn't players staying.

"For the growth of our players I think it is crucial [for players to go overseas]. I think that either way, whether it was the pandemic or not, I would have supported players."

The winger added that she was really proud of players like Mewis and Lavelle making the switch to England.

"Back home you're comfortable and I'm really proud of them for making that jump," she said.

United will face City on Nov. 15 in the Manchester derby and Heath said she is looking forward to the opportunity to play against her USWNT teammates but also to bring new fans to the league.

"I hope we can bring an American rivalry to Manchester," she added.

"We compete against each other all the time so that's going to bring a little more excitement. Hopefully we will bring new fans into this league and show them what there is to offer."

Heath previously spent time in Europe with Paris Saint-Germain in 2013 and 2014 and said that she would support more crossovers between the European and American leagues.

"I think for any environment to thrive you need that competition," she added. "I hope the leagues will be able to compete against other leagues."

"I hope there are more opportunities like that. Here obviously you have Champions League which is a big draw.

"I'd love to see a global competition other than the World Cup."

Chelsea defender Thiago Silva said the Premier League's "long-ball football" put him off moving to England until the latter stages of his career.

The centre-back, who turned 36 on Tuesday, joined Chelsea on a free transfer this summer after eight years at Paris Saint-Germain and will make his debut against Barnsley in Wednesday night's EFL Cup third round clash.

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Silva has enjoyed a glittering career which has included seven consecutive Ligue 1 titles following a three-year spell with AC Milan, where he also won Serie A, while amassing 88 international caps for Brazil.

And when asked whether he had ever come close to playing in the Premier League before this season, Silva replied: "If I were to say 'yes' to you on that, I would be lying. I've never really seen myself in the Premier League previously. That was because I saw it as a difficult style of football, personally. I didn't have any desire to play in the Premier League.

"My impression of the football playing was that one with long ball, high balls and long shots. At the time, I couldn't really see myself playing in that championship. But over time, the championship has developed tremendously. There is a lot more technical quality.

"A lot of teams play with the ball on the ground, full-backs attacking in the area. Obviously each team has their own idea, their own strengths, but previously I have seen it being characterised by long balls and that didn't really appeal to me.

"Obviously I know how to play that way but my preference was to play football with the ball on the ground. I knew my quality. But little by little, the Premier League football really won me over.

"Anyone who knows me can confirm that. Now, at 36, I am arriving to play in the best championship in the world. Usually, the Premier League is the championship which brings young players into play so I'm coming here as an older player and I see that is because Chelsea and [head coach] Frank Lampard want a player with my experience.

"If you want someone who is a runner, I'll use the words Carlo Ancelotti used to describe the signing of James [Rodriguez], they would have signed Usain Bolt. With my experience and the excellent young players here, I hope to help them in this new adventure."

Lampard is keen to add experience to his back-line -- which conceded the most goals (54) in the Premier League's top 10 last season -- but Silva's age has raised concerns he will be vulnerable to the fast pace of the English game.

"I don't worry at all because I know where I want to get to and I have high hopes about this young team," he said. "I feel really good, age is just a number on a document.

"Physically I feel young. I am very well prepared for this, I have been preparing for my whole life. People who know me know how much I love my work, how I put in 200%. This is a great opportunity that Chelsea and Lampard have given me, I don't want to let them down."

Big picture

Before IPL 2020 began, Mumbai Indians were everyone's favourites, and with good reason. A batting order that had four or five players capable of changing a match, a bowling attack that married striking ability with parsimony, great depth, and possibly the best think-tank in the business. All of that still holds true, but the opening game loss against Chennai Super Kings showed up some cracks in the team. It also showed the effects of little to no cricket for a majority of the players, with uncharacteristic sloppiness in the field, and errors while batting.

Are they cracks Kolkata Knight Riders can exploit successfully? They certainly have the tools to do so, and as the franchise that start the latest in this IPL, they will have had a chance to suss the conditions in the UAE well.

However, one of the issues Mumbai have is a quick thinning of the batting order after No. 7, which could conceivably be a problem for the Knight Riders too. The injury to Nathan Coulter-Nile affects Mumbai's batting depth, and though he trained with the team on Tuesday, whether plays on Wednesday remains to be seen. For the Knight Riders, the batting order almost takes the form of a bell curve, thanks to possibly the competition's most power-packed middle order in Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik and Andre Russell.

Mumbai's bowling is potent, and one off-day against the Super Kings wouldn't warrant grave changes, unless it's for fitness reasons. The Knight Riders will be hoping that Sunil Narine is good for four overs. He was very effective when he bowled in the CPL, but he played as often as he didn't in the competition. The Knight Riders have had a couple of promising quicks in their ranks for what seems like ages, without having them fit. But both Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi enter this season free of injury worries, and you would imagine at least one of them will be in the starting XI.

In the news

• If Coulter-Nile is fit, he will most likely replace James Pattinson in the Mumbai XI. Pattinson had a reasonable outing against the Super Kings, bowling quick and getting a couple of hits lower down the order, but Coulter-Nile's all-round ability is likely to swing things his way.

• Bowling at the death in T20 cricket requires a different set of skills than almost anything else, and Trent Boult reckons it's "the biggest challenge in the game". That challenge only gets bigger when the batsmen you're bowling to are Russell and company.

Likely XIs

Kolkata Knight Riders: 1 Shubman Gill, 2. Sunil Narine, 3 Nitish Rana, 4 Eoin Morgan, 5 Dinesh Karthik (capt, wk), 6 Andre Russell, 7 Rahul Tripathi/Rinku Singh, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Kamlesh Nagarkoti, 11 Prasidh Krishna

Mumbai Indians: 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Quinton de Kock (wk), 3 Suryakumar Yadav, 4 Saurabh Tiwary, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 James Pattinson/Nathan Coulter-Nile, 9 Rahul Chahar, 10 Trent Boult, 11 Jasprit Bumrah

Strategy punt

• The Knight Riders' powerhouse trio of Morgan, Russell and Karthik have excellent records against Boult and Jasprit Bumrah. Karthik has taken 50 runs off 23 balls he has faced from Bumrah without being dismissed. Russell has scored 49 off 33, being dismissed once. Against Boult, the trio's combined record is 82 runs off 43 balls, with three dismissals. If these three batsmen are batting at the death, they could take a heavy toll on Mumbai's bowlers. A possibly counter-intuitive strategy for Mumbai could be to look at only keeping the runs down at the start without looking for wickets - thus delaying the entry of these three and not giving them time to get set at the death.

• Narine's record as a batsman against Mumbai isn't too great. He has only 32 runs in eight innings, at less than a run-a-ball. The extra pace Mumbai have been able to call on during most seasons is perhaps part of the reason. The Knight Riders have indicated Narine will partner Shubman Gill at the top of the order for them, but in light of his record against Mumbai, perhaps Narine could bat lower down. They do have an option in Rahul Tripathi to partner Gill at the top.

• Russell is destructive against any bowling, but relatively speaking, quick and short bowling has had him in more trouble than other types. In IPL 2019, his strike rate (155) and balls per boundary (4.0) against the short ball were the lowest he had for pace bowlers. He simply slaughtered length balls, back of length balls, fuller ones and full tosses. So bowling pace into his body might be the way to go, as soon as he comes in to bat.

Stats that matter

• The Knight Riders and Mumbai have the most lopsided head-to-head record in IPL history. Mumbai have won 19 of their 25 matches, with the Knight Riders victorious only six times. Mumbai's win percentage of 76 is the best among any two teams in the IPL. However, the only time the two teams met in Abu Dhabi, the Knight Riders won, back in 2014. Mumbai, in fact, are on a six-match losing streak in the UAE, having lost five out of five in the country in 2014 to go with their opening game loss this year.

• This will be Kieron Pollard's 150th match in the IPL.

Rod Bransgrove has warned against the "knee-jerk" reaction of adopting the format of the Bob Willis Trophy (BWT) beyond the 2020 season.

While Brangrove, the chairman of Hampshire and a former member of the ECB board, accepts the merits of the competition in the unique circumstances of this season, he is concerned by the prospect of a similar format being utilised in 2021 and, perhaps, beyond.

As things stand, the ECB are set to confirm a new-look County Championship programme for 2021. This will see the 18 teams split into three conferences - arranged not regionally, as in 2020, but on their finishing positions in 2019 - in which they will play 10 games. After the mid-season break for white-ball cricket, the Championship will then return in what they are hoping becomes known as 'super September', with the counties now split into three divisions. In those they will play four more games, before the top two in division one contest a final.

While that schedule is, at present, recommended only for 2021, there are whispers the format could be adopted permanently.

But Bransgrove, at least, is underwhelmed by the proposals. In an email to other county chairs which has been seen by ESPNcricinfo, he has questioned both the motives for the changes and the lack of consultation with which they have been made.

In particular, Bransgrove has reservations about incorporating a final into the County Championship schedule and questions the lack of consultation with spectators.

"The County Championship is a truly great competition and we are constantly being told that it is the competition that players most want to win," Bransgrove wrote. "And why not?  It is an endurance marathon comprising 14 matches and covering up to 56 days each of six hours or so.

"The competition is designed to iron out the huge anomalies that exist in this amazing game; the toss, overhead conditions, bad light, pitch conditions, weather interruptions, form, fitness, injury, official's decisions, England call-ups, Lions call-ups. Any single one, or any combination, of these issues can conspire to impact hugely on the outcome of a one-off match but, over a symmetrical programme of 7 home and 7 away matches, these issues tend to balance out and the Champion is always the best team in the Competition.

"The competition is designed to iron out the huge anomalies that exist in this amazing game; the toss, overhead conditions, bad light, pitch conditions, weather interruptions, form, fitness, injury, official's decisions, England call-ups, Lions call-ups" Rod Bransgrove spells out his doubts about a one-off Championship final

"Why on Earth would anyone want to then force such a Champion to play a one-off, 'winner takes all' fixture against the top losing team with all the vagaries mentioned above? There is a reason that Test Matches are played in series!"

In addition, Bransgrove warned that the concept of a one-off final was a "sub-optimal, compromise solution", whose apparent attractiveness could not be established without a degree of market research. The absence of spectators for 2020 meant that there had been "absolutely no customer feedback", while he pointed to the failure of the ECB and Sky Sports to agree to a TV broadcast as further proof that the concept had been "spurned by the broadcasters".

"The currently-approved County Championship was the basis upon which our Members (customers) all purchased their 2020 memberships," he added, "and, in the main, these memberships are being rolled on to next year following the cancellation of this year's competition. Do we have the right to gratuitously change this without even discussing it with our fee-paying customers and supporters?"

Bransgrove appears to blame the Professional Game Group (PGG) for the proposed changes. The PGG consists of a quartet of county chief executives - Rob Andrew (Sussex), Richard Gould (Surrey), Lisa Pursehouse (Nottinghamshire) and Tim Bostock (Durham) - who won widespread praise for driving through the staging of the BWT this year.

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But Bransgrove feels they are exploiting the current situation to push through their own agendas and feels the episode has lacked the "consultative process" which should have prefaced such changes.

"Just over two years ago, the ECB embarked upon a major consultative process to review the Domestic Structure of our game," he wrote. "There were strong views expressed all round but the robust process led ultimately to a structure which the County Chairs approved and committed to. We had just one season's experience of the new structure before the catastrophic events of 2020 which resulted in a major part of this year's cricket programme being obliterated.

"When the dust has settled on this very troubled season, the Counties need to debate calmly and openly whether or not they need to reconsider the Domestic Structure and the views of the small, but dedicated, customer base for the four-day format should be a major consideration. In my opinion, there is no case at present for a "knee-jerk" change to the Domestic Structure of domestic cricket in 2021."

Bransgrove's stance drew qualified support from Tom Abell, Somerset's captain, who acknowledged that this year's BWT final was the best that county cricket could hope for in the circumstances, but that the County Championship's existing format remained his preference.

"In the immediate future, it's obviously very special to be involved in a Lord's final given the Covid situation," Abell said. "It's as good as we possibly could have had. But personally, I'm a big advocate of of the County Championship. Over the course of 14 or 16 games, the best team will often prevail and I think that's the way it should be."

Every football player in the SEC will wear the small, lightweight device also used in the NFL to help with COVID-19 contact tracing efforts, the conference announced Tuesday.

The devices, which are produced by a company called KINEXON, are called SafeTags and are approximately the size of a watch face, according to a news release. They can be worn as a wristband or on a lanyard, or can be built into equipment for use on field in practices and games.

The SafeTags can also be used to help enforce physical distancing regulations by flashing a red warning light when people are within 6 feet of each other.

"Through this new relationship with KINEXON, the SEC is committed to using innovative technology to provide solutions for use by our member institutions as we all work to support a healthy environment for student-athletes," SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a prepared statement. "KINEXON provides the SEC with a modern and effective solution to meet the unique contact tracing challenges associated with football."

According to the release, SafeZone, the technology in SafeTags, uses ultra-wideband technology to calculate the proximity between individuals by distance and length of time in order to perform quick and accurate contact tracing when someone is symptomatic or tests positive for COVID-19. The contact data is logged in a secure system and can be accessed to contact trace in the event of an infection.

"SafeZone was created to meet the unprecedented challenges teams and leagues were facing while identifying solutions to return to play safely," KINEXON executive vice president Jim Garofalo said in a prepared statement. "By adopting our technology, the SEC remains at the forefront of innovation in college athletics. SafeZone will provide student-athletes with a proven modern approach to contact tracing."

According to the release, the SEC chose the SafeZone technology for football because of the large number of players and the complexity of contact tracing unique to the sport. Determining proximity and length of interaction during football games presents an opportunity to use KINEXON's innovative technology because of the number of players on the field and the speed of the game.

Public health experts have recognized contact tracing as one of the most effective strategies to limit the spread of infectious disease. Contact tracing is a key element in the SEC's COVID-19 management plan, among a set of protocols that employ testing, physical distancing and facility sanitization.

A dear friend, a baseball purist in his late 70s, called recently. He was distressed.

"For the first time in 70 years,'' he said, "I don't care about baseball.''

He wasn't angry. He was hurt and sad that the game he loves wasn't delivering -- it had somehow let him down. I tried to explain that this wasn't the fault of the game; COVID-19 was to blame. It has changed everything in and around baseball -- it has changed how we play, watch, perceive and consume the game. It has changed how we all write, report and broadcast the game.

"Everything is hard now,'' said Indians manager Tito Francona, who is as gregarious as it gets.

So is Rays manager Kevin Cash, who said of the experience this year, "This isn't fun.''

They are not complaining. And you'll get no complaints here, no sympathy required. I remain the luckiest man on earth. I get paid to write about baseball and broadcast games a couple of nights a week. I am so grateful that I get to watch 15 games a night instead of another episode of "Succession" -- which is brilliant and depressing.

But Cash is right. It hasn't been nearly as much fun. No fans in the stands, players who have opted out of the season, the many others who have been injured, the mangling of the schedule due to coronavirus outbreaks (mostly notably with the Marlins and the Cardinals), making up rules on the fly and the threat that the season could end any day, perhaps without warning. And having to cover all of this from home has made it so much more difficult. Most players would rather play at home. I am longing for a road game.

There is no substitute for being at the ballpark. The things you see there, the things you learn there, can't be found watching on TV, on your computer or even in the beloved box scores. It's just not the same without fans in the stands; we have underrated and understated their importance to the game. The energy, the atmosphere that a crowd brings is clearly missing, and it has affected many players, including the Reds' Eugenio Suarez and the Brewers' Christian Yelich, who, like many, feed off the passion of the fans.

Before this season, I had never even heard of Zoom. Now I use it -- with help -- every day. But it's just not the same as speaking to another human being face-to-face. My favorite part of every game is to arrive at the ballpark at 1:30 p.m. for a 7 p.m. game in case someone is taking early hitting or working out at a new position.

I really miss talking to the players before the game, standing at the batting cage and watching Mike Trout tear holes in the sky with line drives, marveling at the way Fernando Tatis Jr. moves at that size and being dazzled by the violent and precise stuff that Shane Bieber brings to the mound.

Now I am strapped into my home office, with a new at-home broadcasting system, which arrived shortly after I had finally begun to understand the one that I've had for the past 20 years. I am irreversibly entangled in my office chair amid a web of wires and cords -- I feel as if I'm trapped inside an old golf ball. It also didn't help that I attempted to do one game without air conditioning in my office. I felt like I did nine innings from inside a trouser press.

And I have been by myself, which is lonely. It is terrifying given that I'm 63 and have absolutely no technical savvy. There is no engineer in the room to help me if something goes wrong, which it often does. I have uttered the phrases "Can you see me?'' and "Can you hear me?'' into my microphone a thousand times the past two months, like a man lost in a cave. And I usually hear only silence in my ears.

Some TV game producers insist that the open to any broadcast is the most important thing; nail the open, the rest is easy. On Aug. 18, during the open for the Rays-Yankees game, two seconds into my explanation of how the Yankees have dealt with a variety of problems this season, the iPad camera in my office studio went out. My audio did not, so I kept talking. I looked like a skeleton floating over a black background, an apparition, as play-by-play man Karl Ravech and analyst Eduardo Perez justifiably laughed out loud at the worst of my many technical issues. I finished my 15-second open in the dark, which was appropriate given that the game has been operating in the dark for months.

Ravy is broadcasting from the ESPN studio in Connecticut, 375 miles away from my house. Eduardo is at his home in Miami, 1,100 miles from my house. Other times the game has been 3,000 miles away.

We have worked together in the booth for five years. We have great chemistry. We understand each other's body language. We can anticipate when someone wants to talk, but when you're hundreds of miles away and there is a delay, well, it's easy to verbally barge into someone, as I did multiple times on opening night this year. The only question was whether it was a block or a charge. Most times, it was a charge.

To cover a game on TV without being there is a challenge. When you're at the game, with the action right in front of you, you can see if the center fielder got a great jump on the ball or if he broke in slightly instead of back. The constant shifting of the infielders is hard to see unless you're there. And it is impossible, from home, to watch the right fielder charge the ball while simultaneously watching the runner rounding third base. Everything is easier at the park except going to the can. Now I just walk 6 feet rather racing out of the press box and getting in and out of the bathroom as efficiently as a cat burglar.

Still, ratings are good, so I am worried that TV executives will see that we can capably call a game from home and wonder why we need to spend all that money to send the crew to the site. As a writer, I wonder when I will be allowed into the clubhouse again. There have been several stories this season -- how the COVID-19 outbreak spread among the Marlins and Cardinals, and exactly what happened when Indians pitchers Mike Clevinger (since traded to the Padres) and Zach Plesac broke curfew -- that would have been covered in greater detail and with greater accuracy if the media were allowed in the clubhouse to talk to the players.

I am worried that the way we're covering the game is the way that some of our brilliant new executives have been evaluating the game for the past five or so years: We have stopped watching the games. Too many of our answers come from a computer screen, a spreadsheet, a set of statistics rather that what is happening right in front of us on the field. The human element has been replaced by advanced metrics, or as Angels manager Joe Maddon says, "The art has been taken out of the game.''

We don't see, or care about, first-step quickness on a route by an outfielder, or an infielder who always knows what's going to happen one step ahead of everyone else. We don't understand that Max Scherzer, and few others, are calling the game from the mound, rather than having a catcher look into the dugout for the right pitch to call. We care more about a catcher framing a pitch than actually catching a pitch. And apparently we don't care about the craft of baserunning, because it is, by far, the worst I've seen in 41 years of covering the game.

But I can put up with it. I just want to watch and work games, be it from home or the ballpark. I can't wait to see what a free-for-all it's going to be down the stretch with 16 playoff spots in play. Every game, every pitch will matter. An unforgettable October is ahead: If all postseason series go the limit, there will be 65 playoff games in October.

I can't wait. It's going to be great, no matter how difficult and different things might be. All I ask is that during my 15-second open, my iPad stays on so I am no longer in the dark.