Chargers grind out win over Saints, handing them 6th straight loss

• October 28, 2024

INGLEWOOD — The Chargers ended not one but two touchdown droughts, their defense limited the New Orleans Saints to two field goals and they seized a 26-8 victory Sunday at SoFi Stadium. It was a grinding, unspectacular victory, but it sent the reeling Saints to their sixth consecutive defeat.

The Chargers improved to 4-3; the Saints fell to 2-6.

Wide receiver Ladd McConkey’s 60-yard catch and run through the Saints’ secondary for a touchdown was the Chargers’ first second-half TD since their season-opening victory over the Las Vegas Raiders on Sept. 8. It also gave them a 16-5 lead with 8:48 remaining in the third quarter.

What’s more, it was quarterback Justin Herbert’s first touchdown pass since connecting with running back Kimani Vidal on a 38-yard catch and run during the Chargers’ 23-16 victory Oct. 13 over the Denver Broncos. Cameron Dicker kicked five field goals in a 17-15 loss last Monday night to the Arizona Cardinals.

Dicker kicked two field goals Sunday.

Herbert also threw a 9-yard touchdown pass to McConkey in the closing minutes. Herbert completed 20 of 32 passes for 279 yards and also ran four times for 49 yards. McConkey caught six passes for 111 yards, becoming the first Chargers rookie with 100 yards or more receiving since Keenan Allen in the 2013 season.

The Chargers led the Saints by 9-5 by halftime, an usual score befitting an unusual first half. The Chargers were victimized by some uncharacteristic special teams foul-ups. A bad snap from punt formation resulted in a safety and a 2-0 deficit. A missed extra point resulted in nine first-half points instead of 10.

The good news for the Chargers was that they scored their first touchdown since the second quarter of their victory over the Broncos in Week 6. They went seven quarters without a touchdown until J.K. Dobbins scored on a 1-yard run with 1:37 left in the first half against the Saints.

Dicker gave the Chargers a 3-2 lead with a 46-yard field goal on the first play of the second quarter. Josh Harris’ poor snap left punter JK Scott chasing after the ball in the end zone. Scott tried to control the ball, but it squirted out of the end zone for a safety for the Saints with 10:20 left in the first quarter.

The Chargers struggled to move the ball in the early going, but finally clicked with a 15-play, 90-yard drive that lasted 8:07 and produced Dobbins’ touchdown run in the closing minutes of the half. Dicker missed the extra point, however, his second miss in 68 career attempts, both coming this season.

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The Saints drove for Blake Grupe’s 40-yard field goal to cut it to 9-5 with five seconds remaining in the half, prompting the clever game operations department to play Dolly Parton’s timeless classic song “9 to 5” on the SoFi Stadium sound system as the teams prepared for the ensuing kickoff.

Saints quarterback Derek Carr couldn’t play because of an oblique injury, so Spencer Rattler got his third consecutive start. Rattler failed to move the offense, so New Orleans turned to Jake Haener, who led a late drive in the third quarter that yielded Grupe’s 43-yard field goal that cut it to 16-8.

Dicker’s 29-yard field goal early in the fourth made it 19-8.

More to come on this story.

​ Orange County Register 

In Orange County, voting is underway. Here’s how to cast your ballot

• October 28, 2024

Vote centers are now open around Orange County.

Voters, at these locations, can cast their ballot and find other voting-related help, including registration assistance, obtaining a replacement ballot and more.

There are 38 vote centers scattered around the county that are now open, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Friday, Nov. 1.

Another 146 vote centers will open on Saturday, Nov. 2. Then, all vote centers will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Election Day, when they’ll be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

More than 100 drop box locations, open 24/7, are already open throughout the county.

Various pop-up locations, offering similar services to vote centers, will start opening around the county from now until Election Day. Find one close to you at ocvote.com/pop-up.

Ballots can also be mailed back to elections officials to be counted — no postage required.

If you have questions about what — or who — is on your ballot, check out our 2024 Voter Guide, a one-stop shop where you can find candidates’ platforms, explainers on statewide and local ballot measures, a map showing the nearest ballot drop boxes, our editorial board’s endorsements and more.

Candidates — from the U.S. Senate to Congress, from city councils to school boards, and more — have answered your questions about a variety of topics, ranging from the future of artificial intelligence to border security to meeting housing needs to how schools can contribute to efforts combatting climate change.

You can find the full list of vote centers on the registrar’s website, where you can also find wait times. You can also find a map of places to cast your ballot, including drop boxes, here.

​ Orange County Register 

Solana Beach horse owners have up-close view of this week’s Breeders’ Cup

• October 28, 2024

DEL MAR — If racing close to home mattered, Johannes would have an unbeatable advantage in Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar. The 4-year-old colt’s owners, Debby and Joe McCloskey, live just across Via de la Valle from the racetrack.

But that’s not the unique part of the McCloskeys’ story. They’re not the first, or even the only current owners to live in the vicinity of the track.

What’s unique is Johannes is the first foal of the first horse the McCloskeys bought — at a time when they said they knew “less than zero” about the sport.

Now he’s one of the favorites in one of the biggest races of the year … at the track so close to home that, Joe McCloskey jokes, they can smell the horses.

Back to the beginning: The couple moved to Solana Beach just over a decade ago. They weren’t horse racing fans, but they lived right there, so they almost felt obliged to check out the races. They met some people who owned some of the horses and thought, why not?

They budgeted $50,000 to buy a yearling — in a sport where some horses go for 10, 20, even 40 times that amount — and they didn’t really know what they were looking for except Debby dreamed that their horse should have a heart marking. After missing out on a couple because the price was too high, another one they picked out had the bidding stop at exactly $50,000.

They named her Cuyathy — an acronym for “Call upon your angels to help you.”

It sure seems like someone was watching out for them.

As a racehorse, Cuyathy was nothing special. She won three races in four years, earned just over $100,000. But her second career has been a different story.

The McCloskeys, who have been married 46 years and have one daughter, were not content to gamble on owning horses, which people not involved in racing told them was a bad idea. They wanted to breed them, too — and as Joe said, “Track people were saying you’re even dumber if you get into breeding horses.”

“I said, Well, let’s give it a shot, because we really like Cuyathy, and she’s our namesake horse (their stable is Cuyathy LLC) so we’re not going to get rid of her,” said Joe, a retired businessman who worked mainly in the meat processing business. “We’ll give it one more shot. We’ll turn the page and see what happens.”

Cuyathy’s Johannes and jockey Umberto Rispoli, center, win the Grade II $200,000 City of Hope Mile.. (Benoit Photo via AP)

What happened was Johannes.

The McCloskeys paid a $40,000 fee to breed Cuyathy to Nyquist. Why Nyquist? Well, he did win the 2016 Kentucky Derby, but the year prior, the couple met him while visiting the barn area at Del Mar, when some of their family members were visiting from … Detroit, where the McCloskeys grew up and where Gustav Nyquist played for the NHL Red Wings.

Cuyathy’s baby was born on Feb. 16, 2020. The colt raced three times on the dirt in 2022 with no success, but on the last day of the year, trainer Tim Yakteen tried him on turf at Santa Anita.

He won by nine lengths.

He hasn’t raced off the turf in seven starts since, and he’s won six (and might have won the seventh if it wasn’t for a troubled trip). This year he is 4-for-4, with all the victories coming in graded stakes races, including the Grade I Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita and the Grade II Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar. He’s earned $510,000 to raise his career total to just shy of $700,000 — an amount that would more than double should he win Saturday (the Mile champion earns $1.04 million).

It hasn’t all been smooth — Johannes didn’t race from May 2023 until this April because of bone bruising — but the McCloskeys’ “glacial patience,” to use Joe’s term, paid off.

More patience is needed this week. As Joe said: “Even to this day, people go, ‘This is great. This is great.’ And they’ll tell me, ‘What do you think?’ And I say, ‘I’ll let you know when the gates open and the horse comes out that I was in the Breeders’ Cup. Until that time, I’m not in the Breeders’ Cup.’ ”

Owner Joe McCloskey celebrates after Johannes and jockey Umberto Rispoli won the Sept. 28 Grade II $200,000 City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita. (Benoit Photo)

There’s an outside chance Johannes won’t be their only Breeders’ Cup runner. Among their four horses in training is Sea Runner, another daughter of Cuyathy (by Gun Runner), who recently broke her maiden at Santa Anita. But she would need two other horses to withdraw to make the field for Friday’s Juvenile Fillies Turf.

It all sounds a bit like a dream, but that’s not entirely accurate. As Joe said, “Everything’s more than I would have dreamed at this point.”

Debby McCloskey said she’s feeling “excited nervousness” as the big event approaches.

Debby and Joe McCloskey live across Via de la Valle from Del Mar. (Benoit Photo)

“Seeing Johannes develop over these past four years makes us very proud,” she said. “It’s been a very long journey to get to this point. We have had a lot of ups and downs in this business, but having a horse that we bred running in the Breeders’ Cup makes it all worthwhile. We definitely thank our angels who got us here.”

As part of their gratitude, the McCloskeys are strong supporters of two racing-related charities, Laughing Pony Rescue in Rancho Santa Fe and the Race Track Chaplaincy of California.

“I think there has to be a balance between what you’re creating on the front side of horse racing and what you need to do on the backside,” Joe McCloskey said. “Balance is key, and that’s one way we do it.”

​ Orange County Register 

Alexander: Notes on a World Series scorecard

• October 27, 2024

DENVER – The World (Series) according to Jim:

• Why Denver, first of all? Good airport wifi, and a couple of hours available before my connection to New York, where Bill Plunkett and I will keep you informed of all things Dodgers-Yankees the next two (and, in all likelihood to be honest, three) days. …

• And yes, that “notes on a scorecard” reference is a tribute to the late L.A. columnist Allan Malamud, who may not have invented the notes column but perfected it. Thank you, Mud. …

• Remember what I said in the Dodgers’ last series about how it wasn’t a lock? That applies here, too. …

• You may have heard the stats about teams that jump to a 2-0 lead. In all best-of-seven postseason series the percentage going on to win is 84 percent (77 of 92). Teams opening with two victories at home, as the Dodgers have done, have won 45 of 56. In the World Series alone, 44 of 54 teams that started out 2-0 wound up with rings and parades. …

• But a lot of those outliers have occurred in Dodgers-Yankees confrontations. Remember 1981? Dodgers lose the first two in the Bronx and win the next four, a comeback launched by that gritty Fernando Valenzuela start in Game 3 at the Ravine.

Or 1978. The Dodgers won the first two in L.A., Game 2 featuring the duel between rookie Bob Welch and Reggie Jackson. But the series turned in New York; Jackson’s hip-and-run play – when he interfered with a Dodger double play, got away with it and kept a rally alive – helped fuel a three-game Yankee sweep in the Bronx, and New York won Game 6 in L.A. with Mr. October hitting one off the back wall behind the visitors’ bullpen to win his rematch with Welch and cinch it. …

• It’s a Yankees-Dodgers pattern, since the winning team came back from a 2-0 deficit in 1956 (Yankees) and 1955 (Dodgers), but not solely. The 1965 Dodgers were bludgeoned in Games 1 and 2 in Minnesota, Don Drysdale losing the opener 8-2 and Sandy Koufax – who had missed that Game 1 start to observe Yom Kippur – dropping Game 2 5-1. But they won the series, with Koufax shutting out the Twins on two days rest in Game 7. …

• All that said, and knowing full well that the middle three games in Yankee Stadium might be a completely different animal? Nothing I saw in Games 1 and 2 convinced me that the Yankees have anywhere as deep a lineup as the Dodgers do. All of that angst during the summer over the deficiencies of the lower half of L.A.’s batting order? Right now it looks much stronger than that of the Yankees. …

• There are three ways this series can change dramatically. …

• The first is if Aaron Judge gets untracked. He was 1 for 9 with six strikeouts in Games 1 and 2, flailing at unhittable pitches and continuing a slump that began in the ALCS against Cleveland. If he gets hot between Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton in the heart of the Yankees’ order, watch out. …

• The second, obviously depends on Shohei Ohtani’s health. The Dodgers’ leadoff hitter has had his own issues – 1 for 8 with a double in Game 1 and a walk in Game 2 – the walk that turned into potential catastrophe when he partially dislocated his shoulder while getting thrown out stealing to end the seventh Saturday. He has been cleared to play, manager Dave Roberts told ESPN Sunday, in advance of the team’s media availability later in the day. How efficient he is will be a storyline to watch. …

• The third? Dodgers bullpen usage, and specifically if the Yankees get enough looks at L.A.’s leverage guys that they begin to solve them. The bases loaded mess that Blake Treinen found himself amidst in the ninth inning Saturday wasn’t totally a matter of the Yankees pounding him – who, after all, could predict Stanton’s ground ball caroming off the third base bag and high into the air, allowing Soto to score from second base?

But it was the second time in two nights Treinen had seen the heart of the Yankee order, and it’s become apparent not only from the data but from the eye test: The more hitters see a particular pitcher in a five- or seven-game series, the better chance they have to solve him. …

• If the Dodgers pull this off, Andrew Friedman and Brandon Gomes should be in line for co-Executives of the Year honors for their moves at the trade deadline. The Jack Flaherty trade was big, of course, and everyone acknowledged that at the time especially as Dodger starting pitching was taking injury hit after injury hit. And the addition of Michael Kopech strengthened the bullpen, though the hard-throwing right-hander still has his moments where command is an issue.

But Tommy Edman? We may not have thought much of that deal at the time – the theory that Friedman had targeted him for years because he fit into the club’s emphasis on positional flexibility, plus he hadn’t played yet this season because of injury. Right now, on a star-studded roster, he’s one of the most important guys in the Dodgers’ lineup. …

• The postseason can turn a guy from unknown to hero, for sure. Edman was asked after Saturday night’s game if people were starting to recognize him on the street.

“Kind of started a little bit,” he said. “Definitely when I first got here, nobody knew who I was. I’m definitely the kind of guy that you see on the street and wouldn’t look twice at. There’s other baseball players – I mean, you look at the guys on their team, you’ve got Stanton and Judge, you see them on the street, like, whoa, that guy is probably an athlete. Myself, not really, but it’s kind of started a little bit.” …

• A lot of Dodgers could cement their status as civic heroes if this ride continues. But I don’t think any of them will be running for mayor. The incumbent, the Hon. Karen Bass, not only is a regular in her box seats during these playoffs, but she’s wearing her Dodger jersey. (In contrast, I don’t expect to see embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams at Yankee Stadium this week, but I’ve been surprised before.) …

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• One person who I do wish were here to see this? The late Rosalind Wyman, who as a young L.A. city councilwoman in the 1950s was one of those instrumental in convincing Walter O’Malley to bring the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Wyman, active in Democratic Party politics and community nonprofit boards before passing away two years ago at age 92, remained a devoted fan through the years. In fact, when we talked in October of 2020 she was scheming to find her way to Arlington, Texas, for what turned out to be a decisive World Series Game 6.

She would have loved those first two games. Hopefully whoever inherited her field level box seat, near the umpires’ entrance to the field, continues to bring the noise, whether it’s in possible Games 6 and/or 7 or in 2025.

jalexander@scng.com

​ Orange County Register 

Jeff Lynne’s ELO says goodbye with a hit-filled farewell show at Kia Forum

• October 27, 2024

When Jeff Lynne revived Electric Light Orchestra in 2015, he booked his return into the intimate Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, testing the waters perhaps to see if anyone was still interested in a band which had not played a proper show since 1981.

Oh, they were interested all right. That night at the Fonda was a thrill, with Lynne sounding as if he’d only just stepped away for a moment, not years, and delighting the 1,200 or so fans who packed theater including such starry friends of Lynne’s as Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh and Eric Idle.

A year later, Jeff Lynne’s ELO played three nights at the Hollywood Bowl, accompanied by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and since then he’s continued to record and perform with the group he co-founded in the early ’70s and found huge success with throughout that decade and into the ’80s.

But now Lynne, 76, is saying goodbye to all that.

The Over and Out Tour, which kicked off at the Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert in August, played its final California show at the Kia Forum on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 25-26,  After a rescheduled date in Phoenix on Tuesday, that’s it for Lynne and ELO.

This was no funeral at the Forum on Saturday by any means. How could it be with so many songs – 15 that made the Top 20 – which gave so much joy to millions of listeners over the years?

How could it be with that that gigantic spaceship stage prop, an image from ELO’s album art in the ’70s made real, which shined lights and shot lasers across the stage and around the arena all night?

The show opened with “One More Time,” a song off Lynne’s 2019 ELO album, and did we mention how awesome that spaceship is? In the vernacular of the ’70s, when ELO’s 1976 release “A New World Record” was one of the 12 albums I ordered from the record club for one cent – a penny! – the flying saucer is still totally bitchin’.

That might have been the least familiar of any of the 20 songs Lynne played over 90 minutes on stage. No such issue with “Evil Woman,” which followed it, the piano riff that opens the song instantly recognizable. Same with the power chords that kick off “Do Ya,” technically a cover of a song by the Move, the ’60s band from which Lynne and ELO co-founders Roy Wood and Bev Bevan all came.

None of the original members of ELO remain in the band. Keyboardist Richard Tandy, who’d joined in 1971 and played alongside Lynne in the studio and on stage ever after died in May. But the 12 members of the current lineup, including a string section of two cellos and one violin, all are strong musicians.

Other highlights early in the set included “Showdown,” a slower, vaguely Western-themed number, and “Last Train to London,” an electronic dance-pop song from the end of the ’70s.

Lynne remains a shy presence on stage. His bushy hair, beard and sunglasses look the same as they always have. Dressed mostly in black, he stood at the right side of the stage, singing and playing guitar, but seldom saying more than thanks to the audience and occasionally giving thumbs up to their cheers and applause.

Others in the band provided more action throughout the night. Backing vocalist Melanie Lewis-McDonald’s operatic vocals shined on songs such as the ballad “Stepping Out,” and she and backing vocalist Iain Hornel added lovely harmonies to “Strange Magic.”

Violinist Jess Cox stepped forward to join Lynne on several songs including an instrumental portion of “Fire On High,” and the violin solo that leads into “Livin’ Thing,” another of the best-loved ELO numbers.

That song, like many throughout the show and the ELO catalog, features the kind of strong melody and simple lyrical hook, often in the title of the song, that makes it easy for fans to sing along as they did on almost every song on Saturday.

Highlights of the latter part of the night included “Telephone Line,” complete with the ringing phone and far-down-the-line vocal effects that begin it. “Turn To Stone” surged on waves of racing rhythms.

“Don’t Bring Me Down” closed the main set, the crunchy guitar riffs and pounding drum beats anchoring the song as Lynne and the backing vocalists sang its simple but catchy lyrics.

Lynne and Electric Light Orchestra have always acknowledged a love for and influence from the Beatles, both for a similar kind of melodic sweetness and a shared interest in the use of the recording studio to unlock fresh sounds. That influence shines brightest on “Mr. Blue Sky,” from the pounding piano chords that open the number to its stacked harmonies, cowbell-like percussion, swelling strings and more.

The song, which arrived as the encore, only reached No. 36 on the charts on its release in 1978 but since then has grown more loved with each passing year and now has more than 1 billion streams on Spotify.

As farewells go, it was a perfect pick on Saturday: The crowd on its feet, singing and dancing, making, and smiling upon the musician whose creation brought a bit of blue sky into all of their lives one last time.

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​ Orange County Register 

Swanson: What happens when a Dodger fan and Yankee fan start getting real

• October 27, 2024

So there’s Anasazi Ochoa in L.A., a 27-year-old graduate student at USC.

And Greg Durante in New York; he’s a 35-year-old occupational therapist working at a hospital in Brooklyn.

They’re at opposite ends of a monumental event that’s altering their moods entirely and that’s also entirely (probably) out of their control.

They don’t know each other, but for the past couple days, they’ve been checking in with me, via voice memos and text messages, because I wanted to find out what happens when fans stop being polite and start getting real … while their teams are meeting in the World Series.

She’s a Dodgers fan. He’s a Yankees fan. And they’re both incredibly good sports, though, for now, Ochoa is in better spirits; her team leading 2-0 heading back to New York for Game 3 of the World Series on Monday.

FRIDAY, GAME 1

12:22 p.m., New York 

“A lot of emotions running high real high,” Durante says, a little less than eight hours before the first pitch. “All morning I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. It’s still just going back and forth between being amped up enough to run through a wall or just have a total incomplete panic attack.”

9:27 a.m., California

Ochoa is walking down Exposition Boulevard in L.A., thinking about a photo she saw of Yankees slugger Aaron Judge taking batting practice in uniform: “Like, what is up with that? … an intimidation tactic? If that’s what that is, I had to laugh … I’m feeling good about tonight. You know we’re gonna strike first, strike hard, set the tone. It’s gonna be a good game, but these guys seem like very, very not intimidating.”

Hey, real quick. Some more background on these two, before the first pitch: Durante grew up in a family of Yankees fans, in a house with a dedicated “Yankee Room” that was filled with memorabilia. “I remember,” he told me earlier in the week, “how happy I was throughout the 90s, when they were winning those championships (three out of four between 1996 and 2000) … so just them winning makes me happy, makes me feel like a kid again.” He’ll be at Game 4; didn’t have a second thought about spending $1,000 for a ticket. Had to do it.

Ochoa was raised a Dodger fan … in San Diego. She can thank her parents, lifelong Dodger fans, for that. They inherited their fandom too, particularly on her mom’s side, because Anasazi’s grandfather, Roberto, a Mexican immigrant, was swept up in Fernandomania in the early 1980s.

“Fernando Valenzuela’s impact is a huge part of my identity as a Dodger fan,” she said of the Dodgers pitching great, who died last week. “Even though I wasn’t there when he was playing, as a Mexican-American Dodger fan, that history is passed down.”

Leading her to Friday.

All afternoon in New York, Durante is getting texts, like this one, from a cousin: “Happy world series day. Let’s [bleeping] go Yankees!”

Meanwhile, in California, Ochoa shares: “I know I said I wasn’t a superstitious person, but I just thought of something: One thing I won’t do is that I will not play Randy Newman’s ‘I love L.A.’ I will only in my car after we won … that’s only reserved for our victories.”

Not a superstitious person – nope, not at all – Ochoa said she did, however, feel somewhat responsible for the Dodgers’ Game 2 loss in the National League Championship Series: “My fiancé Eric [a Padres fan] had a Brooklyn Jackie Robinson jersey, because as a Black man he felt important to honor the player who broke the color barrier. He always justified that it was representing Brooklyn, not L.A. When the Dodgers won the NLDS [against the Padres], he gave it to me, he didn’t want anything blue in his closet anymore … I wore it for the first time (without washing) on Game 2 vs the Mets. We got blown out, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it had bad mojo from a disgruntled SD fan.”

7:40 p.m. Friday, New York

“Thirty minutes left and then it’s game time, baby!” Durante says from a bustling bar on Staten Island. I picture him rubbing his palms together. “Starting to get excited, real excited.”

4:41 p.m. Friday, California

Ochoa is about to watch Game 1 on her phone in the Chula Vista High School football press box, beside her dad, Alejandro, because he’s the Spartans’ public address announcer. Oddly enough, life doesn’t stop for the World Series. The Lakers’ and Trojans’ games went on Friday, too, as did Chula Vista’s, whose school colors, Ochoa pointed out, “are also blue and white.”

At 8:43 p.m. his time, Durante texts: “ASSASSINATE THE UMPIRE.”

Three minutes later, he texts again: “Let the record show that was in jest, I do not want to be arrested on conspiracy to murder after this article prints. But seriously, these inconsistent umpires are awful and ruin the game.”

Then, at 9:47 p.m., he sends a three-second long voice memo: “STAAANNNTINN!!!”

Giancarlo Stanton, a Sherman Oaks Notre Dame product, has just hit a 412-foot two-run home run to put the Yankees ahead, 2-1. Durante also texts: “I changed spots that I was standing after L.A. scored their first run. Then HR for Stanton. I’m not moving.”

“Story of the whole season,” a glum Ochoa says in a message at 7:36 p.m. in California, where the Dodgers still trail entering the eighth. “Runners on base and we can’t bring them home. But I still believe. It’s not over till it’s over.”

You know what happens next.

8:39 p.m., California

“Oh my god, Mirjam! A freaking grand slam! Freddie Freeman! Oh my god!” Ochoa blubbers, shouts, cries – overcome after Freeman’s walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning gave the Dodgers a 6-3 victory.

“… oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness! That’s right, that’s right, that’s right!”

SATURDAY, GAME 2

I don’t lose Durante, though I would’ve understood if I had. I don’t hear from him after Freeman’s heartbreaking heroics until 9:27 the next morning in New York: “What a nightmare. Worst case scenario… Went to bed furious. Woke up furious. Want to punch something (but smart enough to realize how stupid that would be).

“Feeling VERY pessimistic about the rest of the series. Need to win tonight.”

At 10:23 a.m., he adds, succinctly: “I am dead inside.”

I wonder, for the millionth time: Why do we do this to ourselves?

Ochoa messages at 8:06 a.m., as soon as she wakes up: “I still can’t believe that happened… I was SHAKING.”

I tell myself: Ah, that’s why.

Durante gets up off the mat. Has coffee and goes for a long walk. Calls his dad to commiserate, and then goes and plays volleyball to “get some sunshine and take out my frustrations” and otherwise “distract myself from my overwhelming dread and use all my inner strength for optimism and hope.”

Before the game begin, he lets me know: “Last night’s T-shirt didn’t work, so tonight we go with a different Yankees T-shirt, a different watch, different shoes and a hopeful attitude.”

Ochoa spends her day doing assignments and hanging with her fiancé, Eric Fleming, before grabbing a surf and turf burrito from a spot near her parents’ house before the game started, a little after 5 p.m. “Keeping it West Coast,” she texts about a half-hour before the first pitch. “NYC has bodegas, SoCal has taco shops!”

The Dodgers crank out four runs in the first three innings, build what feels, with Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto dealing, like a comfortable 4-1 lead.

Durante: “It’s like someone is plunging a knife into my heart.”

In the fifth inning, Ochoa says: “If you can’t hear it from my voice, I’m just in a state of bliss. It’s pretty fun to be a Dodger fan right now.”

The game gets closer when the Yankees score once and load the bases in the ninth. But the Dodgers get out of it “aaaaaand twist the knife,” Durante writes from The Commissioner, the popular bar in Brooklyn where he’s watched Game 2.

“You know what?” Ochoa says after the 4-2 victory. “It’s exciting, but it’s calm. We’re ready, I think we’re definitely ready for New York. We’ve been ready for New York.”

Her reaction is subdued, though, because Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani’s left shoulder was injured sliding into second in the eighth inning: “All I can think about is healing thoughts for Ohtani and that’s it.”

The highs and lows, and lows and highs of sports fandom. Proving and reproving Einstein’s theory, as if he figured it out for Dodgers and Yankees fans: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. A winner and a loser.

To the unindoctrinated it might seem silly, what we let sports do to us. But what sports do for us, that’s the magic.

Durante’s best explanation: “It’s an animalistic and primal reaction, completely visceral and borderline uncontrollable. It’s a situation that’s completely out of my control yet the emotions I feel are contrasting to that.

“I really think it’s out of love,” he added. “I love this team.”

Wrote Ochoa: “I watch baseball because of my family roots. The Dodgers are the team that brings us together, amidst our hectic schedules and life journeys.

“Baseball gives me hope, brings me joy, and reminds me to never give up,” she added. “Despite the countless heartbreaks these last few years, the final broadcast words of the late great Vin Scully always rang in my mind: ‘But, you know what, there will be a new day, and, eventually, a new year, and when the upcoming winter gives way to spring, ooh, rest assured, once again, it will be time for Dodger baseball.’ ”

​ Orange County Register 

60 years later, Ronald Reagan’s ‘A Time for Choosing’ speech still resonates

• October 27, 2024

Talk about early voting: Ronald Reagan won the race for the White House 60 years ago. As columnist George Will quipped, “it just took 16 years to count the votes.”

With just one week before the November 1964 presidential election, Ronald Reagan took to television to make his case for Republican poresidential candidate Barry Goldwater. In Los Angeles, Reagan recorded a 30-minute campaign ad, broadcast nationwide on Oct. 27.

His address was pre-recorded but presented as if a live broadcast. The program was “A Time for Choosing,” but often referred to as simply “The Speech,” because its impact changed the trajectory of Reagan’s life. In today’s parlance, Reagan went viral.

Reagan began The Speech saying he had spent most of his life as a Democrat but now saw fit to follow another course. He made the case for smaller government, that government is beholden to the people and Americans should reject the intellectual elite in any far-distant capital. The election was about choosing between less government control and more individual freedoms.

He had disgust for the fiscal irresponsibility that eroded the purchasing power of a dollar. Reagan was aghast the debt ceiling had been raised three times in 1964 and the country spent 10 times more on welfare than it did during the Great Depression. He criticized the United Nations and foreign aid, claiming the billions sent abroad built more bureaucracy and were used to buy a yacht for Ethiopia’s emperor, dress suits for Greek undertakers and extra wives for Kenyan government officials. In total, Reagan claimed, 107 countries received aid from the United States. Today, 210 foreign countries and regions receive assistance from American taxpayers. The debt ceiling has been raised 70 times since 1964.

Reagan spent a good deal of time attacking the bloated federal government, bureaucratic overreach and property seizures. He said each day the government spent $17 million more than it collected. Today, the overspend is $4.6 billion a day. Farm subsidies were also the enemy of free enterprise and an insult to the intelligent farmer. Reagan claimed the bureaucracy is so thick the Department of Agriculture has one employee for every 30 farms. Today, there is one employee for every 19 farms.

His speech praised the benefits of individual liberties and how the country must always stand up for freedom and be willing to pay its price. Reagan despised communism and revered freedom.

“Should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs?” Reagan asked, “Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ‘round the world?” He concluded saying Goldwater had faith in America, and Americans have a rendezvous with destiny, for the United States is the last best hope of man on earth.

The broadcast concluded with an appeal for campaign funds. Money was collected the old-fashioned way — flooding a P.O. box in Los Angeles. About $1 million was raised, a staggering sum, considering the combined Democratic-Republican presidential campaigns spent $20 million in the 1960 contest.

Reagan’s performance was noticed immediately. Just two days after The Speech, a rural Plumas County newspaper wrote about a woman who said Reagan had changed her mind about voting — no vote for Goldwater, she’s going to vote for Ronald Reagan! And thus it began. Predictably, Reagan said he had no desire to be a candidate; two weeks later he was studying the opportunity, and finally decided to run for governor, winning two terms.

Reagan’s Oct. 27 performance was not a hasty campaign whistle-stop; it was the result of relentless practice and discipline. For years, Reagan had been giving The Speech, in different forms and to different audiences. His eight-year contract to host the General Electric Theatre television program allowed him to visit GE factories and boost morale with his public speaking. His remarks hit on the evils of socialism and freedom’s blessings.

“A Time for Choosing” evolved from those earlier speeches, such as 1959’s “Business, Ballots and Bureaus.” Reagan warned about the growing power of bureaucrats to shape policy rather than elected lawmakers in Congress. Reagan said stifling regulations are “frozen into permanency by civil service regulations beyond the reach of any election.” This critique foreshadowed the 2024 Supreme Court overturning of the Chevron Doctrine, a legal principle that allowed federal agencies broad authority to interpret laws. In 1959 and 1960, Reagan delivered the triple-B speech in cities stretching from Chattanooga, Abilene, Spokane and even Honolulu. By 1961, a version of the speech was titled  “Encroaching Control,” where he called California’s governor a tower of jelly that sways left with every breeze.

He stumped for Nixon’s run for governor in 1962 and changed his voter registration to Republican that fall. His speech titles morphed to “The Price of Freedom” and “What’s at Stake?” but the core messages of fiscal responsibility and democratic freedom remained. Reagan spoke to anyone: Republican clubs, chambers of commerce, sororities, college campuses, realtors, Elks Clubs, Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs. And he went everywhere.

Reagan crisscrossed California from Barstow to Chico speaking under the shortened banner “Time to Choose.” Each speech could be tailored for the audience. Reagan dropped lines that did not have punch; he added and updated evidence as the data evolved. He studied pace and pause, picking the opportune moment to raise his voice or stay silent to absorb applause or laughter. When Reagan became co-chair of Goldwater’s California campaign, he added parts about candidate Goldwater piloting his own airplane to deliver medicine to flood-ravaged Mexico.

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A critical test came in July 1964, when Reagan spoke to 5,000 delegates at the Kiwanis convention in Los Angeles. That speech had no title but nearly every word was identical to “A Time for Choosing.” It was perfect practice for what was to come. The Republican convention was in San Francisco in just two weeks, and with Goldwater trailing in the polls, the campaign would need to muster everything to close the gap.  Goldwater is remembered for his “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” phrase during his acceptance speech. The Johnson campaign responded with the “Daisy” nuclear countdown ad that frightened voters with Goldwater’s extremism, stretching Johnson’s polling lead.

When it came time to record “A Time for Choosing,” Goldwater’s chances were slim, but Reagan was undaunted, as this moment was years in the making. Reagan spoke with a freshness and urgency that beguiled a decade of repetition. Never with a teleprompter, he had delivered countless iterations across thousands of miles, to ally and to foe, and in places big and small. Before Reagan was the Great Communicator, he was the Great Preparer. Political fortunes change abruptly by election, scandal, assassination, or a bad debate night, but rarely by readiness. Far beyond viral luck, that night superior preparation met opportunity.

Tim Galbraith was the 1983 winner of the California-Nevada Lions Club Student Speakers Contest and volunteered for Reagan in 1984. He is a financial services executive in New York.

​ Orange County Register 

More than 1,000 faith leaders endorse Harris as vice president leans on her faith to turn out Black voters

• October 27, 2024

(CNN) — More than a thousand religious leaders endorsed Kamala Harris on Sunday, bolstering the Democratic presidential nominee’s push to emphasize how faith is informing her campaign ahead of next week’s election.

Among those backing the vice president is the Rev. William J. Barber II, a North Carolina-based faith leader who has pushed the Biden administration to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“In a moment like this, I am compelled to be clear that every voter must make a choice, and my choice is to oppose the dangerous politics that (Donald) Trump and the MAGA movement have unleashed by supporting the ticket that can defeat this potential for American fascism,” Barber said in a statement to CNN while stressing that he was backing Harris in his personal capacity.

The endorsements come as Harris has been leaning on her faith – and her ties to Black faith communities – as she seeks to turn out Black voters in her closing pitch.

The vice president, who attended a Black Baptist church in Oakland growing up, appeared with her longtime pastor, the Rev. Amos C. Brown III of San Francisco’s Third Baptist Church, as part of a “souls to the polls” push in Georgia last weekend, a widespread effort to engage Black churchgoers in swing states.

And in comments at a Black church in West Philadelphia on Sunday, Harris “will continue to emphasize the importance of putting faith into action this campaign,” according to a senior campaign official.

Harris has alluded to faith throughout her campaign. The vice president said during a CNN town hall last week that after President Joe Biden called her this summer to say he would no longer seek reelection, she called Brown, seeking advice and prayer. Asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether she prays every day, Harris said she does.

“Sometimes twice a day,” she said. “I was raised to believe in a loving God, to believe that your faith is a verb.”

Former President Donald Trump has also sought to court religious voters and encourage White evangelicals, longtime allies of the Republican Party, to vote. After the former president survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July – where one rally attendee was killed – Trump and his supporters argued he was spared due to divine intervention.

In his pitch to faith voters, Trump has argued that he would protect religious liberties and highlighted his appointment of three conservatives to the US Supreme Court, which paved the way for overturning federal abortion protections. Trump will also address a National Faith Advisory Board summit in Georgia on Monday.

While campaigning in North Carolina last week, Trump argued, without evidence, that Harris is “very destructive to religion” as he addressed a group of religious leaders.

In Michigan, the former president has sought support from Muslim leaders as part of his bid to appeal to Muslim and Arab American voters disillusioned with Harris over the Biden administration’s approach to Israel’s war in Gaza. Trump invited several Muslim leaders onstage during a rally in suburban Detroit on Saturday.

“Jews, Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons, Muslims are joining our cause in larger numbers than ever before and now the most wonderful thing is happening. We’re winning overwhelming support from the Muslim and Arab voters right here in Michigan. Can you believe this?” the former president said.

Barber, who participated in a vigil outside the White House last fall to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, has persistently raised concerns about how Democrats more broadly ignore talking about poor and low-wage workers to instead focus on the middle class. But he told CNN the present moment calls for clarity.

“There’s no middle ground when it comes to fascism,” Barber, the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, said in an interview. “There just comes a point that you have to say, ‘I’ve got to be clear as an individual and hope that other moral and religious leaders will do the same.’”

For those faith leaders withholding support for Harris over the administration’s response to the Middle East conflict, Barber said they should ask themselves, “Who do you trust to be able to talk to and negotiate with?”

Some of the other faith leaders endorsing Harris on Sunday in their personal capacities include the Rev. Kevin R. Johnson, senior pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City; Rev. Teresa L. Smallwood, vice president and dean of academic affairs at United Lutheran Seminary in North Carolina; and the Rev. Andrea C. White, associate professor of theology and culture at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

The “Souls to the Polls” initiative is being led by the Harris campaign’s National Advisory Board of Black Faith Leaders, which has served as a sounding board for the vice president and an organizing force in various cities where members have influence.

Reached by phone Saturday after landing in Michigan, Bishop Leah Daughtry, a member of the advisory board, said faith leaders are fanned out across the country making the case for the Democratic nominee.

Harris’ faith “undergirds all of her policy initiatives,” Daughtry said.

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