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The two most exciting words in sports are “Game Seven,” and last night’s World Series win by the Chicago Cubs lived up to that reputation and all the hype surrounding the Cubbies’ first championship in 108 years. But in terms of baseball esthetics, it wasn’t a “great” game. It was marred by sloppy defense, bad umpiring, questionable managing and tired pitching. The game also lacked drama for its entire midsection, as Chicago posted leads of 5-1 and 6-2 that seemed insurmountable. And ultimately, you’d like a Game 7 to come down to a face-off between one team’s best pitcher and the other’s best clutch hitter (I still think of 1962 when the Giants’ last two hitters against the Yankees were Willie Mays – hit – and Willie McCovey – line drive to second). Last night, the little-known and seldom-used Mike Montgomery was pitching to the 25th man on the Cleveland roster, Michael Martinez, who hit a dribbler to third. Adding to the anticlimax, Rajai Davis was trying to steal second on the pitch which, if Martinez had not swung, would have either produced a more dramatic ending or given the Indians a runner in scoring position. As it was, the only drama came from Kris Bryant’s slipping on the wet field as he threw to first, an appropriate p.s. to the sloppy play.
By sloppy play I’d point first to Javier Baez’s two errors at second for the Cubs and Davis’s allowing two Cub runs by failing to get set and make good throws on two fly balls to center. Addison Russell flubbed a ball at short and two Indians scored on a wild pitch that bounced off the catcher’s mask, one batter after they had advanced on the catcher’s throwing error.
The bad umpiring was epitomized by the out call at second when Baez obviously failed to catch the ball. This was reversed by instant replay (which saves us from the famous World Series gaffes of yesteryear but breaks the natural rhythm of the game. It’s also a bit jarring to see umpire John Hirshbeck raise his right arm so authoritatively after receiving word from New York that he blew the call), but there was nothing to do about the strike-three and ball-four calls that Sam Holbrook got wrong behind the plate. Both teams benefitted from the missed calls – which were not even borderline pitches, according to the FoxTrax box – although Bryant’s walk on a great 3-2 pitch by Andrew Miller in the 5th led directly to a run when he scored on Anthony Rizzo’s two-out single that followed.
Joe Maddon and Terry Francona had been hailed as co-geniuses through six games because of their adroit lineup changes and unorthodox use of their pitchers, but neither came out unscathed from Game 7. Maddon’s decision to remove starter Kyle Hendricks in the 5th was roundly second-guessed by every commentator – both at the time because he had been so effective and his only apparent sin was giving up his first walk of the night, and afterward because of the comparative ineffectiveness of everyone that followed. The second consensus flaw in Maddon’s strategy was his overuse of closer Aroldis Chapman, who did not need to have been used at all in Game 6 and because of overuse in Games 5, 6 and 7 was nowhere as overpowering as usual, giving up a booming double to Brandon Guyer and the game-tying home run to Davis. He brought in Jon Lester in mid-inning, despite his promise not to, and two runs resulted. The only Cubs pitcher not charged with a run was the aforesaid Montgomery, who recorded the first save of his career with two pitches to the aforesaid Martinez.
Francona fared no better. Undoubtedly because of prior usage, three of his four aces gave up multiple runs. I was sure before the game that Corey Kluber would not be asked to pitch beyond the 4th, regardless of his success, because he had pitched so much already – and the Cubs had seen him so much. Despite a relative lack of success – having given up three runs and struck out nobody, as opposed to eight strikeouts in three innings in his first Series start – Francona let Kluber start the 5th and the result was a homer by Baez, otherwise the worst Chicago hitter in the Series. The next home run was even more unexpected, coming off the bat of 39-year-old David Ross, in the game merely to catch Lester, and it came off Andrew Miller, also worn down, or exposed, by heavy use. It’s hard to second-guess Francona’s use of Bryan Shaw, who gave up the two 10th-inning runs, although the 17-minute rain delay in between his innings could have disrupted him and prompted a manager to bring in a fresh arm – if he had someone as good. Where Francona’s strategy more clearly backfired was his decision to give Anthony Rizzo an intentional walk: Rizzo ultimately scored the winning run.
So, if you compare 2016 with 1960, where the game goes back-and-forth and ends with a home run; or 1991, where Jack Morris wins a 1-0 game in ten innings (and pitches 23 innings with three runs allowed overall), this is not one of the all-time great Game Sevens. Still, it was pretty good and, when Rajai Davis took Chapman deep in the 8th to tie a seemingly lost game, it had all the excitement you could want.

“What was your bird of the day?,” asked someone staying at our lodge, which caught me up short but got me thinking. If I was in Panama not to tally the greatest number of species for a life list but for the birding experience, surely I could remember what sighting brought me the greatest pleasure of the day. Now that I am home, after seven full and three half-days of birding, I will try to use this template as an aide-memoire of the trip.

Day 1: We took a tour of Panama City and didn’t pay attention to birds until our lunch stop on Amador Island, looking over the Pacific. In the distance, amid the much larger pelicans, gulls and terns, were a half-dozen smaller, darker grey birds, gracefully keeping their own company: Black Terns.

Day 2: Our first afternoon tour at Canopy Lodge in Vallee was marred by our guide’s non-stop whistling, which failed to attract any birds but annoyed me so much I slid off on my own. As the group returned to the van and I lagged behind, I heard chipping from the shrubs along the road and eventually tracked it to a small, striking bird with a rufous cap and ear patch surrounding a white eye-line. Not only was the bird cute, it was easy to identify as a Rufous-capped Warbler. We would see it a lot during our stay, and the sight was always welcome.

Day 3: I spent this day around the Lodge. In the morning at a woodland spot where they dumped fruit rinds daily, I first spotted the Orange-billed Sparrow. In the afternoon at the same location, Karen from Denmark and I watched as the large Grey-necked Wood-Rail clumped into view. Both were surprising and distinctive.

Day 4: An all-day trip to the Caribbean Slope proved a slow morning, but when we stopped in a small town for our picnic lunch we looked down on a tree with red pear-like fruits and a mass of birds jumping between the ground, the tree and a fence at its base. I asked our guide, Danilo Jr., what are those smallish, bright-green birds with black smudges on their cheeks. Emerald Tanagers, almost the last of the 15 tanager species that brightened our trip at every turn.

Day 5: In the morning, a grey, rainy day, we hiked uphill through fields and woods, fighting for every bird. At one large expanse there was nothing to see, absolutely nothing, but then in plain view, in full song, appeared a single Wedge-tailed Grass-Finch. Nondescript in color, as the name “Grass-Finch”* implies, it had a long pointed tail, the length of its body, and it gave us front and back views for as long as we wanted to watch. In the afternoon we were led to the scouted location of a Spectacled Owl. While I normally don’t like being spoon-fed, I would otherwise never see owls, and this fellow, with his rich cream breast and distinguished white spectacles, was one of the more majestic birds I have ever seen.

Day 6. Our second all-day tour was to the “Lowlands,” near the Pacific Coast. My favorite bird of the morning was the Rusty-margined Flycatcher, not because of any inherent qualities of the bird but because I labored so hard to identify it on my own. It is the spitting image of the more common Social Flycatcher: the latter shows faint traces of wingbars, while the former has no wingbars and a faint rust color on its secondary wing feathers (the “margin” of its name). After working so hard, I felt proprietary about the bird for the rest of the trip. For our lunch stop, we descended on the beach house of Snr. Raul, the Canopy owner. Amid a large group of Sandwich Terns stood a single Elegant Tern, a “rare migrant” that our guides did not expect to see. It recalled to me the many hours I’ve spent on Sands Beach in Santa Barbara, learning to distinguish Elegants from Royal Terns, and to clinch the identification there was also a single, much larger and thicker-billed Royal Tern standing nearby.

Day 7. Before leaving Canopy Lodge I got one more good look at the Bay Wren. It was the loudest singer for our whole visit, and while it would more often be hidden than visible it eventually became a common sight. Its sharply contrasting black-and-white face and bright rusty body was quite a departure from the wrens of North America. In the afternoon, on our first tour from Canopy Tower, we had a similar experience laboring to locate a calling White-throated Crake in a bed of water hyacinth – only to see it parading openly on a limb two days later.

Day 8. In the morning we walked down Semaphore Hill from the Tower, picking birds here and there from the forest around us and the canopy above. As we waited at the bridge for the van to pick us up for lunch, I found our Holy Grail, the Red-capped Manakin, sensational in its smallness and simplicity. Until that point, the Crimson-crested Woodpecker was the star. Our afternoon on the grounds of Gamboa Resort with guide Michael was somewhat desultory, enlivened by the surprising, brief, consecutive appearances of a Cinnamon Becard and a White-winged Becard; so I will here acknowledge the one good look we took of the White-throated Ibis, never before recorded in Panama but for more than a week camped out on the mudflat below the rattly bridge crossing the Chagres River.

Day 9. Gary and I asked to spend two mornings on Pipeline Road, the most famous birding spot in Panama, and we asked to start at the “far” end – actually only the far end of the road cleared for birding. What we got was a lot of dense second-growth forest, with few birds and those hard to see. Perhaps, however, it was worth it for the extended look we had of the Streak-chested Antpitta, strutting and puffing on the forest floor, carrying itself like a baby Snowy Plover. In the afternoon, in compensation, we hit a gold mine of a tree in the parking lot below Summit Pond – with species after species landing on its leafless branches. There was a surprising delegation from North America of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, warblers and a rare Painted Bunting (with colors more at home here than in Georgia), but I was most struck by a Purple-crowned Fairy, the largest, purest and most elegant of the eight hummingbirds we saw this day.

Day 10. Our second morning on Pipeline Road was more productive, largely because we worked its start, which was more open (if more crowded). Whereas most of the other birds I’ve cited so far are ones I located by myself – which adds to the pleasure I take – it was next to impossible to find the secretive, dull-colored species that populate the Panamanian forest. Here our guide, who could recognize the quietest sound and know where to look, was essential. Amid the various antshrikes, antpittas, antthrushes, antvireos, antbirds and antwrens (not that I saw examples of each), my favorite encounter was with a family of Song Wrens, patrolling the forest floor, tossing leaves that dwarfed their bodies, with a bright chestnut throat that jumped out when you could see them. Our last afternoon we went back to Gamboa Resort and hung out at the marina, where we added waterbirds to our list: Limpkin, Purple Gallinule, Black-bellied Whistling Duck. Oddly, however, the last bird we spotted and my favorite was a land bird, the Streaked Flycatcher. Although they went by different names – tyrants, tyrannulets, eleanias, flatbills, pewees, etc. – there were 34 flycatchers on my trip list before I saw one that had a streaked breast. And after all the colorful birds, it was a different kind of pleasure to soak in the subtle browns and rusts on its wings and back. It sat on a low limb, undisturbed, while we took turns at the scope, although it wasn’t far away. Upon counting, it proved to be bird number 270, ending our day, as so often happens in birding, on a high note.

*The bird names we encountered were a frequent source of amusement, if not confusion. To find a bird in the field guide index, it wasn’t enough to hear that it was a “finch” you were seeing, for the bird could as easily be alphabetized under “grass-finch” or “seed-finch.” A flycatcher would not be found under “F” if it were a “tody-flycatcher” or a “scrub-flycatcher.” A hummingbird was rarely called “hummingbird”; instead it was a “jacobin,” “coquette,” “woodnymph,” “mango,” “hermit,” “plumeleteer,” “fairy,” “starthroat” or “thorntail” – and those are just the ones we actually saw. Fortunately, since the guidebook’s publication, the Western Slaty-Antshrike that we frequently encountered and that the Smithsonian is studying on Pipeline has undergone a name change to Black-crowned Antshrike, meaning that in future editions it will be found under “A,” with the other antshrikes, instead of “S.”

The Adrian Peterson case has been bungled on every side. For Peterson, hiring a famous and feisty defense lawyer is a mistake. His is not a case you want to fight, nor do you want to attract any more attention than necessary. He is not, like Roger Clemens, denying he did it; nor is he realistically facing jail time. Say you made a mistake, throw yourself on the mercy of the prosecutor and court, who have no grudge against a local football hero, and negotiate the best plea bargain you can. If you’re humble about it and accept your punishment, you have a chance of rehabilitating yourself in many, not all, people’s eyes. It’s also the quickest way to get back on the football field. Waiting for the “legal process” to resolve the case is a recipe for a slow death.

The Vikings are up there with AD when it comes to bungling. Suspending Peterson for the game the day after the indictment was the right call, and an easy one. How they came to reinstate him two days later is unfathomable. When they did suspend him again the next day it no longer had the sense of being right in any moral sense because it appeared to be a reaction to the unanimous protests from the sponsors, press, public and politicians.

Roger Goodell and the NFL round out the triangle of bunglers. Goodell was already in an untenable position as a result of his mishandling of the Ray Rice fiasco and the glaring inconsistencies in his treatment of player misconduct. He suspended Rice indefinitely for the same conduct he had previously suspended him only two games for, and Rice was facing no criminal charges. At the same time, he has taken no action against the Panthers’ Greg Hardy, who was not only indicted, but convicted, of domestic violence. Nor had he set up a system of standards for these issues, preferring instead to make himself judge and jury. The NFL would do itself a favor if it left Goodell take early retirement.

What should happen to Peterson? There should be punishment, but it should fit the crime. Whipping your child is bad, but it doesn’t disqualify you from ever playing football again. Without excusing Peterson, there is a strong element of cultural ignorance in his conduct, not malice. I have no reason to doubt the many voices from the South, especially among African-American athletes, who testify to having been beaten by their parents. Peterson was, at best, an absentee father, which no doubt contributed to his ignorance. If he was suspended for, say, six games, the NFL would have made its point – that’s enough to disrupt the Vikings’ season – and Peterson would surely have learned from his mistake. Our society believes in reinstating wrongdoers after they “pay their debt,” and this situation surely fits that bill.

There is one more factor that I briefly alluded to above that causes me to wonder. Peterson was not married to this boy’s mother. In fact, we are told, Peterson has fathered six children by different women, none his wife (although he did get married, I presume to one of them, earlier this year). Isn’t this an equal cause for opprobrium?, yet no one seems to be condemning Peterson on these grounds. Is this our implicitly racist view that these things will happen in the black community? We saw some of the same in the case of Magic Johnson, where any criticism of his sleeping with other women while married was drowned out by sympathy for AIDS interrupting his basketball career. If the NFL is intent on enforcing the moral qualities of its employees, shouldn’t it frown on sexual promiscuity with consequences along with domestic violence and dogfighting?