The 2023/24 Serie A campaign dawned with Milan looking to quickly turn the page on a 2022/23 season that resulted in a disappointing 4th-place finish which felt a million kilometers distant from both the top of the league (20 points behind Napoli) and the previous season's scudetto. Could Stefano Pioli recapture the magic of that 19th Italian championship without the presence of club talismani Paolo Maldini and Zlatan Ibrahimovic? Would a complete revamping of the side's engine room through the transfer signings of the Americans Christian Pulisic and Yunus Musah, Dutchman Tijjani Reijnders and Englishman Ruben Loftus-Cheek revitalize an attack that had suffered from a post-scudetto slump?
Serie A exhibition - 2023-24 Milan-Lecce
For my first game of Inside The Net Soccer, I took a trip to the San Siro to replay (using as-played lineups, cards & dice) the 6 April 2024 match between the Rossoneri and Lecce. In real life, Milan won 3:0 behind goals from Christian Pulisic, Olivier Giroud and Rafael Leao. On the tabletop, Milan won 3:0 on the strength of Giroud's hat trick - he pounced on the ball during a goalmouth scramble to poke it home at 33', took a beautiful through ball from Hernandez and slotted it past Wladimiro Falcone at 39', and tucked away Hernandez's cross at 53'. While Lecce created some chances, they struggled to get the ball out of their own half and through Milan's five-man midfield for long stretches. I only kept the basic stats, but they are a near-perfect match for the numbers from the real-life match (in parens below). After about the first 15' of game time, I started to get the hang of it and played the second half in something around 30-45 minutes, which is really promising for a first go-round, and found it to be a really fun and engaging simulation of football.
1919 AL - Games of Thursday, 11 September
Red Sox 10, Browns 9: In one of the most improbable comebacks in big-league history, Boston scored seven times in the bottom of the 9th inning (without making a single out) to commit grand larceny in broad daylight, in front of 2200 witnesses. St. Louis had built a 5-3 lead through seven innings, on the strength of a four-run 5th, and then appeared to have blown the game wide open with another four runs in the 8th that were aided and abetted by three free passes from Sam Jones (11-15). Rolla Mapel took the mound in the bottom of the 9th having held the Sox to a single earned run, but was likely feeling the strain of the effort having had only made two previous starts this season. When the first three BOS batters resulted in a hit batsman, two singles and a run, manager Jimmy Burke thought he saw the signs pretty clearly and waved in Rasty Wright to finish off the doubleheader sweep. But Wright (2-4) gave up singles to the first two men to face him, and then kicked a comebacker that loaded the bases with the tying runs, and the small Fenway crowd could smell the scent of crime in the air. Stuffy McInnis singled in one run, and Wright walked PH Wally Schang to force home another and it was suddenly a one-run game and Sunset Jimmy was forced to trudge to the mound again, looking for anyone who could record one out, much less the three required to finish the job. In came the usually reliable Bert Gallia, but the heist was well underway at this point - Red Shannon singled to tie the score, and blooped his second hit of the inning into shallow left field to score McInnis and the theft was complete with no sign of flatfoots or gumshoes to be found anywhere. Demmitt had three RBI, and there were a combined eight fielding errors which led to seven unearned runs. [box]
1983 Stanley Cup Finals - Game One
Carnage at the Northlands Coliseum in Game One of the 1983 Stanley Cup Finals! Edmonton pokes four holes in Billy Smith in the first twelve minutes, but the Isles claw their way back to a 4-4 tie midway through the second period. The teams trade goals three times from there, Bourne scoring with the goalie pulled to make it a 7-7 game with 1:33 remaining.
1919 AL - Games of Wednesday, 10 September
Athletics 4, Tigers 3: The lead changed hands twice in the 9th inning, but Philadelphia had the last laugh as Al Wingo singled home George Burns in the home half of the inning to secure its second consecutive walk-off win over Detroit. The A's led 2-1 through eight innings, after Charlie High's solo homer in the 5th had taken the initiative back for PHA after Ty Cobb had singled, stolen second and third, and scored on Harry Heilmann's hit in the 4th. Dan Boone put on the first two Tigers in the 9th, but Walt Kinney retired the next two while allowing the tying run to score. After walking Cobb intentionally, Kinney (9-14) could not retire Bobby Veach, whose RBU single put Detroit in front by a run. Bernie Boland (17-9) came on in relief of Hooks Dauss to start the bottom of the 9th and got in immediate trouble - he walked Lena Styles to start the inning and then served up a game-tying three-bagger to pinch-hitter Burns. After High lined out sharply to third, Wingo administered the last rites to Detroit with a line-drive base hit to left. [box]
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