SPORTS: A Season Ending With a Whimper, not a Roar; Jones Stays; Training Camps; and Newgarden stars hot.  And a teenage sensation. 

by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS, JONES)—Chris Jones has said all along, even during last year’s holdout, that he wanted to retire a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. Just two days before the beginning of the free agent scramble, it became more possible with Jones signing a five-year extension, front-loaded for the first three years to the tune of $95 million, guaranteed. His agents say he’ll be the highest-paid defensive tackle in NFL history. The total package is expected to be worth $160 million.
Jones is a five-time Pro Bowl player and a two-time all=pro. He has 75.5 sacks in his eight-year career, and earned an extra million dollars by racking up 10.5 of them last season despite missing the season opener.

(CHIEFS, AMPUTATIONS)—The coldest game in Arrowhead Stadium history is proving tragically costly for some of the fans who were there. Kansas City’s Research Medical Center says some of those fans have undergone amputations of fingers and toes because they suffered frostbite. Hospital officials say the number is likely to increase in the next month as “injuries evolve.”
Whether the Chiefs bear any legal lability for holding the game despite warnings the windchill would be in the minus-20 range is not known.

(CHIEFS—BURNER)—One of the things the Chiefs did NOT have last season was a receiver fast enough to blow past the defense, as Tyreek Hill did for the before going to Miami. Texas wide receiver Xavier Worthy raised Patrick Machomes’ eyebrows last week at the Scouting Combine when he ran a record 4.21 forty-yard dash.
Mahomes is one of a handful of NFL quarterbacks who send him congratulations. And Worthy says he’d love to go to the Chiefs. It’s been reported that he pushed the Chiefs last year to pick Rashee Rice in the second round. A big question, however, is whether he will still be available when the Chiefs get to choose.
The Chiefs, at this point, have seven picks in this year’s draft.

Let’s shift from the boys of winter to the boys of spring:

(CARINALS)—Injury updates:
Pitcher Sonny Gray has done some long-tossing (120 feed) and is doing agility drills and could start throwing bullpen sessions this week if his recovery from a hamstring injury continues. Whether he’ll be the starter in the season opener in a couple of weeks will be determined later.
Looking doubtful for the season opener is Lars Nootbar, who has four broken ribs. The team will closely watch him for the next couple of weeks. He is able to do minimal work.
Whether Tommy Edman will be recovered enough from off=season wrist surgery also is up in the air. If he isn’t, look for rookie Victor Scott II to come north with the team.

(ROYALS)—Salvador Perez appears likely to see more action at first base this year. He made his first start at first during the weekend. He says he still loves catching, “but I try to play first base to help my team (field) the best lineiup we can get that day.”
The opportunity to play first opened up last year when Vinnie Pasquintio wen on the DL for surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder. Perez started 21 games at first base last year/
Veteran reliever Tyler Duffey, who is a non-roster signee during the winter, has revealed that he had a cancerous mole removed from his left shoulder last week. He says all testing since then has come back negative. He threw a scoreless inning against the Cubs before having the surgery. He’s been cleared for light baseball activities for almost a week.
Former Royals pitcher Brad keller has signed a deal with the White Sox. He was on the IL for most of last year with a shoulder impingement. He’s back on the shelf because he’s showing “symptoms associated with thoracic outlet syndrome,”

(miz)—Tomorrow night could be it for this year’s Missouri Tiger men’s basketball team. They meet Georgia in the first round of the SEC tournament and the betting is that they’ll finish the season with their 19th loss in a row and their 24th loss of the year.
Missouri’s last regular-season game againt LSU was symbolic of the frustrating year Mizzou has had. The tigers led 35-29 at the half and led 45-41 with 14:26 to go in the game. But in the next ten minutes, LSU ran past Missouri to take a 21-point lead, fueled by a 14-0 run, another typical feature of a Tigers game this year.
The Tigers stormed backto within a shot of tying the game but again, couldn’t get stops and lost a game 84-80.
Missouri has gone winless in conference play for the first time since 1908 when they were 0-5 in the Missouri Valley Conference. They were 8-10 overall that year.
Eleven of Missouri’s 18 conference losses were by sindle digits. In each of those games, the Tigers went several minutes without scoring while the opponent took the lead or built a lead that Missouri could not overcome when it woke up.
One of those single-digit losses was to Georgia. The Bulldogs started the losing streak with a 75-68 win.
In truth, not much was expected of Missouri this year in the conference—although it was more than we got. The pre-season polling predicted the Tigers would finish ninth. No Missouri players were listed as pre-season all-conference players on the first or the second teams.
Missouri, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas were the only teams to finish the regular season scoring fewer points that their opponents.
No Missouri player was the SEC player of any week this year. Sean East finished with the fifth highest scoring average in the conference, 17.3 and had the second-best field goal percentage. He also ranked third in minutes played—No Missouri player finished in the top 20 in rebounds. He also was third in most minutes played per game: 32.57.
Missouri finished last in offensive rebounds, 34.08. Florida led the league with 45.38. The Tigers were 13th in defensive rebounds. A team with three 7-footers finished last in the league in total rebounds.

(MIZ)—The football team, in spring practice, got some good news with the signing of a veteran quarterback to back up—and, perhaps, push—Brady Cook. Missouri will be the third stop for Drew Pyne, who is 8-3 in his starts at Notre Dame and at Arizona State. He won eight of his ten starts at Notre Dame when he threw for 2,032 yards, with 22 TDs and eight interceptions. Should he decide to stick around at Missouri he’ll have three years of eligibility and could challenge Sam Horn, who was presumed to be the QB-in-waiting until he tore up his pitching arm and had Tommy John surgery. He is not expected back next season. (ZOU)

Speeding right along—

(INDYCAR)—-IndyCar open its 2024 season with Josef Newgarden dominating the field on the streets of St. Petersburg, finish eight tens of a second ahead of Pato O’Ward, Scott McLaughlin, and Will Power. Power, McLaughlin, and Newgarden are teammaes with Penske racing, giving that operation three of the top four finishing positions to start the year.
The only time Newgarden gave up the lead was when he made pit stops.

He started from the pole and led 92 of the 100 laps. The win is his 30th, breaking a tie with former Penske driver Rick Mears for 13th on the all-time IndyCar wins list. IndyCar has its all-star race in two weeks. The $1 Million Challenge at The Thermal Club will be the the next action for these teams. Their next points-paying race will be on the streets of Long Beach on April 23.
The Thermal Club is an exclusive racing-oriented private club in California. The exclusive club requires purchase one of the 70 luxury villas (minimum cost, about $2.3 million) overlooking he circuit. There is a $!75,000 initiation fee.
(

NASCAR)—Christopher Bell, who saw his chances for a Cup championship disappear at Phoenix Raceway lasta fall, locked himself in to one of next fall’s playoff spots with a win in the desert.
Bell roared back from 20th place on the last restart forty-six laps from the end, to take the lead when Martin Truex had to pit for tires on lap 240 of the 267-lap race. Tyler Reddick finished second, four-tenths of a second back, with defending Cup champion Ryan Blaney third and Ross Chastain rounding out the top five.

(FORMULA 1) Max Verstappen won his ninth race in a row, the Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia. But the attention was focused on teenaged British driver Ollie Bearman, who finished seventh, one spot ahead of sevent-time F1 Champion Lewis Hamilton.
Bearman, a Formula 2 driver who climbed into Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari when Sainz became ill, was two months short of his 19th birthday, is now the youngest British driver to start an F1 race. He’s the first Englishman to race in Formula 1 for Ferrari in 34 years.
Verstappen has now won 19 of the last 20 Grands Prix.

 

SPORTS: A Look at the New Arrowhead; Tigers Eye Unwanted Record; Baseball, Hockey, and the Future of an Indy Car

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(STADIA)—The decision on whether Jackson Countians will support a new baseball stadium for the Kansas City Royals and a massive overhaul of Arrowhead Stadium is less than a month away. The decision could affect the futures of the two teams in the Kansas City metro area.

Construction of the new baseball stadium downtown and the subsequent destruction of Kauffman stadium will clear a lot of land for the Chiefs to re-develop around a 21st century Arrowhead Stadium.

The Chiefs have released a video of the redesigned Arrowhead area. Here are some screenshots:

And there will be new sideline and end zone suites—

Estimated cost of the improvements: $800 million.  The team-owning Hunt family says it will kick in $300 million with proceeds from the forty-year continuation of the present 3.8-percent sales tax raising the rest. Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt says the team won’t sign a new 25-year lease on the stadium without the funding to re-invent Arrowhead, which is now 55 years old.

The Royals’ new stadium and the baseball business complex around it is estimated to cost $200-milllion.

(miz)—The Missouri Tigers continue slouching toward the end of their season with only two more chances to get a conference win.  Their loss to Ole Miss on Saturday makes them the first SEC team to lock down its seeding in the post-season tournament.  Missouri is guaranteed the last-place seed.  They’ll play their final home game of the year tonight against Auburn and finish up the regular season next Saturday against LSU.

Ole Miss was just the same song, sixteenth straight verse. In this case, they let the game get away from them when Mississippi went on a 22-3 run in the first half, and not even a 52-point second half could overcome the usual cold first-half spell that has typified this season.  Missouri has lost 16 in a row.  The Tigers are now 8-21, the seventh team in school history to lose twenty or more games, tied for the third-most losses in MU history. If they lose their two remaining regular conference games and a tournament game, they’ll set a new school record with 24 losses.  The present record, 23, was set in the 2014-15 season and died in the 2016-17 season. (zoo)

(CARDINALS)—Uh Oh…..

The first significant possible hiccup in the Cardinals plans to bounce back from their terrible 2022 season has hit.  Sonny Gray, penciled-in as the opening day starter, left his second outing of the spring early yesterday with an apparent hamstring injury.  He was scheduled to go three innings but left, with a trainer, four outs early. He’ll be evaluated day to day. In his inning and two-thirds yesterday, he gave up one hit, and had oen strikeout but had faced only the minimum of five batters. .

Everybody’s in the house for the Cardinals.  All forty players on the major league roster are under contract, including those with less than three years of service who are not eligible for arbitration. Saturday was the deadline for all players with less than three years of service to agree to deals for 2024. If they had not, the team would set the salary.  The team announced on Saturday that the remaining 22 players had agreed for this year.

(ROYALS)—Former Royals shortstop UL Washington died yesterday. He was 70.  He was with the Royals for eight seasons.  UL wasn’t an abreviation for anything. It was his name. You-ell.

We’ll always remember him because of his toothpick. Others recall him the same way, the player who made it okay to play with a toothpick in his mouth.

Back when the Royals had an academy to develop players, he was the third graduate to make the team (the most famous being Frank White, then Ron Washington, not related to You-ell).

Team historian Bradford Lee says UL and Frank White became the first all-African-American double play combination in American League history.

He was traded to Montreal after the 1984 season so he missed getting the Royal’s first World Series Ring but he was a key player on the Royals first American League pennant-winning season in 1980. He finished his 11-year major league career three years later.

(BLUES)—Crunch time is here for any hopes the St. Louis Blues have of making the National Hockey League Playoff. They start the week in fifth place in their division with a lot of ground to make u to get to fourth.  The Blues have not missed the playoffs two years in a row since 2008. They’ve been in the playoffs ten time in the last dozen years and have missed them only ten times since their debut season of 1967.

The Motorsports—

(INDYCAR)—We might be seeing a redesigned IndyCar in about three years. It will replace the current Dallara DW12 chassis that will have served  the series for fifteen years by then. Mark Miles, the CEO of Penske Entertainment that owns the series, has told Indianapolis reporters a decision about going ahead could come relatively soon.

It would be powered by a second-generatin hybrid powerplant that is to make its debut later this year. Miles hopes the change will help recruit another engine manufacturer who will join Chevrolet and Honda.

(NASCAR)—Kyle Larson outran Tyler Reddick in the closing laps to pick up the win at Las Vegas.

It was his 24th career win and his third in Vegas. He dominated the race statistically but had to hold off Reddick for the last 27 laps after a restart. Reddick got to within a tenth of a second but Larson beat him to the finish line by a car length.

Ryan Blaney was third with Ross Chastain completing a spirited drive from the back of the field coming home fourth.  He had to start from the rear because part of the wrap—the big sponsor decal that covers the car—had come loose wand had to be replaced.  He also ncurred a speeding penalty on pit road.

Larson is the third different driver to win the first three races of the year. But Chevrolet is the only manufacturer to be in victory lane so far this season.

(FORMULA 1)—This season has started much as 2023 ended, with Max Verstappen dominating the field at the Bahrain GP.  Teammate Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz were more than twenty seconds back.

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(Photo credits: Kansas City Chiefs, Bravestarr Cards; Bob Priddy (Brickyard, 2023)

For Everything There is a Season; Who’s the “Greatest?”

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

One Historic season is winding down. A new season is beginning. And a third season is on the way. And, man oh man, was that a race in Atlanta!

(miz)—Fourteen in a row. A new record for consecutive losses in a basketball program that is more than 115 years old.  And it’s a familiar tale. Things fall apart down the stretch.  Missouri had Arkansas tied at 50-50 about halfway through the second half and took a 52-50 lead with 9:3 left. But they didn’t hit a field goal for six minutes while the Razorbacks pulled away. Final score, despite Sean East’s career high 33 points: Arkansas 88  Missouri 73.

The Tigers went through a first-half scoring drought, too—not hitting a field goal in the firsts five minutes of the game.

Four games are left. They’ll be on the road again Wednesday against Number 24 Florida.

—But they’re playing baseball in Florida and Arizona!!!

(CARDINALS)—Cardinals lost to Marlins 9-8 in opening game of Grapefruit League. Good first outings. though, for relievers Ryan Helsley and JoJo Romero. Helsley threw 18 pitches, gave up a double and a single then got a third strike looking, a force out at second and then a three-pitch swinging strikeout. His fastball averaged 96.2, topped out at 98.3

Romero had a 26-pitch scoreless inning and his go-to slider looked good.

A couple of rookies showed well with Victor Scott II singled then reached beat a potential double-play ball to second, took third on a balk and then outran a ground ball to third and a throw home and when the throw rolled away from the catcher, the runner behind him also scored.

The Redbirds shut down the Houston Astros on four hits Sunday. Drew Rom threw two scoreless innings to start and allowed only one runner. Gordon Graceffo, Connor Thomas, and Tink Hence also went two scoreless innings.  Masyn Winn, making his first start, led off the game with a single, then singled against in the third and doubled in the fifth before going to the showers.

The Cardinals and the Marlins played to a 1-1 tie on Monday. Pitching again looked strong as he Marlins had only three hits. Sem Robberse was impressive in his first start—one hit, two innings.

New Redbird Sonny Gray will make his spring training debut today with Miles Mikolas making is first one tomorrow. Kyle Gibson, another off-season free agent, goes to the mound Thursday.

As we were going to press this week, Katie Woo with The Athletic reported that the Cardinals were adding Brandon Crawford to the team. Crawford, 37, is a three-time All-Star shortstop who has spent his thirteen-year career with the Giants, with whom he has won two World Series rings and four Gold Gloves. He hit only .194 last year but he’s a double backup because it’s not known when utility man Tommy Edman can return after his October wrist surgery.  Manager Oliver Marmol reported yesterday that Edman is hitting off a tee and with soft tosses from coaches. He’s farther along in his recovery from the right side than the left (he’s a switch-hitter).

(ROYALS)—The Royals split their first two games in the Cactus League, falling to the Rangers 5-4 on Saturday then shutting out the Angels on Sunday 1-0.

Vinnie Pasquantino played his first game since his shoulder surgery last June, went 0-3 but made pretty good contact. He hit a one-hopper to first base hisfirst time up, popped up the second time, then hit a long fly to right that came down just short of the fence. He played five solid innings in the field.

Also making a return was starter Daniel Lynch IV, who got in one scorless inning in his first start since last July when he developed shoulder problems. He’ll be working up during spring training to be part of the starting rotation. He was throwing 91=92 mph and hopes to pick that up as the training season progresses.

Seven pitchers held the Cubs to just six hits in a 6-0 shutout win yesterday. Off-season veteran pickup Seth Lugo went two innings working on his new cutter, threw 19 strikes in his 27 pitches, gave up a hit, got a strikeout and hit a batter.

Another off-season veteran pickup, former Cardinals starter Michael Wacha, gets his first start of the spring today against the Padres.

(Football)—The St. Louis Battlehawks have quarterback A. J. McCarron back in the fold.  He led the team last season then signed with the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL as a backup quarterback for the NFL season and is completing his year-around career by returning to St. Louis for the first season of the United Football League.

He got into four games for the Bengals in the most recent season, was 4 fo 5 passing for 19 yards. He says he’s back because his son wondered why he was at home instead of playing football.

He got into four games for the Bengals in the most recent season, was 4 fo 5 passing for 19 yards. He says he’s back because his son wondered why he was at home instead of playing football.

He started nine games for the Battlehawks last year in the now-defunct XFL, setting a league record with 24 touchdown passes and completing almost 70% of all of his throws. He was on the active roster for the Bengals for the last six weeks of sthe season.

The Battlehawks and the other seven teams of the UFL started their joint training camp in Arlington, Texas on Sunday. The first weekend of the ten-week schedule is March 30.

Now, the wheeled sports.

(THE GREATEST)—-Broadcaster Sid Collins, the long-time voice of the Indianapolis 500, spoke the words into a microphone for the first time during the 1955 race broadcast: “Stay Tuned for the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

(It was the first 500 broadcast I can remember hearing—but any recollection of hearing the phrase is overshadowed because I remember Sid’s announcement of the death of Bill Vukovich in a backstretch crash as he tried to win his third straight 500.)

Announcers on the radio broadcast of the 500 have used it as the cue for a commercial break from that day to this. And the phrase, originally created by copywriter Alice Greene at WIBC Radio, the anchor station of the annual broadcast.  It was trademarked in 1986 by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The phrase has gone far beyond the radio broadcast. It has become the motto of the 500. And it has become a major point of conflict in the world of big-time auto racing.

But, of late, several others have been throwing the phrase around and the Speedway is rightfully and royally agitated about it. Speedway President Doug Boles has told Motorsport.com, “We…are prepared to take every measure possible to rotect our brand’s intellectual property. It continues to be disappointing that others can’t create their own brand identity without infringing upon ours.”

One of he biggest offenders has been Formula 1 and its owner, Liberty Media.  Liberty started promoting last year’s Las Vegas Race as “the greatest racing spectacle on the planet.”  Liberty piled on by calling Las Vegas “the sports and entertainment capital of the world,” which is uncomfortably close to another Speedway trademark as “The Racing Capital of the World.” Boles reported after talking to F1 management that they “got it” and “couldn’t have been more gracious.”

But it appears Liberty didn’t really mean it.  During pre-race ceremonies staged by Liberty at the Miami Grand Prix, rapper LL Cool J, in scripted remarks, called that race “the greatest spectacle in motorsports,”  a phrase ESPN used in a commercial promoting its F1 coverage this year..

NASCAR, in one of its promotions for its 2024 season opening Daytona 500 called it “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” ignoring the traditional description for that race coined by its broadcasting legend, Ken Squier, who began calling the Daytona 500 “The Great American Race” after watching a “dinger” of a race in Australia and on the way home thinking Daytona was a great AMERICAN race.  NASCAR quickly removed the offending phrase from a social media post before IMS called it out.

The phrase is sacred to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway owners—and the fans of the 500, a race that abounds with traditions and history, an institution to generations.  Beyond that, in the gritty world of big business, it’s a phrase that is part of the identity of a multi-billion dollar institution and racing empire.

And the Speedway has let it be known it’s not going to stand for this mis-appropriation of its brand. Boles recently told the Indianapolis Star, “You have to enforce it every single time.” He stopped short of telling the newspaper that IMS will send Libery a cease-and-desist letter but it’s clear he’s close to his limit. “We will once again address it with the appropriate people and are prepared to take every measure possible to protect our brand’s intellectual property. It continues to be disappointing that others can’t create their own brand identify without infringing upon ours.”

A word about Doug Boles, as we lapse into commentary and beyond reporting, which is not altogether comfortable for us. In our many years around motorsports, we have never seen another top official of any series out mixing with the fans as Doug Boles does.  When there are hundreds of thousands of fans dressed in everything from as little as possible to outlandish outfits that commemorate the race, it’s not unusual to see a guy in a light blue suit with tie tied all the way up, circulating through the crowd, talking to the folks. He’s the face of IMS.  Roger Penske might own it, but Doug Boles is the place’s personification.  And you never know where you’ll see him just being part of the crowd, although the best dressed one by far.

(NASCAR)—Now that’s racin!

Four-hundred miles on the high banks at Atlanta. Forty-eight lead changes among fourteen drivers. Cars going into corners four-wide.  Ten yellow flags that left only a handful of cars that finished the race without body damage. The top three cars finish within 0.007 seconds of one another.

Daniel Suarez wins by .003 over Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch.  It’s Suarez’s first win since June of 2022 on the Sonoma road course, his second in his career. He came back from being involved in a 16-car mashup on the second lap that left him with hood damage. But his crew made the fix and kept him in contention.

The win is his second in 253 races.  He’s the only Mexican-born driver to win a Cup race in NASCAR’s 75-year history.

Some of his friends suggested he can relax now that he is the second driver to qualify for the playoffs.  “Hell, no,” he said in a post-race news conference. “My goal is not to win one race…This is not relaxing here. This is only the beginning. We have to continue to work, to continue to build.  There are a few things we could have done better today…I’m happy that we are secure in the playoffs but to be able to win the championship, you won’t do it winning one or two races. You have to win at least a handful of races to create points.”  He told reporters, “The goal for me is for you guys not to be surprised the 99 (his car number) is in victory lane.”

(Photo Credits: Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum; Bob Priddy (Boles and Suarez) NASCAR finish: Alex Slitz, Getty Images)

Sports: A Surprise Exit; A spoiled celebration; A new stadium; playing with pain; 

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor

(Leaving)—ESPN reports Mizzou is losing athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois to the University of Arizona. Arizona is joining the Big 12. Its athletic department reportedly has been struggling financially.  Reed-Francois has been at Missouri for three years, has seen its fund-raising increase and has presided over development of coach Eliah Drinkwitz’s football team to national prominence and the hiring of basketball coach Dennis Gates.

Her departure might not be much of a surprise, given her track record of not staying very long at any school. Since moving into athletic department administration 24 years ago, she has worked at ten universities and now is moving to her eleventh.

Before coming to Missouri, Reed-Francois was at UNLV where, on April 30, 2021 she signed a four-year contract extension through 2026 with a salary raise to $420,000.  A little more than three months later, she bolted to Missouri and reportedly signed a six-year contract at $800,000. Mizzou paid $500,000 to buy out her UNLV contract.

Her contract at Arizona is for five years.

She was the first woman athletic director in the Southeastern Conference.

It’s kind of a homecoming for her. She graduated from the law school at Arizona.

The athletic department has named Marcy Girton as interim AD. She’s the senior associate athletic director for football and has more than thirty years experience in athletic department administration.  She once served as the COO of athletics at Auburn and again at South Carolina. She also was a football sport administrator at Texas A&M.

(More bad news)—Backup quarterback Sam Horn is going to miss all of the next football season. He’s had ligament surgery on his throwing arm. He’ll be out 12-15 months, putting him out of action for this year’s baseball season and at least part of next year’s baseball season and all of the Tiger Football season in 2024.

Missouri has another backup for Brady Cook in three-or-four-star recruit Aiden Glover who will join the team for the season this fall. He’s from Memphis, Tennessee.

(miz)—After going ohferJanuary, the Missouri Tigers are off to a good start of going oferFebruary.

They had a week to rest, recuperate, and regroup before taking on Ole Miss and it was same song 12th verse.  Missouri led by ten in the second half, 54-44 then, as usual, forgot how to hit a field goal. Mississippi went on a 15-4 run to take back the lead. Missouri closed to within a bucket in the closing minutes but had to foul to get the ball. Mississippi hit its free throws and Missouri headed home 0-12 in the conference and losers of 14 of the last 15.

Six games are left in the regular season before the SEC Tournament. (zou)

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(THE SHOOTING)—It is a fact of American life that if there is a large crowd, there will be people with guns. And there is always the danger somebody will find an excuse to shoot someone.  Two juveniles are in custody because they did just that during he Chiefs’ celebration of their Super Bowl win. One person was killed and 22 others were wounded and, as usual, there is no solution to such things with a political chance in Missouri.

The Chiefs players, friends, and team officials are raising money to help the victims. Travis Kelce and girlfriend Taylor Swift have donated $100,000 each to the fund. In her case, the money is earmarked for the family of Elizabeth Lopez-Galvan, the woman who was killed. His donation has gone to the Reyes family whose daughters, ten and eight years old, were wounded.

The Chiefs, the Hunt Foundation (the Hunts own the team) and the NFL have contributed $200,000 to a fund for the wounded. Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany, also announced that they were contributing to the fund.

(CHIEFS)—Side stories continue to dribble out from the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win as the team looks at who should come back for a possible three-peat and who might have to go because of salary cap limitations.

One of the unrestricted free agents is guard Nick Allegretti, a seventh round pick in the 2019 draft. He has three Super Bowl rings, none tougher to win that the latest one when he had to fill in for starter Joe Thuney and who tore is ulnar collateral ligament (elbow) in the second quarter but playd all 79 snaps. Parick Mahomes called him, “the beast.”

As far as who is NOT going: Travis Kelce. At least, not until coach Andy Reid decides is time for him to call it a career. Kelce and Reid started together with the Chiefs.  Reid is 65. Kelce is 34. Both have denied plans to leave this year. On his podcast last week, Kelce said, “I’m not playing for anyone else but Big Red. If he calls it quits, I’m out of there with him. He’s not, though.” Kelce missed a couple of games this year and still finished only 13 yards short of 1,000.

His backup this year was Noah Grey, who is two inches shorter and only ten pounds lighter. He’s ten years younger, had 28 receptions for 305 yards and a couple of touchdowns.

(BASEBALL)—One thing the new major league ballpark things have in common, beginning with Baltimore’s new stadium in 1992.

A skyline.

The Kansas City Royals want one, too.  Two billion dollars worth bounded by Grand Boulevard, Locust Street, Truman Road and 17th Street, for those familiar with Kansas City. Royals owner John Sherman  says it fits right into the culture. “The arts, the music, food and drink…I believe the timing is right for the Royals to become residents of the Crossroads District,” he said, saying it would be part of a “Golden Era” for Kansas City.

The project will include a KC version of St. Louis’s Ballpark Village, a conference center, corporate offices, residential and hotel properties, and the team’s corporate offices. Whether it happens will depend on voter support of a 3/8-cent sales tax increase that goes to voters on April 1.

The Royals and Red Sox reportedly pulled off a trade just as sprng training started. The Royals add to their bullpen with John Schreiber while the Red Sox get minor league pitcher David Sandlin.  Schreiber is 29, a righty who made it to The Show in 2019 for one game. But he established his mound cred in 2022 with 64 appearances and a 0.985 WhIP  and a 2.22 ERA. Last year, he was n 46 games and had an ERA of 3.86.

The Royals are giving up Sandlin, who had injury problems last year but still got into 14 games and finished the year with 87 strikeouts and a 3.51 ERA.

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Enough of the stick and ball stuff for now. Here’s stuff about people who deal with things that are twice as fast as a 100 mph fastball:

NASCAR’s season always starts with its premier race, the Daytona 500.   IndyCar’s premier race is on Memorial Day Weekend.  Formula One’s premier race in terms of glamour and tradition is considered the Monaco Grand Prix, also held in May, although this year’s Grand Prix of Las Vegas is expected to be a huge spectacle.

(DAYTONA 500)—The Daytona 500’s history of unpredictable finishes shaped by late major crashes has been lived out again, with a historic twist.  William Byron and Alex Bowman celebrated the 40th anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports with a 1-2 finish, the first Daytona 500 victory for the sports’s winningest team since Dale Earnhardt Jr., led the field across the finish line in 2014.

Byron took the white flag as most of the rest of the field was crashing behind him, triggering a caution that froze the field. NASCAR had to review videos and timing-and-scoring data to determine the timing of the crash and the certainty that Byron had won. Byron’s victory came on the 40th anniversary, to the day, of the first win by HMS, a Daytona 500 victory by Jeff Bodine, one of six Hendrick Drivers to win NASCAR’s biggest race. It’s the ninth Daytona 500 championship, tying Petty Motorsports’ record.

(INDYCAR)—A major change in this year’s schedule—-

IndyCar has dropped a road race through the streets of Nashville as its concluding race this year and, instead, will finish the year on the oval in the nearby city of Lebanon.  The 1.33-mile track will give the series six oval races in the last eight races, undoubtedly pleasing series fans who think ovals are always better than street or road courses. It’s the first time IndyCar will finish the season on an oval since 2014.

One of the oval races late in the season will be at Worldwide Technology Raceway across the river from St. louis. Two others will be at the Iowa Speedway, another reasonable drive for IndyCar fans from Missouri.

Another is in Milwaukee, another daytrip for some Missourians.

And don’t forget the Indianapolis 500, easily worth a couple of nights in motels going to or coming from, if needed.

IndyCar starts on a street course March 10—St. Petersburg.

(FORMULA 1)—F1 opens at Bahrain next weekend.

 

The Fix Was Only Partly In 

It was all planned, wasn’t it?  Except it all fell apart.

The MAGA people in their tinfoil hats had predicted the Super Bowl would be rigged so the Chiefs would win—in fact, the playoffs—if not the whole season—had been rigged by he NFL so the Chiefs would win and then Travis Kelce and girlfriend Taylor Swift would announce their endorsement of President Biden during the halftime show.

We must have missed that announcement.  We were chowing down at a friend’s “Souper Bowl” party while Usher’s spectacular halftime show was under way. It’s probably all coach Andy Reid’s fault that he would not let Kelce leave the locker room while the Chiefs rehearsed the NFL and the Democratic National Committee’s plans for the Chiefs to win.

How clever of the Chiefs and the 49ers to heighten the drama by taking the game into overtime. But that was part of the plan, wasn’t it?  More commercials at $7 million for each thirty seconds.  And how much of that will secretly wind up in the Biden campaign account (that wasn’t part of any conspiracy theory that we heard before the game but it came to mind in the aftermath)?

And when Kelce and Swift met on the field afterwards, they appeared to get lost in their own hugging and kissing that they forgot about making the endorsement. Up to then, things were pretty good and then they forgot their lines and messed it all up.

Maybe it was because they engaged in alternate activity because they were afraid they would say something that would prove claims that she is some kind of a Pentagon asset, although the tin hat folks have not specifically defined what that asset might be. If she ever slips and introduces herself as “Swift, Taylor Swift,” we’ll all know.  So far she hasn’t let it slip, but in the exciement of the Super Bowl she might have done it, so that’s why the Pentagon probably ordere Kelce to plaster his lips to hers because it’s hard to give away high-security secrets when your lips are linked with someone else’s lips.

President Biden commented on X, “Just like we drew it up,” again showing his decline in mental acuity by forgetting they were supposed to endorse him or that the scheme was to be top secret.

Noted liberal mainstream media talking head Joe Scarbrough the next morning disguised the failure of Kelce and Swift to perform by focusing instead on “all the MAGA, ultra-MAGA freaks” and Biden’s comment being “him mocking the snowflakes.”

Biden, showing that he is more contemporary than many give him credit for being, used TikTok to stream a video showing him answering questions about the Super Bowl. He refused to acknowledge that the fix was in by refusing to pick a winner.

“I’d get in trouble if I told you,” he told an interviewer who succested there had been “deviously plotting” for the Chiefs to make the playoffs and then taking the Super Bowl.

Sorry, Joe B.  You can run but you can’t hide.  All right-thinking—or is it ultra-right thinking?—people know the truth.  Kelce and Swift dropped the ball.

One more thing:

President Biden declined to do a pre-game interview, something called “a traditional sit-down” by one news agcncy although it hasn’t been a “tradition” very long. And guess who volunteered to replace him?

Ah, it’s not that hard a question. Our ex-president “praised” the incumbent’s decision, diplomatically noting, “A great decision, he can’t put two sentences together. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO REPLACE HIM – would be “RATINGS GOLD!”

He seemed to have a different attitude when HE skipped the pre-game interview in 2018.

As far as Ms. Swift is concerned, our former president thinks she would be a traitor if she endorsed the current president.  He figures she owes him, big time because he signed the Music Modernization Act “for Taylor Swift and all other Musical Artists,” he put it on Truth(?) Social.

“I signed and was responsible for the Music Modernization Act for Taylor Swift and all other Musical Artists. Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will. There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money.”

“Was responsible for?”

He had nothing to do with the bill, officially called the “Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act,” which had gotten unanimous passing votes in both the Senate and the House. It is, to oversimplify things, a major update in copyright laws to deal with use of music on streaming services.

HE “made her so much money?” Last time we looked, that sure wasn’t Donald Trump dancing and singing  under the spotlights in various venues around the world.  It appears she is capable of making “so much money” on her own.

So he’s upset that this ungrateful superstar might think she has a much better person to endorse. Four years ago she ripped the then-president for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency.”

As a side note, has anyone compared the sizes of the audiences for her performances with the sizes of audience for HIS performances?

The former President about eight years ago professed to be a regular reader of Rolling Stone who likes Elton John, Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi. He “new Michael Jackson very well…I knew him better than almost anybody.”  Pavarotti was a “very dear friend.”  Not on his lis are the numerous artists who have asked him to stop using their music at his campaign rallies including The Rolling Stones. His favorite song? Peggy Lee’s “Is that all there is?” The lyrics are about a person disillusioned with life events.

But it’s not all bad with the former president. “I like her boyfriend, Travis, even though he may be a Liberal, and probably can’t stand me!” he said on his page.

Sorry, Donnie, that’s probably not enough to get you a seat in the Chiefs’ luxury box so Taylor can hug you in celebration of one of Travis’ great plays. And I don’t think Travis would want to hug you, either, despite your grudging admiration of him.

In keeping with the spirit of Tinfoil Hat Sports, Inc., we offer this conspiracy theory for the 2024-25 football season;

The NFL will restructure its schedule so the Super Bowl and inauguration day fall on the same day.  The inauguration will be moved from the Capitol to the halftime show in New Orleans. The Chiefs will survive a tough, but rigged, schedule and will be down by at least ten points at the half and Andy Reid will forget about taking the team to the locker room so Travis and Taylor can perform a poem they have written and set to music for the occasion before their choice for President takes his oath of office. The Vince Lombardi Trophy will be awarded to the Chiefs by the President at the end of his speech although the game is only half over, However it will continue as arranged to make sure all of the commercials are run and to formalize the pre-arranged result. There will not be an overtime because the inaugural ball will begin in a hail of confetti after the Chiefs pull out another close victory that beats the spread.

And eight Clydesdales will circle the stadium pulling a Bidenweiser beer wagon.

Bet the farm.  It’s already been arranged. You read it here first.

-0-

Sports: The real MVP of the Super Bowl; The Worst Conference Season in Mizzou history; THERE BE BASEBALL, and some other stuff 

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—Patrick Mahomes got his thrd Super Bowl MVP trophy Sunday night. But the most valuable player in the Chiefs win was Leo Chenal, a name seldom mentioned among all of the higher-profile names in the lineup.

Chenal, a linebacker, blocked the extra point that would have put the 49ers up by four points with 11:22 left in the fourth quarter, forcing the Chiefs to get a touchdown to win. Earlier in the game San Francisco kicker Jake Moody had kicked a Super Bowl-record 55 yard field goal. Afer the block it was was 16-13 and Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s 24-yard field goal tied the game with 5:46 left.

(Butker had broken Moody’s long field goal record near the end of the third quarter with a 57-yarder.

Moody put San Francisco on top with 1:53 remaining by becoming the first place kicker in Super bowl history to nail two field goals of 50-plus yards in the same game.

But giving the ball back to the Chiefs with two minutes left on the clock has been fatal to a lot of teams and the Chiefs did it again, tying the game with three seconds left in regulation on a 29-yarder by Butker.

But without that blocked PAT the Chiefs would have had to go for the touchdown, not settle for a field goal.

Moody’s field gial with 7:22 left in overtime again put San Francisco in the lead, 22-19. But Mahomes and the Chiefs went on their longest drive of the game when it counted—thirteen plays that lasted 7:19 before Mahomes threw a three-yard pass to Mecol Hardman with three seconds left in the ovetime period.

Chiefs win 25-22 because Leo Chenal blocked that PAT.

The Chiefs, who struggled during the regular season at times finished with three straight underdog wins. After the game, Mahomes told an interviewer, “Just know that the Kansas City Chiefs are never the underdog.”

(THE FUTURE)—Two names pop up in discussing the future for the Chiefs—Coach Andy Reid and Chris Jones.  Reid, who is now 65, said after the game that retirement is not on his horizon.  And Chris Jones, a holdout at the start of the year who played the season with an incentive-laden deal and hit his incentives, has been clear all along, says he has told the team Chairman Clark Hunt, “They’ve got to keep me here so we keep this thing going. We’ve got something special brewing here….We can continue to carry this thing, man.”  Even as a holdout he was saying he wanted to be a lifetime member of the team.  He’s 29 and wants to stay in Kansas City.

(mizz)—-The Missouri Tigers continue their worst conference season start ever with two more losses, both with leading scorer Sean East on bench with an injury. Neither loss was close.

Missouri had back-to-back seasons under Coach Bob Vanatta in 1965-66 and in 66-67 when hey went 6-43 overall, 3-30 in the Big Eight Conference.  But in both cases, they won a game early in the conference season.

The Tigers are now 8-16, and in the SEC, 0-11.  They have this entire week to get ready for Ole Miss, in Oxford, next Saturday night. The outlook is grim. Ole Miss is 18-5, splitting ten conference games and is 13-1 in Oxford as we go to press. (zou)

(CARDINALS)—Pitchers and catchers are reporting TODAY to Cardinals headquarters in Jupiter Florida. Their first workout is TOMORROW.  Some players have been in Jupiter for several days for informal work but the first full-squad workout is next Monday. The first game is the 24th.

This is the 26th year for the Redbirds at Roger Dean Stadium. They share it with the Marlins.

(ROYALS)—While the folks in chilly Kansas City are having a big parade tomorrow, the boys in blue will be assembling in Surprise, Arizona, northwest of Phoenix.  As with the Cardinals, the Royals’ first workout is tomorrow—long tosses and bullpen sessions. The first full-squad workout is on the 19th. They’ve been using Surprise Stadium for their spring training since 2003, sharing it with the Texas Rangers, the World Series champions.

Getting up to speed now:

(NASCAR)—NASCAR rolls off for its 76th season this week with qualifications and qualifying races for next Sunday’s Daytona 500.  The field will be forty cars. There are 42 entries. Among those who will have to race his way into the lineup is seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson who will drive a limited schedule this year.

(INDYCAR)—IndyCar opens its season March 10 with a street race at St. Petersburg, Florida.

The Indianapolis 500, of course, is the marquee race of the year for IndyCar and the big headline for the 500 going into this season is 2021 NASCAR champion Kyle Larson, who is going to try to run the 500 in Indianapolis and the NASCAR 600-mile race at Charlotte that night.

He’s been getting more seat time in an IndyCar in the off-season and a few days ago ran 172 laps at Phoenix Raceway. He thought the test “went smooth” with “a good run through some things” to get more comfortable in an entirely new kind of race car. He even got to practice pit stops.

He did his first experience getting an Indy car sideways. “I almost spun out,” he said afterwards. “Just got caught off guard a little bit.” He thought the Indy car had a lot of the characteristics of the Cup car, at least on the Phoenix track but “The moments happen a lot quicker. The edge of good versus not good feels a lot sharper.”

(FORMULA 1)—Formula One’s first race is in Bahrain on March 2.

 

Sports: A Rich Witt; MUMoney, MUMoney, MUMoney; Every win for the basketball Tigers is now an upset; More defensive expertise for football cats; Chiefs get back to the hard work; Another wing for the Cardinals; and some fast driving

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

—–BASEBALL—-

(ROYALSRICHWITT)—The Kansas City Royals are betting the farm on shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. with the largest contract in franchise history and one of the largest contracts in Major League Baseball.

The Royals have signed Witt, who is 23, to a deal that will run for at least eleven years with a team option for three more. Sources say the heavily back-ended deal is for $288.7 million. The three-year option would add another $89 million. Witt can opt out in years 7-10 during which time he can renegotiate the contract or become a free agent.  He also gets a $7.7 million dollar signing bonus.

If the contract goes the full fourteen years it will total $377-million, the third largest contract in baseball history as of today. But baseball has been going bananas with big, long-term contracts since Fernando Tatis Jr., signed for fourteen years and $340 million in 2021.

Witt’s contract is the 26th long-term huge money deal since then.

Witt convinced the team that he’s a superstar last year when he hit 30 home runs and stole 49 bases, the first Royals player to join the 30-30 club and only the fifth player in MLB history to have at least 49 homers and 30 steals.

In the past week, the Royals also picked up veterans second baseman Adam Frazier, a free agent from the Orioles. He’s 31, a career .268 hitter who will provide an experienced double-play partner for Witt.

(CARDINALS)— The Cardinals, who have been looking for relievers who can throw strikes past batters, have added Yankees free agent Keynan Middleton, who will get five million dollars this year. The Cardinals have a six-million dollar option for 2025 with a one-million dollar buyout.  He’s a seven-season veteran who struck out 64 in 50.2 innings last year.

(IT’S ALMOST HERE)—Pitchers and catchers report for the Royals and the Cardinals a week from tomorrow. Position players are to be in camp five days later. Opening day is March 28th.

(JUST TWO DAYS LATER)—The football season kicks off.  The UFL season that is. The St. Louis Battlehawks are one of the eight teams to emerge from the merger of the two competing spring leagues that merged during the winter. They start their season playing the Michigan Panthers at Ford Field in Detroit. Their home opener in the St. Louis dome will be April 6th against the Arlington Renegades.

But before that, the NFL is hanging around for one more game.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs and the 49ers are in Las Vegas getting their game faces on. Hoopla Week is well underway and the people in the sportsbook business are adjusting the odds, it seems, every day but all, as of today, are predicting a field goal will win it.  The Number one seed in the NFC plays the number three seed in the AFC, which now is saddled with the label inherited by the Dallas Cowboys in their glory days, “America’s Team.”

And that’s all that’s really newsworthy five days before the Super Bowl.

(MIZ$)—An anonymous donor has forked over the largest donation in the history of the University of Missouri Athletic Department—$62 million. That’s more than twice the previous big gift, made in 2012.  Fifty million of those dollars will go for the planned renovation of the north end of Memorial Stadium with the rest going into the Tiger Fund, which benefits athletes. The changes are to be finished in time for the 2026 football season. The Tiger fund is described by the University as a “general pool of money used on travel, equipment, marketing and mental health support for the school’s athletes.”

What will the renovation mean for the big Rock “M” that has been part of Memorial Stadium since football season in 1927? The university says it will still be there, just “reimagined.” ($OU)

miz)—Missouri has won the SEC battle for the basement, showing once again a lack of killer instinct and a continuing ability to take a lead and then forget that the ball is supposed to go THROUGH the rim for an extended spell.  Early lead, several minutes of cold shooting, loss of lead, close to within one or two possessions, and can’t find a dagger.

Vanderbilt 68, Missouri 61.  Vandy had won only five of twenty games going in. Missouri had won eight of twenty-one. Neither team had a conference win.  Missouri is still looking. Vanderbilt is now 1-7 in the SEC. Missouri is 0-9.

Texas A&M is next.  They’re 13-8 overall, 4-4 in the conference.

‘Nuff said about Tiger roundball, too. (zou)

(MIZZ-D)—Tiger football coach Eliah Drinkwitz continues to re-stock his defensive coaching staff with the hiring of Brian Early to work ith defensive ends.

Early has spent five years coaching the defensive line at Houston. He’s been a coach for thirty years. Four of his guys have been NFL draft picks. He had the Sun Belt Conference’s defensive player of the year for three straight years.  One of his first jobs will be to work with Willams Nwaneri, the top defensive prospect in the country.

Once he arrives on campus, Early will begin working with five-star recruit Williams Nwaneri, who’s the nation’s top defensive prospect. Nwaneri, from Lee’s Summit, is 6-7, 260 pounds who had 56 tackles in 14 games last year, with ten of those tackles being for loss. He had a dozen sacks as a junior. (ZOUD)

—The roar is beginning to be heard—

(INDYCAR)—IndyCar has finished its latest round of testing its new hybrid power plant and this time there were “No issues, no tow-ins, just smooth,” said two-time series champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power. That’s good news from the tests at Sebring after a rocky round of tests late last year raised concerns.  Ten drivers compiled almost 3200 miles with no problems. Among other things, the new power plant allows a driver whose car stops for one reason or another to restart it, as Alexander Rossi did on one of his laps. The last time an IndyCar could be restarted by the driver was  in the late 1960s when Formula 1 champion Jack Brabham had cars of his own design in the 500.

IndyCar has not announced when the new system will be put into competition but have said it will not be until after the 500 in May.

(NASCAR)—NASCAR Cup drivers have traded paint for the first time this year with a promotional race in the Los Angeles Coliseum that was moved from Sunday to Saturday night because bad weather was on its way to the West Coast.

Denny Hamlin won the Clash within the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on the special dirt track installed around the football field. He finishd ahead of Kyle Busch and last year’s Cup champion Ryan Blaney. The extremely tight track produced only four leaders but eight cautions and a winning speed of a little less than 33 mph.

The Daytona 500 comes up in two weeks.

(FORMULA 1)—Lewis Hamilton has stunned the F1 world with his announcement that he’s leaving Mercedes, a team that has helped him to six of his  record-tying seven championships, for Ferrari in 2025.

He’s had a rough couple of years with Mercedes, the team he joined from McLaren in 2013 as the cars have battled serious handling problems.

He took to social media for the announcement: “I feel incredibly fortunate, after achieving things with Mercedes that I could only have dreamed of as a kid, that I now have the chance to fulfil another childhood dream. Driving in Ferrari red. Mercedes has been a huge part of my life since I was 13 years old, so this decision has been the hardest I’ve ever had to make.”

Ferrari’s last F1 championship was in 2007. Hamilton hasn’t won a race since December, 2021.

F1 starts its season March 2 at Bahrain, the first of a record 24 races this year.

SPORTS: Chiefs vs 49ers for it all, again; Mizzero for the season?; New Tiger D guy; Baseball and Speed Returning  (1/30/24)

by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

We are two days away from February, a short month.  By the end of it, men will be playing baseball again, drivers of brightly-decorated automobiles will be going in circles really fast, and the frozen spirits of sports fans will have begun feeling the first tentative touches of warmth.

(CHIEFS)—A season-long work in progress is one game from being complete. The number 3 AFC Kansas City Chiefs will play the number 1 NFC San Francisco Giants after two weeks of hype in the Super Bowl, a game name coined by Chiefs and AFL founder Lamar Hunt.

Game management and big-time plays at critical moments were the keys for KC.  The Chiefs controlled the ball for 20:31 of the first 30 minutes, keeping the dynamic Ravens offense on the sidelines until the Chiefs had built a 17-7 halftine lead.  They had the ball for another 17:29 of the last 30 minutes, with the only second[half pointa coming on a Justin Tucker 43-yard field goal with 2:37 left.  Patrick mahomes hit Marquez Valdes-Scantling with  32-yard third down pass on a third-and nine challenge just before the two minute warning and that was the game.

Travis Kelce and Mahomes were perfect with 11 targets and 11 completions for 116 yards and the game’s first touchdown.  Kelce broke Jerry Rice’s record for most playoff receptions and tied Rice with 8 playoff games with 100 yards receiving.

What it all boils down to is that the Chiefs are in their fourth Super Bowl in five years, while the 49ers are back in the big time for the first time since losing 31-20 to Mahomes and Co. in Super Bowl 54 in 2020. The last time the two teams met was in October, 2020 when the Chiefs won by three touchdowns.

(miz)—Missouri basketball has crafted an 0-fer conference season and the story continues to shoe little variety—lead, contend, watch the other guys pull away at the end.  Maybe they are waiting to peak in the conference tournament.

The 72-64 loss to South Carolina left them 0-7 in the conference.

The Tigers tried the inside game this time instead of throwing up threes (they tried only 8 and made only 2).  Trying to pick up fouls inside didn’t produce much—South Carolina committed 17 fouls that Missouri turned into 14 points; Missouri recorded 18 fouls that became 16 SC points.

The Tigers again failed to close the deal. They were within 5 with 2:28 to go but hit only one field goal afterwards.

(MIZZ-D)—The football team has a new defensive coordinator—Corey Batoon, who comes to Columbia from South Alabama where he has been in charge of the defense and safeties for three years.  Here are some of his credentials:  The school was 22-16, held opponents to the low 20s per game in scoring.  Opponents were 169/513 in 3rd down conversions, 33/70 on 4th downs, and South Alabama recorded 85 sacks in 38 games.

(MIZZ$)—The MU athletic department has reported it took in almost $141.6 million in fiscal 2022 and spent all but one dollar of it, both records.  The Post-Dispatch got the numbers from the NCAA.

They do not include money donated to a “collective” that goes for payments to athletes under the name-image-likeness program.  Mizzou raised $7.1 million for that program. Mississippi State was the only school reporting less.  The highest-rollers are no surprise:  LSU $20.1 million; Georgia $18.3 million; Alabama $16 million, and Florida $15.8 million. (zo047)

(BASEBALL)—We are two weeks away from the opening of spring training.  Pitchers and catchers for the Royals and the Cardinals report on the 14th with pitchers and catchers reporting on the 19th.  The first games are on the 22nd.

The Cardinals avoided arbitration with Tommy Edmond with a two-year deal, and signed former Houston reliver Josh James for his potential. James had been with Houston for parts of four seasons but has had injury problems.  He’s 30, was in 87 games for the Astros 2018-21, struck out 34.2% of the batters he faced, walked 13.2% and allowed batters to hit only .204. Somehow, however, he compiled a 4.64 ERA.

As we were going to press, the Cardinals announced two additions providing possible depth and/or potential.  First baseman/outfielder Alfonsa Rivas was picked up off waivers from the Angels. He was with the Pirates, the Guardians and the Angels and last year, hit .229. He’s 27

The Royals avoided arbitration with relievers Rick Anderson and Carlos Hernandez, starters Kyle Wagner, Brady Singer and Kris Bubic. Adam Frazier, a free agent second baseman from the Orioles has signed a one-year deal . Twelve-year veteran backup catcher Sandy Leon has a minor league contract. The Royals will be his 8th team. He has a .208 lifetime batting average.

And the engines have been fired for the first time in the major motorsports season—

(DAYTONA)—How about a race that lasted 24 hours having a winner only 2.1 seconds ahead of the second-place car.  A Porsche owned by Roger Penske came across the line first, the car driven by Penske’s 2023 Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden, Felipe Nasr (who drove the last leg and got past the Cadillac that had dominated the race in the last 40 minutes), Matt Campbell and Dave Cameron.

The win is the first for Penske in the 24-hours since a team led by Mark Donohue won in a Lola 55 years ago.  It continues a roll for Penske Motorsports that began with an Indianapolis 500 victory last May, a NASCAR championship with Ryan Blaney in November. His next target is the LeMans 24 Hours in June.

Newgarden becomes the fifth reigning 500 winner to win the Daytona 24 hours to start the next racing season. Arie Luyendyk did it in 1998, Dan Wheldon eight years later, Dario Franchitti  in 2008 and four-time 500 champion Helio Castroneves two years ago.

IndyCar’s Colton Herta as part of the third-place team.

How Our Major League Sports Teams Are Plotting A Massive Rip-off Of The State 

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

Most of our patrons do not read the Tuesday entries that focus on sports. We ask that you carefully read this one, however, at least the first part.

(SPORTS WAGERING PETITION)—-Our six major league sports teams have crawled into bed with an industry whose sole characteristic is greed and the people of Missouri could become their abused children.

The teams, fed up that the legislature has failed to legalize sports betting, have launched a petition campaign highly favorable to the casino industry and detrimental to the public to put the issue on the ballot.

It’s a rip-off of major league proportions.  The Cardinals, Royals, Chiefs, Blues, and Missouri’s two major league soccer teams are collecting petition signatures to ask voters to let them and our thirteen casinos pocket millions of dollars with a sweetheart tax package that will take millions away from Missouri schools, veterans, and even the host cities of the casinos.

Hidden in the deal is a big tax cut for the casino industry that is made bigger with provisions that lower the amount of money to be taxed.

The petition campaign constitutes nothing less than a mugging of the state of Missouri.

Let’s begin with a simple question.  Would you knowingly bet eleven dollars, knowing that the most you ever could win would be TEN dollars?

That is what the teams and the casinos are going to do to Missourians.  The state is guaranteed to be a loser with the very first bet.  Here is how it will work if voters fall for this scheme:

Missouri’s casinos pay a twenty-one percent tax on revenues remaining after they have paid off winners of bets.  So much money is bet in Missouri that the casinos have approached revenues of two-billion dollars in each of the last two years and are on track to equal last year’s record or set a new revenue record for a third straight year.

Simple elementary school mathematics shows how the teams’ casino allies will grow immensely wealthy with this scam while the things that are supposed to be financed with the gambling tax are massively short-changed.

The proposed tax rate on sports betting is only ten percent, eleven percentage points below the rate charged for the last thirty years of casino gambling on table games and slot machines. Thus, the state would give up eleven of the present twenty-one percentage points to get ten

The American Gaming Association’s latest annual report says Missouri would be the twelfth state with a tax of ten percent or less.  Fourteen states have tax rates above ten percent or that top out above ten percent, including three states that charge fifty and fifty-one percent. Only five states on the AGA’s chart show rates of less than ten percent.

But there is something dark behind the petition’s demand that the rate be ten percent here.

Ten percent and twenty-one percent produce an average of 15.5 percent, an effective twenty-five percent tax cut for all Missouri casino gambling.

While the teams’ sophisticated advertising campaign will tell voters the proposal wll generate millions of dollars more for the state education fund and for their host cities, the truth is that it will produce less.

Financial analysts who advise the Missouri General Assembly forecast taxable revenes from casino gambing will jump from almost two billion dollars to $2.4 billion within four years.  A twenty-one percent tax of that amount would produce $504 million with ninety percent going into funding for elementary and secondary public schools. The other ten percent would be distributed to the thirteen cities that have casinos in them and to one county that shares revenues with the casino city.  An average tax of 15.5% would produce $372 million, again with the 90-10 split, $132 million less than if the twenty-one percent tax is maintained.

While $372 million dollars on the low end might seem to be an impressive sum, here is something else the casinos and the sports teams will never tell you in their promotions and advertising:

The Missouri Gaming Commission reports that casinos in the last fiscal year paid gambling taxes of $403.3 million dollars on revenues from slot machines and table games alone.

Approving sports wagering as proposed in the petition will take more than thirty million dollars away from the state, not add revenue.

Our metropolitan areas will feel the difference most acutely.  Host communities in the St. Louis metro area, which has four casinos, will lose $5.6 million in the first four years of sports wagering under the petition plan.  We wonder if Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III, who has been the spokesman for the teams during legislative committee hearings, has ever thought of what this plan will cost his main ticket-buying community.

Host communities in the Kansas City metro area, also with four casinos, will lose $3.65 million, something we bet the Chiefs and the Royals haven’t considered. .

Our figures are based on projections made by legislative fiscal analysts.

Legislative fiscal analysts forecast the ten percent tax will cost the thirteen host cities more than eleven million dollars, total, in the first four years of wagering, money they would receive if sports wagering were taxed at the same rate as slots and table games.  Amazingly, the association that represents those cities doesn’t seem to care. It has endorsed whatever the casinos have asked for from the legislature. One wonders if the city councils or the citizens of those communities has ever heard how much they have lost in the past thirty years because the two-dollar admission never having adjusted for inflation and how much they will lose if the petition passes.

By our calculations, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics annual inflation calculator, the state already has lost almost $1.1 Billion in admission fees because casinos are paying the same fee they paid when the first two of them opened thirty years ago this year.

In the most recent fiscal year, the state received $57.9 million in admission fees. Had the fees been adjusted annally for inflation, it would have received $113.5 million. But inflation works both ways.  The $57.9 million the state did receive had a purchasing power of only $29.5 millon because of the loss of purchasing power of the two 1993 dollars. Remember, half of the two-dollar admission fee goes to the host cities.  But their association doesn’t seem to care.

And it’s worse.

Buried within the petition are six deductions not allowed in today’s law that will reduce taxable income by several millions of dollars. The deductions encourage casino bookeepers to try to show their casino produced a monthly loss on paper.  If they can, the schools, home dock cities and other state entities listed as beneficiaries of this new form of gambling will receive zero revenues that month.

But it’s far worse than that.

If a casino can show that it had a paper loss for a month, the amount it claims as loss will carry over to the next month and be used to calculate that month’s profit or loss, again reducing the casino’s tax payments. Can anyone name any other business or industry in Missouri that is allowed to calculate their taxes this way?

Two states provide scary examples of the dangers of the carryovers for Missourians to consider.  In November, 2022, Louisiana casinos reported a statewide loss of $25.6 milllion because some of the casinos took bets made by a Texas furniture store owner that the Texas Rangers would win the World Series, which they did. In the same month, Maryland casinos reported a statewide loss of $33.6 million after they spent more than $60 million in promotional credits as part of the state’s launch of mobile betting.

But it’s far worse than that.

Let’s go back to the admission fee. Casinos also pay the state a two-dollar admission fee for each person who goes through the turnstiles to the gambling floors. If the gamblers stay longer than two hours, the casino pays another two dollars—a policy that began on the first day that casinos opened thirty years ago this year when they actually were boats and river cruises actually were possible.

A prediction was made at the East Coast Gaming Conference in 2019, a few months after sports betting was legalized by the U. S. Supreme Court, that within five to ten years, ninety percent of sports wagers would be placed online. Just two years later, gambling analyst Larry Henry reported on Casino.org that more than eighty percent of sports bets already were being placed online and New Jersey, the first state to legalize sports betting after the court ruling, 92 percent of sports wagers had been placed online in 2021.

If Missouri follows national trends, ninety percent of sports bets soon will be online and not made by people who go through the turnstiles of our casinos.  Under the petition, those online bets will produce zero revenue for programs and services whose budgets have suffered greatly because turnstile admissions have declined by about forty-seven percent in the last twelve years.

Who is suffering the most? The Veterans Commission Capital Trust Fund, which provides money for veterans nursing homes. Admission fee funding of care for our veterans has dropped by 63 percent in the last decade.  Nothing in the petition does anything to reverse that trend.

The Missouri Gaming Commission’s budget has declined by more than twenty percent in the last decade. It has twenty-three fewer employees than it had then. And it is facing a major increase in enforcement responsibility if the petition passes. The commission will collect some licensing fees but the petition also requires it to use some of its new money to pay for a problem gambler’s assistance fund.

Numerous studies have indicated gambling addiction will at least triple with the introduction of sports wagering and remote betting.  The money to be set aside for “compulsive gambing prevention” comes out of the commission’s pocket. It comes out of the taxes benefitting schools and home dock cities and fees going to the gaming commission. Nothing in the petition requires the casinos or the teams to contribute directly to a fund to counter the problems their new form of gambling will create.

And two more things before we go.

The casino industry has spent a lot of time and resources trying to convince your legislators and mine that sports wagering is a stand-alone issue that need special care and feeding.  It is not.  Their own bills just add “sports wagering” to the list of games of skill in our state laws.  In the now-seven years that sports wagering bills have been introduced, not one has said anything that defines sports wagering as differing from poker, blackjack, craps, or any other table game or slot machine.  A bet is a bet is a bet.  And if you bet long enough the casino will have all of your money whether you bet on the spin of a wheel, the fall of a card, the roll of a die, or the pull of a lever.

The committee backing the petition campaign says sports wagering will provide new good-paying jobs.

Will it generate enough new jobs to replace the 5,600 people laid off in the host cities during the last fifteen years?  Will it replace the $100 million-plus in payrolls lost each year by the host cities in that same period?

Everybody loses except the teams and the casinos in this petition campaign. People going into casinos know they’re playing on tables tilted against them. That’s fine.  But before Missourians support this blatant deception against our state by the casinos and our sports teams, they should look at how much they will lose regardless of whether they gamble.

The casinos have never dealt the top card on the deck to the legislature while trying to convince it to approve sports wagering.  Now they, with their sports team bedmates, are doing the same with the general public.

The legislature could fix all of this during this session. But don’t expect it to. There are 197 state representatives and senators in our General Assembly.  The Associated Press has reported that casinos, sports teams, online sports betting companies, and video gaming terminal inerests have hired about eighty lobbyists to pressure the people we presume represent us into representing those interests instead. That’s one lobbyist for ever 2.5 members of our legislature. It is hard to grow a backbone and do what is right on this issue when  you are surrounded by lobbyists backed by interests with bottomless checking accounts and a willingness to support re-election bids or to support opponents for those with the courage to reject the ongoing mugging of Missouri.

The only recourse Missourians will have if this petition gets enough signatures to be on the ballot later this year is to vote it down.  If they fail to do so, their state will be a big loser.

(All of the statistics used in this entry are drawn from the annual reports of the Missouri Gaming Commission, the American Gaming Association, legislative staff fiscal notes for pro-casino legislation, and the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. We never have seen the homework the casinos to justify the claims they have made in the past or the present).

Now, we take a look at the history behind a cold football game, a cold-shooting basketball team, and the latest from baseball’s hot stove league)

(CHIEFS)—The regular season wasn’t pretty for the Kansas City Chiefs but they looked almost as solid as the frozen field at Arrowhead Stadium Saturday night with their dominating 26-7 wild card playoff win over the Miami Dolphins, a team that hasn’t won in forever  in cold weather.

The game goes into the record books as the fourth-coldest game in NFL history.  Here’s where it fits in:

December 31, 1967  Lambeau Field, Green Bay comes from behind to beat Dallas 21-17 on the famous Bart Starr quarterback sneak behind center Ken Bowman and Right Guard Jerry Kramer who pushed Defensive Tackle Jethro Pugh aside just enough for Starr to cross the line.  Temperatur at the start of the game: -13. Wind Chill  -48. The game was dubbed “The Ice Bowl.”  Green Bay went on to defeat the Oakland Raiders 33-10 in Super Bowl II.

January 10, 1982  “The Freezer Bowl”  Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati. Coach Forrest Gregg, who played in “The Ice Bowl” is now the coach of the Bengals, who beat the San Diego Chargers 27-7. San Diego’s only touchdown was scored by former Missouri Tiger Kellen Winslow.  Game time temperature: -9  Wind Chill -59.  Some of the players in this game, as in the Green Bay-Dallas game reported health problems for the rest of their lives because of the playing conditions.

January 10, 2016  TCF Bank Stadium, Minneapolis. Seattle beats the Vikings 10-9 when Bill Walsh’s field goal attempt goes wide left with 22 seconds on the clock. Minus-6 with a windchilll of minus-25.

January 13, 2024 Arrowhead Stadium,  Chiefs beat the Miami Dolphins in the southernmost NFL cold game on record, 26-7. Harrison Butker’s four field goals and two extra points outscore the Dolphins, who lost their eighth straight game played in below-freezing temperatures. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa dropped to 0-5 in games played below 45 degrees.  Game time temperature: -4  Windchill -20. At the end it was -9 and -28. The extreme cold sent 69 people to aid tents run by the city fire department. About half were for hypothermia symptoms and fifteen people were taken to hospitals where seven were suffering from hypothermia, three for frostbite and five for various other reasons.

      The game broke the record for the coldest game at Arrowhead Stadium.  The Chiefs beat the Broncos 48-17 on December 18, 1993. Footall Reference reports the temperature at the start of the game was 0.5 degrees.

December 10, 1972  Metropolitan Stadium, Minneapolis Green Bay 23, Vikings 7. Temperature at game start 0. Wind Chill -18. Green Bay’s running backs, John Brockington and MacArthur Lane combine for more than 200 yards rushing, 99 by Lane, who had come over from the St. Louis Cardinals that year. Later, Lane was with the Kansas City Chiefs and in his last year in his career, 1978, rushed for 144 yards against  the Bills. He was 36 years and 199 days old and remains the oldest player to rush for more than 100 yards in an NFL game.

January 20, 2008  Lambeau Field  New York Giants 23 Packers 20 on a 47-yard field goal 12:25 into overtime by Lawrence Tynes. Temperature -4, Wind Chill -24.

December 26, 1993  Lambeau Field  Packers vs. the now-LA Raiders. Packers win 28-0. Game time temperature 0, Wind Chill -22.

January 15, 1994  Ralph Wilson Stadium, Buffalo, Coldest game played at Orchard Park in Buffalo. Game start temperature 0, Wind Chill -32. Bills come from behind in the fourth quarter with a fourth quarter touchdown pass from Jim Kelly to Bill Brooks to win 29-23.

December 3, 1972  Metropolitan Stadium, Minneapolis. -2 at the start with a windchilll of -26. Vikings kicker Fred Cox outscores the Bears with three field goals and two PATs in a 23-10 Minnesota victory.

Kansas City’s defense again was dominant, keeping the Dolphins out of the red zone all night long.  Miami’s only score was a 53-yard touchdown pass and run to former chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill who otherwise was not a factor in the game. The win against Miami moves the Chiefs into next week’s game against the Buffalo Bills, who beat the Pittsburgh Steelers last night in the game delayed for a day because of a typical Buffalo winter storm that dumped more snow into the stadium than an army of scoopers could remove on Sunday.

(miz)—The Missouri Tigers reached the halfway point of their regular season Saturday, losing their sixth game in their last seven outings and could drop below .500 tonight when they play league-leading Alabama on the Crimson Tide’s court.  Alabama is 11-5 overall with a five-game winning streak. Missouri is now 8-8. The Tigers join Arkansas and Vanderbilt in the SEC cellar with 0-3 records.

SB Nation’s Sam Snelling reports the Tigers have not defeated a high major opponent since losing Caleb Grill early in December with an injury to his non-shooting wrist. He had surgery  and might be back later this month.

Snelling suggests coach Dennis Gates is giving his veteran players a chance to right the ship, but it’s not working. Five of his guys have played more than 100 games in their college careers with Nick Honor accounting for 139. Noah Carter, John Tonje, Connor Vanover, and Sean East II all have more than 100 games. He wonders when Gates will realize his veterans aren’t getting the job done and when he will start building for tomorrow with his younger guys. (zou)

(BASEBALL)—No big new signings by the Royals and the Cardinals but the Redbirds have made an interesting front office move by hiring Chaim Bloom as an advisor. Bloom was with the Boston Red Sox until he was dumped by Fenway Sports Group despite being credited by some with cutting spending while rebuilding the team’s farm system.

He’ll be an advisor to Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak, who plans to step aside after the 2025 season, prompting questions about whether Mozeliak is grooming his successor. Mozeliak warns against jumping to conclusions. “where it leads to, we’ll see,” he says.

It’s the second major advisory step taken in the off-season by the Cardinals, who signed Yadiar Molina earlier as an advisor, prompting speculation about his role growing from advisor to manager.  Molina is managing in the Puerto Rico winer league and wants to manage in the bigs.  Present Cardinals manager Oli Marmol is in the last year of his contract. Mozeliak does not expect friction between the M’s.  Although he’s a supporter of Marmol, he also recognizes the Cardinals cannot have another year with problems on the field and in the locker room.

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Sports: (UPDATE: Final AP football poll; Royals, Chiefs Will Stay at Home; Kelce Forgoes a Record; Is Missouri Playing Its Way Out of the NCAA Tournament Already? And the Chiefs and Dolphins Face Daunting Weather Saturday

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

Missouri’s win over Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl allows it to move up just one slot in the final AP poll of the 2023-2024 season. Here’s the top 25:

  1. Michigan (61)
    2. Washington
    3. Texas
    4. Georgia
    5. Alabama
    6. Oregon
    6. Florida State
    8. Missouri
    9.Ole Miss
    10. Ohio State
    11. Arizona
    12. LSU
    13. Penn State
    14. Notre Dame
    15. Oklahom
    16. Oklahoma State
    17. Tennessee
    18. Kansas State
    19. Louisville
    20. Clemson
    21. North Carolina State
    22. SMU
    23. Kansas
    24. Iowa
    25. Liberty

(ROYALS/CHIEFS)—The Chiefs and Royals say they will stay in Jackson County if voters extend a 3/8 cent sales tax increase in April, ending speculation Kansas might lure the Royals across the state line.

Approval of the tax extension will lead to a new 40-year lease. The teams say they’ll provide more than $200 million in new conomic benefits. The Chiefs will foot the bill for a renovation of Arrowhead Stadium. The Royals will build a new stadium downtown and privately fund a one-billiion dollar ballpark district, a Kansas City Balpark Village if you will.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs won a game Sunday that some pundits said was a meaningless one. The Chiefs already had locked in their third seed in the playoffs and the Chargers were wrapping up a go-nowhere (except higher on the draft list) season.  The Chiefs held out a lot of their offensive regulars and turned the offense over to former MissouriTger Blaine Gabbert who hit 50% of his passes and pulled off some timely scrambles to get the Chiefs into position for the winning field goal as time grew short.

An offensive display, it wasn’t,. The only touchdown in the game came on a 97-yard fumble recovery and runback by Mike Edwards late in the first quarter.  The Chiefs finished with two field goals. The Chargers had four field goals.

Mike Jones needed a half-sack to reach his incentive goal that would given him an additional $1.25 millon dollars.  He got it late in the game, setting off a big celebration on the sidelines. Afterwards he promised. Part of the $1.25 million performance bonus will be spent on Rolex watches for the entire defensive line. And the defensive coaches including defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo will get watches too because, “It takes a collective [effort] in order to reach those types of goals.”

Travis Kelce passed up a chance to become the first tight end in NFL history to catch passes for 1,000 yards eight years in a row. He was only 16 short but told coach Andy Reid he thought it would be better to rest up for the post season and “didn’t like the way it felt” to play just to get the 16 yards and extend his record.

The Chiefs have a rematch with the Miami Dolphins Saturday. The Chiefs won the first game  21-14 in November.

(ABOUT THE WEATHER)—Saturday night’s game with the Dolphins might be the coldest game in Arrowhead Stadium history.  The National Weather Service forecasts a high temperature Satuday of 14 degrees with an overnight low of minus two. Wind gusts of 23 mph will make playing conditions worse. And it might snow.

The Chiefs-Broncos game on December 18, 1983 was played with a temperature recorded by Pro Football Reference as 0.5 degrees.  The Chiefs won 48-17.

The Dolphins have lost seven straight games that have been played in below-freezing temperatures. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is 0-4 in games with temperatures of 45 degrees or less at kickoff time.

Miami has lost two in a row. The Chiefs have won their last two regular season games.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals continue to accumulate new faces, the latest being Andrew Kittredge who will be in the bullpen. They give up outfielder Richie Palacios to get him. Kittridge is 33 and has seen limited action (31 games) in the last two years because of Tommy John survery.  When he’s healthy he has a career 3.65 ERA and a 3.68 strikeout to walk ratio.

The Tampa Bay Rays get Palacios, who is 26 and in 86 big leaguegames has posted a .244 batting average and is known as a contact hitter. Better than 87 percent of the time last year, when he swung, he connected—fair or foul.

(ROYALS)—The newest pickup for the Royals is Rangers reliever Will Smith who has signed a one-year deal for five million dollars to be a closer. He’s a lefty, 34, who could fatten his contract by $125,000 each if he pitches 25, 30, 35, 40, 50, 55, and 60 games. He started his career with the Royals before moving on.  He has three World Series rings with three different teams in the past three years. He’s been in five All-Star games.

(MIZ)—Every game you win in December is a game you don’t have win in late February and early March.  The Missouri Tigers basketball team has picked up its sixth loss in just 14 games this year,falling to Georgia 75-68 in their conference opener and sinking to 8-6 overall. The Tigers played their usual hot and cold game, trailing early, surging back to take a lead and then letting the opponent go on a run.

Georgia has won nine straight, its longest winning streak since 2010-2011. Missouri fell well behind early, nearly caught up at the half, briefly took a lead in the second half and promptly let Georgia go on a run from which Missouri never recovered.

Bench players were one key. The Bulldogs had been averaging more than 30 points with subs who scored .   Missouri had just three points, a basket by Jesus Caralero Martin.  But something’s wrong inside. Coach Dennis Gates noted that the Tiger show just seven free throws. Georgia shot 21.  However Missouri outscored Georgia 36 to Georgia’s 33.

The game was played in Columbia.

Missouri plays #6 Kentucky tonight.

(MIZFB)—-When Missouri plays LSU in football next time, it will be facing kind of defense they showed to Ohio State a few days ago.  Tiger defensive coordinator Blake Baker is bolting to Baton Rouge. Baker took Missouri from a position outside top 100 defensively and made them a top-35 team last year.

The past few days have been more Tigers plan to leave for the NFL draft. The latest to declare are place kicker Marrison Mevis and linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper. Hopper is the eighth player from this year’s defense to announce his departure for the draft. (ZOU)