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.

-0-

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)

 

Big D in Dallas; a W in Columbia and KC; and a Couple of Goodbyes

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—The catchy lyrics are from a Broadway musical show decades ago:

Hooray for Big D
My, oh Yes
I mean Big D, little double l-a
Big D, little a, double l-a
Big D, little a, double l-a-s!

We saw a lot of Big D in the Cotton Bowl Friday night in the big stadium where the Dallas Cowboys play football.  Missouri and Ohio State waged a defensive trenth war for three quarters before Missouri broke through with two long, time-consuming scoring drives in the last twenty minues to claim a 14-3 win, their first bowl win against a top-ten team since the Tigers beat fourth-ranked Navy and Heisman Trophy winner Joe Belino in 1961.

The win was a statement victory for Missouri. The coaches and the players alike look at the win as an indication that Tiger football is back as a legitimate contending program with a solid core for 2024 that will be strengthened by new recruits and portal players.

How important a statement was this game?  For Missouri, it was a huge national story. Here’s what The New York Times senior college football writer, Ari Wasserman, said:

Mizzou was the program that walked off the field at AT&T Stadium as winners. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t an aesthetically pleasing game, a win in a New Year’s Six Bowl over a blue-blood program was the chef’s kiss for a Tigers football program that is trying to build something special.

 

This Mizzou win was proof that there was nothing flukey about this season, not even the close loss against Georgia in which the Tigers had a chance to win in the fourth quarter.

The best part? Cook is coming back. Wide receiver Luther Burden III, who made a game-clinching touchdown catch with 5:12 remaining, is coming back. And the Tigers had a handful of big transfer portal wins in December to ensure this roster is athletically equipped to do it again next year.

Imagine that.  From The New York Times no less.

Coach Drink was over the top in the post-game interview:

“We scored 14 points in the fourth quarter! We put our fist up, and we said we’re not givin’ in! We’re faster, stronger, tougher than you in the fourth quarter! And we got an elite edge, and we’re not gonna be denied! Now we’re the Cotton Bowl champs! M-I-Z!”

And the large Missouri crowd roared, “Z-O-U!”

Missouri’s defense was so fierce that the Buckeyes never reached Missour’s red zone.  They punted eight out of the eleven times they had the ball. Missouri, the number one red-zone offense in the country with conversions 54 of 55 times there, finally reached the OSU red zone three times but waited until the fourth quarters to score twice.   The teams went six for 31 on third downs but were four for four on fourth downs.

Yes, Ohio State played most of the game with a third-string freshman quarterback and without their leading receiver. But the Buckeyes could never spring their strongest running back nor could the offensive line keep black shirts out of the backfield. Missouri, which averaged more than 400 yards a game, couldn’t do much offensively either until the last twenty minutes.  The Dallas Morning News correctly labeled the game a “slugfest.”

The two teams combined for only 104 yards in the first quarter, 188 in the first half. The defenses recorded eight tackles for losses.  At game’s end, Ohio State had only 203 yards of total offense, only 97 on the ground. Missouri got most of its yardage in the late third quarter and in the fourth, starting with an eight-play 95-yard drive culminating in Cody Schrader’s seven yard power run into the end zone, and finishing with a bullet pass from Brady Cook to to Luther Burden III after a 91-yard drive.

It is somehow appropriate that Schrader and Cook both finished with 128 yards, Schrader rushing and Cook passing. Schrader finished his career with 1627 yards, a Tiger record that broke Tyler Badie’s mark set in 2021. Cook’s passing for only 128 yards was uncharacteristically low.  But Ohio State allowed only one quarterback to throw for more than 200 yards this year and had allowed only 13 touchdowns and only 1,769 passing yards (the fewest in the nation) all season. Cook’s pass to Burden stretched his number of games with at least one TD pass to seventeen.

Missouri held Ohio State to its lowest point total in the Brian Day era—Day is 56-8 in his career at OSU but he has some fans barking about the Buckeyes’ losses to Michigan in the last game of the last two years and following disappointing bowl games.

Drinkwitz joins Warren Powers as the only two coaches in Tigers history to take their teams to bowls in their first four years, with Powers doing it 1978-1981.

(BIG DRINK)—He came into this season on the brink.  At the end of the year, MU has decided it wants to keep Drinking. The University has extended Eliah Drinkwitz’s contract through 2028. He became the first Tiger to be SEC Coach of the Year since Gary Pinkel in 2014. He finished third in balloting for the AP national coach of the year. (ZOU!!!)

(Basketball)—The pre-conference season time for sorting out the core lineup has ended for Dennis Gates and his Tigers basketball players.  Now it’s conference time. They’re 8-5. Only Vanderbilt (5-8) had a worse pre-conference record. Ole Miss was undefeated in 13 games. South Carolina went 12-1.  Eight teams scored more points than the Tigers did.  Nine teams gave up fewer points that Missourl.

The Tigers polished off Central Arkansas 92-59 Saturday. They open conference play next weekend against Georgia.

(CHIEFS)—It’s been a struggle they’re not used to, but the Chiefs have clinched their division title again with one game left—aganst the Chargers next weekend. It’s their eighth straight division title.

Again, they started slowly, trailed 17-7 at one point before scoring 18 second-half points to beat the Bengals 25-17 while a ferocious defense shut down Cincinnati. Crossing the goal line remains a problem, however. The game was won on the toe of Harrison Butker, who hit six field goals (the record is eight by Rob Bironas of the Tennessee Titans, in 2007).

We finish with a little racing.

(CHECKERED FLAGS)—NASCAR and IndyCar have lost two champions in the last week.

Cale Yarborough ran in both series.  He was a three-time NASCAR Cup champion, the first to win three titles in a row.  He was 84.

He won the Daytona 500 four times and the Southern 500 five times. His 83 career victories are tied for fifth on the all-time win list. He won 69 poles, fourth on the all-time list and holds the modern era record with fourteenof them in a row.  In his younger days he was an unusual three-sport athlete who had a football scholarship to Clemson, was a Golden Gloves boxer, and a racer.  He gave up his Clemson scholarship one weekend when a race conflcted with a football game and he decided to race.

He also competed in four Indianapolis 500s.  His first 500 was in 1966 when he qualified 24th in the 33-car field only to become one of 11 drivers eliminated in a first-lap crash and was awarded 38th place.  He was 17th the next year and did not race at Indianapolis again until 1971 when he finished 16th.  His last race at IMS was in 1972 when he started next-to-last and came home tenth.

The winner of the 2003 Indianapolis 500, Gil de Ferran, died of an apparent heart attack while driving in an event in Florida with his sone.  De Ferran won the European Formula Thee title in 1992. Although he tested for the Arrows and Williams F1 teams, he was never signed.

He came to the United States and won championships in one of the IndyCar series in 2000 and 2001. In the 2003 Indianapolis 500, he outdrove Penske teammate Helio Castroneves, finishing 2.29 seconds ahead of his Brazilian countryman and denying Castroneves a chance to win three 500s in a row.

DeFerran retired from open wheel racing after that win and drove in the American LeMans’ Series for a time.

In qualifying for the California 500 in October, 2000, DeFeran set a world’s closed-course speed record of 241.428 mph. The record still stands.

de Ferran was just 56.

(Photo Credits:  Drinkwitz, The Spun; Yarborough, WRTH;; de  Ferran, IMS)

Sports: Mizzou, KC Give Fans Lump of Coal for Christmas. But how about a toy car for New Year’s?

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

The weekend was full of the Christmas DIs-spirit.

(CHIEFS—It has become the Patrick Mahomes post-game litany: I’ve just gotta be better and not be making these mistakes.’

The resurgent Las Vegas Raiders capitalized on a couple of Mahomes mistakes in the first half and the Kanss City City Chiefs’ offense continued to muddle along, giving the Raiders a 20-14 win.

A botched handoff from Isaiah Pacheco to Mahomes and a pick-6 interception did in Kansas City now 9-6.  Defensive tackle Bilal Nichols returned a fumble eigtht yards for a touchdown and just seven seconds later, the Raiders’ Jack Jones took an interception back 33 yards for the next score. The Chiefs frustrated themselves and their fans with the no-longer-surprising fumbles and penalties.

The Raiders are up to 7-8 now.

The inability of the Chiefs to get their act together is leading to sideline tantrums by some team leaders. Ths time it was Travis Kelce who had a little converstion with his coach before he got back into the game.

One high note: Receiver Rashee Rice set a new record for most receptions by a rookie receiver. His six receptions give him 74, three more than Dwayne Bowe in 2007.

The Chiefs have another tough one next Sunday—Cincinnati.

(MIZ)—Missouri Tiger Coach Dennis Gates says the tigers are “very, very close. It’s very close and I’m excited about our trending because I think we’re trending in the right direction,” he said after the drubbing his Tigers took from the University of Illinois before heading out for Christmas break.

Close to what? Is the question hanging over the team after giving up 90 points or more for the second straight week and now on a three-game losing streak. Missouri outscored Illinois in the second half 49-48, hardly enough to overcome a 25-point deficit at the half.

Missouri is now 7-5.

Once again, the Tiger’s big guys had little to offer. The four of them, seven-footers Jordan Butler, Mahon Majak, Connor Vanover, and their 6-10 colleague Trent Pierce played a combined 38 minutes, twenty of them Pierce. They combined on 2-11 shooting from outside and 14 points, twelve by Pierce.  They contributed seven rebounds and three blocks.

One more game before conference play begins. (zou)

(BASEBALL)—The Cardinals and Royals seemed to take the week off—-although it doesn’t mean they weren’t talking.

Now, some off-track motoring sports:

(NASCAR)—NASCAR fans love their diecast models of their favorite drivers’ cars. And Lionel—you know, the toy train people—make a lot of them. Lionel has released its top ten list of popular diecasts.  Kevin Harvick’s farewell tour put two of his cars on the list—his #29 tribute car frm the All Star race was number one and his regular car was 10th.  Cars driven by Erik Jones, Kyle Busch, and Ryan Blaney were next.

Dale Earnhardt Sr., who was killed at Daytona in 2001, had the fifth most popular car, a 25th anniversary car honoring his 1998 win in the 500. NASCAR’s 75th anniversary commemorative car was next followed by the model of the car driven by Australiandriver Sane Van Gisbergen in the rainy Chicago street race—his only time in a Cup car, so far. He’ll be running more extensively in the series next year.  The last one was a late-model car driven by Dale Jr.

Interestingly, two of the sports’ biggest Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott were missing fromt that list even though Elliott was voted the fan’s favorite driver again.

Sports: A New Hall of Famer; Tigers Looking for a Forty-Minute Game; Chiefs Do What They Are Expected To Do; Royals and Cardinals Spending Tops $200 Million, and a Silver Face

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(HALL OF FAMER)—Lemar Parrish was one of the premier defensive backs in the National Football League for many years throughout the 1970s. A lot of people think he hasn’t gotten the post-career honors he deserves.

Last week, it was announced that Lemar Parrish is a part of the 2024 class of enshrinees in the Black College Football Hall of Fame.

Parrish played for Lincoln University in Jefferson City, 1966-1969 as a kick returner and defensive back.  He was named an All-American in his final year, the same year he set a school record by running a punt back 95 yards for a touchdown against what is now Missouri State University. He averaged 16.8 yards per punt return. That record and his career average of 15.5 yards also are still school records. LU won 23 games during his career, almost ten percent of all the victories in school history (248).

He was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the seventh round. In his rookie year he had five interceptions, one fumble recovery, 194 yards of punt returns and 482 yards returning kickoffs.

In 1970, against the Buffalo Bills, he took a kickoff return 95 yards for a touchdown and scored another one on an 83-yard blocked field goal attempt. Two years later, against the Houston Oilers, he scored touchdowns on interception returns of 33 and 25 yards. Against the then-Washington Redskins in 1974, he scored on a 93-yard punt return and a fumble return of 47 yards.

While he was with the Redskins he was named Football Digest’s 1979 Defensive Back of the Year.

When he left the Bengals in a contract dispute he held the team record for touchdowns scored by
return or recovery.  Four came on interceptions, four on punt returns, three on fumble recoveries, with one kickoff return and one on that blocked field goal. Three times, he scored two return-or-recovery toughdowns in a game. In his eight years in Cincinnati, he was named to the pro bowl six times. His 25 career interceptions is still the fifth-most in franchise history and he still holds records for career punt returns for touchdowns, kick return averae and single-season punt return average. He was named to the Bengal’s All-Half-Century Team in 2017, five years after Lincoln University enshrined him its all of fame.

In the entire history of the NFL, only twenty defensive backs have been picked for eight Pro Bowls. LeMar Parrish is one of them.  He was a three-time All-Pro first team player and a two-time second teamer.

The list of inductees into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame goes back to 1951.  LeMar Parrish’s name is not on that long, long, long list. It’s hard to understand why it isn’t.

(MIZ)—The Missouri Tigers hit the snooze button halfway through the first half against Seton Hall and didn’t get a wakeup call until the second half was about two-thirds gone.  Once again unable to play a 40-minute game, the Tigers took the loss, their fifth of the year to go with seven wins and facing a big game next weekend against 16th-ranked Illinois (7-2).

Missouri led early, 16-10 but dozed off, missing five of six shots and turning the ball over twice while the Pirates went on a 16-3 run and led 42-38 at the half. Seton Hall outscored the Tigers 33-18 in the first fourteen minutes of the second half. Missouri woke up down 75-56 and pulled within six with 3:32 left.  But that was as close as they got in the 93-87 loss.

The game was decided in the paint where Missouri’s bigs made no impression on Seton Hall at all.  The Tiger Trees (Trent Pierce at 6-10, seven-footer Jordan Butler, 7-foot-2 inch Mabor Majak, and Seven-five Connor Vanover) combined for just 26 minutes on the court, 12 points (two dunks by Vanover and Pierce going 3-3 including two from outside the arc), 3 rebounds, one steal amd three blocks while Seton Hall was going 17 for 21 on layups and scoring 44 points in the paint. Missouri scored just 30 points inside.

Missouri outscored Seton Hall 31-18 in the last six minutes but both teams scored 17 points in the last 3:32. (zou, weakly)

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs handed the New England Patriots their seventh home loss in eight games this year Sunday, dropping the Patriots to 3-11.  The Chiefs started slowly again and trailed 207 in the second quarter before getting their second touchdown just before halftime to take a lead, then adding 13 points in the third quarter and going scoreless in the fourth.

The Chiefs had a chance to score on their opening drive but Harrison Butker chose that moment to miss his first field goal of the season, ending a streak of 61 straight threes, one short of his own team record. The Patriots took the lead in the second quarter when Patrick Mahomes threw his 13th interception of the season, which ties him for career-most, set in 2021. It was hs only pick of the game, however, and he finished with more than 300 yards passing and appears to be a lock on another 4,000 yards passing year. He has never had a year of less than 4,000 yards since be became the Chiefs’ fulltime quarterback.

The Chiefs meet the Raiders on Christmas Day. The Raiders are coming off a 63-21 shellacking of the Los Angeles Chargers, afer leading at the half 42-0.

(THE PRICE OF SOUNDING OFF)—It’s not nice to blast NFL officials, especially if it appears you were wrong. ESPN’s Adam Schefter says the league has decided coach Andy Reid’s criticism of the offsides call that might have cost the Chiefs the game against the Bills was worth a $100,000 penalty for violating  “long-standing rules prohibiting criticism of game officials.”  Quarterback Patrick Mahomes is $50,000 lighter in the wallet for the same thing and for unsportsmanlike conduct on the sidelines after the call.

Now we wait to hear in the NFL goes after Kadarius Toney, the accused scofflaw who was offside. Toney says the call was ‘pretty much bogus.” He claimed he had gotten no warning form officials about where he stood as the play was called.  That’s not what the officials said. A fine for Toney? We’ll see.

(ROYALS)—After being relatively quiet in the early trading/signing period, the Kansas City Royals have started assembling the improvements they want to make for 2024.  Tops on the list is Michael Wacha, once one of the young arms for the Cardinals, who has signed a $16 million one-year deal with a player option for 2025.

Wacha will be 33 next July. He’s 88-54 after eleven years in the Bigs with an ERA of less than 4.  Last year with San Diego he was 14-4 with a 3.22 ERA, his best season since he went 17-7/3.38 as a 25-year old starter for St. Louis.Wacha’s career has been limited by injuries. He’s been out with shoulder problems in five seasons. The last time he started 30 or more games and pitched more than 134.1 innings was 2017.

The past week also saw the Royals add other guys. Seth Lugo, also a Padres starter last year,  signed for two years at $30 million with a $15 million player option for 2025. Lugo spent seven years with the Mets before moving to the other coast with San Diego. He’s 40-31 in his career that has mostly been in the bullpen although he started 26 games last year. He’s another guy with a career ERA under 4 (3.50).

While Wacha and Lugo’s numbers aren’t big given the number of years they’ve been in the majors, they add veteran experience to a young  Royals pitching staff of Cole Ragans, Brady Singer and Jordan Lyles, who showed promise last year

Earlier, Reliever Will Smith got a one-year contract for five million. Reliever Chris Stratton has a one-year deal at $3.5 million and a $4.5 million option for ’25. Outfielder Hunter Renfroe joins the team for $5.5 million in 2024 and a $7.5 million player option for the next season. Renfro has a chance to rebuild himself in Kansas City.  He started last year with the Angels, hit .242 with 19 homers and 56 RBIs before he was put on waivers when the Angels shed a lot of salaries and was picked up by the Reds.  But he was only in 14 games for them, hitting only .128, before he was designated for assignment, then cut at the end of September.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals have gone quiet, presumably because they’ve entered a new negotiating phase with somebody.

(SPENDING)—New York Times columnist Jeff Passan has ranked the teams’ free agent spending on new players so far this year and both of our teams are in the top six:

Dodgers  $717 million (plus $135 millon for the five-year deal with pitcher Tyler Glasnow, picked up in a trade)

Phillies  $172 million

Diamondbacks  $122 million

Giants $113 million

Royals  $105 million

Cardinals $99 million

(X-CARD)—Good Heavens, Matt Carpenter is still around. He’s been traded by the Braves to the Padres, who have given up an outfielder prospect.  The Padres also sent pitcher Ray Kerr and cash to Atlanta, the cash going to pay part of the $5.5 million player option salary the Padres would have had to pay him.  The Padres didn’t need him after picking him up from the Yankees after he seemingly rediscovered his bat while with the Yankees in ’22.  But in San Diego, he went back to being the Carpenter that Cardinal fans remembered in his final years in St. Loui: a .176 batting average, five homers and 31 RBIs. He played in only 76 games.

And this note about one of sports’ greatest trophies:

(THE SILVER FACE)—-It’s the only trophy in all of sports that has every winner’s face engraved in three dimensions in silver.  The trophy is almost five and a half feet tall and weighs more than 110 pounds.

It’s the Borg-Warner Trophy, originally designed in 1935, and each year the sterling silver face of the winner of the Indianapolis 500 is placed on it.  A few days ago, the face of Josef Newgarden was added in a special ceremony in Indianapolis.

Back on a warm day in May, Newgarden made a last-lap pass and a daring move as the field charged to the finish line at more than 200 mph to win the Indianapolis 500 for the first time.  He called having his face on the trophy “the highest honor you can have in motorsports.”

What became the bas-relief Newgarden face is the work of sculptor Will Behrends who first created a life-sized clay bust of Newgarden that is the basis for a tiny version that becomes a wax mold sent to a jeweler who turned it into the silver image.

Part of the process involved Newgarden sitting as a model while Behrends put the finishing touches on the bust.  The result turned into a special selfie.

(Photo Credits:  Wacha—MLB; Newgarden—Indianapolis Motor Speedway, including screenshot from trophy unveiling)

Sports: Mizzou All-Americans; The not-Moral Victory; The Foot on the Line; and Acquisitions in Kansas City and St Louis 

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(ALL-AMERICAN)—Before we get to anything else:  Missouri’s Cody Schrader has been named to the Associated Press All-America First Team.  He joins Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels of LSU and Ollie Gordon of Oklahoma State in the backfield.

Luther Burden III is on the second team. Kris Abrams-Draine makes the second team defensive unit.

Javon Foster is a third team offensive All-American at tackle.

The AP All=America team was picked by 18 voters who put together the weekly Top 25 football ratings.

(MIZ: Roundball)—-The Missouri Tigers outscored the second-ranked Kansas Jayhawks for the first sixteen minutes of the game in Lawrence Saturday and outscored them in the second half by three. But those last four minutes were killers as the Tigers couldn’t buy a bucket but Kansas reeled off fourteen unanswered points.

73-64, Kansas, the final.

Coach Gates isn’t interested in moral victories but for Tiger fans, the game might have shown team growth as it heads toward its pre-conference wrap-up games against Seton Hall next Sunday, Illinois on the 22nd and Central Arkansas on the 30th.

(MIZ: Football)—The Tiger football team might be able to say, it took a Heisman Trophy winner to beat us in the LSU game.  They probably aren’t saying it because it’s regarded as an excuse.  But LSU Quarterback Jayden Daniels could not be stopped in LSU’s 49-39 win over the Tigers this year.  He threw for 259 yards and ran for 130 more against a Tiger defense that has won national praise. He had help from LSU’s defense that stopped Missouri in the waning minutes.  The Missouri Tigers had the Geaux Tigers down 39-35 before Daniels threw a touchdown pass with less than three minutes left. The defense stopped Missouri twice, the last time on intercepted pass returned for a touchdown that stopped a Missouri drive that could have led to a tying field goal at the least.  Daniels threw for 50 touchdowns and rushed for more than 1,000 yards.

Missouri running back Cody Schrader was eighth in the voting with one first-place vote, two second-place votes and 22 third-place votes. It’s the highest finish for a Tiger player since Chase Daniel was fourth in 2007, equaling Paul Chrisman’s finish in 1939.

(REPLACING CODY)—The transfer portal has drawn to Missouri a running back with some strong credentials who might be a yardage chewer to replace Cody Schrader.  It’s Marcus Carroll, who rushed for 1,350 yards at Georgia Tech in 2023. He wound up in the end zone 13 of the 274 times he carried the ball.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs’ loss Sunday night was their fourth in six games, and another reminder of how much they miss Eric Bienemy, their former offensive coordinator who is now the offensive coordinator and assistant head coach for the Washington Commanders. His presence has not done any miracles for Washington, though, which is 4-9, losers of nine of their last eleven games, and 32nd in the league in scoring.

Some observers point to some friction in Washington between  Bienemy and some of the players because of his high-discipline philosophy. The Chiefs are clearly playing sloppier offensive football this year than they did when Bienemy was around.  While they might complain about the referees, the plain truth is that the receivers and the quarterback don’t seem to be in sync as much as usual and the number of dropped passes is disheartening.

The Chiefs lost to the Bills Sunday 20-17 and receiver Kadarius Tony went from being hero to being the goat in a matter of seconds.  Tony scored what would have been the winning touchdown but was the reason the play was called back.  He lined up offside, not by a little but by a lot.

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes completed a pass to Travis Kelce who while running for more yards turned to his left and threw a lateral to the trailing Tony who went into the end zone untouched.  But there was that flag that killed the TD.

While Mahomes raged and coach Andy Reid mused about why the refs didn’t warn the Chiefs that Tony had lined up offside, Referee Carl Cheffers wasted no time saying the Zebras are not there to tell players to follow the rules:

“It’s one of those things we don’t want to be overly technical on, but when in his alignment he’s lined up over the ball, that’s something that we are going to call as offensive offside,” he told pool reporter Matt Derrick. “So that’s what the down judge saw. He saw that the alignment was over the ball and that’s what he ruled on the field. That’s what he called….Ultimately, if they looked for alignment advice, certainly we are going to give it to them. But ultimately, they are responsible for wherever they line up. And, certainly, no warning is required, especially if they are lined up so far offsides where they’re actually blocking our view of the ball. So, we would give them some sort of a warning if it was anywhere close, but this particular one is beyond a warning…So really regardless of whether or not he was warned at other times during the day, if it was an egregious alignment to where he was over the ball – whether he had warnings or not – it would still be a foul.”

The Chiefs are 8-5. The’ll get out take their frustrations about the Bills game against the Patriots next weekend. The Pats are 3-10.

Now, the Baseball:

(ROYALS)—The Kanas City Royals haven’t made any big waves in the off-season. Their signing of Will Smith is a reunion; Smith started his  career with Kansas City. He’ll be 35 next July but is a low-risk opportunity fot the Royals, who have signed him to a one-year, five-million dollar deal. Smith has the distinction of picking up three World Series rings in the last three years. He’s the first major leaguer to do that with three different teams (Braves in 2021, Astros the net year and the Rangers this year). In fact, his record goes beyond baseball. He’s the only person in baseball as well as the NFL, NBA, and NHL to do this.

His numbers with the Rangers were not outstanding but were reasonable in today’s game: 57.1 innings itched in 60 games with an ERA of 4.40.  He’s 33-41 in his career with a 3.67 ERA and 113 saves.

There are other intriguing arms still out there and General Manager J. J. Picollo has let it be known that the club has about $30 millon in the budget for new players.  It appears the first five-million has gone to Smith.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals finally pulled the trigger on Tyler O’Neill last week and one of the best parts of the deal is that he can’t come back to haunt them in the immediate future if he managers to get through a season in good health.  He’s in the American League now with the Red Sox and the Cardinals have picked up a couple of young pitchers in return.

One of them, Nick Robertson, is expected to be with the team when it comes north in ’24. Evaluaters say his fastball averages better than 95, looks more like 97 and has some wicked movement. His changeup is only about eight mph slower but it moves and he has a slider that he developed late in the last season that raised some eyebrows.

The other pitcher is Victor Santos, who has spent a couple of years in Triple-A. He’s 23, has good command, and throws strikes. Slider/changeup/sinker guy with a pretty good strikeout ratio. He missed the 2023 season but is spending the winter in the Dominican League and is having a good season there.

Now, a couple of notes from the Zoom Room:

(INDYCAR)—Development of the new hybrid powerplant is moving a little slower than the series had hoped.  The series will open 2024 with the same engine that it has used for several years and won’t go to the new hybrid system until after the Indianapolis 500 in May.

IndyCar has two engine suppliers—Chevrolet and Honda.  But Honda has started counting its pennies a little more closely and says it’s considering pulling out of the series after 2026 because of high costs. Honda supplies power plants for as many as 18 entries in IndyCar races but says the cost/benefit ratio isn’t working as well as it wants it to work.

IndyCar has been trying to lure a third manufacturer into the series for several years. Honda has been a supplier since 1993.

(NASCAR/NHRA)—-Tony Stewart, who started a drag racing team two years ago is replacing his driver.  With himself.  He’s getting into the seat that his wife, Leah Pruett, had occupied. She’s taking the year off because the Stewarts want to start a family. He still is part owner of Stewart-Haas Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series

(Photo Credit: Partial screen shot from broadcast of Chiefs/Bills game)

 

Sports: Bowls Take a Cotton to the Tigers; Chiefs Sent Packing; Battlehawks Survive

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributig Editor

(MIZ)—Both teams headed to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas December 29 have something to prove.  The Missouri Tigers have to prove they can beat a top-ten rated team.  The Ohio State Buckeyes want to show they should have been in the national championship playoffs.

Ohio State has won twn of the 12 games the two teams have played against each other. One game ended in a tie.  Missouri’s only win was in 1976 at Columbus.

Missouri went 6-5, a year of incredible highs and deeply disappointing lows.  The story of the only Missouri victory over Ohio State was part of a season that has been described as “weird.”  Rock M Nation calls it the “craziest season in Mizzou history” and lists the top three wins in Missouri history as having occurred that year. Missouri played the toughest schedule in the nation that year. Let’s go through it.

Missouri started the season with a nationally-televised night game against Southern Cal, in Los Angeles.  USC was ranked 8th in the AP poll when unranked Missouri pounded the Trojans 46-25. Missouri was ranked sixth the next week when it lost to unranked Illinois 31-6. The third game was against Ohio State, then ranked second by the AP, and Missouri beat the Buckeyes 22-21. Missouri was 12th when he beat North Carolina 24-3 and 9th when they beat Kansas State 28-21, seventh when they lost to Iowa State 21-17.  They had dropped to 17th when they upset #3 Nebraska 34-24 in a game that saw quarterback Pete Woods complete the longest toughdown pass in Missouri and Big Eight Conference history—98 yards to Joe Stewart.  The Tigers rose to 10th but lost to 16th ranked Oklahoma State 20-19.  They were 16th when they beat #14 Colorado 16-7.  They finished out the season losing to #14 Oklahoma 27-20 while ranked 11th, and then, ranked 19th, losing to Kansas 41-14.

Al Onofrio was the coach of this team that lost three games by 1,4, and 7 points, but also lost two games by 25 and 27.  It was a team that won by 1,7,10,and 9 points as well as two wins by 21. Missouri was the best 6-5 team in college football that year, and maybe one of the best 6-5 teams in NCAA football history.

Ohio State was emblematic of that cardiac season.  The Tigers had dropped out of the top 20 when they went to Columbus that weekend and Woody Hayes’ Buckeyes had taken a 21-7 lead at the half.  But Missouri held Ohio State scoreless in the second half.  Quarterback Pete Woods found Leo Lewis III at the back of the end zone on a third-and-goal from the eight yard line with 12 seconds left to pull Missouri to 21-20.  There were no overtimes in those days and the Tigers weren’t interested in a tie.

Woods missed on a pass to the win to Curtis Brown.  But Ohio State was flagged for holding, giving Missouri a second chance from the 1½ yard line.  Woods called his own number, off tackle, was hit but dived into the end zone.  Missouri 22 Ohio State 21.

Want to see it?  (3) MU v. Ohio State 1976-3 – YouTube

Onofrio was fired the next year and is remembered for his teams sometimes stunning victories during a coaching career that finished 38-41.

Woods, who engineered the big upsets that year, is the only quarterback in Mizzou history with two wins over top-three opponents.  He and Phil Bradley are the only two Tiger signal-callers with two wins over top-five opponents. He played parts of four seasons in the NFL with the Chiefs, Broncos, Bengals, and Dolphins. He became a lawyer and now is a commercial litigator for Harr & Woods law firm in St. Louis. He was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.

Curtis Brown, who led the team in rushing that year and was a key figure in the win over Southern Cal, played for six years with the Buffalo Bills and finished his career with the Houston Oilers. He is one of almost 350 NFL players to be diagnosed with dementia caused by repeated hits to the head. He died in 2015.

Leo Lewis III, who caught that last touchdown pass remains the only player in Tiger history to lead the team in punt returns for four straight years. He still holds the team record for punt returns in one game (7) and added two more kick returns for a total of nine, also a team record. He played for the Minnesota Vikings for eleven years and was the team’s director of player development for 14 more years. He went on to get a master’s degree from Tennessee and a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. He now runs a sports foundation.  His father, Leo Sr., was known in his time as the “Lincoln Locomotive” while playing at Lincoln University, where he rushed for 4,457 yards and twice was an All-American. He is in the College Football Hall of Fame. Although drafted by the Baltimore Colts in 1955, he opted to play for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Canadian Football League, an eleven year career that included four Grey Cup Championships (under Bud Grant, who later coached the Minnesota Vikings) and 32 years of coaching and teaching. He died in 2013.  He and his son are the only father-son combination in the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, both admitted in 2019.

(MIZZHONORS)—The Associated Press has named eight Tigers to its All-SEC team. Only Georgia and Alabama have more.

And Coach Drinkwitz is the Coach of the year, the first Missouri coach named by the AP as SEC Coach of the Year.  Gary Pinkel was voted the honor by his fellow coaches in 2013 but the AP bypassed him.

Cody Schrader is one of only four players named unanimously to the first team. Other Tigers on the firt team offense is Luther Burden Iii, the first 1,000 yard Tiger receiver since J’Mon Moore six years ago. Burden’s 1,197 yards is ten in thenation.  Left tackle Javon Foster also is on the first team with him. Defensive end Darius Robinson, who led the team with 7.5 sacks and 12 tackles for a loss and a forced fumble, is first team on defense as is Kris Abrams-Draine, who had four interceptions and 12 passes defended.

On the second team is Cam’Ron Johnson, the team’s right guard, joined by receiver Theo Wease Jr.

The last all-conference player is place-kicker Harrison Mevis, who is on the second team, beaten out by Alabama’s Will Reichard despite going 24-30 on field goals including the epic 61-yard walkoff kick against Kansas State and his game winner against Florida. He was 43-44 on PATs.

(SCHRADER)—Cody Schrader is the winner of the Burlsworth Trophy, awarded last night to the outstanding player who started his career as a walk-on. The trophy presentation was made at the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The trophy honors the memory of Brandon Burlsworth, a walk-on with the Arkansas Razorbacks who became an All=American. He was drafted in the third round of the 1999 NFL Draft by the Indianapolis Colts but was killed in a car crash eleven days later.

The other two finalists were James Madison defensive tackle James Carpenter and Oklahoma wide receiver Drake Stoops.  In concluding his acceptance remarks, Schrader said:

My journey from high school to Truman State Division II to the University of Missouri wasn’t easy. It definitely had a lot of lonely nights. A lot of just the unknown of what was going to happen with my career. But the only thing I stayed true to was the work. The only thing that follows work is results and I truly believe that anything you want in this life you can achieve, it just takes dedication, discipline and you just have to love this game. I just know from meeting James and Drake that you guys truly love this game and embody what Brandon and this foundation mean. No matter the outcome tonight, we’ve already won just because nobody believed we’d be here. So I appreciate getting to know you guys.

My biggest thing that I hope to inspire in youth and kids who look at our stories, is the relentless consistency that it takes to be successful: never let nobody tell you no. I think Brandon was the epitome of that. He would never take no for an answer no matter the case was. Just watching the movie (Greater) and then getting to experience his family, you really got to know who he was as a person and what weight this trophy holds. This is something I’m eternally grateful for and I’m just really thankful for this event and all the support. M-I-Z.

The four finalists for the Heisman Trophy were announced last night. Schrader is not one of them.

(MIZZOU BASKETBALL)—-Missouri’s basketball team showed composure and control in handing Wichita State its first road loss of the year, 82-72.  The Tigers started the game on a 10-0 run and every time the Shockers pulled close, Missouri pulled away. Missouri’s physical game led to 25 trips to the free throw line and 23 points. They also scored 20 points off of 18 Wichita State turnovers.

A major test awaits next Saturday when the Tigers play Kansas, with Seton Hall, Illinois and Central Arkansas ahead before the end of the year and the start of conference play.  (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs offense returned to form Sunday night against the Green Bay Packers after a convincing win against the Raiders.  They were held to two field goals in the first half again, and their rally attempts fizzled in the second half.  The defense, the strong point for the Chiefs all year, couldn’t stop the resurgent Packers in a 27-19 loss.

Chiefs fans might think their team was robbed by two terrible calls by the zebras.  But the Chiefs from Andy Reid on down admit the team lost the game on plenty of other well-called plays.  In the locker room afterward, Travis Kelce was asked, “What went wrong?”  He diplomatically, and correctly, answered, “That’s a good football team and they executed better than us and that’s the bottom line…I ain’t gonna blame anybody but ourselves.”

The Chiefs are now fourth in the AFC playoff standings and many fans are doubting they will play football in February.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—The XFL and the United States Football league have merged and the St. Louis Battlehawks are one of the surviving eight teams in the new league. They’ll start play in March.

Each league had eight teams and will keep four from each league. The Battlehawks will be joined by the Arlington Renegades, DC Defenders, and the San Antonio Brahmas.  The Seattle Sea Dragons, Vegas Vipers, Houston Roughnecks and Orlando Guardians will go away.  The USFL teams surviving are the Birmingham Stallions, Houston Gamblers, Memphis Showboats, and Michgan Panthers. Not making the cut are the Pittsburgh Maulers, New Orleans Breakers, Philadelphia Stars and the New Jersey Generals.

St. Louis is the XFL’s best market.

The Battlehawks bring several strengths to the league. They play home games in the domed stadium originally built for the Rams.  The XFL had rented the stadium for $800,000 a year. In exchange the league gets all ticket sales income while the city convention and visitors bureau gets all concession and parkig revenue. Earlier this year the XFL signed a here year lease with similar terms. Some stadium space was not opened but city officials decided to open other areas because of two sellouts.  The home opener last March 11 drew 38,310 fans, the largest crowd for and XFL game, including games in the earlier iteration of the league dating to 2001. The Battlehawks have played seven games at home and all of them rank in the top eight attendance in XFL history, with the Battlehawks holding the top six crowds.

(CARDINALS/ROYALS)—Baseball’s winter meetings are underway in Nashville at press time. Neither the Cardinals nor the Royals has made any waves.

Sports:  A Thrilling Win, A Bad News Upset, the Chiefs Turn Into the Bad-Hands People. And the Cardinals make a deal. 

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs dropped a big one to the Philadelphia Eagles at home last night.  Actually they dropped several, increasing their NFL-worst record for dropped passes to 26.

Dropped passes including two as the Chiefs tried to regain the lead with time running out, penalties and two turnovers in the red zone added up to a 21-17 loss that drops the Chiefs to 7-3 whle the Eagles go to 9-1.

Wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling had a perfectly-thrown pass bounce off his hands for what would have been a go-ahead 51-yard touchdown play in the last Chiefs drive. Wide receiver Justin Watson let the ball through his hands on the Chiefs’ final play, a pass on fourth and 25 that would have been a first down.

The Chiefs were held scoreless in the second half after Philadelphia found a way to stop what had been an effective run game in the first two quarters and th Kansas City offense seemed out of kilter in the second half.

(CARDINALS)—-Sometimes, seasoned lumber is the best thing to use when you start a rebuilding process. The St. Louis Cardinals have picked up two pieces of it, one as a player and one as a coach.

The Cardinals’ first significant signing of the team’s rebuilding winter is former starter Lance Lynn who has signed a one-year deal, reportedly for a guaranteed $10 million or so with incentives to earn another three million.  The Cardinals have a $12 million option for 2025.

Lynn pitched his first six years with St. Louis, went 72-43 with a 3.78 ERA.  One important thing about him is that he ate innings, 977 of them in 161 starts. He’s 36 now. Last year he started 6-9 for the White Sox but finished the year 7-2 with the Dodgers and helped them advance in the playoffs.  He has a World Series ring from 2011. He left the team as a free agent after the 2016  season and signed a deal with the Twins. The Twins dealt him to the Yankees in mid-year and then to the Rangers for three years, then two years with the White Sox.  It was a disappointing experience for Lynn but he had one strong game when he tied a team record by striking out 16 Mariners and set a Manor League record for strikes by a pitcher who went into the game with an ERA of 6.00 or more.

In his career, he’s 136-95 with a 3.74 ERA.

ON THE BENCH:  The Cardinals have hired their third bench coach during the Marmol managing era.  The newest one is former Redbird utility man Daniel Descalso. He replaces Joe McEwing who is moving up to the front office as a special assistant to John Mozeliak, the President of Baseball Operations. The team says it expects to make more coaching additions as the winter wears on.

Descalso spent half of his ten-year MLB career with the Cardinals.He also was with the Cubs, Diamondbacks, and the Rockies.  He spent last year as a special assistant in baseball operations with Arizona.

Former outfielder Matt Holliday was hired as bench coach a year ago but he decided he wanted to spend more time with his family and resigned after a few weeks.

(MIZ)—Missouri’s win over Florida has allowed the Tigers to inch up one spot in the Associated Press and the Coaches Poll. They’re tenth in each. They hold at 9th in the playoff rankings.  They’re the nation’s top-ranked two-loss team.

It began to appear as the game went along that the team that had the ball last was likely to win the game.  The Missouri Tigers had the ball last, down a point with a minute and a half to go…and then inside of thirty seconds had it with fourth and 17

And they found a way to win.

The lead had changed for the eighth time in the game when a Florida field goal put the Gators on top 31-30.  But Florida left too much time on the clock for Missouri. Here’s how the last minute-36 seconds brought the ninth lead change of the game, and gave 28 seniors on the football team a beautiful memory to take away from their last game on Faurot Field.

1:36—Missouri 25 yard line after a touchback on the Florida kickoff.  Quarterback Brady Cook throws short to Cody Schrader for two yards.

1:20—pass incomplete. Third down and eight.  Cook to Mekhi Miller good for 13 yards.  First down.

1:00—False start, Missouri.  First and 15.  Cook finds no one open downfield, throws to Schrader, who loses two yards but gets out of bounds.

Second and 17 now.  Incomplete pass to Theo Wease Jr.

Third and 17, Cook tries to hit Mookie Cooper but leads Cooper too far and he can’t pull it in .

:38—Fourth and 17.  The game rides on this play, maybe the whole season if the Tigers want a 10-win year and a New Year’s Day bowl game.  Missouri calls its final timeout because of some confusion about what play to call. Cook drops deep, throw a bullet that Luther Burden III jumps to catch amid Florida defenders and bulls his way for 27 yards and puts Missouri in Harrison-Mevis long field goal range.  The ball is on the 40.  It would be about a 57-yard kick.

:21—Incomplete pass.  Missouri needs more yards to make the kick easier for Mevis.  Cook connects with Miller at the Florida 29. First down

:13—Cook spikes the ball to stop the clock. Second and ten.  Schrader fires to Cooper, who backs out of bounds at the 13-yard line.  First down but not enough time to get closer.  Mevis walks on to deliver his second walk-off field goal of the year.  Florida calls  time out, giving Mevis time to get nervous. Mevis won’t be iced. He’s just thinking about the mechanics of thekick, “keeping my head down and making good contact…I knew if I do those two things then good things are gonna happen,” he says afterward.

Head down, good contact and the ball arcs high and through the uprights with four seconds on the clock.

On-field celebrations are interrupted by officials who say the clock still shows a handful of seconds. Florida tries the hook-and- ladder return of the Missouri kickoff but the runner is finally on the ground with the clock at zero.

Cody Schrader racked up 127 yards rushing in the first half but the Gators found a way to stop him in the second two quarters. He had only 32 more yards but upped his conference-leading total to 1,272.  Cook finished 20 for 34 for 326 yards and no interceptions.  Burden  went over 100 yards receiving for the first time since week six with 158 and now has 1,142 yards for the year, third best in the SEC.  Cook has topped the 3,000 yard mark, and ranks third in the conference.

On the other side of the line, Darius Robinson’s eight sacks tie him for second in the league. Only Mississippi State’s Nathaniel Watson has more—10.   Kris Abrams-Draine’s four interceptions put him a tie for second, one behind Kentucky’s Maxwell Hairston.

Harrison Mevis and Texas A&M’s Randy Bond lead the conference with 22 field goals. Mevis is third in points scored, 103.  Eight of the top ten scorers in the conference are kickers.  Cody Schrader ranks 11th with 12 touchdowns and a two-point conversion.

Missouri is fourth in total offense at almost 450 yards a game, trailing LSU, Georgia, and Ole Miss.

One game left in the regular season. Friday afternoon, against Arkansas, which beat up on Florida International 40-22 Saturday to run the Razorback’s record to 4-7.  (ZOU)

(ROUNDBALL/MIZBOO)—This had to be a learning experience of some kind. It certainly was an embarrassment.

Just two days after a scintillating rush from far back against Minnesota to claim a 70-68 victory Friday night on the road, Missouri’s basketball team choked big time against Jackson State.  Missouri, which outscored Minnesota 31-9 in the last half of the second half at Minnesota to come from 20 down to a 70-68 win, was up 57-50 against a team that is opening its season with nine straight road games and five straight losses.

But the Jackson State Tigers outscored the Missouri Tigers 11-2 to take the lead at 61-59 with about seven minutes left.  The Tigers re-established a lead at 69-63 but let the game slip away, with Chase Adams hitting a jumper with three seconds left to give his team the win.

Missouri crippled itself ith 18 turnovers.  Eleven of them in the first half turned into 17 points and a final one trying to get off a shot under the basket just before the clock hit zero.

Jackson State Coach Mo Williams called it a “signature win” for his team: “To beat an SEC opponent on the road, not to mention this is 15 days straight on the road since Nov. 5. To have that performance from multiple guys, O’Neal going 8-for-11 from the field and Young bouncing back from a few tough games that he has had and to hit some big shots for us and to make his free throws and continue to be aggressive was huge for us… We beat SMU last year and they are considered more of a mid-major than a Power Five just because of the conference. You beat an SEC team, a Missouri team that is not going to be at the bottom but an upper-echelon team in the SEC.”

It was the eighth meeting between Missouri and Jackson State, the first in 22 years. It’s the second SWAC team Missouri has faced this year, the first being Arkansas-Pine Bluff in a season-opening 101-79.

Missouri meets South Carolina State tomorrow night. (ZOU, but not as enthusiastically)

Getting up to speed—

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen, who earlier appeared unimpressed by the hoopla surrounding the Las Vegas Grand Prix enjoyed himself so much Saturday night that he said afterwards, “I’m already excited to come back here next year and hopefully try to do something similar.”

He won his 18th race of the year, the 33rd victory out of the 43 Formula 1 races.

(INDYCAR)—The kickoff of the 2024 big-time racing season in the United States will be January 25-26 on the high banks of Daytona. IndyCar has not raced there since 1958 but the track has become a showcase for the series’ talent in recent years and next year will continue that trend.

At least sixty cars will run in the Daytona 24 Hours. Three-time winner and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon; last years winner of the Indianapolis 500 winner, Josef Newgarden; James Hinchcliffe, and the winner of the 2016 Centennial 500, Alexander Rossi are the healdiners from the series.

IndyCar owners will have entries: Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi, Michael Andretti, Bobby Rahal, and Jimmy Vasser.

Dixon will team with, and with four-time IndyCar series champion Sebasian Bourdais—who won the 24 hours in 2014—and Dutch driver Renger van der Zande.   Tom Blomqvist, an English driver who will join the Meyer Shank IndyCar team for 2024 will team with two other drivers on the Whelen Cadillac entry.

Newgarden will be one of four drivers in a Penske Porsche.  Colton Herta and 2009 F1 champion Jenson Button will be half the team in a car from Wayne Taylor Racing.  Marcus Ericsoon, who won the 2022 Indianapolis 500, will be one of four drivers in the other Acura run by WTR.

Rossi, Hinchcliffe and two other driers will be in a McLaren 720s. Kyle Kirkwood and former IndyCar driver Jack Hawksworth will be tw-thirds of a team entered by Pfaff Motorsports.

 

Sports:  Cookin’ with Cody, Rest for the Chiefs; A Basketball Split; Waiting for Baseball Action

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—Here’s how Nashville Tennessean Senior Columnist John Adams saw it Saturday evening: “Saturday’s 36-7 loss to Missouri is just as inexplicable {as last year’s 63-38 loss to a middle-rated  South Carolina}. It wasn’t just a loss. It was an embarrassing loss…They played defense as though they were trying to make Cody Schrader a Heisman Trophy candidate and their offense was just as lacking.”

He got that right.

This was a statement game.  Missouri deserves the Number 11 rating it has claimed in both major polls after pounding the Volunteers into submission.

It was a game of delicious statistics for Missouri fans, the kind of satisfaction-in-numbers that we haven’t seen for a long time.  Tme of Possession: Missouri 39:56, Tennessee 20:04.  Tennessee had only three plays in the first quarter.

Total Offense: Schrader 321 yards. Tennessed 350 yards.

The SEC was formed in 1951. Schrader of Missouri is the first SEC player to have 200 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving  in a game.  Nobody from Alabama has ever done it. Nobody from George has ever done it. Nor from Auburn. Nobody.

Brady Cook and Cory Schrader where the show on offense thanks to an offensive line  that gave them time and openings to do their thing.  The two combined for 47 rushing plays that produced 260 yards. Cook had an average day passing, going 18 for 24 for 275 yards, throwing to seven Missouri receivers and one Tennessee defensive back.

Those guys were the fireworks who overshadowed a defense that held Tennessee to its lowest point total in the three years under Josh Heupel. Twenty Tigers made the 56 tackles that kept Tennessee from gaining any traction other than a first half touchdown.  Twenty-six of the tackles were solos, another indication that Tennessee just could not spring The Big One.

Schrader now leads the conference rushing statistics by almost 200 yards over Kentucky’s  Ray Davis (1124-926).  Cook is fourth in passing yards (2746), a category headed by LSU’s Jayden Daniels, who is about 400 yards ahead of him.

Next up is Florda, 5-5 overall, 3-4 in conference play.  And then Arkansas, now 3-7 overall and 1-6 in the conference.

Missouri is 8-2, the 23rd time in program history the Tigers have  won eight games. Don Faurot’s 1939 team (8-2) was the first. His 1941 and 42 teams  also got to eight wins.  It didn’t happen again until Dan Devine’s “undefeated” season of 11-0 in 1960.  He had five years with at least eight wins. Al Onofrio had one year of eight wins.  Warren Powers did it twice. Larry Smith’s 1998 team hit the eight mark once.  GaryPinkel won eight or more games nine times including the Tigers’ 12-win seasons in 2007 and 2013, an eleven win season in 2014, and ten wins in 200 and 2010.  Barry Odom had an eight win year in 2018.

The last double-figure win year for Missouri was 2014.  This year’s squad has a chance to become only the 7th team in 134 seasons to finish with wins in double figures.  (ZOU)

(TIGERS BASKETBALL)—These are the games in which a coach tries to sort out who will be the starters, who will be next off the bench and who will fill the last seats on the bench.

Last week’s game against Memphis State was part of that process. The Tigers led 33-26 at the half but only four players found the net in the whole second half. Missouri scored only 22 points in the last 20 minutes and shot only 19 percent from the field. Memphis enjoyed a 70-55 win.  Sean East II had 14 points to lead Missouri in the first half.  He did not attempt a shot in the second half.

A somewhat weaker opponent provided the Tigers with a chance to heal last night. Southern Illinois-Edwardsville couldn’t buy a bucket for 16 minutes of the second half, finally getting a three-pointer with 1:21 left, ending an 0 for 16 “streak.”  Missouri walked away with a 68-50 win, with Sean East scoring 20.

A sterner test awaits Thursday night at Minnesota.

(CHIEFS)—-The Kansas City Chiefs emerged from the weekend as winners although they didn’t play.  Lucas Strozinsky on Arrowheadaddict.com that the Chiefs went into the weekend tied for the best record in the AFC although holding a tiebreaker.  Baltimore and the Chiefs were both 7-2. The Jaguars were in at 6-2 and the Dolphins 6-2.

If the Ravens beat Cleveland, Baltimore would be up to 8-2. The Jaguars and the Dolphins had a shot at joining Kansas City at 7-2.

Didn’t happen.  The Ravens coughed up a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost to Cleveland. The 49ers beat Jacksonville. Houston ended Cincinnati’s four-game winning streak. Miami also had a bye week. Strozinsky puts the AFC playoff standings this way:

Chiefs  7-2

Ravens 7-3

Jaguars, Dolphins, Steelers, Browns  6-3

The Chiefs don’t play again until next Monday night when they meet the Eagles, who are 8-1 and rank second in scoring in the NFL.  But they are 20th in points-against.

Motoring along:

(MOTORSPORTS)—Big-time auto racing in the United States has wrapped up with teams from IndyCar and NASCAR retreating to their shops to prepare for next year and looking for bodies to fill seats being vacated for various reasons or negotiating new deals with returning drivers.

Formula 1 races in Las Vegas next weekend.  The next race, in Abu Dhabi, will end racing for that series although the championship was decided weeks ago.  The course includes almost a mile of The Strip, a situation that has upset many folks in Vegas.

The event is being billed as a spectacle—which turns off Max Verstappen, who locked up the championship last month and who says, “We are there more for the show than the race itself, looking at the layout of the circuit.  I’m not actually much into that, I’m more: ‘I’ll go there, do mything, and be gone.”

 

Sports: Football Tigers Can’t Get Over the Hump; Basketball Tigers crack the century mark; Chiefs stifle Miami. And a Racing Champion is Crowned  

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—The Missouri Tigers have proved they can play with the big guys. Now they have to prove they can beat the big guys.  Thirteen penalties, some at crucial moments, and a couple of bad passes led to a 30-21 loss to Georgia, the nation’s number one team in the AP and USA Today Coaches poll (but #2 in the bowl playoff list).

Missouri went into the game ranked 14th in the polls but 12th in the playoff list.  The loss likely dooms Missouri’s changes for an SEC division title or one of the playoff bowls but its performance likely impressed several top-level bowl scouts.

Missouri traded leads with Georgia and the game was in doubt until the four-minute mark when a Georgia interception led to a field goal that boosted the Bulldogs’ lead to nine points.  The game turned in the fourth quarter when a Brady Cook pass aimed at a receiver cutting across to the left was intercepted by 300-pound defensive lineman Nazir Stackhouse, who lumbered deep into Tiger territory before going down.

The game stats showed Missouri out-rushed Georga and had more tackles for loss on defense. Cody Schrader toughed his way to 112 yards rushing with a touchdown in the fourth quarter that tightened the game.  But Missouri couldn’t get a dagger play that would put them back on top.

Tiger Kicker Harrison Mevis helped Missouri to a first-half tie with a 38-yard field goal  and gave the Tigers a second-half lead at 13-10 when he hit from 42 yards out, a kick that made him the top scorer in MU football history.

Next up for the Tigers is Tennessee. Both teams go into the game at 7-2.  Tennessee beat up on Connecticut 59-3 Saturday. Both teams are likely to be ranked in the second half of the top 20 going into that game. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—What many thought would be a shootout became a tight defensive win for the Chiefs Sunday. The Chiefs’ 21-14 win was the result of an tough and opportunistic defense that held Miami scoreless in the first half and sealed the win with a huge play that stopped a Miami drive for a tying score in the closing seconds.  Kansas City scored 21 points in the first half, with the ultimate winning points coming on a 59-yard fumble return by Bryan Cook.

Perhaps most satisfying for Kansas City fans was that the fumble was by former Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill, who caught what was intended to be a screen pass two yards behind the line, but was immediately hit by defender Trent McDuffie and dropped the ball, which was scooped up by Mike Edwards. Edwards, about to be taken down, lateraled the ball to Cook who streaked down the sideline for the touchdown.

The Chiefs couldn’t score in the second half but Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa let a shot at tying the games slip through his fingers—really slip.  The last snap for the Dolphins went slightly to his right and off his fingers. He fell on the ball, but it was Chiefs’ ball with seconds left.

While the Chiefs offense again struggled to put big points on the board, the defense forced Miami to punt five times in the first half, more times than they have punted in any full game all year.  The first-half shutout was the fewest points scored in a first half in the Dolphins’ last forty games. And the scoreless first half was the first since last year’s Christmas loss to the Packers. Tagovailoa’s 193 yards passing in the game was his lowest total of the season. And Hill never could break free, finishing with eight catches for 62 yards.

The Dolphins shut down Travis Kelce, who had only three catches for 14 yards.  But his final catch of the day put him a yard past Tony Gonzalez former team record of 10,940 yards receiving. He broke the record in his 152nd game.  Gonzalez reached the 11,000 yard mark in his 191st game. Kelce needs only 59 yards to get there and become only the fourth tight end in NFL history with 11,000 yards.

He still needs a lot of work to catch Gonzales, who caught passes for 15,127 yards.  Others who topped 11K yards: Jason Witten, who had 13,046, and Antonio Gates, with 11,841.

There are some other Gonzalez records within Kelce’s reach. He’s within 46 receptions of Gonazalez’s 916 catches and is within three of the 76 touchdowns Gonzalez scored while with the Chiefs.

Hill had told his teammates not to let Kelce out of their sight.  If that’s what they did, the Dolphins were soft on a lot of others. Patrick Mahomes completed passes to nine receivers. Kelce, Hardman, and Gray had three each. Nobody else had more than two.

The win makes the Chiefs the first NFL team to win games in four different countries: Germany, Mexico, England and——*

(TIGER ROUNDBALL)—We got our first look at this year’s talent assembled by Mizzou basketball coach Dennis Gates last night.  Missouri opened with a 101-79 win against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Sean East II, with 21 points lead the team in scoring as Gates gave fans a first look at a dozen players.  Tamar Bates played ten flashy minutes and scored 18 points including 10 within a minute and a half.  Aiden Shaw chipped in with five blocks and nine rebounds as the team racked up 17 assists with only 13 turnovers.

The new Tigers shot 56% from the field, 40% from behind the line.

The Lady Tigers opened their season with a 72-61 victory over Belmont, with new players, including freshmen, scoring all of the points in the first quarter.

(CARDINALS)—The St. Louis Cardinals will play a special game in a special place next June 20—Rickwood Field, the oldest professional ballpark in the United States.  They’ll play the Giants in a game honoring the Negro Leagues.

A special guest for the game will be Willie Mays, who played at Rickwood Field as a member of the Birmingham Black Barons.  Tickets will be hard to come by—the stadium seats only 11,000.

The park opened August 18, 1910, the realization of a dream by Birmingham industrialist Rick Woodward, who asked Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack to help him design it.

Want to take a look?

https://youtu.be/FW9_nQDMDCo

Rickwood Field was shared by the Birmingham Barons, a white team, and the Black Barons. Future Hall of Famers played on the diamond through the years, as the park’s history tells us:

History of Rickwood Field | Rickwood Field

Now, on to the end of NASCAR for the  year—

(NASCAR)—-The checkered flag has fallen on the 2023 NASCAR season with two winners at Phoenix: Ross Chastian gets the race but Ryan Blaney gets the Cup after a day of close racing among the remaining competitors for the championship.

Chastain, Blaney, Kyle Larson, and William Byron—the latter three being in contention for the Cup—raced each other intensely for almost sixty laps including a pit stop and a restart after a caution flag.  Blaney’s car owner, Roger Penske, had to tell Blaney to turn down his intensity as he battled Chastain, assuring him he could with the championship by conserving his car and settling for a secod-place race finish.

Blaney contented himself to second place after that, finishing 1.2 seconds behind Chastain with Larson third and Byron fourth.  The fourth driver who entered the race running for the championship, Christopher Bell, broke a brake rotor just past the one-third mark and finished last.

Blaney becomes the fourteenth driver in NASCAR’s 75-year history to win a Cup championship before turning thirty (Jeff Gordon did it three times).  The youngest was Bill Rexford in 1950.

He sees the championship as a responsibility in addition to being an accomplishment because the championship brings a platform. “I feel like if you get the privilege to be a champion of your sport, it is part of your job to promote your sport and do the best you can to be the best champion that you can,” he said afterwards. “I think it’s part of your job to kind of, hey, embrace it, push the sport. You have this awesome platform now to where you’ve done something incredible; use that, promote the sport. I’m excited to see what happens this offseason, see what comes up, to where you’re not only growing yourself, you are growing the sport of NASCAR as well.”

Racing is in his blood.  His father, Dave, ran 473 Cup races in a 17-year career. His grandfather and an uncle also were racers. He won his first race at the age of nine in a quarter midget.  He won in NASCAR’s top series three times this year and finished in the top ten in half of the 36 races. He has finished in the top ten in points in seven of his eight full-time seasons.

The race was the finale for Kevin Harvick’s career.  He led 23 laps early in the race but his car lost some of its handling as the sun faded. He finished seventh, the 21st consecutive top-ten finish at Phoenix.

The next race that counts toward the 2023 championship is only 101 days away, the Daytona 500, February 18.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen has won the Grand Prix of Brazil with Lando Norris in a McLaren and Fernando Alonso in an Aston Martin sharing the podium with him. The victory extends his record for most wins in a season, now at 17.  Each race is a new recordfor Verstappen this year.  Even if he fails to win any of the final two races, will finish the year having won more than 77% of the races on the schedule.  That would break the record set in the hearly days of F1 when Alberto Ascari won six of he eight races in 1952. He has won 32 races (so far) in the last two seasons, another record. He’s been on the podium nineteen times this year, another  record. His 922 laps-led is also a new record. He will far surpass the record for the greatest winning margin for a championship. Sebastien Vettel won the title by 155 points ten years ago. Verstappen leads his nearest competitor by 256. He has a record run of 39 consecutive races leading the points. He has won eleven times from pole this year, another record.

Verstappen has led the championship standings across two seasons, since the Spanish Grand Prix of May 2022, and is guaranteed to end the season with a record run of 39 races in a row as leader.

*The United States, of course!!!

(Photo credit:  NASCAR/Chris Gaythen/Getty Images)