SPORTS:  One Last Disappointment; The Injury List; The Journeyman Quarterbacks; Axes Fall; Tires do, too 

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor

(mizz)—All year long, the Missouri Tigers have had at least one disastrous scoreless stretch  that robbed them a chance for a basketball win. One last time, they had another one.  This time they broke their fans’ hearts by waiting until the bitter end.

They had taken the lead early in the second half, not an unexpected event given the trend all year, and the held it well past the mid-point—which WAS kind of unexpected. They fought off Georgia surges and went up by seven points when Sean East II scored off a rebound to make it 59-52 with 3:39 left.

Those were the last points of the season for the Tigers.  Georgia ran off twelve unanswered points to slam the door on Missouri’s hopes.

Missouri scored just six points in the last 6:25.  They missed their last seven shots and had a turn over on an in-bounds pass that was turned into a quick Georgia basket.

The season ends 8-24 with Missouri 0-for-2024, losers of 19 straight SEC games, including the conference tournament first-round exit.

Now we wait to see how the portal changes everything.  (zou)

(AXES)—Travis Ford, briefly a Missouri Tiger before going back to Kentucky to finish his college basketball career, was fired by St. Louis University hours after the Billikens had lost to Duquesne in the second round of the Atlantic Ten Conference Tournament.

Ford’s team were 146-109 in his eight seasons. But they made it to the NCAA Tournament only once and were never seeded higher than fourth in the post-season conference tournament.. The Bills were 13-20 this year, 5-13 in the conference. He is the third-winningest coach in program history. He has been the highest-paid employee at SLU for several years at more than $2 million a year.

This might be the end of coaching for Ford, who’s been in the biz for 27 years. “The game’s been very good to me. Now it’s time to do something else,” he said after the firing.

Ford went to SLU from Oklahoma State where he also spent eight seasons before being fired.

He played a year for Norm Stewart, in 1989-90, where he made the Big 8 All-Freshman team. But he returned home to Kentucky to finish out his career with the Wildcats. His teams at five universities were 491-366.

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Another Ford also has been shown the door with a winning record—but not the right kinds of wins—Dana Ford at Missouri State, in Springfield.

The Bears were 17-16 this year but only 8-12 in the Missouri Valley and were knocked out of the Arch Madness Tournament in the quarter-final round.

His six-season record at Missouri State was 106-82 with a conference recordof 64-48. His team went to the NIT once.

Missouri State was his second head coaching job. He’d done four years at Tennessee State before moving to Springfield. His overall coaching record is 163-146.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals have tamped down a little of the speculation that manager Oliver Marmol won’t last by giving him a contract extrension, This season was to be the last in his original three-year deal.  Terms haven’t been publicly announced but it’s thought his new contract is good through ’26.

The injury report is a mixed bag as opening day nears.  Pitcher Sonny Gray has thrown off the mound for the first time since leaving his first spring training game with a hamstring tweak. He reported no pain in a 20-minute bullpen session.  But Marmol says he will miss pitching on opening day. He says Gray might not require a stint on the injured list “and could potentially pitch later on the first road trip of the season.”   The new opening day pitcher will be Miles Mikolas.

The news is less good for three other guys.

Word came out Saturday that Keynan Middleton, one of the off-season pickups to bolster the bullpen, has a strained arm and will miss opening day. Middleton who can throw consistently close to triple digits, spent last year with the White Sox and Yankees.  He’s been in three games this spring, getting a couple of K’s and allowing two hits. He’s been shut down for ten days and might miss the first couple of weeks of the season.

Tommy Edmund’s rehab has been shut down for at least a week as he reported some pain in his right wrist as he took part in batting drills. If he starts the season on the IL, he could be replaced by rookie Victor Scott II, who is having a solid spring.

Lars Nootbar likewise might start the season on the injured list. Manager Oliver Marmol says he’s making progress with his injured ribs but his return to full play remains uncertain.

(ROYALS)—The Royals have named Cole Ragans as their opening day starter.  It’s just nine days away. The Royals open at home against the Twins.

Ragans had a comeback year last season, returning from his second Tommy John surgery. He pitched strongly for the Royals, showing a fastball toughing 97 mph and posting a strike rate of 10.6 per nine innings. He was the American League pitcher of the month last August when he won three out of four, rang up an ERA of 1.72 and had 56 strikeouts in 36 2/3 innings. Only Dennis Leonard, in June, 1977, has had more strikeouts in one month than Ragans had.

Overall, he had a dozen starts and posted a 2.64 ERA.

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Three new names have been added to the Kansas City Royals Hall of Fame—two of them executives.

Outfielder Bo Jackson, dare we say “legendary” outfielder?—is joined by General Managers Cedric Tallis and John Schuerholz on this year’s list.

Jackson is considered the greatest two-sport athlete in pro sports history with eight years in MLB (five with the Royals) and four partial years in the NFL, not playing until baseball season was over. He was a .250 career hitter with 141 home runs (32 one year for KC) and an arm that people still talk about.  His most famous play was a one=handed grab of a ball off the left field wall, a turn and throw from the warning track that stunned everybody:

(7) KC@SEA: Bo Jackson’s cannon gets Reynolds at home – YouTube

Nobody was more surprised than Reynolds:

(7) HAROLD REYNOLDS: THE BO JACKSON THROW – YouTube

Before a hip injury ended is NFL career, he played 38 games for the Raiders, averaged 5.4 yards per rushing attempt and 73 yards-plus per game.

Tallis was the Royals’ first General Manager when they were formed as expansion team. He acquired the players who were the foundation of the Royals first great generation—Brett, Otis, Patek, Rojas, Mayberry, McRae, Wilson, Leonard, Busby, and Splittorff, among others. He also created the Royals Baseball Academy that produced Frank White and UL Washington. He died in 1991.

The Royals took Schuerholz away from Baltimore to help develop the Royals’ farm system. He took as GM in 1981 and added players such as Saberhagen, Danny and Bo Jackson, Seitzer, Appier, Montgomery and Tartabull.  He went to Atlanta in ’91 after building the team that won Kansas City’s first World Series championship in ’85, and was the architect there behind five pennants for the Braves. He was elected to Cooperstown in 2017.

(EXMIZZ)—Drew Lock has become the latest Missouri football quarterback to become a journeyman signal-caller in the NFL.  He has signed a one-year deal with the New York Giants, his third team in six seasons (three seasons in Denver, the last two in Seattle). He’s been in 28 games during that time, started 23, is 9-14 as a starting quarterback, 28 touchdowns and 23 interceptions. He has a chance to start if expected starter Daniel Jones hasn’t come back from ACL surgery last November.

He joins Blaine Gabbert as the only Tiger quarterbacks in the NFL. Gabbert has built a ten-year career, mostly as a backup after he fizzled as a starter at Tampa Bay. Gabbert has played for six teams and won his secnd Super Bowl ring this year with the Chiefs (he won his first one as Tom Brady’s backup with the Buccaneers). Gabbert has been in 69 games, 49 as a starter with a 14-35 record. 51 TDs and 50 interceptions.

The third Missouri quarterback to build a long career in the NFL as a backup was Chase Daniel, won a Super Bowl ring with the New Orleans Saints. Daniel played 74 games for for six teams and was 2-3 as a starter with nine TDs and seven interceptions. He was out of the NFL last year. (EXZOU)

(FOOTBALL)—We already know something about the way the first season of the new United Football League will finish up.

In St. Louis.

The United Football League has announced its first championship game will be played in St. Louis at the domed stadium June 16.

The announcement is a reward for St. Louis Battlehawks fans who led the league in attendance last year with more than 35,000 fans per game.  The Batlehawks came up one game short of playing in the XFL championship last year.   The XFL and the USFL merged during the offseason. The league’s first game will be March 30.

—Blessed are those who go around in circles, for they shall be called wheels—

(NASCAR)—“I’ve never run a race like that. I hope I never have to run a race like that again,” said fifth-place finisher Kyle Larson after Sunday’s race on the short track at Bristol. He wasn’t alone in those feelings because the concrete surface seemed to eat tires.

A spokesman for NASCAR, senior VP for Innovation and Racing Development had a different take. He called it “one of the best short-track races I’ve ever seen.”

The difference in perspective might be the difference between watching and driving.

The record 54th lead change of the race belonged to Denny Hamlin, who passed teammate Martin Truex Jr., in the closing laps.  Only three other drivers finished on the same lap as Hamlin and Truex, the smallest number of cars on the lead lap since Dover, twenty years ago. Sixteen drivers led at least one lap, tying a track record set in 1989.

The racing during the stages and in the final run for the checkered flag became a tire management contest as tire wear was far worse than Goodyear had predicted.  It was so severe that NASCAR decide midway into the race to give every team an additional set of tires.

The win is Hamlin’s 52nd, tying him for 13th on the wins list.

Goodyear admitted after the race that  tire wear was not up to standard.  A spokesman said the fall-off in tire wear was ‘too drastic.”  He says Goodyear will do extensive research why so many tires failed or were showing threads when changed during pit stops.

(FORMULA 1 AND INDYCAR BOTH HAD THE WEEKEND OFF.)

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

by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Speeding right along—

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

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

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

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

 

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

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

And there will be new sideline and end zone suites—

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

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

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

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

(CARDINALS)—Uh Oh…..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Motorsports—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, the wheeled sports.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(NASCAR)—Now that’s racin!

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor

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

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

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

Her contract at Arizona is for five years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0-0-0-0-0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A skyline.

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

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

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

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

0-0-0-0-0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another is in Milwaukee, another daytrip for some Missourians.

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

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

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

 

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

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting up to speed now:

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

—–BASEBALL—-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—The roar is beginning to be heard—

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

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

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

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

The Daytona 500 comes up in two weeks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.