Sports: A Football Championship, A Tall Arm for KC; A coach returns; and a youngster shows he can run with his elders.

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

We’ll talk about the Royals and the Cardinals  but not right now.  NOW we want to talk about the championship football team in St. Joseph.

Not the Chiefs—-they’re just practicing.

We’re talking about the ST. JOSEPH GOATS!

(GOATS)—The St. Joseph Goats beat the Arkansas Diamonds for the second time this year to win The Arena League football championship, ending the season the same way they started it—beating the Arkansas Diamonds.

The Goats started in Kansas City, a town whose history includes the long reign of political boss Tom Pendergast whose organization was known as the “Goats.”  Pendergast ran a cement company and one of the many projects of the Pendergast organization was the Municipal Auditorium where the Goats played their first games.

The other team in St. Joseph also is from Kansas City but they’ll go back there for their regular season, challenged by the Goats to do what they have done—win a championship.

Goats coach (say that real fast four or five times) Dorsey Golston told the St. Joseph News-Press, “It just feels amazing, accomplishment is what I feel right now.” Quarterback University of St. Mary grad Angelo Trujillo, a graduate of the University of St. Mary led the team from a 20-18 lead at the half to a 52-30 win.

The Goats don’t plan to go the White House. After their win the team celebrated at the Hi-Ho Bar and Grill in St. Joseph.

Chiefs coach Andy Reid was in the stands for the game. The team is owned by Travis and Jason Kelce and Chiefs legend Christian Okoye, the “Nigerian Nightmare” running back for six years in the late eighties and early nineties.

The Goats finished 8-2, outscoring opponents 556-400 with two wins over the Diamonds and the Nebraska Siege, and single games wins against the Ozark Lunkers, the Iowa Woo, andwhile splitting results with the Woo and taking two out of three form the Nebraska Siege—including a 57-55 heart-stopper to rech the championship game.

(CHIEFS)—Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy is back with the team after a couple of weeks back home in Virginia, where his son is accused of shooting and seriously wounding Bieniemmy’ wife.  Bieniemy has been watching internet streams to keep up with the first week of practice with pads.

0-0-0-0

The Chiefs started the week with good news—three players who have missed a lot of practices are healthy enough to be back on the field—Xavier Worthy, Ashton Gillotte, and Kristian Fulton.

Worthy’s return gets the receiving corps closer to full strength. Rookie WR Cyrus Allen was back last Friday after recovering from a bruised shin. Rashee Rice, still recovering from knee surgery between seasons is reportedly to be increasing his workload in practice.

The return of Fulton, a cornerback, strengthens the secondary while L’Jarius Sneed continues to recover from a knee problem.

Not in practice yesterday, however, were guard Trey Smith, DT Omarr Norman-Lott, LB Drue Tranquil and Sneed.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals opened a series in Los Angeles late last night our time the Dodgers, a team that had won as many games as the Royals had lost and had lost one fewer games than the Royals have won. They started the series with 44 games remaining.  They have to go 15-29 the rest of the way to avoid another 100-loss season, a winning percentage better than they had when they went to Los Angeles.

Any thoughts of playoffs evaporated weeks ago but there have been some recent highlights.

Bobby Witt returned to the lineup, with an impact, last week. And sophomore Jac Caglianone gave a powerful demonstration of his development as a second-year major leaguer.

Saturday night, he homered twice,  doubled twice and drove in four runs.  He is the first player in team history to have that combination of hits and the first to do it in the major leagues this year. Only six other players in franchise history have gotten four extra-base hits in a game. No Royals player in a decade had twelve total bases in a game.  His average home run distance of 418.2 feet is the best in baseball this year.

0-0-0-0

The Royals made a big pickup last week who could become a big contributor to the relief corps—35-year old Luke Little, a 6-foot-8 inch left handed reliever the Cubs had put on waivers.  He’s in Omaha right now.

He has been in The Show briefly although he’s been in only three games in the past two years. Thirty of his forty game appearances came in 2024. In those forty games, he’s gone 3-1 with a 3.97 era  and 45 strikeouts in 36.2 innings.

In Double-A and Triple-A this year he’s 8-0 despite a 5.03 ERA. He has 44 K’s in 39.1 innings.

The Royals appear to have misread the tea leaves with another pitcher acquired at the trade deadline—Aaron Brummer who had two appearances totaling 1.1 innings, giving up six hits and six runs. A walk, a home run and never got a strikeout. He was offered a chance to go down to Omaha but has decided to become a free agent.

(CARDINALS)-The St. Louis Cardinals fought their way back to .500 by taking a series from the Rockies during the weekend.  They opened an important series against a team they have to get past to make the playoffs, the Phillies.

Wetherholt, one of the leading contenders for ROTY, has been picked for the Cardinals’ 2026 Heart & Hustle Award. Each team can name a player for the honor which is supported by the MLGB Players Alumni Association. The overall winner will be announced after the World Series.

Wetherholt went into the weekend hitting .248 with 16 homers, 43 runs bated in, a dozen stolen bases, 54 bases and a .248 average.

Taking another track—

(INDYCAR)—IndyCar has started intense final run to the end of the season with a seemingly constant face on the winner’s podium at Portland—Alex Palou, winning his sixth race of the year, the odds-on favorite to win his fifth IndyCar championship, the fourth in a row.

Palou, the 2025 Indianapolis 500 winner, crossed the finish line more than four seconds ahead of this year’s 500 winner, Felix Rosenqvist.  The win builds his lead in the points chase to 110 points over Kyle Kirkwood—the equivalent of two races. Only five races are left on the schedule this year.

Will Power, who had won the last two races at Portland, driving for Penske, crossed the line in his Ganassi-owned car third, equaling his best finishes of the year for his new team, Andretti Global.

Power was closing on the top two drivers when he missed a call to the pits for his last stop and lost time to Palou and Rosenqvist with the extra lap when he fell behind some slower cars.

Only A. J. Foyt with seven championships and Scott Dixon with six will have more IndyCar titles than Palou if he completes this year on top.  He would be far faster than either Foyt (32) or Dixon (38) reaching five championships. He will be only 29.

IndyCar Championships (by age of driver)

b.1935     b.1980       b. 1997

1   Foyt 25    Dixon  23   Palou 24

  1. Foyt 26   Dixon 28   Palou 26
  2. Foyt 28  Dixon  33   Palou 27
  3. Foyt 29  Dixon  35    Palou  28
  4. Foyt 32 Dixon 38     ?Palou 29
  5. Foyt 40 Dixon 40
  6. Foyt 44

(NASCAR)—The Next Gen Car might be a couple of years away for NASCAR but the next gen drivers have arrived.  Ty Gibbs, driving one of Grandpa Joe’s cars, won his second race of the year, holding off teammate (and slightly more experienced) Christopher Bell for the last twenty laps at the Iowa Speedway.

Two other teammates, Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe finished fifth and sixth.

Bell was able to get close and tried running high and low to get past Gibbs, closing the gap to less than two seconds in the closing laps, but couldn’t find a way around him.

Gibbs is 23 and already in his third season with NASCAR’s top series. His win at Iowa has boosted him into second place in the points standings behind Hamlin, who is almost twice his age. Hamlin started 29th and “white knuckled” his car and its uncertain brakes to running in sight of Gibbs.  He continues to lead the points standings with three races left before the field of sixteen is set to run for the championship.

Tyler Reddick who started the season hot with five wins in the first six races has seen his season crumble and has dropped to fourth in the standings behind Hamlin, Gibbs, and Ryan Blaney.   Reddick and Erik Jones tangled early with Reddick assigned 36th, and last place. He has finished 30th or worse in five of his last  nine races.

Bell has finished second seven times this year, four times in the last five races.

(photos: Little—KC Royals; Caglianone—MLB via Getty Images; Goats shirt—St. Joseph Goats; Goats team—(Tucker Klamm—News Press NOW; Palou—Rick Gevers, Indianapolis 500; Gibbs—Bob Priddy, Brickyard 400)

 

Secretary of Censorship 

Posted on by
Reply

Let’s be clear about what I am about to discuss.  As a journalist, a writer, an author, a parent, grandparent and great-grandparent, and a long-time library board member, I will not let someone else, particularly a government official, dictate what is appropriate for me to read, to think, or to speak. Nor will I allow someone else, government official or private citizen, to tell me I do not have the right to decide what is appropriate reading material for my family.

It appears our latest Secretary of State has assumed the odious role his predecessor took on as a censor for our libraries.

Denny Hoskins has decided he has the authority to take state funding away from the Columbia Public Library because it has books in it that he doesn’t like and furthermore tells people it has them, taking it upon himself to decide that some members of the public who want to go to the public library should not make their own decisions about what they or their children can read.

Hoskkins had a fit recently when he learned the Columbia Public Library was going to have a “rainbow story time” for families who wanted to participate.  Josh Hancock of The Missouri independent reported library staff read books called “Rainbowsaurus” and “Big Wig” to the children and their parents. The first book is about a rainbow-dinosaur. The other book is, says Josh, “about a child who wins a costume contest in drag.”

The library spent all of $26 for a wig and contact paper for the event. Eighteen dollars went for the wig. Hoskins wants to withhold thousands of dollars in state library aid because the event was held.

Hoskins heard about it before the event and warned the library that it would lose all of its state and federal aid if it held the $26 event for people to willingly attend.

Then when the library, where like all libraries the freedom to read, to  think, to learn, and to form one of the most dangerous things allowed in a Democracy—ideas—are cherished held the event anyway, Hoskins and State Senator Rick Brattin threw together a news conference to announce punishment for the library’s refusal to follow their dictates.

Brattin is hoping to be a Congressman in one of the gerrymandered districts he and other legislative Trumpians drew up to protect the political interests of a president who is only interested in libraries in terms of a potential library that will preserve his greatness, and his surplus Qatar 747 that is costing a billion dollars to convert to presidential transportation.

“Unconscionable if not criminal,” Hoskins called the event. It was, he said, an effort to groom children.

Groom children? It’s a pejorative that has become popular on the Right, defined by the Cleveland Clinic as the “process of manipulation and abuse {that} can stem from what may initially seem to be an innocent relationship with a stranger or adult authority figure.”

A story time at a public library designed to foster “manipulation and abuse of children?”

These two justified their outburst with a letter from Attorney General Catherine Hanaway.  But the Independent story said that Hanaway “acknowledged the library’s right to determine its own programming and said she was prepared to act only if a program broke the law.”

It doesn’t break the law, which talks about giving pornography to minors or making a public display of sexually explicit material in public.

It’s quite a leap for these self-righteous officials to declare a rainbow-colored dinosaur is pornographic or a cheap wig as sexually explicit material.

Apparently Hoskins and Brattin have superior thoughts of such evaluations. Brattin complained the books had “a message that’s meant to sexualize” and advocated a “lifestyle” that would weaken the defenses of the children.

We wonder how the parents feel about being categorized as enablers of such behavior..

Boone County Prosecutor Roger Johnson told Columbia TV station KOMU that talking about LGBTQ+ issues is not a crime. Hoskins admitted at the ;press conference that “pornography is OK to be talked about because it’s a First Amendment right.”

The Independent says neither he nor Brattin could identify any laws that had been broken but Hoskins vowed that he would ask future legislatures “to ensure that this is illegal in the future.”

First Amendment to the contrary, of course.

One of the all-time great science fiction books is Ray Bradury’s dystopian novel about book-burning, Fahrenheit 451. Midway through story, one of those who burn books is confronted by one of those who memorizes them before they can be destroyed—

The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They’re Caesar’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, ‘Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.’ Most of us can’t rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.

—Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Sometimes books do  indeed “remind us what asses and fools we are.”

Just for the Record

Posted on by
Reply

There have been few times Missourians have so revolted against legislative proposals for new constitutional amendments as they did Tuesday.

Worst losses:

1912 Am 6  Authorizes land inheritance and utility taxes, excepts personal property, abolishes poll and occupational taxes, removes tax limits.  86,647-508,137    85.43% no

2026 Am 5  Phase out of Income Tax  233,309-1,165,085   83.31% no

1914  Am 14  Fifty million dollar bond issue  build and maintain state highways, authorizes a tax levy to pay off bonds (10 cents a gallon of gas)  76,542=378,530   83.17%  no

1918 Am 8  Restructures state tax system to derive public revenue form improved value of land 80,725-373,220   82.21% no

1914  Am 15 Allow petitions to authorize bond issue for road construction and maintenance. 80,935-373,202  82.18% no

2026 Am 4  Constitutional Amendments proposed by petition must be approved by votes in all congressional districts   275,040-1,122,748  80.32% no

1910 Am 8  Increase per diem for legislators  95,045-385,765    80.23% no

1914  Am 4  Establishes annual salary of $1,000 for member of legislature  89,629-355,326  79.85% no (rounded up to 80%)

November is a whole lot more interesting now—-and one question will be whether the Republicans can retain their two-thirds membership in the House and in the Senate.

And then there is 2028.——The offices of Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of Sate, Attorney General, and State Treasurer—all are held by Republicans—and all are up for decisions by voters.

 

Massive Repudiation

Posted on by
2

(This post has been updated to correct an error.  Amendment five failed in every county, not in all but one. We relied on erroneous information for the original post.)

It was not just a historic election—

It was an epic defeat for two constitutional amendments proposed by a legislature that is two-thirds Republican.

Missouri voters rejected amendments four and five by rates unseen in more than a century. The results for the income tax elimination amendment failed in every county and according to the New York Times just before midnight last night failed in one county, Shannon, 92-8 percent and failed in Maries County 90-10.

Here’s a simple explanation for the failure of Amendment 5—the income tax destruction amendment—and some observations about a flawed state fiscal policy:

The people who can’t afford more sales taxes defeated the people who don’t want to pay income taxes.

For folks to whom an income tax cut would be of relatively minor value while increased sales taxes would be a major blow, the defeat of the effort to excuse those to whom sales taxes are a minor thing from paying income taxes is a major victory, a crushing rejection of the legislature’s proposals.

We hope our lawmakers and/or the candidates to become lawmakers understand a sorry message:

The people at large do not trust them, at least not in matters of tax policy.

How will it play out in candidate elections in November? Incumbent Republicans might face intense demands to explain why they supported both of these amendment, especially Amendment 5.

Here’s a different approach that supporters of Amendment 5 might think about next:

Eliminate the sales tax.  Restructure the income tax so it spreads the fiscal responsibility for state finances more equitably across income levels but gives the folks on the margins some breathing room.

Governor Kehoe said one reason Amendment 5 was justified was because, “We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.”

No.

We have both. And we’ve had them for a long time. And the thinking of the legislative majority has been for two decades that the state needs to lower its capabilities to raise money for programs and services for the people who put them in power.

Our spending problem will only increase by reducing our revenues. It would be the equivalent of solving a breathing problem through strangulation.  Fortunately, Missourians didn’t buy that irresponsible cure.

Our politics are filled with cliches, two of which are:

Government needs to be operated like a business.

You can’t cut your way to prosperity.

The Managing Editor of the Illinois Business Journal, Alan J. Ortbals observed in 2015:

Many people advocate government living within its means. Government needs to operate like a business, they say. Those who say that, however, apparently don’t know much about business…

Cost cutting alone creates a downward spiral — cuts diminish your product which reduces your sales which lead to more cuts that diminish your product and further reduce sales until you hang the “Going Out of Business” sign in the window.

Good government — like good business — requires stable revenue. Grover Norquist’s “No New Taxes” pledge is a mindless way to operate…Imagine running your business on a “No New Revenues” pledge. 

Ortbals called for a “balanced approach to government funding with a combination of revenue and cuts. You can’t do it all one way.”

He concluded, “Yes, government does need to operate like a business, which means working on both sides of the ledger to build a stable organization that can grow and prosper.”

Here is a question voters need to ask their candidates in November:  How are you going to build a stable state financial plan that encourages the state to grow and prosper?  What is your plan?

Jeremy Corbyn, a member of the House of Commons in England, put it most simply: “You grow your way to prosperity; you don’t cut your way to it.” It’s probably not an original statement because so many others have said it.

Shannon Power, a member of the Forbes Finance Council wrote in 2024, “The harsh reality is that you can’t cost-cut your way to sustainable growth.”

“The key to growth lies…in the strategic allocation of resources to areas that promise a return on investment. This requires a thorough analysis of where the company can generate growth. A go-to-market analysis of which industries are projected to grow in the coming years and/or which customers or potential customers are projected to increase spending next year is a good place to start.”

She was talking about business growth but in this case, running a government like a business has some applicability:

“The temptation to resort to short-term cost-cutting measures during uncertain times is commonplace. However, companies must recognize that sustainable growth requires strategic investments in areas that drive revenue…The key lies not in cutting costs—but in investing wisely for a prosperous future.”

Gut-touching political slogans won’t do the job. Simplistic steps that do not lift both ends of the boat are not steps toward greatness.  Only by broadening our views, and recognizing that growth begats growth can we lift Missouri from being a state ranked in the 30s and 40s to one other states can point to.

Let us hope that someday the kind of leadership emerges that makes us want to be such a state

Sports: A Good Start; Hardy Out For Now;  Key Injuries in St. Joseph, and a new IndyCar Car

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(TRADING DEADLINE)—-Kansas City Royals pitcher Kris Bubic has moved from the bottom to the top in the last hours of the MLB trading deadline.  The Royals have sent him to the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Royals get right-handed pitcher Carlos Duran.

The deal was made although Bubic is on the 60-day injured list. He is a free agent after this season. He made nine starts before going on the DL with left elbow and shoulder soreness.

Duran will head to the Royals bullpen before the end of the year, probably.  He’s been in 37 games in the minors this year, posting a 3.38 ERA with a 12.9 strikeouts per inning in the minors this year.

“Noot” is going to Arizona.  The Cardinals had an active day on the last trading day. Fan Favorite Lars Nootbar, who’s been discussed as trade bait all season, has been sent to the Diamondbacks in return for one of Arizona’s top pitching prospects. The get right-handed pitcher Daniel Eagen, who is considered Arizona’s second-highest pitching prospect. He’s 24, a third-round pick in the 2024 draft out of Presbyterian College and is not pitching for Amarillo in Double-A.  He’s made twenty starts this year, has a 29.2% strikeout rate and his ERA is 16% better than the league-average pitcher.

Fans of the Springfield Cardinals might already have seen him. Amarillo and Springfield are in the same league.

The Cardinals sent Dustin May and JoJo Romero to the Brewers and got a couple of outfielder prospects in Alexander Frias and Josiah Ragsdale.

They also picked up left-hander Caleb Ferguson from the Reds, giving up a to get an international player later.  Ferguson has given up two runs in his last four innings of work.

Ferguson is 30. He’s bounced around a bit, coming up with the Dodgers and going 7-2 with two saves in 29 games. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2020, was traded to the Yankees in 2024 and moved to the Reds earlier this year.  He’s 25-17 in his career with a couple of saves and a career ERA of 3.69.

Rising Star Quin Matthews was impressive in his big league debut last weekend against the Blue Jays. Unfortunately, the Cardinals gave him no run support as they continue to fade out of the playoff picture.  They lost 5-1 although Matthews went 5.1 innings, gave up two runs on six hit. He walked and struck out three each.

Observers think he might become part of the rotation the rest of the way, particularly if the Redbirds peddle Dustin May.  He already has a major league player’s signature scrawl developed.

The Cardinals scored an uncharacteristic five runs Sunday to beat the Blue Jays 5-1, the first time they had scored five runs since July 25. Four of the runs scored in the ninth inning. The victory ended a three-game losing streak for St. Louis and a three-game winning streak for the Jays.

The win left the Cardinals two games under .500

Back down on the farm, young outfielder Tai Peete is raising some eyebrows in High-A Peoria. He hit for the cycle for the second time this year during the weekend. He also stole a couple of bases.  He’s flirting with .300 with a .983 OPS. Since returning from a concussion that cost him games in May and June, he’s been hitting .365. Although he still strikes out about 21 percent of the time, he’s getting better. He’d been near thirty percent before the injury.

Things are not so rosy, however for former top draft pick Tink Hence. To make room on the roster for Matthews, the Cardinals sent reliever Matt Svansn to Memphis, a move that crowded out Hence, who’s been designated for assignment.

Svanson has struggled this year. He’s made 41 appearances in the bigs and has a 7.27 ERA.

(ROYALS)—The Royals finished a ten game road trip with a loss Sunday to drop 21 games under .500. After a day off yesterday they open a series tonight against the Twins. They wasted a good start after the All-Star Game and are on a four-game losing streak, three of the games against the Rockies in which they were outscored 23-8. Twice during the streak they suffered walk-off defeats.

The Royals made a weekend trade they hope has long-term as well as short-term benefits. They sent outfielder Lane Thompson and left-handed pitcher Bailey Falter to the Braves to get pitcher Lucas Braun the Braves’ number eight prospect and  Carter Holton.

Braun is a Triple-A starter with a 3.53 ERA in 19 appearances, 17 of them starts in two minor league levels.  He’ll start his KC career in Ohama.

Thomas was on a one-year deal with Kansas City and would have been a free agent at the end of the season. Falter had been designated for assignment but nobody wanted him so he’s back in Omaha with a 13.97 ERA in 9.2 innings this year.

Braun has made 17 starts and two relief appearances in two minor league levels. He’ll start his KC career in Ohama. We might see him with the parent club because the Royals have a lot of arms out with injuries—Chris Bubic, Cole Ragans, Ryan Bergert, Stephen Kolek and Ben Kurdna.

Holton will go to Single-A Columbia. He has 41 strikeouts and a 4.32 ERA in the minors this year and the Royals think will develop.

The Royals also have picked up reliever Aaron Brummer from the Braves’ Triple-A affiliate. He’s a lefty who spent time with the Cubs before being released by the Braves.

(MIZ)—Ahmad Hardy will miss at least the first week of fall Missouri Tiger football practice. Coach Drinkwitz says he will take part in walkthroughs while he continues to rehab his injured leg. He says there will be another update in a couple of weeks.

The semi-good news is that Defensive Tackle Sterling Webb is eligible for the 2026 season after a Colorado judge granted a preliminary injunction letting the high school class of 2022, which includes Webb, to be able to play this year. Until the judge’s order, the NCAA had held he had finished his eligibility last year.

The ruling gives the Tigers some exceptional experience in the defensive line for 2026.  Webb had 20 tackles, 23 pressures and two sacks on 407 snaps last year. He’s the third fifth-year lineman suiting up this year, along with Marquis Gracial and Jalen Marshall.

Webb had not been counted on in Drinkwitz’s planning for the season. The coach says he’ll take some time to get acclimated to the program. He and Webb had had “zero contact” during the off-season.

One other injury update: Redshirt sophomore defensive tackle Elias Williams is “tracking well” in his recovering from leg surgery after an injury in spring practice. Drinkwitz says it’s too soon to say if he’ll play this year. (ZOU)

CHIFS)—-The news in the Kansas Chiefs camp has to get better.

Patrick Mahomes looked pretty good in the non-contact drills last week in St. Joseph and says he feels stronger than ever when it comes to working out. “Now it’s just about getting the quarterback stuff down…moving in the pocket quick, making those quick movements, reacting and doing stuff like that.”

Mahomes thinks the injury has “kind of helped” him focus on “getting back to who I am.”

However—

Some worrying news is coming out of camp about the wide receiver corps.  Rashee Rice has not practiced at full speed and has left practice early to do more rehab work on his repaired right knee. The surgery was described as a “cleanup” procedure.

This is to be his fourth season with the team. But various problems on and off the field have allowed him to play in just twelve games during the last two years.

Xavier Worthy is still recovering from shoulder surgery. He told reporters last week that he “was never 100 percent (last year). I was never going to be 100 percent until I got the surgery. “

A reunion with Tyreek Hill is considered unlikely until mid-season, if then.  He continues to recover from surgery on his left knee that was badly injured—dislocated knee cap and multiple torn ligaments– in last year’s fourth game when he was with the Dolphins. He’s had two surgeries and reports he’s working to get his right leg back to full strength.

Hill is 32 now, easing out of the prime years for a wide receiver.

(ORIGINAL CHIEF)—One of original Kansas City Chiefs has died—defensive back Bobby Hunt was 85.  He was part of the team when it was in Dallas and stayed with them when they moved to Kansas City. He played both ways at Auburn where he was a quarterback and defensive back.

The then-Dallas Texans picked him in the 11th round of the 1962 American Football League Draft.  In his rookie season, he intercepted eight passes and make first team all-AFL. He was part of the AFL champion team before the franchise moved to Kansas City.  In 1964, he intercepted four passes in one game against the Houston Oilers, a record.  In 1966 he was among the league leaders with ten interceptions.  In his 112-game career he intercepted 42 passes, still a Chiefs record.

Hunt was a starter in the 1966 AFL-NFL Championship Game (before Lamar Hunt coined the phrase “Super Bowl”). He finished his career in 1968 and ’69 with the expansion Cincinnati Bengals then became a defensive back coach for the Bills for a couple of years before going into the apparel industry.

New Wheels—-

(INDYCAR)—Get a load of this, friends.  It’s the future face of IndyCar, the IR-28, that will hit the tracks in 2028. It’s designed to be faster, safer, and better in traffic in a sport already famous for its multiple lead-changes, even more passes for position during its races, in what IndyCar calls ‘the fastest racing on earth.”

The version you’re looking at is for road and street courses. The oval version (in the other photo) will have smaller wings that produce less drag but still produce adequate downforce in turns.  Designers suggest it might produce qualifying runs exceeding the speed records set by Arie Luyendyk in 1996 at just under 240 mph.

On-track testing started immediately with Indianapolis 500 winners Alexander Rossi and Alex Palou laying down some baseline laps on the Speedway road course.

Palou was so excited that he wished it would go into service next year instead of 2028. “When we saw it live for the first time,” he said, “ was shocked at how good it looked and how excited I was to give it a try.”

“I was having fun,” he said.

“It’s like Christmas morning,” said Rossi. He called the car “really rewarding to drive…It doesn’t do anything unpredictable and gives you good feedback and you kind of know what’s coming.”

The chassis is provided by Dallara, the company that has provided the DW-12 chassis for more than a decade. The new car will be about 100 pounds lighter than the present one, will have a new suspension system that reduces reliance on aerodynamic downforce while maintaining mechanical grip in traffic and a more powerful engine. Designers think tweaks to the body also will make the airflow coming off a leading car less of a problem for a car or cars behind it, allowing tighter racing and more passing opportunities.

The new car’s hybrid power system will use a new battery with 14 times the capacity of the present system, giving drivers more flexibility is their applications of power.

The cockpit is bigger and wider—-there have been complaints about the tight fit from bigger and wider drivers—and the protective aeroscreen that protects the driver is more streamlined, stronger, and provides better cockpit ventilation.

Designers are forecasting the car will break Arie Luyendyk’s 1996 records at IMS.

The car will go through more testing and refinements throughout 2027.

(NASCAR)—NASCAR had a rare off week this weekend. Missourians wanting to watch a NASCAR race can head to Iowa next weekend.

(photo credits: Matthews—Cardinals; Hunt—Alabama Spors Hall of Fame; Indy cars–IndyCar

 

Let’s Talk Tennessee Some More

Posted on by
Reply

Maybe this will help you decide how to vote tomorrow, if you haven’t visited the county clerk’s office already.  There’s a lot that backers of Amendment 5 have kept from you as they hold up Tennessee as a utopian land of no income tax.

Although we’ve been told we won’t be paying sales taxes on all kinds of things, here is what your Tennessee friends and relatives pay extra for.  We thank Madras Accountancy for this information.

The basic state sales tax rate is 7 percent. Our state rate now is 4.225.  Local sales taxes are allowed for another 2.75%.  Citing the Tax Foundation, Madras says the rate applies to clothing, furniture, electronics, restaurant meals or other prepared foods, some digital products, motor vehicle purchase—familiar to us.  However:

A sales tax also is applied to gasoline and fuel products. We don’t do that unless you buy a can of oil, for example.

Groceries are taxed, although at four percent—including the rotisserie chicken, deli meals, candy and sugary snacks, soft and energy drinks, dietary supplements.

If you download or stream things, you’re likely to be charged a sales tax in Tennessee for such things as e-books and digital text books, downloadable music and movies, streaming subscriptions if the provider had an office in the state; computer software downloads and licenses, cloud-based software and SaaS platforms.

What’s exempt in Tennessee—

Prescription drugs and insulin, medical devices and durable medical equipment—such things as oxygen tanks and wheelchairs, farm equipment and agricultural supplies, some textbooks, machinery used in manufacturing or processing, and things you’re going to resell.

Services charge sales taxes.  Car repairs and replacement parts, appliance servicing, extended warranties and service contracts, pre-written software (including cloud-based tools), internet and telecommunications services, lodging and short-term rentals, as well as parking services and storage units.

We have a lot of special district taxes or specific taxes for such things as conservation, soil conservation efforts, state parks, police and fire safety, etc., that will continue because they’re part of the state constitution.  All of those will add to the basic state tax.

Supporters also talk of lowering property taxes—-which are the life blood of our schools, local roads and bridges, and city and county governments (do you know that two cents of your property taxes are earmarked for the state blind pension fund?).

No income tax and lowered property taxes sound good but we could be setting ourselves up for some difficult financial times if we buy the simplistic campaign arguments of supporters of Amendment 5.

As mentioned earlier—-we shouldn’t want to be Tennessee, nice as it is to visit.  We should expect our leaders to show us how we can be something better than 34th or lower.

Do We Really Want To Be Like Tennessee?

Posted on by
Reply

Advocated for Amendment 5, the income tax elimination, like to point to Tennessee as a state that flourishes without an income tax.

As usual, campaigns—whether personal or policy in nature—cherry-pick simple issues and dislike honest discussion of the complexity of our way of life.

The Pro-Five campaign has been long on deception.  Equaling Tennessee is not big deal. In most cases our lives will be no better if we decide to move from being 30-something in sales taxes to Tennessee’s 7th highest in the nation.

I don’t want to be like Tennessee. I want to be Missouri—the best Missouri

Let’s look below the deception and see if the things that really matter in how we live are worth voting for 5.

The newest ranking of states by U.S. News says it would not be much of an improvement.  Among the fifty states, Tennessee ranks 24th.  Missouri is 31st.

Ending the income tax might please Missouri’s rich folks but it will not appreciably benefit Missourians as a whole.  U.S. News ranked the states in eight categories and in 22 subcategories.  Here is how we match up with Tennessee, the sweetheart of the Pro-Five set: The numbers on the left are Missouri. Tennessee is on the right.,

44  Crime and Corrections 40

22  Economy  13

32  Education  31

17  Fiscal Stability 5

43 Healthcare  39

35  Infrastructure  39

17 Natural Resources 34

8  Opportunity  22

The survey breaks down the categories this way:

CRIME AND CORRECTIONS

35 Corrections Outcomes  8

40 Public Safety  46

ECONOMY

9 Business Environment 17

28 Employment 15

34 Growth 11

EDUCATION

30  Higher Education 37

27 Pre-K-12 20

FISCAL STABILITY

18 Long-term stability 1

18 Short-term stability 22

HEALTHCARE

40 Healthcare Access  37

39 Healthcare Quality 21

39 Public Health  48

INFRASTRUCTURE

22 Energy 31

33 Internet Access 13

36 Transportation 14

NATURAL RESOURCES

23 Air and Water Quality 16

20 Pollution  39

OPPORTUNITY

12 Affordability 17

34 Economic Opportunity 39

14 Equality 26

You can go to the U. S. News website to get some breakdowns of these categories.

Here is the main point:  Missouri’s goal is not to be as good as Tennessee but to be BETTER THAN TENNESSEE.  That is going to take some really deep and non-partisan (if there’s any chance of that) policy-making that sees our state holistically and encourages Missourians to see beyond themselves.

Abraham Lincoln told Congress in 1861 that circumstances had forced a break from the status quo: “As our case is new, we must think and act anew.”

We the people, and those we elect must not be afraid of thinking and acting anew if we want a better state.  A simplistic step being offered Tuesday that favors some and disadvantages many others is the wrong direction to go.

Notes From a Not-Quiet Hill

Posted on by
Reply

I’m typing this between phone calls to check on my Medicare program, my burial plans, the unclaimed property that might be waiting for me, an accident claim with my name attached to it and who knows what else because I’m not answering and the people who are spending hours calling me aren’t leaving messages so I can call them back. How rude.

I am disappointed, however, that no candidates have called.  You’d think that with the emphasis President Trump placed on redrawing my Congressional District that he would be calling about his preference.  Maybe he’s saving his energy for the general election.

We could discuss whether he can take away my citizenship after about seven generations or so (I honestly do not know if my earliest ancestors were legal immigrants.  We are learning that it’s never too late for ICE to execute justice on those who think they are legal.

Back to the phone calls—

There are so many I can’t recall all of them.  Yesterday our phone started ringing with robo calls at 9:15.  Our last call came at about 6:15.  There were so many that our caller ID stopped at 14 and our landline stopped counting at 50 sometime yesterday afternoon.

If a candidate for Congress or for the U.S. Senate wants to curry my favor, hey will announce the introduction of legislation enacting penalties on companies that show up on my caller ID as someone, some place, or some thing that they are not.

I swear, the entire city of Mokane called but never left a message.  It WAS kind of entertaining for a while listening to the Lady of the Phone pronounce the names of the Missouri places calling us.

Political junk in the mailbox.  Insurance junk on the telephone.  Billboard junk on our highways (well, on I-70 anyway).  Talk junk in the White House.  If there was any more junk, I’d be living in a landfill.

-0-0-0-0-

Speaking of I-70—I drove back Sunday night from the race in Indianapolis and rather quickly realized I had made a mistake of coming back on 70.  At night.  Especially at Kingdom City where I thank Heaven I was the only car on the road at the time as I sought the exit lane and then navigated the new traffic circle.  The entrance to the circle seems designed for truckers who sit up high and can see over the end of the bridge railing to see if there are vehicles coming around.  But my car is small and I had to pull into the circle to see peek around that end.

It probably will be very nice when it is finished.  But Sunday night I didn’t feel particularly safe getting into the circle. I am becoming more friendly with Highway 50.

Now, back to our main theme—

-0-0-0-

One of our candidates is shown on the teevee carrying a rifle and telling us he’s going to stop the Chinese from buying our farmland. Pete Hegseth should be proud of this testosterone-loaded commercial.

I don’t vote for testosterone. And I’ve seen enough of people who pledge to “fight” for our rights by showing us a gun instead of an original idea. Eric Greitens wore that theme down to the nubbins. He was able to blow up some targets and he couldn’t blow things up when He became one.

What this present candidate hasn’t mentioned is what he’ll do to the Chinese who already own some of our farmland—-in this case, the properties that used to be Smithfield Foods, which sold its holdings in north Missouri to Chinese interests a few years ago. Will he go into the embassy in Washington, point his gun at the ambassador and demand the Smithfield land be given back?

Charleton Heston is dead.  He was not buried with a gun in his cold dead hands. It was impossible.  He was cremated.

-0—0-

And please spare me all of cow cakes about ending waste, fraud, and abuse. Anybody who makes a big deal of that in a campaign is long on slogans and short on facets and is greatly unoriginal.  PLUS, they’re insulting the hundred or thousands of people who got into public office making the same promise by implying they were liars because it’s still going on. I have yet to hear from any of those candidates who promised to root out those terrible things, stretching back for several decades, who showed me at the next election time what they had accomplished anything. PLUS PLUS, I hope these candidates are not using the Trump playbook for eliminating WFA.

Wouldn’t it be nice to find a candidate that didn’t waste my time, use a fraudulent telephone number, and abuse my intelligence, or volunteer to shoot the bogey man of the day?

The problem with too many political campaigns is that they insult the voters by treating them as idiots.

Enough of this howling in the wind.  I need to grab my Red Ryder Daisy BB Gun and chase off a Chinese land-grabber somewhere.

And don’t try to take it away me. I’m going to consult with one of those callers who wants to talk about my final expenses and tell them I want to be buried with my BB gun in my cold dead hands so that I can the security force at St. Peter’s gate.  He must be getting some real doozies of  souls knock, knock, knocking on Heaven’s Door.

Sports: Chiefs Tragedies; MLB Teams Headed Opposite Direction; History on the Track

Posted on by
Reply

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—The initial excitement that Patrick Mahomes is a full “go” for practice at the Chiefs training camp in St. Joseph, there is concern with news that the son of Assistant Coach Eric Bieniemy has been charged in Virginia with shooting his mother, Bieniemy’s wife, Mia.

She is reported in stable condition with multiple wounds. Their son, Elijah, is being held without bond on three felony charges in Loudon County, Virginia.  Coach Andy Reid to reporters in St. Joseph, “I can’t get into details on it, but things happen sometimes, and Eric will work through it. He has a great support group here, as does his family, as needed, and we’ll just let time take care of it from there…She’s a saint, we all know that, those of you that know her. One of God’s great blessings. But things happen. And you have to work through it. That’s where we’re at right now. Time will have to be involved in this to help heal.”

Pass game coordinator Joe Bleymaier and offensive line coach Andy Heck will take over his duties for now.

The Chiefs first full workout will be tomorrow.

(MORE CHIEFS TRAGEDY)—Former Chiefs offensive lineman Jordan Devey has committed suicide at the age of 38.

ESPN reports his mother says the family “believed that he suffered from CTE,” but the nature of his death left his brain unavailable to test for the neurodegenerative disease. Devey played seven years and 44 games in the NFL, wining a Super Bowl ring with the Patriots in 2014.. He also played for the Bills, Raiders, and 49ers. He was with the Chiefs 2016-2019.

(CHIEFS FOOTBALL)—He vowed to be back by the first game of the year—and Patrick Mahomes has done more than that. He has rehabbed his double knee injury and is cleared for full activity at the Chiefs camp in St. Joseph.

But he’ll be 31 in September and we’ll see how the miles, the hits, and this injury affect his style of play.  This will be his ninth season.  The first chance fans will have to see how he looks is tomorrow. The team will break camp on August 20, three weeks before their regular season opened September 14 against the Broncos.

(MIZ)—We’re only a week away from the beginning of camp for this year’s Missouri Tigers.  Media day will be August 2 and the serious stuff starting the next day.

Mizzou will play its 1,380th game September 3 against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, seeking their 732nd win against 596 losses and 53 ties, a winning percentage that ranks 67th in college football. Their 731 wins ranks 37th.

The Southeastern Conference football experts who make pre-season predictions think Missouri will finish tenth.

(BASEBALL)—Our MLB teams have gone different directions since the All-Star break.  The Cardinals have lost eight of eleven, including four of their first five after the break and the opening game of a home series against the Cubs last night that dropped them to .500..

The Royals start their week tonight against the Twins.  If they win all 55 of their remaining games, they’ll finish two games above break-even.

(Motoring along)

NASCAR—In its 76-year history through last year, NASCAR had never seen a car numbered 67 win in 2,786 races.  This year, it has happened twice in 22 races.

Part-time driver, Corey Heim put the car in victory lane after the road course win at the San Diego Naval Base in June and added the Brickyard 400 Sunday by hanging onto the lead despite veteran challengers waiting for him to make a mistake in the closing laps.

Heim, who is 24 and has been competing in increasingly bigger circles since he was about 16, will join 23XI Racing full time next year. One of those left in his wake Sunday was the co-owner of his team and the series points leader, Denny Hamlin.

He led the last 33 laps with Christopher Bell his major threat ahead of three-time NASCAR Cup champion Joey Logano, Chase Briscoe and Hamlin.  In all, he led 58 of the 160 laps around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  He also had the fastest lap in the race.

NASCAR is taking a week off before running at Iowa Speedway on August 9.

(INDYCAR)—IndyCar is idle until it takes to the streets of Toronto on August 19. It is the start of a five consecutive week run to the season finale at Laguna Seca on September 6.

A long-time part of IndyCAR is returning to a fulltime schedule next year. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing has bought one of the charters from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. D&R has been competing in the Indianapolis 500 since pulling out of the full-time operation in 3012.  Negotiations for the return already were underway when team founder and owner Dennis Reinbold died June 13 at the age of 65.

Dreyer and Reinbold fielded a car in the Indianapolis 500 for the 27th year in May. Conor Daley finished 12th, just 2.7 seconds behind winner Felix Rosenqvist. In all, the company has run 57 cars in the 500.  But the team history at the 500 goes back to Floyd “Pop” Dryer, who was a mechanic for the great Duesenberg teams a century ago.

The team will announce is driver and other plans for 2027 later.

(Photo credits: (Bienemy son jpg)  (Photo Credits: Bienemy–Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office via AP; Devey—cyprus-mail.com; Heim—Rick Gevers)

Notes From a Quiet Hill (Worst Campaign Commercials, Best movie scenes, Cavernous Man-Made Potholes edition)

Posted on by
Reply

We’re hoping to have enough time between automated Medicare phone calls to put these thoughts together. We did get a real person once a few days ago. He wound up apologizing.

Moving on to the pithy observations:

I can understand naturally-occurring potholes.  But I’m having trouble dealing with some man-made potholes in Jefferson City. A couple of years ago I had an expensive encounter with a pothole on I-70. We don’t have anything such as that in town but we do have some that give pretty big jolts.

The resurfacing of some of our streets has left some manhole covers below the street surface. Readers in Jefferson City might be intimately familiar with a real suspension banger for cars turning right from Jefferson Street onto East Capitol Avenue. For example.

It has taken me too long to decide on an alternate way to church.  That’s not the only man-made pothole in our street system but it’s the worst I’ve encountered so far.

-0-0-0-

Nancy and I are college graduates.  I even went to graduate school until I discovered her, at which point I got a real job so we could get married (This is only partly true but I’m not sure which part).  We, as educated people, have trouble accepting how awful the commercials are for the income tax elimination proposal on the August ballot.  In the case I’m about to cite, they are so intellectually silly that the point they want to make is lost, assuming they make a point.

Here’s the script for one that is a total turn-off in our household;

Some uninvited guests have been eating at your table for years. Property taxes and income taxes, helping themselves to money that belongs to your family. Amendment 5 shows them the door: it cuts property taxes, phases out the income tax, and shifts the burden to the big corporations that have been getting a free meal. This is your table. It’s time you had room at it. Vote YES on Amendment 5. August 4.

The shifting of the tax burden to big corporations is exactly the opposite of what we have understood the proposal to be about and the ad’s targeting of them is pretty bewildering.  As we understand the rational explanations of Amendment 5, the shift of the tax burden would be from the wealthy and the big corporations to the little guy.

Further, aren’t “big corporations” supposed to flock to Missouri because we’re cutting the taxes?  Not according to this awful commercial that says we need to “show them the door,” presumably the door out, not in.

000

The famous archaeologist Dr. Alan Grant died a few days ago.  We will always remember him for one of the most magical sequences in movie history—the day Dr. Grant saw his first living dinosaur—and when we saw it with him—and then the first dinosaur herd.

We know Dr. Grant, of course, by his real name—Sam Neill

Remember, he and the rest of the cast were not seeing what we saw on the screen, which made the acting that carried the impact of the scene so extraordinary. We were as emotionally awed as Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) were.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=sam%20neill%20sees%20a%20dinosaur&view=detail&mid=883E4913FA95A4A0FD448

Everything about the Jurassic Park movie franchise seemed formulaic after this.  But these first few moments are pure magic—and we saw them with the eyes of Alan and Ellie.

Off the top of our head we can think of few other movie scenes with the visual scope and emotional impact of those few minutes.

Perhaps our first view of the slowly revolving space station in 2001 (with perfectly chosen music making it even better). Maybe the great pull-back scene in Gone With the Wind that showed all of the casualties of the Battle of Atlanta.  Maybe the intensity of Pickett’s Charge in Ted Turner’s “Gettysburg” series.

You might have comparable scenes in your memory. Share them, if you like, in the box below.

(picture credits: Instagram)