By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor
Baseball Season’s done. So is NASCAR for the year. Champions have been crowned. Changes already are coming in the dugouts and the cockpits. And the Tigers can’t get over the hump.
The Houston Astros brought down the curtain on Major League Baseball’s 2022 season Saturday night winning the World Series from the Phillies four games to two. It is the second time the Astros have won the World Series. The first time was against the Dodgers in 2017.
(CARDINALS)—Most of the speculation focuses on who the Cardinals will pluck from the free agent market or trade for in the offseason. But it’s changes in the dugout that make the first headline.
One-time fan favorite Matt Holiday will be wearing the birds on the bat again. He’s the new bench coach for Oliver Marmol’s second season. Holliday is still young enough to play (in Wainwright years, at least). He’s been coaching at Oklahoma State University since winding up his playing days with single seasons with the Yankees and a return to the Rockies in 2017-2018. He spent eight years with the Redbirds during which he hit .293 and was a member of the World Series-winning team in 2011.
Dusty Blake comes aboard as pitching coach and Turner Ward is the new hitting coach. Blake will have help from Julio Rangel, who comes over from the Red Sox, and Holliday will have help from Brandon Allen, who has been a member of the Cardinals Minor League coaching staff.
Ward is a holdover as the hitting assistant. He was the hitting coach for the Dodgers for three years, the Diamondbacks for to, and the Reds for one. Blake was a pitching strategist for the Cardinals last year after three years as the pitching coach for Duke University. Allen spent four years playing major league ball for Arizona, Oakland, and Tampa Bay before joining the Cardinals minor league staff six years ago. Rangle was in the Yankees minor league system as a player for seven years, did a couple of years as the pitching coach for the Texas Rangers, and for the last two seasons was the Red Sox Pitching Coordinator.
Several guys are holdovers including Willie McGee and Patrick Elkins along with First Base Coach Stubby Clapp, Third Base coach Ron “Pop” Warner, and bullpen catchers Jamie Pogue and Kleininger Teran.
(ROYALS)—The Royals and new manager Matt Quatraro are waiting for some other shoes to fall before deciding who needs to be replaced on their coaching staff. The White Sox, who have lured Pedro Grifoil away from the Royals bench to be their manager reportedly are talking to some other members of the Royals coaching staff. The Royals, in turn, are thought to be talking to some coaches on the Tampa Bay Rays staff to see if they want to follow Quatraro to KC.
(TIGERS)—It was a winnable game that would have put the Missouri Tigers clearly in the postseason bowl picture. But things went wrong, again, and they now stand at 4-6 after going their sixth straight game with only two touchdowns.
On the bright side: the defense is averaging 7.1 tackles for loss per game, the best in the conference. The Tigers are 18th nationally in total defense. They have the 11th best pass defense and 13th best third-down defense in the country.
Both sides will be bested next week when Missouri meets Tennessee, ranked fifth in the country. They close out against New Mexico State and Arkansas. New Mexico is 3-5. Arkansas is 5-4 but plays two tough games before meeting Missouri: seventh-ranked LSU and 11-ranked Mississippi. Missouri needs to win two of the three games to be bowl-eligible.
(CHIEFS)—Patrick Mahomes’ dash for a two-point conversion kept the Kansas City Chiefs from losing to the Tennessee Titans Monday night. Harrison Butker, who had missed two kicks (a field goal and an extra point) drilled a field goal home in overtime to give the Chiefs a 20-17 win.
Mahomes scored the touchdown that set up the conversion and lifted his team from an eight-point deficit as the clock was running down.
Mahomes set a personal record in the game. He needed just 105 yards passing to break Matthew Stafford’s record for the fastest quarterback to 20,000 yards passing. He finished his 71st game going 43-68 for 446 yards, running his career total to 21,596. It took Stafford 75 games to reach 20,000 yards.
The Chiefs are tied with the Bills for the best record in the AFC at 6-2. The NFC has the league’s only undefeated team, the Eagles at 8-0. Minnesota is 7-1.
(NASCAR)—It’s two for the 22 in ’22. Joey Logano has won his second NASCAR Cup, driving car number 22. Logano didn’t need to win the last race at Phoenix to become the champion but he did, beating three other drivers who qualified to run for the championship.
Logano and teammate Ryan Blaney finished 1-2. Logano’s championship means team owner Roger Penske has had a historic year with championships in the two major racing series in this country. Will Power won the INDYCAR championship a few weeks ago.
Logano, who started from the pole, led 187 of the race’s 312 laps. Blaney led 109. Only three other drivers led laps during the race. Logano the first driver since Kyle Busch in 2019 to achieve multiple NASCAR championships and the first Ford driver to win two of them since David Pearson went back-to-back in 1968 and 1969.
The race was the last for Kyle Busch with Joe Gibbs racing, a sad day that turned into a grieving day when the team learned that co-owner Coy Gibbs had died in his sleep hours after watching his son, Ty, win the Xfinity championship Saturday. He was 49, the same age as his brother J.D., who died three years ago.
The race started with four drivers running for the championship. Ross Chastain, who started farthest back, in 25th, finished third. Christopher Bell, who was threatening late in the race, was derailed by a too-lengthy pit stop and finished tenth. Chase Elliott’s car was damaged when he and Chastain went after the same racing area. Repairs to Elliott’s car left him two laps back, in 25th.
NASCAR’s next race will be the second annual pre-season exhibition race in the Los Angeles Coliseum 88 days from today.
(INDYCAR)—RM Sotheby’s, the famous auction house, called it “the largest sale ever of open-wheel race cars ever auctioned,” last week when 237 registered bidders took part in the sale of forty race cars and racing memorabilia left over from Newman-Hass-Lanigan Racing, which competed in INDYCAR and CART from 1983-20011. The team won eight series championships and 107 races.
The sales totaled about $6.1 million, with the 1993 Ford/Cosworth car driven by former Formula 1 Champion Nigel Mansel the year he won the INDYCAR series championship. It brought $995,000 from McLaren Racing boss Zak Brown.A helmet worn by Mansel went for $90,000.
The other big-ticket car was a 1984 Lola T800 that Mario Andretti drove to wins at Mid-Ohio and the Meadowlands. It brought $401,000.
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INDYCAR’s most important trophy returns to its Indianapolis Motor Speedway home this week after a tour of Sweden, the home country of this year’s Indianapolis 500 winner, Marcus Ericsson. The trophy includes the newly-installed carved image of Ericsson’s face.
Ericsson is the second driver from Sweden to win the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Kenny Brȁck won the 500 in 1999.
The trip to Sweden is only the fourth time the big trophy has left the United States. It toured Japan in 2017 in honor of Takuma Sato’s first 500 victory. It was displayed at the Silver Anniversary Goodwood Festival of Speed in England in 2018 and it went to Paris the next year for the unveiling of the likeness of 2019 winner Simon Pagenaud, a native of Montmorillon, France.
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Bryan Herta, whose career was thought at times this year to be headed to Formula 1, has signed a contract extension that will keep him at Andretti Autosports through 2027. Herta is the youngest driver ever to win an INDYCAR race, at age 18. He becomes the senior driver for Andretti at the age of 22 (that’s from point of service, not age).
(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 finishes its year next weekend with the Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi. Max Verstappen wrapped up his second straight championship last month.
(Photo Credits: Logano—Bob Priddy; Mansell car—R. M. Sotheby’s)