Monthly Archives: February 2024

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

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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.

Jean

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We liked Jean Carnahan at our house.  She was never at our house but we were at her house a few times when she and Mel were governor and first lady.

Jean died last Tuesday after 90 years of a life well-lived. And shared.

We always think of them as “real” people, the same folks when dressed in their government clothes in Jefferson City for a few years that they were in their farm clothes back home in Rolla many more years than that. Not all first-couples have that quality.

She several times talked with me about the book she was writing about the history of the Governor’s Mansion and I cherish the two signed copies of If Walls Could Talk that are on the bookshelf in our living room. She wrote several others after her time in Washington.

In all my career as a reporter, I kept those I covered at least at arm’s length.  The Carnahan’s, especially Jean, I allowed as close as my wrist because of that “real people” quality. When she was appointed to the U. S. Senate, I told her that our relationship would have to change because she now was only a news source. She seemed disappointed.  I was not pleased to have to tell her that.

A personal story—

Mel got his pilot’s license and one evening he showed up at the Columbia airport to get some flight time on the way to a campaign meeting in St. Louis.  He needed someone to fly to Hermann with him who could fly the plane back to Columbia while he, Jean, and their Highway Patrol escort went on to St. Louis.  The young flight instructor on duty at the time was our son, Rob, who flew to Hermann with the governor.

The plane’s engine would not re-start after they landed so the Carnahans invited Rob to join them for dinner at a German restaurant they liked in downtown Hermann.  So there was Robb, a kid trying to pile up enough flying hours to get a job flying cargo somewhere, having an unexpected dinner with the first family of Missouri.  By the time they were finished, the plane’s engine had cooled enough that it could start and the group parted ways.

The news of the fatal crash in October,  2000 hit our son hard, as you might expect. The day that the governor’s casket was in the great hallway of the governor’s mansion so the public could pay tribute, Jean came down the grand stairway and went outside to greet the office staff that had come over from the Capitol.  When she came back in, she noticed me standing in the library just off the great hall.  She came over and hugged me and said, “We’re so glad we got to know your son.”

It took a little time to resume the role of the stoic reporter just coverina a story. But that was Jean.

This great lady, burdened by terrible loss of her husband and one of her sons with incredible dignity, thought at that time of that evening in Hermann with a kid flight instructor.

Rob flies for Southwest Airlines today but that dinner with the Carnahans is one of the most memorable experiences of his life. But, that was just Mel and Jean being Mel and Jean.

Her official portrait in the Executive Mansion captures part of her nature.  The group that works to preserve the mansion says her outfit honors working women by wearing the kind of professional dress working women would wear. She is holding the flower that blooms on the Dogwood, our state tree. She later wrote on her Facebook page, “I always thought a computer keyboard would have been a more appropriate depiction.”  Jean computerized the mansion by setting up a website and creating a database for all of the assets of the old house.

The Carnahans had a good time in the mansion and especially enjoyed visits from children. They started the annual Halloween Spooktacular highlighted by Mel dressed as Dracula and appearing from a window on the second floor. She held a Children’s Hour at the Mansion and they had Easter egg hunts each year. A fountain created by Jamie Anderson was installed near the front porch to celebrate the mansion’s 125th anniversary commemorates children’s health.

She wrote on her Facebook page after the 2019 visit, “I recall my vision for the sculpture came from seeing an old photo of children playing in the abandoned fountain, that was placed on the lawn more than a 100 years ago. In today’s fountain, the girl atop the basin, her toes barely entering the water, is reminiscent of the shortened life of 9-year-old Carrie Crittenden, who died at the mansion of diphtheria. Her presence is a vivid reminder of the health care needs of children today.

“The African-American boy is inspired by the youngster, who once stayed in the Mansion barn. As he reaches out to grasp the flowing water, he denotes opportunity for all children. The other boy, modeled after my grandson, stands against a backdrop of leaves, birds, and fish, reminding the viewer of our need to protect the environment for future generations to enjoy.”

She paid her last visit (as far as I know) to the mansion in 2019 (shown here with First Lady Teresa Parson standing on the grand staircase under the official portrait of former first lady Maggie Stephens, described by Jean as “one of the flamboyant and benevolent residents of the old home.”)

When the Carnahan administration began, Jean and Mel decided the governor’s office need to be refreshed for the first time since the Hearnes administration moved into what originally was a big waiting room for people seeking meetings with the governor. As Betty Hearnes had supervised that makeover, Jean Carnahan supervised the update.  Furniture was repaired and some stored items were returned. The ceiling was repainted with the state seal included—Mel was given the brush and painted the last start, now known as the “Carnahan Star” in the ceiling seal—and the worn carpet with the state seal in it was replaced with a lighter carpet with the state flower in it so visitors wouldn’t walk on the seal.  She had the seal framed and it decorated a wall in her Washington office and, I was told, became part of the decoration of son Russ’s office while he was a member of the U.S. House.

She became the first woman U.S. Senator from Missouri when Governor Wilson appointed her to serve in Mel’s place after he had been elected posthumously.  She was the same kind of Senator-person as she had been here in Missouri.  Thoughtful.  Quiet.  Effective.  Disappointed when she lost to Jim Talent in 2002 but still always looking for things to do, people to know, adventures to be had.

My wife, Nancy, always enjoyed Jean’s restaurant critiques and other comments she posted on social media after she resumed private life in St. Louis.

We have now within a span of weeks lost two special former first ladies, Betty Hearnes and Jean Carnahan, who were as comfortable to be around in the mansion as they were when they were around the folks at home. They might have seen themselves as ordinary people who lived in extraordinary circumstances and they never outgrew that  understanding of themselves.

The life well-lived.  We all want that at the end, don’t we?  They had it.

(Photo credit: Carnahan family, Jefferson City News-Tribune, Missouri Mansion Preservation, Jean’s Facebook page)