(Baseball)—And suddenly, things have taken a bad turn for our teams.
(CARDINALS)—We’ve seen this scenario before—and slow start, a month of optimism, and then a decline to mediocrity at best. The Cardinals ended a six-game losing streak Saturday but couldn’t make it two in a row against the Brewers, losing Sunday.
They should bet healthy this week when they play three against the Chicago White Sox, one of the worst teams in the major leagues. The Sox are at home, 23-49 this year. The Cardinals are still slightly to the good at 37-35.
The highlight of the weekend came with the Saturday win when Wilson Contreras of the Cardinals and brother William Contreras both homered in the ninth inning of the Cardinals win.
They are not the first to do this. But it’s been more than ninety years since anybody else did it. On July 19, 1922, Rick Ferrell of the Red Sox homered off of his brother, Wes, a pitcher for the then-Cleveland Indians. Wes Farrell also homered that inning.
Two years ago, two brothers playing for the same team became the first to hit home runs in the same game. But Bo and Josh Gray, did it in different innings.
(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals, tired of losing and dropping below .500 held a players only meeting after Saturday’s loss—-then lost again on Sunday as the Athletics completed a series sweep.
The Royals now have lost six in a row, 22 of their last 32, and are four games under break-even t 34-38. They open a series against the Ranger tonight. The Rangers are pretty mediocre, too, also with a losing record at 35-36.
(FOOTBALL)—Fourteen thousand-559 people went to a football game in the St . Louis Dome and their home town team wasn’t even playing.
It was the United Football League Championship game and the DC Defenders clobbered the Michigan Panthers 58-34. The Defenders got a 390-yard passing day out of Jordan Ta’amu. Their 580 total yards and 58 points are records for a UFL game.
The Defenders took control of the game with 31 points in the second quarter then outscored Michigan 9-0 in the third quarter.
Thus ended a season of some disappointment for the UFL although you wouldn’t think so by listening to the league officers. Overall attendance dropped about five percent this year and it would have been much worse if Michigan’s attendance had not shot up by almost one-third. Four of the eight teams in the league—Birmingham, Memphis, Arlington, and Houston, drew fewer than 10,000 fans per game. Three other teams, including the St. Louis Battlehawks, saw lesser declines. Television viewership was down by more than 165,000.
Executive VP for football operations, Daryl Johnston, says, “When the time comes and the time is right, we’ll start to reflect back and find out some of the whys and then how can we implement tht moving forward to make sure that we’re getting better every year.”
(DOME)—The domed stadium where the Battlehawks play needs a major upgrade—$155 million worth in the next decade according to a state audit. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports a draft of a state audit shows no revenue stream for that work. A member of the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority says the authority is preparing a “long term plan” to take to state and local officials.
The authority does have a plan to invest $50 million dollars the city has received in the settlement of its lawsuit against owners of the former St. Louis Rams.
(KANSAS CITY STADIUMS)—The state has promised to invest $1.5 billion in football and baseball stadiums in Kansas City—but the Royals and the Chiefs have not promised to stay in Kansa City.
Overland Park, Kansas has offered a site and a financial package for the Royals.
The legislation that goes into effect September 9 does not open a money faucet for the teams. The Department of Economic Development wants to see some proof that the stadium projects qualify for developmental financial incentives.
Now, on to some fast moving sports stories.
(INDYCAR)—Worldwide Technology Raceway got its first prime-time broadcast major automobile race Sunday night—-and it wasn’t disappointing.
Unless you were connected with the sport’s biggest team.
Team Penske drivers had the top two starting positions and three of the top five starting slots.
And then the raee started. Outside front row driver Scott McLaughlin stalled in pit lane as the other 26 cars took to the track. Enough warmup and pace laps were run for him to refire his engine and get into his regular starting position.
Penske’s senior driver, Will Power, a two-time series champion and Indianapolis 500 winner, started from pole for the 71st time in his career, an Indycar record. And four-time WWTR winner Josef Newgarden, a two-time champion of the 500, started fifth.
Power crashed while running second after a tire went flat just 47 laps into the 260-lap event. Newgarden, was in a violent crash while about to lap Louis Foster on the 128th lap, t-boning the spinning car of Foster.
Newgarden’s car came down on top of the wall and then slid on the track almost to the start-finish line. The car’s titanium aero screen protected him during the wild ride upside down and he walked away from the wreckage after the safety crew set it back up on hits wheels. Foster also climbed out of his demolished car and walked away. If you want to see it, including the view from inside Newgarden’s cockpit, this is how it looked on the FOX broadcast:
https://x.com/i/status/1934427429487231109
“Not sure what to say, other than thank you to the AMR safety team and the safety of the car. Seemed like everything was going our way last night, until it wasn’t. Not much you can do in a situation like that. This season has been pretty trying for everyone on the 2 crew. Only thing to do is look forward. It will only make the successes even sweeter. See you in Road America!” (Indycar runs there next weekend)
McLaughlin also had an encounter with the wall leading the leading Indycar team with finishes of 24-25-26 in the 27-car field.
That wasn’t the only action, of course. There were 254 passes for position for the race. More than half of the drivers led at least one lap. Christian Rasmussen had his career best finish, third, although started 21st and was penalized to the back of the field during the race, passed a total of 62 cars to get to the podium.
Winner Kyle Kirkwood led only the last five laps and held on for a half-second win over Pato O’Ward. Indianapolis 500 winner Alex Palou, who finished eighth, had the fast lap during the race—174.803 on the mile and a quarter track.
The win by Kirkwood is his third of the year, his first ever on an oval. He and Palou are the only drivers to win an Indycar race this year. The victory puts him third in the stndings behind Palou and O’Ward. Palou, who has the other five wins, including the Indianapolis 500, finished eighth and reeled off the fastest lap of the race, 174.803 on the mile and a half track.
(NASCAR)—Every year there seems to be a driver who is ‘way down in the standings who surprisingly wins a race and thus qualifies for the 16-driver race off for the series championship.
This year it’s Shane Van Gisbergen, 30th in points, who makes the runoff. His win is an appropriate one, however. The Australian Supercars champion won the first points NASCAR race in a foreign country by taking the win at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course in Mexico City.
He beat Christopher Bell by almost seventeen seconds to claim his second Cup series victory. He won his first Cup race on the street course in Chicago two years ago.
(FORMULA 1)—Mercedes driver George Russell won his first race of the year, taking the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.
(Screenshot from FOX Sports; Kirkwood by Rick Gevers; Newgarden aero screen, Bob Priddy)
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