(MIZZOUPORT)—The latest new Missouri Tiger basketball player is guard Kennard Davis, a St. Louis Vashon product coming over from BYU. He’s a 6-6 small forward who spent a year at Southern Illinois and two more at Brigham Young where he averaged 8.6 ppg last year.
247 Sports ranks Missouri’s recruit class this year as the 11th best in the country.
Three guy’s on last season’s Missouri roster remain unemployed—Sebastian Mack, Jacob Cruz, and Jevon Porter. Porter remains in limbo because he needs a medical hardship designation to play next year.
(CHIEFS)—The news is getting better about Patrick Mahomes’ recovery from his knee injury. The Chiefs are saying he might reach his goal of being ready for the season opener in September. In fact, Coach Andy Reid is holding out the possibility that he could be involved in the OTA’s May 26-28.
Reid has told ESPN, “He is in a good position to be able to do some things. If he can do some things, [he will]. Phase 2 remember, there’s no contact and there’s no offense versus defense. “It’s Phase 3 that you get into that… he’s in a position where he can do everything, I think.”
Some videos have been circulating showing Mahomes dropping back and throwing passes.
Just in case he’s not ready, the Chiefs picked up former LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier in the draft.
He’s eager to see what he can learn Mahomes: “I’m so excited to be in a room with those guys. Coach Reid and his unbelievable offensive mind and obviously sitting behind Patrick and getting to learn from him, hopefully steal some things from him and see the game through his eyes.”
The Chiefs also have added Justin Fields who has seen NFL snaps with the Bears, Steelers, and Jets.
(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals have hit the 20 wins mark a week earlier than last year even though they came up short against the Dodgers in their final game of their series, the loss ending a four-game Dodger losing streak and a six-game Cardinals winning streak, but still giving the Cardinals a series win. Dodgers’ starter Justin Wrobleski is now undefeated in five decisions.
The loss went to Dustin May, who drops to 3-3.
Cardinals pitching shut down Dodgers’ star Shohei Ohtani who went hitless during the series and finished without a hit in four straight games. That’s his longest hitless streak since he went five game in 2022 while playing for the other Los Angeles team.
The Redbirds started the week with a 6-3 win against the Brewers. Both teams had 11 hits.Milwaukee scored twice in the ninth to make it close. Kyle Leahy went 6.1 innings and gave the up the first of the by Brewer’s run.
(ROYALS)—The Royals swept the Mariners to wrap up their week and doubling the number of road games they’ve won this year. They’re now 6-15 on the road. Kris Bubic ran his record to 3-2 with seven solid innings, allowing Seattle its only run, giving up only four singles. The save went to Daniel Lynch, his first of the year. The sweep has run the KC record to 15-19, going 7-3 in their last ten games.
Their game Saturday saw the Royals become the eighth team in MLB history to win a game although Royals batters fanned 17 times, got no walks, but still put together a 3-2 win.
Seth Lugo (7IP, 2R) kept Kansas City close and added another distinction to the game when he struck out Randy Arozarena on a curve ball clocked at 67.8 mph, the slowest strikeout pitch by a non-position player this year. But it was only the second slowest of his career.
The Royals started this week 2½ games behind the Guardians and the Tigers in a division in which those are the only teams above .500—by one game. ]
Michael Wacha, who threw only 60 pitches in the first six innings—tying a personal record—held the Guardians at bay last night. He left after 7 and, allowing only four hits and two runs.
Now, something that’s faster than a Seth Lugo curve:
(NASCAR)—Chase Elliott outran Denny Hamlin in a four-lap shootout at the Texas Motor Speedway to get his second win of the year. The win makes Elliott the second multi-winner this year, joining Tyler Reddick, who has won half of this year’s races (5). Reddick finished fourth behind Alex Bowman, who had his best finish since recovering from vertigo that sidelined him for four races earlier.
The win moves Elliott into second place in the standings behind Reddick and Hamlin. Reddick leads by more than 100 points as the series moves into the second quarter of the racing year.
(INDYCAR)—No racing but plenty of running on the big oval at Indianapolis this week as IndyCar started preparing for the 110th 500 on Memorial Day Weekend. The two days of practice allowed rookies and returning veterans who don’t normally run the full schedule to complete their drivers tests or reviews and start getting their cars set up for qualifying on May 16-17. The Race is on the 24th. The last day of practice so crews and drivers can get their cars in race trim will be “Carburation Day” on Friday the 22nd.
(Carburation Day is a throwback to the distant times when the cars really used carburetors. The last carbureted cars in the 500 competed in 1963, the Lotus-Fords of Jim Clark and Dan Gurney.
The first car with fuel injection was Bill Vukovich’s Fuel Injection Special that was sidelined while leading with less than ten laps left in 1952. Vukovich won with the car the next two years. This is the way it looked the year he won for the second time. It was the first car I ever photographed at the Speedway—with my Brownie Hawkeye camera that captured only a blur. (This is a diecast model of it, though).
The two days of testing topped out at relatively moderate speeds—rookie Caio Collet turned a lap at better than 226 mph. By the time qualifying weekend rolls around the fastest cars are likely to be at about 235.
(ZANARDI)—Racing lost one of its great competitors a few days ago with the death of Alex Zanardi. He never ran in the 500 because he competed in the era when open wheel racing had split into two competing camps. Zanardi won the Championship Auto Racing Teams title for two of the four years he competed. A horrendous crash in 20001 that cost him both of his legs ended his career—for a while.
Dissatisfied with the prosthetic legs on which he walked, he designed a custom legs that would let him get back into a race car. He was able to drive a race car using only hand controls and eventually got back into racing cars. And he won races.
More remarkably, he became a four-time Olympic champion. He won four gold medals at the Paralympics in London and Rio de Janeiro in handcycling and the triathalon. F
He was 59.
(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 returned to the track last weekend after cancelling a couple of its races in the Middle East war zone. Mercedes teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli won his third straight. He’s the youngest driver in F1 history to win a race—19. He won the Miami Grand Prix last weekend. He’s 19.
(Photo credits: Vukovich car—Bob Priddy; Zanardi–the Independent)