(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs 24-10 win against the Dolphins Sunday was not a thing a beauty but it was good enough to give Kansas City a 3-0 start. Last year they won only six games all season long.
The Chiefs, who had given up 30 points last week, let the winless Dolphins get the first points Sunday, out gain the Chiefs by thirty yards and convert half of their 16 third-downs.. But the defense held Miami to only three more points.
Miami has the youngest starting squad in the NFL and most observers predicted the Chiefs would go 3-0 while the Dolphins are now 0-3, few thought the Dolphis defense would keep the game form being a runaway that some Chiefs fans expected. Kansas City rolled up 334 yards in total offense but it was not until a late field goal that the Chiefs had any breathing room.
The win ties the NFL record for most wins in a quarterback’s first 15 games. The only other quarterback to go 115-35 is Tom Brady.
(MIZ)—Remember when the Missouri football team scored points in the first quarter? It hasn’t been that long ago, only three games. But as the Tigers get deeper into the SEC schedule and the Troys and Arkansas Pine Bluffs disappear, the specter of scoreless first quarters grows more stark—as the Tigers learned in Starkville, Mississippi Saturday evening.
Coach Drinkwitz summed things up afterward: “We’re in Week 4 of this team’s journey, and we battled on the road, had our opportunity, and didn’t get it done. So, everything in our program from the past to now is really this year’s team, this year’s journey. Battled our butt off, came up a third-and-4 and a fourth-and-four, short. So we’ll go back to work, and got a challenge this week coming up. So that’s just life in the SEC.”
Missouri lost the game because the defense couldn’t stop the other guys in the first quarter or in the last minutes and Missouri could not convert two fourth-downs. Next up if Florida, rated as the eighth best team in the country. Missouri is holding onto the top 25 by its fingernails. (ZOU)
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Missouri State would have gotten a major upset if they had beaten SMU Saturday. SMU went into the game ranked 22nd and, like the Missouri Tigers, started slowly. The Missouri State Bears scored the first ten points. SMU got the next 14 and won 34-24. The Bears are 1-3.
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Our other D-1 program, the Southeast Missouri Red Hawks, finished with a fumble and an interception and a loss to West Florida 20-17.
(BASEBALL)—It’s done. It’s over for our Missouri teams. It’s time to assess the 2026 seasons. Both of our teams had poor to mediocre seasons. But both have shown some promising possibilities for next year.
The Cardinals were last at break even, 70-70, before winning only seven of their next 22 games.
The Cardinals played 87 one-run games this year and went 43-44 in them. It’s been eleven years since they had anything like that many. Manager Oliver Marmol quipped last week, “Every game feels like the same game where it’s a one-run game. And if it’s a two-run game, the bases are loaded.”
But there were a lot of bright spots, a lot of indications some key guys have turned the corner, Victor Scott III notwithstanding. He’s expected to be in a different suit next year.
It was a breakout year for Alec Burlison who led the major leagues with 116 RBIs, a performance putting him in elite company. His RBI total is the most for a left handed batter since Stan Musial drove in 126 in 1954. He’s the first Cardinals player to lead the league since Albert Pujols had 118 in 2010 and the first Redbird to lead all of baseball since Joe Torre in 1971. His total is 11th all-time for a leftie in Redbird history. He hit .280, played in all but two games and was a threat with men on base. He hit .358 in that situation with 19 extra base hits in 173 Abs with runners in scoring position.
You’ll recall he was talked up as trade bait before the trading deadline and talked openly about how relieved he was that he wasn’t moved. He wants to stay in St. Louis had has said he would be “all in” with a contract extension if one was offered.
One final footnote to the end of the season. Jordan Walker has hit 56 home runs in his young career, all of them against different pitchers. He’s one away from the record set by Willy Adams, presently a shortstop for the Giants, who began his career in 2018. Baseball statistician Sarah Langs came up with that piece of trivia.
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The Royals won their last game, which the Cardinals did not do, but were never contenders and finished 69-93. However, there were individuals whose performances make sure fans spend the winter thinking of what might be in 2027.
Carter Jensen’s rookie year for Kansas City that went into the record books. His 27 home runs moved him ahead of Dodgers great Mike Piazza for most extra-base hits by a rookie catcher in Major League history. 33 doubles and two triples to go with his homers for the extra base record. He also set a major league record for most leadoff home runs by a catcher. And he set a Royals franchise rookie record for homers and extra base hits.
He finished hitting .239 with 81 RBIs and 80 runs scored. His strikeout to walk ratio needs to improve next year from this year’s 170-65.
The Royals made some other history in the last week of the season. Salvatore Perez hit his 20th home run Thursday, setting a new team record with ten years of 20 homers or more. He broke George Brett’s career home run record earlier
But the White Sox, who won the game 9-1 became the first team to have consecutive 100-loss seasons and then make the playoffs. The Sox have reached the triple digit loss mark for three years in a row.
The Royals helped another player on another set a dubious record this year. White Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery took an Anthony Gose 96-mph four seam fastball for a called third strike in the last game between the two teams this year. It tied the MLB record of 223 strikeouts. He finished the weekend with four more, breaking an 11-year old record held by Mark Reynolds, wh played for eight teams in his 13-year career. In 2015, he hit 44 homers and drove in 102 runs for the Diamondbacks.
Montgomery didn’t appear to be particularly ashamed of he record. “It’s definitely something you don’t want your name to be a part of, But at the end of the day, you can’t be looking so much at the negative stuff. I’ve looked at a lot of the stuff we’ve all done this year and me personally, and I felt like it’s been a lot of positives. For me to really go into the dumps about what just happened and for me to be so upset about it and not try to get better in the position we’re at as a team right now, I feel would be selfish,” Although he hit only .197, finishing with only six hits in his last 77 at-bats, he hit 31 homers and had 87 runs batted in.
Michael Wacha had one of his best career years at age 35. In his last start, Saturday, he gave u only two earned runs in 6.1 innings in a game the Guardians eventually won 11-5. The performance gave him his first 200-inning year in his career.
—Grading the Seasons—
ESPN gave the Cardinals a grade of C for its season, saying they “weren’t a disaster in 2026, which is a good thing, considering this team could have easily gone sideways.” Chaim Bloom’s first team as head of baseball operations had the second youngest squat of position players in MLB.
Jordan Walker finally broke out and Alec Burleson is leading the majors in RBIs, which no Cardinals player has done since Joe Torre in 1971. JJ Wetherholt showed he’s going to be a valuable player; he and Masyn Winn might both win Gold Gloves. There is more young talent on the way, too, with Leo Bernal and Joshua Baez getting a taste of the big leagues this season, and Rainiel Rodriguez, Liam Doyle and Tanner Franklin next in line.
The best thing here is that the Cardinals were at least interesting for the first time in a long time. (Even some of their recent playoff teams weren’t all that exciting.) The payroll has been trimmed to the bare bones, so there’s room heading into 2027 to address the rotation and bullpen.
The Royals got a D from ESPN:
The path to nowhere for the Royals was set early when Bobby Witt Jr., somehow scored just one run in the team’s first 18 games. He then scored three runs in a game — but then went six more runless games and didn’t hit a home run until his 29th game. This isn’t on Witt, as he’s likely to get some first-place MVP votes since he leads AL position players in FanGraphs WAR, but it’s an example of how the Royals just never got in sync all season.
ESPN calls the season “a disappointing flop” after back to back wining years.
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Former Royals pitcher Aroldis Chapman became the first relief pitcher with 1,400 or more strikeouts. Chapman was with the Royals in 2013, one of the years the team lost 100 games. He was in 31 games before being traded to the Rangers. He was 4-7 with two saves. He was dealt to the Rangers midway through the season.
He’s the fourth pitcher in MLB hsitory to rack up ten 30-save seasons, the ninth to reach 400 saves. His 105.8 mph fast ball remains the fastest pitch ever thrown in a major league game.
Chapman started the season with the Royals in 2023 before going to the Rangers. He won four of 11 decisions with two saves in 31 games, 2.45 ERA. Royals finished 56-96 that year.
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(FREE AGENTS)—The Cardinals have nine free players who will become free agents when the World Series ends: Burlison, Andre Pallante, Nolan Gorman, Matthew Liberatore, Masyn Winn, Jordan Walker, Ivan Herrera, Pedro Pages, Kyle Leahy, and Riley O’Brien.
The Royals list is: Carlos Estevez, Jonathan India, Matt Strahm, John Means, Craig Kimbrel, and Tony Gonsolin.
(HONORS)==Before wrapping up the season, the Cardinals inducted two former teammates and a standout pitcher from another era into the team Hall of Fame. The credentials of Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols are widely recognized. But Bill Scherdel is part of the distant past.
Scherdel, who died in 1968 at the age of 72 still is fifth in wins (153) and fourth in games pitched (465). He ranks sixth in starts with 243 fifth with 2,450.2 innings pitched, and his 145 complete games rank him seventh. He was 165-146 in 514 games in his 15-year career with the Cardinals and the Boston Braves. He was part of the Cardinals’ first World Series champion team, in 1926. He retired in 1932.
Earlier this year the Royals inducted John Wathan as the newest Royals Hall of Famer. He was with the organization for ten years as a player and 47 years overall with the team. He was the manager for five seasons, going 287-270 including the 92-win season of 1989. He ranks fifth in managerial wins and he’s fourth in winning percentage (.515). He spent several years in the broadcast booth before retiring in 2022.
Speaking of the Royals broadcast booth—Denny Matthews was in the booth with Buddy Blattner when the Royals played their first game in 1969. He became the number one broadcaster in 1975. He’s still there. Last Friday, the Royals celebrated his 8,000th broadcast of one of their games. He’s one of four announcers in all of baseball history to have broadcast games for the same team for more than 50 years. He joined the Royals HOF in 2004, was honored with the Ford C. Frick Award that puts baseball broadcasters and writers in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, and is in both the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and the Missouri Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
(MAX)—Former Missouri Tiger pitcher Max Sherzer might or might not have thrown his last major league pitch Sunday. He maintains that he’ll decide whether to try another season between now and spring training.
He’s 43 and told reporters Saturday, “I’ve gone through ups and downs throughout the season, I get it, but I’ve gotten to the point where I’m pretty healthy. I’ve talked to everybody in my inner circle and we all kind of feel the same way. We don’t need to make a decision today. Get to the offseason and see how things unfold.”
His record has not been much to talk about in the last couple of years with Toronto when he’s been sidelined with injuries, but Sunday he went seven full innings, gave up one run, six hits, struck out seven and walked only one on 114 pitches. In his career he’s 225-126 with a 3.29 ERA., 3,557 strikeouts and only 814 walks. He’s ninth on the all time strikeout list.
Will he show up in February? “I have no idea how I’m going to feel here in six months. For me, right now it’s just about being healthy, pitching in this last game and having fun with it, then seeing what happens. I really don’t have any expectations of what happens. Pitching is so much fun. You never know. Really, I have no idea.”
Scherzer, a Chesterfield native, led the Big 12 confine in ERA (1.86) and strikeouts when he was a sophomore at Mizzou in 2005. His 131 strikeouts broke a 14-year old school record. He was the conference’s Pitcher of the Year and was a semifinalist for the Clemens Award, the college baseball’s Heisman Trophy.
He was 7-2 with a 1.85 ERA in a junior year when he had some injuries and helped the Tigers win their first NCAA regioal tournament. The Diamondbacks made him the 11th overall pick in the 2006 draft, the first time a Mizzou baseball player had gone in the first round of the draft.
(HAWKS)—-St. Louis once was an NBA town and once its team beat the great Boston Celtics for the NBA Championship. We note the death of the leader of that team a few days ago. Bob Petit was 93.
Petit joined the Hawks after an All-American career at LSU where he averaged 27.4 points and 14.4 rebounds a game his senior year. He was the second pick in the 1954 draft by the then-Milwaukee Hawks, soon to move to St. Louis in 1955. He became the first NBA player to score 20,000 points, was an All-Star eleven times and was the first player to be named the Most Valuable Player in the NBA, an award he won three other times..
Petit was a 6-foot-9 power forward whose worst scoring year was his last when he averaged only 22 points per game. His career average was 26.4. He scored 50 six times with a high of 57. In the 1958 championship game with the Celtics, Petit hit for 50 points including 15 of the 21 points the Hawks scored in a one-point win over Bill Russell’s Celtics.
He went back to Louisiana when his career ended and was a financial consultant .
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
(RETURN?)—Robbie Avila, the popular 6-10 center for the St. Louis University Billikens last year, has filed a lawsuit seeking a fifth year as a Billiken. He’s also asking that a judge order an expansion of the roster beyond the NCAA 15-man limit.
His lawsuit claims he’s being unfairly kept from getting NIL payments to play college basketball
The Billikens made history last year by going 29-6 for their most victories ever. They won their first round game against Georgia in the NCAA tournament but were knocked out in round two by the eventual champion, Michigan.
Avila was the A-10 Player of the Year last year. He has enrolled at SLU this year and will work on a master’s degree in leadership and organizational development.
—-Speedy Stuff—
(NASCAR)—Kyle Larson grabbed the NASCAR championship run-off by the throat just across the state line from Kansas City Sunday. His dominating run that maxed out the number of points he could get has put him 26 points up on Denny Hamlin, the regular season champion.
Larson led 235 of the race’s 276 laps, a track record. Chase Briscsoe ran him down with about thirty laps to go but developed a handling problem and Larson reclaimed the lead with seven to go and stayed on the point the rest of the way.
Larson, driving the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, started on the outside of the front row and took the early lead Yahoo Sports. He held the top spot for most of the race, but Chase Briscoe caught and passed him with 30 laps to go Yahoo Sports+1. Briscoe’s car began to get loose late in the run, giving Larson the chance to reclaim the lead with seven laps remaining NASCAR. He held it to the checkered flag, completing the win.
The win his the 34th of his career, his second win in his last three races after a 51-race dry spell. With six races left, Hamlin is his closest challenger. Christopher Bell is third but is 50 points back. Last week’s winner, Joey Logano, suffered a late tire failure, finished 20th, and drped to fourth in the standings, 67 points back.
(INDYCAR)—The annual off-season ritual for the getting the face of the winner of the Indianapolis 500 on the Borg-Warner trophy is underway for Felix Rosenqvist.
Sculptor William Behrends, who has been the trophy’s sculptor since 1990, carved Rosenqvist’s face in clay at his studio in Tryon, North Carolina. The clay image will be produced in sterling silver and permanently attached to the big trophy.
Rosenqvist’s image is unique because he’s the first winner shown with a full beard, which was a challenge to Behrends who didn’t want the beard to be the first thing people noticed when the see in the silver image. The trophy shows six winners with moustaches, the most recent being Bobby Rahal, the 1986 winner and now a team owner.
Rosenqvist found the experience a little creepy though. “I think the details are what make it come alive bBecause that’s literally what makes you, you. I think the cool thing was because we’ve all seen pictures of ourselves, but to see like a 3D version of yourself and to be able to look around and walk behind him, look out behind the ears and all the kind of things you never could do, it’s a little bit of an eerie experience.”
Rosenqvist will defend his title next May 30, the 111th running of the Indianapolis 500.
(Picture credits: Jensen—Facebook; Cardinals HOF—X; Wathan—Instagram; Matthews–Json Hanna The Kansas City Royals; Petit—Facebook; Sherzer—University of Missouri and Youtube; Larson—Bob Priddy at Indianapolis; Rosenqvist—IndyCar)
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