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Sports: A Surprise Exit; A spoiled celebration; A new stadium; playing with pain; 

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor

(Leaving)—ESPN reports Mizzou is losing athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois to the University of Arizona. Arizona is joining the Big 12. Its athletic department reportedly has been struggling financially.  Reed-Francois has been at Missouri for three years, has seen its fund-raising increase and has presided over development of coach Eliah Drinkwitz’s football team to national prominence and the hiring of basketball coach Dennis Gates.

Her departure might not be much of a surprise, given her track record of not staying very long at any school. Since moving into athletic department administration 24 years ago, she has worked at ten universities and now is moving to her eleventh.

Before coming to Missouri, Reed-Francois was at UNLV where, on April 30, 2021 she signed a four-year contract extension through 2026 with a salary raise to $420,000.  A little more than three months later, she bolted to Missouri and reportedly signed a six-year contract at $800,000. Mizzou paid $500,000 to buy out her UNLV contract.

Her contract at Arizona is for five years.

She was the first woman athletic director in the Southeastern Conference.

It’s kind of a homecoming for her. She graduated from the law school at Arizona.

The athletic department has named Marcy Girton as interim AD. She’s the senior associate athletic director for football and has more than thirty years experience in athletic department administration.  She once served as the COO of athletics at Auburn and again at South Carolina. She also was a football sport administrator at Texas A&M.

(More bad news)—Backup quarterback Sam Horn is going to miss all of the next football season. He’s had ligament surgery on his throwing arm. He’ll be out 12-15 months, putting him out of action for this year’s baseball season and at least part of next year’s baseball season and all of the Tiger Football season in 2024.

Missouri has another backup for Brady Cook in three-or-four-star recruit Aiden Glover who will join the team for the season this fall. He’s from Memphis, Tennessee.

(miz)—After going ohferJanuary, the Missouri Tigers are off to a good start of going oferFebruary.

They had a week to rest, recuperate, and regroup before taking on Ole Miss and it was same song 12th verse.  Missouri led by ten in the second half, 54-44 then, as usual, forgot how to hit a field goal. Mississippi went on a 15-4 run to take back the lead. Missouri closed to within a bucket in the closing minutes but had to foul to get the ball. Mississippi hit its free throws and Missouri headed home 0-12 in the conference and losers of 14 of the last 15.

Six games are left in the regular season before the SEC Tournament. (zou)

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(THE SHOOTING)—It is a fact of American life that if there is a large crowd, there will be people with guns. And there is always the danger somebody will find an excuse to shoot someone.  Two juveniles are in custody because they did just that during he Chiefs’ celebration of their Super Bowl win. One person was killed and 22 others were wounded and, as usual, there is no solution to such things with a political chance in Missouri.

The Chiefs players, friends, and team officials are raising money to help the victims. Travis Kelce and girlfriend Taylor Swift have donated $100,000 each to the fund. In her case, the money is earmarked for the family of Elizabeth Lopez-Galvan, the woman who was killed. His donation has gone to the Reyes family whose daughters, ten and eight years old, were wounded.

The Chiefs, the Hunt Foundation (the Hunts own the team) and the NFL have contributed $200,000 to a fund for the wounded. Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany, also announced that they were contributing to the fund.

(CHIEFS)—Side stories continue to dribble out from the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win as the team looks at who should come back for a possible three-peat and who might have to go because of salary cap limitations.

One of the unrestricted free agents is guard Nick Allegretti, a seventh round pick in the 2019 draft. He has three Super Bowl rings, none tougher to win that the latest one when he had to fill in for starter Joe Thuney and who tore is ulnar collateral ligament (elbow) in the second quarter but playd all 79 snaps. Parick Mahomes called him, “the beast.”

As far as who is NOT going: Travis Kelce. At least, not until coach Andy Reid decides is time for him to call it a career. Kelce and Reid started together with the Chiefs.  Reid is 65. Kelce is 34. Both have denied plans to leave this year. On his podcast last week, Kelce said, “I’m not playing for anyone else but Big Red. If he calls it quits, I’m out of there with him. He’s not, though.” Kelce missed a couple of games this year and still finished only 13 yards short of 1,000.

His backup this year was Noah Grey, who is two inches shorter and only ten pounds lighter. He’s ten years younger, had 28 receptions for 305 yards and a couple of touchdowns.

(BASEBALL)—One thing the new major league ballpark things have in common, beginning with Baltimore’s new stadium in 1992.

A skyline.

The Kansas City Royals want one, too.  Two billion dollars worth bounded by Grand Boulevard, Locust Street, Truman Road and 17th Street, for those familiar with Kansas City. Royals owner John Sherman  says it fits right into the culture. “The arts, the music, food and drink…I believe the timing is right for the Royals to become residents of the Crossroads District,” he said, saying it would be part of a “Golden Era” for Kansas City.

The project will include a KC version of St. Louis’s Ballpark Village, a conference center, corporate offices, residential and hotel properties, and the team’s corporate offices. Whether it happens will depend on voter support of a 3/8-cent sales tax increase that goes to voters on April 1.

The Royals and Red Sox reportedly pulled off a trade just as sprng training started. The Royals add to their bullpen with John Schreiber while the Red Sox get minor league pitcher David Sandlin.  Schreiber is 29, a righty who made it to The Show in 2019 for one game. But he established his mound cred in 2022 with 64 appearances and a 0.985 WhIP  and a 2.22 ERA. Last year, he was n 46 games and had an ERA of 3.86.

The Royals are giving up Sandlin, who had injury problems last year but still got into 14 games and finished the year with 87 strikeouts and a 3.51 ERA.

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Enough of the stick and ball stuff for now. Here’s stuff about people who deal with things that are twice as fast as a 100 mph fastball:

NASCAR’s season always starts with its premier race, the Daytona 500.   IndyCar’s premier race is on Memorial Day Weekend.  Formula One’s premier race in terms of glamour and tradition is considered the Monaco Grand Prix, also held in May, although this year’s Grand Prix of Las Vegas is expected to be a huge spectacle.

(DAYTONA 500)—The Daytona 500’s history of unpredictable finishes shaped by late major crashes has been lived out again, with a historic twist.  William Byron and Alex Bowman celebrated the 40th anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports with a 1-2 finish, the first Daytona 500 victory for the sports’s winningest team since Dale Earnhardt Jr., led the field across the finish line in 2014.

Byron took the white flag as most of the rest of the field was crashing behind him, triggering a caution that froze the field. NASCAR had to review videos and timing-and-scoring data to determine the timing of the crash and the certainty that Byron had won. Byron’s victory came on the 40th anniversary, to the day, of the first win by HMS, a Daytona 500 victory by Jeff Bodine, one of six Hendrick Drivers to win NASCAR’s biggest race. It’s the ninth Daytona 500 championship, tying Petty Motorsports’ record.

(INDYCAR)—A major change in this year’s schedule—-

IndyCar has dropped a road race through the streets of Nashville as its concluding race this year and, instead, will finish the year on the oval in the nearby city of Lebanon.  The 1.33-mile track will give the series six oval races in the last eight races, undoubtedly pleasing series fans who think ovals are always better than street or road courses. It’s the first time IndyCar will finish the season on an oval since 2014.

One of the oval races late in the season will be at Worldwide Technology Raceway across the river from St. louis. Two others will be at the Iowa Speedway, another reasonable drive for IndyCar fans from Missouri.

Another is in Milwaukee, another daytrip for some Missourians.

And don’t forget the Indianapolis 500, easily worth a couple of nights in motels going to or coming from, if needed.

IndyCar starts on a street course March 10—St. Petersburg.

(FORMULA 1)—F1 opens at Bahrain next weekend.

 

The Fix Was Only Partly In 

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It was all planned, wasn’t it?  Except it all fell apart.

The MAGA people in their tinfoil hats had predicted the Super Bowl would be rigged so the Chiefs would win—in fact, the playoffs—if not the whole season—had been rigged by he NFL so the Chiefs would win and then Travis Kelce and girlfriend Taylor Swift would announce their endorsement of President Biden during the halftime show.

We must have missed that announcement.  We were chowing down at a friend’s “Souper Bowl” party while Usher’s spectacular halftime show was under way. It’s probably all coach Andy Reid’s fault that he would not let Kelce leave the locker room while the Chiefs rehearsed the NFL and the Democratic National Committee’s plans for the Chiefs to win.

How clever of the Chiefs and the 49ers to heighten the drama by taking the game into overtime. But that was part of the plan, wasn’t it?  More commercials at $7 million for each thirty seconds.  And how much of that will secretly wind up in the Biden campaign account (that wasn’t part of any conspiracy theory that we heard before the game but it came to mind in the aftermath)?

And when Kelce and Swift met on the field afterwards, they appeared to get lost in their own hugging and kissing that they forgot about making the endorsement. Up to then, things were pretty good and then they forgot their lines and messed it all up.

Maybe it was because they engaged in alternate activity because they were afraid they would say something that would prove claims that she is some kind of a Pentagon asset, although the tin hat folks have not specifically defined what that asset might be. If she ever slips and introduces herself as “Swift, Taylor Swift,” we’ll all know.  So far she hasn’t let it slip, but in the exciement of the Super Bowl she might have done it, so that’s why the Pentagon probably ordere Kelce to plaster his lips to hers because it’s hard to give away high-security secrets when your lips are linked with someone else’s lips.

President Biden commented on X, “Just like we drew it up,” again showing his decline in mental acuity by forgetting they were supposed to endorse him or that the scheme was to be top secret.

Noted liberal mainstream media talking head Joe Scarbrough the next morning disguised the failure of Kelce and Swift to perform by focusing instead on “all the MAGA, ultra-MAGA freaks” and Biden’s comment being “him mocking the snowflakes.”

Biden, showing that he is more contemporary than many give him credit for being, used TikTok to stream a video showing him answering questions about the Super Bowl. He refused to acknowledge that the fix was in by refusing to pick a winner.

“I’d get in trouble if I told you,” he told an interviewer who succested there had been “deviously plotting” for the Chiefs to make the playoffs and then taking the Super Bowl.

Sorry, Joe B.  You can run but you can’t hide.  All right-thinking—or is it ultra-right thinking?—people know the truth.  Kelce and Swift dropped the ball.

One more thing:

President Biden declined to do a pre-game interview, something called “a traditional sit-down” by one news agcncy although it hasn’t been a “tradition” very long. And guess who volunteered to replace him?

Ah, it’s not that hard a question. Our ex-president “praised” the incumbent’s decision, diplomatically noting, “A great decision, he can’t put two sentences together. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO REPLACE HIM – would be “RATINGS GOLD!”

He seemed to have a different attitude when HE skipped the pre-game interview in 2018.

As far as Ms. Swift is concerned, our former president thinks she would be a traitor if she endorsed the current president.  He figures she owes him, big time because he signed the Music Modernization Act “for Taylor Swift and all other Musical Artists,” he put it on Truth(?) Social.

“I signed and was responsible for the Music Modernization Act for Taylor Swift and all other Musical Artists. Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will. There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money.”

“Was responsible for?”

He had nothing to do with the bill, officially called the “Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act,” which had gotten unanimous passing votes in both the Senate and the House. It is, to oversimplify things, a major update in copyright laws to deal with use of music on streaming services.

HE “made her so much money?” Last time we looked, that sure wasn’t Donald Trump dancing and singing  under the spotlights in various venues around the world.  It appears she is capable of making “so much money” on her own.

So he’s upset that this ungrateful superstar might think she has a much better person to endorse. Four years ago she ripped the then-president for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency.”

As a side note, has anyone compared the sizes of the audiences for her performances with the sizes of audience for HIS performances?

The former President about eight years ago professed to be a regular reader of Rolling Stone who likes Elton John, Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi. He “new Michael Jackson very well…I knew him better than almost anybody.”  Pavarotti was a “very dear friend.”  Not on his lis are the numerous artists who have asked him to stop using their music at his campaign rallies including The Rolling Stones. His favorite song? Peggy Lee’s “Is that all there is?” The lyrics are about a person disillusioned with life events.

But it’s not all bad with the former president. “I like her boyfriend, Travis, even though he may be a Liberal, and probably can’t stand me!” he said on his page.

Sorry, Donnie, that’s probably not enough to get you a seat in the Chiefs’ luxury box so Taylor can hug you in celebration of one of Travis’ great plays. And I don’t think Travis would want to hug you, either, despite your grudging admiration of him.

In keeping with the spirit of Tinfoil Hat Sports, Inc., we offer this conspiracy theory for the 2024-25 football season;

The NFL will restructure its schedule so the Super Bowl and inauguration day fall on the same day.  The inauguration will be moved from the Capitol to the halftime show in New Orleans. The Chiefs will survive a tough, but rigged, schedule and will be down by at least ten points at the half and Andy Reid will forget about taking the team to the locker room so Travis and Taylor can perform a poem they have written and set to music for the occasion before their choice for President takes his oath of office. The Vince Lombardi Trophy will be awarded to the Chiefs by the President at the end of his speech although the game is only half over, However it will continue as arranged to make sure all of the commercials are run and to formalize the pre-arranged result. There will not be an overtime because the inaugural ball will begin in a hail of confetti after the Chiefs pull out another close victory that beats the spread.

And eight Clydesdales will circle the stadium pulling a Bidenweiser beer wagon.

Bet the farm.  It’s already been arranged. You read it here first.

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The advice  

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It seems so pure.  But its truth, spoken 250 years ago, is an ideal too seldom sought and even less seldom in today’s politics, achieved.

The great British statesman Edmund Burke spoke to the electors of Bristol on November 3, 1774 of the responsibilities of those in elective positions who represent a people. In his remarks, he dismisses those who say only that they represent the will of the voters of their district. But he also is dismissive of those who become renegades within the system who focus only one their wishes and interests.

The language is more Shakesearean than contemporary political rhetoric, of course.  But the message is clear and one part of this speech is especially meaningful. C0onsider it advice to those who serve us:

I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by at a time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments on that subject.

He tells you that “the topic of instructions has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in this city;” and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favour of the coercive authority of such instructions.

Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?

To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,–these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect. I beg pardon for saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted servant, I shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer you do not wish for.

You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect. I beg pardon for saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted servant, I shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer you do not wish for.

Substitute “legislature” or “congress” for “parliament,” and it seems from here that this advice is timeless and needs to be understood and heeded by those we send to represent us. But we also should acknowledge that we have a responsibilies, too, as Burke pointed out. There is no escaping our responsibility to send the best people to represent our best interests.

And if they fail us, it is our responsibility to replace them with those won’t.  That, of course, requires us to pay attention to what they do and requires them to report to us with “a respectful frankness.”  The times demand more of us than we have been giving. If we are to expect for from them we must expect more from ourselves.

(Photo credit: American Enterprise Institute)

Sports: The real MVP of the Super Bowl; The Worst Conference Season in Mizzou history; THERE BE BASEBALL, and some other stuff 

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—Patrick Mahomes got his thrd Super Bowl MVP trophy Sunday night. But the most valuable player in the Chiefs win was Leo Chenal, a name seldom mentioned among all of the higher-profile names in the lineup.

Chenal, a linebacker, blocked the extra point that would have put the 49ers up by four points with 11:22 left in the fourth quarter, forcing the Chiefs to get a touchdown to win. Earlier in the game San Francisco kicker Jake Moody had kicked a Super Bowl-record 55 yard field goal. Afer the block it was was 16-13 and Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s 24-yard field goal tied the game with 5:46 left.

(Butker had broken Moody’s long field goal record near the end of the third quarter with a 57-yarder.

Moody put San Francisco on top with 1:53 remaining by becoming the first place kicker in Super bowl history to nail two field goals of 50-plus yards in the same game.

But giving the ball back to the Chiefs with two minutes left on the clock has been fatal to a lot of teams and the Chiefs did it again, tying the game with three seconds left in regulation on a 29-yarder by Butker.

But without that blocked PAT the Chiefs would have had to go for the touchdown, not settle for a field goal.

Moody’s field gial with 7:22 left in overtime again put San Francisco in the lead, 22-19. But Mahomes and the Chiefs went on their longest drive of the game when it counted—thirteen plays that lasted 7:19 before Mahomes threw a three-yard pass to Mecol Hardman with three seconds left in the ovetime period.

Chiefs win 25-22 because Leo Chenal blocked that PAT.

The Chiefs, who struggled during the regular season at times finished with three straight underdog wins. After the game, Mahomes told an interviewer, “Just know that the Kansas City Chiefs are never the underdog.”

(THE FUTURE)—Two names pop up in discussing the future for the Chiefs—Coach Andy Reid and Chris Jones.  Reid, who is now 65, said after the game that retirement is not on his horizon.  And Chris Jones, a holdout at the start of the year who played the season with an incentive-laden deal and hit his incentives, has been clear all along, says he has told the team Chairman Clark Hunt, “They’ve got to keep me here so we keep this thing going. We’ve got something special brewing here….We can continue to carry this thing, man.”  Even as a holdout he was saying he wanted to be a lifetime member of the team.  He’s 29 and wants to stay in Kansas City.

(mizz)—-The Missouri Tigers continue their worst conference season start ever with two more losses, both with leading scorer Sean East on bench with an injury. Neither loss was close.

Missouri had back-to-back seasons under Coach Bob Vanatta in 1965-66 and in 66-67 when hey went 6-43 overall, 3-30 in the Big Eight Conference.  But in both cases, they won a game early in the conference season.

The Tigers are now 8-16, and in the SEC, 0-11.  They have this entire week to get ready for Ole Miss, in Oxford, next Saturday night. The outlook is grim. Ole Miss is 18-5, splitting ten conference games and is 13-1 in Oxford as we go to press. (zou)

(CARDINALS)—Pitchers and catchers are reporting TODAY to Cardinals headquarters in Jupiter Florida. Their first workout is TOMORROW.  Some players have been in Jupiter for several days for informal work but the first full-squad workout is next Monday. The first game is the 24th.

This is the 26th year for the Redbirds at Roger Dean Stadium. They share it with the Marlins.

(ROYALS)—While the folks in chilly Kansas City are having a big parade tomorrow, the boys in blue will be assembling in Surprise, Arizona, northwest of Phoenix.  As with the Cardinals, the Royals’ first workout is tomorrow—long tosses and bullpen sessions. The first full-squad workout is on the 19th. They’ve been using Surprise Stadium for their spring training since 2003, sharing it with the Texas Rangers, the World Series champions.

Getting up to speed now:

(NASCAR)—NASCAR rolls off for its 76th season this week with qualifications and qualifying races for next Sunday’s Daytona 500.  The field will be forty cars. There are 42 entries. Among those who will have to race his way into the lineup is seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson who will drive a limited schedule this year.

(INDYCAR)—IndyCar opens its season March 10 with a street race at St. Petersburg, Florida.

The Indianapolis 500, of course, is the marquee race of the year for IndyCar and the big headline for the 500 going into this season is 2021 NASCAR champion Kyle Larson, who is going to try to run the 500 in Indianapolis and the NASCAR 600-mile race at Charlotte that night.

He’s been getting more seat time in an IndyCar in the off-season and a few days ago ran 172 laps at Phoenix Raceway. He thought the test “went smooth” with “a good run through some things” to get more comfortable in an entirely new kind of race car. He even got to practice pit stops.

He did his first experience getting an Indy car sideways. “I almost spun out,” he said afterwards. “Just got caught off guard a little bit.” He thought the Indy car had a lot of the characteristics of the Cup car, at least on the Phoenix track but “The moments happen a lot quicker. The edge of good versus not good feels a lot sharper.”

(FORMULA 1)—Formula One’s first race is in Bahrain on March 2.

 

Rape Theology

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The Missouri Senate went after the legislature’s favorite annual punching bag the other day—Planned Parenthood.  It argued about a bill that would keep the organization from collecting Medicaid reimbursements for dispensing family planning and other women’s health services including cancer screenings.

Planned Parenthood hasn’t provided abortions for a couple of years in Missouri.  But that’s not enough for the PP-haters who don’t want the folks working for the organization to even say the word. And suggesting someone who has thought through the issue and still wants an abortion to places in other states, well, that is calamitous.

One Senator wants to make it a crime for a woman to seek an abortion—although she’d have to leave the state to have it.  He also would have rapists castrated or shot.

Apparently the Senator is not familiar with Article 1, section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution that gives Congress exclusive power over trade among the states. It also limits state powers to limit interstate commerce. And abortions ARE interstate commerce. But ignoring the U. S. Constitution has not been a problem in the legislature on the hot issue du jour for some time.

Another Senator says rapists should get the death penalty and suggested forcing the victim to carry the fetus to term created by the rapist who should be executed “may even be the greatest healing agent you need in which to recover from such an atrocity.”

Still another suggested that rape might be “mentally taxing…(but) it doesn’t justify an abortion.”

Missouri Independent reports she continued, “God does not make mistakes. And for some reason he allows that to happen. Bad things happen. I’m not gonna be able to support the amendment because I am very pro-life.”

I have often remarked that nothing screws up faith more than religion, or as one of my favorite cartoonists expressed it a few years ago:

To describe rape as “mentally taxing” is completely inappropriate.  So is the idea that executing the rapist would be a great healing agent. An African-American member of the senate attributed her existence to the rape of her great-grandmother, a slave, who by her white master.  The event was “mentally taxing” enough that the victim killed herself.

Several years ago, a similar argument against putting rape and incest exemptions into the abortion was pushed by a woman state representative who argued that it is God’s will that  something beautiful (the birth of a child) could result from something so bad as rape or incest.

I wrote in the old Missourinet Blog that, that kind of reasoning argues against rape being a crime. If God intended something beautiful, a baby, to result from something so ugly as a rape or incest, then God must have intended for the rape and incest to happen—especially since God is perfect.  And if that’s the case, rape should be considered an Act of God, not a crime.  After all, God does not make mistakes.

This is why we have, presumably, a separation of church and state.  Religious Dogma should not replace a law of humanity.  But it does and there are many who want to erase that separating line entirely. To do so would thus make one religion more free than others. And that would mess up the idea that this is a nation that practices religious freedom.

My theocracy is better than your theocracy. My God is better than your God. That’s what it all boils down to.

The major flaw in the “God does not make mistakes” argument is that God created people who make mistakes because God gave people free will.

So we live in an imperfect world and reconciling the imperfections in a way that makes living more humane is a never-ending argument. Killing others in the name of God has only produced never-ending wars.

Killing the rapist raises questions about the entire right to life philosophy. Would it be a “healing agent” to kill the rapist of a pregnant ten-year old girl who will likely not understand why she is left to bear what some consider God’s Gift? And if the product of a rape is a gift from God, how can killing the bearer of that gift be considered correct policy?

It is not our intention here to argue whether there should be abortions. But there are two innocent lives involved, not one.  And to try to make rape a theological issue is a political Gordian knot.

If we accept that God is perfect then we must accept that it was God’s will that we mortals are imperfect. And as imperfect creatures we make imperfect decisions. The challenge is in determining the fairness of the way we deal with those imperfections.

Maybe some issues are beyond the law and ongoing gyrations trying to make them fit within a law that carries equal rights and compassion for everyone the law touches is beyond human capabilities.  In those instances, the decision should rest with the individual, their doctor, and God.

Turn to faith, not religion, for the ultimate guidance.

Replace The National Bird?

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The hard right wing of the Republican Party keeps proving there is no limit to their lunacy.  It is so pronounced that we are surprised they haven’t advocated replacing the Bald Eagle with the Loon as our national bird. Maybe they’re too busy cooking up conspiracies to get to that.

Out with the elephant as the party symbol. In with the Loon.

I have decided these people need a sense-of-humor transplant for starters.  Have you ever seen any of them indicate any sign of sincere happiness about anything?  But if they got the transplant, who would be the first ones they would laugh about?  The mirror holds the answer.

There seems to be no end to their absurdity, to wit:

Not content to maintain that the 2020 election was rigged, they now are all a-twitter (or maybe all a-X) about how the NFL has rigged the playoffs and the upcoming Super Bowl so the Chiefs will win and Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce will announce they endorse Joe Biden for re-election.

I kid you not.

Dominick Mastrangelo and Sarakshi Rai wrote for The Hill last week that Swift, a person of the year for Time magazine and the dominant figure in the entertainment world led some artificial intelligence-composed fake images “broke the internet,” has become an obsession with the nutcase caucus of the GOP.

Swift endorsed Joe Biden four years ago and has been “somewhat active” politically otherwise. “Swift’s incredible popularity is also bringing to the forefront various ugly sides of 21st century American life, from explicit AI-generated deepfakes of the superstar that briefly closed down Taylor Swift searches this week on X to unfounded conspiracy theories,” they wrote,.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a paragon of reasonableness, wrote the morning after the Chiefs beat the Ravens for the AFC championship, “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.” None other than Elon Musk responded, “Exactly.”

Other inmates running the far right asylum chimed in. Jack Lombard, an activist who lost a bid for the House two years ago, went on social media to proclaim that he has “never been more convinced that the Super Bowl is rigged.”

Somebody named Mike Crispi who is described as the host of a Rumble video on Musk’s social media site says the NFL has “totally” rigged the Super Bowl, “all to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA.”  And, he says, halftime entertainer Usher is going to have to share the spotlight with Swift, who “comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”

“The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce),” Crispi said “All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA. Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”

This isn’t something that just became obvious to the loon flock. The writers for The Hill record that Jesse Watters, a FOX News host, said a few weeks ago that this conspiracy isn’t just focused on the Super Bowl.  The Pentagon’s psycholical operations unit has tought about turning Swift into “an asset.”

A lot of people think she already is, and a good one, but in an entirely more complimentary way. “It’s real,” Watters is quoted as saying. “The Pentagon psy-op unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combatting misinformation online.” Somehow a report by Politico that a presenter at a NATO cyber conference referred to Swift as a powerful influencer has turned her into a tool for the psy-op unit.

Over on the pro-Trump Newsmax channel, talking head Greg Kelly warned that public admiration of Ms. Swift could bring the wrath of God down upon her followers because it’s idolatry. “If you look it up in the Bible, it’s a sin,” he proclaimed, without mentioning any concerns about what has been called the Trump Cult.

And what would the loon caucus be without George Soros to drag into any discussion?  Alison Steinberg, a host on another pro-Trump channel (One America News) complained with not a scintilla of evidence that she is “owned by Soros.”

FOX News recently noted that her short flight in her personal jet from New Jersey to Baltimore to watch the AFC championship game produced three tons of CO2 emissions. The story was a personal attack on her, however, rather than an explanation of why the burning of that fossil fuel contributed an infinitesimable amount to climate change. Ignored in the enthusiasm to attack someone who might influence voters away from the network’s favorite ex-president was any mention that said ex-president is an ardent protector of coal mining that continues to produce the fuel that has powered the Industrial Age from the beginning and is a major contributor to mankind’s contribution to our changing climate.

Rolling Stone magazine has reported that the former president is still smarting because she was named Time magazine’s person of the year instead of him. Citing a person close to the former president and another source, it says, “Trump has also privately claimed that he is ‘more popular’ than Swift and that he has more committed fans than she does.”

None other than Trump lawyer Alina Habba, whose defense of the former president resulted in an $83 millon judgment against him, has asked on social media, “Who thinks this country needs a lot more women like Alina Habba and a lot less like Taylor Swift?”

Boy, is THAT ever a hard question to answer…………

The fact that Taylor Swift IS a significant influencer and that her influence has grown since 2020 has put some fear into the hearts of people who cannot grasp that things happen that are not the result of a conspiracy against them and their leader(s).  And there are grounds for their fears.

A Newsweek poll done by Redfield and Wilton strategies of 15-hundred respondents showed 18% of them were “more likely,” or “significantly more likely” to vote for someone Swift endorses.

And that is precisely what the MAGA crowd  wants to discourage. FOX personality, Brian Kilmede, has given some advice that Swift can sweep aside without a thought: endorsing Biden would be “the single dumbest thing a mega superstar could ever do.”

We can think of several dumber things.  Instantly.  Because a lot of mega, or MAGA, superstars have done a lot of dumb things. As far as we know, Taylor Swift never recommended people drink bleach to ward off COVID or other made other similar squirrelly recommendations, for example.

“Why would  you tell half the country that you don’t agree with them in this highly polariezed time? You stay out of it…it would be the craziest thing you could ever do. And Biden isn’t worth it,” he said.

Jeanine Pirro, another FOX personality chimed in that Swift should not “get involved in politics” because she might “alienate her fans.”

How odd that these critics worry about the costs she might incur from exercising her freedom of speech while their own idol complains his freedom of speech is being limited because his message is the exact opposite of hers.

Former CNN talker Chris Cuomo, now doing a similar show on Nexstar’s News Nation, calls these ravings a “mashup of madness” and confesses, “I don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t know what they’re playing at. It’s completely divorced from reality. No one with a working brain can believe this energy that they’re putting into this. She hasn’t even endorsed anybody. Who cares who she endorses.”

The Biden campaign, Chris. It has indicated the obvious, that he’s open to the idea. She endorsed him in 2020 and her endorsement likely will carry even more weight now. think of how many more people would show up for a Taylor Swift political rally than show up for a Donald Trump political rally.

We have never met Ms. Swift and doubt we ever will. But she sounds far smarter than those who are incubating the latest crop of loon eggs. She is highly capable of making her own decisions without counsel from Kilmede and others who conveniently overlook the log in their own eyes*, thank you—and that is precisely what this bunch is afraid she will do.

Taylor Swift scares the bejeesus out of this crowd because she is admirable for the way she encourages others through her music to be better and to do better. They hate her because she is intelligent and sincerely enthusiastic about things like football and one player—-who seems to be a nice guy away from the ferocity of the game—in particular.  And she speaks her mind— intelligently. I bet you could get a cogent answer if you asked her about the Civil War.

While on the other side, we hear only the tremulous sound of the loon.

(*Matthew 7:3-5: Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.)

(Photo credit: National Audubon Society)

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)

The Illiterate

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Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has been getting a bad rap.

Comparatively speaking, at least.

She’s been slammed for her fumbled answer to a question about the causes of the Civil War, saying it “was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn’t do.” Later, at another town hall meeting, she tried to do some damage control by saying  slavery was “a very talked about thing” as she grew up in the South. “I was thinking past slavery and talking about the lesson that we could learn going forward. I shouldn’t have done that.”

But Haley sounded like an honors graduate from Harvard, a Rhodes Schlolar,  and a Nobel Laureate in History compared to our former president’s comments about the Civil War while campaigning in Iowa:

The Civil War was so fascinating. So horrible, was so horrible but so fascinating. It was, I don’t know, it was just different.  I just find it—I’m so attracted to seeing it. So many mistakes were made.  See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you. I think you could have negotiated that. All the people died, so many people died, you know.  That was a disaster. If you got hit by a bullet in the leg you were essentially going to die or lose the leg. That’s why you had so many people, no legs, no arms, if you got hit in the arm or the leg it meant that you were up because the infection, gangrene, it was just such a, you know, sort of a horrible time.  But that’s. I was thinking to myself because I was reading something and I said this is something that could have been negotiated, you know, and it was just for all those people to die and they died viciously. That was a vicious, vicious war, and in many ways—look they’re all this, there is nothing nice about it. But boy, was that a tough one for our country. But I think it’s, you know, Abraham Lincoln.  If you could have negotiated it, you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was. He would have been president but he would have been president. He wouldn’t have been the, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln would have been different. But that would have been okay. It’s, it would have been a thing and that I know very well.  I know the whole process that they went through and they just couldn’t get along and that would have been something that could have been negotiated and they wouldn’t have had that problem. But it was, it was a hell of a time.  

“A tough one for our country…..a hell of a time.”

Good Lord!

I haven’t read anything so stunningly ignorant since I took an essay test in the seventh grade on a chapter in a social studies book I had neglected to read during the previous week.

Negotiate?  Forty years of negotiation after the Missouri Compromise (does he have any idea what that was?) didn’t prevent it. Yes, it was a tough one for our country.  But it ended slavery, which the blithering former president failed to mention, assuming he can perceive and recall any educated discussion of it.

He did mention Abraham Lincoln, although disparagingly, but what would your expect from him?.

Trump’s lack of interest in reading, even detailed security reports during his presidency, is beyond legendary. Every time we watch him deliver a cringe-producing message from a teleprompter we wonder if he can read.  He clearly hasn’t mastered an art first proclaimed by that great American philosopher, George Burns—“Sincerity, if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

He is known to read things about himself.  But to expect him to know anything about the Civil War, the writers of the Constitution, the meaning of the Declaration of Independence—–not a chance.  He wouldn’t know the significance of Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and imaginining him reading out loud anything from Shakespeare to song lyrics from Le Miz invokes near-terror.

That’s why we get gibberish on almost any subject—-and for some reason there are people who think his brand of universal illiteracy should be the template for the American mentality.

When the Civil War is boiled down to a discourse on missing arms and legs while he claims to “know the whole process that they went through,” there is no ignoring the fact that this “stable genius” is an intellectual empty vessel who enjoys his own internal cranial echoes.

Is our former president really the best the party of Lincoln, can negotiate?

SPORTS: Chiefs vs 49ers for it all, again; Mizzero for the season?; New Tiger D guy; Baseball and Speed Returning  (1/30/24)

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

We are two days away from February, a short month.  By the end of it, men will be playing baseball again, drivers of brightly-decorated automobiles will be going in circles really fast, and the frozen spirits of sports fans will have begun feeling the first tentative touches of warmth.

(CHIEFS)—A season-long work in progress is one game from being complete. The number 3 AFC Kansas City Chiefs will play the number 1 NFC San Francisco Giants after two weeks of hype in the Super Bowl, a game name coined by Chiefs and AFL founder Lamar Hunt.

Game management and big-time plays at critical moments were the keys for KC.  The Chiefs controlled the ball for 20:31 of the first 30 minutes, keeping the dynamic Ravens offense on the sidelines until the Chiefs had built a 17-7 halftine lead.  They had the ball for another 17:29 of the last 30 minutes, with the only second[half pointa coming on a Justin Tucker 43-yard field goal with 2:37 left.  Patrick mahomes hit Marquez Valdes-Scantling with  32-yard third down pass on a third-and nine challenge just before the two minute warning and that was the game.

Travis Kelce and Mahomes were perfect with 11 targets and 11 completions for 116 yards and the game’s first touchdown.  Kelce broke Jerry Rice’s record for most playoff receptions and tied Rice with 8 playoff games with 100 yards receiving.

What it all boils down to is that the Chiefs are in their fourth Super Bowl in five years, while the 49ers are back in the big time for the first time since losing 31-20 to Mahomes and Co. in Super Bowl 54 in 2020. The last time the two teams met was in October, 2020 when the Chiefs won by three touchdowns.

(miz)—Missouri basketball has crafted an 0-fer conference season and the story continues to shoe little variety—lead, contend, watch the other guys pull away at the end.  Maybe they are waiting to peak in the conference tournament.

The 72-64 loss to South Carolina left them 0-7 in the conference.

The Tigers tried the inside game this time instead of throwing up threes (they tried only 8 and made only 2).  Trying to pick up fouls inside didn’t produce much—South Carolina committed 17 fouls that Missouri turned into 14 points; Missouri recorded 18 fouls that became 16 SC points.

The Tigers again failed to close the deal. They were within 5 with 2:28 to go but hit only one field goal afterwards.

(MIZZ-D)—The football team has a new defensive coordinator—Corey Batoon, who comes to Columbia from South Alabama where he has been in charge of the defense and safeties for three years.  Here are some of his credentials:  The school was 22-16, held opponents to the low 20s per game in scoring.  Opponents were 169/513 in 3rd down conversions, 33/70 on 4th downs, and South Alabama recorded 85 sacks in 38 games.

(MIZZ$)—The MU athletic department has reported it took in almost $141.6 million in fiscal 2022 and spent all but one dollar of it, both records.  The Post-Dispatch got the numbers from the NCAA.

They do not include money donated to a “collective” that goes for payments to athletes under the name-image-likeness program.  Mizzou raised $7.1 million for that program. Mississippi State was the only school reporting less.  The highest-rollers are no surprise:  LSU $20.1 million; Georgia $18.3 million; Alabama $16 million, and Florida $15.8 million. (zo047)

(BASEBALL)—We are two weeks away from the opening of spring training.  Pitchers and catchers for the Royals and the Cardinals report on the 14th with pitchers and catchers reporting on the 19th.  The first games are on the 22nd.

The Cardinals avoided arbitration with Tommy Edmond with a two-year deal, and signed former Houston reliver Josh James for his potential. James had been with Houston for parts of four seasons but has had injury problems.  He’s 30, was in 87 games for the Astros 2018-21, struck out 34.2% of the batters he faced, walked 13.2% and allowed batters to hit only .204. Somehow, however, he compiled a 4.64 ERA.

As we were going to press, the Cardinals announced two additions providing possible depth and/or potential.  First baseman/outfielder Alfonsa Rivas was picked up off waivers from the Angels. He was with the Pirates, the Guardians and the Angels and last year, hit .229. He’s 27

The Royals avoided arbitration with relievers Rick Anderson and Carlos Hernandez, starters Kyle Wagner, Brady Singer and Kris Bubic. Adam Frazier, a free agent second baseman from the Orioles has signed a one-year deal . Twelve-year veteran backup catcher Sandy Leon has a minor league contract. The Royals will be his 8th team. He has a .208 lifetime batting average.

And the engines have been fired for the first time in the major motorsports season—

(DAYTONA)—How about a race that lasted 24 hours having a winner only 2.1 seconds ahead of the second-place car.  A Porsche owned by Roger Penske came across the line first, the car driven by Penske’s 2023 Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden, Felipe Nasr (who drove the last leg and got past the Cadillac that had dominated the race in the last 40 minutes), Matt Campbell and Dave Cameron.

The win is the first for Penske in the 24-hours since a team led by Mark Donohue won in a Lola 55 years ago.  It continues a roll for Penske Motorsports that began with an Indianapolis 500 victory last May, a NASCAR championship with Ryan Blaney in November. His next target is the LeMans 24 Hours in June.

Newgarden becomes the fifth reigning 500 winner to win the Daytona 24 hours to start the next racing season. Arie Luyendyk did it in 1998, Dan Wheldon eight years later, Dario Franchitti  in 2008 and four-time 500 champion Helio Castroneves two years ago.

IndyCar’s Colton Herta as part of the third-place team.