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Sports:  On a Roll:  Tigers, Chiefs, Royals, Byron, Verstappen.  Clunking Along: Cardinals

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—James Franklin and Henry Josey were leading the Missouri Tigers to a 12-2 campaign and Odelle Green-Beckham was starting to waste a possibly great football career the last time the Missouri Tigers started a year 4-0.  That was a decade ago.

The Tigers were under pressure throughout the game Saturday but this team didn’t fold, seized control late and didn’t let it slip aay.

The Tigers 34-27 win over Memphis State has moved them into the national polls, 23rd.  They’re 22nd in the Coaches Poll. It’s the first time since 2019 that Missouri has been in the top 25.  That’s the year they started 5-1 but stumbled to a 6-6 season. (ZOU)

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On a day when the Miami Dolphins ran up 70 points on the Denver Broncos, the Kansas City Chiefs indicated they could have done the same thing with the Chicago Bears.

Before we get to the Chiefs, a note or two about Miami’s demolition of the Broncos.

It’s only the fourth 70-point game in NFL history. The first was the 1940 NFL championship game the Bears won over the Washington Redskins, 73-0.  The Redskins scored 71 in 1966. And the Los Angeles Rams hit the 70 mark in 1950.  Only the 1951 Rams had more yards (735) than the Dolphins (726).  No other team has ever had five passing touchdowns and five rushing TDs. THE CHIEFS are the only other team with multiple players scoring four touchdowns in a game. Since 1950, only the 49ers in 2012 have had 300 yards passing and 300 yards rushing in a single came.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs beat the Bears 41=10, had 34 of those points at the half, and appeared unstoppable by the Bears.  Patrick Mahomes twisted an ankle late in the first half and sat out most of the second half. His backup, former Missouri Tiger Blaine Gabbert, was unimpressive, throwing for only 40 yards and two interceptions.

Mahomes, even playing only part of the game, set an NFL Record for getting to 25,000 yards faster than any quarterback in NFL history. Matthew Stafford set the record with the Detroit Lions in 2015 at 90 games.  Mahomes did it in 83 starts.

(ROYALS)—The phrase “hot streak” has not been linked to the Kansas City Royals much in the last couple of years.  But they head into the last week of the regular season on one.

The Royals have won ten of their last eleven games and for the first time since 2019 they have racked up four straight series wins. Manager Matt Quartraro says the team has grown throughout the year.  One sign is that eight of the ten wins have been decided by two runs or fewer.

“We’ve had a lot of close games this year that haven’t gone our way. And early on, we were using that as kind of a, ‘They’re learning. They’re learning to be in close games.’ And maybe this is the byproduct of that,”‘ Quintraro observed after Sunday’s 6-5 win against the Astros Sunday.

The Royals were 29-75 at the start of August.  They have gone 24-27 since, not a pennant-winning pace by any means but enough to get Royals fans’ flowing a little faster in the off-season.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals’ underwhelming season is slouching toward its end.  Their Sunday loss to San Diego ended a three-game winning streak.  Those were the only wins in the most recent 10-game string.

The biggest question for the rest of the season is whether Adam Wainwright will ever be seen on the mound in a big league game again.

The Cardinals, once considered likely to win at least 90 back in the chilly days of Spring, have put themselves into position to LOSE that many.  68-88 heading into the last days of the regular season.

Motoring along—-

(NASCAR)—William Byron posted his sixth win this year and the 300th in the Cup Series for team oner Rick Hendrick at the Texas Speedway Sunday. He got past Denny Hamlin and pole-winner Bubba Wallace on the last restart, which was necessary because Kyle Larson crashed while racing Wallace for the lead with twenty laps to go.  Larson’s car got loose as he and Wallace raced side-by-side.  His sliding car narrowly missed the back end of Wallace’s car as it swung to the right and took him into the wall.

NASCAR’s next race in its championship playoff will be at Talladega.

(FORMULA 1)—After an off-week that ended his consecutive wins record run, Max Verstappen went pole to pole in the Japanese Grand Prix. It’s his 13th win this year.  He appears to have an insurmountable points lead with six races left.  His closest contender, Lando Norris with McLaren, was more than 19 seconds back.

Today’s Adlai 

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Last week we introduced you Adlai Stevenson, grandson of as United States Vice President, two-time presidential candidate, and historic UN representative for our country.  And we said we’d ponder some of the things he says before more of the modest number of readers of these columns were born.  His intelligence and his eloquence are, in some cases (perhaps too many) accurate for our times.  Such is the case of these remarks delivered in 1948, seventy-five years ago, in Springfield, Illinois, when he was the governor of the state:

Ours is a sad, disillusioned world.  Too many people on this blood-soaked, battered globe live in constant fear and dread; fear of hunger and want, dread of oppression and slavery.  Poverty, starvation, disease and repression stalk the world, and over us all hangs the mence of war like a gloomy shroud. But everywhere people cling to their hope and their faith in freedom and justice and peace—though fear, anguish, even death are their daily lot.

The remarks were three years after the end of a worldwide war when Europe was still putting its civilization back together after the scourge of Naziism presumably had been wiped out and only two years after Winston Churchill had warned in Fulton, Missouri that a new war, a Cold War, was underway as the Soviet Union expanded its borders.

Japan was a two-time nuclear victim and the idea that other nations would develop an A-bomb cast a frightening shadow on our futures.  The next year, on August 29, 1949, The Soviet Union conducted its first successful test of a bomb—based on the design of our “Fat Man” A-bomb.

In many ways, we still live in the world of 1948 and 1949.  Millions still live in constant fear; millions seek relief from “fear of hunger and want, dread of oppression and slavery.”

Our world has gotten smaller.  No longer are those living with these fears confined to their faraway continents.

And we have people in this country who seek to stoke fear within all of us of THEM, the people the Greatest Generation wanted to help at home and abroad when Stevenson made his speech.

In another speech we’ll refer to at another time, Stevenson spoke of the need for Christian humility.

Christian humility.

Where is it in our country today?

And why isn’t it more in evidence among those who expect us to let them lead us?

 

 

 

Notes from a Quiet Street  (travels with Bob edition)

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The other day I heard a commercial on the radio for a securities investment firm.  It closed with the announcer cautioning, “Investment in securities involves the risk of loss.”

If investing in securities involves the risk of loss, why do we call them “securities?”

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I have been watching gasoline pump prices rise during the summer and have yet to hear anybody comment on a key supply-and-demand contribution to their rise.

It occurred to me as I drove along the newly-resurfaced street between gas stations on Ellis Boulevard to ask: How much petroleum is under our tires instead of in our gas tanks at this time of year?

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On a related note: When I was growing up on a small farm in central Illinois, there was an annual event (or maybe it was every couple of years event, memory isn’t clear) that we used to dread. Road-oiling.

We knew it was coming when the county road department came by our house and ground up the old surface into little pieces which would be rolled smooth or used to fill in potholes.   Then a few days later, a truck would creep past our house spraying a very thick coat of hot road oil on the surface. Another truck would spread sand on top of the gooey surface.  For the next sevcral days, cars and trucks would also creep down the road as the new surface hardened. But it was impossible to avoid the oil splattering onto the car or the truck—or the whitewall tires that were part of the automobile.

One positive that came out of that operation is that cars and trucks got a new undersealing to protect against the rusting salt that was spread on those same roads in the winter.

If often seemed that the crews didn’t re-oil the road past our place until the start of school—and the bus drivers undoubtedly cursed the practice as they cleaned the goop off the buses. And I’m sure the school didn’t appreciate all the tar that was spread into the school from the shoes of students who had to step on that surface to get on the bus.

This enlightening observation came one day on the way back from Columbia when 63 drops down to the flood plain and the ball diamonds and the turf farms and there was so much dust from the gravel side roads blowing across the highway as to make driving a tad bit more dangerous.

Gravel or oil?  I choose gravel.  I helped my father clean the splattered oil off our cars enough times to appreciate dust.

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I was on the Whitten Expressway in Jefferson City and in the lane to my left was a dump truck hauling an empty trailer.  Written in regular-pickup truck-size letters on the rear gate of the truck was, “Stay back 300 feet.”

I thought, “What an I supposed to be doing?  Wearing binoculars instead of my glasses so I can read something on a truck a football field away telling me not to get any closer?

And how would you pass such a vehicle?  Or is a 50 mph truck a rolling roadblock—albeit a safe one.

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Back in the Arab Oil Embargo times of the 1970s, I recall when the 55 mph speed limit became a standard.  Not only would it save petroleum, we were told, it would save lives.

I remember thinking, “If saving lives was the goal, why not set the limit at zero.  Parked cars don’t cause fatalities.

Unless, I suppose, somebody opens the door as a bicyclist is going past.

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We went to Kansas City for a meeting a few days ago.  The shortest trip, timewise, was on Highway 50. It’s four lanes from Jefferson City to California, two lanes to Sedalia and  four from there to Kansas City.  It’s also four lanes east to Linn although it doesn’t become four lanes again until the highway funnels traffic onto I-44.

We took 50.  And most of the time we didn’t have a lot of traffic.

We wonder if the Transportation Department has considered looking at two more lanes for those stretches of 50 as it launches its aggressive expansion of I-70, which already requires great courage and patience to use.  If the department hasn’t, we hope it doesn’t say anything that would make Highway 50 an alternate cross-state route while 70 is torn apart during the next several years.

 

THUNDERFOOTED TIGERS; HOLDING CHIEFS; BASEBALL MISERY ENDING; And cars And: WAINO GETS #200

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor(

MIZ)—The first, the longest, the biggest—-Harrison Mevis’ long-range leg became the deciding factor in what might become the most consequential Missouri football game in years.  Missouri beat Kansas State, the nation’s 15th ranked team, 30-27 as the clock stopped at 0:00 Saturday afternoon.

Mevis kicked the winning field goal from 61-yards, a Southeastern Conference record. (Tom Whelihan holds the team record with a 62-yard kick against Colorado twenty-seven years ago, long before Missouri joined the Big 12).

Quarterback Brady Cook and a tenacious Tiger defense kept the Wildcats under control even when K-State took the lead and then took it back (there were 7 lead changes in the game).  Cook, gimpy with a knee injury in the second half finished with 356 passing yards, two passing touchdowns and one running touchdown.

The win brings Coach Eli Drinkwitz’s record at Mizzou to .500, with twenty of each wins and losses.  It is the first win against a ranked team at Faurot Field in almost a decade (November 30, 2013 against the Texas A&M, ranked nineteenth, 28-21).

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The University has been fined $100,000 by the SEC because it let jubilant fans swarm onto the field while the players, coaches, officials, and others essential to the game were still there. A repeat performance will make the fine a quarter-million dollars and a third offense will cost the University a half-million. The rule has a couple of reasons for being: public safety and what at firt appeared to be a penalty flag on the play. Turned out to be something thrown onto the field by someone else.  But clearing the field for another play would have been impossible or nearly so.

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The victory cost K-State its place among the top 25 teams in the country.  But it didn’t elevate the Tigers into those ranks.  They’re just outside, though.  The AP puts Missouri 27th in ratings points, barely behind Clensom  K-State is 28th and trail Misosuri by 18.

The USA TODAY Coaches Poll leaves Kansas State ahead of Missouri but 26th with Missouri 27th.  The CBS Poll ranks Missouri 26th; K-State 27th.

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The last time Missouri started 3-0 was 2018.  They haven’t gone 4-0 since 2014. The Tigers play Memphis and Vanderbilt in their next two games. Memphis beat Navy last weekend 28-24 to also go 3-0.  Vanderbilt lost to UNLV 40-37 Saturday night to drop to 2-2, with Kentucky next weekend.  (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—If end zones were eleven or twelve yards wide instead of ten, the Kansas City Chiefs might be 0-2.  The end zone, however, at ten yards, was one footstep short for the Jacksonville Jaguars three times and the Chiefs escaped Jacksonville with a 17-9 win to go 1-1 for the year.

The Chiefs were troubled by penalty after penalty, a dozen of them for 94 yards and have yet to show dominance in the regular season this year—-remembering that last year’s offensive coordinator, Eric Bienemy, whose team Washington Commanders team is 2-0 for the first time since 2011 after beating Denver 35-33.

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Well, let’s look around and see if there is another major league sport to talk about, there sure is. Or, at least, one of its players

(WAINO)—For one more night, he was the Adam Wainwright we remember.  Seven shutout innings (a Cardinals record for a pitcher so old), only four hits, three strikeouts and two walks. Fifty-eight of his 93 pitches were strikes last night against the league-leading Brewers.

Wilson Contreras homered in the fourth for the only run in the game and for once Wainwright and the bullpen made a slim lead hold up.  Ryan Helsley pitched his first four-out save since mid-May to preserve it.

He’s the 122nd pitcher in Major League history to record 200 wins. He is, by far, the winningest pitcher in the game today—

Wainwright is the third Cardinals pitcher to reach 200 in a Cardinal uniform, joining Bob Gibson 251 (who spent his career only in a Cardinals uniform), and Jesse Haines, (210 all with the Cardinals except one game for the Reds in which he pitch for five innings with no decision in 1918).

For the next few days he will be one of five active major league pitchers with 200 wins (Justin Verlander, 255; Zack Greinke (224), Max Scherzer (214) and Clayton Kershaw (209).

As far as the rest of baseball, well—-

Gratefully, we are down to the last dozen or so games of this season for both of our teams.  Our teams are a combined 114-185 (66 of the wins belong to the Cardinals and 102 of the losses belong to the Royals).  In in-state standings, the Cardinals began the week with a comfortable 20 game lead on the Royals, long ago locking up the championship of Missouri.  The Cardinals have used 51 players this year, 28 of them pitchers.  The Royals have used 57, of which 34 pitched.  Four Royals pitchers are a combined 14-53.

Jordan Lyles leads major league baseball with 17 losses (four wins, though). Zach Greinke is number two with 15 (also one win). Brady Singer ranks sixth (eight wins) , one of five with 11 losses. One of those tied with him in 6th place is St. Louis’s Adam Wainwright (with five wins now).  Tied for tenth is Carlos Hernandez (who also has a win for the Royals), one of seven ten-game losers this year.

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And for the few who care but don’t know what they’re missing, let’s look at the sports of motor.

(NASCAR)—Denny Hamlin nailed down the final spot in the rount of 12 NASCAR playoffs while four other guys, except for one, started thinking about next year.  The night race at Bristol, one of the favorite events of the schedule each year, was the cutdown race for the first playoff round.

Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick—both former NASCAR Cup Champions—didn’t make the cut. Neither did Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Michael McDowell.

Hamlin outran Kyle Larson by two-and-a-half secondsafter the lsst pit stop with Christopher Bell taking the other podium spot.

Joey Logano became the first defending champion to fail to make the second round of playffs in the next year.,  His car was too badly damaged to continue in a five-car backstretch wreck.  It was hard for him to accept being out of the championship competition. “You get ouf the race like that and you’re behind the wall and you’re in denial for a minute. You don’t want to believe that it happeed and you want to think that it’s fixable, but the car was tore up too bad,” he said afterward.

On the other end was Hamlin after his third win of the year and 51st of his career: “It’s our year. I just feel like we’ve got it all put together. We’ve got the speed (at) every single type of racetrack. Nothing to stop us at this point.”

The playoff field now is William Byron, Martin Truex Jr., Hamlin, Larson, Chris Buescher, Kyle Busch, Bell, Tyler Reddick, Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski, and Bubba Wallace.

The next three-race round is at Texas Motor Speedway next weekend.

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We add this sad note this week the Ovarian Cancer has finally claimed the life of Sherry Pollex, the longtime partner of Martin Truex Jr.  The two had been together for 19 years before announcing their separation in January.  She was 44 and got her first diagnosis nine years ago.  She finished her first chemotherapy two years later.  But in September, 2021 she was told cancer was back and was in her lungs.

She and Truex founded a foundation in 2007 to raise money to fight childhood cancer. It raised more than four million dollars. In 2020 she and the foundation worked to open the Sherry Strong Integrative Medicine Oncology Clinic in Charlotte, NC.

She was a familiar face in the NASCAR garages and the NASCAR community on behalf of the fight against cancer.

Truex commented after her death Sunday, “From the very minute of her disagnosis, Sherry was determined to not only fight ovarian cancer with everything she had, but also make a difference in the lives of others battling this terrible disease. Through her tireless charity work for so many years, her legacy will live well beyond our lifetimes and continue to help countless families.”

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(FORMULA 1)—The Streaks are over in Formula One.  Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz emphatically ended it with the Grand Prix of Singapore, holding off Lando Norris of McLaren and Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes to the end.  The Best Red bull and Max Verstappen could do was fifth, ending Red Bull’s string of 15 straight races and ending Verstappen’s record string of victories at 10.

(Photo credits: MLB.COM and Bob Priddy)

 

Eggheads, Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Yolks!”  

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I recently came into possession of a little book from 1965 called A Stevenson Sampler, 1945 to 1965,  a compilation of quotations from Adlai E. Stevenson II, the former Governor of Illinois who had the misfortune of running twice as the Democratic Party nominee for President against Dwight D. Eisenhower.  When John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960, he made Stevenson the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, where he played a historic public role and a largely unrecognized backroom role in the Cuban Missile Crisis. There are things to be learned from that time.

Stevenson was an unrepentant intellectual, one of several eggheads chosen by Kennedy for key posts in his administration.  When the Cuban Missile Crisis exploded in our headlines, Stevenson was the one who delivered this country’s response in the United Nations to Russia’s installation of guided missiles that could easily reach the United States in Cuba.

Many in my generation felt that we were staring down the deep black barrel of an atomic cannon.  Those days are a couple of generations past and we think it’s time for the young folks to learn about how close we came to a nuclear war, and why it didn’t happen at a time when many of us woke up each day and turned on the radio to see if we had a future.

Stevenson played a major role in keeping the crisis from becoming the war we (as we recall those days) were scared to death would happen.  But his role often is overlooked although it was Stevenson who proposed the ultimate solution.  Peter Kornbluh, writing for Foreign Policy magazine a year ago, says much of the reason for the lack of recognition dates from a Saturday Evening Post article in late 1962 by Stewart Alsop and Charles Bartlett that claimed Kennedy and his associates came up with the solution to the dangerous deadlock. They also claimed that Stevenson was the only one around the strategy table who “preferred political negotiations to the alternative of military action,” as Kornbluh put it.

The article, to use a current phrase, threw Stevenson under the bus when, actually, he was driving it.

A major question for most of the crisis was whether Russia really did have ICBMs in Cuba.

It all became clear on the tenth day when Stevenson, far tougher than he had been credit for being until then, confronted Soviet delegate Valerian Zorin at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.  It is one of the most dramatic moments in UN history. Here is a long version of that confrontation and a short version of it.  The longer version is good for the background leading up to the event. The shorter one is the denouement only.

Long version of the session and challenge:  (30) Adlai Stevenson and Valerian Zorin on Soviet Missiles in Cuba (1962) – YouTube  (Audio quality varies)

Short version: TWE Remembers: Adlai Stevenson Dresses Down the Soviet Ambassador to the UN (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Ten) | Council on Foreign Relations (cfr.org)

If you want to follow along, here is a transcript of the confrontation in which Stevenson accused the Soviet Union of being less than honest about its missiles in Cuba:

 I want to say to you, Mr Zorin, that I do not have your talent for obfuscation, for distortion, for confusing language, and for doubletalk. And I must confess to you that I am glad that I do not. But if I understood what you said, you said that my position had changed, that today I was defensive because we did not have the evidence to prove our assertions, that your government had installed long-range missiles in Cuba.

Well, let me say something to you, Mr.  Ambassador: we do have the evidence. We have it, and it is clear and it is incontrovertible. And let me say something else: those weapons must be taken out of Cuba.

Next, let me say to you that, if I understood you, with a trespass on credibility that excels your best, you said that our position had changed since I spoke here the other day because of the pressures of world opinion and the majority of the United Nations. Well, let me say to you, sir, you are wrong again. We have had no pressure from anyone whatsoever. We came in here today to indicate our willingness to discuss Mr U Thant’s proposals, and that is the only change that has taken place.

But let me also say to you, sir, that there has been a change. You, the Soviet Union has sent these weapons to Cuba. You, the Soviet Union has upset the balance of power in the world. You, the Soviet Union has created this new danger, not the United States.

And you ask with a fine show of indignation why the President did not tell Mr Gromyko on last Thursday about our evidence, at the very time that Mr Gromyko was blandly denying to the President that the USSR was placing such weapons on sites in the new world.

Well, I will tell you why: because we were assembling the evidence, and perhaps it would be instructive to the world to see how far a Soviet official would go in perfidy. Perhaps we wanted to know if this country faced another example of nuclear deceit like that one a year ago when in stealth, the Soviet Union broke the nuclear test moratorium…

Finally, the other day Mr. Zorin I remind you that you did not deny the existence of these weapons. Instead, we heard that they had suddenly become defensive weapons. But today again if I heard you correctly, you now say that they do not exist, or that we haven’t proved they exist, with another fine flood of rhetorical scorn.

All right, sir, let me ask you one simple question: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no. Don’t wait for the translation, yes or no?

[Zorin] This is not a court of law, I do not need to provide a yes or no answer…

[Stevenson] You can answer yes or no. You have denied they exist. I want to know if I understood you correctly. I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that’s your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room.

And he did. Stevenson’s show and tell exposed the Soviet duplicity to the world.  By then, Kennedy had offered to take obsolete United States nuclear missiles out of Turkey bases in exchange for Russia’s withdrawal of its missiles in Cuba. Most tellings of the story do not mention who originated that strategy.  That was Adlai Stevenson.

The possible nuclear war was averted not by threats of attacks on sites in Cuba and deadly confrontations at sea but by Premier Nickolai Khruschev’s acceptance of the base-swapping plan.

Today we have a Russian leader threatening nuclear war and there are those who are suggesting strong military action against Russia.  Kornbluh suggests the not well-known story of how diplomacy, not military confrontation, disarmed a possible Armageddon in 1962, is forgotten by those dealing with events in Ukraine and threats of atomic conflagration.

Kornbluh wrote last year, “Iit would seem prudent to revisit the story of how and why Kennedy sacrificed both Stevenson and the truth about the resolution of the missile crisis and what lessons that history really holds. Documents and transcripts now accessible to the world from government archives allow us to tell the story more fully and accurately than ever before.”

Today, as a Russian leader threatens the use of nuclear weapons in a war of his own making, we edge close to the events we dodged in 1962—-but we are yet a distance from those tense hours before the Soviet ships turned around. You and I are not privy to secret diplomatic discussions while more threatening words are flung into the air evoking frightening possibilities.

Talking is always better than shooting, as Adlai Stevenson and John Kennedy knew.

Some suggest we have no business being involved with Ukraine and the conflict.  Adlai Stevenson, the defender of eggheads that included himself, had an answer for them in a 1954 speech at Harvard:

There was a time, and it was only yesterday, when the United States could and did stand aloof.  In the days of our national youth, Washington warned against “entangling alliances,” John Adams spoke of that “system of neutrality and impartiality” which was to serve us long and well, and Jefferson enumerated among our blessings that we were “kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe.”  But those days are gone forever.”

Unfortunately, almost ninety years after Stevenson’s remarks, far too many reject their reality and want to believe the United States is not separate from the rest of the world and its troubles, challenges, and opportunities.

Adlai E. Stevenson II (1900-1965) was the grandson of Grover Cleveland’s vice-president, and great-grandson of Jesse Fell, the campaign manager for Abraham Lincoln.  I think there will be some days when we offer another comment from A Stevenson Sampler, a collection of excerpts from a man dead for almost sixty years who still has something to say to us.

(Photo credit:  JFK Library)

 

The Sacred Burial Site, and Other Musings 

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I knew a man named Ed Bliss who wrote the news for Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite.  They wrote their commentaries; he oversaw the writing of their newscasts.  We often had Ed conduct newswriting seminars at our national broadcast journalism convention.  One day I asked him,  “When is a person no longer ‘late,’ but is only ‘dead?’’  Ed didn’t know.

When will we no longer refer to “the late” Queen Elizabeth II?  Why don’t we refer to “the late Harry Truman?”

King Tut is dead, not “late.”

A related issue showed up a few days ago in a news story that salvagers plan to start plucking unattached objects from Titanic despite an international agreement that considers the wreckage “a sacred burial site.”

What is a “sacred burial site” and does it become less sacred after a certain number of years?

RMS Titanic Inc., based in Georgia, has the salvage rights to Titanic. It plans an expedition next May to shoot a new film of the deteriorating ship and recover any unattached artifacts despite an agreement among Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and France that the wreckage is considered a sacred burial site off-limits to looters and salvors. There is a United States law supporting that position.

RMST, on the other hand, reached an agreement in 1994 with the owners of Titanic (Liverpool and London Steamship Protection and Indemnity Association to be considered the exclusive salvor-in-possession of Titanic. It has retrieved many items from the sinking and has put them on display in museums such as the one in Branson and in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  The place is worth seeing.

Video: (12) Titanic Museum VIP Guided Tour in Branson, Missouri – YouTube

The museums are owned by John Joslyn, who led a 1987 expedition down to the Titanic.  The museums hold artifacts recovered after the sinking but not from the wreck of the ship proper.

Other artifacts are housed in other museums in this country, Canada, and the UK.

(Your correspondent has some of the anthracite coal recovered by RMST from the debris field)

RMST says it does not plan to alter the wreckage.  But deterioration of the hull has opened new ways to get remotely operated vehicles inside. Court documents say the company also would “recover free-standing objects inside the wreck.”  The Associated Press reports that includes items in the Marconi (radio) room that aren’t bolted down.

The telegraph that sent out the distress calls that fateful night is a specific target.  RMST wants to pull it out.  A judge has rejected a federal government challenge to that plan saying the historical and cultural significance of that device should not be lost to decay.

There are fears that the creatures and the elements will leave the wreckage nothing more than a huge pile of rust within another twenty years.

Very large.  A couple of months ago the BBC reported on the completion of the most detailed view of the wreck, shaped from more than 700,000 digital photos that create a 3D rendition.  The network superimposed the image(s) on the stadium used for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Titanic: First ever full-sized scans reveal wreck as never seen before – BBC News

or: Titanic: Scan reveals world’s most famous wreck – BBC Newsround

The concept of the Titanic site as being a sacred gravesite brings us back to the “late/dead” discussion.

We have heard of only one human remain found at the wreck site in the many dives to the site, a finger bone with part of a wedding ring attached that was concreted to the bottom of a soup tureen.  It was retrieved but was returned to the sea floor on a later dive. It is generally concluded that the passengers’ and crews’ bodies have long ago been consumed by various deep sea organisms.

Some have pointed to shoes on the ocean floor as being remnants of the people who wore them.  But that contention is questionable.

Some argue that the Titanic is a graveyard—-an argument heard at the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor and for other lost (and many later found) ships.

But if the bodies have long since disappeared, is it valid to consider such sites as sacred graveyards?

And how long must a body be dead before it can be removed from its burial site, perhaps to be studied by various kinds of scientists?

The mummies of Egypt, mummies found high in the Andes mountains, bodies preserved in peat bogs in northern Europe, skeletons excavated at Williamsburg, Virginia—all of these people clearly are not “late” and society does not demand that they stay buried.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, however, requires that Native American remains that are unearthed or located be transferred to their lineal descendants, for reburial—-the sacred ground philosophy.

And that raises a secondary question.  Is it sacred ground only because it is OUR ancestors, OUR people?

And why shouldn’t the Titanic be explored and artifacts be brought to the surface?  Are we dishonoring the dead by displaying the clothes they were wearing when they died—long after any physical trace of the person who wore those clothes has disappeared?  Or are we instead honoring their memories?

An autoworker in Wichita, Kansas—Joe Combs—was looking for answers when he saw pictures from the titanic debris field of shoes:

Titanic Shoes: Myth & Reality | joeccombs2nd

I think your thoughtful correspondent comes down on Joe’s side—that we honor the victims of the great tragedy—-and those who died less tragically hundreds or thousands of years ago by seeing something tangible about them and in doing that we recognize they were people rather than one of x-number of casualties of a tragedy or citizens of lost civilizations.

This concept is brought home strongly at the Titanic museums when entering visitors are given a card with the name of one of the ship’s passengers on it.  At the end of the trip through the museum, the patron can learn if “they” survived or died in the sinking. It’s a good way to humanize the experience.

As for referring to someone as “the late,” maybe we have the answer.  It comes from Robert Hickey, the director of the Protocol School of Washington. In his 550-page book, Honor & Respect: the Official Guide to Names, Titles, and Forms of Address, he writes:

Use ‘the late’ before a name of someone who is deceased – often recently – when one wants to be respectful. For example, on a wedding program:

—-John Smith, the bride’s uncle, will give away the bride in place of her father the late Thomas Smith.

—-The groom is the son of Mrs. James K. Gifford and the late Stephen R. Gifford

Some style guides say a person can only be ‘the late’ if they have been dead less than a decade. 

That sounds like a reasonable guideline.  Even at that, ten years is a long time to be late.

 

Sports: Royals Don’t Disappoint; Cardinals Still Do; Chiefs Disappoint; Tigers are Eh!; Champion Crowned, Next Playoff Round in Hot Wheels Land

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(BASEBALL)—Our teams limp into baseball oblivion.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals, predicted here to lose their 100th game by the time we filed our next entry, added some drama by waiting until Sunday to do it. When the lights went off Sunday night, the Royals stood 44-100.  They won the race with the Oakland Athletics by the slimmest margin.  The A’s finished he week 44-99, but had to fight their way to a 5-5 record in the last ten games to avoid being #1.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals will guarantee their losing season this week. They started Monday Night at 63=80.  It’s been sixteen years since a Cardinals team lost that many games.  They could muster only one hit yesterday against the Reds in a 7-1 loss. Miles Mikolas, who is now 7-11 is 1-6 in his last nine starts.

(COMPARING SOME STATS)—The St. Louis Cardinals have used 28 pitchers this year, looking for someone, anyone, who can consistently perform.  Those pitchers are giving up an average of 4.75 earned runs a game.

The Cardinals have five batters hitting in the .270s (Goldschmidt .273; Nootbar .273; Walker .271; Arenado .270. Nootbar has played only 99 games. Donovan, with 90 games, is at .284).

The Royals have used 35 pitchers this year. Their opponents are hitting .363 against them, a reason why the team ERA is 5.21.  Only Bobby Witt Jr., is batting as high as .270.

(HOW’S JACK DOING?)—-Jack Flaherty looked pretty good when he arrived in Baltimore from the Cardinals.  But the bloom is off the rose for Jack.  He’s averaged about 4½ innings for each start. He has a 7.16 ERA and opponents are ripping him at a .363 average.

(FOOTBALL)—The Real World settles in with the Tigers and the Chiefs.

(CHIEFS)—-Chris Jones has decided to play football for the Kansas City Chiefs this year after all. Monday, he agreed to a one-year deal that will make him a free agent after this season. ESPN reports the agreement is loaded with incentives that will let him make a boatload of additional money if he meets the goals.  This year was to have been the fourth and last year of his four-year, 80-million dollar contract with Kansas City.

And there might be some more good news.  The Chiefs say Travis Kelce is making good progress recovering from his hyperextended knew and they hope he’s available for next weeks game against the Jaguars.

The Chiefs unfurled their World Championship banner before last Thursday night’s game and then got smacked back to reality by the Detroit Lions. The defense did a decent job but too many hands dropped the ball on offense.  Kadarius Tony, who missed most of training camp with a torn meniscus was targeted five times by Patrick Mahomes and had one running play—and had zero yards.  Coach Andy Reid says he won’t bench Tony. Reid says, “He’s got great hands, so we just got to keep working through it.”’

(MU)—The Missouri Tigers are a not-very-comfortable 2-0, having to work a lot harder they did last weekend against the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders. Missouri hung on for a 23-19 win over a second FCS School.  Missouri is 2-0 for the first time since 2018.  But they didn’t look good against MTSU.

Next Saturday, the real world comes calling.  The Kansas State Wildcats, also 2-0, are ranked 15th in the nation.  K=State beat Troy 42-13 last weekend with Quarterback Will Howard threw for 250 yards and three touchdowns and ran for two more.  It’s the fourth straight game for the Wildcats to score 40 or more points. The Wildcats come in with the country’s 15th toughest rushing defense and 7th ranked in scoring defense.

Missouri leads the series 60-33-5. K-State whipped the Tigers 40-12 last year.

Now, the Motor Boys:

(INDYCAR)—Scott Dixon waited too long to get hot in this IndyCar season.  Dixon won the season finale at Monterey, his third win in the last four races of the series.  But he still finished 78 points behind Alex Palou, who had a five-win season and never finished lower than eighth in any of the 17 races.

Dixon survived a race that repeatedly has been described as “chaotic,” beginning with a six-spot starting penalty for making an unapproved engine change after the morning warmup. He started 11th and that put him right in the middle of the first tangle of cars on the first lap.  In the melee, Dixon’s car bumped the car of Rinus Vikay, who wound up in the gravel off-road area.  IndyCar officials ordered Dixon to take a drive-through the pits, which dropped him to the end of the field.

The agitated Dixon, however, started working with team strategist Mike Hull on a strategy that let him climb back through the field and skip a pit stop the rest of the field had to make. He took the lead for good on the 78th of the 95 laps and built on it until he crossed the finish line 7.3 seconds ahead of Scott McLaughlin. Palou was third.

There were eight yellow flags, forcing the pace car to turn so many laps that it had to be refueled to make sure it would have enough gas to lead later caution periods.

He heads into the offseason with 56 career wins and will be back next year look for a seventh championship that would tie him with A. J. Foyt for the most titles in a career. The final points standings show Palou, who also drives for Chip Ganassi, then Ganassi teammate Dixon and McLaughlin third.

The naming of Marcus Armstrong as the IndyCar Rookie of the Year made history for Ganassi. No team has previously finished 1-2 in the standings and also landed the Rookie of the Year.

(NASCAR)—Tyler Reddick made a bold move on the apron of the Kansas Speedway to start the green-white-checkered sprint to the finish and hung on to lock in his spot in the next round of the NASCAR playoffs.  He beat his team owner, Denny Hamlin, to the finish line by three-tenths of a second.  Reddick drives for 23XI racing, partly owned by Hamlin, who drives for Joe Gibbs.

Hamlin appeared to have the race in hand and was two seconds up on Reddick when the final caution came out for Chris Buescher’s blown right rear tire.

It’s Reddick’s fifth career win, his second one of the year. He said he couldn’t get to the front until “chaos ensued” on the re-start and he got below Hamlin and grabbed the lead.  Hamlin blamed himself for Reddick to grab the lead because he was trying to protect his position from another driver and was “kind of sleeping on the restart.”

NASCAR’s next race is at Bristol.  It’s a cut-down race.  Four drivers will drop out of playoff contention. Twelve will run in the next three races to cut the field to eight.

(Photo credits: Bob Priddy and Rick Gevers)

Lunch With—-

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Every now and then somebody in this or that group with us asks, “If you could have dinner with four famous people, who would you pick?”

The second and perhaps more difficult question to answer although it is almost never asked is, “What would you talk about?”   You. Me.

Did you ever think about how hard a decision it would be for normal people like us to take part in such a luncheon conversation.  Wouldn’t most of us feel so inferior to our lunchmates that we would be afraid of sounding like an idiot if we opened our mouths?

It’s a difficult question for your discussion leader here because I probably wouldn’t just talk with somebody. I’d interview them.  I say this because a friend from out of town and I were enjoying some ice cream at Central Dairy and a young man and his young daughter asked if they could share the table with us.  It turned out that he is Missouri’s Strongest Man, ranks something like 14th in the world.  I thought I was engaging in a conversation with him about his, uh, work.  But my friend who watched what was happening thought that I had slipped into full interview mode.

Once a reporter, always a reporter. But reporters live to get a story and I wanted to hear this fellow’s story.

But what if you could sit at a table with Einstein, Lincoln, Jesus, and George Clooney or Thomas Jefferson?  Assuming you were not a complete puddle of intellectual intimidation and inadequacy in such a gathering, what WOULD you talk about?

But why talk?  Listening to a First Century Jew and his concepts of the physical and spiritual world and the universe talking to a Twentieth-Century Jew and his concept of of the theoretical and real world, with Jefferson and his concepts of the Divinity (he compiled a Bible that removed all of the mysticism around Jesus) and freedom, with Lincoln and his concepts of freedom, spirituality, and unity—and all of their experiences in people’s search for meaning.

George Clooney? Based on one very brief interaction with him as well as sharing a big table with his father in a two-day seminar on journalism (his father, Nick, was a television newsman in Cincinnati for many years), I think he would add a Twenty-first Century dimension to the entire conversation—perhaps looking at mass media circulation of ideas that are social, political, spiritual, scientific, and practical.

What would they eat?  And what kind of wine would they want?

I confess that for years I have wanted to talk to retired professional athletes about what replaced the competitive fire that propelled them to the top level of their sports when they realized their skills were just not enough to continue at the highest level.  The fire doesn’t just go out the day their retirement is announced, I’m sure.

I know some common, ordinary folks who retire and they’re lost because they no longer fit in the world that sustained them for 30 or 40 or 50 years.  What if  you’re an elite athlete?  Do retired major leaguers switch to slow-pitch softball?  Do reired NBA players sign up for the city basketball league?  When Wimbledon champions abandons pro tennis, do they find somebody at the local YMCA to play with?

For MY fantasy lunch, however, I don’t know that I’d pick famous people.  I think I’d like to ask my dad (who died before it occurred to me to record his life story), my great-grandfather who homesteaded in Kansas in the 1870s, and the original immigrants that were my ancestors about why they came here.

I’m curious about the stars of major league sports and all of the others.  But I would rather know what there is about the ancestors that remains part of my appearance, my movements, my inclinations, and my character.

But then I think about turning this scenario around. So—

Here’s an assignment for you.

Think of what you would like to ask your grandparents or your great grandparents.  Then imagine it’s YOUR grandchildren or great-grandchildren asking the same things of you.  And write down your answers and give it to them or to a local or state historical or generalogical society so that they can find you when they want to know about you. Believe it or not,  you will be important to them.

Have lunch with yourself.  You’re important enough to buy lunch for yourself and answer your own questions.  You might surprise yourself with your answers. And your great-grandchildren will be fascinated by them.

Legal?  Illegal?

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The legality of VLTs, Video Lottery Terminals, remains up in the air with a recent court ruling and because of the uncertainty of their legality and a powerful influence group at the Capitol that opposes them in their present state, we can already see the 2024 session of the General Assembly degenerating into another mud fight in the closing day that winds up killing many bills on which legislators have worked hard to put into position for final passage.

The casinos say VLTs are slot machines and casinos are the only places in Missouri that can operate slot machines.  VLT supporters say they’re some kind of different animal and, as such, are not covered by state law or regulation.

Neither side wants to talk to the other. Forget about compromise. As the clock winds down on the legislative session, both sides get more angry and more desperate and a filibuster in each of the last two years on this and some other tender issues has set lawmakers home frustrated and disappointed.

Whether VLTs are illegal is disputed not only in legislative halls, but in county prosecutors’ offices throughout the state. Only Platte County has declared them illegal and has fined a VLT operator $7,500 for promoting gambling.

The machines are not regulated by either the State Gaming Commission that regulates casinos or the State Lottery Commission that regulates lotteries. The machines generate no income for state programs and services that draw financing from gambling.

Last week, a federal judge decided seven plaintiffs who claimed they are problem gamblers (some of whom have put themselves on the state casino exclusion list) had no standing to file a lawsuit accusing Torch Electronics, a VLT operator, of violating the federal Racketeer influence and Corrupt Organizations Act with its machines. The judge held they had not shown a “tangible injury to business or property.”  He also said losing money in the machines was a voluntary act by the player—who could avoid losing money in VLTs by not playing them. He says he dismissed the part of the case dealing with the RICO act and that any further challenges belong in state court.

Torch has a lawsuit in state court. It’s scheduled to be argued next month.  It, and Warrenton Oil, want an order banning the Highway Patrol from investigating Torch’s operations. Warrenton Oil operates 54 Fast Lane convenience stores with VLTs in them.

Some people have urged Attorney General Andrew Bailey to take action against the machines. He says the issue is “too complicated” for his office to get into.

The legislature seems unwilling to be the adult in the room, telling two feuding children to shut up and telling them, “This is how it’s going to be done.” Of course, it’s hard to take that initiative. when there are thousands of dollars in campaign donations from both sides floating around.

In an election year.

Somebody has to write a rule and the legislature needs to adopt it to keep the 2024 session from turning into the sessions of 2022 and 2023.  But it is our observation that our legislature has become passive, perhaps because of term limits—that legislators don’t propose alternatives to bills like these that put lawmakers, not casinos or VLT operators in a position of authority.

After watching this show for a couple of years and growing tired of it, this helpful citizen suggested a compromise late last year.  It was given to only a couple of people but is offered here for mass consideration.

First: On the effective date of this act, all VLTs will be illegal. The Missouri Lottery Commission is authorized to establish regulations that protect the interests of the state.  Upon approval of those regulations, VLTs can operate within the parameters of this act.

Second: The Missouri Gaming Commission is authorized to  VLT districts which shall consist of the home county of any casino and all surrounding counties. Revenue derived from VTLs in that district shall be distributed to the casinos on the basis of admission numbers. The casinos  (shall be responsible for paying all taxes and fees on VLT revenue established by state law.

In districts in which there are multiple casinos whose territories would overlap, a large district will be established that incudes home counties and surrounding counties (St. Louis, St. Louis County, and St. Charles County would comprise one such district.  Kansas City and St. Joseph casinos will be in a district together (they share Platte County) and their revenues also will be determined on an admission fee basis).

Third: The Lottery Commission will be free to establish additional districts as the constitution is amended to create new casinos.

Fourth: This policy will not be applied to any tribal casino unless it is included in a compact between the tribe and the state that is approved by both chamber of the Missouri General Assembly.

The plan protects the interests of casinos while leaving much of the state (the part not served by the present river-based casinos) open to independent VLT companies.

There’s no pride of authorship here. This is a result of being tired of the annual mud fight.

Of course, this stands no chance.  He who offers it has no Political Action Committees with fat checkbooks that are essential to establishing public policy that protects the interests of the constituents of those who set that policy.

But somebody has to start a conversation if the protagonists of our ongoing drama refuse to be part of it. It might be time to an otherwise passive legislature to become active before more lawmakers see their four months of work fall into the annual mid-May mud hole.

 

Sports:   First Blood for Tigers; Champion Crowned; Record Broken; Milestone Awaits

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

It’s still baseball season. But there are signs that it will end soon.  The biggest sign is that it’s also football season.  The Tigers are 1-0. The Chiefs play a real game Thursday night.  That should take our minds off of baseball.  But until then:

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals will lose their 100th game by the time we fill this space next week.   They stood at 42-96 after weekend games and a 2-8 stretch in their last ten.  They’re in a spirited fight with the Athletics to see who will accomplish the least in the American League this year.  The A’s also have 42 wins. But they’ve only lost 95.

But the Royals might have discovered a diamond in the mud in August.  Cole Ragans was picked up from the Rangers in the Aroldis Chapman trade and has been in The Show (as Crash Davis/Kevin Costner liked to describe it) for a month.   But he has become the first Royals pitcher since member of the team to be voted the American League Pitcher of the Month since Zack Greinke was a youngster full of possible greatness in April, 2009.

He’s a lefty who lead the league in ERA and strikeouts in August—1.73 and 53 respectively. He had the most Wins Against Replacement of any pitcher at 1.9.   He lasted at least five innings in each of his half-dozen starts, struck out 11 batters in two games—a career high—and never allowed more than three runs.  Only Dennis Leonard, in June of ’77 (goodness! That’s 46 years ago) struck out more batters in a month for Kansas City—55.

Greinke’s sad farewell tour saw him pitch only twice in August. He went 0-2, hasn’t won since he and he Royals beat Baltimore on May 3. He’s given up 138 hits in123 innings and has an ERA of 5.34.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals have to go 3-22 the rest of the way if they are going to lose 100 games this year.  It’s unlikely—they won four games last week alone.  But they do face the embarrassing possibility of finishing behind the Pirates, against whom they are 4-9 for the year.

possibility that the Cardinals would finish below the near-perpetual division doormats is more than Post-Dispatch beat writer Benjamin Hochman and much of Cardinal Nation can stand.

The Cardinals are four games behind Pittsburgh. They lost two out of three to the Pirates last weekend.  Hochman remarked the other day that the Cardinals have not had a worse record against the Pirates in more than a quarter-century. He calculates the Cardinals have been in last place in the division fir 119 of the 153 days of the season. The only time since the leagues were split into divisions that the Cardinals were last in their division was 1990.

The Cardinals had three managers that year—Joe Torre, whose team was ten games under .500 when he was let go, Whitey Herzog, whose team was 14 under break-even, and Red Schoendienst, who was 14-11.

A slight diversion in our narrative:  This was the team that had an opening day lineup of Tom Brunansky (traded during the season to the Red Sox for Lee Smith), Vince Coleman, Pedro Guerrero, Joe Magrane (who started the first game), Willie McGee (who was traded to Oakland for Felix Jose and Stan Royer), Jose Oquendo, Terry Pendleton, Ozzie Smith and Todd Zeile.

Zeile was starting a career that saw him play for 11 teams (only five players have played for that many teams), hit a home run in his last at-bat (one of 53 to do that—in fact his last homer was the last home run given up by a Montreal Expos pitcher—the team moved to Washington the next year—and he became the only player in baseball history to hit at least one home run for eleven teams).  The team finished 72-90 that year.  This year’s team can equal that mark by going 13-12 the rest of the way, something they do not appear capable of doing.

(TIGERS)—Missouri Tiger football fans expecting a blowout win against South Dakota in the season opener saw one—for the first half.  Brady Cook looked like a number one quarterback in leading the Tigers to a 28-3 halftime lead.  The second half, with Sam Horn under center, was uneven but the end result was a 35-10 victory.

Cody Smith ran for 148 yards; Luther Burden III showed growth in the wide receiver position; But Harrison Mevis showed uncharacteristic inconsistency as the kicker. He missed his  two field goal attempts and a point-after but got a second chance because of a defensive penalty and nailed that one.

Missouri has another tune-up game ahead—Middle Tennessee State.

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs open their regular season Thursday night against the Detroit Lions.  This is the sixtieth year for the franchise in KC, moving there from Dallas when Lamar Hunt decided Dallas wasn’t big enough for his AFL team and the NFL Cowboys.

Chris Jones is still AWOL and Coach Andy Reid say he doesn’t know what Jones’ “agenda” is and he’s been focused on preparing the Chiefs to play and win regardless of Jones’ presence. “I had 90 guys in the offseason that we needed to make sure we’re going in the right direction. Now we’re getting ready to play a game, and you’re either here or not here. that’s how I go about it.”

The Chiefs have had their entire training camp learning how to play without him. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes says he team has prepared to play the game without Jones and will let the “front office” handle the holdout. “We’re going to focus on how we can win with the guys that are here,” says Mahomes.

Now for the zoom-zoom stuff.

(INDYCAR)—Alex Palou has wrapped up his second IndyCar championship in three years with a dominating performance on the road course at Portland. He went into the race needing only an 11th place finish to wrap up the title.

It’s rare that the IndyCar championship is decided before the last race of the year. In fact, the last time it happened was with Sebastien Bourdais in 2007.

Palou started fifth, took his time and didn’t lead until lap 22. He finished leading 69 of the 100 laps in the race including the last 27.  He finished almost five and a half seconds ahead of Felix Rosenqvist.  Palou’s teammate and only championship challenger, Scott Dixon, came home third, giving owner Chip Ganassi drivers finishing 1-2 in the championship points with one race left.  Palou becomes the fourth Ganassi driver to win multiple championships. Dixon has six. Dario Franchitti had three, and Alex Zanardi had two.

Palou’s remarkable season has seen him finish no worse than eighth in any race.

Ganassi now has 15 series championships, second only to the 17 of Team Penske. This is his third championship in four years. The team says Palou, who is 26, is only the fifth driver to win multiple championships before age 27 in series history, joining Bourdais, Sam Hornish Jr., Louis Meyer (who drove in the 1920s and 30s), and A. J. Foyt—who holds the record with seven, one more than Dixon.
IndyCar has one race left this year—next weekend at Laguna Seca.  Paloux won by more than 30 seconds on that track last year.

(NASCAR)—Kyle Larson, NASCAR’s 2021 Cup Champion, is the first driver to guarantee his spot in the playoff round of 12, thanks to his grind-it-out win at Darlington Sunday night.

Larson, who brushed the wall and whose transmission briefly was hung up in neutral, got past Tyler Reddick on their last pit stops with 55 laps left, then held him off the rest of the way to win The Southern 500 at Darlington by less than half a second. He outran other playoff contenders Chris Buescher, William Byron, Ross Chastain, Brad Keselowski and Bubba Wallace to punch his ticket for round two.

Larson described the race as “kind of a struggle” after his early issues but “we kept our heads in the game. That was really important. This race is all about keeping your head in it.”

Ryan Preece, who rode through a horrifying crash at Daytona a week earlier, was cleared to run at Darlington.  He started 34th in the 36-car field. He finished 28th and was never a factor.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen set a new record for consecutive Formula 1 wins in a year with his run to victory in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. It’s his tenth win in a row.  He now has won 12 races this year and his Red Bull team has a string of 15 straight top finishes.

What he has done since the start of the 2022 season (there are eight races left this year) is remarkable.  He has won 21 of the last 25 F1 races, 27 of the last 36. He now has 47 career victories, 37 of them since the start of the 2021 season.

He has been among the top three finishers 31 out of 36 times and has finished below second only twice in the last three-dozen races.

He has a strong 145-point lead in the championship chase, an almost insurmountable margin.

(Photo credits: Rick Gevers and Bob Priddy)