Category Archives: baseball

Sports: Lows and highs at Mizzou; Chiefs Lock In Two, Third Escapes Lockup;  Bad Baseball, And More.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZBB)—It might be the dawn of Tiger football season but the big Mizzou sports story of the week is with the roundballers. And it is a really big deal.

Guard Jason Crowe Junior also had been courted by UCLA, USC, and Kentucky. It’s a verbal commitment. Signing day isn’t until November so he could bolt.

247 sports ranks him as the sixth best player in the class of 2026. He’s from Inglewood, Califoornia, 6-3 with arms of a player two inches taller. He’s considered so good that some see him going to the NBA after one season at Missouri.

He’s the second-best recruit in Tiger basketball history. Number one is Michael Porter Jr., whose career didn’t turn out too well because of injuries.

(MIZFB1)—When former Tiger wide receiver Luther Burden I11 unexpectedly dropped off the list of first round NFL draft picks, he said, “That’s staying with me forever. Everybody who passed up on me gotta pay.”

But first, the team that took him as the 39th overall pick is GOING to pay.  The Chicago Bears have signed Burden to a guaranteed eleven million dollar contract. He is the first 39th pick in the NFL draft to sign a guaranteed deal.

(MIZFB2)—Once again, the Southeastern Conference media have picked Missouri to be in the lower tier of the football standings this year.

Twelfth, to be exact.

The Tigers play eight conference games, five against teams ranked higher: Alabama is third; South Carolina is ranked fifth. Texas A&M ranks number 8 with Oklahoma tenth. Auburn is forecast to finish one slot above Missouri. Below Missouri are Vanderbilt (13th), Arkansas (14), and Mississippi State, picked for last, at 16th.

The sportswriters think left guard Cayden Green is a first-team all-conference player. Wide receiver Kevin Coleman has been picked for the third team.

Here’s how the fulltime sports writers think the conference will look at the end (first place votes in parenthesis:

  1. Texas (96)
  2. Georgia (44)
  3. Alabama (29)
  4. LSU (20)
  5. South Carolina (5)
  6. Florida (2)
  7. Ole Miss (1)
  8. Texas A&M
  9. Tennessee (1)
  10. Oklahoma (3)
  11.  Auburn (1)
  12. Missouri
  13. Vanderbilt (2)
  14. Arkansas
  15. Kentucky
  16. Mississippi State

Vanderbilt got TWO first-place votes???

Missouri starts its fall practices one week from today.

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs start their pre-season camp today in St. Joseph. They’ll have wide receiver Rashee Rice on hand but they don’t yet know how much of the season he will miss. Rice has avoided a serious prison sentence with a plea bargain growing out of his big traffic crash in Dallas in 2024 that will put him on probation for five years and let him serve thirty days in jail at his convenience. He also has paid the medical bills of those he hurt, about $115,000 worth.

The NFL has not yet announced what IT plans to do about him, but a multi-game suspension appears to be looming—the Chiefs think he’ll be gone for two to five games. The Chiefs, however, are not totally without speedy wide receivers. This year’s fourth-round pick, Jalen Royals is on the depth chart behind Rice,  Xavier Worthy, and Marquise Brown.

A few days ago the Chiefs made sure two key players on the line would be around for several more years—offensive lineman Trey Smith and defensive end George Karlaftis.

Smith, originally a sixth-round draft pick, is the highest-paid player in his position in the whole NFL—$94 million for four years, with $70 million guaranteed.

 

 

 

George Karlaftis, a number one draft pick in 2022 and an immediate impact player at defensive end also is locked up for four more years. He gets $92 million with $62 million guaranteed.

 

 

(BASEBALL)—This wasn’t the post-All Star Game start that either of our MLB teams wanted. They went 1-5, the Cardinals being swept by the Diamondbacks and the Royals salvaging a win in the third game against the Marlins.

The Royals, behind a couple of Salvador Perez home runs, clubbed the cubs last night 12-4. Joe Caglianone and John Rave also joined the power show.

The Royals have the oldest player in the major leagues on the mound tonight—Rich Hill, who is 45, has been called up from Omaha. He was drafted by the Cubs in 1999 and made his major league debut in 2005. The Royals will be his fourteenth major league team. That ties him with Edwin Jackson as the player who has been part of the most major league teams in their careers. Jackson did it by the time he was 35, a decade younger than Hill.

Hill has made nine starts for Omaha this year and has lasted 42 innings. He has struck out 61 batters but has an ERA of 5.36. He’s 90-74 in his big league career.

The Cardinals opened a series last night against the Rockies who are headed for the worst season in modern MLB history. They’s won only 24 of their first 100 games after losing to the Cardinals 6-2.  The Cardinals racked Colorado pitching for fifteen hits, to get back to three games over .500 at 52-49.  Michael McGreevy went seven solid innings in his latest callup from Memphis.

If the Rockies can improve to win eighteen of their next 44 games, they will avoid breaking last year’s modern baseball loss record, 121 games, set by the White Sox.

The Cardinals have a chance to pour it on tonight as they face Colorado’s Bradley Blalock who has lost both of his decisions this year and has a 9.97 ERA. But that means the disappointing Erick Fedde will have to avoid losing his tenth game of the year (he has three wins) and should lower his 4.83 ERA.

Now, the More:

(INDYCAR)—It’s starting to develop into the Palou and Pato show in Indycar with Pato O’Ward’s win at Toronto

Monterey, CA – during the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey in Monterey, California. (Photo by Joe Skibinski | IMS Photo)

O’Ward’s win cuts  Alex Palou’s championship points lead by thirty. It’s his second win in eight days; he and Palou split visits to victory lane in the to races at Iowa the weekend before.

The Toronto race course winds its way for 1.786 curvy (11 curves) miles through downtown Toronto.  The race produced the most on-track passes (226) since the 2014 event and the most passes for position (201) for position since the 2019 race.

Palou finished twelfth at Toronto. O’Ward was joined on the podium by two guys not familiar with the ceremony—Rinus Veekay, who hasn’t had a top-three finish since 2022, and Kyffin Simpson, who’s never been there in his two years in the series.

Palou still leads by 99 points, though, a  challenging figure for O’Ward to overcome in the four races remaining on the INDYCAR schedule.

The miserable season of INDYCAR’s most prestigious team added another chapter at Toronto. Scott McLaughlin went into the wall when a left rear lug nut came off  on the second turn after a pit stop. He finished 26th. Josef Newgarden was caught up in a crash that found the car of Jacob Abel on top of his, relegating him to 23rd.  Once again, the best finish for the Penske team was by Will Power, who finished 11th after brushing a wall.

Santino Ferrucci finished 27th, and last, although he did not start the race. He crashed in practice, damaging his car and injuring his right hand.

INDYCAR heads west to race at Laguna Seca next weekend.

(NASCAR)—THIS, I have to see to believe:

Your reporter is off to Indianapolis this coming weekend for the Brickyard 400, an annual trek we make.  He’s gone to a lot of automobile races in his long life, but this one……

Last weekend, in a more normal setting, the CUP series was at Dover, where Denny Hamlin edged teammate Chase Briscoe for the win in a two-lap overtime shootout.  The win is his fourth of the  year, the best of all drivers in the series. It’s his 58th career Cup win. Only Kyle Busch, with 63, has more victories among full-time drivers in the series. He needs two more to tie Kevin Harvick for tenth on the all-time winners list.

Hamlin was in charge late in the race until a rainstorm stopped the race with fewer than twenty laps to go. He got good jumps on the first two restarts after the track was dried, and got ahead of Brisco for the green-white-checker laps.

Chase Elliott, who led 238 of the 407 laps, couldn’t match Hamlin’s late run and dropped back to sixth at the end. But that was good enough to take the regular season points lead away from teammate William Byron.

The fight for the sixteenth playoff spot remains tight. Bubba Wallace is sixteen points ahead of Ryan Preece and 39 up on Kyle Busch with five races to go before the sixteen driver playoff field is set.

(Photo credits: Smith and Karlaftis—KC Chiefs; O’Ward—Indianapolis Motor Speedway; Hamlin—Rick Gevers; Cookie Monster—NASCAR)

Sports:  Cards, Royals headed the wrong way; UFL championship game in St. Louis; Great night for racing near St. Louis.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(Baseball)—And suddenly, things have taken a bad turn for our teams.

(CARDINALS)—We’ve seen this scenario before—and slow start, a month of optimism, and then a decline to mediocrity at best.  The Cardinals ended a six-game losing streak Saturday but couldn’t make it two in a row against the Brewers, losing Sunday.

They should bet healthy this week when they play three against the Chicago White Sox, one of the worst teams in the major leagues. The Sox are at home, 23-49 this year. The Cardinals are still slightly to the good at 37-35.

The highlight of the weekend came with the Saturday win when Wilson Contreras of the Cardinals and brother William Contreras both homered in the ninth inning of the Cardinals win.

They are not the first to do this.  But it’s been more than ninety years since anybody else did it. On July 19, 1922, Rick Ferrell of the Red Sox homered off of his brother, Wes, a pitcher for the then-Cleveland Indians.  Wes Farrell also homered that inning.

Two years ago, two brothers playing for the same team became the first to hit home runs in the same game. But Bo and Josh Gray, did it in different innings.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals, tired of losing and dropping below .500 held a players only meeting after Saturday’s loss—-then lost again on Sunday as the Athletics completed a series sweep.

The Royals now have lost six in a row, 22 of their last 32, and are four games under break-even t 34-38. They open a series against the Ranger tonight.  The Rangers are pretty mediocre, too, also with a losing record at 35-36.

(FOOTBALL)—Fourteen thousand-559 people went to a football game in the St . Louis Dome and their home town team wasn’t even playing.

It was the United Football League Championship game and the DC Defenders clobbered the Michigan Panthers 58-34. The Defenders got a 390-yard passing day out of Jordan Ta’amu. Their 580 total yards and 58 points are records for a UFL game.

The Defenders took control of the game with 31 points in the second quarter then outscored Michigan 9-0 in the third quarter.

Thus ended a season of some disappointment for the UFL although you wouldn’t think so by listening to the league officers. Overall attendance dropped about five percent this year and it would have been much worse if Michigan’s attendance had not shot up by almost one-third. Four of the eight teams in the league—Birmingham, Memphis, Arlington, and Houston, drew fewer than 10,000 fans per game. Three other teams, including the St. Louis Battlehawks, saw lesser declines.  Television viewership was down by more than 165,000.

Executive VP for football operations, Daryl Johnston, says, “When the time comes and the time is right, we’ll start to reflect back and find out some of the whys and then how can we implement tht moving forward to make sure that we’re getting better every year.”

(DOME)—The domed stadium where the Battlehawks play needs a major upgrade—$155 million worth in the next decade according to a state audit. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports a draft of a state audit shows no revenue stream for that work.  A member of the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority  says the authority is preparing a “long term plan” to take to state and local officials.

The authority does have a plan to invest $50 million dollars the city has received in the settlement of its lawsuit against owners of the former St. Louis Rams.

(KANSAS CITY STADIUMS)—The state has promised to invest $1.5 billion in football and baseball stadiums in Kansas City—but the Royals and the Chiefs have not promised to stay in Kansa City.

Overland Park, Kansas has offered a site and a financial package for the Royals.

The legislation that goes into effect September 9 does not open a money faucet for the teams. The Department of Economic Development wants to see some proof  that the stadium projects qualify for developmental financial incentives.

Now, on to some fast moving sports stories.

(INDYCAR)—Worldwide Technology Raceway got its first prime-time broadcast major automobile race Sunday night—-and it wasn’t disappointing.

Unless you were connected with the sport’s biggest team.

Team Penske drivers had the top two starting positions and three of the top five starting slots.

And then the raee started.  Outside front row driver Scott McLaughlin stalled in pit lane as the other 26 cars took to the track. Enough warmup and pace laps were run for him to refire his engine and get into his regular starting position.

Penske’s senior driver, Will Power, a two-time series champion and Indianapolis 500 winner, started from pole for the 71st time in his career, an Indycar record.  And four-time WWTR winner Josef Newgarden, a two-time champion of the 500, started fifth.

Power crashed while running second after a tire went flat just 47 laps into the 260-lap event. Newgarden, was in a violent crash while about to lap Louis Foster on the 128th lap, t-boning the spinning car of Foster.

Newgarden’s car came down on top of the wall and then slid on the track almost to the start-finish line.  The car’s titanium aero screen protected him during the wild ride upside down and he walked away from the wreckage after the safety crew set it back up on hits wheels. Foster also climbed out of his demolished car and walked away. If you want to see it, including the view from inside Newgarden’s cockpit, this is how it looked on the FOX broadcast:

https://x.com/i/status/1934427429487231109

“Not sure what to say, other than thank you to the AMR safety team and the safety of the car. Seemed like everything was going our way last night, until it wasn’t. Not much you can do in a situation like that. This season has been pretty trying for everyone on the 2 crew. Only thing to do is look forward. It will only make the successes even sweeter. See you in Road America!” (Indycar runs there next weekend)

McLaughlin also had an encounter with the wall leading the leading Indycar team with finishes of 24-25-26 in the 27-car field.

That wasn’t the only action, of course.  There were 254 passes for position for the race. More than half of the drivers led at least one lap. Christian Rasmussen had his career best finish, third, although started 21st and was penalized to the back of the field during the race, passed a total of 62 cars to get to the podium.

Winner Kyle Kirkwood led only the last five laps and held on for a  half-second win over Pato O’Ward. Indianapolis 500 winner Alex Palou, who finished eighth, had the fast lap during the race—174.803 on the mile and a quarter track.

The win by Kirkwood is his third of the year, his first ever on an oval.  He and Palou are the only drivers to win an Indycar race this year. The victory puts him third in the stndings behind Palou and O’Ward. Palou, who has the other five wins, including the Indianapolis 500, finished eighth and reeled off the fastest lap of the race, 174.803 on the mile and a half track.

(NASCAR)—Every year there seems to be a driver who is ‘way down in the standings who surprisingly wins a race and thus qualifies for the 16-driver race off for the series championship.

This year it’s Shane Van Gisbergen, 30th in points, who makes the runoff.  His win is an appropriate one, however.  The Australian Supercars champion won the first points NASCAR race in a foreign country by taking the win at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course in Mexico City.

He beat Christopher Bell by almost seventeen seconds to claim his second Cup series victory. He won his first Cup race on the street course in Chicago two years ago.

(FORMULA 1)—Mercedes driver George Russell won his first race of the year, taking the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

(Screenshot from FOX Sports; Kirkwood by Rick Gevers; Newgarden aero screen, Bob Priddy)

 

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SPORTS—Stadium Money Faces Crucial Week; Competitive Cardinals; Breakout Rookie in KC; Battlehawks Lose in Playoffs, Again

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(THE CAPITOL)—-Whether the state lays out hundreds of millions of dollars to build the new stadium that will keep the Kansas City Royals on this side of the state line could be determined tomorrow at the Missouri Capitol.

The House will consider the Senate-passed bill would have the state as much as half of the total costs of a new stadium for the Royals and for major upgrades to Arrowhead Stadium.

Kansas is putting on the pressure by offering to pay as much as 70% of the costs of building new stadiums on its side of the state line.

The bill also requires the state to pay as much as a quarter-billion dollars to upgrade Busch Stadium III.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals took on the third-best team in the National League during the weekend and won two out of three from the Dodgers. The Dodgers avoided a sweep with a Sunday win. But the Cardinals continue to gain confidence as they won the series.

Redbird shortstop Masyn Winn thinks the result shows the Cardinals can compete. He told reporters after the game, “We don’t have the payroll that a lot of teams do have. We have a lot of guys in here who are just grinders. We don’t have a standout superstar. We have a lot of guys in here who are just grinders.”

St. Louis finished the week four game behind the Cubs, in second place in the division,  seven games ahead of break-even and four games behind Chicago, the team with the second-best record in the National League. The Mets are on top at 42-24.

(PITCHING)— The Cardinals continue to tinker with their pitching staff, calling up relievers Riley O’ Brien and Chris Roycroft, both righthanders, and sending Matt Svanson and Michael McGreevey to Memphis.

They’ve also decided to take a flyer on Zach Plesac, a former starter for the Cleveland Guardians who had been moved in and out of the rotation for the past few years. The Guardians finally let him go to the Los Angeles Angels last year.  He was out of baseball as 2025 began but picked up a minor league deal with the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League. He’s averaged about eight strikeouts per nine innings with the Ducks.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals still are waiting for the spark that moves them above mediocre and they might have found it in Jac Caglianone, who went 4 for 4 Sunday against the White Sox. Caglianone, called down from Omaha last week, had been just 2 for his first 21 at-bats.  But against the White Sox, he went 4 for 4, one of he hits a 113 mph double.

First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino led the Royals to a 3-3 week in games against the White Sox and the Cardinals with a performance that earned the Player of the Week honors. He batted .500 with 13 hits, 20 total bases, and seven runs batted in during the road trip.

Catcher Salvador Perez made a little history last week with his two-run homer that tied game against the White Sox. It was his 30th game-tying home run, moving him past Alex Gordon into number two on the team records list. Only George Brett had more.  35.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—We’ve heard this before:

It’s one and done for the St. Louis Battlehawks in the UFL playoffs, and the defeat smarts even more because it happened in front of the home folks.

The DC Defenders, beaten by the ‘Hawks a week earlier, rolled over St. Louis 36-18 to grab the XFL title.  The win sets up the Defenders to play the Michigan Panthers for the  UFL championship Saturday in (ouch!) St. Louis.  Michigan beat Birmingham 44-29 for the right to go to St. Louis.

Now: Where the rubber really meets the road—

(INDYCAR)—If  you want to watch the winner of the Indianapolis 500 try to go back to back on an oval, you’ll want to go across the river from St. Louis to World Wide Technology Raceway for Sunday night’s Indycar race.  Alex Palou made the 500 his first career win on an oval three weeks ago.

It’s a full weekend of competition with a race for 500 hopefuls in the IndyNXT series and a race for Silver Crown drivers.

(NASCAR)—Denny Hamlin has become one of the few drivers to win a race after running at least 700 Cup races when he minded his fuel until he needed to go all-out in the closing laps at Michigan.  He led only the last five laps and finished more than a second ahead of Chris Buescher and Buescher’s teammate, Ty Gibbs.

The race was the 701st of his career and his 57th win.

Carson Hocevar seemed to have the race in hand until he his car developed a flat tire, giving William Byron a lead he held until he had to make a splash-and-go fuel stop, handing the lead to Hamlin.

Only ten other drivers in NASCAR history have won at least one race after making 700 starts. Kevin Harvick had seven wins, a record Hamlin wants to beat. He is 44

The win at Michigan is his third checkered flag this year. He has said he wants to win at least sixty races in his career.

NASCAR runs its first international race next week, in Mexico City.

(F1)—Formula 1 runs the Grand Prix of Canada next weekend, in Montreal.

(Photo Credit: Visit Kansas City)

This Might Be News To You—-

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It sure is to us.

Did you know Missouri has another professional football team?

We’ve pretty much forgotten about arena football, the game from which Curt Warner vaulted into the NFL to become a Super Bowl-winning quarterback with the St. Louis Rams and a member of the NFL Hall of Fame.

Actually there are at least four leagues that play football in small arenas. The Goats are part of the Arena League. The others are:

Arena Football 1

Indoor Football League

National Arena Football League

The St. Joseph team is moving from Kansas City for this season. AND:

Travis Kelce and his brother, Jason, are the new principle owners of the Goats.

Actually, they are principle owners of Garage Beer and Garage Beer has a major ownership share of the team. It will play its first home game of the new season next Saturday in the city’s Municipal Auditorium against the Duluth Harbor Monsters.

Other teams in the league are the Harbor Monsters, Eau Claire Axmen, Hot Springs Wiseguys, Iowa Woo, and the Ozarks Lunkers (based in Springfield).

The Goats came into existence two years ago. They are named in honor of political boss Tom Pendergast’s Kansas City faction, known as “the Goats.” Pendergast and his family controlled Missouri Democratic Party politics for decades before he went to prison for tax evasion in the 40s. One of the things he did was push for building Kansas City’s Municipal Arena that was buit with lots of Pendergast concrete.

“Goats” won out over some other proposed names—Kings (after the NBA team that was in Kansas City for several years), Ribs (for the city’s well-known barbecue reputation, and the Potholes (which is self-explanatory). The team finished 7-1.

Will the team go over in St. Jo? Think about this: The Missouri State High School Activities Association lists 45 high schools that play 8-man football.  By our count, 33 of them are within an easy drive of St. Joseph.  Indoor, or Arena, football games are played on a field 50 yards long, 85 feet wide, surrounded by padded walls. Teams have 15-player rosters and field seven players at a time.

Sadly, we have to report the Goats lost their first game of the year, 54-50 to the Springfield Lunkers on a last-play-of-the-game touchdown set up by a pass interference call on the previous play.

Indoor, or Arena, football actually is a series of leagues ranging in size from three teams to twelve teams.

Arena Football 1

Indoor Football League

National Arena Football League

Arena League

The St. Joseph team is in the Arena League.

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Well, as long as we’re here, let’s do our weekly sports review:

—and let’s stay with football for a bit.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—The St. Louis Battlehawks have wrapped up their regular season 8-2 after taking down the D. C. Defenders 13-8. The Defenders are 6-4 and the teams will have a rematch for the XFL Division Championship next weekend. St. Louis won the game 13-8.

(BASEBALL)—The Cardinals and the Royals open a three-game series tonight with the Cardinals coming off their best May (19-8) since 2013 and their best month since August of 2022. They won six of their last ten and are second, within four games of the Cubs.

The Royals won only four of their last ten and come into the series 31-29. They’re 8 ½ games behind Detroit, in fourth place but only two games out of second place.

The offense-seeking Royals have called up their top minor leaguer, Jac Caglianone, for his first taste of big league pitching. Only one MLB team has hit fewer home runs so far than the Royals, who have 34. The Rockies, who are 9-50, have kept more balls inside the walls than the Royals.  The saving grace for the Royals so far is their pitching—the fourth best in the major leagues with a 3.13 ERA.

How would you react when you’ve been told you’re going up to the bigs?

https://www.si.com/mlb/royals-prospect-jac-caglianone-heartwarming-reaction-big-league-call-up-father

Caglianone has shown impressive power in his games in AA and lately in Triple-A while he’s learning to play the outfield.

The Cardinals’ counterpart is J. J. Wetherholt, who was drafted one slot behind Caglianone last year.  He hasn’t made the progress tht Caglianone has made offensively and there’s no position available for him on the present roster. He’s a middle infielder and the Cardinals are full at those positions.

(MIZ)—Missouri Tiger basketball has become such big stuff that the team needs a general manager.  That is Tim Fuller whose responsibilities are described as, “help with strategic planning and roster construction with an emphasis on alumni engagement, agent relations and NIL optimization.” The appointment is something of a homecoming for Fuller, who was an associate head coach for five years including 2012 when Missouri finished third-ranked nationally after a 30-5 record and a Big 12 championship.

Last season, he was an assistant coach at Providence, under former Tiger Kim English, one of he key players in that 2012 season.  Mizzou Coach Dennis Gates says the appointment will give him more time to coach instead of taking time away to do the things Fuller will supervise now.

Speaking of big wheels—-

(INDYCAR)—This is shaping up to be the breakout year for Kyle Kirkwood, who already has recorded two wins and six top ten finishes (although only five count), swept to the win on the streets of Detroit.  He earlier won on the streets of Long Beach. He and Alex Palou are the only drivers to win an Indycar race this year.

He finished sixth at Indianapolis but was demoted to 32nd after his car flunked post-race inspection.

All four of Kirkwood’s career wins have been in street races.

He took the lead from Foyt Racing driver Santino Ferrucci with 22 laps left ad held on to win despite damage to one of his front wings.  Ferrucci’s runner-up finish was the best finish for Foyt on a street course since Takuma Sato was second at Detroit a decade ago.

Kirkwood teammate Colton Herta came home third.

Alex Palou, the Indianapolis 400 winner, wrecked on a restart but still has a strong lead in the points.

The next race for Indycar will be within driving distance of most Missourians will be at the World Wide Technology Raceway across the river from St. Louis.

(NASCAR)—Ryan Blaney, the 2023NASCAR champion, has guaranteed he’ll be in the running for his second title with his win at Nashville.

Blaney has had strong runs throughout the season so far but hasn’t been able to hold leads down the stretch—until Nashville, where he led 139 of the 300 laps and beat Carson Hocevar to the finish line by almost three seconds.

NASCAR heads to Michigan next weekend.

(FORMULA 1)—McLaren’s Oscar Piastri beat teammate Lando Norris to the finish line in the Spanish Grand Prix with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc getting the other podium finish.

(picture credits: Kirkwood—USA Today, Junfu Han; Goats—Facebook; Blaney—Bob Priddy)

 

 

Hot Baseball; Winning Football; and the Power of Palou

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

Our baseball teams are hot.

(CARDINALS)—The St. Louis Cardinals finished the week with two straight series wins and a winning streak of eight games The streak has pulled the ‘birds into second place, one game behind the Cubs. The Cardinals, once at 14-19 are now at 22-19. Theu rank second in all of major league baseball with a .261 team batting average. The’re ninth in hits.

(ROYALS)—Although they lost two games in a row last weekend, the Kansas City Royals still have won 16 of their last 20 and are tied with Cleveland for second in their division, 2½  games behind Detrot.  Kris Bubic has the fourth best ERA in MLB, 1.69.

(AS WE GO TO PRESS)—The Cardinals extended their streak nine with a win over the Phillies in the first game of a midweek series.  The Royals ended their four-game losing streak with a series opening win against Houston and now have gone 25% of the way to a 100-victory season.

(UFL)—The St. Louis Battlehawks aren’t scoring a lot of points with their backup quarterback but they don’t need to, given their defense.

They ran their record to 5-2 during the weekend with a 19-9 victory on the home field of the Memphis Showboats. St. Louis broke the game open with ten first-quarter points. After Memphis closed to 10-6 in the second quarter, St. Louis bounced back with a 78-yard that made it 16-6 at the half. The teams traded field goals in the second half.

Next for Battlehawks: the Birmingham Stallions, in the St. Louis Dome, next Saturday noon.  The Battlehawks, Birmingham, and the Washington Defenders are 5-2 heading down the stretch in the UFL season. Birmingham will play the ‘hawks next weekend in the St. Louis dome.

(INDYCAR)—It’s May and for racing fans the word is Indianapolis.  INDYCAR has started the month with a race on the speedway road course. And Alex Palou has continued his run in the leadup to the biggest race of the year for the series.

But that’s the longest race so far this year and Josef Newgarden will be shooting for an unprecedented third straight win.  The 500 championship could be a matter of which of the biggest teams in the series gets the Borg-Warner trophy.

Palou is on track to have the greatest INDYCAR season in 61 years.  His win on the speedway road course is his fourth in five races this year and makes him the clear favorite to add a fifth win in the Indianapolis 500 on the 25th.

Palou had a ten-second lead when the first caution period this year came along after 408 green flag laps to start the season. But he pulled away on the restart and in the remaining dozen laps rebuilt his lead to more than five seconds.

Pato O’Ward picked up his second runner-up position of the season.

Through five races this year, Palou’s average finishing position is 1.2.  INDYCAR says the only start in the last half-century that comes close to that is the season-opening run by Sebastian Bourdais in 2006, who was at 1.4 after four victories and a third place.

While his start to the year has been spectacular, he has no lock on the 500, a race much longer than the first five races of the INDYCAR season. Josef Newgarden, who finished twelfth on the road course, will aggressively chase his goal of being the first driver to win three consecutive 500s. Former winner Will Power has had top tens in the last four races, including third on the road course last weekend. Power says he will be “shocked” if Palou dominates the 500 as he has dominated the first five races.

And O’Ward, who has two heart-breaking seconds in the big race, now has two seconds so far this year and wants to taste the champagne.

Scott Dixon, who finished fifth in the race, is a six-time series champion and has led more laps in the 500 than any other driver, wants to lead at least one more and get his second win in the race.

The 500 is likely to have seven drivers who have combined for 12 wins.

(NASCAR)—Kyle Larson’s car wasn’t 100% healthy when he crossed the finish line for his second straight win at the Kansas Speedway, but it was enough to get to the checkered flag seven-tenths of a second before Christopher Bell did.

He babied his right side tires for the last few laps, especially the last one when pieces of rubber were seen flying from the right front.

It was Larson’s third win of the year. He started from the poll and led 221 of the 267 laps to join Bell as the only three-time winner in the NASCAR Cup series this year.

He now ranks third among active drivers in laps led with 10,073. He has more than five-thousand laps to lead before he gets to Denny Hamlin and more than nine thousand before he equals Kyle Busch.

(Photo Credits: Palou, INDYCAR

The New Pope

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I remember as a young boy in downstate Illinois watching The Chicago Cardinals play their NFL games with Red Grange describing the action from the broadcast booth.

Finally, after all this time, we have a Chicago Cardinal as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Chicago Cardinals later moved to St. Louis and became the St. Louis (Football) Cardinals.

It turns out that the new Pope did the same thing.  The football team lasted longer in St. Louis than he did. Today, they’re in Arizona. The man known to friends in St. Louis as Bob Prevost has moved to Vatican City, the world’s smallest nation.

We watched his speech, given in—I think—at least three languages, none of them English. Or French, of which I have a certain familiarity since I passed three of four semesters of it.

I was reminded of a story I once heard about professional baseball players who went out to battle areas during World War II to entertain the troops. We’re most familiar with stories of entertainers who did USO shows, but baseball players who were ineligible for the draft volunteered to cheer up the troops and would go out, about four at a time, and visit areas that were (mostly) recently cleared of the enemy.

One such troupe was made up of former Gashouse Gang shortstop Leo Durocher, then the manager of the Dodgers, Nick Etten who led the American League in 1944 in home runs and walks as a first baseman with the Yankees, New York sportswriter Tom Meany, and Joe “Ducky” Medwick, also a former Gashouse Gang guy but who was by then a member of the New York Giants.

They did at least four shows a day in Italy at a time when the Allies were taking the country town by town. Meany would be the emcee. A 22-minute film of the 1944 World Series (St. Louis vs. St. Louis with all six games in Sportsman’s Park) and then the three players would talk. There would be a true-false quiz show with the winners getting autographed baseballs, and then the guys would stick around for autographs and talks with the soldiers.

Eventually their tour took them to Rome where Medwick and Durocher got to meet Pope Pius XII. Durocher asked the Pope to bless his rosary, which he did. And then the Pope turned to Medwick and asked him about his background.  And Medwick supposedly answered:

“Your Holiness, I’m Joseph Medwick. I, too, used to be a Cardinal.”

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Three members of the 133-member Conclave also have ties to the St. Louis area. Wilson Gregory of Washington D. C. was the Archbishop of Belleville Illinois, and in 2020 became the first African-American Cardinal in 2020. Raymond Burke was the Archbishop in St. Louis, 2004-08 and became a Cardinal in 2010. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who became a Cardinal in 2012 was the Auxiliary Bishop in St. Louis 2001-02.

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In 1977, fresh Villanova University graduate Robert Prevost (the picture is from the 1977 college yearbook) joined the Augustinian order and went to the Compton Heights neighborhood of St. Louis and became took his first step in the priesthood as a novice at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. He took his first vows a year later and four years after that, he took his final vows.

The Post-Dispatch interviewed St. Louis Zoo employee Steve Baker, a friend from those early days. “Never in my life did I think that someone that I knew was going to be the pope,” he told the PD. “I mean, I sat at a kitchen table and drank coffee with this man…This guy was a rock star. You cold tell even then he was destined to be great.”

Now, however, comes a critical question: Can the new Pope, a Chicago native, be a Cubs fan?

Breath a sigh of relief St. Louis Cardinals fans.  He’s a White Sox guy.

Whew!

The mental image of Pope Leo XIV leading the crowd in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Wrigley Field would have been impossible to take.

(If you want a much better telling of the Medwick and the Pope story, go to Ducky and The Lip in Italy – Society for American Baseball Research)

Bombs Away for Kansas City; Sweep for the Birds; Gem for the Battlehawks. Blues for the Blues. But first, some history for today.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

May 6, 1917—-Bob Groom of the St. Louis Browns throws a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox a day after the Browns’ Ernie Koob had no-hit the Sox at Sportsman’s Park. The catcher for both games was Hank Severeid, the only catcher in MLB history to catch no-hitters on two consecutive days.  Groom went on to an 8-19 record that year and finished his ten  year career a year later.  Ernie Koob was 6-14 that year and out of baseball after another year and a five-year record with the Browns of 23-31.

The Browns were 57-97 that year, seventh in the then-eight team America League which is about what they usually were before they left St. Louis after the 1954 season to become the Baltimore Orioles (of which we will have some news in a few more paragaphs)

Baseball Reference records, “The St. Louis Browns are perhaps history’s worst Major League franchise. The Browns existed from 1902 to 1953 in the American League and managed just 11 winning seasons over that span. They lost more than 100 games eight times, finishing dead last in the AL 10 times. They finished as high as second in the AL standings just three times. The Browns won just one pennant, in 1944, when the majors were not at full strength due to World War II.”  (To which we add that they lost in six games to the Cardinals during the “trolley car series,” when all games were played in old Sportsman’s Park.

But for two days in 1917, the Browns were untouchable.

 

Severeid went on to a solid career, ten of his years with the Browns for whom he caught 100 or more games eight times. He had a solid major league career (.289 career batting average) and spent several more successful years as a minor league catcher and manager. He died in 1968 at the age of 77, still the only catcher to get pitchers through no-hitters on successive days.

Only one pitcher has ever thrown back-to back no-hitters: Johnny Vander Meer of the Reds beat the Boston Bees (later the Braves) on June 11, 1938 and no-hit the Brooklyn Dodgers in his next start June 15.

The only time there have been back-to-back no-hitters involving the same two teams was in 1968 when Gaylord Perry of the Giants beat Bob Gibson of the Cardinals 1-0 and the next day when the Cardinals’ Ray Washburn beat the Giants the next day 1-0. The last two outs he got that day were future Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Willie McCovey.

Those two games are the only time in MLB history there have been no-hitters in two consecutive games.  The second Browns no-hitter had been in the second game of a double header. 

That’s your baseball history lesson for the day. Now let’s look at the history being made by today’s players.

(Royals)—The Kansas City Royals started their week against the Chicago White Sox last night  after finishing their previous week with a team-record seven home runs in one game.  They polished off the Baltimore Orioles 11-6 to go three games over .500 at 19-16.

It was a historic game for catcher Luke Maile, who homered for his first hit with the Royals. He’s the 29th player in team history to have a home run as his first hit.

Cole Ragans already was playing at a historic level going into the game. Although he’s just 1-1 with a 4.40 ERA so far this year, he has struck out 11.16 batters per nine innings through five starts this year and has allowed 0.69 home runs per nine innings.  OptaSTATS says only two other pitchers since 1901 have ever started a season with allowing fewer than 0.80 homers and at least 11 strikeouts through fifty starts with a team are Nolan Ryan and Kevin Gausman.,

We all know who Nolan Ryan is. But Kevin Gausman? He’s bounced around among five teams in thirteen years, has a career record of 104-105.

Ragans was dominant in his return to the mound Monday, tying a season-high with 11 strikeouts in five innings as the Royals shut out the Chicago White Sox 3-0 at Kauffman Stadium. With that, the Royals continued their current hot streak. KC won its 12th game in 14 tries and also improved its season record to 20-16.

Ragans didn’t appear to show any ill effects from his earlier problem.

(CARDINALS)—-A double-header sweep of the Mets gets the Cardinals within three games of break-even 35 games into the season. They can thank Mike McGreevy, who was called up from Memphis by a rule that lets teams add an extra player for doubleheaders. McGreevy relieved Andre Pallante in second game when the bases were loaded and there was only one out in the fourth inning. McGreevy shut down the Mets on one hit and one walk the rest of the way, struck out five, and got the Mets to hit into five groundouts.

The Cardinals had won the first game 5-4

Alex Burlison broke out of his season-longer homerless streak with a two-run rip in the first game. In fact, he hadn’t hit a home run since last August 17. He’d had only three extra base hits so far this season.

The Cardinals kept rolling last night, beating Pittsburg 6-3 in a series opened. Home runs by Jose Berrero hitting his first home run since 2023 with Alex Burlison and Wilson Contreras adding shots of their own to give the Cardinals the lead.

(ST. LOUIS BLUES)—The coach has turned into a pumpkin for the St. Louis Blues. There will be no Cinderella story for them this year.

Once almost written off as a playoff team, the Blues stormed through the last third of the season to make it in the field.  Down two games to none to Winnipeg in the first round of the playoffs, but Blues came back to force a seventh game.

The Blues led by two goals with less than two minutes to play but the Jets tied the game with 1.6 seconds left and got the game winner at the 16:30 mark of overtime.

(FOOTBALL)—-Spring pro football reached the halfway mark in the regular season last weekend.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—Two weeks after losing their first game of the year to Arlington, the St. Louis Battlehawks put together what was called a “defensive gem,” against the same team, 12-6.

The Arlington Renegades had  scored thirty points three times this year, including the first game against St. Louis, in Arlington.

Battlehawks linebacker Pita Taumoepenu was the key to the St. Louis defense. With less than two minutes to play, Taumoepenu slapped the ball out of the hands of Arlington’s quarterback and two teammates pounced on it. It was the fourth turnover forced by the Battlehawks, the second within the final five minutes.

The win keeps St. Louis’ title hopes alive as they go to 4-2 on the season and get back to 2-2 in their UFL conference.

Now we move to sports with another turnoff the wheel.

(INDYCAR)—Alex Palou heads to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with momentum rarely seen in INDYCAR—winning three of the first four races of the season and already building a big lead as he runs for his fourth series championship.

Palou calls his start from the pole and his win on the road course at Barber Motorsports Park “the best race” of his career. He led 81 of the 90 laps. “It was a perfect day, a perfect weekend,” Palou said. “The car was amazing, super-fast. I had a ton of fun. I was a bit lonely there, but I loved it. It was an amazing day.” He was lonely, it seemed. His margin of victory over Christian Lundgaard was sixteen seconds. Penske driver Scott McLaughlin, who had won the last two races at the track, finished third.

Palou’s worst finish in the firs four races is second.

Next up will be two races at the track that gives the series its name, a race on the infield road course next weekend and then the crown jewel of the year for the series, the Indianapolis 500, where Josef Newgarden will try to become the first driver to win three 500s in a row.

(NASCAR)—Consider last weekend’s NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway a breakthough run for defending Cup champion Joey Logan, who avoided trouble as he worked his way from 27th starting position to victory circle. It’s his first top-five finish of the year.

He had worked his way up to second place behind Michael McDowell but took the lead with four laps left in regulation.  McDowell, a lap later, got into some dirty air behind Ryan Blaney and wrecked. He finished 26th.

Blaney was passed by Ross Chastain, who had started 31st, on the restart. It’s Chastain’s best finish of the year.

Nobody led more laps than Kyle Larson  but the best he could do at the end was fourth.

For the first time after 21 straight races, Denny Hamlin did not finish on the lead lap. He lost an engine early. His string of 21 straight top fives is the eighty longest in NASCAR history.

(FORMULA 1)—Oscar Piastri picked up his fourth win of the year in the Grand Prix of Miami. Teammate Lando Norris came home behind him.

(Photo credits: Severeid–Becket Marketplace; Palou–Rick Gevers, Indianapolis 2024)

 

 

 

Sports:  Mizzou Draftees and UDFA’s; Cardinals championship architect dies; Blues tie, etc.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(DRAFT)—More former Missouri Tigers signed on with NFL Teams as Undrafted free agents than were picked up in the draft itself.

The New York Jets have signed quarterback Brady Cook, who was praised by NFL analyst Lance Zierlein for his toughness, athleticism, and arm talent. He calls Cook a “developmental prospect.”

One of his receivers, Theo Weese Jr., is headed to the Miami Dolphins, as is running back Nate Noel.  and edge rusher Johnny Walker Jr., and the Denver Broncos appear to be getting together.

Tigers taken in the draft were tackle Armond Membou, who calls himself “a mauler.”   His performance at the talent combine elevated him to the seventh choice in the first round, takenby the Jets. Jets GM Darren Mougey he’s a “natural fit” who will compete right away for a starting slot at right tackle.

Receiver Luther Burden III went to the Bears in the second round. He’s the first tiger WR to be drafted since J’Mon Moore in 2018. He’s the highest drafted wide receiver since Jeremy Maclin went to the Eagles as the 19th choice in 2009. He had a 13.3 yard career reception average. Moore lasted one year with the Packers and had two career receptions for 15 yards.

(BLUES—The St. Louis Blues appeared on the verge of being blown out of the first round of the National Hockey League playoffs before bouncing back with a pair of wins against Winnipeg to even their best of seven series at two each. One of these teams is going to win two of the next three to advance.

The Blues have picked themselves up off the mat before this year. Until a coaching change early in 2025 the Blues were headed for an early end to the 2024-25 season before they ripped off a franchise-record winning streak that put them back into contention. It has been more than nine weeks since they lost a game at home.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals continued their mediocre season during the last week and at the end of it they lost the architect of their latest championship-contending years.

Walt Jocketty, the general manager whose trading expertise built teams that won a World Series (2006), six NL Central Division championships, two National League pennants. The Cardinals made the post season seven times in his 14 years. He was the executive of the year three times. He was 74. He knew he had been voted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame and reportedly was writing his acceptance speech when he died.

(THE TEAMS)—Looks like a long season, folks, especially in St. Louis.

The Cardinals dropped to 12-17 after yesterday afternoon’s loss to the Reds in the first game of a four-game series.

The Redbirds have called up Jose Barraro from Memphis and they’ve sent Thomas Saggese down. Saggese had come up to fill in for Masyn Winn while he was out with an injury.

Barraro signed as a free agent in the offseason and had an impressive spring she he played 24 games, hit two homers drove in eight runners and stole four bases. At Memphis he was hitting .299 with ten extra base hits (four homers, 13 RBIs) and a recent 19-game on base string. He’s 5/6 in steal attempts this year at Memphis.

The Royals went into a four game series with the Rays last night after a 6-4 week that brought them back to near break-even at 14-15.

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Let’s return to football for a couple of notes.

(THICK)—The Thicker Kicker is ten out of eleven for the Birmingham Stallions of the UFL.  But he can’t hit them all—-and his first miss of the season became a spectacular touchdown last weekend that helped the Memphis Showboats beat his Stallions 24-20 in overtime.

Harrison Mevis is 10/11 in the UFL this year and remains consistent from mid-field.  But 63 yards was a little much. The Stallions trailed 10-3 as the first half wound down. Mevis’s field goal attempt was picked up by the Showboats’ Isiah Hennie, who took it 108 yards for a touchdown.

Mevis was an undrafted free agent last year who spent three months with the Carolina Panthers.

(ANOTER EX-TIGER)—Maty Mauk, an Ohio kid whose career with Missouri was cut short by three suspensions and an eventual dismissal from the team despite his talents, is now the head football coach at Principia High in the St. Louis suburb of Town and Country. He was an assistant coach at Springfield Glendale, along with his brother, while his father was the head coach there. His brother went to Monett last season with Maty and their father as assistants.

Principia was 1-9 last year. They are 3-33 in their last four seasons. Principia College used to have a football program but ended it after the 2009 season.

At Missouri, he emerged as a red shirt freshman in 2013 when starting QB James Franklin was hurt. The Tigers went 3-1 with him. He tied a school record with five TD passes in a game against Kentucky. He was a starter the next year and led the team to its second strait SEC East conference championship. But he had his problems and was finally dismissed in 2016. He finished his college career at Eastern Kentucky, and spent some time with the Saskatchewan Rough Riders in the CFL but injuries ended his pro career.

Speeding along—

(INDYCAR)—Thirty-four drivers aiming for the 33 positions in the Indianapolis 500 field a month from now have run 5,804 test laps (14,510 miles) in their first major test runs on the Speedway using the new hybrid power plant.

2024 Pole winner Scott McLaughlin had the hottest lap at 232.686 mph, with the extra boost allowed for qualifying. In race trim, the fastest driver was defending national champion Alex Palou, who was about ten miles an hour slower.

Takuma Sato, who has won the 500 twice, was second fastest to McLaughlin in the boosted runs at 232.565. But he crashed shortly afterwards and sat out the rest of the test day.

The day also ended badly for NASCAR star Kyle Larson, who is back for his second attempt at running “the double”—the 500 in the afternoon and the Charlotte 600 that night in his regular NASCAR ride. He crashed his car, too, ending his test session.

The hybrid engine debuted last year after the 500 so the test provided drivers with their first experience on the track, and at racing speeds. The added 100 pounds or so that the new system puts at the rear of the car left drivers feeling their cars were more ticklish. Palou said the added weight makes cars “tougher to drive, so it’s a lot easier to see people do mistakes.”

The new power plant provides for bursts of sixty extra horsepower for a few seconds. The tests gave drivers a chance to adjust to some new handling characteristics and a chance to test when and how to use the extra surge of horsepower. But Pato O’Ward, who has had two second-place finishes in the 500 says the new power plant will make the cars “less forgiving.”

INDYCAR runs at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama this weekend, then heads to the Speedway for a road course race and two weeks after that, the 109th running of the 500.

(NASCAR)—The Big One never happed at Talladega this time, leading to the last 69 laps being run caution-free and an eyelash win by Austin Cindric, ending a 30-race winless streak.

Cindric picked up the win over Kyle Larson with a last-lap pass and hung on for a in by .022 second.  It’s the first win of the year for Penske Racing.

The race was typical for a NASCAR superspeedway contest, with 23 drivers leading at least one lap and 67 lead changes. Cindric’s win makes him the tenth different winner in the last ten races on NASCAR’s longest track (2.66 miles). But the race was uncharacteristically free of crashes.  The  yellow flag came out only twice for on-track incidents.

(Photo Credit: Rick Gevers)

 

Sports: Bad, Awful, Terrible Week for Baseball Teams; Mizzou Gymasts Jumping, Vaulting, Balancing for Joy; Portals and Pros.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(ROYALS)—A sacrifice fly by Bobby Witt Jr., in the tenth inning against Detroit ended the Royal’ six game losing streak.  Utility man Mark Canha provided the tying run earlier in the final game of the weekend series.

The Royals headed home after a 2-8 road trip through Cleveland, New York and Detroit that dropped them to 3-10 away from Kauffman stadium this year and 9-14 overall.  The offense continues to struggle. The Royals have scored only 67 runs in their first 23 games. Opponents have 27 more runs than the Royals do.

Kansas City could get well with the Rockies coming to Kansas City for three games. The Rockies have won only three of their twenty games this year,.

The  Royals picked up Canha in the off season from the Brewers for a player to be named later. That player turns out to be reliever Cesar Espinal, a 19-year old right-hander in his third minor league season.

(CARDINALS)—A visit to New York became a disaster for the Cardinals, who apparently left their bats on the plane.  Batter struck out 43 times in the four-game set, hit only .171 and only .148 with runners in scoring position.  They’d gone into the series leading the major leagues in batting average and on-base percentage despite their mediocre record.  They lost their final game of the series 7-4. “There are no excuses,” said manager Oliver Marmol.

One, maybe the only, bright spot was shortstop Tomas Saggese, went 4/12 with a air of RBIs. Since coming up from Memphis three weeks ago, Saggese has hit .400.

(MIZ)—No University of Missouri women’s athletics team has ever finished higher in the national rankings than the Tiger women gymnasts did last weekend at the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Tournament last weekend.  A review of Amy Wier’s routine on the balance beam raised her score just enough for Missouri to finish third, .0125 points ahead of Utah.

The team entered the event as the lowest seed to make the final four—7th—against fifth seed UCLA, fourth-seed Utah, and number two, Oklahoma.

Helen Hu won the national championship in the balance beam with a score of 9.9625.  Hu took the year off last year and returned for a spectacular career conclusion at Missouri. He had her first perfect score on the beam against Oklahoma, then the number one women’s gymnastics team in the country. Only three other gymnasts in the country scored 9.975 or better on theeam at four times this year.

Two years ago, she “retired” from gymnastics because of chronic back problems and spent most of the next year backpacking in a number of countries before returning to her home town of Chicago. But during a visit to Columbia, she went to a session at a local gym and felt good enough to give the beam a try….and the rest is—you know.

(MIZFB)—The college football portal has opened for ten days and Missouri is seeing some people step through it.  Nine players are leaving the program through it.

The newest players coming into the Missouri program are Iowa tight end Gavin Hoffman and Illinois State wide received Xavier Lloyd. They join transfers from the earlier portal opening.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—The St. Louis Battlehawks have slipped to 2-2 after winning their first two games of the UFL season and now they’ve lost their quarterback.

Manny Wilkins tore his right Achilles tendon on the fourth play from scrimmage in Saturday’s loss at Arlington. Max Duggan took over in the eventual 30-15 loss to Arlington. He threw a couple of bad interceptions on his way to an 8/17 day, for just 78 yards. He nonetheless had the team on the verge of winning the game but wide receiver Gary Jennings couldn’t hold on to a go-ahead touchdown pass and it became and Arlington defensive back Ajene Harris turned it into a 100-yard interception that sealed the game.

Duggan will pick up a valuable target for next weekend’s game against Michigan. It’s a home game.  Butler has been inactive since a hamstring injury in the season’s first game. Last year he led the league with 652 reception yards and was the league’s offensive player of the year.

The Michigan Panthers go into the St. Louis dome at 3-1.

(Photo credit: Sports Illustrated)

Sports: Trying to Stay Even; Swinging Portals, And Big Wins

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(STADIA)—as in more than one stadium.

The discussion about whether Kansas City can keep either or both of its major league football and baseball teams ratcheted up yesterday when several civic leaders, including team officials, put out a joint statement calling for “swift and decisive” action to keep the Royals and the Chiefs on the Missouri side of the state line.

“All of our major league franchises are more than teams; they fuel our economy, strengthen our community, and are a beloved part of the region’s identity,” said the statement signed by the city sports commission, the area development council, tourist group Visit KC, and the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City.

John Sherman, the CEO of the Royals, said in a separate statement, “Greater Kansas City is our team’s home. For our fans, our partners, and our major league community, we want to keep it that way.”

Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt told KSHB-TV the team is glad to see the local support and said, “We remain committed to the continued growth and success of our entire region.”

State officials have been talking, secretly, with the teams and Kansas City officials but no specific plan has come but of the discussions. Some bills have been filed to create a funding system to keep the teams on our side of the line but the only one that is moving is one that was approved by the Missouri Senate yesterday that would make it possible for one of the teams to move to Clay County.

Clay County could create an organization  similar to the Jackson County Sports Authority which presently hands the leases for both Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums. The bill would allow a new Royals stadium or a new training facility for the Chiefs.

Either proposal, particularly the stadium, would draw three million dollars a year from the state—a far cry from the anticipated cost of either facility.

The bill still must be approved by the House of Representatives and signed by the governor. The session ends in a month.

(CARDINALS)—Back to back quality starts by Matthew Liberatore and Sonny Gray have boosted St. Louis back to the .500 mark.

Gray shut down the Houston Astros last night, going seven innings and giving up only three hits while the offense pummeled Houston starter Framber Valdez for ten hits and six earned runs in four innings. St. Louis wound up with 14 hits and eight runs. Nolan Arenado was 3 for 4 with a homer. Behind him, Bendan Donovan was 4 for 4. Roddery Munoz gave up a three-run homer in the ninth for the Astros’ only runs.

Liberatore and the bullpen shut out the Phillies Sunday, giving the Redbirds their first series win since the opening weekend. Liberatore went six innings, gave up only three singles, and struck out seven to get his first win of the year. The last twenty Phillies batters went hitless.

Wilson Contreras is swinging one of those “torpedo” bats now and doing it effectively. Saturday, he had two hits and Sunday, he got the Cardinals on the board with a two-run homer.

Masyn Wynn, who left the series opener Friday with back spasms was put on the ten-day disabled list Saturday. As he was going on the injured list, the Cardinals reactivated Norman Gorman off the DL where he had dealt with a right hamstring pull..

(ROYALS)—The Yankees got four solo home runs, three in the fifth inning, against the Royals last night and won the series opener 4-1. Starter Seth Lugo gave up all four of them. Bobby Witt homered after a ten-pitch battle with starter Carlos Carrasco to put the Royals’ only number on the scoreboard.

The Royals drop to 8-9. The Yankees reach 9-6.

(COMINGS AND GOINGS)—It’s portal time for college basketball and it’s getting hard to keep up. Here’s where we think the Missouri Tigers are:

Center Peyton Marshall is jumping ship after his first year of college b-ball. He was a four-star recruit. Mashall was a seven-foot 300 pounder was in 22 games for an average of 4.4 minutes and one point. Another member of his 2024 class, Marcus Allen, also is looking for pastures with more green in them.

Replacing Marshall is 7-foot center Shawn Phillips Jr., who has decided Missouri has greater opportunities than Arizona State. His agency has made the announcement. Phillips has been a basketball gypsy, starting at LSU in the class of 2022 before going to Arizona for the last two years. He hits 56% of his field goal attempts, none of which have been tried from outside the arc.

He is the fourth transfer through the portal for Dennis Gates’ newest-look Tigers. Jontay Porter, Luke Norwether, announced earlier, and now-former UCLA guard Sebastian Mack announced heir plans earlier.

The Mizzou football team is going to lose at least four players when the football portal opens in a few days.

One of those taking off is linebacker Mikai  Gbayor just transferred to Missouri from Nebraska.  He leaves without ever taking the field for Missouri.

Also leaving is cornerback Ja’Marion Wayne, defensive end  Jahkai Lang, and backup quarterback Drew Pyne.

Coach Drinkwitz says he would not be surprised to lose four more guys.

Coming to Missouri is linebacker Josiah Trotter, who has some bigtime genes as the son of former NFL all-pro linebacker Jeremiah Trotter, and the brother of Jeremiah Trotter Jr., who was a member of the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles, who have put Jeremiah Senior in the tam’s hall of fame. Josiah comes over from West Virginia, where he was the Big 12 Freshman of the year last year.

Now, let’s look at the people who come and go even faster:

(INDYCAR)—Andretti Global doesn’t have Michael Andretti in the ownership structure anymore but it has kept the Andretti name and now it has an INDYCAR victory.  Kyle Kirkwood started P2 and finished in the same place at the 50th Long Beach Grand Prix Sunday.

Kirkwood’s win is his first since he won at Long Beach in 2023, his third series in overall. To win, he had to hold off Alex Palou, the winner of the first two races of the year.

The race was a milestone for last year’s winner, Scott Dixon. Dixon came  home eighth for his 300th career top ten finish. The 11th place finish of Santino Ferrucci might not seem particularly noteworthy—except that he started 27th.

There were no caution flags in the race. In fact, the only crash in INDYCAR this year was on the first lap of the first race.

(NASCAR)—Denny Hamlin, who had won the two previous NASCAR races, outran everybody but Kyle Larson in the 500-lapper at Bristol Sunday.  Larson led 411 laps and gave up the lead under the green flag only once. Larson and Hamlin have finished 1-2 seven times but this was the first time Larson was ahead at the end. Ty Gibbs got close to ending his 81-race winless streak with Joe Gibbs Racing, the longest any JGR driver has gone without picking up his first win for the team. He’s the grandson of the former NFL coach who owns the team. He called his finish “really nice” and says he thinks “we’re really capable of winning a lot this year.”

(FORMULA ONE)—F1 was in Bahrain last weekend with Oscar Piastri started in his McLaren from the pole and holding the lead throughout. Mercedes’ George Russell finished 15 seconds back. Piastri teammate Lando Norris overcame penalties to come within less than a second of giving McLaren a 1-2 finish.