Category Archives: baseball

Sports: Cardinals become birds of prey; Royals remain Commoners; Running hot and fast at Indy; Carl Edwards steps out of the NASCAR shadows.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(BASEBALL)—-It was dusty and covered in cobwebs in the corner of the garage, but the Cardinals were able to find their broom this weekend against the Red Sox.  The Brewers had theirs closer-by and used it on the Royals

(CARDINALS)—All of the sudden, the Cardinals are starting to look like a contending team again.  They finished a 5-1 week with a sweep of the Red Sox in Boston, culminating in a 9-1 pounding Sunday night.  After taking two of three from the Cubs, the Cardinals took all three form Boston. They’ve gone six out of seven after an eight-game losing streak left them at the bottom of the division and their fans at the bottom of their tolerance.

The Birds still roost in last place but they’re only 2½ behind the Reds and 3½ behind the Cubs, who are only two games under .500 as we start the second half of May.  St. Louis is the only team in the division with a winning record in the last ten games (6-4).

They opened a three-game series last (Monday) night with a chance to make a big move on the division-leading Brewers. The Cardinals jumed out with three runs in the bottom of the first, added a single run in the second, add four in the sixth and demolish the Brewers with ten runs in the Cardinal half of the ninth.  The Cardinals hammered the Brewers 18-1 to start the week.

Jack Flaherty, who has struggled, went seven full, struck out ten, and gave up only one run.

(ROYALS)—When a team goes 4-6 in its last ten games and it’s considered progress, you know things are, well, terrible.

The Royals finished the weekend 12-30, a .218 percentage.  Milwaukee took all three games as the Royals once again were blasted by one big inning by opponents.

The Royals are a better team on the road than at home, which is damning by faint praise. They’re 6-13 on the road but 6-17 at home.  They started the week at home against the Padres with a disappointing performance—held hitless by former Cardinals Michael Wacha through seven innings before Michael Massey got a hit to start the 8th. Vinnie Pasquantino had the only other Royals hit, the ninth as the Padres shut them down 4-0, dropping Kansas City to 12-31 for the year. Oakland is worse, still, at 9-34.

(RACING)—Retired NASCAR driver Carl Edwards of Columbia admits he’s getting the itch to get back on the track.  Edwards made a rare public appearance this weekend at Darlington, where NASCAR officially introduced its list of 75 greatest drivers in its 75-year history. He retired in 2016 and has seldom appeared at a race since. He told FOX’s Mike Joy, “I got to race with my dream, got to do all the fun stuff. I’ve been on adventures around the world, been farming a little, been raising my family.”  Being at Darlington “is very important for me to come here and just show how much appreciation I have for NASCAR, all the fans, all the drivers. It’s been great.”

Edwards was a guest in the FOX broadcast booth for the second stage of the race and was asked by long-time competitor on Missouri tracks and on the NASCAR circuit, Clint Bowyer, if he’d consider returning to NASCAR, he noted, “It was easy to not race when I first stepped away, but it’s getting harder and harder,” he admitted. “I like sliding stuff around and driving cars. So there’ll be a time when I go do something. Maybe sim work, something like that … to see if I could still drive. It’s a step-by-step process.”

Edwards, always a fitness geek, looked trim and could still fit into his old fire suit. His hair is longer now and we thought we noticed a little touch of gray at the temple (after all, he’ll turn 44 on August 15).

In the race—William Byron took advantage of a late-race collision between front-runners Clay Chastain and Kyle Larson to clam his third win of the year, the first driver with three victories this year.

(INDYCAR)—Practice begins on the oval at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today for the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500 in two weeks.  INDYCAR kicked off its month of May with Alex Palou winning on the road course, his first win of the season. The victory moved him into first place in the points standings.

He finished almost 17 seconds ahead of Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi.  Pole-sitter Christian Lundgaard had his best finish of the year, in fourth, with Felix Rosenqvist fifth.  O’ Ward, Rossi, and Rosenqvist are teammates with Arrow McLaren.

Home Cookin’ finally tastes good in STL and KC.  And a Historic Race at a Track That Should be Over Here.  And:  Another Missourian is among the 75 Greatest

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(Baseball)—The St. Louis Cardinals won their first home game Sunday since April 17.  But they’re still the worst team in the National League. And it felt so good, they won again last night.

The Royals avoided a sweep against the Athletics in a series involving the AL’s worst teams.  Oakland turned out to be the best of the worst by taking two out of three. But the Royals, too, enjoyed the unusual experience this year of winning a second game in a row last night.

(St. Louis)—Detroit’s Jake Rogers hit a grand slam homer in the top of the sixth inning to put the Tigers up 6-5. This time, however, the Cardinals had a response, a vicious one, with seven runs in their half to take a 12-6 lead that stood up the rest of the way. Brendan Donovan’s three-run shot gave the Cardinals an 8-6 lead and they added four more runs in the rest of the inning

Paul Goldschmidt hit the third of his three home runs in that same inning.  St. Louis is 11-24 as we head to the mid-point of May.

Last night, the Cardinals got solid pitching from Miles Mikolas, and some timely hitting to take a 3=-1 win from the Cubs in Chicago. Mikolas didn’t get the win but he fanned seven in four and a third innings.  it’s the first time the Redbirds have won two in a row since April 11-12.  And it’s the first time this year that the Cardinals have won a series opener.

(CONTREAS)—It happens everywhere when someone comes in behind a person who has been a fixture or an institution whether it’s at a church, a bank, a university, or a business. The successor often has a rough time and the people who work with him have to make some major adjustments.   Willson Contreras and the Cardinals are in that situation.  After twenty years with Yadiair Molina managing pitchers masterfully, the adjustment by and to  Contreras is struggling.  He’s going to be a DH for a while and spend time during the game on the bench with the manager and others on the coaching staff learning the Cardinal Way.

His offense has been good enough to keep him in the lineup. Andrew Knizner, a Yadi mentee for four years or so, will take over the prime duties behind the plate for now.

Baseball’s trading deadline is not until August 1 but putting Knizner behind the plate while Contreras studies the Cardinal style of baseball will give the kid some exposure should he be considered trade bait in a deal to strengthen the pitching staff.

(ROYALS)—The Royals salvaged the last game of a three-game series against the other American League bottom-feeder Sunday, but their two losses to Oakland leaves Kansas City as the worst American League team.

The victory was clouded by the 106-mile-per-hour line drive off the bat of Detroit’s Ryan Noda that struck pitcher Ryan Yarbrough on the left side of his head. Yarbrough was able to walk from the field a few minutes later but has been put on the 10-day disabled list with what is described as a “head fracture.” But no surgery will be necessary. No other details have been released by the team.

Salvatore Perez, who picked up the ball that had bounced back toward the plate, threw out Noda before rushing to the mound with other teammates.  Perez, the batter, went three for four with a 462-foot shot over the fountains in left to lead the Royals attack.

Last night the Royals exploded for eight runs in the sixth inning and clobbered the White Sox 12-5.

(AT THAT TRACK OVER THERE)—-Denny Hamlin broke a 55-race winless NASCAR streak with his win at the Kansas Speedway, pulling off the first last-lap pass in NASCAR’s 28-year history at the track

Track developers twenty years ago, or so, tried to get the Missouri Legislature to provide some tax breaks so the rack cold be built near Kansas City International Airport.  The legislature’s failure to act has led to the track being built in sight of the Kansas City skyline, triggering a massive economic development in the area.

Twelve drivers accounted for 36 lead changes before Hamlin got in front for the final time on the backstretch of the last lap when Kyle Larson, on worn tires, bobbled in the side draft as he and Hamlin were running next to each other.  Hamlin’s car lightly touched the left rear of Larson’s car, sending Larson into the wall.  Larson recovered to finish second, 1.3 seconds back.

The  37 total lead changes was a record for any 1½ mile track on the NASCAR circuit.,

William Byron, Bubba Wallace, and Ross Chastain filled out the top five.

NASCAR is at Darlington next weekend. Retired Columbia driver Carl Edwards will be a guest in the broadcast booth, working alongside Mike Joy and former local track competitor Clint Bowyer for the race’s second stage.

(THE GREATEST)—Darlington is traditionally a “throwback” race for NASCAR, a time when the cars are painted to resemble competitors from NASCAR’s history.  NASCAR will use the race to honor the 75 greatest drivers in the series’ history.

Carl Edwards was announced earlier as one of the 75.  But Missouri has a SECOND driver on that list—Larry Phillips, the southwest Missouri driver who won five NASCAR national short-track championships.  Nobody is sure how many races he won although NASCAR says he won 226 of the 308 sanctioned races that it knows he ran.  He won thirteen track championships in three states. Phillips died at the age of 62 in 2004.

He and Edwards have been listed on NASCAR’s Hall of Fame ballot but are still waiting for election to the hall.

(ONE MORE NASCAR NOTE):  Kyle Larson knows what kind of seat he’ll be sitting in when he tries to make the field for the Indianapolis 500 next year.   He was fitted for the seat at the Arrow McLaren shop in Indianapolis last week.  He hopes to become the fifth driver to compete in the 500-mile race at Indianapolis and the 600 mile race that evening in Charlotte. The others who’ve tried it are Tony Stewart, John Andretti, Robbie Gordon and, most recently, Kurt Busch.

(FORMULA 1)—Another race, another Red Bull win, this time on the streets of Miami.  Max Verstappen beat teammate Sergio Perez, who started from the pole. Fernando Alonso, whose career has been revived since joining the Aston-Martin team, finished third, his fourth third in five races this year.

 

SPORTS:  Look for a Long, Hot, Depressing Summer, Baseball Fans; Maybe You Should Go to a Race

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(BASEBALL)—We are left to recall a man who lived and died baseball, who passed up a potential Heisman Trophy college career to play the game of baseball, and who gave us some memorable thoughts and calls during fifty years in the broadcast booth as Jack Buck’s sidekick and later as the number one play-by-play guy with the Missourinet’s first sports director, John Rooney.

Mike Shannon is gone. He was 83. He was a multi-star athlete in high school who went to the University of Missouri on a football scholarship. In the days when freshmen could not play varsity football, Shannon so impressed Missouri coach Frank Broyles that Broyles thought he could have won the Heisman Trophy if he had stayed with football.

Instead, Shannon got a $50,000 signing bonus from the Cardinals and played baseball.

He gave us a lot of things on the field and in the booth. His Shannon-isms might be rivalled in all of baseball history (at least in our experience) only by the colorful phrasing of another native Missourian, Casey Stengel:

“It’s Mothers Day, so a big happy birthday to all you mothers out there.”

“Back in the day when I played, a pitcher had three pitches: a fastball, a curveball, a slider, a changeup and a good sinker pitch.”

(During a game in New York): “I wish you folks back in St. Louis could see this moon.”

“Ol’ Abner has done it again.”  (a late-game observation when the game is tight going into the last innings.)

“He’s faster than a chicken being chased by Ronald McDonald.”

“Our next home stand follows this road trip.”

“The wind has switched 360 degrees.”

“The crowd (is) on their feet for the Canadian Star Spangled Banner.”

And there were many more. Mike Shannon was Mike Shannon. Nice guy.  Good ball player. One of those guys who made a baseball broadcast booth much more than calling balls and strikes.  They don’t come along often and their enthusiasm for the game can’t be faked or scripted.

And we really need him these days.   His beloved Cardinals are in the pits. There’s no sugar-coating it.

They haven’t won a series since April 10-12 and were 10-19 after their weekend series against the Dodgers, wrapping up a road trip in which they went 2-8. They haven’t been this far under .500 in at least 16 years, 2007, the last time the cardinals finished below .500.  They have to go 80-53 if they’re going to win 90 games and compete for a wild card slot.

The Cardinals had never finished the first month of the season in last place in the National League Central—-and it was formed in 1994.

This weeks’ USA TODAY power rankings put the Cardinals 23rd out of the 30 teams.  The team started the year with fairly low expectations from the newspaper. They were ranked 11th.

And they’re expecting a 41-year old pitcher who has had a mediocre rehab assignments in Springfield and Memphis to lead a turnaround?   Wainwright had an ERA of 6.14 in Springfield and 6.35 at Memphis, 13 strikeouts in 12.2 innings in which he gave up 18 hits and nine runs.

Doesn’t me he can come up to the big club and do better—-rehab assignments aren’t necessarily about winning and losing.

But still…..

The Cardinals could be worse.  They could be the Kansas City Royals and ranked 29th by USA TODAY.  Only Oakland (soon to be Las Vegas, perhaps) is below them.

Where’s Mike Matheny when the Cardinals need him?

He’s in Kansas City where he is 172-242 in his three-plus seasons after going 591-474 in seven seasons in St. Louis and never having a losing record. The Royals went 7-22 in the first month of the season.

(MIZ-WHO?)—We confess that we’ve lost track of what the Missouri basketball team has won or lost since the season ended.  I think we’re suffering from portal fatigue.  They still lack a horse in the middle, a big one.

We’ll root for whatever Dennis Gates puts on the floor next year. But the era of carpet bagger-players the NCAA has ushered in with the portal and the NIL business has been a huge mess we prefer not to try to follow.

Pretty much the same for the football team.  We hope coach Drinkwitz is able to put together an outstanding team.  But by and large it’s going to be a bunch of strangers on Faurot field next fall.

It’s tempting to say that the NCAA has really screwed up collegiate sports.

(RACING)—All three major series were on track during the weekend—although the weekend stretched to an extra day for one of them.

(INDYCAR)—Close, but no cigar—again—for Romain Grosjean who led 57 of the first 66 laps before Scott McLaughlin fought his way past on lap 71 and held on to beat Grosjean to the line by about 1.8 seconds at Barber Motorsports Park at Birmingham, Alabama.

Grosjean, who started the race on the pole,  admits that he’s headed to Indianapolis for the two races in May—on the road course on May 14 and the Indianapolis 500 on the 28th.

McLaughlin’s win, his fourth in the INDYCAR series, was the product of race strategy.  His team planned on three pit stops. Grosjean’s team hoped to win the race on two stops.  But the three-stop strategy eliminated any fuel concerns for McLaughlin, who called it a “happy driver strategy.”

McLaughlin is the fourth driver to win in the four races run this year in INDYCAR.

Two-time series champion Will Power challenged Grosjean in the final laps but couldn’t get close enough to make a pass attempt.  Pato O’Ward and Alex Palou made up the rest of the top five.

(NASCAR)—The long dry spell for Martin Truex Jr., has come to an end after 54 races and 597 days.  Truex, opting for two tires on his last pit stop, held off Ross Chastain, who went with four, for the final fourteen laps.  Truex crossed the stripe a half-second ahead of Chastain.

The race was run yesterday (Monday) because it was rained out on Sunday. The win made the long weekend a family affair. His younger brother, Ryan, won the Xfinity race on Saturday.

Ryan Blaney, William Byron, and Denny Hamlin completed the top five. Byron led almost half of the 400 laps (193 of them) but couldn’t keep up with the top three in the closing laps.

Chastain’s run has put him on top of the points standings.

Chase Elliott, in his third race after returning from a broken leg was 11th and is now within the top thirty in points.  NASCAR rules say a driver must be in the top thirty in points and must have at least one victory if they’re not 16th or better in points at the start of playoffs.  Elliott is still looking for his first win of the year.

Josh Berry, who filled in for Elliott while he was recovering, was driving Alex Bowman’s car at Dover because Bowman suffered some compression back fractures in a sprint car wreck last week. He’s out indefinitely.  Berry finished 11th.

(FORMULA 1)—Sergio Perez is the first driver to win twice at the Grand Prix of Azerbain.

He beat teammate Max Verstappen, the defending f1 champion, by 2.1 seconds. Ferrari’s Charles LeClerc claimed the other podium spot.

Perez’s victory moves him to within six points of Verstappen in the standings. Both drivers have won twice this year. Two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso, who seems to have found a new life in his career driving for Aston Martin, is third.

(Photo Credits; MLB Tonight (Rooney and Shannon) and Bob Priddy)

 

 

Sports Trivia Questions

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Former St. Louis Cardinals catcher Hobie Landrith played only briefly with the team, but he participated in a historic game that the Cardinals played many years ago.

What did he do?

He also was part of a long-forgotten trade that led to a second transaction that changed baseball history, especially for his former team in St. Louis.

Can you figure that one out?

(We pause for you to cogitate. No fair Googling.)

Longtime baseball fans might hear a faint bell in their minds at the mention of his name but only a few have the kind of encyclopedic memory to recall his significance.

Hobie Landrith died April 6, just short of 61 years since his historic game.  He was 93.

His 14 years of major league baseball didn’t produce memorable stats—a .233 batting average, 34 home runs, 203 home runs. In his two years with the Cardinals he was a backup catcher for Hal Smith.

The answer to the first question is:

Hobie Landrith was the New York Mets’ first player.  He was picked in the expansion draft of 1961 and was the starting catcher on April 11, 1962—against the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals won 11-4. Larry Jackson got the win.  Roger Craig took the loss, the first of his 24 losses that year (and the first of 110 losses for the Mets). Landrith went oh for four. He was credited with one of the three Mets’ errors.  The Cardinals had 16 hits, four by Julian Javier.  Stan Musial went three for three.

The top three Mets pitchers that year, by the way, were Craig at 10-24. Al Jackson went  8-20, and Jay Hook was 8-19.  Their fourth pitcher, Bob Miller, was 1-12.

The Cardinals went 84-78-1. They finished sixth. Jackson finished 16-11, one win more than Bob Gibson, 15-13 despite a 2.86 ERA.

We’re about to fall into the statistical pit of baseball, which is awfully easy to do.  So let’s get back to Hobie Landrith.

Landrith was an important first choice for the Metropolitans (their real name) because, as manager Casey Stengel remarked, “You gotta have a catcher or you’d have a lot of passed balls.”

One of these days we’re going to have to remember Casey, a Kansas City native who once thought about becoming a dentist, and some of the things he said.  We didn’t have a master of the misstatement and the malaprop like Casey until Mike Shannon and his Shannonisms (“The outfield is deep and playing him straight-away and the infield is the same except first, second, third, and short are playing him to pull.”

Landrith played only one season with the lovable losers, as they were called. They lost the first ten games they ever played and lost 120 overall.

He was out of baseball in the third season after that.

Landrith also played a role in what arguably is the greatest trade in Cardinals history.  After two years in St. Louis, he was traded in October, 1958 to the San Francisco Giants along with Billy Muffett and Benny Valenzuela for Marv Grissom and—

Ernie Broglio.

In June of ’64, the Cardinals  sent Broglio, Bobby Schantz, and Doug Clemens to the Cubs for Jack Spring, Paul Toth and—

Lou Brock.

Broglio was out of baseball a couple years later. Brock is in the Hall of Fame.

The trade became infamous almost immediately and is remembered by the Emil Verban Society (a Washington, D. C. group of Cubs fans  who are in a club named for an obscure second baseman). Each year they give a Brock-for-Broglio Judgment award to recognize bad decision-making.  One recipient a few years ago was Saddam Hussein who was honored for his invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Funny, sometimes, how a story starts out going one way and before it’s done, it is someplace else, entirely, from a backup forgotten catcher to an all-time great.

-0-

 

Sports: Birds split; Royals still sag; setback for the Battlehawks….and some racing

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By Bob Priddy, Contributing Editor

Everybody is an optimist at spring training.  But after the first three weeks of the real baseball world, optimism is in short supply on the western side if the state and is showing faint flickerings on the east side.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals have sunk to the bottom of their division, losers of nine of their ten home games before the start of this week.  They’re playing .500-ball on the road. But they’ve been away from the unfriendly confines of Kauffman Stadium for only six games.

The Royals tied their last game in the weekend series with the Braves only to give up a run in the ninth to lose 6-5. .

The Royals rank 14th and worse in the majority of offensive categories. Through last night they had led for only one inning in their last seven games.

And they lived up to their credentials in opening the series Monday night against the Rangers.  They musted only one hit in a 4-0 loss.  Royals pitching was stout, though, and gave the Rangers only four hits in a game that lasted just two hours and two minutes.

(CARDINALS)—The St. Louis Cardinals are only a half-game away from giving Missouri two teams that are last in their division.  The Redbirds salvaged a split with the Pirates during the weekend. The Pirates are 9-7. The cardinals are just the reverse.

Lars Nootbar got back in action during the weekend and made himself felt immediately with a home run. But he now is a fifth outfielder, leaving manager Oliver Marmol with the job of balancing talent and egos in the outfield.  Nootbar’s bat might win his additional playing time because Dylan Carlson is hitting only .214 with only one extra-base hit.  Nootbar is at .286 but he has been in only three games this year because of a thumb injury.

Marmol also is trying to straighten out a relief pitcher who has been a stark disappointment this year. Marmol says Jordan Hicks is done as a closer for now; he’ll work in low-leverage situations until he regains his former form.  Hicks gave up three runs and three hits, including Andew McCutcheon’s two-run homer, in the 10th inning of Saturday’s loss to the Braves, jacking his ERA up to 12.71 in 5 2/3 innings and seven games.

The week started badly last night in the opener fo a series against the Diamondbacks. Pavin Smith’s grand slam homer in a five-run seventh inning powered Arizona to a 6-3 win. Jack Flaherty had pitched well through six but left after pitching to three batters in the seventh.  Reliever Andre Pallante  gave up Smith’s slam in the seventh and took the loss.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—The St, Louis Battlehawks have to win next weekend to make the XFL playoffs after losing to their playoff challenger, the  Seattle Sea Dragons.  If they beat the 1-8 Orlando Guardians next weekend, they’re in—and likely to face the Sea Dragons in the first round of the playoffs.

The Sea Dragons beat up on the Battlehawks on the ‘Hawks home floor, 30-12 leaving both teams at 6-3 with one game left.  The Hawks beat the Dragons 20-19 in Seattle in week two of the season.  The Dragons play the Las Vegas Vipers next weekend. If both teams win, st. Louis has to beat Orlando by 19 points or more than Seattle scores against Vegas. And St. Louis will have to still be league leaders in total points scored against.

After last weekend’s game, St. Louis is 196-174 in points for/against. Seattle is 168-215.

RACING:

(INDYCAR)—Kyle Kirkwood called it “the calmest day I’ve had in two years.  That might seem to be a questionable assertion from a man who had just won his first INDYCAR race after struggles last year in which he finished with the second-lowest fulltime driver in the standings and in the first two races of the season when he finished 15th and 27th in the first two races of the year.

But Long Beach was a big turnaround.  Kirkwood won his first pole, led 53 of the 80 laps on the street circuit including the last 30 with teammate Romain Grosjean and last year’s Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson stalking him.

Kirkwood, who is 24 and in his second season INDYCAR, is the first driver to win from pole position this year.  The victory moves him from 20th to 5th in the points standings.

(NASCAR)—NASCAR moves from one of its smallest tracks to its biggest track next weekend.  Kyle Larson picked up win number two at Martinsville’s “paper clip” track, so-called bccause of its half-mile with long straightaways and tight turns.

Larson’s team gambled on taking only two tires on the last pit stop, a gamble that paid off as Larson finished more than four seconds ahead of Joey Logano, who fought his way from the last row to second place.  The pit stop gamble paid off when Larson came back on the track and led the final 30 laps.

A lot of the attention during the race was focused on Chase Elliott, who missed the last six races with a broken leg.  He started 24th in the comeback and finished 10th.

Despite missing six races, Elliott is only 22 points out of 30th place, a not insignificant position.  NASCAR rules say a driver who wins a race and is within the top 30 will qualify for the playoffs.  The sanctioning body is waiving the part of the rule that requires the driver to be in all 36 points races.

(Photo Credit: INDYCAR)

 

SPORTS: Fluttering Cardinals, Tarnished Royals, Battling Hawks and Dirty Racing.

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(BASEBALL)—Both of our Major League baseball teams have staggered out of the gate in this young season.  While only modest success had been expected of the new-look Kansas City Royals, the Cardinals are far from meeting early-season expectations. A rookie leads the team in hitting and a crippled veteran’s rendition of the National Anthem is near the top of this year’s highlight reel through the first ten games.

The Royals are three-and-a-half games back after ten, with three wins. They are not the worst team in the league, though.  Oakland and Detroit are 2-7.

The Cardinals are last in the National League Central with as many wins as the Royals and one fewer loss.  Philadelphia has the sme record (3-6). Washington is the only team with a worse start, at 3-7.

Cardinals rookie Jordan Walker had one of the Redbirds’ five hits Sunday, setting a new team record for longest hitting streak to start his career—nine games. Another Jordan, Montgomery, was impressive as a starting pitcher during the weekend—nine strikeouts in six scoreless innings against the Brewers. Nolan Arenado got his 300th home career home run during the weekend. But pitchers are giving up almost five earned runs a game (4.87) while scoring only 36 runs (4.0 per game).

The Royals, on the other hand, have scored only 27 runs in their first ten games. But when your pitching staff has a team ERA of 3.74—

If the Cardinals were to play the Royals today, who—if anybody—do you think would win?

(RECORDS)—Baseball might be the most esoteric of all sports and Jordan Walker is a living example.  By getting a hit in his first nine games, he has tied Magneuris Sierra for the team record for longest hitting streak at the start of his career.  (Sierra, once a hotshot prospect for the Cardinals, flamed out, was part of the trade with Atlanta for Marcell Ozuna at the end of his first year in St. Louis. He took his .228 career batting average onto the free agent market during the offseason and signed a minor league deal with Atlanta.)

But an even more obscure record is that Walker has tied the great Ted Williams for second-longest hitting streak by a player twenty years old or younger to start a career. The all-time record is 12 games set by Eddie Murphy of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1912.  Murphy lasted 15 years in the majors and was known as “Honest Eddie” because he was not one of the eight members of the Chicago “Black” Sox involved in the 1919 World Series scandal.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—Some people thought it was funny.  But those who did not will certainly be excused for their reactions.

Pro Football Talk reports that the St. Louis Battlehawks, a little more than a week ago posted this notice:

“Following a vote from XFL owners, the Battlehawks have been officially approved to relocate to the greater Los Angeles area and will do so for the 2024 season.

“St. Louis is a city known for its incredibly hard-working, passionate and proud people. Bringing the XFL back to St. Louis in 2023 will go down as one of the proudest moments in our league’s history. This move isn’t about whether we love St. Louis or its fans, but rather about what is in the best interest of the Battlehawks organization.

“We would like to thank the XFL, its owners, and all of Battlehawk Nation for their diligence and dedication, and we look forward to building a world-class franchise in Inglewood.”

There likely were several folks who failed to note that the notice was posted on April 1 as a joke. Much of the statement sounds like the condescending news release of the Rams when they skedaddled out of town. Rest assured fans, it was just an April Fool’s intended knee-slapper.

In the real world, the Battlehawks battled back in the closing minutes against the Las Vegas Vipers for an overtime 21-17 win.  Down 17-8 with backup quarterback replacing A. J. Mccarron, the Battlehawks scored with 4:49 left when punter Sterling Hofrighter threw a pass to Gary Jennings that turned into a 64-yard touchdown. A three-point points after failed. But the ‘Hawks defense stopped the Vipers and Donny Hagemann kicked a tying field goal with eleven seconds left.

XFL overtime is played as three alternative two-point plays from the five yard line.  St. Louis scored on its first two possessions, a pass from backup QB Nick Tiano to Hakeem Butler and a run by Brian Hill.

St. Louis is 6-2. Las Vegas drops to 2-6.

(SMITH)—Former Missouri Tiger Aldon Smith, whose potentially outstanding pro career fell apart in a flurry of drunk driving, domestic violence, and weapons charges, has been sentenced to a year in jail and five years probation after pleading guilty a felony drunk driving charge growing out of a traffic crash that injured the other driver.

Smith started his pro career by setting a record for sacks as a rookie (14.5). He was an All-Pro the next year with nineteen of them. But his career started spiraling down in 2013.

(RACING)—NASCAR ran its only Cup race on dirt this weekend, at Bristol, Sunday night. Christopher Bell, one of the young guys who grew up racing on dirt tracks, held off another young gun, Tyler Reddick.  The race had been dominated by another young dirt-track veteran, Kyle Larson, until he was involved in a crash just past the halfway point.

Bristol is one of NASCAR’s shortest tracks. Fourteen cautions lowered the winning speed to just 47 mph.

Another short track, Martinsville, is on tap for next weekend.

(OTHER RACING)—INDYCAR and Formula 1 both took Easter weekend off.

The End of an Upsetting Tournament; Cardinals and Royals Start Slowly; and Racing

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(NCAA)—(Ladies first): Nobody saw this one coming.  Oh, we knew the LSU-Iowa matchup for the women’s NCAA basketball championship probably would be special.  But 187 points was not seen as a likely thing for most folks, and 102 points by LSU was equally unexpected and it overpowered Iowa by 17 points. .

But LSU gets the big trophy and Iowa gets the experience of playing in a championship game.  And Iowa’s Caitlin Clark has a year of eligibility left if she wants it after scoring a record 191 points in Iowa’s six games.  That is a record for boh men and women; Glen Rice scored 184 for Michigan in 1989 and Cheryl Swoops had 177 for Texas Tech in 1993.

(Men): San Diego State University met the same fate that Iowa did in the men’s championship game—also a 17-point loss.  Number four seed Connecticut beat the number five seeded Aztecs 76-59.

It’s the fifth championship for UConn, tying them with Duke and Indiana for the fourth-most NCAA championships. UCLA has 11. Kentucky has won it eight times. North Carolina has six titles.

(BASEBALL)—The St. Louis Cardinals have split their first four games with shaky starting pitching a lowlight so far.  Jack Flaherty’s five hitless innings against the Blue Jays has been the only solid performance in the early going. The other starters, Miles Mikolas (13.50 ERA in 3.1 innings), Jordan Hicks (13.50, also in five innings) and Jake Woodford (12.46 in 4.1 innings) have given the hitters plenty of work to do just to stay even. The Cardinals have scored 26 runs in their first four games nd are batting .329 as a team in their break-even start.

One piece of solid news is rookie Jordan Walker who has gone five for 16 has struck out only once.

The Kansas City Royals have only 22 hits as a team in their first four games, which helps explain why they’re off to a 1-3 start.  Ten of those hits came last night in a 9-5 win against the Blue Jays in Toronto’s home opener.  Royals pitching has been solid except for Dylan Coleman who lasted only gave up four runs in his 3.1 innings to start the season.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR driver David Malukas might have described the weekend race at the Texas Motor Speedway best: “beautiful chaos.”

Eight drivers, 482 passes for position, 26 lead changes, with Josef Newgarden slipping past Pato O’Ward just before a final caution flag came out on the last lap, freezing the running order to the end made for one of the most exciting open-wheel racing in recent memory and started some observers suggesting the race made a strong case for more oval races on the INDYCAR schedule.

Seven of the 28 starters finished on the lead lap in a race that saw O’Ward rip off the fast lap of the day, just over 221 mph.  Twenty-two of the starters were still competing when the checkered flag fell.

“There were parts when we were good, parts when we were weaker,” Newgarden said after the race. “But when we needed to be good, the car was there at the end.”  He and O’Ward dueled inches apart for more than ten laps before Newgarden inched ahead just before Romain Grosjean’s late crash brought out the final yellow.  “Pato gave me all the respect in the world when he was racing next to me. It was really hard to fight those guys,” said Newgarden. “There are just no gimmies. It was packed up today, very difficult to get away.”

O’Ward’s second-place finish, puts him in the points lead after two races ahead of Marcus Ericsson, the winner of last year’s Indianapolis 500, and Scott Dixon.  Ericsson finished eighth and Dixon was fifth in the race.

O’Ward has finished second in both of the races in the series this year. “That’s a great start to the championship year,” he said, “and that’s what we need.”

(NASCAR)—Kyle Larson’s mediocre season so far—only two top ten finishes in the first six races—took a turn for the brighter at Richmond during the weekend.  Larson beat teammate Josh Berry to the line by a second-and-a=half after leading the last 25 laps.  Berry is filling in for defending Cup champion Chase Elliott, who is expected to be out of the car for several more weeks after surgery on his broken leg.

Larson took advantage of a late caution and pit stop to move in front for the last 25 laps on the three-quarter mile track.  Ross Chastain chased the two Hendrick Motorsports drivers to the flag with Christoher Bell and Kecin Harvick fillingo out the top five.

NASCAR runs its only dirt track race next weekend at Bristol. The track is a little more than a half-mile long but has sharply banked turns. It is this country’s fourth-largest sports venue and the tenth largest sports venue in the entire world with seating for as many as 153,000 people.

(FORMULA 1)—Carnage and confusion marred the Grand Prix of Australia although the usual winner these days won again.

Only twelve of the twenty starters finished with Max Verstappen taking his third win in three races this year.  The race was red-flagged three times and the safety car hit the track two other times.  Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso claimed the other two podium slots, both finishing withing one second of Verstappen.

Sports—Baseball final tune-ups; A Pepto-Bismol NCAA Tournament; A hot hand for the Battlehawks QB; And a little racin’ at the end

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(Royals)—Kansas City Royals starter Zack Greinke looked ready to go in his last Cactus League start before he becomes the oldest pitcher to make an opening-day start in Royals history.

He’ll be on the mound Thursday afternoon when the Royals open at home against the Twins.  Minnesota will go with Pablo Lopez who joined the Twins in the offseason from the Marlins.

Greinke needs two more wins to get to 225 and 118 strikeouts to become the 20th pitcher to throw 3,000.  Only Justin Verlander (3,198) and former Missouri Tiger Max Sherzer (3,193) are ahead of him as active pitchers.

It will be Greinke’s seventh opening day start.  The game will be the first opening day as manager for the Royals’ Matt Quataro.

The Royals finish spring training this afternoon before opening at home against the Twins on Thursday. Last night the two teams played to a 4-4 tie.  The Royals opened a 3-0 lead on a two-run homer in the fourth inning but Texas scored twice in each of the last two innings for the tie.

(Cardinals)—It’s the time when hopeful young guys get the word on whether they’ve made “the show” or whether they’re going to ride minor league buses again.

Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol called Jordan Walker into his office Saturday, gave him a candid evaluation of his spring training work and then told him, “You deserve every bit of being with us on opening day.”

He’s 20. He’s six feet-five, a third baseman becoming a left fielder, who played his way onto the opening day roster by hitting .284 in the Grapefruit League with three homes, nine RBIs, and 19 runs scored in 65 at-bats.  Last year at Springfield he hit .308 with 22 stolen bases to go with his 19 homers.

He will be the youngest Cardinals player to make his major league debut since 1999. That was Rick Ankiel’s year to get the great news.

Jack Flaherty, scheduled to pitch the second game of the regular season Saturday, had an ugly wrap-up in Florida, as the Cardinals lost to the Astros 24-1, getting outhit 20-9. Flaherty got just 11 outs, gave up six hearned runs on four hits and three walks. He struck out one batter and only 39 of his 69 pitches were strikes. He finishes spring training with an ERA of 6.41. Opposing batters hit .329 against him.

Miles Mikolas will be the opening day pitcher.

The Redbirds wrapped up their spring training schedule with an 8-2 win over the Orioles. Jordan Montgomery had a solid five innings with one run, three hits, four strikeouts and a walk on 72 pitches.

The Cardinals open against the Blue Jays, in St. Louis, Thursday.

 (BATTLEHAWKS)—Quarterback A. J. McCarron hit 19 passes in a row Saturday night against the Las Vegas Vipers. He finished 23 for 29, three touchdowns and 236 yards.  The Battlehawks are now 4-2, tied with the Seattle Sea Dragons for second place behind D. C. Defenders, who are undefeated.

The XFL season is starting to run down for the ‘Hawks. They’re on the road for the last time next Sunday against the Houston Roughnecks. They finish up with three straight home games against the Vipers, the Sea Dragons, and then play the Orlando Guardians.

(NCAA TOURNAMENT)—A historic final four has been set after a couple of weeks of bracket carnage.  For the first time since the NCAA started seeding teams in 1979, no number ones made it to the great eight.

The whole tournament has been one of great upset.  One-third of the games played to narrow the field to the Final Four have seen a lower ranked team prevail over a higher seed. That means no #1 will be in the final four for only the fourth time. It happed previously in 1980, when there were only 48 teams in the tournament, 2006 and 2011 after the expansion to 64 teams.

The final four features one team seeded as high as fourth—University of Connecticut.  Two number fives (San Diego State and Miami of Florida) and a sixth seed, Creighton.

Next weekend San Diego State (5) plays Creighton (6) and UConn (4) plays Miami of Florida (5) will decide who will play for the big trophy.

Now the racin’

(NASCAR)—Tyler Reddick withstood three furious overtime restarts to win his first race of the year and post the first Toyota victory of 2023 at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas.  It’s his first win with his new team, 23XI racing.  He’s driving the car Kurt Busch would have been driving if he was healthy enough to be in a race car this year.

Instead, Busch was in the television broadcasting booth and admitted he was choked up as he watched “his” car win by 1.4 seconds over Kyle Busch, Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain, and pole-sitter William Byron.

Reddick and Byron had fought for the lead during most of the, eventually, 75-lap race. They led 69 of the laps, 41 by Reddick.

The race had an international flavor with four “ringers” who were brought in because of their road-racing experience.  Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 Formula One champion, was as high as fourth before finishing 29th.  Jenson Button, the F1 champion in 2009, was 18th.  Jordan Taylor, the reigning champion in the IMSA Series, filled in for the injured Chase Elliott and came home 24th after reaching the top ten briefly.  INDYCAR driver Conor Daley was 36th, dropping out early with a bad transmission.

(INDYCAR)—The high banks of the Texas Motor Speedway will see INDYCAR’s second race of the season next weekend.

(F1)—Formula One is in Melbourne, Australia next weekend for the Australian Grand Prix.

Sports:  The Acronyms of our times—NCAA, WNIT, WBC, NCAA, NASCAR, F1

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(MIZ)—A historic Missouri Tiger men’s basketball season has come to an end with a disappointing 15-point loss to Princeton in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The Tigers couldn’t threes and couldn’t buy offensive rebounds and the Princeton defense neutralized Kobe Brown and D’Moi Hodge, the Tigers’ one-two punch in their win over Utah State.

Princeton’s 15-point win is the largest win margin for a 15th seed in NCAA Tournament hsitoryl.

Missouri was 6 for 33 from the outside and finished the season at 25-10.

The men’s team will be remembered for over-achieving, predicted in the pre-season conference polls to finish 11th.  But they couldn’t make it to the Sweet Sixteen, something Missouri hasn’t done since 2009.

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Missouri’s women’s team played Kansas in Lawrence’s Allen Field House last night.  The second round game was the first time the two teams had played each other since Missouri won 80-65 in Lawrence in February, 2012 but it hardly provided any great memories for Mizzou fans.

The Jayhawks pounded the Lady Tigers 75-47. Missouri never scored more than 15 points in a quarter and has ony six in the third.  Missouri finishes 18-14.

They’re 54-62 in the last four years. Coach Robin Pingeton, who finished her 13th year as head coach this year,  promises an aggressive recruitment effort through the transfer portal to go with an incoming recruit class she considers solid.

(WBC)—The World Baseball Classic is nearing its end with the United States ready to play for the championship against Japan tonight.  Japan got a walk-off double in the ninth inning to beat Mexico 6-5 last night.

Team USA hammered Cuba Sunday night 14-2 with Cardinals stars, uh, starring.  Paul Goldschmidt’s two-run homer in the first inning put USA in the lead., In the fourth, Nolan Arenado drove in Goldschmidt with a triple and then scored the teams’ seventh run on a wild pitch. He left the game in the fifth inning when a pitch hit him on the right hand but an X-ray showed no fracture. The Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr., took his place in the lineup.

Goldschmidt drove in two more runs in the fifth inning.

Adam Wainwright went four innings, gave up a run in the first inning but shut Cuba down in the other three. Miles Mikolas went the next four and also gave up just one run.

Witt’s appearance last night was only the fourth time he’s been in a game. He’d had only two at-bats before last night. While his lack of playing time might disappoint Royals fans, a look at the roster indicates why he has watched more than he has played.  Treat Turner, who has put on a power show in the last two games in particular, is the top shortstop—which is Witt’s normal position.  Nolan Arenado is anchored at third.  And there are plenty of senior guys for DH.

Royals catcher Salvatore Perez has had a solid tournament for Team Venezuela.  In its win over Puerto Rico, Perez went 4 for 4 with a home run, five runs batted in, and three runs scored. Venezuela won the game 9-6.

(IN THE CAMPS)—The Cardinals go into their last days in Florida with the best record in the Grapefruit League, at 13-6 despite their contributions to the WBC.  They’re a game ahead of Boston.

In the Cactus League, the Royals are 16-9 and have half-game leads on the Dodgers and the Angels who have slightly better winning percentages but have played fewer games.

Opening day is March 30. All teams are scheduled to play that day. It’s the first time every team in both leagues is opening on the same day since 1968.

(NASCAR)—The first 17 cars finished within one-second behind Joey Logano Sunday at Atlanta.   Logano got a big push on the backstretch during the final lap from Christopher Bell that got hm past Brad Keselowski, who had his best finish in a couple of years with his Roush-Fenway-Keselowski Racing. Bell was third.

Logano had dominated the race, starting from pole and leading 140 of the 260 laps but Keselowski had taken the lead on lap 231 and had skillfully blocked all challengers until Logano got the bump from Bell that gave him the lead and his first win of the year.

NASCAR takes to the Circuit of the Americas road course in Texas next week.

(F1)—Red Bull’s Sergio Perez has won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but some Formula 1 bureaucratic blundering and some churlishness by Perez’s teammate took some of shine off of things.   Perez finished five seconds ahead of defending F1 champion Max Verstappen, who had little to say about his team’s second straight 1-2 finish to open the season.

“The whole feeling in the team, everyone is happy,” he said afterwards. “But personally, I’m not happy because I’m not here to be second…”  He was still upset because of a drive shaft failure during qualifying that left him 15th on the starting grid.  He passed everybody but his teammate and posted the fastest lap—which gave him an extra point that keeps him ahead of Perez in the standings.

Two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso thought he had the 100th podium finish of his career until race stewards slapped him after the race with a pit penalty. The penalty later was overturned, she he finished third after all.

Formula One is off next weekend before the Australian Grand Pix on April 2.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR is quiet until it races through the streets of Long Beach on April 16.

 

 

Sports:  It’s Not a Dance; Battlehawks Mania; Diamond Fun in the Spring; Two straight at the track.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(NCAA)—First, let’s wish that sportscasters (and others, but mostly sportscasters who have a tendency to use worn-out phrases more often than normal people) would quit referring to the NCAA men’s tournament as “The Big Dance.”  It’s not a dance unless you consider bunches of heavily-perspiring big people running, jumping, and banging into each other on a basketball court a weird dance of some kind.

We would say the same thing about the women’s tournament except that our grandmother once told us, “Horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies glow.”

Now, having gotten that off of our chests, we can move along to:

(MIZ)—The Missouri Tigers will beat Utah State in the first round of the NCAA Mens’ Tournament, at 12:40 p.m. Thursday.  If they win, they’ll get either second-seed Arizona or (unlikely but not impossible) Princeton.  It’s a TNT cable game. The Tigers are seeded seventh. Utah State, a Mountain West Conference Team, is 26-8. The Tigers are 24-9.

While the menfolk will be playing in Sacramento, California, the womenfolk will play Illinois State from the Missouri Valley Conference Thursday evening at 7 in the Women’s NIT.  Missouri finished the regular season at 17-13.  Illinois State is 24-8. Missouri will have the home-court advantage, playing in Columbia.  They’ll try to avoid a third straight first-round loss. (ZOU)

(OTHER ROUNDBALL)—The Southeast Missouri State Redhawks will meet Texas A&M-Corpus Christi this evening in the play-i1n game for the NCAA men’s tournament.  The winner becomes the 16th seed, which earns it the honor of playing #1 Alabama. The Red Hawks are 19-16 after winning the Ohio Valley Conference tournament.  A&M-CC is 23-10 and won the Southland Conference tournament. Game time is 5:40.

Missouri State women will go to Omaha to open the Women’s NCAA Tournament at 6 p.m. tomorrow night.  The WNIT does not seed teams.  Missouri State Lady Bears went 20-11 n the regular season, fourth in the Missouri Valley. Nebraska is the Big Ten automatic qualifier because it had the best record of any conference teams not invited to the Women’s NCAA. Nebraska is 16-14.

(FOOTBALL)—Before the first edition of the XFL folded, St. Louis fans had enthusiastically adopted the team.  The new version of the league and the team have picked up right where that left off.  The largest crowd in XFL history—and the largest crowd for any spring pro football game—38,310 fans—watched the Battlehawks whip the Arlington Renegades 24-11, running their record to 3-1.

Quarterback A. J. McCarron was 14 of 27 for 214 yards and a pair of interceptions. Running Back Brian Hill had 115 all-purpose yards.

(BASEBALL)—Both of our teams continue to play strong spring baseball although both are missing some key players who are taking part in the World Baseball Congress championship. Kansas City is 14-2, tops in the Cactus League. Boston leads the Grapefruit League but the Cardinals and the Blue Jays are kind of tied for second.  Toronto is 11-6 and the Cardinals are 9-5. Boston is on top at 9-4.

The Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr., is the youngest player on the USA team, the only one born in the 21st century.  Clubhouse talk is that the Royals phenom is on the road to greatness. Last year as a rookie he became the 5th player in major league history to hit 20 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season before reaching 22 years old.

High praise has come from none other than the two biggest starts on the St. Louis Cardinals.  Third baseman Nolan Arenado says, “He’s already a star. He’s going to be a great one…He’s going to be a superstart in a matter of time.”

Adam Wainwright started the first game for the USA team, gave up a home run in the first inning against Great Britain that he blamed on “being kind of amped up.”  He says he “just had to get back under control, just a reset of the mind, go out there and make pitches.”  He did and the USA won 6-2, thanks in large part ot a 3-run homer by Kyle Schwarber.

But the USA got hammered by Mexico in the second game to drop to 1-1 in the start of the tournament.

Back in Florida, the Cardinals got a little scare when top prospect Jordan Walker slid awkwardly head-first into second base. He left the game but was examined in the clubhouse and found to be okay. The team said he didn’t need an MRI but was held out of the game on Sunday and should be back in the lineup today.

Now, the Racin’: Byron doubles up

(NASCAR)—William Byron took two tires while his closest competitors took four in the late-race pit stops, then held on to win his second NASCAR Cup race in a row.  Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick finished ahead of Kyle Larson and Kevin Harvick.  Larson had led more than two-thirds of the laps before Harvick passed him. Both lost positions during the last pit stop and could never challenge for the final couple of laps.

Harvick’s fifth-place finish marked the twentieth straight time he has finished in the top ten at Phoenix.

NASCAR has wrapped up its early-season west coast tour and heads to Atlanta next weekend.

(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 circuits sometimes have names and the one chosen for this fall’s race in Las Vegas has a fine double entendre name.  It’s “The Las Vegas Strip Circuit.”

No, not that kind of strip.  It commemorates the famous Las Vegas Strip that has been the citiy’s trademark center of gambling.   The race is November 18, the next-to-last race on the schedule. Ticket prices are for high-rollers.  A three-day standing-room only pass in the cheapest zone costs $500.  Paddock zone tickets sold out quickly at $15,000 a seat.

The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, event number two on this year’s schedule, is next weekend.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR doesn’t race again until April 16 when drivers take to the streets of Long Beach. Scott Dixon, who as third in the first race, tied Mario Andretti for the most top-five finishes in INDYCAR history.  It was his 193rd.  He’s a six-time series champion hoping he can equal A. J. Foyt’s record of seven. His 53 victories put him alone in second place. Only Foyt, with 67, has more.

Also in sight is Tony Kanaan’s consecutive start streak of 318 races.  Dixon stands at 306 with 16 races to go this year.