Category Archives: basketball

Sports: Chiefs rest; #2 Tigers show other Tigers Why They’re #2; and Brady goes forth; and a story of an inspirational racing figure

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZBB)—Missouri’s SEC losing streak is now 21 after falling to Auburn Saturday afternoon, 84-68—and the game was not as close as the final score indicates.

Missouri was miserable from beyond the arc, going 2-17 to start and finishing 7-23. They were below 40% in overall shooting and their usual penetrate-and-draw-fouls or buckets offense also was ineffective.

Auburn, on the other hand, hit 57 percent of its shots from the field and was 10-21 from the outside.

Missouri is at home for the next two games—against Vanderbilt and LSU, two of the lower-ranked teams in the conference.

MIZFB)—Missouri Quarterback Brady Cook says he’s making himself available to the NFL NFLDRAFTBUZZCOM evaluates him as a clipboard-holding backup quarterback, a late day three choice or a high-priority undrafted free agent.

Here’s how the page rates him;

Strengths

  • Boasts elite wheels for a QB, clocking a blazing 4.62 in the 40, putting him in the 88th percentile at his position
  • Shows good touch on his dimes, especially in the short game, consistently hitting receivers in stride for YAC opportunities
  • Possesses above-average escapability, demonstrating the ability to extend plays and pick up chunk yardage on designed runs
  • Exhibits poise under fire, showing the ability to climb the pocket and reset his base while keeping his eyes downfield
  • Demonstrates sound mechanics when throwing in rhythm, utilizing proper weight transfer and shoulder alignment
  • Displays good touch on intermediate and deep balls, able to drop it in the bucket over defenders with appropriate arc
  • Shows football savvy with pre-snap reads, identifying favorable matchups and leverage situations
  • Exhibits plus leadership qualities and toughness, earning respect from teammates as a two-time team captain

Weaknesses

  • Possesses only average arm strength, limiting his ability to drive the ball consistently on deep outs and seam routes
  • Can be late to process post-snap rotations, occasionally missing open receivers or throwing into clouded windows
  • Footwork in dropbacks can be choppy at times, affecting timing and rhythm with receivers on timing-based routes
  • Tends to predetermine deep shots, leading to some ill-advised throws into double coverage
  • Lacks elite physical tools to consistently create off-script, limiting his ceiling as a playmaker at the next level

To summarize, says Wyatt Brooks, Cook “looks like a potential QB@ at the next level…His local ties and leadership qualities could make him an attractive option for teams looking to bolster their QB room with a high-character backup who can run the scout team effectively and step in if needed.”

(PORTAL)—The newest addition to the football program is a third-team all-American safety Jalen Catalon, who is moving to Columbia from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He’s the fifteenth portal player joining the program.

Missouri will be his third school and 2025 will be his SEVENTH college football season. He was a four-star recruit for Arkansas but played in only 21 games in four years, most of them in 2020 when he was an all-SEC pick by the Associated Press, with 99 tackles for then-coach Barry Odoms.  For his Arkansas career, he had five interceptions, four fumbles forced and 158 tackles.

He moved to Texas in 2023 and got into eight games, then joined Odoms at UNLV in ’24.

How has he managed to play college football for seven years? He redshirted his freshman year in 2019, got an additional year because of the pandemic in 2020 and had a season-ending injury at the start of 2022. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—-The Chiefs had nothing to play for against the Broncos, except for some opportunities to meet some financial incentives. Resting the key first-string guys was the goal, giving them three weeks between their last regular season game and their first game in the playoffs.

The result was the first shutout for the Chiefs in the Andy Reid era and kept him for recording his 300th victory as an NFL coach, a milestone unimportant to him in this game. More important was resting the regulars—which he did brilliantly, resulting in a 38-0 loss.

Kansas City has joined the 1971 Vikings and the 1977 Broncos as the only teams in NFL history since the 1970 merger to finish with the best record in the NFL without scoring more than 30 points in any single game.

Several players went into the game looking for some milestones. Xavier Worthy needed one touchdown to tie Rashee Rice for most TDS by a first-year Chiefs player. Obviously that did not happen.

Center Creed Humphrey started against Denver, continuing his consecutive game streak that began when he was a rookie in 2021. Only one Kansas City player has more consecutive starts since  his rookie year than Humphrey—Gary Barbaro, who started his first 101 games.

The Chiefs have two weeks to prepare for their first playoff game.

The playoff brackets for next weekend:

Chargers at Texas; Steelers at Ravens (both Saturday; Denver at Buffalo, Packers in Philadelphia, Commanders against the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay on Sunday and the Vikings against the Rams in Los Angeles on Monday night.

Motoring along

We haven’t checked in on motorsports very much lately, so let’s do a quick rundown:

(INDYCAR)—Sam Schmidt, one of INDYCAR’s most inspirational figures is leaving his “life’s work” as he gives up his final share of ownership in McLaren Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports, leaving McLaren the sole owner of the team.

He was a rising star in the Indy Racing League and raced in three Indianapolis 500s and finished fifth in points in 1999. But during offseason testing at Walt Disney World Speedway, he crashed and was left a quadriplegic.  For five months he was on a respirator.

He became the most successful car owner in the Indy Lights series, the feeder series for the top series in open-wheel American racing. He bought out Fazzi Motorsports in 2011 and fielded his first INDYCAR entry that year with driver Alex Tagliani grabbing the pole for the Indianapolis 500.

The team has been sponsored by Arrow Electronics since 2019. In 2016, Arrow developed a system that enabled Schmidt to drive again—a modified 2014 Corvette that utilized infrared cameras to capture head and breathing movements to control the car.

Arrow later developed the SAM suit that enables Schmidt to stand and walk.

His team became Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports when Canadian businessman Ric Peterson brought in, in 2013. It became Arrow McLaren SP in 2021 when McLaren stepped back into American motorsports, buying 75% of the team with an option to buy the rest after 2024. The final buyout came with the start of the new year.

For the past five years, Pato O’Ward has been the team’s leading driver. He’s finished in the top ten at the Indianapolis 500 four times, second twice—both times by narrow margins.

Schmidt and Peterson will stay connected as members of the team’s board of directors.

Schmidt commented, “This team has been my life’s work, growing from a dream into a competitor at the highest level. I’m endlessly grateful to the drivers, team members, partners and fans who made it all possible, and to McLaren for elevating the team’s potential. While I’m stepping back from ownership, my heart will always be with this team, and I’ll be cheering for its continued success every step of the way.”

The first race for the all-McLaren team will be March 2, when INDYCAR will race on the street course in St. Petersburg, Florida.

(Photo Credits: Schmidt—Bob Priddy; O’Ward—Schmidt Peterson Motorsports)

 

Sports: Basketball and Football and a Little Baseball

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZBB)—It boiled down to Kaspara Jakucionis hitting his basket with 28 seconds left and and Jacob Crews unable to hit his three-pointer to go down for a tie as the clock ran out.  Illinois 80. Missouri 77 in the annual game that doesn’t need all the hype it gets to be a great rivalry.

It was a game of surges with Missouri erasing a 10-point Illini late lead but missing key free throws and being unable to stop Illinois when it mattered made the difference. Missouri is 10-2 now with one pre-conference game left. (ZOU HAVE YOURSELF A GOOD HOLIDAY BREAK)

(CHIEFSFB)—What sprained ankle?   Patrick Mahomes played a pretty normal game Saturday against the Texans and led the Chiefs to another one-score win, although  the ne score would have required a two-point conversion to get a tie. It’s the sixteenth one-score win this year, extending the Chiefs’ own record.

Patrick looked pretty much unfazed about his high ankle sprain,. He ran it in for a touchdown from 15 yards out. He threw for 260 yards.  Kansas City was 7/13 on third downs, 3/4 in the red zone and the defense picked off a couple of passes that resulted in scores.

Kansas City is 14-1 and facing a short week before playing the Steelers tomorrow, but a win would lock up a by week in the first round of the playoffs and home field advantage.

(MIZFB)—Look for an intense competition for the quarterback starting position in Spring football at Mizzou.  The Tigers have picked up Penn State transfer quarterback Deau Pribula, setting up a three-player fight to be the one replacing Brady Cook, who has gone 25-13 as the starter and has become only the third Tiger quarterback to run and throw for more than 10,00 yards. Only Chase Daniel and Drew Lock have more total offense at quarterback than Cook has.

Missouri signed Penn State transfer Beau Pribula Sunday.  He has two years of eligibility left after serving as a backup in Happy Valley for two years. He’s 6-2, 203 pounds and is described as a powerful runner, averaging more than six yards per attempt. He’s accounted for ten touchdowns. His arrival sets up a test for Drew Pyne, who as the backup this year, and Sam Horn, who’s coming back from Tommy John surgery. Horn also plays baseball, which might complicate or compromise his work in the Spring.

As of Sunday, Missouri ad picked up a dozen transfers and they’ve taken a big one away from Iowa, Kansas, and Wisconsin—Langden Kitchen a 6-foot-7, 270-pound defensive end who played for Northwest Missouri State this year. He had 21 tackles, 5.5 acks and 8.5 tackles for loss in eleven games this season.

It’s been a pretty good portal year for Coach Drinkwitz, who also has added Defensive End Nate Johnson form Appalachian State Michigan offensive lineman Dominick Giudice,

standout running back Ahmad Hardy from Louisiana-Monroe, who rushed for 1,346 yards and 13 touchdowns as a true freshman—the best of all freshmen in the country—defensive end Nate Johnson from Appalachian State, Michigan offensive lineman Dominick Giudice, wide reeciver Kevin Coleman from Mississippi State, Nebraska linebacker Mikai Gbayor, Northern Illinois safety Santana Banner, punter Connor Weselman frm Stanford,  safety Mose Phillips III from Northern Illinois, and West Virginia linebacker Josiah Trotter.

(CARDINALS)—Paul Goldschmidt has left the stadium.  He’s signed a one year deal with the Yankees for $12.5 million.  The Yankees declined Anthony Rizzo’s $17 million option. They paid him $6 million in going-away money. He’s 35 and on the free agent market. Rizzo hit .228 in a season highlighted by injuries. Goldschmit is 37 and finished the year with a .245 average after a very slow start.

(ROYALS)—It’s bonus time for three members of the Kansas City Royals.  Bobby Witt Jr., got about $3.1 million for making his first All-Star game, winning a Gold Glove, and a Silver Slugger in 2024 and finished second in the MVP voting. He had a 9.4 WAR.  Also getting a bonus was pitcher Cole Ragans, who led the team in pitching, was fourth in the Cy Young voting, and had a 4.9 WAR, which resulted in his bonus of more than $1.6 million. Backup catcher Freddy Fermin got almost $233,000 for hitting .271 with six homers and 36 RBIS and posting a 3.0 WAR in 111 games.

(AND TO WRAP UP, THE NEXT FOOTBALL SEASON)—It started March 28 and the St. Louis Battlehawks are starting to assemble the team. Coach Anthony Becht says the signing of a couple of guys is “huge” for the UFL team—Anthony Isabella and Denzel Mims.

Isabella was an All-American receiver at UMASS in 2018 when he averaged 141.5 yards a game. He spent four years with the Arizona Cardinals, then with Baltimore and Buffalo. He was signed to the Steelers practice squad last week but that doesn’t affect the ‘Hawks rights to him.

Mims was All-Big 12 at Baylor in 2020, was drafted by theJets and lao has seen service with the Lions, Steelers, and Jaguars.

Becht has known Mims for several years, having called many of his games for ESPN when he was an All-Big 12 player at Baylor for ESPN. In 2020, Mims was drafted in the second round (59th overall) by the New York Jets and caught 42 passes for 676 yards in 30 games. Mims then moved on to the Detroit Lions, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Jacksonville Jaguars.

Also signing on is outside linebacker Kemoko Turay, who was a freshman All-American at Rutgers, was drafted by the Colts in 2018, and also has spent time with the 49ers, the Falcons and the Panthers.

The team cut ties with quarterback A. J. McCarron in the offseason and has signed three potential replacements: Chevan Cordeiro, Manny Wilkins, and Max Duggan. Wilkins was McCarron’s backup for the last three seasons.

Cordeiro was a first-round pick by St. Louis in the UFL College draft. He was undrafted by the NFL coming out of college and spent a few days with the Seahawks before being cut.  He was all All-Mountain West  player his last two years at San Jose State, where he assed for more than 12,000 yards, rushed for 1,600 more and scored 113 touchdowns.

Duggan got a look from the Chargers, who took him in the seventh round in 2023. He bounced back and forth from the practices squad.  Duggan was a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in his last year at TCU where he racked u more than 11,400 yards in total offense and scored 101 TDs.

The Battlehawks’ parting with McCarron was an acrimonious one. McCarron has bounced around in the NFL with Cincinnati, Houston, Oakland and Atlanta. He would like to sign with another UFL-XFL division team, he says, so he could beat St. Louis.

Sports: Chiefs Strange Season Stranger; Thanks and Goodbye

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—Kansas City has started its toughest three-game schedule of the year and the result is good news, more bizarre news, and potentially some bad news.

Good news: Chiefs beat the Browns 21-7 to equal a record set in 2025.  The game wasn’t as close as the score might indicated. Winning against one of the worst teams in the NFL this year seemed easy compared to the Chiefs’ usual M-O.  They took a 14-0 lead and even scored in the third quarter.  It’s their first winning game without a field goal since they beat the 49ers 28-16 on October 20.  They had no field goals in their loss to Buffalo on November 17.

Harrison Butker was back and made all three of his extra points.

But here’s the kicker to our story, so to speak.  The Chiefs have not exceeded 30 points all year. They’ve gotten to 30 twice, that stopped there.  CBS Sports says the last time an NFL team won 13 games in a season was 1925 when the Frankford Yellow Jackets did it.

The Chiefs appear to be headed to the playoffs but Frankford finished sixth despite winning 13 games in 1925.  They were part of the American Professional Football League, which eventually morphed into the NFL.  The Chicago Cardinals were declared the league champions with an 11-2-1 record, ahead of the Pottsville Maroons, who were 10-2.

The Detroit Panthers (8-2-2), the New York Giants (8-4), and the Akron Pros (4-2-2) finished ahead of the Yellow Jackets who were 13-7.  Final standings were based on winning percentage.

There are only four teams in the NFL this year who have not scored more than thirty points at least once—the Chiefs, the Patriots, the Giants and the Raiders.  The other three teams have only seven wins among them so far.  7-34, in fact.

The NFL schedule-makers seemed to have their own sense of weirdness this year.  The Cleveland game was the first of three games in an 11-day stretch. The Chiefs play the Texans next Saturday and then have a Christmas day game against the Steelers. They get a long week to heal before their last regular-season game against the Broncos on January 5.

(CHIEFS-MAHOMES)—Not all of the news is good for Patrick Mahomes.  He left the game late in the fourth quarter Sunday with what appears to be a high ankle sprain.  He said afterward that he could have gone back out with his ankle taped but there was no reason to do it.

Word on Monday afternoon was that the sprain is not serious.

Although his backup is no Mahomes, he’s a capable QB.  Carson Wentz finished the game for Kansas City and completed both of his passes for 20 yards. Wentz has started 93 of the 97 NFL games in which he has played. He has hit almost 63% of his passes during his NFL career. His career, however, has been interrupted by injuries.

Before Patrick Mahomes left the game in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury, he set a new NFL record for most passing touchdowns before the age of 30.  He picked up two against Cleveland to move past Payton Manning, with 254 TDs.  He’s done it in 75 regular season games. Manning needed 128 games.

Mahomes won’t be thirty until September 17 next  year.

(CHIEFS)—The NFL’s Special Teams Player of the Week last week was Kansas City’s second-replacement kicker Matthew Wright.

But his story is one of the “penthouse to the outhouse” stories.

On the same day Wright was recognized, the Chiefs opened a three-week practice window for Butker and on Saturday before the Cleveland game, Wright was released and Butker was activated.

Wright’s field goals have been the difference in the previous two Chiefs’ wins. He scored 26 of the team’s 38 points, the last one a game-winner against the Chargers. He’s built some pretty impressive credentials that might bode well for his future in the game.

Butker is 19/20 in field goal attempts this year and 24/25 in points after.

(TIGER FB)—The home folks are going to see a lot of their Tigers next year.  The SEC has released its conference schedule for 2025 giving Missouri six straight home games and eight overall. SEC games at Faurot Field will be against South Carolina, Texas A&M, Alabama and Mississippi. They’ll open against Central Arkansas, will welcome KU back in Columbia for the first time in ages, and then take on Louisiana-Lafayette.

They’ll play Auburn on October 18, their first road game. Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and Arkansas will be their other road games.

Their bowl game is now less than two weeks away.

(TIGER ROUNDBALL)—Missouri plays Jackson State tonight and then goes against the University of Illinois five days later in St. Louis. Illinois is unranked but gave top-ranked Tennessee all it could handle before the Vols got a late basket to win 66-64.

(BASEBALL)—Neither of our MLB teams have generated anything exciting in the last week.

—and the engines are silent on the race tracks.

Soooooo, we’ll see you in this space next week.

 

Sports: Another Bowl-Bound Missouri Team; Workmanlike Tigers Win; Chiefs Play Down to Opponent’s Level; & etc.

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing editor

(Friends;  For some reason, Mediacom failed to publish all of last week’s postings. One looked at ten Missouri counties that were especially interested in the Lake of the Ozarks Casino proposition defeated last month.  The second one will look at what the casino industry might have up its sleeve next.

However—–

For blog history reasons, we are publishing last Tuesday’s sports essay today–or we hope we are—and we will then publish our regular Tuesday sports post later today–or we hope we will. Actually, we hope Mediacom publishes it. At last.

We solicit your interest particularly in the story about the two OTHER Missouri football teams headed for bowls.

On Wednesday, we will post the piece we intended to post last Monday and on Thursday we will post the column intended for last Wednesday.

With some luck we should be back to our regular schedule next week.

Or maybe not.  We aren’t sure Mediacom, our long-standing internet supplier, will do its job this time either.)

(BOWLS)—A second Missouri football team is headed for post-season play.  Truman State University rallied from an 0-3 start to finish 7-4, demolishing Southwest Baptist 55-3 in the regular season finale.

The Bulldogs are off to the America’s Crossroads Bowl for the fourth time in five years. Their game December 7 will be a rematch with Tiffin, a team they beat 28-27 in 2022.  Truman State is in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. The Tiffin Dragons represent the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.  The school is in Tiffin, Ohio and finished the regular season 8-3. The schools are similar in offense and defense. Truman outscored opponents an average of 33-21. Tiffin came in at 35-18. Tiffin QB Alex Johnson threw for 2780 yards. Truman Sophomore QB Dylan Hair thre for 2235 yards and ran for 516 more.

The America’s Crossroads Bowl is played in Hobart, Indiana. The game is played on the field of Hobart High School. It is one of three bowl games for Division 2 teams that do not make the 28-team field playing for the national championship. Six of the remaining 134 D2 teams play in the post-season bowl games, held on December 7 this year.

Last week we mentioned that the University of Central Missouri Mules will play a Heritage Bowl game on December 7 against the University of Texas-Permian Basin in the Heritage Bowl in Corsicana, Texas. It is played at the Corsicana High School stadium.

(MIZBOWL)—And where will Missouri go bowling?  Depends on who you consult.  CBS Sports thinks the Music Bowl against Michigan on December 20 in Nashville, giving Missouri a second straight clash with a Big 10 team. College Football News says it’s the Las Vegas Bowl December 27 against former Big 8 rival Colorado. Athlon Sports likes Missouri in Las Vegas, too, but against Washington. And ESPN thinks it will be USC that will be the opponent in the Las Vegas Bowl. Action Network says it’s the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville Florida January 2 against Louisville. 24/7 Sports agrees on the Gator Bowl but would match Missouri with Duke.

(MIZCONNECT)—Only two quarterbacks and three receivers in Missouri history have connected for 20 or more career touchdowns.  Brady Cook and Luther Burden III linked up for their 20th TD in last weekend’s game against South Carolina. Chase Daniel did it twice—25 with Chase Coffman and 22 with Jeremy Maclin.

(MIZARK)—Missouri looks to go 9-3 against Arkansas Saturday, a team that is 6-5 and still smarting from last year’s 48-14 whipping. Arkansas is 0-6 against Missouri on Faurot Field and 2-9 overall. But the last two games there have been Missouri’s by only two points each.  (ZOU)

Oh, about the basketball team. It has won five straight games against lesser opponents after opening with a loss at Memphis. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs are 10-1 after wasting a 20-9 halftime lead against the Carolina Panthers with their too-familiar second half doze threatened them with a loss to team with clearly less credentials. The Panthers got a two-point conversion with 1:46 to go to tie the game at 27-all. Patrick Mahomes bailed out the Chiefs again with a 33-yard run that put them in field goal range and backup kicker Spence Schrader gave them the win with a 31-yard field goal as the clock reached zero.

One expected the Chiefs, now 10-1, to have an easier time with the Panthers, who drop to 3-8.

Individually, Travis Kelce moved into the number three NFL career record book for most career receiving yards, moving past Antonio Gates and now trailing only Jason Witten of the Cowboys and Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez, who got most of his years while playing for Kansas City.

(SPEAKING OF GREAT CATCHES)—A young Chiefs fan, who looks to be 9 or 10 years old, hoping to get a high five, or at least noticed, by his favorite player—Nick Bolton—was reaching over the railing at the Chiefs’ tunnel and went over it head first.

But Defensive Tackle Tershawn Wharton caught him. He was lifted, unharmed, back to the grandstand.

(CARDINALS)—Weekend reports contain nothing significant for the Cardinals but, as is sometimes the case, tell about the good fortunes of FORMER Cardinals. In this case it’s about former closer Giovanny  Gallegos.  He has signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers. He’s 33 and didn’t live up to expectations with the Redbirds last year, appearing in only 21 games and posting a 6.53 ERA. In 2021 and ’22, Gallegos saved 14 games in each year. His lifetime ERA is 3.49. This means the players are eligible for arbitration.

On the outside looking in are relievers Adam Kloffenstein

The Cardinals have offered contracts to NL reliever of the year Ryan Helsley, and four other pitchers—JoJo Romero, Andre Pallante, and John King as well as position(s) player Brendan Donovan.  They did not offer a contract to pitcher Adam Kloffenstein.

Speeding right along—

(ANDRETTI)—-Michael Andretti’s dream of fielding a Formula 1 team appears at last to be coming true.  The key has been the alignment with Cadillac for engines—the team will be known as Cadillac F-1—and with TWG Global, owned by billionaire Mark Walter who owns, among other things, the Los Angeles Dodgers. TWG also owns Andretti Global.  Michael’s role in the operation is unclear after stepping away from the team several weeks ago and taking an advisory role.

Father, Mario, has been named to the board of directors of the team. Mario ran Formula 1 races for 15 years, 1968-1982 and was the F1 champion in 1978 while driving for Lotus, becoming only the second American (Phil Hill in 1961 was the first) to win the title. He is the only driver to win the Indianapolis 500 (1969), the Daytona 500 (1967) and the F1 championship. Until recently he had been one of the drivers for the IndyCar Experience in an Indy car made into a two-person vehicle driven at racing speeds before Indycar races. He’s 84.

The CEO of the TWG Global business will be Dan Towriss, who joined Andretti as co-owner of Adretti Global Motorsports. Andretti stepped away from the team several weeks ago and will be an advisor.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen wrapped up his fourth straight Formula 1 championship with a sixth place finish at Las Vegas. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton gave Mercedes their first 1-2 finish of the year with Carlos Sainz in a Ferrari taking the other podium slot.

Verstappen is the fifth  driver in F1 history to win four straight world championships. Two races remain but Verstappen’s points lead cannot be overcome.

(INDYCAR)—Two men, one face, one trophy.  Sculptor will Behrends has carved his second bust of Josef Newgarden, the winner of this year’s Indianapolis 500. The face will be engraved into the famous Borg-Warner trophy, the second consecutive year Newgarden’s image has been through this process, by Reid Smith.  Behrends has been creating winners’ busts since 1990 and Smith has been the engraver since 2021.

Newgarden will try to become the first driver to win three straight 500s next May 25th.

(NASCAR)—Joey Logano has celebrated his third NASCAR Cup championship with a reflective speech on the culture of NASCAR. Here’s the highlight:

“When I think about what we do on the racetrack sometimes, it’s kind of pointless, right? We drive around in circles just to end up in the same place at the end of day. You kind of think about it, that’s kind of goofy. But if you take the opportunity God’s given us to talk to people, to inspire others to live a life of generosity, that’s when these scenarios and driving in circles isn’t just driving in circles anymore. … When you think about (the flooding) in Western North Carolina, I’d say probably at least one person at each table around here probably made a huge impact at some point for the Hurricane Helene victims. I saw a lot of too people up there helping out and that, to me, is probably something that I’m most proud of this industry, being a part of that.”

He’s the fifth driver to win three NASCAR championships.

(Photo credit: Bob Priddy, Indianapolis 2019)

 

Sports: Chiefs go 8-0; Tigers 0-2; Baseball Wheeling and Dealing Season Underway, and other stuff.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs are 8-0 for the first time since 2013 but they had to go into overtime to nail down the win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last night 30-24.  The Chiefs have won their first eight games only three times in their long history. The other time was 2003.

They hope to avoid the collapse at the end of both seasons this time.  In 2003, they went 5-3 the rest of the way and in 2013, they limped to the finish going 3-5.

The Chiefs now have won 14 games in a row and hit the 30-point mark for the first time since last November 26, twenty-two games ago.

Acquisitions Kareem Hunt and Deandre Hopkins were keys, Hunt grinding out 74 yards on the ground and Hopkins getting eight catches for 86 yards and two touchdowns. Hunt rushed for 74 yards.

The Chiefs again failed to score in the third quarter, allowing the Buccaneers to take a 24-17 lead before the comeback that tied the game late and forced it into overtime. Patrick Mahomes led them on a 78-yard 15-play drive at the start of overtime with a 15-play, 78-yard drive that ended with a five yard pass to Hopkins.

Mahomes finished 34-44 for 291 yards and three touchdowns, no interceptions.  Travis Kelce had his biggest game of the year with 14 catches for 100 yards.

(MIZROUNDBALL)—21 in a row in a familiar way for the Tiger men’s team; a big disappointment in Vermont for the women.

Missouri played a good first half against Memphis State last night and then couldn’t stop the home team in the second half.

Missouri was up by ten at the half but had no answer for Memphis’s P. J. Haggerty who picked up 22 of his 25 points in the second half and Missouri forgot how to hit free throws. Missouri finished 15 of 23 in free throws while Memphis shot 58% in the last twenty minutes. Haggerty started the second half with five points as Memphis went on a 16-2 run to rally from eleven down to go ahead 58-55 and an 83-75.

The Tiger men have a half-dozen softer opponents next as they try to get things sorted out.

The Tigers women’s team handed Vermont its first win ever over a Southeastern Conference team last night, scoring only 26 points in the last three quarters and falling 62-46, thanks to 26 turnovers that helped Vermont outscore Missouri 30-15 on TOs. Coach Robin Pingeton said afterwards that her players failed to play team basketball. (zou)

(BASEBALL)—Some folks live with the philosophy that if they can’t root for their home team in the World Series, they’ll root for the team that beat the home team in the playoffs.  As hard as it might have been, some Royals fans found themselves rooting for the Yankees against the Dodgers and found themselves disappointed again when the Dodgers took the New Yorkers in five games. But the Royals had a satisfying year and fans in KC are looking for the good times to continue.

The Cardinals?  Who knows how their offseason is going to shape up, given comments from the money folks in the front office.

(ROYALS)—The Royals have started the offseason by retaining part of the pitching staff that put them into the playoffs for the first time since 2015 while the Cardinals began the process of jettisoning some of the players who gave them a winning season in a rather torturous year.

Sunday, the Royals announced they have signed Michael Wacha to a three year deal that guarantees him $51 million with a potential of $72 million if a team option is exercised. Wacha had been considered a mid-rotation arm in the post-season bidding.

Wacha is 33, a seven-season starter for the Cardinals who never reached the expectations of some that he would be the next-in-line dominant starter in the Carpenter-tradition. He has bounced around with the Rays, Mets, and Red Sox in recent seasons.  But he says his family “fell in love with the city, fell in love with the team, the staff here, everyone involved in the stadium, and it was something where we didn’t want to go somewhere else…It was honestly a no-brainer.”

Wacha was a solid 13-8 for the Royals this year with a 3.35 ERA in 29 starts. His signing retains the front-line starting rotation of Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans.  The two remaining slots are expected to be a competition between Kyle Wright, Alec Marsh and Brady Singer. Some forecasters say the signing of Wacha frees the team to sign someone who can add muscle to the offense. Perhaps with the addition of some power in the outfield.

(CARDINALS)—For some Cardinals fans, Wacha’s re-signing in Kansas City ruined their hopes that he might come back to St. Louis.  But the front office has not been talking about big-contract off-seasons acquisitions and at the first move that has been made is to sign a hardly-all-star arm.

The Cardinals started the off-season by letting six guys enter free agency right off the bat, so to speak: Paul Goldschmidt, the NL MVP just a year ago although the team has said it might retain him “under the right circumstances.”; Lance Lynn, gone again despite continuing to be a solid inning-eating pitcher the ‘birds needed; and right-handed pitchers Kyle Gibson, Keyann Middleton—who didn’t play all year because of injury—and Andrew Kitteridge; and Matt Carpenter, who played sparingly and hit .234 in only 137 at-bats. Carpenter has shown interest in coming back next season. He will be 39 and has hit above .200 in just two of the last five seasons. He’s young yet and is considered to have potential.

(MIZFB)—The Tiger football team is in the second week of recovery from the beat-down at Alabama that left Quarterback Brady Cook even more battered, a hand injury adding to his high-ankle sprain. Missouri heads into next weekend’s game against Oklahoma ranked 22nd in the AP poll. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:45 at Faurot Field. Oklahoma is unranked, 5-4 after whipping the Maine Black Bears 59-14 in Norman on Saturday. The Sooners are only 1-4 in the SEC. Missouri is 2-2.

The game is the first between these two former Big 12 rivals since 2011 and the first one in Columbia since 2011, a year before Missouri joined the SEC. Oklahoma has not won a game in Columbia since 2006. They’ve lost in Columbia only twice in the last 44 seasons (1983 and 1998).

The Sooners are 67-24-5 all-time against Missouri. Oklahoma gave Missouri its worst loss ever, 77-0 in 1986. Missouri’s biggest win against Oklahoma was 44-10 in 1969. Missouri last beat Oklahoma in 2010 when Gary Pinkel’s Tigers won 36-27. Before that, it was Larry Smith’s Tigers that beat the Sooners 20-6 in 1998. The last time Missouri beat Oklahoma in consecutive seasons was under Dan Devine in 1965 and ’66.

The last word from Coach Drinkwitz on the status of Cook?  He expects him back at some point.

The Tigers are bowl-eligible with their six wins. Various forecasters are forecasting several bowl possibilities but nobody thinks they’ll meet the pre-season hype about making the playoffs.

(MIZBB)—Dennis Gates’ third edition of Tiger basketball officially opened last night—and against a significant opponent, unlike the football team and some other major basketball teams start the season against some small college marshmallows. Missouri is waiting until the opener to play the s’mores schools—Howard, Eastern Washington State, Mississippi Valley State, and Pacific, Arkansas State, and Lindenwood before facing Cal and then number one Kansas.                  -0-

Moving along to moving along—

(NASCAR)—NASCAR’s chaotic season seems to grow more chaotic by the week. As the season has wound down, some teams have sued the series on what amounts to antitrust issues.  On the track, allegations of race-fixing have ratcheted up as the playoffs have narrowed to four contenders for next weekend’s championship finale.  Whoever finishes highest will be the champion even if they don’t win.

Defending champion Ryan Blaney had to win at Martinsville last weekend and he did, joining Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano, and William Byron.

After the race, charges and counter-charges came thick and fast, starting with allegations that Bubba Wallace slowed on the final lap and allowed fellow Toyota driver Christopher Bell to pass him and gain enough points to tie Byron for the final playoff spot. Bell had the tie breaker because of a higher finish in an earlier race.  But after Bell passed Wallace, his car slid up the track in the third turn and banged against the wall through the fourth turn, a situation that was later deemed a violation of NASCAR rules against riding the wall to improve a position. That put Byron into the finals and led some competitors to suggest Wallace’s slowing was intentional. He denied it and said something happened with his car and he was trying to avoid causing a last-lap crash.

Bell, on the other hand, suggested Chevrolet drivers Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon blocked other drivers from passing Byron, also in a Chevrolet, from being passed by other competitors, and dropping back in the points.

The race next weekend in Phoenix matches Byron and Reddick against two former champions in Joey Logano and Blaney.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen’s 10-race winless streak has come to a spectacular end in San Paulo, Brazil to put himself on the verge of wining his fourth straight championship.  Verstappen, relegated to 17th starting position gained six cars on the first lap and ten more on the second and finished more than 19 seconds ahead of the next competitor—and it was done during an intensifying rainstorm. He has extended his points lead to sixty over Lando Norris with only three races left.

(picture credits: Kansas City Royals, NASCAR/Fox Sports)

Sports: Mizzou Miracle Doesn’t Impress Pollsters; Chiefs Roll to 6-0; Logano is Out, Then In, and Then REALLY In. 

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(Before we get started, we invite our readers to check on our series about Amendment 2, the sports wagering proposal on the November ballot, in which we address why the amendment is a bad idea for our teachers, our veterans, and even the host cities of our casinos.  We are not telling you how to vote, but we hope you’ll get a more honest understanding of what you will be voting on when  you read those three (so far) entries.)

(MIZ)—It might have been a legendary game but it was just a ho-hum event for the people who compile college football rankings.

Brady Cook’s dramatic return to the field after missing most of the first three quarters with an injury and engineering a 21-17 win against Auburn capped with a clock-beating 95-yard drive for the winning touchdown undoubtedly will show up on “greatest games” lists in the future.

But both major polls took Missouri down, perhaps noting that the Tigers again barely beat an opponent it was expected to beat.

The Tigers lost a spot in the coaches’ poll, falling to 17th.  The Associated Press took them down two spots, to 21st.

Auburn led 17-3 at the half, seven of those coming on a muffed punt reception that was recovered by Auburn in the Missouri end zone.  The Tiger Defense was stout all day while the offense was mediocre after Cook left early in the first quarter. His return put life back into the offense and that last methodical 95-yard drive was electric for the crowd.

The loss was a historic one for Auburn, which had been 150-1 in games in which they led by 14 in the second half.

ESPN’s Gamecast tells a crushing story for the other Tigers.  ESPN at one time said Auburn had a 94.3% chance to win the game.  And with 1:44 left, they were still at 88%.  But it all turned to ashes when Jamal Roberts scored a touchdown with 46 seconds left and no time outs remaining for Auburn.  Auburn drops to 2-5 with their third one-score loss of the year.

Missouri is 6-1 and is bowl eligible.  The significance of the bowl they’ll play in will be determined by the way they finish the seasons, beginning next week against Alabama.  The Crimson Tide dropped eight slots in the ratings after losing to Tennessee 24-17. The Tide will go into Saturday’s game ranked 15th.

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs are the NFL’s only undefeated team after beating the San Francisco 49ers 28-18 in the Golden Gate City Sunday. That’s a season high in points for the Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes had one of his lowest-rated games of his career with his second-lowest passing yardage totals.  But his personal-best 33-yard scramble kept a drive going that generated points. The backfield otherwise ground out time-consuming yardage and the defense didn’t let 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy have much breathing room.

The defense kept San Francisco out of the end zone until the third quarter, stopping for 49ers by forcing four punts, intercepting a pass, and surrendering only two field goals before a touchdown.

The Chiefs added JuJu Smith-Schuster to its list of walking (or limping) wounded. He went down with a hamstring injury he had been nursing all week in practice.

With Mahomes struggling in the passing department, the offensive line created opportunities for running backs. The Chiefs gained 186 yards on 37 rushes that led to four touchdowns.

The Chiefs take on the Raiders next weekend.

(SEC BASKETBALL)—The Southeastern Conference has held its pre-season basketball media days last week. Both the men’s team and the women’s team from Missouri haven’t gotten much love from media pollsters, with both teams forecast to be in the bottom half of the conference.

Missouri was winless in conference play last year. The Tigers lost five rotational players for 111 combined games last year, leaving men’s coach Dennis Gates “your hands are tied behind your back.”

Men’s coach Dennis Gates hopes his top ten portal class will and his high school recruit class that is rated number three nationally will produce a blend of “unbelievable talent.”

“I’m excited about our guys, meaning the first-year guys that’s in our program. I see how they’ve been able to adapt to our institution, to our community, and our entire community has accepted those guys with open arms, and these guys are comfortable…The portal guys that we did sign, we made sure that they’ve come from some great respectable coaches, and that’s where I wanted to kind of identify earlier to make sure that that took place also,” he told the media.

The spotlight recruit is Annor Boateng, a two-time Arkansas player of the year, “a 4.0 student, oung man who played in the band, plays the saxophone. His talents off the court is tremendous….As a basketball player, he’s a tremendous young man, multitalented, straight line driver, strong, physical…I look for him to make an impact.”

But there are several returnees Gates thinks deserve attention—Caleb Grill, who missed most of last year with a wrist injury, Trent Pierce, Ant Robinson, Aiden Shaw, and Tamar Bates. “They don’t shy away from confrontation [who] receive information like a sponge,” Gates said.

Missouri was an NCAA tournament team in his first year, a loser of every SEC game last year.
“Life happens in seasons,” aid Gates. “In real life you can’t start back at zero. That’s the unique part about basketball or college sports. We’re 0-0, just like everyone else.

Also hoping for a big turnaround in women’s coach Robin Pingeton who will be coaching her 15th year at Mizzou. Some observers are thinking her career at Missouri is on the line in the season ahead. Her team won two more games in the SEC last year than the men’s team.  But the Lady Tigers haven’t been to an NCAA tournament since 2018.

But Pingeton thinks bad times can lay the groundwork for better times. She told the media, “We all want the end result, which is a championship; we all want a deep run in the NCAA Tournament. That scoreboard is really, really important. But I also don’t want to shy away from the fact that sometimes when you go through hard times, those are where you really grow the most.”

The team has more height than it has last year with Tionna Herron, who is 6-4, joining Angelique Ngalakulondi, a 6-2 forward who was sidelined after eight games with an injury.

Pingeton is looking for an offensive boost with the addition of Nyah Wilson, who averaged 15.5 points a game for New Mexico last year along with 4.5 rebounds, two assists and 1.3 seals a game.

(BASEBALL)—The end of the World Series will end the baseball news blackout on coaching and managerial changes and player deals.

The Post-Dispatch has reported one of the first items to come from the St. Louis Cardinals will be the return of center fielder John Jay, who has been a coach with the Florida Marlins this year after a 12-year career that got him a Cardinals World Series ring in 2011. (the Marlins were managed this year by former Redbird Skip Schumaker, who has left the team because of “philosophical differences.”

Assistant coach Willie McGee is moving on to become a “special advisor.”

Speeding along—

(NASCAR)—-A week earlier, Joey Logano thought he had missed the NASCAR Championship semi-final round of races.  Sunday, he became the first driver guaranteed to run for the NASCAR Cup.

Logano stretched his fuel while leading the last 72 laps of the first race in the semi-final playoff round, and got the win that makes him one of the four drivers who will compete in the last race of the year for the Cup.

He ran just fast enough to beat pole-sitter Christopher Bell to the finish line by two-thirds of a second.

Logano is in the running only because Alex Bowman’s car was found to violate car weight rules a week earlier at Charlotte, forcing Bowman out of the playoffs and elevating Logano into the championship picture.

Some of the championship contenders had a rugged day in the desert.  Tyler Reddick rolled his car when he got together with Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney on lap 90.  Reddick drove his bent car to the pits but it was too badly damaged to continue.

(FORMULA 1)—Formula 1 returned to the United States to run t the Circuit of the Americas, near Austin, Texas.  Charles Leclerc in a Ferrari led teammate Carlos Sainz across the finish line to give Ferrari its first 1-2 finish in the United States in eighteen years.  Lando Norris fought off series points leader Max Verstappen to finish third.

Formula 1 has one more race in this country—on the street circuit in downtown Las Vegas on November 23.

(photo credits: Cook, Missouri Athletics; Gates, Power Mizzou; Pingeton, Fulton Sun; Jay, MLB; Logano, Bob Priddy)

“Winning for Education” Turns Casino Host Cities Into Bigger Losers

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So this is what they get for three decades of being the hosts of Missouri’s casinos—a financial knife in the ribs.

For three decades, ten percent of the casino gambling taxes have gone to the home dock cities and half of the admission fees, too, to pay for the police and fire protection, the infrastructure the cities provide so people can go to and from their casinos, use their bathrooms, and drink city water instead of some of the river water under the ‘excursion boat” where they gamble.

The cities have used some of that money for other improvements—parks, for example.

But not with Amendment 2, the sports wagering proposal on the November ballot.

They’re cut out of it. Completely.

None of the sports gambling taxes will go to the home dock cities.

There will still be an admission fee charged for those who go into the casinos to place their sports bets. But Winning for Missouri, the committee that is, shall we say, gloriously overstating the public benefits of sports wagering, has an economic study saying that, eventually, more than 98% of the bets will be placed online.  There will be no admission fee paid by the casinos for almost all of the sports bets.  And there is no fee in lieu of the admission fee.  They’re going to keep it all.

None of the sports gaming revenue will go to the cities, as it does for present casino table games and slot machines. Admission fees going to host cities will be minimal.

Once again, everybody loses except the casinos and the sports teams—including the host cities (the formal name is Home Dock Cities, harkening back to the days when the industry convinced voters there would be real boats traveling on our big rivers, before they became boats in moats—which is a good thing; we might tell that story in a later entry).

The host cities have been getting the short end of the stick for all of these three decades. For more than a decade, fewer and fewer people have been going to the casinos. At their peak, casinos counted about 54-million admissions.  In the last fiscal year, the admissions continued their decline toward 27 million.

Adding insult to injury is the industry’s refusal to let the legislature increase the admission fees so those home communities admission payments could keep up with inflation. The equivalent of two-dollar admission fee established in 1993 was $4.31 when we checked the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator Saturday night.

Yes, we mean “let the legislature increase the admission fees.”  Your faithful correspondent has suggested increases to legislators for six years. One of the more frequent responses is, “The casino industry would never buy that.”

The suspicion in the hallways for some time that the industry is, in one way or another, buying something.  It has several political action committees with bottomless checking accounts.  And legislators have to run for re-election for an unfortunately limited number of times.

The influence of the casinos is so ingrained in the legislative process that their representatives don’t even try to justify their statutory or constitutional demands. They just make brief statements about how great sports wagering will be and then sit down.

Not making any accusations, mind you.  We’re just sayin,’ as the colloquial phrase goes.

Anyway—the $4.31 equivalency means the state is getting two 1993 dollars while the casinos keep $2.31 of 2024 money.

The casinos are making more off the admission fee than the state and the home dock cities are making. But the situation is even worse than what we’ve just shown.

Inflation has reduced the purchasing power of those two dollars to about 95 cents.  So, while the home dock cities and the gaming commission are starving for funding with two dollars that are worth 95 cents in contemporary money, the casinos are making $2.31, and the gap between what the casinos keep and what the state and the home dock cities receive widens each year.

Our extensive research and hours with the calculator indicate the home dock cities and the State of Missouri, since the first casinos opened in 1994, have lost almost $1.9 billion ($1,880,392,926) in outright cash payments and in purchasing power combined because the casinos have pressured the legislature into making no change.

Extensive research has calculated how much each of our thirteen cities has lost in the last eight years or so. The individual tables are available but we don’t want to spend the space here to print them. Perhaps that can be done at another time.

Has anyone told our thirteen cities they’re being taken for a ride by their “excursion gambling boats?” The cities are part of the Home Dock Cities Association that one might think would be working to keep the losses from continuing and increasing.  But we have seen representatives for the association spouting the casino line every time they’ve testified before legislative committees.  It’s okay with the association, apparently, that the people they represent keep losing funding and will see no improvement from sports wagering.

The association says it favors the casino position because casinos are economic drivers for the region.  Really?   Can they show any studies that prove it? They haven’t, and the industry’s own statistics reported to the Missouri Gaming Commission show a different story.

We started compiling comprehensive statistics three years ago with a five-year lookback and we have updated figures from the Gaming Commission’s annual and monthly reports. In the now-eight years of statistics, these are the combined losses in cash admissions payments and lost value of those payments for each of our casinos:

  1. Ameristar St. Charles  $46,399,739
  2. River City, Lemay $43,956,210
  3. Hollywood, Maryland Heights $42,069,051
  4. Horseshoe (form Lumiere Place), St. Louis $31,287,455
  5. Ameristar Kansas City $36,290,466
  6. Harrah’s NKC $29,250,328
  7. Argosy Riverside $27,274,214
  8. Bally’s KC $21,852,498
  9. IOC Boonville $13,568,851
  10. Century Cape Girardeau $12,712,770
  11. Century Caruthersville $7,200,880
  12. Jo Frontier $8,357,439
  13. Mark Twain, LaGrange $5,718,114

Amendment 2 will only increase those numbers.

Sports wagering backers say sports wagering will generate hundreds of millions of dollars that will make a big difference for the pay of our classroom teacher.

That isn’t true.  As mentioned earlier, if voters approved Amendment 2, only a few million will be added to the $10-Billion dollar annual budgets of the elementary and secondary schools and the additional multi-million dollar budgets of our colleges and universities.

The industry has testified that increasing the admission fee to benefit our veterans would be a hardship on the industry, especially the smaller casinos. Bunk. It wasn’t but a few years ago when they paid $100 million a year, or more, for a decade and were not whining about the payments being an economic threat.

The industry has offered no statistical evidence to support its contentions.  It has shown no independent studies proving any of the claims made in their advertising leading up to the vote in a few days on Amendment 2.

The industry can’t or won’t supply that information to support its promises and claims.  But everything written in his series of posts is backed up by lengthy research.

Not only have the casinos fought efforts to maintain the value of the admission fee for their host cities, they have laid off about 5,500 of their employees since the number peaked at 11,658 in 2008.  In the most recent fiscal year, the total was down to 6,079.

Will sports wagering bring back those jobs? Not with 98% of wagers made remotely.  We can see a few more people serving drinks in the modest, at best, sportsbooks that will be created in our casinos to handle the few walk-ins. There might be a few runners taking bets to the I-T people—who might represent the biggest employee boost. But the jobs needle won’t move very much.

Let’s look at how much of an economic driver the casinos have caused in our five non-metropolitan areas, where one might suspect significant economic impact would produce community growth. Here are the population numbers for those communities, the census of 1990 first and the 2020 census next:

LaGrange  1,990-825

Caruthersville  7,389-5,562

Cape Girardeau  34,435-39,540

Boonville  7,095-7,969

St. Joseph  71,852-72,473

Five thousand jobs are gone. Limited population growth in some places or losses in others do not indicate casinos are causing their host cities to flourish. Admission Fees are dropping by the thousands, cutting funding for their host cities in half.

We mentioned in an earlier the industry’s claim that casinos “give back generously. Here’s the truth:

Casino “donations” or “contributions” to local causes are pennies on the dollar. Charitable giving during the last six fiscal years has averaged 0.000391% of their adjusted gross revenues. Their adjusted gross receipts have totaled almost $10.5 Billion in those years and their total charitable giving has been just $4.1 million. That’s less than pocket change.  And most of those who read these entries give far more than four-ten thousandth of our personal revenues to charities each year.

Again, we have charted the “giving generously” figures for each casino for the last six fiscal years. But we don’t have room for the charts in this post.  They are available, though.

A few years ago, casinos started reporting how much their customers left behind for charitable donations.  We have spotted six times when the customers provided more than the casinos did.

And that’s just fine with the industry, which fights every effort to restore funding to the towns that welcomed the casinos as great economic boosts for the area. Maybe for a while they were— thirty years ago.  But now?

The casinos also do not mention fees in Amendment 2, and for millions of reasons. The host cities have been getting the short end of the stick every year and it’s been getting worse for a long time. It is going to get even worse for host cities if sports wagering is approved next month.

I often wonder if the thirteen host cities ever get reports from their association or consider Missouri Gaming Commission annual reports that track how their fee income has fallen off a cliff and sports wagering will not save it.

Do not look for sports wagering to lead to reopened closed restaurants in our casinos. Not if only two percent of the sports bettors walk through the turnstiles. At one time, local restaurants feared the casinos would take away their business.  Today there’s far less competition from the casinos for the restaurant business in many of our towns.

One final thing before we go today:

The sports wagering proposal the casinos want to adopt in this election could be the prototype for expanded remote wagering in all other forms of gambling.  As walk-in traffic continues to dwindle, the casinos will be looking for more remote attachments to existing games.  Some casinos already have stuck their toes in those waters in recent years with hybrid table games—blackjack and other games in which people who can’t find room at the gaming table go to a computer nearby to place their bets.  The tests have not generated many dollars, relatively, but tests have been run.  Don’t be surprised if the casinos come back to our lawmakers and ask for remote slot machines and table games—again paying much less tax than those games pay now. It’s a characteristic of business that stacks the cards only for itself.

(We stayed at a casino hotel a few weeks ago and went to the breakfast bar where we placed an order and were given a tag for our table.  A few minutes later, a robot playing a catchy tune, came around the corner, and came down the aisle to my table, my order on its tray.  I took off the plate and the robot went back to the kitchen, trailing its little melody behind it. One nice thing, I suppose, is that I wasn’t given a choice of 15, 18, or 25 percent for a tip. I found myself wondering how soon there would be robots, not people, dealing the cards or spinning the wheel.)

There go more jobs.

Add the casino host cities  to the list of those whose situations will get worse if Amendment 2 is approved with its sweetheart tax rate, its deductions and carryovers, and its reliance on customers who carry casinos in their pockets.

This kind of thing should be handled by our elected representatives and senators, not written by two industries who place profit over any services to the people of the state.  But we have this proposal because our elected senators and representatives didn’t do their job.  Voters are well-advised to give them another chance by defeating a proposal that enriches the casinos and the pro sports teams and impoverishes our educators, our veterans, and the casinos’ own host cities.

Vote for Amendment 2 if you want.  But don’t do it if you think it will benefit anybody but the casinos and the sports teams, no matter what they tell you on the television or with misinformation you will find in your mailbox.

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“Winning For Education Makes Veterans Bigger Losers

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It’s about the time of year for the casino industry to put out its annual news release that the industry will “honor” veterans on Veterans Day, November 11, in “special ways.”  Veterans can get free or discounted meals (some specify the meals are from a limited menu) that day. They also can get a card for some free play, or spin a wheel for a chance at a free play card, or get complimentary tickets to a casino entertainment venue—stuff like that.

Of course, the casinos hope the veterans will drop a few dollars at the tables or the slot machines while they are there.

The truth is the casinos care about our veterans only in terms of how much they can take from their pockets and with sports wagering, their regard for veterans sinks to a new low.

“We give back generously,” says the industry’s Missouri web page.  Rubbish.

If you are a veteran, know a veteran, and/or are part of a veterans group, you need to read what we are going to tell you today about the sports betting proposal on the November ballot, Amendment 2, and circulate it. It makes our veterans even bigger losers than they have been. The casino industry behind this proposition could have written it to solve a major financial problem affecting our veterans. It did not do it.

Should veterans vote for it?  It’s up to them. But they should understand that the proposal does more TO veterans than it will do for veterans.

Basic fact: Missouri has seven veterans nursing homes that provide 1238 long-term skilled nursing beds. They are in Cameron, Mexico, St. James, Warrensburg, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, and St. James.

Their major source of funding is from the casino $2 admission fee.  Funds raised from that fee go to the Missouri Gaming Commission, which uses some of that money to pay for regulation of the casino industry.  Nine million dollars a year are earmarked for the Access Missouri College Scholarship program and the National Guard Trust Fund that provides money for military rites at veterans’ funerals. A tiny amount goes to deal with problem gambling, if the Mental Health Department asks for it from the commissoion. After those deductions are taken, the remainder goes to the Veterans Commission Capital Improvements Trust Fund—which provides money for the seen nursing homes.

Admissions fees at our casinos that go to the veterans homes have been declining from $30.5 million in fiscal year 2012-2013 to just $11.2 million ten years later, a decline of 63%.

A report given to the Veterans Commission in July showed one-third of the nursing home beds were empty. It also showed the average daily cost of providing care had risen from $265 in 2018 to $469 in 2024, a 77% increase—and the purchasing power of each dollar was about 48 cents. .

Veterans Commission representative Aimee Packard told me last week, “Thankfully, the Governor and General Assembly have provided additional state funding to help ensure we are able to continue to care for Missouri’s Veteran heroes.”

Understand something else. These figures represent raw dollars.  Because the 1993 law that established the two-dollar admission fee had no escalator clause in it, the admission fee has never been increased to account for inflation.  The purchasing power of a 1993 dollar was only 47.5 cents in the most recent fiscal year, meaning the veterans homes are getting far less cash than they did a decade ago while the purchasing power of the buys a lot less at a time when the costs of care are substantially higher.

In other words, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated, as of Monday, the contemporary equivalent of two 1993 dollars is $4.42.  The casinos are paying the state two 1993 dollars with purchasing power of only 92 cents while they keep $2.42 in contemporary money. They are making more money on the admission fees than the state is making.

How’s that for supporting our veterans—which the industry has many times patted itself on the back for doing?

What does this mean for sports wagering and veterans?

Simply this:  Amendment 2 does nothing to stop this admission fee shortfall. Why?

Industry forecasts dating to 2019 were that 90% of all sports wagers would be done remotely within ten  years after the wagering is legalized, meaning there will be no admissions for 90% of all sports wagers.

Will the 10% of bettors who walk through the turnstiles to bet on sports be enough to offset the ongoing 2-3% in overall annual admissions?  If it does, the amount of money generated for veterans will be minimal.

And the casinos will pocket all of the revenue from remote sports betting without “contributing” (as they like to phrase it) a dime to the veterans nursing home fund.

Here’s the truth.  The casinos like to brag that they have “contributed” or “donated” (by now) $400 million to veterans nursing homes.

You know what donations and contributions are, don’t you?  That’s the money  you voluntarily drop into the red kettle at Christmas, the pledge you make to Alzheimer’s Walks and Cancer runs, the envelope you drop in the tray at worship services, the check you write to the United Way.

In 2012, when Governor Nixon asked the legislature to increase the admission fees by one dollar, the casino industry sent letters to Missouri newspapers saying (in excerpts): “As good corporate citizens, casinos do more than their fair share for military veterans…. No single industry in Missouri provides that kind of financial support to veterans programs…. We honor and support our military veterans and will continue to do so, and we ask legislators to find an equitable source of funding for veterans homes.”

No single industry provides that kind of support to veterans?  If the veterans homes had to rely on “that kind of support,” there would be a lot of boarded-up windows and “no trespassing” signs in a neglected yard.

“As good corporate citizens, casinos do more than their fair share for military veterans?”  Doing their “fair share” for veterans. Their fair share has withered in the last decade. The casinos have an interesting definition of “fair share,” don’t they.

With friends such as this, who needs enemies?

Let us be abundantly clear: The casino industry has provided money to the gaming commission and its worthy causes that include veterans only because state law FORCES the industry to make those payments. If this industry was such a great supporter of veterans and their nursing homes, wouldn’t you think it would have voluntarily maintained funding for those it might give a free or reduced-cost meal to on Veterans Day?

The casinos and their sports teams enablers could have written their proposed amendment to establish some kind of remote wagering fee that would stop the financial bleeding for the gaming commission and the veterans nursing homes.

But, no. They didn’t. The casino industry wants to pocket every dime it can, veterans be damned.

So much for giving back generously.

The Veterans Commission Nursing Home program is able to operate only because the legislature for several years has taken money away from other programs to keep the nursing homes open, even at a reduced level.

Before you vote to legalize sports wagering in Missouri, think what you are doing TO  our veterans, not for them.

Ask yourself: to whom do we owe a greater allegiance: casinos and millionaires playing sports—or our veterans.  And our schools.

If a ten percent tax on sports wagering proposed in the sweetheart deal that is called Amendment 2 will generate $100 million dollars for schools in the next five years, that means the casinos are going to have revenues of more than One BILLION dollars.

A few table scraps will fall to the floor for veterans.

Who needs money more—casinos or veterans and schools? Amendment 2 might produce a drop in education’s bucket.  But the veterans bucket will be increasingly dry.

Maybe it would be better for the people you elect to have the courage to represent their constituents on gambling issues.  But it’s going to take more political courage than I have seen for several years to do it.

Think about it. Feel free to circulate these postings to your teachers, teacher groups, and veterans and their groups.

Vote how you want. But understand who will be paying for you to have a chance to lose money betting on a sporting event. Our schools and our veterans, that’s who.

There’s a third group that will get the shaft if Amendment 2 passes: the casinos’ own host cities.  The casinos don’t give a damn about them, either.   That’s next.

One last thing today: We have a comment box at the bottom of each of these entries.  Several months ago, a person with the industry was heard in a crowded restaurant where were having dinner with friends say to them—in a voice loud enough to be heard by many of the other diners, “Don’t listen to him; he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

We invite the casino industry to use that box below to prove it.

Sports: Tigers Get Expected Win; Chiefs Off, Stunning NASCAR Announcement 

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(MIZ)—-Mizzou whomped Massachusetts last weekend. It would be news if they hadn’t, so let’s look ahead to a real-world game against Auburn next Saturday.

Auburn is 2-4 with a 31-13 loss to Georgia before their bye week. They come into the game against Missouri with three single-score losses to Cal, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

It’s Tigers against Tigers on Saturday,  Aubie against Truman in the mascot matchup. Missouri has won seven straight games at Faurot Field.

Missouri started rehabilitating itself against Massachusetts and gaining back two of the 12 slots it lost because of the Texas A&M debacle and heads into the game this weekend 19th and 16th in the polls.

Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze says he “couldn’t be more pleased” with the hard work of his defensive staff. But the Auburn Tigers have given up increasing numbers of points in four straight games with scores of 21-14, 24-14, 27-24, and 31-13.

Freeze says he and Missouri Coach Eli Drinkwitz are “made of a similar mindset of what coaching should be about.” Both were were assistance under Gus Malzahn during Malzahn’s eight-season stretch as head coach at Auburn. He says Missouri has “veteran guys that have proven to be some of the best in this lea whether they’re going against the top-tiered corners and safeties or not…It’s going to be a great test for us.”  Freeze says Auburn has to keep Missouri from making “explosive plays..” noting the matchup of Missouri’s receivers “is not one that you get overjoyed about” when you have a young secondary.

It’s Homecoming in Columbia, where the Tigers are undefeated. But they are 1-3 against Auburn, including a loss in the 2013 SEC championship game. The last time the two teams met, Auburn and Freeze beat Drinkwitz and Missouri 17-14 in overtime. Missouri has not beaten Auburn since 1973.

Missouri has been quiet about the apparent shoulder injury that forced Luther Burden III out of the game Saturday. Drinkwitz has said he will wait until the SEC injury report tomorrow to have more information.

(TIGER BASETBALL)—The media has pretty low expectations for Missouri basketball this season.  The conference basketball writers poll slots the Tigers men at 13th in the SEC this year. Missouri has been shut out in the pre-season list of the top three all-conference player list.

Statistician Kem Pomeroy’s KenPom rankings also puts Missouri 13th in the SEC and 53rd in the nation despite the Tigers having a top-13 transfer class and a top-five recruiting class.

Missouri will start trying to prove the raters wrong on November 4th when they open at Memphis.

The sports writers don’t expect much more from the Missouri women. They are picked to finish 15th in the SEC, with only Arkansas getting less respect in the pre-season outlook.  Tiger women were 2-14 in the conference last year which is two more wins than the men’s team got. The lady Tigers have no players on the first or second pre-season all-conference teams.

Tiger women tip off the season against Vermont, in Burlington.  They start the season with two true freshmen and four new transfers. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—Rashee Rice has had surgery on his injured knee. The good news is that it’s not a torn ACL.  The bad news, according to coach Andy Reid, is that it’s the posterolateral corner that was hurt.  “It’s probably the same result you’d get time-wise ,” says Reid. “It takes a while for that to come back.

Latest word on wide receiver Hollywood Brown: Don’t look for him this year. He’ll remain on the Il with his shoulder injury until the end of 2024.

And Isiah Pacheco: He has no timeline as he recovers from a broken fibula.

(BASEBALL)—The Royals finished off a gratifying season with a loss in the second round of the American League playoffs. The Cardinals packed it in after the regular 162 games.

Now will come weeks of speculation about trades, losses, desertions, free agent movements, and what the team should do and what trades it should make and so on and so forth.

When the teams DO something, it will appear in this column.

(SPORTS WAGERING)—Missourians will vote next month on whether to make betting on sports legal in this state.  Regular readers of bobpriddy.net know that your observer of the sports scene doesn’t mind people voting on the issue but they realize he considers the casino proposal disingenuous at best and filled with lies at the worst.

Do what you want, but don’t vote for sports wagering with the idea that you’ll be doing anything noble for education—or for anybody else but the casinos and the teams.  And watch for whether any of the teams expecting taxpayers to build them billion-dollar stadia or making millions of dollars in improvements on existing playing fields indicate they’ll spend any of the betting profits on those projects, thus lessening the investments they expect Missourians far from those playing fields to pay for.

So much for the stick and ball stuff.  Motorsports is in some turmoil as this article goes to press this week.

(NASCAR)—Is he in or is he out?  The answer for Alex Bowman is “out.” How can a car pass a technical inspection before a race and then lose so much weight during the race that it is ruled out of the playoffs after apparently making it to the semi-final round of eight?

It’s because Bowman’s car DID lose weight during the race.  Bowman was running 18th at the end of the race and would have been among the eight remaining drivers for the next three races before a final four drivers are decided.  But the disqualification of his car cost him 28 standing points and dropped him from sixth to ninth in the standings. Some of the points had been given him as the winner of the second stage of the race.  His demotion to last place, officially, means the stage winner was A. J. Almendinger, who is 46th in overall points.

A dash cam video from a competitor’s car saw Bowman’s car hitting a curb on the infield section of the Charlotte Roval, and a piece of the car’s underbelly flew off.  The piece appeared to be a rub block, a piece of hard rubber on the underside of the car that keeps the underbelly from hitting the pavement when the car becomes briefly airborne.

After reviewing events of the race, Hendrick Motorsports announced yesterday that it would not appeal the ruling.

Bowman’s disqualification puts two-time Cup champion Joey Logano back in the playoffs by four points.  Dropping out besides Bowman are Austin Cindric, Ty Gibbs, and Chase Briscoe.

Kyle Larson’s sixth victory of the year puts him back in the points lead by twenty points over Christopher Bell. They are trailed by Tyler Reddick, whose car was damaged in an early race crash that left him 26th in the late stages and below the cut line. Reddick ran a relentless final stage of the race and finished high enough to make the round of eight by three points over Logano. The Bowman disqualification  and Reddick’s run left Reddick third in the points standings heading to Vegas. He is trailed by William Byron, defending champion Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Logano.  Elliott won the championship in 2020. Logano was the series champion in 2018 and 2022. Larson got the Cup in 2021. Hamlin has made the final four four times without winning a championship and is spoken of as a latter-day Mark Martin who finished second in the standings five times but never won the big trophy.

The next round of races that will see the field cut from eight to four begins next Sunday at Las Vegas.

(INDYCAR)—The season is over but preparations for 2025 put eleven drivers back at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for more testing of the hybrid powerplant the teams used for the second half of the season. Each team in IndyCar was represented by one of its drivers.

Series champion Alex Palou had the hot lap at 224.342 mph, slightly faster than defending Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden’s 223.973.

IndyCar returns March 2nd at St. Petersburg, Florida, a street race.

 

 

“Winning for Education” Makes Losers of Teachers, Veterans

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If you are a teacher, know a teacher, and/or are part of a teacher’s organization, you need to read what we are going to tell you about the sports betting proposal on the November ballot, Amendment 2, which is deceptive and hardly moves the financial needle for teacher’s salaries.

If you are a veteran, know a veteran, and/or are part of a veterans group, you need to read what we are going to tell you on Wednesday about the sports betting proposal on the November ballot, Amendment 2. It makes veterans even bigger losers than they have been.

Today we’re going to talk about the casino industry’s manipulation of voters with its campaign that will not deliver, by far, the great benefits to public education system the casino industry wants voters to think it will.

We are going to throw a lot of numbers your way today. The numbers are based on the casino industry’s own statistics as reported annually to the Missouri Gaming Commission and a couple of other sources.

They again suggest the casino industry is not shooting straight with us. But that’s not unusual.

We do not mind if you favor sports wagering.  But if you vote for it on the basis of the advertising by “Winning for Education,” the front organization for the casinos and their sports team bedmates, you need to know what you are doing TO our teachers, not for our teachers.

First: some basic information.  Missouri’s thirteen casinos generate revenue for state programs and services from two sources: a 21% tax on casino adjusted gross revenues (what’s left after all successful bettors are paid off) and admission fees ($2 per admission; we won’t distract you with the process of determining admissions; that’s for our next post about making veterans bigger losers than they have been for more than a decade).

Missouri had 521 school districts in fiscal year 2023. We will use that number in our calculations. It had 88,669 classroom teachers and 18,097 administrators and supervisors (including people such as guidance counselors, school nurses, and librarians), in 2,355 buildings.  The enrollment for the 2022-23 school year was 861,494.

The legislature approved a budget for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education of $10,394,092,704 for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

Gaming consultant Chris Krafcik estimates total state revenue from the 10% tax on sports wagering will produce $4.7 million in the first year and $38.7 million in the fifth year of sports betting.

If we divide those figures by 521, the number of school districts, we find that sports wagering will produce an average of only $9,021 per district in the first year.  In year five, the number rises to $74,280 per district.

If we divide those numbers by 88,669 (the number of classroom teachers listed above) we find the average teacher could get a raise of $53.00 in the first year and a raise of $436 in the fifth year. Not even close to keep up with the cost of living.

If we spread those amounts among teachers AND administrators, all 106,756 of them, the average wage increase in the first year is $44 and in year five, it is $369.

That’s less than a tank of gas in the first year and not many groceries in the fifth one.

If, after looking at these numbers, that you still believe the industry commercials saying sports wagering will make any significant difference in the Missouri teacher salaries, I will sell you the Gateway Arch. The attractive teachers in the commercials who talk of sports wagering generating more than $100 million dollars in five years are blowing smoke.  While the statement might be true in terms of raising that amount of money, the suggestion that it will produce anything meaningful for teachers is cattle byproduct.

Let’s assume the elementary and secondary education budget does not increase in the next five years.  Simple division indicates $38.7 million for education in the fifth year of sports wagering would add .00037% to that budget.  Four ten-thousandths of one percent, to round things up.

It’s even worse. These numbers only involve elementary and secondary education.  The proposed amendment says funds will go to higher education, too.

Missouri has SIXTY-SEVEN institutions that are accredited as degree-granting post-secondary education institutions. There are thirteen public universities.  There are 39 private universities (which are not excluded. The language of the amendment says only “higher education.”), and thirteen community colleges.  There also are some schools from other states that offer programs or degrees in Missouri.  The amendment contains no language limiting the funding to public post-secondary schools, not does it address in any way those out-of=state institutions with degree programs here.

We haven’t come up with how many faculty, staff, and administrative employees those higher education institutions would add to the pie.

But the school won’t get all of that money to begin with, assuming there is money from casino taxes.

Money for education will not be used for education until amounts are taken out for:

—Regulation.   The Missouri Gaming Commission can have some of that money if the various licensing fees casinos will pay do not fully pay the costs of regulation, and

—“the greater of 10% of such annual tax revenues or $5,000,000 to the Compulsive Gamblers Fund.”

Those paltry raises we’ve calculated for our elementary and secondary school folks might wind up being measured in pennies, or pocket change.

If, after looking at these numbers, that you still believe the industry commercials saying sports wagering will make any significant difference in the Missouri teacher salaries, I will sell you the Gateway Arch. The attractive teachers in the commercials who talk of sports wagering generating more than $100 million dollars in five years are blowing smoke.  While the statement might be true in terms of raising that amount of money, the suggestion that it will produce anything meaningful for teachers is cattle byproduct.

Let’s assume the elementary and secondary education budget does not increase in the next five years.  Simple division indicates $38.7 million for education in the fifth year of sports wagering would add .00037% to that budget.  Four ten-thousandths of one percent, to round things up.

And that doesn’t even calculate how much MORE education would get if sports wagering would be taxed at the same rate as other forms of Missouri gambling, 21%.  But Amendment 2 sets a rate at less than half of that and then has provisions that can significantly lower taxable revenue or even make it a deficit, meaning there will be some months when the casinos put NO money into the education fund.

The amendment also allows casinos to carry over the loss to the next month’s calculations, lowering tax revenue for that month too—or increasing the possibility that a casino can calculate another zero-revenue/zero tax month.

In the 2023 legislative session, a Senate bill proposed boosting the minimum teacher’s salary from $25,000 to $38,000 and increasing the salary for a teacher with a master’s degree and at least ten years of experience from $33,000 to $46,000.  The bill never came to a vote because of internal dissension within the Senate, thanks to the Freedom Caucus.

The National Education Association  April 24, 2023 released a report showing Missouri ranks 50th in starting teacher pay with an average of $34,502 with only 43 districts paying started new teachers $40,000 or more. The report calculated a minimum living wage was $46,944.

A World Population Review study of 2024 salaries lists Missouri as one of seven states starting teachers at less than  $50,000 with only Montana paying less.  The overall Missouri average teacher salary in this study is $53,999, ranking Missouri 46th ahead of Mississippi, South Dakota, Florida, and West Virginia.

Yeah, sports wagering will solve a lot of problems with our teacher salaries and other education system problems.. Suuuure it will.

Don’t bet on sports wagering because it will do wonderful things for our schools. It won’t.  Amendment 2 just makes the drop in the bucket even smaller, thanks to the sweetheart tax rate and the deductions that now will allow a reduction of taxable revenue.

We aren’t sure why any dubious proposition that appears on our ballots thinks it can succeed by telling you it will do great things for education. They don’t. And this one surely won’t.

Governor Joe Teasdale once told me, “I’ll never lie to you but there will be times when I won’t tell you the truth.”   I interpreted the second half of that sentence to contradict the first.  But that’s the kind of disinformation campaign being waged by the casino industry and its bedmates, our major league sports teams.

But what do you expect from an industry that is built on the concept that you will be a loser more often than you will be a winner?

Give your local education leaders these numbers and see how many of your teachers would make commercials endorsing this proposal.

Amendment 2 will be a loser for our schools.  You can bet on it.