Sports: Kansas City Doubles UP; Mizzou Doubles Down (and more)

Posted on October 8, 2024 by bpriddy

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals come home for a pair of games, starting tomorrow, after splitting two playoff games in Yankee Stadium. Yankees starter Carlos Rodon’s fun night lasted three innings before longtime nemesis Salvador Perez ripped a fourth-inning home run that helped the Royals take a 4-0 lead. The Yankees later cut the lead in half but the bullpen again held tight at the end.

The stars of both teams, Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr., were not factors in either game. Witt went 0 for five. Judge had a hit in three at-bats.

Royals starter Cole Ragans struggled through four uneven innings (five K’s and 4 walks, three hits and the Yankees’ first run) but four relievers kept the Yankees at bay until Jazz Chisholm’s solo homer in the 9^th. Rodon struck out the side in the first inning, finished with seven of them, but also gave up all four runs on seven hits. The Yankees wound up using seven other pitchers.

(CHIEFS)—Now, this is more like it. The Kansas City Chiefs are 5-0 for the first time since Patrick Mahomes’ first season, 2018. Mahomes passing and power running by the rejuvenated Kareem Hunt gave the Chiefs a 400-yard offense and a 26-13 win going into a bye week.

The Chiefs had to settle for field goals instead of touchdowns four times, however, and none of Mahomes’ passes were for touchdowns. Mahomes finished 28 for 39 with 313 yards including 102 to JuJu Smith-Schuster and another 70 to Travis Kelce.

(MIZ)—The real world has come to the Missouri Tigers. They threw away their top ten ranking against Texas A&M in an embarrassing beat-down Saturday that dropped them from ninth in the ratings to 18^th in one and 21^st in another.

The results come after a four wins, one of which was a hairbreadth win over Vanderbilt. But maybe that win was underrated against a team considered an SEC doormat.

The doormat beat previously second-rated Alabama 40-35 in Nashville.

USA Today’s Dan Wolken did a scathing review of the losses by Alabama and Missouri, among others last weekend:

Alabama’s flop at Vanderbilt leads college football Misery Index after Week 6 (msn.com)

The loss to A&M is the worst Tiger loss since the 66-24 hammering administered by Tennessee in 2022. Missouri had only 254 yards of total offense while the devense was

It was the greatest margin of defeat for Missouri since a 66-24 loss at Tennessee in 2022. The Aggies out gained the Tigers 512 to 254 yards in a dominating effort, at least by A&M

Missouri has Massachusetts on the schedule for a feel-good fifth win against a lesser school next Sunday. UMass is 1-5 after a 34-20 loss to Northern Illinois last weekend.

(CARDINALS)—The St. Louis Cardinals have decided Turner Ward isn’t the answer to the team’s offense. He’s been fired as the hitting coach after a year in which the Cardinals lacked a consistent offense, especially getting runners in scoring position across the plate.

Ward had a 12-year playing career. The Cardinals were his third team as a hitting coach. Oliver Marmol will be back as the manager but the team indicates his coaching staff is unknown for now.

The Cardinals finished 12^th in the National League in runs, 12^th in home runs and 13^th in runs batted in. Opponents outscored them by 47 runs.

Also not back, apparently, will be Matt Carpenter, who will start a broadcasting career on the MLB Network during the playoffs. He finished his fourteenth major league season (with three teams) by hitting .234 this year with four homers and 15 RBIs. He only batted 157 times.

(NASCAR)—Another non-playoff driver has played the role of a spoiler in the chase for the Cup Championship—Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who beat Brad Keselowski by six-thousands of a second. It’s not a record by a long shot (or short shot). But what is a record is the crash five laps from the scheduled end of the race that involved 27 cars. Thirteen cars were not involved in that one, a few that had been sidelined by earlier shuts. Seventeen drivers finished on the lead lap because their cars were not damaged or were not damaged enough to be sidelined.

The crash provided a reprieve for some drivers outside the cutline for the next round of the playoffs and was a setback to some others headed for much better finishers.

Next weekend’s race on the Charlotte Roval (the road course inside the oval course) will determine which eight drivers will stay in the hunt for the Cup. Chase Elliott holds eighth place in the points, thirteen points ahead of Joey Logano and twenty up on Daniel Suarez. Austin Cindric and Chase Brisco seem to need a victory to make the next round.

Stenhouse’s win is his first in 65 races. He becomes the latest driver to end a long winless streak this year. His win is the third one in the first five playoff races taken by a non-playoff driver.

(INDYCAR)—Michael Andretti has sent his fans a message—that “decades of running flat out doesn’t come without sacrifice” and it’s time to turn his team over to his partner, Dan Towriss. He says it’s time “to spend more time with my beautiful family, including my 10-year old twins, embrace my new Nonno title and explore new things on a personal level and with my other businesses.”

Andretti, who is 62 and the son of Mario, has been racing cars for more than forty years either as a driver or an owner (he was a go-kart terror as a kid, winning 50 of 75 races, starting when he was 11. He drove his first championship-level open wheel race for the CART series in 1983. He won the championship four times. His 42 wins rank him fifth on the all-time IndyCar list. He holds the unfortunate record of leading the most Indianapolis 500 laps without winning the race—as a driver.

He retired from full-time racing in 2003 and bought into a team owned by Kim and Barry Green. The team has grown in the years since and is now known as Andretti Global. It has won national championships and he finally posted wins in the 500, as an owner.

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IndyCar is adding a unique race to its schedule in 2026—-a race in Arlington, Texas that will have the cars running a 2.73-mile course around the stadiums where the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers play. The race is scheduled for March 26, after the football season and just before baseball season starts.

Sports: 7-Come-11 for Mizzou; Chiefs Escape Again; Royals in Danger; Cardinals Fans Send Message; and other stuff.

Posted on September 27, 2024 by bpriddy

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(For the few who follow these sports musings, my computer seems to have become confused about posting sports entries. So before the weeks is out, and for the historical record, this post is finally being posted, albeit several hours late).

(WANNA BET?)—-Before we dive into our weekly sports talk today, we want to call your attention to the first of a series of posts on your editor’s blog about the upcoming statewide vote on Sports Wagering. If you go to bobpriddy.net and look for the entry for September 16, you will read about why sports betting might be fun for you but it will not be what the casino industry and our pro sports teams are telling you in their commercials. We take no position on the issue itself but our pro sports teams have hitched their wagons to the casino industry and the casino industry is not shooting straight with Missouri voters. In later posts, we’ll tell you why Amendment Two is not only NOT good for our schools, it’s terrible for our veterans and even for the host cities of our casinos.

Now, on with our regular show.

(MIZZ)—Missouri’s attempt to avoid a defeat from traditional SEC doormat Vanderbilt cost it some early-season esteem. The Tigers dropped from 7^th to 11^th in the AP poll after slipping past the Commodores 30-27 in an overtime game more notable for what didn’t happen than what did.

Missouri won the statistical battle with 442 yards of offense to Vanderbilt’s 324, but erratic field goal kicking and the inability to cross the goal line once they reached the red zone left a lot of fans frustrated. While the 442 yards might seem impressive, the 188 yards gained that did result in any scores is a telling statistic.

Missouri’s offense never seemed to find a rhythm while Vanderbilt’s quarterback Diego Pavia harassed the defense, beginning with a 60-yard TD pass that put Missouri into a 7-0 hole early. When Missouri was able to go up 20-13 in the third quarter, Pavia led Vanderbilt on an 80-yard touchdown drive to tie.

The fourth quarter provided a touchdown apiece but neither team could find the traction to take control.

Both teams scored touchdowns in the first overtime. In the second overtime, Missouri field goal kicker Blake Craig, who had an uneven day, got a field goal and when Vanderbilt stalled, its kicker, who had a slightly less uneven day, made his day, and his teams day, even worse by hooking the ball to the left.

Coach Drinkwitz, his staff, and his players have two weeks to figure out why the coffee hasn’t perked in the last two games. They’ll play their first road game against Texas A&M on October 5. (ZOU)

(CONNOR WHO?)—Remember Connor Bazelack, who bolted from Missouri to become a high-expectation quarterback at Indiana? He fled there for Bowling Green last year and decided to stay this year. Last Saturday, Bowling Green played Missouri’s next opponent, Texas A&M and lost 26-20. Bazelak gave his team a chance to take a late lead when he threw a 65-yard touchdown pass but A&M recovered an onside kick with 38-seconds left to kill the Falcons’ chances.

Bowling Green is 1-2 with losses to then-eighth ranked Penn State, and then-25^th ranked A&M by a total of 13 points.

Bazelak had two seasons at Missouri before one year at Indiana, where he set a school record with 66 pass attempts in one game. He threw for 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions before heading to Bowling Green for 2023. He led the Falcons to the Quick Lane Bowl against Minnesota. His team led 10-9 at the half but lost 3024. Bazelak passed for one touchdown and ran for another. Afterward, he said he would stay at Bowling Green in hopes of winning a MAC championship.

(LOOKING AHEAD)—We are only six weeks away from the first Missouri Tiger basketball game. November 4, against Memphis, in Memphis. Missouri will have a chance to win its first SEC game since 2022 when it plays Auburn on January 4. Missouri has a 20-game SEC losing streak going, including a tournament loss in 2023, and all 19 games (including the tournament) last year.

On to pro sports—-

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs played just well enough to win against the Atlanta Falcons although Falcons fans think the refs were the 12^th player in red Sunday night.
The Chiefs survived 22-17, thanks to two stout late-game efforts by the defense, one of which appeared to have some officiating help (at least, to hear Atlanta fans and players speak).

Falcons QB Kirk Cousins, with 4:12 left in the game, had receiver Kyle Pitts in the Chiefs’ end zone, with smaller Chiefs safety Bryan Cook covering him. Cook appeared to be face-guarding Pitts, not following the flight of the ball, and appeared to hit Pitts early. After the game, referee Tra Blank told the Atlanta Constitution why no red flag was thrown—because the officials in the moment and from their positions “did not feel that there was a foul committed.” Pass interference calls are not reviewable, so officials could not check other views in the video system.

After the game, Atlanta coach Raheem Morris refused to comment, perhaps fearing a fine frmthe NFL for criticizing the referees: “I like my money. I’m smart enough to be aware not to dunk on the officials. They made the call, or didn’t make the call, it is what it is.” He also noted the Falcons had another chance to win it, on the final play but failed.

The Chiefs have gone fourteen games without scoring thirty points. They are 9-5 in those games.

Travis Kelce against was not much of a factor, with four catches for 30 yards. After the game, Patrick Mahomes told Sports Illustrated after the game that a lot of plays are being called for Kelse but “it’s like two or three (defenders) are going to him…I’m going to do my best to keep feeding him the ball whenever he’s there, whenever he’s open.” Mahomes thinks things will open up for Kelce as Rashee Rice and speedster Xavier Worthy, joined by a robust run game, get more involved.

(CARDINALS)—Only three questions remain for the Cardinals: whether they will finish at .500 or a little bit better, who won’t be back next year, and whether Ollie Marmol one of those who won’t be.

Last Friday’s loss to the Cleveland Guardians put the final nail in the playoff hopes coffin. This season is only the third time this Century the Cardinals haven’t had any postseason opportunities.

The ‘Birds started the week 79-77. If they play .500 ball in their last two series, they’ll finish above break even.

Cardinal fans have sent a message that they’re not attracted to mediocrity or worse for a second straight year. The end of the last homestand of the year left total attendance for 2024 at 2,869,783, the first time it’s been less than three-million since the latest Busch Stadium opened in 2006.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals are in danger of playing themselves out of the playoffs after a season that has brought a lot of hope and expectation from the fans. But a disastrous week that has resulted in seven straight losses six to the Tigers and the Giants, have them on the brink of failure to make the playoffs for the first time since their World Series championship year of 2015. They started the week at 82-74, tied with Detroit for the second wild card spot. Minnesota is only one game back with six games left.

Sports Illustrated reports the Royals are at the bottom of the statistics in home runs, slugging percentage ad OPS and they have missed repeated chances to get a runner home from second base.

They have six games this week against the Washington Nationals (69-87) and the Atlanta Braves (85-71 and hoping to make the NL playoffs), all on the road.

Minnesota dropped out of a possible three-way tie for a playoff spot by losing a doubleheader to Boston Sunday. If Kansas City and Detroit finish with the same records next weekend, Kansas City gets in because it has a winning record against Detroit this year.

Motoring on:

(NASCAR)—The field of playoff drivers eligible for the NASCAR Cup this year was winnowed from sixteen to twelve Saturday night at Bristol won by Kyle Larson in the most dominating performance in track history. He took the lead on lap 35 and led 462 of the remaining 465 laps, giving up the lead only during pit stops. It’s his fifth win of the year, the most of any driver.

The race eliminated Ty Gibbs, who finished 15^th; Martin Truex Jr., who was 24^th; Brad Keselowski, finishing 26^th; and Harrison Burton, who was 35^th. Larson leads the points for the remaining twelve drivers: Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Willliam Byron, defending champion Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman, and Chase Briscoe.

Both Gibbs and Truex, who are teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing, were fast enough to contend for a slot in the second round. But they were TOO fast at a couple of critical points. Truex was .09 mph too fast leaving his pit stall and Gibbs was too fast coming into the pits. The penalties put both at the back of the pack. Keselowski, who owns part of the Roush Fenway Keselowski racing team never found the speed he needed, starting 23^rd but never running in the top tier and finishing three laps off the pace. Burton, who entered the playoffs 34^th in regular season points but eligible because he won a race, was 78 laps behind but still running at the end, when he finished 35^th in the 37-car field.

The first race in the next round will be Sunday at the Kansas Speedway. The playoff field will be narrowed to eight after the next three races.

(INDYCAR)—IndyCar has established its charter system, seen as an underpinning of the future stability of the series. Ten teams have accepted charters for 25 cars that will be guaranteed starting positions in all races in the series except the Indianapolis 500. Penske Entertainment President Mark Miles calls the system “an aligned and optimistic vision” that “provides greater value for our ownership and the entries they field.”

The charter system guarantees 25 cars will compete for 22 positions in the series Leaders Circle program, a system that provides more than one-million dollars per car, based on a points schedule, to qualifying teams. A team also has to make the field in the Indianapolis 500 to be eligible for the funds.

Several teams will have three regular-season entrants: Andretti Global, Arrow McLaren, Chip Ganassi Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan, and Team Penske. With two are A. J. Foyt Enterprises, Dale Coyne, Ed Carpenter,, Juncos Hollinger, and Meyer Shank Racing.

The first race for the new system will be March 2 on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida.

(FORMULA 1)—McLaren’s Lando Norris led from the start to a 30-second lead at the finish to win the Singapore Grant Prix and take another bite out of the big points lead Max Verstappen built up in the first half of the Formula 1 season. But F1 numbers-crunchers say that there aren’t enough races for Norris to overtake Verstappen even if he wins all seven remaining races and Norris finishes second in all of them, a highly-unlikely event.

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Chiefs Win by a Foot But Break a Leg; Tigers Drop: Cardinals becalmed; Royals Having Historic Year; and some other stuff.

Posted on September 19, 2024 by bpriddy

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs have started the season 2-0 against stiff opposition, thanks to an opponent’s toe being out of bounds at the end of the game and then thanks to the foot of kicker Harrison Butker, who nailed a 51-yard field goal as the clock ran down to 0:00.

This one was another close call for Kansas City, a team once known for its high-scoring offense. The Chiefs have yet to hit 30 points this year and have done it only once in their last twelve regular-season games, and not at all in their last ten. Two years ago, the Chiefs had eight games of 30 or more and three in which they got 40 or more. They’ve hit forty only once in their last 25 games.

The Chiefs announced yesterday that their featured running back, Isiah Pacheco, suffered a fractured fibula, the small bone in the leg, and will be out for at least six weeks. With Clyde Edwards Hillaire on the non-football injured list to deal with PTSD, the Chiefs have Samaje Perine and Carson Steele as the only running backs on the 53-man roster. Perine was signed after being cut by Denver after spending nine seasons bouncing around in Washington, Cincinnati, and Miami. Steele is a rookie. Both have seen limited action this year.

Reports indicate the Chiefs are bringing former running back Kareem Hunt in for a look-see. He was with the Chiefs in 2017 and 2018, led the league in rushing as a rookie in ’07 and was second in the ROTY voting. He was cut after eleven games of the 2018 season after a video showed him knocking down a woman and kicking her. He’s been with the Browns for most of the last five seasons but has never come close to his performance with the Chiefs.

Next week, the Chiefs play a Sunday night game against the Falcons in Atlanta. The Falcons opened the season with an 18-10 loss to the Steelers. Last night they were on the road against the Eagles.

(MIZ)—Missouri came back to beat Boston College Saturday, then the nation’s 24^th ranked team, moving them up from 10^th to 9^th in the ESPN Power rankings. Mizzou was down 14-3 before reeling off 24 unanswered points and being far enough ahead that fans didn’t have to worry about a loss as BC headed for its final touchdown with little time left.

Missouri went into the game ranked 6^th in the AP poll but dropped a slot as Tennessee hammered Kent State 62-0 while the Tigers at times struggled against a ranked opponent (that is no longer ranked this week).

Tennessee also vaulted past Missouri in the coaches poll where the Tigers are 8^th, tied with Penn State. Missouri is 3-0. Penn State is 2-0.

Quarterback Brady Cook moved into fourth place on the all-time Tiger passing yards list with a 21 for 30 day and 264 yards. He moves past Jeff Handy and James Franklin.

Next up is Vanderbilt, led by quarterback Diego Pavia, who has completed 65% of his passes for four touchdowns and 543 yards. He also has run for 195 yards on 54 carries. His top receiver is Eli Stowers with a dozen catches for 163 yards and a touchdown.

Missouri is 12^th in the country in offensive yards. Vanderbilt is 77^th. Defensively, Missouri is 8^th in defensive yards. Vanderbilt is 57^th.

(THE REGIONALS)—From time to time we’ll check up on our eight regional universities.

The Southeast Missouri State Red Hawks are 2-1 after beating the University of Tennessee-Martin 45-42 in double overtime Saturday. Paxton DeLaurent threw for a school-record six touchdowns, his fifth one for the tie (after the extra point) with 39 seconds on the clock.

Missouri University of Science and Technology is 1-2 after pounding winless Lincoln of California 45-6.

Truman State and University of Indianapolis had back-to back 96-yard kickoff returns in Saturday’s UINDY 41-34 win that dropped the Bulldogs to 0-2.

Northwest Missouri Bearcats beat 25^th ranked Fort Hays state 32-20 Saturday to up their record to 1-2. Next up is Missouri Southern.

Missouri Southern dropped to 0-3 with a loss to Missouri Western 35-27.

Missouri Western is 2-1 after the win against Southern. Western scored on three of its first four possessions and got a 105-yard kickoff return from Javerious McGuinn at the end of the third quarter and then had to hang on for the victory.

Missouri State dropped beat Lindenwood 28-14 to go to 1-2 after season-opening losses to Ball State and Montana.

Lincoln University is 0-2 after a 34-19 loss to McKendree.

University of Central Missouri and Central Oklahoma lost a wild game that began with a scoreless first quarter, then saw 42 points scored in the second quarter, 27 in the third and 28 in the fourth. Central Oklahoma prevailed 57-40 in a game with more than 1200 yards of offense.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals have guaranteed they’ll have their first winning season since their 2015 World Championship year. Saturday’s win over the Pirates was their 82^nd of the year. At 82-68, with eleven games left, they could lock up their playoff spot this week. Their magic number is eight.

Michael Wacha picked up his 13^th win on Saturday to run his season to 13-7. He’s 38-13 in his last three seasons for the Red Sox, Padres, and the Royals, the best three years of his career. He’s expected to become a free agent after this year.

They started the week four games out of first place in their division but just five games behind the Yankees for the best record in the American League.

(CARDINALS)—-The Pirates swept a weekend series with the Cardinals and in the process eliminated any change they had of making the playoffs. The Cardinals start the week at 74-75 as they play out the string on a season that saw them struggle to get to .500 and fail to stay above break even very long. They peaked in July when they climbed six games above break even, at 48-42 on July 8^th.

The monthly records show the slog through 2024:

March and April 14-16

May 13-12

June 16-12

July 13-12

August 12-16

September (through Sunday) 6-7

Remember Matt Adams, a slugger who had his moments but never became the “Big” to match his nickname, “Big City?” He wants to retire as a Redbird, so he’s being signed to a one-day contract on Wednesday. He’s been playing minor league ball the last four seasons after the Braves dropped him at the end of 2020. The Cardinals drafted him 2009 and he played his first game for them in 2012. He helped the Cardinals win the 2013 National League Pennant. He had seven years with St. Louis and also played for the Braves, Rockies, and the Nationals—where he won a World Series ring in 2019. He and his family live in St. Louis. He finished with a .258 batting average, 118 homers and 297 RBIs in 856 games, mostly as a first baseman.

Motoring on:

(INDYCAR)—And suddenly, the IndyCar season is gone and a championship chase that had gone to the last race vanished in the opening laps. Colton Herta won the fiercely-contested race that saw 237 passes for position.

Alex Palou became the 13^th driver in series history to win three championships, all in the space of four years. Will Power, who hoped to win HIS third series championship, saw those hopes vanish 13 laps into the 206-lap race when his lap belt came loose. He finished eight laps down, 24^th, the last car still running at the end of the race.

He’s the second-youngest driver to win three series championships, at 27 years, five months, and fourteen days. He’s a little more than three months older than Sam Hornish, who won his third title in 2006, a year before he left IndyCar to race in NASCAR.

The last three-time champion was Dario Franchitti, who won three in a row 2009-2011 to go with another one in 2007. They have accounted for six of the 16 championships won for team owner Chip Ganassi. Only team Penske has more series titles—17. Franchitti, who also won the Indianapolis 500 three times, retired in 2013 after being seriously injured in a crash. He remains with Ganassi as a driver coach and advisor.

Herta got past Pato O’Ward four laps from the end and pulled away to a 1.8-second win, his first on an oval.. IndyCar returned to the oval for the first time since 2008 because construction in downtown Nashville made the street circuit used in recent years unavailable.

Herta’s victory enabled him to jump to second in season points standings, 31 below Palou. He called his finish “awesome,” and said, “hoping to do a little better next year.”

IndyCar won’t race again until March 2 when the 2025 season begins with the traditional street race in St. Petersburg, Florida.

(NASCAR)—Sundays’ race at Watkins Glen was a general disaster for the 16 drivers still in contention for the NASCAR championship, leaving six drivers to scramble for two positions in the next round.

Chris Buescher, winless during the 26-race regular season, survived the chaos of the race that saw only two of the sixteen playoff drivers finish in the top ten. He passed Shane VanGisbergen, a road-racing champion from Australia, on the last lap and won by almost a second. Playoff driver Chase Briscoe was the highest-finishing playoff driver, finishing fifth. Austin Cindric was tenth.

Buescher barely missed the playoffs when Brisco, winless until the 26^th race, pulled off a victory that automatically put him in the playoffs but left Buescher a few points short of the field of sixteen.

Twelve of the sixteen playoff drivers suffered mishaps of various degrees of seriousness during the race. Several contenders didn’t make it through the first lap including points leader Ryan Blaney, whose day ended in a tangle that also included other playoff drivers, Christopher Bell, Brad Keselowski (a part owner of Buescher’s car), and Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin was involved in a second wreck that also included Bell, regular season champion Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott and William Byron.

Both drivers were able to drive away from the scariest-looking crash of the afternoon late in the race when Byron (24) crashed into Brad Keselowski with Byron’s car staying on the track only because of an extra layer at the top of the steel barrier.

(FORMULA 1)—Oscar Piastri picked up his second career Grand Prix victory on the Baku street circuit in Azerbaijan. Piastri, who started second, battled pole-sitter Charles Leclerc throughout the race and held him off for the last 31 laps of the 51-lap race. Defending Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen finished seventh but still leads McLaren’s Lando Norris by 59 points and Leclerc by 78. Piastri’s win has moved him to fourth in the standings.

(Photo credits: Cook, Missouri Athletics; Wacha, MLB; Palou, Bob Priddy; Herta, Rick Gevers; Crash; NBC Sports screenshot)

Sports: Royals Bounce Back; Tigers Move Up, Chiefs Win Because of a Black Shoe, Missourians in Paris, and other stuff.

Posted on September 10, 2024 by bpriddy

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(The sports entry for last Tuesday never made it into print and we blame our computer. The opening segment about Missourians at the Paralympics in Paris was the lead article and we have moved it to today because it’s important that they be honored for their efforts, even if we are a week late. The same is true for our roundup of Missouri football players and the NFL).

(PARALYMPICS)—Several Missourians have been competing for Olympic medals in the last few days in Paris—at the Paralympics.

Colleen Young, who was born with albinism and is legally blind, was in her fourth Paralympics as a swimmer, a silver and bronze medalist in the Tokyo games and a bronze medalist at Rio de Janeiro. She brought home a bronze medal in the 100m breaststroke. She is part of the women’s 200 meter Individual Medley team. She was part of the women’s 200m individual medley that finished seventh.

St. Louis University Occupational Therapy Professor Sarah Adam is the first woman to make the USA wheelchair rugby team, which knocked defending champion Great Britain of the tournament. Team leader Chuck Aoki, who passed to Adam for the backbreaking score in the game said, “Sarah is a dynamic player offensively, and defensively too – she’s so fast and able to find gaps in the defense and attack, and that makes my job easier. Sarah is an absolute massive contributor.” Also on the team is Eric Newby, a graduate of Maryville University in St. Louis, who was the co-captain of the team after winning silver medals in the last two Paralympics. The USA team, however, lost in the gold medal game to Japan. Adam returns to her job at St. Louis U with a silver medal.

University of Missouri-Columbia sophomore Amaris Vazquez Collazo carried the Puerto Rican flag in the opening ceremonies as a competitor in the long jump. Her parents moved to St. Louis when she was three years old, a year after she received her first prosthetic leg. She says she has told everybody since she was eight years old that she was going to compete in the 2024 Olympics. You can see her story at Bing Videos. She finished 12^th in the long jump.

Spencer Seggebruch of St. Louis is the pilot in paracycling, an event that matches a sighted “pilot” and a visually impaired stoker in the second seat of a two-person bike. He’s partnered with Branden Walton, a Windsor, California native who began losing his vision due to macular degeneration at age four. Their time of 4:10.29 in the 4000m qualifying race left them sixth and out of the running for the next round. They finished eighth in the trial for the 1000 meters.

Rachel Watts of St. Joseph nurse, who was diagnosed in 2018 with multiple sclerosis that fully affects her right side, finished her triathlon in 13^th place in 1:42:15. She told KSHB-TV in Kansas City she would use the Paris experience to prepare for future competition, “I get to go learn how to race better at this level and really prepare for LA in 2028.”

(MIZ-NFL)—All NFL teams have finalized their 53-player rosters and a flock of former Missouri Tigers have made the big time or are sticking around to start another season. But some are not.

Cody Schrader impressed a lot of folks with the San Francisco 49ers but not enough to crack the backfield for the season. Almost immediately after he was waived, the Los Angeles Rams picked him up. He showed versatility for the 49ers with 48 yards rushing on 19 carries, four kick returns for 30 yards, and two pass receptions for eight yards. He’s likely to be a special teams guy with the Rams, a team that has three running backs on its roster already.

Darius Robinson, who went to the Arizona Cardinals in the first round of the draft, will miss the first four games of the season because he’s on the inured reserve list. He incurred a calf injury during training camp.

The Detroit Lions have kept cornerback Ennis Rakestraw and the Broncos start the year with cornerback Kris Abrams-Draine. Ty’Ron Hopper is on the Green Bay Packers roster. The Jacksonville Jaguars have kept tackle Javon Foster. The Indianapolis Colts have safety JC Carlies.

Where is Drew Lock now? New York Giants. But he got hurt in training camp.

Mekhi Wingo, who committed to Mizzou out of high school and spent one season in Columbia before transferring to LSU, made the Lions’ initial roster.

Some guys we remember didn’t make it on the opening game roster but will be on a practice squad. Tyler Badie is with the Broncos practice squad for a third year.

Also homeless are former Tigers Xavier Delgado, let go in the last round by the Buccaneers. Likewise for placekicker Harrison Mevis, waived by the Carolina Panthers.

Former Tiger DE Shane Ray appears to have called it a career. He’s been dogged by injuries throughout his career but has been healthy enough to pick up a Super Bowl ring with the Broncos in 2016 and a Grey Cup Canadian Football League championship with the Toronto Argonauts last year. (NFL-ZOU)

(TIGERS)—Missouri’s 38-0 win over Buffalo has boosted the Tigers in the polls. They’re up to 6^th in the AP Poll, 8^th in the coaches poll.

Next up is Boston College, just outside the top 25 after wins at then 10^th ranked Florida State and against Duquesne. The Missouri defense, which has posted two straight shutouts, will face its stiffest test of the young season BU quarterback Thomas Castellanos, who has completed 75% of his passes this year and has seven all-purpose touchdowns. He hit 90% of his passes in the first half (9 of 10, 234 yards and four touchdowns) as the Eagles broke out to a 42-0 halftime lead.

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs have established a toehold on their campaign for a third straight NFL championship with a 27-21 win over the Baltimore Ravens, the team they beat last year for the right to go to the Super Bowl.

A record number of season-opening game viewers watched the matchup, an average audience of 28.9 million, a million-plus more than watched the Patriots-Steelers opener in 2015. The audience peaked at 33 million in the second quarter.

The Chief took the lead after Baltimore scored the first touchdown and led the rest of the way in the intense game, but for a few minutes faced the possibility they’d have to stop a two-point conversion to get the win.

Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson hit Isaiah Likely in the back of the end zone as the clock ran out and for a few minutes, Arrowhead fans held their breaths before referees ruled Likely’s right toe was out of bounds.

Patrick Mahomes broke Len Dawson’s all-time Chiefs record for passing yards in the first quarter and relied on receivers Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy for most of the night’s longest plays. Rice caught seven passes of 103 yards. Worthy, a rookie burner, scorched the Ravens with a 21-yard rushing touchdown and another one receiving, finishing with two catches for 47 yards.

When Mahomes was asked to comment on the overruled last-gasp touchdown, he suggested Likely wear white shoes in the future.

Next up for the Chiefs: the Cincinnati Bengals, upset by the New England Patriots 16-10. The Patriots held the Bengals to 224 total yards. Cincinnati was missing its star wide receiver, Tee Higgins, who has a hamstring injury. His status for the Chiefs game is uncertain.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals have bounced back from a season-high seven-game losing streak that dropped them out of a tie for the division lead by sweeping a three game series with the Minnesota Twins, their biggest competitor for the second division wild card playoff slot. The sweep, coupled with the Guardians’ loss to the Dodgers Sunday, pulls the Royals to within 2½ games of the Guardians. Former Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty shut out the Royals into the seventh inning before leaving. He’s 5-1 with the Dodger since moving over from Detroit, where he started the year 7-5, and is seen by some as LA’s number one starter going into he playoffs.

Former Cardinals pitcher Michael Wacha polished off the Twins Sunday with seven scoreless innings, giving up only five hits. He’s now 12-7. While the Royals have surged after the losing streak, the Twins have been going 6-14 in their last twenty.

The Royals are having a strong season on the mound as well as at the plate, led by four pitchers and three hitters. Seth Lugo is 15-8 with a 3.05 ERA; Cole Ragans is 11-9 but has an ERA of 3.33. Brady Singer’s ERA is 3.35 although he’s only 9-10. And Michael Wacha is 12-7 and 3.34. Lugo and Ragans have the only two complete games this season, out of 142 games played.

On the hitting side, three players were or are headed for 100 RBIs. Salvador Perez is at 95 RBIs with 25 homers. Bobby Witt Jr., is 30 and 98. Before he went on the DL with a broken thumb, Vinnie Pasquantino was 19-97.

(CARDINALS)—The cardinals are a game over .500 after letting the Mariners score five times in the first inning Sunday and then five more times the rest of the way to be the Birds 10-4. Miles Mikolas took the loss to drop to 8-11 for the year. He lasted just two innings, and gave up seven runs on nine hits. Mikolas is 7-6 on the road but at home he’s only 1-6 and his Busch Stadium ERA is 6.54.

Speeding along—-

(Since our sports column wasn’t posted last week and because of important developments in IndyCar and NASCAR, we’ll recap races in those two arenas as we report on the newest stuff)

First—NASCAR wrapped up its regular season and then on Sunday started its 10 race playoffs. Here’s the regular-season wrap-up followed by the results of Sunday’s first playoff race.

NASCAR1)—Chase Briscoe wrote a bit of a Cinderella ending to the regular NASCAR season by winning the last race that could give him a place in the championship runoffs. But his win meant curtains for the hopes of a couple of other drivers who were scrambling to get in.

Only sixteen drivers are eligible for the first three playoff races, after which the field is cut to twelve. Drivers who win one of the first 26 races are guaranteed a spot among the sixteen regardless of how many points they accumulate.

Briscoe’s win left only two spots open for winless drivers to get in on points—Martin Truex Jr., and Ty Gibbs. Gibbs and Truex ranked 9-10 in the regular points standings. It also meant that a fight between Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace, and Ross Chastain for one of those spots became moot. Briscoe was 17^th in the regular season points but his win put hm in the top sixteen. Buescher had the 11^th best regular season points total but he’s out, as is Wallace, who was 12^th in regular season points. Kyle Busch, whose mid-season poor finishes ruined his playoff chances, finished 16^th in regular season points, but Briscoe leapfrogged him with the win.

Also in the playoffs is Harrison Burton, who finished 34^th in the regular points standings. But he won a race, which guaranteed him a spot. One other winner was left out—Austin Dillon, 28^th in overall points. But NASCAR ruled that his win would not count because he wrecked two competitors intentionally to finish first.

Tyler Reddick, who battled a severe stomach ailment throughout the race, finished tenth, confessing afterward that, “At one point, I was just waiting to puke all over myself. Thankfully they kept that from happening. A whole lot of other gross stuff.” He appreciated his crew that was “feeding me the right stuff in the car to help me manage it best as I could. Just smart people. Able to put the right stuff in my drink to help calm my stomach down.” His persistence earned for him the regular season championship by one point over Kyle Larson.

Briscoe’s win is only his second career Cup victory and it comes at a bittersweet moment. He drives for Stewart-Haas Racing, a team that will not exist next year because co-owner Tony Stewart is withdrawing from NASCAR. He’s moving to Joe Gibbs Racing next year and will replace Truex, who is retiring from fulltime Cup racing at the end of this year.

(NASCAR2)—Joey Logano had the lead when the last caution light came on in NASCAR’s first playoff race of the year and locked up a position in the next playoff round, when twelve drivers will remain in competition for this year’s title.

Logano will be going for his third Cup championship, tying Tony Stewart, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, and David Pearson for fourth on the most championships list.

Two playoff drivers exited early when Kyle Larson lost control on the 56^th lap and crashed into last week’s winner, Chase Briscoe, taking both cars out of the race. An earlier wreck knocked Martin Truex Jr., out of the lead playoff pack. He’s now 15^th in the standings, 18 points under the cutoff point for the next round. He has two races to either win his way into the round of 12 or to rack up enough points to squeak in.

Larson’s early crash wiped out a big points advantage he had going into the race. He’s now tenth, just 15 points above cut line. Briscoe is last in the field of sixteen, twenty points below the line and likely needing to win again if he wants to make it to the second round.

Tyler Reddick, who won the 26-race regular season title, came in sixth despite problems on pit road.

(INDYCAR)—Will Power has won 65 poles and 42 races including the 2018 Indianapolis 500 but is still looking for his first IndyCar championship. He’s 43 now, and in his career twilight but still running strongly.

He had a chance to take the IndyCar championship points lead in the most recent race, at Milwaukee. But it slipped away and he goes to Nashville trailing leader Alex Palou by 33 points. IndyCar ran two races on the historic Milwaukee Mile—the oldest race track in continuous operation in the world—with Power finishing second to Pato O’Ward on Saturday, trimming eleven points off of Palou’s lead.

Then on Sunday, Palou’s entire season appeared in peril when his car would not start because of an electrical problem and he re-entered the race many laps down while Power was leading or running with the leaders and the Palou points lead was rapidly disappearing. But Palou soldiered on, gaining points as other drivers dropped out. Then things went sideways for Power who spun out while running in the top five. Power wound up the last car on the lead lap, in tenth place, while Palou, still 29 laps behind, had run enough laps to finish 19^th.

(Powers’ teammate Scott McLaughlin won Sunday’s race, by the way)

IndyCar heads to Nashville next weekend for its last race of the season with Palou up by 33 points, and headed to his third IndyCar championship in four years.

(Photo credits: Screenshot of toe is from NBC Sports; Briscoe by Bob Priddy; Power by Rick Gevers; Logano and the playoff drivers, NASCAR)

Sports: One season fading away; Another dawning; And a possible plum race for the St. Louis area.

Posted on August 27, 2024 by bpriddy

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals, losers of 106 games last year, are on the verge of seizing the lead in the American League Central. They started this week with a doubleheader sweep of the Cleveland Guardians yesterday to pull withing one game of Cleveland. Salvador Perez had two home runs in the second game, one of them a grand slam. His six career grand slams and his 17 multi-homer games tie team records.

(CARDINALS)—Mike Schildt returned to Busch Stadium last night for the first time since he was fired by the Cardinals two years ago over “philosophical differences.” Shildt’s Padres scorched the Cardinals 7-4. The Cardinals drop to 65-66. San Diego is up to 75-58.

The Cardinals have lost Wilson Contreras again. This time it’s a broken little finger because he was hit by a pitch last week. Ivan Herrera has been called up form Memphis to back up Pedro Pages (pronounced PAW-hezz for non-Cardinal followers), who has proven himself to be a solid backup for Contreras—who has been among the team’s leading hitters since coming back from a broken arm in another HBP incident. Was hitting .262 with 15 homers when he was hurt again.

(BASEBALL)—We have only about 30 games left in the regular baseball season. On one side of the state we have frustration. On the other side of the state we have elation. For the sport in general we are looking at an unusual situation—we might finish this season with no team winning 100 games.

Fansided.com raised the issue during the weekend. When we checked the standings Sunday, the Dodgers had 78 wins and would have to go 22-9 the rest of the way to hit the century mark. The Yankees will have to go 23-7; the Orioles 24-6. Cleveland and the Royals and Twins have to play at a 25-6 and 28-3 to reach 100 wins.

The Cardinals are 35 games short of 100 victories this year. If they go on a 31-game winning streak, they’ll top out at 96. They need to go 16-15 to finish at .500.

Don’t give up, Cardinals fans. It’s doable. Finishing .500, that is.

Fansided.com excludes the COVID year of 2020 as it points out the last year for no team winning 100 games was 2014, a year in which only six teams had 90 or more victories (the Dodgers were on top with 98). That was the year that the Giants and the Cardinals, both wild-card teams, took seven games to decide the Giants would win the World Series.

The next year, the Cardinals were the only team to win 100 games. The Cubs, with 103, were the only team to hit triple digits in 2016, the year they finally won a World Series.

While we are wallowing in statistics: The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani has become the sixth player to steal 40 bases and hit 40 home runs in a season. His 9^th-inning grand slam Friday night was his 40^th home run. He holds the record for being the fastest to reach both numbers. He has about thirty games to become the first member of the 50-50 club.

One other thing—-He threw off a mound for the first time this year during the weekend. Next year he could win his 40^th game as a pitcher (assuming he doesn’t get activated before the end of this season). He is 38-15 in five years as a pitcher with the Angels, for whom he was 25-14 before he was hurt in the 2023 season and signed with the Dodgers for ten years and $282 million.

Somebody else who had a good week last week was the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, who had seven home runs in six games and had 51 starting this week and plenty of time to break his American League record of 62 set three years ago.

And while we are talking about statistics and excellence, let’s mention some statistics and failure. The Chicago White Sox lost their 100^th game this weekend to go 31=100. They are on track to break the modern record for most losses in a season, now held by the 1969 Mets, who went 40-120-1 in their first season.

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs have cut a dozen players to get their roster down to the 53 players permitted for the opening game of the season. The biggest “name” among them is fourth-string quarterback Ian Book a fourth-round pick of the Saints in the 2021 draft. He played for Notre Dame before signing a four-year deal worth $4.153 million including a $673,584 bonus. The Eagles claimed him off waivers in August of 2022 before waiving him in the 2023 preseason. He was on the Patriots’ practice squad briefly, tried out for the 49ers and the Bills before signing a futures contract with the Chiefs for this season. His career shows he started one game, for New Orleans, was 12 for 20 passing for 135 yards, two interceptions and no TDs. He also ran three times for six yards.

Also cut were cornerbacks Miles Battle, Kevin Joseph and Ekow Boye-Doe; Wide Receivers Phillip Brooks and Kyle Sheets, Defensive End Owen Carney, Defensive Tackle Alex Grubner, Guards Griffin McDowell and Nick Torres, Tight End Geor’quarius Spivey, and Safety Randen Plattner.

Some former Tigers:

Harrison Mevis was cut by the Carolina Panthers a couple of weeks ago, beaten out by Eddie Pineiro, now the only kicker on the roster.

Two former Tigers appear to have made the season-starting Denver Broncos roster—Cornerback Kris Abrams-Draine and (remember him?) Tyler Badie. Badie, who was 5-feet-8 and 197 pounds, was a second-team All-American for Missouri in 2012 when he rushed for 1,604 yards and caught 54 passes for 330 more yards. The Ravens picked him in the sixth round, waived him in 2022 and signed him to their practice squad. The Broncos signed him for their practice squad at the end of ’22. He played his first NFL game at the end of last season and took a Russell Wilson pass 24 yards to his first NFL touchdown. He signed a futures/reserve contract with the Broncos last January.

As we went to press last night we were waiting to hear the fates of other Tigers, most particularly Cody Schrader of the San Francisco 49ers. He has won praise for his work ethic but the 49ers are loaded with talent left over from their big year in 2023 and a strong draft crop.

(THE GOLDEN DAYS ARE PAST)—Former Missouri Tiger Markus Golden, who finished his career in Columbia as one of the nation’s top pass rushers, has called it a career after nine years in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals (second round pick in the 2015 NFL draft), New York Giants, and Pittsburgh Steelers. He had 51 sacks, 11 forced fumbles, and 343 tackles in a solid pro career.

(MIZ)—Thursday night. First Missouri Tiger football game of the year. Murray State Racers. Faurot Field.

The Racers have a new coach, Jody Wright, who knows what to expect from a SEC team. Last year, he was the tight ends coach at South Carolina that saw Trey Knox as a second team all-conference player. He helped recruit the school’s recruiting class that year that was ranked 17^th nationally. He has been on the Alabama staff under Nick Saban twice, most recently as director of player personnel in 2015-2017.

The turnover in coaches and players with the Racers has made it hard for Tiger coach Eli Drinkwitz to map out a strategy for Thursday night’s game. He told reporters yesterday, “There’s really no way to watch Murray State film, they’ve got a brand new offense, defense, and special teams coordinator along with 60 new players. You can watch their schemes from last year to try to see what their players are, and so figuring out matchups is almost impossible. It comes down to us executing our plan and our schemes at a really high level.”

The Tigers depth chart released during the weekend seems to contain few surprises.

Brady Cook is the quarterback with sophomore Drew Pyne his top backup. Nate Noel or Marcus Carroll will start at running back with freshman Jamal Roberts, as their first backup with sophomore Tavorus Jones and freshman Kewan Lacy behind him. Noel gets the start.

Wide receivers are three familiar names: Luther Burden III, Theo Wease Jr., and Mookie Cooper. Mekhi Miller and Daniel Blood, a junior and a sophomore, are behind them. There is no shortage of wide receivers on the depth chart—ten of them including these guys.

Sophomore Brett Norfleet returns as the starting tight end with sophomore Jordon Harris or senior Tyler Stephens behind him. Harris is questionable for the Murray State game. He’s nursing a minor injury.

The starting offensive line looks like this:

Left tackle Marcus Bryant, a senior with Jayven Richardson, a sophomore, behind him; Cayden Green, a sophomore at left guard with freshman Logan Reichert as his backup. ; Connor Tollison, a junior, will be at center with either sophomore Triston Wilson or senior Drake Heismayer in reserve. On the right side are senior guard Cam’Ron Johnson, ahead of sophomore Curtis Peagler, and tackle Armand Membou Jr., with senior Mitchell Walters behind him.

On the Defense:

Senior Kristian Williams and Junior Chris McClellan start at tackle. They are backed up by four players, Sterling Webb, Marquis Gracial, Jalen Marshall, and Sam Williams. Webb is a junior, Gracial and Marshall are sophomores and Williams is a freshman.

Defensive ends, depending on the situation, will be Johnny Walker Jr., a senior, Junior Zion Young or Junior Eddie Kelly with backups Joe Moore III, a senior; freshmen Jakhai Lang, Williams Nwaneri and Jaylen Brown.

Middle Linebacker Chuck Hicks, a senior, or another senior Corey Flagg, are tops on the depth chart.

Outside linebackers will be Triston Newson or Khalil Jacobs. Newson is a senior and Jacobs is a junior. They’ll be backed up by freshman Brayshawn Littlejohn, a redshirt, and three pure freshmen: Jeremiah Beasley, Brian Huff, and Nicholas Rodriguez.

Senior Drey Norwood will be the starter at one linebacker with junior Toriano Pride or freshman Nicholas DeLoach on the other side. Their backups will be senior Marcus Clarke or Ja’Mariyon Wade, a sophomore, redshirt freshman Shamar McNeil and true freshmen Cameron Keys and Jaren Sensabaugh.

Starting safeties will be seniors Joseph Charleston or Tre’Vez Jonson. Marvin Burks Jr., a sophomore and senior Daylan Carnell with freshman Trajan Greco, junior Caleb Flagg, and Senior Sidney Williams or sophomore Phillip Roche. Freshman Jackson Hancock is in reserve.

Freshman Blake Craig will be the successor to Harrison Mevis as the place kicker with Nick Quadrini, a sophomore, behind him.

Senior Luke Bauer, who often filled this role last year is number one as the punter with sophomore Orion Phillips, behind him.

Bauer and Phillips will get the ball snapped ‘way back to them by sophomore long-snapper Brett LeBlank. Senior Trey Flint will be the long-snapper on field goals.

Look for Burden, Blood, and Wease to return punts, with Burden the top choice; Manning, Burks, and Marquis Johnson will return kicks with Johnson listed on the depth chart as number one. (ZOU)

(BEARS)—Missouri State’s Bears are in their two-year transition to the Division 1 Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). They’ll play their last year in the Missouri Valley Conference this year before joining Conference USA next year and be given full FCS status in 2026. They open against Montana from the Big Sky Conference next weekend. The Bears were 4-7 last year. The Grizzlies were 12-1. The Grizzlies have had only one losing season in the last 27 years, 2012, when the NCAA ordered five games forfeited for rules violations.

So much for stick and ball sports. Here’s the Zoom Department:

(NASCAR)—A purported NASCAR race schedule leaked last week says the Cup cars will race at World Wide Technology Raceway next September 7. NASCAR says the schedule is “not entirely accurate.”

If, in fact, that date is true for WWTR, it’s a huge step up in status for the track, which is owned independently from NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports.

WWTR is in Madison, Illinois, just across the Stan Musial Bridge from St. Louis. The scheduling is significant because it puts the track into the NASCAR playoff schedule, a ten-race series at the end of the season that determines the championship.

One of the skeptics is Dale Earnhardt Jr., who said on his podcast last week, “How in the hell did St. Louis end up in the playoffs? I would love to know…It’s bizarre. It’s fine. I mean there’s no sort of, ‘Oh you don’t deserve this’ kind of vibe, I just wonder how that even happened.”

Earnhardt says he didn’t think WWTR would ever become one of the ten playoff tracks. He wants to hear the reason for the scheduling. “I’m wondering where the reasoning is,” he said a few days ago.

Whether WWTR is, in fact, a playoffs track, the fact is that owner Curtis Francois and his folks have taken a track that was days away from being sold and dismantled to make way for a private developer and have turned it into a first-class multi-motorsport facility. Its events have had enthusiastic sponsor support from the State of Illinois for the NASCAR race, from the Bommarito Automotive Group of St. Louis for the IndyCar event, and Mission Foods for its NHRA Midwestern Nationals. It is a 1.25 mile oval with long straightaways and differing radius corners at the ends, basically flat, producing a challenging facility for drivers. Fan-competitor opportunities are excellent, parking is good, access to and from interstate highways is solid, and there’s plenty of concession and stage attractions space.

Plus, it plugs a marketing gap as the only NASCAR/IndyCar track between Chicago and Nashville.

(DAYTONA)— A feel-good story emerged from the mess that was the 400-mile race at Daytona Saturday night, with the win by Harrison Burton that gave Wood Brothers their 100^th Cup win in a history that goes back to

Harrison Burton outdueled veteran Kyle Busch on the final lap of an Overtime finish of Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway to score his first career Cup Series victory and the 100th for his Wood Brothers team.

Burton, the son of former NASCAR driver Jeff and nephew of former driver Ward, went into the race 34^th in the standings and knowing he won’t be back with the team next year, guaranteed that he will be one of the sixteen drivers running in the ten-race playoff series that starts after next Sunday’s race at Darlington.

Speedy Thompson gave the Wood Brothers their first victory in 1960. The team hasn’t won since Ryan Blaney won at Pocono in 2017. It’s the first win for the third and fourth generation of Woods to own the team.

Burton found himself in position to win in a race that had fewer than ten unbent cars at the finish because of three major crashes, two of which saw cars go airborne as the field started the final lap. A push from rookie Parker Retzlaff on the backstretch put him in front of Kyle Busch, who desperately needed a win to make the playoffs. Burton held off Burton to win by five one-hundredths of a second.

Burton’s win has a huge impact on the list of drivers who will make up the championship field of sixteen. His win has knocked Bubba Wallace 21 points outside the list of 16 and Ross Chastain 27 back. Busch is too far back to climb back into the playoffs on points. For all intents and purposes, all three—Wallace, Chastain, and Busch—must win next weekend’s final race of the regular season.

(INDYCAR)—Will Power’s win at Portland Sunday moves him a bit closer to Alex Palou’s points lead as the IndyCar season heads into its last two races, both on ovals. Palou’s lead is still 54 points on Power and 67 on Colton Herta, however.

Power finished where he started—first—on the road course but Palou finished second, minimizing any points damage Power made.
IndyCar runs two races next weekend at Milwaukee and then closes out its season September 15 at Nashville.

(FORMULA 1)—Lando Norris has taken another bite out of the once-huge points lead Max Verstappen ran up in the first ten races in F1 this year. Norris beat Verstappen by 23 seconds on Verstappen’s home track in the Dutch Grand Prix.

Formula 1 returned to the Zandvoort circuit in 2021 and this is the first time Verstappen has no won the race.

The race is the fifteenth of 24 Grands Prix in Formula One this year. Norris now trails Verstappen by only seventy points.

(photo credit: Wood Brothers Racing)

Sports: KC, STL Going Opposite Directions; Chiefs Sleight of Hand; And Other Stuff

Posted on August 20, 2024 by bpriddy

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(Baseball)—Here it is in a nutshell. The Cincinnati Reds swept the St. Louis Cardinals. The Kansas City Royals swept the Cincinnati Reds. Our Cardinals and our Royals continue to surprise—the Royals by their continued steady, winning, play. The Cardinals by their inconsistent, losing efforts.

(Royals)—The Kansas City Royals are hanging onto the fourth wild card slot in the American League Playoffs despite having a better record than one of the teams headed for an automatic place. The Royals, at 69-55 are two games better off than the Houston Astros, who lead the West Division over Seattle by four games. The Royals are third in the Central Division, three games behind Cleveland and a game behind Minnesota. They have the fifth-best record in the American League.

Cleveland, New York, and Houston are the division leaders after the weekend’s games. Baltimore, Minnesota, and Kansas City led the wild card standings. Boston is 3.5 games behind Kansas City for the last playoff spot.

(CARDINALS)—We’ve seen this before. The Cardinals get off to a slow start then show a flicker of hope in the early summer only to slide out of the picture. The Cardinals are now five games behind the Braves in the search for a wild card playoff opportunity and the margin was gradually widened as the Redbirds continue to play uninspiring baseball. They’ve won only five times in their last sixteen games

It could get worse. The Brewers open a series in St. Louis tonight (Tuesday). One sports betting source gives St. Louis a 4.2 percent chance of making the playoffs.

(MIZ)—Luther Burden III has been declared a first team preseason All-American by the Associated Press, the latest in a string of honors nine days before the first game. ESPN and The Athletic also have him as a first-team All-American. He’s on the watch list for the Biletnikoff Award that does to the country’s top wide receiver after being a semifinalist last year, and he is also on the list for the Maxwell Award, given to the most outstanding player in college football (The Athletic reports that winners of the Maxwell Award have a better record as pro players than winners of the Heisman Trophy).

Last year, as a sophomore, he racked up 1,212 yards receiving and scored nine touchdowns, the last of which sealed Missouri’s win against Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl. Burden is projected as a first-round NFL draft pick next year. (ZOU!!!)

(What Was That!!??!!)—The Kansas City Chiefs have lost both of their exhibition games in this pre-season, falling to Detroit 24-23 on a last-second field goal. But what caught the eye of the fans was Patrick Mahomes’ behind-the-back pass to Travis Kelce.

Mahomes claimed after the game that it was an ad-libbed play. Kelce didn’t agree…

Bing Videos

The Chiefs played their regulars for most of the first half.

They play their third and final exhibition game of the season next weekend.

Now, the zoom stuff

(INDYCAR)—Josef Newgarden picked up a spin-and-win during the weekend in the race at Madison, Illinois, the St. Louis Gateway Arch visible behind the track administrative building in turn one.

Newgarden led only the last seventeen laps of the race but angered some of his competitors with a perceived slow start at the end of the last caution period that resulted in a four-can pileup at the head of the front straightaway that knocked out some challengers and brought out the red flag with eight laps left.

Newgarden finished 1.72 seconds ahead of teammate and pole-sitter Scott McLaughlin. Rookie Linus Lundqvist equalled his career-best finish with a third.

The race saw 676 on-track passes for position, 254 of them for position, 115 among top-ten drivers and 44 among the top five.

Palou now leads the standings by 59 points over Colton Herta and by 65 points over six-time series champion, Scott Dixon. IndyCar has only four races left this year.

The race saw a record 21 lead changes, an IndyCar record at the track. Despite Newgarden’s win, points leader Alex Palou extended his lead in the standings with a fourth-place finish.

(NASCAR)—It took two days, but a sorrowful Tyler Reddick picked up the win at Michigan International Speedway, his second victory of the year. In victory lane, he said, “I can’t help but sit here in victory lane and think of Scott Bloomquist. Huge mentor to me, and an incredible role model and legend of dirt racing and motorsports.”

Bloomquist was killed in a plane crash last week. He was 60 years old, a legend in dirt track racing. “The last couple of days have been tough. This really helps it. This win should go for him, his family and friends,” said Reddick.

The race was stopped after 51 laps on Sunday by heavy rain.

Last week’s winner, Austin Dillon, was 17^th at Michigan. Since the controversial finish a week ago, NASCAR has allowed Dillon to keep his trophy but has penalized him enough points to drop him from 27^th to 31^st in points. NASCAR also has ruled his victory will not entitle him to be in the 12-driver field for the playoffs.

Dillon had caused Joey Logano to crash on the last lap and had bumped Denny Hamlin out of the way on the way to the finish line.

Driver Corey LaJoie climbed unhurt from his car that crashed in the mid-race, slid upside down for several years before doing a barrel roll before stopping.

LaJoie unhurt in Michigan flip (msn.com)

The regular NASCAR season has only two races left before the playoffs begin. Reddick’s win has elevated him to the top of the regular season standings. The next races is at Daytona next Saturday night with the regular season ending at Darlington. The last ten races will be elimination races that will leave four drivers to race for the championship in the last race of the year.

(FORMLA 1)—F1 has ten races left this year. It returns after its traditional summer break next weekend.

Sports: Missouri Olympians and other sports

Posted on August 13, 2024 by bpriddy

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(Our travels have kept us from posting our weekly roundup by about 21½ hours. But we wanted to pay tribute to our Missouri athletes who were in Paris and had to wait until now to find time to go through the posting process.)

(PARIS)—A few won medals. More will come home to tell their grandchildren they participated. Let’s run down how Missourians of one sort or another did in Paris during the last couple of weeks:

Rajindra Campbell, who was part of the Missouri Southern track team for three years, 2018-2021, won the bronze medal in the shotput, representing Jamaica. He’s the first Jamaican to win a shotput medal and the first former Missouri Southern athlete to win a medal in the Olympics.

Napheesa Collier of St. Louis, a member of the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA, was a member of the gold medal-winning women’s basketball team.

Jayson Tatum of St. Louis, a member of the Boston Celtics, won gold with the men’s basketball team.

Another gold medal went to Kansas City’s Quincy Hall won gold in he 400 meters.

Kansas City’s Chris Nilsen, a silver medalist in 2020, was 11^th in the pole vault in Paris.

Freddie Crittenden II, a St. Louis native, was 6^th in the 110-meter hurdles.b/

Tyler Downs of Ballwin was 8^th in the three-meter springboard.

St. Louis native Brendan Miller was 17^th in the 800 meter run.

Patrick Schulte of St Charles was a member of the men’s soccer team that lost to Morocco in the quarter-finals. He’s with the Columbus Crew of the MLS.

Emily Sisson of St. Louis County was 23^rd in the women’s marathon.

MU alum Karissa Schweitzer was 10^th in the 5000 meters and 9^th in the 10,000.

Another MU alum, Mikel Schreuders, competing for Aruba, was 26^th in both the 50 and 100 meters. He was the country’s flag bearer in the opening ceremony.

Another MU alum, Clement Secchi, competing for France in swimming events, won bronze in the 4×100 relay and was 14^th in the 100 meter butterfly.

Staff Sgt. Rachel Tozier of Pattonsburg was 18^th in the women’s trap shooting.—

(BASEBALL)—Both of our teams started the week with losses. But the Royals are still in the playoff standings, two games upon Seattle. The Cardinals are now only one game above break-even and are not a playoff team, a game and a half behind the Mets.

(FOOTBALL)—Ready or not, here it comes. Football. The Chiefs have played their first exhibition game, losing to Jacksonville 26-13.

We are 16 days away from the first Missouri Tiger game. The AP’s preseason poll has the Tigers 11^th.

Sports with motors:

(NASCAR)—Austin Dillon won the 400-miler at Richmond but he and owner Richard Childress might be the only people happy about it. Dillon Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin on the last lap of the first overtime session to take the win. NASCAR says it is reviewing the whole scenario. Normally, it announces penalties on Tuesdays but it delayed any announcement this week.

(INDYCAR)===IndyCar will run is first post-Olympics race within driving distance of a lot of Missouri fans—-at Worldwide Technology Raceway just across the river from St. Louis. It’s a Saturday evening race. Scott Dixon and Josef Newgarden have won six of the eight races at WWTR since IndyCar returned to the track after a long absence. Pato O’Ward has been a bridesmaid but never a bride in his five career starts there, with top five finishes in all of the races and runnerups three times in the last four years.

(FORMULA 1)—F1 is enjoying its mid-year break—which coincided with the Pris Olympics. The season has surprised some observers by how competitive it has become, especially in the last half-dozen races or do.

Four different teams have racked up wins this year, seven of them by Red Bull, the long-dominant team in the sport. But Red Bull has not been the dominant force recently, with McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes moving to the front. Red Bull drivers have seven wins. Mercedes has three (in the last four races) with McLaren and Ferrari posting two wins apiece. It is the first time since 2021 that four different teams have won races in a season. Seven drivers have posted wins this year.

Underrated Tigers; Eleven Above, Four Above; Speeding to the Olympic Break

Posted on July 23, 2024 by bpriddy

(This entry has been updated to include last night’s Royals-Diamondbacks game)

(MIZ)—In a little more than three weeks (August 17), the Missouri Tiger football team gets down to the serious work of preparing for the season. The first game will be ten days later with Murray State’s Racers providing the fresh meat for the Tigers.

Murray State has a new coach, Jody Wright, their fifth coach in the last 17 years.

SEC sports reporters have given Coach Drinkwitz plenty of motivational material by calculating Missouri will finish sixth in the now-16-team conference. Only one Tiger player is on the first three offensive and defensive pre-season all-conference teams—Luther Burden III. Georgia has six players, Alabama and Mississippi have three each.

Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Ole Miss, and LSU are picked to finish higher than Missouri—which will play Alabama late in the season. But there’s some hope. Sportswriters have correctly picked the conference champion nine times since 1992.

Each team will play eight conference games and the two teams with the highest winning percentages will play for the league championship. This is the first year since 1991 that the SEC has not had divisions.

(BASEBALL)—Our two MLB teams remain in wild card playoff contention.

Cardinals lost 2-1 yesterday in opening a three game series against the Pirates. The winning run was set up on a wild pitch that let a runner reach second and then score on a ground=ball single. They’re four games over break even and two games ahead of the Mets, second in the wild card standings.

The Royals went into last night’s game against Arizona ten games over .500, fattening up with a three-game sweep of the White Sox in which the Royals outscored the Pale Hose 17-3 and Seth Lugo picked up his first career complete game. He has run his record to 12-4.

Bobby Witt Jr., had three hits for the fourth straight game last night and the Royals hammered the Diamondbacks 10-4. Witt was on track to hit for the cycle with a triple, double, and a home run in his first three at-bats. But he was hit by a pitch and flied out in his last two appearances. Witt ties Johnny Damon for the second-longest stretch of three-hit games. George Brett did it for six games in 1976.

Witt is on a hot streak since the All-Star game with five extra-base hits in the last four games. And he loves home cooking—he’s hitting .411 in Kauffman Stadium this year, the best at-home batting average in all of Major League Baseball.

Wheel sports now:

(NASCAR)—Kyle Larson pitted about a dozen laps after other top contenders in the Brickyard 400, setting up a run to the checkered flag that had the crowd on its feet in the latter stages of the race.

Larson came out of his pit in 25^th place and began to pick off the cars ahead of him as their drivers tried to stretch their fuel loads to the end. They might have made it if late crashes had not sent the race into two overtimes. Leader Brad Keselowski had to pit one lap into the first overtime, giving Larson his big chance to take the lead…and he grabbed in going into the first turn of the two-lap shootout.

(Larson is in front, yards before the checkered flag making him the first driver this year to win four races. Pole-winner Tyler Reddick got past defending series champion Ryan Blaney to take second.)

After the race, Larson said he’s ready to return to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway next May to try to become the first driver to win both the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400. He tried to “do the double” this year—racing in the 500 in the afternoon and then in the NASCAR 600-mile race in Charlotte that evening. Rain in both cities short-circuited the effort this year. He says nothing’s in place for that to happen yet but hinted an announcement would be coming soon.

(INDYCAR)—IndyCar has seen its second race in which one of its cars got airborne and came down on its top—and the driver walked away.

The crash that eventually involved a half-dozen cars began when Pato O’Ward spun just a turn, a potential blind spot for oncoming competitors.

All Angles: How Huge Crash Unfolded on Streets of Toronto (indycar.com)

Other cars crashed into his and the car of Santino Ferrucci used the nose of one of the cars as a launch pad, sending his car bottom-first into the catch fence before landing upside down. Ferrucci was protected by his seat belts and by the titanium aeroscreen from serious injury.

Colton Herta ended a long losing streak by winning the race through some of the streets of Toronto. Kyle Kirkwood and Scott Dixon claimed the other two podium positions.

(FORMULA 1)—F1 has reached its midpoint with the Grand Prix of Hungary with Oscar Piastri winning his first race in the series—but only because teammate Lando Norris was ordered to let him pass him. Lewis Hamilton was third, extending his record with his 200^th podium finish.

The Hungary race is the third in a row without Max Verstappen in the tp position. He was fifth behind Charles Leclerc in a Ferrari. Red Bull and Verstappen have dominated Grand Prix racing for the last few years but both admit that mid-season corrections by other teams have brought them back to the mortal level. He still has a strong points lead, though.

—Major motorsports competition is taking a two-week break because of the Olympics. It is not doing so because any of its drivers are competing in the games; it’s because their television partner, NBC, will be immersed in the Paris Games for the next couple of week.

(photo credit: Bob Priddy)

Sports: Wanna bet? Polling on Sports Wagering, moving KC Teams to Kansas. And Other Sports Stuff

Posted on June 25, 2024 by bpriddy

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(GAMBLING)—Sports wagering hasn’t been approved for the ballot yet, but Missourians appear narrowly willing to allow it if it’s on the November ballot.

A poll of more than 1800 Missourians earlier this month by Emerson College, The Hill, and Nextstar Media, shows 38.3% of prospective voters want it while 35.4% of prospective voters oppose it. That leaves more than 26% undecided.

Emerson College (in Massachusetts) Senior Polling Director Matt Taglia says, “I don’t think folks necessarily know what all it entails but a lot of them are, in principle, supportive of the idea.”

An organization supporting sports wagering—the misleadingly named Winning for Missouri Education (actually, approval of the proposal as submitted will make Missouri school losers) has submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures to put the issue on the November ballot. The Secretary of State’s office and county clerks throughout Missouri are verifying the signatures.

(CHIEFS/ROYALS; STAY OR GO?)—The same poll shows 46% of respondents think it is “very important” to keep the Kansas City Chiefs from being lured to Kansas. Another 17% say it is “somewhat important.” Twenty-two percent would not miss the Chiefs in Missouri.

Support for the Royals is a little softer. Thirty-eight percent say it’s “very important;” twenty percent say it’s “somewhat.” Two dozen percent of the respondents say they would be bothered at all if the Royals move across the state line.

(CARDINALS)—The St. Louis Cardinals have finally staggered two games above .500 thanks to their weekend sweep and the news got even better yesterday with the reactivation of catcher Wilson Contreras from the DL several says earlier than expected. He’s been out since May 7 because of a broken arm. He’s been on a minor league rehab assignment since June 18, going 3 for 21 at Memphis.

His activation has meant a trip back to Memphis for backup catcher Nick Raposo.

Before his injury, Contreras had a half dozen homers, a dozen RBIs and a .280 average through the team’s first 31 games. He will rejoin a team that is playing far better than it was before he was hurt. The Redbirds are eleven games over .500 in his absence, the best record in the National League since May 12 at 24-13.

He returns while Nolan Arenado spent his second straight game on the bench. He came out of Saturday’s game with a sore left forearm. He’s gotten an injection for the pain.

Noot News: Lars Nootbar is getting close to a rehab assignment. He’s been out since early may with a left oblique strain.

(ROYALS)—The Royals have cooled off in June but remain five games above break even. Their performance since winning eight straight and soaring to 15 games over .500 to going 8-18 since has some fans wonder if the team has turned the wrong corner as the season nears the halfway point.

Former Missouri Tiger Max Scherzer, making his first start of the year for the Texas Rangers, shut down the Royals Sunday, as the Royals were swept in a series for the first time this year.

The sagging performance has left KC nine games behind the Cleveland Guardians and worse, a game behind Boston in the wild card standings.

They got some offensive punch back yesterday with the reactivation of Michael Massey from the ten-day DL. Back problems have limited him to just 29 games this year. His back problems have been treated with recent injections to relieve the pain.

And now, some wheels:

(INDYCAR)—Nobody knows his way around Laguna Seca tese days better than Alex Palou. In his last four races on the California road course, he has had finishes of 1-3=1=2, picking up his second win of the year and moving into the IndyCar points lead.

He finished about two seconds ahead of Colton Herta in what he called “a chaotic race” that relied on a tire strategy that was “a bit risky for the position we were in.”

Former Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi was fourth, giving his Juncos Hollinger Racing team its best finish ever in the series.

The win gives Palou a 25-point lead over Will Power. Scott Dixon is running third.

(NASCAR)—The track was damp and another rain storm was threatening and NASCAR decided to finish the weekend race at New Hampshire with cars using rain tires. Christopher Bell and other competitors had to sit out a two-hour rain and lightning delay before re-starting on a damp surface. Although parts of the track were dry at the end, enough other segments remained damp that NASCAR decreed no car would switch to slicks.

Bell led almost half of the laps to become the fourth driver to have at least three wins this year.

The race was only the second one on series history to use the new kind of tires. NASCAR Senior VP for Competition, Elton Sawyer, praised the development of the tire. “We’d have been done with 82 laps to go and instead it gave us a chance to get back to green,” he said.

(NHRA)—We don’t usually comment on the folks who seek 300 mph in less than a quarter mile but John Force’s engine explosion and crash in Virginia during the weekend. Force is 75 years old but still competing at the highest levels of National Hot Rod Association competition.

His engine blew up as his car crossed the finish line, crashed into the wall and came to rest in the middle of the track. He was conscious when the safety crew got to him but was taken to a nearby hospital where he was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. Daughter Brittany told reporters later, “My dad’s going to be all right…He’s one of the toughest people I know.”

(FORMULA 1)—The Spanish Grand Prix went to Max Verstappen with Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton taking the other podium positions.

F1 has unveiled specifications for its 2026 cars:

It says the new cars will be “more agile” because of a weight reduction, will increase use of batteries and the use of sustainable fuels. Aerodynamics will become more active with moveable front and rear wing. F1 will have six engine manufacturers—compared to three for NASCAR and two for IndyCar.

(Photo credits: Rick Gevers, Bob Priddy, F1)

This Was a Just a Farm Once. This is About What Grew There

Posted on May 29, 2024 by bpriddy

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

This was farmland once. Flat. Open. Three hundred-twenty acres owned by a family named Pressley. The city was five miles, a few hours’ buggy ride, to the east and south. But then a guy named Carl Fisher showed up—this was late in 1908—and with three partners bought the place for $72,000.

In time, the railroad would bring passenger cars loaded with people to this place. In time, automobiles would navigate the muddy roads to the countryside. Eventually there would be paved streets and Pressley farm and the agricultural land around it would turn into a small town and people would build hundreds of homes and businesses and schools on farmland around the farmland where Fischer and partners James Allison, Arthur Newby and Frank Wheeler had invested an additional quarter-million pre-World War I dollars into their new business venture.

Four years after buying the Pressley farm, the four partners laid out a planned residential/industrial community that would not rely on horses and instead would emphasize the automobile. Many of the residents would work at a chemical company and an engine manufacturing company.

They named their town for their business venture. Speedway. It’s now a town of about 14,000 people entirely surrounded by Indianapolis, just across Indianapolis’ Sixteenth Street from the first race track in the world to bear the word “speedway” in its name.

The race track these four men built covers 253 acres, not counting the areas around the track that cover hundreds of acres more and are used for parking, camping, tail gaiting, partying, concession stands and 14 holes of a golf course (the other four holes are on the infield).

And every May, this former farm field becomes a shrine.

Various comparisons have been made to show how massive the development of the site by Fisher and friends has become. It’s big enough, it is said, to hold SEVENTEEN Yankee Stadiums. It’s big enough to hold all fourteen Big Ten Football stadiums. Put another way, says the IndyCar Series, it could hold EIGHT nationally and internationally-famous sites;

Trains no longer bring thousands of spectators to the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” There are wide, multi-laned streets and nearby intestate highways and on a few days each year those streets and roads become huge traffic funnels pouring tens of thousands of vehicles ranging from beater cars to multi-million dollar luxury motorhomes to this 253 acres.

A crowd about forty or fifty-thousand people larger than the entire population of St. Louis descended overnight on this area, drivers and passengers often stalled in enormous traffic jams for three or four hours, the smart ones turning off their vehicle’s engines because they weren’t going to move a vehicle’s length for several long minutes.

Only a few could park inside the track. The front yards of residential areas with their two-lane streets around the track became private rental parking areas for race fans. Huge open fields turned into parking areas by today’s Speedway owners were packed.

Knowing they would face all of this, they came.

Knowing very bad weather was moving in from the west, they came.

Knowing they might not see a race because of another storm system was behind the first one, still they came. A hundred thousand. Then two. Then three. And then as many as fifty thousand more.

And then came the lightning. And the rain.

The grandstands were ordered cleared with tens of thousand of people taking refuge under the concrete floors of the giant infield front-stretch grandstands and in the tunnels under the track and other safe places.

All those people. In those crowded spaces. Many of them brought coolers full of food and drink because the race was going to be underway at lunch time.

Hungry people.

Thirsty people.

Wet people

People knowing the weather might mean no race at all that day.

And you know something?

We saw no fights. Nobody got stabbed or shot (at least nobody that we’ve heard about in these two days after all of this).

345,000 people, one out of every one-thousand people in this entire United States, jammed into 253 acres of damp disappointment.

And nothing happened while nothing was happening.

Then it quit raining. And the track-drying machines came out, marvelous pieces of engineering designed only to transform two and a half miles of wet asphalt into dry asphalt.

It is in situations such as this that people-watchers have a field day.

The fans looked for ways to entertain themselves before the race could start—including appropriately-attired folks rooting for children in a footrace near the souvenir stands, including a volunteer flag man at the finish line.

(The track is nicknamed “The Brickyard” because the pavement for the race for many years was millions of bricks. Today the finish line is a yard of bricks.)

(Incidentally, the real flag man for the race, known as the Chief Starter, is Aaron Likens and he has just brought out a book called Playing in Traffic, My Journey From Autism Diagnosis to the Indy 500 Flagstand.)

Patriotism is always big at automobile races.

And coveralls with the Speedway logo accessorized with “gold” chains, again with the famous winged wheel logo that has in one form or another represented the great old track from its earliest days.

After years of personal experience people watching at the Speedway, we can note that you have seen only the most moderate of outfits typical of the events. (We’ll do a commentary on going-to-the-car-races clothing in a later entry.)

Driver Pato O’Ward, one of the young guns and one of the favorites, entertained fans by signing hats and shirts dropped from the grandstands into the garage area.

Or chatting with fans—

But the intense work paid off on the track. The asphalt turned a lighter gray and it was time to go racing, time for 32 men and one woman to hurtle at 230 miles an hour into a near-flat left turn, the first of 800 left turns they would make before the finish, fighting to get through each of those turns ahead of the other cars.

The skies remained grey; although the weather outlook brightened; maybe the entire race could be run before the next storm. Time to roll out the cars In the end, only one car would complete the challenge of making those 800 left turns ahead of all others in one of the most dramatic races in the 108-year history of the Indianapolis 500.

Time on the grid for a few moments with family—Josef Newgarden showed his two-year old son, Kota, the “office” where he would spend the next three hours or so defending his championship of the 500.

The race lasted one minute and eleven seconds short of three hours and featured 49 lead changes among 18 drivers, more than half of the starting field, the last lead change coming time when Kota’s dad broke O’Ward’s heart by passing him on the outside of the next-to last turn and holding on to the finish.

It’s Newgarden’s second straight 500 win, both coming with a last lap pass—his victim last year was the 2022 winner, Marcus Ericsson—who had held off a last lap charge from O’Ward that year.

O’Ward remained slumped in his car for a time after the finish, his helmet still on, admitting later, “It was wet in there.”

Newgarden is the sixth driver to win two of these races in a row. He will try in 2025 to become the first to do a threepeat.

Helio Castroneves almost did it after winning the race in his first two years and finishing second in 2003. Al Unser Senior also finished second after winning in 1970-71.

Bill Vukovich came with eight laps of winning in 1952 before a part of his steering failed, returned to win in ’52 and ’53 and died while leading on the 57^th lap of the 1955 race.

Wilbur Shaw came close to winning not three but FIVE straight. He won in 1937, was second in 1938, won the next two years and crashed while leading with 48 laps to go in 1941. That was the year a fire roared through the garage area. It is believed some of the water used to fight the fire washed chalked words “use last’ from an out-of-balance wheel that collapsed, causing his wreck.

But we’ll have to wait a year to see how that pans out.

Thousands of fans remained in the stands as evening clouds thickened and the light grew dimmer while Newgarden and his wife took the traditional victory lap in the pace car then kissed the bricks and went on to celebrate until the late hours.

Newgarden’s victory was worth almost $4.3 million of the nearly $18.5 million in prize money. O’Ward got more than one million for being second.

Thousands of the fans were deadlocked for hours in their parking lots as traffic oozed back to the nearby interstates or moved through downtown Indianapolis. This reporter’s car didn’t turn a wheel for more than three hours in the parking lot and was another hour, at least, before getting to his overnight accommodations—with a stop at a gas station because he was down to his last thirty miles of reserve fuel and would have run out had he not shut off his engine for at least 45 minutes of the three hours it took to get to his parking space in the morning and never firing it up again until seeing other cars start to move.

By Monday evening the former farm field was quiet and empty, except for volunteers earning money for their groups by picking up tons and tons of trash left behind by the one-out-of-one-thousand Americans who found themselves packed into those 253 acres where one of the nation’s greatest holidays was celebrated.

(NASCAR)—NASCAR star Kyle Larson left Indianapolis as the race’s Rookie of the Year but disappointed with his 18^th place finish. Larson was among the five fastest qualifiers in his first IndyCar ride, and was running sixth when he drove too fast into the pits with seventy laps left. He had to do a drive-through penalty that set him too far back too late in the race to recover all the positions he had lost.

Still, he was only 9.4846 seconds behind Newgarden at the end of the 500 miles and averaged 167.6 mph. Newgarden averaged 167.8.

Larson had planned to run the 500 and then jet to Charlotte for NASCAR’s 600-mile traditional Memorial Day race. But bad weather, including rain and lightning, caused NASCAR to decide to end the race after 249 of 400 scheduled laps with Christopher Bell declared the winner. Brad Keselowski racked up another second-place finish, his third runner-up finish of the year. Larson had arrived at the Charlotte Speedway in uniform and helmet on just as the race was stopped because of rain. NASCAR determined restarting the race would make it end at about 3 a.m., Monday, at best and decided to call it a night. Larson never got to turn a lap for the second half of his “double.”

But there is next year. The deal between Hendrick Motorsports and McLaren racing in IndyCar us a two-year contract.

0-0-0

After the Charlotte race, former NASCAR champion Tony Stewart and his partner, Gene Haas, announced they would be shutting down their team at the end of the year. Stewart-Haas fields four cars in the series this year but will sell all four of its franchises for several million dollars. The team has two championships and 69 victories. Stewart is driving a full National Hot Rod Association schedule (His wife is an NHRA competitor) and Haas wants more time to spend with his Formula 1 team.

(FORMULA 1)—The Grand Prix of Monaco is the third major race held on America’s Memorial Day Weekend. Ferrari’s Charles LeClerc became the first Monaco native to win there.

Now the stick and ball sports that usually lead these entries;

(MIZ)—The Missouri Women’s softball team lost the last game of the super regional tournament to Duke Sunday. Duke goes to the world series. The Tigers come home with a 48-14 season record. (ZOU)

(BASEBALL)—The Cardinals are heating up as the warmer weather settles in. They won 8 of their last ten after Sunday’s weekend wrap up and had moved in top third place and were only one game under .500. Sonny Gray is up to 7-2 now.

The Royals continue to be the prime candidate for comeback team of the year and were 13 games above .500 before last night’s game against the Twins. The Royals didn’t get their 34^th win last year until August.

The Royals had not had an American League Player of the Week since Vinnie Pasquantino in August, two years ago. Bobby Witt broke that dry spell last week when he went 10 for 26 in six games with four homers and 11 RBIs. One of those homers was his longest ever, 468 feet.

(HAWKS)—The St. Louis Battlehawks dropped to 6-3 last weekend as the Arlington Renegades turned three interceptions and two fumbles into a 36-22 victory. The ‘Hawks are still in the running for the top playoff spot in the XFL Division, though.

Quarterback A. J. McCarron missed his second game because of a bum ankle. He’s considered day-to-day.

(Photo Credits: Bob Priddy, Rick Gevers)

Bob Priddy

A journalist's random observations

Category Archives: football

Sports: Kansas City Doubles UP; Mizzou Doubles Down (and more)

Sports: 7-Come-11 for Mizzou; Chiefs Escape Again; Royals in Danger; Cardinals Fans Send Message; and other stuff.

Chiefs Win by a Foot But Break a Leg; Tigers Drop: Cardinals becalmed; Royals Having Historic Year; and some other stuff.

Sports: Royals Bounce Back; Tigers Move Up, Chiefs Win Because of a Black Shoe, Missourians in Paris, and other stuff.

Sports: One season fading away; Another dawning; And a possible plum race for the St. Louis area.

Sports: KC, STL Going Opposite Directions; Chiefs Sleight of Hand; And Other Stuff

Sports: Missouri Olympians and other sports

Underrated Tigers; Eleven Above, Four Above; Speeding to the Olympic Break

Sports: Wanna bet? Polling on Sports Wagering, moving KC Teams to Kansas. And Other Sports Stuff

This Was a Just a Farm Once. This is About What Grew There

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