Category Archives: football

Sports: Defense Is The Word in Columbia, KC

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—Well, we know now that they can come back.  But maybe more important is that THEY now know it, too.

Missouri’s 38-21 win against Kentucky has vaulted the tigers into the top 20 on both major polls—although ESPN’s computer model doesn’t include them in the top 25.  The Tigers are 6-1, bowl-eligible in October for the first time in the Drinkwitz era and are headed for a game against South Carolina they should win (South Carolina is 2-4 and is giving up more than 435 yards per came).

Kentucky broke out to a 14-0 first-quarter lead but the Tiger defense stifled the Wildcats the rest of the way and Missouri owned the last three quarters, outscoring Kentucky 38-7.  And they did it without Brady Cook throwing for 400 yards or with Luther Burden catching 100 yards worth of those passes.

Missouri gets an off-week after the South Carolina game and then gets into the rugged part of the schedule with Geogia (7-0, so far), the nation’s top team, Tennessee (5-1 so far), Florida (5-2) and then Arkansas, which has come close to wins several times but is only 2-5. (ZOU)

(COACH DRINK)—Coach Eli Drinkwitz is a winning coach at Missouri.  The six wins of the Tigers this season boost his record to 23-20.

Some fans had thought he wasn’t cutting it in his first three years, all losing ones. But his record isn’t unusual in Tiger history.  The greatest early coach of the Tigers, Gwinn Henry, started out 2-3-3 but finished 40-28-9.  Don Faurot was 3-3-3 in his first year but hit a winning streak the next year.  Dan Devine was only 5-4-1 in his freshman coaching season, largely using players recruited by Frank Broyles and Don Faurot in Broyles only season in Columbia before he became an coaching institution at Arkansas.  Al Onofrio, who followed Devine’s only losing season with a 1-10 start went 37-31 the rest of the way with a string of notable upsets.  Warren Powers started hot at 8-4 but was only 38-29-1 the rest of the way.  Larry Smith, who is credited with returning Missouri football to national prominence was 11-22-1 in his first three years. He was 22-24-1 the rest of the way.  Gary Pinkel started 22-25 in his first four seasons but retired with the most wins in MU history.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs had a long week after dumping Denver 19-8 last Thursday night, their sixteenth straight win against the Denver Shetlands.  The Chiefs are not tied for the best record in the NFL at 5-1 with three of those wins coming on the road.

The defense bailed them out against Denver, now 1-5.  The Chiefs lack the offensive firepower they have show in past seasons but three of those wins have come on the road.

Patrick Mahomes made Chiefs history in that game by finishing with 2,138 career completions in the Denver game, topping Len Dawson’s record of 2,115.

But they lost a player to injury—when wide receiver Justin Watson came up from a completion with a dislocated elbow.  The team says an MRI showed no damage so he’ll be back “sooner rather than later.” He leads Chiefs receivers with a 21.9 yard per catch average.

The defense held Denver quarterback Rusell Wilson to only 95 yards passing and intercepted two of his throws.

Mahomes says the key to this year’s success has been the stout defense. “Its depth. I mean, they’ve done a great job not only drafting but getting key free agents and developing guys,” said Mahomes. “I mean, we have guys that are starters on other teams that are trying to find a way to get on the football field. And when they get on the football field, they’re making plays,” he said after the game.

The Chiefs play the Chargers Sunday afternoon.  The Chargers are 2-2.

On the Track:

(INDYCAR/NASCAR)—Kyle Larson wrapped up a huge week for him with a win on the track at Las Vegas, guarangeeing he will be one of the four drivers to run for the championship in the last race of the season.

AND he put in his first laps in an open-wheel car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Larson plans to run the 500 in May and fly to Charlotte afterwards for the 600-mile stock car race that night, an event being billed as the Hendrick 1100 (for his NASCAR owner Rick Hendrick who has cleared him to run both races that day).

The Speedway requires rookie drivers to prove they can handle a car at the high speeds on the track with severallaps at increasing speeds before they’re allowed to try to qualify for the 500.  Larson drew praise for his runs with his fastest lap at 217 mph.  He’ll be back for more testing next April when he hopes to work his way up to competitive laps in the 230-plus mph bracket.

But looked good and felt good, as this report from Indianapolis station WRTV shows:

Video: (59) Larson turns laps under watchful eyes of veteran drivers – YouTube

The good times kept rolling for him Sunday when he became the first driver to lock up a position in the final four who will decide the championship in the last race of the year, November 4. Larson edged Christopher Bell by eight one-thousandth of a second at Las Vegas.  He led seven times for 133 laps including the last 45. He now has led 1,031 laps this year, the most of any driver.

Larson is bidding for his second NASCAR championship. He won the title in 2021.

Two races are left and seven drivers are competing for the remaining three spots in the final race.

Bell is one of the drivers hoping to make the final four.  Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, and Ross Chastain finished third through fifth but are no longer in playoff contention.

Sixth place went to Ryan Blaney at the checkered flag but a post-race inspection resulted in his disqualification and listing as being in last, a penalty that also dealt a death blow to his chances for the final four unless he wins one of the next two races.

However, NASCAR on Monday reviewed its inspection protocol and found a faulty instrument was used on Blaney’s car.  His sixth-place finish was restored.  Blaney is seventh among the eight contending drivers but is only 17 points out of fourth place, still a contending position.

(Formula 1)—Formula 1 returns to action next weekend with the United States Grand Prix on a new track that snakes its way around a 3.42 mile Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Texas.

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Notes from a Quiet Street (Cranky, colorful edition)

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(Notes from a Quiet Street consists of observations that aren’t worth all the words for a full-fledged blog post.  On the other hand, some blog posts don’t merit all those words, either.)

In these chaotic times dominated by demagogues, I suggest all of us learn to play bridge, or learn to play it better.  For in playing bridge we may find relief from current controversies and fears because Bridge is a land of no-trump.

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Wife Nancy got a new car the other day.  If I drive it, it recognizes my face and moves the seat and mirrors where I like to have them.  And then it puts them back in her positions when she gets back in.

It’s white, the most visible color except in a blizzard, and it doesn’t show dirt as much as darker cars do.

The quick guide to it is 150 pages.  The full owner’s manual runs to 537 pages. We’ll probably finish reading about all the bells,whistles, and foghorns sometime in February. We might learn the rudiments of the touch screen by Thanksgiving.

How odd that in these days of concern about distracted driving, new cars have touch screens that the driver has to look at to do everything but serve hot coffee and so many buttons on the steering wheel that the driver has to look down to make sure their finger is touching the right one. No wonder the thing has systems to keep the car in the right lane and to keep it from shortening the car ahead.

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My first car had three on the tree, the headlight dimmer button on the floor for the left foot to work, an AM radio, and hand-wound windows.  I turned a key to start it, turned a key to lock and unlock it, had bumpers, a bumper jack in case of a flat tire (and tires that did go flat), and a full-sized spare that had to be checked for its air levels from time to time.  It alsos had a steel dashboard, real glass windows that were deadly to go through, no seat belts to keep you from hitting your head on the metal dashboard or going through the glass window in a crash, a rigid steering column that would be deadly, and an odometer that was all zeroes after 100,000 miles.

Air conditioning was the wind coming through the window that evaporated the sweat on hot days.

And the car didn’t recognize my face.

No, it did not have a crank to start it.

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The baseball playoffs are underway. I have no idea who is playing.  Sometimes I wish I cared.  Not often, though. I’m probably not alone.  It’s football season, after all.  I remember a lot of years when the World Series was over by now—back in the days when television didn’t run the sport.

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That first car was dark green on top and light green on the body.  Cars came in white, black, blue, green, or red.  Nowadays they’re pearlescent snow white, metallic Mediterranean blue, mocha, Sequoia Green, Arrow Gray, Purple Sector,  Thundernight Metallic—

How much do the geniuses get paid to come up with these names?

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Speaking of colors:

Did you know that Crayola makes an Ultimate Crayola Collection that includes 152 colors?  Among the more recent are crayellow, timber wolf, cool mint, oatmeal, jazzberry jam, purple mountains’ majesty, manatee, outer space, aspa

ragus, and Granny Smith Apple.

That would be a great question:  “Where will you find—?”  A Crayola box.

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And finally, a story that fell out of the blue—

We want to pay tribute to Dorothy Hoffner who died last Monday at the age of 104. Only a week earlier she had set a new record by being the oldest parachutist in the world. Guiness hasn’t certified the record yet, but she did it.

The Chicago newspapers reported she left her walker on the ground so she could walk away from her landing site.

It wasn’t her first time.  When she was only 100, she was strapped to the back of a professional jumper and had to be pushed out of the plane. This time she insisted on being the jump leader, strapped to the front of a certified parachute instructor. She jumped from 13,500 feet and floated to earth seven minutes later. “Delightful, wonderful, couldn’t have been better,” she said.

She died before her next great adventure could be accomplished.

She wanted to go up in a hot air balloon.

Some people live a life. Other people devour it.

 

Sports: A Tigers Shootout; Another close call for the Chiefs; A little roundball preview; and so forth

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—It was no surprise Missouri’s football game Saturday was two light-heavyweights throwing haymakers at each other.  A pre-game look at their statistics found little difference in overall numbers. The two teams went into the game closely-ranked in the polls. It bid to be an entertaining game with somebody going home disappointed.

Missouri and LSU traded halves and LSU’s half was bigger.  The 49-39 final was closer than the score indicated.  Missouri was down by only three with time running short, looking to at least get close enough for a tying field goal that would put the game in overtime when Brady Cook’s second interception of the game was turned into a 17-yard pick-six with 34-seconds left.  LSU outscored Missouri 22-7 in the fourth quarter to pick up the win.

The two teams combined for 1,060 yards total offense.  Cook had his second-straight 395-yard day passing, But Missouri’s Tigers gave up 274 yards on the ground (almost six and a half yards per carry) , couldn’t get key stops.  Both teams had eleven penalties.

This might seem similar next weekend against Kentucky, another top-25 team.  Missouri dropped out of the AP top 25 after the game but remains last in that field in the coaches’ poll.  Kentucky is 23rd after a 51-13 thrashing at the hands of Georgia.  (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs played just well enough to win—again—in their 27-20 victory over the Minnesota Vikings Sunday.  It appeared they were about the blow he game open when they broke a halftime tie with two touchdowns in the fourth quarter.  But Minnesota tightened the game in the fourth quarter and knocked on the door twice in the last five minutes but couldn’t re-tie the game.

The Chiefs are now 4-1 despite not being the dominant team their fand are accustomed to seeing. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes pointed out after the game that, “There are a lot of young guys out there and we’re going to keep everybody moving in the right direction.”  He forecast, “I think by the end of the year, we’re going to be dangerous.”

Travis Kelce tweaked an ankle in the first half but came back in the second half with it taped up and caught a touchdown pass from Mahomes.  Kelce, who is shooting for his eighth straight season with at least 1,000 yards receiving, has 222 in the four games he’s played this season.

The Chiefs have a short week ahead. They play the Denver Broncos Thursday night.  Denver lost to the Jets Sunday 31-21, giving up 234 yards on the ground.  The Broncos are 1-4 and lost ugly to the Jets, losing three fumbles (one of which went for a TD), a safety, and starting the second half with five straight three-and-outs.

Mahomes had another milestone game against the Vikings.  They were the last NFL team he had not defeated in his NFL career.  Minnesota was number 31.  Pro Football Talk says he’s the youngest, at 28, to do it.  Others were in their thirties.  He joins Alex Smith, Russell Wilson, Ben Rothlisberger and Aaron Rogers as the only other quarterbacks to defeat every team but their own.

(TIGER BBALL)—We are less than a month away from the first Missouri Tiger men’s basketball game.  It’s Arkansas-Pine Bluff on November 6.

The Tigers have four players back from last year: Noah Carter (Senior, 9.6 points, four rebounds, 1.8 assists per game); Nick Honor (Senior, 7.9-1.6-2.9); Aidan Shaw (Sophomore, 2.7-1.7-0.1); and Sean East II (Senior, 7.3-2.1-2.5). Also returning is Kaleb Brown, Kobe’s brother, who scored nine points, had six steals, five assists and four rebounds last year as a 6-7 sophomore guard,

Coach Dennis Gates has proven to be a Tasmanian Devil at recruiting. John Tonje comes in as a fifth-year player from Colorado State, a 6-5 guard, 14.6 ppg, 39% from the arc, 55% inside it).  Tamar Bates transfers after two years at Indiana, another 6-5 guard (6 ppg, 37% from the arc, 39.2% overall).

Caleb Grill is a 6-3 guard, fifth year player with a year at UNLV and the last three at Iowa State. (9.5 ppg last year, 39% shooting with most of his shots from outside. Four rebounds per game.

Curt Lewis comes to Missouri as the Player of the year in the NJCAA playing for John A. Logan Junior College. Led his team to a national championship, shot 51.8% from the field, 48.3% from outside.

Jesus Carralero was hurt and played only five games for Campbell last year as a 6-8 forward. Averaged 10.6 points and 5.2 rebounds hit 50% of his shots from the field when he did play.

One answer to the complaints that Mizzou doesn’t have a big man inside was answered with the arrival of Connor Vanover, a graduate-transfer who stands 7-5.  Also coming over is 7-2 center Mabor Majak, who will have two years left after seeing limited action at Cleveland State.

The Tigers also picked up a third seven-footer, Jordan Butler, who led his South Carolina high school team to two state championships in the last three years; 6-10 forward Trent Pierce who led his high school team from Arizona into the High School National Championship game; Jackson Francois, another 6-5 guard who comes from Las Vegas; Anthony Robinson II, a 6-2 freshman guard who led Florida State University High School to a record of 109-25 and was the all-time winningest player in Florida high school history for boys basketball; Danny Stephens, a 6-6 guard from Bowen, Illinois, who averaged 26.4 ppg, 9.1 rebounds and 2.1 assists in his high school career; and 6-5 guard J.V. Brown, a freshman from Los Angeles who averaged 16 ppg and led his team to a 23-6 record as a senior.

How many will play?  How many will stay?  Only five can play at a time.

But the ingredients are there for a very interesting season.

(Let’s hit the road)

(NASCAR)—A. J. Allmendinger isn’t among the drivers contending for this year’s NASCAR Cup championship but he was a factor for those who are, or were.

An emotional Allmendinger beat all of the championship contenders to the finish line on the Charlotte Roval Sunday, this third career Cup win, all on road courses. He led the last 33 laps and beat William Byron to the checkered flag by about seven-tenths of a second.

Allmendinger called his run “the drive of my life” and admitted he was crying during his cool-down lap.  And he broke down during a post-race interview. “It’s a freaking Cup race, man. You don’t know when it’s ever going to happen again,” he said.  “That is why you do it. This is the only reason you do it.”

Perhaps adding to the moment is the uncertainty about whether his team, Kaulig Racing, will field a car with him in it next year. Allmendinger has been in the car for the last two years and hopes to stay in Cup racing. His team owners say they have made a decision about what will happen in 2024 but they’re not ready to announce it.  Allmendinger would prefer to stay at the top level, “Bu at the end of the day, it’s a business and it’s about trying to find the funding for it.”

He had been racing in NASCAR’s second-level series and could go back a Kaulig car in that series if the team doesn’t provide a car for him at the Cup level next year.

The next three-race elimination round begins at Las Vegas next weekend with Byron, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, Chris Buescher, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, and Ryan Blaney still in the hunt.  The competition will be narrowed to just four drivers for the final race of the year, with the highest-finishing one taking the 2023 Cup.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen’s winless streak has ended at one.  His F1 championship streak has reached three, his win at the Qatar Grand Prix has clinched the title with five races left.  Its his 14th win this year.

Racing conditions are leading the Formula One sanctioning body to reconsider the racing schedule for next year.   The Qatar GP was run on an 86 degree humid day.  Several drivers needed medical attention after the race and one dropped out because of health reasons. Driver Esteban Ocon said he vomited in his helmet. Another driver said he was close to fainting. And another driver was treated after the race for acute heat exposure.

(photo credit: Allmendinger at WWTR—Rick Gevers)

Sports: Baseballs Says Goodbye to the Season; Two Great Pitchers Remembered; Football Leagues Merge; And Other Sports

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

Before we delve into tributes to two pitchers who left their marks on the game, two football games that merit comment, and a race, there is one thing we want you to understand.

TRAVIS KELCE AND WHAT’S HER NAME ARE NOT SPORTS.

And this is the only time you will read about them in this column.

(FOND FAREWELLS)—–

When Will We See Players Like TheseAgain?

Every year about this time, those of us who live for the next baseball season and live for the first day a spiked foot steps across a baseline in Florida or in Arizona bid farewell to some young men who are too old to play our game anymore.

We’re going to forego our usual appraisal of the Cardinals and the Royals today. Both have seasons best left in the quickly descending night of the 2023 baseball season. Instead, we want to say some things about two guys whose careers will far overshadow their final successful days in struggling seasons.

We Missouri baseball fans have been blessed by two remarkable pitchers who are leaving, or likely to leave, the game with memorable performances and memorable careers.

(WAINWRIGHT)—Adam Wainwright struggled all year He wanted to to reach a goal, to realize a dream, to accomplish something rare in today’s game.  He finally won his 200th game.

Remember that night.  It will be years before we see something like that again.

It wasn’t just a personal goal.  It was a professional goal.  He has known that in today’s game, 200 wins is a Hall of Fame credential.

Two-hundred baseball wins seems to be a modest amount for those who have watched the greats of the past.  But in today’s game of 100 pitch limits, five-man rotations and parades of pitchers to the operating room for Tommy John or other surgeries, 200 wins is remarkable. This year, for example, only five pitchers threw more than 200 innings. And there were only 35 complete games pitched.

When did the last THREE-hundred game winner throw his final pitch?  Fourteen seasons ago, when Randy Johnson retired with 303 victories.  Since 1990, only four pitchers have reached 300—Johnson, Tom Glavin, Greg Maddux, and Roger Clemens.  All are in Cooperstown but Clemens, a victim of the performance enhancing drugs era.

Only five pitchers ended this year with 200 victories.  Justin Verlander, 40, has 257.  The Royals’ Zack Greinke has 225.  Former Missouri Tiger Max Scherzer is in at 214 and is 38.  35-year old Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers has 210 and Wainwright with his 200. All of them are in the twilight of their careers or at the end.

Are all of these guys, even Wainwright, bound for Cooperstown some day?  Yes, although most of them are unlikely to be first-ballot selections.

Brady Farkas, writing on FanNation a few days ago, pointed out that Wainwright’s 200th win makes him unique. He is the only player (not just pitchers) whose career has been within the divisional era (there have been 10,331 of them) to hit ten or more home runs in their careers (2,395) AND win 200 games as a pitcher (36).

He also has 75 RBI and a career .193 batting average.

The first pitch he saw as a major league hitterr turned into a home run.

He is a three-time All-Star. He has two Golden Gloves and a Silver Slugger bat and a World Series Ring. He never won the Cy Young Award (runnerup a couple of times), but he led the league in wins twice, led the league in innings pitched two times, and was a 20-game winner in 2014.

And, from all accounts, he’s been a class act.

When will someone else win number 200? It might be quite a while.

Cole Hamels has 163 wins and he’s 39.  Johnny Cueto is next at 144. He’s 37.  Gerrit Cole seems to have the best chance. He’s only 32 but has 145 wins. If he has three more years such as the last three years, he could be within 10-15 wins of 200.  Aaron Nole is 30 with 90 wins. The biggest winner for pitchers less than 30 is Jose Berria, who is 29 and has 83 victories.

Wainwright’s final game was a seven-inning masterpiece. He was given only one run and he tenaciously battled to keep that lead. It was a final curve, to Milwaukee’s Josh Donaldson that induced him to fly out to end the seventh.  He had gone into the game with back spasms and struggles during his pre-game warmup and he knew he had to make one more pitch, get one more out, before leaving the mound after the 7th inning.

“I know its gonna hurt. I’ve gotta go one more time over the top and get this ball to have a little more depth to it.  I think I can do one more of those,” he recalled in an interview with Post-Dispatch reporter Derrick Gould and others a few days later. “I knew in that moment, from up on top, that I had one more pitch.”

His discussion of his last pitch is a masterpiece in describing, in real not Hollywood dramatics, all that went into it—the curve to Milwaukees’s Josh Donaldson that induced Donaldson to fly out.  “I literally left everything I had out there,” he said a few days later.  Watch this rare insight we fans don’t usually get to hear.

(screenshot  from Gould’s article, Sept. 27, 2023)

With a curve, Adam Wainwright’s pitching career ends. So, what about an at-bat? Cardinals Extra (stltoday.com)

He thought he might have another start or two before the end, but when tried to play catch a couple of days after the Milwaukee game, he hurt badly enough that he decided he had thrown his last pitch.

He has herniated discs that will need repair and says his shoulder needs looking-at because he can’t lift his arm over his shoulder without pain.

He goes out with others recognizing his uniqueness, competitors who appreciate not only what he has done but what he is.  Cincinnati’s Joey Votto presented Wainwright with a bouquet before the game and eloquently explained the respect the game has for Wainwright later in the locker room—

“This game gets harder not only the older you get but as your tools fade. To be able to stay put and still be a contributor at you know, 30, 35, 40 and beyond, which Adam has done, and to be steady with it, is admirable. There’s a reason why the St. Louis fanbase is celebrating this weekend, because it’s rare, rare is the pitcher who can compete this deep into their career, can stay with one organization, can be a productive player, productive member of the community, and to me that’s what I admire the most. Game recognizes game.”

Votto knows what he’s talking about because he is a Wainwright kind of guy—17 years with one team, almost 40, finishing a disappointing   season after having surgery on his shoulder, an aging veteran on a team that has seen a good crop of promising young talent come up from the minors. An extended standing ovation that prompted the umpire to delay the last game of year in Cincinnati so he could enjoy it showed the affection for Votto in Cincinnati that Wainwright has gotten in St. Louis. The crowd seemed to realize it was seeing a great player for the last time although Votto hasn’t said yet that he’s retiring.

And Votto has a sort-of connection to St. Louis. A Canadian native, now a naturalized American citizen, he and former Cardinal Larry Walker are the only Canadians in major league history to have 2,000 hits, 1,000 runs batted in, and 300 homers.

Game recognizes game.

So Wainwright has reached his goal and has come to the end of the line as a major league pitcher, the last of a generation of Redbirds that included last year’s retirees, Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina.

The torch has now fully been passed to the next generation. We wonder who among them in what has become a game for contract gypsies will be as beloved fifteen, twenty years from now as Adam Wainwright is to this generation of fans.

There’s a red jacket in his future when he joins the Cardinals Hall of Fame. And eventually, we think, a bronze plaque on the wall of a building in a picturesque little upper New York town.

(GREINKE)—We might have seen the last of Zack Greinke of the Royals Sunday.   As was the case with Adam Wainwright, he finished with a season that was far less than he hoped it would be. But in his last game, he was young again.

Greinke went five innings, gave up only one run on four hits and struck out two. He finishes the season 2-15—and a standing ovation from the crowd.

He’s a free agent seemingly with limited possibilities for another season in the majors. We don’t know if he has, or had, some goals he wanted to reach this year—as Wainwright wanted to get his 200th win.  He did reach 225 wins with the outing Sunday, putting him ahead of Hall of Famers Jim Bunning and Catfish Hunter on the all-time win list. But he finished about twenty strikeouts short of 3,000.

But there is a significant strikeout milestone he DID get.  On May 13th, he fanned Brewers rookie Joey Weimer to become only the fifth pitcher ever to strike out 1,000 different batters.

(The Royals created a special commemorative image for the accomplishment.)

That night, he joined Nolan Ryan (1182), Randy Johnson (1123), Greg Maddux (1049) and Roger Clemens (1022).  He finished with two more than Clemens.

The one thing that has eluded him is a World Series ring.

He started with the Royals, but battled depression and social anxiety and almost gave up the game after leading the league in losses (17) in 2005. He left spring training early in 2006 but returned late in the season to make three relief appearances.  He returned to starting pitcher status in 2008 and the next year won the Cy Young Award by going 16-8 and leading the majors with a 1.66 ERA.

His best years were eight seasons with the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks when he went 134-49, a .732 winning percentage.

And he was a pretty good hitter for a pitcher. He finished with a .225 batting average and won two Silver Slugger Awards.  As with Wainwright, his first major league hit was a home run. He also succeeded in nine out of ten stolen base attempts.  He pinch hit in the 2021 world series and became the first pitcher to have a pinch hit since Jack Bentley of the New York Giants in 1923.

He is, as of today, the last pitcher to get a hit in a postseason baseball game.

Greinke admitted after signing with the Royals that he had hoped to stay in the National League for a couple more years because he hoped for more chances to hit.  But when the NL adopted the designated hitter, he looked to returning to the Royals.  He hoped there might be a chance to pitch AND be a designated hitter some time when the team was short at that position. But he never got the chance.  He cited Kansas City’s fan enthusiasm and his relationship with former Royals official Dayton Moore, for signing with the team in March, 2022.  He pitched the last two opening days for the team. His 2022 start was the first time he’d pitched for the Royals on opening day since 2010.  It set one of those arcane records baseball is so full of—the largest gap between opening day starts for the same team.  He finished his career by starting the first and the last games of the 2023 season for the Royals.

Cooperstown for him, too?  Wouldn’t it be nice if both Greinke and Wainwright could go in on the same day?

(CARDS/ROYALS)—The Cardinals had their first losing season since 2007 when they were 78-84. The Royals tied their record for losses with 106.  The last year the Royals had a winning record was their World Series-winning year of 2015.

The Royals finished on a hopeful note, going 14-12 in September—their only winning month of the year (well, they were 1-0 in October).  The Cardinals had only two winning months, going 15-13 in May and 14-13 in July. The Royals finished the year going 12-5.

The Cardinals’ Miles Mikolas was one of the five pitchers to throw 200 innings this year—201.1.  No MLB pitcher gave up more hits than he did—226. He faced 860 batters, the most in the major leagues. His 35 starts were the most of any pitcher in the majors.  He finished 9-13 with a 4.78 ERA.

Relief pitching was a sore point all year. Cardinals relievers saved 36 of 64 games, 56%.  Royals relievers held on 53% of the time. Neither was anywhere close to the top in the final rankings.  The Royals pitchers had a 5.17 ERA. Cardinals pitchers were at 4.79.

And get this:  There were 4,840 games this year.  There were only 35 complete games by pitchers.  The Royals had three of them.  No pitcher went the distance this year for St. Louis.

But both showed a lot of young talent, particularly the Royals’ Bobby Witt who joined the 3030 club with thirty home runs and 49 stolen bases. The Cardinals promise a busy off-season. Several of the Royals’ young hopefuls didn’t pan out, leaving fans to speculate on whether the team will invest in the free agent market or be active traders.

(MIZ)—Missouri’s win against Vanderbilt 38-21 in its SEC season opener has set up a match between two ranked SEC teams next Saturday in Columbia. The Tigers, 5-0 now in their best start in a decade are 21st in the weekly AP poll and 22 in the USA Coaches Poll.  LSU, which is 3-2 with three of its games being in the conference already, is 23rd in the polls , a ten-place drop after losing to Old Miss 55-49 last weekend.

Missouri’s ranking is its highest since the fifth week of the 2015 season, the year they won their first seven games of the season. Quarterback Brady Cook will be looking to extend his conference record consecutive passes without an interception, now standing at 347.

The Mizzou offense chewed up Vanderbilt’s defense to the tune of 532 yards, 395 of them by Cook, a personal best.   (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—The chiefs beat the Jets Sunday night but nobody is happy about it including the winners.  A late field goal, a fumble by the Jets’ quarterback, and a clock-sapping final drive that ended with Patrick Mahomes sliding to a stop at the New York one-yard line so the clock could run out salvaged a 23-20 win.

The win is number 250 for Coach Andy Reid. That puts him into a tie with Dallas coach Tom Landry for fourth all time. He has won 120 of those games while with the Chiefs and trails Hank Stram for the team record by only four.

The Chiefs seemed to be on the road to a blowout with an early 17-0 lead before rookie quarterback Zack Wilson, filling in as Aaron Rogers and his repaired achilles tendon watched from the owner’s suite, found his rhythm and led the Jets to a 20-20 tie.  But he lost a snap with his team on the move in the fourth quarter; the chiefs recovered and picked up a field goal and then held on the rest of the way.

Patrick Mahomes had an off-game with two interceptions. But Isaiah Pacheco’s running kept the chains moving at key moments. He picked up 115 yards on 20 carries and scored one of the two Chiefs’ touchdowns. He also caught three passesfor 43 yards.  He was responsible for 158 of the Chiefs’ 401 total yards.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—We’re waiting to learn if the St. Louis Battlehawks of the XFL will survive the merger of the XFL and the USFL, announced last week.  The merged league plans to begin play next spring.

The XFL has been resurrected twice. The last couple of years there have been eight teams in eight cities—St. Louis; Arlington, San Antonio, and Houston Texas; Las Vegas; Orlando, Florida; Seattle, Washington; and Washington, D. C.

The USFL was reincarnated a couple of years ago with all games played in Birmingham, Alabama. Last season, the eight teams were located in four “hub” cities—Detroit, Memhis, Birmingham and in Canton, Ohio, the home of the NFL Hall of Fame.

The Battlehawks have played in the domed stadium abandoned by the Rams. The team drew a record 38,310 fans for the fourth game last year. They have compiled seven of the biggest crowd numbers in theleague’s short history.

Officials will announce late rif all 16 teams will have home cities when play starts after the NFL’s Super Bowl in February.

Now, on to the crash-and-turn sports.

(NASCAR)—Ryan Blaney has survived 500 tense miles on the Talladega high banks to pick up his ninth career win and second of the year.

Blaney finished .012 seconds ahead of Kevin Harvick, the biggest margin he has enjoyed in his three wins at Talladega. He beat Ryan Newman and Ricky Stenhouse, respectfully, in  2019 and 2020 by 0.007 of a second.

He only led eight laps in a race that featured 70 lead changes during its 188 laps with the field running two and three wide in a tight pack for most of its running.

Harvick’s second-place car was disqualified after the race because some windshield fasteners were found to be loose.  He was moved to last place.  Crew Chief Rodney Childers says some windshield bolts loosened and vibrated out because of buffeting caused by the close running.

The win locks Blaney into the semifinal field of eight drivers who will compete for the final four spots in the last race shootout of the season. The field of 12 will be cut to eight at next weekend’s race on the Charlotte “Roval,” a road race course that uses part of the tri-oval track and a road course on the track’s interior.

(NASCAR—IOWA)—Missouri NASCAR fans have another Cup race within driving distance.  Iowa Speedway has been added to the schedule next year. The track has featured IndyCar races for the past several years.  It’s a .875 track designed by former NASCAR Cup winner Rusty Wallace, a St. Louis native. The track is at Newton, Iowa, about 30 miles east of Des Moines.

Actually, NASCAR’s  first choice for a new track on its schedule had been Montreal, Canada but that deal never came together, opening the door for Newton. The race is set for next June 16.

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Motoring along—-

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

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

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

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor(

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As far as the rest of baseball, well—-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Photo credits: MLB.COM and Bob Priddy)

 

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(BASEBALL)—Our teams limp into baseball oblivion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, the Motor Boys:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Photo credits: Bob Priddy and Rick Gevers)

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now for the zoom-zoom stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Photo credits: Rick Gevers and Bob Priddy)

 

How Could Anyone Survive?

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Readers of these columns who bypass the Tuesday entries because they deal with sports, especially automobile racing, might want to stick with us for a while today because we’re going to explain how a miracle happened Saturday night—or maybe it wasn’t a miracle because the event had been anticipated and a plan was in place..

NASCAR has not had a fatal crash in one of its major touring series since Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s death in 2001.  Saturday night, at Daytona, with the laps winding down and drivers desperate to claim one of the sixteen spots in the Cup series playoffs, Ryan Treece got turned into the car of teammate Chase Briscoe.  What happened next is recorded from the NASCAR site, NBC Sports, and Youtube:

treece crash nascar – Google Search

It is difficult to quantify what we have just watched here—a 3,500 pound car travelling 200 mph or thereabouts rotates in the air about thirteen times, strikes the ground about five times and finally lands on its wheels.

Treece got out of the car and stood talking to medical personnel before he laid down on a stretcher and was taken to a hospital for observation.  He was sent home the next day.

If your or I were to roll our car at, say, a mere 70 mph, our chances of survival would be limited even with airbags and seat belts and shoulder harnesses.

Treece survived because his car protected him.

Here’ s a drawing from NASCAR of the frame of his car.

The center section is welded steel designed to keep the roof from collapsing.  Along each side is foam padding to minimize damage from side impacts. But it’s the roof that is the key in this crash.  The cockpit was so rigidly built that when the car stopped after landing on its top during its long series of rollovers, the windshield was still in place and the roof was still up. The roll cage is designed to withstand forces from all angles.

The driver sits low within this cage in a seat that is made to fit his body with side and leg protections built in.

The driver is tightly strapped to his seat so his movements are severely limited despite the g-forces generated by an extreme crash of the type Preece experienced.  Not visible in the picture but required by NASCAR is the HANS device that was mandated after Earnhardt’s death from a basilar skull fracture, a severe movement of the head forward and back in a collision that causes a spinal breakage.  The Head and Neck System is a collar that slips over the shoulders of the driver and is attached to the driver’s helmet, limiting the movement of his head in a collision.

In Preece’s case, he probably took his hands off the steering wheel and probably crossed his arms during the barrel rolls —so that his arms and hands did not fly around—and rode it out.

Earlier this summer, Indycar driver Simon Pagenaud survived a similar horrifying rollover crash. The video of the crash starts at about 2:45 into this excerpt from the NBC broadcast.

Simon Pagenaud walks away from wildest crash of IndyCar career; will miss Mid-Ohio qualifying – NBC Sports

As you watch Pagenaud get out of his car and walk away, you’ll seen the HANS device as the black collar on his shoulders.  His personal seat, tight seat belts, and HANS device kept him anchored inside the safety of the car’s cockpit.

A few years ago, IndyCar adopted what it calls an Aeroscreen, a cockpit protection system that not only provides greater protection than a roll bar provides, but also provides protection against foreign objects getting into the cockpit during a crash. The system was developed after debris from a crash struck driver Justin Wilson, causing fatal head injuries in 2015.   Pagenaud has ben ruled out for the rest of the IndyCar season because concussion symptoms remain.  We’ll learn soon whether Preece’s crash produced concussion symptoms, too.

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Now the races—

(NASCAR)—Chris Buescher has won for the third time in last five races to establish himself as the driver with the momentum going into the last ten races of the year that will decide the eventual NASCAR champion.

Martin Truex Jr., finished the first 26 races as the regular season champion despite crossing the line 23rd at Daytona.

Buescher’s win was good news for a guy who finished 12th in the race, Bubba Wallace, who is the last driver to make the 16-driver field on points.

(L-R)  Kevin Harvick,  Michael McDowell, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, (the regular season championship trophy), Martin Truex Jr., Kule Larson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick , Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace  (NASCAR photo)

Buescher was second on the last restart of the race—after the Preece crash—with teammate Brad Keselowski behind him.  Keselowski pushed him into the lead and the teammates finished 1-2, the first 1-2 finish for what is now Roush-Fenway-Keselowski racing since Columbia’s Carl Edwards and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., went 1-2 at Briston in 2014.

The 1-2 finish was the first for RFK Racing since Carl Edwards and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. claimed the top two spots for owner Jack Roush at Bristol in 2014.

The first three-race round of the playoffs will be next Sunday at Darlington.

(INDYCAR)—Scott Dixon has outrun two other drivers whose COMBINED ages are only one year more than his.  Dixon, 43, famous for stretching a gallon of fuel farther than anybody else in IndyCar, finished more than 22 seconds ahead of Pato O’Ward, 23, and David Malukas, 21.

Dixon started 16th but ran a three-pit stop strategy while other drivers were making four or five, and led the last forty laps with an unaccustomed time cushion. He led 123 laps at World Wide Technology Raceway within sight of the Gateway Arch. It’s his 55th career victory, second only in IndyCar history to A. J. Foyt.  He, O’Ward, and Malukas were the only three of the 218 drivers to finish on the same lap.  His winning margin over O’Ward, 22.2256 seconds was the biggest margin for an IndyCar race in track history.

Defending champion Josef Newgarden was hoping to win all of the oval races on the IndyCar schedule this year. He led 96 laps but got into the turn two wall trying to regain the lead just past the halfway point. The crash also put him out of contention for the national championship.

Season points leader Alex Pallou was seventh and saw his lead over Dixon shrink to 76 points with two races left in the season—both on road courses, which are more to his liking.  If Pallou comes out of the next race, in Portland, with a lead of 55 points, he will lock up the championship.

Pallou and Dixon are teammates at Chip Ganassi Racing.

(FORMULA ONE)—Max Verstappen has won his ninth F1 race in a row, equaling Sebastian Vettel’s record set a decade ago. It also was his 12th straight victory from the pole, equaling a record set my Michael Schumacher in 2003-2004.

The Dutch Grand Prix was run on Verstappen’s native ground.

But he wasn’t the only record-setter.  By finishing second, Fernando Alonso broke Schumacher’s record for most days between first and last podium finishes (7,399 days).  And with Alonso having a solid year, this might not have been his “last” podium finish.

And it was a distinguished day for Aston Martin, which achieved its first podium finish in the 64 years it’s been competing in F1.

—FOOTBALL—

(MISSOURI TIGERS)—Our first look at what Coach Drinkwitz has molded this year will be Thursday night against the South Dakota Coyotes of the Missouri Valley Conference.  Missouri has never lost against a Football Championship Subdivision team—that’s a Division One level below the really big-time schools.

South Dakota as 3-8 last year. Missouri is 20-0 agaianst FCS Schools.  Drinkwitz says the Coyotes are a “very good football tam” with a “great head coach.”  The coach is Bob Nielsen who is 32-42 in seven seasons.

Coyotes like to run and these do—averaging about 185 yards a game on the ground last year.

Their starting quarterback has some top division experience. Aldan Bouman was at Iowa State Last year, completed 61% of his throws. Eight of them were for touchdowns. One was intercepted.

Missouri could use multiple quarterbacks—last year’s starter Brady Cook, redshirt freshman Sam Horn and maybe Mike Garcia, who transferred to Missouri from Miami in the off-season.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs open their NFL season the Thursday after Labor Day. The Detroit Lions will be at Arrowhead.

—BASEBALL)—

The St. Louis Cardinals need to win six more games (going into Monday’s night’s contest) to eliminate the possibility of losing 100 or more games this year. They start the week 56-75.  The Cardinals opened a series last night in St. Louis against the Padres. The Royals were at home against the Pirates

The road is tougher for the Royals. They’ve already lost 91 games (as of Monday night). They have to go 21-8 or better to stave off the 100-loss year.

The Cardinals have been playing miserable baseball for a week and a half.  They’re 2-9 going into last night’s game and they’ve been outscored 73-30.

The Royals also are 2-9. They’ve been outscored 66-36.

What will these teams look like next year?  Mark your calendars:

The Cardinals first spring training game actually is two games. They’ll split their squads and play the Mets and the Marlins on February 24.  The Royals first game will be on the 23rd against the Rangers.

Just thought we’d give you something to live for.

 

 

NOTES FROM A QUIET, HOT, HUMID STREET

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This series of observations began a long, long, time ago as “Notes from a Battered Royal,” which were notes sent out to Missourinet affiliate stations about what we were planning and what they had done to help us.

With the coming of the computer, then the internet, and then the requirement that the Missourinet have a blog, it became “Notes From the Front Lines.”  But the author is no longer on the front lines. He lives on a quiet street.  And its getting quieter.  The folks who used to live in the house across the street now are in an assisted care place in Columbia.  One of the houses next to us hasn’t been occupied for more than a  year because the man living there also is in assisted living. Three nuns who lived in a house just across the street and up one driveway have moved out.

It’s been a while since we made some observations that don’t qualify for fully blogness.  Let us proceed.

Saw a letter to the editor in the local paper the other day that said Missouri’s state motto, Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto means “The will of the people is the Supreme Law.”  That’s wrong. And it’s dangerous.  Maybe we’ll go into in more depth later but for now, the correct interpretation is, “The welfare of the people is the Supreme Law.”  For now, just think of how different our freedoms would be if the word “will” actually was the philosophy of our government.  The quote, by the way, is from Marcus Tullius Cicero, who we know by his last name, the author of “On the Law.”

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Is there a more pitiful figure in American politics today than Rudi Giuliani?  Of all the people whose lives and reputations have been destroyed by their association with and defense of Mr. Trump, the wreckage that is Rudi is the most pitiful.

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I have a friend who lives in Tucson, Arizona who comes north for a couple of months every summer to find cooler weather (even 10-15 degrees cooler is significant).  I call her a Sunbird.

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There are certain words that have become so politicized that all of the honor has been crushed out of them.  I recall when words such as “liberal” and “conservative” were not said with a sneer and were not spoken as if they were scarlet letters.

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The latest word that falls into this category is “evangelicals.”  The people I heard described as such while I was growing up—-and the people who had the word on their churches—were perceived as fervent believers in God and Jesus, more fervent than us Disciples, Methodists, Presbyterians and my grandmother’s Baptists.  But then came those who discovered evangelical techniques could be applied to achieving political power, making it a third word that is being abused in “the politics of personal destruction.”

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We were talking recently with some friends about the totally trivial things we remember for decades.  I remarked that I still remembered the Army service number of a high school friend who joined the service shortly after we graduated—RA18541439.

Now there’s a new number that I’d like to remember sixty years later—P01135809.  It has a certain rhythm to it, too.

And to think this person was once known only as 45.

We’ve seen the official portrait of PO-1135809.  We are sure that Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis is soooooooo intimidated.

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This is about the most enthusiastic your correspondent has been for the start of the football season in decades. Maybe it’s because this year, it will bring relief from the near-daily disappointments of baseball.

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Can’t help it.  Everytime I see a major sports team or league sign a deal with a sports-betting company, I start thinking its time to cast Cooperstown plaques for Shoeless Jackson and Pete Rose.

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The Capitol regains its heartbeat for a couple of days soon. The lawmakers will decide whether to override some of Governor Parson’s vetoes.  There’s a lot of money available to pay for the things he differs with the legislature about.

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But having a lot of money now means there’s a cushion for the bad days.

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Or we can forget about the bad days and just blow it all now.

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Or we can enact tax cuts so our tax base is even less able to deal with the eventual downturn.

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Anybody else have deer in the yard that just watch you come home and go in the house without ever getting up?  I think that in our case, they’re just resting while they digest  their latest serving of Hostas from Nancy’s garden a/k/a the deer buffet.

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A longtime friend of mine died a few days ago.  He didn’t want a memorial service.  He was a retired reporter who didn’t want his death reported in the newspaper.  Steve Forsythe, whose byline for United Press International read “A. Stevenson Forsythe” was a helluva reporter. Governor Teasdale blamed us, at least in part, for his failure to win a second term.

We could have thanked him for the compliment but we never did.