Category Archives: people

The End at Mizzou and in KC; Grapefruit and Cactus; Youth is Served on the Track

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(WOMENMIZZ)—The fifteen-year career of Robin Pingeton as women’s basketball coach at the University of Missouri is stumbling to an sad ending.

The Lady Tigers lost their last regular-season game to Vanderbilt 100-59, the first time an opponent has topped 100 points against a Missouri women’s team in 25 years.

Pingeton’s Tigers will be the 15th seed in the SEC tournament, facing Mississippi State tomorrow evening. Mississippi State is the 10th seed. Missouri won a regular season game against MSU, 78-77 on January 27.

Her departure is not a surprise.  Missouri has gone 79-98 in the last six years with losing records in four of those seasons, twice racking up only nine wins. Going into the likely last game of the year and of her career, Missouri is 14-17.

Overall at Missouri, Pingeton is 250-217 and has taken the team into ten postseason appearances and made four trips to the NCAA women’s tournament. She’s 584-373 including her stint with Northern Illinois.

(MIZZ)—The Missouri Tigers again have shown an inability to capitalize on a big win, losing to Vanderbilt 97-93 in overtime after holding a three-point lead with nine seconds left in regulation.

Missouri had led most of the game but could never put the Commodores away.

It’s a costly loss that drops Missouri out of a top-four seed in the SEC tournament and the double-bye that would have been part of that seeding.

Coach Dennis Gates blamed himself for the loss, saying he hadn’t done what he had to do.

Missouri plays Oklahoma in Norman tomorrow night.

The loss drops Missouri to 19th in the coaches poll. They’re 15th among AP sportswriters. They’re 10-6 in the conference now.  Auburn, the nation’s top team, is 15-1 with Texas A&M second at 12-4 and Florida and Alabama at 12-4. (zou)

(MOOSE)—Former Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakis is coming home to retire. The Moose is going to sign a one-day contract before a game on May 31 so he can retire with the team he helped win the 2015 World Series. The team will host a pregame ceremony for him before they play the Tigers.

He hit 139 homers in his eight seasons with a n 11.5 WAR before he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, where he played for a season and a half before going to Cincinnati for three years. He split 2023 between the Rockies and the Angels, signed a minor league deal in 2024 but was cut before the season started.

He hit .284 with 22 homers and 82 RBIs in the championship year of 2015. He hit .304 against the Mets in the World Series.

(SPRING TRAINING)—How are  the Royals and Cardinals doing in spring training?

The Cardinals are last in the Grapefruit League at 3-6 through Sunday. They’ve been outscored 37-46 and are winless (0-5) outside Roger Dean Stadium. As a team, the ‘Birds are hitting only .193. Nolan Arenado is 3 for 12. Masin Wynn and Nolan Gorman are hitless in 12 at-bats each. Jordan Walker is 1 for 11. Victor Scott and Wilson Contrares are having a good spring. Both are 5 for 9 (.556). St. Louis is averaging five hits per game.

The Royals 6-4, sixth in the Cactus League. They’re 65-65 in the runs-scored, runs-against sats and hitting .257 as a team through Sunday. Bobby Witt is at 294. Michael Massey is at .417. Vinnie Pasquantino, coming back from a fractured wrist last year, is looking for his stroke at .188.

(CHIEFS)—  The offseason for the Chiefs already is producing changes and apprehension. Early speculation is focusing on three guys.

Linebacker Nick Bolton will become a free agent next month. He knows he’s a hot commodity. The Chiefs know it, too.  The former Tiger has racked up at least 100 tackles in three of his four seasons. He’s indicated he’s like to stay in KC, but—–

Offensive guard Trey Smith is not under contract for 2026 and coming off his first pro-bowl season. He also is 25 and is the kind of guy a lot of teams would like to pick up. But he was a stalwart in a leaky offensive line last year. Ian Rapaport with NFL insider thinks Kansas City will make him a franchise player for 2026 and pay him about $23 million for a one-year deal, making him the highest-paid guard in the league.

But the financial impact goes beyond Smith because it affects the players’ budget.  The big loser, according to some analysts, could be Isiah Pacheco, who missed ten games but the Chiefs didn’t seem to miss him much. The running game led by a rejuvenated Kareem Hunt might make Pacheco expendable.

Moving Along.    At about 200 mph:

(INDYCAR)—Defending INDY car champion Alex Palou dominated the race on the streets of St. Petersburg, the first race of the series schedule.

The win gives him a leg up on winning his third INDYCAR championship. It’s his 12th career win in the series.

But six-time champion Scott Dixon thinks he could have won he race if his radio hadn’t quit working, forcing him to make pit stops based in dashboard information rather than communications from his crew chief.

Even with that difficulty, Dixon’s runner-up finish gave Chip Ganassi Racing a 1-2 finish with the cars of rival Penske Racing’s Josef Newgarden and pole sitter Scott McLaughlin.

Two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Josef Newgarden closed to within nine-tenths of a second late in the race but faded to third, passed by an onrushing Dixon, who finished less than three seconds behind Palou.

Palou called his win “amazing,” which it might have been because of his past struggles at St. Pete.

The season opened poorly for the third Penske driver, Will Power, who had to replace his engine before the start and was then caught up in a crash on the third turn of the race. Power, who turned 44 earlier in the week, is in the last year of his contract with Penske. He wants to keep racing, would prefer to stay with Penske but says serious contract negotiations have not yet begun.

McLaughlin announced before the race that his contract with Penske had been extended.

(NASCAR)—Christopher Bell has become the first driver since 2018 to win two of the first three NASCAR Cup races, crossing the finish line at the Circuit of the Americas after a tough but clean race. He also won at Atlanta last week.

Bell finished second at COTA last year. This year seemed like a replay of 2024 in some ways. “These road-course races are so much fun,” he said afterwards. But he didn’t want to wreck Busch to get past him. “We tried to be so cautious…His car started falling off, and ours was still strong. I kept thinking ‘don’t beat yourself.’”

Kyle Busch seemed on the verge of ending his 59-race winless streak when the last caution came out that allowed the field to bunch up with him. He and Bell raced hard and clean before Busch’s worn tires forced him to slow, allowing Bell to get past him with ten laps to go, and then William Byron and Tyler Reddick got past him, too.

Byron was able to get to Bell but couldn’t get an opening to pass. Chase Elliott, who came back from an early spin to finish fourth, watched the three fight it out in the closing laps and called the contest “a great example of three very respectful talented race car drivers duking it out for the win without crashing each other.”

Busch is looking for his first win since June, 2023 at Madison, Illinois. After the race he told interviewers, “I feel like maybe the two-lap fresher tires the No. 20 (Bell) had was the difference. All things considered, I’d love to have equal tires to the No. 20 and get back after it and see what we could do that way. But I also hated to see that yellow that came out. I felt like we had a little bit of a gap there, enough of a gap that I was protecting my tires.”

(photo credits: Moustakis—KC Royals; Bell—Bob Priddy; Palou—Rick Gevers)

 

 

 

Great? 

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We have a place at the end of these entries for people to respond to them. I hope the Trumpers will do that today—

And explain how last week’s disgusting performance in the meeting with Ukraine’s President in any way makes America Great.

To whom?

Well, Russia thinks America is great.  Donald Trump thinks browbeating and bullying the president of a country fighting off takeover from a cruel, controlling, all-powerful despotic leader of a gigantically larger country makes our America great, at least in his own self-dominated mind.

HERE’S how American can be great—–but Trump’s own cruel, controlling, all-powerful self-image won’t let him do it:

Persuade his good friend Vlad to stop the invasion of Ukraine. Withdraw.  Offer Russia security protections against invasion from Ukraine.

He won’t do it. He can’t do it. He’s already speaking from Vlad’s pocket when he accuses Ukraine of starting the war.

Imagine if Roosevelt in 1939 had accused Poland of invading Germany; England of launching a blitzkrieg against Germany in 1940, Hawaii of bombing Tokyo in ’41.  Imagine if Truman accused South Korea of starting a war in 1950 by invading North Korea.  Or if George H. W. Bush had charged Kuwait with invading Iraq in 1990.

Just think how much greater we would be now if those presidents hadn’t made the mistakes Trump refuses to make today.

The greatness of America on the world stage is gone and it is becoming smaller in the international rear-view mirror.  It’s even growing smaller in our own rear-view mirror with every day of crude butchery of our own government, with every day that the faceless bureaucrats who try to make our government work for US are threatened with the loss of their jobs by people who have little appreciation for laboring on behalf of other people.

So tell me, Trumpers, in the dialogue box at the end of this entry, just how Trump is making our country great by doing the things to his own people that he is doing.  Look ahead, and tell me how our lives will be better a year from now.

Don’t send me an email.  My name is on every one of these entries. I expect those with differing opinions to have enough courage to stand behind their words with their names.

Make me think how great my country is today.  Make me proud of my president.  Make me sufficiently grateful.

The Meritocracy

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We are waiting to see the day the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion do two things.

  1. Proclaims Black History Month will not be recognized.
  2. Eliminate the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Black History Month began as “Negro History Week” in 1926 at the urging of one of our nation’s greatest Black historians, Carter G. Woodson, and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, with Woodson saying it was important to the cultural survival of Blacks within the broader White society.  The week was observed in the February week when the birth of Abraham Lincoln was celebrated.

He commented, “If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. The American Indian left no continuous record. He did not appreciate the value of tradition; and where is he today? The Hebrew keenly appreciated the value of tradition, as is attested by the Bible itself. In spite of worldwide persecution, therefore, he is a great factor in our civilization.”

The Black United Students group and Black educators at Kent State University proposed in 1969 that the week-long celebration become Black History Month.  The first observance was in 1970.

President Ford endorsed it as part of the national Bicentennial celebrations in 1976.

But with the arrival of the second Trump term, Black History Month appeared to be on somewhat shaky ground.  One of the first things Trump did when resuming office was to sign an executive order ending “all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government.”

Within a matter of days, agencies were circulating memos, many of them announcing in terms similar to the line used by a Justice Department memo, “These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.”

To the surprise of some, Trump did sign a proclamation recognizing Black History Month at the start of February calling on American citizens and public officials to “celebrate the contributions of so many black American patriots who have indelibly shaped our Nation’s history.”

EEOC:

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission exists but President Trump has rendered it useless, as he has the National Labor Relations Board.

Acting quickly after resuming office, he fired then-Chairman Charlotte Burrows, a Biden appointee who became the first chairman ever fired by a President. He also canned Commissioner Joycelyn Samuels, one of his own appointees from 2020, leaving only two members of the five-member commission. Trump appointee Andrea Lucas was named the acting chair. She is identified as a strong opponent of DEI programs, which she says promote reverse discrimination. The also is known as a critic of legal protections for transgender people. Her term expires July 1.

Failure to reappoint her or to name a successor will leave only Kalpana Kotagel on the commission.  Kotagel is an African-American employment attorney appointee of President Biden. Her term expires in 2027, potentially leaving the commission with no members.

Kotagel is doomed.  She’s the kind of person Trump loves to hate. As a private attorney, she specialized in DEI cases, particularly involving the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and has represented clients in other civil rights employment actions. Four years ago she worked with the Transgender Defense and Educational Fund when Aetna Insurance Company granted access to breast augmentation surgery for male policyholders who underwent surgery to become women. She also is a member of the Advisory Board Office of Equity and Inclusion at the University of Pennsylvania.

Trump criticized the EEOC in his first term as ineffective and took no steps to make it so. The commission’s staff has been cut by more than 40% by Congress.

About the same time he was ravaging the EEOC, Trump fired National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a Biden appointee, and Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox, leaving the NLRB also with just two members and three vacancies, thus unable to do any business.

In place of these and other programs created to insure qualified people have equal chances to become employed, Trump trumpets the meritocracy, saying people should be hired on the basis of merit, not race or other factors. But he has dismantled the agencies that were established to make sure that everybody was considered on their merits.

And he has celebrated the month by firing a lot of Black American patriots—including, just last week, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—who are shaping our present.  Someday our present will be someone else’s past.  We hope those of the future are harsh in their judgments of our present and the President who is making it.

The Golden Rule Today

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It use to be darkly humorous to note than in contemporary society, “He who has the gold rules.”

But today, in this country where egalitarianism is taking a beating from the super-oligarch behind the simple-oligarch, there is no humor in that twisting of the verse from the New Testament Book of Matthew, “All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do even so to them.”

Or in contemporary English, “Do unto Oohers and you would have the do unto you.”

The sentiment seems completely unfamiliar to our President or to his top henchmen and his Meat Cleaver Vigilantes.

The Golden Rule is not just a Christian instruction.  Other faiths have their versions of it.

Sathya Si Baba, a Hindu guru who claimed to be the reincarnation of 19th century spiritual master Sai Baba of Shirdi, whose teachings were a blend of the Christianity and Muslim faiths, wrote: “You must examine every act to find out if it will cause pain to others; if it does, withdraw from it. Don’t do to others what you do not like done unto you. This is called the Golden Rule. Yes, it is the best test for distinguishing right from wrong.”  (SSS 7:227

The equivalent for Buddhists from Udana-Varga 5:18is, “In five ways should a clansman minister to his friends and families by generosity, courtesy, and benevolence, by treting them as he treats himself and by being as good at his word.”

Judaism: “What is hurtful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man.” (Talmud, Shabbat 3id)

Muhammed told his followers, “No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.” (Sunnah)

In The Great Learning, Ta Haio, Confucius comes pretty close to our contemporary language: “Do not unto others that you would not they should do until you.”

Mahabharta 5:17 tells Hindus, “Do not do to others that which if done to thee would cause thee pain.”

Followers of the Indian faith called Jainism, one of the world’s oldest religions, say, “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard “all creatures as we regard our own self.”

The lesson from Grantha Sahib in the Sikh faith is, “As thou deemest thyself, so deem others. Then shall thou become a partner in heaven.”

The Tao Tu Ching, The Book of the Way and Virtue teaches students of the Tao, “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and regard your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”

Zoraster, who also is known as Zarathustra, was a teacher and preacher of an ancient religion that influenced the Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Muslim, and Judaism—and the great Greek philosophers. His teaching recorded in Dadisten-i-dinik 94:5 reads, “That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.”

There also are Golden Rules from the writings of great philosophers:

About a century before the birth of Christ, Epictetus wrote, “What you would avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others.”

Immanuel Kant, an 18th Century German Philosopher, wrote, “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.”

The Greek philosopher Plato, in the 4th Century BCE wished, “May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.”

About a century later, another Greek philosopher, Socrates, offered, “Do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you.”

And Rome’s Seneca in the First Century CE, said in his Epistle 47:11, “Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors.”

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who wrote his Meditations 2.1, said Nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him, for we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away. 

We’ll give American poet Edwin Markham the final observation:  “We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.”

Markham might be best known for his simple poem, “Outwited”:

He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

In Washington today, the Golden Rule is a tarnished gong, a clanging cymbal and the only circle is the one that shuts people out.

Wouldn’t a Christian Nation draw the circle that takes others in?

The Gulf

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It’s the Gulf of Mexico. Period.

And calling it the Gulf of America is as silly as some people got after the September 2001 terrorist attacks when France opposed our invasion of Iraq by deciding to call French fries, Freedom Fries.

The pettiness and immaturity of a 78-year old man with a superiority complex was played out a few days ago when he threw a tantrum and banished an Associated Press reporter from an Oval Office press conference dominated not by the old man but by his  hatchet man. The reporters was not banned because he asked an impertinent question of either of the stars of the event.

He was barred from the event because the Associated Press won’t call the Gulf of Mexico the presidentially-designated Gulf of America.

To begin with, Trump’s executive order on the Gulf shows his usual ignorance of and respect for maritime/economic law and the authority of individuals as well as countries to keep calling it the Gulf of Mexico.

But never trouble Donald Trump with facts or with respecting any system, nations, and cultures that long-ago legally or at least culturally designated names of places.

Renaming Denali, for example, is disrespectful of the Koyukon Athabascan people who have lived in that area for centuries and have called it Denali. Not until 1896 was it called Mt. McKinley, and not by any official action or decision by an international naming agency but by a gold miner who started calling it McKinley to support a presidential candidate. President Wilson signed a bill in 1917 making McKinley the official name.

But the state of Alaska asked in 1975 that the United States Board on Geographical Place Names make the official name to the traditional Denali. Ohio Congressman Ralph Regula blocked it because McKinley’s hometown of Canton was in his district and he didn’t seem to care what generations of natives had called the mountain long before he came along. Canton is a long ways from Alaska and surely Regula (who died a few years ago) could have found something closer to home with which to make a headline.

The Board of Geographical Place Names?

The King of Renaming Puffery apparently does not know, or does not care about, the existence of such a body that was created in 1897 and assumed its present status by federal law in 1947. The board, part of the Department of the Interior, tries to allocate place names based on local custom “as well as principles, policies, and procedures governing the use of domestic names, foreign names, Antarctic names, and undersea feature names,” as one source puts it. More than fifty other nations have similar national bodies.

Such organizations are necessary to avoid confusion about what is what and where that what is.

Then there is the United Nations Economic and Social Council  and its nine-member Group of Experts on Geographical Names that has been reviews things every five years, beginning in 1960. Having a commonly-used name of a place is important in domestic and international trade.

But we are learning that this President has no regard for federal agencies or international programs, especially when he decides to show his power by ignoring them with executive orders. And woe be unto anyone who does not worship his impulses.

Here’s the deal about the Gulf of Whatever—

The United States does not OWN the Gulf of Mexico.  The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea grants countries control of waters about twelve nautical miles from the country’s shores. That’s the closest this country has to owning a gulf, a sea, or an ocean.

There also is an “Exclusive Economic Zone” that covers 200 miles of offshore water. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the zone allows this country to “explore, exploit, conserve and manage natural resources” in that area. That zone overlaps similar zones for Mexico and Cuba. But they don’t count in inner Trumpworld.

So the Great Geopolitician is asserting authority over Mexico and Cuba with his MAGA-pleasing proclamation, something outside his and his country’s authority. The solution to his situation should be easy for him: Make Mexico our 52nd state and Cuba our 53rd.

Canada already is in line to become number 51. And that brings us to another issue for our President and our takeover of Canada.

What’s with this St. Lawrence Seaway thing?

It allows oceangoing ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Duluth, Minnesota.  It’s named for the St. Lawrence River that links Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. We expect an executive order soon renaming the thoroughfare the Duluth Seaway.

And while we’re at it, why is it the Missouri River when there are so many other states involved?  We can’t call it the Missouri-Kansas-Nebraska-Iowa-North Dakota-South Dakota, Montana River.  Let’s simplify it and just call it The Trump River and make it a symbol of his success at bringing the county together.

And then—

The administration’s new Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum says the department is considering redrawing boundaries of our national parks and historic sites so there’s more room to drill, baby, drill—even though we understand the major petroleum companies are less enthusiastic about the increased supply that will lower the pump prices of gas and oil.  But as long as we’re tinkering with those parks and historic sites—-

Let’s add the scowling Presidential visage to Mount Rushmore although rock experts have told the National Park Service the remaining rock is unstable.

It might be the perfect place for a Trump sculpture after all

(Actually, increased drilling should be welcomed by consumers who will pay less for the fuel it takes to buy their more-expensive groceries.)

And while we’re talking about the Gulf of Mexico, why don’t we annex the Caribbean?

Now back to the AP reporter. Trump’s action constitutes a punishment for a news agency that reports the news in a way he does not like.  That’s been illegal since John Peter Zenger was accused of libel by the Royal Governor of New York because Zenger’s New York Journal published an editorial critical of Governor William Cosby.

Cosby issued a proclamation condemning Zenger’s newspaper for “divers scandalous, virulent, false, and seditious reflections,” a crude eloquence we won’t find on (Un)Truth Social. It doesn’t even have an exclamation point, a misspelling, and a capitalized word.

Zenger’s lawyer, Andrew Hamilton—the father of Alexander—argued that truth is an absolute defense against libel. It took a jury only ten minutes to find Zenger not guilty, a judgment that established press freedom in this country.

Trump’s hissy fit because the AP recognizes the internationally-established name for the Gulf of Mexico, while not a libel, is an exercise of press freedom. The press is not obligated to print the party line or the individual declaration of anyone, including Presidents with a totalitarian attitude.

–or as the AP put it, “As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audience.”  The AP does agree to change the mountain to Mt. McKinley in its style book.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment advocacy group, commented, “President Trump has the authority to change how the U. S. government refers to the Gulf. But he cannot punish a new organization for using another term.”

Well, he did.  And he’s moving to punish news organizations who dare question his bloviating about any issue that pops into his head.

Someday, perhaps, we’ll get into a discussion of “America,” another word about which Trump is, shall we say, extremely uneducated.

Some General, Generally Biased, Observations

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We cannot help but reflect on the man whose birthday is today. You know, the guy who said in his second inaugural:

“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

We have a retread President who is 78 years old but acting as if he’s just seven and seems immune to rational thought (see Greenland, Canada, Panama, sh—thole countries in general  including Haiti, El Salvador, and all African countries), fawning about Putin, Xi, Erdogan, and North Korea’s Un and only, California wildfires caused by poor raking of leaves in forests, having the Army shoot protestors in the legs, claiming to be a Christian whose favorite Bible verse is “Two Corinthians,” a billionaire who wants to be like his idols—Musk and Bezos, etc., and so forth)

Forbes in 2023 listed him as only 420th on its list of 1490 billionaires, behind Republican whipping boy George Soros (410) various members of the Walton family, and well behind Charles Koch, who was 67th but who has a bottomless check book that he uses to influence political candidates—or buy them, as some suspect. Musk and Bezos were 1-2. Trump admires them for their wealth. Being around them makes him feel bigger.  He wants to be them.

A few days before his re-inauguration, he bragged that his administration already had hired 1,000 people some of whom will replace some of the THREE MILLION people who are federal employees now, about 2.3 million being full-time. The military makes up 775-thousand, the largest segment. Veterans Affairs involves another 476-thousand.

Adding one-thousand people while proclaiming he’ll make big cuts in the government payroll sees a little counter-intuitive. He and some of his acolytes want to eliminate the federal education department.  We recently checked and found doing so would eliminate about 4,150 jobs.,

Wow!  Our  billionaire president eliminates an entire department in which the average employee earns $130 thousand a year. Don’t think that’s excessive until you’ve read the real estate ads in the Washington, D.C. metro area yet.

In that same message he asked people quit referring people to him such as  “people who worked with, or are endorsed by Americans for No Prosperity (headed by Charles Koch), “Dumb as a rock John Bolton, “Birdbrain Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, disloyal Warmongers Dick Cheney and his psycho daughter, Liz, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, (General(?) Mark Milley, James Mattis, Mark Yester, or any of the other people suffering from Trump derangement Syndrome.”

What’s with the question mark next to General Milley’s name? He was just the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, capping a distinguished military career of 44 years, which is only about 44 years more than the question mark served.

At least he didn’t call Pence a traitor.  At least not this time. But the rest of it—the name-calling?

If you lack the intellectual capability to do anything else, you can always call somebody a name. “Poopy Head” is a good one for seven-year olds. When he was in office the first time, maybe he should have sent Poopy head Milley to serve in one of his famous sh—hole countries.

As for those who were endorsed by “Americans for No Prosperity,“ Charles Koch is worth about ten times more than lowly number 420.  But we doubt that he and most of the others—especially those higher than 420, have better things to do than sit at their computer all night dreaming up derogatory names of people who not only are far wealthier than he is, but in many cases probably better people.

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Having taken our retread President to task in the comments above, let us congratulate him for his brilliant idea that the Palestinians from Gaza should be sent to other places while he takes their damaged homeland and turns it into a beautiful place for the right kind of people.

His idea is very American.  And his plan was part of the original Make America Great plan.

It is uncomfortable for many who raise this point because they might be considered “woke,” and your correspondent realizes the risk he runs by reminding us of this proud part of our heritage—when good Christian people “helped” natives of another land move elsewhere after the systematic destruction of their cultures so the vacated land could be developed and inhabited by better people.

You might have heard of some of these places:

Navajo Nation, Uinta and Ouray, Thono O’odham, Standing Rock, Crow, Wind River, Pine Ridge, Fort Peck, and San Carlos Indian Reservations.

So don’t be critical of our President for suggesting natives go someplace else so others can turn their abandoned lands into profitable enterprises. He’s just continuing a cherished American tradition.

Let’s wrap up today’s spleen-letting with these two observations:

Given the nonsense that has emanated from the Trump Royal Golf Course in Florida, we suggest its name be changed to Mar-a-Liego.  And when his time in the White House is over and if there is to be built a place to hold and study his unclassified and classified papers, it would be appropriate to refer to it as the Presidential Liebrary.

     

 

A Lost Weekend for Missouri Sports—Except for One Guy

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

—Tigers lost. Chiefs overwhelmed. Thank Heavens for Baseball.

(CHIEFS)  Look for a lot of new names on the Kansas City Chiefs offensive line next year. ESPN reports Patrick Mahomes was pressured on 29 of his 56 dropbacks in the Super Bowl and was sacked six times, more times than in any other game in his career.  The Eagles helped him to a forgettable record with those 29 pressures, breaking the record of 25 held by Buffalo’s Jim Kelley in Super Bowl 26.

And the Eagles did it without blitzing. They just rolled over the Chiefs’ offensive line.

Mahomes was sacked eleven times in the Chiefs’ three post-season games. In the regular season, the defense got him on the ground 36 times.

The Eagles dominated the Chiefs, especially in the first half when the Chiefs became the second team in Super Bowl history to have fewer total offense yards than the number of points they gave up. Their total offense in the first half, on 20 plays, was only 23 yards. They had only three running plays (Kareem Hunt and Isiah Pacheco combined for three yards) and trailed 24-0 at the break.

The highlight of the game for the Chiefs was the winning the coin toss.  By the end, they had suffered the worst loss of any team in a Super Bowl since since losing to Tampa Bay 31-9 four Super Bowls ago.  The loss, however, was far from the worst in a Super Bowl.  SB24 saw the 49ers clobber the Broncos 55-10.

Statmuse.com says this is the 26th time in the entire history of the franchise that the Chiefs have given up 40 points and the first time it’s happened since they lost to the Vikings 45-20 on December 20, 2003.

Travis Kelce set a new record for most catches in a Super Bowl. He finished with four in the game and 35 in his career, two more than Jerry Rice. Earlier in the playoffs he had broken Rice’s record for 100 yard playoff games, with 117 yards against the Houston Texans, his ninth playoff game getting 100 yards or more. Going into the game Sunday night, Kelce’s 350 Super Bowl yards ranked him fourth in the record book. He was first with 174 catches and now has 179. He went in ranked second with 2,039 receiving yards and second with 20 receiving touchdowns.

Andy Reid’s career coaching record now is 301-162-1 in 26 seasons. Including playoffs. He’s up one on Bill Belichick for most playoff games coached, with 45. Belichick has 31 wins. Reid has 28. He will be 67 when the Chiefs start the 2025 season.

(mizz)—Dropping two games to top-10 teams last week have has led to Missouri, not surpisingly, dropping six spots in both of the major polls. They’re down to 22 in the coaches poll and

he Tigers fell to No. 22 in the USA Today Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll in Monday’s top 25, down six places from their previous ranking. They also dropped six positions in the AP sportswriters  ranking.

Both Missouri losses were by a combined seven points against top-10 teams. Tennessee remained at No. 4 in the coaches poll and Texas A&M moved up four spots to No. 9.

The teams that beat Missouri last week rose in the polls.

A last seconds heart-breaker of a three with 1.8 seconds left gave Texas A&M the win in Columbia Saturday but the Tigers sowed the seeds of their defeat with two long dry spells.

They went the first 5:40 without a point before Tamar Bates hit a three from the corner. Missouri didn’t scored in the last 8:13 of the half. The Tigers dominated the second half and tied the game with ten minutes left. They took the lead with 53 seconds left but left too much time on the clock and Wade Taylor got the game winner.

(The Baseball)—That’s what Hemingway’s Old Man called it in The Old Man and the Sea.  Pitchers and catchers are drifting into the camps in Florida and Arizona. Full squads are due by the 17th.

Both teams start the season with questions.  For the Royals, it’s “Can they do it again—and do more?”  For the Cardinals, the question is “What are they going to do, anything?”

Now, The Wheel Guys, one in particular:

(EDWARDS)—Retired Columbia NASCAR driver Carl Edward never was close to being the most popular driver of the year during his career. But any self-doubts he had about being an outsider were erased last Friday night when he joined the NASCAR Hall of Fame. In his 8th year of retirement, Edwards talked about why he abruptly retired and how he learned he was part of the NASCAR family.

Edwards was headed for the NASCAR championship when a crash took him out of his last race in 2016. A few weeks later he met with his  team owner, Joe Gibbs, and told him he was not coming back for the 2017 season.

“I’m grateful that we didn’t win that championship because it gave me time to go home and think about a few things…I didn’t know my kids and because of brave men like Dale Earnhardt Jr., and other athletes, I was aware that there are real risks to hitting your head over and over.”

Edwards told Gibbs from the dais, “You said , ‘If this is important to you, I’ve got your back’…You changed my life. You gave me permission to do something I needed to do.”

Carl’s full speech:

Bing Videos

Next weekend, big-time NASCAR racing returns at full throttle with the Daytona 500.

(Photo credit: Yahoo Sports)

Hearing a Speech Never Given 

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A few minutes before President Kennedy was to arrive at the Dallas Trade Mart on November 22, 1963, he was murdered.

Some of his planned remarks are useful for us to consider today. The text of the speech is available from numerous sources.

But what if he had lived to deliver it?

Well, we now have an idea of how it would have sounded.

A few days ago, I listened to  John Kennedy deliver that speech, in which he said, among other things::

“Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country’s security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.

“There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable…

“We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will ‘talk sense to the American people.’ But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.”

As he neared the end of his speech he would have cited how American leadership through strength had blunted the Soviet Union’s expansionism.  He would have said:

“. There is no longer any doubt about the strength and skill of American science, American industry, American education, and the American free enterprise system.”

He would have warned, “In today’s world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles – on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny.”

He would have concluded, “Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom…

“We in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: ‘except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’

Artificial Intelligence can be monstrously good and monstrously evil, which is why it is so frightening to many of those who have seen past promises of peaceful and proper use of technology turned inside out by those who have exploited them.  So it can be with AI, which is alternatively exciting and frightening.

But AI also has given us John Kennedy’s voice giving the speech he never lived to give.  You can read how it was done and then hear the speech here;

JFK video: hear Kennedy’s ‘lost’ Dallas speech in his own voice

The technology is remarkable—-and it is just beginning its ascendency.  And while listening to how technology has woven words into speech, it is more important to focus on the words never spoken—

“We in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint,”

AI has given us that speech. Will human intelligence let us appreciate it in these angry times?

 

Another Nasty Woman Speaks Up

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Trumpworld has had a spasm—as expected—to a religious leader who had the nerve to call on the President to be a real religious person, not just someone who uses faith as a political crutch.

It started with the President himself, who has proclaimed that God saved him from an assassin’s bullet so he could become the nation’s leader. Washington, D.C. Episcopal Bishop Marianne Budde looked at the President in a national prayer service the day after his inauguration and told him,  “You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.”

She really stirred the Trumpian bladder when she continued, “In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country. We’re scared now. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

She also pleaded for him to be merciful to the LGBTQ+ community.

Trump can’t stand anyone who speaks truth to him, especially a woman. He was deeply offended: “She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”

Long on invective. Short on facts. Donald being the usual Donald. Another “nasty” woman had confronted him. And the several studies that show the crime rate among immigrants is well below the crime rate of native-born Americans are of no interest to him. But don’t expect him to respect any facts other than those he creates.

The cutaways during the service showed someone who probably preferred to be anywhere but there.

One of the offended  parties is Congressman Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma. We’re going to challenge an opinion piece he wrote in the wake of the well-deserved pulpit remarks and we are going to take them apart piece by piece.

As a believer, I attended the service for the purpose of praying for our nation, President Trump, the president’s family, and the success of his administration.

(He obviously fails to understand that is exactly what most of us pray for these days, although our definition of “success” will differ from his. He wants success for Trump while others want success for our nation—the two not being alike.)

I purposely left the prayer service early after realizing how the pulpit was being used for left-wing activism and not for true worship unto God, to seek His will and wisdom. Mr. President, what accosted you at the prayer service was political–not biblical.

(Oh, really?  This is in contrast to a President and his supporters who have used religion for his right wing political purposes,  peddles grossly overpriced reprints of a 17th Century Bible and claims it is his favorite book but seldom darkens the door of a worship center and shows inclination to do unto others what he would want to be done unto him or—better—the reverse.

Congressman Brecheen likes to cite Bible verses to support his assertions. That’s one of the Bible’s problems; it can be cherry-picked to support any position.

We have or are thinking of a series of verses with which he and other Trumpians appear to be ignorant or choose to ignore, verses that Contributor Annette Griffin has written for Biblestudymaterials.com are a “series of blessings highlighting the qualities and attitudes valued in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Matthew 5, 3-12:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

That seem to pretty well cover all of the people President Trump doesn’t like.

The congressman is correct. The Bishop made the mistake of building her remarks on the Sermon on the Mount when she should have fallen in line and accepted the Psalm of J6.)

We wonder if the scowling super-Christian President who shills for his personally-endorsed book where these simple statements are found can quote any of the Beatitudes.  Wonder if he can even spell the word.

Brecheen goes on:

“When we tolerate lies, we are empowering a distortion of the truth. It is time for every believer to take a stand, get in the exit row, and walk out of services where the full counsel of biblical truth is being distorted.”

(This is an important observation oozing hypocrisy.  If it were carried out elsewhere as the congressman suggests happened in this service, Mr. Trump would have been speaking to empty auditoriums throughout his campaign, to an empty Capitol Rotunda during his inauguration, and to an empty room at the luncheon afterward—not to mention the his speech on January 6, 2021 to his tourists/hostages.)

Why didn’t the other believers walk out of the “service” on January 6?  Because they tolerated lies, distorted truth, and then they savaged the Capitol.

Brecheen might be excused for some of this because he was not among members of the House and Senate who fled for their lives while the tourists were paying a peaceful visit. He joined the House in 2023.

Many know of the faith of our Founders and the biblical influence on our nation.

(Such as the Pilgrims and the Puritans banishing Roger Williams and other Baptists from Massachusetts Bay because they weren’t Puritan enough to present Rhode Island, which he founded as a place where “liberty of conscience” was allowed. Or maybe we should emulate those Christians who murdered women branded as witches in Salem, etc.  And who can overlook the deeply Christian beliefs claimed by the Ku Klux Klan decades later?)

Brecheen:

Even as recently as the 1950s, President Eisenhower and Congress declared “In God we Trust” our nation’s motto and added “one Nation under God” to our Pledge of Allegiance. 

(We wonder if we aren’t dealing with a little toleration of lies and distortion of truth here., too. The Pledge was originated  by former Union Army officer George Thatcher Balch in 1885 not as a religious statement but as a way to teach patriotism to school children.  Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister—another trouble-making Baptists such as Roger Williams—is credited with modifying the pledge in 1892 to read most of the way we recite it today to promote the sale of American Flags. But here is something important to remember about Bellamy—he left out any religious references ON PURPOSE because he was an absolutist on the issue of church and state.

Bellamy was a self-proclaimed Christian Socialist, an interesting characterization in today’s political world.  But he might fit right in with The Gospel of Donald because he wrote, “Where all classes of society merge insensibly into one another every alien immigrant of inferior race may bring corruption to the stock. There are races more or less akin to our own whom we may admit freely and get nothing but advantage by the infusion of their wholesome blood. But there are other races, which we cannot assimilate without lowering our racial standard, which should be as sacred to us as the sanctity of our homes.”

Trump could love this guy after all.

Religion was not added as the result of any 20th Century Great Revival. It was added to make sure Americans knew we are superior to the “Godless Communists” of that time.

Brecheen seems to think the words “Under God” were added during the Eisenhower administration because Eisenhower had two legs:

A man of faith, President Eisenhower’s heart was set on this path from a young age when prayer saved him from death after his leg became infected and required amputation. The Lord answered these prayers, saving young Eisenhower’s leg, and thus, our future president was set on the trajectory of attending West Point and becoming the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II. This would have never happened had President Eisenhower’s leg been amputated.

What that has to do with the creation of the phrase in the pledge, we don’t know. History tells us Eisenhower had nothing to do with creating the phrase nor was he the biggest advocate for it. He got behind the political movement to include it and signed the bill creating it.

Brecheen asserts that Eisenhower approved the change after finding the greatness of America in church: “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!”

That latter reflection seems to argue against the point Brecheen is trying to make. It’s pretty hard to see the harsh attitude toward immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community—or even to the Episcopal Bishop of Washington —as being  “good.”  And a strong argument can be made that making American great again is the opposite of the message Trump uses to gin up his base.

Brecheen continues;

Unfortunately, a day after President Trump promised that his administration “will not forget our God,” Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde distorted the truth and used her position at the National Prayer Service to seek political fame and selfish gain. By ignoring biblical teachings that God made humans distinctly male and female (Genesis 1:27), that we must go to someone in private before accosting them in public (Matthew 18:15-17), and that we must obey the law of the land (Romans 13:1-3), Budde ignored biblical truth.

(The truth was sitting right in front of her. I read the lessons of the New Testament to be positive ones.  Is it not true, or more true than Brecheen wants us to accept, that Jesus’s message was one of inclusion rather than exclusion?  Is not the story of the Good Samaritan a core lesson? Is not the story of Cornelius, a centurion becoming a Chrisian an extreme example of loving one’s enemy?)

In her sermon, Budde cited a Bible verse commonly used in left-wing arguments, that “We are to be merciful to the stranger.” To understand this verse, we must understand the word stranger in its full meaning, as taken from the original Hebrew language.

This particular Hebrew word is specifically used to describe a foreigner who fully submits to the customs and culture of their country of refuge. Illegal aliens are not submitting to the laws of the land–they’re defying them.

(There he goes again.  He chooses one word and used it to distort the truth of the Sermon on the Mount. And the facts show a far different view of whether illegal aliens submit to the laws of the land. If Native-born Americans committed crimes at a rate as low as those committed illegals, would country would be much better off.)

Ecclesiastes 8:11 warns us against ignoring laws being broken, saying, in effect: When the law is not enforced, the people’s hearts are enticed to do more evil. Let’s not forget the murders, rapes, and gang violence that the lawless southern border has perpetuated. 

(Maybe Brecheen needs to get his nose out of the collected, selected verses from Trump’s favorite book and read numerous reports by federal agencies and private researchers indicating that comment simply is not true. And we won’t comment on the pardons of 1500 tourists when it comes to someone “ignoring laws being broken.”)

The left frequently ignores such teachings, taking Scripture out of context and using half-truths to justify their politics. Do not fall into this trap! A half-truth is always a full lie.

(Is he preaching to himself or to Trump here? To us, the truth in his statement applies more to the Trumpian empire than it does to those hated people on “the left.” Using half-truths to justify politics is something St.Donald uses far more effectively than St. Paull ever did.)

The pulpit did not flame with righteousness during Budde’s sermon but instead promoted principles that inherently contradict biblical truth. 

(If the pulpit did not flame with righteousness, why do the President and his supporters feel burned?)

If we are to return our country to one nation under God, we must speak the truth in love. Love without truth is not real love. 

(Now, THAT is profound.  But if we turn to Trump’s favorite book, we find a more expansive definition of love:)

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,  but do not have love, I gain nothing.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

That’s from Paul’s first letter to the Christians at Corinth. Of course, the President says he doesn’t want to get into his favorite Bible verses because “its very personal.” He has modestly conceded that Jesus Christ is more famous than he is worldwide. He once did reveal that his favorite verse. It is the Old Testament’s “an eye for an eye.”

Brecheen:

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

(Who can argue with that?  The problem is that the “love” chapter of the Bible is in First Corinthians and the “liberty” verse is from “Two Corinthians,” as the Bible scholar/President puts it. The question for the writer of this sentence is whether the spirit of the Lord resided in the pew with the stony-faced attendee (we shall not call him a worshiper) or whether it resided that day in the pulpit.

When it comes to quoting scripture, perhaps Trumpworld and its leader should ponder this passage from the 11th chapter of Luke’s Gospel:

“Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples: ‘The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So practice and observe everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  They tie up heavy, burdensome loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

‘All their deeds are done for men to see. They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love the places of honor at banquets, the chief seats in the synagogues,  the greetings in the marketplaces, and the title of ‘Rabbi’ by which they are addressed.

‘But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.  And do not call anyone on earth your father, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.  Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.’”

Too bad Trumpworld lacks the compassion to recognize that we are all brothers (and sisters).

Trumpworld’s follow-the-leader response won’t change Bishop Budde’s mind or standing. She told the Associated Press, “I don’t consider him an enemy. I believe we can disagree respectfully and put our ideas out there and continue to stand for the convictions we’ve been given without resorting to violence of speech.”

THAT is the Christian.

Trump showed his sincerity as a Christian by skipping church, as usual, yesterday.

(The knee-jerk reaction of Trumpworld went far beyond thc Congressman’s reaction.  I suggest you check out Bryan Kaylor’s column for A Public Witness:  (7) After Viral Sermon, GOP Threatens Religious Liberty

Bryan is a minister following in the footsteps of earlier troublesome Baptists. He is the co-author with Beau Underwood, a Christian Church/Disciples of Christ minister, of Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism

(Editorial Cartoon is from the Tribune Content  Agency)

 

Sports: Two big ones for the Tigers, one big one for the Chiefs; we’re counting the days until pitchers and catchers report—and an old lion turns 90 

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor.

(MIZZBB—The word should be spreading among the SEC: Don’t let the Missouri Tigers get a double-digit lead on you in the first half.  Comebacks against this year’s team—unlike the previous year’s team—are very hard and present evidence indicates, not working.

Last year’s team seemed to crumble when the other team came back and once they gave up the lead, they had nothing to come back with—and often lost by double digits,.

Not so this year as two games last week proved.

Missouri is 4-1 in the conference now, tied with three other teams a game behind Auburn. They have the league’s best home-court record, with 14 straight wins.

These guys also do something the other team didn’t do.  They rebound.

They are starting to attract national poll attention. Missouri is basely in the top 25 but they haven’t been there in a long time.  They’re 24th in the USA TODAY Coaches poll, their first appearance in the top 25 since March 13, 2023. They fell out of the top 25 after the season and, of course, never smelled the rankings last year.

The Tigers head to Texas tonight for an 8 o’clock game. The Longhorns are 12-6.  Missouri is 15-3 and seems to be headed to its first 20-win seasons since Gates’ first year when they went 25-10. It could be only the only the fourth season in the last eleven when they hit that mark.  They were 2-13 in Cuonzo Martin’s first season, 2017-18 and unofficially 23-12 under Frank Haith.  The University later voided all 23 wins after finding violations throughout Haith’s career at Missouri.

(GRILLING THE OPPONENTS)—Mizzou Guard Caleb Grill is the SEC Player of the Week.

Against the Florida Gators last week, he rang up 22 points on 7-for-eleven shooting, eighteen of those points coming from behind the arc. It included a critical three-pointer that gave Missouri a seven-point lead with two minutes left in the game that Missouri won 83-82. The Gators were the nation’s fifth-ranked team that night.

Against Arkansas, he was 7 for 10 from the field, finishing with 17points.  For the season he’s averaging 12.5 points per game and his 49.3% accuracy from the three-point line is one of the nation’s best. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs keep playing and the griping gets worse from fans who thnk the officials are giving Kansas City too many breaks and opponents too many penalties.

Whatever.

The Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills meet in the AFL Championship game late Sunday afternoon to determine who goes to the Super Bowl.

Kansas City kept the Houston Texans from reaching the AFL title game for the sixth year in a row and made it themselves for seven seasons in succession with a 23-14 victory at Arrowhead Stadium Saturday.  As usual the Chiefs defense rose to the occasion, sacking Houston quarterback C. J. Stroud eight times.

The Chiefs (15-2) are narrow favorites over the Bills (13-4), playing at home against a Buffalo team that beat them 30-21 earlier in the season. But that game was in Buffalo. It was the fourth straight time the Bills beat Kansas City in the regular season.

Last year, the Chiefs won when Buffalo’s Tyler Bass missed on a field goal from 44 yards that would have tied the game.

The games are often portrayed as duels between Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen.  Both are the only quarterbacks with at least 26 touchdowns in their first ten playoff games.

(CARDINALS)—St. Louis Cardinals President John Mozeliak says a top priority of the team is to get rid of Nolan Arenado, who has asked for a trade. The problem is the no-trade clause in Arenado’s contract that lets him decide where he’ll go. He’s already vetoed a trade to the Astros. A top issue is how much of Arenado’s salary the Cardinals are willing to pay his new team to take him off their hands.

(ROYALS)—The Royals have signed infielder Harold Castro, who spent last year playing—and playing well—in Mexico. He’s 31. It’s a minor league contract but he’ll have a chance to improve his standing in spring training.

He played a dozen years for the Tigers and one season with the Rockies before going to the Mexican League where he hit .320 with six homers in 84 games and an .813 OPS. He also played 51 games in the Venezuelan Winter League and hit .332 with 15 more homers, 41 more RBIs, six more stolen bases and a 1.021 OPS.

He’s seen as an injury replacement if one of the Royals regular infielders goes down the an injury. Heading into spring training, Nick Loftin is expected to be the infield utility man.

(AHHHH, SPRING)—For the baseball fan, the opening of Spring Training is the equivalent of the first Robin on the season.  Royals and Cardinals pitchers and catchers are to report Wednesday, February 12. The Royals training in Arizona and the Cardinals in Florida.

Now—to the noisy stuff:

(INDYCAR)—A. J. Foyt turned 90 last week and he’s still all there—and kind of surprised about it.  “I don’t think I’m supposed to live this long! I’m living for a reason, but I don’t know why!” he said in an interview released by his team.

His story goes back to a time when it was said, “There are old race drivers and there are bold race drivers but there are no old-bold race drivers.”

He’s the first four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500, a winner of the Lemans 24-Hour sports car race, a winner of the Daytona 500 in NASCAR.  If it had four wheels, he won in it. “I always drove hard, even at the local tracks, because I liked to win,” he said. “And when I got to Indy, the fans made want to win even more. I know they loved winning and I loved winning, so we had a good combination together.”

He saw some pretty bad stuff in his career at Indianapolis and elsewhere.  In his first 500, he got through a terrible first-lap crash that killed Pat O’Connor, one of the most popular drivers of the time, who had been Foyt’s mentor that year. In his 1983 autobiography, Foyt said that he was shaken by the experience. “When I turned around to see the car burning and his arm hanging out, I figured maybe I better go back to Texas, It’s a little bit too rough for A.J. Foyt. … I (had) come from little racetracks, nothing like this. My biggest dream was to qualify for the race. Here I qualified in 1958 (for the first time) and all of a sudden, it turned into a major disaster. I decided I don’t know about this.”

But he went back and three years later he won the big race for the first time. But he carried an emotional scar from that day through his career. He never let fellow drivers get too close to him off the track. “I lost a lot of friends. That’s the reason I didn’t run with too many people. I kinda stayed by myself ’cause I didn’t want it on my mind,” he said in his birthday interview.

Three years after that was the worst crash in Speedway history and was the first time the race was red-flagged.  Dave McDonald spun coming out of the fourth turn and crashed into the inside retaining wall. His car exploded in flames and rebounded back to the middle of the track where it was T-boned by Eddie Sachs, causing another explosion. Sachs died instantly. McDonald died later that day in a hospital.

Indianapolis race cars ran on gasoline then. The new rear-engined cars carried as much fuel as the front-engine roadsters of the kind Foyt drove that day, including a center fuel tank that, in effect, encased drivers is tanks full of gasoline.

Foyt won that race and afterwards conceded rear-engine cars were the future of the race. He said afterwards, “If I drive one, it won’t be on gasoline, you can ge sure of that. I am scared of having all that gasoline around me in that type of chassis…Maybe it would be wise to ban gasoline and also limit the account of fuel in a car and make it mandatory to make either two or three pit stops.”

Foyt had just become the first winner of the 500 to run the entire race without changing tires. The industry took notice.  Gasoline was replaced by methanol (and that was replaced a few years ago with renewable versions of it). The rear-engine cars were re-designed and as they took over from the roadsters, became safer.

In his birthday interview, he commented that the cars are “ so much safer than what they used to be. They carry a lot less fuel, and that’s the biggest thing that racing has gained. I don’t say it’s any better, but it’s a lot safer. I’m always looking for safety too ’cause I had a lot of friends that lost their lives. I was one of the lucky ones ’cause I made it through all that.”

The next year, however, Foyt was one of two drivers to still use gasoline (Al Unser was the other) in the 500.  Methanol was the fuel of choice for everybody else.

Ultimately, however, the last lap comes for even the greatest:

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That was 1993.  He was 59 years old that day. He had driven in 35 consecutive 500s, a record unlikely to be broken. Nobody else has done it 30 or more times. His closest competitor is Mario Andretti, who was in 29. The only driver still active is Helio  Castroneves, who will try to make his 25th 500 in May. Castroneves is one of three other winners of the 500.  Rick Mears and Al Unser Sr., are the other two.

Foyt, who had fielded his own cars for several years, continues to be active with Foyt Racing although his sons have taken over the operation and have shifted its headquarters from Houston to Indianapolis.

Foyt is a FIVE time winner of the 500, four times as a driver and as the owner of Kenny Brack’s car in 1999.

In 2019, Foyt settled recalled his for ABC17 in his home town of Houston.

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Years after he ran his last competitive race, he still holds a ton of records and distinctions and he is still the fastest man to ever drive a car on a track.  In 1987, at age 52, he turned a lap at 257.123 mph in the Oldsmobile Aerotech around the 7.712 test track near Fort Stockton, Texas.

Today?

“I keep buying land and try to develop it. I love to get on my bulldozers and tractors. I do that almost every other day. People say you’re out there by yourself. And I say: ‘It’s peaceful. I don’t have to listen to anybody but me.’”

He is the only surviving member of the 1958 Indianapolis 500 starting field.  Thirteen of those who started the race with him were killed in racing crashes.

A new biography of Foyt came out last year.  Art Garner’s book, A. J. Foyt; Survivor, Champion, Legend captures the first part of Foyt’s story which is so extensive that 656 pages is not enough.  A second volume is in the offing.

(Photo Credit: Bob Priddy, Indianapolis 2019)
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(NASCAR)—We are eleven days away from the opening of the NASCAR season. A non-points exhibition race will be February 1.  The real season starts with the Daytona 500 in a little more than three weeks.

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