Category Archives: Racing

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:

Bing Videos

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.

Bing Videos

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s how the page rates him;

Strengths

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

Weaknesses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The playoff brackets for next weekend:

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

Motoring along

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing editor

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

However—–

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the outside looking in are relievers Adam Kloffenstein

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

Speeding right along—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Photo credit: Bob Priddy, Indianapolis 2019)

 

Sports: The Weekend of Improbables 

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(GENERALLY)—A team that tried to give away a game wins. A team about to give away a game keeps it. And a guy who once was on the outside is at the top of the heat. It was a weekend of virtual sports whiplash.

(FOOTBALL)–The gods of football giveth. And the gods of football taketh away.

(MIZ)—It’s interesting to see what two weeks of taking all of the snaps with the number one unit does for a backup quarterback whose credentials are better than many Missouri Tiger fans know.

Drew Pyne had been less than impressive in his two previous appearances this year. But this is a guy who stepped in after a bad start at Notre Dame and led the Irish to an 8-2 record during a 9-4 season that saw them win a Gator Bowl championship.

Missouri beat Oklahoma 30-23 in a game that focused almost all of the excitement in the closing minutes of the last quarter.

Scores had been hard to come by and the Tigers trailed 9-3 at the half, their only score coming from Missouri’s longest drive of the half—24 yards. But Missouri took a 10-9 lead in the third quarter. Nobody was expecting a fourth quarter that featured four touchdowns and three field goals.

Missouri got the action started on a 5-yard TD pass from Pyne to Brett Norfleet but the extra point was missed, giving Missouri a 16-9 lead.

But Oklahoma answered with 3:48 to play on a trick play that saw quarterback Jackson Arnold become a receiver on an 18-yard play that put Oklahoma up 17-16.  And then the roof seemed to fall in when running back Jamal Roberts fumbled with 2:06 left and the ball was scooped up by OU Safety Billy Bowman Jr, who took it to the end zone, giving the sooners a 23-16 lead.

But Oklahoma couldn’t stop Missouri and with 1:03 left in the game, Pyne with time and downs running out, Pyne, on a third and 16, found Luther Burden III for a catch and run that went 33 yards.  He then hit former Oklahoma receiver Theo Weese who kept the tip of his toe in bounds and, with the extra point, tied the game at 23.

Oklahoma still had some time to get back to field goal range But with three seconds left, But linebacker Triston Newson forced an Oklahoma quarterback fumble that as scooped up by defensive end Zion Young,  who ran the ball into the end zone. The extra point made it 30-23.

Oklahoma still had about 30 seconds to answer but the Sooners ran out of space on the field and on the clock and Missouri moved to 7-2, winning a game that was all but lost.  All but.

The wind, exciting as it was, barely moved the needle in the rankings for the week. Oklahoma is not the usual Sooners.  They’re now just 1-5 in their first SEC  year, 5-5 overall. The rankings announced yesterday returns Missouri to the AP poll at 24. The coaches poll puts them 21st.

Missouri goes to South Carolina for a late Saturday afternoon game next weekend. South Carolina is 6-3 but only 4-3 in the SEC. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—How many more times will the Kansas City Chiefs keep pulling rabbits out of hats this year?

They beat Denver Sunday in a game they had all but lost.  Denver was ready to kick a 35-yard field goal as time ran out but the Chies again made the play they had to have when Leo Chenal broke through and the kicked ball hit him just below the palm of his hand and rolled away.

Chiefs are now 9-0 and the record has NFL statisticians shaking their heads.  Here are some key “shake  your head” stats;

No team in NFL history has started the year 9-0 with a points differential lower than the Chiefs plus-58, an average winning margin of 6.4 points. They have won 15 games in a row, the most since the Packers ran off 19 in 2010-11 and the most in franchise history.  Twelve of those fifteen games have been won by one score. They are 9-0 in games in which they have trailed by seven or more points in the third quarter, the longest streak in NFL history. They have spent more time trailing than being ahead in five of their games.

Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs are 19-14 in games where they have been down by ten or more  points. They are 39-19 during his career when they have trailed by seven or more points. They have eight comeback wins this year, tying the NFL record.

The Chiefs’ 24.3 ppg ranks 11th this year. They are giving up 17.9 ppg, fifth in the league. They are 21st in rushing with 115.1 yards per game. They’re tenth in passing with 245.3 yards per game.

Individually, Travis Kelce has tied Tony Gonzalez for the most touchdown passes in franchise history, 76.

All they do is win, it seems.

But next weekend will be a huge challenge. They’ll be in Buffalo to play the 8-2 Bills.

—Our third  improbable story takes place on a racetrack.

(NASCAR)—NASCAR’s champion for 2024 started the playoffs as a man who wasn’t there. Now he’s the king of the series for the third time, only the tenth driver in all of NASCAR history to have three or more championships.

A month ago, Joey Logano thought he was out of the competition for his third national championship. Alex Bowman had finished ahead of him in the NASCAR race at Charlotte, becoming the eighth and final driver in the semi-final round of runoff races.

Hours after the race, however, NASCAR ruled Bowman’s car because it was underweight, putting Logano back in the hunt.

He immediately won his second race of the year to put himself into the final four and at Phoenix he held off teammate, and defending champion, Ryan Blaney to nail down his third championship.

His win, however, has triggered renewed criticism of NASCAR’s playoff format that automatically places anyone who wins a race in the 16-driver first round.

Logano would have been 15th in the regular season points chase if NASCAR used the format it had used for most of its history, crowing a champion based entirely on points. The playoff format, however, has allowed drivers who did not lead the series in points to take home the NASCAR Cup.

Logano brushed aside criticism that the NASCAR playoffs were unfair to the drivers who have consistently better seasons than he did, telling reporters after the race, “The playoff system in other sports is not much different than what this is.  You can have a great regular season. It seeds you better for the playoffs. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to go all the way to the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup Finals or the NBA Finals. It doesn’t matter. It might help you.”

But sports with long seasons—and NASCAR’s season goes for nine months—often pay off for the team that gets hottest at the end, as Logano’s team did.

The list of drivers with three or more championships now adds Joey Logano to Seven-time champions Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr., and Jimmy Johnson; four time winner Jeff Gordon; three time winners Tony Stewart, Darrel Waltrip, David Pearson, Lee Petty, and Cale Yarborough.

Logano has been racing for the NASCAR Cup for 17 years but he still has many more to go it he wants to continue. He’s only 34; he drove his first Cup races when he was 17. The only drivers in his first race who are still running fulltime in the Cup Series are Martin Truex Jr., who ended his career with the race at Phoenix, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, and Michael McDowell.

The Phoenix race ended a record winning streak for Kyle Busch.  He had gone nineteen years in a row with at least one victory.

NASCAR is done until February when the gang goes to Daytona.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR won’t be running hot and fast again until March 2 at St. Petersburg. The series is expecting 27 teams to be involved, pretty much the maximum, says series president Jay Frye (the Indianapolis 500 has 33 starters).  The top twelve drivers in this year’s standings will be back. Ten other drivers have seats and teams with open cockpits have plenty of veterans and newcomers to choose from.

The 500 is expected to draw Helio Castroneves in a one-off deal for 2025 along with NASCAR’s Kyle Larson making his second attempt to run 1100 miles in one day with the 500 in the afternoon and the 600-mile race that night in Charlotte, and former 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay.

(Photo credit: Logano at Brickyard 400: Rick Gevers)

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moving along to moving along—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Chiefs take on the Raiders next weekend.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Speeding along—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

Now, on with our regular show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On to pro sports—-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Motoring on:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The monthly records show the slog through 2024:

March and April  14-16

May 13-12

June  16-12

July  13-12

August 12-16

September (through Sunday)  6-7

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

Motoring on:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

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