Has it Really Been 25 Years? 

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For those who do not read our Tuesday entries on sports, please bear with us today because we’re going to talk about integrity today.  But we have to set up the discussion with some sports talk.

A few days ago I picked up a book by ESPN commentator Mike Greenberg and his associate Paul Hembekides, Got Your Number; the Greatest Sports Legends and the Numbers They Own.  It’s one of thoe “list” books—such as a thousand this or that’s to do before you die stuff.  This one lists 100 people and events in sports that are the greatest moments in the broad world of athletic competition.

Number 98 references the year 1998.  Those old enough need to think back 25 years to the dominating sports story of that year.  Let’s pause while you close your eyes and look for an answer, which I will give you after the (pause) but don’t peek.

(PAUSE)

The year 1998 was the year two men dominated baseball—Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.  The fact that they played for the Cardinals and the Cubs—two long-time baseball antagoinists—made the competition even more significant.  Throughout that long season, these two men battled to see who would set a new major league home run record.

There was McGwire, who was under incredible pressure from the beginning. It was expected he would break Roger Maris’ record of 61 homers.  McGwire had come to the Cardinals year earlier after starting the season with the Oakland Athletics.  He hit 34 home runs for the A’s and 24 more when he reached St.Louis.  58, and from the first day of the 1998 season the  Post-Dispatch headlined each home run he hit.

In Chicago there was Sosa, a power-hitter for the Cubs who had hit 33-40 home runs a year since 1993. But there was no reason to exepect what would happen in 1998.  In fact, the biggest challenge to McGwire was expected to come from Ken Griffey Jr., who had 56 home runs in ’97.

Griffey had his second-straight 56-homer year.  Sosa briefly held the record at 66 before McGwire swept past him on the way to a 70-home run season.

Many say that those two years, particularly 1998, restored the faith of baseball fans who had been resentful of the 1994-95 player’s strike and owners’ lockout.  Greenburg isn’t buying any of that, writing, “That magical season turned out to be an illusion, unworthy of being celebrated though steadfastly impossible to forget. I have heard it said that the best way to gauge whether or not a player belongs in the Hall of Fame is by asking the question: Can you tell the story of the history of the sport without him?”

Neither McGwire nor Sosa is in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. The reason the two are outside is because, as Greenburg puts it, “McGwire and Sosa dishonored the game.”  But, he says, what they did is unforgettable.  He finds it “a tad insulting” when people say these two “saved” baseball.  He argues that such statements preclude the idea that nobody else could have saved the game because baseball is so much part of the American spirit to have gone unrescued by somebody. These two men, he says, “were in the right place at the right time.”

McGwire and Sosa, and Roger Clemens—the most dominant pitcher of his time—and Barry Bonds, who holds the career and single-season home run records—have joined Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose in the mist of fame/infamy that keeps them from having plaques in Cooperstown because their greatness cannot overcome their violations of the integrity of the game, the first three because they are suspected of using, or have admitted using, performance-enhancing drugs, the fourth because of gambling on the sport.

The integrity of the game.

Whatever the game might be.

For many years I have been invited to speak to the incoming freshman class of the House of Representatives, who gather at the capitol a few days after their elections to begin learning how to be state representatives.  I usually tell them near the end of my remarks, “Never lie to a reporter because the first time to you lie to me is the last time I believe anything you say.  Never lie to your colleagues because your integrity is really the only thing you have going for you here.”

This is a time when we must measure those in the game of politics for their integrity for if we dismiss it as the primary qualification for public office we are dismissing it for ourselves. Our public integrity must not be sold to those who would mislead us in their search for power.

There are plenty of those who dishonor that great game of politics. Integrity to them is meaningless as they place power over us ahead of service to us.  It is up to us to exercise our integrity to save ourselves and our country from those who, as Greenburg would put it, “dishonor” the game.

We must never lie to ourselves.

Because our integrity is all that we have if we are to have, or save, our state and our nation.

(Photo credit: ESPN)

 

Notes from a Quiet Street (Cranky, colorful edition)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the car didn’t recognize my face.

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

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

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

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

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Speaking of colors:

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

ragus, and Granny Smith Apple.

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

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

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

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

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

She died before her next great adventure could be accomplished.

She wanted to go up in a hot air balloon.

Some people live a life. Other people devour it.

 

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the ingredients are there for a very interesting season.

(Let’s hit the road)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(photo credit: Allmendinger at WWTR—Rick Gevers)

A Creek by Any Other Name

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—is still a creek.

But what IS its name?

Jefferson City has a creek that winds through the town, divides the north part where the Capitol and the old penitentiary and the business district are located from the south side called by early German immigrants “Munichburg,” crosses under the Rex Whiten Expressway (Red Whitton, for those not native to these parts was the chief engineer of the state highwy department in 1941. Early plans for an expressway through Jefferson City were drawn up during his term, and Missouri became the first state to pave segments of the interstate system during his tenure. He was appointed Federal Highway Administrator in 1961 and oversaw early work on the interstate system.) and traverses what we call the “mill bottom” before emptying ito the Missouri River.

In flood times, the creek backs up and helps flood low-lying areas of central Jefferson City.

We call it Wear’s Creek today, or most all of us do. But it has worn various names through the peopled history of this area and the name’s origin is a mystery.

An 1825 map shows it as Wyer’s Creek.  A 1947 Jefferson City Daily Capital News article quotes then-County Recorder Henry LePage saying the creek’s name was recorded “under different spellings in different deeds.”  Some people called it “Ware’s Creek,” after Clem Ware, who owned a lot of property in the county.  But the creek’s name preceded him by many years.

He suggested that some called it “Wire Creek” because it twists and turns “in a wiry fashion,” leading to the spelling of is name as “Wier” or “Weir.”

The research for our next book, about the Capitol’s location, creation, and other history noted a report from the commissioners picked to find a permanent central location for the seat of state government that refers to it as “Wan’s Creek.”  An account of the execution of a Confederate guerilla by Union soldiers in the Mill Bottom calls it “Weir’s Creek.”

The 1947 newspaper article concludes by suggesting the then-new Cole County Historical Society could study the issue and settle the question about the creek’s name or, if the CCHS failed to do that, “Mayor Blair could appoint a commission to ponder the question, reach the decision on the spelling that could be accepted and which will permit uniformity.”

Neither the society nor Blair (who later became Governor) did anything about it.

However—

Missouri has a State Board on Geographic Place Names (did you even know such a thing exists?). It coordinates place names, working in cooperation with local, state, and federal agencies to coordinate the naming of places so we don’t have two of something with the same name.

Maybe someone should look into having this organization decide what this creek’s name should be once and for all.

On a related note:  About fifty years ago, the Cole County Court (an administrative body using a long-outmoded name from Missouri’s early days) decided to name all of the county roads.  As I recall, it was being done so emergency vehicles could find places and people in trouble.  The public was invited to suggest names. Then-Presiding Commissioner Tony Hiesberger told me that a suggestion for one road was “Old Muttonhead School Road,” a name stemming from a long-ago incident in which some rustlers took the sheep they had stolen to a country school, butchered them, and hid the remains underneath the school.   The commission decided against using that name, the reason why is lost to me but it would have taken a pretty large road sign to have the full name.  I don’t recall what name was adopted.

 

Now, Wait A Minute!!

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We are intrigued by the Trumpists who think our former president was correct when he said now-retired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley should be executed for treason because he called his Chinese counterpart in the crazy post-January 6 days of the Trump administration to assure him that the United States was not planning an attack on China.

Trump called the conversation “treason,” writing on his (un)Truth Social page, “This guy turned out to be a woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the Prsident of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH. A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act.”

The statement is remarkable because Trump seems to give credence to reporting by those he considers “fake news media.” But such self-contradictions within his constant self-aggrandizing verbal disgorgements are always expected.

Many observers warn that this typical Trump rant is another call for violence by his supporters and is an example of why his re-election would be perilous for our Democratic Republic. While reporters who interviewed several Trumpists in Iowa, where he recently campaigned found some willing to cut Milley some slack, one seemed to voice the common temper of the larger MAGA cult: “Why was he not in there before a firing squad within a month?”

As long as the Trumpists are asking THAT question—

There’s another question that nobody we have heard of has asked Trump. And if anybody does, we know the answer will be a doozy.

The question is this:

If it was treason for Milley to assure the Chinese that there were no plans for an attack—-

WERE THERE PLANS FOR AN ATTACK?

Well, Donny?

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

(FOND FAREWELLS)—–

When Will We See Players Like TheseAgain?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Game recognizes game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Squirming

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One of the biggest jobs of any reporter is to hold public officials accountable for their remarks or their actions.  Sometimes the official cannot prove a point he wants to sell to the public.

You know they’re in trouble—and they know they’re in trouble—when they refuse repeatedly to answer a straight question with a straight answer.  And all that does is make a good reporter bore in.

It should make voters ask questions themselves, chiefly, “Why is he dodging, ducking, and bobbing and weaving?” and next, “Can I trust what he’s saying.”

In our long experience of challenging the veracity of political rhetoric (and I absolutely loved doing it), I made sure our listeners heard the verbal dance of the politician who didn’t know what he (or she) was talking about or who was tripped up by issues of truth.

Governor Joe Teasdale once told me, “I’ll never lie to you but there will be times when I won’t tell you the truth.”

???

The public, as well as the reporter should always have their antennae up for such moments.  Such as a news conference in Washington—– when one of our Congressmen became a prime example last week.  Southeast Missouri Congressman Jason Smith, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, held a press conference to announce that he had 700 pages of evidence that President Biden had been involved in son Hunter’s business dealings overseas and that involvement merited impeachment.

The only problem, as pointed out by NBC reporter Ryan Nobles, is that the supposedly damning evidence was about events that supposedly happened three years before Biden was President or even a candidate for President.

Watch Smith squirm:

It is not uncommon for the person being pressed for a straight answer to cast an aspersion on the questioner or to simply refuse to take any more questions.  That, my friends, is usually a clear reason to doubt the validity of the statements.

The public should watch or listen to these kinds of events—and should wonder why this public official cannot give the public a straight answere or in some cases no answer at all. It is so frequent in our political system today that I fear the public has become inured to it.

Does Smith have legitimate information? The first hearing, which lasted six hours, has been roundly criticized from both sides as a nothingburger, to use an old phrase Ted Cruz once used to describe questions about some actions by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. FOX News Channel’s Neil Cauvoto agreed: “None of the expert witnesses today presented any proof for impeachment.”  Under questioning, the Republican’s own witnesses said there wasn’t enough evidence in the huge pile of “evidence” Smith was pushing to impeach President Biden.

Smith’s conduct in that press conference did little to build confidence in his “evidence.” And six hours of rhetoric from both sides and from chosen witnesses didn’t either.

Is his pile of paper big enough to hide a bombshell?  Not based on the other evidence—-against his evidence, apparently.

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

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Motoring along—-

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

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

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

Today’s Adlai 

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Last week we introduced you Adlai Stevenson, grandson of as United States Vice President, two-time presidential candidate, and historic UN representative for our country.  And we said we’d ponder some of the things he says before more of the modest number of readers of these columns were born.  His intelligence and his eloquence are, in some cases (perhaps too many) accurate for our times.  Such is the case of these remarks delivered in 1948, seventy-five years ago, in Springfield, Illinois, when he was the governor of the state:

Ours is a sad, disillusioned world.  Too many people on this blood-soaked, battered globe live in constant fear and dread; fear of hunger and want, dread of oppression and slavery.  Poverty, starvation, disease and repression stalk the world, and over us all hangs the mence of war like a gloomy shroud. But everywhere people cling to their hope and their faith in freedom and justice and peace—though fear, anguish, even death are their daily lot.

The remarks were three years after the end of a worldwide war when Europe was still putting its civilization back together after the scourge of Naziism presumably had been wiped out and only two years after Winston Churchill had warned in Fulton, Missouri that a new war, a Cold War, was underway as the Soviet Union expanded its borders.

Japan was a two-time nuclear victim and the idea that other nations would develop an A-bomb cast a frightening shadow on our futures.  The next year, on August 29, 1949, The Soviet Union conducted its first successful test of a bomb—based on the design of our “Fat Man” A-bomb.

In many ways, we still live in the world of 1948 and 1949.  Millions still live in constant fear; millions seek relief from “fear of hunger and want, dread of oppression and slavery.”

Our world has gotten smaller.  No longer are those living with these fears confined to their faraway continents.

And we have people in this country who seek to stoke fear within all of us of THEM, the people the Greatest Generation wanted to help at home and abroad when Stevenson made his speech.

In another speech we’ll refer to at another time, Stevenson spoke of the need for Christian humility.

Christian humility.

Where is it in our country today?

And why isn’t it more in evidence among those who expect us to let them lead us?

 

 

 

Notes from a Quiet Street  (travels with Bob edition)

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The other day I heard a commercial on the radio for a securities investment firm.  It closed with the announcer cautioning, “Investment in securities involves the risk of loss.”

If investing in securities involves the risk of loss, why do we call them “securities?”

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I have been watching gasoline pump prices rise during the summer and have yet to hear anybody comment on a key supply-and-demand contribution to their rise.

It occurred to me as I drove along the newly-resurfaced street between gas stations on Ellis Boulevard to ask: How much petroleum is under our tires instead of in our gas tanks at this time of year?

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On a related note: When I was growing up on a small farm in central Illinois, there was an annual event (or maybe it was every couple of years event, memory isn’t clear) that we used to dread. Road-oiling.

We knew it was coming when the county road department came by our house and ground up the old surface into little pieces which would be rolled smooth or used to fill in potholes.   Then a few days later, a truck would creep past our house spraying a very thick coat of hot road oil on the surface. Another truck would spread sand on top of the gooey surface.  For the next sevcral days, cars and trucks would also creep down the road as the new surface hardened. But it was impossible to avoid the oil splattering onto the car or the truck—or the whitewall tires that were part of the automobile.

One positive that came out of that operation is that cars and trucks got a new undersealing to protect against the rusting salt that was spread on those same roads in the winter.

If often seemed that the crews didn’t re-oil the road past our place until the start of school—and the bus drivers undoubtedly cursed the practice as they cleaned the goop off the buses. And I’m sure the school didn’t appreciate all the tar that was spread into the school from the shoes of students who had to step on that surface to get on the bus.

This enlightening observation came one day on the way back from Columbia when 63 drops down to the flood plain and the ball diamonds and the turf farms and there was so much dust from the gravel side roads blowing across the highway as to make driving a tad bit more dangerous.

Gravel or oil?  I choose gravel.  I helped my father clean the splattered oil off our cars enough times to appreciate dust.

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I was on the Whitten Expressway in Jefferson City and in the lane to my left was a dump truck hauling an empty trailer.  Written in regular-pickup truck-size letters on the rear gate of the truck was, “Stay back 300 feet.”

I thought, “What an I supposed to be doing?  Wearing binoculars instead of my glasses so I can read something on a truck a football field away telling me not to get any closer?

And how would you pass such a vehicle?  Or is a 50 mph truck a rolling roadblock—albeit a safe one.

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Back in the Arab Oil Embargo times of the 1970s, I recall when the 55 mph speed limit became a standard.  Not only would it save petroleum, we were told, it would save lives.

I remember thinking, “If saving lives was the goal, why not set the limit at zero.  Parked cars don’t cause fatalities.

Unless, I suppose, somebody opens the door as a bicyclist is going past.

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We went to Kansas City for a meeting a few days ago.  The shortest trip, timewise, was on Highway 50. It’s four lanes from Jefferson City to California, two lanes to Sedalia and  four from there to Kansas City.  It’s also four lanes east to Linn although it doesn’t become four lanes again until the highway funnels traffic onto I-44.

We took 50.  And most of the time we didn’t have a lot of traffic.

We wonder if the Transportation Department has considered looking at two more lanes for those stretches of 50 as it launches its aggressive expansion of I-70, which already requires great courage and patience to use.  If the department hasn’t, we hope it doesn’t say anything that would make Highway 50 an alternate cross-state route while 70 is torn apart during the next several years.