Armadillo Sports
Monday?s 6-pack
Leaders in on-base %age through only four days (minimum 10 AB?s):
1.857? Steven Kwan, Clev
1.788? Nolan Arenado, StL
1.576? Matt Olson, Atl
1.538? Jurickson Profar, SD
1.469? Mark Canha, NYM
1.455? Andrew Vaughn, CWS
Quote of the Day
?I love the man. He gave me a chance. This was the only team that called me in the offseason and gave me a chance. I have nothing bad to say about him. All praise goes to him. If it wasn?t for him, I wouldn?t have a chance to play basketball.?
Lakers G Malik Monk, talking about coach Frank Vogel
Monday?s quiz
The NHL expanded from six teams to 12 in 1967; which of the new six teams was the first one to win the Stanley Cup?
Sunday?s quiz
Whit Merrifield was the only player in big leagues to play all 162 games last year; he batted leadoff in every game, too.
Saturday?s quiz
Fernando Tatis Sr hit two grand slams in the same inning of a game at Dodger Stadium.
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Monday?s Den: Wrapping up a sports weekend??.
13) Four days into the season, Tampa Bay Rays are the only unbeaten team in baseball.
12) There have been 14 games where the winning run scored from the 7th inning on; the home team is 10-4 in those games.
11) Guardians 17, Royals 3? Cleveland scored once in their first two games; they scored 10 runs in the first two innings of this game. Rookie OF Steven Kwan was 5-5 in this game, is 8-10 so far this season.
10) Rangers 12, Blue Jays 6? Texas is paying Seager/Semien $57M a year to play SS/2B, but they need pitching (everyone does). Rangers lost two of three in Toronto, despite scoring 23 runs in the three games.
As for Toronto, their starting pitchers lasted a total of 8.2 IP in three games. Not ideal.
9) Brewers 5, Cubs 4? Nic Lentz umpired the plate in this game; he didn?t call many strikes on close pitches. Freddy Peralta threw 88 pitches, lasted four innings. Marcus Stroman threw 79 pitches in five innings. No one pays to watch the umpire squeeze pitchers.
8) Only three starting pitchers threw 80+ pitches Sunday; only one of them finished the fifth inning. So far this season, only three pitchers have thrown 90+ pitches.
7) Scottie Scheffler won The Masters, which I mention only because he went to high school in Dallas at Highland Park HS, which is also where Dodgers P Clayton Kershaw, Rams QB Matthew Stafford went to school. Have I mentioned lately that Stafford won a Super Bowl with the Rams couple months ago? OK, I probably have.
6) NBA public relations people had to be queasy Sunday night; Memphis Grizzlies are on national TV, their star player Ja Morant is sitting out, dressed in street clothes on the bench, wearing a St Louis Cardinals BASEBALL cap. No bueno.
Memphis is only four hours from St Louis; their AAA team is in Memphis, but still. Second half, Morant?s Cardinal cap was turned backwards; the TNT cameras gave more close-ups when he was on camera, so you couldn?t see the hat that much.
When one of the best young players in the game is sitting there promoting a competing business, someone from the commissioner?s office had to be hitting the phones, and quickly.
5) Watching TV very late at night Saturday, Big 14 Network and ACC Network are showing spring football games (Purdue/Boston College). Interesting stuff; college football is out of the public eye until the magazines come out in July, but coaches/players are doing the work now.
4) Purdue won nine games last year, most it has won since 2003. Hard to tell a lot from spring games; it is like Pro Bowl rules, no real tackling, can?t hit the QB?s, but the tone from the guys on TV was positive, like this is a program on the rise. Purdue opens on a Thursday night with Penn State; we?ll find out a lot more then.
3) The TV analyst was a Purdue alum; he said something I didn?t realize, or maybe I did realize but had forgotten. He said the most important wins of his career were when they beat Indiana, not the bowl games or beating the better teams like Michigan/Ohio State. Rivalry games really mean the most to guys that played the game.
2) ESPN has a mock draft every other day or so; the draft isn?t for 17 more days. Going to be a lot of guessing on TV between now and then; I?m a Rams fan, so the first round doesn?t mean too much to me. Rams haven?t had a first round pick since 2016; their next one is 2024, but it?ll be interesting to follow and study, but when it happens, not people guessing about it.
1) Watching Winning Time on HBO, the story about the Magic Johnson-era Lakers, it appears that Nike?s Phil Knight offered Magic Johnson stock options in Nike, when Johnson was a rookie and Nike was basically a start-up company.
If the information on the show is accurate, Johnson signed with Converse and turned down Nike; those stock options he would?ve been given turned out to be worth $5.2B, that?s billion, with a B.
Whoops.
