Armadillo Sports
Wednesday’s 6-pack
Active college basketball coaches who have won a national title:
Tony Bennett, Virginia
John Calipari, Kentucky
Scott Drew, Baylor
Dan Hurley, UConn
Tom Izzo, Michigan State
Rick Pitino, Kentucky/Louisville (now at St John’s)
Bill Self, Kansas
Tweet of the Day
“That’s not our style of play as far as the effort, rounding the bag there. It’s unacceptable.”
St Louis manager Oliver Marmol, criticizing OF Tyler O’Neill after he got thrown out at the plate in the 7th inning of Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to Atlanta.
Wednesday’s quiz
Michael Jordan played 15 years in the NBA; 13 with the Bulls, two with what other team?
Tuesday’s quiz
Other than Wrigley Field/Fenway Park, Dodger Stadium is the oldest ballpark in the major leagues.
Monday’s quiz
Last 40 years, #8-seed Villanova is 1985 is the lowest seed to win the NCAA championship.
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Wednesday’s Den: Mid-week musings……..
— I’m hoping to start posting daily baseball knowledge this Friday; in the meantime, I started doing some NFL research for the 2023 season on Tuesday, some of which I’ll post here in the next few days.
Weird Stat of the Day: over the last 22 years, under is 17-4-1 in Seahawks’ home openers- they are 18-2 SU/15-5 ATS in their last 20 home openers.
Also, Jacksonville Jaguars haven’t been favored in any of their home openers since 2010, and they made the playoffs twice since then, so they had a couple good teams.
— NFL Draft is still three weeks away; I’m not a big fan of reading mock drafts, it is just people guessing on picks, to try and draw attention to their work. Front office people aren’t going to spill the beans on who/what position they want to target, so writers have to guess, and if a guy does more than one mock draft, the guessing multiplies exponentially.
— Las Vegas Raiders signed former Patriots’ QB Brian Hoyer to back up Jimmy Garoppolo.
Speaking of Patriots’ QB’s, word has it that Mac Jones called coaches at Alabama during this past season, looking for help for the Patriots’ offensive struggles. Apparently Mr Jones doesn’t think much of Matt Patricia/Joe Judge, the New England assistants who were coaching Jones, a 2nd-year QB. Can’t say I blame him.
This ticked off Bill Belichick; now comes word that the Patriots shopped Jones around this winter, to the Bucs, Commanders, Raiders and Texans.
Former Alabama assistant Bill O’Brien is back in Foxboro now, which will makes Jones’ life a lot easier, assuming Belichick doesn’t trade him this spring.
— First six days of baseball season, over is 44-34-1, lot of offense. First five days of last season, under was 41-27-7. Banning the shifts has made the game more fun to watch.
— Weird that UConn was unranked in the preseason college basketball top 25, and they won the national title, while North Carolina was the preseason #1 team, and they even didn’t make the tournament.
Speaking of UConn, they’re in a 4-team tournament at Madison Square Garden in November with Louisville, Indiana and Texas. Pretty good preseason event.
— San Diego Padres have a payroll of $249,061,645 this season, a huge payroll; right now, their payroll obligations for the 2027 season is $145,545,455- that’s four years from now!!! And that doesn’t include Juan Soto, who will be a free agent after the 2024 season.
By way of comparison, Oakland A’s have a payroll of $59,265,000 this year; they have $13M on the books for 2024 (Aledmys D?az/Jace Peterson) and beyond that, their obligations are $0, as in nothing, bupkis.
— Arizona 8, Padres 6— San Diego led this game 5-1 after five innings, but Arizona scored four runs in 8th inning to snap the Padres’ 3-game winning streak.
Manny Machado was supposed to be San Diego’s DH; he got called out on strikes because of a pitch clock violation in the first inning, then got thrown out of the game for arguing. Not good.
His replacement, Nelson Cruz hit a home run, but it was a cruddy day for the Padres.
— Marlins 1, Twins 0— Sandy Alcantara was masterful, throwing a 100-pitch complete game, allowing only four baserunners. Avasail Garcia homered for the Marlins’ only run. Game took 1:57 to play; I’m guessing that stadium vendors HATE the new pitch clock rules.
— Mariners 11, Angels 2— Coming into the game, Teoscar Hernandez was 1-17 this season, but he hit two homers, knocked in four runs as Seattle snapped their 4-game losing skid. AJ Pollock also homered twice for the Mariners.
— Brewers 9, Mets 0— Mets have a payroll of $357,763,333 this season, by far the biggest payroll in MLB; they lost their last two games by a combined 19-0, to a Milwaukee squad with a payroll of $121,884,960.
Newly-acquired Brian Anderson homered twice, knocked in six runs; Milwaukee’s play-by-play guy on TV is also named Brian Anderson.
— A’s 4, Guardians 3— Tony Kemp’s walk-off single sent the announced crowd of 3,407 home happy. Oakland is 2-3 this season; the opposing starting pitchers in their wins were Ohtani and Bieber, couple of All-Stars. A’s have shown some spunk in the season’s first week.
By way of comparison, the A’s AAA team in Las Vegas drew 6,950 fans for their game Tuesday, a 7-6 loss to Oklahoma City.
The A’s franchise somehow turned a $29M profit last year; the owners are cheap bastards, but the front office, coaches and players are doing their very best. We’ll see how they make out.
— Rays 10, Nationals 6— Tampa Bay scored five times in 9th inning to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat; at 5-0, they’re the last unbeaten team in the big leagues.
Luke Raley tied the game with a 9th inning homer, then Josh Lowe put the Rays ahead 7-6 with a homer, and Yandy Diaz capped off the huge inning with a 3-run homer.
— Last week, Major League Baseball decided to voluntarily recognize minor league ballplayers as part of the Players’ Union; here are some of the changes.
Triple A salaries go from $17,500 a year to $35,800
Double A salaries go from $13,800 a year to $30,250
High Single A salaries go from $11,000 a year to $27,300
Single A salaries go from $11,000 a year to $26,200
Complex league salaries go from $4,800 a year to $19,800
