Wednesday’s 6-pack:
Top-selling baseball jerseys this year:
1) Ronald Acuna, Atl
2) Shohei Ohtani, LAA
3) Fernando Tatis, SD
4) Aaron Judge, NYY
5) Jose Altuve, Hst
6) Mookie Betts, LA
Quote of the Day
“There’s no way to cookie cut hitters, and if you start doing that, you get into trouble and underutilize strengths they may have. I’m going to get to know each player and their approach at the plate. One thing I will stress is controlling the zone and hunting in the zone. ”
Sean Casey, new hitting coach in the Bronx
Wednesday’s quiz
WR Larry Fitzgerald will be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame some day; he caught 48 TD passes from Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, the most he caught from any QB. What QB threw him the 2nd-most TD’s (29)?
Tuesday’s quiz
OF/1B Pete LaCock played nine years in the major leagues for the Cubs/Royals; his father was a famous game show host, Peter Marshall, who hosted the Hollywood Squares for 16 years.
Monday’s quiz
Matt Ryan (47) has thrown the most TD passes against the New Orleans Saints.
******************************************************************
I’m stumbling thru my channels late at night this week and I find one of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid, Green Acres.
A New York City lawyer (Eddie Albert) and his wife (Eva Gabor) try to live as farmers in the bizarre community of Hooterville; the wife isn’t too happy about it.
I bring this up for two reasons:
1) When I was a kid, I spent a ridiculous amount of time watching TV re-runs; Green Acres was one of my favorites. It was insanely stupid at times; my father would walk in the room, say “Why the hell are you watching this?” then five minutes later, he’d be laughing harder than me.
2) In the pilot episode, they point out that Eddie Albert’s character (Oliver Wendell Douglas) was born in Saratoga, because his father wanted to go to the racetrack that day and he wanted to stay for all the races—- his wife had her baby that same afternoon.
Anyway, the annual horse racing season at Saratoga starts tomorrow, thought it was fitting to point that out.
— Sounds like Major League Baseball is getting ready to expand, as soon as the A’s/Rays sort out their stadium/relocation issues. Getting the major leagues up to 32 teams will recoup some of the $$$ MLB lost during the shortened 2020 season.
— Monday, A’s drafted a pitcher named Jackson Finley, a fitting name for an A’s player, seeing how Charlie Finley owned the A’s during their glory years in the 70’s, when one of their best players was an outfielder named Reggie Jackson.
— Random baseball trivia— The last pitch Hall of Famer Bob Gibson threw in the big leagues was hit for a grand slam by the Cubs’ Pete LaCock, whose father is Peter Marshall, the host of the Hollywood Squares for 16 years back in the day— a great gameshow.
10 years after LaCock’s grand slam, he faced Gibson in an Old Timers’ Game at Wrigley Field, and Gibson drilled him.
Peter Marshall, by the way, is 97 years old and lives in West Virginia.
— Bronx Bombers hired former big leaguer Sean Casey as their new hitting coach. Casey, 49, has been working as an analyst for MLB Network since he retired as a ballplayer in 2008.
Bronx is 14-17 since Aaron Judge got hurt, hitting .218 in those games; they fired hitting coach Dillon Lawson after Sunday’s loss to the Cubs.
— All-Star Game; National 3, American 2
National League wins their first All-Star Game since 2012.
Elias Díaz won the game with an 8th-inning home run.
— FOX had Nathan Eovaldi miked as he pitched the 2nd inning; seems like a bad idea, especially if you wagered on the AL. he didn’t give up and runs, but still……..
— I liked it better when players in the All-Star Game wore their team’s uniforms during the game. MLB tries to sell these AL/NL jerseys; maybe they make lot of $$$ doing it, but it was a lot cooler when you got to see the various uniforms on the field.
— Kansas City Royals drafted a high school catcher with the 8th pick in the first round Sunday; he is the first catcher taken in the top 10 of the draft since 2008— that guy never made it to the big leagues.
— Big month for LSU baseball; Tigers won their first National Championship since 2009, also had the top two picks in the MLB draft, as well as three other top-100 selections: LSU coach Jay Johnson deservedly got lot of airtime on TV during the baseball draft Sunday night.
— Movie of the Day: Begin Again (2013)— A down-and-out music executive and a young singer-songwriter, new to Manhattan, cross paths by chance and they collaborate on an album. Can the talented singer save the music executive’s job, while making a career for herself?
Keira Knightley is the singer, Mark Ruffalo is the executive. James Corden is great as Knightley’s friend from back home in England.
If you like music, you’ll enjoy this movie.
— College football bowl Trend of the Day— Underdogs are 7-3 ATS in last ten Orange Bowls.
— Veteran guard Patty Mills has been traded three times in the last 10 days:
Brooklyn traded Mills to Houston
Rockets traded Mills to Oklahoma City
Thunder traded Mills to Atlanta
Has to suck getting traded three times in 10 days, but Mills has earned $68,753,853 during his career, so he can laugh all the way to the bank.
34-year old Mills was the 55th pick of the 2009 Draft, but he played 10 years for San Antonio, helping the Spurs win a title in 2014; he has a $6.8M contract that expires after next season.
— Spurs’ coach Gregg Popovich signed a 5-year, $80M contract extension; Popovich is 74 years old, has led San Antonio to three NBA titles.
Speaking of the Spurs, I’m not sure why they shut down rookie Victor Wembanyama for the summer— he showed enough that they should sell lot of tickets in San Antonio, but would it kill him to play a couple more games?
Will the Spurs play the 18-year old a lot this season, or will they take the route Oklahoma City did last year with Chet Holmgren?
NBA is a developmental league now, with younger players joining the league. The popular wisdom seems to be that 18-year old kids need time to get more physically mature before they become full-time players.
Kids jumped from high school to the NBA 20 years ago, but they weren’t coddled as much as is being done these days.
— Random trivia: Anthony Morrow holds the summer league’s single-game scoring record with a 47-point game back in 2009, Morrow wound up playing nine years in the NBA for seven different teams— he scored 5,327 points in the NBA, earned a hefty $24,237,958 in his career.
— NBA is going to have an in-season tournament in November; the details haven’t all been worked out, but every player for the winning team gets an extra $500,000.
Top-selling baseball jerseys this year:
1) Ronald Acuna, Atl
2) Shohei Ohtani, LAA
3) Fernando Tatis, SD
4) Aaron Judge, NYY
5) Jose Altuve, Hst
6) Mookie Betts, LA
Quote of the Day
“There’s no way to cookie cut hitters, and if you start doing that, you get into trouble and underutilize strengths they may have. I’m going to get to know each player and their approach at the plate. One thing I will stress is controlling the zone and hunting in the zone. ”
Sean Casey, new hitting coach in the Bronx
Wednesday’s quiz
WR Larry Fitzgerald will be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame some day; he caught 48 TD passes from Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, the most he caught from any QB. What QB threw him the 2nd-most TD’s (29)?
Tuesday’s quiz
OF/1B Pete LaCock played nine years in the major leagues for the Cubs/Royals; his father was a famous game show host, Peter Marshall, who hosted the Hollywood Squares for 16 years.
Monday’s quiz
Matt Ryan (47) has thrown the most TD passes against the New Orleans Saints.
******************************************************************
Wednesday’s Den: Mid-week musings………
— Amazon Prime is the graveyard of old TV shows/movies; you can find almost anything from the old days on there, some of it is even free.I’m stumbling thru my channels late at night this week and I find one of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid, Green Acres.
A New York City lawyer (Eddie Albert) and his wife (Eva Gabor) try to live as farmers in the bizarre community of Hooterville; the wife isn’t too happy about it.
I bring this up for two reasons:
1) When I was a kid, I spent a ridiculous amount of time watching TV re-runs; Green Acres was one of my favorites. It was insanely stupid at times; my father would walk in the room, say “Why the hell are you watching this?” then five minutes later, he’d be laughing harder than me.
2) In the pilot episode, they point out that Eddie Albert’s character (Oliver Wendell Douglas) was born in Saratoga, because his father wanted to go to the racetrack that day and he wanted to stay for all the races—- his wife had her baby that same afternoon.
Anyway, the annual horse racing season at Saratoga starts tomorrow, thought it was fitting to point that out.
— Sounds like Major League Baseball is getting ready to expand, as soon as the A’s/Rays sort out their stadium/relocation issues. Getting the major leagues up to 32 teams will recoup some of the $$$ MLB lost during the shortened 2020 season.
— Monday, A’s drafted a pitcher named Jackson Finley, a fitting name for an A’s player, seeing how Charlie Finley owned the A’s during their glory years in the 70’s, when one of their best players was an outfielder named Reggie Jackson.
— Random baseball trivia— The last pitch Hall of Famer Bob Gibson threw in the big leagues was hit for a grand slam by the Cubs’ Pete LaCock, whose father is Peter Marshall, the host of the Hollywood Squares for 16 years back in the day— a great gameshow.
10 years after LaCock’s grand slam, he faced Gibson in an Old Timers’ Game at Wrigley Field, and Gibson drilled him.
Peter Marshall, by the way, is 97 years old and lives in West Virginia.
— Bronx Bombers hired former big leaguer Sean Casey as their new hitting coach. Casey, 49, has been working as an analyst for MLB Network since he retired as a ballplayer in 2008.
Bronx is 14-17 since Aaron Judge got hurt, hitting .218 in those games; they fired hitting coach Dillon Lawson after Sunday’s loss to the Cubs.
— All-Star Game; National 3, American 2
National League wins their first All-Star Game since 2012.
Elias Díaz won the game with an 8th-inning home run.
— FOX had Nathan Eovaldi miked as he pitched the 2nd inning; seems like a bad idea, especially if you wagered on the AL. he didn’t give up and runs, but still……..
— I liked it better when players in the All-Star Game wore their team’s uniforms during the game. MLB tries to sell these AL/NL jerseys; maybe they make lot of $$$ doing it, but it was a lot cooler when you got to see the various uniforms on the field.
— Kansas City Royals drafted a high school catcher with the 8th pick in the first round Sunday; he is the first catcher taken in the top 10 of the draft since 2008— that guy never made it to the big leagues.
— Big month for LSU baseball; Tigers won their first National Championship since 2009, also had the top two picks in the MLB draft, as well as three other top-100 selections: LSU coach Jay Johnson deservedly got lot of airtime on TV during the baseball draft Sunday night.
— Movie of the Day: Begin Again (2013)— A down-and-out music executive and a young singer-songwriter, new to Manhattan, cross paths by chance and they collaborate on an album. Can the talented singer save the music executive’s job, while making a career for herself?
Keira Knightley is the singer, Mark Ruffalo is the executive. James Corden is great as Knightley’s friend from back home in England.
If you like music, you’ll enjoy this movie.
— College football bowl Trend of the Day— Underdogs are 7-3 ATS in last ten Orange Bowls.
— Veteran guard Patty Mills has been traded three times in the last 10 days:
Brooklyn traded Mills to Houston
Rockets traded Mills to Oklahoma City
Thunder traded Mills to Atlanta
Has to suck getting traded three times in 10 days, but Mills has earned $68,753,853 during his career, so he can laugh all the way to the bank.
34-year old Mills was the 55th pick of the 2009 Draft, but he played 10 years for San Antonio, helping the Spurs win a title in 2014; he has a $6.8M contract that expires after next season.
— Spurs’ coach Gregg Popovich signed a 5-year, $80M contract extension; Popovich is 74 years old, has led San Antonio to three NBA titles.
Speaking of the Spurs, I’m not sure why they shut down rookie Victor Wembanyama for the summer— he showed enough that they should sell lot of tickets in San Antonio, but would it kill him to play a couple more games?
Will the Spurs play the 18-year old a lot this season, or will they take the route Oklahoma City did last year with Chet Holmgren?
NBA is a developmental league now, with younger players joining the league. The popular wisdom seems to be that 18-year old kids need time to get more physically mature before they become full-time players.
Kids jumped from high school to the NBA 20 years ago, but they weren’t coddled as much as is being done these days.
— Random trivia: Anthony Morrow holds the summer league’s single-game scoring record with a 47-point game back in 2009, Morrow wound up playing nine years in the NBA for seven different teams— he scored 5,327 points in the NBA, earned a hefty $24,237,958 in his career.
— NBA is going to have an in-season tournament in November; the details haven’t all been worked out, but every player for the winning team gets an extra $500,000.
