Tuesday’s 6-pack:
Baseball teams with highest payrolls last year:
$333,262,507— Mets
$310,916,392— Bronx
$270,841,245— Dodgers
$249,094,493— Phillies
$244,875,028— Astros
$240,847,326— Rangers
Quote of the Day
“At first (retiring) was hard,. You didn’t know what to expect and you worry what people will say about you. You worry about that the first couple of years. But then you enjoy it. It takes time to get used to. I mean, for 20 years, you’re basically on the field and you’re working and spending more time with your teammates than your family.”
Former MLB catcher Yadier Molina
Tuesday’s quiz
In the TV show
Friends, what was the name of the coffee shop where people hung out?
Monday’s quiz
Josh Allen played his college football at Wyoming.
Sunday’s quiz
In baseball, home plate is 17 inches wide.
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— Sun Belt Tournament
Troy 94, Arkansas State 81
Trojans were 33-39 on foul line, Ark State 19-24.
Red Wolves led by 8 with 9:50 left in game.
Trojans are in NCAA’s for first time since 2017.
— SoCon Tournament
Wofford 92, Furman 85
Wofford outscored Paladins 13-2 over the last 2:30 of game.
Wofford shot 14-28 on arc, scored 1.37 points/possession.
Terriers are in NCAA’s for first time since 2019.
— WCC Tournament
Saint Mary’s 74, Pepperdine 59
Midnight struck for the Cinderella Waves, which had won three days in a row.
Gaels out-rebounded Pepperdine, 45-22.
St Mary’s shot only 2-13 on arc, 14-24 on foul line.
— CAA Tournament
Delaware 82, Towson State 72
12-seed Blue Hens upset top-seeded Towson.
Delaware has won four days in a row to get to the finals.
Blue Hens came into the CAA tourney on a 1-11 skid.
NC-Wilmington 68, Charleston 67
Seahawks led this game 40-30 at halftime.
Charleston lost despite shooting 14-31 on the arc.
UNCW-Delaware play for the CAA title Tuesday night.
— Horizon Tournament
Robert Morris 79, Oakland 76 OT
Oakland led by 13 early in the second half.
Robert Morris has won nine in row, 15 of last 16 games.
Colonials are in NCAA’s for first time since 2015.
Youngstown 56, Cleveland State 54
Penguins won despite shooting 12-23 on foul line.
Youngstown won seven of its last nine games.
Robert Morris-Youngstown play for the Horizon title Tuesday.
— NC State won the ACC Tournament last year, then made an unlikely run to the Final Four, but they fired coach Kevin Keatts Sunday, after the Wolfpack went 12-19, 5-15 this season.
Keatts coached NC State for eight years, making three NCAA Tournaments; he was 151-113 with the Wolfpack, 69-84 in ACC games. He won’t be out of work long; before coming to Raleigh, he was 72-28 in three years coaching NC-Wilmington.
— Murray State fired basketball coach Steve Prohm, who was 45-52 in his second stint coaching the Racers; he was 104-29 in his first stint coaching Murray State, from 2012-15.
What was the difference? In Prohm’s first stint coaching Murray State, the Racers were a big fish in a smaller pond. Ohio Valley Conference isn’t nearly as good as the Missouri Valley.
MVC is a deeper pond; harder to win there. The over-educated geniuses who run these schools don’t understand that concept. Winning is fun; rich boosters like contributing $$$ to teams that win. When teams lose, contributions go down, and coaches get fired.
— Under was 10-1 in games in the Missouri Valley tournament last week.
— Luke Loucks, a 34-year old assistant for the Sacramento Kings, is the new basketball coach at Florida State. Before going to Sacramento, Loucks spent five years as a video coordinator and player development coach for Golden State, where he won two NBA championship rings.
Loucks was point guard for the 2012 FSU squad that won the ACC Tournament. Loucks’ dad was a walk-on football player for Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles; his wife also went to Florida State and was a swimmer there, so he is a good fit in Tallahassee.
—
Famous birthdays, March 11th:
Alex Kingston, 62
Peter Berg, 61
Bobby Abreu, 51
Cedric Henderson, 50
Elton Brand, 46
Dan Uggla, 45
Anthony Davis, 32
Jackson Chourio, 21
— Gerrit Cole is having Tommy John surgery Tuesday, is out for the year; Cole was 8-5, 3.41 in only 17 starts last year. With Cole done for the year and Luis Gil out until June, New York has issues with its starting rotation.
— Mariners’ P George Kirby has been shut down from throwing due to shoulder inflammation; Seattle says there is no structural damage, but he hasn’t felt well after throwing.
— Mets C Francisco Alvarez broke the hamate bone in his hand, is out 6-8 weeks; Alvarez hit .237 in 100 games last year, with a .710 OPS.
— Arizona Diamondbacks’ 1B/OF Pavin Smith was named after pro golfer Corey Pavin; Smith’s dad was a golf agent. Corey Pavin was one of his clients.
— Minor leaguers are faring better with the pitch challenge aspect of instant replay, because they have been doing it in the minor leagues the last few years.
Challenging ball/strikes is an experiment this spring, but it is going well and it seems like this will become a rule next year. Developing a strategy on what/when to challenge will be fun to follow.
Do you wait until the late innings?
Do you only challenge in two-out situations?
By the way, while I’m here, if you’re betting on spring training games (please don’t), keep in mind that the Reds are not challenging balls/strikes- Terry Francona said not to, because it isn’t a rule this year.
So the Reds aren’t challenging bad calls against them, while the other teams are challenging bad calls against them. Cincinnati is 8-7 in spring training games so far this year.
— A’s-Diamondbacks played two games in Las Vegas over the weekend, at the Aviators’ ballpark in Summerlin; they drew a sell-out crowd of 8,708 fans Saturday.
A’s have sold 6,500 season tickets for this season in Sacramento; they’ll be playing for three years in Sacramento, in a stadium with 10,624 seats and a capacity of 14,014, with standing room areas behind the outfield fence.
— Forgot to mention this couple weeks ago, but RIP to former world chess champion Boris Spassky, who passed away February 27th at age 88.
When I was in junior high school, I loved chess, was actually pretty good at it (finished 2nd in a tournament with 50 kids in it). Bobby Fischer was the man back then; he beat Spassky in 1972 to become the world champ.
There is a great movie with Joe Mantegna,
Searching for Bobby Fischer, about a sportswriter whose kid is great chess, for no apparent reason. Ben Kingsley is in it too; very good movie.
Anyway, RIP to Boris Spassky, a chess grandmaster.
