Tuesday?s 6-pack
Odds to win the Dell Match Play Championship this week:
10-1? Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson
14-1? Justin Thomas
18-1? Jon Rahm
20-1? Day, DeChambeau, Fleetwood, Koepka, Rose
25-1? Casey, Molinari, Woods
30-1? Finau, Poulter, Schauffele, Watson
Tweet of the Day
?To us, when it?s your player and he?s played for you and you know exactly what he is, we feel more comfortable paying our own players. Is that to say we don?t want to sign a player in free agency? No. But it?s got to be at a price point that we think is beneficial for both parties.?
Colts? GM Chris Ballard
Tuesday?s quiz
Who is the oldest player in the major leagues right now?
Monday?s quiz
2000 was the last time a Big 14 basketball team won the national championship, when Michigan State won. Maryland won in 2002, but they were in the ACC back then.
Sunday?s quiz
In 1990, Michigan lost 149-115 to Loyola Marymount, the year after it won the national championship, the worst loss ever by a defending national champ.
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Tuesday?s List of 13: Nobody asked me, but??
13) Duke beat Central Florida by a point Sunday. In the 25:00 Tacko Fall played, UCF was +16; they were -17 in the 15:00 he didn?t play. Pretty telling stat.
12) Denver Broncos suggested the NFL borrow the AAF?s version of onside kicks where a team can go for an ?onside kick? by running a 4th-and-12 play from their own 28-yard line after a score, if they?re down by 17+ points, or trailing with 5:00 or less left in the game.
After the 4th-and-12 play, the game just continues from there.
NFL competition committee voted 7-1 in favor of this rule; Giants? owner John Mara was the one vote against it, saying ?What are we, the Arena Football League??
24 of the 32 owners would have to vote ?Yes? for it to become an actual rule.
11) From MetsMerizedOnline.com:
Mets owner Fred Wilpon is buying back a 12% stake of the team for about $180M, which values the Mets at about $1.5B, a lot less than the $2.1B Forbes magazine valued it at last year. If these numbers are right, thats a 28% decrease in value, in only one year.
The Wilpons now own 68% of the team, which is bad news for Mets fans everywhere.
10) Bears-Packers will be the Thursday night game in Week 1 of the NFL this season; this is the NFL?s 100th season, and Green Bay-Chicago is the league?s oldest rivalry.
New England will open at home on Sunday Night Football.
9) Milwaukee Brewers are playing couple of exhibition games against the Blue Jays in Montreal this week, but Ryan Braun forgot his passport, so he won?t be there. Whoops.
8) Ron Darling was talking on the Mets? game the other day about how the Seattle Mariners have it worse than any other baseball team, as far as travel goes, since Seattle is way up thee in the Pacific Northwest, pretty far away from all their opponents, except Oakland.
He was talking about Robinson Cano being 36 years old and how many games he will play this season. Darling said Cano should still be able to play 140 or so games, since the Mets? travel will be a lot less arduous than the Mariners? was.
7) Showtime has a 4-part series called Action airing this month, about the growth of legalized gambling. In the first show, a well-known professional gambler named Bill Krackomberger is profiled; they show him betting thousands of dollars ($3,300 a game) on several NFL games, yet he says that he probably cannot name 15 players in the NFL.
A friend confirmed that this is probably true. I?ve known of this guy for years as a sharp bettor; it is amazing to me that a guy can win betting the NFL but can?t at least name every starting QB int the league.
6) Johnny Manziel made his AAF debut for Memphis Sunday, going 3-5 for 48 yards passing, and running ball twice for 20 yards in his backup role. Starter Brandon Silvers won the game for Memphis, though, leading the game-tying drive in the last minute of regulation, then
Silvers, who played college ball at Troy, was 24-35 for 266 yards and two TDs.
That was the first overtime game in AAF history, by the way.
5) One thing I won?t miss about spring training ending; games where both teams are wearing the same color jersey.
4) When a player breaks his bat in a major league game, they actually sell the bat at concession stands in the stadium, and broken bats ain?t cheap.
I was in Philadelphia couple years ago, and was looking at the game-used items they sell there; jerseys, baseballs, bats, bases. Made the mistake of grabbing a bat by the barrel and got pine tar all over my hands. Sticky stuff.
3) In the last two weeks, Auburn won six games, counting the SEC tournament and then their two NCAA tournament wins. In the previous 13 years combined, Auburn had won a total of seven postseason games.
2) Jazz 125, Suns 92? Devin Booker scored 59 points in this one-sided game; Jimmer Fredette went 1-10 in 14:00 off the bench in his first NBA game in three years.
Booker stayed in the game in the last 0:20 with the Suns down 33, trying to get 60 points, but Utah fouled someone else intentionally so that he couldn?t get the chance.
1) If you follow comments that Celtics players/coaches have made this season, sounds like they?re all having a miserable season. Boston is 43-31, right now they?re the #5-seed in the East but you get the impression they won?t be too unhappy when the season ends, and they can all go their separate ways.
