Monday’s 6-pack:
Major League teams with the biggest attendance increases per game this year:
10,293— Phillies
7,378— Reds
6,787— Guardians
6,167— Rangers
6,166— Orioles
5,395— Pirates
Quote of the Day
“The hardest thing to do in sports is be a small-market team in baseball and be competitive, because everything is stacked against you — everything………We’re going to have to raise prices here — dramatically.”
Orioles owner John Angelos, who needs to take a course in public relations
Tuesday’s quiz
Where did Lamar Jackson play his college football?
Monday’s quiz
Lou Piniella was the leadoff hitter for the Kansas City Royals in their first game ever, in 1969; he went on to have an excellent career, as both a player and manager.
Sunday’s quiz
Joe Kapp was the Vikings’ QB the first time they played in a Super Bowl, when they lost to the Chiefs in Super Bowl IV.
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— Mariners 14, White Sox 2— Seattle can do n0 wrong right now; they give Julio Rodriguez the night off, but still score five runs in top of the first and jog to an easy win here. Mariners are 24-6 in their last 30 games.
— Weird story in the NBA; the Knicks are suing the Toronto Raptors and one of the Knicks’ former employees, who the Knicks alleged “illegally procured and then disclosed proprietary information” to their Atlantic Division rival.
According to the lawsuit, the former employee sent the Raptors thousands of confidential files — including play frequency reports, a prep book for the 2022-23 season, video scouting files, opposition research and more — after the team began recruiting him to join their organization in summer 2023. Corporate espionage– no bueno.
— Commanders 29, Ravens 28— Washington kicks a 49-yard FG with 0:09 left, ends Ravens’ 24-game winning streak in preseason games. Commanders outgained Baltimore 426-334, but Lamar Jackson didn’t play, while Washington’s starting QB Howell was 10-25/188 passing, with 2 TD’s.
— Odd football stat— Last year, Cincinnati Bengals’ defense faced the other team’s #1 QB on only 48.2% of their snaps, the lowest of any team in the last ten years.
— Dallas Cowboys’ first-ever game, way back in 1960, was a 16-10 loss in an exhibition game to the 49ers- the game was played in Seattle, 16 years before the Seahawks came into existence.
— Atlanta Braves are going to be good for a while; here are some of their key players and how long they’re signed on with the Braves until:
2027— Ozzie Albies
2028— Ronald Acuna
2029— Sean Murphy
2030— Matt Olson
2032— Michael Harris
2033— Austin Riley
— Braves’ OF Eddie Rosario was the 6th Brave this season named NL Player of the Week.
— Movie of the Day—
Airplane (1980)— After the crew becomes sick with food poisoning, a passenger who is a neurotic ex-fighter pilot must land a commercial plane full of passengers safely.
This is a very funny movie; no joke is too dumb for this movie or its sequel.
Robert Hays is the ex-fighter pilot, Peter Graves is the pilot, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is his co-pilot. Leslie Nielsen is a doctor “I’m not kidding and don’t call me Shirley” and Lloyd Bridges is an air traffic controller “I picked a bad week to give up sniffing glue”
Robert Stack and Barbara Billingsley (the mom on
Leave it to Beaver) are also in this movie.
— NFL Trend of the Day— since 2015, Arizona Cardinals are 12-25 ATS as a home favorite.
— Only five teams since 1979 have turned a triple play and hit a grand slam in the same game:
1979— Blue Jays
2002— Mets
2017— Tigers
2019— White Sox
2023— Angels (Friday)— they were only team of the five to lose the game.
— Only four players have hit 15+ home runs in each of the last seven years:
Mookie Betts
Manny Machado
Jose Ramirez
Eugenio Suarez
— There is a pitcher over in Japan who is expected to be in the major leagues next year; he is said to be the best Japanese pitching prospect since Shohei Ohtani— his name is Yoshinobu Yamamoto— he is 12-5 in 18 games this year for the Orix Buffaloes. Yamamoto turns 25 next week.
— Baltimore Orioles’ over/under win total for this season was 76.5; they’ve already gone over that numbe
r.
— Padres 6, Marlins 2— Ha-Seong Kim hit a grand slam on an 0-2 pitch, the first Padre to do that since Alex Dickerson in 2016.
— Arizona 4, Texas 3 (11)
Rangers scored twice in 11th inning, Arizona scored three times.
Texas has now lost five games in a row, still leads AL West by 1.5 games.
— A’s 6, Royals 4
Brent Rooker hit a walk-off homer for Oakland.
A’s are 8-6 when Blackburn starts, 27-84 in all their other games.
— If the baseball playoffs started today (they do not):
NL: Braves, Brewers, Dodgers. Wild Cards- Phillies, Giants, Cubs
AL: Orioles, Twins, Rangers. Wild Cards- Rays, Astros, Mariners