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Armadillo: Wednesday's six-pack
Odds to win the Match Play championship this week:
6-1— Rory McIlroy
7-1— Dustin Johnson
10-1— Jordan Spieth
13-1— Jason Day
20-1— Hideki Matsuyama
22-1– Jon Rahm
**********
Armadillo: Wednesday's List of 13: Mid-week musings………
13) Cam Newton is having rotator cuff surgery next Thursday; not sure of the recovery timeframe, or why the operation is happening now and not two months ago, but question is: Will he be ready for the regular season? Big question for the Panthers.
12) If I owned a major league baseball team, all my coaches would know both English and Spanish; have to be able to communicate with players. Would also want our players to know English; how the hell can you live in a country and not know at least some of the language?
Sometimes, players know more of the language than they let on, so they can avoid talking to the media. Being bilingual is a big advantage in today’s baseball.
11) Oklahoma State’s star guard Juwan Evans is leaving school for the NBA; at 6-1, he is a marginal prospect who could wind up in the D-League. He helped us some this year when we picked the Cowboys; we wish him well, but wish he was coming back for another season in Stillwater.
10) Will Wade leaves VCU for LSU and everyone on Twitter asks why; is it a better basketball job? Money is (surprisingly) similar, they care more about basketball at VCU, since there is no football and he had a top 20 recruiting class coming to VCU in September.
I’ve said this before here; sometimes big fish/smaller pond works better.
9) UMass hires Winthrop coach Pat Kelsey to take over its hoop program; Kelsey went 102-59 at Winthrop, 56-30 in Big South games- he replaced Gregg Marshall there.
8) New Jersey Jets have drafted six QB’s since 2009, yet still paid 37-year old Josh McCown $6M to come in and play for one year. This is called mismanagement; not the McCown part, but draft one guy who can play, will ya?
7) Went into a LIDS store in the **** the other day; had good talk with young person who works there, who happens to be a fellow A’s fan. Major league fitted caps are now $35; caps for the World Baseball Classic are $37. Glad my hat collection is already too big- no thanks.
6) They were talking on the Padres’ spring training game the other night how sometimes guys go down to the minor league camp and play in B games to get extra at-bats. A major leaguer would play in one of those games and lead off every inning, just to get more AB’s. Minor leaguers are not necessarily fond of that, since it costs them some AB’s, but thats how it works.
5) Cincinnati Reds’ announcers are different than most local baseball announcers- they’ll rip the home team if they deserve it. “Boy, this is like a circus.” moaned Thom Brennaman during a bad inning by the Reds in their game with the Angels Tuesday.
Two oddities from this Reds-Angels game:
a) Both teams wore red jerseys; it is 2017, we can’t get different color jerseys?
b) Angels used a DH, Reds did not. People bet on these games. Wonder how many people bet on this game not knowing that little nugget?
4) RIP Jerry Krause, 77— he was GM of the Jordan-era Bulls who later became a baseball scout after leaving the NBA. Krause brought Toni Kukoc over from Europe to join Jordan/Pippen, which didn’t go over well with his two stars. Krause probably didn’t get enough credit for the Bulls’ success.
3) Fans sitting behind the announcers at the Bakersfield-Colorado State NIT game Monday nite weren’t very happy with the officiating and were letting the refs know it— the mikes picked up some of their R-rated criticisms. I’m thinking someone with ESPN must’ve asked them to cool it, since they weren’t as vocal near the end of the game
2) Nicole Auerbach reports that of the 351 Division I basketball teams, only five haven’t had a kid transfer out in the last two years. North Carolina hasn’t lost a transfer since 2011.
1— The night the Knicks beat the Lakers to win the 1970 NBA title, when Willis Reed limped out and inspired the Knicks to win by scoring the first two hoops of the game on basically one leg, one of the ballboys that night was Steve Albert, now the Phoenix Suns’ play-by-play guy on TV.
1a) One of my heroes passed away late Tuesday night; Chuck Barris, the wacky host of The Gong Show, died at age 87. Creator of game shows like The Dating Game and Newlywed Game, Barris was a creative genius with a bizarre sense of humor. He made me laugh more than just about anyone other than Steve Martin. RIP, sir, you will be missed.
Odds to win the Match Play championship this week:
6-1— Rory McIlroy
7-1— Dustin Johnson
10-1— Jordan Spieth
13-1— Jason Day
20-1— Hideki Matsuyama
22-1– Jon Rahm
**********
Armadillo: Wednesday's List of 13: Mid-week musings………
13) Cam Newton is having rotator cuff surgery next Thursday; not sure of the recovery timeframe, or why the operation is happening now and not two months ago, but question is: Will he be ready for the regular season? Big question for the Panthers.
12) If I owned a major league baseball team, all my coaches would know both English and Spanish; have to be able to communicate with players. Would also want our players to know English; how the hell can you live in a country and not know at least some of the language?
Sometimes, players know more of the language than they let on, so they can avoid talking to the media. Being bilingual is a big advantage in today’s baseball.
11) Oklahoma State’s star guard Juwan Evans is leaving school for the NBA; at 6-1, he is a marginal prospect who could wind up in the D-League. He helped us some this year when we picked the Cowboys; we wish him well, but wish he was coming back for another season in Stillwater.
10) Will Wade leaves VCU for LSU and everyone on Twitter asks why; is it a better basketball job? Money is (surprisingly) similar, they care more about basketball at VCU, since there is no football and he had a top 20 recruiting class coming to VCU in September.
I’ve said this before here; sometimes big fish/smaller pond works better.
9) UMass hires Winthrop coach Pat Kelsey to take over its hoop program; Kelsey went 102-59 at Winthrop, 56-30 in Big South games- he replaced Gregg Marshall there.
8) New Jersey Jets have drafted six QB’s since 2009, yet still paid 37-year old Josh McCown $6M to come in and play for one year. This is called mismanagement; not the McCown part, but draft one guy who can play, will ya?
7) Went into a LIDS store in the **** the other day; had good talk with young person who works there, who happens to be a fellow A’s fan. Major league fitted caps are now $35; caps for the World Baseball Classic are $37. Glad my hat collection is already too big- no thanks.
6) They were talking on the Padres’ spring training game the other night how sometimes guys go down to the minor league camp and play in B games to get extra at-bats. A major leaguer would play in one of those games and lead off every inning, just to get more AB’s. Minor leaguers are not necessarily fond of that, since it costs them some AB’s, but thats how it works.
5) Cincinnati Reds’ announcers are different than most local baseball announcers- they’ll rip the home team if they deserve it. “Boy, this is like a circus.” moaned Thom Brennaman during a bad inning by the Reds in their game with the Angels Tuesday.
Two oddities from this Reds-Angels game:
a) Both teams wore red jerseys; it is 2017, we can’t get different color jerseys?
b) Angels used a DH, Reds did not. People bet on these games. Wonder how many people bet on this game not knowing that little nugget?
4) RIP Jerry Krause, 77— he was GM of the Jordan-era Bulls who later became a baseball scout after leaving the NBA. Krause brought Toni Kukoc over from Europe to join Jordan/Pippen, which didn’t go over well with his two stars. Krause probably didn’t get enough credit for the Bulls’ success.
3) Fans sitting behind the announcers at the Bakersfield-Colorado State NIT game Monday nite weren’t very happy with the officiating and were letting the refs know it— the mikes picked up some of their R-rated criticisms. I’m thinking someone with ESPN must’ve asked them to cool it, since they weren’t as vocal near the end of the game
2) Nicole Auerbach reports that of the 351 Division I basketball teams, only five haven’t had a kid transfer out in the last two years. North Carolina hasn’t lost a transfer since 2011.
1— The night the Knicks beat the Lakers to win the 1970 NBA title, when Willis Reed limped out and inspired the Knicks to win by scoring the first two hoops of the game on basically one leg, one of the ballboys that night was Steve Albert, now the Phoenix Suns’ play-by-play guy on TV.
1a) One of my heroes passed away late Tuesday night; Chuck Barris, the wacky host of The Gong Show, died at age 87. Creator of game shows like The Dating Game and Newlywed Game, Barris was a creative genius with a bizarre sense of humor. He made me laugh more than just about anyone other than Steve Martin. RIP, sir, you will be missed.
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