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Armadillo: Thursday's six-pack
-- Over last decade, Patriots are 25-9 vs spread in game following a loss.
-- Colorado Rockies are now 7-33 in games played east of Denver.
-- You don’t think time flies? NBA training camps open in 20 days; the first NHL preseason game is in ten days.
-- There are 17 former ACC quarterbacks on NFL rosters, 14 from the SEC, 13 from the Pac-12.
-- Congrats to Jose Altuve on his 200th hit. There is no metric that measures the size of someone's heart.
-- Monday night in San Francisco, Giants' 2B Joe Panik became first player with five hits in a game, but no RBI or run scored, since 2009 (Adam Kennedy, A's).
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Armadillo: Thursday's List of 13: Doing some thinking out loud.......
13) It is not easy getting tee times in the New York area on Labor Day weekend; this from CBSSports.com:
“The Trump National Golf Club, the Winged Foot and Willow Ridge were among some of the elite courses that rebuffed the president's request to tee off there, according to several sources who were told about the president's advance team's calls to the club managers. Club managers apparently did not want to inconvenience their high-powered and high-paying members over Labor Day weekend by shutting down their courses to accommodate the president."
President Obama couldn’t get a tee time on Long Island Labor Day weekend. He’s the most powerful man in the world. Yikes.
12) Drew Smyly has pitched really well for the Rays since coming over from Detroit, but he’s at 153 IP for this year, 27 over his previous career high, so Tampa Bay, which isn’t contending, shut Smyly down for the season.
One big indicator for injuries to pitchers is when a guy exceeds his career high by more than 20%, which is why you see lot of younger pitchers getting shut down or pushed back between starts.
11) After only one week, there are only entrants 1,644 alive in Station's Last Man Standing pro football contest out in Las Vegas. 4,064 entered. Winning prize is $94,025. Losing more than half the entrants in a week isn't normal.
10) USC is already playing 11 true freshman on its football team, an awful lot, but they’re 20 players short of the scholarship limit, so they lack talented depth.
9) Speaking of USC, AD/alum/former NFL QB Pat Haden was very emotional on the sidelines when the Trojans won at Stanford Saturday. If Haden had shown 10% of that emotion when he was playing QB for very good Rams’ teams in the 70’s, maybe he would’ve won a Super Bowl. Instead, the educated idiot went to law school while he was playing, compromising his performance (he admitted as much on Roy Firestone’s TV show after he retired).
8) Those Ram teams got to one Super Bowl, after the ’79 season, when Haden broke his finger in a game at Seattle, and Vince Ferragamo led the team to its NFC title. Rams led that great Pittsburgh team in the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl, but lost 31-19.
7) Football announcers are fond of describing an all-out pass rush by saying “…they really pinned their ears back”. This makes no sense to me; where did it come from? Why does every analyst say it? Why would someone put a pin on their ears? Sometimes unusual things bother me……
6) Ravens’ owner Steve Bisciotti said the team’s leadership “voted unanimously” to cut Ray Rice. Uh-huh; wonder if anyone suggested they call the league and make sure no other team could pick Rice up after they cut him? It’s a fair question and something they needed to cover themselves on; they wouldn’t want to cut him and then wind up playing against him.
5) A lawyer in New Jersey said Wednesday night that Rice would've been charged with third degree assault from the videotape evidence, even without his wife's cooperation. This has become a ridiculous mess; charge the guy with assault, throw him out of the NFL for a year and everyone moves on with their lives.
4) Kentucky will have nine (9!!!) McDonald’s All-Americans on its hoop team this fall. Hard to keep nine guys happy, especially if they all think they should be starting. Is there such a thing as too much talent?
3) There was a story around the Oregon waited a while to dismiss three basketball players who were accused of sexual assault because firing them right away would’ve hurt their APR score, which would’ve risked making the Ducks ineligible for postseason, as well as costing the coach and AD bonuses for keeping their APR score at a certain level.
While it may be a little shady, it is also smart management; its not illegal, maybe a tad unethical, but who amongst us wouldn’t do the same thing?
2) Talked about this earlier in the week, but the Bengals put a guy on their practice squad that they had earlier cut, just so he could maintain his health insurance to care for his 4-year old daughter, who has cancer. They didn’t have to do this, but they did and it is both classy and touching.
1) Arnold Palmer turned 85 yesterday; one of the truly legendary Americans, maybe a better businessman than he was a golfer. Happy birthday, sir.
-- Over last decade, Patriots are 25-9 vs spread in game following a loss.
-- Colorado Rockies are now 7-33 in games played east of Denver.
-- You don’t think time flies? NBA training camps open in 20 days; the first NHL preseason game is in ten days.
-- There are 17 former ACC quarterbacks on NFL rosters, 14 from the SEC, 13 from the Pac-12.
-- Congrats to Jose Altuve on his 200th hit. There is no metric that measures the size of someone's heart.
-- Monday night in San Francisco, Giants' 2B Joe Panik became first player with five hits in a game, but no RBI or run scored, since 2009 (Adam Kennedy, A's).
**********
Armadillo: Thursday's List of 13: Doing some thinking out loud.......
13) It is not easy getting tee times in the New York area on Labor Day weekend; this from CBSSports.com:
“The Trump National Golf Club, the Winged Foot and Willow Ridge were among some of the elite courses that rebuffed the president's request to tee off there, according to several sources who were told about the president's advance team's calls to the club managers. Club managers apparently did not want to inconvenience their high-powered and high-paying members over Labor Day weekend by shutting down their courses to accommodate the president."
President Obama couldn’t get a tee time on Long Island Labor Day weekend. He’s the most powerful man in the world. Yikes.
12) Drew Smyly has pitched really well for the Rays since coming over from Detroit, but he’s at 153 IP for this year, 27 over his previous career high, so Tampa Bay, which isn’t contending, shut Smyly down for the season.
One big indicator for injuries to pitchers is when a guy exceeds his career high by more than 20%, which is why you see lot of younger pitchers getting shut down or pushed back between starts.
11) After only one week, there are only entrants 1,644 alive in Station's Last Man Standing pro football contest out in Las Vegas. 4,064 entered. Winning prize is $94,025. Losing more than half the entrants in a week isn't normal.
10) USC is already playing 11 true freshman on its football team, an awful lot, but they’re 20 players short of the scholarship limit, so they lack talented depth.
9) Speaking of USC, AD/alum/former NFL QB Pat Haden was very emotional on the sidelines when the Trojans won at Stanford Saturday. If Haden had shown 10% of that emotion when he was playing QB for very good Rams’ teams in the 70’s, maybe he would’ve won a Super Bowl. Instead, the educated idiot went to law school while he was playing, compromising his performance (he admitted as much on Roy Firestone’s TV show after he retired).
8) Those Ram teams got to one Super Bowl, after the ’79 season, when Haden broke his finger in a game at Seattle, and Vince Ferragamo led the team to its NFC title. Rams led that great Pittsburgh team in the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl, but lost 31-19.
7) Football announcers are fond of describing an all-out pass rush by saying “…they really pinned their ears back”. This makes no sense to me; where did it come from? Why does every analyst say it? Why would someone put a pin on their ears? Sometimes unusual things bother me……
6) Ravens’ owner Steve Bisciotti said the team’s leadership “voted unanimously” to cut Ray Rice. Uh-huh; wonder if anyone suggested they call the league and make sure no other team could pick Rice up after they cut him? It’s a fair question and something they needed to cover themselves on; they wouldn’t want to cut him and then wind up playing against him.
5) A lawyer in New Jersey said Wednesday night that Rice would've been charged with third degree assault from the videotape evidence, even without his wife's cooperation. This has become a ridiculous mess; charge the guy with assault, throw him out of the NFL for a year and everyone moves on with their lives.
4) Kentucky will have nine (9!!!) McDonald’s All-Americans on its hoop team this fall. Hard to keep nine guys happy, especially if they all think they should be starting. Is there such a thing as too much talent?
3) There was a story around the Oregon waited a while to dismiss three basketball players who were accused of sexual assault because firing them right away would’ve hurt their APR score, which would’ve risked making the Ducks ineligible for postseason, as well as costing the coach and AD bonuses for keeping their APR score at a certain level.
While it may be a little shady, it is also smart management; its not illegal, maybe a tad unethical, but who amongst us wouldn’t do the same thing?
2) Talked about this earlier in the week, but the Bengals put a guy on their practice squad that they had earlier cut, just so he could maintain his health insurance to care for his 4-year old daughter, who has cancer. They didn’t have to do this, but they did and it is both classy and touching.
1) Arnold Palmer turned 85 yesterday; one of the truly legendary Americans, maybe a better businessman than he was a golfer. Happy birthday, sir.
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