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"Sports Quote of the Day"
“Some days are just bad days, that's all. You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that's just the way it is!” ~ Dita Von Teese, Burlesque Dancer, Vedette, Model, Costume Designer, Entrepreneur and Occasional Actress.
TRENDING: How Adam Shaheen can make an immediate impact as a rookie for Bears. The Bears actually had the best receiver in football for a stretch last season. Is Charles Leno Jr. right long-term fit at left tackle for Bears? (See the football section for Bears news and NFL updates).
TRENDING: Bryan Bickell will be honored at NHL Awards for perseverance he showed last season. Blackhawks agree to terms with top OHL defenseman on AHL contract. (See the hockey section for Blackhawks updates and NHL news).
TRENDING: Sources: Bulls are actively shopping Jimmy Butler prior to NBA Draft. Dwyane Wade to pick up his option and return to Bulls next season. Report: Bulls considering signing Serbian star Milos Teodosic. (See the basketball section for Bulls news and NBA updates).
TRENDING: Bryan Bickell will be honored at NHL Awards for perseverance he showed last season. Blackhawks agree to terms with top OHL defenseman on AHL contract. (See the hockey section for Blackhawks updates and NHL news).
TRENDING: Sources: Bulls are actively shopping Jimmy Butler prior to NBA Draft. Dwyane Wade to pick up his option and return to Bulls next season. Report: Bulls considering signing Serbian star Milos Teodosic. (See the basketball section for Bulls news and NBA updates).
TRENDING: Anthony Rizzo continues to be the greatest leadoff hitter of all-time, starts things with homer in Cubs' blanking of Padres. (Tuesday night's game, 06/20/2017). What Cubs would have to give up in Eloy Jimenez to get a frontline pitcher. 'It's game on' — Anthony Rizzo won't back down after Padres call him out for 'cheap shot'. Derek Holland gets hit hard as White Sox lose opener to Twins. Well done: White Sox sign Missouri State slugger Jake Burger. (See the baseball section for Cubs and White Sox updates).
TRENDING: PGA Tour 2017: Travelers Championship groupings, tee times, TV schedule. Lefty and Bones: A tandem like no other. White Sox sign Missouri State slugger Jake Burger. (See the golf section for PGA news and tournament updates).
TRENDING: NASCAR Power Rankings: Kyle Larson's win moves him up.
Disclosing doping violations step toward transparency. Darlington Raceway to honor Dale Earnhardt Sr. on Sept. 2. (See the NASCAR section for NASCAR news and racing updates).
Disclosing doping violations step toward transparency. Darlington Raceway to honor Dale Earnhardt Sr. on Sept. 2. (See the NASCAR section for NASCAR news and racing updates).
TRENDING: Bastian Schweinsteiger talks about playing sweeper in the Fire's win at New England. England U21’s win key match at European Championships. UEFA Champions League qualifying draw. (See the soccer section for Fire news and worldwide soccer updates).
Bear Down Chicago Bears!!!!! How Adam Shaheen can make an immediate impact as a rookie for Bears.
By JJ Stankevitz
(Photo/USA TODAY Sports Images)
While Adam Shaheen was one of the most impressive Bears on the field during last week’s veteran minicamp, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It's unlikely the guy who was dubbed “Baby Gronk” earlier this year won’t immediately become an elite NFL tight end.
“Gronk is pretty polished so I’m not going to disrespect Gronk like that,” linebacker Jerrell Freeman said, laughing when a reporter tried to lead him to comparing Shaheen to Rob Gronkowski. “But he has a lot of upside.”
The “but” there comes from what Freeman and the rest of the Bears saw last week and during OTAs. Shaheen hardly looked like someone struggling to make the competitive jump from Division II to the NFL, with the 6-foot-6, 278 pound Ashland alum making a handful of impressive plays during the course of the shorts-and-helmets workouts.
“You see him out here catching fade balls and wreaking havoc there on the inside,” Freeman said. “He has a lot of intangibles. He has a lot of upside. I think he’s going to be a pretty good guy.”
An important note for Shaheen’s smooth transition is that he was part of a pro-style offense at Ashland, which gave him some familiarity with the concepts thrown at him by position coach Frank Smith and offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains. While plenty of other highly-drafted tight ends played at college football’s top level, plenty of those FBS/Power Five programs ran shotgun-spread offenses that frequently split the tight end wide and rarely required that player to stick his hand in the dirt next to a tackle.
So there’s sort of a trade-off there. Shaheen didn’t face stiff competition — in his college tape, it’s borderline absurd how much better he was than the opposition — but he played in the “right” system.
“He's picked things up very quick,” coach John Fox said. “He’s smart, he's big.”
Fox pointed to Shaheen needing to improve his blocking technique, which is a frequent area of growth for most rookie tight ends (even Dion Sims, regarded as one of the best blocking tight ends in the NFL today, wasn’t good in that area coming out of Michigan State). Whatever strides Shaheen makes as a blocker will have to come in training camp, when he can actually get physical with pads on against opposing defenders.
“You don’t know until you put the pads on,” Shaheen said. “That’s what I’m excited for.”
As for the impact Shaheen can make this year, he should be able to be a red zone threat for the Mike Glennon-led Bears offense. We’ll have a better idea of what kind of a player he can be this season when the Bears report to Bourbonnais in July, but exiting the May and June offseason program, Shaheen is confident he can be a valuable player this fall.
“When we put the pads on and see what I’m made of, I think so,” Shaheen said.
“… The main thing is just learning and not thinking, just playing. That’s the biggest transition. I’m getting more comfortable by the more reps in practice I get.”
The Bears actually had the best receiver in football for a stretch last season.
By Tony Andracki
This may surprise you, but the 3-13 Chicago Bears actually had the best wide receiver in the NFL for a stretch in 2016.
And no, it was not 2013 Pro Bowler Alshon Jeffery, who is considered one of the top receivers in the game when healthy. In part, because he was only on the field for 12 games last season and when he was playing, only produced 52 catches for 821 yards and two scores.
It was actually Cam Meredith, Chicagoland native and Illinois State University product:
No wide receiver in the NFL was as productive as Cameron Meredith over the final five weeks of the 2016 season. (Photo/Pro Football Focus/Twitter)
In the final five games of 2016 — with Matt Barkley throwing to him — Meredith caught 31 balls on 43 targets for 439 yards and two touchdowns. That's a 72.1 catch percentage.
As a special bonus, he also threw a two-yard touchdown pass.
If you extrapolate those few weeks over a 16-game season, Meredith would be on pace for 99 catches, 1,405 yards and six TDs. AKA: Jeffery's aforementioned 2013 Pro Bowl season (89 catches, 1,421 yards, 7 TDs).
On the 2016 season, Meredith had 66 catches on 97 targets for 888 yards and four scores in only his second season in the NFL as an undrafted free agent.
Beyond Jeffery's health issues, Meredith's emergence looms as a possible huge reason why Ryan Pace's front office let Jeffery walk this offseason.
Is Charles Leno Jr. right long-term fit at left tackle for Bears?
By Chris Boden
(Photo/AP)
“I know if I take care of my business out here, everything else will take care of itself," Bears offensive tackle Charles Leno Jr. told CSNChicago.com when asked about the personal significant of the 2017 season.
Leno Jr. is entering the fourth and final year of his rookie contract, and since Jermon Bushrod injured his back in Week 3 of the 2015 season, Leno, Jr. has been the starter at left tackle in the 29 games since. Leno Jr. has established himself as consistent and durable, but public opinions on him outside of Halas Hall cast doubt on how high the ceiling is for the final (seventh round) draft pick of the Phil Emery regime.
Pro Football Focus’ grading system has its fans and detractors. While the Boise State product showed improvement in 2016 (70.4 grade) compared to 2015 (46.1), they ranked him 44th out of 64 offensive tackles. Also, according to PFF, Leno Jr. and right tackle Bobby Massie allowed 73 quarterback pressures and committed 14 penalties, while grading out poorly in the run game as a tandem.
Yet there’s also the overall picture to look at. The team allowed just 26 sacks, ninth-fewest in the NFL despite three different starting quarterbacks. Football Outsiders ranked the Bears offensive line seventh in pass protection and eighth in rushing. But critics of the two tackles will say the main reason for those rankings is the strength in the middle, between Josh Sitton, Cody Whitehair, and Kyle Long (for half a season, at least). Not that Leno, Jr. hasn’t been closely evaluated already, but as his future, and payday, looms. It’ll be an even more interesting watch this season.
“I’m always ready to take that next step,” said the 6-foot-3, 310-pounder who’ll turn 26 when the Bears host the Vikings on Monday, Oct. 9. “ Every year you can take a step. Whether it’s your rookie year to your second year, third year to your fourth, or ninth year to your tenth, you’re always trying to take another step, always get better. That’s my job right now, that’s my goal.”
And he’ll have to do it under his third different offensive line coach in his four years, as Jeremiah Washburn takes over for Dave Magazu. Leno Jr. told me there have been mostly minor tweaks and adjustments when it comes to new position coaches. He was most noticeable (that’s a bad thing), late in the season, when he was beaten a few times for sacks, but that didn’t do much to cloud his overall performance in his boss’ mind.
“To be honest, Leno was a real pleasant surprise, really exceeded expectations there,” general manager Ryan Pace said back on Jan. 4. “And I thought as he gained confidence, he got better and better. He’s very athletic, he’s long, got good balance. So (he) did very well. We have positive vibes about him coming out of the season.”
Leno, Jr. will make about $1.8 million this season as he finishes out his rookie deal. But as he enters this contract year, there are currently 14 left tackles in the NFL (including all the so-called “elite”) making an average of at least $10 million annually on their current contracts:
PLAYER | TEAM | MONEY
Trent Williams (WSH), $13.6
Russell Okung (LAC), $13.25
Terron Armstead (NO), $13
Tyron Smith (DAL), $12.2
Cordy Glenn (BUF), $12
Eric Fisher (KC), $12
David Bakhtiari (GB), $12
Riley Reiff (MIN), $11.75
Joe Thomas (CLE), $11.5
Andrew Whitworth (LAR), $11.25
Matt Kalil (CAR), $11.1
Anthony Castonzo (IND), $10.95
Jason Peters (PHI), $10.8
Nate Solder (NE), $10
Other left tackles averaging less than $10 million annually on their current deals include Houston’s Duane Brown, San Francisco’s Joe Staley, Atlanta's Jake Matthews and Tennessee’s Taylor Lewan. Plus, keep in mind here that Reiff (Detroit) and Kalil (Minnesota) were first-round picks by Bears' NFC North rivals deemed not good enough to keep around. Yet they still found believers willing to write a big check elsewhere. If not the Bears, Leno, Jr. may find similar interest elsewhere with a season comparable to 2016. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. 11 years ago, Pace and the Saints made Northwestern’s Zach Strief a seventh round pick, and he’s hung around — not becoming a starter until his sixth season, yet being a linchpin at right tackle since.
From the above list, only the 29-year-old Solder is a pending free agent, and it’s hard to see the Patriots letting him walk, though Bill Belichick has done stranger things that’ve worked out in the end. Leno Jr. is the next-best option, because the others really aren’t. Oakland’s Donald Penn is 34, while the Chargers’ Chris Hairston, the Ravens’ James Hurst, and the Dolphins’ Sam Young have all started less than half time they’ve been in the league.
If the Bears let Leno Jr. walk and look toward the draft, Notre Dame senior Mike McGlinchey is generally regarded as the highest-rated left tackle heading into the fall with Texas’ Connor Williams, Orlando Brown of Oklahoma, Mitch Hyatt of Clemson and Martinas Rankin of Mississippi State owning various first and second-round grades.
Regardless of how the upcoming season goes, figure the Bears will still have needs to be addressed in the draft, “best available” or not. If he doesn’t have a believer in Pace already, another step forward by Leno Jr. could earn himself a payday, and stability — personally, and for the team as they figure out how to get the best protection possible for their quarterback of the future.
How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks? Bryan Bickell will be honored at NHL Awards for perseverance he showed last season.
By Tracey Myers
(Photo/AP)
Bryan Bickell walked into the ballroom at The Wynn where several players nominated for NHL Awards were doing pre-ceremony media availability. For Bickell to be here, it’s bittersweet.
“Yeah, you always want to make the awards in the other way,” he said.
But while Bickell’s playing career is over, he will be honored at Wednesday’s NHL Awards ceremony for the perseverance he showed last season. The former Blackhawks forward was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis last November and fought back to play in the Carolina Hurricanes’ final regular-season games.
“[The league] called me up to come here and I said, ‘why not?’ I had time to make it out here and enjoy some festivities,” Bickell said. “It’s kind of a finale where the respect of what I went through and the story I had this year, they’re going to do it [Wednesday] and it’s just the icing on the cake. It’ll be emotional but I’m going to try to keep it together.”
Bickell, who was enjoying the few days in Las Vegas with family, said he’s been feeling “really good” lately.
“As the months have gone on I’m getting better. I’m slowing things down from the hockey life, working out, travel and all that. It’s less stressful and I’m enjoying time with my family,” Bickell said. “I’m feeling close to normal. I’m enjoying it and, for the next couple of days, enjoying this.”
Bickell and his family sold their house in Chicago and are settled back in Canada. What happens next for Bickell is uncertain. Right now, he’ll focus on these few days in Vegas and his moment on the NHL Awards stage.
“I gotta get ready for my speech,” Bickell said. “I’ve got 90 seconds, so I have to figure something out.”
Blackhawks agree to terms with top OHL defenseman on AHL contract.
By Charlie Roumeliotis
(Photo/OHL Images)
The Blackhawks landed another major name on Tuesday, having agreed to terms with undrafted free agent defenseman Darren Raddysh on a one-year AHL contract. He will report to the Rockford IceHogs, where he will get a chance to prove himself in hopes of signing an NHL deal with the big club.
Raddysh, 21, was named the OHL's top defenseman after scoring 16 goals and 65 assists for 81 points in 62 regular-season games for the Erie Otters, where he was teammates with top Blackhawks prospect Alex DeBrincat.
Raddysh, who's 6-foot, 200 pounds and possesses a right-handed shot, also registered eight goals and 14 assists in 22 playoff games, and led all defenseman with three goals, five assists and eight points during the Memorial Cup.
He compiled 41 goals and 143 assists for 184 points across 272 games during his five-year OHL career, and is the Otters' all-time leader in assists and points.
It's a huge signing for the Blackhawks organization, who continue to stockpile prospects and young blue line depth, which is important considering the Blackhawks are also likely to lose Trevor van Riemsdyk in the expansion draft and are not expected to re-sign veteran Johnny Oduya, and possibly Brian Campbell, too.
Just Another Chicago Bulls Session..... Sources: Bulls are actively shopping Jimmy Butler prior to NBA Draft.
By Vincent Goodwill
(Photo/AP)
It's becoming clearer by the minute that the smoke surrounding Jimmy Butler is looking more like truth and not just conjecture as the NBA Draft approaches.
The Bulls routinely say they'll take phone calls from teams about Butler's availability around this time and at the trade deadline but this time around, multiple sources tell CSNChicago.com the Bulls are doing more than listening: they're shopping Butler to many teams.
It appears the Bulls have made the decision to try to jumpstart their rebuilding process and see what the best offer is for Butler as opposed to just gauging his value.
The Boston Celtics have always been fond of Butler and have the assets the Bulls in theory would be attracted to in terms of multiple draft picks and affordable contracts on the current roster. The Cleveland Cavaliers seemed to be on the Bulls' doorstep before abruptly ending their partnership with GM David Griffin Monday evening.
On the surface they would appear to be the favorites as the Phoenix Suns have been "doing due diligence," according to league sources. And the Denver Nuggets were on the periphery at the trade deadline, acquiring about Butler.
In other words, the Bulls will have no shortage of offers, meaning this is a trade they'll have to get right. They're in a different position than the Indiana Pacers as Paul George has made it known he wants out and plans to become a Los Angeles Laker. But Butler has made it known he wants to stay in Chicago and doesn't want to be moved, according to sources close to the Bulls swingman.
But with the Bulls' desire to free head coach Fred Hoiberg of Butler due to their lack of a fruitful relationship and belief he can improve in his third year, this is the road the franchise is choosing to walk down.
The Bulls were rebuffed on an offer to the Celtics for the third pick straight-up, but bringing the Cavaliers to the table could increase the quality of offers for Butler, who would be eligible for a deal in the $40 million range annually if he makes another All-NBA team next season.
One would think the Bulls' reluctance at paying a contract that large on a team that will continue to be in the middle of the draft plays a part in their decision.
As one league executive texted last night, "It's either Boston or Cleveland but he's going."
As it appears Butler's surprising rise will have an abrupt ending, seemingly sooner rather than later.
Dwyane Wade to pick up his option and return to Bulls next season.
One would think the Bulls' reluctance at paying a contract that large on a team that will continue to be in the middle of the draft plays a part in their decision.
As one league executive texted last night, "It's either Boston or Cleveland but he's going."
As it appears Butler's surprising rise will have an abrupt ending, seemingly sooner rather than later.
Dwyane Wade to pick up his option and return to Bulls next season.
By CSN Staff
(Photo/USA TODAY)
Dwyane Wade will be back with the Bulls next season.
According to CSN's Vincent Goodwill, the 35-year-old guard will pick up his player option and return to the Bulls for a second season after signing with his hometown team last offseason.
Dwyane Wade will be back with the Bulls next season.
According to CSN's Vincent Goodwill, the 35-year-old guard will pick up his player option and return to the Bulls for a second season after signing with his hometown team last offseason.
Wade will make $23.8 million by picking up the option.
Last season, his first after 13 years with the Miami Heat, Wade averaged 18.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game. He shot 43.4 percent from the field and hit 45 3-pointers, the fourth most in a single season in his career.
That career has been an illustrious one, featuring 12 appearances on the Eastern Conference All-Star team, a trio of NBA titles and one Olympic gold medal.
Wade picking up his option will have serious implications on the Bulls' roster this offseason. The team is reportedly shopping Jimmy Butler and currently holds the No. 16 pick in Thursday's NBA Draft.
Report: Bulls considering signing Serbian star Milos Teodosic.
By CSN Staff
(Photo/AP)
While Jimmy Butler rumors swirl, Dwyane Wade considers accepting $23.8 million, and Thursday's NBA Draft nears, the Bulls may be moving in on a highly sought-after free agent.
According to Eurohoops' Nikos Varlas, the Bulls are prepared to make a multiyear offer to Serbian point guard Milos Teodosic. Varlas reports that the Bulls are "the front runner to sign Teodosic compared to other NBA teams which are also interested in him."
The 30-year-old point guard averaged 16.1 points and 6.8 assists in 29 Euroleague games playing for CSKA Moscow. He'll be a free agent, and there are reports that Moscow is considering offering him a contract upwards of $30 million.
The Bulls' Nikola Mirotic, born in Montenegro, is a restricted free agent this offseason. Mirotic's future, as well as Wade's decision and the team option the Bulls have for Rajon Rondo will determine the team's salary cap spending.
In this year's NBA GM Survey Teodosic was voted as the best international player not in the NBA, earning nearly 54 percent of the vote.
The Bulls could certainly use help at the point guard position. Whether Rondo is back, the Bulls also have Cameron Payne, Jerian Grant and Isaiah Canaan under contract.
CUBS: Anthony Rizzo continues to be the greatest leadoff hitter of all-time, starts things with homer in Cubs' blanking of Padres. (Tuesday night's game, 06/20/2017).
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
The question coming into Tuesday night's game was whether the San Diego Padres were going to hit Anthony Rizzo after Monday night's now-infamous play at the plate.
Instead, Rizzo hit them.
The Cubs' unconventional leadoff man continued to be the greatest top-of-the-order hitter in baseball history Tuesday night, belting his third leadoff homer in the last seven games to get things started in a 4-0 win for the North Siders at Wrigley Field.
Rizzo has now reached safely to start all seven games since taking over as the Cubs' leadoff man. He has three homers, a double, a couple singles and a walk in those seven games. That's a perfect 1.000 on-base percentage for those scoring at home.
Rizzo, who also has a career-best 14-game hit streak, became the first Cubs player to reach base to lead off a game in seven straight contests since 1960.
But while Rizzo will grab headlines and highlights, give Mike Montgomery credit for silencing the Padres in his six innings of shutout ball. He gave up just three hits and walked two before handing things over to the Cubs' bullpen, which went three scoreless innings.
An Addison Russell base hit scored Kris Bryant to make it a 2-0 game in the fourth. Ian Happ belted the ninth home run of his young career in the eighth to make it 3-0, and an Albert Almora Jr. double brought home Javier Baez in that same frame to eliminate the save situation.
The Cubs will wrap their brief home stand with Wednesday's series finale against the Padres, sending Eddie Butler to the mound in quest of a three-game sweep.
What Cubs would have to give up in Eloy Jimenez to get a frontline pitcher.
By Patrick Mooney
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
The “KB” shorthand for Eloy Jimenez is a reminder of what the Cubs would have to give up as a starting point in almost any negotiation for a frontline pitcher.
After the Cubs made the blockbuster deal for Aroldis Chapman last summer, Jason McLeod dropped a Kris Bryant reference point on Jimenez, the other international prospect the New York Yankees scouted heavily before zeroing in on Gleyber Torres.
The Yankees envisioned a higher floor and a more polished player in pinstripes, someone who could excel in the middle infield, get to The Show faster and potentially handle The Bronx by the age of 20. Until Monday’s announcement that he would need Tommy John surgery on his left elbow, the New York media pushed Torres as a pennant-race replacement for struggling third baseman Chase Headley.
Jimenez went viral that night with a clip that looked like something out of “The Natural,” crushing a ball toward the light tower beyond the left-field wall during the Carolina League Home Run Derby.
“In this business, we’re always comparing guys that reminded you of someone,” said McLeod — the senior vice president who oversees scouting and player development — on a Cubs Talk podcast while thinking back to Bryant’s freshman year at the University of San Diego and how a future National League MVP struggled that summer in the Cape Cod League. “I was just trying to look at who Kris became (after being) a kid we did scout in high school. He was on the radar and he was seen plenty.
“I was just looking at: ‘OK, tall, big-framed, right-handed hitting 19-year-old,’ which is what Eloy was last year when he went out and had a really good year in (Class-A) South Bend. I was thinking about what I remembered from Kris when I saw him his freshman year in college and just making the comparisons.
“They’re different types of swings. I know they’re different body types — understanding Kris was playing third and Eloy’s out in the outfield. But I was making the comparison of two power-hitting right-handed 19-year-olds.
“Kris is one who’s a very intelligent hitter in the way he thinks about what he wants to do. He really doesn’t seem to let much bother him. Eloy is similar in the way that he really understands his swing and what he’s wanting to do. Now the execution isn’t always there yet. But he’s a very talented (player who) has tremendous upside. And I think a lot of it has to do with the way he thinks when he goes to the plate.”
With the draft ending last week, Theo Epstein’s front office will shift focus toward the July 31 deadline and Jimenez will start popping up in more and more trade rumors.
After giving up a possible franchise shortstop for a mercenary closer — and a legitimate chance to end the 108-year drought — it’s hard to see the Cubs sacrificing Jimenez for a rental pitcher who might make 12 starts for a team that’s still hovering around .500 in late June.
It’s even more complicated if the Cubs don’t want to trade off their major-league roster and can’t convince a rebuilding team that they have the pitching prospect to backfill a rotation spot.
Jimenez made a great impression on Joe Maddon in spring training — the Cubs manager compared him to a young Edgar Martinez or Miguel Cabrera — before getting shut down with a sore right shoulder. So far, Jimenez has performed at advanced Class-A Myrtle Beach, putting up seven homers and a .927 OPS in 28 games and living up to the Baseball America preseason hype (No. 14 overall prospect).
“He’s a kid that has the talent to be a legit, middle-of-the-order bat in the major leagues for a long time,” McLeod.
Leading up to a trade deadline that will be all about the pitching, the question for the Cubs becomes: Where?
'It's game on' — Anthony Rizzo won't back down after Padres call him out for 'cheap shot'.
By Patrick Mooney
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
If the Cubs wanted to send a message, this wouldn’t be the team to target. The San Diego Padres are a largely unrecognizable group of cast-offs and unproven players, already 15 games under .500 and tanking for the future.
This isn’t the 2015 Cubs fighting to create their own identity and take down the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cubs are so far beyond destroying the “Lovable Losers” label — or thinking that one play in a 3-2 win could somehow spark the defending World Series champs out of this blah “start” to a season that’s almost halfway over.
But in many ways, the Cubs take their cues from Anthony Rizzo, who knocked Padres catcher Austin Hedges out of Monday night’s game at Wrigley Field and calmly fired back after manager Andy Green called the collision a “cheap shot.”
“By no means do I think that’s a dirty play at all,” Rizzo said. “I’ve talked to a lot of umpires about this rule. And my understanding is: If they have the ball, it’s game on.”
Green vented his frustrations to San Diego reporters after watching the crash that ended the sixth inning, Rizzo tagging up from third base on the low line drive that Kris Bryant hit to ex-Cub Matt Szczur in center field.
Szczur caught the ball on the run and fired it in to Hedges, who grabbed it on the bounce, pivoted to his left and felt the full force of Rizzo (listed at 6-foot-3, 240 pounds). Hedges — a promising catcher the Padres drafted during the Jed Hoyer/Jason McLeod administration — tumbled backwards and held onto the ball for the double play that preserved a 2-1 lead before leaving with a bruised right thigh.
“I went pretty much straight in,” Rizzo said. “He caught the ball. He went towards the plate.
“It’s a play where I’m out by two steps. I slide, he runs into me. It’s just one of those plays where it’s unfortunate he had to exit.”
Rizzo — who bombed with the Padres during his big-league debut in 2011 before becoming a star in Chicago — essentially shrugged off Green’s suggestion that Major League Baseball will have to impose some form of discipline.
“The league will look at it,” Rizzo said. “It’s very sensitive because it doesn’t happen (often). But from my understanding of the rules, it’s a play at the plate.”
Manager Joe Maddon made Rizzo his leadoff hitter last week as a last resort, trying to spark a team that’s now 35-34 and only 1.5 games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers. Rizzo reached base to lead off a game for the sixth straight time with a bunt up the third-base line against the defensive shift, notched an RBI with a sacrifice fly in the third inning and set the Hedges crash in motion with a leadoff triple into the right-field corner.
A verified Twitter account for the Padres Radio Network posted a photo of the collision with this caption: “Well #Padres fans, should the #Padres retaliate in this series for the slide by Rizzo? RT if you think yes, absolutely they should.”
(Photo/AP)
Maddon — an anti-rules guy in general — has never been a fan of The Buster Posey Rule.
“You don’t see it anymore, because the runner thinks he has to avoid it,” Maddon said. “He doesn’t. If the guy’s in the way, you’re still able to hit him. I think we just retrained the mind so much right there that they look to miss (the catcher).
“I’d much prefer what Rizz did tonight. And what he did was right, absolutely right, so there’s nothing wrong with that. Nobody could tell me differently.
“It’s a good play. The catcher’s in the way. You don’t try to avoid him in an effort to score and hurt yourself. You hit him, just like Rizz did.”
The Cubs still managed only two runs in six-plus innings against Clayton Richard — the lefty they acquired for a dollar from the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate in the middle of the 2015 season and designated for assignment last summer — after hitting into double plays in the first, second and fifth innings.
Javier Baez scored the go-ahead run from first base in the seventh inning when Jose Pirela misplayed Albert Almora Jr.’s double in left field. “Go Cubs Go” played on the sound system only after bulletproof closer Wade Davis escaped a second-and-third, one-out jam in the ninth inning.
But the lasting image will be Rizzo vs. Hedges. You know how Jon Lester will score it after his “we’re out there playing with a bunch of pansies” rant following last month’s loss at Busch Stadium.
“I was fired up — I loved it,” said Lester, who this time got the quality start no-decision. “Obviously, you don’t want to see anybody get hurt, but that’s part of baseball.
“The slide into second — I think that kind of came across as a little bit of an excuse in that game, just because we lost that game. And I think it looked bad as far as what we were saying about it. But that’s baseball. That’s the way the game’s been played for a long, long time.
“He caught the ball. He protected the plate. And Rizz had nowhere to go.”
After no MLB discipline, Anthony Rizzo awaits response from Padres: 'If I get hit, I get hit'.
By Patrick Mooney
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
Major League Baseball won’t discipline Anthony Rizzo for knocking San Diego Padres catcher Austin Hedges out of Monday night’s game, even though chief baseball officer Joe Torre found that the Cubs superstar violated the collision rule.
That interpretation of intent will hang over the next two games at Wrigley Field, waiting to see if the Padres retaliate for what manager Andy Green called a “cheap shot” against one of their building-block players.
“I can’t control what they do,” Rizzo said Tuesday, pointing out the way the Padres attacked him last month. “They throw inside, most likely, on the second pitch. If you look at the games back in San Diego, every second pitch last time was at me. It’s just part of the game.
“Just be ready to hit. If I get hit, I get hit. It’s certainly not the first time.”
Rizzo — a left-handed slugger who crowds the plate — is already tied for the major-league lead after getting hit by 12 pitches so far this season. While the Hedges crash went viral, Rizzo explained his side of the story to Torre, the Hall of Famer who caught more than 7,400 innings in the majors and now oversees umpiring and on-field operations and discipline.
“We were pretty much on the same page, as far as it’s an instinct play,” Rizzo said. “There was no intent to be malicious towards Austin Hedges. It wasn’t a statement. It’s just one of those plays where my instincts took over.”
Rizzo again stood at his locker, faced the cameras and tried to shrug off the entire incident, from Green making it a much bigger story with his postgame comments to the media — “It’s a manager backing his player” — to Hedges dealing with a bruised right thigh and being kept out of Tuesday night’s lineup.
“Yeah, if I see him,” Rizzo said when asked if he’ll be in contact with Hedges. “I hope he’s all right. From what I understand, he’s all right. He’s just banged up a little bit.
“It’s just one of those weird plays. I’m ready to move on.”
Rizzo’s defense amounted to the series of split-second decisions made from reading Kris Bryant’s low line drive, tagging up from third base, accounting for Matt Szczur’s bouncing throw from center field and trying to find an angle to home plate against Hedges.
Even a Cubs official admitted that Rizzo ran outside the base path, but not in such an egregious way that he should become a new precedent for a gray-area rule. Even the Padres acknowledged that Rizzo doesn’t have the reputation of being a dirty player.
“You got to play this game on instinct,” Rizzo said. “I play this game on instincts all the time. They take over and most of the time you have to live and die by your decision.”
Willson Contreras' game-tying homer the clutch moment in Cubs' come-from-behind win over Padres. (Monday night's game, 06/19/2017).
By CSN Staff
(Photo/AP)
If the Cubs wanted revenge on the San Diego Padres after getting swept last month in Southern California, they got it in exciting fashion Monday night.
The North Siders kicked off a three-game pit stop at Wrigley Field with a come-from-behind victory over those Padres, scoring a pair in the bottom of the seventh for a 3-2 win.
Two early home runs off Jon Lester put the Cubs in a 2-0 hole, a lead that was halved when Anthony Rizzo just missed a three-run homer in the third, settling for a sacrifice fly.
Rizzo looked like he'd contribute to the next Cubs run when he tripled to lead off the sixth, but he was thrown out at home plate by former teammate Matt Szczur, who cut down Rizzo with a great throw after catching Kris Bryant's line drive to center field.
Instead, the Cubs came alive in the seventh, finally getting to another former teammate, Clayton Richard, with a leadoff home run from Willson Contreras that tied the game at 2. Two hitters later, Javier Baez singled, and Albert Almora Jr. followed with a double that brought Baez home to give the Cubs a 3-2 lead.
Wade Davis made Cubs fans nervous with a wild ninth inning that saw a hit batsman, a walk and two wild pitches. But he coaxed a strike out and a soft groundout to end the game with his 14th save and give the Cubs their first win over the Padres in four tries this season.
The series continues Tuesday, with Mike Montgomery taking the ball for the Cubs.
WHITE SOX: Derek Holland gets hit hard as White Sox lose opener to Twins.
By Dan Hayes
(Photo/AP)
Offense was everywhere at Target Field on Tuesday night.
The pitching was not as prevalent.
Derek Holland was hit hard early and the White Sox never fully recovered despite big nights at the plate from Jose Abreu and Avisail Garcia. The White Sox lost their second straight, falling 9-7 to the Minnesota Twins in front of 26,095. Abreu reached base five times, falling only a triple shy of the cycle while Garcia went 3-for-4 with a homer, walk and two RBIs.
“It wasn’t (Holland’s) day today,” manager Rick Renteria said. “He missed his spots, left some pitches out over the plate that they were able to do some damage with. That’s about as much as I can give you because we didn’t leave him out there that long.
“I think he left a few pitches over the middle of the plate and you’ve got a few guys over there who can really drive the ball.”
The pitching offered up by both teams in this one was so bad that even Saul Goodman couldn’t mount a strong defense.
Holland struggled from the outset and didn’t escape the third inning. He surrendered a two-run homer to Miguel Sano in the first inning, a 425-foot laser to center to give Minnesota an early lead. Then a third-inning White Sox rally was undone by Holland in the bottom half as the Twins scored five times.
Holland walked Sano ahead of singles by Robbie Grossman and Joe Mauer, which reduced the White Sox lead to 4-3. Kennys Vargas then obliterated a 1-1 changeup from Holland, blasting it 483 feet into left-center field for a three-run homer. Holland would surrender two more singles before he exited. He allowed seven earned runs and nine hits in 2 2/3 innings, his second shortest start of the season.
“These guys put some runs up and the worst part is I didn’t do my job,” Holland said. “It was a really embarrassing performance and to let it slip like that is unacceptable. Too many guys working as hard as they did and putting runs on the board back for me it’s my job to shut that down but I didn’t.
“It was just everything. We try to expand out rather than in and everybody I was doing was coming back to the middle. These guys are made to hit mistakes and hit the ball. I gave out a few souvenirs and didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I have to be better than that. It’s really unacceptable.”
White Sox relievers only surrendered two earned runs but walked five batters in 5 1/3 innings.
Derek Holland was hit hard early and the White Sox never fully recovered despite big nights at the plate from Jose Abreu and Avisail Garcia. The White Sox lost their second straight, falling 9-7 to the Minnesota Twins in front of 26,095. Abreu reached base five times, falling only a triple shy of the cycle while Garcia went 3-for-4 with a homer, walk and two RBIs.
“It wasn’t (Holland’s) day today,” manager Rick Renteria said. “He missed his spots, left some pitches out over the plate that they were able to do some damage with. That’s about as much as I can give you because we didn’t leave him out there that long.
“I think he left a few pitches over the middle of the plate and you’ve got a few guys over there who can really drive the ball.”
The pitching offered up by both teams in this one was so bad that even Saul Goodman couldn’t mount a strong defense.
Holland struggled from the outset and didn’t escape the third inning. He surrendered a two-run homer to Miguel Sano in the first inning, a 425-foot laser to center to give Minnesota an early lead. Then a third-inning White Sox rally was undone by Holland in the bottom half as the Twins scored five times.
Holland walked Sano ahead of singles by Robbie Grossman and Joe Mauer, which reduced the White Sox lead to 4-3. Kennys Vargas then obliterated a 1-1 changeup from Holland, blasting it 483 feet into left-center field for a three-run homer. Holland would surrender two more singles before he exited. He allowed seven earned runs and nine hits in 2 2/3 innings, his second shortest start of the season.
“These guys put some runs up and the worst part is I didn’t do my job,” Holland said. “It was a really embarrassing performance and to let it slip like that is unacceptable. Too many guys working as hard as they did and putting runs on the board back for me it’s my job to shut that down but I didn’t.
“It was just everything. We try to expand out rather than in and everybody I was doing was coming back to the middle. These guys are made to hit mistakes and hit the ball. I gave out a few souvenirs and didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I have to be better than that. It’s really unacceptable.”
White Sox relievers only surrendered two earned runs but walked five batters in 5 1/3 innings.
Minnesota pitcher Ervin Santana wasn’t much better, though he qualified for the victory.
Santana had men in scoring position in the first two innings before the White Sox rallied for four runs in the third to pull ahead. Melky Cabrera and Abreu doubled to make it a 2-1 game. Garcia’s two-run homer put the White Sox up by a run and Matt Davidson’s solo shot made it a 4-2 game. It was Garcia’s 11th homer and Davidson’s team-leading 16th.
“We’ve got to keep fighting,” said Garcia, who produced his 11th three-hit game of the season. “We have to fight to win every inning and score runs for the pitcher.
“We’ve faced (Santana) this year a couple of times. We made the adjustment and we just tried to do our best, don’t do too much and try to do our job.”
Though they battled to the end, the White Sox couldn’t finish the job. They got back within 7-6 in the fifth when Yolmer Sanchez followed walks of Garcia and Tim Anderson with a two-out, two-run triple. But Santana struck out Adam Engel to strand the tying run. Santana allowed six earned runs and 10 hits in five innings with two walks.
Twins relievers allowed six hits and walked two in four innings but limited the damage to one run. Abreu’s homer in the sixth got the White Sox within 8-7 but Kevan Smith lined out with the bases loaded to end the inning. The White Sox also had the tying run on third base in the seventh and eighth innings but couldn’t pull even as Matt Belisle, Taylor Rogers and Brandon Kintzler combined for 3 1/3 scoreless innings.
“We had the guys come in to pick up Dutch and kind of kept us there,” Renteria said. “We kept battling back. We weren’t obviously able to overcome the deficit but they gave us a chance. We had a chance to win the ballgame.”
White Sox recall Adam Engel from Triple-A Charlotte.
Santana had men in scoring position in the first two innings before the White Sox rallied for four runs in the third to pull ahead. Melky Cabrera and Abreu doubled to make it a 2-1 game. Garcia’s two-run homer put the White Sox up by a run and Matt Davidson’s solo shot made it a 4-2 game. It was Garcia’s 11th homer and Davidson’s team-leading 16th.
“We’ve got to keep fighting,” said Garcia, who produced his 11th three-hit game of the season. “We have to fight to win every inning and score runs for the pitcher.
“We’ve faced (Santana) this year a couple of times. We made the adjustment and we just tried to do our best, don’t do too much and try to do our job.”
Though they battled to the end, the White Sox couldn’t finish the job. They got back within 7-6 in the fifth when Yolmer Sanchez followed walks of Garcia and Tim Anderson with a two-out, two-run triple. But Santana struck out Adam Engel to strand the tying run. Santana allowed six earned runs and 10 hits in five innings with two walks.
Twins relievers allowed six hits and walked two in four innings but limited the damage to one run. Abreu’s homer in the sixth got the White Sox within 8-7 but Kevan Smith lined out with the bases loaded to end the inning. The White Sox also had the tying run on third base in the seventh and eighth innings but couldn’t pull even as Matt Belisle, Taylor Rogers and Brandon Kintzler combined for 3 1/3 scoreless innings.
“We had the guys come in to pick up Dutch and kind of kept us there,” Renteria said. “We kept battling back. We weren’t obviously able to overcome the deficit but they gave us a chance. We had a chance to win the ballgame.”
White Sox recall Adam Engel from Triple-A Charlotte.
By Scott Krinch
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
Adam Engel's stay in Charlotte didn't last long.
Less than two weeks since he was optioned to Triple-A, the speedy center fielder is back with the big league club.
The White Sox announced on Tuesday they have recalled Engel, which corresponds with Leury Garcia being placed on the DL on Monday afternoon.
The 25-year-old Engel was with the White Sox from May 27-June 9 and hit .300 with three runs and four stolen bases.
Engel was slashing .218/.312/.461 with eight homers and 19 RBI in 46 games with the Knights.
The White Sox began a three-game series with the Twins in Minnesota on Tuesday night.
Well done: White Sox sign Missouri State slugger Jake Burger.
By Scott Krinch
(Photo/AP)
The White Sox farm system has added some beef.
On Tuesday, the White Sox officially agreed to terms with Missouri State third baseman Jake Burger. The deal includes a $3.7 million signing bonus, according to MLB.com's Jim Callis.
Burger, the No. 11 pick in the 2017 MLB Draft, carries a slot value of $4,199,200 from his draft position.
“Me as a player, I’m obviously known for my power and the ability to drive the ball out to all parts of the field," Burger said after being selected by the White Sox. "But I’m more just a consistent guy too. I’m not hitting .280. I’m hitting for average with the home runs as well.”
Burger, who MLB.com ranked as the 16th overall player headed into the draft, slashed .328/.443/.648 with 22 home runs and 65 RBI for Missouri State in 2017.
The three-time All-American belted 47 homers and drove in 179 runs throughout his collegiate career.
White Sox hope dive into water polo pool pans out.
By Dan Hayes
(Photo/csnchicago.com)
The White Sox went so far outside of the box with draft pick Sam Abbott that they wound up in the pool.
Whereas 34 of the team’s 40 picks were spent on college players with proven track records, the White Sox bought a lottery ticket with a potentially huge payoff when they selected the three-time Washington high school water polo MVP in the eighth round of last week’s draft. The White Sox know they possess a work in progress in Abbott, who officially signed with the club on Monday and reported to the team’s facility in Glendale, Ariz. But scouts and club officials feel if Abbott can ever tap into the potential he put on display in a workout earlier this month that gambling on the 6-foot-5, 230-pounder would be worth the risk.
“This is one of the most unique stories we’ve ever drafted,” amateur scouting director Nick Hostetler said. “This is going to take some time, there’s going to be some patience. But this is one of those high-risk, high-rewards where if this hits, it’s a story good enough for a movie.”
Though the White Sox think it could take Abbott time to develop into a bonafide power hitter, it’s no surprise to Abbott’s high school baseball coach that he quickly chose baseball over water polo. Curtis High School (Tacoma, Wash.) coach Bryan Robinson said other area coaches wondered about what Abbott might do after the White Sox selected him with the 237th pick in the draft, a pick with a $161,600 slot value. Abbott had committed to play water polo at Long Beach State on a partial scholarship. He’d helped Curtis High win consecutive state titles. And he’d had success immediately after setting foot in the pool as a freshman.
But Robinson suspected that Abbott would sign immediately with the White Sox, who had flown him to Chicago for a June 4 workout at Guaranteed Rate Field. Even though he was a stud in the pool, Robinson knew Abbott loved baseball as much as the other sports.
“His freshman year he was the Washington state player of the year in water polo,” Robinson said. “He had a ton of success in the pool. But at the same time was playing baseball in the spring and summer ball. Swimming and water polo were just kind of taking the driver’s seat in terms of him getting noticed a little bit.”
“I didn’t even question (if he’d sign). The White Sox made a really big commitment. That’s something you don’t turn your back on.”
The White Sox initially noticed Abbott when area scout Robbie Cummings went to see an opposing school’s pitcher. Cummings immediately liked Abbott’s frame and his power potential and began to push Abbott on Hostetler. Ultimately, Cummings convinced the White Sox to bring Abbott to Chicago for the workout and that’s where Jim Thome, the club’s special assistant to the general manager took notice.
“He was hitting balls so far Jim was standing there and (asked) ‘Who is this kid?’ ” Hostetler said. “I even had to pull out the roster to look.”
Once Thome heard Abbott’s backstory he was further intrigued. Abbott had never spent more than a few months a year playing baseball as swimming is a year-round sport in Washington. Abbott also had never participated in a baseball-specific conditioning program because swimming always got in the way --- not that Robinson minded.
“We knew that he was actually probably getting a better workout by being in the pool,” Robinson said.
And then there’s the sheer raw power Abbott brings. Thome liked how Abbott put on a show, hitting a number of balls out to left-center field at Guaranteed Rate Field. Abbott is one of several power bats the White Sox added through the draft along with first-rounder Jake Burger and second-rounder Gavin Sheets.
“The bat does speak,” Thome said. “It’s exciting to think where a kid like this has come from. He doesn’t have a lot of wear and tear.
“It’s exciting to see what he could potentially be.
“It’ll be fun to see how this translates.”
The White Sox plan to be patient with their project. Hostetler said Abbott could spend as much as two seasons at rookie ball in order to create a steady foundation.
“It’s going to be a long process for Sam,” Hostetler said. “He wasn’t on the circuit. He wasn’t an Area Codes guy.”
Patience and concentration on baseball alone is all Robinson thinks his player needs. Abbott has also worked out in front of Nomar Garciaparra this year and the ex-All-Star shortstop had “good things to say.” Robinson loves Abbott’s approach at the plate because he knows his strike zone well and what pitches he does damage on. Abbott knows how to let the ball travel and the ball jumps off his bat. And Robinson thinks Abbott’s mindset is perfect for baseball because he knows how to hit the reset button and start over the next day.
All it took was someone else seeing it, a process that began with Cummings and picked up with Thome’s observations.
“We knew he could play at the next level just with his swing,” Robinson said. “Honestly it was a matter of if he wanted to.
“I overheard the conversation he had with Jim Thome and I thought, ‘Wow, this is really going to take off.’”
“Eighth round, that was something special.”
Golf: I got a club for that..... PGA Tour 2017: Travelers Championship groupings, tee times, TV schedule.
By Dennis Manoloff
Rory McIlroy, shown at the U.S. Open last week, is in the field at Travelers Championship 2017 this week. (Photo/David J. Phillip/AP)
Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Paul Casey, Brandt Snedeker, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson, Jason Kokrak, Russell Knox and Brian Harman are among those in the field at Travelers Championship 2017 this week in Connecticut.
TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP TEE TIMES
PGA TOUR
TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP
Site: Cromwell, Conn.
Course: TPC River Highlands. Yardage: 6,820. Par: 70.
Purse: $6.8 million (First place: $1,224,000).
Television: Thursday-Friday, 3:30-6:30 p.m. (Golf Channel). Saturday-Sunday, 1-2:30 p.m. (Golf Channel); 3-6 p.m. (CBS Sports).
Defending champion: Russell Knox.
Last week: Brooks Koepka won the U.S. Open.
FedEx Cup leader: Dustin Johnson.
Notes: The field, unusually strong for the Travelers Championship, includes Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day and Justin Thomas. Spieth and McIlroy are playing the TPC River Highlands for the first time. ... Jim Furyk set a PGA Tour record last year with a 58 in the final round. ... The past seven tournaments on the PGA Tour have had a cut that was over par. ... Padraig Harrington is in the field after taking two weeks off to recover from an amateur's swing at a clinic that split open his elbow. ... Dustin Johnson doesn't plan to play again until the British Open. ... The leading five players from the top 20 in the FedEx Cup after this week are exempt to the British Open if they are not already in the field. Among those on the bubble are Mackenzie Hughes (No. 20) and Wesley Bryan (No. 22). ... McIlroy and Day are the only players from the top five in the world who have not won this year. ... Single-digits under par has not won this tournament since Nick Price won at 9-under in 1993. ... For the first time since 1998-2000, Americans have won the U.S. Open three straight years.
Next week: Quicken Loans National.
Online: www.pgatour.com
Power Rankings: 2017 Travelers Championship.
By Will Gray
(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)
The PGA Tour heads east this week for the Travelers Championship. A field of 156 players will tackle TPC River Highlands, known for its finishing stretch that is high on both risk and reward.
Be sure to join the all-new Golf Channel Fantasy Challenge to compete for prizes and form your own leagues, and log on to www.playfantasygolf.com to submit your picks for this week's event.
Russell Knox won this event last year by one shot over Jerry Kelly. Here are 10 names to watch in Wisconsin:
1. Justin Thomas: Thomas faded Sunday at Erin Hills, but don't let that detract from the stellar golf he played over the first 54 holes. Thomas also tied for fourth two weeks ago at Memorial and was T-3 at this event a year ago. Another win doesn't seem very far off.
2. Jordan Spieth: Spieth struggled on the greens for much of the week at the U.S. Open, but his ball-striking carried him and the putting surfaces should be a little bit easier to decipher this week as he makes his debut at TPC River Highlands. When it comes to Spieth, the putter only remains cold for so long.
3. Jason Day: Day ballooned in surprising fashion during the opening round last week, and his previous two showings at this event went for solid showings (T-18 and T-27). Day lost a playoff at the AT&T Byron Nelson and backdoored a T-15 finish at the Memorial prior to Erin Hills, and he's likely to get back on track this week.
4. Paul Casey: The Englishman lost a playoff to Bubba Watson here two years ago, and he returns after fading from the 36-hole co-lead into a 26th-place finish at Erin Hills. Casey still only has one PGA Tour win to his credit but he has been a perennial contender in recent years, and he hasn't been outside the top 30 since Bay Hill.
5. Marc Leishman: The Aussie earned his first career win at this event back in 2012, and he has finished T-11 or better two times since. Leishman notched another title earlier this year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and has been solid this spring, with top-35 finishes in four straight events despite fading over the weekend at Erin Hills.
6. Rory McIlroy: The Ulsterman will make his tournament debut, and while he has the firepower to take down TPC River Highlands he showed very little of it last week while lashing his way around Erin Hills. McIlroy is starting a busy stretch, but this is still only his third start since the Masters because of a nagging rib injury.
7. Brendan Steele: Steele actually led the field in birdies last week with 22, one more than winner Brooks Koepka. His T-8 finish was his third top-30 result in his last five starts and he now heads to an event where he has cracked the top 25 in five out of the last six years.
8. Brandt Snedeker: Snedeker has finished T-10 and T-11 in each of his last two trips to Cromwell, and now he enters off a ninth-place showing at the U.S. Open. Snedeker remains a notoriously streaky putter, but recently that has worked to his benefit as ranks 19th on Tour in strokes gained putting and should have plenty of looks this week.
9. Charley Hoffman: Hoffman continues to be reliable in big events, as evidenced by his strong start at the Masters and T-8 finish last week in Wisconsin. But his record in this event is also solid, highlighted by a runner-up finish in 2012 and including five finishes of T-27 or better over his last six trips.
10. Bubba Watson: No list for this event would be complete without Watson, a two-time champ who remains the tournament's all-time money winner. While he finished T-6 earlier this month at the Memorial, his recent form is otherwise largely absent. He'll hope to spark a turnaround on a course where he annually feels quite comfortable.
Russell Knox won this event last year by one shot over Jerry Kelly. Here are 10 names to watch in Wisconsin:
1. Justin Thomas: Thomas faded Sunday at Erin Hills, but don't let that detract from the stellar golf he played over the first 54 holes. Thomas also tied for fourth two weeks ago at Memorial and was T-3 at this event a year ago. Another win doesn't seem very far off.
2. Jordan Spieth: Spieth struggled on the greens for much of the week at the U.S. Open, but his ball-striking carried him and the putting surfaces should be a little bit easier to decipher this week as he makes his debut at TPC River Highlands. When it comes to Spieth, the putter only remains cold for so long.
3. Jason Day: Day ballooned in surprising fashion during the opening round last week, and his previous two showings at this event went for solid showings (T-18 and T-27). Day lost a playoff at the AT&T Byron Nelson and backdoored a T-15 finish at the Memorial prior to Erin Hills, and he's likely to get back on track this week.
4. Paul Casey: The Englishman lost a playoff to Bubba Watson here two years ago, and he returns after fading from the 36-hole co-lead into a 26th-place finish at Erin Hills. Casey still only has one PGA Tour win to his credit but he has been a perennial contender in recent years, and he hasn't been outside the top 30 since Bay Hill.
5. Marc Leishman: The Aussie earned his first career win at this event back in 2012, and he has finished T-11 or better two times since. Leishman notched another title earlier this year at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and has been solid this spring, with top-35 finishes in four straight events despite fading over the weekend at Erin Hills.
6. Rory McIlroy: The Ulsterman will make his tournament debut, and while he has the firepower to take down TPC River Highlands he showed very little of it last week while lashing his way around Erin Hills. McIlroy is starting a busy stretch, but this is still only his third start since the Masters because of a nagging rib injury.
7. Brendan Steele: Steele actually led the field in birdies last week with 22, one more than winner Brooks Koepka. His T-8 finish was his third top-30 result in his last five starts and he now heads to an event where he has cracked the top 25 in five out of the last six years.
8. Brandt Snedeker: Snedeker has finished T-10 and T-11 in each of his last two trips to Cromwell, and now he enters off a ninth-place showing at the U.S. Open. Snedeker remains a notoriously streaky putter, but recently that has worked to his benefit as ranks 19th on Tour in strokes gained putting and should have plenty of looks this week.
9. Charley Hoffman: Hoffman continues to be reliable in big events, as evidenced by his strong start at the Masters and T-8 finish last week in Wisconsin. But his record in this event is also solid, highlighted by a runner-up finish in 2012 and including five finishes of T-27 or better over his last six trips.
10. Bubba Watson: No list for this event would be complete without Watson, a two-time champ who remains the tournament's all-time money winner. While he finished T-6 earlier this month at the Memorial, his recent form is otherwise largely absent. He'll hope to spark a turnaround on a course where he annually feels quite comfortable.
Lefty and Bones: A tandem like no other.
By Rex Hoggard
(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)
It was like death and taxes – inevitable. Eternal, even.
It’s somehow fitting that Phil Mickelson and his longtime bagman Jim “Bones” Mackay decided to call it quits this week. The duo’s last start together, the FedEx St. Jude Classic two weeks ago, was where it all began.
“I do think every time I come back here, 25 years ago to the day basically on Monday, Tuesday, it was at Farmington Golf Course was the first day that Bones and I ever worked together. It was exactly 25 years ago this week,” Mickelson said on June 7. “Every time I come back here to Memphis I always think about that and that particular moment.”
Mickelson didn’t play last week’s U.S. Open, electing to attend his daughter’s graduation instead, but Bones was still there, walking the insanely long fairways of Erin Hills on the off chance his boss of two-and-a-half decades could somehow make his opening tee time.
Lefty didn’t make that tee time, but Bones’ diligence in preparing for the highly unlikely eventuality is as good a place to begin an examination of the duo’s unique relationship as any.
Make no mistake, Mackay was much more than simply an “outdoor butler,” an affectionate term for caddies in Tour circles. He was Mickelson’s friend and confidant. He was Lefty’s competitive compass when things sped up on the golf course as they often do when you find yourself in contention, and Mickelson and his wingman found themselves in the hunt often.
Forty-one of Mickelson’s 42 Tour titles came with Mackay on the bag, the exception being the 1991 Northern Telecom Open which Lefty won as an amateur with his future manager, Steve Loy, pulling looping duties.
“I’m undefeated,” Loy joked earlier this year in Mexico when Mickelson’s brother, Tim, had to stand in when Mackay came down with an illness.
Player-caddie relationships simply aren’t built to last. The stress of playing the game at the highest level combined with the inevitable ebb and flow of a career tend to create an excess of emotional baggage for both employer and employee.
The adage on Tour goes that there are two kinds of caddies, those who have been fired and those who are about to be, but since 1992 Mackay has been neither. In Bones, Mickelson had a perfect yin to his complex competitive yang, someone who could provide a voice of reason when all Lefty could hear in his head was, “Go for it.”
Mickelson has spoken of the annual “veto” he allowed Bones, a one-time card Mackay could use, without question or concern, if he and his boss disagreed on a particular shot.
“I do want to say for the record that I did not use my ‘veto’ this year. I would like to pass it along to [Mickelson’s interim caddie, brother Tim], in all its glory,” Mackay wrote in a statement announcing the duo’s split on Tuesday.
Mickelson playfully fired back in his own statement, explaining that the veto was “non-transferable,” but joking aside, the agreement is a telling sign of the depths of trust shared by the two. It’s the type of agreement that’s not shared by many player-caddie combinations and for good reason. That kind of confidence only comes from decades of trial and, in Mickelson’s case, plenty of error.
The best example of this complex and compelling relationship came on Sunday at the 2010 Masters. Mickelson’s drive at the 13th hole had raced through the fairway and into the pine straw.
Clinging to a one-stroke lead, Mickelson being Mickelson eyed the situation – which included a pair of trees in front of him and Rae's Creek waiting 200 yards away – and informed Bones, “I’m going for it.”
Not once but twice Mackay attempted to talk Lefty into taking a more conservative shot and layup, and both times Mickelson was having none of it. History will hold that Mickelson’s 6-iron came to rest 4 feet from the hole for a two-putt birdie that helped secure his third green jacket.
But it was Bones’ unique approach on that special Sunday that resonated with his fellow caddies. The balance between trying to talk your player out of what you believe to be an overly aggressive shot and not chipping away at their confidence is a fine line, and no one did that better than MacKay.
Bones doesn’t appear to be heading into retirement, which means someone is going to hire a Hall of Fame caddie in the next few months, but there may never be a tandem like Lefty and Bones again. It was a relationship that was built on much more than just golf or glory, and it ended far too soon.
Disclosing doping violations step toward transparency.
By Rex Hoggard
(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)
When newly-minted PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan sat down with a group of golf writers earlier this year in Hawaii, one of the first things he was asked about was the circuit’s policy regarding the publication of fines or suspensions.
“I think the system works,” he reasoned. “I know there is a desire to know everything that happens, but we’re a family. If there is an issue in your family you deal with it with your family. That has worked really well for us.”
The family became a little more transparent on Tuesday when the Tour announced it would begin announcing violations of the circuit’s anti-doping program that include “drugs of abuse,” like marijuana and cocaine.
“I think the system works,” he reasoned. “I know there is a desire to know everything that happens, but we’re a family. If there is an issue in your family you deal with it with your family. That has worked really well for us.”
The family became a little more transparent on Tuesday when the Tour announced it would begin announcing violations of the circuit’s anti-doping program that include “drugs of abuse,” like marijuana and cocaine.
Since the circuit’s anti-doping program began in 2008, the policy has been to announce violations that lead to suspensions for drugs that were deemed performance enhancing, like steroids and testosterone, but not recreational or drugs of abuse. If the new policy is a dramatic and somewhat surprising change of course, the motivation behind the shift is still somewhat unclear.
“The more transparent you are the better,” said Jason Bohn, one of four player directors on the policy board. “The more honest you are it leads to no speculation. It’s straight out in front of you. Other sports do it, this is what happened.”
While the Tour’s new policy may be a step in the right direction, it’s only a step. Unlike violations that involve performance-enhancing drugs, the commissioner still has leeway in cases involving drugs of abuse. Monahan can decide to fine or require counseling and not suspend a player who tested positive for recreational drugs, and therefore the violation would never be made public.
But even with that proviso, the new rule is a vast improvement over the old line, which held that if a tree fell in the woods, the public and press would never hear it.
Over the years, that kind of obfuscation only led to wild speculation, both among traditional media and now on social platforms, if a player took an extended leave from the Tour. The hope is the new policy will end that kind of rumor-mongering.
“We didn’t want the possibility with social media and things to create a story that wasn’t even there,” Bohn said. “By being transparent it’s right there in front of everybody.”
Internally, this seems to have been a compromise between those in the old guard who held that the Tour must protect the brand at all costs and a growing sentiment among players for clarity.
To be clear, this was not a bold move by the new commissioner to make his mark on the Tour.
“This has been talked about way before Jay,” said Bohn, of the new commissioner who took office in January. “We’ve talked about this for many years.”
The policy changes seemed to gain momentum earlier this year when Tour officials presented the plan to the policy board and 16-member player advisory council at the Farmers Insurance Open.
“The thinking changed because it was approached way more by the players. They put it in front of the players and the PAC, they talked about it and we had multiple meetings and discussed it and they were asked how they feel about it?” Bohn said. "Management saw that guys think this is a good idea. They felt like they were trying to protect us, which is nice from a management point of view, but once the players kind of spoke and said this is a better way to protect us they opened their ears.”
An informal and unscientific poll of players on Tuesday at the Travelers Championship, however, provided a slightly different snapshot. There were certainly plenty of players who applauded the move as long overdue.
“You break the rules, we’re going to enforce them and if you break them you should be held accountable,” Lucas Glover said. “If there is a penalty or a fine it all should be announced. If I snap my 3-wood on 15 because I hit a bad tee shot and I get fined for it, I would hope they would announce it because they probably showed it on TV.”
And there were those who seemed to have come around on the new policy somewhat begrudgingly.
“I’m not big on that completely, I’m 50/50,” said Geoff Ogilvy, a member of the player advisory council. “Transparency when it comes to drugs of dependence [abuse], in some ways I don’t think it’s anyone’s business, at least outside of the Tour, and on the other hand, it might just put the nail in the coffin and convince players not to do it.”
Ogilvy also had a different take on why the Tour came to such a surprising crossroads.
“You guys [the media],” Ogilvy said when asked what prompted the Tour’s change of course. “You guys win when it gets announced because more people read your stories. If a conduct issue happens that no one knows about, as long as it is dealt with I’m not 100 percent sure everyone needs to know that.”
The idea that improved transparency, however qualified, could serve as a more powerful deterrent than fines or Tour-imposed treatment programs could, in theory, be applied to all of the circuit’s disciplinary policies.
Would it not help speed up the play of some of the Tour’s more sluggish members if the circuit started publishing a weekly list of players who had been fined for slow play?
“That would be awesome,” Billy Hurley III said. “It’s an added deterrent for things, but I’m in the top of the Tour in pace of play. You’re seeing our sport evolve and governance evolve, but I don’t know.”
While there are probably plenty of players who agree with Hurley, it doesn’t appear as if the Tour’s new spirit of transparency transcends the rulebook. Asked if Tuesday’s announcement could open the door for more changes to the Tour’s don’t-ask-because-we’re-not-telling protocol, Bohn smiled.
“Business wise, I don’t think so,” Bohn said. “I don’t think it should, to be honest.”
NASCAR Power Rankings: Kyle Larson's win moves him up.
By Nick Bromberg
Race wins: 2
Stage wins: 3
Race wins: 2
Stage wins: 10
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 4
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 3
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 2
Stage wins: 0
Race wins: 0
Stage wins 0
Race wins: 2
Stage wins: 2
Race wins: 1
Stage wins: 3
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 2
Race wins: 1*
Stage wins: 1
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 1
(Photo/www.follownews.com)
1. Kyle Larson (LW: 3): When a guy gets his second win of the season and it vaults him to the top of the points standings there’s no excuse to not have him at No. 1 in Power Rankings.
He said he didn’t have the race’s fastest car either. That honor went to Martin Truex Jr.
“Seemed like whenever [Truex] wanted to get the lead, he hit a nitro button and would cruise up to the lead, then check out,” Larson said. “He was the class of the field.
“I thought [Kyle Busch] was next best. [Matt Kenseth] was better than I was on the long run. I thought we were probably a third‑ or fourth‑place car. To come out a winner, it makes it that much more exciting, I guess. I guess it would be disappointing if I finished outside the top 10 or something. For not having the dominant car, to do everything right to get a win today, was special.”
Points position: 1st
Race wins: 2
Stage wins: 3
2. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 1): Truex agreed with Larson’s assessment that he had the best car. Truex won the first two stages of the race.
“We had the best car out there without a doubt – just inside lane restarts at the end killed us, so just stinks when you have to race like that, you know?” Truex said. “You get just in a bad spot and there’s nothing you can do about it. We seen it the last couple restarts, so just wrong place. Probably should have took two tires that last time we pitted – we took four. That killed us. Just wrong lane on the restart every single time all day long and couldn’t use the best car to win.”
Points position: 2nd
Race wins: 2
Stage wins: 10
3. Kyle Busch (LW: 4): Busch once again didn’t talk to media after the race. He finished seventh after he lost the lead to Larson on a restart with 15 laps to go.
Busch’s disappointment is understandable, but it also may be magnified a bit. He’s third in the points standings, though you may not know it from his disappointment after the last couple of races.
Points position: 3rd
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 4
4. Kevin Harvick (LW: 2): Harvick finished 14th after contact with Ryan Blaney.
Blaney had to check up and Harvick got forced into him on the backstretch by Daniel Suarez. But before the incident, Harvick wasn’t a challenger for the lead anyway. He consistently had a car inside the top 15 but not one that challenged for the lead.
“Tight all day long and we could not get it loosened up enough to be able to challenge,” Harvick said.
Points position: 4th
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 3
5. Chase Elliott (LW: 8): We’re not trying to simply be a rundown of the points standings here, but Elliott moves up three spots after he finished second to Larson at Michigan for the second-straight time. Elliott didn’t lead any laps, but he was the fastest Hendrick Motorsports car all day after starting 10th.
Elliott said Larson had to make a mistake if he was going to catch him for the win.
“Once we singled out in line, it’s difficult to pass in a short period of time,” Elliott said. “Sure, I think he would have had to have made a bobble for me to get to him. He had probably about a second on me. I wasn’t close enough to get to him or make a move.”
Points position: 5th
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 2
6. Jimmie Johnson (LW: 6): Johnson finished 10th after he started at the back of the field because of a practice wreck. We would love to know what Johnson’s crew chief Chad Knaus was thinking after he brought Johnson down pit road for fresh tires after a caution for a trash bag on lap 8.
Knaus pitted Johnson anticipating NASCAR to call a competition caution on lap 20 like it said it would. But after teams pitted, NASCAR moved the competition caution to lap 25. Moving a caution five laps can impact a team’s strategy significantly.
Points position: 8th
Race wins: 3
Stage wins: 0
7. Jamie McMurray (LW: 9): McMurray is continuing his season of being fast but not really fast. He’s got the ninth-most stage points, but he’s led laps in just two races. He finished fifth on Sunday.
“It almost seemed like the track was going through a weird transition at the beginning,” McMurray said. “Where you get two or three good laps and it almost was like you catch a gust of wind and have to hang on to the car. You would slide up the race track, but [the team] did a really good job adjusting on it.”
Points position: 7th
Race wins: 0
Stage wins 0
8. Brad Keselowski (LW: 5): Keselowski hasn’t won a Cup Series race at his home track in Michigan and never had the track position to challenge for it Sunday. He was constantly around Harvick in that top-15 range and ended up 16th and said the team “wasn’t really where we needed to be.”
Points position: 6th
Race wins: 2
Stage wins: 2
9. Ryan Blaney (LW: 7): Blaney had a fast car and helped Kyle Larson get the lead over Kyle Busch at the end of the race with a big push immediately after the restart.
But he fell to 25th, the next-to-last car on the lead lap after that contact with Kevin Harvick because of a flat tire and damage to the car.
Points position: 13th
Race wins: 1
Stage wins: 3
10. Denny Hamlin (LW: 10): A day after winning the Xfinity Series race, Hamlin finished fourth. He was second on the race’s final restart, but Larson had the preferred outside lane. As Hamlin tried to dive into the corner under Larson, his car didn’t stick.
“The biggest thing [about not being in the preferred lane] is you try to minimize how many spots you lose versus how much you gain, but when you’re sitting there side-by-side for the lead, you’re going to try to do everything you can,” Hamlin said. “I tried to carry speed in there and obviously got sucked around there and you just try to minimize your losses at that point.”
Points position: 9th
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 2
11. Joey Logano (LW: NR): Logano finished third and announced after the race that he and his wife were expecting a baby later in the year. That’s not a bad Father’s Day at all.
“Yeah, you have no idea how good this feels,” Logano said of the finish. “It’s been a struggle the last month-and-a-half and it’s nice to come here to Michigan, maybe our best race track and be able to overcome a lot.”
Points position: 10th
Race wins: 1*
Stage wins: 1
12. Matt Kenseth (LW: 12): Kenseth finished 11th and could have finished a heck of a lot higher if he didn’t slide through his pit box twice while entering for pit stops. One of those times happened on the final stops of the day.
Points position: 11th
Race wins: 0
Stage wins: 1
Lucky Dog: Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s ninth-place finish was just his third top-10 of the season.
The DNF: Sunday’s race at Michigan had 37 cars. It was missing the No. 55 of Premium Motorsports and the No. 51 of Rick Ware Racing, two cars that typically are multiple laps down at the end of the race or end up behind the wall. But even without those two cars, it was crazy to see that 36 of the 37 cars in the field completed at least 194 of 200 laps. The only car that didn’t was Danica Patrick’s because of her crash.
Dropped out: Austin Dillon
NASCAR America: Which winless Cup drivers can win at Sonoma?
By Daniel McFadin
Sonoma Raceway represents one of the few wild card tracks on the NASCAR circuit.
With it being one of two road courses the Cup Series visits, it opens the door for someone who needs a win to get it.
NASCAR America’s Analysts shared who they’ll be watching this weekend at the California road course and they debated who they think will win first this year: Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin or Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Slugger Labbe: “For me it’s the 88 team of Dale Earnhardt Jr. The next two weeks are very, very important. He runs very well at Sonoma. The last three races there he has a 7.1 average (finish). He leads all the current drivers there. Daytona’s good for him as well. The team, I’m really worried about their transmission issues they had at Pocono two weeks ago. Dale Earnhardt Jr. blew up two engines, fell out of the race. He’s going to be doing a lot of shifting this weekend at Sonoma and that’s going to be key to that race team.”
Dale Jarrett: “Matt Kenseth and Clint Bowyer … I think both of these are drivers we maybe expected to have a victory by this time or maybe be further up in the points. A lot of different things are happening between the two of them. As I look at Clint Bowyer, this is someone that’s run extremely well at Sonoma over the years. He has a real chance and an opportunity to do some good things this weekend. … They need to get heading back in the right direction.”
Parker Kligerman: “I don’t have as much confidence in this 11 car of Denny Hamlin. I feel like all the cars at Joe Gibbs Racing that have been affected throughout the season from the lack of speed, the 11 has been the hardest hit. He has consistently struggled in traffic this season. I know he got a good finish this weekend, but I’m telling you it didn’t come easy and it wasn’t because of speed. It was a little of that driver in Denny Hamlin making things happen on restarts, making moves that just happened to work out.”
Darlington Raceway to honor Dale Earnhardt Sr. on Sept. 2.
By Dustin Long
(Photo/Allsport /Allsport)
Darlington Raceway will pay tribute to Dale Earnhardt Sr. and the 30th anniversary of his 1987 Southern 500 win in a special tribute: An Evening Honoring Dale Earnhardt Sr.
The event will be held Sept. 2., the night before the Southern 500.
The event will feature a panel sharing stories about the seven-time champion. The panel will include Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt Miller, Kerry Earnhardt and car owner Richard Childress.
An Evening Honoring Dale Earnhardt Sr. will take place in the driver’s meeting tent in the Cup garage from 7:30 – 9 p.m. ET, following the conclusion of the Southern 500 parade. NBC broadcaster Rick Allen will emcee the event.
Tickets are $87, which includes two beverage coupons, light hors d’oeuvres and a 1:24 scale Dale Earnhardt Jr. throwback No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet SS diecast. Tickets can be purchased by visiting www.DarlingtonRaceway.com or calling 843-395-8802. A grandstand ticket or infield admission to Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 is required for purchase.
“We are extremely grateful to Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt Miller, Kerry Earnhardt and Richard Childress for supporting this tribute event and sharing Dale Earnhardt Sr. stories for our fans and industry stakeholders that will be in attendance,” Darlington Raceway President Kerry Tharp said in a statement. “We look forward to honoring one of NASCAR’s most popular champions and Hall of Fame members. Dale Earnhardt Sr. had a fondness for Darlington Raceway, so it’s only fitting that one of the most intimidating tracks on the circuit would host an event recognizing ‘The Intimidator.’ ”
Earnhardt won nine Cup races at Darlington, second only to David Pearson’s 10 career victories there. Earnhardt also won three Xfinity races there.
The tribute to Earnhardt is a part of Darlington Raceway’s throwback weekend, which celebrates the 1985-89 era.
The event will feature a panel sharing stories about the seven-time champion. The panel will include Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt Miller, Kerry Earnhardt and car owner Richard Childress.
An Evening Honoring Dale Earnhardt Sr. will take place in the driver’s meeting tent in the Cup garage from 7:30 – 9 p.m. ET, following the conclusion of the Southern 500 parade. NBC broadcaster Rick Allen will emcee the event.
Tickets are $87, which includes two beverage coupons, light hors d’oeuvres and a 1:24 scale Dale Earnhardt Jr. throwback No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet SS diecast. Tickets can be purchased by visiting www.DarlingtonRaceway.com or calling 843-395-8802. A grandstand ticket or infield admission to Sunday’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 is required for purchase.
“We are extremely grateful to Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt Miller, Kerry Earnhardt and Richard Childress for supporting this tribute event and sharing Dale Earnhardt Sr. stories for our fans and industry stakeholders that will be in attendance,” Darlington Raceway President Kerry Tharp said in a statement. “We look forward to honoring one of NASCAR’s most popular champions and Hall of Fame members. Dale Earnhardt Sr. had a fondness for Darlington Raceway, so it’s only fitting that one of the most intimidating tracks on the circuit would host an event recognizing ‘The Intimidator.’ ”
Earnhardt won nine Cup races at Darlington, second only to David Pearson’s 10 career victories there. Earnhardt also won three Xfinity races there.
The tribute to Earnhardt is a part of Darlington Raceway’s throwback weekend, which celebrates the 1985-89 era.
SOCCER: Bastian Schweinsteiger talks about playing sweeper in the Fire's win at New England.
By Dan Santaromita
(Photo/AP)
The Chicago Fire keep winning and Bastian Schweinsteiger continues to be at the heart of the team’s success.
The German played a new role in the Fire 2-1 win Saturday at the New England Revolution. Instead of his typical central midfield spot, Schweinsteiger lined up between the two central defenders, Johan Kappelhof and Joao Meira, as a sweeper or libero.
At its base, a sweeper was initially known as a last line of defense, someone who would clean up any attacks that got past other defenders. However, as the position evolved it started to be used more as a tool to create possession and attack play.
Schweinsteiger played this role for most of the match on Saturday. He had defensive responsibilities, largely marking New England striker Kei Kamara, but also started most of the Fire’s build up play. He became the point man who started and controlled things when the Fire were in possession.
In the Wikipedia entry for sweeper, the first player named is Franz Beckenbauer.
Beckenbauer, who finished his career with the New York Cosmos in 1983, helped Germany win the 1974 World Cup and is widely regarded as one of the best players of his generation. He was one of the key players in changing the sweeper position from a solely defensive role into one that has attacking responsibilities as well.
Confederations Cup preview: Second group games kick off.
By Joe Prince-Wright
(Getty Images)
On Wednesday the 2017 Confederations Cup will continue is Russia as two Group A games take center stage.
Hosts Russia welcome Portugal to Moscow (Watch live, 11 a.m. ET online via Telemundo Deportes) while Mexico clash with New Zealand in Sochi (Watch live, 2 p.m. ET online via Telemundo Deportes).
Let’s take a look at both games.
Russia vs. Portugal – 11 a.m. ET in Moscow
The hosts beat New Zealand 2-0 in the tournament opener with Fyodor Smolov the star of the show in Saint Petersburg, but this will be a totally different proposition for the hosts against Cristiano Ronaldo and Co.
Portugal let in a late equalizer against Mexico but looked capable of creating plenty of chances throughout with Nani, Quaresma and Andre Silva all able to unlock defenses. This will be a great indicator as to just how good this Russia side are ahead of the World Cup on home soil next summer. Portugal should win rather easily, but we all know playing the hosts is never easy.
Mexico vs. New Zealand – 2 p.m. ET in Sochi
This is a must-win game for both teams as Mexico will not want to rely on beating hosts Russia in their final group game to make the semifinals. New Zealand are the undoubted minnows of this tournament and El Tri will be buoyed by snatching a point late on against Portugal on Sunday thanks to Hector Moreno’s header.
The All Whites have had to travel 1,435 miles following their game against Russia in Saint Petersburg on Saturday, but they have had an extra day of rest. Young manager Anthony Hudson will once again look to Chris Wood to finish off any half-chances as New Zealand will try to frustrate Mexico and hit them on the break and from set pieces. Sound familiar, U.S. fans?
England U21’s win key match at European Championships.
By Joe Prince-Wright
(Photo/England)
England’s U21 national team fought back from 1-0 down to beat Slovakia 2-1 in Group A at the 2017 European Championships on Monday.
In sunny conditions in Kielce, Poland, England fell behind to Martin Chrien’s first half goal but fought back valiantly in the second half as Swansea City’s Alfie Mawson equalized and Southampton’s Nathan Redmond scored the winner with a stunner.
With the victory Aidy Boothroyd’s side sit top of Group A ahead of Poland and Sweden squaring off later on Monday, with the top team from all three groups automatically reaching the semifinals plus the best-placed second team making up the field.
England face hosts Poland in their final group game on Thursday, while Slovakia face Sweden.
Take a look at game-winner below as Southampton duo James Ward-Prowse and Redmond combined to see the latter score a goal worthy of winning any game.
UEFA Champions League qualifying draw.
By Joe Prince-Wright
(Photo/Getty Images)
The draw for the first two rounds of UEFA Champions League qualifying has been made in Nyon, Switzerland.
Scottish champions Celtic were among the seeds for the draw as Brendan Rodgers‘ men will arrive in the second qualifying round and face either Northern Irish champs Linfield or SP La Fiorita of San Marino.
Other seeded clubs in the draw include Malmo of Sweden, Rosenberg of Norway and Polish outfit Legia Warsaw.
Below is the draw for the first two rounds of qualifying in full.
The first round games will be played on 27/28 June and 4/5 July. The second round games will be played on 11/12 July and 18/19 July.
Champions League first qualifying round
Vikingur (Faroe Isles) v Trepca ’89 (Kosovo)
Hibernians (Malta) v Tallinn (Estonia)
Alashkert (Armenia) v Santa Coloma (Andorra)
The New Saints v Europa (Gibraltar)
Linfield v SP La Fiorita (San Marino)
Champions League second qualifying round
Group 1
Apoel (Cyprus) v Dudelange (Luxembourg)
Zalgiris (Lithuania) v Ludogorets Razgrad (Bulgaria)
Qarabag (Azerbaijan) v Samtredia (Georgia)
Partizan (Serbia) v Budućnost Podgorica (Montenegro)
Hibernians (Malta) or FCI Tallinn (Estonia) v Salzburg (Austria)
Group 2
Sheriff (Moldova) v Kukes (Albania)
Astana (Kazakhstan) v Spartaks Jurmala (Latvia)
BATE Borisov (Belarus) v Alashkert (Armenia) or FC Santa Coloma (Andorra)
Zilina (Slovakia) v Copenhagen (Denamrk)
Hapoel Beer-Sheva (Israel) v Budapest Honvéd (Hungary)
Rijeka (Croatia) v The New Saints or Europa (Gibraltar)
Group 3
Malmo (Sweden) v Vardar (Macedonia)
Zrinjski (Bosnia and Herzegovina) v Maribor (Slovenia)
Dundalk (Ireland) v Rosenborg (Norway)
FH Hafnarfjördur (Iceland) v VÃkingur (Faroe Islands) or Trepça ’89 (Kosovo)
Linfield or SP La Fiorita (San Marino) v Celtic
IFK Mariehamn (Finland) v Legia Warszawa (Poland)
NCAAFB: College Football Playoff debate: Will we be at four teams forevermore?
By Bill Bender
(Photo/Getty Images)
This article appeared in the Street & Smith's 2017 College Football Yearbook, which is available here and on newsstands now.
Four is more, but would eight be great?
College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock squashed talks of expanding the College Football Playoff before the championship game in January. Hancock maintains that the four-team playoff format likely will stay in place through the length of the current 12-year contract. Hancock maintained the stance most advocates of the four-team playoff uphold.
"The disappointment that team No. 5 feels would be the same disappointment that team No. 9 feels," Hancock said. “There wouldn't be any change in that. For me, it's about the regular season. Our regular season is so compelling, and I don't think our leadership would do anything to diminish the regular season."
That's not going to stop the debate. Let's do a hypothetical point-counterpoint between a four-team and eight-team supporter.
Point
The four-team playoff works. It's like the Final Four in men's basketball, except all the No. 1 seeds are guaranteed. Hancock makes a great point. Once the format goes to eight teams, then the pundits will spend all of November debating Nos. 7-9. A four-team format protects the regular season. How do we know? Through the first three cycles, no team with two losses has advanced to the playoff.
Counterpoint
How can you have five Power 5 conferences and four playoff spots? You've created one ridiculous argument before the process even starts, and it finds systems to create other ones within those conferences. Like Baylor vs. TCU in 2014 or Ohio State vs. Penn State in 2016. An eight-team format allows those arguments to be settled in a playoff atmosphere. Why not take advantage of it?
Point
We already have that in the regular season. Ohio State beat Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Michigan in the regular season; the final game an unbelievable double-overtime thriller with more drama than most NFL playoff games. Why water that down for an extra round of playoff games, something that feels like wild card weekend in the NFL? For those complaining about the blowouts in the College Football Playoff semifinals the last two years, what are you going to do if there is an extra round of blowouts?
Counterpoint
It's more football. At least with an eight-team playoff all five Power 5 conferences would be represented and there would be no doubt about who the true champion is. Plus, you could put those first-round playoff games on campuses. Imagine Ohio State traveling to LSU or USC heading up to Michigan. Or better yet, Alabama traveling to face a Group of 5 sleeper such as South Florida or Boise State. Who wouldn't watch that?
Point
At home or in the stands? People would have to travel to a conference championship game, then a quarterfinal, a semifinal and a national championship game. That's a lot of money, and the risk for empty seats grows each time we do that. If you're going to go to eight teams, then you might as well eliminate conference championship games altogether.
Counterpoint
Or you could make those conference championship games mean something more by giving the winner an automatic bid to the College Football Playoff. Imagine the intensity of those games then. Wisconsin-Penn State played in the Big Ten championship game — a fantastic game, by the way — and it meant essentially nothing in terms of the playoff. Give the winner guaranteed a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Point
That's a slippery slope. Virginia Tech and Florida lost three games apiece in the regular season. What if they would have beat Clemson and Alabama in the conference title games? Do you leave the Tigers and Tide out and reward losing three games? We'd rather leave deserving teams out then let undeserving teams in. Tell me there would have been a better championship game than Alabama vs. Clemson.
Counterpoint
That Rose Bowl game between Penn State and USC was darn good, too, and they were playing as well as anybody. Both had slow starts, but at least they played tough competition in September. Same goes for Oklahoma. Michigan lost two regular-season games by four points. An eight-team playoff puts all those teams in the mix, not to mention creates some great matchups. Don't you want to see Nick Saban vs. Jim Harbaugh?
Point
You get those in the semifinals and we'll get them again this year. Keep in mind this is just the fourth year of this format. The first three years have created some great championship games, and we'll probably get another one in 2017-18. People who want an eight-team playoff are asking for too much too fast, and they'll probably ask for another round of expansion after that. Be careful what you wish for.
Counterpoint
Probably, but we'll argue all season about how a few more teams deserve their shot, too. The BCS started in 1998 and we had to wait almost 20 years for that playoff. Here's hoping we don't have to wait that long for common sense to prevail.
Phillip Fulmer returns to Vol as special advisor to president.
By John Taylor
(Photo/Getty Images)
After nearly a decade “away” from Rocky Top, Phillip Fulmer is back home in an official capacity.
Tuesday, Tennessee announced that Fulmer has been hired by the university as a special advisor to UT president Joe DiPietro. Specifically, the school stated in its release, “Fulmer will serve as an ambassador for the University system at community and athletics events, support the intercollegiate athletic programs at UT campuses in Knoxville, Chattanooga and Martin, and work with UT government relations and alumni affairs leadership to advocate for the statewide system with elected officials and UT alumni.”
The move comes four months or so after Fulmer was passed over for the athletic director’s job at his alma mater.
“This is a special opportunity for me. I’ve had the chance to work with Dr. DiPietro for a couple of years in a volunteer capacity, and I was excited when he approached me with this position,” Fulmer said in a statement. “I look forward to serving UT campuses statewide, our communities, and UT athletics for the greater good for our great state and the university.”
A native of Tennessee, Fulmer played his college football for the Volunteers from 1968-71. He began his coaching career at UT as a student assistant from 1972-73, then, after spending time on coaching staffs at Wichita State and Vanderbilt, he returned to UT as offensive line coach in 1980 before adding the title of offensive coordinator in 1989.
Named head coach in 1992, Fulmer helped guide the Vols to a 152-52 mark that included one national championship, two SEC titles and five SEC East crowns. His wins are second only to Robert Neyland in school history.
“Phillip has been a tremendous asset to the University of Tennessee both on and off the field for more than 40 years,” DiPietro said. “I have enjoyed the opportunity to work with him on the UT President’s Council, and I look forward to working with him in a broader sense to advocate for the University with our key stakeholders.”
“As a native Tennessean who has given his all for the Vols throughout his life, both as a student-athlete on the field and during a Hall of Fame coaching career leading our program to its most dominant and successful era in modern history, Coach Fulmer is a perfect ambassador for our University and athletics program,” said new UT athletic director John Currie. “I’ve appreciated and enjoyed numerous visits with Coach Fulmer since I returned to Knoxville, and I am honored to work with him in support of President DiPietro and Chancellor Davenport as we serve the University of Tennessee, our students and student-athletes.”
NCAABKB: Nonconference scheduling is changing, but what does that really mean?
By Joan Niesen, Sports Illustrated
(Photo/Sports Illustrated)
In April 2007, national runner-up Ohio State faced Florida in the national championship game and lost, 84-75. It was the Buckeyes’ second such defeat that season; in December, it had traveled to Gainesville and fallen 86-60 to the Gators. Ohio State played 14 nonconference games that season, losing that matchup in Gainesville and another on the road at No. 7 North Carolina. It also hosted No. 16 Tennessee in Columbus.
It was a different era. Today, it’s rare to see such marquee matchups anywhere other than at neutral sites or tournaments. To play three ranked nonconference opponents in one year under the terms Ohio State did 10 years ago is pretty much unheard of. (It’s shocking, frankly, that we’ve seen another title game that was a rematch of a regular-season meeting in the past decade: Duke-Wisconsin in 2015.) Take this year’s national champion, North Carolina, which faced Wisconsin, Indiana and Kentucky in November and December. Only one of those games was held on a campus; it played the Badgers in Hawaii and the Wildcats in Las Vegas.
This is to say that college basketball has evolved when it comes to scheduling. The ACC has already committed to upping its conference slate from 18 to 20 games in 2019-20, and last week, the Big Ten announced it would explore a similar move 10 years after it last increased its conference schedule. With big names like Michigan State’s Tom Izzo speaking to ESPN in support of the potential move, it’s hard to think this isn’t a serious consideration. And if two of the Power 5 conferences move from 18 to 20 nonconference games, it’s easy to imagine this move sweeping across the rest of big-time college hoops. Which will mean… what, exactly?
The move, should the Big Ten legislate it, can be interpreted in several ways. There’s the optimistic reaction—that it will mean more high-level games between conference rivals. And that’s true, except, of course, that conferences are becoming much less based on geography or history and much more on cash. Under this shift in schedule, Big Ten play would likely start in December, and there’s something undeniably fun about the idea of watching, say, Wisconsin-Indiana basketball instead of a bowl game before Christmas.
Now, let’s play devil’s advocate: Adding two conference games wouldn’t increase the cap on how many games teams are allowed to play each regular season, which stands at 29—or 27 and a four-game tournament, for a total of 31. More conference games equates to fewer nonconference ones, which could mean even fewer of those marquee matchups. In fact, that seems likely. A successful program would hope to go undefeated in its nonconference slate, and realistically, it’d concede a loss or two to boost its strength of schedule. With two fewer out-of-league contests, it’d want to be something close to perfect, assuming the two in-conference add-ons to the schedule weren’t from the dungeon of the league standings. For instance, if Indiana is going to get Michigan State twice instead of once some year, it might be more risk averse when it comes to scheduling a big-name out-of-conference opponent. One win can mean a lot, be it for a team with championship aspirations or a team on the bubble.
On the flip side, fewer nonconference games could also mean fewer crimes against basketball, like Oregon-Savannah State last December 3, which ended in a 128-59 Ducks victory. These so-called buy games are a venue for bigger programs to write hefty checks to tiny ones in order to add wins to their schedules. Most of the time, these games are stultifying. And the rare occasions that they’re close don’t necessarily justify them. What does, though, is that these games often keep programs like Savannah State afloat. With tiny athletics budgets, one evisceration at the hands of Oregon could fund a good percentage of the budget, and yes, sports are subject to capitalism, but this minor spreading of the wealth is important for smaller schools. Sports become more and more stratified between the haves and the have-nots with every passing year, and the more money and power are centralized among smaller and smaller groups, the less of a chance for drama, upsets, ridiculousness—basically all the reasons for which everyone but Alabama, Duke and Kentucky fans watch sports.
For now, we wait. The Big Ten hasn’t yet ruled on the idea of future schedule expansion, and even if it does, it’ll be 2020, most likely, before the changes are implemented. And it won’t be a sweeping change across college basketball, even if the Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC quickly follow suit. It’ll be a minor tweak, accepted as gospel in no time. It may not improve the game, and it may not make it worse, but it’s clear nonconference scheduling in college basketball is changing.
Milwaukee tabs Northwestern assistant Pat Baldwin as new head coach.
Milwaukee tabs Northwestern assistant Pat Baldwin as new head coach.
By Rob Dauster
(Photo/Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Northwestern assistant coach Pat Baldwin has been hired by Milwaukee to replace the recently-departed Lavall Jordan, a source told NBC Sports.
Jordan replaced Chris Holtmann at Butler. Holtmann was hired to take over for Thad Matta at Ohio State.
Baldwin was given a five-year deal, according to ESPN. He has spent the last four seasons on Chris Collins’ staff at Northwestern, helping the program get to their first NCAA tournament last season and sit as a projected top 25 team heading into next season. He was in the mix to take over Milwaukee last year, when Jordan was hired.
This will be Baldwin’s first head coaching job. He has been an assistant at Green Bay, Loyola Chicago, and Missouri State.
Judge, jury and executioner: The ballad of 'Cowboy' Joe West.
By Jeff Passan
Joe West umpired his 5000th game Tuesday night in Colorado. (Photo/AP)
Joe West, like all men who have spent their lives in baseball, believes in the sanctity of the game. There is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and he always will do what he believes is right, even if that means the rest of the world thinks he’s wrong. Sometimes that means telling a rookie he is ugly. And other times that means educating a player on the finer points of introducing oneself, since that’s a real thing in Cowboy Joe’s world. And then there is the matter of maintaining control on field, which isn’t a goal of Joe West’s but an imperative, because the game demands that of an umpire, and he’s nothing if not a humble servant of the game.
“My first responsibility is to the game of baseball,” West said in a recent phone conversation. “That doesn’t mean the commissioner’s office. That means the game. The second responsibility is to your profession. When I get on my pedestal at the union meetings, I tell them to be moral, honest, true and correct. If you do them in that order, nothing you do out there will be wrong.”
West paused and snickered.
“That doesn’t mean you aren’t going to be in the middle of a big brouhaha … ”
Joe West knows a lot of things. He knows the rules of baseball – the minutiae, coded in numbers and letters and sub-numbers, arcane as sports gets – better than anyone. He knows what is a ball, what is a strike and what is an out. He knows that as tough as he has to be as a 64-year-old in his 40th season umpiring in the major leagues, it took the toughest version of him to beat throat cancer. And, yes, he knows him some big brouhahas, having started plenty and finished even more with the power vested in him by his uniform.
“You think a police officer likes putting someone in jail?” West said. “That’s part of it. If he’s a bad guy you have to put him in jail. I agree with (Cardinals broadcaster) Mike Shannon. He said, ‘The umpire’s the last real authority on earth. You can’t appeal his decision. He’s judge, jury and executioner.’ ”
Tuesday night in Colorado, Joe West, indisputable judge, jury and executioner, will umpire his 5,000th game. Only Bill Klem (5,369) and Bruce Froemming (5,163) have worked more. Neither approached West in terms of renown, which, in his earlier years, would have bothered West.
Now, he sees his … hmmm, how best to put this? Popularity? No, because that comes with a positive connotation, and were Ipsos to do a public opinion poll on West, he might find himself in presidential territory. Mockery? No, it’s not that, either, because officials of all stripes wear the ugliest, snidest, meanest slings and arrows of sports fans, almost always unfairly, because the expectations for perfection – and it is what the world expects – simply aren’t realistic.
Notoriety? Yes. That’s it. Joe West – it’s always first name and last, except when appended by the angriest with a faux middle name that starts with the letter F – is notorious in every sense of the word. In the desire to assert himself and remind players the game is bigger than them and he’s more than happy to play steward to that realization, West has birthed a legion of those that hate the idea of him and can’t help but be drawn to him anyway.
“When I first came up, you were taught if a guy yells your name, don’t look over there,” West said. “Invariably, he’ll say you’re an [expletive] or you suck. Now when people yell my name they ask for an autograph. I got called on the carpet a year ago.”
Major League Baseball heard West was signing. This was a no-no. The league fined him. West said he wouldn’t pay. That, he said, is when he heard from Joe Torre, the league’s Chief Baseball Officer, whom West shoved in 1983 during an argument, earning a three-game suspension.
“What is this about?” Torre said.
“If I don’t go over there,” West said, “what do you think they’re going to say, Joe?”
“Well,” Torre said, “they’re going to say you’re an [expletive].”
West reveled in telling this story. He revels in telling all kinds of stories. That’s the thing about him that gets people across baseball. Nothing infuriated Hawk Harrelson, the longtime White Sox broadcaster, more than West being West – puffing out his chest (protected, of course, with his patented West Vest chest protector), projecting the majesty of his being, pointing his right index finger and tsk-tsking players and managers and coaches that dare challenge him, and heave-hoing those who cross the line that West drew in invisible ink all those years ago.
Well, guess who’s golfing buddies with West these days? Hawk Harrelson. Reviled though he may be by players who have crossed him or whom he has crossed – “That guy is a total piece of [expletive],” one of West’s ejectees said recently, asking his name be left out because, he said, in West’s world retribution is a real thing – West nevertheless maintains a wonderful rapport with some of his greatest foes.
Well, guess who’s golfing buddies with West these days? Hawk Harrelson. Reviled though he may be by players who have crossed him or whom he has crossed – “That guy is a total piece of [expletive],” one of West’s ejectees said recently, asking his name be left out because, he said, in West’s world retribution is a real thing – West nevertheless maintains a wonderful rapport with some of his greatest foes.
That we’re talking about an umpire in such a confrontational fashion isn’t necessarily how one is supposed to function in 2017, but then West isn’t a product of 2017. He grew up in North Carolina and umpired during his down time playing quarterback at Elon College. He was a prodigy, calling his first major league game at 24 and joining the full-time staff for good at 26. He worked with Ed Vargo and Doug Harvey, did a spring-training game with Nestor Chylak. He learned the value of humor from Tom Gorman and charm from Paul Pryor. The umpiring fraternity isn’t merely close. It is a brotherhood born of shared experiences: the pressure of adjudicating the inches in the game of inches, of blowing a call and going to sleep knowing it, of getting old in a young man’s game – and of making sure those young men understand the role of those older ones.
See, when Joe West is behind the plate and a fresh-to-the-big-leagues kid in the batter’s box, West expects the rookie to introduce himself. Do that, West said, “and next time up you can call me a [expletive].” Don’t do that, West said, and it’s just disrespecting the game.
“A lot of problems we have today as umpires are based on how society brings up people,” West said. “When I came to the big leagues, if a player got out of line, the umpire took care of it right then. Our umpires coming out of the minor leagues – they’re not letting them take care of it. A player will come to the big leagues not knowing what he’s supposed to do.”
Lest you think West is simply a graybeard who wants things to be how they once were, it isn’t true. He loves instant replay. Seriously.
“The best thing that ever happened with replay is the umpires get to review their work and everyone else’s and learn from things done correctly and mistakes that are made,” he said. “They’ll sit in there and dissect the play. I think it’s been great for the game. The funny thing about it is baseball spent $40 million to prove we’re 99 percent right.”
But …
“When we put in replay, I thought there would be no arguments,” West said. “The first year we put in replay, ejections went up 20 percent. Baseball is a funny game. It’s typically American. If you don’t succeed it’s someone else’s fault. And the first person you want to look at is the official. Just look at our last election. When Hillary lost, it’s someone else’s fault. The Russians. Wikileaks. It’s the fact you couldn’t stand up and say ‘I lost.’ Nobody in today’s society wants to say ‘I wasn’t good enough.’ Baseball is a game of failures. The last hitter who hit .400 is dead and gone. There isn’t going to be another of those. For anybody to think this is a perfect game, they’re kidding themselves. Let’s be honest: How do you hit a round ball with a cylindrical bat square.”
That is Joe West. That, in 141 words, is him being thoughtful, bombastic, brash, exaggerated, contemplative and introspective. That is 40 years of marriage between a titan and the game he loves. And to see Joe West as anything but a fundamental part of nearly half a century of baseball would be wrong. The game was what it was, is what it is, because of Joe West.
It’s impossible to say whether there will be another of him because he is an archetype: the principled belligerent. West believes in the end. The means are malleable. If it takes him running a guy to make his point, he runs him. If it takes him grabbing Jonathan Papelbon’s jersey – something for which he earned a one-game suspension and near-unanimous praise throughout the game for putting a boor in his place – then grab he will.
For how much longer West doesn’t know. Two and a half years ago, doctors scraped cancer cells off the vocal cords that he used in hundreds of ejections – and on three albums of music recorded in his spare time. Radiation killed the cancer. Earlier this month, West visited an ENT and got a clean bill of health.
“As long as my knees hold up, I’ll keep going,” West said, and seeing as he carded a 76 on the course recently, they’re doing well enough. Which means all the calls for robot umpires and using cameras and radar systems to call strikes will have a fierce, staunch opponent who’s never afraid of anything, least of all letting the world know what he believes.
Joe West, above all, believes in baseball. When he first started, social media didn’t exist. There weren’t umpire scouting reports passed out to every player showing where he likes to call strikes and where blind spots may be. But the game is the game. He still wears a uniform and a mask, calls balls and strikes, renders verdicts of safe or out. And he’ll continue to do so with the morality, honesty, truth and correctness of a man who knows, above all, that nothing he does out there will be wrong.
Joe West, above all, believes in baseball. When he first started, social media didn’t exist. There weren’t umpire scouting reports passed out to every player showing where he likes to call strikes and where blind spots may be. But the game is the game. He still wears a uniform and a mask, calls balls and strikes, renders verdicts of safe or out. And he’ll continue to do so with the morality, honesty, truth and correctness of a man who knows, above all, that nothing he does out there will be wrong.
On This Date in Sports History: Today is Wednesday, June 21, 2017.
Memoriesofhistory.com
1932 - Heavyweight boxer Max Schmeling lost a title fight by decision to Jack Sharkey. Schmeling's manager, Joe Jacobs, exclaimed "We was robbed!"
1939 - Lou Gehrig quit baseball due to illness.
1942 - Ben Hogan recorded the lowest score (to that time) in a major golf tournament. Hogan shot a 271 for 72 holes in Chicago, IL.
1954 - Australian John Landy ran the mile in 3 minutes and 58 seconds. He was the second person to achieve the feat.
1963 - In St. Louis, Bob Hayes set a record when he ran the 100-yard dash in 0.09.1.
1970 - Tony Jacklin became the second British golfer in 50 years to win the U.S. Open golf tournament.
1997 - The Women's National Basketball Association made its debut. The New York Liberty defeated the Los Angeles Sparks 67-57.
1999 - Pantera rode a float in the Dallas Stars Stanley Cup victory parade in downtown Dallas. Pantera is responsible for the Stars' theme song.
1939 - Lou Gehrig quit baseball due to illness.
1942 - Ben Hogan recorded the lowest score (to that time) in a major golf tournament. Hogan shot a 271 for 72 holes in Chicago, IL.
1954 - Australian John Landy ran the mile in 3 minutes and 58 seconds. He was the second person to achieve the feat.
1963 - In St. Louis, Bob Hayes set a record when he ran the 100-yard dash in 0.09.1.
1970 - Tony Jacklin became the second British golfer in 50 years to win the U.S. Open golf tournament.
1997 - The Women's National Basketball Association made its debut. The New York Liberty defeated the Los Angeles Sparks 67-57.
1999 - Pantera rode a float in the Dallas Stars Stanley Cup victory parade in downtown Dallas. Pantera is responsible for the Stars' theme song.
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