Even if nobody asked…..
1. The Padres starting pitcher that beat the Braves in game one of the playoffs with a 12-strikeout, ZERO walk performance was none other than Michael King, 2013 graduate of Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick, RI.
2. The 32nd ranked New England Patriots offense puts players in motion 8% of the time. The rest of the league is at 22%, several are above 40%. Sometimes you have to act yourself into success.
3. Filed goal kickers have become like baseball pitchers. No end to the jump in kicking distance, just like there seems no end to the jump in pitching velo’s.
4. You know what stat somebody has to jump on? Word count for color commentators for NFL games. This would be GOLD to have. We could award a prize to the guy who used the fewest words. #lessismore
5. "The Bruins should put Drake Maye in." Greg Bedard after the Bruins allowed four goals in the first period in their season opener.
6. “I was a lifelong prisoner of the morning sports section, and I memorized its long clean columns of statistics. Because of its hieratic obsession with numbers, baseball was my favorite season, each day framed and ennobled by the lucid numerology of box scores.” Pat Conroy, apparently describing me in his masterpiece work, The Prince of Tides.
7. 21st century Boston Red Sox WS championship teams were set in motion when smart, relational GM’s like Epstein and Dombrowski TRADED for elite pitchers – Pedro, Beckett, Sale. Don’t hold your breath Red Sox Nation.
8. A local sports star beloved by many but reviled by you? Mine: Mo Vaughn. Who you got?
9. “A lot of something for a little bit of noting” – Chris Meyers describing an offensive play call in the narcoleptic Patriots/Dolphins game Sunday.
10. Pitch limits and innings restrictions for little league pitchers are pledged to “protect” their arms. But protect them for what? Writing notes? Pushing doors open? Perfecting a “mean lean”? Do people not realize that roughly ONE kid (maybe two) from each little league class in a town will pitch in high school? And of those that play in high school, 1 in 17 will go on to play in college. How many of those will even be pitchers? Little League IS there tomorrow. Let ‘em throw! (With proper mechanics and days of rest, naturally.) Of course, I defer to guys like Jim Mello, Mark Cahill, Brad Hertzler Taylor Harrington and Rod Correia on this. Well, if they agree with me anyway.
Thanks for reading!