Category: Sports

The Masters? Is it Spring already?

DJ finished 20 under par, a record. He shot two 65s on the way.

More interesting to me:

Tiger Woods was like one of us for one hole – he took a ten on a par three, the infamous number 12, “the scariest part 3 in golf,” the very hole that won Arnold Palmer his first major in 1958 when his double-bogey in the final round was altered to a par based on a ruling from senior tournament officials that overrode the onsite official who had refused Palmer relief on an embedded ball. (Palmer played a provisional, pending a final ruling.)

Tiger’s ten isn’t even close to the worst score ever recorded on that hole in the Masters. In 1980, hot-tempered Tom Weiskopf took a 13 when he dumped five balls into Rae’s Creek. Weiskopf’s bad luck wasn’t finished there. He gamely proceeded to the next hole, where he hit yet another ball into another part of the same creek on his way to an 85 for the day.

The worst score ever recorded on a single hole in a major was Ray Ainsley’s 19 on the 16th at Cherry Hills in the 1938 US Open, which he accomplished on his way to a round of 96.

Did you know: A PGA Tour pro once shot 123-114 after making the cut in a tour event. (Injury. Long story.)

Trevor Bauer and Shane Bieber are friends and were teammates on the Indians last season.

In 2018 the Indians also had two-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber in the same rotation when the team won the AL Central by 13 games. The Indians, with the wisdom that is theirs alone, got rid of both Bauer and Kluber the next year.

Adding Notre Dame to the ACC really gave the conference a boost in prestige, and ended Clemson’s usual free pass through the season.

It’s not much of a surprise that Alabama is now #1. This is the 13th consecutive year in which they have been #1 at one time or another.

It really seems that the top four are fixed in stone: ‘Bama, Notre Dame, THE Ohio State University, and Clemson. There seems to be a big gap between those four and #5 A&M, which got its ass handed to it by the Tide in a four-TD loss.

Meanwhile, our Wisconsin Badgers remain undefeated with an impressive 1-0 record. If they can keep the team sick, they may be able to finish without a blemish on their record. Their only win was a curb-stomping of a weak Illinois team.

Highlights:

Remember last week when Dalvin Cook beat the Packers all by himself, scoring all four of his team’s TDs? Well he did even better this week. He “only” had two TDs, but he rushed for 206 yards on only 22 carries. That was more rushing yards for the week than the next two RBs added together! (And he had some receptions as well.) At 5’10” and 210 pounds he doesn’t look fast, but he can really motor. When he crossed the goal line on his 70-yard TD, he was still putting space between himself and his pursuers.

Josh Allen and the Bills showed they are for real by scoring 44 against the tough Seahawks. Well, the offensive line wasn’t so hot as Allen seemed to get sacked about 100 times, but he prevailed, thanks to 415 yards on 31-for-38 accuracy with no picks.

The Eagles are leading their pathetic division with a losing record.

The Steelers and Chiefs kicked ass again.

The Jets had their best Sunday of the year. (They play Monday. There’s an exciting Monday Night match-up: the 2-5 Patriots and the winless Jets. I’d rather binge-watch The Great British Bake Off.)

Scoreboard

That was good, right? Almost anything can be viewed as a success if expectations are modest.

Not only did the Jets score no TDs, but they didn’t even get it close for their kicker, who had to nail one from 55 yards. That marks the fourth consecutive game in which they have scored 10 or fewer. The Jets-Chiefs game wasn’t a fair match-up, but it was a chance for Mahomes to pad his stats. He passed for 416 yards and 5 TDs, with no sacks or picks – and he didn’t even play the whole game.

Elsewhere …

The Steelers stayed undefeated with a second-half comeback against the tough Ravens.

After missing the previous two games, Dalvin Cook single-handedly defeated the Pack. He rushed for 163 yards and the team’s three rushing TDs, and also caught the team’s only touchdown pass! Hope you had him on your fantasy team because that day he WAS a fantasy team (and a reality team as well, as the Packers see it).

Scoreboard

Fun fact: there are eight in the NL, NONE in the AL.

That’s two World Series wins for the best pitcher of his generation, who is trying to add post-season success to his resume. That has previously eluded him, and seems to be the only jewel missing from his crown. Before this World Series he had a losing record in World Series (1-2) games as well as in all post-season games (11-12).

The Big Ten finally started playing in week 8, but I can’t say there was much excitement in the results. There hasn’t been much of a surprise all year.

Penn State lost an OT game to Indiana, so I guess that was something unpredictable, but the top four teams just steamrolled over their opposition.

Scoreboard.

Well,the Jets were ahead at halftime. God knows how. That was their season highlight.

And the Steelers are the last man standing as they took out the other undefeated team with their own hands.

It doesn’t even seem fair that the Dodgers were able to add Betts to a team that was already stacked. Over the course of the year, they led the league in runs scored while also allowing the fewest opposing runs. The Rays have a long row to hoe.

Box score, etc.

It was not a happy day here in Wisconsin. The Packers looked invulnerable for the first 4 1/4 games this year – then reality set in and they allowed the Bucs to score the next 38 points.

Packer fans have still had plenty to cheer about this year. Jets fans, if they still exist, have not. The Jets not only lost, they got shut out. What’s more, they have lost the last few against an easier part of their schedule. In the next two weeks they’ll be facing the Chiefs and Bills. The Jets are now the only winless team, as the Giants and Falcons moved up to 1-5 by eking out victories over two other 1-5 teams.

(Speaking of the Chiefs and Bills, they face off Monday with dueling 4-1 records.)

The Steelers impressed, and remained undefeated.

The Titans also remained undefeated, but had to struggle against the 1-5 Texans. The rest of the team may have faltered from time to time, but Derrick Henry didn’t have much trouble. He rushed for 212 yards and two TDS, including a 100-yard dash. It goes in the books as a 94-yard gain, but he lined up for the play well into in his own end zone and ran the full length of the field (shown below). Derrick Henry is almost exactly the same height and weight as President Trump, but he can really get those 238 pounds motoring. (Although, to be fair: (1) his weight may possibly be distributed quite differently from the Donald’s; (2) we haven’t seen Derrick attempt the biggest challenge for guys that size – going down a gently sloped ramp.)

Scoreboard

It ended up they way it should be, I guess, or at least the way it used to be, as the two teams with the best records will face off at the end.

The Dodgers pulled off an improbable comeback. They were down 3-1 in games, then won three in a row. They were down in this game, then pulled off a string of miracles (see the double play below) and some astounding relief pitching, as their last three relievers combined on six innings of no-hit ball.

Speaking as a long-time Texan who used to root for the Astros, I’m glad they lost. My emotional attachment to the ‘Stros was overridden by my desire to avoid having a pennant winner with a losing record during the regular season.

Good for the Rays. They have made the WS only once before, in 2008, but lost to the Phillies.

There was no doubt that lanky old geezer Charlie Morton was the star of the series against the ‘Stros (his previous team). Two starts, no runs allowed, two wins. He is now 3-0 in the post-season this year. That dude is the ultimate late developer. His record was 46-71 (.393) with a 4.54 ERA through age 32. Since then he has been 47-18 (.723) with a 3.34 ERA. He somehow turned from Sy Sperling into Cy Young. (Although that may have hurt his hairline.)

Baseball sabermetricians don’t completely agree on the rankings of the second basemen. If you tinker with their formulas just a bit (and the formulas don’t claim to be precise), there are five different guys who could be considered the best of all time: Ross Barnes, Lajoie, Hornsby, Eddie Collins and Morgan. The four from the 20th century (all but Barnes) are rated among the top 24 players in history according to baseball-reference.com. Little Joe may not be the best of all time, but he’s in the running, and he’s no lower than #5.

In the course of his career Morgan was a ten-time all star, and led the league at various times in runs scored, walks, on-base-percentage (four times), slugging average and triples. In his spare time he also won five Gold Gloves and stole 689 bases with better than an 80% success rate.

Here’s a weird scoopism: I haven’t ever looked this up, but I think he must be the smallest man to lead a league in slugging percentage in the integration era (1947-now). He was 5’7″, 160 pounds, and he led the NL in slugging percentage in 1976. He also led the league in on-base percentage that year. He was the obvious NL MVP that year, giving him two MVPs in a row. He then proceeded to slug .733 in the 1976 World Series, as the Big Red Machine swept the outmatched Yankees, who managed to score only eight runs in the entire series.

The eight everyday players on the 1976 Reds, with superior talent at every position and four superstars among them, are considered one of the best squads in the history of the NL. Five of their eight starters batted above .300, and two of the others were Hall of Famers (Johnny Bench and Tony Perez). The remaining guy, Davey Conception, was a better-than-average hitter in his prime, and one of the best shortstops in the league, having been selected for the all-star team nine times.

Joe’s obit from the Associated Press

It’s kind of a “who cares” season right now, given that five of the eight teams “most likely to make the playoffs” (per ESPN’s analytics) are 0-0. (Those are Ohio State, Wisconsin, Oregon, Penn State  and USC)

There were a few developments:

Oklahoma and Texas played four overtimes before OU won the endurance contest.

#4 Florida lost

Scoreboard

Dak Prescott’s amazing, potentially record-shattering season was ended in heartbreak by a serious injury.

What can ya say about the Jets and Giants? Um … the Giants made it close against a leaderless Cowboy team, so that was kinda good. The Jets looked hapless.

The Cleveland Browns and Chicago Bears are 4-1. That’s the same record as the mighty Chiefs, who finally dropped one, an unexpected home loss to the Raiders.

Among the lossless: the Steelers and Seahawks remained undefeated; the Bills and Titans play each other on Tuesday. The Packers have the week off.

Russell Wilson has the third-most fantasy points of all time through five games (best is Manning 2013), but the Seahawks really sputtered this time. They were fortunate to scrape up a win after going to the locker room down 13-0.

Many of the games in the series were exciting, but the finale was not. It was a total blowout that the Lakers led 82-46 at one time.

The dazzling Whitey Ford, he of the lifetime .690 winning percentage, has passed away. He was 91.

That .690 is the highest of all time among the 200-game winners.

Whitey’s 2.75 lifetime ERA is the best among the modern 200-game winners.

Among all post-WW2 pitchers with at least 250 decisions, only 11 have posted ERAs below 3.00. One of them (Clayton Kershaw) is still active and another (Hoyt Wilhelm) was primarily a reliever. Among retired starters, Whitey is #1, just edging out Koufax, who finished at 2.76. The list is below.

Ford was just as effective in the post-season. His 2.71 World Series ERA nearly matched his regular season numbers, and he won 10 World Series games, which is the all-time record by a wide margin (nobody else has won more than seven).