Category Archives: Sports news

local news, Sports news

Let’s play ball!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

This news knocks me out, man!

The college students who played this past summer while the pandemic had put minor-league baseball on the shelf in Amarillo … are coming back for a second season!

The Texas Collegiate League is going to begin playing hardball at the Amarillo Sod Poodles’ home field when the Soddies are on the road. The college students’ season begins May 28 and will last through July 17. The teams will play a 22-game schedule.

The teams from across the state will comprise college students from around the nation. They are varsity athletes and, to be totally honest, they play some pretty good hardball.

The Sod Poodles will embark soon on their second season after winning the Texas League title in 2019. They now play in the Central League. I personally hope to see them this season when they venture to Frisco, near my new home in Princeton, to play the Roughriders. Yes, I’ll cheer for the Soddies when they do well on the field.

As ABC 7 reported: “We are very excited to again partner with the Texas Collegiate League,” said Sod Poodles President and General Manager Tony Ensor. “Baseball has become a huge part of our culture in Amarillo and the best and most exciting baseball environment in the country has been built at HODGETOWN because of our great fans and community. We look forward to hosting and creating more local and nationwide opportunities for these college athletes and showcase some of the best talent college baseball has to offer!”

Texas Collegiate League baseball returning to Hodgetown | KVII (abc7amarillo.com)

The return of the Texas Collegiate League bodes well for the future of baseball in Amarillo. I recall hearing former Amarillo College President Paul Matney once say that “Amarillo is a baseball town” as he sought to sell the notion of building the ballpark in downtown Amarillo. The Sod Poodles’ initial season bore that out as fans flocked the ballpark.

This year will be different only in that the team so far is planning to sell enough tickets to put about 75 percent of the park’s capacity in the stands.

Whatever. The college athletes are coming back, giving baseball fans another reason to cheer while they chew on Cracker Jack.

Sports news

Student-athletes don’t need more dough!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Let’s launch a pre-emptive strike against what I am certain will become a talking point as we travel farther down this road called March Madness.

That is this notion of paying student-athletes for doing what they do, which is to excel in athletics while obtaining a higher education.

We must not go down that road. Why? Because these student-athletes — men and women alike — already are getting paid in the form of acquiring essentially a free college education.

If they excel in any of the sports sanctioned by the NCAA, they receive scholarships to attend the school of their choice. They become enrolled in prestigious public and private colleges and universities. Oh, and they also engage in sports activities representing their chosen school.

Granted, a tiny fraction of these student-athletes go on to earn millions of dollars as paid professional athletes, be it basketball, football, baseball/softball. Which makes their education all the more vital to them.

But think of it: They aren’t paying for their tuition, their fees, their books, their lodging, their meal plans. They get it all free because of their athletic prowess!

I agree that there ought to be ways to loosen the rules prohibiting alumni from paying for an athlete’s lunch, things such as that. Most assuredly there needs to be much work done to achieve gender equality between men and women’s sports.

I haven’t heard much discussion about this matter during this March Madness mayhem. I guess everyone’s too caught up in watching their bracket matchups being blown to smithereens by all the Cinderella-story upsets. This issue pops up, though, which is why I wanted to weigh in here.

I was able to attend college without piling up a huge student loan debt. I had the GI Bill to pay for my college education. Perhaps my view of paying student-athletes is jaded, given that I wasn’t a good enough athlete to earn a full-ride college scholarship. I wasn’t a stellar enough high school student to earn an academic scholarship, either.

I just know what I see playing out these days. Which is student-athletes given a chance to perform their athletic skills while at the same time attending college and — hopefully! — being attentive enough in the classroom to work toward their degree.

Do they deserve a salary to play ball? No. They earn enough money as it is.

Sports news

March Madness is … madness!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

There is no way for me to wrap my arms around this thing we call March Madness.

It occurs every year — pandemic notwithstanding — when men’s basketball teams qualify for the national collegiate tournament to determine the national champion.

They assign dozens of teams to the tournament, selecting them to compete against each other. Then it falls on the fools among us to try to predict which two teams make it all the way through to the championship game, which this year will occur in Indianapolis, Ind.

Here’s what confuses me. I cannot find the appropriate way to measure the magnitude of difficulty in determining how one can guess which teams make it all the way through. You have to pick the winners of every game played. How in the name of metaphysical certitude do you do that?

It looks for all the world to be as likely as being snatched off Earth by ETs who have come here from the great beyond.

I hear that sure-fire brackets have busted already. Well … there’s always next year.

local news, Sports news

Let’s play ball … carefully!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to lift the mask mandate he instituted when the coronavirus pandemic broke out is going to have a significant impact on one vocal segment of the Texas population.

That would be sports fans who flock to stadiums to cheer the home team on to victory.

Listen up, Amarillo Sod Poodles fans. This blog post is important.

I called the Sod Poodles’ office today and learned that the organization is selling tickets that fill Hodgetown — the team’s downtown ballpark — to 75 percent of capacity. “We’re hoping to get to 100 percent,” a young man told me, “given what the Texas Rangers are planning” for the American League baseball season. The Texas Rangers are going to fill Globe-Life Park in Arlington to the max; although I am quite certain the fans there will be masked up as they cheer for the Rangers.

So it ought to be even with limited seating sold at Hodgetown.

The Sod Poodles’ park seats about 7,000 fans. At 75 percent sales, the Sod Poodles will be playing before about 5,200 fans — give or take — when the Central League home season opens in late May. I am pretty sure that the fans attending the game will be cheering loudly. Which brings me to another point: COVID virus spores travel through the air when human beings shout or scream … or cheer!

That compels me to admonish the Soddies’ fans who are inclined to holler when the home team performs well to mask up.

Hey, I’m pulling for you and for your team. I just don’t want to read about “super spreader events” occurring in Amarillo, Texas.

Sports news

50 years since Fight of Century? Wow!

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(AP Photo/John Lindsay)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Someone once said that to be called “Heavyweight Champion of the World” was tantamount to being labeled the “baddest dude on Earth.”

Everyone used to know the name of the heavyweight champion. These days? I cannot tell you unless I look it up in my World Almanac and Book of Facts.

I mention this because some of the sports networks this weekend have commemorated the 50th year since the Fight of the Century.

Yep, on March 8, 1971 two men fought for the heavyweight title. One guy was the champion, Joe Frazier. The challenger? A fellow named Muhammad Ali.

I’ll set the table briefly. I was a huge Muhammad Ali fan. I considered him “the champ,” since he was stripped of his title in 1967 because he refused induction into the Army during the Vietnam War. Boxing authorities stripped him of his license to fight. He became an iconic figure. He would win reinstatement and then the Supreme Court would rule unanimously that he should be allowed to fight again.

Ali returned to the gym and whipped his body into shape. He fought twice against quality contenders before squaring off against Joe Frazier.

The fight lived up to the hype. It was a brutal affair. Frazier won by decision. He floored Ali in the final round. They both were great champions. Although, I surely must acknowledge that Muhammad Ali was The Greatest.

Both men are gone now. Frazier died in 2011 of cancer; Ali died in 2016 of Parkinson’s disease. The fight game isn’t the same without them.

The Fight of the Century turned out to be all that it was trumpeted to be. There likely will never be a man-to-man competition that ever will measure up to what we witnessed a half-century ago.

local news, Sports news, State news

Fans at games, too?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Greg Abbott’s big announcement today wasn’t as specific as perhaps it could have been.

The Texas governor declared that Texas businesses were “100 percent open,” meaning they could serve at full capacity. He implored us all to continue to observe social distancing, wash our hands and all that kind of thing.

The governor did not make specific mention of sporting events. Will sports fans be able to sit next to each other at venues to cheer on their favorite teams? That question has surfaced, for instance, among fans of the Amarillo Sod Poodles, the Double A baseball team that is set to open its second-ever season in early May.

Therein lies a dilemma, ladies and gentlemen. What about the Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers, the Major Leagues’ two franchises? Or the other minor-league franchises scattered throughout Texas?

If I were King of the World, I wouldn’t have made the declaration that Gov. Abbott made today. I would have kept the mask mandate in effect and I would have required that sports venues limit seating to a certain percentage significantly less than full. That ain’t my call. It falls to the governor, I guess, to determine whether it is safe to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers in sports venues.

I suppose the final answer to whether Sod Poodles fans will be able to fill all of Hodgetown’s seats when the season opens there in mid-May falls on the team ownership, or perhaps Amarillo City Hall.

I don’t have a suggestion on how the team should go with this one. You know already what I think of Gov. Abbott’s decision to open business back up to full capacity; I think it’s a potentially disastrous mistake. The pandemic is still raging, albeit at a bit calmer pace than it was a few weeks ago.

Perhaps the governor ought to provide some further guidance on what sports fans all over the state should do, keeping in mind that Priority No. 1 must be everyone’s health and well-being.

Sports news, State news

Sing it out loudly?

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick got his underwear tied up in knots when Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban announced he wouldn’t allow the playing of the national anthem before NBA games at the American Airlines Center.

Then the NBA intervened and declared that, oh yes you will, Mr. Cuban, play the anthem, because it’s league policy that we hear “The Star Spangled Banner” before pro basketball games.

Patrick, though, was so angry he announced he would push for “The Star Spangled Banner Protection Act” in the Texas Senate, over which he presides.

The act is quite fascinating. The Texas Tribune reports about the bill: It hasn’t been filed yet, but it would require the playing of the anthem at all events that receive public funding. Presumably, that would include sessions of the House and Senate, which start with prayers, and pledges to the U.S. and Texas flags, but no anthem.

Analysis: A Star-Spangled culture war in Texas | The Texas Tribune

Let’s play this out. Do we play the anthem before we commence, oh, city council or school board meetings, or before counties’ commissioners courts meeting? They’re all open to the public. They receive public money, too.

I have the pleasure of attending Farmersville City Council and school board of trustees meetings as a freelance reporter for the Farmersville Times. I do not believe we are going to sing the anthem before the governing bodies start their meetings.

This, I submit, is a typical example of government overreaction that offers a so-called solution to an alleged problem.

education news, local news, national news, Sports news

GOP can’t face truth?

(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The TV cameras didn’t allow us to watch the members of the U.S. Senate jury that heard the arguments presented by the House of Reps’ managers prosecuting the case against Donald J. Trump.

The managers wrapped up their presentation today in the second impeachment trial of Trump, who is accused of inciting an insurrection. It occurred on Jan. 6. The mob stormed Capitol Hill seeking to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

Some reporting from the Senate, though, takes me back to something I witnessed in early 2019 in Amarillo, while covering a school board meeting. I’ll get to that in a second.

The Senate reporting tells us how Republican senators looked away from the hideous video of the riot presented by the House managers. They were seen doodling on note pads, leaving the Senate altogether, looking away, not paying attention to what senators were asked to watch. Why is that? They appear to be hiding from the reality of the ghastly insurrection for which Donald Trump stands accused of inciting.

In January 2019, my wife and I traveled back to Amarillo — where we lived for 23 years — to visit our son. The Amarillo public school district’s board was meeting one night. The board had just received a resignation letter from a high school girls volleyball coach, Kori Clements, who accused one of the school trustees of bullying her and of interfering in her coaching decisions. The trustee’s daughter played on the high school team and she believed the coach wasn’t giving her little darlin’ enough playing time.

The school board had a public hearing one evening. Residents were invited to speak to the board about the coach’s resignation, which caused quite an uproar in the community.

Every one of the residents who spoke to the board scolded them for the way the coach was treated. They admonished the trustee in question — Renee McCown, who has since resigned — for her conduct in pressuring the coach, forcing her to resign from a vaunted high school athletic program.

Where am I going with this? McCown never looked up from whatever she was looking at while her bosses — the taxpayers — were scolding her; nor did her board colleagues. They all should have looked them in the eye. I thought at the time it was a disgraceful display of arrogance. And I said so.

Trustees should have looked at those who scolded them | High Plains Blogger

The same sort of arrogance played out in the Senate as GOP senators didn’t bother to look at the horror that an ex-president wrought with his inciteful rhetoric.

Sports news, State news

Mavs owner agrees to play the National Anthem

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Stop the presses!

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has backed away from his plan to forgo the playing the “Star Spangled Banner” at Mavericks home games at the American Airlines Center.

Huh? Hey, it’s OK with me. So, too, was his prior decision to skip playing the National Anthem.

But now the NBA has restated its pro basketball league policy that involves playing the Anthem. As The Associated Press reported:

The league’s initial reaction to Cuban’s decision was to say teams were free to conduct pregame activities as they wished with the unusual circumstances created by the coronavirus pandemic. Most teams don’t have fans at home games.

But the NBA abruptly reversed course with Cuban’s decision reverberating around the country, including a question put to White House press secretary Jen Psaki during her daily briefing. Athlete protests of social and racial injustice during the “The Star-Spangled Banner” became a flashpoint between then-President Donald Trump and various leagues during his administration.

“With NBA teams now in the process of welcoming fans back into their arenas, all teams will play the national anthem in keeping with longstanding league policy,” the league said.

Mavs’ Cuban relents on anthem after NBA reiterates policy (msn.com)

Are we clear on that? My hope now is that Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, whose shorts got all twisted up because of Cuban’s decision to skip the Anthem, can concentrate now on legitimate legislative business, rather than pushing the Texas Senate — over which he presides — to pass a Star Spangled Banner bill that makes playing the Anthem mandatory at all sporting events in Texas.

Sports news, State news

Patrick strikes back at Mavs owner

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Maybe I should have seen this coming.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has declared a form of political “war” against Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. You need to know why. He is angry that Cuban no longer allows the National Anthem to be played before NBA games at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

Patrick won’t have it. He wants to make playing the Anthem mandatory at all sporting events.

Ayyye!

I’m tellin’ ya, the measures some folks take to insert government into matters where it really doesn’t belong. This appears to be one of those matters.

“It is hard to believe this could happen in Texas, but Mark Cuban’s actions of yesterday made it clear that we must specify that in Texas we play the national anthem before all major events,” Patrick said in a statement. “In this time when so many things divide us, sports are one thing that bring us together — right, left, black, white and brown. This legislation already enjoys broad support. I am certain it will pass, and the Star Spangled Banner will not be threatened in the Lone Star State again.”

Dan Patrick introduces “Star Spangled Banner Act” after Mavericks stopped playing national anthem | The Texas Tribune

I’ve already stated my tepid view on this matter. It remains so.

Cuban doesn’t want the Mavs to be inserted into political statements, such as when players “take a knee” during the Anthem to protest police brutality chiefly against African-American citizens. Given that the NBA comprises an overwhelmingly African-American roster of athletes, this form of peaceful protest has become standard among players.

Now we have the Legislature getting involved?

Give me a break. Please.

Patrick tweeted this: “Sell the franchise & some Texas Patriots will buy it. We ARE the land of free & the home of the brave.”

The land “of free”? Yes, we are. We are free to run our businesses as we see fit. Which is what Mark Cuban is doing. He isn’t making a choice I would make, but he’s the owner of the team. The lieutenant governor ought to butt out.