Category Archives: Sports news

Sports news

Why isn’t this guy in the MLB Hall of Fame?

I can’t believe I’m thinking of this, but I am and I feel the need to state my piece.

Bill Buckner died this week at the age of 69. He crafted a stellar Major League Baseball career that ended in 1990. He collected more than 2,700 hits; he compiled a .289 batting average; he won the National League batting title in 1980; he batted more than .300 in seven of his years playing in the big leagues. Buckner appeared in several All-Star Games. He played for more than 22 years in both the American and National leagues.

Oh, but he is known to most baseball fans for one play. It occurred in the 1986 World between the Boston Red Sox (Buckner’s team at the time) and the New York Mets. In the sixth game of the series, Mookie Wilson of the Mets hit a “routine” ground ball to Buckner, who was playing first base. Buckner bent down to catch the ball — and then watched it scoot between his feet under his glove.

Error on Buckner! The Mets scored the winning run and went on to win the World Series.

For that play, Buckner was vilified, scorned, ridiculed, hassled and harassed for the rest of his career and beyond. The Red Sox eventually brought him back to honor him. The fans who once booed at the sound of his name stood and cheered him that day.

Which brings me to my central point: Is that single play responsible for this fine player being denied enshrinement in baseball’s Hall of Fame?

Players with far less impressive stats are in the hall. I think, for instance, of Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazeroski, a second baseman who — in my view — is in the HoF because of one hit: a Game 7 walk-off home run to win the 1960 World Series against the New York Yankees.

Buckner’s window for induction into the HoF induction has been closed for a long time. The old-timers committee cannot even let him in.

It’s a shame. The guy could hit a baseball. Absent that one play in the 1986 Fall Classic, he could field his position, too.

For what it’s worth, I think he deserved induction into the Hall of Fame . . . right along with Bill Mazeroski.

local news, Sports news

Students are the real victims in this coaching controversy

I’ll admit it: I cannot let go of the story that has roiled the Amarillo Independent School District athletic community.

An Amarillo High girls volleyball coach quit after a single season at the helm of one of the state’s most vaunted athletic programs. She was critical of the school board and the administration for what she said was a lack of support for the coach who alleged she was hassled by a parent over the playing time the coach was giving to the parent’s daughters who played volleyball for the Sandies.

I won’t get into the individuals alleged to be involved here. I do want to echo a comment made to me on social media about the collateral damage that has been inflicted by this matter.

It likely has damaged the student-athletes who play for the high school. They have been whipsawed by the tension that has gripped the AISD athletic program. They are caught in the glare of a community that has been looking a lot more closely at the program and how a future girls volleyball coach is going to respond to the tension.

The daughters of the parent who allegedly hassled the coach, of course, are the primary victims of this collateral damage. None of this would seem to be fair to them. I don’t know the girls. For that matter, I don’t know the parent who reportedly hassled and harangued the former Sandies coach.

But I do know how these matters potentially play out. I also have beliefs on how the governing body ought to respond. The AISD school board hasn’t responded well to date, as near as I can tell.

Trustees’ silence is not doing anyone any good.

I managed to attend the school board meeting when the resignation of the former coach, Kori Clements, was accepted by the board. I heard the testimony of a couple of the Sandies players who spoke in support of their coach. I am absolutely certain they were hurt by what transpired.

Those student-athletes’ needs to be considered by the school board and the administration as they move forward.

Yes, the damage has been done. It need not fester.

Sports news

Sod Poodles packin’ ’em in

This graph showed up on my Facebook page a little while ago, so I thought I would share it on High Plains Blogger.

Check it out.

Amarillo’s AA minor-league baseball team, the Sod Poodles, is leading the Texas League in attendance early in its initial season playing ball on the High Plains.

Sixteen home dates have drawn nearly 100,000 spectators to the Sod Poodles’ shiny new venue, aka Hodgetown, built for about $45 million in downtown Amarillo.

I’ll acknowledge that I haven’t been to a game. I’ve only seen the ballpark from the other side of the right field fence. The front entrance looks impressive, too.

I am just delighted to know that Amarillo is turning into a “baseball town.” Maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised.

A few years ago, when residents were preparing to vote on a referendum to approve construction of what was known only as a “multipurpose event venue,” retired Amarillo College President Paul Matney came to the Rotary Club of Amarillo to pitch the idea to Rotarians. He said at the time that “Amarillo is a baseball town” and it deserved to have a Major League-affiliated team playing ball for the fans who had wanted a return to that quality of baseball.

Matney spoke from a position of deep institutional/community knowledge, given that he grew up in Amarillo, graduated from the University of Texas and then returned home to carve out a stellar career at Amarillo College.

It was evident to me then that Matney knew of which he spoke. It’s clearer to me now, seeing those attendance figures, that he was spot on declaring Amarillo to be a “baseball town.”

Sports news

Wait’ll next year for return to horse-racing interest

Well, that’s it for me for this Triple Crown horse-racing season.

It was bad enough that the “winner” of the Kentucky Derby actually was the second-place finisher, given that the initial winner, Maximum Security, got disqualified for interfering with other horses’ gallop down the stretch.

Now we hear that Country House, the Derby “winner,” isn’t going to run in the Preakness, the No. 2 leg on the chase for horse-racing’s vaunted Triple Crown.

That’s it. I’m out.

I was thrilled to watch Justify win the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes in 2018. It thrilled me even more to watch American Pharaoh do it in 2015, as it had been 37 years since Affirmed won all three of ’em in 1978.

The same horse has to win the first two races for me to gin up any kind of excitement for this sport.

So, the horse-racing season is over for me.

I’ll just bet, too, that TV ratings for the Preakness and the Belmont are heading into the tank.

Sports news

Nothing PC about this disqualification, Mr. POTUS

Donald J. “Horse Racing Expert in Chief” Trump has tweeted his displeasure over this past weekend’s result in the Kentucky Derby.

It seems the president of the United States is unhappy that Maximum Security was disqualified for blocking a couple of his competitors as the horses came down the home stretch in the famed horse race.

The president, though, said the decision was a bow to what he called “political correctness.” To which I scratch my noggin in astonishment.

There was nothing I could see that was PC about the stewards’ decision to DQ Maximum Security and give the victory to the second-place finisher, Country House.

I saw the video of the infraction. Maximum Security violated the rules. Country House, one of the longer shots in the field, was granted the victory according to the rules of the race.

So, Mr. President, stop blaming a form of “political correctness” where none exists. Stick to tweeting about things about which you know something.

Oh, wait! That would be nothing at all.

Sports news

UVA declines invitation to visit White House … what gives?

The list is now up to three.

The University of Virginia won the NCAA men’s basketball championship with a stunning victory over Texas Tech University. Then the White House invited the Cavaliers to be feted by Donald Trump.

The Cavs’ response? No can do, Mr. President.

They now join the University of North Carolina and Villanova University in declining to take part in what most of us thought was a part of D.C. normalcy. Teams win national championships, then travel to the nation’s capital to be honored by the president of the United States.

That was until Donald Trump became president of the United States. Now we find the president politicizing these events, criticizing pro football players for kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem. He infuriates players, who then balk at coming to the White House. The Golden State Warriors this past year won the NBA title, chafed at going to the White House and then the president disinvited them.

Now the third straight men’s college basketball team has said “no thanks” to the White House, citing what school officials called “scheduling conflicts.” Sure thing, man.

When you think about it, what we’re seeing is an ongoing trend involving this president.

Donald and Melania Trump haven’t attended a Kennedy Center Honors event that pays tribute to artists who contribute to the world’s culture. The president refuses to attend the White House Correspondents Dinner, I presume because of his antipathy toward the “enemy of the American people.”

These once-pro forma events have become news in and of themselves because of the president’s clumsy relationships with national institutions.

So the drama continues.

The UVA Cavaliers won’t break bread with the president. I fully expect Donald Trump to say something inappropriate — if not downright stupid — in response to the NCAA men’s champs’ decision to stay away.

Weird.

Sports news

What about this young man, Mr. POTUS?

Donald J. “Football Cheerleader in Chief” Trump tweeted out his congratulations to a young man from Ohio State University, defensive lineman Nick Bosa, for being the No. 2 overall pick in the National Football League college draft.

Hey, it’s a big deal, right? Sure it is!

Then there’s this item that has gotten a lot of attention on social media: Bosa is a known supporter of the president and he reportedly has “liked” posts from white nationalist groups on Facebook. Hey, that plays right into Trump’s wheelhouse, not to mention that Bosa has been critical of Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who instigated the “take a knee” movement to protest police treatment of black citizens.

Oh, and what about the young man who was drafted ahead of Bosa? That would be Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray of the University of Oklahoma. The president hasn’t offered Murray any congratulations. Nothin’, man!

D’oh, I almost forgot: Murray, who hails from just down the road in Allen, Texas, is African-American. Did I mention that Bosa is white? Well, I just did.

I just have to wonder, coincidence . . . or is there something else at play here? I know what I believe. I’ll leave it for others to draw their own conclusions.

local news, Sports news

This guy is really and truly an iconic figure

I don’t follow men’s professional basketball all that closely these days. Sure, I know who are the game’s top stars: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, James Harden, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry.

Oh, yeah! Dirk Nowitzki, too!

Well, I had to move to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex to understand fully how much this guy Nowitzki means to diehard fans of the Dallas Mavericks.

Wow! This big fella got quite a send-off as he retired from the National Basketball Association.

I had little clue as to what he means to this community.

The Dallas Morning News published a 14-page special section on April 14. We came home from a two-week trip to points south and east to find that edition of the paper on our driveway. The section contained stories about how he perfected his fade-away jump shot; it had testimonials from his former coaches and from former rivals; about how he makes an impact on D/FW kids.

NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley calls Nowitzki “the nicest man ever.”

There even was a two-page spread showing a remarkable graphic of every shot he took and made during his more than two decades as a pro basketball player.

Incredible! Nowitzki is thought of as one of the game’s truly good guys. He is devoted to his wife and young children. He spends time visiting seriously ill people in hospitals and he does it all under cover.

He played 21 seasons for the Dallas Mavericks. He came to Big D from Germany, the nation of his birth and where he grew up. You listen to him these days and you detect barely a German accent. He is going to stay in Dallas in his retirement years.

He finished as the No. 6 scorer in NBA history, passing Wilt Chamberlain to reach that ranking. He finished behind legendary figures, too: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.

I watched the Mavericks over the years from some distance. Sure I knew that Nowitzki was a great athlete. I knew he could shoot well for a guy who stood 7 feet tall.

I just didn’t appreciate the iconic status he attained during the course of 21 seasons playing basketball.

Holy cow, man!

Sports news

Yep, he is bigger than the game

Tiger Woods would never say such a thing out loud, within earshot of others.

However, I am going to say what would remain unspoken by the greatest golfer of this generation: Tiger Woods is bigger than the game.

Woods won his 15th major pro golf title over the weekend, winning the Masters Tournament by a stroke the all-world field of the greatest golfers on the planet. Sports pundits can’t stop talking about it. They won’t stop talking and writing about what they have described as the “greatest sports comeback in human history.”

Woods had gone 11 years without winning a major tournament, and 15 years since winning the Masters.

Hmm. I’ll offer this note, and then move on to the topic at hand: Muhammad Ali’s return as heavyweight boxing champion in 1974 after being stripped of his title and exiled from the sport for more than three years ranks as the No. 1 sports comeback — in my mind.

But yes, Tiger’s comeback was one for the ages.

He is bigger than the game. I admit to watching the Masters with exponentially greater interest when he entered the weekend rounds in hunt for his fifth Masters green jacket. I love watching the Masters anyway, but with Tiger lurking near the top of the leader board, my interest turned into an obsession.

I wasn’t alone. Others around the world who aren’t even necessarily golf fans took time to watch Tiger Woods pounce when Francesco Molinari doused his 12th-hole tee shot, paving the way for a double-bogey on the hole.

Woods’ endorsement income from Nike is going to fly into the stratosphere. There might be other corporate sponsors that will sign the 43-year-old up as well.

Think of it. Woods’ career started tanking when his wife, Elin, caught him messing around with other women. Then he got caught driving while impaired. Injuries later would damn near take him out for keeps. He couldn’t play the game he dominated since his arrival on the pro tour in 1996.

He fought back. Now he’s back on the top of his game. On top of the world. On top of the heap.

Tiger Woods wouldn’t dare say what many of us believe, that he is bigger than the game.

He is. There. I’ve said it.

entertainment news, local news, Sports news

Sod Poodles, ballpark add to city’s life and future

I have repurposed this picture from my social media network and I now intend to use it to illustrate a point I think needs making.

Amarillo’s Sod Poodles, the minor-league baseball team that has opened to big crowds at Hodgetown, appear ready to lead the city where my wife and I used to live toward a new and bright future.

We have no regrets about moving away, but I damn sure wish at times I could be there to cheer the “Soddies” on.

I am hearing about a smattering of gripes from those who think the fireworks at the games are too loud. Residents are bitching about the money spent to build the ballpark and to inject new life into the downtown district.

The gripes are to be expected, I suppose. No project, regardless of its value, is deemed as picture-perfect to everyone affected directly or indirectly by it.

Sure, I live some distance away. Thus, I won’t likely hear these gripes in person; I’ll merely read about them on social media. I intend to remind those along my own social media network that the gripes are misplaced and likely misinformed.

The ballpark cost a good bit of dough: $45 million. The city spent more to condemn the Coca-Cola distribution center and relocate it to a business park near Rick Husband-Amarillo International Airport. There have been tax incentives and abatements given to businesses that have sprung up along Polk Street.

I am baffled, though, at the complaints that the city’s effort to spruce up its downtown district is misdirected.

It is not!

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Every flourishing city in America has at least one thing in common — a vibrant downtown business-and-entertainment district.

I am unable to predict whether Amarillo, Texas, will join the ranks of prosperous American cities. It remains my strong sense, though, that the city is on the way toward that future.

The Amarillo Sod Poodles’ presence in that shiny new sports venue can lead the way.