Armadillo Sports
Wednesday’s 6-pack:
Biggest salary cap hits in the NFL this coming season:
$63.8M— Deshaun Watson, Clev
$55.5M— Dak Prexcott, Dal
$53M— Russell Wilson, Den-Pitt
$49.5M— Matthew Stafford, Rams
$49.1M— Kyler Murray, Ariz
$47.9M— Daniel Jones, NJG
Quote of the Day
“Why do we park on driveways, but drive on parkways???”
Steven Wright
Wednesday’s quiz
In the history of the Tampa Bay Rays, who scored the most runs?
Tuesday’s quiz
In the movie Major League, Corbin Bernson’s character (Roger Dorn) played third base.
Monday’s quiz
Joe Girardi was the Bronx Bombers’ manager, before Aaron Boone.
*********************************************
Wednesday’s Den: Mid-week musings…….
— Saw something tonight I’ve never seen before:
Brewers 8, Rays 2
Brewers lead Tampa Bay 6-1, top of the 6th. Jose Siri is batting for Tampa, Freddy Peralta is cruising for Milwaukee, but he has a 3-0 count on Siri and he hits him in the butt with a pitch.
Siri had homered in his previous at-bat; the umpires gather, and throw Peralta out of the game for hitting Siri on purpose. It was a 3-0 pitch when he had a 5-run lead; Milwaukee manager Murphy got tossed (for second night in a row) and the game went on.
Next time Siri was up, he grounded out to first base; words were exchanged and a scuffle broke out; apparently the Brewers don’t like Siri very much.
— Marlins 7, Rockies 6 (10)
Colorado scored five runs in 1st inning, led 5-0 in bottom of the 9th; it would’ve been the first game all season they never trailed in, but the Marlins tied the game with five runs in the ninth, then won it in the 10th on Dane Myers’ walk-off single.
Rockies have now trailed in all 29 of their games, the only team since 1900 to do that.
— Start of the Dodgers-Arizona game was delayed by two hours because there was a swarm of bees behind home plate; the beekeeper who got rid of the bees threw out the ceremonial first pitch, was interviewed on TV. Arizona switched starting pitchers because of the delay, moving Jordan Montgomery’s start to another day.
Arizona 4, Dodgers 3 (10)
Christian Walker’s 2-run homer in the 10th was a game-winner.
— Astros 10, Guardians 9 (10)
Victor Caratini had a pinch-hit, walk-off 2-run homer to give Houston its third straight win.
Astros led 8-3 after five, blew the lead, but won for only 2nd time in their last 13 extra inning games.
— A’s 5, Pirates 2
JJ Bleday homered twice; the A’s win in front of 3,876 loyalists.
Oakland is now 6-3 in its last nine games.
— Orioles 4, New York 2
Dean Kremer pitched seven strong innings for Baltimore.
New York is 5-6 in its last eleven games.
Orioles take over first place in AL East.
— Twins 6, White Sox 5
Max Kepler drove in winning run in the 9th; Minnesota has won nine in a row.
— Famous birthdays, May 1st:
Rita Coolidge, 79
Dann Florek, 74
Tim McGraw, 57
Curtis Martin, 51
Wes Welker, 43
Marcus Stroman, 33
Chet Holmgren, 22
The original host of Jeopardy!, Art Fleming, was born 100 years ago today.
— Mike Trout has a torn meniscus in his knee, will have surgery, a surgery that usually comes with a 2-3 month rehab period.
Trout has been hurt a lot; from 2021-23, he played in 237 of a possible 486 games (49%), and now this. No bueno.
— Cardinals 2, Tigers 1
Pitching against against his former team, Jack Flaherty struck out the first 7 batters he faced; he struck out 14 guys in 6.2 scoreless IP, but St Louis scored twice in the 9th inning for the win.
In his previous four starts, Flaherty was 0-1, 6.56. Go figure.
— Brandon Nimmo hit a first inning home run Monday; Mets were the last team in the majors to hit a first inning home run this season.
— Oklahoma City’s sweep of New Orleans was their first series win in seven years, so long ago that Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were on the team back then.
— 76ers 112, Knicks 106, OT
76ers trailed by six points with 0:28 left in regulation; Tyrese Maxey scored seven points in the last 0:25 of regulation, as Philly avoided elimination.
— QB Kedon Slovis signed a free agent deal with Indianapolis; he had an interesting journey thru college football:
2019-21- USC
2022- Pittsburgh
2023- BYU
He played his high school ball at Desert Mountain HS in Scottsdale, AZ, where his QB coach was Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner.
— Time goes by quickly; it is May 1st already; some things that have happened recently that are difficult to process:
Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll got told to take a hike, and no one hired them to coach their team, which makes no sense. Hopefully someone hires Carroll to do TV work; he’d every good. I’m not sure Belichick has the personality to be good on TV. We’ll see.
Nick Saban walked away from coaching; it I tough to recruit when you’re in your 70’s; your rivals use it against you, plus the transfer portal is sheer lunacy. From what I heard last week, Saban will be a good listen on TV.
The Pac-12 doesn’t exist anymore, which is really strange; college sports is off its rocker, but USC and UCLA being in the same league as Rutgers and Maryland in really nonsensical.
Is it me, or have major league umpires become a much younger group of people?