Weekend winners
Justify. Well, that was sloppy. And expected – 2 bucks on Justify to win cleared only $7.80; a Justify-Good Magic exacta paid $69.60. Justify was the favorite from the beginning and stayed unbeaten. Now comes a run for the Triple Crown over the next month, and after that a bunch of high-priced dates with a bunch of willing mares. Good times. While we are here, congrats to Kyle C., who was the only entry from almost 50 who had Mendelssohn in DFL. That’s enough to win. And if that’s not enough, the entry also had Justify in the top spot. Please email us and we will connect with the goods.
LeBron James. Yes, his place on the top half of Monday’s list is becoming as routine as NASCAR on the bottom half. But, really, what else can you say. Dude is 33 and just played all 82 games for the first time in his career. (He posted 27.5 points, 8.6 rebounds and 9.1 assists in the regular season.) After his buzzer-beater capped Cleveland’s 105-103 win over Toronto on Saturday, LeBron is averaging 34.8 points, 9.6 rebounds and 8.8 assists in 10 postseason games. Want to know the single biggest comparison between MJ and King James? Every year they are the MVP and every year the basketball world looks for reasons to give it to someone else. (Side note: James now has five playoff game-winning buzzer beaters in the playoffs; MJ had 3, and Kobe had 1.)
Brad Stevens. Dude is coaching his clipboard off right now. Seriously. Imagine any other team in the league heading to the conference finals without your leading scorer from the season. Now imagine that team is down its two best players from the beginning of the season. That’s Boston. Stevens did more to win a game as a coach Saturday as any NBA coach we can recall in a long time.
Ken Jeong. The comedian known best for his roles in “The Hangover” movies was doing a stand-up routine in Phoenix when a woman in the audience had a seizure. Jong, a Duke educated M.D., jumped off the stage, tended to the woman, and, after the ambulance took her to the hospital, finished his act. Well played, Mr. Jeong. Well played indeed.
UTC softball. Yes, they lost both ends of a doubleheader Sunday against nationally ranked Auburn, but kudos to Frank Reed and that program for bringing in top-level competition. (And selling the joint out, we might add.) Good stuff.
Bonus pick: Las Vegas Golden Knights. As an expansion team, the Knights are in the conference finals. That’s pretty slick.
New York Mets starting pitcher Matt Harvey steps into the dugout during the first inning of the team’s baseball game against the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday, June 14, 2017, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) Weekend losers
Matt Harvey. From starting the 2013 All-Star game to being cut but the Mets in five quick years.
Leo Lewis. Dude was a five-star recruit, who has become a five-star player for Mississippi State. He also has become a five-star headline-maker. We all know Lewis was a ket witness – and granted immunity – in the NCAA case against Ole Miss. Well, know we also know that Lewis was arrested for disorderly conduct.
Braves. Giants come to town, Giants leave town with all three wins. And in truth, other than a late Sunday comeback that cut the final score to 4-3, it was not really close this weekend either.
NBA drama. Heading into the conference finals, all of the current series are all-but over. Celtics and Cavs go of sweeps tonight. Rockets and Warriors have 3-1 leads after impressive road wins in Game 4s Sunday.
The Dodgers. They lost the weekend series to the Padres, who have a fraction of the Dodgers payroll. They are 15-19 and starting to fade (already) in the NL West. And now, the star-studded Dodgers DL just got a five-star addition. Clayton Kershaw, who has been no better than good this year (and for that money and with those expectations, good is below average for the amazing Kershaw). Kershaw joins Justin Turner and Corey Seager on an injured list that has $100 million in inactive players.
Mike Smith rides Justify to victory during the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs Saturday, May 5, 2018, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
Wanna bet
Did you watch the Kentucky Derby?
Would you have if you could have put a little side action on Justify?
Here’s betting yes, and here’s thinking that horse racing – and the fighting sports in particular too – could receive quite the bounce if the Supreme Court allows states the chance to legalize sports betting.
That’s the first step, and most folks believe that will happen when the Court rules later this summer.
The side-story here is all the leagues starting to line-up for a cut of the betting money.
For those of us who have made the occasional wager – for entertainment purposes only of course – the house getting a cut is nothing new. A losing bet of $100 actually loses $110. Call it juice or vig or whatever you would like.
It’s the difference that causes the house to almost always come out on top in the end.
Well, the leagues are lining up for a cut of all the money wagered, and there’s the rub.
Some leagues are looking for as much as 2.5 percent of all money bet. That would put serious questions on the financial foundation of the entire system.
So here we are, in a place where we are all hurrying to wait on the SCOTUS decision, unsure how that will play out or when we will know. (It appears the last day for the Court on the bench is roughly June 26.)
But, we could not help but think about how much more fun the Derby would have been with a little money on the line. (Just ask the woman from Texas who turned an $18 Pick 5 bet into $1.2 million. That’s Justified – and bona fide.)
This file image released by Marvel Studios shows, from left, Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr., Dave Bautista, Chris Pratt and Pom Klementieff in a scene from “Avengers: Infinity War.” In its second weekend in theaters, “Avengers: Infinity War” continues to dominate in North America. (Marvel Studios via AP, File)This and that
– “Avengers: Infinity War” continues to soar at the box office, becoming just the fifth movie to earn nine figures in its second weekend. It trails only “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” with money earned on the second weekend, which clearly shows us that if you want a blockbuster hit, you need a colon in the title. The most recent Avengers was the fastest movie to rake in $1 billion, doing it in 11 days, and that’s before the film has even opened in China.
– How much does a signature star matter? Well, LeBron vs. Toronto on Saturday had the highest non-Finals rating for ABC since 2012. Tiger in TV time on Thursday pushed Quail Hollow to a six-year best.
– How about this crazy story? Keyon Reed, who played linebacker at UTC until 2012, had his Florida home raided by a SWAT team Friday after he made threats to the management folks with the Dallas Cowboys if they did not sign him. Wowser, that’s a hard-charging negotiation strategy right there.
– Jason Day won at Quail Hollow over the weekend. He was good. Baylor School grad Luke List was pretty excellent, too, shooting 67-70 over the weekend to move from even to 5 under. He finished tied for ninth and cashed a check for the tidy sum of $200,200. List has played 18 tournaments this season and cleared $2.477 million. He has five top-10s and 10 top-25s this year. He is 10th in Fed Ex Cup points and 20th on the Tour in scoring average at 70.09. Way to go Luke.
– While we are here, Keith Mitchell also made the cut at Quail Hollow and was excellent on Sunday. His final-round 68 – which tied for the second-lowest Sunday score – moved him into a tie for 34th and good for $37,248.75. He was 87th on the money list before the event in Charlotte and now has made more than $785K in his rookie season.
– More baseball: Shohei Ohtani almost signed with the Marines. Sunday he showed Seattle what they are missing with another strong start on the mound. He pitched into the seventh and allowed two runs – both on a seventh-inning homer on a hanging slider – with six Ks..
Today’s question
Weekend winners and losers. Discuss.
OK, on an issue-point, let’s review the story of Big Ben Roethlisberger saying the Steelers wasted a pick on Mason Rudolph, the Oklahoma State quarterback picked in round three. (What that pick means for former UT quarterback Josh Dobbs is even more telling, however.)
Big Ben wanted a player who could help now rather than a back-up. Hey we get quarterbacks not wanting to train their replacements and we understand veterans wanting teams trying to maximize the current as much as possible.
But isn’t some of this on Roethlisberger, who after each of the last couple of seasons has, at least in part, hinted that he could be retiring?
Thoughts?
As for today, May 7, well, this was the day that Germany unconditionally surrendered in 1945.
Pat McInally is 65 today, and he’s still the only perfect score on the NFL IQ test.
On this day in 2012, Paeleoclimatological studies show that dinosaur toots warmed the Earth. So there’s that.
As for the Rushmore Johnny U would have been 85 today and Alex Smith is 34 today.
Rushmore of best quarterbacks who made their career with their second team.