Draft details
I love the draft. You know this.
The NFL Draft is the most fun. The NBA Draft is the most surreal, with the guys you've never heard of and the suits you can only imagine.
The MLB draft is the biggest crap shoot.
The first round was Monday and the next several dozen rounds will be today and tomorrow.
Among the notable items for the first day were these:
> The Padres picked shortstop C.J. Abrams from Blessed Trinity High School. It marks like the 1,351st consecutive draft with a first-round pick who played at East Cobb.
> The Braves picked Shea Langeliers No. 8 overall. Langeliers is a renowned defensive star behind the plate - he threw out 70 percent of would-be base-stealers - and could be fast-tracked to the majors. This pick was the compensation for not signing Carter Stewart in this spot last year. The Braves other two picks Monday were college shortstops.
> Day "one" featured 78 picks with all the compensation picks and the second round.
> And this trend apparently expands to all sports, but IMG Academy had three players among the first 52 picks.
The history of day one is filled with as many first-round busts as there are booms. In the first 32 MLB drafts from 1965-96, there were 32 Hall of Famers picked. In all the rounds.
Here's a list of some of the best players taken in each round:
Round 1: Barry Bonds
Round 2: Greg Maddux (or Tom Glavine, George Brett, Mike Schmidt, Randy Johnson or Johnny Bench)
Round 3: Tony Gwynn
Round 4: Rickey Henderson
Round 5: Tim Raines
Round 6: Tim Hudson
Round 7: Wade Boggs
Round 8: Eric Davis
Round 9: Fred McGriff
Round 10: Brady Anderson
Round 11: Andre Dawson
Round 12: Nolan Ryan
Round 13: Albert Pujols
Round 14: Dave Parker
Round 15: Jose Canseco
NBA star power
Amid the report that the NBA is looking to do away with the term 'owner' because it is racially insensitive - seriously - the limited star power and injuries have become noticeable in these NBA Finals.
KD is out. The Warriors are preparing to play without Klay Thompson in Game 3.
Golden State's back-up center is also out for the foreseeable future with a broken collarbone.
Andre Iguodala is limping everywhere he goes, and sometimes he's double limping.
Kawhi Leonard is clearly slowed by wear-and-tear.
We're a Steph Curry rolled ankle from this being a game of P-I-G between Jeremy Lin and Andrew Bogut. (Side crazy: How crazy is it that with all the stars on the floor, Bogut is the only No. 1 overall pick in this series?)
The lack of star power and the lack of metered viewers in Canada are producing glaringly bad TV numbers.
Game 1 had a sub-8.0 rating, ending a streak of 52 consecutive NBA Finals games with at least an 8.0. The 13.31 million viewers for Game 1 was down 25 percent from last year (17.67 million) and 29 percent from 2017 (18.74 million).
Since 1988, there have been only 19 Finals games with a rating lower than 8.0, and 14 of those included the San Antonio Spurs. The other four were Game 1 Magic-Lakers in 2009, games 1 and 4 of Heat-Mavericks in 2006 and Game 5 Rockets-Knicks in 1994, which was being aired at the same time as some Bronco with some dude named OJ was cruising through L.A.
Game 2's overnight numbers were also down. The 10.2 overnight rating was down 20 percent from last year and tied for the lost overnight Game 2 since 2009.
Jeopardy champ dethroned
Jeopardy James Holzhauer was toppled Monday, about $56K short of the all-time record for career earnings.
His almost $2.5-plus million for 33 shows (32 wins) certainly was a good month. By comparison, Russell Westbrook made $28.6 million in salary in 2018; Holzhauer's game show run, prorated over a year would be close to that.
He fell behind in Double Jeopardy and entered Final Jeopardy trailing. Here's what he wrote in an email to ESPN: "It felt like needing a team to miss a last-second field goal. She didn't miss, but I was still proud of my performance the whole way. I gave her a high five and smiled at how far I'd come."
Emma Boettcher will be the Jeopardy! version of Buster Douglas. She beat the beast, and truth be told, she is poised to produce a long run of her own.
She's a librarian who wrote her master's paper at UNC on Jeopardy clues and predicting the difficulty of trivia questions.
Timing also helped - Emma's undergraduate thesis at Princeton was on Shakespeare, which happened to be the Final Jeopardy question. (Coincidence?)
How dominant was Holzhauer? He went 25-for-25 in Monday's loss and finished 1,186-for-1,222 in his run. Yes, he missed 36 answers in 33 shows. His average margin of victory was $64,903, according to ESPN, and he has the top 16 single-show money totals in the show's 35 years.
And now it's over.
The King is dead. Long live the Queen.
This and that
- Speaking of the end of the road for Jeopardy James, the online leaked end of Jeopardy! ruined it for a lot of folks.
- Siri is getting a new voice. Any suggestions?
- OK, here's one for you. The principal at the Holy Family School, a Catholic school in Port Allen, La., resigned last Friday after being arrested on a school field trip with seventh- and eighth-graders in Washington, D.C. Michael Comeau was arrested for public intoxication and an open container outside of Archibald's Gentlemen's Club in D.C., where he spent the evening and refused to pay his bill. And maybe most strange part of the entire story is Comeau, who also was a reserve police officer in his hometown, visited the strip club with a service dog.
- Jay-Z is the first hip-hop artist to hit $1 billion. Dude doing work.
- The Stanley Cup Finals are tied at 2. Can't help but think of the dude with the $400 bet that could pay $100K on the Blues.
- The odds to win the SEC football title are out. Tennessee is +5000 (beat $100 to win $5K) and Arkansas is +25000. Alabama is the favorite at -160. Georgia is next at +300.
Today's questions
True or false, it's Tuesday. That's true.
True or false, the Raptors are done.
True or false, you'd bet on Alabama against the field to win the SEC football title this year.
True or false, the fix was in to end Jeopardy James' run.
True or false, the NBA looking to do away with the term 'owner' because it is racially insensitive is the most extreme PC reaction of the morality mob on record.
On this day, June 4, in 1984, Born in the USA was released by Bruce Springsteen.
In honor of The Boss, Rushmore of Rock and Roll nicknames.