Weekend winners
All Americans, who have the rights and privileges as citizens of the greatest country in the world because of the countless number of brave heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice for those freedoms. On this Memorial Day, my family and I offer our heart-felt and forever appreciation to those who gave their life and those who were prepared to do the same to protect our nation and our way of life. Happy Memorial Day.
Jayson Tatum. Now that was a dude that looked the part of an A1 star ready to take the 'Dude' step. Tatum was great Sunday night in the Celtics' Game 7 win, and even better when he had to be. He had two possessions - game-time possessions - late in which he drilled a contested 3 and turned a late-in-the-shoot-clock spin move into a swish that really was the difference in a four-point win.
Jimmy Butler. Yes, I could see voting for Butler as the ECF MVP even though his team lost. He was that great. Dude scored 82 points in Game 6 and Game 7 and was a bona fide assassin. Yes he missed a potential go-ahead 3 late - and he's getting a lot of flack for the shot selection - but still, Butler moved into the category of "You can win it all with Jimmy Butler as your best player." And that's rarified air friends.
Tennessee baseball. The Vols continued their steam-rolling of college baseball's best conference with an unbeaten stroll through the rain-soaked SEC tournament in Hoover. Tennessee will enter the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 overall seed and with a staggeringly high 21-plus-% chance to win the whole ball of wax according to computer simulations. Here's more from Paschall.
Motor racing fans. If you are a gear head, you got your high-octane fill Sunday with Grand Prix in the a.m., the Indy 500 in the early afternoon and the NASCAR race from Charlotte in the evening.
Bonus Bonus picks: All of the Spring Fling winners from the area, including McCallie baseball, which emerged from the depths of the Baylor baseball shadow this spring, and Baylor softball, which is casting one of the largest shadows across all of Tennessee team sports.
Weekend losers
Soccer hooligans. So, in the world of soccer relegation is when your team stinks and they get dropped down a league. By comparison it would be like the Lookouts being bumped up to replace, say the Reds because the Reds are/were so bad for so long. Well, Saint-Étienne - no relation to Travis - got relegated and the fans were not best pleased. In fact, the crowd stormed the field, not to get to the refs, but to chase the players into the locker room using flare guns. Beautiful game, huh?
NBA officials. OK, first, the game was dreadfully called from tip to buzzer. And Spy I'm sorry, but Jaylen Brown walked every single time he put the ball of the floor and ageless wonder Al Horford fouled on every rebound attempt. Every single one. And that's still not the most egregious mistake. When did the after-the-fact replay review become available to disallow 3-pointers, like what happened with the Heat in the second half when four minutes after a Max Strus' 3 the officials pulled it from the scoreboard because they said he stepped out? Sure, they have been reviewing 3s for years to make sure players were behind the arc. But out of bounds? And like 10 minutes later? And of all the flaws and unwillingness to embrace technology, this is the one eraser that replay officials can use any time? And to be frank, it should be way, Way, WAY more clear-cut than the hovering heel Strus had near the sideline before making the shot. And ESPN completely ignoring the call and everything to do with the play screams volumes about it to me.
NBA watchers. Yes, we got a Game 7 that was dramatic - mostly, and at least down the stretch - but wow, when Mike Breen goes in for a contract discussion, he needs to play last night's tape with Mark Jones sitting in for Breen, who tested positive for COVID before the game. Jones was called in late and I'm sure he did his best, but dear Lord of bleeding ears and hackneyed clichés, the difference between Jones and Breen was undeniable and immense.
The jackwagon who placed the pins at the Iowa girls state golf championships. Yes, we are going way out of the coverage area this morning, but Weekend Losers know no boundaries and will not be confined by area codes or time zones. The winners and losers are academic in the Iowa event, but this detail is staggering. With a pin placed atop a peculiarly steep mound on the 18th green, players at the state championship averaged a quadruple bogey 7 on the hole. Average. The average time to play the hole - which elicited multiple five-plus-putts - was 20-plus minutes per group. Here's 100 seconds of golf torture from local Iowa TV reporter Jake Brend.
Scottie Scheffler, and all of the final-round leaders. Sunday's final round at the Charles Schwab looked more like the second round of the senior division at the Signal Mountain Invitational. And for Scheffler, the world's top-ranked player who was looking for his fifth win in his last nine starts a two-shot lead heading into the final round was not enough. That's what happens when you play 19 holes - he lost to Sam Burns in a playoff - without a birdie.
Marjorie Taylor Greene. In her latest rant, she bemoans government surveillance and Bill Gates' fake meat. OK, that's typical ranting of the extreme politicians who preach fear to their converts. Whatever. Still, in the latest run of malapropisms that Greene is turning into a cottage industry, she says Gates' fake meat that will give your body a zap is grown in a 'peach tree dish.' I wish I was kidding.
Violence comes to Chattanooga
The shooting downtown Saturday night shook us. Shook all of us, if I had to guess.
Not to be callous or uncaring, but the concerns and tears for tragedies around the globe and around the country become galvanized and more impactful when it's around the corner and near things you know.
The Walnut Street Bridge. That ice cream place next to the big dog statue. Right next to the glass Holmberg Bridge.
You get the idea.
That this comes on the heels of the school shooting in Texas only adds to the fuel and increases the intensity of the nightmare.But, as we authorities gather facts and hunt for suspects, lumping this into the call to action for better gun laws is, in my mind, at best miscalculated and at worst a distracting mistake in judgement.
Not because anyone wants kids carrying guns or people being shot on the streets. No, of course not.
But read Mayor Tim Kelly's quote on the conversation - a much-needed and important conversation - from Sunday's news conference: "I can't say this clearly enough, easy access to illegal guns is killing kids, and our community has a responsibility to put a stop to it. This is exactly why I joined mayors from across the United States last week to call on the U.S. Senate to pass common-sense gun reforms to our gun safety laws. Background checks, red flag laws, raising the age limit so that children can't purchase assault rifles."
And I can't say this clearly enough: the common-sense laws that must be examined and the expanded background checks adding time and more restrictions for those with mental illness and/or criminal pasts are not applicable here, and Kelly admits it when he says, "easy access to illegal guns."
Adding all gun crime into the conversation is an overreach that will only empower the other side into the distracting arguments of slippery slopes and claims that the other side wants total gun confiscation rather than reform.
There are far too many questions about the Chattanooga shooting at this point. Was it gang-related? Authorities said there was no evidence of that as of now, but would it shock any of us if that changes? Do we know if an assault rifle was used Saturday night, or his Kelly just trying to fold this under a neat issue du jour?
My heart hurts, and I want change. I want my kids safe, and for the first time since may Columbine, I think there is momentum for change.
Which also leads us to the call for action on our city leaders right now far beyond bemoaning the current laws and issues with guns.
Because the call for better parenting - and I understand them - is a quagmire that offers few safe passages. This is hardly an after-school special, and if these kids are 13 or 14, then that's one thing, but what if they are 18 or 22? Are city officials going to charge the parents of these shooters? Again, far too many questions.
The call for better parenting is as old as Cain and Able, but we need to be calling for better policing too.
So we will end with this: Welcome to Chattanooga Chief Celeste Murphy, and the honeymoon's over. Because we still have no new movement on all those women shot earlier this year on Grove Street, and now this high profile street shooting on one of the busiest weekends of the year.
This and that
- Speaking of the controversial overturned 3 in last night's Game 7, it's impossible not to look at it through a gambler's prism. The final score was 100-96. The final spread was Boston minus-2.5 or minus-3 depending on the service you used. The over/under was 197.5. Yeah, that disallowed 3 looms pretty large in all directions, huh?
- Certainly could have put Max Fried on the list of winners. The Braves lefty took the ball Sunday, his team having split the first two games of a three-game home series with the mediocre-at-best Marlins. Fried powered through a first-inning mistake that Jorge Solar launched into the seats to deliver six powerful innings, allowing just that one run despite not having his A-list stuff as the Braves closed a successful homestead with a 6-3 win.
- Speaking of the Braves, welcome to the bigs Michael Harris II. Glad to have to have you. And speaking of bigs, is anyone costing themselves more bigly than Adam Duvall, who would have a hard time hitting an 11 with the dealer showing a 6 right now. Egad. Duvall - who is 33 and in a contract year - is 2-for-his-last-19, has right at twice as many Ks as he does hits (59 to 30) and is hitting .188 overall (30-for-160). Yowser. And that dreck is consistently dreck-tastic, considering he is 6-for-33 (.182) against lefties and 24-for-127 (.189) against righties.
- So Tommy Pham slapped Joe Pederson over a Fantasy Football disagreement and that got Pham a three-game suspension.
- The success of "1883" - the prequel to Taylor Sheridan's monster hit "Yellowstone" on Paramount - has turned the planned one-season run of the story of the Duttons journey to Montana into at least a second season. Here's more.
- Side notes: Saturday was the Youngest 5-at-10's 12th birthday. She's a peach. It also was the 20th anniversary of my first day at the TFP. So there's that.
Today's question
Weekend winners and losers. Go.
Multiple choice Monday looks like this:
Which Memorial Day Weekend sporting event drew most of your attention:
> Braves
> Golf> Motor sports> NBA
> Other/none of the above
As for today, on this Memorial Day, well, Rushmore of 'memories' and be creative.