Well, I will only get half of my “wish”. I wanted to see Duke/Florida as the Final Game for the tournament this year but will be happy to see Houston/Florida later this evening. Both Houston and Florida overcame significant deficits on Saturday night to make it to tonight’s game. The oddsmakers have Florida as the favorite by 1.5 points and the Total Line this morning is 142 points. If Saturday’s games were an indicator, I would be playing the UNDER on tonight’s game; I am anticipating two defensive efforts.
Meanwhile, in the women’s tournament, UConn and Geno Auriemma won their 12th national championship on Sunday with a dominant win over South Carolina. That 12th national championship for Coach Auriemma is the most by any coach in college basketball – – men’s or women’s.
The late breaking story of the day however has nothing to do with college basketball; over in the world of MLB, the news is that the Blue Jays and Vladimir Guererro, Jr. have reached an agreement on a contract extension worth $500M over the next 14 years. Guererro was in the final year of his contract with the Jays and was going to be THE blue-chip free agent in baseball over the next offseason; that drama is now avoided with this huge extension. Guerrero is 26 years old; this contract extension – – with no deferred money by the way – – will pay him through the MLB season where he is 40 years old. The Jays must realize that they will be overpaying in that final season; so, they also anticipate that they will be getting a bargain over the early seasons in the deal.
The Jays have another player on an expiring contract to deal with. Bo Bichette will be a free agent this winter; while signing him will not take another $500M commitment by the team, he too is a player who will attract a lot of attention if he hits the free agency market. The Jays were active in the last offseason signing vets like Max Scherzer and Jeff Hoffman which indicates that Jays’ management sees the future of the team being in the near future. Perhaps, Toronto is a place to focus baseball attention these days?
Sticking with MLB, I think the entire kerfuffle over “torpedo bats” is even less interesting than a tempest in a teapot. The bats are perfectly legal according to MLB rules for 2025; here is the pertinent information from “Rule 3.02 The Bat” from MLB’s official rules for 2525:
- (a) The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 2.61 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in length. The bat shall be one piece of solid wood.
- (b) Cupped Bats. An indentation in the end of the bat up to 1¼ inches in depth is permitted and may be no wider than two inches and no less than one inch in diameter. The indentation must be curved with no foreign substance added.
- (c) The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from its end, may be covered or treated with any material or substance to improve the grip. Any such material or substance that extends past the 18-inch limitation shall cause the bat to be removed from the game.
- (d) No colored bat may be used in a professional game unless approved by Major League Baseball.
As Porky Pig was wont to say, “That’s all, folks!” If the so-called torpedo bats meet those criteria, they are legal.
Here is one more baseball item for today; it is an unusual stat that I ran across:
- The Reds lost 3 consecutive games by the score of 1-0. The last time that happened in MLB was in 1960 when the Phillies accomplished the same feat.
- Reds’ fans need to hope that their team does better in 2025 than did the Phillies in 1960. That Phillies team finished dead last in the NL with a record of 59-95 and were 36 games behind the league-leading Pirates.
For those of you who are numbers-oriented, you probably noticed that the MLB season in 1960 was 154 games in length. In fact, that was the last MLB season of that length and I think it is time for MLB to begin to think about contracting its season back a little bit. Here’s why:
- With the expansion of the playoffs – – and the desire not to have advancement in the playoffs determined by single elimination games – – the baseball season now has too many “cold weather games” on the schedule in both late March and in late October/early November.
- Combined with the economic aversion to schedule double headers, the MLB season eats up too much real estate on the astronomical calendar.
Baseball is not a cold-weather game. By shrinking the regular season a bit – – and committing to scheduling double headers on Memorial Day and July 4th – – MLB can dodge some of meteorological bullets that are inevitable in many of their venues such as Toronto, Boston, NY, Minnesota, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Philly where all the parks are open air parks. Ideally, I would reduce the regular season to 144 games with two days devoted to double headers. I know that will cause the baseball purists to cringe; so, I would settle for going back to 154 games in the regular season with two days devoted to double headers.
Just a thought …
Finally, since most of today was about baseball, let me close with these words from Mr. Baseball – – Bob Uecker:
“I hit a grand slam off Ron Herbel and when his manager Herman Franks came out to get him, he was bringing Herbel’s suitcase.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………
There’s an interesting story line RE Coach Sampson of Houston and his link to the state of NC. Too bad CBS didn’t pick it up for the DOOK game. Check it out.
As a numbers geek, I would like to hear your take on how Duke gave the game away to Houston.