Dave Parker died over the weekend after and extended period of suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. Parker would have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in about 4 weeks; he was approved for that status by the Veterans’ Committee last winter. There was a time in the 70s and 80s when Parker was arguably the best player in MLB; he had every skill you could want in a player; his career stretched from 1973 to 1991. Parker was selected as an All-Star 7 times and won the MVP award in 1978. Interestingly, he was not an All-Star in the year he won the MVP.
Rest in peace, Dave Parker.
Moving on … Last week, I noted that the PAC-12 was trying to reconstitute itself and that it has lined up 7 schools to begin conference competition in 2026. I noted then that all the schools so far were named “Something” State and suggested some possible additions to the list – – one of which was Texas State. Well, maybe someone was reading that suggestion and thought it made more sense than I intended when I suggested it because the PAC-12 and Texas State are going to join forces in 2026.
Texas State will be the first new member of the reconstituted PAC-12 to join that conference from somewhere other than the Mountain West Conference; Texas State is currently in the Sun Belt conference. So, of course I went to see if there were other Sun Belt schools named “Something” State who might continue the trend here. Indeed, there are three more “State Schools” in the Sun Belt conference but there is a geographical downside there.
The letter “P” in the PAC-12 name stands for the word “Pacific” which in the US implies a western locale. Texas State is located in San Marcos, TX which is about halfway between Austin and San Antonio. That is not exactly a “western locale” in the country, but if you squint hard enough, you might buy into it. The other three Sun Belt schools that are “State Schools” are not nearly as easy to justify:
- Appalachian State – – not working for me
- Arkansas State – – need to squint even harder than for Texas State
- Georgia State – – uh, no.
Too bad; I thought there was something there to exploit … Having said that, do not write any of it off permanently. Remember:
- Sanford and Cal-Berkley are in the Atlantic Coast Conference Northern California is 3 time zones away from the Atlantic Coast.
- Northern Illinois will play football in the Mountain West Conference. There are no mountains anywhere near DeKalb County, IL nor is it “west” in the geography.
Switching gears … In the world of comedy, they say that timing is everything. Actually, I think that adage applies to a much larger segment of life than just comedy and a story that broke late last week makes that point. Malik Beasley is an NBA free agent, and his agent was negotiating a deal with the Pistons that was reported to be for 3 years and in the $40-45M category. Beasley has been in the NBA since 2016 and has been with 6 different teams; he is a shooting guard who averaged 16.9 points per game in the last regular season.
Here is the “timing issue”. As that deal was reported to be in the final stages of negotiation, the US District Attorney’s Office in Detroit announced that Beasley is under investigation for gambling on NBA games and prop bets in the 2023/2024 season when Beasley was with the Milwaukee Bucks I have to stop here to point out that this matter is still under investigation; Beasley has not been charged with anything let alone convicted of something Nonetheless, the timing here could not have been much worse for Beasley and his agent. Not surprisingly, the Pistons have broken off any negotiations pending more information and the NBA itself announced that it is “cooperating with the investigation.”
Finally, I started today on a down note – – the passing of Dave Parker. Let me close today on a much brighter note:
Mel Brooks celebrated his 99th birthday on Saturday. May the Schwartz be with him.
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………