All Over The Map Today …

Six players were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY yesterday.  I am only half surprised that Terrell Owens did not show up wearing a yellow blazer as part of the audience to draw attention to himself.  After all, he won’t be attending the Football hall of Fame induction ceremony in about a week even though he is one of the inductees.  I thought he would be a party-crasher here; I’m glad he was not.

News from the Canadian Football League is that Johnny Manziel might get an extended chance to show that he can play professional football and that he is serious enough about doing that to maintain a measure of self-control in his life.  Manziel had been on the roster of the Hamilton Tiger Cats this season but he was blocked from the field because the Ti-Cats starting QB, Jeremiah Masoli, was tearing it up.  Masoli has thrown for 300+ yards in every game for the Ti-Cats this year – – and 9 in a row if you go back to the end of last season.  Last week, the Ti-Cats traded Manziel to the cellar-dwelling Montreal Alouettes.  There is more to the trade than just Manziel; four other players and a draft pick next year are also involved, but Manziel is the most interesting component of the trade.

Manziel did not play in last week’s game for the Alouettes – a game they lost to the Edmonton Eskimos by a score of 44-23.  The Montreal QB in that game was Vernon Adams and his stat line was mediocre (15 for 28 for 217 yards with 0 TDs and 1 INT).  [Aside:  Adams is the fourth starting QB the Alouettes have used in 6 games this year.  It is safe to say they are not “settled” at the QB position.]  The Alouettes record in 1-5 this year; notwithstanding that record, they are only 1 game out of second place in the Eastern Conference of the CFL.

When Manziel signed with the Tiger Cats, the coach there, June Jones, hailed his arrival in glowing terms saying that Manziel might become one of the greatest players in CFL history.  Halfway through his first season, he never saw the field and got shipped off to what is arguably the worst team in the league.  I am accustomed to the practice of coaches hyping new players beyond any realistic standard but in this case, Manziel went from a potential “all time great” to “trade bait” after 5 games.

There was another story from last week that boggles the mind.  Swimmer Ryan Lochte was suspended from competition for 14 months by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).  Lochte has done some bizarre things in the past – – Google is your friend here – – but this suspension comes as a result of sheer stupidity.  Here is the deal:

• There is a rule – I don’t know why this is a rule, but it is a rule – that athletes subject to testing by the USADA cannot receive an IV unless the administration of the IV is related to hospitalization or unless the USADA has granted a waiver.
• Lochte took an IV infusion of a Vitamin B complex.  That is not a banned substance; he failed no tests.  However, it was an IV and not a pill that delivered the Vitamin B to his system.
• Then, Lochte notified the world on social media of his use of the IV by posting a photo of the event.

Also, from last week, the Phillies hit 7 HRs in a game against the Reds.  That is unusual in and of itself but in that game the Phillies only scored 9 runs meaning there were lost of solo shots there.  I went looking to see if the Phillies had set a record, but they did not:

• In 1977, the Red Sox hit 8 homeruns game against the Blue Jays and 7 of those homeruns were solo shots.  That is the MLB record for most homeruns in a game with no one on base.

This homerun outburst did tie a franchise record for the Phillies and you do not have to go back 100 years to find the other time it happened.  It was in 1998 and here are the players who combined to hit those 7 homeruns back then:

• Rico Brogna (2)
• Bobby Estalella (2)
• Kevin Sefcik (2)
• Marlon Anderson (1)

If you can pick any of those 4 players out of the official team photo for 1998, you are a better person than I…

Yankees’ outfielder, Aaron Judge was hit on the wrist by a pitch and it fractured a bone in the right wrist.  Judge will be out of the lineup on the DL for 3-4 weeks.  When I read the account of this, my advanced age showed itself because I thought of the old Rowan and Martin Laugh In show on TV and Pigmeat Markham:

• There go da Judge …  There go da Judge!

I’ll go adjust the dosage on my meds; I promise…

Finally, Bob Molinaro had this commentary in his column last week in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot.  I could not agree more…

“TV timeout: Jon Gruden says that he’ll ‘walk away’ from his 10-year, $100 million Oakland Raiders contract ‘if I can’t get it done.’ I wish he’d taken that approach when he started as ESPN’s Monday Night Football blabbermouth.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………