One “theme” for today might be cleaning out my clipboard file of notes about little things that happened over the past couple of weeks that I never got around to. An alternate “theme” might be:
“Here’s some stuff for you to consider in case you missed it…”
Let me begin with the restart of the MLB season after the All-Star break. The Washington Nationals seemed foreshadow that the second half of their season will be like the first; the Nats score a ton of runs and they also give up a ton of runs leading them to a record that hovers around .500.
- So, the Nats’ first game after the All-Star break was a win over the A’s by a score of 23-4 – – lots of runs scored.
- The second game after the All-Star break was a loss to the A’s by a score of 15-1 – – lots of runs given up.
Plus ҫa change, plus ҫa mệme chose …
Next up … Middle distance runner, Josh Kerr, broke the record for the mile race. That record of 3:43.13 had been held by Moroccan runner Hicham El Guerrouj since 1999. Kerr broke that record by about a half-second setting the new record mile mark at 3:42.66. In case your calculator batteries are dead, Kerr ran his race at an overall speed of about 16.2 miles per hour. Kerr is of Scottish extraction and competes internationally for the UK.
I remember as a kid the big news that Roger Bannister had broken what was then considered to be a barrier to human endurance by “breaking the 4-mnute mile”. Bannister ran his race in 3:59.4 more than 70 years ago.
Moving on … LeVeon Bell is back in the news. No, he is not considering a comeback in the NFL; his presence in the news this time involves his arrest in Ohio for being in arrears on child support payments. According to the warrant that caused the arrest, Bell is behind in payments by a total of $112,522.89; that warrant came from a court in Michigan; presumably, Bell will be transferred to authorities in Michigan for resolution there.
Bell’s lawyer makes an interesting point in his assessment of this case. He says that Bell is behind in payments because those payments were directed when he was still in the NFL and earning millions of dollars per year; but that in his retirement days, the monthly payments exceed his monthly income and have not been adjusted.
This is not the only legal/financial issue pending for Le Veon Bell. He was accused in a civil suit by his cousin of sexually abusing her as a child. Bell did not show up in court as required and the judge entered a default ruling that he owed the plaintiff $25M. I am not an expert in searching legal databases, but I cannot find any reference that says Bell has paid off that judgment. Bell’s representatives here say they will file a motion to reopen the matter and reverse that punitive judgment which leads me to believe that debt has not been paid.
Switching gears … Andrew Marchand’s beat at The Athletic is to cover sports media; if you were looking for a word or phrase to describe his reporting, I would suggest “authoritative” or “on the mark”. He is now reporting that ESPN has “cut ties” with Ryan Clark. Clark is certainly not my favorite ESPN on-air presence; and just as certainly, he is not the worst on-air presence on the network. In Marchand’s report about this parting of the ways, he also said that more cuts were coming at ESPN as part of reductions involved with Disney Corp which is the parent company of ESPN.
Subsequent to that report, Marchand said that Karl Ravech and Tom Pelissero were also laid off as part of this restructuring of the network. Ravech has been with ESPN for more than 30 years; Pelissero is one of a corps of “NFL Insiders” the network features. And the latest report says that more separations are coming to include:
- Cam Newton
- David Lloyd
- Bart Scott
- Charles Davis
Finally, this from comedian, Norm MacDonald:
“My dad had this thing – everyone in Canada wants to play hockey; that’s all they want to do. So when I was a kid, whenever we skated my dad would not let us on the ice without hockey sticks, because of this insane fear we would become figure skaters!”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………
That’s too bad about ESPN. I have always liked Karl Ravech’s work on baseball.
LeVeon Bell was once credited with inventing a new rushing style in the NFL. Now he’s been arrested at a village shopping mall. It is very sad what can happen to running backs.
oh, you are not word salad. You are just giving a smorgasbord of topics. each one is clear enough. Word salad is when you think “What the heck are they saying?”