Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Sports this 'n' that

 The NFL Hall of Fame game takes place tomorrow, with Las Vegas and Jacksonville meeting in Canton. It is the 2nd year for the game as a mid-week attraction, airing on NBC.

The big news, though, is that the Jaguars will sit QB Trevor Lawrence and RB Travis Etienne for the game. The former Clemson stars will likely begin to see action the following week. I get that the Khan family, which owns the Jaguars, wants to protect their investments, but this game will be seen by more people across the country than the rest of their pre-season games combined, plus the weekly ratings for AEW on cable. Unless the Jaguars show some improvement, they're not getting any games flexed into primetime during the season.
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The Mets welcomed back 2-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom Tuesday. That was the good news. The bad? Washington ambushed the Mets' bullpen to pick up a 5-1 win, ending the Mets' 7 game winning streak.

DeGrom was his normal self. 5 innings, 1 run, but got a no decision. He's expected to pitch vs. Atlanta on Sunday.

Earlier Tuesday, the Nationals parted with 1B Josh Bell & OF Juan Soto, sending both to San Diego. Eric Hosmer would've gone the other way, but he invoked his no trade clause (the Nationals are on his list of teams he doesn't want to play for), and went instead to Boston.

The Mets, in turn, shipped ex-Tri-City Valleycat JD Davis to San Francisco  for 1B-OF Darin Ruf.
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The Miami Dolphins were forced to give their 2023 #1 draft pick and a 2024 3rd rounder up as a penalty for tampering with Tampa Bay QB Tom Brady and former New Orleans coach Sean Payton. Owner Stephen Ross was suspended by the league for the first 6 weeks of the regular season.

Ross must think he could've filled a void created by the passing of Al Davis, but he's too inept for even that.
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We close on a sad note.

Vin Scully, the long time voice of the Dodgers, passed away Tuesday at 94.

Scully began his career with the Dodgers while they were in Brooklyn under the tutelage of another legend in Red Barber, was became the lead voice after Barber moved across town to call Yankee games. In all, Scully spent 67 seasons with the Dodgers, retiring after the 2016 season.

In addition, Scully called football and golf for CBS, and the NBC Game of The Week and postseason coverage during the 80's. Two of his most iconic calls were in the World Series in 1986 (Mets' comebacks vs. Boston in games 6-7) and 1988 (Kirk Gibson's pinch hit walk-off homer for the Dodgers vs. Oakland in game 1). 

Scully also dabbled in other areas of television. In 1965, 20th Century Fox hired Scully to narrate Jan & Dean: On The Run, an unsold pilot. The next year, Screen Gems brought Scully in as the announcer for the short-lived NBC series, Occasional Wife. Three years later, NBC took a chance on Scully hosting Ralph Andrews' game show, It Takes Two, which lasted a shade over a year. A couple of years later, Scully was given a daytime talk show for CBS that didn't fare too well, and as far as ye scribe knows, it never played in this market.


File photo courtesy of Yahoo!.

X-Files creator Chris Carter was a huge Dodgers fan, such that he named agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) after Vin. Who knew?

Rest in peace, Vin. 

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