— Question: If you had your choice of going to Home Run Derby or the All-Star Game, which one would you choose? Home Run Derby was pretty fun Monday night; Philadelphia’s ballpark is a good for Home Run Derby. Line drives to to both sides of the field go over the fence.
— Royals’ OF Jac Caglianone had his father throwing to him in Home Run Derby; lot of pressure for a guy, throwing to his son under the spotlight.
— Bryce Harper had the Dodgers’ 3B coach throwing to him in Home Run Derby; Phillies only have one batting practice pitcher? Kyle Schwarber had a Phillies coach pitching to him.
— Michigan Wolverines named former Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton as their new hoop coach, replacing Dusty May, who bolted to the NBA. Boynton was 119-109 in seven years with the Cowboys, 51-75 in conference games. He made the NCAAs once in seven years there.
— Boynton hired Brown coach Mike Martin as an assistant; Martin was Brown’s coach for 14 years. Must be a good x’s-and-o’s guy; Boynton is a recruiter.
— Dusty May is coach of the NBA’s Mavericks now; when he was in college, he was a student manager at Indiana. May getting Florida Atlantic to the Final Four in 2021 is an underrated feat, kind of like Brad Stevens getting Butler to a Final Four when they were in the Horizon League.
— Long, long time ago, I was a student manager of our college basketball team; now I’m sitting in my living room, working on my 26th year writing this blog. Not all student managers turn out to be basketball wizards (Will Wade was a student manager at Clemson).
— Famous birthdays, July 14th:
Steve Stone, 79
Jackie Earle Haley, 65
Robin Ventura, 59
Tim Hudson, 51
Darrelle Revis, 41
Carson Kelly, 32
Lucas Giolito, 32
Alaric Jackson, 28
Justin Wrobleski, 26
— Seattle Seahawks were sold for $9.6B last week; I’m not exactly sure what a venture capitalist is, but apparently they’re really, really rich.
Vinod Khosla has a net worth of $13.7B; he made his fortune as a tech investor and co-founder of Sun Microsystems. He currently runs his own venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures. His wife Neeru is an educator and entrepreneur, and Neal Khosla is CEO of Curai, an AI healthcare company.
In a perfect world, where I made all the decisions:
— Long time ago, the early 70’s, the NBA held a 1-on-1 contest, and aired the games at halftime of regular season NBA telecasts. This was in the early 70’s; I think they had two tournaments, then some of the better players refused to play, and the idea died.
They need to bring back a 1-on-1 tournament; it would be wildly popular.
This should happen in the summer, with each player designating a charity he is playing for. They would make lot of money for various good causes.
64 players; games would be up to 20, have to win by 3 points.
Lot of wagering opportunities, bracket pools, it would be fun.
Each NBA team would have to be represented by one player; the other spots would be determined by fan voting on the Interweb.
— Would definitely move the NBA Draft Lottery back to a half hour before the actual draft; imagine the drama then? Lot of executives would have to think on their feet.
— NBA playoff series would be best-of-3, with finals best-of-5. Less games, more drama; it is more interesting when the best team has a chance to lose. Would the NCAA tournament be at all interesting if a 16-seed played Duke/Kentucky best-of-3?
— More game shows on daytime TV, the way it used to be. Not all change is progress.
— Poker should go back on ESPN; watching poker is also better than annoying talk shows.
— NFL would have an 18-game regular season, only two preseason games; Super Bowl would be Sunday night of Presidents’ Day weekend.
