Saturday, February 25, 2023

Other February 25, 2023 News and Notes

  • #2 Alabama presses on, three-point victory at home over Arkansas for 15-1 in the SEC and 25-4 overall.
  • Brandon Miller, named in evidentiary proceedings as providing the murder weapon to former player Darius Miles, played 38 minutes in the game and scored 24 points.  This, after, the day after that testimony from local law enforcement was revealed, he hit the game-winning three-point shot to win at South Carolina.
  • He's also in further trouble with his coach:  Miller's introduction routine now has him being patted down by a walk-on!!!  SOMEBODY is going to have to step in, outside the University of Alabama, and put an end to this -- ineligibility, injury, arrest...
  • I don't know if the adjustment is going to happen all the way to April (especially, with an interrupting World Baseball Classic in the middle of this year's Spring Training), but, if the first two days of Cactus and Grapefruit League games are any indication, the new pitch clock could be a very real factor this season!  We've already had one game decided by a pitch-clock violation:  Boston and Atlanta played to a 6-6 Spring Training draw after Cal Conley of the Braves -- full count, bases loaded, two out, ninth inning of a 6-6 game -- was not set in the box and facing the pitcher at the eight-second mark of the clock.  Strike three, game over!!!
  • The new pitch clock is 15 seconds bases empty, 20 seconds with runners -- and the batter has to be ready for the pitch at 8 seconds.  A batter infraction is an automatic strike (no pitch need be thrown), a pitcher infraction an automatic ball.  A batter gets one "time out" per at bat.
  • The first ten Spring Training games of the season, if this actually were to extrapolate to the entire season, would be the fastest Spring Training games in nearly half a century.  Travis Sawchik reports the first ten Spring Training games averaged two hours and thirty-four minutes.  The last time they were faster was 1978 at 2:30.
  • Also on Day One:  An August, 2022 beef between St. Louis manager Oli Marmol and umpire CB Bucknor has carried over into 2023.  Marmol, in a late-August ejection, told Bucknor he needed to retire.  Bucknor was one of the umpires at the Cardinals' Spring Training game today -- refused to shake Marmol's hand.  The other umps apologized, Marmol said that Bucknor was not only bad at his job, but not a good man either.  Hoo boy...   
  • Byron Jones has apparently been forced to retire from the NFL, age 30.  Can't run or jump due to his injuries and the treatment programs meant to return him to the field:


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