Three Quick Sports Thoughts

Some "Sports Briefs" from this section of The Grandstand this morning.

Behold this item form the sports pages of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this morning about Auburn University basketball player Chad Baker-Mazara.

By my reckoning, and using all go my fingers and toes to count, Mr. Baker-Mazara, now 25 years of age, has now played five seasons at four different Institutions of Higher Learning (two at Auburn and one each at Northwest Florida State, San Diego State, and Duquesne) and is now looking to play one more season (at least) at yet another Institution of Higher Learning.

How does this happen?

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As a Steeles fan for over 65 years, nothing has been as off-putting to me as this dance that the Steelers have been doing for over three months now with Aaron Rodgers,  In HIS COLUMN in today's Post-Gazette, Jason Mackey details quite perfectly why this madness has to stop and why the Steelers should tell Rodgers that....

....and that he needs to shit or get off the pot soon, as in, say, yesterday..

My own thought is that if Dan Rooney were still with us and running the team, this circus would not have been tolerated and would never have happened.

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I usually wait to give an assessment of any given Pirates season until about thirty games, or 20% of the season, have been played.  The Pirates have played only 20 games, and despite having just won three of four from the equally bad Washington Nationals, the Bucs are 8-12 and are in last place in the NL Central, and they are giving off all indications that they will be posting a season that will be historically bad, with 100 losses being well within their grasp.

I will do a deeper analysis at that thirty game mark, but I will leave you with this photo of the box score from the game of two nights ago against the Nats,

Check out those batting averages, five guys batting below .200 and a sixth guy sitting right on the .200 mark.  Oh, and the guy with the highest BA among them, a robust .250, was batting eighth in the order.  I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like that.

Yesterday, I attended my first game of this season, and I did enjoy seeing a Pirates victory, a 1-0 win in which the Pirates mustered five hits and went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.  The entire offense came when Oneil Criz hit a monster home run - the outfielders didn't even move when it was hit - on the first pitch of the game.  Glad we weren't late arriving or we'd have missed everything. Andrew Heaney pitched a nice ballgame, going 7.1 innings and lowering his ERA to 2.13, but Pirates pitchers can't be expected to have to pitch shutouts every time out in order to win games.  I mean...

(How's that for resurrectiong an oldie but goodie of a picture?)