Tuesday Grab Bag: Back from the Dead (aka, a road trip with the White Sox)

Having returned from vacation, I'd like to point you all in the direction of Bill Walton's autobiography, Back from the Dead.  I spent my extended weekend on a road trip to Kansas City, which provided plenty of time for an audio book.  I chose Walton's recent release for the journey, and it was with his dulcet tones in ear that I sped down the highways of central Kansas towards the City of Fountains.  The book was a fantastic tour through his life, celebrating his love of all things basketball, biking, and music. It also dealt with the trials of pain and injury, the loss of the gifts that made him such a beloved star in the 1970s.  Through it all, I found it an open and honest tale of everything that goes into existence - success, failure, joy, sorrow, excitement, fear, learning, teaching, etc.  I can't recommend it enough, especially if you, like me, wonder at Walton's World from afar, and just want a small peek into his circus.

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Today in the bag, I'm talking the Baylor thing, the NBA Finals, and the MLB standings.

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Tuesday Grab Bag: The Pac-12 moves to curtail court-storming

Cleaning out their inbox, the Pac-12 went ahead and announced a few minor end-of-year tidbits this morning.  Of primary note was the reduction of night football starts (by as many as four dates), and the institution of a fines schedule for court/field storming.

The reduction in night football kickoffs makes sense.  Nearly everyone in the conference complained last year as, weekly, the Pac-12 would be the last conference ticking on any given Saturday night. Fines for court-storming, however, strikes me as a solid defeat for Fun in its everlong struggle against the forces of the aged and the entitled.  This, no doubt, stems from Arizona's Sean Miller going on the whinge after getting beat and rushed in Boulder last February (and I assume your reaction to said incident almost comes down to whether you wear red and navy on a regular basis).  I get that the conference is under some obligation to kowtow to the league bigwigs -- they generate the most revenue, afterall -- but to just roll over on this issue for one or two schools seems two-faced.

The Pac-12 now hates Fun, because Sean Miller told them to.  From: the BDC

'But, what about player safety,' you say?  Please; I will assert this until the day I die, Miller's concern trolling over the scene in Boulder has much more to do with him being butt-hurt over a loss than any real concern for the safety of his players. Were he really that concerned, he would've, you know, actually tried to help usher his charges off the floor, rather than stare (quite dumbly) at the students jumping for joy in front of him... but I digress.

The long and short of it is that college conferences leverage court- and field-rushing for quality promotional material, and their television partners glorify the scenes by conducting on-court, post-game shots.  For them to turn around and say, 'shame on the schools' for letting these beautiful moments of student exuberance go down is hypocritical.

Also, Sean Miller can blow it out his ass.

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Today in the bag, I'm talking the Webb thing, looking at the NBA playoffs, and chortling at the notion of little brother to the BigXII.

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Tuesday Grab Bag: Basketball Recruiting Remains Open to Interpretation

Before I get going today, I want to give a special shout out to Ryan Koenigsberg who's leaving his post as the editor of BSN Buffs for bigger, brighter things on that site's Broncos landing.  Since I give not two shits about the Donkeys, that pretty much means that RK is gone from my sporting life, which is a true shame.  He did some great things on the Buffs beat, and the entirety of Buff Nation will miss his voice this coming season.  Good luck, dude, and kick ass covering that stuff that everyone but me cares about!

In his stead, we all get to benefit from the return of William Whelan, which is a lot like going from DiMaggio to Mantle... or going back from Mantle to DiMaggio?  Not sure, but, regardless, Will is an Elite commentator on all things Colorado Athletics, and is just about the most knowledgeable source on Centennial State hoops around.  If you can't have RK dropping knowledge on the Black and Gold, you might as well get tha man himself to pick up the baton.  Welcome back, Will!  Can't wait for that weekly podcast drop!

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Today in the bag, I'm talking renewed pratfalls on the basketball recruiting trail, the NBA Playoffs, and the basebrawl between the Blue Jays and Rangers.

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Tuesday Grab Bag: The wait for the 13th Buff continues

I'm a little abbreviated this week as we hit the offseason months with little built up news.

Today in the bag, I'm touching on a trio of smaller basketball notes, before closing with some talk about Canelo Alvarez v Amir Khan.

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Tuesday Grab Bag: It's May! (and other thoughts)

As of today, both the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox stand alone atop the heaps of their respective leagues.  A month into the season, this has become reason enough for many to start asking "what happens if they both make the World Series?"  This has happened before, of course, as the 1906 World Series was an entirely intra-city affair (for more information, check this really cool book).  But, 110-years on, could the 'City of Broad Shoulders' finally be in for a rematch?

Simply, no, this is a ridiculous notion.  My Sox, while certainly better than anticipated pre-season, still have a number of fatal flaws on their roster, and seem destined for a handful of rough patches between now and the end of the season.  As for the Cubs... well, they're the Cubs, and have the entirety of the sports' history against them even making it to the final weeks of October, let alone winning the damn thing.

But, just what would happen if the improbable happened?  Well, I think there's a 25% chance that the whole town burns to the ground (again).  I'm not kidding, between the celebratory riots of the victors, the remorseful riots of the vanquished, and the now-normal levels of violence already taxing an overmatched (and miss-applied) police force, I think an intra-city Series would be just enough to spark a second great fire.  The City isn't ready for what a Sox-Cubs World Series would mean, and the leadership isn't competent enough to put together a workable plan to mitigate the coming disaster.

So, for the sake of the city that I love, I hope to God one or both of the Cubs and Sox spike it over the summer.

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Today in the bag, I'm talking the NFL Draft, the Fulmer Cup, and the unproven connection between twitter and the burgeoning college basketball transfer market.

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