Cleaning out the inbox.

Lots of stuff from the inbox and I mean LOTS, so it may take a few times to truly clean it out.
I'm going to work from the oldest up other than the time-sensitive stuff.

I did watch the Tyler Beede start today for Vanderbilt in their NCAA game against Stanford.
What I have read about Beede looked to me to be true-Mid 90's fastball, nice curve, and changeup, and will come down to this-Can he stay in the strike zone?
Beede looked good for three innings, but began to show some command issues in the 4th and 5th, leaving the contest in the fifth after allowing six runs, all of them earned.
I liked what I saw arm-wise, but the Giants have some work to do.

I used to be a massive horse racing fan that trickled to just a casual one, but most of the near misses that William Nack writes about for ESPN, I've seen.
I was a huge Sunday Silence fan that ran into the one course that Easy Goer could beat him on and I still rate Spectacular Bid as the best horse I've ever seen (yes, I did see Secretariat) that was beaten by injury and jockey error in his Belmont run, but most of the rest of the near misses really weren't truly great horses.
The Bid might be headed to the Forgotten Superstars universe sometime soon and even if you are just a casual fan, check the article out.
I bet Ryan recognizes a lot of those names!
And yes, the above bobblehead of the Bid is in my collection and might be my favorite bobble!

Waiting for next year is a Cleveland-based sports site and they did an article on the "lost cards" on former Indians first baseman Tony Horton, who abruptly retired and never had a Topps card made of him.
The Horton story is a sad one, worth reading about, and of course, it talks about the 1971 Topps set!

Grantland looks at the draft lottery and the astonishing Cavalier victory here.
I don't know what the Cavalier plans are, but unless they get a star player that is under contract for a while (Kevin Love has one year left on his deal), I'm taking Andrew Wiggins of Kansas.
I'll be looking at the Cavaliers in a future post before the draft...

ESPN looks at former top prospect Brien Taylor in an oral history of the 1991 top overall pick that injured his arm for good in a bar fight in North Carolina.
It's a great article on Taylor, who was unavailable for comment as he is serving jail time for dealing crack cocaine.

Finally, we say goodbye to the most exciting light heavyweight ever as former WBC champ Matthew Saad Muhammad passed away at the age of 59.
Saad Muhammad was Arturo Gatti before there was Gatti as he fought war after war on national television defending his belt in memorable brawls.
Combine the style with the story of him being abandoned in Philadelphia at the age of five and you had a compelling reason to watch Saad, who held the title from 1979-81 in making eight successful defenses of his belt.
Check Saad Muhammad out on youtube for some thrilling bouts.