Cleaning out the Inbox:

A long-overdue cleaning of the inbox with two items having languished near the bottom for almost six weeks!

We start with the Athletic with the first of a few links from their site and their story about the home of the Buffalo Bisons, which is being used by the Toronto Blue Jays for this season.

Sahlen Field was built for Buffalo's attempt to be one of the teams chosen when baseball expanded in 1993 (the selected teams were the Rockies and Marlins) and even today, Sahlen Field is the largest stadium in AAA and even though it is now 32 years old, it is the only stadium in the minors that could be expanded to meet major league standards.
The article discusses the stadium's past and the present as the Blue Jays attempt to retrofit Sahlen Field to the needs of television and the spacing needed for the reasons of the pandemic.

I'm fortunate enough to have the two teams that I pull for in the National League play in the best two parks in baseball.
Unless you are a ridiculously biased homer, your rankings for the best park in baseball must have Pittsburgh's PNC Park and San Francisco's Oracle Park at either 1-2 or 2-1.
If you don't, well you are wrong.

The Athletic writes of the rejected designs for PNC Park that might have ruined such a terrific stadium and takes a glance at the past to the stadium hat was so awful that Oracle Park was needed in order to keep the Giants in San Francisco.
A few of the designs for PNC Park that didn't make the cut included using red brick as the material, trying to give the exterior an appearance of a neighborhood with rowhouses painted around the stadium, and another bought fully into the Pirate motif with a huge pirate ship in the right-field concourse.
In San Francisco, the article searches for the point in time that the city and the Giants discovered that building Candlestick Park in the location that was decided led to disastrous conditions such as constant heavy wind conditions.
Candlestick was also baffled with several issues in building the stadium as the architect and contractor couldn't get along, a heating system that was planned turned out to be a flop, and did I mention the wind??

The final Athletic note discusses the fall of pro basketball in Pittsburgh after the ABA Pipers and Condors ended their run in the Steel City with pro basketball never to return.
Quite a few stories about the ABA and a theory on how the final blow was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who never played in Pittsburgh.
My favorite is the oft-told story of the Condors giving away 1,000 cupcakes to a fan and when the fan was asked about the cupcakes, he responded that he was diabetic and the few members of the crowd predictably booed.

Sports Illustrated remembers the 1984-85 Cavaliers as the NBA playoffs begin.
Those Cavaliers were coming off the Ted Stepien years that endangered the franchise on the court with terrible teams and off the court with threats from Stepien that he would move the team to Toronto or a bizarre idea that would change the name to the Ohio Cavaliers and split home games between Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Toronto- the final two not residing in Ohio (And skipping the largest Ohio city in Columbus).
With rookie coach George Karl running an offense that didn't accentuate the positive of the team's best scorer, World B. Free, the Cavaliers stumbled to a 2-19 start before finishing 34-25 to earn the final spot in the Eastern Conference and giving top-seeded Boston all they wanted in losing three games to one.
The three Boston wins were by a combined seven points which shows how close to beating Boston the Cavaliers were to what would have been the biggest upset in NBA playoff history.

The New York Post finishes with an article on former 1980 American hockey star Mark Pavelich and his recent troubles.
Pavelich was part of the Miracle on Ice team that stunned the world with their gold medal run and his NHL seven-year career was solid, spent mostly with the Rangers.
Pavelich scored over thirty goals twice with his career-high 37 goals in 1982-83, but had a few tragedies in his post-NHL career and may have brain issues from concussions suffered during career.
Pavelich has spent the last year in a psychiatric facility after beating a neighbor with a pipe but was recently moved from a high-security facility to a lower-level facility for his continued treatment.

Cleaning out the inbox

Back to the still overflowing inbox that has more non-sports content than sports, so I'll get the sports items out of there now and try to continue soon with the rest!

Sorry to hear of the passing of former Denver Broncos and Denver Gold head coach Red Miller at the age of 89.
Miller, who brought the Broncos to their first Super Bowl in the 1977 season, coached the Broncos to the playoffs in the first three seasons that he coached and his final year saw him go 8-8 before being fired.
I never understood why Miller got fired even then (I've noted I was a Denver fan as a kid) for the sin of going .500 one season and I've never been able to figure out with a record of 40-22 that Miller was never given another chance in the league.
Miller coached the Denver Gold in the first season of the league but didn't make through the season.

The San Jose Mercury-News and Daniel Brown has a great article on the search for the suddenly absent Tim Lincecum.
The former Giant ace, who struggled through a comeback attempt in 2016 with the Angels hasn't been in the public spotlight since.
Brown's travels took him to Lincecum's high school, college (University of Washington) and travels while writing about the pitcher's career.
I really enjoyed reading this...

Another Giants pitching star of the same age that has seen his struggles over the last few season announced his retirement today as Matt Cain will make his final start in the game with his Saturday start against the Padres in San Francisco.
Cain, who turns 33 on Monday, has struggled over the last few seasons and was just 3-11 with a 5.66 ERA in 2016.
The former Hagerstown Sun walks away with a career record of 104-118 and as the only Giant to ever pitch a perfect game- vs the Astros in 2012.
I may do a longer piece on Cain next week...

The attention in college football might be mostly going towards Sam Darnold of USC, Josh Rosen of UCLA and Penn State's Saquon Barkley, but the best player in college football just might not even play for a Power Five conference as the American Athletic Conference's Houston Cougars possesses a defensive lineman that makes plays that you just don't see every day or even year in Ed Oliver.
I've seen Oliver triple-teamed at times and during the Cougars game vs Texas Tech last week, saw ten men off the line of scrimmage and only rushed Oliver, who still managed to pressure the Red Raider quarterback and that's a semi-official pressure, not just a somewhere near the passer.
ESPN writes about Oliver, how the Cougars landed him and his commitment to the city of Houston.
On and off the field, Ed Oliver is going to be a fortunate addition to some city and franchise in the NFL soon.

This is over now, but the Buffalo Bisons recently found a way to boost income without playing a game as the team designed a golf course on (yes on) the outfield at Coca-Cola Field with nine holes with "different" stipulations for each hole such as wearing a football helmet, drinking a beer and sinking a putt with a Happy Gilmore inspired putter....

I'll wrap up with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's article on the DuraEdge playing surface or specially blended dirt and its base in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania.
DuraEdge is used by 21 major league teams as their infield surface and founder Grant McKnight says it saves many games each year with its terrific drainage system.
The article looks at how it's made,blended and how it actually plays on the field....