Raider Red, Ryan,Emily Jones and Me

I'm pretty excited about tonight's Texas Tech attempt to win the national championship.

I've written many times on my Tech football fandom here, and as Ryan can tell you, he grew up with a tapestry of Raider Red on a wall in our apartment proclaiming this as "Raider Country:
BTW-I would have loved an OSU version, but never saw one.

However, I'm not sure if I have ever mentioned my basketball fandom, which peaked in the SWC, pre-Bob Knight days when Tech dominated the waning days of the SWC with a wide-open running style of play with four players that would play in the NBA, although not star in Jason Sasser, Cory Carr, dunk master Darwin Ham and lottery selection Tony Battie.

Those Red Raiders would go 30-2, make the Sweet Sixteen with a beating of North Carolina, and produce one tremendous Sports Illustrated cover of Darwin Ham crushing a backboard, as a young Ryan and I watched a ton of those games through cable television and the tape trading hobby through a trader in Texas.

Fox Sports Texas used an announcer named Bill Land on most of these games and his catchphrase on a big play or dunk of "HO Mama" is one I still think of a lot when watching basketball games!
Between those tapes and a newsletter that was written by a fellow named Bill Peters, named the Double T Times, I was more than an insider on Tech sports, as Peters used to tell me in conversations that I was his only subscriber in the state of Maryland!

Tech was coached then by James Dickey, who was an Eddie Sutton disciple and, other than Tom Penders at Texas, dominated the SWC.
The Tech-UT games always determined the boss in the league and featured teams that would run up and down the floor.
Ryan's always been a Badger fan, but I bet if you asked him about a few of those above names, he could give you some memories and maybe even a smile if he was in the right mood.

Another player on those teams was a guy named Lance Hughes, who looked like the kid bagging your groceries, but was a hustling type who was also quite a leaper.
I often joke about certain players back then seeming like they played for nine years at their school-Lance Hughes was one of those guys, just seemed like he had been playing there forever.

Tech's run would end in the Sweet Sixteen with another up-and-down game against Georgetown, with a 98-90 loss, but looked to be set for a while entering the new Big 12.
The Red Raiders won 19 games and appeared to be headed to the big dance again, but during the Big 12 tournament, a scandal emerged over several sports, including basketball.

Tech removed itself from the postseason after discovering two players had played despite academic ineligibility and the resulting scholarship removals meant the destruction of the program with three losing seasons in a row and the firing of Dickey, who wouldn't be a head coach for ten years before a four year run at Houston, where it was Dickey that set the table for the current success of the Cougars under his replacement Kelvin Sampson.

I always respected Bob Knight, and he had success at Tech, replacing Dickey with NCAA appearances and a Sweet Sixteen, but Knight's team played a slower game, and they just weren't as fun to watch.
When Tech made the tournament, I still rooted for them, but the same connections weren't there from those '90s times.

Lubbock and, therefore, Tech have always been a tough place to recruit from for players and coaches, which is why Tech is going to have a huge problem keeping Chris Beard over the long term, no matter his protests about Tech (where he was a long-time assistant to Knight) being his dream job.
Unless Beard is completely honest about that (and if he is, he could make Tech the type of job that 20 years from now that a state school like Kansas is looked at today), some traditional filled school will likely land him eventually.

During those videotape trading days, where I would get tapes of games, coach's shows, and season previews from around the country in those pre-internet days saw lots of videos from Texas (for Tech), Ohio (OSU, and various small teams), and with those shows, you would see different hosts and during those shows, you would see lots of hosts.
When you deal with college teams, you would see lots of younger talent, with most either just out of college or even doing such work as part of their field of study and still enrolled.

One of these was a young lady named Emily Jones, who would host these previews for the various teams in Texas and the Big 12.
I instantly became a fan of her work, and you could see she was going to be really good in the industry, no matter the capacity.
I always had a feeling that, despite being the host for these teams, she was a Tech fan/supporter/student, etc.
I had no concrete reason for thinking that, just a feeling, and years later, with the internet and the MLB package, I discovered that not only had Emily made it big as the reporter during Texas Rangers games, but she was, in fact, a Tech grad- a rare occasion where my feelings were correct!

Looking back on sports, it's odd to have feelings more about the past than the present.
That's the opposite of what so many say on how to live your life- Look forward, not back, etc.
However, in sports, it's the other way around. It is looking over your shoulder rather than down the road that makes the present mean a little more.
The memories are what make these little games important, and the people you share them with, whether you know them personally or not.

So, I'll be cheering hard for the Red Raiders tonight and win or lose, I'll be thinking and raising a glass of lemonade to James Dickey, those 95-96 Red Raiders, Emily Jones (now Jones-McCoy), Bill Land, those tape traders in Texas that made a guy in Maryland able to watch those games and of course Ryan, wherever they are tonight and making a usually dreary game for me involving the same college heavyweights exciting.
If not, for all of you, it would be just another game- Guns Up and Ho Mama- Indeed.

Browns sign Morgan Burnett,Garrett Gilbert

The Cleveland Browns continued to rebuild the backside of their defense and added the veteran safety that the team had been looking for as the team signed Morgan Burnett, most recently released by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but importantly a former Green Bay Packer, to a two-year contract worth nine million dollars.

Front office residents Eliot Wolf and Alonzo Highsmith are very familiar with Burnett's play from their days in Green Bay and should Burnett return to that level of performance in Cleveland, the team should be very pleased, but there are questions.
The first is- can Burnett return to his days as a Packer?
Burnett was thought to be a top signing last year when the Steelers inked him to a contract, but Burnett was beaten out at safety by Pittsburgh's top draftee Terrell Edmunds and spent most of his season miscast at inside linebacker.
Burnett's desire to return to safety led to a demand to be released and after the Steelers were unable to trade Burnett after attempts to do so failed, the Steelers knuckled under and did so.
Burnett is an excellent tackler against the run and is among the best in the league among safeties, so if Burnett can do that at 30 years of age, the Browns have likely upgraded over the traded Jabrill Peppers in tackling, if not in athletic ability.

The other issue with Burnett is durability.
Burnett has not played a complete 16 game season in six years and even though Burnett only missed a few games each year, he still misses time, which makes the recent trade for Eric Murray with the Chiefs make a little more sense as if you assume that part of the package of having Burnett means that you need to prepare to be without him for a few games, so a solid backup is more than a luxury.
The signing of Morgan Burnett comes with a mild risk that his year in Pittsburgh was a sign that he may not be the player that he once was, but I think it could be a motivator for Burnett and a motivated Burnett is an All-Pro level safety.
I would have normally added a Burnett highlight video here, but the few that I found comes with music that just drives me nuts.
So many of these talented people do such great work putting together these highlight videos with perfect cuts and jumps, only to ruin it with music that distracts rather than adds to the presentation,

The Browns also signed an AAF alumnus in quarterback Garrett Gilbert.
The 27 year old son of former NFL journeyman Gale Gilbert, who played his college football at both Texas and SMU before being a sixth-round draftee by the Rams in 2014, spent time in camps and on rosters for various teams before throwing his first three NFL passes last year for Carolina in their last game of the season after the Panthers starter in that game- third-stringer Kyle Allen was injured.
Gilbert was likely to win the AAF's MVP or offensive player of the year as the signal caller for the Orlando Apollos, who won seven of their eight games with their only loss to "your" Arizona Hotshots 22-17 before the league was folded earlier this week.
Under the tutelage of Steve Spurrier, Gilbert threw for over two thousand yards in those eight games with 13 touchdowns against only three interceptions in the developmental league and along with Arizona's John Wolford (Wolford threw more touchdown passes 14, but more interceptions with 7) were head and shoulders above any other passer in the league.
Spurrier's offenses were always dominant as a college coach and in the rival leagues (Spurrier also was the head coach for all three seasons of the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits and the well-remembered Bandit Ball), but his quarterbacks never fared well at the NFL level ( his best NFL product was likely Rex Grossman
) from his college coaching career and his USFL quarterbacks would only receive NFL chances in the 1987 strike games so Gilbert may have learned plenty from Spurrier, but that doesn't always convert to success in the NFL.
However, I think that Gilbert has a chance to make this team and here's why- Gilbert attended the same high school (Austin Lake Travis) as Baker Mayfield, preceding Mayfield by a few years and they have a friendship dating from Mayfield's childhood when Gilbert was the top-rated quarterback recruit in the nation at Lake Travis.
There is an opening with Tyrod Taylor electing to pursue free agency and it would make a lot of sense to put Gilbert, who Mayfield respects on a personal level, with Drew Stanton as the veteran mentor that has played in the league in the quarterback room to help Mayfield along in his development.
It is very possible that the Browns are likely to draft a quarterback in the later rounds as a developmental project so that potential player will likely be the player that Gilbert will battle to make the Browns.

The Slam that Sucker Down Tour 2019 begins

Apologies to the late "American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, who had the annoying habit (at least to me) of naming every small "tour" with some sort of slogan, for the title of this post.

Rhodes named one of these events the "Slam that Sucker Down" tour and I thought of that recently as I prepared for the season when a memory of a player crossed my mind that didn't enjoy signing very much would take the marker of choice and slam the marker down hard on the books that some collectors use to hold their cards in.
I've never used the book and managed to fight the trend of people moving in that direction (which was not difficult to do, considering the fiasco that occurred on a trip when I tried it on a test run) ,but this particular player seemed to enjoy doing that to see if he could knock the book out of their hands.

So, even though that never happened to me, the 2019 season will unofficially be named as above and I'll try to do a better job documenting the season in graphing as I did in the past.
I've done a decent job in keeping the trips noted here, but the everyday stories along the circuit have been lost along the way, much as I haven't put the last two seasons cards in binders, as usual, instead of having all of them in a 5,000 count box!

This was going to be our fourth visit to Altoona Pa (Again, for some stupid reason hear the Michael Hayes song "Badstreet USA" in my head, when I think Altoona PA) for the Meet the Curve night.


Mike Oravec and I had gone the previous three times with Kendall Morris, but Kendall couldn't make it this time, so Mike's son John and the always chipper Fred Landucci jumped in and passed on his hometown Harrisburg Senators in order to try the Altoona version.
Brett Shaw always takes care of us with tickets to the event and the team and the event host- the Casino at Lakemont does such an excellent job with the food and especially the production of the event.
Everything that is held during this event is coordinated and the first event was almost exactly the same as the last one.
We sat for a few minutes, were welcomed to the casino, told that it was time to eat, moved to the buffet and enjoyed dinner.
After dinner, the 2019 Curve was introduced to the fans and manager Michael Ryan spoke for a few minutes before a door prize drawing for a handful of various Curve items.
John was lucky enough to win one and I believe I remember him choosing a Tony Beasley (Former Curve manager) nesting doll as his prize.
Nesting dolls are basically multiple pieces hollowed out tubes that are painted with a subject and each of the dolls are smaller than the others so that all can fit inside the largest of these.
I have a Hawk Harrelson version that was a White Sox giveaway and they are kind of neat, although I doubt that I would collect them on a large scale.

We usually leave a bit earlier before the other proceedings in order to get a good place in line.
When all of those events are over, the team moves to a second-floor banquet room that they have arranged in order to sign autographs.
This year's Curve isn't loaded with prospects like last year's team that starred Mitch Keller and KeBryan Hayes among a few others, but when teams don't have prospects like last year's team, the crowd is smaller and the players are more likely to sign more items.
I didn't have a lot, most of the players from last season's Bradenton team set with a few hangers on from other team sets.
What was a little different was that I was mildly surprised by the number of players that asked why I didn't have anything for them to sign.
More often than not, the answer to that is that I have gotten their cards signed earlier from that player or that the player in question was not in a team set for a particular year.

We buzzed through the line in about 25 minutes and every card that arrived with me returned signed, so it was a good night all around that was only ruined by a work snafu that saw me arrive at work only to be sent home on a scheduling error, that was discovered to be not mine and was apologized for by my boss, which was nice enough although it didn't put the money back in my pocket, haha!

I always enjoy Altoona and their event as it's a great start to the season, but it also means the end of a long winter with lots of baseball ahead.
Thanks again to Brett Shaw for taking care of us!

If time permits, back later with the Browns addressing the safety position and even a trip to Frederick to try once again add Luis Robert for my top 100 set.

Good while it lasted- AAF suspends operations.

It was good while it lasted.

The game that I wrote about a few days ago with the Hotshots defeating San Antonio has turned out to be the final game in AAF history as it appears the man that the league brought into the AAF to shore things up a bit after two weeks has decided six weeks later to shut the league and more than likely end its existence.

Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon was trying to work out a deal with the NFLPA to bring a few lower-level players from each NFL team to help shore up the league's rosters and threatened to shut the league's doors without an agreement.

Why this couldn't have waited until the final two weeks of the season had been concluded is one of the biggest questions that I have about all of this.
If the AAF needed this agreement with the NFLPA so badly, why immediately?
I may have understood if there were six or eight games to go, but only two?

And if the league's financial situation was so dire, signing an NFL agreement wasn't going to change things for this season, so why eliminate these games?

My biggest question of all is this- If the league wanted to continue as claimed, couldn't the league have canceled the final two weeks, held the Eastern and Western finals as Orlando and Birmingham had clinched spots in the East and Arizona and San Antonio were two games ahead of San Diego and Salt Lake with those two weeks to go, so it wouldn't have been unreasonable to match the Hotshots and Commanders for their title out West.
Wouldn't a league that wanted to survive have been better suited to claim the season a success with growing pains to play the two divisional finals and title game, even if it meant canceling the ninth and tenth weeks of the season?

Plus, CBS had picked up the championship game for prime time viewing, and look at the exposure that would have given the league.

The most plausible answer to all of this that I have seen is that Dundon had no interest in the AAF, but he was more interested in the league's app, which had gambling software that could be quite a money maker with gambling and fantasy football built into it.
If that's the case, I can understand Dundon wanting that software for its eventual value, but what doesn't make sense is why an owner of an NHL team would willingly muddy his name so quickly in sports?
Dundon's behavior in this has been reprehensible, and he deserves to be the largest villain.

The league didn't draw live crowds in big numbers, although San Antonio did the best job in supporting their Commanders and in my opinion, should be considered as the first XFL expansion team, or even immediately, if one team that is currently in their plans drops out.

The television ratings were decent enough, and the league may have made a mistake giving the networks the product for free to prove themselves.
The idea sounded good, but whatever the networks would have paid would have helped somewhat in staggering to the end.

Reports are beginning to roll in about unpaid bills, players and coaches on their own to return to their homes, and other problems, so things were bleaker than presented, which more often than not is the case with new leagues, but the league did some positive things.

I loved the Sky Judge to overrule the awful call that none of the on-field officials saw, and since the NFL has made the onside kick so difficult to recover, their one play "4th and 12" to keep the ball seems interesting to consider.

I thought the play was better than most expected, although the long-term was going to depend on how many young quarterbacks would play in the league to lift the quarterback talent, because there just wasn't enough talent in the eight-team AAF at quarterback right now, let alone considering adding the XFL teams next year.
I'm not sure that the league will produce any future All-Pros, but I'm sure there will be some alumni sprinkled around the NFL next year.

I'll miss the league and the Arizona Hotshots.
It's always fun following these leagues and teams, even if they are destined to break your heart when they don't work out.
I suppose it's now time to carve that Arizona Hotshots gravestone and set it into the cemetery of TRS defunct teams that meant so much as they join the likes of the Southern California Sun, Chicago Blitz, Arizona Wranglers, Memphis Showboats, San Francisco Demons, Kentucky Colonels, and Cleveland Crusaders in a place where only memories reside.

Now, it's a matter of deciding what XFL team I'll be covering in ten short months. 

Giants obtain Kevin Pillar

The San Francisco Giants have questions.
A lot of questions, but one of them was addressed yesterday as the team added veteran outfielder Kevin Pillar from the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for three players that weren't in the immediate plans of the tornado vortex that surrounds general manager Farhan Zaidi.

The 30-year-old Pillar hit .252 last season for Toronto with 15 homers, 59 RBI and 14 steals and will earn 5.8 million this season before being arbitration eligible for the 2020 season.
Pillar's bat is average at best, but he's been in double digits in homers in three of his four full seasons and in steals each of the season, so he's not awful, but he's not the type of player that will provide a large jolt of offense to the Giants outfield that is in desperate need of such a player.

What Kevin Pillar does bring is this- a Gold Glove level defender that will flat out cover some ground in Oracle Park (Bear with me, it's going to take a while before that rolls right off the page naturally).
Defense in Oracle's vast outfield is always going to be more important to the Giants than it would be for many other teams and the ability of Pillar to save some runs defensively will be a welcomed addition to a Giants pitching staff that looked behind them in the first week of the season to see Michael Reed (Designated for assignment to make space for Pillar) and Connor Joe in the outfield, which likely did not raise their confidence.

The Giants traded three players for Pillar, minor league pitchers Juan DePaula and Derek Law along with utilityman Alen Hanson.
DePaula was assigned to start the season with low A Augusta after being acquired in last August's Andrew McCutchen trade with the Yankees, while Law was at AAA Sacramento and Hanson had been designated for assignment.
Law had pitched well for the Giants in 61 appearances in 2016, but struggled badly in 2017 and spent most of last season in Sacramento, so a change of scenery might have been best for him.
Hanson, a one time top prospect with the Pirates, appeared to have turned his career around last season with the Giants hitting .252 with eight homers along with being able to play several positions, but with a team that is carrying two rule five players for the season in Travis Bergen and Connor Joe, roster space was at a premium.

Will Kevin Pillar be the answer to contending?
Hardly. but he'll be a defensive help, with an occasional homer, etc and with Gerardo Parra and Steven Duggar will form a strong defensive outfield, if not one that will remind anyone of a good hitting one.
I'm a little disappointed to lose Juan DePaula, but not thoroughly upset, while Derek Law and Alen Hanson were spare parts.
Good for the Giants for at least trying to upgrade a little for the next two seasons and at not a cheap price, but counting on this as a major acquisition or a long-term foundation piece is a bit of a stretch,

Back later with the demise of the AAF and my thoughts on that and the baseball season beginning last night in Altoona.

Browns trade Ogbah to Chiefs for Eric Murray

John Dorsey still isn't finished retooling the Cleveland Browns before the draft as he released three more draftees from the Sashi Brown tenure and traded another to a familiar site for a familiar face to Dorsey.

The trade is the biggest news as Dorsey sent Emmanuel Ogbah to the Kansas City Chiefs in return for safety Eric Murray.

Ogbah was the first pick in the second round in the 2016 draft, and in 2016, he showed occasional bursts of breaking out as a pass rusher.
Ogbah was expected to flourish playing the opposite defensive end from Myles Garrett, but he missed six games in 2017 and two more in 2018 and combined for only seven sacks in those games.

Ogbah was expected to provide the needed non-Garrett pass rush entering last season and was pointed to by Dorsey, Garrett, and then defensive coordinator Gregg Williams as one of the reasons the Browns passed on Bradley Chubb with the fourth pick in favor of cornerback Denzel Ward.

While few are groaning about the selection of Ward, Chubb's success only helped to magnify the disappointment from Ogbah's performance and when John Dorsey was able to add Sheldon Richardson and Olivier Vernon, it was pretty clear that Ogbah was going to be a rotational player at best and would have to make a shift inside to earn any significant playing time.

As for Eric Murray, I don't claim to know a lot about the 2016 4th round pick as a pro, although I do remember him from his college days as a Minnesota Golden Gopher, where he was a good player on an average team.

Murray made 43 solo tackles with an interception last season as an occasional starter, but reading the responses of Chiefs fans, they don't seem to think he is a big loss and think they won this trade by a mile.
His one interception made highlights all season for plays of the year, but still, it was his only interception of the campaign, so it's not like he was a huge playmaker.
Murray will get a chance to play for the Browns with their sudden need at safety after their pre-draft moves, but he is far from a sure thing.


The Browns were expected to give Derrick Kindred the chance to grab the safety spot vacated by the traded Jabrill Peppers, but either John Dorsey wanted his former draftee in Murray, likes another veteran free agent (Eric Berry or Morgan Burnett could be possibilities) or will be using a draft pick or two on a safety because Kindred along with two other Sashi Brown draftees (Ricardo Louis and Howard Wilson) were released.
Add those three with Emmanuel Ogbah, and the Browns purged four "Brown picks" in one day.

Kindred was the Browns' fourth-round pick in 2016 from TCU and started 17 games in the three years that he spent in Cleveland.
Kindred didn't play as well last season as in his first two, but was expected to return and was the surprise release of the day.
Again, safety will have to be addressed now in some form, even if just for depth.

Ricardo Louis was also a 4th rounder in 2016 from Auburn and played every game for his first two seasons, finishing with 45 catches for over 500 yards.

Scott Dryden once referred to Louis as "Having everything it takes to be a top wide receiver except for hands and route running ability".

Since both of those factors are a large part of the success for any wide receiver, it's easy to see why Louis didn't work out.
Louis suffered a neck injury and missed all of the 2018 season, so he was unlikely to make the team.

Howard Wilson was a cornerback from Houston that I liked in 2017, and the Browns traded up to take him in the fourth round.
I had seen a lot of Wilson as a Cougar, and even though I preferred Iowa's Desmond King (King was an All-Pro last year and was still on the board), I thought Wilson was a solid selection, and he might have been.
IF Wilson hadn't broken his kneecap on his second day of mini-camp!
AND if Wilson didn't have a patella tendon surgery last June that didn't heal correctly from the kneecap surgery, he might have been a good cornerback.
We'll have to find out about Wilson from his next stop, as the Browns waived him with a career total of one and a half practices in two seasons in Cleveland.

I still think John Dorsey isn't finished before the draft.
Safety could still use a veteran, and suddenly there is an issue with Duke Johnson, so who knows where that will take the Browns with a little over three weeks to go before the draft.

Hotshots pound Commanders 23-6,

On a weekend, when rumors were flying about the survival of the AAF, the Arizona Hotshots managed to place those rumors aside and play one of their best games of the season.

The Hotshots used a fast start in scoring the first fifteen points of the game and never looked back as Arizona won their third game in a row with a 23-6 win over San Antonio and their Commanders at the Alamodome.

The win allowed the Hotshots to move into a first-place tie with the Commanders in the Western Division and likely locked up a rematch between the two clubs for the Western championship in the playoffs.

John Wolford threw for 216 yards, which included a 58-yard touchdown strike to Rashard Ross that started the scoring, and Tim Cook scored the other Hotshots touchdowns on the ground.
Arizona improves to 5-3 with the win, and they will play their final home game of the season this Sunday night against Birmingham.

Hot off the Grill

1) The Hotshots started fast and never looked back when John Wolford tossed the 58-yard score to Rashard Ross.
Ross will be at least a second-team all-star when such things are announced, and he clearly had a step plus on the corner, and the safety didn't offer much help, but give Wolford credit too; that pass was on the money.
All the receivers in the world can break open, but it is meaningless if the ball isn't there.

2) And the Hotshot defense is living up to the preseason ratings that thought it was the league's best, as San Antonio managed just two field goals, and with the Commanders in Arizona territory and only down nine, the defense forced a strip of the quarterback and a turnover.

3) The Commanders outrushed Arizona 173-91, but I couldn't figure out why they ran so much down between nine and fifteen points most of the game.
San Antonio uses a stable of backs, so no one stood out, but the amount of yardage was mildly concerning.

4) The Hotshots also grabbed an early interception that led to the removal of the Commanders' starting quarterback, Logan Woodside.
That decision led to backup Marquise Williams entering the game, and Williams is far more of a multi-threat quarterback than a pure passer.
The Hotshots were protecting a lead, and the skills of Williams weren't enough to turn things around.

5) Give credit to the San Antonio fans with a crowd of over 23,000 and even though the Hotshots took the fans out of the game early, San Antonio has been the best market for the AAF and should the worst case scenario occur with the league, Vince McMahon's XFL might want to reconsider one of his markets for 2020 and make sure that the fans of San Antonio still have a team to root for.

6) The words of the newest (and largest) AAF investor, Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon, about the future of the league are worrisome.
Dundon, among others, is attempting to put together an agreement with the NFL to have the league send some players, which mainly would be practice-squad and special-teams type, to the AAF to not only improve the AAF product but give the NFL a way to develop players that ordinarily would not have that opportunity.

The AAF argument is, how can we help you develop players if you won't give us any?
The union is afraid of injury, which I can understand, but the AAF has offered to pay for insurance for any players under an NFL contract.
Dundon could be pushing for leverage, but I'd hate to see this league go under period, but especially this close to the season's end.
Dundon announced minutes ago that there will be an announcement on the league's future tomorrow, fingers crossed for good news.

Back later with a Browns trade and some more releases of players drafted by Sashi Brown.