July 6, 2017
HIATUS
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Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High
Time to wrap up and put a bow on the 2016-2017 year in Louisiana sports. Honestly, for those that know me, that means the Saints, Pelicans, and LSU sports.
The fall/winter sports are easy to reflect upon. Let’s put a brick in that box of memories and let it sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Thank goodness the LSU spring sports stepped up. I was already a gymnastics fan, but after the football and basketball seasons, I was more invested than normal as I starved to see success.
LSU softball and baseball had us all worried as late as the middle of April. Thankfully, both teams gave us a bunch of great memories in the postseason.
Overall, we should have seen much of the troubles from 2016-17 coming. Which leads to the obvious question, can we expect better in 2017-18? I think so.
Let’s work backwards. Instead of taking football first, let’s take a look at LSU baseball this week and work our way back to football in the coming weeks.
Naturally, it there is a lot to learn about the LSU baseball team before we can analyze what type of team LSU will have next year. For one, the roster is never finalized for baseball until late August. Still, we can look at the team as a whole and make some general conclusions.
Defensively, LSU should be very good again. Watson and Duplantis are very good, and the new outfielder will be fast. We have seen Smith and Slaughter play defense, so they will be good at two of the four infield positions. The biggest hole will be replacing Pap. Coomes played well when he had the chance this year.
Offensively, it feels as though LSU is always looking for a prototypical leadoff hitter. My early vote will be to give Josh Smith the first chance. I like his approach in the leadoff position. We know Duplantis and Watson will bat at the top of the order.
The coaches will be looking for a powerful bat to replace Deichmann and there are plenty of intriguing candidates. Bryce Jordan will return from injury. Rankin Woley has plenty of pop in his bat if he can make some adjustments and become a little more selective. Hunter Feduccia is a name to remember. He will be a catcher coming from LSU-Eunice, and that is a program that has really helped LSU baseball recently. The most interesting candidate will be Nick Storz. Coach Mainieri has not allowed anyone to hit and pitch in a while, but Storz might do both. At 6’6”, he is very powerful, but he is a great pitching prospect as well.
As for the pitchers, LSU has plenty to holes to fill. Anytime a SEC team has to replace their friday night starter, it is cause for concern. Coach Mainieri will have a tough decision regarding Zack Hess. I know the assumption is that Hess will move back to a starter’s role, but I don’t think it will be that easy. We have seen him start and he is just another guy. As a closer he is electric!
Hopefully, Walker’s arm is OK, and he is the logical choice to start on Saturday next year. Hess, Storz, Gilbert, and Peterson have starting potential. At the same time, we know the importance of closing the game. LSU has a junior college pitcher named Taylor Peterson who struck out 62 batters in 35 innings with 7 saves this year. He will certainly get a chance to close games. Bush, Beck, Bain, and Reese are guys who now have some experience and should be expected to contribute in relief.
In summary, the Tigers will have a very good pitching staff again next year. The biggest concern though will be finding the Friday night starter. As for the lineup, the expectation should be similar to this year. LSU is going to have a quality lineup that hits between.290 and.300. If the team gets hot and comes together late again, LSU could make another run in the postseason.
HEY REF
To all those that know pretty much the way this writer sees things when we talk athletes and money this week’s column will not surprise many. I’ll start close to home with the signing of New Orleans Pelicans’ point guard Jrue Holiday. You’d think the new contract that keeps him in the Big Easy for at least another five years and pays him $126 million would make headlines around the league.
But it doesn’t as NBA Champion Golden State trumped his new deal with what has got to be the most idiotic offer and insane contract ever when Stephen Curry didn’t waste time in accepting another deal for five years but his salary will be, are you ready for this, $201 million! Has insanity reached its apex yet?
Curry will average a mere $40 million a year. Here’s some easy math to debate you’re fellow workers while busting your butt to make a massive salary of $30,000.00 a year (remember what state you’re living in) while at the water barrel for the next few days. My easy math says that for 100 games Golden State is on the hook for $400,000.00 PER GAME. Breaking that number down just a little, if that’s possible, each quarter of a game he’ll make $100,000.00.
If we divide that just a little more the number my calculator comes up with on a per minute basis is a shocking $8,333.33. Sorry about that little delay as my “ticker” has just told my pea brain that those numbers don’t compute. In a real world those numbers are only for CEOs of fortune 500 companies. And we all know they’re robbing the rest of the world with their demands as the story goes “that if you want the best” and so on which I don’t believe.
But to pay a single athlete more than $8 grand a minute has got to be @##***%$$#@***^%%$%%%###, if you get my drift. (Remember this is a family paper). I just can’t rationalize these numbers as so many of us have fallen so far behind in our daily grind to have a nice home, a family and enough left in the bank at the end of the month to afford luxuries such as running water, indoor plumbing and electricity.
What I’m about to write is in no way intended to sound raciest, it is of the one thing “Hey Ref” stands for and it’s the TRUTH! I couldn’t find anything to watch a couple weeks ago so I tuned in and watch the final game of this year’s final. As I watched it became all too clear that 90% to 95% of the fans in the seats were WHITE. I kept looking for other races just to see how many if any were African-American. As hard as I looked I failed my quest of seeing more “Homies” jumping up out of their seats and cheering on two of the finest basketball teams in the NBA.
And too I failed to see many if not any groups of just 10 or so African-American fans that had come to the arena and sat together. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the cost of attending professional sports shows have reached a point where so many of the very people that helped these high priced entertainers in their early days have now been left out in the cold.
It wasn’t until the game was over that the families and friends of the players were allowed to celebrate on the court. It was then and only then that you could see in fact that African-Americans had indeed been inside the building. I bring this up because these entertainers have caused so many of their friends to be priced out of attending a game live. I’ve been unable to attend a professional game for at least twenty or more years and if more owners continue to demand billion dollar stadiums from states and taxpayers the number of us not able to watch a game live will soon go by the way of T-Rex.
Until next week…
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