March 1, 2018
COWBOYS BASEBALL/SOFTBALL ON KEZM!
SportsRadio-1310-KEZM-Lake Charles will be airing select McNeese Baseball and softball games in 2018. Broadcasts can also be heard on the Internet at KEZMOnLine.com
The first broadcast will be this Wednesday, March 7, 5:45 pm airtime, when McNeese Baseball visits the University of Houston.
ASTROS BASEBALL ON KEZM!
SportsRadio-1310-KEZM-Lake Charles is airing all Houston Astros Baseball games, including the pre-season!
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ON HIATUS
SportsCentral is taking some time off. WE HOPE TO HAVE AN UPDATE FOR YOU SOMETIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE. AS SOON AS THE STATUS OF THE PROGRAM HAS BEEN DETERMINED, WE’LL PASS IT ON TO YOU.
BATON ROUGE AREA BROADCASTING SCHEDULE:
THURSDAY: SPORTSCENTRAL: ON HIATUS 5pm—6pm: Central First Facebook Page… … Les Bueche, Sid Edwards, Frank Fresina… ON HIATUS
SPORTSRADIO-1310-KEZM-LAKE CHARLES (AND KEZMONLINE. COM) BROADCASTS
WED, MARCH 7: 5:45pm McNeese Baseball at University of Houston
HOUSTON ASTROS BASEBALL PRE-SEASON GAMES (On radio, no Internet coverage)
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THE WIZARDRY OF OS
Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High
Skip Bertman used to call it the pressure barrier, and pitchers had to “graduate” to break through it. This is LSU Baseball in 2018.
Cam Sanders is the best example. He has a loose arm, the fastball has “run”, and the curveball is nasty. The talent is obvious. Yet in his first start he didn’t get an out, and he almost didn’t make it out the first inning against Grambling.
The Alan Dunn came out, probably reminded Sanders that it is the same game he played last year and the year before that, and Sanders threw three straight curveballs for strikes. After that, he settled in and you could see his confidence grow. Has he permanently broken through the pressure barrier of pitching for LSU? Maybe.
The LSU pitching staff may have as much overall talent as any in recent memory without having the one dominating ace like Gausman, Nola, or Lange. Especially, if Labas and Storz (currently injured) are as good as advertised. But, almost all of them are new to LSU and must break through the pressure barrier. After that, Mainieri and Dunn will have to find the role that is best for each pitcher for this year’s team. Talk about a slow process.
The process will be slow and ugly at times. Ugly like it was for the first 5 innings Saturday, and all 9 innings Sunday against Texas. That is why the Watson has to get healthy and hot soon.
In recent years, LSU has had starting pitchers go 7-9 innings on a regular basis on the weekend. Many times, LSU will only use a starter and one reliever Friday and Saturday. This may be a year where LSU only asks it starters to go 4-6 innings, and then the bullpen pieces together the last 3-5 innings.
I don’t know how it will work, and I am sure Mainieri and Dunn don’t know right now either. Fortunately, Mainieri has always shown that by the middle of the year he gets a good understanding of his team and his players. Then he is willing to make the adjustments necessary to get his team playing its best at the end.
Like I said last week, Tiger fans have to hope this team can piece together enough wins against a quality schedule at the start of the year to be in the hunt at the end of the year.
HEY REF
And here we go yet again. NFL owners for some strange reason feel they must tinker with the playing rules every year for one of two reasons; (A) To make the game more exciting or (B) To correct their melding with said rules and therefore must do something to save face. Maybe they’re also trying to feel a little bit of being needed. For all intended purposes I’ll put my money on “B”.
If we look at the game and the rules by which it’s being played under today and much of the past 10 years the majority of rule changing going on has made their game more exciting. That is if you think an NFL game is exciting to watch. One rule that I think needs being taken out of the rulebook is the one where a defensive back cannot touch an eligible receiver after the receiver has gone 5 yards downfield. With the use of multiple cameras from various angles and computers aiding the on field crew of officials it would make it much easier to know when a football has left the quarterback’s hand. To me that would be the main factor in calling pass interference with side of the line of scrimmage.
I’ve not watched many NFL games in the past ten years or so simply because to me it resembles carnival workers acting like 3 year old kids at recess. And since this is a family newspaper the best way I can describe an NFL game is it borders on the behavior of high priced clowns needing attention since from the very first tackle that is made the players jump up and down as if they were on an Easter egg hunt. Whenever I would see this type of attention grabbing I’d ask the guilty player “is this your first game”? If he said “no” then I’d respond “then act like you’ve made a tackle before”.
I know today’s children are very spoiled and need excessive amounts of attention just to get through the day. But these attention grabbing players just turn me off since it’s their jobs to run with the ball, catch the ball, throw the ball or tackle someone doing those things. Before the start of the 2017 season owners changed the rule banning excessive celebrations after a score or big play. Players worked all summer long on their touchdown celebrations almost as often as they did the plays they’re being paid to execute. That rule change was supposed to get the fans off their collective buttocks and make noise. If you like that kind of stuff then you enjoyed last season.
I’m looking for teams to hire celebration coaches to insure their teams don’t lose their momentum in close games. But getting back to the rule change getting so much attention right now and that is “What deems a catch in an NFL game”. There’s no need to spend weeks on the proper wording since a catch in the game of football is a very simple thing to achieve, well that is if you’re not one of the 32 owners. I bring this up since I was asked what deems a successful pass and catch in Hey Ref’s world. In this world it’s defined a completed forward pass after an eligible player that gains CONTROLL of a forward thrown ball before it makes contact with the ground. The definition of a backward pass would be the same minus the touching of the ground.
There’s no need to have a six page explanation as to what makes a pass complete. Take your slide rules and drop ‘em in your desk because they aren’t needed on such an easy thing as a completed forward pass. Well that is unless you’re trying to write a rule for the NFL. The only thing that should make it into the rulebook is one word and that word is…
CONTROL! With control you’ve ended the time after the ball is thrown.
Can it really be that easy? Simply stated YES of course sine the game of football isn’t rocket science. So I just hope the owners get a simple definition agreed upon so the NFL can correct those things in its game that don’t need or deserve to be in it. There are two things that I’d love to see pass the NFL’s “Competition Committee” and one would be tighter restrictions on how opposing players use their helmets in tackling an opponent.
The other is a simple change to the game clock inside of 2 minutes of each half in which the time allowed between plays be shortened to 30 seconds instead of the tradition 40 seconds now in effect. I know it’s a minor thing but I hate watching a game where a team needs another possession in which a score would turn the results around. In some games the change would put a stop to “dead” time where one team just has to snap the ball and the game’s over. We always hear coaches say to play a full 60 minutes but the way it is now many games are only contested 58 minutes.
It’s going to be interesting to see just how long it takes the NFL to finally define a catch as a player gaining control of a thrown ball. It took “Hey Ref” less than 60 seconds to simplify the rule. And it’s one everybody can understand and play under.
Till next week… …
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