Looking for A Little Offense
Three-Dot Friday 6.6
It took a Tyrese Haliburton 0.3-second miracle for the Indiana Pacers to win game one of the NBA Finals last night. Today there’s a lot of “THE PACERS ARE FOR REAL” talk. I’m sticking with my prediction of Oklahoma City in five, thank you very much- which means they have to win the next four. If the Pacers can pull this sorcery again on Sunday, I’ll be fine in being wrong. Sometimes it takes a shock to wake up a team that has been essentially cruising, and then they put the hammer down. Haliburton’s game-winner ought to be that shock for OKC…
The Phoenix Suns hired their new head coach this week, and what do you know, it’s the guy who went to Michigan State, the alma mater of their owner, just as was predicted in this space last week. It’s such a bad look that even Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo- who coached both guys in college- has been insisting it’s not intentional.
I’m not really sure why people were surprised that the New York Knicks fired head coach Tom Thibodeau… Anybody who’s watched the Knicks on a semi-regular basis could tell you they have a lot of talent on the floor as they are currently constructed, but it seems like Thibs insists on running such a buttoned-down offense that they don’t- or rather, are instructed not to- play as free as other teams do. That’s on Thibs.
I’ve mentioned this here before: Everybody complains that there are too many threes being taken in the NBA and teams should go back to the kind of offense they ran in the 90’s… until they watch the Knicks, and then pull an Emily Litella and go “Never mind!”
AND BACK TO BASEBALL: The Kansas City Royals just called up their first-round pick from last year, an extraordinarily fast rise through the minors. His name is Jac Caglianone, and he is going to rake. I had been telling a regular reader of this column who lives in Omaha that he needed to go see “The JacHammer” ASAP when he got promoted to the Royals triple-A team in Omaha since almost the beginning of the season. Caglianone joined the Omaha club on May 20th, raked as predicted, and I implored the reader to go see him RIGHT NOW. The reader was going to go to a game this week. Friends, Caglianone got called up Monday.
The videos of guys getting the call to the show are always great. Never forget they’re just kids, and everybody who gets to play in the show is living a dream, no matter how long it lasts.
The San Francisco Giants are in desperate need of power themselves and promoted their top slugger candidate, Bryce Eldridge, to their triple-A team in Sacramento recently. You know, the actual home team of the stadium the West Sacramento Nomads play in. Anyway, Eldridge is going to last longer at triple-A than the JacHammer, but the way the Giants can’t score runs nowadays, it might not be for long.
The thing that will keep Eldridge down for a little while longer is that he is a newly-converted first baseman, and at the major-league level he will be taking rocket throws from third baseman Matt Chapman and shortstop Willy Adames, and he can’t handle those yet. But he will sooner rather than later.
That’s in part because the Giants designated Lamonte Wade Junior for assignment this week, which is a fancy baseball term for laying somebody off. Lamonte was a sensation during the miracle 107-win season of 2021, just like everybody else on the team. He earned the nickname “Late-Night Lamonte” for his late-game batting heroics but was always prone to hamstring injuries and just couldn’t get going this season. And what was his main position? First base. This season at first base was always kind of going to be a mess because Eldridge is the future and they just needed to have someone to be “good enough” until he is ready. With Lamonte gone, that time is coming closer.
However, LMJ will always be part of Giants history for hitting the 100th Splash Hit Home Run into McCovey Cove, a game I attended and was standing not too far away from where Lamonte splashed down. I was able to get my hands on the commemorative bobblehead the next season and it has a prominent place on the top of the refrigerator…
This reminds me of one of the most curious baseball pieces of memorabilia. A significant home run is considered a prize for the batter, yet he was the only person in the play who did not touch the ball personally. Steph Curry had his hands on the basketball for his 4,000th three-pointer, Joe Montana and Dwight Clark both touched the football for “The Catch” and so on.
A batter does not touch his home run ball. The pitcher does, and so does whomever retrieves the ball. But the batter only has his hands on the bat, which then touches the ball, which then goes splash. You and I touch the home run ball as much as the actual home run hitter. Yet in the memorabilia world, the ball is worth more than the bat. Seems to me it should be the other way around.
Of course, as soon as we wonder if the Colorado Rockies will ever win again, they go and win three games in a row for the first time since the Truman administration (only feels like it).
As for the West Sacramento Nomads, they finally won a game as well. The a’s were so bad that you had to dig all the way back to 1943 to find the last time they were 1-20, and it’s just the fourth time in their history they have been 1-20. It happened three times in Philadelphia, but strangely, never in Kansas City…
The first time they did it, naturally, was 1916, a “feat” documented in my book that encompasses all important 1916 events- and as shown by this, are still very relevant today. So, you should get it (ahem).
The 1916 A’s were so bad they only won 36 games the entire season, and are on the short list of the worst teams of the 20th century- they’re my personal pick, if that means anything. 36 wins would feel like a massive success for this year’s Colorado Rockies season.
Which means they are the obvious candidate to sign Lamonte Wade Junior when he becomes a free agent in the next few days. Forget “Late-Night Lamonte,” at this point the Rockies would be happy with “More Frequency Than Nothing Lamonte,” which is their current problem with the entire ballclub…
The Rockies could use Twilight Lamonte, Mid-Afternoon Lamonte and Early Morning Lamonte.
Ah, but does a hockey player touch the puck? Well, guess hockey memorabilia may not be as large or lucrative a market as baseball or football.