Tuesday’s 6-pack:
My six favorite Billy Joel songs:
— Piano Man
— And So It Goes
— She’s Got a Way
— This is the Time
— Only the Good Die Young
— The Stranger
Tweet of the Day
“What we did at the end was the wrong decision. I called it … it was the wrong thing to do.”
Miami Hurricanes’ OC Shannon Dawson, after they screwed up the end of Saturday’s game against Georgia Tech.
Tuesday’s quiz
Before they moved to Texas in 1972, where did the Texas Rangers call home?
Monday’s quiz
Jimmy Garoppolo, Sean Payton and Tony Romo all played their college football at the same school, Eastern Illinois.
Sunday’s quiz
In 2007-08, Lane Kiffin went 5-15 as head coach of the Oakland Raiders.
**********************************************
— Raiders 17, Packers 13:
Love completed only 16-30 passes, threw 3 INTs.
Green Bay’s only TD came on a 37-yard drive in third quarter.
Last three weeks, Packers were outscored 54-6 in first half.
Green Bay has outscored opponents 38-0 on 1st drive of a half.
Raiders drove 75 yards, scoring game-winning TD on 1st play of 4th quarter.
Garoppolo is 42-19 as an NFL starting QB.
Las Vegas is 13-9-1 ATS last 23 games with spread of 3 or less.
Raiders scored 17-10-18-17-17 points in first five games.
— This was the first NFL game since 1987 where the two kickers are brothers; Daniel and Anders Carlson.
— Braves 5, Phillies 4
Phillies led 4-0 in sixth inning.
Riley’s 2-run homer in 8th inning was game-winner.
series is tied, 1-1.
— Arizona 4, Dodgers 2
Zac Gallen threw 5.1 IP, gave up two runs.
Lourdes Gurriel was 2-4, with two RBI
Diamondbacks lead series, 2-0.
— Arizona-USC played football until 2:30am Saturday night in Los Angeles, with the Trojans finally winning 43-41 in overtime.
Here’s the thing: Arizona coach Jedd Fisch, who is doing a very good job rebuilding the program in Tucson, he didn’t know the overtime rules.
In the second round of overtime, teams have to go for two points after a touchdown— Arizona had to waste a timeout because they weren’t aware of that part of the OT rules. No bueno.
— There are 14 unbeaten teams left in college football.
— Tough couple of weeks for LSU’s defense; in their last two games, LSU has given up 94 points and 1,233 yards. Tigers lost 55-49 at Ole Miss, won 49-39 at Missouri- they host Auburn this week.
— Term of the Day: Zamboni— a vehicle that is used to clean and smooth the surface of a sheet of ice, usually in an ice rink. Frank Zamboni invented the first one in 1949, in Paramount, CA.
NHL season starts tonight, lot of Zambonis are getting warmed up.
— Pretty cool moment at Pepperdine’s open basketball practice Friday night, when the school’s President took a half-court shot. If he made it, a student got free tuition for a year, and sure enough, the President swished his shot— the players on the basketball team mobbed him, and a lucky student gets free tuition for this school year.
— Rick Pitino is the new coach at St John’s; hard to believe that the Red Storm hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2000. Pitino will have St John’s in the top 25 this season.
— Memphis Tigers have a 6-11 C named Jordan Brown who is in this fifth year of college basketball. He’s had an interesting journey:
2019— Nevada-Reno
2020— transferred, sat out
2021— Arizona
2022-23— Louisiana— scored 19.3 ppg LY for the Ragin’ Cajuns
This is his 4th school in six years, in four different conferences. Someday, he should write what would be a very interesting book.
— Speaking of AAC teams, Temple is in the AAC; their closest rival in that league is Charlotte, which according to Mapquest, is 540 miles away from Philadelphia.
— Apparently, Cam Newton turned down $5.5M to be a backup QB with the Jets; Newton is 34 now, hasn’t played an NFL game in two years.
— Denver Broncos traded DE Randy Gregory to the 49ers last week; Denver is paying Gregory $10M this year, the 49ers are paying him the veteran minimum. Gregory has three years left on his contract, but none of that $$$ is guaranteed, so if they’re not happy with him, they can just let him walk.
— Over the last 30 years, only three football teams from the Big 14 Conference have started a season 0-6 against the spread:
2009- Illinois
2015- Michigan State
2023- Illinois
— Saturday was a busy day in Baltimore; Orioles hosted a playoff game during the day, which was delayed by rain, then Billy Joel/Stevie Nicks had a concert that night in the nearby Ravens’ Stadium. Pretty good day of entertainment.
Singer Joan Jett performed the national anthem before the baseball game; she has always been a very big Orioles’ fan.
— If you have Sirius radio, channel 105 is the Billy Joel channel, for the rest of this month. All of his best songs, with lot of stories from his great career mixed in. Well worth listening to.
— New Jersey Giants have struggled in the first half of games this season:
Week 1- trailed 26-0 at half. Ran 36 plays for 89 yards- gave up a pick-6 and TD on a blocked field goal.
Week 2- trailed 20-0 at half. Ran 26 plays for 76 yards.
Week 3- trailed 17-6 at half. Ran 26 plays for 88 yards.
Week 4- trailed 14-3 at half. Ran 38 plays for 155 yards.
Week 5- trailed 17-10 at half. Ran 34 plays for 115 yards- only TD was scored by the defense.
— Please God, let this be true; Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob would be ‘very interested’ in buying the Oakland A’s, if the cheap bastard who owns the team now decides to sell. Lacob would at least try to win, that’s all I ask for.
My six favorite Billy Joel songs:
— Piano Man
— And So It Goes
— She’s Got a Way
— This is the Time
— Only the Good Die Young
— The Stranger
Tweet of the Day
“What we did at the end was the wrong decision. I called it … it was the wrong thing to do.”
Miami Hurricanes’ OC Shannon Dawson, after they screwed up the end of Saturday’s game against Georgia Tech.
Tuesday’s quiz
Before they moved to Texas in 1972, where did the Texas Rangers call home?
Monday’s quiz
Jimmy Garoppolo, Sean Payton and Tony Romo all played their college football at the same school, Eastern Illinois.
Sunday’s quiz
In 2007-08, Lane Kiffin went 5-15 as head coach of the Oakland Raiders.
**********************************************
Tuesday’s Den: Nobody asked me, but……..
— YouTube TV had a split-screen of the Packers-Raiders game and Arizona-Dodgers baseball game Monday night, and for that, I thank them.— Raiders 17, Packers 13:
Love completed only 16-30 passes, threw 3 INTs.
Green Bay’s only TD came on a 37-yard drive in third quarter.
Last three weeks, Packers were outscored 54-6 in first half.
Green Bay has outscored opponents 38-0 on 1st drive of a half.
Raiders drove 75 yards, scoring game-winning TD on 1st play of 4th quarter.
Garoppolo is 42-19 as an NFL starting QB.
Las Vegas is 13-9-1 ATS last 23 games with spread of 3 or less.
Raiders scored 17-10-18-17-17 points in first five games.
— This was the first NFL game since 1987 where the two kickers are brothers; Daniel and Anders Carlson.
— Braves 5, Phillies 4
Phillies led 4-0 in sixth inning.
Riley’s 2-run homer in 8th inning was game-winner.
series is tied, 1-1.
— Arizona 4, Dodgers 2
Zac Gallen threw 5.1 IP, gave up two runs.
Lourdes Gurriel was 2-4, with two RBI
Diamondbacks lead series, 2-0.
— Arizona-USC played football until 2:30am Saturday night in Los Angeles, with the Trojans finally winning 43-41 in overtime.
Here’s the thing: Arizona coach Jedd Fisch, who is doing a very good job rebuilding the program in Tucson, he didn’t know the overtime rules.
In the second round of overtime, teams have to go for two points after a touchdown— Arizona had to waste a timeout because they weren’t aware of that part of the OT rules. No bueno.
— There are 14 unbeaten teams left in college football.
— Tough couple of weeks for LSU’s defense; in their last two games, LSU has given up 94 points and 1,233 yards. Tigers lost 55-49 at Ole Miss, won 49-39 at Missouri- they host Auburn this week.
— Term of the Day: Zamboni— a vehicle that is used to clean and smooth the surface of a sheet of ice, usually in an ice rink. Frank Zamboni invented the first one in 1949, in Paramount, CA.
NHL season starts tonight, lot of Zambonis are getting warmed up.
— Pretty cool moment at Pepperdine’s open basketball practice Friday night, when the school’s President took a half-court shot. If he made it, a student got free tuition for a year, and sure enough, the President swished his shot— the players on the basketball team mobbed him, and a lucky student gets free tuition for this school year.
— Rick Pitino is the new coach at St John’s; hard to believe that the Red Storm hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2000. Pitino will have St John’s in the top 25 this season.
— Memphis Tigers have a 6-11 C named Jordan Brown who is in this fifth year of college basketball. He’s had an interesting journey:
2019— Nevada-Reno
2020— transferred, sat out
2021— Arizona
2022-23— Louisiana— scored 19.3 ppg LY for the Ragin’ Cajuns
This is his 4th school in six years, in four different conferences. Someday, he should write what would be a very interesting book.
— Speaking of AAC teams, Temple is in the AAC; their closest rival in that league is Charlotte, which according to Mapquest, is 540 miles away from Philadelphia.
— Apparently, Cam Newton turned down $5.5M to be a backup QB with the Jets; Newton is 34 now, hasn’t played an NFL game in two years.
— Denver Broncos traded DE Randy Gregory to the 49ers last week; Denver is paying Gregory $10M this year, the 49ers are paying him the veteran minimum. Gregory has three years left on his contract, but none of that $$$ is guaranteed, so if they’re not happy with him, they can just let him walk.
— Over the last 30 years, only three football teams from the Big 14 Conference have started a season 0-6 against the spread:
2009- Illinois
2015- Michigan State
2023- Illinois
— Saturday was a busy day in Baltimore; Orioles hosted a playoff game during the day, which was delayed by rain, then Billy Joel/Stevie Nicks had a concert that night in the nearby Ravens’ Stadium. Pretty good day of entertainment.
Singer Joan Jett performed the national anthem before the baseball game; she has always been a very big Orioles’ fan.
— If you have Sirius radio, channel 105 is the Billy Joel channel, for the rest of this month. All of his best songs, with lot of stories from his great career mixed in. Well worth listening to.
— New Jersey Giants have struggled in the first half of games this season:
Week 1- trailed 26-0 at half. Ran 36 plays for 89 yards- gave up a pick-6 and TD on a blocked field goal.
Week 2- trailed 20-0 at half. Ran 26 plays for 76 yards.
Week 3- trailed 17-6 at half. Ran 26 plays for 88 yards.
Week 4- trailed 14-3 at half. Ran 38 plays for 155 yards.
Week 5- trailed 17-10 at half. Ran 34 plays for 115 yards- only TD was scored by the defense.
— Please God, let this be true; Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob would be ‘very interested’ in buying the Oakland A’s, if the cheap bastard who owns the team now decides to sell. Lacob would at least try to win, that’s all I ask for.