Woods should learn class from Watson

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Tuesday, 04 August 2009 15:26

The recent British Open makes you appreciate TW more than ever before. That’s TW as in Tiger Woods and Tom Watson.

When Tiger Woods failed to make the cut, it was headline news in the sports world. He rarely misses a cut anywhere, anytime, much less at a major tournament. We’ve unfairly come to expect Tiger to be at or near the top of every leader board.

When Tiger struggles, it’s headline news. What Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com wrote sounds more like the average Joe, not Tiger. “Did you see Tiger at Turnberry? He barely hit his driver, and he still couldn’t keep the ball in Scotland. Someone needs to send him a photo of what the fairways looked like.”

The British Open showed how difficult golf can be, even to someone as...

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Baseball pitching coaches learn to count to 100

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Tuesday, 21 July 2009 13:58

Baseball has always been a statistician’s dream, but in recent years, a relatively new statistic has emerged: pitch counts.

Let’s be clear that at the Little League level, the danger isn’t just overusing a young arm. The greater risk might be from young kids trying to throw a curve ball.

As for Major League Baseball, pitchers used to stay in the game as long as they got batters out. Now the pitch-count police say a pitcher needs to be pulled from the game after throwing 100 or so pitches.

For those of you old enough to remember former St. Louis Cardinals great Bob Gibson, can you imagine a manager having the nerve to walk to the mound in the eighth inning and ask for the ball if Gibson had thrown 100 pitches while working on a...

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Finding Coryea’s successor proving a big challenge for Hillsboro High

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Tuesday, 07 July 2009 15:02

Coaches come and coaches go. When a high school coach steps down from a head coaching position, but stays at the school to teach, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that administrators don’t have to fill another teaching position. The bad news is that they have one less teaching position available while searching for a coach.

I don’t have any statistics to back up my theory, but it seems that this phenomenon is happening more frequently.

This spring, when Len Coryea stepped down as head football coach at Hillsboro High School, but said he would remain in the classroom, I’m sure the powers-that-be didn’t waste time exploring their options for hiring a new head football coach. But results have been slow in...

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Who holds the Royals HR record?

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Tuesday, 09 June 2009 15:01

Summer will be over before you know it and it will be time for Tabor’s and Hillsboro’s new football stadium to open. But, let’s slow down, relax and ponder a plethora of sports trivia.

n Is it an oxymoron to say the Kansas City Royals have an all-time single-season home run leader when the record is only 36? Do you mean to tell me the Royals never had a player hit more than 36 in a season during the steroid era? Does that mean they weren’t cheating or trying very hard?

n If you call yourself a Royals fan, take this three-minute challenge. Name the top-10 single-season home run leaders. I’m embarrassed to admit that I could only name three. Answer later.

n Here are some unusual promotional nights scheduled by Major League...

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