My suggestion for a new rule in baseball; think about it for a minute before you scoff:
Guy hits a home run, he crosses the plate, is handed his bat and gets to hit again.
I’d like to see a minor league try that rule out for a year or two.
— NC State 67, Marquette 58
Wolfpack lost seven of its last nine regular season games.
Wolfpack is 8-0 in postseason games; they start four seniors.
Marquette shot only 4-31 on the arc.
This year is 50th anniversary of NC State beating Marquette in the national title game.
— Duke 54, Houston 51
Houston star Shead sprained his ankle, sat out the second half.
Houston lost by 3; they shot 2-8 on the arc, 9-17 on the foul line.
Duke has allowed 51 ppg in its three NCAA Tourney wins.
Since 2000, there have been eight regional finals between conference rivals; the underdogs went 5-3 SU/6-2 ATS in those eight games.
— Tennessee 82, Creighton 75
Creighton led 35-34 at halftime.
Tennessee is in Elite 8 for second time, first time since 2010.
Teams combined to shoot 22-47 on the arc.
— Purdue 80, Gonzaga 68
Boilers beat Gonzaga by 10 points in November, by 12 here.
Zach Edey scored 27 points, had 14 rebounds.
In 2018, Virginia was the first #1-seed to lose to a #16-seed.
In 2019, Virginia won the national title.
Last year, Purdue was the second #1-seed to lose to a #16-seed.
Boilers are three wins away from duplicating Virginia’s feat.
— Was sitting next to a guy in the sportsbook during the Creighton-Tennessee game; big guy missed a layup and the guy says “Hell, I would’ve made that one.”
He was on at least his third Corona; I was skeptical.
— Sitting in a sportsbook for last four days, with ton of TVs around, it is obvious that ESPN cares very little about baseball; there was more talk about NFL prop bets for the fall than there was about the first couple days of baseball season.
— Anyway, why would you bet on NFL season win totals before the draft, especially since there might be some big trades happening in the next 3-4 weeks?
— Famous birthdays for March 30:
John Astin, 94
Jerry Lucas, 84
Eric Clapton, 79
Celine Dion, 56
Richard Sherman, 36
Chris Sale, 35
Alex Bregman, 30
— RIP to the great actor Louis Gossett, who passed away this week at age 87; he won both an Oscar and an Emmy. I remember him best as a priest in Blue Chips; he taught at the school where Penny Hardaway’s character played ball. All the famous coaches were recruiting him.
RIP, sir.
— Braves 9, Phillies 3
Phillies led 2-0 after six innings.
— Brewers 3, Metgs 1
Freddy Peralta allowed one hit in six IP.
— Giants 8, Padres 3
Matt Chapman hit two homers, knocked in five runs.
— Dodgers 6, Cardinals 3
Teoscar Hernandez homered twice for the Dodgers.
— Mariners 1, Red Sox 0
George Kirby got 20 outs, didn’t allow a run.
— There was a great article in The Ringer this week, about TV announcer Ian Eagle, who will be calling his first Final Four next week.
Eagle is the son of a comedian and a singer; when he was 6, he was on stage at a club in the Catskills, doing imitations of celebrities.
Back in the late 70’s, there was a very popular Xerox commercial, about a monk who copied his precious documents, instead of copying them by hand. Brother Dominic was the monk; the actor who played him was Ian Eagle’s father.
This article made it clear that Ian Eagle is universally respected/liked, an unusual combination these days. It was encouraging to read it.
