— You hear a lot about guys who played more than one pro sport; Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders, Brian Jordan, Dave DeBusschere, Danny Ainge.
Back in the late 60’s, Tennessee Vols had a punter named Ron Widby; he wound up punting for seven years in the NFL, for Dallas/Green Bay, but he was also a good enough basketball player that he played 20 games for the New Orleans Buccaneers in the old ABA. He punted for Dallas when they won Super Bowl VI.
He punted in Tennessee’s bowl game one year, and also played in their basketball game the same day, getting ferried back and forth by boosters’ airplanes. He was also on the school’s golf team. Widby scored 50 points in a basketball game against LSU.
Impressive career, for sure.
— Jets traded QB Zach Wilson to Denver Monday; in return, they moved up from a 7th round pick to a 6th round pick late in the draft.
Wilson was the 2nd pick in the 2021 draft; he went 12-21 in three years as the Jets’ starter.
— Denver Broncos’ quarterback room as we speak:
Jarrett Stidham
Zach Wilson
Ben DiNucci
Will they draft a quarterback this week?
— Top five QB’s drafted three short years ago, in 2021:
Jacksonville- Trevor Lawrence- 21-31 as Jaguars’s starter, 1-1 in playoffs.
Jets- Zach Wilson- traded to Denver
San Francisco- Trey Lance- traded to Dallas
Chicago- Justin Fields- traded to Pittsburgh
New England- Mac Jones- traded to Jacksonville.
— Matt Ryan officially retired Monday, with career earnings of $304M; he had a career record of 128-115-1, 4-6 in playoff games.
— A 15-year old kid finished T20 on the Korn Ferry golf tour this weekend- that’s the AAA golf tour, the old Nike Tour. Pretty impressive for a high school kid.
— Alabama poached a kicker from Miami OH; college sports is like baseball now, the rich steal from the not-so-rich.
— Speaking of which, FedEx kicked in $25M to the NIL program at Memphis, which figures to be a big boost to their recruiting efforts.
— Famous birthdays for April 23rd:
Lee Majors, 85
Gail Goodrich, 81
Joyce DeWitt, 75
Joe Ferguson, 74 (Bills’ QB)
Uwe von Schamann, 68
Valerie Bertinelli, 64
Andruw Jones, 47
Gavin Sheets, 28
— Astros-Rockies are playing couple of games in Mexico this weekend; very high altitude, games figure to be hitter-friendly.
— Dodgers just finished a homestead where they lost all three series, first time that happened since 2011.
— Baseball season is only four weeks old, but who would’ve thought that Shota Imanaga would be a better pitcher than Yoshinobu Yamamoto?
Listening to the wise guys this winter who supposedly know all this stuff, no one thought Imanaga would be a big deal, but so far, he is 3-0, 0.84 in four starts.
— Mets’ catcher Francisco Alvarez (thumb) is out for a couple months.
— A’s 2, New York 0
Zack Gelof’s 9th-inning homer provided the game’s only runs.
JP Sears tossed six scoreless IP against the team that traded him away.
— Twins 7, White Sox 0
Chicago was blanked for the 8th time in 22 games.
Paddack was 0-1, 8.36 in three starts before this game.
— Padres 3, Rockies 1
Cease allowed one baserunner in 7 IP.
Rockies are 1-8 in last nine games, scoring total of 15 runs.
— Cardinals 5, Diamondbacks 3
Nolan Gorman snapped an 0-19 skid with a walk-off homer.
— Phillies 7, Reds 0
Ranger Suarez has a 25-inning scoreless streak.
Phillies have won seven games in a row.
