Me too!

Whoo hoo!!!

Congratulations on the World Series win⚾️

This is the only page I find to talk about baseball, and it seems to be a pretty quiet group. Atlanta Braves fan here. Watch the Colorado Rockies also because of a neighbor that works for them. ⚾️

Go Astros!
⚾️

I haven’t looked. How are they doing?

I gave up following sports some years ago, but my daughter is a big fan so...

Nothing said summer like Vin Scully’s voice from a transistor radio on a warm, lazy afternoon.
Go Dodgers!
And RIP Vin Scully, greatest sportscaster ever.

Was a big fan years back, for some reason quit watching. Back into it again. The new stadium (‘17) is so close for us now.

If you are a sports card collector or non-sports card collector, check out Facebook group, Southern Maine Sports Card Shows.

There are random giveaways. Also sports cards shows are posted here as well. Feel free to join the group and post cards that you are looking to buy, sell or trade.

Not the Phillies, not the Dodgers, not the Astros* and not the Yankees...YES!!

Old Blue

• aka the Cheaters

AND yes --- the Diamondbacks somehow made it work when it counted. GO team.

My daughter who lives in Houston would be appalled!

;~)

As she should be!

Old Blue

Yes the Astros were proven cheaters and still got to keep the spoils of their underhanded actions.

Glad the Rangers won with at least one former Dodger!

I recently watched this great documentary about the inventor of the jump shot in basketball and thought some of you might like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2BZIE67cBY

Like most people I had never heard of Ken Sailors until 2017 when I was in Laramie, WY for the total solar eclipse. While looking for an idea of a letterbox to place, I stumbled on his obituary and was amazed I had never heard of him, especially since I played a lot of basketball in my younger days. I ended up placing a box near his grave and was honored to pay my respects. Hope you enjoy getting to know him!

Silver Eagle

With the close of the Pac-12 regular football season, the first phase of my Plan of Destruction of this conference is complete! My plot has worked flawlessly; Eevil particularly thanks U$C, UC£A and all of the NCAA for their GREED.

In that last Pac-12 game, a rivalry of 90 years was destroyed. The University of California took out their meaningless little revenge against UCLA, as they ran up the score (as best they could.) Elsewhere Oregon State, one of the remaining Pac-2 teams, saw their coach walk away from a 6-year contract less than 20 hours after their regular season was over. Their 126-game rivalry with Oregon is crushed.

Greedy fans from across the country are using social media to recruit the stars of Washington State and Oregon State to their school. Cal and Stanford have added 500,000 miles a year in extra travel for their athletes. Their recruiting will be in shambles!!

BUT WAIT, in a moment of giddiness about my success and thinking the west coast needed a boost in pride, I did something rash. I simplified one of my clues by three orders of magnitude to taunt and torture a few more of you:

The 7th Deadly Sin

You’re welcome!
Eevil

You didn't mention U of A's annihilation of rival ASU, 59 - 23 and national ranking. Yep, greed has eviscerated the Pac-12. So much for non-pro sports at the college level. And more $s for the airlines!

Bear down Arizona!! It was a happy night in our house!

Made irrelevant yes, but not destroyed or wiped off the face of the earth. Currently there are still TWO PAC-12 schools that were unworthy of being taken by any Power FOUR conference. Can hear Bill Walton lamenting the historic Conference of Champions. It could continue by adding many unworthy schools, merge with the Mountain West or simply remain a two-team conference with virtually no television revenue.

Ultimately ironic that the PAC-12 tried to raid the Big 12 (OK U, Texas and a couple others) for a PAC-16. The four corners will work out nicely with the Western portion of the Big-12 (16). Not to be confused with the Big-10 (18). Then there is the ACC hybrid with 17 full members plus Notre Dame when it suits there NBC sugar daddy spoiled needs. There is also the semi-pro SEC with 16 full members.

Well tied for 4th is much better than 14th.

Another previous WVU Football Coach is fired. Dana Holgerson was fired by Houston Sunday after going 31-28, with a $14.8 million dollar buy out.

Before Dana WVU fired Bill Stewart and he soon died.

Before Stewart was Rich Rod Rodriguez. Fired by Michigan, Fired by Arizona, Fired as Coordinator by Mississippi. Now back to his one-trick pony offense in a smaller school (Jacksonville State).

Don Nehlen legend and 20-year WVU coach (1980-2000) who retired as a Hall-of-Fame Coach that built WVU to a national prominence. He was inducted into the Ring of Fame on Senior Night.

Bobby Bowden - Skedaddled to at the time an obscure Florida State in 1979. Although he was successful, he was ultimately fired by Florida State.

With the destruction of the PAC-12, perhaps it will make way for a new version (fashioned to your liking) and updated to PAC-13?

Holgerson gets the distinction of being a coach who got fired by two BIG12 teams.

If it rebuilt in the image of Wazzo and Oregon State, then the new league will have some heart. Lets just try to remember the good times like the Beavers Take Away Chainsaw! and almost every Mike Leach post game.

He actually didn't get fired from WVU. He quit to take the big money at Houston.

Oh, I didn't know, all I know how much he us Longhorns. LOL

You don't understand the situation when you say that the Pac-12 is not destroyed. 83% of the teams have jettisoned. In the Bay Area and Oregon, the words in print to describe the Pac-12's fate include implode, demise, disintegrate and terminate… and USC and UCLA have been called the terminators.

Positively destroyed is a century of rivalry between eight schools. Cal’s big rival is, and continues to be, Stanford; but UCLA and USC were close seconds. There were also decades when at least one of the Oregon or Washington schools were seriously important games. Also lost is a comradery between fans of rival schools as demonstrated in the following: Last week, a Eugene cab driver said there is a sense of shame around town (home of the Oregon Ducks) that Oregon State is no longer, in essence, part of the same party.

Where the Pac-12 will continue on is in court fighting over rights, bank accounts and hard assets. The ‘23-‘24 revenues will be over $400 million plus $40 million in assets that now all seem to be controlled by the Pac-2, Washington State and Oregon State. The lawyers for the 10 other teams will try to get back a piece of the pie that their school deserted.

If a future conference on the West Coast is resurrected, it certainly will not be called Pac-8, 10 or 12. And besides, without most of the 8 major West Coast teams, all of whom were in the Pacific conference for at least 95 years, it certainly will have no resemblance to the Pac-12. The Oregon St and Wazzu don’t have the prestige to do much with the Pac-12 name.

Cal and Stanford accepted the offer into the ACC which included the condition that their media revenue would be only 30% of the current ACC schools. It was the best bad choice available. BTW, SMU will receive none of the media revenue, but that school is so rich they don’t need it. The UC Regents, in approving UCLA’s departure, is requiring them to share some of their new revenues with their brethren campus in Berkeley.

Travel for football is not as bad as Eevil makes it out to be. Cal will have 2 or 3 eastern road games a year plus one every other year in Dallas at SMU. It nets out to about 12,000 extra miles a year. Cal’s minor sports, won’t be in the ACC, so travel won’t affect them, but basketball, baseball and softball will have tough times managing academics and the travel.

There are a lot of hard feelings in Pullman, Berkeley, Stanford (?) and Corvallis over the destruction of this conference. The bottom line is Eevil is correct, this whole thing is only about MONEY!

Old Blue
GO BEARS!

Great idea, we should have thought of it years ago. They could have resurrected Caltech's football team. You remember their motto don't you - We may be small, but we're slow!

Old Blue

My buddy Brad, an Oregon St alum, agrees that their football program is destroyed. Here is what he wrote me last night:

Not sure if you have been paying attention, but last week Jonathan Smith (head coach OSU) and most of the top coaching staff bailed and went to Michigan State. In the mean time they named one of the few remaining coaches as the interim head coach. Also, all of the high school recruits rescinded their letters of intent. Basically the coaching staff doesn’t exist, the seniors are gone and I am guessing that the remaining quality players will enter the transfer portal.

Or to restate, football at Oregon State is done. (Probably WSU to follow in some form).

In my opinion, if I was on a bowl selection committee I would not extend an invite to OSU despite the 8-4 record.

I said: I understand that this year's Pac-12 revenues will be over $400 mil w/ the Pac-2 in control. There’s going to be serious negotiations/lawsuits coming.

Brad's response: Also an update: Yesterday a State of Washington judge rescinded the previous order that made OSU & WSU the only schools to be able to decide PAC-12 issues. Are we having fun yet ???

No Brad, we are not,
Old Blue

Yes, I have experienced the literal destruction of the Big East Conference for Football. ACC did the first raid to hurt the Big East as a basketball conference. Big East was that year surpassing ACC in national basketball power. Steal was Miami, FL, Syracuse, Boston College and I believe Virginia Tech. That would ultimately lead to WVU going to the Big 12 along with TCU. Louisville was also being discussed instead of WVU. Then Pittsburgh and Louisville would join ACC and Rutgers going to the Big 10. WVU other rivals Maryland and Penn State would also go to the Big 10.

After that Louisville, Pitt were taken by the ACC in round two steal along with hybrid Notre Dame which left the Big East hanging instead of joining for football. Literally all of WVU's former rivalries are in the ACC or Big Ten now. The travel has been brutal with the closest school in Iowa 900 miles and 13 hours by car.

The final insult was when the BIG EAST conference official ended Football and went back to their roots as a Catholic basketball-based conference. The remnants of re-tooled Big East football became the AAC dropping to group of five conference which is where they all were before in Conference USA.