D's Notebook

Tag: Tour de France

Weekend Notes

July 21, 2025 /

Once again this weekend notes piece will involve more than what went on from Friday to Sunday. I’ll start with a focus on the actual weekend, though.

WNBA All Star Game

The best players in the league were all in Indy over the weekend for Saturday’s All Star Game. While that was exciting, it was tempered a bit by Caitlin Clark getting injured again Tuesday and not participating in either the 3-point contest Friday or playing in the All Star Game Saturday. She did “coach” her team, though.

The biggest point of this section is that L got to go to the game. And not only was she in Gainbridge, but she had amazing seats. The dad of one of her best friends runs the business that puts the gigantic decals on all the buildings around downtown for whatever the latest event is.

Because of that he has tickets to pretty much every game. L has been their guest at Gainbridge before, for the Big 10 tournament last March, and assumed she would be sitting in the suite again. Apparently the suite was reserved for VIPs so the girls had to slum it in the sixth row.

Pretty cool.

She had a good time. She and her friends were close enough that the mascots all kept coming over and harassing them. They were sitting near all kinds of famous people. They got to meet and take a pic with WNBA player Nika Mühl. She dropped $112 on a Paige Bueckers jersey. I told her I really hope CHS has multiple jersey days this year so she can actually wear it.

The game itself was ok. They introduced a fun wrinkle by having four-point spots behind the 3-point arc. Which, in theory, was cool. But it turned out both teams just kept chucking from that point. Team Collier was hitting them while Team Clark was not, and that was the difference.

I think a good tweak for next year is to make those only count for four points in the last two minutes of each quarter or something. Not that the ASG will ever be real ball – Clark told her team not to even bother with defense and just chuck all night – but watching 25 foot shot after 25 foot shot got a bit tedious.

It being the WNBA, naturally there was a manufactured controversy. The players came out before the game wearing shirts that said “Pay Us What You Owe Us,” referring to their current CBA negotiations with the league. The usual crowd who never watched a WNBA game before Clark was drafted piped up and criticized the move. God forbid workers stand up for their rights and to be paid their fair share of the massive amount of money the league is now bringing in. Especially when the workers are all women, mostly Black, and many of them queer.

Never a dull moment.

Tour de France

I had been enjoying the Tour de France each morning until this weekend. Defending champ Tadej Pogacar came in as the heavy favorite, but there was hope that two-time champ Jonas Vingegaard could put pressure on him. The two were sitting in second and third places, separated by a minute, when the race finally entered the mountains on Thursday. And Pogacar promptly destroyed everyone. Vingegaard himself finished well ahead of everyone else, but at the end of the stage was over four minutes behind Pogacar in the general classification. The only hope for an exciting final week is that Pogacar has some kind of major illness or accident. I’m not a huge fan, but I’m not rooting for that at all.

I’ll still watch this week, but it will likely be with far less attention that I gave the race the first 10 days.

British Open

Speaking of dominating performances, Scottie Scheffler solidified his position as best golfer in the game with a relatively easy win at Royal Portrush. He makes it look so easy that the comparisons to Tiger Woods in his prime have started. I’m not sure those are fair or accurate. Scheffler doesn’t blow away the course the way young Tiger did. But he does have a clinical, unperturbed style that is reminiscent of Tiger’s second peak.

He also is far less single-minded and weird about winning that Tiger was. Scheffler has always said how he doesn’t get too worked up about failing on the golf course because he is a very religious man and believes there are bigger things to worry about. Last Tuesday he admitted he doesn’t burn to be the best, nor is his goal to be a role model for others as a golfer.

I usually bristle when athletes bring religion into the conversation when explaining their success, mostly because is it often framed as God being on their side somehow. Which the heathen me has always taken to the next logical step that God must have not been on the opponent’s side, then, right? And I refuse to believe whatever higher power there might be has any interest in who wins a stupid game.

But Scheffler has never been an evangelist when he talks about his faith. He talks about his personal experience, and suggests that faith frees his mind rather than gives him some kind of boost over his opponents. Which I totally respect. And I admire that Scheffler seems a lot more normal than most high level athletes who are so wired to win or motivated by slights that they turn into psychopaths.

One thing that really drove me nuts about NBC were the incessant ads for their upcoming NBA coverage, featuring a variety of NBC personalities singing or humming along to John Tesh’s famous “Roundball Rock” theme. I get that networks always celebrate when they re-gain rights to sports they used to have. But Fox Sports bought “Roundball Rock” a few years back and used it for their college basketball coverage. It’s not like it was buried and you could only hear it on grainy rips of old VHS tapes on YouTube.

I might have been ok with the ads if they didn’t run them during EVERY commercial break. And they’ve also been running them during Peacock’s Tour de France coverage. So I’ve seen them a million times this month.

House Stuff

As mentioned last week, I had two visits from contractors. One planned, one unplanned.

Tuesday morning I went to the basement to grab some chlorine tabs for the pool and noticed wet concrete under our water heater. Uh oh. We’ve been in the house seven years, which means it was probably installed 7.5 years ago, which is right in line with when traditional heaters can begin to fail.

I noticed the water was all coming from the top of the tank, not the bottom, so I was hopeful maybe it was just a leak.

I had a service come out and they confirmed that tanks can rust out from the top as easily as the bottom. So we needed a new one. Terrific. Water heaters ain’t cheap, friends.

I called early enough that we were able to get a new one installed before the day was over. We still had hot water until the crew showed up so everyone was able to get a shower in before they removed the old one, and then I could wash dishes normally after dinner.

You think stuff is going to last forever, especially when you buy a new house. It is a little shocking that we’ve been here long enough that some of the original parts are beginning to fail.

The planned visit was on Thursday. Without writing a million words about it, I’ve been wanting to jump from Xfinity for cable and internet for a while, for a variety of reasons. But they are the only service in our neighborhood. I even looked into various satellite options but those are all much, much slower than what Xfinity provides.

Last December, though, Metronet ran fiber through our neighborhood, including right through our yard. Some dudes were out digging holes and running the lines on the coldest week of that month.

I discounted Metronet because their line is on the north side of our house. Our Xfinity line comes in from the south side and feeds into our basement where our network box is. To get from the north side to south side of our house, you would have to run several hundred feet of line and either go under our driveway or find a way to go around our pool without hitting anything. I didn’t want to mess with that so figured it wasn’t an option.

It only took me seven months to realize I’m an idiot and they could absolutely run a line to the north side of our house. Like, literally, I am such a dumbass.

I scheduled them to come out on Thursday. The guy showed up and said it would take probably two hours to get everything installed.

Sweet.

Again without going too deep into it, a two hour job turned into five. We are apparently the first people to sign up for service since they ran the line, so the poor guy had to drag his ladder all over our neighborhood and climb utility poles to connect the overhead lines to the underground ones. The heat index was 95° while he was doing this. We only had small bottles of water so I gave him a cooler that was filled with 10 of them, and he finished every one.

Once our new network was running and stable, I signed up for YouTube TV, which I’ve wanted for some time. The first two months, while we have a series of discounts, we will pay close to $200 less per month for the same internet speed and basically the same TV offerings. Even when the discounts go away, it will be over $100 difference. And we were about to have some Xfinity discounts expire so that was going to go up anyway.

Through the first weekend I’m pleased with Metronet. They use Eero boxes for internet, and with just two we seem to have better internet throughout the house than the three Xfinity boxes gave us. YouTube TV took a minute to get used to, but I like it so far. I’m looking forward to fall sports season when I can use the multiview to watch four games at once. I will have to pay to get Pacers games, and the app they used last year had all the usual issues those services are known for.

Other than fighting with a couple of our TVs for a few hours to get everything set up, it’s been a pretty easy process[1]. But I wasn’t the one climbing utility poles in the heat.

The installer said someone would be out in the next two weeks to bury our line. I put up a bunch of flags and stakes and ran out to warn our lawn guys about it when it showed up. Hopefully whoever shows up to take care of the line doesn’t take four months like Xfinity did when they installed our line in 2018.

  1. We are using an Apple TV as the interface on our main TV, an Amazon FireStick 4K on another, and on our outdoor TV just using the built-in apps. This will cause some confusion with some people in our house.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

July 6, 2025 /

C and I are off to Bloomington early Monday morning for her IU orientation, thus the Sunday evening post. Our holiday weekend was a little less chaotic than in recent years, so I’ll throw in some other stuff that happened over the past week as well.

Holiday Weekend

Our Fourth was fairly laid back, at least compared to recent years. We only had 15 relatives over, and just two of the young nephews were here so the pool was all theirs. I have a new Blackstone griddle and used it to cook burgers, brats, and hot dogs. I thought they all turned out pretty good, and it was much easier than past years when I tried to do the same meal on a combination of a pellet smoker and charcoal grill.

It was funny looking back at pictures of July 4’s past, and seeing how we had rather casual gatherings at other people’s houses, mostly S’s dad and stepmom’s, until 2012 when we bought our lake house. For the next six years holidays were always down there.[1] After a year’s break when we moved and had an unfinished backyard, starting in 2019 our pool became holiday central. Our girls don’t really remember the gatherings that didn’t involve water.

The girls were all out with friends in the evening and made it home safely.

Saturday evening S and I went to dinner with some friends.

Sunday the whole family got together with S’s group of best medical school friends for the first time in ages. We had a long ride on the hosts’ boat after dinner, which was cut a little short when we noticed storms were headed our way. We made it home before some nice, long, loud thunderstorms boomed for a couple hours. We needed the rain and it looks like the storms will knock the heat down for at least a couple days.

Pacers/Myles Turner

Wednesday I was sitting down to eat my lunch when I saw the shocking news that Myles Turner had signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. It was a shock because all indications were that he was close to re-signing with the Pacers, who were willing to pay the luxury tax to keep him. I was certainly surprised, even if I suggested a week earlier that keeping him wasn’t the sure thing it seemed to be before Tyrese Haliburton’s injury.

Also shocking was how the move was panned for both teams by most NBA analysts. Usually at least one side is the winner, but it didn’t seem so in this case.

In order to sign Turner, the Bucks waived and “stretched” Dame Lillard’s contact. Meaning they took the two years of money they still owed him and spread it across five years. So they will be paying Turner an average of $26 million over the next four years, and have a cap hit of $22.5 million over five years for Lillard’s contract. Which means they are effectively paying Myles $48.5 million over the life of his contract. Myles is a nice player, but he ain’t worth $48M. The deal also almost completely hamstrings the Bucks from making further moves, which is important because they don’t have a true point guard on the roster at the moment.

Very strange.

Then the Pacers took heat for seemingly letting Turner walk simply to avoid paying the luxury tax. It’s hard enough to get free agents to come to Indianapolis in the first place, a task made harder as the team has a reputation for being frugal. Letting Turner go seemed to reinforce that view. One analyst suggested letting Myles walk would cause a mutiny amongst the rest of the team, which I thought was a little extreme.

Our idiot local sports columnist, who doesn’t know much about how NBA contracts work, suggested that Turner and his agent were the bad guys here, and that they lied about the Pacers not being willing to pay the tax. He also claimed the Pacers had offered a lot more than Turner was saying.

Which misses the point that the Bucks still offered more than whatever the Pacers’ final offer was. For some reason us Midwesterners always think our best players should take hometown discounts to stay with our teams[2] Yes, Myles Turner has made a ridiculous amount of money in his life. But why should he, or any other player, not take the biggest contract offered them?

Anyway, whatever the Pacers’ motivations, I totally get the move. Myles is on the back end of his career, turning 30 this year, and has shown some minor decline. This past season he was a nearly 40% 3-point shooter when Haliburton was on the court. In contrast, he wasn’t even a 30% shooter when Hali was sitting. Maybe those stabilize over the course of a season, but with Hali out all of next year, the argument to let Myles walk makes more sense.

This also means the Pacers don’t have to make a decision on Bennedict Mathurin this summer. They can let him play, likely as a starter, next season, see if his game improves/messes better with the Pacers system, and then extend or trade him next summer.

Biggest of all, next year’s draft is supposed to be very deep, with at least three franchise building block players at the top. With the new flattened lottery odds, you don’t have to be terrible to sneak into the top three. See Dallas this year. So let your center walk, play without your best player all season, and then hope the first round pick you re-acquired a month ago turns into a mega lottery ticket in the 2026 draft.

I get why some Pacers fans are pissed. But this is a completely defensible move from both Myles Turner’s and the Pacers’ perspectives. There are no true bad guys here.

I also laughed when I turned on the local news Saturday and they said there was big, breaking Pacers news! Yep, Indiana traded for Memphis backup center Jay Huff. Maybe they were just being puny, since Huff is 7’1”. But this is not a franchise altering trade. Hell, I didn’t even know Huff was in the NBA.

M’s Adventures

M was home for the weekend – and is actually working from our house Monday because she had a dentist appointment in the morning – but her real fun was the weekend before the holiday. She flew to the Bay Area to visit her sorority “little,” who lives in San Jose. It seems like they had a great time and she got to see almost everything she wanted to see, although the marine layer was thick so the Golden Gate Bridge was totally socked in and their trip to the beach in Santa Cruz wasn’t filled with sunshine.

It was a bit of a hassle to get there, though. Her first flight out of Cincinnati was delayed because of both storms near the airport, and storms between Cincy and Denver, where her first leg ended. Before she had taken off she got a message from Southwest saying she would not make her connection and that they had re-booked her on a new flight…the next morning. Keep in mind she was traveling alone, and for the first time no less!

Luckily she has an aunt that lives in Denver. S made a call and Aunt K was thrilled for M to come spend the night.

However, I was tracking M’s flight and noticed the arrival time in Denver kept moving up. And the flight to SFO kept getting delayed. There was a chance she would make it. Sure enough rather than fly nearly to Texas to get around storms, the pilots found a gap in the storms over Kansas, and they landed nearly on time.

I had already texted M that she would probably have to Uber to her aunt’s house. When she was on the ground and responded I told her that there was a chance she might make her second flight. She got very excited. And then they sat on the tarmac for at least 30 minutes before they pulled to the gate…just as the SFO flight was pulling away from its gate.

Oh well.

Turns out they were sitting on the tarmac so the ground crew could pull bags for people who were booked on other flights, including M even though she had been rebooked. Sometimes the right hand doesn’t talk to the left at Southwest. So she stood around for another half hour waiting for her bag and then had to go ask for assistance and was told her bag was on its way to California. Egad. She was a little flustered.

By now it was close to midnight in Denver, close to 2:00 AM to her body. Once she was in her Uber I went to bed and S woke up to track her progress. M made it safely to her aunt’s house just after 3:00 AM Eastern. She was thoroughly wiped out, but at least she didn’t have to sleep in the airport. We had no idea if she could have checked into a hotel if we found her a room since she’s only 20.

She got a decent night’s sleep and then her uncle and cousin drove her back to DEN the next morning for her delayed trip into SFO. She was excited that her bag was waiting at the Southwest office for her and she didn’t have to wait for it to come out on the carousel.[3]

A bummer that cut half a day off her time in Cali, but she has a story! And the rest of the weekend was great.

TdF

The Tour de France started Saturday. I doubt any of you care about that. Just in case anyone does have any interest in this year’s race, this is a hilarious and thorough accounting of each team and the primary contenders.

An entirely vibes-based guide to the 2025 Tour de France

  1. Or at least the closest weekend was. A few years, when the Fourth was mid-week, we stayed home and went to a local pool on the 4th and saved the family lake gathering for the weekend.  ↩
  2. Of course Myles is staying in the Midwest, so it’s not like he’s going to LA or New York.  ↩
  3. As a good dad I told her she probably should have reduced her toiletries since she was just going for a weekend and not checked a bag. This is why we are here.  ↩

Weekend Notes

July 1, 2024 /

Originally I planned on taking this week off. We have family coming in on Wednesday, holiday activities the rest of the week, and a busy two days before all that. But plenty happened over the weekend and I have a couple other posts nearly ready to go, so looks like we’ll slide into the holiday on a nearly normal schedule.

NBA Draft

What a weird-ass year. L had a workout Wednesday night so I wasn’t able to watch much of the first round live. I did sit through most of the second round Thursday to track the two Jayhawks.

I say it was a weird draft because in the various NBA podcasts I listen to, there were wild swings in opinion on what the analysts thought of almost every picks and trade. One person would love Houston taking Reid Shepherd at #3. Another couldn’t believe the pick and sees Shepherd, at best, as a backup for the next 10 years. Same for Memphis taking Zach Edey. One guy thought it was an amazing, possibly season-changing, pick. Another isn’t convinced Edey can play in the NBA for more than five minutes a half. Select just about any first round pick and you can find the same range in opinion.

Super bummed that Johnny Furphy had to to sit through the first round. He allegedly got good intel that he would go in the first 30 picks. The NBA thought that, too, thus extending the invitation to the green room Wednesday. By all accounts he likely would have returned to KU had he known he was not going to be a first rounder, which is the true bummer because I think he would have been a fantastic college player in year two.

Now it is cool that he ended up with the Pacers. As of this moment I’m not sure where he fits in, both because of his youth and need to get stronger, and the Pacers current roster construction. He has G-League For A Year written all over him, then maybe he can carve out a role with the big club in the ’25–26 season. Unless Kevin Pritchard has some more moves ahead which will open up an opportunity to play in Indy this year.

I also felt bad for Kevin McCullar. New York might be the ideal franchise for him, if/once he gets healthy, as Coach Tibbs loves guys who are dogs on defense. But this is a player who was generally regarded as one of the best in college basketball and a top 10 pick back in December. Then a stupid injury, and then injuries, derailed his season, KU’s season, and his draft hopes. Because of his size and defensive prowess, he will catch on somewhere. It will take a lot longer to make the money he seemed to have already banked six months ago, though.

I laughed at how like 90% of the guys interviewed after they were drafted mentioned how they were versatile. Saying it doesn’t always make it so, but it’s clear their agents got that buzzword in their heads before they started the draft prep process.

Bronny…I’m so torn on all of it. I don’t think he’s an NBA player right now, and believe there’s a 0% chance he would have been drafted this year were he not LeBron’s son. If the Lakers are smart, he won’t spend a day in the NBA this year – unless they get eliminated from playoff contention and call him up for the last game or something – and he can work on his game without the full spotlight on him. But the Lakers aren’t always a smart organization, at least when it comes to giving LeBron what he desires. I think LBJ legitimately wants Bronny to earn a spot on his own. But if the team is struggling in February, there’s going to be pressure to add Bronny over an established trade target. I hope it all works out for Bronny. He seems like a good kid and has handled the process well. There’s just an enormous amount of pressure on him to succeed.

I do think it is kind of garbage that agent Rich Paul was allegedly calling other teams and telling them not to draft Bronny, threatening that he would play in Australia if they did. Mostly because I don’t think anyone else really wanted to draft him. There were much better guys to take second round flyers on, and LBJ has expressed no interest in playing anywhere other than LA. I thought it was less about nepotism or entitlement than making Bronny seem better than he actually is.

I still think not drafting dudes because they are 22–23–24 years old is dumb. Sure, they may not have the ceilings that 19–20 year olds have. But you can also often plug them into roles a lot easier than those kids that are still learning. Teams that want to win now should never pass on a guy that can step in from day one and be a rotational player.

Kid Hoops

2–2 week last week to end the summer for CHS, leaving them at 13–7 for June. Which isn’t bad considering their roster.

It was a tough week for L. She got beat up physically in games and verbally by her coach and a couple teammates. This is moratorium week in Indiana. The time off comes at the perfect moment.

There were clear lessons for her from a month of varsity-level ball. She needs to get tougher and not shy away from contact. Improve her ball handling and passing a lot. Keep working on her shot. Not let her coach yelling at her get inside her head.

In reality just about all of her teammates have glaring holes in their games. Everyone needs the two-to-three more inches in height she could really use. Everyone could stand to shoot better. She’s a 5’6”-ish sophomore who will play a lot of minutes some games, and likely really struggle in some other games. That’s not too bad in the grand scheme of things.

Between Thursday night’s games there was a little break and she was out shooting with teammates, having fun, and she kept drilling shots. I told her on the way home she needs to find a way to translate that freeness from the moments when she’s messing around into games. If she can do that, it covers up for a lot of flaws.

She had two, one-hour private lessons last week, and a two-hour practice with her travel team Sunday. I’m sure she’ll want to get up early and shoot at least a couple days over the week off. The grind never ends.

Euro Sport

Man, what an embarrassing Euro 24 for the Italians. Can’t score, not talented enough to muddy up the games and hope for a 1–0 win anymore. Almost as embarrassing for the English, who are extraordinarily lucky to be moving on to the quarterfinals. Spain looks phenomenal. Such a shame they will face Germany in Friday’s quarterfinal.

I bought a Peacock subscription Friday night and was up early Saturday to start watching this year’s Tour de France. A completely amazing first stage, which featured the most total climbs ever in an opening day.

The winner of the last two tours, Jonas Vingegaard, suffered a horrific crash in April and almost didn’t enter this year’s Tour. But he’s looked totally healthy through two days. We’ll see if he can keep it up over another 19 days of racing.

Tadej Pogacar, the winner in ’20 and ’21, is the heavy favorite and was in yellow to start today’s race, but four other riders, including Vingegaard, were tied with him for overall time.

Keep checking this space for Tour updates I’m sure you are all very interested in.

Sports Notes

August 1, 2023 /

I’ve stacked up a lot of sports thoughts over the past several weeks. Let’s dive in and see how long it takes to get through them.

Tour de France

After watching the Netflix show Tour de France: Unchained in June, I was all-in for this year’s tour, even ponying up for Peacock for the month to watch.[1] It was like the good (bad) old days watching Lance Armstrong as I turned the race on first thing every morning and tracked the day’s progress.

This year’s race was awesome. Week one was incredible, with all kinds of cool attacks and finishes until Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, combined winners of the last three Tours, took over. The duo battled across France and stayed within seconds of each other into the final week, until Vingegaard won a convincing victory in stage 16’s individual time trial. The next day he blew the race open in the Alps. What had been a nine second lead exploded to over seven minutes. It was a remarkable two days to earn a deserved second-straight Tour win.

I had a few sources for reading about each day’s stages, one of them The Guardian. Which, being The Guardian, threw aspersions towards any biker who performed particularly well. Vingegaard got the worst of it as he took over the race. Who knows if the speculation is accurate or not. His team noted how many times his blood was tested over the month, an argument we’ve heard before. I just found it interesting it was NEVER discussed on the TV broadcast.

It also drove me nuts that the announcers, the same main two guys as back in Lance’s prime, have the same quirks they had 20 years ago. They’re looking at the same footage we are watching, and somehow almost always misread biker’s body language. Multiple times they suggested someone was in great shape, only to get dropped moments later, or that someone was struggling only for them to surge away from their rivals. And they love to speculate, with like 80 kilometers to race, that some guy with a minute lead “surely has this stage won.” I blame Europeans and their strange ways of covering sports.

KU Hoops

I’ve never followed up on my May thoughts, after Hunter Dickinson committed. It’s been a busy summer.
Both Zuby Ejiofor and Ernest Udeh transferred out, which really, really sucked. I totally understand why they left, and that is the big downside to adding a massive transfer in like Dickinson. I wish Bill Self could have talked at least one of them into staying. Udeh ending up at TCU was a real bummer, but better than Kansas State, which was one of his other options.
Kevin McCullar decided to come back, which was huge.
Christian Braun’s brother transferred in, giving KU another body in the front court.
Zach Clemence, who had said he was transferring to UCSB, changed his mind and announced he was returning and would redshirt.
Incoming freshman Chris Johnson saw the roster crunch in the backcourt and decided to de-commit and go to Texas.
Then, after a couple weeks of summer school, fellow freshman Marcus Adams decided Lawrence was “too country” for him and bailed, burning his free transfer in the process, for Gonzaga.

Suddenly a super-deep roster was kind of thin. There were rumors KU might grab an international player who could come in and play this year, but those rumors have faded. There could still be a grad transfer to add, but it looks like KU might roll into the season with just nine eligible players, assuming Clemence sticks with redshirting. Self normally only plays 7–8, but all it takes is a couple tweaked ankles or the flu running through the locker room for the bench to get shallow real quick.

The Jayhawks go to Puerto Rico this week to play a few games, two of which are against the Bahamas national team and could include several NBA players. Just need no one to get hurt…[2]

Pacers

Man, the Pacers had a nice summer. They made smart draft picks to start. Then they signed Bruce Brown. During the NBA Finals I knew someone would overpay him after his great performance, and I was bummed when it was the Pacers.

However, while his contract was reported as two years, it is basically a one-year deal that the Pacers can get out of if he doesn’t perform this year, or re-sign him on better terms for each side next year if he has a good season. A savvy, win-win signing.

Then they traded for Obi Toppin, which seems like an awesome move. He was always forced to play out of position in New York, and seems like a perfect match for Tyrese Haliburton. The duo showed up at a local pro-am league last week and combined for approximately 800 alley-oops. Toppin has vibes of the classic guy who needs a change of scenery to finally capitalize on his potential. I don’t think he’s going to be a superstar, but he fits what the Pacers are trying to do.

They still need to massage the roster a bit, the young guys need to develop, and Haliburton and Myles Turned need to stay healthy. But they could be one of the most fun teams in the league next year, and should battle for a playoff spot.

Royals

Props to the R’s! They won their last three games of July, giving them their first three-game winning streak of the season. No one keeps the Royals from winning three consecutive games for four months!

Colts

The team didn’t even get to training camp before drama popped up. Jonathan Taylor was part of a group of running backs around the league who met virtually to discuss how their position gets screwed by the current collective bargaining agreement. Then he suddenly was placed on the PUP list when camp opened. Two days later he requested a trade. This from the guy who has been the epitome of how you want a player to behave, and kept insisting he wanted to play his entire career in Indy.

I totally get where he, and his fellow RBs are coming from. Only kickers are compensated less under the franchise tags since the NFL has decided that running backs are basically interchangeable and dispensable. But that’s an argument they need to aim at their own union, not at ownership that is following the agreed upon rules.[3] And I also understand Taylor’s specific fears. He was hurt last year and had off-season surgery designed to keep his ankle healthy. The Colts drafted a dual threat QB who is going to be given the keys to the offense soon enough, which will cut down on Taylor’s carries, yards, and touchdowns. If he doesn’t get his money now, he might not get it next off season.

The Colts don’t seem inclined to move him; I wonder if they’ll have the guts not to play him. Regardless of cause and odds of resolution, it’s not a great way to begin the season. Especially when his prime backup broke his arm in practice on Monday.

Oh, and I read this morning that the Colts have dropped hints that Taylor also hurt his back over the summer working out on his own, a claim Taylor angrily denied. We’ve moved beyond ugly and are pushing irreparable.

USWNT/World Cup

Ooof. I was not up at 3:00 AM today to watch the US women’s national team’s final group stage game against Portugal. Pretty glad I did not set an alarm. The outcome could have been worse, but not much. A team that has looked sluggish through their first two games failed to score and had to rely on Portugal hitting the post in stoppage time to advance to the knockout stage.

Head coach Vlatko Andonovski has faced a lot of criticism for how he’s constructed the team and how they played in the run-up to the tournament. I haven’t watched enough nor know enough about high-level soccer tactics to be able to critique his choices. At some point, though, the most talented team in the world, filled with both veterans who own two World Cup titles and some of the brightest young stars in the world, have to take responsibility for their play. Even if Andonovski has made terrible tactical choices, they should be good enough to overcome his errors.

I guess the only good thing about the team’s subpar performance is that so few Americans can watch it because of the time difference.

  1. Strangely convenient how our free access to Peacock thanks to being Xfinity customers expired the day before the race began.  ↩
  2. Jinx. You read it here first.  ↩
  3. Note is, as it may be a first: me siding with ownership over labor.  ↩

Early July Sports Notes

July 7, 2021 /

KU Hoops

It would be nice to say a dizzying three months of roster flux at Kansas came to an end Tuesday when Ochai Agbaji and Remy Martin both announced they were pulling their names from the NBA draft list and would be playing as Jayhawks in the coming season. But given how crazy college hoops is at the moment, can we be sure anything is locked in?

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume there will be no more roster changes between now and when KU plays Michigan State in November’s Champions Classic.

I just surprised myself by being able to immediately name all 14 players who are currently under scholarship to play next season.[1] I figured I would forget someone along the way. Which, honestly, is probably the second biggest story for the coming year: some kids are going to get forgotten.

We’ll get to that in a moment. The biggest story, obviously, is that KU’s likely starting lineup is pretty sick. Martin, Agbaji, Joseph Yesufu, Jalen Wilson, and David McCormack is a terrific top five with Christian Braun as a super sixth man.

Beyond those top six, there’s a backup for every spot on the floor. There is athleticism and length and shooting and defensive ability.

KU might be the deepest team in the country. At least on July 7, which if I’m correct, has zero bearing on games next November through March.

Lots of folks are super excited about this ultra-stacked lineup and already arguing that KU should be ranked no lower than #2.

Which is fine, I get it, and I, too, am excited about what’s to come in the ’21–22 season.

There will be plenty of time to go over potential starting lineups, what bench players get the most minutes, etc.

For now, though, what fascinates me most about this team is how Bill Self is handling all these bodies. How has he communicated with the guys already on the roster the thinking behind adding players. I’m sure DaJuan Harris wasn’t thrilled when Self brought in not one, not two, but three point guards.[2]

What did he say to guys like Cam Martin and Yesufu, who committed in April/May when he brought in more transfers in June that added more competition to already limited playing time?

Most of all, how has worked with the incoming freshmen and their families to prevent a mass exodus by them next spring after they sit on the bench for an entire season? Baring a rash of serious injuries, Zach Clemence seems to be the only freshman who has any path to even limited minutes this year.

I’ve won about 800 fewer games than Self, but my advice to him would be to get guys like Ben McLemore and Travis Releford, who sat out seasons because of academics or choice and saw their games blossom during their year of practice but no play, talk to those young guys and explain how this year can greatly benefit them if they remain patient.

So here, in July, I’m far more interested in the psychological angle of how Self will keep an absolutely stacked KU roster together through six months together than how that group matches up with Michigan State, Kentucky, Missouri, Baylor, Texas, Alabama, and the other teams the Jayhawks will play during the 2021–22 season.

Euro Sports

This has been a glorious few weeks for European sports, if you’re into that kind of thing. Theoretically, I am. Although in practice I have not watched as much as I should have.

In the European soccer championship, I watched a ton of early games but checked out last week when we had company. I tuned in for the final 10 minutes of extra time and penalties of Tuesday’s Italy-Spain semifinal. A treeeemendous atmosphere at Wembley Stadium, which seemed to be dominated by Italian fans.

Long time readers may recall that I’ve long been a fan of the Azzurri, so you would expect that I was happy with the win. Well, things have changed. One of Italy’s most notable players has made several either borderline or overt racist statements in recent years. While it’s not fair to damn the entire team for one player’s actions, he is a veteran and leader of the national team, and hasn’t gotten a lot of pushback from other Italian players for his comments.

So I was rooting for Spain? Well, not exactly. Someone on Twitter, having a similar dilemma as me, pointed out the Spanish coach has also made blatantly racist comments.

Sad that these days if you are a neutral fan, it might come down to which team has the fewest racists on it.

I would imagine today’s game between England and Denmark will be spectacular, and an England-Italy final be truly over-the-top as English fans get to cheer on their perpetually disappointing squad in person. To win their first trophy since 1966 on home soil would be epic.

Once upon a time Wimbledon was appointment viewing for me. I can’t get into to it too much these days. Too few Americans, too many random players with Russian-sounding names that all kind of blend together to me.

I have been watching a bit of the Tour de France each day. But that, too, is difficult because I’m not sure who to pull for. It was easier when you just followed Lance Armstrong and slowly figured out the race by the coverage of his performance. Look at where that got me.

I’m sure I could still dive into the media surrounding the event and really get into it. It’s easier to just casually watch and enjoy the magnificent visuals.

Oh, and the British Open is next week. That I will be getting up early to watch.

Royals

Man, they suck. I watched a game a few weeks back, maybe the second week of June, which they pissed away in glorious fashion, and haven’t watched a game since. I didn’t expect them to contend this year, but I did expect better than what they’ve given us. The fact every young pitcher has either regressed or fallen on their face makes it hard to believe contention is a year or two away. Pitching coach Cal Eldred might need to go.

NBA Finals

L and I have been watching moments of the playoffs, but rarely get locked in. It doesn’t help that so many games start relatively late for us in the Eastern time zone. We made it to halftime last night, watched a few minutes of the third quarter, and as Phoenix pulled away both bailed for bed. She wants the Suns to win, which I get since they are more fun to watch and loaded with great stories. I’d kind of like to see Giannis get a ring, but don’t have strong feelings for either team. I’d say I’m rooting for a great series, but when you can’t stay up to watch the whole game, what’s the point of even saying that?

  1. The standard 13 plus super senior Mitch Lightfoot.  ↩
  2. Harris already redshirted once. Even under the new, super liberal roster rules, I don’t know if he can again.  ↩

Smoke And Fire

May 23, 2011 /

I’ve wanted to believe Lance Armstrong for a long time. I know I’m not the only one.

Each time there was a new allegation claiming Lance had, in fact, benefited from various banned substances and procedures during his Tour de France reign, I held the company line: He had been tested over and over and over again through his career and never been caught. He operated under as intense a microscope as any athlete in modern times, with seemingly the entire European cycling community focused on nailing him for doing something wrong, and was never caught.

They were just jealous an American came and made their race look like a joke for seven years. They hated his arrogance. They couldn’t tolerate how every rider who seemed poised to challenge him ran into PED issues of their own. It became an obsession, a witch hunt, and they would stop at nothing to finally nail him.

I’ll admit my view has changed slowly in recent years. I always subscribed to the where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire theory. Despite believing his main defense, that he had never failed a drug test, I was not so blind to think there was no chance he hadn’t put something into his system over his career.

But still I believed in the man and the myth.

I didn’t watch Sunday’s 60 Minutes feature in which former teammate Tyler Hamilton became the latest insider to assert that Lance had never been the pure rider he claimed. I did read enough summaries and reactions to the piece, though, to feel like something was different this time. What, I’m not sure. The straw that broke the camel’s back perhaps. There comes a point where, to continue to believe in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, becomes impossible.

I’ve said many times that PEDs in sports don’t trouble me much. So if Lance indeed was cheating over his career, what does that mean for his legacy? I’ve read reactions this morning that mirror those that have been around for a decade. “Well, everyone else was doing it, so why should I hold it against him?” Or, “He’s done so much good with his fame and fortune that I don’t care what he put into his body.”

I can’t buy into either of those arguments. Lance was different. He was the good guy who appeared to be the target of a campaign to frame him. He constantly said not only did he not cheat, but that he didn’t need to cheat. He reminded us that he had been through cancer, on the verge of death, and he would never do something like that to a body he worked so hard to repair so he could race again. We bought into it because his story was so compelling, so inspiring, and so American.

I still hold out hope that Lance was clean, that this is about jealousy and people with power leaning on those close to him to change the stories they clung to for so many years. It’s a tiny hope, though, and I admit at my core I’m not sure anymore. If a positive test comes up, if Lance were to tearfully admit that he did put something into his system, or if the evidence against him simply becomes so compelling that I can’t believe otherwise, I won’t be surprised. I will feel a little guilty for believing him and buying into his myth. But I long ago shed the belief that most elite athletes are clean. I’ll chalk him up as another athlete of his time who couldn’t resist the temptation to give his natural abilities a boost. Like Pete Rose, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds, all future discussion of his career will be tempered with that knowledge.
❖

Le Tour

July 23, 2009 /

You might wonder why I’ve not written a word about the Tour de France this month. After all, the Tour was a staple of my July posts during my first three years as a blogger. With Lance back on his bike again, why haven’t I been writing about it?

To be honest, I still don’t know what to think about Lance riding, nor what to expect from him. Is this a triumphant return or simply a ride driven by ego and hubris? Is he really trying to spread the word of his cause or to simply shut all the people up who have been chipping away at his legend since he retired? Should I want him to win or just race competitively and make it to Paris without any red flags being waved following a post-race pee-in-a-cup session?

I’ve been watching, and hoping Lance does well, but I am having a hard time answering all the questions. The drama between him and teammate Alberto Contador doesn’t help, as I have no idea who is right and who is wrong.

As I’ve written before, there is a compelling amount of evidence that he may not have been clean when he won seven straight Tours. But he also passed every drug test ever administered to him. I tend to believe most people are cheating, somehow, and the best are the ones who are well ahead of the testing curve. His return brings back all these conflicted feelings.

It’s also been sobering to watch him and expect that hammer to still be there; the destruction of people on climbs, his withering gaze as he passed them, or his superhuman efforts in time trials. Clearly he’s still a world-class rider, but age and the time off have robbed him of the power and speed that made him unique. He’s just another rider who hung in there until the final week then didn’t have enough to keep up with Contador as he pulled away.

I suppose it’s a reminder that comebacks of all kinds, while often inspiring and entertaining, rarely live up to the original act.

 

“A Systematic Destruction of The Field.”

July 12, 2005 /

“An infernal, murderous pace.”
“Vinokourov is about to pop.”
“What we’re seeing is a man destroying all of his competitors.”
“Lance Armstrong is an angry, angry man.”

I don’t know what I enjoy more about watching OLN’s coverage of the Tour de France. Lance Armstrong’s sublime performance or the pitch-perfect comments the announcers use to describe what is happening. Today was the second snapshot moment for Lance in this year’s tour. The first came in the opening time trial, when he caught Jan Ullrich and gave him a look over the shoulder as he passed him. Ullrich was utterly done for the Tour at that moment. Today, in a classic mountain performance, Lance left nearly everyone of significance behind. It’s become a cliche over the past seven years, but there is little in sports like watching Lance’s effort when climbing a mountain compared to his competitors. You can literally see the will and energy seep from their bodies as they attempt to match his energy. He peddles as if he’s on a Sunday ride and everyone else struggles to keep upright. I’m going to miss Lance very much.

Now Playing: <strong>Buena</strong> by <a href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Morphine%22″>Morphine</a>

 

Random

July 30, 2003 /

One quick note, before I unload some pile-up that’s in my head. If any of you use AOL’s Instant Messenger, I now have a screen name: DDBinIndy. Shoot me a message sometime if you’re online.

Things on my mind:
In addition to being all whacked out about time here, I think there’s some kind of suspension of normal physics laws in Indiana. I’m only exaggerating in the slightest when I say that everyday a large truck flips over on one of the local highways, snarling rush hour traffic for hours. Not that if affects me, since my morning commute involves walking from the bedroom, down the stairs, and opening up the laptop. As an added bonus, yesterday a truck carrying painters and paint supplies burst into flames near the airport, snarling traffic there for several hours. Initial word had it that someone on the truck lit a cigarette. One person died and 12 others who were on the truck are in the hospital, most in critical condition. I just think something very Stephen King is going on here.
The downtown loop in Kansas City used to drive me crazy. All it took was one truck trying to get down to 45 to make those turns, then attempt to reaccelerate up the hills to back traffic up 10 miles. I thought about one day running for mayor on a rush hour platform: no big trucks on the highways between 7:00-8:30 AM and 4:30-6:00 PM. Sure, big business would use all their resources to trounce me like a beetle, but the momentum would start, my friends! You can’t keep the people down!

I’m working up a rant on preseason football, but it will have to wait until a few of those travesties have been broadcast.

Tour de France: I read Lance Armstrong’s first book while on our honeymoon. A fantastic read. I remember when it first came out and everyone who read it started referring to Lance as if he’s a friend (I’m doing it by calling him Lance). It’s a must read whether you’re into cycling, have any experience with cancer, or not. He’s really an amazing person. I watched more of the Tour this year than ever before. Mostly because it was on each morning and the TV is only 22 steps away. It was interesting to watch the doubters (at times even Lance seemed to doubt) hovering as he failed to stretch his lead to the length of previous Tours. The day he basically won the Tour, last Monday, with his amazing climb that included one fall and one slip, was the day that will be written about in the year-end columns. Is there any better sports metaphor than falling off the bike and getting right back on? He literally does it, and still manages to absolutely crush the will of his closest competitor. I think I watched the entire time trial Saturday, which was terrific drama with the rain and win.
I’m flabbergasted by the people who say Lance and his achievements are overrated or unimportant. First, what better message to the public, who face obstacles like cancer everyday than to beat it and win the world’s most grueling sports event. Five times. Second, I think all the doubters remember the carefree days of riding their bike all day, every day, during the summer. Try doing it for 80 hours over three weeks and 2100 miles, with thousand foot climbs and descents. Then tell me it’s no big deal to win the Tour.

Finally, local sports brief. I’m sure many of you were interested in my reaction to the Pacers acquiring Scot Pollard. On a personal level, I’m excited. There’s a special thrill to watching someone from your school play in the pros. Even cooler is someone like Pollard that you actually went to school with and saw around campus (He used to harass everyone outside my Sociology of the Family class). I don’t feel like I know the him, but I have a couple good stories I can share in a loud voice at games so people around me think I’m cool (not that they don’t already, it just reinforces the impression). Hell, for all the grief I give Greg Ostertag, I still claim him.
However, on a purely basketball level, it was not a great move by Larry Bird and Donnie Walsh. Pollard is an effective NBA player, and when he’s been healthy and started, he’s put up respectable numbers (7 points, almost 9 rebounds a game when Chris Webber missed extended time two seasons ago). I think he’ll work nicely with Jermaine O’Neal. However, the whole reason for the trade was the Pacers’ desire to keep old man Reggie Miller around for one more season, rather than resign Brad Miller. Let’s restate: a washed-up, has-been player for one year, or a young, dedicated, 7’ center who was in the All-Star game last year for the next 6-7 years? The math gets even worse when you learn that the Pacers will probably sign Jon Barry as well. One more time: a brittle, geriatric swingman who can’t hit the big shot anymore, plus a bench player to fill Reggie’s role as the defense stretcher for a center who compliments your franchise player perfectly. If the Pacers are so worried about having Reggie around to put asses in the seats, have Larry Bird walk around the court before, during, and after each game. That should do the trick. All that said, I wouldn’t be shocked if Pollard surprises a lot of people here. Anytime you replace a Purdue player with a KU alum, you’ve traded up.

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