Morning Round-Up for Wednesday, June 4th. Folks I want to thank you all for taking the time to read my sports musings over these last 2+ years. I will now add links here to my work with Reid Newspapers in Oklahoma once I’ve begun my work there on Monday. Now, I’m finishing up my family business in the ‘Chicagoland’ area before I can leave this weekend. Keep in touch!
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Carl Benson, Jr. – sports
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Morning Round-Up for Monday, June 2nd. Contrary to popular belief this past weekend was chalk full of exciting & even controversial moments. “The runner missed home plate and was assisted. However, that play is not reviewable according to appendix G, said an NCAA Women’s fastpitch softball umpire after a 13 minute delay reviewing that call in the 7th inning of an elimination game between Tennessee & UCLA on Sunday. Of course Tennessee’s head coach Karen Weekly vehemently disagreed & filed a protest. But, Weekly was told later that her protest wasn’t allowed because the play wasn’t reviewable. The Vols eventually won on a ‘walk-off’ single after the bases were indiscriminately loaded on 2 intentional walks. Tennessee advanced & UCLA goes home in the Women’s College World Series. Oh ya’, the Oklahoma Sooners advanced to another ‘knockout’ game on Monday trying to get into the semifinals to defend their four straight national titles. The under appreciated Indiana Pacers didn’t need an ‘Appendix G’ to get them to their 1st NBA Finals since Larry Bird was coaching them in the year 2000. The talk of national sports talk on Monday morning was mostly about how the vanquished Knicks can improve as opposed to what the Pacers can do to beat the overwhelming favorites the Oklahoma City Thunder in the upcoming NBA Finals. “This is no time to be popping Champagne. When you get to this point of the season, you know, it’s two teams, and it’s one goal, and so, you know, it’s become an all or nothing thing, and we understand the magnitude of our opponent,” said Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle to Indiana Public Media’s Samantha Horton during the postgame of game 6 of the Eastern Conference series win. If there are any so-called big matchups in ‘big league’ baseball in late May & early June then last years World Series teams meeting for the 1st time qualified as a series to watch. The Yankees were almost run out of Los Angeles over the weekend but were able to capture game 3 on ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ salvaging a game to the stacked Dodgers. “The Dodgers are a better team,” said Derek Jeter on Saturday night after the Dodgers bludgeoned his Yankees 18-2 on Fox television. So, the Yankees will pick up the pieces & go back to running the weak AL East knowing that they need to get better if they’re are to beat not only the Dodgers but any team coming out of the NL if they were to get back to the World Series this fall. This is the week that the Stanley Cup Finals begins which is a rematch of last years Cup Finals & the NBA Finals returns to Oklahoma City for the 1st time since ’12.
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Morning Round-Up for Friday, May 30th. The word trilogy means three of something…novels, books, television/internet series & movies among other things. In sports we have some of the most heavily covered & memorable trilogies connected to championship rivalries. LaMatta/Robinson, Ali/Frazier, Celtics/Lakers, Dodgers/Yankees & Cowboys/Steelers all of these memorable championship rivalries elicit feelings of nostalgia & past glory. Now, this years version of the Stanley Cup Finals is not quite in the trilogy stages yet but the games most celebrate superstar Connor McDavid can accomplish something that Wayne Gretzky & Sidney Crosby have done. Gretzky (’83) & Crosby (’09) were able to lead their teams to the Cup Title the very next year after losing to the same team in the previous Stanley Cup Title series. The 2-time defending Cup champion Florida Panthers & their loyal following will try & stop McDavid’s Oilers from winning Canada’s 1st Cup championship since Patrick Roy led his Canadiens to the title in 1993. The Panthers became the 4th franchise since 1979-80 to get to the Stanley Cup Championship series in 3 consecutive seasons. Will these two teams do it again next season to make it a trilogy? Who knows. Let’s go to the ‘ballyard’…on Thursday night Atlanta Braves reigning NL Cy Young winning pitcher Chris Sale became the fastest pitcher in MLB history to to reach the 2,500 strikeout plateau doing it in 2,026 innings (Randy Johnson-2,107 innings). “I appreciate it for what it is, but I’m not trying to get caught up in that stuff now,” Sale said to Reuters on Thursday night. The Dodgers are slowly getting their band back together from injuries. On Wednesday 3-time Cy Young pitcher & the emotional leader of this great Dodgers team Clayton Kershaw went 5 innings giving up 6 hits & 1 run with 2 walks & 3 strikeouts. “I’m fighting some stuff mechanically and different things, but I was able to make some pitches here and there to get through the five innings,” Kershaw said to MLB media’s Henry Palattella on Wednesday. Kershaw didn’t get the win but he’s working himself back into form & for Dodgers fans he’s the catalyst to their pitching staff for later in the season. The ‘OKC’ Thunder aren’t the only team in Oklahoma going for a championship right now. The Oklahoma (OU) Sooners women’s fast pitch softball team is going for their ‘five peat’ in the Women’ College World Series in ‘OKC’. The Indy 500 was this past Sunday in Indianapolis but the hottest sports ticket on Saturday night will be game 6 of the Eastern Conference Championship series in the NBA. Can the Pacers close it out at home? Or will the Knicks extend the series to a 7th game at bonkers Madison Square Garden on Monday night? Have a great sports weekend! See ya’ Monday for my 2nd to last ‘Round-Up’ before I leave for Oklahoma next weekend.
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Morning Round-Up for Wednesday, May 28th. How many of you out there needs to just take a day & go somewhere & let it all hang out? One of those days that you’d do something that you never thought that you’d ever do or didn’t have the time or you thought it wasn’t dignified for you to do that thing. Jumping out of a plane parachuting, scuba diving or how about going to Six Flags in New Jersey & going on the most treacherous rollercoaster ride. Well, Philadelphia Eagles 3-time All-Pro (2nd team) wide receiver A.J. Brown decided that it was time to take on the challenge of riding on the ‘Frisbee Ride’ at Six Flags Great Adventure in the greater Philadelphia/New Jersey area on Memorial Day. A.J.’s ride was captured on video & it went viral as you can experience the happy terror that A.J. is experiencing as if he were an 8 year old kid again. But, to his credit as someone who didn’t want to do that again A.J. laughingly admitted that there are other things that he’d do again before going back on that ride. “I would run a slant across the middle against Ray Lewis and Kam Chancellor before I ride another roller coaster,” Brown said with a grin on his face confirming that this will be his only roller coaster ride from here out. Viral is what the Indiana Pacers Tyrese Haliburton has become in these compelling 2025 NBA Playoffs. The underrated Haliburton once again proved his bona fides on Tuesday night in game 4 of the Eastern Conference title series registering 30 points, 15 assists & 10 rebounds in a playoff game. No one has ever done that before. The Pacers have a commanding 3-1 lead vs the Knicks going into game 5 in Madison Square Garden on Thursday night. “I feel like the more we take care of the ball as a team, the more opportunities we get to shoot the ball. The more shots we get in the game. The better opportunity we have to win,” Haliburton said after game 4 to Yahoo Sports’ Dan Devine. It was a playoff atmosphere in Philly on Tuesday night as the division & playoff rival Phillies hosted the Atlanta Braves which was televised on TBS’s Tuesday Night Baseball. One of the attractions of this playoff like May regular season game was what Atlanta’s returning (from season ending surgery in ’24) ace pitcher Spencer Strider would do vs the Phillies stacked power lineup. In the 1st inning Phillies superstar 1st baseman Bryce Harper stood in & then got plunked in his right elbow by a 95 mph Strider fastball & was writhing in pain for minutes after that having to leave the game with assistance from the Phillies training staff. “Everyone was holding their breath when it happened. It definitely hurts. But it’s very relieving to know it’s nothing major,” Max Keppler said after the Phillies won 2-0 in an intense regular season game on Tuesday night. The X-Ray’s came back as negative & Harper will be re-evaluated on Wednesday morning, according to Phillies manager Rob Thomson. Harper will likely land on the short term ‘IL’ with an elbow contusion.
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Morning Round-Up for Monday, May 26…Memorial Day (U.S.). The end of May & early June in U.S. sports feels akin to someone who’s shopping for a new car with the money to buy any car & going to every showroom that they can & testing every car possible. Hey, if you’re a women’s fastpitch softball fan there’s intense Super Regional action going on leading up to the Women’s College World Series. The men are duking it out in the men’s version of their regionals (NCAA Tournament) that leads up to the College World Series in Omaha. Okay, well maybe college softball & baseball isn’t what floats your boat. Never before at the Indy 500 has the winner been overshadowed by someone who was in the race that didn’t even finish the race. Alex Palou grabbed his 1st oval victory but the real story was the failure of 2-time defending champion & Penske driver Josef Newgarden to do something at Indy that no one has ever done & that’s win a ‘Three Peat’. Newgarden had to start on the last row with teammate Will Power for an illegal part modification penalty which added to the drama as we watched Josef gain spots on the board moving all the way up from 33rd to the number 6th spot. On lap 133 (200 laps) Newgarden made a routine pit stop & the car had an issue & that was it no ‘Three Peat’. “It looks like some fuel pressure issues, so I’m not sure. It’s some kind of an anomaly or something we’ve never seen before. It’s just unfortunate for the whole group. It’s a team sport, which that very much shows it. It’s tough to not have a shot here at the end,” Newgarden reflected to a Fox reporter right after climbing out of his car on Sunday. In New York the regular season rematch of last years NLCS between the L.A. Dodgers & New York Mets may not have had the stakes of postseason play but it was an intense late May series that the Mets took 2 of 3 from the stacked Dodgers. “It shows a lot about that group or ability to bounce back, the grit, the resilience. It was on display the whole weekend,” Mets Manager Carlos Mendoza said to New York Post reporter Mark Sanchez on Sunday evening. The Thunder from Oklahoma City got punched in the mouth on Saturday night in game 3 of the West Finals of the NBA losing by an astounding 42 points. No team that has lost a conference finals game by that much has gone on to win the NBA Championship. The Knicks got up off of the ground & gutted out a tight victory in game 3 of the East Finals in Indy on Sunday night to cut their series to 2-1 just like the West Finals. Karl-Anthony Towns (KAT) took his Knicks & placed them squarely on his back scoring 20 fourth quarter points to lead his Knicks to a clutch road playoff win. “Shoutout to my Mom,” Towns said honoring his Mother on Dominican’s Mothers Day on Sunday night. Towns lost 8 family members including his Mother to Covid-19 in 2020 & he dedicated his performance in game 3 to her memory. The Florida Panthers are one step closer to defending their Cup title going up 3-0 in the East Final.
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Morning Round-Up for Friday, May 23rd. Who’s the greatest salesperson in your company of all-time? How about what person has won the most awards in your company & are those years considered the best years of your company? Let’s pivot to the U.S. professional sports scene where some are starting to anoint certain teams playing now as dynasty’s in waiting. The Florida Panthers are cruising through the Stanley Cup Eastern Conference Championship series on their way to a 3rd straight appearance in the Cup Finals. The Panthers Sam Bennett feels that they’re rolling right now. “We’ve been playing well on the road. Our defense has been incredible,” Bennett said to a reporter from the Palm Beach Post. The Panthers are stunning the favored Carolina Hurricanes taking a 2-0 lead in the series so does this mean that they’re a burgeoning NHL dynasty if they get back to & win another Cup? The Oklahoma City Thunder replete with the newly minted NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (who started his NBA career with the L.A. Clippers in ’18) is a team full of high draft picks that are ‘homegrown’ by their organization. It would appear that the Minnesota Timberwolves are in for a short ride in the NBA’s Western Conference Championship series. “When you win games, you do it together and you have fun out there, everything else…all the individual stuff you want…it comes with it,” Gilgeous-Alexander said to an AP reporter first published by WPIX11 in New York City. This Thunder team has a maturity that most young teams never experience & it has many in the media contemplating that this could be a the dawn of championship run for ‘OKC’. Not so fast, the T-Wolves aren’t done yet they host the next 2-games in Minneapolis. The Los Angeles Dodgers have an all-star lineup in their pitching rotation & their lineup with back to back to back current or former MVP’s adorning their lineup everyday. Are the Dodgers the next dynasty in ‘big league’ baseball? MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred feels that even without a salary cap in baseball that competitive balance isn’t a concern. Manfred feels that a few teams freely spending without a salary cap is okay. “It’s clear that we have fans in some markets that are concerned about the ability of the team in their market to compete with the financial resources of the Dodgers. If we’ve been consistent on one point, we try to listen to our fans on topics like this. And I have heard the people, believe me,” Manfred told Jack Harris of the L.A. Times in February. Of all of the teams in sports the Dodgers may be the only true dynasty within the next 5 years based on their ability to spend indiscriminately when needed. What is a dynasty? Is it a 3-year championship run or a decade of competing for & winning a few titles in that space? The Panthers, the potential future champion Thunder & current champs the Dodgers are the closest teams to establishing dynasty’s joining the K.C. Chiefs as dynasty’s. There’s some ‘watercooler’ fodder for ya’.
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Morning Round-Up for Wednesday, May 21st. It’s 35 days until the NBA Draft & speaking about the upcoming draft at the end of June the Oklahoma City Thunder built their team through the draft. Refusing to trade up or trade picks the Thunder have done what many franchises in hockey, basketball, baseball & the NFL won’t do & that’s build almost entirely through the draft. Some teams are notoriously cheap & I won’t name those teams & you know who they are. The Thunder have played their hand well & they maybe on the brink of their 2nd NBA Finals (’12) in their 3rd Western Conference Finals appearance. The New York Knicks & Indiana Pacers have built their teams completely differently than the T-Wolves & Thunder out west. Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals is in a way a rematch of one of last years Eastern Conference Semifinal series where the Pacers took care of an injured & tired Knicks easily on their way to the Conference Finals. “I mean it still kind of bothers me. Obviously it was a missed opportunity last year playing them at home in Game 7, regardless of who we had out there,” Jalen Brunson said to the New York Post on Monday. As Terrell Owens once said “get your popcorn ready” because this Eastern Conference Finals series will be physical & at times profane & will more than likely see a couple of fights & will possibly go 7 games this year also. Staying in New York City, Mets fans & some of the media were almost apoplectic after Monday nights Mets loss in Fenway taking it out on newly acquired superstar right fielder Juan Soto for not getting out of the batters box in a timely fashion. Soto was enjoying his fly balls on 2 occasions incorrectly thinking that he hit homers twice but they ended up becoming routine (can of corn) fly balls. “We’ll talk to him about it uhm. Tonight someone gets a hold of one it’s and he knows when he gets it, you know we thought he had it with the wind and all that. This ballpark in particular, that wall there you’ve gotta’ get outta’ the box…uhm, we’ll discuss that,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said almost reassuring the New York media that he will be talked to…if that matters on Monday night. When asked if he needs to be aware of getting out of the box earlier Juan Soto didn’t blink an eye for his answer. “No, I think I work very hard as you see today,” Soto answered to a pool of reporters during the postgame on Monday in Boston. Former Redskins starting free safety in the early 1980’s & the current President of the Packers Mark Murphy has led the charge to get rid of the so-called ‘Tush Push’ in the NFL & the owners will vote on that on Wednesday to rid themselves of this play that they cannot stop without actually stopping it on the field. “It’s bad for the game, and we should go back to the prohibiting the push of the runner,” Murphy said back in February. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie wants to keep the ‘Tush Push’. “It was controversial when the forward pass came out,” Lurie said in April.
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Morning Round-Up for Monday, May 19th. The establishment sports media & golf world is buzzing this morning after Scottie Scheffler won the PGA Championship capturing his 3rd major title (2-Masters titles). Scheffler is being categorized by some as a generational player while using language that already has placed him in the class of the all-time great golfers of note. Does the ability to transcend the game & bring in others who aren’t traditionally drawn to golf one of the factors that one who is being called a generational player matter? Scheffler considers himself a religious person & has often given praise to God in some interviews. In this post Tiger Woods major championship era does it matter that potentially the greatest golfer of his generation on the men’s side to some may appear to need a personality transplant in order to help grow the game beyond it’s base? “I would say I value the opinions of my close friends who truly know me, versus like the perception of someone who sees me from outside the room. My identity is secure, and I cannot emphasize that enough,” Scheffler once said to a reporter on the subject of his almost emotionless demeanor. Are his detractors judging Scottie on how he goes about his business on his job which is on the golf course unfairly? To those of us who are believers it’s always nice to see someone give praise to God & live there lives in that way but, does that translate into super stardom in our media world? Scottie Scheffler will always be the favorite to win major golf championships & other tournaments until his prime winning years are over. Clayton Kershaw is considered one of the best ‘big league’ pitchers of his generations but he’s been besieged with injuries of late. Kershaw made his ’25 debut for his Dodgers this past Friday in a loss vs the Angels. Kershaw lasted only 4 innings giving up 5 runs on 5 hits with 3 walks & a strike out. Now, those numbers aren’t what he or the Dodgers were looking for but they’re just glad that he was able to go 4 injury free innings. “It’s a special thing to get back and pitch at Dodger Stadium. Obviously, I wanted to pitch better. I need to pitch better going forward,” Kershaw said in his postgame ‘presser’. Time will tell if he still has his old magic. Robert Schwartzman (25) became the 1st rookie to earn the ‘Pole Position’ at ‘Indy’ since 1983 & the 2nd since 1951. “Honestly I feel like I’m dreaming. I just had it in my dreams when I was going how would it feel to do such such a good job in quali. It’s the Indy 500. It’s the main race of the year. Honestly it feels unbelievable,” Schwartzman said after being celebrated by his crew as though he had just won the race on the Sunday before the actual race next Sunday. 21 pole sitters have won in the previous 108 running’s of the Indianapolis 500. For this dual citizen of Russia & Israel winning the ‘Indy 500’ is more than a dream it would be an expression of who he is in the world at large.
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Morning Round-Up for Friday, May 16th. This is wedding season, graduations are firing up but for those of us sports fans this is that time of the year when sports on television is at it’s best! The so-called ‘Subway Series’ starts up this weekend in Yankee stadium & will have a measure of drama when new Mets outfielder Juan Soto steps up to the plate. Will Soto be booed summarily by the Yankees fans & thrown at by the Yankees starting pitchers or is all of the vitriol just a symptom of a few certain media figures? The WNBA season starts up this weekend as the defending champion New York Liberty will try to grab the spotlight from the elephant in the room in the WNBA & that’s the Indiana Fever with Caitlin Clark & gang. Fox is now covering the 109th ‘Indy 500’ & we can once again enjoy the practices live from start to finish before the qualifications that starts on Saturday. The Preakness without the Kentucky Derby winning horse Sovereignty will still be a bigtime sporting event showcasing Maryland’s steep horse racing tradition. But there will be no ‘Triple Crown’ again. On Friday night one of the ‘Original 6’ NHL teams the Toronto Maple Leafs will be fighting for their Stanley Cup lives in Florida against the defending cup champion Panthers. The Panthers have gone up in their best of 7 series 3-2 & the Panthers star defenseman Gustav Forsling has drawn the assignment to stop the Leafs prolific scoring right winger William Nylander. “He’s been great, he’s obviously super skilled, good with the puck. We want to shut him down as much as possible, and take time and space away from him,” Forsling said to Leaf Nation’s Steven Ellis. Nylander is the leading scorer in this 2nd round series with 15 points (6 goals) so far. The PGA Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina had a surprise leader going into the 2nd round. ‘Johnny’ (Jhonattan) Vegas sounds like a name straight out of an old Mickey Spillane novel from the 1950’s but he is the 1st Venezuelan to lead a major golf tournament after any round. The main event may be on Sunday with my future home team the ‘OKC’ Thunder trying to stop the ’23 NBA Champion Nuggets from getting to the Western Conference Championship series in a highly anticipated game 7. Friday night is the preliminary fight with the Celtics at Knicks in Madison Square Garden for game 6. Karl-Anthony Towns will not be wasting time trying to shoot 3-pointers very much on Friday night. “I haven’t been out there really. Haven’t had the chance to shoot. We’ve just been trying to do our game plan and I’m just trying to execute at the highest level. So I’m trying to do most of my damage inside and do whatever my team asks of me,” Towns said to Yahoo Sports Ian Begley after game 5. The Knicks need to close out the series at home or they’ll be in trouble in a game 7 in Boston. Watch to see how boisterous the New York crowd is on Friday night to help their Knicks get to their 1st conference finals since the year 2000.
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Morning Round-Up for Wednesday, May 14th will return for Friday, May 16th. Had a lot of pre-moving business that has come up early this week from condo sale viewings & other things on the moving list. Thanks for reading & we’ll talk again this Friday. Carl Benson, Jr.
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Carl Benson, Jr.