Ole Miss' baseball season came to an end Saturday afternoon in Omaha when Virginia eliminated the Rebels with a 4-1 win to advance to the College World Series national championship series. College football betting lines are starting to trickle out, the World Cup is captivating me (and I'm far from alone), the football season feels closer, an 11-year-old girl played in the U.S. Women's Open and I read perhaps the greatest piece of news ever. Thoughts on those topics and more follow here, thanks to my friends at Grenada Nissan.
There's not much more I can add to what we've already written and said following Saturday's loss to Virginia, one that capped off Ole Miss' first appearance in the College World Series since 1972. It was one hell of a run for the Rebels, one that gave fans a June they won't soon forget. Ole Miss was a tough, resilient team. That much was obvious in March. That personality trait never relented, and it made this Ole Miss team one that will go down as one of the favorites in the school's history.
The Oxford Regional wins over Washington, complete with beer showers and phenomenal relief performances, made fans believe. Christian Trent's performance on a Sunday night in Lafayette, La., quieted a wild group of Cajuns ready to party. Then a Monday night win in the same ballpark finally ended the CWS drought, silenced the Omaha jokes and once and for all announced the Rebels' arrival as an elite program.
Nothing happened in Omaha to change that perception. Ole Miss lost a 2-1 decision to Virginia, rallied for two wins and then simply couldn't overcome the Cavaliers' pitching on Saturday. The bet here is it won't be another 42 years before Ole Miss returns to Omaha. The next team to do it, however, will have a really hard time being as beloved as the group that finished its season Saturday afternoon.
2. The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas recently released some early betting lines for the upcoming college football season. Ole Miss is favored by nine in the Aug. 28 opener versus Boise State in Atlanta and by 12 in late October at home against Tennessee. The Rebels are betting underdogs in the other four games available for early betting at the Golden Nugget. The Rebels are a 9-point underdog against Alabama and a 1-point 'dog at Texas A&M a week later. Ole Miss is getting 7 ½ points at LSU and seven at home against defending SEC champ Auburn.
In other words, Vegas likes Ole Miss to win 7-8 games, loves Alabama and Auburn, isn't crazy at all about Texas A&M and doesn't know what to think of LSU.
More importantly, those lines remind us football isn't that far away.
3. Speaking of the return of football, former Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning seems determined to have a bounce-back year in New York after arguably the worst season of his football life.
"I think I have many more years ahead of me," the 33-year old Manning told the New York Daily News. "I think this year will definitely be a better year. I'm looking forward to it. All I can worry about is coming to work every day, getting better, and make sure I'm doing everything I can to make sure we have a better year. And I think we will."
Manning had his lowest completion percentage last season (57.5) since 2007, threw for his fewest yards (3,818) since 2008, threw for his fewest touchdowns (18) since his rookie season, and the most interceptions of his 10-year NFL career. Couple that with an 0-6 start, a fourth playoff-less finish in the last five seasons, and an ankle injury in the season finale, and it's about as close to rock bottom as a two-time Super Bowl MVP could get.
Manning, however, is looking forward.
"I think when you have a new offense coming in (with new offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo) you're not watching the film from last year at this time like we normally might be," Manning told the Daily News. "We're just focusing on this year, getting the fundamentals correct ? the footwork, the timing ?just a lot of drills to make sure everything is going well, and that my footwork matches up with the timing of this offense.
"I'm really just focusing on trying to master this. I'm asking a lot of questions and getting totally into this year. I think it's good to kind of feel like you have a fresh start. It's good to have to try to earn the respect of new coaches and get back to playing the way I know I can."
4. Former Ole Miss wide receiver Donte Moncrief, meanwhile, is looking to get a taste of Manning's NFL success in his rookie season in Indianapolis, and he's off to an impressive start.
"He's great at showing his hands last minute," Colts cornerback Greg Toler told the Colts' official site following OTAs earlier this month. "He showed his hands to the DBs late because we are taught to play hands and eyes. He shields them off and just does a great job with his body. If he keeps working, I think he'll be great."
Work ethic won't be an issue for Moncrief. Recently, Moncrief's mother had an acronym message for her son: GOGA ? Grind or Get Ate.
"She always told me, once I got to this level, 'It's a business so either grind or get ate," Moncrief said. "It's motivation---either you're going to grind and get better or you're going to be lazy and get caught up. That's what I mean from GOGA?either go hard or someone is going to pass you up."
It's still early, and training camp will be critical, but Moncrief is emerging as a favorite target for Colts quarterback Andrew Luck.
"Donte is a big target. We needed to get bigger, too. We needed to get taller." wide receivers coach Charlie Williams told the Colts' official site. "He runs good routes and he catches the ball, that's the key. That's the key."
5. Lucy Li failed to make the cut at the U.S. Women's Open at Pinehurst over the weekend, but that was far from the reason she was in the news. Li, a California native, is 11 years old.
Tour pros had raised doubts about whether the child amateur -- still wearing braces and standing on a box to address the media after her opening round -- should be subjected to the pressure and expectation of such a big professional event.
"When I found out she qualified, I said, 'Well, where does she go from here? You qualify for an Open at 11, what do you do next?'" World No. 1-ranked player Stacy Lewis told CNN.com. "If it was my kid, I wouldn't let her play in the U.S. Open qualifier at 11, but that's just me."
No, Stacy, it's not just you. I have an 11-year-old daughter. Caroline is worldly, sharp, savvy and bright, but she's 11 and I would never put her in that bright of a spotlight at such a tender age. Li is very charismatic, but she's 11, and the sideshow smacked of exploitation. I felt sorry for her. The big stage will come soon enough. If she's this good at 11, how good will she be at 18? In other words, her debut could've waited.
Others disagreed with me.
"She is so mature for her age," 23-year-old Jessica Wallace, who played with Li and Catherine O'Donnell, told CNN.com. "There were times when I felt more immature than she is. Catherine and I had fun talking to her. She's so mature, it's like talking to another 23-year-old."
Her caddy Bryan Bush added: "She proved that she deserved to be here. Her play spoke for itself. It was never about score. "She was here for the experience and the opportunity to play with the best players in the world. She proved that she can."
6. I don't know much about soccer. As a kid growing up in Ruston, La., I think I played one season of soccer. Maybe. I've never been to an MLS game or developed anything resembling a following for one of the league's franchises or for any of the European club teams that grace my television from time to time.
That said, I'm hooked on the World Cup. I'm not alone. Heck, 5.735 million American sets were tuned to ESPN for Germany-Ghana on Saturday afternoon. Ghana. Germany. In the U.S. On a Saturday afternoon. In June. Yeah, the World Cup is a big deal.
I planned my Sunday around the USA-Portugal game and man oh man, was it ever worth it. The second half, which saw the Americans first tie and then go ahead of the Portuguese before giving up the tying goal in the final minute of stoppage time, was just fantastic theatre.
Personally, I think the growth of soccer in this country can't be ignored. I watch ESPN's investment in the sport, listen to smart people such as ESPN Radio Colin Cowherd talk about the future of the sport and just make my own observations and come to the conclusion that soccer will be a big-four sport within 20 years or less.
That debate can wait. However, seeing the country unite behind this team is exhilarating. I can't wait for Thursday's game against Germany. I've already started my trash-talking research.
7. When the Charlotte Hornets revealed their new uniforms last week, eagle-eyed observers like Uni Watch's Paul Lukas noticed something different. The NBA logo, which had previously appeared on jerseys on the upper left chest area, had been moved to the back of the uniform. It's not a minor change for change's sake.
The Hornets are merely the first to show off the change for next year. All 30 teams will move the logo to the back center of their uniforms for the 2014-15 season.
Advertisements on uniforms are "inevitable," Adam Silver said at a sports business conference earlier this year. The NBA considered adding them two years ago, citing its own studies that jersey ads would bring in $100 million a year, but tabled a formal vote. At the time, the plan was to introduce ads, in the form of a 2.5-inch-by-2.5 inch tab, to be placed exactly where the NBA logo used to be.
You can bet the NFL, NHL and MLB --- and maybe even NCAA programs --- will be watching the reaction (and the revenue reports), more than willing to follow suit as franchises seek new ways to produce monies.
8. The NBA draft is Thursday, but the eyes of the league are on LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Love more than they are on Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid and Andrew Wiggins.
LeBron James reportedly doesn't want to take a salary cut in order to save Heat owner Micky Arison money. Neither does Dwayne Wade. It's difficult to believe Chris Bosh does, either. James, according to NBA.com, is miffed at Arison even though the Heat paid the luxury tax the past two years and is poised to pay it again. James is none too happy about Miami's decision to amnesty Mike Miller, to include last year's draft choice as a sweetener to unload Joel Anthony's contract or to not use the mid-level exception to add a rotation-caliber player.
The Heat remain the favorites to keep James, though there are basketball insiders --- including Rockets forward Chandler Parsons --- who aren't sure his days in Miami aren't over. Parsons boldly predicted last week that James will leave Miami this summer and possibly reunite with the Cavaliers franchise that drafted him No. 1 overall in 2003.
Speaking on Friday's Sportsnation broadcast, the 25-year-old swingman said the fact that James is likely going to finish the season short of his third NBA championship is reason enough for the four-time MVP to leave the Heat team he joined in 2010.
"I think if they would have won the championship, it would have been a different story and they would have come back to do it again," Parsons said. "I think he's done all he can do there, and it's time for him to move on."
The Chicago Bulls are the most likely landing spot for Carmelo Anthony, a league source told SNY.TV and The Knicks Blog. Anthony opted out of his Knicks deal on Sunday, and while the Rockets covet him, the Bulls make the most sense.
"He is looking to leave if one of the teams he likes can get a deal done with New York," the source told SNY.TV. "He knows New York is not good enough the way they are currently constructed. Melo wants to win now. He will move if he feels that team can win."
Houston has to move both Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik to make room for Anthony's salary. Chicago, meanwhile, needs only to amnesty Carlos Boozer and move Taj Gibson to free the salary room for Anthony, who could conceivably team with a healthy Derrick Rose and All-NBA center Joakim Noah to make the Bulls a threat in the Eastern Conference.
ESPN's Brian Windhorst reported over the weekend that if the Knicks believe Anthony's departure is inevitable, they could get Boozer and the No. 16 or 19 pick in Thursday's draft in exchange for Anthony. The Bulls would have to make the pick and then trade that player to the Knicks in July, Windhorst reported.
Making the deal with the Bulls would allow Phil Jackson to get the first-round pick he has been looking for and to potentially add a young point guard, perhaps Syracuse's Tyler Ennis, to replace Raymond Felton.
The Golden State Warriors, meanwhile, want to structure a deal around Harrison Barnes and David Lee for Love, allowing them to keep or trade Klay Thompson in a separate deal. Minnesota wants to build any Love deal around Thompson. Most now expect Love, a free agent after next season, to open the 2014-15 campaign in Minnesota.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov is currently fielding offers to buy the team, according to Yahoo Sports.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski's source, Prokhorov is curious to know how much his stake in the Nets and the Barclays Center could go for on the open market after the Los Angeles Clippers sold for a record $2 billion. The Russian billionaire purchased the Nets in May 2010 for $223 million. He currently owns an 80 percent stake in the team and a 45 percent stake in the arena.
Finally, with Embiid out 4-6 months with a foot injury, I expect Cleveland to select Parker No. 1 on Thursday. I'd take Wiggins but I get it; Parker is the surest thing in a draft full of potential impact players.
9. As Esquire.com noted last week, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Fed, offered a remarkable comment at Princeton's commencement last month. Addressing the elites of the future, Bernanke offered the following advice regarding the concept of success:
"The concept of success leads me to consider so-called meritocracies and their implications. We have been taught that meritocratic institutions and societies are fair. Putting aside the reality that no system, including our own, is really entirely meritocratic, meritocracies may be fairer and more efficient than some alternatives. But fair in an absolute sense? Think about it. A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate ? these are the folks who reap the largest rewards."
Bernanke's comments, as Esquire.com noted, came 25 years after the release of Bull Durham, which turns that exact age this summer. Esquire.com wrote --- and I agree completely ? Bull Durham is not only the greatest sports movie ever made, but also a great movie about the basic unfairness of life.
As Esquire.com opined, "Bull Durham is about how who wins and who loses is not necessarily the same as who is a winner and who is a loser. Baseball is the purest example of unearned talent there is. Nobody gets to choose whether he has an arm. You cannot really work yourself up to a 96 mile per hour fastball. You either have it or you don't. The two heroes of Bull Durham live out this division. There is the kid, the natural, 'Nuke' LaLooche, and there is Crash Davis, the catcher who understands everything but can barely keep his average over .250.
"He has no gift, and he has the brains to understand that fact --- one of life's most torturous positions. Crash, a man of the world, is hired to educate Nuke, and his advice is fabulous. It ranges from the most quotidian --- 'You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes' --- to the almost mystical, 'If you believe you're playing well because you're getting laid or because you're not getting laid or because you wear women's underwear, then you are.'
"Of course, the main lesson of Bull Durham is that intelligence is vastly overrated anyway. That's the source of the pain behind the comedy: One of the worst things about knowing things is knowing that your knowledge doesn't really matter. It may help you get the record for most home runs in the minor leagues, but it won't keep you in the big leagues, and it won't help you get the girl, at least not at first. Wisdom doesn't matter nearly as much as the arm. The first lesson that Crash imparts to Nuke is 'Don't think. It can only hurt the ball club.' The last lesson he himself learns at the end is 'I don't wanna think about nothing. I just wanna be.'"
It's going to be a slow week. I'm throwing my copy of Bull Durham in the DVD player at some point. It never gets old. Happy 25th, Crash Davis.
10. I've weighed in here on all sorts of social issues, including a recent entry about evidence of polar ice melting that could one day, thousands and thousands of years from now, threaten coastal cities such as Miami.
So, here's this, from the Daily Mail, pointing out evidence that a cold Arctic summer has left 533,000 more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year. That's an increase of 29 percent.
The rebound, as the UK-based publication points out, comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013. Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia's northern shores.
The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Daily Mail reported, has remained blocked by pack-ice all year. More than 20 yachts that had planned to sail it have been left ice-bound and a cruise ship attempting the route was forced to turn back. Some scientists now believe the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century ? a process that would expose computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming as dangerously misleading. Sorry, Al Gore.
11. Could this be the news I've waited 25 years for? Researchers at Yale have uncovered pharmaceutical alchemy that could finally allow follicly-challenged fellows like myself to have a head full of luxurious hair.
According to multiple media reports, over the course of an eight-month trial, a nearly hairless man, whose condition is the result of a rare disease called alopecia, sprouted a full head of hair along with eyebrows, eyelashes, facial, armpit, and "other" hair.
This miracle drug, which also works for treating psoriasis, is called tofacitinib citrate, and is actually prescribed for arthritis.
Tofacitinib was discovered by Pfizer and approved by the FDA in 2012. I'm currently searching for ways to order multiple vats of the stuff. I'm planning to give Will Allen's hair a run for its money.
12. Some miscellaneous stuff here:
A. We've said this a lot this week, but it bears repeating: Without Ben Craddock, Craddock Oil and Oxford Exxon, our coverage of the College World Series would have been challenging and likely quite different. Ben's become a friend over the past year, and I'd like to think our business relationship has been mutually beneficial. Thanks, Ben, for stepping up on short notice when it was needed.
B. I'd also like to thank our four secondary College World Series sponsors one last time. Thanks to Trails and Treads of Tupelo and New Albany; Bethlehem Church in Potts Camp, Miss.; Brandon, Miss., Alfa Insurance agent Aaron Jussely and Oxford-based RE-MAX Realty agent Harry Alexander. Your contributions to our coverage are greatly appreciated.
C. It's a week late, but Happy belated Father's Day to my dad, Mike McCready. Nothing means more to me than being a dad, and my father served as one hell of a role model in that regard. He's always been there with his support. I read stories all the time about people who never heard their father tell them he loved them. I never had to want for that. I hear it from him all the time. It never gets old.
D. I just wrapped up Week 2 of formal training for the Chicago Marathon with a nine-mile run all over Oxford (did you know there are a lot of hills here?) in 90-plus-degree temperatures Sunday morning. As you might know, I'm running for St. Jude's, with all of the money donated to my cause going to that remarkable hospital in Memphis. So far, I've raised more than $8,000. Thanks to all of you who have been generous enough to contribute. One of the posters here at RebelGrove.com has vowed to pledge $5,000 if I can hit the $10,000 plateau. I'd be honored if you'd help. My personal fundraising page is linked here below. Have a great week.
Give to St. Jude's
