New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Sunday Gravy: Credit Yankees for adding McCutchen
According to research by a Southern Methodist University professor, Connecticut has more psychopaths than any other state in the nation. Considering our home state is divided straight down the middle, this development should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever witnessed arguments between fans of the Yankees and Red Sox.
1 At the onset of spring training, the Yankees were thought to have an embarrassment of riches in the outfield. Long before the Aug. 31 deadline, is became crystal clear the team was desperate for outfield help.
The original three-week timetable on Aaron Judge’s wrist fracture was absurdly optimistic. It’s why the Yankees stuck it out so long with Shane Robinson, who looks and hits like a 15-year bat boy. Whether Judge makes it back by season’s end is a genuine concern.
Long-term injuries to Jacoby Ellsbury and Clint Frazier, Giancarlo Stanton’s bad hamstring and rapidly aging Brett Gardner severely limited the outfield options and production.
So credit the Yankees for snagging Andrew McCutchen in the nick of time. He’s a veteran hitter with plenty left in the tank who could easily rejuvenate himself on the big stage of New York. Given the current outfield situation, it’s likely he’ll be a regular in the lineup throughout the postseason.
1 Instant replay is finally coming to Ivy League football. After years of failed attempts by the league’s coaches, it finally passed a vote of administrators and will be in place at every stadium when the season begins in two weeks.
Had video review been in place last fall, Yale likely would have posted its first perfect season since 1960.
An apparent touchdown at Dartmouth was negated because referees ruled the receiver was out-of-bounds. Replays — including those shown on the video board at Dartmouth’s Memorial Field — showed the Bulldog receiver was indeed in bounds. The missed points cost Yale in a 28-27 loss, its only blemish of the season.
When did “epic” become
1 the most over-used word sports journalism? Every long home run is now epic. Every manager-umpire dustup is epic. Anyone with decent numbers is having an epic season. It’s said so often the word has lost all meaning. It’s an epic failure.
1 The number of belowaverage defensive teams in Major League Baseball is staggering. The Yankees are particularly awful. Defense should be a major focus of every team. Yet while pregame batting practice is a daily ritual, infielders take half-hearted grounders individually, lobbing the ball back. Team infield practice, a daily staple from Little League through major college baseball, has gone the way of the dinosaur. And not a single MLB manager seems to care.
1 No team ever banged out 12 consecutive hits in an inning until the Red Sox did it on Thursday night. Opposing pitchers, particularly middle relievers, must have nightmares about that lineup.
1 So much for the State Farm discount doublecheck. Aaron Rodgers’ new contract with the Packers will pay him $134 million over four years. According to the terms of the deal, he’ll bank $67 million by the end of this year. Which means between now and New Year’s Eve he’ll earn roughly $554,000 per day. No one said it’s easy to be an NFL quarterback. Just imagine rolling out of bed each morning and grumbling, “Another day, another half a million dollars.”
1 At a cost of a mere $20 million this season, the Patriots have quite a bargain with Tom Brady.
1 Ted Williams, who would have turned 100 this week, is most remembered for batting .406 in 1941. But did you know that his average would have been .411 if not for an inexplicable rule change a year earlier that eliminated the sacrifice fly?
Williams should have had six sacrifice flies in 1941. By rule each went into the scorebook as a routine fly out, meaning he went 0-for-6 on them. The sac fly, which doesn’t count as an official at-bat, was reinstituted in 1954.
1 The Northeast-10 Conference will get an 11th football member next fall when Franklin Pierce joins the party. It could mean the end of non-conference games for Southern Connecticut State and New Haven, at least for the short term.
Merrimack, already Division I in hockey, is working hard to upgrade the rest of its sports, which would include FCS-level football. LIU Post has also long been interested in moving up to Division I.
The NE-10 may have a plan should one or both leave, and its likely Waterbury’s Post University. They currently play sprint football at Post, which is football with a 178-pound weight limit. The program, obviously, would need to commit to regulation football to join.
1 Which was the more depressing sight on Thursday night? UConn looking like a scout team trying, unsuccessfully, to stop Central Florida’s vaunted offense? Or the seasonopener — against last season’s only undefeated team in college football — being played at half-empty Rentschler Field?
1 It’s pretty much been all downhill since UConn football reached its zenith at the 2011 Fiesta Bowl. The tone for its precipitous drop was set in the first move by the school after Randy Edsall left for Maryland. UConn could have hired offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead. Instead, Paul Pasqualoni got the job and he quickly demoted Moorhead to quarterbacks coach.
Things worked out just fine for Moorhead, long considered a rising young coaching star. He left UConn later that year to become head coach at Fordham, where his success led to a job as Penn State’s offensive coordinator. He’s now the head coach at No. 18 Mississippi State.
Eight years later, UConn football is still trying to pick up the pieces.