BRONX, NY – Hey there, this is my last column before I get out of Dodge for a bit. So, you’re all (all three of you) here to bear witness that I am alerting MTM Management that they need to get a replacement columnist for me the next TWO weeks. I’d like to suggest JG Clancy and it would be fun if you brought back West Coast Craig or gave Sam’s-a-Fan a call. Okay, I’ve said what I needed to say, let’s proceed.
Scheffler is Top Shelf. 
It’s not often I lead with golf—in fact I don’t think I ever have—but this Scottie Scheffler dude has made it kinda impossible to ignore. This past Sunday he won his fourth major by blowing away the field at the British Open. It’s a tad early to start drawing comparisons to the all-time greats of the game, but Scheffler’s in his prime and if he can avoid the “Tiger Traps” of exotic extracurriculars, he can really make noise. I mean, he already has. But double-digit major championships do seem within reason at this point. Though, I gotta ask, what’s with athletes holding onto I-Es, and Ys at the ends of their names? Shouldn’t that get dropped towards the end of high school or something?
Break Up the Brew Crew. As I write this, the Milwaukee Brewers have won 11 games in a row and will probably make it 12 tonight against my Mariners with that Miz kid (you’re crazy if you think I’m gonna look up the spelling) on the bump. Prior to this series they swept the Los Angeles Dodgers TWICE… once before and once after the all-star break. Pretty frickin’ impressive for a team full of players I don’t know. Milwaukee hasn’t gotten this much attention since Lenny and Squiggy kept busting through Laverne & Shirley’s apartment door. Let’s stick with baseball for another beat.
Let Skenes and Skubal Pitch More. I know this ain’t gonna happen, but I wish Major League Baseball’s starting pitchers pitched more innings and went deeper into games. When winning games got turned over to the bullpen, the game of baseball took a huge hit in entertainment value. Starting pitchers were always the stars fans wanted to see. Currently we’ve got a great crop of young pitchers in the league including Paul Skenes (toiling in Pittsburgh) and Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, to name the two most obvious. Last Sunday night Skubal struck out 11 Texas Rangers in 6.2 innings worth of work. In two of his previous three games to that, he struck out 10 and 13, each time going 7 innings and throwing under 100 pitches. Enough of this crap! More innings, more strikeouts, and how about a few more complete games! You want people to watch, give them more of the good stuff.
Unhappy Campers. *Sigh* And now we come to that portion of the year, where the #NFL season isn’t quite here but the news cycle is churning out stories daily about players who want contract extensions or their current contracts renegotiated. Micah Parsons isn’t happy. Trey Hendrickson isn’t happy. Terry McLaurin isn’t happy. Rinse, wash, repeat. Every year it’s the same thing, and every year I’m pretty much with the players. The guys that really do it right are the ones that get the deal done with like one week left in training camp. That’s the sweet spot. All those deals will get done, one way or another, so really no need to to spend another word on it.
That’s it for this week, and the next two. Come back tomorrow for a guy who should invent a gambling algorithm and call it “The Buddy System.” I’m talking, of course, about the one and only Buddy Diaz. Aloha, b!tches!
