Saturday's List of 13: Clearing out a cluttered mind…….

Saturday's List of 13: Clearing out a cluttered mind…….

13) Amazing game in Anaheim late Thursday/early Friday; Orioles beat the Angels 10-8 in 16 innings, in a game that ended at 4:28am here in the east.

Baltimore blew a 3-run lead in the 15th inning, then became the first team since 1986 to win a game after blowing a lead of 3+ runs in the 15th inning or later. OF Stevie Wilkerson became the first position player to get a save, since saves became an official stat.

6 hours and 18 minutes. 571 pitches. 20 pitchers, one of whom was supposed to start Friday’s game for the Angels. Interesting night.

12) In Masahiro Tanaka’s last two starts vs Boston, he faced 33 batters; 18 of them scored.

11) James Paxton is the 4th pitcher in MLB history to allow a leadoff home run in three straight starts (d’Arnaud, Blackmon, Betts). Brad Radke, Brandon Backe and Yovani Gallardo are the other three pitchers, in case you were wondering.

10) LA Rams did a smart thing and signed coach Sean McVay/GM Les Snead to contract extensions thru the 2023 season. Well deserved.

9) Yesterday I mentioned the Westgate SuperContest in Las Vegas, where you put up $1,500 and pick any five NFL games against the spread each week. Should’ve mentioned that last year’s winner got $1.4M, which ain’t bad.

Golden Nugget has a similar contest where you pick seven games a week, but you can also pick college games.

8) Oakland WR Antonio Brown starts training camp on the non-football injury list; no one is saying yet what the injury actually is.

7) Baseball stuff:
— Cubs acquired P Derek Holland from the Giants
— Dodgers recalled C Will Smith from AAA, put 1B David Freese (hamstring) on IL. .
— Astros activated SS Carlos Correa from the IL.

6) UConn is paying the AAC $17M to leave and join the Big East a year from now.

5) Cleveland State hired Florida State assistant Dennis Gates as its new basketball coach; he has a total rebuild on his hands— it is late July, and they only have four players.

4) This week is the first time EVER that a major leaguer hit three home runs in a game three nights in a row; Cano, DeJong, Cruz, and then Mookie Betts made it four days in a row Friday.

3) New Jersey Giants’ WR Corey Coleman tore his ACL Thursday, WR Sterling Shepard broke his thumb. Not a lot of depth at that position for Big Blue.

2) LA Clippers are going to build a new arena in Inglewood; not sure what is wrong with the Staples Center, other than they probably want all the arena’s income to themselves, rather than share a building with their rival Lakers.

1) If the NBA ever wanted to do an event some summer to make a fortune for itself or for some charities, a 64-player 1-on-1 tournament would be huge.

Imagine Westbrook vs Durant, or Lebron vs Kawhi.

They did hold a 1-on-1 tournament back in the early 70’s for a couple years; they aired the taped/edited games at halftime of their Sunday national TV games, but it ended in part because Julius Erving’s agent wouldn’t let him play. The better players didn’t have much to gain by playing, which was too bad.

It’ll never happen nowadays; too much risk of an injury, but it would be fun to see.