Wildcats Quickies: Opening Day Edition

Opening day for Major League Baseball officially kicked off yesterday, but today is the day when the bulk of the teams begin the season with hopes of making it to the post season.  Every team begins anew and the fans of each club think this can be the year.

For some Cubs... I mean clubs, this will be the 108th year they have thought that.

Author Thomas Boswell wrote a great book titled 'Why Times Begin on Opening Day', and I wanted to bring out a few excerpts from it.

"Baseball has traditionally possessed a wonderful lack of seriousness. The game's best player, Babe Ruth, was a Rabelaisian fat man, and its most loved manager, Casey Stengel, spoke gibberish. In this lazy sport, only the pitcher pours sweat. Then he takes three days off."

"Born to an age where horror has become commonplace, where tragedy has, by its monotonous repetition, become a parody of sorrow, we need to fence off a few parks where humans try to be fair, where skill has some hope of reward, where absurdity has a harder time than usual getting a ticket."

There is also the timeless scene in 'Bull Durham' when Crash Davis is about to walk out on Susan Sarandon's character and she asks him what he believes in (link is the scene, be warned there are two explicit words in it).

"Well, I believe in the soul...(edited)... the small of a woman's back... the hangin' curveball... high fiber... good scotch... that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent overrated crap... I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a Constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. Goodnight."

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TWEETS OF THE WEEKEND

(first one is from me, figured everyone would appreciate the nostalgia)

pic.twitter.com/se5T3Iir86

— Keith Garrett (@_KeithGarrett) April 3, 2016

Kentucky fan stopped Texas Western star David Lattin on way off the court: "Fifty years ago, you broke my heart, but I'm glad you did."

— Kevin Armstrong (@KevinGArmstrong) April 3, 2016

Any day that Kentucky beats Tennessee in any sport is a good day! #BBN

— David Cornett (@DACats86) April 2, 2016

Its another nerd behind the computer hatin on our Kentucky class Who probably never played football and if he did he was only good for water

— Michael Warren II (@MikeWarren40) April 2, 2016

UConn women are currently -8500 on the moneyline against Oregon St in the Final Four, and are -4000 to win the title.

— Sports Insights (@SportsInsights) April 2, 2016

The best tweets from the Villanova THRASHING of Oklahoma:

Walk-ons entering a Final Four game with 3+ minutes left.... Crazy

— Jeff Drummond (@JDrumUK) April 3, 2016

Villanova better not take anymore shots cause Coach K may get upset and lecture Jay Wright and the Nova players!!

— Granite Man (@marbleandgranit) April 3, 2016

67 pt rematch difference is largest of this millennium according to my records.

— Ken Pomeroy (@kenpomeroy) April 3, 2016

-Oklahoma got blown out in football and basketball Final Four in the same season.
Feat that may never be repeated.

— Marty Nahstoll (@MNahstoll) April 3, 2016

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YOUR WILDCAT QUICKIES

• UK Hoops junior guard Makayla Epps has received All-American mention twice this week. This time by the WBCA, she was named an honorable mention All-American.

• The Kentucky Wildcats, Baseball Diamond version, took their third consecutive series when they travelled to Rocky Top and beat Tennessee 10-2 on Sunday to clinch the series.  The baseball boys improve to 20-8 and 6-3 in the SEC.

• Karl-Anthony Towns nearly posted a triple double yesterday when he went for 11 points TWENTY ONE rebounds, 9 assists, and 3 blocks.

• The Kentucky Kernel Photographer, Jonathan Krueger, who was tragically killed in a robbery attempt, had a story about last season's final four experience put together by Mark Story. It is a great read, check it out.

• Saturday Down South thinks that Kentucky's best unit on the team will be the Running Backs/Wide Receivers. I think more attention may need to be paid to Kentucky's secondary.

• You probably know about Urban Meyer telling Landon Young he AND UK were 'Insubstantial.'  One of the great things about Vince Marrow's personal assault on the state of Ohio is that every year, Kentucky is becoming quite SUBSTANTIAL and Urban is seeing more of the higher ranked Ohio recruits come to Lexington.

• While Mark Stoops did not go out and hire a special teams coach, he has inserted a sense of urgency and ownership with coach Andy Buh and the rest of the players.  Buh has essentially put four veterans on the unit as captains and allows them to cut players that are not pulling their weight.  Compared to last season, it cannot hurt, that is for sure.

• This is a fantastic read on coach Eddie Gran and how his life changed with his special needs daughter's passing, and how she helps him to this day.

• Jason put it in the quickies yesterday, but it is worth noting again that Mac Jones is making some serious national noise.  I predict he will be a 5-star QB by the time he enrolls at UK and will be the centerpiece of Kentucky Football's next step forward.

• The SEC is the toughest conference in America, some argue others are catching up, but they are still the best.  Having said that, the SEC is a straight up nightmare in Softball. NINE of the top 16 teams in America reside in the SEC.  That makes the Lady 'Cats 30-4 record, and 1-game lead in the SEC very impressive.

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YOUR NON-WILDCAT QUICKIES

• Buddy Hield will not be playing for a national title, but he did beat out our very own Tyler Ulis and Michigan State's Denzel Valentine for Naismith player of the year.

• It has become nearly a law that you have to have first round NBA talent on your roster to win a national title, if Villanova wins tonight, they could be the first Champion in 29 years without a first round NBA player.

• The website Five-Thirty-Eight specializes in predictions and numbers, they give UNC a 54% edge in tonight's matchup.  Here is everything you need to know about the game and pre-game tonight.  Also, here is CBS Sports analysis of the matchup and everything you need to know about the teams.

• Troy Smith, former Heisman Trophy winner (2006), and communications major at Ohio State, was pulled over for possible intoxication.  When asked what his highest education level was, he responded with 'graduated from Ohio State with a degree in bachelors.'  Sounds like a major at UL during the hooker scandal, to be honest.

• Scottie Pippen has no chill, when asked about his 1995-96 Bulls vs. today's Golden State Warriors he did not even hesitate to say that they would sweep them.  He was given a chance to backtrack, but he doubled down on it and even said he would guard Curry and hold him to under 20.

• ESPN asked 31 experts to predict the MLB Division winners, LCS winner, and World Series winners.  Of those 31, 14 of them picked the Chicago Cubs.  The next closest team was picked by only 4 experts (The Blue Jays and Royals).

• Tiger Woods will NOT be participating in the Masters this year, choosing his health over the event.

• Ezekial Elliott is not great at keeping his emotions in check, he had his dust up with comments about the coaching staff and now he says the Giants are a Super Bowl team if they draft him.

YOUR RANDOM QUICKIES

• Keeping on the Batman theme, I watched Batman vs. Superman this weekend and wanted to give my take on it.  So, this is your SPOILER ALERT, move on if you have not watched yet and plan to.  I thought the movie was damn good.  Having said that, I went into the moving expecting a mash-up of the prior movies that would set up future movies... to that end; it does it perfectly.  Affleck actually did a solid job as Batman, of course Bale would have been better, but he was more than solid.  I think the worst character was Alfred, not having Michael Caine was a problem.  He was made for that role, and Jeremy Irons was forgettable as a 'Sassy' Alfred.  Gal Gadot was great as Wonder Woman, but she did not make an impact until the end, she will be fun going forward.  There was a bit of 'come on man' when Batman and Superman were ready to end the other's life, but then all of a sudden they become buddies and Batman goes from being inches from killing Superman, to making him a promise and vow to save his mother.  Anyway, I think it was very good, I would even put it only behind The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight rises in ranking the Batman/Superman movies of recent time.

• Check out this scary video of an escalator going crazy and hurling fans down the escalator and onto a crowd at a Flyers game.

• I personally have a conceal carry permit, and came across this new invention.  It is pretty intriguing but I am not sure I could actually carry one around as I am not sure I would trust it near as much as I should. It is a .38 caliber gun that looks like a cell phone.

• Microsoft decided to create an Artificial Intelligence Twitter account that would learn from the social media site and adjust to it and hopefully grow into something.  They gave the AI bot a teen girl lexicon and off 'Tay' went.  Within 24 hours they had to suspend the account and shut down the AI because the account became a sex-crazed, Hitler loving, Bush was behind 9/11 propaganda bot.

• The Onion, a satire article website, wrote an amazingly satirical piece about President Obama coming back from Cuba with 100's of Cubans climbing onto, and hanging onto the wings of Air Force One during the flight back.  So many people believed it and reported it to Snopes.com (A site dedicated to debunking, or proving things) had to actually debunk it.