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SCENE AND HEARD
Poor Mike Trout. He leads the American League in home runs, is second in RBIs, second in OPS and fourth in on-base percentage. In other words, he’s having yet another Mike Trout season. And there are the Los Angeles Angels, having another Angels season, nowhere near a playoff spot in a year in which it’s hard to miss the playoffs … Not enough is said about 40-year-old Nelson Cruz, in his 15th season, now mashing for the Minnesota Twins. All he’s doing is hitting .333 with 15 home runs and a 1.089 OPS. Times certainly change but at the age of 40, the great Henry Aaron hit just 20 home runs, the lowest total since his rookie season in 1954. And the king of substance, Barry Bonds, missed the season at age 40 and hit just 26 and 28 home runs in his final two big league seasons. He did finish his career with a rather insane .480 on-base percentage at 42.
AND ANOTHER THING
Patrick Mahomes is the best entertainment in professional sport. And he’s just getting started … Outside of the Raptors series, what a crappy second-round of playoffs this has been in the NBA. Easy wins for the Heat, and eventual wins for Clippers and Lakers. And up next, the main event: Kawhi Leonard vs. LeBron James … Welcome to the NBA, coach Steve Nash. He’ll be coaching against Nurse, Brad Stevens, Erik Spoelstra and Tom Thibodeau in the Atlantic Division. That will be instant education … Did John Tortorella not win coach of the year in the NHL because he’s John Tortorella? He sure deserved it … Brian Burke is obsessed with teams having too many left-shot defenceman. Clearly, Burke has memory issues. When he won his only Stanley Cup in Anaheim, the Ducks mostly used seven defenceman, six of them shot left. The one right shot semi-regular was the reknowned Joe DiPenta … The greatest defence in NHL history had Serge Savard, Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe and Bill Nyrop in Montreal, all left-shot defencemen. Savard and Robinson are top-15 defencemen of all time as are Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer, who played for Burke with the Ducks … Happy for Hall of Famer Henry Burris, who took the year off broadcasting the CFL, which took the year off playing, and has joined the coaching staff of the Chicago Bears … The U.S. Open final nobody asked for: Alexander Zverev vs. Dominic Thiem. The least interesting matchup since Marin Cilic pounded Kei Nishikori in 2014 … New Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk will wear No. 85 for the club, a wide receiver’s number with an offensive lineman’s body … Happy birthday to George Chuvalo (83), Emile Francis (94), Mickey Lolich (80), John Hufnagel (69), Mike Murphy (70), Michael Johnson (53), Yao Ming (40), Dave Reece (72), Joe Lundrigan (72), Rick Dempsey (71), Andrew Luck (31) and Bernie Williams (52) … And hey, whatever became of Jose Theodore?
