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Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

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Thoughts, we have a few.  Nuggets, we have ten for you.

Sports and culture, and for that matter politics, seem joined at the hip these days.  So, we are here to serve.

      1.  College baseball is in full swing, pun intended.  Last Friday through today, the 16 who thrived in the week ago regionals went head to head in the Super Regionals.  With college football setting tv and attendance records and college basketball loyalty to March Madness, we wonder why college baseball doesn’t get more run.
      2.  Do we watch less tv as the weather warms?  Yes.  It’s time to swim, bbq, and go on vacation perhaps.  But, the stories, the drama, and the overall quality of the game seem underappreciated to us.  For example reigning champ, Vanderbilt has an ace and a deuce named Rocker and Leiter.  Or, maybe it’s Leiter and Rocker as co aces?  One leads the NCAA in strikeouts and the other is a close second depending on who threw last.  They’ll both go in the top ten of the upcoming MLB draft.  The Vandy duo and late-inning relievers allowed East Carolina one run in 18 innings.
      3. They’ll be tough to beat with that one-two punch.  But, the unknown is the only known in the college game.  Take the N.C. State v. the national number one seeded Arkansas Razorbacks three-game set as proof.  On Friday  Arkansas pummeled the Wolfpack 21-2.  Yes, 21-2.  Surely Saturday would be a 9 inning coronation for Arkansas culminating in a punched ticket to Omaha.  Cue Lee Corso.  Not so fast my friend.  State beat the Hogs 6-5 on Saturday and punched their Omaha pass with a 3-2 win on Sunday.  N.C. State was a 2 seed in the regionals and a huge underdog to the Hogs.
      4. Joining State and Vandy are Stanford (who took Texas Tech’s lunch money in Lubbock), Tennessee(far better than LSU), Arizona(solid performance), and Texas so far.  Dallas Baptist and Virginia play midday today while Mississippi and Notre Dame do tonight.  Winners move on, losers go home.
      5. Before we leave the college baseball game we have one question.  Why does anyone play on artificial turf south of the Mason Dixon Line?  Come on Vandy and others.  You have PLENTY of athletics department TV money.  Plant some grass and buy some dirt.  The only thing worse than artificial turf is brown artificial turf disguised as mud around the basepaths.  Worst of all?  Glad you asked.  The mounds and home plate areas of some parks are “fake mud” too.   It’s a bad look and we would imagine a bad brush burn, sliding pants or not, as well.
      6. Are you watching the NBA?  Every week a column pops that says fewer and fewer of us are.  Are we tired of the game that’s three-pointers after three-pointers?  Or, are we tired of the social agenda that the league embraced a year ago and remain hungover from it?  Both?  With Lebron and the Lakers already home we guess that the LA market viewership is not what the league wishes for this time of the year, either.  Though the Clippers are alive and on the other coast so is Brooklyn who is locked in what looks like a seven-game set with the Milwaukee Bucks.
      7. In the NFL offseason, Le’Veon Bell punched his ticket too.  Saturday he publicly stated his strong preference to not play for Andy Reid and the KC Chiefs ever again.  This is after a run in Pittsburgh where he wore out his welcome, as well as a brief stay with the NY Jets.  “I said what I said & I don’t regret at all what I said…for those who have a PERSONAL PROBLEM with me because of what I SAID, that’s fine…you have your right! just understand I ALSO have MY RIGHT for how I feel about MY PERSONAL problem with dude because of what HE SAID to me.”  Sounds PERSONAL with a capital P and more to us.
      8. Jon Voight, easily one of the top actors of the last fifty years, has had it with what he calls the hypocrisy of the left and the compliant media.  This time it’s about the “look past” of Hunter Biden’s latest problems.   He expresses that in a two-minute reflective video.  He’s done a few and clearly feels very comfortable in his skin in expressing his mostly conservative viewpoint.  That’s rare in Hollywood, but so is Jon Voight.   If he didn’t earn fifty awards for his portrayal of the Mickey Donovan character in the big hit series Ray Donovan, he should have.
      9. President Joe Biden’s expansive and expensive infrastructure plan/bill is running into roadblocks, pun intended again.  Progressive Dems want more climate change money while moderate Dems want less.  He’d like to get this through with bipartisan support.  But, moderate Republicans want even less cc money, while conservatives want none whatsoever.  It seems like it’s hard to please everyone and their agendas.  Good luck.
      10. Meanwhile, while we know this was last week’s news, we feel the need to comment.  Dr. Anthony Fauci said last week if you take exception to him, you take exception to the way overused narrative “the science.”  Please!  And, he said so while speaking in the third person.  The big ego of that diminutive man always impresses.  Less talk and more legit China investigation and China cooperation about the origin of the China Virus seem like the path we should be headed down.

You’ve been served.