Last Sunday at Bristol motor speedway NASCAR held the Food City 500 in support of Steve Byrnes and Stand up to Cancer. On Sunday morning Chris Olmstead from www.BeyondtheFlag.com was on the Sports Time Radio podcast to preview the race. I always make Chris select 3 drivers who might end up in victory lane at the end of the race. Chris mentioned pay close attention to the drivers from Joe Gibbs racing (JGR) ans sure enough Matt Kenseth in the #20 car who started on the pole won the race. By the way Kenseth drives for JGR. Chris will be back on the podcast Friday with Dan the Man and I to preview the Toyota Owners 400 at the Richmond International Raceway this Saturday. Chris has been on a role picking winners on the podcast; so who will he go with for Saturday’s race.
Sadly for NASCAR Steve Byrnes passed away on Tuesday at the age of 56, but at least they were able to put his name on a race and pay tribute to the announcer. Due to his Illness Byrnes was unable to attend the race, but it was reported that he watched on television and even tweeted during the race. During Sunday’s race, crewmen from every team stood on the pit wall with signs from the Stand Up To Cancer organization that read “I stand up for Steve.” Byrnes took a leave of absence from Fox Sports October of 2014 to focus on his treatment. From 2001 until 2014, he was a pit reporter for NASCAR on Fox. Byrnes served as a fill-in studio host and lap-by-lap announcer for NASCAR on Fox whenever Chris Myers or Mike Joy, respectively, were not available. As of 2014, Byrnes was the co-host of Fox Sports 1‘s NASCAR Race Hub, and was expected to be the lead announcer for the Camping World Truck Series in 2015.
We’re about a week and a half away from the boxing match that everyone has been waiting for. Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather get in the ring to box on May 2nd and yesterday it was announced that Kenny Bayless would referee the fight. The 64-year-old Nevada native, who has refereed five of Mayweather’s bouts and seven of Pacquiao’s and has officiated 100 title fights. The Nevada State Athletic Commission also announced the 3 judges for the fight. Dave Moretti and Burt Clements of Nevada and Glenn Feldman of Connecticut had been appointed for the fight. Mayweather and Pacquiao have been considered the best pound-for-pound boxers of their generation but a host of issues — including differences over drug testing protocols as well as revenue splits and broadcaster conflicts — have stopped the two meeting in the ring. Both are coming to the end of their careers and have established interests elsewhere. According to Forbes, Mayweather, 38, is the highest paid athlete in world sport. While Pacquiao, who is 36, has run for political office in his native Philippines. Who do you have winning this fight?
While it’s still very, very early in the baseball season did you have the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals and New York Mets getting out of the gate at 11-3. Maybe you had the Milwaukee Brewers going 2-12 at this point, but did you have the Miami Marlins just 1 game ahead of them at 3-11. Of course it’s way, way too early to panic it is fun to say that the Houston Astros are in 1st place in the American League West. Remember when the Seattle Mariners signed Nelson Cruz and the experts said his home run total would go down. Well he has 8 home runs through 14 games. Joey Votto looks a lot like the Joey Vottto of old as he has 6 home runs. Cruz and Adam Jones each have 16 RBI’s to lead major league baseball. Jones and Adrian Gonzalez are both hitting .442 while Billy Hamilton has 8 stolen bases and Dee Gordon is just 1 steal behind him with 7. Just like the standings it’s just too early to go nuts over these stats, but they’re always fun to look at and if you’re a fantasy baseball player they’re relevant to you. Looking back I realized that I forgot to name a fantasy player and pitcher of the week in Saturday’s blog. I believe I would’ve went with Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles as my fantasy player of the week and I’m going to go with Hector Santiago of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim as the pitcher of the week.
Yesterday was the official release of the NFL schedule and I don’t understand why it’s such a huge deal. There where two specials on the schedule. Now we’ve known who was going to play who we just didn’t know the dates of these games and now we do. The New England Patriots open the season against the Pittsburgh Steelers. I did find it kind of funny that the Tennessee Titans are actually playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 1. In Week 2 the Seattle Seahawks play the Green Bay Packers in a playoff rematch. In Week 12 we’ll get what might be our last Peyton Manning/ Tom Brady match up when Brady’s Patriots go to Denver to play Manning’s Broncos. There are 4 teams the Atlanta Falcons, Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins and Jacksonville Jaquars all have 3 game road trips scheduled. To be fait though Atlanta’s 3 game road trip has them facing the Buccaneers, Carolina Panthers and the Jaquars. A lot of people are point out that none of the three teams that could potentially relocate to Los Angeles in 2016 will play at home on the final Sunday of the regular season. These same people also think that this is no accident that the San Diego Chargers, Si. Louis Rams and Oakland Raiders will be spared the possibility of awkward goodbyes as lame-duck teams.. What kind of schedule draw did your favorite team get?
The NHL and NBA playoffs are just getting into the 1st round games; so we’ll look at those a little more in Saturday’s blog. There is a chance we might have a series over with by then. Well I should say an NHL series might be over as with the way the NBA playoff schedule is there’s a 0% chance a series will be done.
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