Posts Tagged ‘Tony Stewart’

Let’s call it Wednesday

Posted: April 13, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in Auto Racing, basketball, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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NBA

The NBA wraps up there regular season tonight and there are still a couple things to be decided. The big story is the Golden State Warriors going for the 73rd win tonight. That would set a new record for wins in a season if they get it. The Warriors play host to the Memphis Grizzlies tonight. Memphis is currently the 7th seed in the Western Conference, but record wise they are tied with the Dallas Mavericks; so a win might be the difference between the Grizzlies opening the playoffs against the San Antonio Spurs (which they would as the 7th seed) or the Oklahoma City Thunder. It will be a difficult game for the Grizzlies to win as Golden State is 38-2 at Oracle Arena this season. Memphis has had it’s share of injuries this season as leading scorer Marc Gasol to a foot injury that ended his season after 52 games. Point guard Mike Conley hasn’t played since March 6th and it doesn’t appear that he’ll play tonight against Golden State. Memphis does still have Zack Randolph (Z-Bo) and Lance Stephenson has played better in Memphis than he has in his stops with the Charlotte Hornets and Los Angeles Clippers. No one expected Golden State to lose to the Boston Celtics or the Minnesota Timberwolves at home, but you have to wonder if Memphis has enough quality healthy players to make this a game. It would be a bit of a surprise if they could and you have to expect that the Warriors will cruise to their 73rd victory and a new NBA record.

Tonight is also the last game in the great career of Kobe Bryant. Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers host the Utah Jazz. Not only is it an important game because Bryant is ending his 20 year NBA career, but the Jazz find themselves tied for the 8th and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Utah is tied with the Houston Rockets for that final playoff spot and the Rockets hold the tiebreaker over the Jazz. Houston is hosting the Sacramento Kings tonight and if they win they’ll claim that final Western Conference playoff spot, but if the lose they’ll open the door for the Jazz to grab it. I don’t think I can say anything about Bryant that hasn’t already been said. Bryant is an 18 time All-Star and won the MVP of that game 4 times. Bryant has won 5 NBA Championships and was voted finals MVP in 2 of those 5 finals. Surprisingly Bryant won just 1 league MVP Bryant is the 3rd highest scorer in NBA history with 33,583 points trailing only Karl Malone who is 2nd and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar the career scoring leader. Bryant has had his injury issues the last few seasons, but tonight will be his 66th game of the season. He is averaging 16.9 points per game to go along with an average of 3.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game. It’s been a down year for the Lakers as they are 16-65 entering tonight’s game. Since it’s looking like it’s a must have game for the Jazz can Bryant’s teammates send him off with one more win?

NHL

The NHL playoffs start tonight with 3 of the 8 opening round series getting started. On this evenings'(Wednesday) podcast of Sports Time Radio Dan the Man will give you his predictions for the opening round. Not only will he be picking which team he thinks will win the series, but how many games that series will go. Tonight starts with the Detroit Red Wings at the Tampa Bay Lighting followed by the New York Rangers at the Pittsburgh Penquins and the nightcap is the Chicago Blackhawks at the St. Louis Blues. Thursday night start with the Philadelphia Flyers at the Washington Capitals. I can guarantee you that Dan will be taking the Capitals to win this series since they where his pre-season pick to win the Stanley Cup. Then it’s the New York Islanders at the Florida Panthers after that we’ll get the Minnesota Wild at the Dallas Stars with the nightcap being the San Jose Sharks at the Los Angeles Kings. Now the Kings where my pre-season pick to win the Stanley Cup; so will see if Dan picks them to advance. There is one series that won’t open until Friday night as the Nashville Predators are at the Anaheim Ducks for their Game 1 while the other teams that play tonight will be playing their Game 2. I haven’t heard why the Nashville/Anaheim series is starting later than the other ones, but I guess they’ll all even out down the line. Since you’ll be able to get Dan’s picks tonight; who do you have winning the Stanley Cup?

NASCAR

Kyle Busch took the win Saturday night in the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. With the win Busch joined Jimmie Johnson as the only drivers with 2 victories this season. Busch got the win with Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishing 2nd, Joey Logano who was the pole sitter finished 3rd, Johnson came home 4th and rookie Chase Elliott rounded out the Top 5 in 5th place. The Sprint cup drivers are headed to Bristol Motor Speedway for Sunday’s Food City 500. Can Busch or Johnson be the first guy to get his 3rd win this season or might we see someone new get their 1st win of the season and qualify for The Chase. Of course we might also see Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin or Brad Keslowski get their 2nd victory of the season.

Tony Stewart was awarded the Major General Thomas Sadler Award while the Sprint Cup series was at Texas Motor Speedway. Stewart received the award for his charitable contributions to the Texas chapter of the Speedway Children’s Charities organization. During Stewart’s acceptance speech fans had hoped that he might reveal when he would return to the #14 car. However Stewart did give any timetable for his return. He suffered a serious back injury in an all-terrain vehicle accident just prior to the start of the season and has been out of the driver’s seat recovering. Stewart made it clear in his speech that he looked forward to being back in the car competing alongside those active drivers. He has been doing rehabilitation work for his back injury. The thought was that Stewart would return right around the time of the All-Star race, but right now no one knows for sure.

 

You can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast on BlogTalkRadio.com

 

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

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8/20/14 Let’s call it Wednesday.

Posted: August 20, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, football, sports, Uncategorized
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What I’ve noticed when I turn on a highlight show no matter what network it is they have three stories that are always on the show. They mention Tony Stewart and the incident he had about three weeks ago. There’s a story in the show on little league player Mo’ne Davis. They also have an update on Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel. So here’s pretty much my take on these three stories.

On August 8th at Canandaigua Motorsports Park Tony Stewart was racing in the Empire Super Sprints series in upstate New York. As you all know during the race Stewart’s car collided with a car being driven by Kevin Ward Jr. Ward’s car was forced into the wall and he was out of the race. Ward Jr. proceeded to get out of his wrecked race car and started walking in the on coming cars looking for Stewart. I’m sure you’ve seen and or heard what happens from here. Stewart’s car hits Ward Jr. killing him. Stewart hasn’t raced in a NASCAR or any event since the incident. At first Stewart was going to race two weeks ago on the road course at Watkins Glen, but put out a statement on what happen with Ward Jr. and decided not to race. Stewart also missed Sunday’s NASCAR race in Michigan and there’s no time-table as to when he may return to the track. A lot of reports are really going after Stewart for not coming out and doing an interview or making a full statement. Let’s tell the truth here; they don’t care about Stewart or anything like that they’re just looking for a story. They seem to forget that this is an actual ongoing legal investigation and Stewart make have been advised by a lawyer to not comment until the investigation is over. While this is a horrible situation it’s in Stewart’s best interest to wait to talk about the incident. I think what’s worse than anything is that reporter have hounded the Ward family to get them to comment on the accident. I’ve seen comments from Ward Jr’s father and sister and it’s sad that they weren’t even given time to grieve before they were accosted by reporters looking for a quote. The investigation is close to being wrapped up and will see what they find and if Stewart will make a statement. I know the other thing that reporters are going after Stewart for is racing at Canandaigua Motorsports Park that night or at any non NASCAR event. NASCAR is a sport where guys don’t forget where they started off at and a lot of drivers go back to these tracks where they cut their teeth at. It’s also a big deal for whoever owns that certain track a NASCAR guy is going to race at. How many extra fans went out that night just to see Stewart. Of course hindsight is 20/20.

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t watched much of the Little League World Series. There is a local team in the tournament still; so I’ve been checking in on them from time to time, but that’s really about it for me. Of course by the coverage it’s gotten you wouldn’t realize that there is more than one team even playing in this tournament. It seems that all of the attention has been focused on a 13-year-old pitcher from Philadelphia Mo’ne Davis. For whatever reason the first thing that popped into my mind was if she’s 13 years old why is she even in this tournament. The division she is playing in is for ages 10-12, but I know if you turn 13 after a certain date you play at the lower level. It’s weird that I remember that, but when I played in Little League I had to play with the ids a year older than me because I have a July birthday. Since they’re pushing the fact that she’s 13 I’m guessing her age is fine. There are so many issues with this story it’s not even funny and it was announce yesterday that Davis will be on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. As the competition gets tougher what happens if she goes out and has a bad outing on the mound. It’s not like they can go out there and rip her performance; she’s just a kid. Is she the first girl to play in the Little League World Series? A girl being a talented little league player isn’t new to me at all. When I was playing one of the top players every year I played was a girl by the name of Cathy Wold. It’s been a long time and I hope I got her last name correct. Davis herself has handled all of this new-found fame well. She’s even said that she’d like to play college basketball at the University of Connecticut and play point guard for Geno Auriemma. I believe Davis and her team the Taney Dragons of Philadelphia who represent the Mid-Atlantic region in this tournament play tonight (Wednesday) against the Las Vegas team.

The player who dominates the sports news every time you turn on a major sports only network is Johnny Manziel. If Manziel isn’t living it up and posting photos of himself and some other famous person to his Instagram account he might be flipping off the team he’s playing. With all the so-called outside distractions that reporters love to comment on when it comes to Manziel he’s shown on the field that he’s as good if not better than any other quarterback that was drafted in May. Even though the Cleveland Browns named Brian Hoyer the starting quarterback for Week 1 Manziel made his case on the field and the Browns could’ve easily went with Johnny Football. Manziel completed 63.6 % of his passes this pre-season and rushed for 27 yards on 6 carries and his quarterback rating was a 79. If you look at the stats Manziel outplayed Hoyer, but remember these stats were put up against 2nd team players. Right now Hoyer is the best choice as starting quarterback for the Browns. Cleveland’s first three games would be rough for a player like Manziel and Hoyer’s experience should help them. The Browns open Week 1 in Pittsburgh against the Steelers. They’re home Week 2 and Week 3 against the New Orleans Saints and then the Baltimore Ravens before they get a Bye in Week 4. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if come Week 5 in Tennessee that Manziel isn’t under center against the Titans.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.