Fall From Grace: Mav's Summer Fling Ends With Injury

Mavs "doppelgangers," Cashing in on Cowboys, record Rangers representation, our winningest losers, and the latest local radio ratings, all in this week's DFW sports notebook.

WHITT'S END 7.14.23:

Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …

*Watched some Dallas Mavericks Summer League this week and, gotta be honest, I can see a little Tyson Chandler in Dereck Lively II. Just as important, I’m beginning to see a little (bigger) Monta Ellis in Jaden Hardy. (Jinx: He's injured, and done.)

*Are idle hands really the Devil’s workshop? You betcha.

This was the deadest week on the annual sports calendar. Still two weeks from NFL training camps. NBA free agency frenzy subsided. Couple days of no baseball after the All-Star break. So what did my stagnant hands and dizzying thoughts turn to?

Dallas Cowboys bets, of course.

They won’t convene in Oxnard for camp until July 25, but there is already money to be made on America’s Team in 2023. Feel free to cheat off my ledger:

Cowboys -3.5 points at Giants – Always scary laying more than a field goal on the road on a Sunday night opener. Even more frightening when we’re not sure who will be the kicker. But Saquon Barkley’s unhappiness/uncertainty in New York is enough to pull the trigger. Put me down for $110 to win $100.

Cowboys 10.5 wins – They’ve won 12 the last two years and are adding a veteran cornerback (Stephon Gilmore) and receiver (Brandin Cooks). Won’t be surprised if they push it to 13. Give me $220 to win $200.

Cowboys to win Super Bowl LVIII – At +1,000, Dallas has the fifth-best odds behind the Eagles (600), Bills (700), Bengals (700) and 49ers (800). Tempting, but nothing really to suggest the 27-year drought is about to end. Pass.

Cowboys to win NFC East – Now we’re talking! A $100 bet will return me $160. The Eagles are obvious favorites, but they lost both coordinators, three defensive starters, their No. 1 running back and there’s this little streak of no NFC East champ repeating in 17 years. Put me down for $500 to win $800.

Micah Parsons to win Defensive MVP – His +600 odds are second only to the Steelers’ T.J. Watt. Best value bet on the board. I’ll take $500 to win $3,000.

Dak Prescott 3,950 passing yards – The alarming interceptions – if he’s smart – will make him gun-shy. Plus, he’s only hit that yardage mark in two of seven NFL seasons. Give me the under, $275 to win $250.

Tony Pollard 7.5 rushing touchdowns – If he’s healthy – he’s seven months removed from the broken leg suffered in the playoff loss to the 49ers – this is a slam dunk. Last year in a timeshare with Ezekiel Elliott he scored nine touchdowns. Though coach Mike McCarthy is now in charge of the offense, he’ll get help from Brian Schottenheimer, who led the Seahawks to one of the league’s best running games. Zeke ran for 12 scores last year. Pollard’s in line for a huge breakout year. I’m all in, $1,100 to win $1,000.

Pollard, of course, might be betting on himself this season also. The Cowboys have put the franchise tag on him, and Monday is the deadline to sign him to a long-term contract. The 26-year-old will likely decide to play for $10 million, and hope to "wow" himself into a bigger payday.

*After what felt like endless years without any All-Star representation, the Texas Rangers tied a record with six players – Nathan Eovaldi, Jonah Heim, Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, Josh Jung and Adolis Garcia – on the field at the same time in the 2nd inning last Tuesday in Seattle. Only the 1939 Yankees and 1951 Dodgers matched the impressive feat. Now to see if they can keep it going. The ’39 Yanks (led by Joe DiMaggio) won 106 games and swept the Reds in the World Series. Good. The ’51 Dodgers (led by Jackie Robinson) blew a 13-game divisional lead in August and lost the NL pennant to the New York Giants on Bobby Thompson’s “shot heard ’round the world” homer. Oops.

*Been playing golf essentially since I could walk. For the sake of simple math, let’s say for 50 years I’ve averaged 10 rounds per year. That’s 500 rounds. On average, an 18-hole course will feature three Par 3s. That means during my golf life I’ve hit iron shots to 1,500 Par 3 greens. Add it all up and I have made zero Hole-in-Ones. Not a one. Not really that close, if we’re being honest. Then there’s my Dad, with … 11!

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*2nd Quarter ratings are in for DFW radio and this much we know: The Metroplex loves The Ticket in specific, and sports talk in general. Between The Ticket and The Fan, sports talk shows rank No. 1-2 in almost every day part. In Men 25-54 from Monday-Friday 6a-7p during April-May-June, the top two most listened-to stations are easily 1. The Ticket, 2. The Fan. That’s a hefty market share for sports talk, especially with the main-draw Cowboys being in their offseason. Meanwhile, things are not going so swimmingly for The Freak. Launched 10 months ago, the station is still struggling to get any tangible traction in listenership. It has none of its shows ranked in the Top 20 and overall finished tied for 24th. Changes are afoot as program director Patrick Davis is out, replaced by Dominic Zaccagnini (arriving from Syracuse) and the station that constantly claims not to be about “sports” will this Fall air University of North Texas football games. I like and respect the heck out of radio legend Mike Rhyner. But I can’t fathom that he came out of retirement to be content with seeing his old afternoon show at The Ticket garner a 13.5 audience while he toils 20 spots back with a 1.8.

DFW SPRING RADIO RATINGS

                   Ticket    Fan        Freak

Morning     15.4(1)   3.4(10)   1.2(27)

Midday       11.2(1)   6.1(2)     1.3(23)

Afternoon  13.5(1)   5.5(2)     1.8(21)

Overall       13.5(1)   5.1(3)     1.5 (24)

*What is it with our biggest winners also doubling as monumental losers? The Cowboys’ Tom Landry won two Super Bowls and is DFW’s all-time coach, but he also holds the record for most losses in NFL history with 178. Don Nelson paved the way for the Mavs’ lone championship by finding Dirk Nowitzki, but he’s third all-time in NBA losses with a 1,154. And now comes the Rangers’ Bruce Bochy. He’s got three World Series rings and – almost as impressive – has Texas in first place deep into the Summer. But, sure enough, he’s lost the fourth-most games of any manager in baseball history with 2,101. Longevity = Losses?

*Hot.

*Not.

*Oh put a sock in it, Steve Young. Are the Cowboys the best team in the NFL? Nope. But do they have a “chance”? Of course.

*As a guy who remembers when the Dallas Times Herald had an A.M. and P.M. edition thrown onto our driveway, and who was neck deep fighting in the 1990s newspaper wars, it’s tragic what has happened to print media. Just this week the Los Angeles Times announced its sports section will no longer include baseball box scores, standings or game stories and the New York Times said it is totally disbanding its sports department. The classic sports page has gone the way of the dinosaur. Evolve as writers … or become extinct.

*Why is it that enablers always refer to the problem child as “misunderstood”? Let’s allow Mavs owner Mark Cuban to tell his tale about Kyrie Irving.

*I’m generally an optimistic dude, but when a local, bubbly 7-year-old playing video games in his bed gets shot and killed by random drive-by bullets it just makes me wonder where we went so wrong and can we ever fix it?

*Jerry Jones gave Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas a Cowboys Super Bowl ring and … welcome to “breaking news” that’s at least 27 years old.

*When the Cowboys played a preseason game against the Lions at London’s Wembley Stadium in 1993, I took the media bus to a practice. During the ride, famed newspaper columnist Randy Galloway decided to read one of England’s sports sections … aloud. Hearing Galloway’s Texas Twang trying not to vocalize his disgust for a “silly wicket” was of my favorite all-time media moments. He was reading about Cricket, and two days later we all went to a match. The trousers. The “bowler” getting a 30-yard running start before his delivery. The impromptu break for “afternoon tea.” It all seemed very, well, foreign. Until, finally, it wasn’t. Major League Cricket has made it across the pond to Grand Prairie and, sure enough, Thursday night’s debut match featuring the Texas Super Kings sold out 7,000 tickets in 24 hours. Wonder if ol’ Randy was in attendance?

*Lowest of the low: Umeka Treymane Myers, a former supervisor at Dallas’ Lew Sterrett jail, was just sentenced to 33 months behind bars for stealing $250,000 intended for prisoners. She spent some of it on airline tickets and at Oklahoma casinos. Here’s hoping her new cell mate knows her story.

*By the way, the owner of the Super Kings is none other than Ross Perot Jr. Same guy who in 1996 bought the Mavs from original owner Don Carter without knowing how many players were on a starting “five.” His pre-press conference guess: “Six?” Swear.

*Ratings for the Home Run Derby were the lowest the event has seen on ESPN since 2018. You were warned.

*I can handle the thought of a million dollars. But a billion? Totally lost. Buddy explained how much a billion really is this way: One million seconds takes 12 days. One billion seconds takes 32 years. Cannot grasp.

*In two seasons (2010-11) the Rangers won 18 playoff games. In their other 49 years they’ve won a grand total of one.

*Mark your calendars: Rangers 2024 Opening Day vs. Cubs at Globe Life Field, March 28. Rangers host the 2024 All-Star Game, July 16.

*If you’re up around 5 a.m. this month, look in the eastern sky and know that the brilliantly bright “star” is actually a planet that’s 486 million miles away and big enough to hold 1,300 Earths inside it. Good morning, Jupiter!

*This Weekend? Friday let’s play golf at Tanglewood on Lake Texoma. Saturday let’s not just venture to a lake, but on one. Sunday let’s chill with strawberries, cream and Wimbledon. As always, don’t be a stranger.

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