CF PreviewAs I mentioned in my What’s coming up? post, I purchased four major college preseason football publications: Athlon, Sporting News, Phil Steel and Lindy’s. Even though I feel like I put out a lot of material, I’m just amazed at how much is involved in these previews. Of course, for all I know, they have 50 people doing it. In any event, there is no way I can compete by virtue of my own analysis, but what I can do is to take what they have done and analyze that.

Paul EndacottI’m still working on The Helms Foundation series. In doing so, I’ve been looking a little into the 1922 and 1923 national “championship” seasons for Kansas. This business with Xavier Henry reminded me of a story that Phog Allen (who would be rolling over in his grave tonight) wrote about a game with Missouri in 1923. It’s amazing the difference in how players used to simply play for the love of game and school… at least compared to some today.

According to 610 radio and Fox Sports, Xavier Henry will be “going” to Kansas. The first question is “when?” – on the way to Colorado to ski? Assuming this news is true, I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, he could be the piece KU needs to win it all. On the other hand, he and his brother and his dad could be the virus that wrecks the team chemistry.

Plate ProductionThis post is simply to get the ball rolling on the subject. I have a formula which I use called Plate Production (PP). It’s for hitters in baseball. It’s not too dissimilar from Total Average (TA) which was invented by Tom Boswell in 1970s. I always liked TA based upon simplicity, but there are a couple things I like to include in it that he doesn’t. PP and TA are just two of many formulas for ranking players. My purpose is to have a simple version that allows me to quickly rate and analyze a player based upon an individual game or season.

Living up to expectations?Hochevar pitched another nice game tonight. That makes four perfectly acceptable-to-very-good games out of his last five. You hate to get too excited (been there, done that), but imagine if he can remain consistent along with Greinke and Meche! Royals’ fans can’t exactly be compared to Cubs’ fans, but in our little world, hope springs eternal.

Zack back on the attack!I thought it would be appropriate to review some things on Zack. I last discussed him in back-to-back posts a month ago. Although he hasn’t been nearly as dominant over the past eight starts as he was in his first eight, he’s still pitching well and has every chance to be the first Royals’ 20-game winner in 20 years. I’ll get back to the topic of 20 wins. In the meantime here is a look at his first eight starts versus his last eight.

Joey "The Kid" LoganoI noticed on Yahoo, they have a poll – which you can take. It asks whether Joey Logano deserved to win the race – yes or no. At the time I checked it, there were over 7,000 votes. I assumed it would be at least 80% “yes”, but surprisingly, 51% said “no”. That mindset makes absolutely no sense to me at all. I’ll explain why, but I also want to mention that Logano (deservedly or not) is the youngest NASCAR Sprint Cup winner in … well, in history.

RBI droughtIn short, he’s been a disaster – considerably worse than any reasonable Royals’ fan had any right to fear. His overall seasonal stats are disappointing, but there are a number of things that warrant special attention. The most obvious is RBIs over his past 26 games. He has one single RBI! The last I checked, the primary, if not sole, role of the designated hitter is to drive in runs.

Stern and GriffinAs you know, Blake Griffin was the easy #1 pick by the LA Clippers on Thursday night. Unfortunately, for Griffin, the Clippers are a place where good players go to die. Once they won the NBA lottery, I wrote about Griffin’s misfortune. And, yesterday’s cool factoid says it all. “The Clippers have drafted only one future All-Star in the last 20 years - Antonio McDyess - and they traded him on draft night!” Of course, the Clips took Danny Manning...

Tony StewartQualifying was rained out Friday for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301. So, the starting order will revert to the season standings. I’ve given my opinion about the starting order and pole positions for rainouts before, so I won’t repeat it here. Suffice it to say that, as often as this happens, it gives a disproportionate advantage to the points leaders.

Not a bad starting five.As I mentioned yesterday, I've gone through dozens of mock drafts. The consensus was based upon that. However, I decided to concentrate only on the best known for this report. Nobody cares about “NBA Basement Draft Analysis Part Time On The Weekends”… dot com, but Yahoo, CBS, NBC, SI, S-News, etc. are likely to get the average fan’s attention.

Mike JacobsWith the Royals on a two-game streak (if you can call two games a streak) and coming off a really nice win in Houston last night, it's perhaps not the best time to go negative, but I'm going to anyway. Lately it seems that everybody I talk to is really down on Mike Jacobs. The guy can't run. The guy can't hit lefties. The guy can't hit breaking stuff. The guy can't field. An so on.
All of this is more or less true, of course. The thing is, no one should have been surprised by this.

2009 NBA DraftThere are a lot of “gurus” out there making their predictions about who will be picked at what place in the draft tonight. After reviewing dozens of these lists, I could probably make at least an equally educated guess. Rather than that, I figured I would simply report. One question is whether the consensus will be more accurate than any individual list.

Allison StokkeAt the age of 12 our family moved from Topeka out to Western Kansas. At the time, I didn’t realize we were going the wrong direction, but when the truck carrying our stuff kept having flat tires, that should have been an omen. My parents didn’t heed it, but as soon as high school ended, I made certain to rectify that mistake! In any event, we ended up in the country – truly in the middle of nowhere. We took a bus to a podunk school – one of those that had K-12 in attached buildings. The only positive about the place was that we had fairly good sports facilities. Many league and regional events were held at either our gym or our football/track field. It is only because of that fact that this story exists.

Here are some of the things I’m working on and will be reporting about over the next few weeks. If you have an interest in any of these, please make sure to check back. It’s the dog days of summer – you know the time when the NBA is over, the NFL hasn’t begun, the Royals stink and no college sports. Personally, I like NASCAR and have a reasonable tolerance level for golf. But, otherwise…

No.We're entering that nefarious time of the summer, when the trade rumor mill spits out an endless stream of b.s. whispers, which amount to and signify nothing. Nevertheless, it's our duty to report on these things. Here's one ESPN is reporting on Rumor Central, where never will you find such a wretched hive of scummy, villanous speculation. It suggests that the Royals could deal Jose Guillen to Atlanta for Jeff Francoeur.

The rumor originated from an mlb.com report.

Kahne and KingIf you read my preview of the race, you know I didn’t watch 30 seconds of it. To be 100% honest, I don’t even know what happened except that Mark Martin finished 35th and dropped from #8 to a precarious #11 in the standings. I also know that Kasey Kahne’s win was his first since last season and was the first Richard Petty win in 10 years! I’m especially happy for Kahne because he is a very good driver and his team has been struggling to survive. His win was obviously good for RPM, but also good for NASCAR. The last thing they need is a four-car team going under!

Butt UglyI was planning on something with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, but frankly, both “bad” and “ugly” are synonymous with the Royals right now, so I just sort of merged them. Besides, TGTB&TU is a little overused. Recently, I’ve talked a little about jinxes and, although, I don’t believe in them, there is an element of truth to them that I want to explain.

Infineon SucksJeff Gordon has won only one race in his last 39 attempts. Clearly, that’s an arctic cold streak for him. Of course, he’s a good road course driver and in nine races at Sonoma, he’s won three and been in the top 10 seven times! Either he’s going to have to have mechanical problems or else it’s going to take a great effort by someone else to beat him.