Ask a 70’s TV Sports Anchor – Episode 11: Manchester City, Minnesota Twins, and Maximum Security
EDITOR’S NOTE: Boyd Bergquist was the sports director at KETS-TV in East Tree Stump, Nebraska for almost 40 years. Known across the Husker state as the voice of the Boy’s High School Basketball Tournament, Bergquist was a four-time winner of the Marv J. Butz “Golden Cob” Award For Excellence In Nebraska Broadcast Journalism. That background, along with his quick if not cliché-riddled wit and love of single-malt scotch makes Bergquist a perfect fit to be our “Question” guy.
Question #1:
What does Liverpool have a better chance at: Winning the Premier League or winning the Champions League?
~South Carolina Cock Soccer Supporter
I’m not the guy to ask about English football, but considering J-Dub is a massive (in more ways than one) Liverpool supporter, and judging by the amount of use his Liverpool highball glass is getting, I’m guessing the Reds are drawing to not one, but TWO inside straight draws.
Liverpool fandom is the gift that keeps on giving…industrial-strength alcoholism.
At home in England, to win the Premier League, Liverpool needs to win out and they need Manchester City to not win at least once.
Man City is home for Leicester City and away to Brighton & Hove Albion; Liverpool has only one match left when they host Wolverhampton next Sunday. No matter what, Liverpool has to lock down those last three points. If they do, that forces Man City to win twice to take the title. If the Reds draw against Wolverhampton, then Man City only has to win one of those matches and draw the other. If Liverpool loses their final match, Man City only needs to win one of their last two. If City draws both, then everything comes down to tie-breakers.
In the European competition, Liverpool has to get past Barcelona. To do that, they need to win the second leg against the Spanish side by at least four goals. Good luck with that.
Question #2:
Are the Minnesota Twins for real?
~Vic the Viking
As of this writing, there are only four teams other than the Minnesota Twins who have hit the 20-win mark; the Tampa Rays, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Arizona Diamondbacks. So, lets take a look at what I thought of these teams heading into the season.
If you recall, I broke down all 30 major league squads into six categories base on what I thought they could realistically expect in 2019.
- St. Louis Cardinals: Pre-season category – Ready To Win Right Now. This team is currently leading the NL Central, and nobody should be surprised by that.
- Los Angeles Dodgers: Pre-season category – There’s Just One Thing Missing. The leaders of the NL West, Clayton Kershaw is currently healthy, and Cody Bellinger is ripping the cover off the ball.
- Tampa Rays: Pre-season category – At Least They Don’t Suck. I stand by that assessment, but how long does their perch atop the AL East last once the Yankees get healthy and the Red Sox start firing on all cylinders (and all signs point to that happening in Boston as we speak)
- Arizona Diamondbacks: Pre-season category – It’s Going To Be A Long Summer. It still may be a long, summer in Arizona, but this spring has been a lovely surprise.
- Minnesota Twins: Pre-season category – Need Some Things To Go Their Way. That’s exactly what’s happening.
Right now, all the breaks are running the Twins’ way. With the exception of the Cleveland Indians, nobody in the AL Central is really any good. Speaking of the Indians, they are looking like a team whose could be staring into the abyss. Mike Clevinger and Corey Kluber both look to be out for an extended period. The bullpen which was once the bedrock of this team is now showing signs of cracking. At the plate, with the exception of Carlos Santana, there has has been precious little production.
As for the Twins themselves, consider the following. They haven’t lost more that two games in a row all season. Eddie Rosario is currently tied for the AL lead in homers and Minnesota has seven guys with at least five dingers and are in double-digits in both RBIs and runs scored. This team can hit and score with anybody, not to mention they just took three out of four from Houston, who may very well be the best team in baseball. José Berrios is pitching like the budding ace we expected, but the surprise is Jake Odorizzi showing all the signs he’s headed for a career year.
In other words, everything is going the Twins way.
Question #3:
Was the way the Kentucky Derby ended the worst ending to a sporting event you’ve ever seen?
~The Unknown Blogger
Let’s get something straight right off the bat. It was the right ending. I saw that montage on ESPN this morning comparing this to the end of the 1972 Olympic Gold Medal Basketball game and the 1983 George Brett “Pine Tar” home run. That was complete bullshit for one simple reason. In the case of yesterday’s Kentucky Derby, the official got the call right. Maximum Security committed a foul, and deserved to be disqualified.
You can give me all the blather you want about whichever argument you wan’t to construct the bottom line is Maximum Security broke a rule which exists for a reason. Horse racing is a dangerous affair to begin with, and the rule about the exact sort of interference Maximum Security committed is in place with severe consequences so that this sport doesn’t devolve into the “Chariot Race” scene from “Ben-Hur.”
If you look at the foul, it becomes crystal-clear that as close as those horses were running, and in those conditions, we were a hairs-breadth from a catastrophe last night. Once the horses started bumping each other, only Lady Luck prevented one of them from going down on that sloppy track. If one would have fallen in that tight of a pack, it likely would have set off a chain reaction like a 20-car pile-up on a rush-hour freeway. That could have resulted in multiple injuries and/or deaths to horse and jockey alike.
With that much on the line, there was no choice but to enforce the rule at that point. If they hadn’t, the race stewards might have well taken out a billboard which said “In big races, the rules don’t matter.”
Right now in this country, horse racing has enough problems; it doesn’t need to add that to the list.
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Soccer? Baseball? Let’s get to what really matters, which is how much damn money changed hands because of that Derby decision.
Because the heavy dog tipped the scales and ended up winning, the exacta paid THREE GRAND and the superfecta paid a lowly $51,000.
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Cries the guy who didn’t have the “heavy dog…”
If you don’t like those question, drop one of your own.
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