While Pittsburgh was playing the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers on May 25, Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli was struck on the chin by a piece off a broken back. He hasn’t played since. Now he says he’s through catching thanks to what was the sixth diagnosed concussion of his MLB career. . . . “That’s enough,” Cervelli, 33, told DKPittsburghSports.com on Sunday. “This time is different. I can’t live like this.”
I keep reading about how Kawhi Leonard left a few dollars on the table when he left the Toronto Raptors for the Los Angeles Clippers. Apparently, he signed for US$142 million over four years, when he could have stayed in Toronto for US$190 million over five years. While I understand the cost of housing is high in L.A., leaving that money on the table doesn’t mean that Leonard will be homeless, does it?
The Curse of Hammy? Is it only a coincidence that the Saskatchewan Roughriders are 1-3 — with the lone victory over the woeful Toronto Argonauts — since someone made the horrible decision not to bring back Ian Hamilton for a third season as their senior reporter?
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Of course, Saskatchewan football fans have been so wrapped up in the appearance of a giant gopher that they may not realize that their favourite team is struggling.
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Patti Dawn Swansson (aka The River City Renegade) got in on the gopher madness with: “Summer swathing and happy banjo plucking came to a halt on the Flattest of Lands last week, after Gainer the Gopher went missing and was feared to be lost in a corn maze or abducted by body-snatching aliens. Left behind was a hairball that looked like Chucky’s pet rodent.”
There’s a whole lot more right here.
Congrats to the Victoria HarbourCats for grabbing a West Coast League playoff spot with an 8-1 victory over the visiting Bellingham Bells on Sunday afternoon. The HarbourCats, who will be in the post-season for the third time in four seasons, finished atop the North Division, winning the first-half title at 18-10. The lost left Bellingham at 16-11. . . . There still are rumblings that the WCL is working to get a franchise into Kamloops, but has yet to find a baseball fan with deep enough pockets to get involved.
It was on July 4, 1939, when Lou Gehrig stood at home plate in Yankee Stadium and spoke about being the “luckiest man on the face of the earth.” Now, 80 years later, Bob Molinaro of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot writes of that speech: “Words that still resonate . . . In another 80 years will anything a current athlete says be remembered?”
Here’s what Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun wrote about Don Cherry this weekend:
“One thing that hasn’t been confirmed for the next season of Hockey Night In Canada: the return of Don Cherry and Coach’s Corner. Rogers is cutting all over the place, which included the removal of Bob McCown on radio and television and Doug MacLean doing the same. Cherry is handsomely compensated for his work. Not sure if this is a place they want to go with the 85-year-old.”
Nothing definitive in any of that, but, oh boy, did the stuff hit the fan on social media. Gotta think the split was about 50-50, too, on whether folks want Grapes back on their TV sets.
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The debate even morphed into whether Don Cherry should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. I’m thinking if he’s in, Paul Henderson is, too.
Dorothy, my wife of more than 47 years, is preparing to take part in her sixth straight Kamloops Kidney Walk on Sept. 22. She also is one of the Walk’s organizers and a co-founder of the Kamloops Kidney Support Group. Oh, and she also helps organize a Christmas luncheon for dialysis patients, transplant recipients and kidney donors. . . . If you’re new here, she had a kidney transplant on Sept. 23, 2013, and she wants to give something back. . . . If you would like to help out, you are able to make a donation right here.
TAKING NOTE 