NBC 5 sports anchor Derek Castillo blogs on sports and other subjects.
We’re into the Sweet 16 and so far, so good. All of my Final Four teams are still in (Kansas, UCLA, Texas, North Carolina. I have Kansas beating UCLA in the final.
What’s even better, I am leading my co-workers in our own tournament pool on espn.com. In fact, I am in the 98th percentile of all brackets. I even had Butler today!!! If they could have pulled that off, I’d be sitting pretty.
Other notables in our little pool… Newy Scruggs 4th, Meredith Land tied for 9th.
Be sure you tune into Sports Extra this Sunday at 10:30 on NBC5. TCU head football coach, Gary Patterson, will be unplugged. Coach Patterson allowed us to pin a microphone on him during the team’s first Spring practice. If you know Patterson, you know he is as animated as they come on the sidelines and in practice. I love it! Should be fun!
I’ve been in hundreds of gyms, but none quite like Texas Hall on the UT-Arlington campus. I don’t know if you can even call it a gym. It’s actually part of a theater. You see, the Mavericks play their games on the stage of the school’s theater!!! That’s a crying shame.
This is a school in the University of Texas system! There’s lots of money there. Let’s give some to UTA, they deserve a gym. What’s even more awkward, UTA has a nice football stadium, but doesn’t even have a football team!
While I was at the Mavericks practice, the school’s president (James Spaniolo), arrived and informed the team that Nike called and wanted to give the team new shoes for their upcoming NCAA tournament game against Memphis. The players loved that. Then Spaniolo told them that Nike wanted to outfit them for next season as well. You should have heard the hootin’ and hollerin’ after that!
Anchor Mike Snyder asked me the question on the air the other night and I didn’t have time to explain it on the air. We had to go to commercial! So what’s a simulated game? Here you go:
It’s an informal scrimmage that allows an injured pitcher to test his arm. Simulated games take place at the stadium, with two or three hitters taking turns in live at-bats against a pair of pitchers. (It may happen that both pitchers are recovering from injuries, but most of the time a healthy teammate or coach is recruited for the exercise.) There are rarely any players out in the field, and there’s no umpire behind home plate. Either the bullpen catcher or the pitching coach will call balls and strikes and determine what “happens” when one of the hitters puts the ball in play. If it’s a hard line drive, they might say it’s a “hit”; a weak grounder would be deemed an “out.”
Simulated games rarely last for more than three or four innings. Sometimes stats are kept on the simulated runs and hits, but the more important figure is how many pitches were thrown. An injured player who makes a good showing in a simulated game and demonstrates that his arm has recovered might then be sent to the minor leagues for a tuneup start, or he might return to the team right away.
Source: Daniel Engber, associate editor at Slate
On my way back from the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in Waco. Michael Irvin and Mike Modano both were inducted into the hall tonight. The honors were well-deserved.
Irvin had to play with pain tonight. The Playmaker was really sick, but he made the appearance and ceremony anyway. At times, it looked like Irvin wasn’t going to make it through the night.
Modano was very humble about the honor. He told me that he never thought he was going to be an ambassador of hockey in Texas, but that’s exactly what he became. He is the only hockey player to be inducted into the Texas Sports HOF. Modano told me has kind of puzzled that he was inducted while he was still playing!
I also chatted with Leta Andrews of Granbury. She’s the winningest girls high school basketball coach in the nation. Very impressive. I also talked with Mia Hamm. She looked great. She joked she didn’t like the picture of herself on the Wheaties cereal box. But I told her… “hey at least you’re on a Wheaties box.” She agreed!
Come on Mark! Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, has banned bloggers from going into the Mavericks locker room saying there’s just no room for them. Pretty lame excuse. He also says it’s about fairness, inferring that if he gave locker room access to one blogger, he’d have to do it for every blogger! That’s hogwash as well. Cuban and his staff need to come up with parameters for what is a legitimate blogger and who’s just a guy with an occasional blog. Give access to those working for legitimate newspapers.
This doesn’t affect guys like me and Newy. Our primary job isn’t to blog, but there are guys out there who’s sole purpose is to blog. Now, those guys (some who work for daily newspapers like the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram) will be banned from talking to players after games in the locker room.
I’ve been in the Mavericks locker room and it’s not spacious, but it’s not that small either. If it can hold the media from the NBA Finals, it can hold a few guys who blog on the team for a living. It makes you wonder, if Cuban is upset over some harsh words directed at Avery Johnson after the loss to the Spurs. That was the game where Avery left Jason Kidd on the bench in the game’s final seconds. Everyone questioned Avery including me on this blog.
Blogging has become a part of journalism. If you asked me three years ago, if I would be blogging, I would have laughed at you. But here we are. Mark, lighten up and let the bloggers blog. The perception, whether right or wrong, is that your organization is restricting access. Not good.
Troy Aikman says he had a deal in place to come back to the NFL after two years of retirement. The Cowboy great and NFL Hall of Famer says he talked with his wife and was ready to play again, but his prospective new team (not the Cowboys) pulled the plug on the deal at the last minute.
Aikman has never revealed which team was about to take him in. Aikman doesn’t have any hard feelings toward that team. He told the Associated Press, “I was glad it didn’t work out, in hindsight. The team didn’t have as good a year as I expected.”
Some say that team was the Chicago Bears, but Troy isn’t saying!
The Texas basketball team announced that they received a verbal commitment from Tristan Thompson…. a high school sophomore!!! This kid barely hit puberty, but he’s committed to the Longhorns.
Isn’t this a bit early? Thompson is the 5th-ranked sophomore in the country according to Rivals.com.
I like the messages on the thread on Bevo Beat at www.statesman.com. Hilarious! How about these:
By dallas horns fan
March 4, 2008 3:12 PM | Link to this
Chris Roberts a talented multi sport athlete has given a solid verbal to both Coach Brown and Coach Barnes to play football and basketball for the Horns starting 2016-17. He’s rated by Scout.com as top 4th grader in the state of Texas.
By Robbie
March 4, 2008 2:59 PM | Link to this
Sorry. But Rivals has listed 6-year old Seth Young as no better than a 2 star recruit. He is mostly likely destined for junior college on a Burger King scholarship.
By S Young
March 4, 2008 2:10 PM | Link to this
My son who just turned 6 also today comitted to play for the horns in the 2020-2021 season . watch for Seth Young in the future!
The white stuff is really coming down outside of our station here in Fort Worth. It looks like our first significant snowfall of the season, although it doesn’t look like it will stick.
Reminds me of my two years in Philadelphia and my first experience with shoveling snow. This native Texan mistakenly thought he could just trot out there and shovel the driveway. No big deal. I chuckled when I noticed my neighbor had paid someone with a snow plow to come and do his driveway. I thought, my neighbor must be a lazy slob. He should get out here and do it himself!
An hour into my shoveling, I realized why people have heart attacks shoveling snow. I was breathing hard and sweating profusely!
I also had a newfound respect for my neighbor. He must have been the one laughing at me!
Nevertheless, the snow brings back one great moment for me. As I was outside shoveling, my 18-month old son came to the window of our house and excitedly jumped up and down when he saw me outside. I remember the excitement on his face and his smile with just two teeth. Daddy then acted like a fool in the snow getting him to laugh and smile even more. Good times.
Remember when playing youth sports was so simple? When I was growing up you played one sport at a time. You played Little League baseball, soccer, basketball… maybe football. When you got older, you played for your school. It meant something to wear your school colors and play in front of your friends.
Now, there’s select this and select that. Kids are racking up frequent flyer miles traveling to tournaments all over the country playing for select teams. Parents are racking up miles of a different kind… on their odometer! They’re driving their kids to games dozens of miles away. And this stuff isn’t cheap. I’ve heard of some parents spending thousands a year on travel and uniforms.
I’m a parent of an active 8-year-old boy. My kid is playing two sports this Spring. I didn’t really want to do it, but the kid loves football and wanted to play. It was hard to say no. As a parent, I understand you want your kid to be competitive. You want him or her to succeed. It’s a tough call… to play or not to play. I just wish we were back in simpler times where the stakes weren’t so high… when playing a sport didn’t involve a full week of practices, hundreds of dollars and tired parents!
By Jim
March 4, 2008 4:07 PM | Link to this
Last night, my 5 year-old grandson (Austin Landry Hester) committed to Texas. He’s a 5 star, multi sport athlete and already has been tabbed by his Grandmommy for the Heisman in football & the Wooden in basketball. currently he’s being courted by the U.S. Olympic Grandparents Selection Committee for the 2024 Olympic Games