THIS and that to chew on over lunch: Expanded box scores
give you a better viewHere we go again. Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr. are on pace to hit 162 home runs this season.
So is Wade Boggs. You can look it up.
Baseball is back and so are all the wonderful absurdities that go with it. Do you realize that Pokey Reese is on pace to commit 648 errors?
And the Braves are undefeated. I wonder how they'll blow it this season? So many questions and only 161 more games to figure it all out.
That said, the Star-Bulletin would like to help you keep track in a way you won't find in the morning newspaper.
Expanded box scores will give you in-depth details. Want to know Tony Gwynn's batting average, or how many pitches Randy Johnson threw last night? You'll be able to find it every day on our baseball scoreboard page.
If I can blow our horn a little bit, and hey, it's my column, I'm allowed: If you want extensive coverage of Major League Baseball, you're in the right place. Tell your friends. And take the Star-Bulletin out when you're thinking about the old ballgame.
Now the real game begins for Utah basketball coach Rick Majerus, who just directed the Utes to second place in the NCAA Tournament. Majerus is the front-runner for the vacancy at Arizona State, and it sounds as though that institution of higher learning is ready to throw a whole bunch of frogskins Majerus' way.
ASU couldn't formally talk to Majerus until today, but the school apparently is willing to offer him a package that approaches seven figures.
A major sticking point in the whole affair is that Arizona State is in the final stages of striking a deal with Nike to outfit its teams.
Majerus gets big bucks from Reebok, and Nike wasn't sure it wanted to dish out serious dollareenies to Majerus.
But as Scott Bordow, columnist at the Tempe Daily News Tribune puts it, "After this, maybe Nike will be willing to."
Bordow said the odds are about 50-50 that Majerus will take the Sun Devils job.
Boosters there certainly are hot for him, especially after Utah pasted the University of Arizona in the West Regional. Lute Olson and the Wildcats have pounded ASU for years and Sun Devil fans are sick of it.
Should Majerus not take the job, look for either Illinois State's Kevin Stallings or Mississippi's Rob Evans to get it.
Those two already have been interviewed. ASU athletic director Kevin White's son plays for Ole Miss.
As further evidence of the fact that it's time to change the way things get done in this state, I offer this little beauty: The state spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build a convention center.
Now the geniuses at the Capitol are going to pony up $3.3 million to attract the Miss Universe Pageant, which is owned by Donald Trump. A million bucks of that money goes directly into Trump's pocket, according to state Sen. Sam Slom.
But the pageant won't be held at the convention center, it'll be at the Stan Sheriff Center, which is being offered rent-free.
Why, on one hand, are we paying Donald Trump to bring his little cheesecake fair to our shores and letting him use a state-owned facility for free when, on the other hand, we're charging the University of Hawaii football team three quarters of a million bucks to play its games at Aloha Stadium?
I guess if I was getting comped at Atlantic City hotels it would make perfect sense.
But beyond that, I don't get it.
