Barry Sokol on Sports

Improvement has been the key for the Columbus Clippers this season.   

The Clippers are in the midst of a 10 game road stand.  They split their first 2 games with Indianpolis losing 3-8 and winning 6-5,  finish out their next 3 of their 4 games this weekend against International League North first-place Pawtucket (won 4-3 last night), and finish their last 4 games next week against the other team tied for the first-place International League North, the Scranton Wilkes Barre Yankees. 

They have the best record of any AAA team in the last 10 games going 8-2. As long as Columbus doesn’t fall apart, or go into too many slumps, they should be able to make the playoffs this season.  Hopefully they can keep doing well and take first place in the International League West.

Jerry Hariston lead off and hit a single to start the top of the first inning, Jay Bruce struck out looking, and Hariston stole second and third, then it was Ken Griffey Jr who would make history against left handed pitcher Mark Hariston.

Ken Griffey Jr. hit a 2 run shot on a 3-1 pitch in the top of the first inning on Monday night against the Florida Marlins at Dolphin Stadium to become the sixth player in baseball history to achieve the milestone of 600 career home runs.  

The only other players to hit 600 home runs are Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and Willie Mays.

Griffey blasted it 413 feet into the right field seats, and then fans were scrambling for the ball.  After he rounded the bases and gave high fives to his teammates in the dugout, Griffey came out of the dugout and received a standing ovation for his accomplishment from Florida Marlin fans.

The Reds went onto beat the Marlins 9-4.

After beating two ranked BCS Big East power-house basketball teams last season - blowing out then #6 Pittsburgh at home and beating then #11 Louisville on the road - the Flyers were looking to play some other BCS teams for their non-conference schedule for the 2008-2009 season. 

Dayton will get to play two BCS teams from the Big East and SEC Conference in the third annual Chicago Invitational Challenge at the Sears Centre Arena in November during the 2008-2009 season.

Before taking on the two BCS teams in Chicago, the first two rounds of the Chicago Invitational the Flyers will host Bethune-Cookman on Sunday, November 23 and Mercer on Tuesday, November 25 at UD Arena.

The Flyers will then play Auburn from the SEC on Friday, November 28th and Marquette from the Big East on Saturday, November 29th at the Seares Centre Arena in Chicago.

The other teams playing in the Chicago Invitational will be Northern Iowa, Chicago State, and Texas Southern.

After seeing what happened to Pittsburgh at home in UD Arena, most teams would probably not want to play at UD Arena. This is good for the Flyers that they could find two BCS teams to play on a neutral court.

Ken Griffey Jr. is looking to reach a milestone by hitting his 600th home run of his baseball career.  

Griffey hit home run number 598 against the San Diego Padres Thursday night in their 8-2 loss.  He had not hit a home run in his last 90 at-bats.  The last time he homered was about a month ago on April 23rd against Houston.  It was the second longest drought of his career without hitting a home run. 

The thirty-eight year old is in his 20th season batting .247 and has hit 5 HRs, 22 RBIS, and scored 20 runs this season.  His prime with hitting home runs was with the Seattle Mariners back in 1997 and 1998 when he had 56 home runs both seasons.

Obviously, he is past his prime, but hopefully Griffey can become the sixth major league baseball player in history to hit 600 career home runs this season.  (Now if only the Reds could be good and achieve a milestone by finally making the playoffs).

The Cincinnati Reds swept the Cleveland Indians in a three game series this weekend in Cincinnati at Great American Ballpark. 

The Reds beat the Tribe on Friday 4-3, 4-2 Saturday, and 6-4 to conclude the series on Sunday. 

Former Dayton Dragons player, Reds left fielder Adam Dunn was the star in the series having a home run in each game.  He was a big contributor for Cincinnati in all 3 games.  On Friday, Dunn had the bases-loaded go-ahead walk for the Reds in their 4-3 victory.  On Saturday when they were down 2-1 in the bottom of the 9th inning, Dunn hit the game winning 3 run homer to make it 4-2.  Dunn has continuted his streak of 4 straight games with a home run.  The streak of 4 straight games with a home run matches his career high of home runs when he did it in August 2004 and June 2006.

The 21-23 Cincinnati Reds are on a 6 game winning streak and have swept Florida and Cleveland in their 6 game homestand.  Not only did they sweep Cleveland, but they are no longer in last place in the division and have their longest winning streak of the season. 

The Cincinnati Reds will now have to keep the winning streak alive and test it out on the road as they head out to southern California this week and begin their 7 game road stand.  They take on Los Angeles Dodgers in 3 games starting Monday night at 10:10PM and then move on to play a 4 game series with San Diego.

After having a rough start to begin the season (3-9 at one point), the Columbus Clippers have improved and now have a current record of 23-19. 

In the last 10 games Columbus is 6-4. The Clippers are 11-9 at home and 12-10 on the road.   They are only 4 games behind 27-15 first place Toledo in the International League West Standings. 

Standings >

Team	Wins	Losses	PCT	GB	Home	Away	Last 10	Streak
International League North
Scranton/WB	28	13	.683	-	17-6	11-7	6-4	L2
Pawtucket	25	17	.595	3.5	16-6	9-11	8-2	W2
Syracuse	24	17	.585	4.0	11-10	13-7	5-5	L1
Buffalo	18	23	.439	10.0	9-10	9-13	5-5	L2
Rochester	17	25	.405	11.5	11-10	6-15	3-7	L1
Lehigh Valley	11	31	.262	17.5	8-11	3-20	7-3	W3
International League South
Richmond	22	18	.550	-	13-7	9-11	4-6	L1
Durham	18	22	.450	4.0	9-11	9-11	5-5	L1
Charlotte	17	23	.425	5.0	10-11	7-12	3-7	W1
Norfolk	13	27	.325	9.0	8-11	5-16	0-10	L10
International League West
Toledo	27	15	.643	-	16-7	11-8	6-4	W1
Louisville	25	16	.610	1.5	12-7	13-9	8-2	W5
Columbus	23	19	.548	4.0	11-9	12-10	6-4	W1
Indianapolis	20	22	.476	7.0	10-11	10-11	4-6	W1

Tonight, the Clippers finish their road stand against Rochester before returning home to take on the first-place Toledo Mud Hens for two games and then playing the next two games at Toledo. 

If the Columbus Clippers can win tonight against Rochester and sweep Toledo in 4 games, then the Columbus Clippers can take first-place in the International League West Standings.

The Ohio State Buckeyes basketball squad will have two more players to the 2008 recruiting class to provide depth for the 2008-2009 season. 

Thad Matta announced this week that 6′ 2” sophmore guard Jeremie Simmons from Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan and Nikola Kecman, a 6′ 9″ freshman forward from Eastern Arizona College signed National Letters of Intent to play basketball at Ohio State.

Simmons will have 2 seasons of elgibility for the Buckeyes, while Kecman will have 3 as a Buckeye.

Simmons, a first team NJCAA All-American last season, was a 2007-08 All-Michigan Community College Athletic Association selection as a sophomore and was named the league’s player of the year. 

An interesting fact I found out about Jeremie Simmons from a blog post dated April 10th on Hotbed Hoops was Dayton was trying really hard to recruit him. The blog made a good point that both the Flyers and Buckeyes needed a good versatile guard like Simmons after the graduation of Ohio State guard Jamar Butler and Dayton guard Brian Roberts.

Kecman is a native of Belgrade, Serbia.  He averaged 13.4 points as a freshman at Eastern Arizona. He scored 428 points, the second-highest scoring total on the squad. He made 170 of 301 (.565) field goals and 35 of 80 (.438) 3-pointers. In 32 games, he grabbed 120 rebounds (3.8 rpg) for the 30-6 Gila Monsters.

Nikola Keckman will be a good replacement for Kosta Koufos. He will be a power forward who can add outside presence by playing on the perimeter and playing inside as well.

The Buckeyes 2008 recruiting class is now made up of 6 players, including Rivals 2008 #1 5 star basketball recruit 7 foot center BJ Mullens.  Another 5 star recruit the Buckeyes have is shooting guard William Buford, ranked #19 overall and the #4 shooting guard by Rivals.  The rest of the class is point guard Anthony Crater and shooting guard Walter Offutt.

Rivals.com has the Buckeyes as a pre-season top 25 team for 2008-2009.  The team should be good and I expect the Buckeyes to make the NCAA Tourney and be contenders for a Big Ten Title.

The Columbus Crew defeated the Kansas City Wizards Saturday night at home in Crew Stadium 2-1 in front of 10,447 people to improve their undefeated home record to 4-0 and continued their hot start of the 2008 season.

The game was pretty intense with Columbus having a total of 15 fouls and Kansas City with 12 fouls.  There were also 3 yellow cards and 1 red card in the game.  In the first half, Crew player Frankie Hejduk fouled Wizards midfielder Roger Espinoza while the two came in contact for a loose ball.  After the whistle blew, Espinoza struck Hedjeck above the shoulders with a raised elbow.  Hedjuk was given a yellow card and Espinoza, who played soccer at The Ohio State University, was given a red card and ejected from the game.

The Columbus Crew scored both of their goals in the first half. The Kansas City Wizards scored their only goal on a penalty kick at the 79 minute mark when Crew defender Danny O’Rourke pulled down a Wizard player.

Columbus is currently the outright first place team in the Eastern Standings with a 5-1 record and the outright best team in MLS with the most points (15) and best record.  The Columbus Crew’s next game is against the San Jose Earthquakes at San Jose Saturday night at 10 PM.

The Cincinnati Bengals made 10 selections in the 2008 NFL draft in New York this weekend. The Bengals draft picks were made up of 3 wide receivers, 2 outside linebackers, 2 defensive tackles, 1 offensive tackle, 1 safety, and 1 tight end. 

Here is a the list of the Bengals selection:

1   (9) Keith Rivers OLB  USC

2 (46) Jerome Simpson  WR Coastal Carolina

3 (77) Pat Sims DT Auburn

3 (97) Andre Caldwell WR Florida

4 (112) Anthony Collins OT Kansas

5 (145) Jason Shirley DT Fresno State

6 (177) Corey Lynch  S Appalachain State

6 (207) Matt Sherry TE Villinova

7 (244) Angelo Craig DE Cincinnati

7 (246) Mario Urrutia WR Louisville

An issue of concern is why the Bengals selected DT Jason Shirley who was in and out of trouble last season at Fresno State.  The selection just reflects on the management and personnel for Cincinnati.  One would think that after what happened with Chris Henry, that the personnel and management would be smart enough to consider that kind of intangible.  Another interesting pick came in the second round, when the Bengals chose Jerome Simpson from Coastal Carolina, when there were a few other big name and higher ranked wide receivers still avaliable, such as Texas WR Limas Sweed, but maybe Simpson will have an impact for the Bengals and end up being a good pick. 

The players selected won’t make the Bengals have a winning season this year, but lets hope they have the potential to make the Bengals a better team and have a winning season in the future. 

Ohio State 7 foot freshman center Kosta Koufos declared earlier this week that he will enter the NBA Draft.  Koufos has not signed with an agent yet - leaving him the option of returning to school to for his sophmore season. 

Kosta Koufos averaged 14.4 points and 6.7 rebounds per game for the Buckeyes during his freshman season.  During the NIT Tournament, he played his best basketball of the season averaging 18.2 points and 6.2 rebounds per game and lead the Buckeyes to an NIT Championship.  His performance helped him be named the MVP of the tournament.

College basketball players like Kosta Koufos who declare but do not hire an agent have until June 16th to withdraw their name from the NBA draft.

Kosta Koufos will probably not be coming back to OSU. If he does not enter the NBA draft, it is probably because he is not a lottery pick and he will opt to play professional basketball in Greece. I feel there is a better chance that he will come back to OSU than when Greg Oden, Mike Conley, and Daquean Cook had to make their decision. The chance is slim, but most players don’t come back once they declare for the NBA draft.

Freshman forward Eric Wallace has asked earlier this week that he be released from his scholarship and that he will be transferring to another school after he finishes spring quarter. 

The 6′ 5” freshman forward saw limited playing time this year.  Wallace played in 15 games and averaged 4.8 minutes of playing time and scored 1.8 points and 1.3 rebounds per game.

I can understand the reason that Eric Wallace decided to transfer from OSU.  A great recruiting class coming in will not help increase his playing time.  He would probably have that much playing time his next 3 years at OSU.  Maybe another Division 1 or a Division 2 school is a better choice. It should be interesting to see what school he decides to transfer to.