LARNED — Answers to questions you hadn’t even asked.
It is estimated that dozens, yea even scores, of Major League Baseball players are just a few strokes of a pen from being suspended for illegal substance abuses. Ryan Braun, the superstar of the Milwaukee Brewers is only the first in an infamous lineup of baseball’s biggest and brightest that will be told to park their fannies for awhile AND forfeit some of their gargantuan salaries. It is guessed that very few teams will be spared.
How about an All-Star baseball game made up of just the drug users? Instead of a Home Run Derby they could have a contest to see which players’ syringe would squirt the juice the farthest!
Stanford football coach David Shaw told Yahoo Sports that he has a specific skill he looks for while recruiting. “You look for vocabulary. Can this kid express himself in a way that befits a Stanford man?” So what’s so big about that? They do the same thing at Alabama. They look for someone that says “I’m gonna knock you on your butt!”
This year, the Big 12 handed out $22 million smackers to each of the original Big 12 members still in the conference. West Virginia and TCU got half shares. That will increase for them next year to a three-fourths share and in 2015-16, they will get full shares. By that time all conference members expect to be taking home $30 million each. Ten years from now? The Big 12 will dole out about $40 million to each conference member.
The government, while winking, tells us that inflation is only 2 percent so the world of collegiate athletics is way ahead of the curve! Is it any wonder that the five major conferences want to tell the NCAA how to drive the pony to market?
Poor Boise State. Not only are they going to get relegated to a lower level of football due to all of this conference re-alignment stuff, now the NCAA is legislating against their blue football field and their uniforms! The NCAA approved a new rule that would require teams to have either their jerseys or pants contrast in color or to the playing field. The Mountain West Conference had barred the Broncos from wearing their all-blue uniforms on their blue turf field during conference games last year. And I thought there was just something wrong with my picture tube!
This past weekend, Hunter Mahan, a professional golfer who was 13 under and leading the Canadian Open, withdrew and skedaddled for home. He and wife Kandi were expecting their first child and she had gone into labor. Mahan said he was excited and looked forward to returning to the RBC Canadian Open in the coming years. All of that reminded me of a quote by Mackey Sasser, who at the time was a catcher for the New York Mets. His wife had gone into labor and he said, “I called the doctor and he told me that the contraptions were an hour apart. I’m not sure what kind of child Mackey put together!
Of all Big 12 schools that have played in a Final Four, Iowa State has had the longest drought. They made it during World War II (1944) and haven’t been back since though Johnny Orr and now Fred Hoiberg have put together some pretty talented ball clubs.
If you never want to be wrong, do what I do: To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target!


Charles Tabler is a contributing writer from Larned.