Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The World of Sports, by Casey Mitchell

600 Club
Last years player who was chasing 600 was Alex Rodriguez, and it was all eyes on him for a couple of weeks, but Jim Thome had very little hype surrounding his pursuit. Coming into the game on Monday Thome had 598 homers on his record but in back-to-back at bats in the 6th and 7th innings, Thome became the 8th player to reach 600 home runs, and he reminded everybody why he is still a huge threat in baseball. He propelled his team to a 9-6 victory over the division leading Tigers. This season, Thome is batting .256 with 13 home runs and 43 RBI. The Twinkies however, are 10.5 games back sitting at 14 games under .500 with only about 40 games left in the year. For fans who watched Thome get #600, it was a great night for Minnesota baseball. You have to figure that this is going to be his last season in the majors, but you never know.
QB Competition
This Preseason in already to heat up in the battle for a starting job. A lot of teams are still uncertain who their number one guy will be this September. Carolina is still evaluating Jimmy Clausen and Cam Newton. I watched the Panther game last weekend and they both had their bright spots, but Cam Newton seemed a little uneasy in the pocket and Clausen was having trouble making the right decisions. Another team that is in a tight race is the San Francisco 49ers. Head Coach Jim Harbaugh said Alex Smith is the front runner but Colin Kapernick is right on his tail. Daunte Culpepper has been working out with the team for a about a week. Since being drafted 1st overall in 2005, Alex Smith has been a disappointment but he has gone through 3 different offensive coordinators. It will be interesting to see who will be starting for who on opening week.

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