Hello, friend! Thanks for allowing me to give you another earful of Corny Sports!
This week I was inspired by:
Dodger fan Carlos Bérruz, who helps beginning hikers reach their goals
Tennis champ Danielle Collins, who plans to walk away in her prime
The vulnerability of UConn coach Dan Hurley
NC State big man DJ Burns, who follows his gut
With them in mind, I’m going to take a break from this newsletter so I may push through and reach another goal.
As some of you know, I’m co-authoring a couple graphic novels about a high school baseball player named Nate Jurney, who battled cancer while he chased his baseball dreams.
I want to do it all — continue this newsletter, which gives me such joy every week; start a new one where I take field treks like last week; create trivia quizzes; write books; and live a healthy life where I’m a good partner, friend and community member.
Some might be able to do that all and more. But not me. I’m following my gut and doing like Danielle and simplifying my life, so I may focus on finishing Jurney of Hope & Jurney to Awakening.
I’ll get back to Corny Sports when I can. Might be after the books are published. Might be sporadically along the way as I find time.
Thank you so much for joining me on this corny journey. We’re not done. Just need to take a hike for a bit.
— Kal
⚾️ Quote
“When you see somebody struggling, they can’t go any further but they dig deep down inside, pushing their way to wherever our destination is — whether it’s a waterfall or a summit — and they get there, you can see their eyes change. They say thank you for not giving up on them.”
— Carlos Bérruz, founder of the Dodgers Blue Hiking Crew
Source: Los Angeles Times
“Some people did their first hike with me, and now they’ve done Mount Whitney and I haven’t even done that,” Bérruz told the Times. “It’s really inspiring. There’s a quote that I like to use, it says ‘We rise by lifting others.’ That’s what it does. It motivates me too.”
🎾 Story
Danielle Collins is on fire. She’s quitting tennis at the end of the year anyway
By Matthew Futterman, The Athletic
“I’ve loved what I’ve done and the opportunity and the doors it’s opened, but it’s not easy, and I am a homebody,” Collins told The Athletic. “I’m a simple person. I like to water my plants and walk my dog and go for a coffee in the morning, and make sure the bed’s made. I got my special laundry detergent and have my little beauty stuff in the cabinets and, gosh, if I had to be at home all the time, every single day, I’d never get sick of it. I like reading my book. Doesn’t take a lot to make me happy.”
⚾️ Highlight
Opening Day is special. Hope, rebirth, festivities, seats full of people not usually there. It’s like Easter for baseball fans.
Tyler O’Neill has made Opening Day his special day. For the fifth season in row, O’Neill has homered in the first game. No one else ever has. Catchers Todd Hundley (1994-97), Gary Carter (1977-80) and Yogi Berra (1955-58) homered in four straight Opening Days.
A British Columbia native, O’Neill set his record in front of family and friends, who traveled from the Vancouver area to Seattle.
After getting traded from St Louis to Boston in the offseason, O’Neill is trying to resurrect his career. The outfielder had a breakout year in 2021 (Gold Glove, 8th in NL MVP voting), but battled injuries the past couple years.
“Baseball is a funny game,” O’Neil said. “It brings everything home like that. It’s really special to have the family in town, see me be out there and compete and play hard. I’m having a blast.”
🏀 Stat
23.1: average margin of victory for Connecticut’s men’s basketball team over the past two NCAA tournaments
UConn won by 20.0 points per in their six-game title run last spring. And they’ve won by 27.8 in this year’s tourney to return to the Final Four. All 10 wins have been by double digits, including Saturday’s 25-point tanning of Illinois.
Two more wins would give the Huskies their sixth national championship. Only UCLA (11), Kentucky (8) and North Carolina (6) have as many.
While we root for upsets in March, I can’t help but pull for Hurley’s boys, if for no other reason than to witness more of his vulnerability.
“I was crying all day,” Hurley admitted to Andy Katz live on CBS after Saturday’s win. “It’s not about really trying to win number 6 or go back-to-back. This time of year you just love your team. And you can’t imagine what it would be like to not get up the next day and still coach your team.”
“So what you learn, man, when you win the way we’ve won is that it really is about the work, the journey, the process with the group. And obviously too, with my son Andrew [a senior guard with 12 career points for UConn], the thought of not being his coach, that made me a little bit sad too. But I had sunglasses on.” 😎
🏀 Groaner
Leading North Carolina State to five straight ACC tourney wins followed by three more in the NCAAs has yielded DJ Burns notoriety, fans and a new nickname:
Elite Ate!
Said Burns of his mass appeal:: “It feels good to be different and have it work. I wouldn’t say I lean into it, but I think it’s cool.”
🕷️Song
Ode to a Superhero by Weird Al Yankovic
This past week National Geographic gave us Humans really can have superpowers. In it they highlight scientists’ study of athletes with seemingly superhuman abilities, such as:
Climber Alex Honnold, whose brain doesn’t seem to register fear
Bajou divers who can plunge 230 feet under water and stay down for 13 minutes with no scuba gear
Swordsman Isao Machii, who can slice a BB in midair fired from a gun
Whoa, you can call me Al, but that’s weird.
🏀 Trivia
As of Sunday morning, UConn & NC State are still alive in both the men’s and women’s NCAA hoops tourneys. Just five schools have won both a men’s and women’s title in their history.
Baylor
Connecticut
Maryland
North Carolina
Stanford
Which is the only school to win both titles in the same year?
UConn do it! And the Huskies did it in 2004.
Diana Taurasi, Jessica Moore, Barbara Turner and Ann Strother (a former math student of mine) led the ladies. Emaka Okafor, Rashad Anderson and Ben Gordon guided the guys.
Aw shucks. 🌽 That’s it for now. Thank you so much for all your support. Ears to you and yours!
— Kal
PS - You should see one more post from me later today, a field trek report about spring break at the beach, the beach in Colorado.
Some of the Bajou divers should try the freediving events. Never heard of anyone holding their breath as long as the Bajou