Thrice is Nice

1. Frank Haith is leaving Missouri for... what for it.... Tulsa? Unless I have completely missed something, this move makes zero sense to me. Why leave a team playing in the SEC for a team playing Conference USA? This moves makes sense if you are Haith's assistant coach but not the head coach of a team that has accumulated a 76-28 record during your years at Mizzou, and for what reason would a coach want to take a step backwards to a worse program in a worse conference? I hate to be synical, but in today's college landscape, could Haith be leaving Missouri just in time to avoid some punishment from the NCAA for some illegal doings on his watch? I wouldn't bet against it. 

2. It's official, the dumbest stat in sports is the Win for a starting pitcher. Pitcher A pitches 8 innings of 1 run baseball but his team scores zero so he gets a loss. Pitcher B pitches 5 innings of 6 run baseball but his teams score 8 so he gets the win. Rewarding the pitcher for the output of their teammates offense that day makes no sense and too often taints great pitching performances. This season, Lance Lynn is 3-0 with a 4.00 ERA while Johnny Cueto is 1-2 with a 1.50 ERA. If you can explain how this makes any sense in terms of who is deserving of having a better record, then please let me know. Pitchers should be judged in terms of ERA and WHIP as opposed to wins, but sadly we will continue to judge the quality of pitcher by the numbers of wins they have acquired as opposed to the overall quality of their starts. 

3. The NCAA finally gains some perspective and common sense about food. NCAA president Mark Emmert has loosen the restrictions on food for student-athletes and its about time. There are many absurd rules stipulated by the NCAA on their student athletes that makes it very difficult for schools to always take care of their athletes but it appears that Emmert has also come to this realization. He stated this morning, "The biggest problem was, the NCAA has historically had all kinds of, I don't know how to describe it but dumb, rules about food. The infamous one is you can provide between meals a snack but you can't provide a meal. Well, then you got to define what's the difference between a snack and a meal? So it was literally the case that a bagel was defined as a snack -- unless you put cream cheese on it. Now it becomes a meal. That's absurd."  Good for you Mr. Emmert, way to recognize the shortcomings of the NCAA and acknowledge them, first step towards progress.