Sports Update

I thought I would do a little recap of the top Kansas City sports stories of the week.

1. CoCo Crisp Trade
Dayton Moore made his second major deal of the offseason, sending middle reliever Ramon Ramirez to the Boston Red Sox for centerfielder Coco Crisp. Rany Jazayerli does a much better job breaking down this trade than I could ever hope to pull off. Earlier in the week Royals beat reporter Bob Dutton also reported that Moore was shopping Mark Teahen to the Cubbies, and second baseman Mike Fontenot's name kept coming up, as well as Felix Pie, although I think the Crisp trade all but nullified a Pie trade. At Dave's Stagecoach last night we were running through the 2009 line-up now with Crisp added:
1. CoCo Crisp
2. Mike Aviles
3. David Dejesus
4. Jose Guillen
5. Mike Jacobs
6. Alex Gordon
7. Billy Butler
8. Mike Fontenot (or Callaspo)
9. Miguel Olivo

2. Jayhawks Lose a Top Recruit
As an MU fan, I wouldn't necessarily put news of a KU recruit in a weekly news round-up, but this is actually recruiting news Tiger fans can enjoy. Xavier Henry was the third ranked player in the 2009-2010 college basketball recruiting class, and he reportedly chose Memphis over KU, the school his father attended, because his older brother C.J. is already on the Tiger team. MU fans also were buoyed by rumors that Gary Pinkel will sign a contract extension with the University of Missouri that would put him ahead of Mark Mangino in terms of salary for a Big 12 coach, although Mack Brown and Bob Stoops would still retain the league's top two spots. I will post more about the Border War in upcoming posts, but I just wanted to point out an observation that KC bars really don't favor one school over another. With the exception of a few JOCO bars, KC-area bars display the flags, banners and pennants of both schools in an effort to appear fair and balanced. It's good for business not to exclude a whole group of people, I suppose, but I think a bar could also earn some fierce loyalty if it shone its true colors proudly. I can't think of any decidedly KU or MU bars within KCMO limits -- Jaywalkers comes to mind on 39th and Rainbow, but that's in KCK and right across the street from KU MED CENTER. Where do MU fans in KCMO city limits to watch the game and galavant in a comfortable and pure Tiger atmosphere? Give me some suggestions here.

3. Flowers and Johnson Healthy
As far as the Chiefs injury report, it looks like CB Brandon Flowers and LB Derrick Johnson are back and participating fully in practice, which is blessed news for our beat-up defense. Tamba Hali, Jerrod Page, Patrick Surtain and Pat Thomas are all questionable; Mark Bradley, Tony Gonzalez, Adrian Jones and Donnie Edwards did not practice at all Wednesday, but none of these players have been ruled out for the game on Sunday. If Bradley and Gonzalez don't play against the Bills, rookies Brad Cottham and Will Franklin need to step up and make some noise if the Gailey's vaunted spread-offense is going to move the football.

4. Game Times
KU and MU are both off this week in football. Really the only game to watch on Saturday is
*Texas Tech at Oklahoma, 7 p.m, ABC
*Chiefs V. Bills, 12 p.m., CBS
*NYG V. Arizona Cardinals, 3:15 p.m., FOX
*San Diego @ Indianapolis, 7:15 p.m., NBC
*Green Bay V. New Orleans, 7:30 p.m., ESPN