MIKE STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – NICHOLS IS HURT – Winnipeg quarterback Matt Nichols appears to be headed for the sidelines for a prolonged period after injuring his arm in this past week’s victory over the BC Lions.  With Nichols injured, Bo Levi Mitchell injured, Mike Reilly playing sub par and on a terrible team, and Jeremiah Masoli injured, you really have to take the notion that Cody Fajardo can lead the Saskatchewan Roughriders to a Grey Cup very seriously.  Only Trevor Harris stands between Fajardo being the best quarterback in the CFL. I’d take Fajardo over every other healthy quarterback in the league.

2 – NICHOLS NO RESPECT – Before the Nichols injury, I had been reading a fair bit on social media and in Winnipeg newspapers about how there are a lot of question marks surrounding Nichols as far as his ability to lead the Blue Bombers to a Grey Cup.  I’m not sure if he’s good enough for that, but I do think Winnipeg fans are about to learn they should appreciate him a little more than they do. He reminds me a lot of Darian Durant, who Roughrider fans never seemed to be in love with until after he left town and we got to see how brown the grass was on the other side.  I think I saw a stat that says Nichols is 37-21 as a starter with Winnipeg and the Bomber starters before him were a combined 22-53. Here I thought it was only in Saskatchewan that good quarterbacks weren’t appreciated.

3 – MMA NONSENSE – Conor McGregor is an idiot.  I realize a lot of his jackass persona is built to market himself, but the video that surfaced last week of him punching an old man in the face while at a pub in Ireland, all because the man didn’t want a drink, is appalling.  If you are to believe all the information coming out with regards to concussions and what it means to athletes as far as their mental health is concerned, I have no idea why we’d allow these barbarians to tee off on one another for enjoyment the way we do.  The argument ‘they know what they are getting into’ doesn’t hold water either because you can’t tell me hockey and football players don’t enter their sports knowing full well they could get paralyzed from a hit or knocked senseless if you have your head down.  It’s part of both games, yet we’ve installed rules to make those sports safer. There is no way to make MMA safer other than to just ban it. In McGregor’s case, the elevator doesn’t go to the top. Whether that’s from a few too many hits to the head or not is up for debate but the world is a better place without McGregor and people of his ilk.  I have friends who love this ‘sport’ but my opinion has never changed. If you get a rush from watching another human being get punched and kicked in the head to the point of unconsciousness (sometimes they get hit several times after they are knocked out cold too) then I think there’s something wrong with you.

4 – WHAT ABOUT BOXING? – I loved boxing back in the day and I realize it’s hypocritical but as I’ve gotten older, I wouldn’t turn on the tv to watch a match today.  Seeing YouTube videos of Mike Tyson sending other fighters into the middle of next week seemed like enjoyment at the time, but it disturbs me today. Having said all that, I guess I’ve always been a proponent of allowing people to do what they want.  So I’d never launch a campaign to ban MMA or boxing however going after hockey and football because some of the aspects of it are ‘unsafe’ seems quite selective when I look at MMA.

5 – TOO MANY INNINGS FOR ROBERTSON – Relief pitcher David Robertson, who’s been out all season with an arm injury, will now miss next season too as he has opted for Tommy John Surgery.  In this day and age of innings/pitch limits, Robertson has thrown 660 innings over 13 years. I’m curious to know what should have been done to protect his arm better. Robertson, who’s 34, has likely thrown his last inning as a big league hurler as it’s tough to envision him being a factor at age 36 after being away for the better part of two years.

6 – CASH LOSES HIS LOCKER ROOM? – Goofball Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash, who I have written about numerous times, was at it again recently as he hooked starter Ryan Yarbrough after 99 pitches and 8 ⅔ innings of shutout ball.  Fortunately, this time, Cash didn’t screw up the game as the next pitcher retired the final batter. Cash, who manages in a way that promotes making the bench boss extinct as he does what computer formulas tell him to, got away with removing his starter (who’s allowed 9 homers in 99 innings) in a 1-0 game in favor of a different pitcher who’s allowed 8 homers in 46 innings.  The analytics will spew out ‘fourth time through the order’, ‘left-right match up’, etc, etc, etc. The math nerds won’t tell you anything about human beings and the fact players may not wish to play for a robot who doesn’t treat them like men.

7 – MERCY RULE – The Yankees lost a game 19-4 and Houston beat someone 22-3 over the last week or so.  Now, the call is for a mercy rule in Major League Baseball. You know like what you have in little kid baseball.  Instead of talking about the fact teams aren’t trying to win and looking to rectify that travesty, let’s install a mercy rule.  Baseball is doing a great job at coming up with ways to get fans to, totally, tune the game out. It has not adapted with the times like the other major sports at all. 

8 – GREAT PITCHERS ENDANGERED SPECIES – Pedro Martinez threw 46 complete games in 18 seasons and he was considered somewhat brittle.  Curt Schilling had 83 complete games in a 20 year career. Randy Johnson had 100 complete games in 22 seasons. This isn’t an eternity ago.  Schilling retired after 2007, Pedro and The Big Unit packed it in after 2009. The best pitchers of today? Max Scherzer has 10 CG in 12 years and four of those came in one year.  Jacob deGrom has 3 in a 6 year career so far. Gerrit Cole has 2 in his 7 year career. When you talk about baseball and making the game better as far as speeding up the game, the removal of throwing pitches during an intentional walk is laughable when you consider how long it takes every time a team changes a pitcher.  Not many of us liked the turn of the century Atlanta Braves, but it was easy to watch their games when Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Kevin Millwood were all throwing 200+ innings a year and, at least, 7 innings each and every start. Games were in the book in less than 3 hours all the time. It’s also bad for the game when starting pitchers aren’t marketable, and they aren’t when they are only out there for 4-5 innings a start.  Saving them from getting hurt is an argument that has no evidence to back it up. And, the ‘third time through the order’ argument definitely applies to your average pitcher. But, it doesn’t apply to your all-stars, especially against line-ups that aren’t very good. Yet, the math geeks and analytic nerds don’t know how to compute that. They can’t figure out that Shane Bieber against the Detroit Tigers in the 6th inning is different than Trent Thornton against the Minnesota Twins in the 6th inning.  

9 – THUNDER AND HILLTOPS WIN – After a slow start, the Regina Thunder had a big second half and defeated the Edmonton Wildcats 34-21.  The Wildcats led 21-13 before the Thunder dominated in the second half. Quarterback Blake Scherle, last year’s back up, has a quartet of receivers that would be a treat to throw to for any QB (Tanner Zaharia, Ethan Douglas, Isaac Ford, Greg Lamb).  Rookie Justin Regier, a running back from the 9-man program at Indian Head, ran back a kick for 80 yards in the first half, stepping out of bounds at the Edmonton 10 yard line. I mentioned Regier in an earlier column after the Senior Bowl. He’s one to watch going forward for sure.  The Saskatoon Hilltops also won their opening game of the season, 34-20, over the Winnipeg Rifles.  

10 – CJFL PRAIRIE CONFERENCE WEEK ONE – The Edmonton Huskies defeated the Calgary Colts 36-13.  Calgary didn’t win a game last year, but they have reason for optimism in the form of rookie quarterback KJ Stembridge, who came into the season opener against the Edmonton Huskies in the second quarter and threw two touchdown passes, including a 60 yard bomb to Brendt Adams.  Stembridge is a local product who, if reading Google means anything, was the top high school quarterback in Calgary last year. The Edmonton Huskies are in a bit of a rebuild with 75% of their team graduating from the club that lost in the conference final to the Saskatoon Hilltops last year.  DB Cheyvez Campbell is off to a great start with 4 interceptions and new QB Declan O’Flaherty, back from the Alberta Golden Bears, looks to be a very capable replacment at QB in the wake of Tommy Yanchuk’s graduation.  

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)