======Hacksaw’s Monday Podcast..1-30pm
You Tube Channel-Lee Hacksaw Hamilton
Hot Topics on Table-Stay for Fans Forum
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“PADRES-WHAT DO YOU SEE”
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PADRES…So what do we make of a Padres spring training team that has lost 7-of-8 games?  These games do not count in the standings.  These games are played to get answers to roster spots.  But yet you have to wonder about issues that are there in the box score.

Yu Darvish gets battered in a B-League game by the White Sox.  Robert Suarez gets blasted and cannot locate pitches in bad outing against the Royals.  Randy Vasquez gives up 6-runs at the start to Kansas City.  Jason Heyward doesn’t have a hit this spring.  The 3-veteran catchers are all hitting less than (.119).  Connor Joe is at (.187)…Yuli Gurriel (.222)…Mike Broussea (.222). Any of them making a difference?

Tirso Ornelas is hitting (.467) in the spring.  Oscar Gonzalez is at (.368).  Forest Wall is at (.385).  But is that a trust-worthy bench bunch?

The kid prospects Leonard DeVries (.165) and Ethan Salas (.143) look good on defense but are not hitting.  They will head to AA-A ball shortly.

Matt Waldron and Stephen Kolek have not given up a run in 4-combined outings and that is solid.  But no one else is doing much on the mound.

Hardly anything yet from Machado or Tatis.  Will the downward statistical slide of Bogaerts cease.  Here’s Cronenworth hitting (.200) again and not the same guy we saw in the past.

Luis Arraez and Jackson Merill are hitting well early, but is there enough to trust going forward?

So where are the Padres at this hour, with 3-weeks left in spring?

Healthy yes.  Getting answers to the need in left-field, maybe?  Is there a major league catcher you trust on the roster, don’t think so?  And how worried are you about Suarez in the bullpen, his salary, and the trade rumors?

It’s odd.  The Dodgers stars are playing well,   Nothing but positive news about the resetting of Tyler Glasnow’s mechanics.  The explosiveness of Shohei Ohtani’s bullpen work.  Dustin May’s bounceback from surgery.  The arrival of Blake Snell and more.  All things Dodgers now comes with expectations you have to top last year, and last year was a World Series year.

The lowly Angels are off to a quick start in spring with some new people, Kyle Hendricks and Jorge Soler, pitching and hitting well.  Reid Detmers looks different than he was before.  But yes the Anthony Rendon injury hex seems unsolvable.  There seems more optimism in the Halos camp.

Three weeks left in the spring, but things do not feel right, at least in this Padres camp.

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Hacksaw’s Great Sports Weekend Podcast
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“NEWSPAPERS ON LIFE SUPPORT”
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The media landscape has changed.
Social media has taken over our world, some with credibility, others without

So-called citizen journalists, have replaced real journalists.

The challenge now is to determine what is fact-vs-fiction in what you read and what source to trust.

Television has become reporting with commentary, more the latter than the former.  Sports on TV has become scattered between local stations, the networks, and now streaming packages.

Local radio has seemingly lost its hold on listenership with Sirius XM as a rival.

Newspapers are struggling with advertising support, circulation cancellations, the urge to put everything on websites and drive readership to Social media.

What was something special, once upon a time hardly exists anymore.  Where we had the San Diego Union and the Tribune as separate morning-afternoon papers, only one exists now.  Across the county, once upon a time there was the Escondido Times-Advocate, the Oceanside Blade Citizens, the Daily California out of El Cajon.

In LA, the Times owned the market, that also contained the LA Daily News, the Herald-Examiner, the Torrance Daily News, the Daily Breeze, the Van Nuys News, plus the Orange County Register.

They are virtually all gone, done in by mergers, corporate takeovers, bankruptcies.

What is left today is a shadow of what readers used to get.  The beat writers and columnists are almost all gone, retired, deceased, laid off.  The content of your sports section is so much less now.  Game stories replaced by feature stories, because the deadlines for print are so early now (4:30pm) LA Times…(7:30pm) Union Tribune.

More cut and paste AP wire stories than locally produced stories about all your teams.

Of course you can go to the paper’s websites to get full stories of the games you might not have seen or gone too, if you subscribe to get behind a paywall.

And now this stunning news, a report on the nation’s top 25-newspapers from the Alliance for Audited Media, the report for 2024 in the industry.

The shocker, the LA Times and the San Diego Union Tribune had the biggest circulation losses of this past year, bigger than the Wall Street Journal, the NY Times, the Washington Post.

The  LA Times lost 27,000-subscribers last year, a drop of 25-percent of their circulation.

The UT lost 30,000-circulation, 22.5% of its readership in 2024.

Both are owned by capital venture company, Alden Global Capital, which has a history of being a profiteer, wrecking the papers they own, and cutting back everything, from content to customer service, to editorial and print workers.

Sad commentary on what used to be, a trustworthy industry, to what is now, a failing industry with no way to stop the erosion.

A shame for so many great journalists and the profession they chose.  A bigger loss for the citizens, who so valued the newspapers they got and read and trusted.

Times change, in some cases, not such good news for those of us who grew up in the newspaper industry.
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Hacksaw’s Thursday Podcast-1:30pm
You Tube Channel-Lee Hacksaw Hamilton
Hot Topics on Table-Stay for Fans Forum
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“THE QB-DERBY”
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We’re in the middle of the NFL Combines in Indianapolis, where the search for your next QB plays out.

Love me-Love me not.  They try to figure out Cam Ward-Miami-vs-Shedeur Sanders-Colorado.  Where does Jaxon Dart-Ole Miss suddenly fit in?

But this off season is much more than just the hot college QB and who might be the next Jayden Daniels-who reinvigorated the Washington Commanders or what is the real upside of the Bears’ Caleb Williams, or is Anthony Richardson a Colts bust in Indianapolis.

There are so many other dominoes to fall around the NFL.

RAMS:  Does Matthew Stafford stay and at what price?  Can the Rams pay him (50M) a year and for how many years?  If you trade him away, who replaces him?

RAIDERS:  Searching for a better situation, does trading a 3rd round pick for a multi year rental of Stafford makes sense?  Is Aaron Rodgers any better?

JETS…About to rid themselves of age, Aaron Rodgers, and attitude Davonte Adams, who and where is the next QB?

VIKINGS….That was some season, bounceback season, save your career season Sam Darnold had.   Good enough to tie up alot of Minnesota money to keep him?  How far away is the injured JJ McCarthy?  And where is the next stop for Daniel Jones, the ex-Giant, trying to resurrect his career?

BROWNS..They must restructure Deshaun Watson’s albatross of a contract, but who do you replace him with?  Dorian Thompson-Robinson?  Bring back Jameis Winston and all his turnovers?

GIANTS:  If you have a solution, call me, better yet call them.  That is a pretty dark offensive hole they have on that roster, and who knows how to fix it?  They don’t.

ATLANTA:  Kirk Cousins gives way to Michael Penix so Cousins becomes a short term-minimum investment some place else, but where?

STEELERS:  Experience in Russell Wilson.  Upside in the young athletic Justin Fields.  Both were rentals last season.  One stays,one must go.

SAINTS:  Derek Carr and his big money contract stay, so backup Taysom Hill leaves, but he has never been a starter anywhere.

COLTS: They admit they are looking for someone to compete with 2-year disappointment Anthony Richardson, though not saying he is a failure.  But he has not won

CAROLINA:  They believe in second chances, so Bryce Young, coming off a decent back half of the season, comes back in his third year to start again, but they still need a better team around him.

TENNESSEE:  Will Levis, a strong first season, but a really bad second season, and with the top pick in the draft, a chance to take a QB, but no, they are willing to trade back or take somebody else to start the draft.  Does not make alot of sense.

DALLAS:  They are putting a young QB out there.  Might be backup Cooper Rush or 3rd stringer Trey Lance, who needs another chance.

49ERS:  Jimmy Garoppolo has been thru good and bad times, and needs a change of address, but will anyone give him a chance.  Been awhile since he was a hot prospect stuck in New England.

So there you are.  12-teams with signficiant QB problems.  A potential pile of guys who could move, but each with issues that does not guarantee you win much if they are your guy.  Very few solutions out there among the veterans, and how many hot prospects at the NFL combine?

Take a Tylenol and call me in the morning with a solution.

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“LUKA & LAKERS”
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An amazing week in the NBA, the outpouring of love, accolades, inviting everybody to order their NBA Finals tickets because the Lakers are going to be there.

All this in the aftermath of the Lakers-Mavericks trade that imported Luka Doncic to the Lakers, and shipped Anthony Davis to Dallas.

Doncic has rallied from a slow start and from his calf injury, to put together impressive back to back games.

AD showed up, put up big numbers in his first game and then went down with a significant abdominal injury.

Dallas is left with a rag-tag roster, with Kyrie Irving, 3-injured bigs, and no Doncic.  That trade may haunt them for eternity.

A bit early though to award the Lakers the NBA Western Conference title or make plans for the NBA finals.

Doncic is pushing hard to put away his reputation of being lazy, fat, and refusing to commit to playing defense. or conditioning himself.

He’s offended at how he was painted by people around the Mavericks organization and the rationale to not offer him a ‘max’ contract when he became eligible.

Interesting too, the statement ‘Luka’ is now in beast mode after all the insults.  Interesting he had to get motivated to earn the 50M per year he was getting in Dallas and is in LA.

As for the Lakers, yes they blew out a battered Mavericks team on Tuesday, after trashing a once good Denver team, which is lost in the Rockies with a (10-14) record against good teams this year.  Denver let so many veteran players go in the off season they wrecked their team chemistry.

And while the national media keeps saying the Lakers are ready for the run, they are ignoring the awful losses to lowly Utah and Charlotte, sandwiched around the All Star break.  And that same group of smart guy network people, are not paying attention as to who is left on the Lakers schedule, alot of the NBA’s best teams.

Can the Lakers carry thru on the excitement of Luka-LeBron and Austin Reaves?  Can they survive without legitimate NBA centers, and a really thin bench?

That’s why you play out the rest of the schedule.  We’ll see how long LeBron holds up to the minutes being played.  How long Luka can play at this pace with the hope the calf does not act up.  And if these guys in the paint can be more than just a mirage.

You cannot take away their (35-21) record at this hour.  But they still have something to prove over the long haul for all the reasons I gave you.

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Hacksaw’s Monday Bonus Podcast
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“SHOOTING HOOPS”
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Comments about all things college basketball:

AZTECS..The news about as good as it could be on Magoon Gwath, SDSU’s budding superstar.  A hyperextended knee-yes.  No bone bruise, no torn meniscus, no torn ligament, no knee surgery.  Week to week status-rest-rehab-get him ready for MWC tourney.

SHOOTING GUARD…Miles Byrd is banged up.  A hip issue and a thumb issue.  Uncertainty shooting shots.  The reason his scoring has gone from 16PPG to 9PPG in two weeks and why he is shooting 31% from the floor.

HELP WANTED…So how do you play vs New Mexico, Wyoming, Las Vegas the next 3-games.  Insert Miles Heide in the paint, move Jared Coleman Jones to shooting forward, and run every guard you have out there to disrupt teams in their backcourt.  Fouls to give, then use them.  Make it ugly ball, but the only way to win is to grind on people and if it has to be 38-33, then so be it, as long as it is a win.  SDSU guards need to carry the mail from now till MWC tourney time.

NEXT MAN UP…Your name is Taj DeGourville, or Demarshay Johnson, or Kimo Ferrari or Pharo Compton.  Time to step up and play consistently to make a difference with this team so shorthanded.  We have seen flashes from them.  They need to show up everytime they go to the scorer’s table to check into a game starting vs the Lobos.

LOBOS..New Mexico in town, last seen running up a big score, running SDSU out of the Pit in Albuquerque.  Take a close look, it might be the last time you see Richard Pitino at UNM.  Good coach.  Great bloodlines.  Lots of recruiting contacts.  Just not alot of assets at New Mexico to keep this program at its level.  Likely to leave for a head coaching job in the Power 4-basketball world.  It’s just a tough place to coach and recruit too.  It’s weird, it’s like the Lobos, New Mexico State and UTEP are aligned together, not just geographically, but also structurally, all  off the beaten track, all with the same shortcomings, trying to compete in Division 1-Athletics.  All-real-have nots, and that is sad.
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