Thursday, October 26, 2017

Ricky Taylor takes No. 1 spot in local ESPN College Football Pick 'Em contest

The eighth weekend of our local ESPN College Football Pick ‘Em Contest came to a close on Saturday night, and once the dust settled we had a new man at the top of the local standings.

Ricky Taylor jumped from third place into sole possession of the No. 1 spot in the local standings, unseating Phig Newton, who dropped to second place. Arthur Ingram III and I were tied for third place.

“Murder Creek Man 78” was in fifth place, and Mike Dailey found himself in sixth place. Hunter Norris was in seventh place, and Casey Grant moved into eighth place. Sharon Peacock finished the week in ninth place, and Travis Presley was in tenth place overall for the second straight week.

With that said, if you’re playing in the contest and didn’t make the Top 10, don’t give up. The contest will run for a total of 14 weeks, and we’ve got eight more weeks to go. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

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This coming Saturday, there will be six football games involving SEC teams and five of those games will feature head-to-head matchups between SEC teams. Here are my predictions in those games. I like Georgia over Florida, South Carolina over Vanderbilt, Kentucky over Tennessee, Arkansas over Ole Miss, Texas A&M over Mississippi State and Missouri over UConn. Last week: 5-0. So far this year: 55-14.

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Atlanta Braves fans in the reading audience can breathe a sigh of relief over Ronald Acuna.

Acuna, a 19-year-old outfielder who is considered to be the top prospect in baseball, was taken out of an Arizona Fall League game on Oct. 12 after suffering a “forearm contusion” when he was hit by a pitch near his wrist. Acuna was removed from the game early for medical tests to make sure it was nothing more than a severe bruise. Those test results must have looked pretty good because Acuna returned to action over the weekend.

In the Arizona Fall League, Acuna plays for the Peoria Javelinas, which is affiliated with not just the Braves, but also the Boston Red Sox, the San Diego Padres, the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays. Based out of Peoria, Arizona, the Javelinas compete in the West Division of the Arizona Fall League, which is an off-season developmental league owned by Major League Baseball.

The Arizona Fall League schedule usually begins around the time that the Major League Baseball wraps up its regular season schedule. Typically, the Arizona Fall League ends its season with a championship game that’s played around mid-November. This year, the season began on Oct. 10 and will wrap up with a championship game on Nov. 18.


If you’re like me, when I read that Acuna was playing for the Peoria Javelinas, your first question was probably, “What the heck is a javelina?” I honestly had to look it up and learned that a “javelina” is an animal that looks a lot like a wild hog. Sometimes called a “skunk pig,” javelinas have short, straight tusks and large groups of these animals have been known to serious injury and even kill people. 

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