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Sports Medley: Why is Justin Turner Slumping 28 Aug 17

by Tony Medley

Justin Turner is in the worst slump of his Dodgers career. His batting average has slumped from .390 to  below .330 as of this writing. Why? Is it because he refuses to trim his ugly, unkempt beard? I have nothing against a beard so long as it is properly trimmed. Turner’s is simply disgusting. Obviously not.

But I do think there’s a reason. I saw an item around the All-Star break that said that Turner was disappointed at his home run output. It said that he switched to using Cody Bellinger’s bat and started hitting more home runs. I have no proof of this, but it’s reasonable to suspect that if Turner is swinging for the fences instead of trying to just make contact, it has had a drastic effect on his batting average. My understanding is that he has barely hit .250 since the All-Star break. So here’s a note to Turner from someone who recognized his ability before the Dodgers did, go back to just hitting the ball where it’s pitched and stop trying to hit it out of the park, if that’s what you’re doing. Home runs will come and you’ll get on base a lot more than you will with a Ruthian swing.

An even trade: All the talking heads became breathless when the Dodgers made the trade with the Texas Rangers for pitcher Yu Darvish without giving up any of their prized prospects. People said they got something for nothing. However, watching Darvish pitch, it appears to me that maybe the Rangers got equal value for what they gave up. So far, I would put Darvish no better than 5^th in the Dodgers pitching rotation, certainly not as a starting pitcher in the playoffs. But it’s early yet and maybe Darvish will return to the form he showed in 2013-14 before his surgery.

ESPN is still dominated by leftwing bias: Here’s what an outraged ESPN talking head Jeremy Schaap said on “Outside the Lines” on Friday, August 25, “Look back to what (Colin) Kaeperneck said in September before one of the presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. He said, ‘It was embarrassing to watch that these are our two candidates. Both are proven liars. It almost seems like they’re trying to debate who is less racist. It’s at this point you have to choose between the lesser of two evils. But in the end it’s still evil’.”

Schaap continued, saying in an irritated voice, “He called Hillary Clinton evil!” Schaap apparently did not care that Kaeperneck was calling both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump evil. No, apparently the thing that bothered Jeremy was that he had the effrontery to call Hillary evil, leaving one to think that Shaap is OK with someone calling President Trump evil.

The much ballyhooed fight between him Floyd Mayweather Junior and UFC lightweight champion Connor MacGregor apparently made scads of money. This is a disgraceful reflection on the taste of American sports fans. I heard one commentator saying he was disappointed in its lack of brutality, comparing it to one of MacGregor’s previous fights in the UFC octagon where there was “blood all over the place.” Is that really an appropriate means of entertainment for a civilized audience, to people beating each other up so badly that there is “blood all over the place?” This guy epitomizes the mental makeup of people who like to watch these anachronistic displays of bestiality. In my opinion, anyone who truly enjoys watching this type of activity belongs back in ancient Rome where gladiators fought to the death before equally depraved crowds.