The Daily Dose: May 2009 Archives

The Beacon News ran a column today on Aurora Christian's Matt Morse, who is one of the best position players in not only the city of Aurora, but in the entire state.

One nugget in the column deserved a bit more detail however - Morse's decision to give up football next fall.

Morse was a key component to the Eagles' success the last three years and was on the verge of setting, or at least challenging, some of the IHSA's all-time receiving records.

In fact, Eagles coach Don Beebe told me a few months ago that he had to tell several Division I programs to not even bother recruiting Morse because he was going to focus on football. That's how good is he was on the field.

From Morse: "When it came down to it I started thinking when I started getting interest from football and baseball schools. I just kind of sat back and realized that baseball has always been my passion and that's what I love doing and there is nothing I'd rather do than go down south and play baseball for four years."

"I love football, I loved playing here. I'm not playing this next season. It was a tough decision for me. It was real hard. I had to do what I had to do to help myself out."

"A lot of people think a lot of different things as far as 'Oh, he doesn't want to get hurt' or 'Jordan Roberts is graduating.' Everyone thinks there are a bunch of reasons but to be dead honest with you it's just because my passion is baseball and that's what I'd rather do. It's hard for me to tell the coaches."

"I went and told coach Beebe in January because I didn't want to wait and wait until August that I'm not going to be playing football and put him in a tough situation. He understood the situation that I'm in. It's not easy for me to do this to the team and the guys, but I told him that so I'll just be playing baseball in the fall."

And this from a great reader up in Batavia ...
* Batavia has equaled a school record with 26 wins - the team that went to the elite eight a few years ago also won 26.

* Jordan Coffey and Tim Drish have combined for 13 home runs in the last 9 games - which is pretty amazing.

* Coffey has been named the MVP of the Western Sun Conference this year, which is amazing considering he couldn't lift his arm over his head in January - and couldn't pitch until just recently.
- That makes four All-Conference selections in a row for Coffey- the first time anyone has accomplished that at Batavia in baseball.

Congrats to Coffey and the entire Bulldogs team as they head into today's regional play against West Aurora. .

This from SI.com once again illustrates how the Chicago Bears and Lovie Smith ruined one of the greatest gifts in NFL history

"Think of Hester in his first two years in the NFL: 173 touches, 12 touchdowns. He was the most dangerous weapon in the NFL over the 2006 and 2007 seasons."

The Bears decided that this asset was expendable, and decided to make him into a mediocre receiver. And shame on Hester (and his agents), too. They concluded that the Bears were right - he would never get a big payday without converting to a true wide receiver.

That is untrue. Let's say Devin would have scored another 6 TDs last year doing what he did best in 2006-2007 - that would have given him 17 TDs in three seasons as a kick returner. He would've cemented his status as the G.O.A.T. at returning kicks.

The Hall of Fame would be a formality. He had the cool nickname (Windy City Flyer) - he would've gotten paid. The best players always do. Sure, he probably would have had to leave Chicago, but he would've gotten the paycheck.

Now, he's just a 55-catch receiver - just like John Carlson, Davone Bess, Greg Olsen, Bobby Wade and Donnie Avery.
Who?
Exactly

Anyone see Mr. T rock the Red-White-and-Blue tonight at Wrigley Field?
Good first pitch, great 7th inning stretch...

I believe the quote he gave on the way out to the mound was: "Take a look at what I'm wearing, people. You think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys?"

Jake Peavy decided not to come to play for the White Sox.

As The Franchise would say ", I'm not surprised."

This was to be expected. From what I've gathered, Jake is a little too interested in Jake's numbers to make a move to the American League, and chances are he'd want to stay out of the NL East as well.

It's not about the paper - he's locked up good til 2013 for above-market coin - but it's not all about the winning as he says. I think he's looking for that perfect combination of excellent playoff chance + crappy divisional opponents + crappy overall league ... which leads us, really, to two teams - the Cubs and the Brewers.

Now, we know he loves the Cubbies - who wouldn't? But I really don't see that happening, not with the Ricketts family about to finish out their $900 million purchase.
Brewers? They have the talent San Diego would want, but do they have the cash to pay not only Peavy the next four years, but Prince Fielder?

In the end, I think Jake will finish out this year in San Diego...and we'll do this dance all over again in the winter

the miiiightyy BlaaackHawks....

oh wait...

I was out at Conway Farms today in Lake Forest for the promotion of the 107th Western Amateur Championship.
The tournament's long awaited return to Chicago has been well documented, but now it's a reality. Conway Farms has long been a supporter of amateur golf, and it is the first stop in a rotation of great private venues in and around Chicago.
Locally, Rich Harvest will host the event in 2015

I'll hit on this great event a bit more on Thursday in The Front Nine golf page and The Back Nine blog...

The Western Golf Association runs the Western Amateur, Western Junior and the PGA Tour's BMW Championship (formerly Western Open).

check out the Beacon News Sports Site tomorrow for more information...

Glenbard South, Geneva and Batavia will be left without a conference while Yorkville, Kaneland, Rochelle, Sycamore and DeKalb will join seven other schools in a two division, 12-team league beginning in 2010-11.

The media were given an opportunity to get out and test the newly renovated 4th course - "Dubsdread" - at Cog Hill in Lemont today.

Rees Jones, the man who made the changes, and PGA Tour pro Camilo Villegas - defending BMW Champ. champion - were on hand as well. Good stuff.

I'll leave a breakdown of the changes for those who know what they're talking about - or those convinced they know what they're talking about - but I can tell you that the greens and their complexes are much more challenging.

Yet, the course was very, very fair for the average player - which was something that was very important to owner Frank Jemsek.

Kudos all around.

It's only appropriate that the Daily Dose marks its return from hiatus on this day.
amazingly, today marks the third anniversary of The Fire and The Passion aka Aaron Rowand breaking his face against the wall....a visage you Daily Dosers know well and obviously, love with a passion and a little fire.

well, some people feel that "ultimate frisbee" is a sport, so when people play it with no pants, I can see why people would get upset about it...

somebody actually wept after losing in ping pong...

do we see so much of Congressmen...

I know it's a short list, but today is an off day for the Daily Dose...
which will be back in full force beginning Monday, May 11