Before we roar into all things restaurant and wine, I can't keep a couple of recent sports items off my mind.
1) The day prior to last week's Major League Baseball draft of amateur players, I saw a list of one expert's top prospects. I plucked out the top 10 pitchers and noted their average size was 6-foot-5 inches and 205 pounds, the latter figure sure to expand as the young men fill out.
I also noted that 49 years ago MLB lowered the pitching mound from 15 inches to 10 inches because pitchers had been dominating the game and the lower mound would benefit the hitters. Many of the best pitchers of the late-1950s and '60s -- Warren Spahn, Whitey Ford, Camilo Pascual, Hoyt Wilhelm, Roy Face, to name a few -- were an even 6-foot or less and around 175 to 185. Even the mightily imposing Bob Gibson was only 6-1, 189.
So here's my theory: By the natural processes of evolution and adapting to one's environment over the last half century, today's species of professional pitcher has compensated for the lower mound by growing 5 inches taller. Another 50 years at this rate, and they might have them throwing uphill.
2) The other item I noticed was the obituary of former Oklahoma State University basketball coach Jim Killingsworth.
One of the best memories of many that I have of Killingsworth came when he was head coach of Idaho State in January 1972. I had traveled with coach Ken Trickey's Oral Roberts University team for a game in Pocatello against Killingworth's squad. Both had fine teams, and I was covering the game for the World.
Killingsworth met me, Trickey and a couple of his assisants in our motel coffee shop the afternoon of the game, and we drank coffee and talked basketball and coaching for three hours, until Killer and Trick had to go meet with their teams. For a basketball junkie, it was a priceless three hours.
Killingsworth, who also had been an assistant at the University of Tulsa, head coach at Texas Christian University and head coach at four Oklahoma high schools, was one of the most gracious, interesting and knowledgeable men I've ever had the good fortune to meet.
