Random Thoughts: condolences, more

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports

This week’s installment of Random Thoughts centers around condolences to a local family, congratulations, an NBA playoff series, a bad MLB team and a $313 million player declining a request.

Condolences

Our condolences go out to to the family of Jared Fleming, who passed away Saturday after a year-long battle with cancer. He was just 31 years old.

A state champion runner while at Van Wert High School, Fleming is remembered as one of the very best distance runners in school history. As great as he was with his legs, by all accounts he was even greater as a person and was well liked by all. It’s a stark reminder that life is too short.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday at LifeHouse Church in Van Wert.

Congrats

Outscoring conference opponents 80-0 and winning a second straight outright conference title is impressive. Winning a fifth straight conference title is very impressive. Lincolnview accomplished both last week. The softball team put the wraps on a second consecutive NWC championship while holding conference opponents off the scoreboard while the baseball team earned yet another conference title, the fifth straight one. Congratulations to both programs for their success.

Pacers-Cavs

I’m not entirely surprised the Pacers have dominated their Eastern Conference semifinal series against Cleveland. Indiana is playing good basketball – good physical basketball – at the right time. The Cavs aren’t exactly the picture of health but even if they were, they aren’t known as a physical team.

What surprised me was Sunday night’s game. The Pacers jumped out to a huge early lead and never looked back. At one point, they were up by 44. Never saw that coming. I won’t be surprised if Cleveland wins tonight’s game but I’ll be absolutely stunned if this series somehow makes it to seven games.

Bad

To put it mildly, the Colorado Rockies are not good.

Entering Monday, the Rockies had a record of 7-33. The team is on pace to finish 28-134 this season. They’ve been outscored by 128 runs, including a franchise record 21-0 loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday. Unless there’s some miracle turnaround, Colorado will endure a third straight season of at least 100 losses.

The team fired manager Bud Black on Sunday, just a few hours after GM Bill Schmidt gave him a vote of confidence. Anytime you’re struggling and you get a vote of confidence from the front office, you know the clock is ticking.

I feel bad for Rockies fans. It’s one thing to be under .500, but this? Why in the world would anyone want to buy tickets to see this?

What?

It came out last week that Boston Red Sox DH Rafael Devers declined the team’s request to switch to first base, after a season ending injury to Triston Casas.

Excuse me? He signed a 10-year, $313 million contract two seasons ago. It’s not exactly a flattering look for him to basically refuse to step up to help the team. For $31 million a year, not only would I switch positions, I’d mop floors, wash dishes, clean the locker room etc.

As always, if you have thoughts or comments on any of the above subjects, feel free to email me at sports@thevwindependent.com.