Jennie Finch was a winner Sunday.
Finch, who made herself known as one of the top softball pitchers in the world, was the first woman to manage a professional baseball team, serving as guest manager of the independent minor league Bridgeport Bluefish of the Atlantic League.
She guided the Bluefish to a 3-1 victory over the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs on Sunday at The Ballpark in Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, Conn.
Bridgeport broke a 1-1 tie in the in the sixth inning. Luis Nunez had an RBI single in the inning and later scored on a Southern Maryland fielding error.
Finch was the third guest manager of the Bluefish. She joined Pete Rose and Paul O’Neill as guest managers who have won with the team. Roger Clemens will guest-manage the team later this season.
Right move
Baylor firing football coach Art Briles was not surprising for Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Mac Engel.
Engel writes that the Baylor sexual-assault scandal is the worst in Texas sports since the SMU scandal of the early 1980s.
“There is no reason to rejoice or gloat about the decision in Waco. We all lost, it’s just a matter of degree,” Engel wrote.
“All of Baylor University loses.
“The Big 12 loses.
“The state of college football in Texas loses.
“TCU’s entertaining rivalry with Baylor will soon die.
“The image of college football worsens.
“Thousands of good people will temporarily have their Baylor degrees sullied by the deliberate inadequacy of their zealot leaders.
“How people regard Art Briles and the remarkable job he did at Baylor is forever ruined, and the coach will now be mentioned in the same sentence as the disgraced Joe Paterno.
“The victims in the cases will likely receive a check, but they can’t get anything back.
“Baylor University had no choice but to fire a head coach who had previously generated so much positive attention — and money — for the school. His presence on the Baylor sideline was bad for the highdollar business that is private education.”
They said it ...
Blogger TC Chong, on the man who stood outside Gillette Stadium every day for a month hoping to get a tryout with the New England Patriots: “Finally, Bill Belichick stuck his head out the door and said, ‘Go home, Terrell Owens!’ ”
Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, on the NFL moving the Pro Bowl from Honolulu to Orlando, Fla.: “What a perfect destination for a Mickey Mouse event!”
RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com, after Russian high-jumper Anna Chicherova professed shock to learn she flunked a drug test: “Not as shocked as the stadium crowd after she cleared the left-field bleachers.”
He said it ...
From Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times:
“ESPN’s longwinded Chris Berman will quit his weekly NFL gigs at the end of the 2016 season, the Big Lead website reported. That clicking sound you hear is mute buttons coast to coast getting a 21-thumb salute.
“Among the players on the University of Washington softball team: junior pitcher Casey Stangel. To no one’s surprise, veteran Husky-watchers predict she’ll still be thriving on campus 50 years from now, as an old professor.”
“The Savanna (Ga.) Bananas minor league baseball team adopted a puppy found in their ballpark parking lot. If it’s a wiener dog, how about calling it Frank Banana?”