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Youthful athletes in dominating form

Columnist Bruce Penton writes about young stars on the rise
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If anyone ever needed proof that youth is taking over professional sports, a 48-hour window in early July provided all the evidence you’d ever need.

Hyperbole alert: ’Taking over professional sports’ may be going too far, but ‘making a huge impact’ certainly rates.

Here are the names: Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., Matthew Wolff, Pete Alonso, Collin Morikawa.

Four names of young professional athletes; four dominating performances, with promise — lots of promise — of more fireworks to come.

Wolff and Morikawa took the North American sports stage first, on Sunday during the final round of the PGA Tour’s 3M Open in Minneapolis. Both players were able to tee it up in the tournament thanks to sponsor’s exemptions, because neither of them — having just graduated from college — possessed any level of Tour status. Wolff, a 20-year-old from Oklahoma State and owner of one of the funkiest swings in the game, was the 2019 NCAA player of the year, while Morikawa, 22, was the star of the University of California-Berkeley team. Both have supreme talents, as their weekend performance showed. The two raw rookies were tied for the third-round lead and came down to the final hole one shot behind 25-year-old ‘veteran’ Bryson DeChambeau, who needed an eagle on the par-5 18th to grab a one-stroke lead over the two youngsters. All Wolff did was drain a 26-foot putt for a winning eagle of his own, while Morikawa made birdie to tie DeChambeau for second.

Twenty-four hours later, in Cleveland, baseball’s best sluggers gathered for the annual Home Run Derby and what a show Guerrero, Jr., and Alonso put on.

The young Toronto Blue Jay, Guerrero, Jr., snared an invitation to the derby based not on what he had accomplished in his two-plus months in the big leagues (only eight home runs), but on his minor-league ‘super slugger’ hype and his familial connection to the 2007 Home Run Derby champion, Vladimir Guerrero, Sr. Alonso, meanwhile, is a 24-year-old New York Met who is having a sensational rookie season, on the heels of a 36-home run campaign in the minor leagues last year.

Through various stages of the Derby, Guerrero — just four months removed from being a teenager — slammed an unprecedented 91 home runs, but all it did was give him runner-up honours. Alonso, due to the vagaries of the draw, advanced to the final on the strength of only 57 homers, and then nipped Guerrero, Jr., by one in the head-to-head showdown.

Even though Guerrero, Jr., failed to win, he was the talk of the baseball world, as Wolff was that day around the world of golf. It’s apparent the two sports are in good hands.

  • Rob Vanstone of the Regina Leader Post, after a one-sided loss to Calgary, on Twitter: “Riders gave Gainer new eyeballs, which was thoughtful, but they should have included a blindfold.”
  • Comedy writer Jim Barach: “Florida Panther Frank Vatrano received a Rolex watch from new goalie Sergei Bobrovsky in a trade for his number. Which means Bobrovsky’s jersey will now be sporting the number 7:30.”
  • Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times: “A Washington Nationals fan trying to catch a home-run ball had it bounce off the top of his noggin. That’s what he gets for wearing his lucky Jose Canseco jersey.”
  • Title of competitive eater Joey Chestnut’s new ESPN “30 for 30” documentary: “The Good, The Bad, The Hungry.”
  • Austin Montgomery, on Twitter, on Philadelphia 76ers misspelling Jimmy Butler’s name (Buter)  in a ‘good-bye-and-good-luck’ tweet: “They spelled it Jimmy Buter because he took the L with him to Miami.”
  • Pro golfer Keegan Bradley, on what he learned after playing in a pro-am with Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer: ''I learned how not to swing a golf club.”
  • From an unnamed colleague of Jack Finarelli, aka the sportscurmudgeon: “A golfer walks into the pro shop and asks the golf pro if they sell ball markers. The golf pro says they do, and they cost $1. The guy gives the golf pro a dollar. The golf pro opens the register, puts the dollar in, and hands him a dime to use as the marker. This economic model is also used by governments.”
  • Jim Barach again: “Jim Bouton, Yankee and author of ‘Ball Four’ has died at 80. The book was often mistaken as a biography of the Orioles pitching staff.”
  • Tim Hunter of KRKO Radio, after John Daly withdrew from the British Open, citing a spider bite: “Just in case you’re wondering, the spider is doing fine.”
  • One more from Jim Barach, after thousands of fish died in the Kentucky River following a fire at a Jim Beam warehouse: “Not only did it kill them, they were all sloshed to the gills.”

Care to comment? Email brucepenton2003@yahoo.ca

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