I Dig Sports
CLEVELAND -- During a Red Sox season short of many bright spots, Rafael Devers made major league history Tuesday night, becoming the first player to record six hits and four doubles in MLB's modern era.
"I had no idea obviously," Devers said in Spanish through an interpreter after the game. "I was just trying to go out there and have a good at-bat. That's really all I was thinking about. I just wanted at every turn to try to get on base and try to do that for the team."
Devers started his night with an opposite-field double in the first inning off Indians starter Mike Clevinger. The 22-year old followed up with a third-inning single, a hustle double in the fifth inning, a line-drive double off the left-field wall in the sixth inning, an infield single in the eighth inning and a line drive double in the 10th inning of Boston's 7-6 victory.
"What was even more impressive is that every single ball was a stud missile that he hit," center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. said. "He hit everything hard. There were no cheap hits."
The Red Sox third baseman became the third-youngest player to go 6-for-6 in a game in the modern era, following Jesus Alou in 1964 and Joe Morgan in 1965. Devers, who will be 23 in late October, also became the fifth player in American League history to record six hits, four extra-base hits and three RBIs in a single game, joining Ty Cobb, Jimmie Foxx, Kirby Puckett and Ian Kinsler.
Devers finished the night leading the American League in average (.328) and doubles (43). Along with teammates Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, Devers ranks among the top 10 position players in bWAR at 4.3 WAR.
"He's not only one of the best players on our team, but one of the best players in the league," teammate Chris Sale said. "He's got a chance to be the MVP. That in itself is pretty special."
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ATLANTA -- A tough night for the New York Mets got even worse when All-Star second baseman Jeff McNeil trudged off the field in the ninth inning with a hamstring injury.
McNeil was hurt while trying to beat out a grounder in a 5-3 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday.
McNeil said he felt "a little snag" in his left hamstring as he approached first base. He slammed down his helmet after crossing the bag in obvious frustration and, after a brief delay, walked gingerly back to the Mets' dugout accompanied by a trainer.
"It didn't feel great, but I don't think it's terrible," McNeil said. "We'll see what it feels like in the morning."
An MRI was scheduled for Wednesday in Atlanta to determine the extent of the injury.
McNeil said he hopes it's not serious enough to send him to the injured list.
"I didn't feel it pop," he said. "Just a little snag. Nothing crazy."
One of the NL's top hitters, McNeil is batting .332 and made the All-Star Game for the first time. He has 15 homers and 55 RBIs out of the leadoff spot, helping spark the Mets on a run of 15 wins in 18 games.
"The team is playing well," he said. "I just want to contribute. Hopefully this is something real short and I can get right back on the field."
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Has Ronald Acuna Jr. played his way into the NL MVP race?
Published in
Baseball
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 21:37
So, yes, the New York Mets are a nice story, bouncing back from midseason despair to reel off a nice stretch that has put them back into the wild-card race.
You know what beats a nice story? Generational greatness coming into its own. The Atlanta Braves cooled off the Mets with a 5-3 victory on Tuesday as Ronald Acuña Jr. displayed two his immense talents. He swatted a home run in the fourth inning off Zack Wheeler and later threw out Todd Frazier at home plate with a 99.1 mph laser from left field -- just the sixth outfield assist this season with a throw that tracked 99 mph.
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Acuna throws out Frazier at the plate
Todd Frazier attempts to score from second, but Ronald Acuna Jr. throws him out at home.
Acuña is 21 years old and hitting .299/.378/.543 with 34 home runs and 28 stolen bases. He leads the National League in runs (101), hits (147) and stolen bases (28). He is fourth in home runs and heating up in that category with nine home runs already in August. He is tied for ninth in RBIs with 81, even though he has started 83 of his 120 games in the leadoff spot. He is a lock to become the first 30-30 player for the Braves since Ron Gant in 1991 and has a chance at becoming just the fifth player with 40 home runs and 40 steals in the same season, joining Jose Canseco (1988), Barry Bonds (1996), Alex Rodriguez (1998) and Alfonso Soriano (2006).
In short, he is catching up to Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich in the MVP race:
• Acuña: .294/.378/.543, 34 HR, 81 RBI, 101 R, 28 SB, 5.0/4.8 WAR
• Bellinger: .316/.414/.663, 39 HR, 90 RBI, 93 R, 9 SB, 7.6/6.3 WAR
• Yelich: .333/.425/.699, 39 HR, 85 RBI, 83 R, 23 SB, 6.0/6.4 WAR
(WAR totals from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs heading into Tuesday.)
To be fair, we should throw Ketel Marte in here, as well:
• Marte: .315/.377/.558, 24 HR, 68 RBI, 78 R, 8 SB, 5.4/5.3 WAR
Bellinger and Yelich still look like the co-favorites, as both have big edges in OBP and slugging percentage, helping to put them atop the WAR leaderboard. Yelich and Bellinger also rank 1-2 in win probability added, so both have been clutch, as well. (Acuña is fifth, ranking behind teammate Freddie Freeman and Bryce Harper.)
Maybe the discussion isn't so much that Acuña is the best player in the National League in 2019, but that he clearly has established that he is going to be an MVP candidate for the next decade or so. Two areas of his game especially stand out:
First, his all-fields power. He has hit 20 of his 34 home runs to center field or right field. Only Javier Baez and Yelich have hit more opposite-field home runs.
Second, he is hitting .325/.377/.610 against breaking balls (curves and sliders), the second-highest batting average in the majors behind Andrew Benintendi and the fourth-highest wOBA behind Mike Trout and two Rockies.
Considering that off-speed pitches are often the death of young players, especially with two strikes, Acuña's ability to do damage on those pitches is a testament to his advanced ability at such a young age. That also means there is room for improvement, especially in cutting down on the strikeouts, drawing a few more walks and doing a better job against fastballs. He is hitting .273/.373/.495 on four-seam and two-seam fastballs, ranking 84th in the majors in wOBA out of 147 qualified hitters. With experience, he should get even better at hunting out fastballs.
Acuña now has 60 home runs before turning 22, tying him for fourth on that ledger with Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Robinson, and trailing just Eddie Mathews (72), Tony Conigliaro (84) and Mel Ott (86).
It's a fun time to be a Braves fan. But all baseball fans can appreciate what we're seeing from one of the game's most exciting players. Acuña is 21, an MVP candidate and in the middle of an incredible hot streak. He might not slow down for another 11 or 12 years.
Best of times, worst of times for Josh Hader: Good game in Milwaukee as the Brewers scored four in the bottom of the seventh to take a 5-4 lead, only to see the Twins scored three in the top of the eighth when Marwin Gonzalez hit a two-out, three-run homer off Josh Hader:
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Gonzalez takes Hader deep on his 1st pitch
Marwin Gonzalez wastes no time against Josh Hader as he swings for the fences on his first pitch and clobbers a three-run home run.
Hader entered with two on and Gonzalez jumped on a 96 mph first-pitch fastball, so Hader only got credit for a blown save instead of a loss, but he continues to have a perplexing mix of a season. He has a 2.91 ERA and 25 saves and six holds with those dominant peripheral stats: 103 strikeouts in 55⅔ innings. But he now has given up 13 home runs and is 2-5 with five blown saves. A year ago, the Brewers were 80-3 when leading after seven innings. This year they're 49-5 -- still good, but the bullpen hasn't quite been as much of a lockdown unit as in 2018.
There has been a pattern to Hader's home run problem. Here are the 13 he has allowed:
Marwin Gonzalez: 0-0 fastball
Elvis Andrus: 0-1 fastball
Matt Chapman: 0-0 fastball
Matt Olson: 0-0 fastball
Tyler Austin: 0-0 fastball
Brandon Crawford: 3-1 fastball
Eugenio Suarez: 3-1 fastball
Starling Marte: 1-0 fastball
Freddie Freeman: 1-0 fastball
Ian Desmond: 1-1 fastball
Cody Bellinger: 1-2 slider
Enrique Hernandez: 0-2 fastball
Marcell Ozuna: 0-0 fastball
Thirteen home runs, 12 on fastballs, five on first-pitch fastballs. Hader's slider is so unhittable that it makes sense hitters will almost eliminate that pitch and seek out a fastball. Hader has allowed 22 home runs over the past two seasons, 21 on fastballs. To be fair, it's not like hitters are connecting all that often -- they're hitting .157 off his fastball in 2019 -- but when they do connect, it too often leaves the park. Hitters also have adjusted, swinging more often on his fastball this year.
With the rest of the bullpen predictably not as good, the Brewers needed Harder to be near perfect this season. He hasn't and now leads a list you don't want to lead, the most go-ahead home runs allowed in the eighth inning or later (since 1961):
Josh Hader, 2019 Brewers: 8
Chad Qualls, 2007 Astros: 7
Willie Hernandez, 1986 Tigers: 7
Bruce Sutter, 1985 Braves: 7
Have a day, Rafael Devers: The Twins leapfrogged over the Indians and back into first place as the Red Sox beat the Indians 7-6 in 10 innings. Jackie Bradley Jr. hit the go-ahead home run in the top of the 10th, but the Boston hero was Devers, who went 6-for-6 with four doubles. If you feel like you've never seen that kind of line, it's because you haven't! Devers is the first player in modern era (since 1900) to get six hits and four doubles in a game. He now is hitting .325/.373/.574 with 43 doubles.
Where there's a Will, there's a way: The Giants refuse to go away in the wild-card race, beating the A's 3-2 as Will Smith closed it out. It was a 22-minute top of the ninth, however, as Smith needed 37 pitches to get the save. He walked Mark Canha with the bases loaded and two outs, but then struck out Chad Pinder to end it. Madison Bumgarner allowed two hits and one run in seven innings, and the Giants now have won his past six starts.
Yes, we had another two-homer game: Joe Posnanski has been writing about the stretch of consecutive days in which one player has hit at least two home runs in a day. In fact, much to his horror, he committed to writing about it every day as long as the streak continued. Gleyber Torres brought us closer to the record of 31 straight days (set earlier this season, May 3-June 2) on Monday with his two-homer game, the 29th day in a row we had a two-homer game. Well, we had three players do it on Tuesday: Will Smith of the Dodgers -- it was a good night for the Will Smiths of the baseball world -- and then Kyle Seager and Tom Murphy of the Mariners (they went back-to-back twice). Murphy celebrated one of his home runs with a cartwheel in the dugout, and I don't know if Mariners were laughing or crying about this:
Tom Murphy is a WHOLE MOOD. ? pic.twitter.com/ha1mDVjXTN
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) August 14, 2019
Murphy explained after the game:
Murphy impressed by the size of the dugouts in Detroit told Laker before the game if he hit a home run he would do a cartwheel. Daughter is in gymnastics, had been doing them with her.
— Shannon Drayer (@shannondrayer) August 14, 2019
Some fans weren't so impressed:
I appreciate a good baseball-gymnastics crossover more than anyone. As such, I can't help but critique Tom Murphy's cartwheel form and technique. The Mariners really need a gymnastics coach. I will do it for free!
— Amanda Lane Cumming (@MarinerMandy) August 14, 2019
P.S.: It has been a long season for the Mariners.
Oh, Seager actually hit three home runs. This is the third one, which says more about the Tigers than it does Seager:
Still counts.
Kyle Seager becomes the 11th Mariner in franchise history with three home runs in a game. ? #TrueToTheBlue pic.twitter.com/n7SQa8ZoOH
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) August 14, 2019
Anyway, that's more Mariners highlights than you probably needed. That's now 19 three-homer games this season, and we appear certain to see a new record broken in that category, as well (22 in 2001).
P.P.S.: There have been a lot of home runs this season.
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Quadri Aruna makes annual visit to Lagos children’s hospice
Published in
Table Tennis
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 20:23
An official of Hearts of Gold Children’s Hospice based in Surulere, in the heart of the city, Samuel Ilori, the local social worker, was most pleased to receive Mr and Mrs Aruna once again; the table tennis stars had visited last year.
“We are very grateful to the Aruna family for remembering this home. This is a private hospice that relies on individual and group donations to sustain itself, with this gesture made by Quadri Aruna, he has given life to others in need.” Samuel Ilori
During the visit, Quadri Aruna toured the home talking to children who are chronically ill.
“I’m very happy to continue what we started last year and I give thanks to God for giving me the opportunity; it touches my heart to show love to the less privileged. I’m also very happy for what God has done for me so far this year, so this is a way of showing appreciation to God for His blessings on me and my family. By His grace, I will continue to do this and I pray to God to give me strength and everything that will be needed to keep doing this year after year.” Quadri Aruna
The gesture reflects the attitude of Quadri Aruna both as a person and as an athlete; he sets high standards in every respect; he is the ideal role model.
“I love making people happy and giving back because I believe so much in God and whatever He has blessed us with, it is very important that we give part of it back to society so that He can bless us more. This is one of the reasons I’m doing this.” Quadri Aruna
The Hearts of Gold Children’s Hospice was opened on Thursday 2nd October 2003 to cater for a steadily increasing number of abandoned, orphaned and sick children who suffer from a vast range of congenital abnormalities.
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Wu locks up U.S. Amateur medal; Match-play bracket yet to be finalized
Published in
Golf
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 14:57
Brandon Wu shot 2-over 72 on a difficult Pinehurst No. 2 layout Tuesday to lock up medalist honors at the 119th U.S. Amateur. However, Wu will have to wait until Wednesday to officially receive his medal.
Play was suspended for darkness Tuesday evening, the result of a 1-hour, 21-minute weather delay earlier in the afternoon. Fifty players will return at 7:20 Wednesday morning to finish their rounds, but none of them are within three shots of Wu's 3-under 137 total.
Wu opened his week with a 5-under 65 on course No. 4 before taking on No. 2, which so far has played more than three shots tougher (77.04, +7.04). On Tuesday, the 22-year-old Stanford grad failed to card a birdie, but he also managed to make 16 pars.
“Toward the back nine today was definitely tough, just because No. 2 is such a mental grind, as well,” Wu said. “You’re trying to hit perfect shots on every hole just to maybe have a look at birdie, so that was kind of wearing down, and it was getting hot towards the end, too. Luckily I was able to finish it off, but I was definitely pretty tired.”
Should a playoff be needed to determine the top 64, it will begin after the completion of stroke play starting off the first tee of No. 4. The Round of 64 will begin at 10 a.m. off the first tee of No. 2.
As of Tuesday night, 66 players were at 4 over or better, with 21 of those players right on the cut line. (That would mean a 21-for-19 playoff.) That group currently includes Oklahoma State's Austin Eckroat, Texas A&M grad Chandler Phillips, Florida State's John Pak, junior Akshay Bhatia, 2018 U.S. Am runner-up Devon Bling, Wake Forest grad Cameron Young, The Amateur champ James Sugrue and Pepperdine's Sahith Theegala. All but the latter two players are through 36 holes, while Sugrue and Theegala have two and three holes, respectively, to finish on No. 2.
Among the notables already secured a spot in match play: North and South Amateur champ Cooper Dossey (T-2), LSU's Philip Barbaree (T-2), Florida's Ricky Castillo (T-2), Georgia Southern grad Steven Fisk (T-9), mid-amateur Stewart Hagestad (T-12), Vanderbilt's John Augenstein (T-12), junior Karl Vilips (T-18), Oklahoma grad Brad Dalke (T-18), Coody twins Parker and Pierceson (each a T-28) and Stanford grad Isaiah Salinda.
World No. 1 Cole Hammer is 5 over with the par-18th hole to play on No. 4, and his playing competitor, world No. 3 David Micheluzzi of Australia, is 6 over and needs to hole out for eagle to get into a likely playoff. Others have already seen their chances of advancing to match play end, including Duke grad Alex Smalley, Auburn's Jovan Rebula, Oklahoma's Quade Cummins, Georgia's Trent Phillips, junior Michael Thorbjornsen, Arizona State's Chun An Yu, world No. 2 Conor Gough of England, Georgia Tech's Luke Schniederjans, Canada's Garrett Rank and SMU coach Jason Enloe.
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Michigan's Harbaugh: I wouldn't lie about transfer
Published in
Breaking News
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 21:17
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Jim Harbaugh lashed out Tuesday night at Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell, who said Michigan did not support a transfer's attempt to immediately play for the Bearcats.
Harbaugh said he told Fickell months ago he wouldn't lie about what he knew regarding the transfer of James Hudson.
Fickell told The Athletic that Michigan didn't support Hudson's waiver request.
"They can say they didn't undermine it, but they didn't work to help the kid out,'' Fickell said in the story published Tuesday. "All the power is in the hands of the school a player is leaving. If they want to help, they can help them become eligible.''
Harbaugh said that's simply not true.
"Michigan did not block the waiver,'' said Harbaugh, adding it was the NCAA's decision to deny Hudson's request.
The NCAA does not comment on specific waiver cases and rarely do schools, even when an athlete waives protection under federal privacy laws.
Hudson, a seldom-used offensive lineman, transferred to Cincinnati last year. The NCAA denied his waiver request in the spring to be eligible this season. Hudson posted on Twitter that mental health prompted his transfer, but his request was denied because he did not reveal the issues at Michigan.
Hudson, who is from Toledo, Ohio, signed to play at Michigan in 2017 and he redshirted as a freshman and played sparingly as a sophomore.
Harbaugh said Fickell called him in March, trying to coach him what to say about the events leading up to Hudson's transfer.
"I told him, 'I'm not going to lie,''' Harbaugh recalled telling Fickell.
Harbaugh said he talked to Fickell about Hudson switching from offensive to defensive line. As Harbaugh has often said this summer, he believes all college athletes should be able to transfer once without sitting out the following season.
"That's how I personally feel about this issue,'' he said.
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DETROIT -- Kyle Seager homered three times and Tom Murphy added two to help the Seattle Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers 11-6 on Tuesday night.
Seager and Murphy hit back-to-back homers in the fourth and sixth innings before Seager added his third in the ninth. It was the first three-homer game of Seager's career and 13th in Mariners history. The last Mariner to accomplish the feat was José López on Sept. 22, 2010.
Jose Cisnero walked Murphy after the Seager homer, preventing them from becoming the first teammates to hit back-to-back homers three times in one game.
Still, it was the first time the Mariners had the same pair of teammates go back-to-back multiple times in a game since May 2, 2002. Bret Boone and Mike Cameron went back-to-back twice in the first inning that day.
The Mariners won for the second time in 10 games, improving to 5-0 against Detroit this season. Zac Grotz (1-0) picked up his first win with 1⅔ innings of relief.
Detroit lost for the ninth time in 12 games and fell to 16-42 at home. They need to go 6-17 in their final 23 games at Comerica Park to avoid becoming the first team to lose 60 home games.
Matthew Boyd (6-9) allowed seven runs on seven hits in 5⅓ innings. He gave up four homers, and has allowed 30 this season, the third highest total in the majors.
The Mariners took a 1-0 lead in the third on J.P. Crawford's RBI single.
Miguel Cabrera's ground-rule double tied the score in the bottom of the inning, but the Mariners regained the lead in the fourth.
Boyd retired the first two batters, but Seager and Murphy hit their first set of back-to-back homers to give Seattle a 3-1 lead.
Detroit, though, regained the lead with two homers in the bottom of the inning. John Hicks led off with his eighth, and after Travis Demeritte singled, Jake Rogers hit the fourth of his career.
The homers were the 30th and 31st allowed by Yusei Kikuchi this season, tying him with Mike Leake for the major-league lead, one ahead of Boyd.
Kikuchi only got one out in the inning before leaving with runners on second and third. The Mariners walked Cabrera to load the bases, but Grotz's wild pitch made it 5-3.
Jordy Mercer's RBI double gave the Tigers a 6-3 lead, but the Mariners answered with a six-run sixth that included Seager and Murphy's second set of back-to-back homers.
Seager's three-run homer tied the game and Murphy followed with a long homer to left to put the Mariners up 7-6. Nick Ramirez replaced Boyd, but allowed two more runs without getting an out.
In the ninth, Seager hit a drive to deep left-centerfield that would not have been a home run, but centerfielder Niko Goodrum and left-fielder Brandon Dixon collided on the warning track. The ball hit Goodrum's glove and bounced over the fence.
TRAINER'S ROOM
Mariners: RHP Brandon Brennan started the sixth inning for the Mariners, but left with pain in his left great toe after throwing two pitches. Sam Tuivailala replaced him and pitched a scoreless inning.
SHORT NIGHT
Mariners hitting coach Tim Laker was ejected in the seventh inning for arguing balls and strikes.
BOYD'S HOMER ISSUES
Boyd has allowed seven homers in his past two starts, giving him 19 in 11 starts at Comerica Park. Justin Verlander has the stadium record with 20 in 2016.
UP NEXT
The teams play the second game of a three-game series on Wednesday evening, with Detroit's Edwin Jackson (2-5, 9.35) making his second start since returning to the Tigers. Marco Gonzalez (12-9, 4.25) is scheduled to pitch for Seattle.
ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Astros' Cole late scratch due to hamstring issue
Published in
Baseball
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 19:49
CHICAGO -- Houston Astros starter Gerrit Cole was scratched just before his scheduled start for Game 2 of a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night.
It was not immediately known whether Cole would miss additional time.
Cole began warming up in the Astros' bullpen before reporting right hamstring tenderness. He was replaced as the Astros' starter by reliever Chris Devenski.
Cole, 28, is tied with Justin Verlander for most starts (25) this season for Houston and ranks second to Verlander with 156⅔ innings pitched. He's 14-5 with a 2.87 ERA and an AL-leading 226 strikeouts.
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Fixing slow play on PGA Tour ultimately comes down to players
Published in
Golf
Tuesday, 13 August 2019 13:26
MEDINAH, Ill. - This could go down as one of the most memorable years in golf.
Tiger Woods won the Masters following four surgeries on his back and just two years after he feared he might never compete again. The Open was not held in Britain for the first time in 68 years. Two players went from college to PGA Tour winners in a span of two months.
And the PGA Tour might finally get around to doing something about pace of play.
The Player Advisory Council is meeting this week during the BMW Championship, and slow play is on the agenda. The Tour all along had planned on the final PAC meeting of the year to be devoted entirely to solutions for a problem that apparently has no quick fix or it would have been fixed a long time ago.
So this could take some time.
One possibility the Tour raised was timing players even when they were not out of position on the golf course.
The Tour is equipped with ShotLink laser technology that tracks every shot by every player on every hole in every round. For about the last 10 years, players have received individual reports on how long it takes them to play various shots. The time is not entirely accurate - it's more guide than gospel - because it's measured by when the scorer records each shot in the group, not when it's the player's turn to hit.
But it at least gives a general idea, and there are not a lot of surprises.
Rules official now have a mobile app that gives the location of every group on the course and how much they are over or under the scheduled time it should take to play. When a group falls behind - even if it is not out of position - they can use ShotLink to see what or who is the problem.
Oddly enough, it was an older form of technology that brought searing attention to a sore subject: a television camera.
Fans get a Twitter vote on which of two groups they would rather see in streaming coverage, and the winner Friday at The Northern Trust was Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas and Tommy Fleetwood. Without them being seen, there would be no video of DeChambeau taking more than two minutes to hit an 8-foot putt.
Without that video, there would not have been near the social media storm it caused.
That's not to suggest it exposed a problem, because the problem has been around forever. There were no new developments last week, just a video that led to outrage and name-calling (Eddie Pepperell referred to DeChambeau as a singled-minded twit and later apologized).
DeChambeau took more than 2 minutes to hit a putt, and the next day he said on two occasions - to Brooks Koepka's caddie and to the media after his final round - that he was not going to let that episode give him the reputation as a slow player.
Words won't change anything.
DeChambeau had an explanation for what took him so long on that putt, but no good excuse. It's less complicated to hear him talk about air density than his reasons why he shouldn't be singled out. For starters, he believes the pace policy should include how long it takes to the walk to the ball and hit the shot. He said if he gets there first and he's the last to hit, he can't stand in front of other players to get his yardage, so he has to wait.
''That's kind of not good etiquette,'' he said.
Neither is taking two minutes for an 8-foot putt. On a Friday.
Fultom Allem was home last week in Florida and would have been shaking his head. He made better use of the word in 2000 at The Players Championship when he said, ''Etiquette is not some small city in France.''
Slow play is bad etiquette.
No one has explained the problem better than Allem over the years. It starts with the Tour policy. Players are not timed until they are out of position. Then, they are told they are being timed. They are given a warning if they go over the limit. The second bad time is a penalty shot.
''It would be like you going down the highway 100 mph,'' Allem once said. ''A cop says: 'Listen, bud, you are doing 100. I am going to follow you now. I am going to measure your speed.' You're not going to go over the speed limit. You're going to drive perfectly.''
So to say officials are not enforcing the rules is to ignore what little punch the policy has.
Meanwhile, Allem's tone hasn't changed.
''The problem is the players are slow,'' he said from his Orlando home. ''They know they're slow, and they're not prepared to do anything about it.''
That's the heart of the issue. Sure, the Tour is at least prepared to talk about it. How far that gets depends on how many players are willing to take a hard look at whether they're part of the problem.
Two years ago in a confidential survey by Golf.com, players were asked if slow play was a problem on the PGA Tour, and 84% said yes. The same website conducted a similar survey the following year, and one question was whether a player felt his own pace of play was acceptable.
''Yes'' received 100% of the vote.
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Former European Cup winners had mixed fortunes in Champions League qualifying as Ajax Amsterdam and Red Star Belgrade squeezed into the playoff round while Celtic and Porto were eliminated after a dramatic evening on Tuesday.
Ajax, semifinalists last season, came from behind to beat PAOK 3-2 for a 5-4 aggregate win over the Greeks while Red Star knocked out FC Copenhagen on penalties after a bizarre shootout involving 22 spot-kicks.
Krasnodar sprung a major upset with a 3-2 win at Porto to advance on away goals after losing the home leg 1-0 and Romania's Cluj won 4-3 at Celtic to eliminate the Scottish champions 5-4 on aggregate.
Ajax youth academy reject Diego Biseswar fired PAOK ahead with a thumping shot at the Johan Cruyff Arena before Dusan Tadic, having had a penalty saved, equalised with another one before halftime.
PAOK keeper Alexandros Paschalakis pulled off a string of superb saves but was undone by a Nicolas Tagliafico header and another Tadic penalty before Biseswar set up a tense finish with a stoppage-time effort.
Ghanaian forward Richmond Boakye fired Red Star ahead in Copenhagen and Dame N'Doye levelled to force the shootout in which the Danish champions missed two chances to progress before they were dumped out by visiting keeper Milan Borjan.
Borjan kept Red Star afloat with two stops and netted a spot-kick himself before he sent the away fans into raptures when he blocked Jonas Wind's weak effort to send the Serbians through.
Having earned a 1-1 draw in Romania, Celtic rallied from an early deficit to lead 3-2 before a late collapse gifted Cluj two late goals and a 5-4 aggregate win over the 1967 European champions.
Billel Omrani scored for Cluj after they trailed 2-1 and 3-2 and George Tucudean delivered the final blow in stoppage time as Celtic threw men forward.
Porto fell 3-0 behind to Krasnodar in a dire first half for the Portuguese side as Magomed Suleymanov struck twice after Tonny Vilhena had levelled the tie on aggregate.
The hosts, who have won Europe's premier club competition twice, hit back in the second half through Ze Luis and Luis Diaz but the Russian visitors held on at the Dragao stadium.
Dynamo Kiev looked like overturning a 1-0 first-leg deficit against Club Brugge after Vitaliy Buyalskiy netted early on but the Belgian side hit back.
Stoppage-time substitute Lois Openda silenced the home crowd in Kiev barely a minute after coming on, scoring in the 96th minute to secure a 3-3 draw and book Brugge a playoff clash with Austrians LASK.
LASK followed up their 2-1 win at Basel with a 3-1 home victory over the Swiss team, while Dinamo Zagreb thumped Ferencvaros 4-0 away after a 1-1 home draw with the Hungarians.
Rosenborg beat Maribor 3-1 for a 6-2 overall win over the Slovenians, APOEL won 2-0 at Qarabag to overturn a 2-1 home defeat and Olympiakos beat Istanbul Basaksehir 2-0 for a 3-0 aggregate triumph over the Turkish side.
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