10A SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2007
COLAIANNI (CONTINUED FROM 12A)
what the rest of the baseball world has been saying, that they overpaid for pitcher GH Meche.
It certainly doesn't help that the Royals finally increased their payroll, only to play in arguably the most difficult division in baseball. They probably will still finish in last place.
The Kansas spring football game will be held in a few weeks, but that will only get me more depressed, knowing that even after that game.
college football will not start for four months.
So I guess the only alternative to watching these average sporting events, is to get outside, play some golf, and hibernate until sports become important again.
— Edited by Darla Slipke
Colaiani is a McLean, Va., senior in journalism and political science.
athletics calendar
TODAY
Softball vs. Arkansas, 2 p.m., Arrocha Ballpark
Softball vs. Arkansas, 4 p.m., Arrocha Ballpark
Baseball at Kansas State, 7 p.m., Manhattan
all day, Austin, Texas
WEDNESDAY
Baseball vs, Texas, 7 p.m., Hoglund Ballpark
WEDNESDAY
Softball vs. Nebraska, 3
p.m., Arrocha Ballpark
Track at Texas Relays all day, Austin, Texas
SATURDAY
THURSDAY
Track at Texas Relays all day, Austin, Texas
Rowing vs. Kansas State, 10 a.m., Kansas River
Baseball vs. Texas, 1 p.m., Hoglund Ballpark
Soccer vs. Washburn, 5 p.m., Jayhawk Soccer Complex
Baseball vs. Texas, 7 p.m., Hoglund Ballpark
Softball at Texas, 1 p.m., Austin, Texas
FRIDAY
- Tennis at Missouri, 1 p.m., Columbia, Mo.
Track at Texas Relays,
SUNDAY
Women's golf at Susie Maxwell Berning Classic, all day, Norman, Okla.
Softball at Texas, 1 p.m., Austin, Texas
NCAA BASKETBALL Arkansas hires coach from Creighton University
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Dana Altman was hired as Arkansas basketball coach Monday, ending the Razorbacks' weeklong search to replace Stan Heath.
Altman was previously the coach at Creighton University. He
went 260-141 in 13 seasons there. The Bluejays went 22-11 this season for their ninth straight 20-win season, a Missouri Valley Conference record.
Altman, 48, is 343-208 in 18 years at the Division I level. He coached at Marshall and Kansas State before going to Creighton.
Associated Press
--made on Sunday's comeback. "I'm definitely pleased with this loss, but it's a loss so you can't be too pleased."
Kyle Murphy knocked in what momentarily looked to be the winning run on Sunday, Missouri secured the win with a two run homer in the bottom of the ninth.
BASEBALL (CONTINUED FROM 12A)
"A lot of guys get down about these games, but this shows what we're made of," Murphy said of
A loss to K-State, the only team selected this preseason to finish the year lower than
Three of those were off the bat of junior second baseman Ryan Price. Price went 5-for-12 against Missouri and scored twice in each game. He also drove in four runs, including
just nine as a team. With 29 on the season, Kansas hit seven home runs last weekend alone.
"If we keep playing like this, if we keep battling and competing we'll be fine."
Kansas in the Big 12, would likely leave even less to be pleased about
KYLE MURPHY
SENIOR CENTER FIELDER
Wildcat center fielder Byron Wiley leads his team with a .371 average and his two home runs are tied for the team best.
Kansas is hitting .288 collectively while Kansas State is at .285, and each has players on hot streaks.
K-State has yet to hit double digits in home run numbers, hitting
the tying home run during Sunday's comeback.
Kansas will play K-State at 7 p.m. in Tointon Stadium. The game will be televised live on Fox College Sports Central.
"Regardless of the score, regardless of the inning or the out, we were able to come through and still put up hits and runs," Murphy said.
Kansan senior sportswriter Alissa Bauer can be contacted at abauer@kansan.com.
Edited by Stacey Couch
baseball
New rule creates common ground for rivals
Known as conference rivals Kansas and Kansas State will
work
together
tomorrow
to add
strength
to each
of their
schedules, K-State will be back May 4-6 for the three-game series against Kansas. Those games will be entered into Kansas' Big 12 Conference record, but tonight's will not.
Next season, a new NCAA rule will push back the start date of the baseball season. Official practices will not start until Feb.1 and games will not be played until Feb.23.
Delaying the start of the season will cut teams — like Kansas' preseason drastically short. The Jayhawks will not have more than two to three weeks to play highly ranked RPI games, as they did against
teams such as Stanford and No. 6 Arkansas this season.
"With the changes in seeding plan that's taking place next year, it only makes sense for our conference to protect our own RPIs of all of our teams;" coach Ritch Price said. "There will be several teams doing what we're doing now."
Meaning that the Big 12 is strong enough to raise the overall schedule strength of its fellow teams.Because they won't have time to get in the challenging, but beneficial, preseason, Kansas' midweek games will need to carry a lot more weight. Big 12 opponents will do just that, even when they are not counted towards the Big 12.
"The great thing about our league is we've got six teams in the top 25 probably ever team in our league's RPI is in the top 60," Price said. "So every time you play and you win, your RPI goes up."
Alissa Bauer
MLB
Cubs to be sold at end of season
BY DAVE CARPENTER AP BUSINESS WRITER
The announcement Monday came as the ailing media conglomerate announced its acquisition by billionaire investor Sam Zell. It puts one of sports' most storied and starcrossed franchises on the block, a year shy of the 100th anniversary of its last World Series title.
CHICAGO — Tribune Co. made a stunning pitch to investors on baseball's opening day: The Chicago Cubs will be sold at season's end.
Zell, a real estate magnate who already owns part of his hometown Bulls and White Sox, issued no comment about why he's not interested in keeping the Cubs in connection with the $8.2 billion deal. The team is one of Tribune's richest assets.
for the Washington Nationals ($450 million) Los Angeles Dodgers ($430 million) and Milwaukee Brewers ($223 million), and agreed to for the Atlanta Braves ($461 million).
While the total may not exceed the record $660 million paid for the Boston Red Sox in 2002 by a group headed by John Henry, analysts and baseball insiders all agreed the price should top those paid since then
"The Cubs are a great franchise. Great history, great tradition," baseball commissioner Bud Selig told reporters in Chicago, where he was attending the White Sox opener against Cleveland. "I'm not going to speculate on price."
Bidding for the ballclub and historic Wrigley Field, however, is certain to be fiercely competitive. Analysts have estimated the Cubs could fetch $600 million or more, a far cry from the $20.5 million Tribune paid in 1981.
for comment, nor did Colangelo, a Chicago-area native who said in a November interview that he would have "great interest" in the Cubs.
The Cubs' popularity as a sports
Tribune hopes first to erase or at least lessen the Cubs' stigma of losing following 99 years without a championship, more than a quarter of them under its watch.
and the lure of potentially steering them to their first championship since 1908 has attracted the interest of many potential buyers since a sale became a strong possibility last year. Billionaire entrepreneur
"In our last season of ownership the team has one mission, and that is to win for our great fans," said Dennis FitzSimons, Tribune's chairman, president and chief executive officer.
"My guess is this is probably good news for Cubs fans. I don't think Tribune Co. has done a lot positive for the club."
ANDREW ZIMBALIST
Sports Economist
Mark Cuban, Phoenix sports executive Jerry Colangelo and actor Bill Murray are among those reported or rumored to have interest, along with numerous Chicago business figures.
Cuban, the most prominent and wealthiest of the bunch, did not immediately respond to a request
Speculation that the Cubs might be destined for new ownership ramped up last fall when Tribune put itself up for possible sale under pressure from disgruntled shareholders. It intensified with the club's offseason spending spree, including signing outfielder Alfonso Soriano to an eight-year contract for $136 million — the fifth-richest contract in major league history.
While the Cubs are renowned for their losing ways, they also have become more of a box-office success under Tribune's ownership and have spent dramatically more money in recent years. Nevertheless, its stewardship will go down as checkered if it fails to win so much as a single pennant.
“It's a marquee franchise,” said sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College who pegs the club's value at $500 million to $650 million depending on any changes to TV contracts and how Wrigley Field factors into the deal. But, he added, "My guess is this is probably good news for Cubs fans. I don't think Tribune Co. has done a lot positive for the club."
Tim Speis, who advises sports team owners for New York accounting firm Eisner LLP, pegged the Cubs' value based on 2005 revenues at roughly $465 million, excluding any debt, but said that's not only the factor in bidding for a sport franchise. "There's always a lot of emotion, for a lot of reasons," he said.
Selig contended that Tribune's ownership shouldn't be evaluated solely on-the-field results.
"There are a lot of different ways to evaluate ownership," he said. "I understand completely the wontloss parameters people use to judge people in this business. The Tribune Company has, as far as I'm concerned, been outstanding owners."
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The ownership issue overshadowed the start of the season in Cincinnati for the Cubs, who are given a chance to contend in a weak NL Central Division but are not the favorites.
Tribune had said for months that it would focus first on a sale of the entire company before considering selling individual pieces, which also include 23 television stations and 11 newspapers. That sale was announced Monday morning when it said it had agreed to a complex deal in which the company will go private and Zell will invest $315 million.
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