Sam Mellinger

The Kansas City Star

So the 82-year-old man is awesome. That’s the first thing you should know. Charismatic, hilarious, generous, and I swear he looks an awful lot like Bill Snyder. His son-in-law bought him a big bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue for Father’s Day, and Fred is pouring enough for everyone.

It’s delicious, of course, but I know what a delicacy we’re having here and I’m not a big scotch drinker so I tell him thanks but no thanks, give mine to someone who drinks more scotch than I do. I’ll have a beer, I say.

That’s when Fred looks up from my glass to my eyes.

“P–,” he says.

And that’s the story of the 82-year-old man who called me a p–, then drank me under the table.

Anyway, I’ve got to drop my dog off and get on the road to Oklahoma City for the NBA game tonight — Kent’s making his column debut tonight from Kauffman Stadium — so I’m gonna try to make this fairly quick.

As always, thanks for your help, and this week’s food recommendation: chorizo chicken with chile relleno from Harry’s Country Club. Bonus beer recommendation to go with it: Lagunita’s Sumpin Sumpin Ale.

@nsatterl What is your ideal #royals pitching rotation two years from now?

Well, funny you should ask that. This morning’s column is about the dream choice to start Opening Day 2014. And before we move on, let me emphasize something that’s in there: no, I don’t think it will happen.

But I think it could happen.

I’ll call it 10 percent, and for reasons I laid out in the column, it’s far more complicated than I think a lot of people realize: complications that work both for and against the Royals.

Anyway, since you said “ideal,” I’m assuming that everything with every pitching prospect goes exactly the way the Royals would hope over the next two years. Fair?

So the rotation would be Zack Greinke, Mike Montgomery, Jake Odorizzi, Danny Duffy and John Lamb.

Reasonable minds can disagree on this, of course. Maybe you’re holding out hope that Luke Hochevar figures it out, or that Felipe Paulino is not only for real but able to stay healthy. Or maybe you like one of the long-term prospects like the awesomely named Yordano Ventura or the awesome-r named Sugar Ray Marimon^.

^ According to everything I see, that’s his real name. Not a nickname. Not Roberto, and they just call him Sugar. Nope. First name Sugar, middle name Ray. Just fantastic.

Whatever. I think we can all agree: LOTS of things have to happen for that rotation to become reality.

@bringonthe_cats floppy haired ass hat versus braces… which one is JoPo and which is Whitlock? #twittertuesday

I’m whichever one makes sense and doesn’t wear a Top Gun t-shirt to work.

@acoupstick the “winner” in football concussion issue is futbol. In 10 years soccer in US will be HUGE because parents wanting to avoid…#tt

It’s an incredibly interesting issue and point, first of all. And you may be on to something. Already we’ve seen former pro football players and neurosurgeons say publicly that they will either not allow or discourage their sons from playing football.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote this fascinating piece that’s relevant nearly three years after being published.

My sense is that it won’t end up being as drastic as some are saying.

There will be parents who won’t let their kids play football, but that was the case when I was growing up, too. There will probably be more in the future, but football is such a wildly popular sport it’s got some room to give on this one.

Soccer is growing, no question — particularly locally — and it has some demographics numbers that advertisers could use if their Cialis ran out.

But we’ve also been hearing about the coming soccer revolution for decades now. I have no doubt that it will be bigger in five years than it is today, and bigger still five years after that. But bigger than the NFL? That’s just very hard to imagine.

@kent_swanson Is the O(KC) Thunder gaining momentum here in our area?

Yes, absolutely. But with a few caveats: this has been a perfect storm of sorts for NBA interest locally because of a postseason stuffed full of drama and terrific basketball, and it’ll almost all go away the day after the last game.

But this is part of why I’m headed down there today. I think I’ve got something interesting for tomorrow’s paper.

@TheTyBriggs would love your thoughts on what @610SportsKC has done to @thecarm and carter after @getnickwright left. #twittertuesday #shame

I don’t know much about it, first. And I’m always going to be some combination of sad, angry and frustrated when people lose jobs, particularly people I know personally.

That said, I never saw or heard anything that wasn’t positive from either of those guys, so it’s hard for me to figure as anything other than a misguided cost-cutting move.

Unfortunately, they’re not the first (or last) company to let good people go.

@dannyboi965 looking for a good enemy to feud with for no reason, @JACKHARRYKSHB is leading, do you have any other suggestions? #TwitterTue

Depends entirely on what you’re looking for. I have a lot of respect for Jack, he’s literally been doing this longer than I’ve been breathing oxygen, but I thought it was an unfortunate moment a few months ago when he lost his cool about criticism from KU fans. So I don’t know, if I were you, I’d lay off him.

You know who I’d probably pick? Mick Shaffer, from Metro Sports. I like Mick a lot, actually, but I sense from you that you’re just looking to have fun with this and I think if you could engage Mick it’d be funnier than if you could engage anyone else.

@msmittty12 what’s your athletic background? #twittertuesday

Black belts in Pop-A-Shot and Tecmo Bowl, played a LITTLE high school basketball, and, incidentally, was once called the greatest intramural player in Lawrence High history.

^ Stress: LITTLE.

@clevnation If you can’t find any fault in Yost (crazy) then you feel that he could lead this team to promise land with right pieces? #TT

Of course you can find fault in what Yost has done this season. They’re a half-game up on the gawd-awful Twins. That’s bad.

I think a couple things about baseball managers…

When things go wrong, some people are much too quick to blame the manager. Baseball managers have less to do with the game than head coaches in any of the other major sports. They get too much blame, and too much credit. Players play.

When I point things like this out, it’s too often taken as a complete defense of Yost. No, I don’t think he’s been terrific. And, no, I don’t think he’s in that Trey Hillman place yet where he’s gotta go.

As for whether he can lead the team to the playoffs, I don’t know yet.

@davidgfunk PacMan-Bradley judges, on bath salts or just blind?

Holy crap that was bad. People who say this is why boxing is dead, well, they’re just wrong. Nothing that’s dead has as many people talking about it or worked up about it.

But I do think this is why it’s hard to take boxing really seriously.

Or, to be honest, any sport that requires judges. Incidentally, this is one reason Dana White has stressed submissions and knockouts in UFC.

@flsku #TT is it right to classify Garozzo’s as one of KC’s best, when, technically, it’s “St. Louis Italian”?

I don’t think I’ve ever heard it referred to as St. Louis Italian. Mike was born and raised in St. Louis, of course, maybe that’s what you’re referring to. And he’s kind with Charlie Gitto, who runs my favorite Italian spot in St. Louis. But by now, Mike is as Kansas City as anyone, and so is his food.

Oklahoma Joe’s, you might’ve noticed, has roots somewhere else, too. Doesn’t make it any less delicious.

@TheSmokingPun Is it perfectly normal to rage and pound my fists into a brick wall whenever Mitch or anyone utters the phrase: “Chiefs Kingdom”?

I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. The kingdom thing, and the put-the-hammer-down thing, look, it’s for SOME fans. And to those fans, I say good on ya. Run with it.

For the rest of you, I say, you are safe here.

@SlappyWhite6 how come no mention in Star of MU drug dealer flying around with team? If it was KU it would be front page.

First, the way you word that is a little misleading, so let’s direct everyone to the terrific story in the Columbia Tribune. Now we can answer the question…

No offense, but this is so stupid. OF COURSE it’d have been on the front page if it was about KU. And it’d have been on the front page if we had the story about MU, too. We didn’t. Steve Walentik of the Trib did.

Admittedly, I probably get more frustrated about the tired cries from each side of the border about how we hate their school and apologize for the other one, but I might start including more of these here just so people can see how silly it looks when coming from each side.

@CrownVisionKC For Zack’s start (tonight), is it true that your wife and his wife, are doppelgängers? I’d take em both “on”me. #TwitterTuesday

Say it with me, y’all:

Twitter Tuesday is a weird place.

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