John Branston reports on new flight options coming to Memphis International Airport.
Month: February 2013
Southwest Airlines, through its Air Tran subsidiary, is adding four flights out of Memphis starting in August, the Memphis Shelby County Airport Authority announced Monday.
The news is certainly welcome in the sense that it reverses the trend of declining passenger service at Memphis International Airport. Jack Sammons, the new chairman of the Airport Authority, called it “a home run.” But when you do a little comparative pricing, it looks more like a single. More on that follows, but first the basics of the announcement:
In a national release by Southwest, the company detailed four new Memphis flights to three new AirTran routes; twice a day between Memphis and Chicago Midway, and once daily service between Memphis and Orlando, and Memphis and Baltimore/Washington. The new flights will begin service on August 11, 2013, and are in addition to the current five daily non-stops on AirTran between Memphis and Atlanta. The new service is available for booking immediately for flights on or after August 11.
“We are very excited that Southwest has decided to add three new city pairs for Memphis to fly under its AirTran subsidiary. Many years of relationship building with Southwest are paying off,” said Larry Cox, President and CEO of the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority. “This service addition reinforces the message given to Memphians last September by Southwest Executive Vice President Ron Ricks when he stated ‘We’re here. We’re here to stay … You’ve got to be patient with us, and things will not happen overnight.’”
“We are excited and grateful that Southwest Airlines has decided to include MEM in their network. This news is a home run for travelers in our region hungry for affordable flight options,” added recently elected Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority Chairman Jack Sammons. “Southwest management has informed me that they will add additional flights this year based on how well these initial flights perform. As one Southwest executive remarked in our meeting last week, ‘The more flights we take, the more we get.’ It’s a new era in aviation in America and certainly a new era for our airport. Your Airport Authority will continue to be relentless in our efforts to make Memphis the airport of choice for the traveling public.”
Now for a little number crunching. I could book a flight to Chicago Midway on August 15th, a Thursday, with a return to Memphis on August 18th, a Sunday, for as low as $253 on Air Tran. But there is only one non-stop flight on each of those days. Otherwise, you go through Atlanta, and the trip takes approximately four to six hours each way and the fare goes to $276 or $316. Still not a bad deal if you have the time, but you are dealing with one of the biggest and busiest airports in the world — Atlanta — and a secondary Chicago airport on the east side of the city which makes it more or less convenient depending on your destination. The business fare on Air Tran is $823 round trip.
For travel on the same dates, Delta has several nonstops for a round-trip price of $253. The first-class/business fare is $1,181. For travel in March — five months before the new Air Tran service begins — you can book a weekend Thursday-Sunday trip to Chicago O’Hare on either Delta or United non-stop for $396 today.
As always, when and how you travel — short notice, business or pleasure, flexibility — makes a huge difference in the cost, duration, and convenience of air travel in the age of booking through Kayak, which makes everyone a travel agent. Again, this looks like a small piece of good news but it’s only a home run if you are playing in a Little League park with a 200-foot fence.
UPDATE: After doing a little more checking, I see there are two, not one, daily non-stops in the service to Chicago that begins in August. My bad. But one of them, be warned, leaves Memphis at 5:35 a.m. As for the new flights to Orlando, Memphis to central and southwest Florida is already well served. There is service to Orlando, Tampa, Sarasota, and Fort Myers for under $350 round trip in February and March, most of it through Atlanta. And if money is more important than time to you, Amtrak offers a $99 fare (each way) from Memphis to Chicago that puts you in the heart of the Windy City.
Categories
St. Louis Cardinals’ Prospects for 2013
Frank Murtaugh looks at some of the players we will be seeing with the Memphis Redbirds this year.
Categories
A Stacked Deck of Card Prospects
A Stacked Deck of Card Prospects
When MLB.com released its rankings of baseball’s top 100 prospects last week, you could just about hear the fireworks at AutoZone Park. Six players on the list are in the St. Louis Cardinals’ system, including the third-ranked player (outfielder Oscar Taveras) and no fewer than four pitchers who could find their way into the Cardinal rotation by 2015. Overall, the Cardinal system is atop Baseball America’s rankings for the first time since the publication first released their list in 1985. (The St. Louis system was dead last in the rankings as recently as 2005. You can bet Cardinal farm director John Vuch has earned a raise.)
What does this mean for Memphis baseball fans in 2013? Here’s a look at the Cards’ Big Six prospects, and the likelihood of seeing each at Third and Union.
Photo by Mark Harrell
Oscar Taveras
• Oscar Taveras (outfielder, age 20, #3 in MLB.com rankings) — He’s the Cardinals’ most exciting hitting prospect since, well, Colby Rasmus in 2009. Taveras was the Texas League Player of the Year in 2012, when he hit .321 with 23 homers and 94 RBIs for Double-A Springfield. Taveras’s combination of power (.572 slugging percentage) and precision (only 56 strikeouts in 477 at-bats) would make Rasmus envious. Taveras is so young, it’s hard to imagine what his ceiling might be with continued progress up the ladder. He’ll play rightfield everyday for Memphis (if not center) unless there’s a calamity in the Cardinal outfield. But with Carlos Beltran under contract for only one more season with St. Louis, this will be your first and last summer to enjoy the Redbirds’ Big O.
• Shelby Miller (pitcher, 22, #25) — After a dreadful start at the Triple-A level, Miller pitched well enough over the last two months of the Redbirds’ 2012 season to earn a spot on the Cardinals’ postseason roster. Despite his struggles last summer in Memphis, Miller set a franchise record with 160 strikeouts, then struck out 16 in 13 2/3 innings for the Cardinals. Miller may relish taking a backseat to Taveras on the prospect caravan, as he’ll be battling the three hurlers below (not to mention Lance Lynn and Joe Kelly) for consideration from the Cardinals. Look for Miller to start the season in the Redbirds rotation but with a reasonable chance for promotion (even for middle relief) around the All-Star break.
• Carlos Martinez (pitcher, 21, #33) — Martinez split time last year between Class A Palm Beach and Double-A Springfield. At the higher level, he put up a 2.90 ERA over 71 innings and held opponents to a .237 batting average. (Batters hit .260 off Miller a year ago.) His small frame (6’0”, 165 pounds) begs for time in the weight room, as he’s already been sidelined with shoulder tenderness. Best thing that could happen to Martinez and the Redbirds would be to spend an entire season together.
• Trevor Rosenthal (pitcher, 22, #43) — Longtime Cardinal followers were adjusting their jaws last October as Rosenthal introduced himself to the nation by striking out 15 in 8 2/3 combined playoff innings — without allowing a run — against Washington and San Francisco. The Missouri native essentially skipped Triple-A (only three games for Memphis) after going 8-6 with a 2.78 ERA at Springfield. As good as he looked out of the bullpen for St. Louis, he may get a chance to start a few games with the Redbirds before a midseason promotion. Based on what we saw last fall, Rosenthal could excel in either role.
• Kolten Wong (second base, 22, #79) — Second base has been a position of volatility for the Cardinals since Fernando Vina went down with a hamstring injury during the 2003 season. (Remember Bo Hart’s summer of glory?) Tony Womack, Mark Grudzielanek, Adam Kennedy, Aaron Miles, and Skip Schumaker have spent time at the position, with Daniel Descalso now there to keep the spot warm until Wong’s arrival. The Hawaii native hit .287 for Springfield in 2012, stealing 21 bases and providing solid, if unspectacular, defense. Don’t be surprised if Wong leads the 2013 Redbirds in plate appearances.
• Michael Wacha (pitcher, 21, #83) — Few Cardinal pitchers in recent years have been able to look Adam Wainwright directly in the eye, but the 6’6” Wacha would come close. The question is whether or not Wacha can be the kind of workhorse Waino has become. Wacha was the 19th pick in last summer’s draft after starring in college at Texas A & M. He pitched a total of 11 games last summer (four of them at Springfield) but struck out 40 hitters in 21 innings. His pro resume may be thin, but Wacha is actually older than Martinez. Don’t be surprised if he finds his way to AutoZone Park after a month or two of Double-A seasoning.
The Redbirds open the 2013 season on April 4th at AutoZone Park against the Oklahoma City RedHawks.
Mark Harrell, Springfield Cardinals
Leonard Gill reports on a new venture that aims to re-invent the publishing industry.
Categories
Roe v. Wade v. Mississippi
Hannah Sayle reports on the battle for (and against) women’s reproductive rights in Mississippi.
“I want to change a broken industry. It’s been broken for a while. I’m not just someone trying to start a business to make money.”
So says Memphian Richard Billings. The broken industry he’s referring to is book publishing. And the business he’s starting is called Screwpulp, which is designed to bypass existing business models and that includes traditional paths to publishing and self-publishing. But Billings needs your help now. He’d like your vote. It could mean $10,000.
That’s the grand prize in a contest sponsored by Everywhere Else, a business conference for startups that will take place in Memphis from February 10th to 12th. Contest participants submit a video describing their startup, and YouTube viewers can vote on their favorite. That’s where you come in, and here’s the Screwpulp video if you’d like a look.
Categories
Tigers 94, Tulsa 64
Tulsa coach Danny Manning enjoyed his share of dominant games during his All-America playing days at Kansas. So the first-year head coach surely appreciated what Tiger senior D.J. Stephens did Saturday afternoon: four dunks, a three-pointer, four blocks, nine rebounds, and a career-high 15 points. That was in the first half.
The Tigers’ surpassing “energy guy” was hardly needed in the second half, as the U of M extended a 17-point lead and finished off its most complete game of the year, the team’s 12th straight victory. Stephens finished with 15 points, 13 rebounds, and five blocks in merely 16 minutes of game action. The two dunks and two jumpers he delivered in the game’s first five minutes — staking the Tigers to an 11-3 lead — were really all the home team needed.
- Larry Kuzniewski
- D.J. Stephens for three.
“That was a good 40 minutes of basketball, a good win for us,” said Memphis coach Josh Pastner. “We still have room for growth, but we got the W. We put two halves together.”
Pastner wouldn’t allow his squad — notorious this winter for taking large leads then watching them disappear — to backpedal against an outsized Tulsa team. Barely two minutes into the second half, he didn’t like what he saw, so substituted five players from the bench as a single unit. “I didn’t feel like we came out with the intensity we should,” said Pastner, “so I made the change. And that group extended the lead.”
That group — Tarik Black, Chris Crawford, Antonio Barton, Ferrakohn Hall, and freshman Damien Wilson — delivered a 15-5 run over the game’s next six minutes to extend the Tiger lead to 27 (66-39). The last 12 minutes of the game were essentially garbage time. But garbage time dominated by the Tigers.
“We play a lot better when we go out there and have fun as a team,” said Stephens. “We play our best basketball when we look to help the next guy out and we play together. A lot of shots were falling for us today. [The Tigers hit a season-high 12 three-pointers.] We showed everybody that we could put two halves together. Everybody was just having fun. It’s like a domino effect.”
Supplementing Stephens’ starring role were Barton (a game-high 16 points and four treys), Crawford (12 points, three treys, and five assists), and Wilson, who scored five points and grabbed five rebounds in 16 minutes, his most playing time of the season. Ten Tigers played at least 10 minutes and six of them hit at least one three-pointer.
Memphis dished out 25 assists on 32 made field goals and outrebounded the Golden Hurricane, 45-33. If there was a down note, it was junior guard Joe Jackson’s streak of games with at least 10 points ending at 16 (he had six in 22 minutes).
With his team now 7-0 in league play, Pastner again defended the integrity of Conference USA, emphasizing that margin of victory (like today’s) can be nice, but it’s all about accumulating wins, however they come. “Winning 12 straight games is not easy,” he emphasized. “There are no freebies. We haven’t hit our ceiling . . . we need to keep improving.”
“We have to stay focused on the defensive end, and execute on the offensive end,” added Stephens. “We’ve got a big week coming up, with two road games against two good teams. But today was the first game I’ve seen everybody happy, everybody having fun. We’ve won games, but we haven’t won them the way we’re supposed to. Today’s game . . . that’s what I’ve been talking about, winning the way we’re supposed to.”
The Tigers (18-3) travel to SMU for their next game Wednesday night. They’ll play at Southern Miss a week from today before returning to FedExForum to face UCF on February 13th.
Categories
Mumford Pleads Guilty
John Branston reports on the curious case of Clarence Mumford.
The Lead: After playing their first game without Rudy Gay Thursday night in Oklahoma City, the Grizzlies came home to welcome their new players into the lineup for the first time, with better results.
- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- Tayshaun Prince had a nice night in his Grizzlies debut.
Despite never practicing with the team, veteran Tayshaun Prince looked like he’d been with the Grizzlies all season. Prince entered the game midway through the first quarter and knocked down his first shot — a mid-range jumper off a Mike Conley feed — 16 seconds later. About half an hour of court time later, the game ended with the ball in Prince’s hands after a defensive rebound and a nine-point win.
In-between, Prince showcased a versatile two-way game: Scoring on mid-range jumpers and long-limbed drives (14 points on 7-11) shooting. Going into the post when Darrell Arthur was able to space the floor at power forward, drawing attention and setting up Arthur for open jumpers (3 assists). Making nice post-entry feeds (perhaps the most underrated advantage he has over Gay). And closing out on shooters. His back-to-back jumpers in the final three minutes allowed the Grizzlies to finally pull away after playing roughly even with the Wizards most of the night.
“He’s a veteran,” Lionel Hollins said of Prince’s debut. “When you’ve been around, there are not any new plays. There are new calls to plays. Once you recognize what the sets are then you learn the calls and can be in the right spot. He’s a high-IQ player.”