Author: Frank Murtaugh

Frank Murtaugh is the managing editor of Memphis magazine. He's covered sports for the Flyer for two decades. "From My Seat" debuted on the Flyer site in 2002 and "Tiger Blue" in 2009.

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Opinion The Last Word

End of Regulation

Redbirds shortstop Masyn Winn (Photo: Memphis Redbirds)

How will 2023 be remembered by Memphis sports buffs in, say, 2033? What will stick on the ever-growing timeline of games we play and cheer in the Bluff City?

Let’s start with the good stuff. The Memphis Grizzlies posted an impressive 51-31 record on their way to a second consecutive Southwest Division championship. (How about a banner or two at FedExForum? Let’s get this done.) Forward Jaren Jackson Jr. led the NBA in blocks for a second straight season and earned Defensive Player of the Year honors, only the second Memphis player to take home that prestigious piece of hardware.

On the college level, Penny Hardaway’s Tigers reached the NCAA tournament a second straight year and made some history on the way. In beating Houston to win the American Athletic Conference tournament, the Tigers earned their first victory over a team ranked number-one in the country. Guard Kendric Davis should stick on that timeline of memories having led the AAC in both scoring and assists in his lone season as a Tiger.

Kendric Davis led the AAC in scoring and assists. (Photo: Larry Kuzniewski)

Those who follow Memphis Redbirds baseball will remember 2023 for one of the top prospects in the sport, shortstop Masyn Winn. The speed demon with a cannon on his right shoulder set a franchise record with 99 runs scored before a late-season promotion to the St. Louis Cardinals. Then there was slugger Luken Baker. The big first baseman slammed 33 home runs and drove in 98 runs in only 84 games, figures so eye-popping that Baker was named International League MVP at season’s end, the first Redbird in franchise history to receive a league’s top honor.

Alas, none of those news items stole the national spotlight in the way Ja Morant managed … and it wasn’t the All-Star’s heroics on the hardwood. After a Grizzlies loss to the Nuggets in early March, Morant flashed a handgun on social media from a Denver nightclub. The images were disturbing enough to cost Morant the next nine games on the Memphis schedule.

Morant returned to action and put up 45 points in a playoff loss to the Lakers, a reminder of just how high his ceiling could be, but he fell back to Earth, and dramatically, when another gun-toting video surfaced shortly after the Grizzlies’ season ended in Los Angeles. After weeks of deliberation, NBA commissioner Adam Silver handed Morant a 25-game suspension, punishment that would delay the start of Morant’s fifth professional season until late December. Minus Morant and injured center Steven Adams, the Grizzlies went 6-19 over the course of the suspension. For Mid-South NBA fans, 2024 can’t get here soon enough.

Sports are unique in the way our favorite teams and athletes so directly impact a day’s mood. There are football fans in Memphis who gained from the return (after 38 years!) of the USFL’s Memphis Showboats. Affordable tickets to pro football — even in the heat of June — are mood-lifters, to say the least. Our soccer outfit, 901 FC, put together another playoff season in the USL Championship, even as attendance at AutoZone Park sagged from the heights of the club’s 2019 debut season. But a mood-lifter on game night for soccer buffs? Check.

All of this makes Morant’s off-court troubles the kind a fan base suffers most, because Morant the basketball player takes us places no other man in Grizzlies history has taken us. (Recall that Morant made second-team All-NBA before his 23rd birthday.) When poor decisions weigh down Morant the human being, it shifts the fan/athlete perspective into one centered more on compassion than any form of adrenaline-fueled elation.

Let’s remember 2023 for the victories we had, and we had a few. And let’s hope we remember 2023 for the year this town’s most famous athlete became a new kind of hero.

Frank Murtaugh is the managing editor of Memphis Magazine. He writes the columns “From My Seat” and “Tiger Blue” for the Flyer.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Coach Hardaway’s Time

Penny Hardaway (photo by Wes Hale)

When does a college basketball coach earn the word era? I mean truly earn it? Tubby Smith may have won a national title at Kentucky, but his two seasons with Memphis don’t constitute an era. What about the seven years Josh Pastner coached the Tigers? Era or no era? (It was not an era.)

For me, the Penny Hardaway Era of Tiger basketball arrived Saturday afternoon at FedExForum, when Memphis beat the 13th-ranked Clemson Tigers without playing its best basketball. The win came six days after beating another Top-25 team (Texas A&M) on the road and barely three weeks after beating another Top-25 team (Arkansas) in the Bahamas. Upon his arrival in 2018, Hardaway famously asked for “all the smoke,” boldly asserting the Tiger basketball brand before he’d coached his first game at the college level. Three seasons later, his Tigers won a bizarre, pandemic-restricted NIT in Texas. Then last March, his Tigers won the American Athletic Conference tournament by beating the top-ranked team in the country (Houston), a first for the Memphis program. But those moments were prelims. The Hardaway Era is finally upon us.

Consider, for a moment, the teams that visited Memphis in December 2017, Smith’s final season at the helm: Mercer, Samford, Bryant, Albany, Siena, Loyola, LSU. The Tigers won six of those seven games … but who cared? (They finished that month with a 34-point loss at Cincinnati.) It was a dreadfully low point in the proud history of Tiger basketball.

Cut to this season and the schedule Hardaway acknowledged as having drawn up “blindly,” not knowing the composition of his roster when the games were booked: five teams from the SEC before Christmas, two from the hallowed ACC, Michigan, and Villanova. This isn’t just boosting a non-conference schedule for those who rank teams and hand out NCAA tournament bids. This is imposing oneself on the sport. It’s bullying the very notion that Memphis is from a lesser league, a tier below the national-title contenders. As it turns out, Hardaway himself is bringing the smoke. Can his peers and rivals handle it? (Following Saturday’s game, Clemson coach Brad Brownell said, “Penny must be secure in his job to draw up the schedule he has.”)

Memphis handed Clemson its first loss in 10 games despite not playing stellar basketball. In the team’s first home game since November 17th, the visitors raced out to an 11-2 lead. Hardaway’s troops never found their shooting touch, missing 22 of 26 three-point attempts. (Hardaway insisted his team “did not take one bad shot against the zone.” They just missed them.) But Memphis played sound defense, forcing 15 turnovers, and got to the foul line, hitting 17 of 23 free throws. Star forward David Jones led all scorers with 22 points, but even he missed three free throws late to make the result tighter than it had to be. A huge win for Memphis, and not their best. Not yet.

A spot in the Top 25 is coming. “Out of anyone in the country, I feel like we really had to earn [a ranking],” said Hardaway after the victory. “I know what it’s gonna take for us: to keep learning, to keep winning. We haven’t even scratched the surface. There’s room to grow.” As of Sunday, Memphis had climbed to 34th in the NCAA NET ratings, higher than a few programs you’ve heard of: North Carolina, Gonzaga, Villanova. With another Top-25 foe (Virginia) visiting Tuesday, the Tigers will have another chance to impress AP voters and such. Vanderbilt — an eighth “Power 5” opponent — will be here Saturday.

A college player can establish an era in as few as two seasons. Penny Hardaway did so as an All-American guard for Memphis State (1991-93). It’s taken six seasons (three decades later), but the Coach Penny Hardaway Era in Memphis is here, and in full force. Winter is coming for the American Athletic Conference.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Three Thoughts on Bowl-bound Tigers

Seth Henigan (Credit: Wes Hale)

The Memphis Tigers are staying home for bowl season, and they’re perfectly happy to save on the holiday travel expenses. In a rematch of the 2017 AutoZone Liberty Bowl, Memphis will face Iowa State of the Big 12 on December 29th in the stadium the Tigers have called home since 1965. (A slot opened for Memphis when the SEC fell one team shy of qualifiers for its bowl commitments.) This makes ten consecutive bowl seasons for the Memphis program, and the Tigers will have a chance to win ten games for only the fifth time. The Cyclones will come to town with a record of 7-5 (6-2 in the Big 12). In that 2017 clash, Iowa State beat the Tigers, 21-20, in front of 58,318 fans. Kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally on ESPN.

It’s a good time to remember the AutoZone Liberty Bowl will be played for the 65th time, the eighth-oldest bowl game on the college football calendar. It may not be among the “New Year’s Six” when it comes to prestige, but it’s on the next tier, and has been the stage for some unforgettable players: Archie Manning, Bo Jackson, Doug Flutie, and Dak Prescott to name just four. Last year’s three-overtime epic between Arkansas and Kansas was among the four or five best games of the season. Here’s hoping for the right kind of new memories later this month.

• Memphis quarterback Seth Henigan has announced he’ll return for a fourth season in blue and gray. In the age of the “transfer portal” — essentially free agency for every player on every team after every season — Henigan’s devotion to the Tiger program is rather astounding. And his return, by itself, gives the 2024 team the scent of a contender. A second-team all-conference selection this season, Henigan has passed for 3,519 yards and 28 touchdowns, with only 9 interceptions. He needs only 291 yards to break Brady White’s program record of 10,690 yards (something we could see in the Liberty Bowl), and 16 touchdowns to top White’s record of 90. The Henigan number I’ll be watching closest: 22, his number of wins as the Memphis quarterback. With health and success, he could become the first Tiger signal caller to top 30 wins for his career (White won 28). Henigan should become only the third player to lead Memphis in passing four consecutive years, joining Lloyd Patterson (1975-78) and Danny Wimprine (2001-04).

• There is some grumbling in social-media circles that the Tigers’ 9-3 record somehow isn’t good enough. Memphis didn’t beat the teams it needed to for a conference championship (Tulane, SMU) and escaped with wins over programs it should beat handily (North Texas, Charlotte). To this I have a brief response: horse hockey. A win in the Liberty Bowl would give the Tiger program its fifth 10-win campaign (and fourth since 2014, a single decade). Those with short memories forget that Tiger football once counted a total of five wins in three seasons (2009-11). Now we’re supposed to be disappointed with a nine-win (possibly 10-win) season??

The Tigers were in contention for the American Athletic Conference championship until their loss to SMU in the season’s 11th game. This should be the standard for the program, as long as they sit outside the four remaining “power” conferences (SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12). It’s a formidable challenge for coach Ryan Silverfield and his staff, especially with a $220 million renovation scheduled for Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium. Memphis remains a basketball town and its flagship university a basketball school. But can the football program make the right kind of dent on that perception, both locally and nationally? In my view, nine-win seasons are a significant step in that direction.

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Opinion The Last Word

The JFK Generations

John F. Kennedy (Photo: Richie Lomba | Dreamstime)

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Flyer in November 2013.

As a young boy, I did not want to grow up to be president of the United States. On a beach vacation when I was 6 or 7, my parents gave me a children’s biography of John F. Kennedy. Along with a similar volume about Abraham Lincoln. Each story had its inspiring moments, of course, but neither ended well. Especially in the mind of a child.

I’ve since become an amateur presidential historian, and, now enjoying middle age, I still don’t want to grow up to be president of the United States. That said, few people outside my family have had an impact on me the way our 35th president has. Considering I was born six years after JFK’s dreadful, history-changing ride through Downtown Dallas, that impact speaks volumes on the importance Jack Kennedy continues to hold in the way Americans shape their values and the way we steer our lives. The calendar never hits November 22nd without making me pause.

Frankly, President Kennedy belongs as much to mythology as he does to history. And this is a component of his legacy that must be accepted every bit as much as his policy decisions, the Peace Corps, or “Ich bin ein Berliner.” He had — still has — a charisma that, before him, could hardly be categorized as presidential. Just picture the men who directly preceded and followed JFK in the White House. Dwight Eisenhower was an American legend before he even considered a presidential campaign. Lyndon Johnson made the Senate his personal playground (and made a more direct impact on the way Americans live than did Kennedy). But neither looked especially dashing in a tux. Neither made women swoon. And neither married Jackie.

Kennedy was polarizing before and during his presidency, and he remains so today. Millions remain inspired by the hope (and yes, glamour) JFK personified, while just as many are repulsed by his womanizing, his manipulative father, and the proverbial silver spoon he had in his pocket on inauguration day in 1961. He may have been a war hero for his efforts in saving members of his PT-109 crew, but Kennedy had blood on his hands for the Bay of Pigs atrocity. Which Kennedy do we choose to remember?

It’s only since I began learning of JFK’s flaws that I’ve felt his influence closer to my own life, more in human terms. Who among us would have handled the life presented to Jack Kennedy better than he did himself? An older brother idolized, only to be taken in a fiery plane crash, a loss that thrust a young man onto a stage he may or may not have welcomed without that legendary fatherly shove. Factoring in his own experience in battle, his debilitating back pain (which forced him to wear a brace that factored into the tragedy of November 22, 1963), and a struggle with Addison’s disease, Kennedy had a sense of mortality most of us keep safely in another compartment of our minds. In succumbing to the lure of women outside his marriage, Kennedy displayed an immaturity in the only form he was ever allowed. No excuse, but a sad truth.

Was Kennedy a great president? Having not completed a term, he belongs in a different category of evaluation. For me, his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 was the stuff of greatness. Diplomacy begins in a room with your friends, your supporters. Kennedy helped avoid World War III by negotiating a policy, first with a divided cabinet and only then with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Did Kennedy save the world? That might be a stretch, but it’s in the conversation.

I’ve been to Dealey Plaza twice. For anyone who’s seen footage of JFK’s last moments, such a visit swallows your thoughts, freezes your tongue, and squeezes your heart. What was once the Texas School Book Depository — now the Dallas County Administration Building, with a museum on the sixth floor — is just brick and mortar. With windows. Such was the platform for a murder that changed the world? I’ve never been able to process this reality, not since first reading that children’s book almost 40 years ago.

I’ve also been to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Just as Dealey Plaza haunts, the library inspires, a reminder of how very alive its namesake remains. I never knew John F. Kennedy, but I feel like he knew men like me. Indeed, I breathe the same air. I cherish my children’s future. And I, too, am mortal.

Frank Murtaugh is the managing editor of Memphis Magazine. He writes the columns “From My Seat” and “Tiger Blue” for the Flyer.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Three Thoughts: When Fortune Favors

Photo by Wes Hale

Five weeks into the Memphis Tigers’ current season, I mentioned a certain good-fortune factor that seemed to be playing a role for a program historically cursed by, we’ll call it today, less-than-good fortune. (Anyone remember the name Gino Guidugli?) When breaks happen on Tiger game days, historically, they don’t tend to go the blue-and-gray way. Folks … that was then. Since that column (October 2nd), Memphis has won a game in which it allowed a go-ahead touchdown with 47 seconds remaining in the contest. Memphis has won a game in which it allowed its opponent 50 points on home turf. And now, Memphis has won a game in which it trailed by 10 points on the road with less than eight minutes to play. That sparkling 8-2 record could easily be 5-5, or worse.

Following his team’s three-point win over Boise State on September 30th, Tiger coach Ryan Silverfield painted a picture of his team’s collective culture. Having fallen behind the Broncos, 17-0, the Memphis program seemed to turn a corner that may have changed this season permanently. “The 118 guys on the sideline were like, ‘What do we have to do? How do we keep fighting?’ That’s what makes this group special. There was no fret. There was no ‘Oh my gosh.’ Just, ‘What do we need to do to get back in this game?’” A win or two can be attributed to luck, and that goes for every team in every season. But a team doesn’t win eight of 10 games without having two things: collective talent and collective will. It’s been especially gratifying to see an “unlucky” football program pile up wins that seem to tilt in its favor in ways opponents once enjoyed.

• With SMU coming to Memphis this Saturday for a clash between 8-2 teams, you can’t help but think back to November 2, 2019, when an 8-0 Mustangs team visited a 7-1 Memphis team to cap the biggest Saturday — at that time — in the program’s history. With ESPN’s College GameDay crew on Beale Street and more than 58,000 fans packing the Liberty Bowl (no SEC team in sight!), the Tigers won a classic, 54-48, on its way to an AAC championship and a berth in the Cotton Bowl. 

Both SMU (6-0 in the American Athletic Conference) and Memphis (5-1) are in contention to play in the AAC championship game … but the Tigers cannot afford another loss for such a dream (last realized in that unforgettable 2019 season). Will 50,000 fans pack what we now call Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium for this Saturday’s 11 a.m. kickoff? Almost certainly not. Might we see 40,000 in the stadium for the first time this fall? If not, more consideration needs to be given to the fact that the Tigers’ den is simply too large for the program. Because this Memphis team has earned a football party.


• The Tigers will take the field Saturday with a home record of 4-1 this season and a total of 55 home wins since 2014. Only three programs in the country have won more in front of their own fans over the last decade of college football, and you’ve heard of them: Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State. No, Memphis isn’t beating SEC, ACC, or Big 10 foes. But the Tigers have made Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium a rough place to play for visitors. How many seasons before 2014 were needed for Memphis to win 55 home games? The answer is twenty (1994-2013), precisely twice as long as the current decade of joy. The “golden era” of Memphis Tiger football? You’re living it. Still.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Three Thoughts on Memphis Tiger Football

Photo by Wes Hale.

The University of Memphis football program needs to be in a bigger, better conference than the American Athletic. This is a topic much discussed, and one that won’t go away until the dream is realized. The program is just as desperate, though, for a rival. A true, villainous, pure-evil, dressed-in-black-even-when-they’re-not rival. Which made Saturday’s game at UAB fun, and somewhat special as the Tigers work their way through a watered-down AAC schedule. The first “Battle for the Bones” in 11 years meant the heaviest rack of ribs — if not heaviest trophy — in college football would see daylight again. (The trophy weighs more than 90 pounds.) After a slow start, Memphis walloped the Blazers, 45-21, to improve to 5-2 on the season and retain ownership of those bronze bones. It felt like the Tigers turned back a rival.

Is UAB the Tigers’ answer for that role of gridiron gremlin? Not long-term, I don’t believe. They’ve actually only played 16 times (Memphis has won six). Compare that with Arkansas State, a Memphis foe no fewer than 62 times. But can the Red Wolves be considered THE rival for Memphis? Not until they’re in the same conference. Ole Miss and Mississippi State aren’t the answer, both part of the privileged SEC, and both dominant historically against Memphis. Tulane feels like a rival, particularly as the Green Wave has risen to the top of the AAC and won three of the last five meetings with the Tigers. I miss the Black-and-Blue Game with Southern Miss (last played in 2012). I’m not sure which program can play this role for Memphis, but with North Texas, South Florida, and Charlotte coming up on the Tigers’ schedule, I know a void when I see it.

• Saturday’s victory at UAB was the 26th win for Ryan Silverfield as head coach of the Memphis Tigers. It’s a significant number, for me, as it matches the total Justin Fuente compiled over his four seasons (2012-2015) atop the program. This isn’t to suggest Silverfield is as good a coach as Fuente, or has had the kind of impact on the program Fuente had (he has not), but it is a connection to the man we must credit most with turning a moribund program into one expected to play in a bowl game at season’s end, one expected to compete for conference championships. Fuente inherited a bottomed-out operation that had won a total of three games the two seasons before he took over. By his third year, Fuente commanded a 10-win AAC co-champion ranked 25th in the country. There have been few turnarounds in college football history as quick or as dramatic. Silverfield is a beneficiary of that turnaround, having arrived as an assistant to Mike Norvell in 2016 when Fuente departed for Virginia Tech. Will the Tigers win 10 games this season? Win the AAC? Both seem unlikely right now. But is the Memphis program relevant, competitive, worthy of attention? Absolutely. Here’s to 26 more wins, and then some, for Ryan Silverfield.

• Memphis is the only team in the AAC with a player among the league’s top four in passing (Seth Henigan, 265.1 yards per game), rushing (Blake Watson, 84.7), and receiving (Roc Taylor, 79.4). With 593 yards, Watson has already topped last season’s Tiger rushing leader (Jevyon Ducker, 544 yards). With 556 yards, Taylor will likely top last season’s leader (Eddie Lewis, 603 yards) this Saturday at North Texas. A football team doesn’t necessarily require an offensive “big three,” but one can help win a lot of games.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Dear Mr. Mayor

Paul Young (Photo: Brandon Dill | MLK50)

I have a single wish for newly elected Memphis mayor Paul Young, and it’s a big one. I hope Paul Young becomes the most memorable mayor in Memphis history.

Let’s not call Young’s election a mandate. Not by a long shot. In a city with a population of more than 630,000 people, a paltry 24,408 voters decided this town’s new CEO. That’s 4 percent of the citizenry firmly behind you, Mr. Young. Now get to it, and make 100 percent of us happy.

I’ve yet to meet Paul Young, but from what I hear and read, he’s been a capable leader at the Downtown Memphis Commission. Most importantly, he wants to lead on a larger scale and is young enough (44) to map out a long-term, big-picture agenda that can lift this city and region at a time when we need lifting.

Where to begin? I’ve got three recommendations, Mr. Mayor-elect. Start with the first of what will be an annual summit of Memphis clergy. Make it a two-day gathering of leaders from every church, synagogue, mosque, and temple in the city. And make it mandatory. (If a faith organization chooses not to attend, it will be made conspicuously absent with a publicly shared list of attendees. If you have nothing to say at this summit, it’s important that you hear what is said.) Why is such a gathering so important? There may be no time of the week taken more seriously by more Memphians than Sunday morning. And there’s certainly no more segregated time of the week in Memphis than Sunday morning. For at least two days, let’s ask leaders to share their thoughts, priorities, concerns, and, yes, wishes with their peers from different worship groups. And this is where the magic will happen: We’ll discover, I’m convinced, that most thoughts, priorities, concerns, and wishes are parallel to one another, guided by the same proverbial North Star.

We also need a summit of educators. (Maybe three days for this one.) If Sunday morning is uncomfortably segregated in this town, so are our children, public schools being predominantly Black and private schools predominantly white, and for more than two generations now. We simply have to make smarter efforts at blending Memphis youth, particularly across economic gaps that often feel too vast to bridge. If crime (read: guns) is a weight on the shoulders of this community, educators must be part of the solution. What kind of programs — involving both public- and private-school communities — can reduce the pull of street life and the desperation of poverty? We have too many bright people of impact in too many institutions of learning for there not be some worthy ideas we’ve yet to consider. Again, attendance is mandatory. We need every Memphis school rowing the same direction.

Follow these summits, Mr. Mayor-elect, with a sit-down in which you share what was learned with the Memphis Police Department. This won’t take two or three days, as it will be a time to tell (as opposed to ask) law enforcement how they can serve the community better. Because I promise you, the MPD will be among those thoughts and priorities for both clergy and educators.

Why do only 85,000 Memphis voters take the time to choose the city’s new mayor? Because apathy seeps. The feeling that a single vote won’t make a difference as crime numbers rise is a form of communal cancer. And a memorable Memphis mayor will battle that apathy every day he serves in office.

I interviewed Kerry Kennedy a few weeks ago. The daughter of Robert F. Kennedy is a 2023 Freedom Award honoree, a personification of the National Civil Rights Museum’s global mission. To gain ground in the fight for human rights requires the collaboration of myriad agencies (public and private) and human beings. It’s a reasonable starting point — collaboration — for a city like Memphis, and would be the kind of priority that makes a city leader unforgettable. In all the right ways.

Frank Murtaugh is the managing editor of Memphis magazine. He writes the columns “From My Seat” and “Tiger Blue” for the Flyer.

Categories
Sports Tiger Blue

Three Tiger Truths

Seth Henigan passed for 269 yards and ran for 64 in the Tigers' win over Boise State. (Wes Hale)

Last Saturday’s game at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium felt like a battle of college football’s misfit toys. On the visitors sideline was Boise State, famous for the blue turf of its home stadium and a recent streak of 16 consecutive seasons with a bowl appearance. Hosting, of course, were our Memphis Tigers, a program with nary a losing season since 2014 and three Top-25 finishes securely in the record books. Yet somehow both the Broncos (Mountain West Conference) and Tigers (American Athletic) remain outside the dance hall as the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, and ACC continue to morph into a new quartet (Power 4?) of mega-leagues. Rejects always have each other … right?

On a sweltering final afternoon of September, the Tigers prevailed by a score of 35-32. It was the best game in the country not played by one of those “Power 4” programs. The win improved Memphis to 4-1 for the season with a bye week now before reigning AAC champion Tulane comes to town for a clash (a slash?) on Friday the 13th. It was an important victory for coach Ryan Silverfield’s team and confirmed three important truths we’ve learned about the 2023 squad.

• Resilient. For real. Every coach of every team in every sport likes to claim his group is “resilient,” that his players have the backbone to bounce back when necessary. While this can’t possibly be true for every team in America, it appears to be a quality these Tigers possess as a collective. When Memphis fell behind Boise State, 17-0, it appeared some shine had faded from the team in blue and gray. Wins over Bethune-Cookman and Arkansas State go only so far, and how much does a narrow win over Navy mean? But the Tigers bounced back in powerful fashion, scoring the game’s next 28 points. Better still, when the Broncos closed the Tiger lead to three points (28-25) midway through the fourth quarter, Memphis took possession and drove 75 yards, chewing up more than six minutes of playing time and scoring the touchdown (a one-yard scramble by Blake Watson) that proved to be decisive.

“We had an inexcusable, pedestrian start,” said Silverfield in his postgame comments. “That’s on me. I’ll take the blame. But our guys’ belief in what we’re doing is amazing. They fight, and they find a way to finish. That’s a team win. It took every single person.”

• Blake Watson is The Guy. At halftime of Saturday’s game, the Tigers saluted DeAngelo Williams, the greatest Tiger of all-time and the first Memphis player to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Fittingly, Tiger running back Blake Watson carried the ball 19 times for 113 yards for a Williams-like 5.9-yard average and scored two touchdowns, including that game-winner in the fourth quarter. Watson’s emergence separates this team from those of the last three seasons in which no Tiger ball carrier topped even 700 yards. Through only five games, Watson has 455 yards rushing, putting him on track for a 1,000-yard campaign, if not quite a DeAngelo Williams performance. Championship teams, universally, run the ball well. Keep an eye on the Old Dominion transfer as this season rolls along.

• The football gods are smiling. Late in the Tigers’ win over Navy, a Midshipman play that had resulted in a first down deep in Memphis territory was reviewed by the officials and determined to actually be short of first-down yardage. When Watson scored the Tigers’ final touchdown late in Saturday’s game, he dropped the ball before landing in the end zone. But another official review determined that Watson had broken the proverbial plane of the end zone with the football before it was dislodged. Not one, but two critical reviews have favored the Tigers (?!?) in a single month. 

Senior linebacker Geoffrey Cantin-Arku made the play of the game against Boise State, blocking a third-quarter field goal attempt, picking up the ball and sprinting 80 yards to seize the lead (21-17) for the home team. The native of Quebec (and former Syracuse Orange) was asked after the game about his play, and what it might represent in a season, so far, going largely the Tigers’ way. “Last year, we didn’t fight like this,” he acknowledged. “The spirit in the locker room is different. We’ve all got each others’ back. We’re gonna come to work.”

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From My Seat Sports

Redbirds 2023 Review

Ivan Herrera (Credit: Wes Hale)

Every baseball season is memorable. Even those that don’t end with a championship, as four have since the Memphis Redbirds arrived in town 25 years ago. With a 68-76 record entering their final home stand of the season, the Redbirds will not qualify for the International League playoffs. But we saw three players who starred brightly here in 2023, with hopes for even bigger things next year.

• Luken Baker slammed 33 home runs and drove in 98 runs — the latter figure tops in the IL through Sunday — in only 84 games for Memphis. The hulking first baseman posted a jaw-dropping slash line of .334/.439/.720, figures that should garner Baker some votes for IL Player of the Year, even with the limited service. (Baker spent much of the last two months riding the bench with the St. Louis Cardinals.) In just two seasons with the Redbirds, Baker has climbed to fourth in franchise history with 54 home runs. He’ll all but certainly be occupying a big-league roster spot next April, either with the Cardinals or another franchise (via trade).

• The electrifying Masyn Winn needed only 105 games with Memphis to shatter the franchise record for runs scored in a season with 99. (The previous record of 92 had held for 19 years.) The 21-year-old shortstop batted .288 and clubbed 18 homers while stealing 17 bases. He showed off his much-talked-about cannon of a right arm, one already drawing oohs and aahs at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. His impact on the club? Memphis was 59-59 when Winn was promoted to St. Louis on August 18th. They are 9-17 without him. Expect Winn to contend for the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year award.

• Among the most important, if awkward, decisions the Cardinals must make this winter involves the team’s backup catcher. Former Redbird Andrew Knizner has played the role for three seasons, the first two behind Yadier Molina and this season behind Willson Contreras. But here’s the awkward part: Ivan Herrera is a better player. In his second season with Memphis, the 23-year-old Herrera has put up a slash line of .294/.449/.495 and OPS of .944. Knizner’s numbers with St. Louis: .246/.289/.442 and .731. Like Baker, Herrera will all but surely be on a big-league roster next April. Expect St. Louis to move Herrera or Knizner before Opening Day.

As the Cardinals aim to recover from the club’s first last-place finish in 33 years (barring a two-week run that catches the Pittsburgh Pirates), their biggest need is starting pitching. Michael McGreevy tops the Redbirds with 127 innings pitched and 10 wins, but lacks the swing-and-miss arsenal St. Louis craves desperately. (McGreevy has only 101 strikeouts in those 127 innings.) Gordon Graceffo also carries high expectations, but shoulder inflammation slowed his progress in 2023. You get the sense 21-year-old Tink Hence — a top-50 prospect — may leapfrog McGreevy and Graceffo in a race to the Cardinals’ rotation. Hence split 2023 at Class A Peoria and Double-A Springfield, with mixed results. He’ll be among the star attractions in Memphis next season.

There are two more names to remember as local baseball thoughts shift to 2024. Infielder Thomas Saggese arrived in the Cardinals’ system as part of the trade that sent pitcher Jordan Montgomery to Texas at the trade deadline. After hitting .313 with 15 homers in 93 games for Double-A Frisco, Saggese batted .331 with 10 more long balls in only 33 games for Springfield. He had a four-hit game for Memphis last week and appears to be a rarity in the modern game: a pure hitter. 

Finally we have Victor Scott II. The 22-year-old outfielder has stolen 95 bases in 2023, splitting the season between Peoria and Springfield. That kind of thievery calls to mind — for Cardinal followers of a certain vintage — Vince Coleman and the runnin’ Redbirds of the 1980s, an era that included three National League pennants and the 1982 world championship. It’s not the brand of baseball we’ve seen much at Busch Stadium in recent years, nor at AutoZone Park. There would be some cross-generational poetry to an “old” way of winning baseball games helping a proud franchise escape an uncomfortable cellar.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Chasing Secretariat

Ignore the neigh-sayers: Secretariat might just be one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. (Photo: Frank Murtaugh)

Spectator sports rarely traumatize us. If they did, they wouldn’t last long as spectator sports. But I was indeed traumatized on August 5th when Maple Leaf Mel fell less than two strides from victory in the Test Stakes, a thoroughbred race in Saratoga Springs, New York. Witnessing the beauty, strength, and speed of a racehorse in full flight has been a joy for most of my 54 years, but to see a 3-year-old filly collapse — crash is the better word — rips every ounce of joy from the experience. And the trauma lingers. (Maple Leaf Mel, having shattered her right foreleg, was euthanized shortly after her fall.)

This year being the 50th anniversary of Secretariat’s Triple Crown — the greatest season any American thoroughbred has ever had — I made plans last spring to visit the resting place of “Big Red” at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky. In the aftermath of Maple Leaf Mel’s tragic demise, my wife and I plotted the course for the heart of thoroughbred country. The trip would become not just a tribute to the greatest champion “the sport of kings” will ever know, but a tribute to the far too many who leave us way too soon. Champions like Maple Leaf Mel.

Photo: Frank Murtaugh

With apologies to Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky, and Michael Jordan, I believe Secretariat’s 31-length victory in the 1973 Belmont Stakes was the single most dominant athletic performance of the 20th century. He was expected to win. A $100 bet would have earned you 10 bucks. Only four other horses raced for second place. Yet when I watch replays of the race, my eyes get damp as Big Red pulls away … five lengths, 10 lengths, 20. There’s something about seeing unequivocal greatness on the largest of stages that makes you feel part of something beyond human (or equine) reach. This is why Claiborne Farm called to me, why Secretariat — gone for more than three decades — inspires me, somehow, in an active sense.

For those who love horses, the 15-mile drive from Lexington to Paris delivers a distinctive form of oxygen. One farm after another, pastures of a green best appreciated in impressionist art. And a safe distance from the road … barns and stables. Claiborne Farm has been breeding thoroughbreds for more than a century and today occupies 3,000 acres. For merely $100,000, your favorite mare can cozy up to Claiborne’s current star, a 21-year-old stallion named War Front, son of Danzig and grandson of 1964 Kentucky Derby champion Northern Dancer.

Secretariat is one of an astounding six Triple Crown winners (there have only been 13) to have been conceived at Claiborne Farm. His former stall is not much more than 100 square feet, one of 10 in a nondescript white stable a short walk from Claiborne’s visitors center. To stand in that space — with precisely two bales of hay awaiting its current occupant — and consider the giant who once slept there is a mind-leap and somewhat of a statement on the way we humans tend to consider only bigger accommodations better.

Secretariat died on October 14, 1989, victimized by a painful hoof condition called laminitis. He was only 19; not young, but not that old for a horse. A necropsy revealed that Secretariat’s heart weighed more than 20 pounds, twice the size of a typical thoroughbred’s ticker. I love this part of Secretariat’s story, not so much for the physical blessing he utilized in becoming a champion, but for the metaphor it provides all of us humans. A big heart matters, more so than Hollywood looks or a Wall Street bank account.

The great horse was buried in full, and embalmed, royal treatment above the standard (and space-saving) head/heart/hooves of a deceased champion. People leave coins on Secretariat’s tombstone, as you might see at the resting place of a fallen soldier, a human soldier. Me, I waited until those in our tour group left the cemetery, took a picture of the posthumous symbol, and touched the engraved name of the greatest racehorse we’ll ever know. And yes, I thought of Maple Leaf Mel. Sport of kings? Maybe. Sport of heart? Absolutely.

People around the world travel to Memphis every August to salute an icon whose legend has only grown across generations since his death. This is precisely what I did last month in paying my semicentennial respects to Secretariat. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to Claiborne Farm. But I’ll watch the 1973 Belmont Stakes many more times. And I’ll feel a long stride closer to greatness.

Frank Murtaugh is the managing editor of Memphis magazine. He writes the columns “From My Seat” and “Tiger Blue” for the Flyer.