Baseball-MLB: ASG American> National. Soto wins HR Derby. New HoF class. Mariner’s streak ends in Houston.
Basketball: Harden in Phili for 2 more years.
Football: Turnover chain is gone. Metchie has leukemia.
Golf: Finau wins 3rd PGA Tour title at 3M.
Olympic Sports: Tour de France ends with Vingegaard victorious. Worlds ends with USA on top and dominant. 3 WRs fell. 4 Sweeps.
Baseball:
- The National League struck first with 2 runs in the very first inning of the ASG. However the American league came back in the 4th inning scoring 3 runs and they turns out to be enough. The back-to-back HRs by Stanton and Buxton were the nail in the National coffin. This is the 9th consecutive win by the American league; that translates to the last time the NL won was 2012 (one year canceled due to covid). Since the 90s, the American has been the more dominant league but prior to that (50s-80s) the National league reigned.
- Nationals RF Juan Soto wins HR derby, the 2nd youngest person to win the Derby ever (and only by a couple of days). Soto defeated Julio Rodriguez who looked like the favorite heading into the final round as he had hit more HRs than anyone else in each round before that. He gets a $1MM check for taking the title.
- The MLB ASG is the most watched ASG but viewership did take a dip, 9.7% Y/Y. So did the HR Derby but only by 3.5% decline.
- New HoF class: David Ortiz ‘Big Papi’, Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva, Buck O’Neil, Bud Fowler, Gil Hodges and Jim Kaat.
- Remember the Mariners’ winning streak from last week? The Mariners were on a 14 game win streak before heading to Houston on Friday. They needed one more game to tie their franchise record of 15 (from 2001). But the Astros had something to say about that. The Houston All Star, Altuve homered on first pitch against Mariners on Sunday and that pretty much personifies the series for the Seattle team.. This was Altuve’s 9th leadoff homer of the season and Houston swept all 3 games against the Mariners.
- OU most players go in the MLB draft with 11.
Basketball:
- James Harden is staying in Phili for a while. The 76ers offered him a 2-year deal for $68.6MM. He actually turned down their initial offer $47.4MM for next season originally to allow for salary cap flexibility so the team could afford other players. He has said he wants to help build up the roster. This deal guarantees him $33MM for next season and then an option to extend for another.
Football:
- A crowd favorite, the ‘turnover chain’ at Miami will be retired for the 2022 season. HC Cristobal has said publicly that it will not be used for the 2022 season. We have seen it since the 2017 season.
- Texans WR John Metchie III has been diagnosed with leukemia and will not play this season. Metchie has the most treatable form of Leukemia, APL. Leukemia is cancer of the blood cells.
- The NFL has launched their own streaming service, NFL +
- Politics and sports should not mix but you know Newsome…
Golf:
- Scott Piercy had a 5 shot lead on the 8th tee on the final round and then the bogeys started rolling. Of the final 11 holes, Piercy carded 7 bogeys (including one triple). In contrast, Tony Finau got rolling starting at the 8th. But it was at 17 when you knew it was meant to be after his tee shot ricocheted off grand stands and looked to be destined for the water but stopped inches before the penalty line. Finau did find the water on 18 but sealed the victory with a bogey as he was 4 shots ahead anyway.
- There are 3 confirmed players added to the LIV Tour, Henrik Stenson (now the former captain on Europe for the Ryder Cup), Charles Howell III and Jason Kokrak. Kokrak is no surprise as he was a Golf Saudi ambassador.
Olympic Sports:
- The Tour de France: In a surprise upset, DEN Jonas Vingegaard took the final yellow jersey and won his first TdF. He has come a long way from his days as a fish factory worker, runner-up last year in his rookie TdF and now the champion. Vingegaard won over Tadej Pogacar by 2m 43s, the mountain stages contributing the most to his win.
- World Track Championships were a huge success for the Americans who came away with 33 medals, the most ever earned at a World Championships by one country (13 golds – 1 short of all time gold mark). We had multiple medals from 8 events. USA was the first to sweep 3+ events (M 100m, M 200m, M Shot Put). The last time any country swept the 100m and 200m was 1904. The men disappointed in Tokyo only taking home 5 sprint medals compared to this worlds with 11! There were 179 countries in attendance, 3 WRs were broken, 92 national records, 29 different countries took home gold. Liberia, Niger, Pakistan, Samoa, Philippines and Guatemala reached the final for the first time ever! It was also the most watched Worlds ever with 3 days to still be reported. See you in a year for the next Worlds in Budapest.
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- The USA sweeps continued this week with one more event: the M 200m. Noah Lyles broke Michael Johnson’s American Record which had stood for 26 years. He also put the rivalry with teenager Erriyon Knighton to bed as well, who took the Bronze. Kenny Bednarek brought home the silver.
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- Athing Mu looked untouchable last year in Tokyo when she won her gold medal. This year not so much and the 3 Americans who made the 800m final looked to be in a good place to grab multiple medals. However it was not to be, Mu did win but barely holding off the silver medalist for GBR Hodgkinson. Ajee and Raven were nowhere to be found.
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- The 100h is always a big race for the American women. We had 4 women start the heats but we had 2 fall in round 1. There were casualties all over the first round including the reigning World Champ, Ali. But 2 Americans made the final including WR holder Keni Harrison. However her WR went down in the Semi to Nigeria’s Amusan to 12.12 who had looked the best through the rounds. So it was no surprise when Amusan came back for the final (in the same day) and took care of business. Amusan ran 12.06 however it was with +2.5 wind which is over the legal limit to count towards another WR. But I think it is safe to say, it is time to start wrapping our minds around a potential sub-12 time! The USA was shut out of the medals for the first time in a looooooong time.
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- Michael Norman had the weight of the world (or at least the US) on his shoulders at last year’s Tokyo Olympics with his mom being JPN. And he has no big meet hardware – it has been a notable monkey on his back until Friday night. He took the 400m gold over veteran Kirani James.
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- The 400h both the men’s and women’s were some of the best races to watch.
- On the men’s side: we had a rematch of NOR Warholm vs USA Rai Benjamin who both came in under the old WR line in Tokyo but NOR got the gold. Upset would be putting it lightly for Rai. However this time it was on his home soil. Rai got 2nd but this time to BRA Dos Santos who had the best season of the 3 men and Warholm died on the final stretch for home. This was the first track World champ medal for Brazil…ever! USA D2 NCAA champ, Bassit took a surprise Bronze medal.
- For the women, the re-match of Dalilah Muhammad and Sydney McLaughlin was highly anticipated and it did not disappoint. You could tell by 100m in that McLaughlin was trying to do something special and it was. She broke her WR again lowering it again to 50.68. This is her 4th WR in 2 years and has lowered it almost a full second in just 1 month. Her time was so fast, Sydney would’ve been 7th in the 400 flat. Muhammed got 3rd and NED Bol took the silver. The USA took 1-5th with the exception of 2nd.
- The 400h both the men’s and women’s were some of the best races to watch.
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- Relays:
- How do you beat the JAM women, who swept the 100m flat and that accounts for 3 of the 4 legs? Answer: solid baton passes and that’s exactly what the American women did. I cant be the only one whose jaw dropped when Jenna Prandini (who didn’t make it in the 100m) made up the stagger on Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce. However when the anchor got the stick, JAM was closing. If they had another step, I think they they would’ve had us. By TT Terry kept them at bay and the USA wins by .04. / It was the opposite for the men’s side. The USA men swept the 100m Although admittedly Kerley suffered an injury in the 200m so he was out of this relay but they were hands down the favorites. But a bad final handoff opened the door and Team Canada stepped through it to grab gold by .07.
- Relays:
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- The American men came ready to play putting the race away in the first leg. Godwin crushed it making up the staggers before handing the baton to world champ Michael Norman. Champion Allison brought us home to win by 2 seconds. / Allyson Felix came out of new retirement to run the heats for the 4x400m to give the hurdlers a longer rest and it was wonderful to see her one more time! She set he tone for the final despite not competing. The American women were closer than expected after 2 legs but Abby Steiner gave Arkansas 400h Wilson the lead and they never looked back. Sydney McLaughlin took the baton as anchor and ran a 47 high split to win gold by 2 seconds. This gold makes it 20 World medals for Felix -the most ever.
- In the field:
- Kara Winger had been to 6 World Championships and had publicly said this would be her last. Well she went out with a bang, bringing home America’s first Jav medal with Silver on her final throw of her career.
- We also brought home the first World medal in the W Triple by Tori Franklin.
- Valerie Allman was disappointed with her bronze in the discus after she won gold in Tokyo but add that medal to the tally!
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- In the M PV, USA Chris Nielsen took home Silver but the main story here was the LSU Swede Mondo Duplantis who has been called the Tiger Woods of the pole vault. He already had the WR but wanted another and as the last athlete active at Worlds ended the meet right by clearing 20’4” – a new WR.
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- Multis: Anna Hall takes home Bronze in the heptathlon, the first American to medal in that event at Worlds since 2001. 3rd all time best American score. On the men’s side, Double Z (Zach Ziemek from Wisconsin) got 3rd in the decathlon on the final day of competition. CAN Damian Warner went down with a leg injury/cramp on the final event of day 1 and went down with the lead. FRA Mayer defended his world title.
- No Americans in the final: W HJ, M 800m, W 400m,
What to watch this week
Baseball-MLB:
- Tues 7/26
- Yankees at Mets @ 6:10pm on TBS
- Montgomery vs Walker
- Yankees at Mets @ 6:10pm on TBS
- Wed 7/27
- Yankees at Mets @ 6pm on ESPN
- German vs Scherzer
- Yankees at Mets @ 6pm on ESPN
- Sat 7/30
- Brewers at Red Sox @ 3:10pm on FS1
- 3 games @ 6:15pm on FOX
- Twins at Padres
- Phillies at Pirates
- Cardinals at Nationals
- Rangers at Angels @ 8:07pm on FS1
- Perez vs Detmers
- Sun 7/31
- Tigers at Blue Jays @ 11:05am on Peacock
- Cubs at Giants @ 6pm on ESPN
- Sampson vs Rodon
Golf:
- Thurs 7/28
- LIV Tour – Bedminster Round 1 @ 1pm on Livgolf.com or YouTube
- Rocket Mortgage – Round 1 @ 2pm on Golf Channel
- Fri 7/29
- LIV Tour – Bedminster Round 2 @ 1pm on Livgolf.com or YouTube
- Rocket Mortgage – Round 2 @ 2pm on Golf Channel
- Sat 7/30
- Rocket Mortgage – Round 3
- @ 12pm on Golf Channel
- @ 2pm on CBS
- LIV Tour – Bedminster Final Round @ 1pm on Livgolf.com or YouTube
- Rocket Mortgage – Round 3
- Sun 7/31
- Rocket Mortgage – Final Round
- @ 12pm on Golf Channel
- @ 2pm on CBS
- Rocket Mortgage – Final Round
Motorsports:
- Sun 7/31
- F1 Hungarian GP @ 8am on ESPN
Olympic Sports:
- Wed 7/27
- Triathlon: Miami @ 6pm on FS1
- Sun 7/31
- Swimming @ 11am on NBC
Soccer:
- Mon 7/25
- Copa American Femenina: COL vs ARG @ 6:50pm on FS1
- Tues 7/26
- Copa American Femenina: BRA vs PAR @ 6:5pm on FS1
- Sat 7/30
- MLS: Minnesota United vs Portland Timbers @ 2pm on ABC
