Baseball-MLB: A’s ‘reverse boycott’ attempt. Announcer hit with foul play and continues. Week headlines – lots of streaks broken.
Baseball/Softball-NCAA: OU 3-peat and 53 game win streak is still alive. Omaha nearly set.
Basketball-NBA: Finals continue and this week a champ will be crowned. Nuggets could put it all away tonight, currently up 3-1.
Golf: LIV/PGA Merger nearly breaks the internet. LAGC first to join virtual league. CAN golfer Taylor wins Canadian Open.
Hockey: Vegas Golden Knights up 3-1 over FL Panthers.
Horse Racing: First female trainer horse to win a Triple Crown.
Olympic Sports: NCAA T&F – Arkansas foiled. 3 WRs go down in distance and mid-distance on Friday at the Diamond League.
Soccer: Messi to the MLS – it’s not a dream.
Tennis: Djokovic the new GOAT of tennis with 23 GS titles. Iga defends successfully.
Baseball – MLB:
- The A’s are staging a ‘Reverse Boycott’ on Tuesday for their game against the Rays. Organizers are calling fans to come out in droves to show their support for NOT moving the team to Vegas. This will be a huge feat if they can do it as most of their games’ attendance have been put to shame by Triple-A franchises. T-shirts reading ‘Sell’ (indicating that’s what the owner should do so they can find someone who wants to keep the team there) are also being given to the first 7000 fans.
- Yankees announcer John Sterling was in the booth when he got hit by Red Sox Justin Turner’s foul ball. The more impressive part was he did not skip a beat and kept on going with of course an ‘ow’ The Yankees got the last laugh though as they won that game 3-1. Sterling was given a baseball signed by Tuner and a Band-Aid on it the next day.
- Some quick highlights from the week: Astros had a grand slam and a season-high 19 hits to topple the Blue Jays 11-4 on Monday. The Rays beat the Red Sox in a make up game from the 2nd and that W was the league leading 9th win for P McClanahan (he won his 10th on Sunday – spoilers). The A’s lost their 15th road game in a row after losing to the Pirates on Monday but that be the end of it as they won the next 5 games all on the road. Blue Jays P Gausman records his most Ks career high at 13 against the Astros to win 5-1. Rangers IF Marcus Semien’s hit streak finally came to an end at 25 games after he went hitless on Wed against the Cardinals. The Mets racked up 7 losses in a row including losing to the Braves 13-10 (thanks to the Braves 3-run homer in the 10th) and the Pirates 14-7. The Rays extended their win streak to 7 before dropping a game to the Rangers on Friday. The Phillies also had a hot streak going of 6 straight wins before losing to the Dodgers 0-9 on Friday as well. Padres P Yu Darvish picks up his 100th career W against the Rockies with the help of 5 HRs by his teammates. The close to .500 Twins beat the Blue Jays on Saturday thanks to Correa’s 2nd career Grand Slam to aid in a 7-run 8th inning to win 9-4 over Toronto. The Royals are currently in a slide of losing 6 straight games including sweeps by the Mariners then the Orioles. The A’s recorded their first sweep of the season against the Brewers. The Red Sox beat the Yankees on Sunday in extra innings to take the series 2-1.
Baseball/Softball – NCAA:
- The 3-peat was successful and your girl was there to witness it all! Oklahoma beat Florida State in just 2 games to win the WCWS and their 3rd straight National Championship (their 6th in 10 seasons and 7 total for OU). They also never lost a game in the post season meaning their win streak survives into next year and currently sits at 53 wins. Game 1 was rain delayed and ended late on Wednesday night and it was all Oklahoma. They put up 3 runs in the 4th and another 2 runs followed, one in each of the next 2 innings to put away the Seminoles 5-0. Haylee Lee had a 3-run homer snagged by a FSU player but it ultimately didn’t matter. But the Seminoles brought out their star pitcher Thursday and it showed. The Sooners were scoreless until the 5th inning and FSU put one up in the 4th. They ‘should’ve’ had 4 going out of the 4th but OF Jayda Coleman got returned the favor on FSU robbing them of a 3-run HR by a brilliant catch over the wall. That ultimately saved the game as the Sooners only won 3-1. Fittingly Jordy Bahl closed out the game and the Sooners won the natty.
- Omaha is set! But lets go over what happened in the Super Regional round to get there.
- #2 Florida barely beat #15 South Carolina. As a matter a fact, both teams were tied 2-2 after the 1st inning, ended the game with 11 hits and Florida even had 2 Errors. The Gators won game 1 by 1. Game 2 was not close. The Gators shut out the Gamecocks 4-0 and advance.
- Unranked Duke upset #7 UVA on Friday winning with the same score 5-4. UVA had 2 costly errors. But the Cavaliers made up for it in Game 2, destroying the Blue Devils 14-4. Duke had 12 hits but only scored 4 in that game. Sunday was the winner-take-all game and UVA lived up to expectation again winning by 10. That’s outscoring Duke 26-6 in the 2nd two games. UVA advances.
- TCU hosted #14 Indiana State due to the Special Olympics buying up all the hotels in the area. How nice of the Horned Frogs? Well they did go on to win the series 4-1 and 6-4 to advance in just 2 games. So don’t tell me home field advantage doesn’t exist.
- Oral Roberts put up 8 runs in the 3rd inning to go up on the Oregon Ducks. But the Eugene team slowly crawled their way back scoring 2, 3, 0, 1, 2 runs and finally a walk off single in the 9th to beat ORU in the largest comeback in tournament history. That snapped their 21 games win streak. The Golden Eagles did come back to win Game 2 though by 1. I mean turnabout is fair play which left the winner-take-all game for Sunday. And ORU would not be denied. They beat Oregon 11-6 in what was technically not an upset as they had the better record going into the post season but certainly seems like it with a big name like Oregon involved. ORU advances to their 2nd CWS (their other appearance was back in 1978). They are the lowest seed to make the tournament since 2012 Stony Brook.
- #1 Wake Forest barely snuck out from their matchup with #16 Alabama on Saturdy only wining by 1 in a great game that went back and forth. We were tied at the bottom of the 4th 3-3 before WF had a solo HR in the 5th and a earned run in the 6th. Bama tried to rebound with a HR in the 8th but never got the rally going. The wheels came off on Sunday – Wake showed why they have only lost 10 games all season. WF won 22-5 – whoa. 11 runs were on the books (8-3) by the end of the 3rd. Of the 22 runs scored, 18 were recorded on 9 HRs, tying a NCAA record. WF is in their first CWS since they won the whole thing in 1955.
- #5 LSU put the beat down on #12 Kentucky winning Game 1 14-0 – yikes! The Tigers went on to win Game 2 without a whole lot of drama. The game was sorta back and forth until the 3rd when LSU pulled away and put the finishing touch on a 3 run 9th inning to seal the CWS bid.
- Unranked Texas was down 2-5 in the 9th inning before they rallied with a 5 run inning to pull out the win over #8 Stanford 7-5. Stanford came back in Game 2 though with 15 hits to put up 8 runs to Texas’ 3. And we moved onto Game 3 on Monday (aka today). This game is still going…
- Southern Miss took down big name Tennessee in Game 1 5-3. But then in Game 2 the other Golden Eagles made 4 errors to lose 4-8 and we head to the winner-take-all Monday matchup. That game has not even started yet tonight.
Basketball – NBA:
- The NBA Finals have begun and it is tied through 2 games so far!
- Game 3 started even but the Nuggets pulled away with the help of Jokic’s triple-double.
- The Nuggets continued their dominance in Game 4 leading by 4 at half and then 13 after the 3rd.
- They play Game 5 tonight and the Nuggets could put it all away for their first NBA Championship. Either way though we will have a new NBA champion by next week’s Weekly Update.
- In a ‘bit’ Conor McGregor sent the Heat mascot to the hospital. McGregor was announcing that his TDL bodyspray is an official sponsor of the Heat and was supposed to punch ‘Burnie’ to the floor which he did but apparently it was a little too hard. He is fine and was released from the hospital with pain medication.
Golf:
- It’s the news that broke the internet over the last week – on Tuesday. The PGA Tour, the DP Tour and the LIV have merged together to become one unified league, name TBD. Now there are still plenty of questions but as everything does, it came down to money. The PGA Tour could not afford to keep paying the lawsuits with the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. The fund has over $620Bn in assets. The PIF will be the investor behind the new league. So what happens to those 30 PGA Tour golfers that were lured away with big checks? Well so far, nothing. It looks like they will not be able to play in the Ryder Cup but will be allowed back into tournaments with relatively open arms. Apparently the players didn’t even know and were kept completely in the dark about this decision. Lots of TBDs still to figure out but you know I will keep you all updated as more drops.
- In much smaller news, LA Golf Club will be the 1st team in the new virtual golf league started by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. The Williams sisters are part owners in this team. These 6 3-person teams will play 18-holes on a virtual course to take place on Monday nights at prime time.
- Nick Taylor wins RBC making him the first Canadian to win the Canadian Open since 1954. He won in a 4-hole playoff against Tommy Fleetwood with a 72-foot eagle! Fleetwood could’ve put it all away with a birdie on a very reachable Par 5 but his tee shot went wide right and he couldn’t get up and down so we head to a playoff. That is his longest putt made on the PGA Tour. He has only won 3xs on the PGA Tour and hasn’t won since the 2020 Pebble Beach Pro-Am. His other win was the 2014 Sanderson Farms. Fellow Canadian Adam Hadwin ran onto the green with champagne spraying to celebrate when he was tackled by security. The last Canadian BORN Canadian to win was back in 1914 with Karl Keffer.
Hockey:
- Stanley Cup Playoffs
- The Golden Knights put the beat down on the Panthers in Game 2 winning 7-2. It was 4-0 at the end of the 2nd.
- So even though they started off 0-2, the Panthers fought back in Game 3 to win 3-2 in OT. The Panthers scored in the 3rd to tie it up with only 3 minutes to go in the game and then took 4:27 to get it done in OT.
- The script flipped for Game 4. Vegas took the W 3-2 and to take the series lead 3-1. The Golden Knights could put it all away on Tuesday.
Horseracing:
- After all the bad news surrounding the horseracing world, we were due for some good news. Arcangelo, the horse that won the Belmont Stakes, the final event of the Triple Crown was trained by Jena Antonucci. This win is the first time a Triple Crown winner was trained by a female in the 155 runnings of the Belmont alone. The jockey, Castellano was also winless for 14 tries at the Belmont. Recognize the name? that’s because he won his first Derby around amonth ago on his 16th Apparently lightning does strike twice. Arcangelo held off a late charge by a couple horses including Forte, a favorite in the race. Only 30 women have tried to win a Triple Crown since 1937 but none have – until now!
Olympic Sports:
- It was NCAAs in Track & Field this weekend so you know that’s what I was doing. And Arkansas was trying to do something that had never been done, sweep the entire championship seasons (Indoor and Outdoor in both men and women). But alas it was not meant to be.
- On the men’s side, the team competition was sooooo close! It came down to the final event and all Arkansas had to do was get 4th if Florida won the 4x400m relay. However the Razorbacks got last so it was not meant to be. Not only that but to add insult to injury, the Florida men managed to set the colleigate record in the mile relay to boot.
- On the women’s side, not the case in the team competition. The Texas Longhorns had it wrapped up after the 200m with 3 events to go. This was particularly sweet as they had come in 2nd multiple years in a row and got to win the title on their home track. Multiple records would’ve been broken by the wind picked up on Saturday and a lot of the time was non-allowable (over 2) so the times and jumps do not count. However, Thursday the Longhorn ladies set the 4x100m Relay record again. Julien Alfred was the MVP as she swept the 4x100m, 100m and 200m – the first longhorn to sweep since I was born (1991). Florida’s Jasmine Moore did break the Triple Jump record with a wind-league jump of 48 feet 6 inches. Moore had been the favorite and was the reigning LJ and TJ champion but she was foiled in the LJ earlier in the weekend. No other records were broken due to wind. And Arkansas’ Britton Wilson tried to do the impossible and complete the 400m & 400h double but showed that it cannot be done. She finished 2nd in the 400m and 6th in the 400h (a huge upset).
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- Also Pippi Lotta Enok won the Heptathlon and earlier this year she broke my Pentathlon record. So proud of you Pippi – first Sooner to take the title!
- Records went down this weekend in Paris during the Diamond League event. KEN Faith Kipyegon broke the 5000m WR on Friday and beating the previous WR hodler in the process. She set the new time to 14:05.20, lowering the mark by 1.4seconds. what’s even more astounding is that Kipyegon had not run a 5000m race in 8 years. Also her name might sound familiar bc she set the 1500m WR less than 10 days ago! NOR Jakob Ingebrigtsen crushed the 2-mile WR on Friday running 7:54.10, beating the old record set in 1997 by more than 4 seconds. Ingebrigtsen is the reigning 1500m Olympic Champion. ETH Lamecha Girma broke the 3,000m steeplechase WR from 2004 by a full 1.5 seconds. Her time and the new WR is 7:52.11. That is 3 new WR on Friday alone!
- The International Boxing Association will no longer have Olympic status as of this month. This does not mean that boxing will not be in the Olympics in Paris 2024 but simply that the IBA does not have control over its financial standing, integrity and governance.
Soccer:
- What was the other HUGE headline this week besides the golf mess, ARG Lionel Messi is going to the MLS to Inter Miami and leaving PSG (Paris Saint-Germain). The legend will play in the US league til 2026 when we host the World Cup. Inter Miami is in last in the MLS as well but the 7x Ballon d’Or ought to help. It is rumored that he will get a percentage of the club and TV deal for joining. Conveniently Apple TV (which hosts many of the MLS games) announced a Messi documentary one day before the announcement by Messi. Supposedly his debut will be July 21st.
Tennis:
- The French Open will conclude this weekend and there has been plenty of action.
- On the women’s side, POL Iga Swiatek beat the lone remaining American Coco Gauff in straight sets and it wasn’t close. Iga showed why she was #1 6-4 and 6-2. Unranked CZE Karolina Muchova had a huge upset of BLR Sabalenka in a very close match. The match went to tie breakers in the first two sets that were split exactly even (same scores as well) and then 7-5 in the final for her to win. So it was POL Iga vs CZE Muchova in the final on Saturday. Iga won handily in the first 6-2 but Muchova came back nicely to win 7-5 before losing the final set and thus the match 6-4. Swiatek successfully defends her French open title. This is her 3rd French Open title and 4th GS title.
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- We have a new GOAT on the men’s side as Djokovic won his 23rd Grand Slam title as he wins his 3rd French Open title. He beat NOR Casper Ruud in straight sets to take the win. Ruud did take the first set to tie breakers and the 3rd set was 7-5. Realistically the Semifinals were more challenging for Djokovic as he faced Alcaraz btu still only dropped 1 set. Ruud destroyed Zverev 6-3, 6-4 and 6-0.
What to watch this week
Baseball – MLB:
- Tues 6/13
- Yankees at Mets @ 6:10pm on TBS
- Severino vs Scherzer
- Yankees at Mets @ 6:10pm on TBS
- Wed 6/14
- Yankees at Mets @ 6pm on ESPN
- Cole vs Verlander
- White Sox at Dodgers @ 9pm on ESPN
- Clevinger vs Kershaw
- Yankees at Mets @ 6pm on ESPN
- Thurs 6/15
- Angels at Rangers @ 7:05pm on FS1
- Ohtani vs Eovaldi
- Angels at Rangers @ 7:05pm on FS1
- Fri 6/16
- Pirates at Brewers @ 7:10pm on Apple TV+
- White Sox at Mariners @ 9:10pm on Apple TV+
- Sat 6/17
- Angels at Royals @ 3:10pm on FS1
- Yankees at Red Sox – or – Rays at Padres @ 6:15pm on FOX
- Guardians at Diamondbacks @ 9:10pm on FS1
- Bieber vs Henry
- Sun 6/18
- Orioles at Cubs @ 12:05pm on Peacock
- Yankees at Red Sox @ 6pm on ESPN
Baseball – NCAA:
- Fri 6/16
- CWS Game 1 @ 1pm on ESPN
- CWS Game 2 @ 6pm on ESPN
- Sat 6/17
- CWS Game 3 @ 1pm on ESPN
- CWS Game 4 @ 6pm on ESPN
- Sun 6/18
- CWS Game 5 (Losers of Game 1 & 2) @ 1pm on ESPN
- CWS Game 6 (Winners of Game 1 &2) @ 6pm on ESPN
Basketball – NBA:
- Mon 6/12
- Finals – Game 5: Heat at Nuggets @ 7:30pm on ABC
- Thurs 6/15
- Finals – Game 6: Nuggets at Heat @ 7:30pm on ABC
- Sun 6/18
- Finals – Game 7: Heat at Nuggets @ 7pm on ABC
Football:
- Sat 6/17
- USFL: Pitts Maulers vs NJ Generals @ 12pm on USA
- USFL: Birmingham Stallions vs Memphis Showboats @ 3pm on FOX
- Sun 6/18
- USFL: NOLA Breakers vs Houston Gamblers @ 3pm on FS1
- USFL: Phili Stars vs Michigan @ 6pm on FOX
Golf:
- Thurs 6/15
- US Open – Round 1
- @ 12pm on USA
- @ 7pm on NBC
- US Open – Round 1
- Fri 6/16
- US Open – Round 2
- @ 12pm on USA
- @ 7pm on NBC
- US Open – Round 2
- Sat 6/17
- US Open – Round 3 @ 12pm on NBC
- Sun 6/18
- US Open – Final Round @ 12pm on NBC
- LPGA: Meijer LPGA Classic @ 1pm on CBS
Hockey:
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- Tues 6/13
- Stanley Cup Final – Game 5: Panthers at Golden Knights @ 7pm on TNT
- Fri 6/16
- Stanley Cup Final – Game 6: Golden Knights at Panthers @ 7pm on TNT
- Mon 6/19
- Stanley Cup Final – Game 7: Panthers at Golden Knights @ 7pm on TNT
- Tues 6/13
Motorsports:
- Sun 6/18
- F1: Canadian GP @ 1pm on ABC
Olympic Sports:
- Sat 6/17
- Track & Field: Oslo Diamond League @ 12pm on CNBC
Soccer:
- Wed 6/14
- UEFA: NED vs CRO @ 8:30pm on FS1
- Thurs 6/15
- UEFA: ESP vs ITA @ 1:30pm on FS1
- Fri 6/16
- UEFA: Malta vs ENG @ 1:30pm on FS1
- UEFA: Gibraltar vs FRA @ 8pm on FS1
- Sat 6/17
- International Friendly: POL vs GER @ 4am on FS1
- UEFA: LIT vs BUL @ 7:50am on FS1
- UEFA: NOR vs SCO @ 11am on FS1
- NWSL: San Deigo Wave vs Angel City @ 3pm on CBS
- Sun 6/18
- NWSL: Racing Louisville vs Gotham FC @ 3pm on CBS
- UEFA Final @ 8pm on FS1
