Baseball: Baseball is back as of July 23! KBO to allow fans this week. Pirates P Santana suspended for 80 games. Dodgers OF Toles went to jail for sleeping at a FedEx.
Basketball: NBA is back as of July 30. Chesapeake Energy, Thunder family founders and stadium naming rights, declares bankruptcy.
Football: Pats fined $1.1MM for illegally taping Bengals sideline but signed Cam Netwon as new QB.
Golf: DJ adds win #21 at the Travelers. Players starting to test positive. NBC to broadcast the US Open.
Olympic Sports: ITA ski team has 3 positive tests. Carlos leads the charge to overturn Rule 50. Berlin marathon canceled.
Baseball:
- Baseball will be back! The 60 game regular season will start on July 23 and run through Sept 27. The first game back is reportedly the NY Yankees at Washington Nationals. Players will be required to camps on July 1.
- Teams will play their divisional opponents 10xs each and then the other 20 games will be for inter-league opponents in the same geographical location (aka National vs American West teams).
- KBO will begin to reopen stadiums for games this week! Change out the cardboard for real people. The aim is to open stadiums to 30% capacity with working the way up to 50% in a couple of weeks.
- Pirates RHP Edgar Santana has been suspended for 80 games as he tested positive for Boldenone, a banned performance enhancer. This is after he missed the 2019 season for having Tommy John surgery.
- Dodgers OF Andrew Toles went to jail for trespassing property aka falling asleep behind a FedEx building at the airport and refused to move. Toles you might recognize from the 2016 postseason although we really haven’t seen a whole lot of him since then. He is scheduled for arraignment on Thursday and had no comment.
Basketball:
- Las Vegas has officially put the NBA spreads back on the sportsbooks for the first time in 3 months. The NBA season will resume on July 30 with the Pelicans vs Jazz and then the Lakers vs Clippers.
- Net’s Wilson Chandler, Trail Blazers’ Trevor Ariza, Wizards’ Davis Bertans, Lakers’ Avery Bradley and Mavs’ Willie Cauley-Stein have all opted out of the NBA restart.
- Chesapeake Energy, the family ties to the Thunder, has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Their naming rights on the stadium that the Thunder play in will expire after the 2022/23 season.
- NBA and NBAPA are in discussions to allow players to put personalized social justice, cause or charity messages on the back of their jerseys for the NBA restart.
Football:
- The NE Patriots are in the news 2xs today. Bad news first, the Pats were fined $1.1MM, had a 3rd round draft pick taken away and cannot film games this upcoming season. These are the punishment for illegally filming the Bengals sideline during the Browns/Bengals game in December. The film crew was supposed to be filming for a web series called “Do Your Job” (ironic, no?).
- And now for the good news, the Pats have found a replacement for Brady… well we will see but they did pick up Cam Newton on a one-year contract. The former Panthers QB will be competing for the top spot against Jarrett Stidham (Baylor fans remember him) and Brian Hoyer who has been in the league for 11 years but one has to think Newton would be the favorite. Newton was with the Panthers for 9 years before they released him on March 23.
Golf:
- Dustin Johnson won his 21st PGA Tour victory at the Travelers Championship with a score of 20 under par. DJ has won every single years since his tour debut but it had been since last year’s WGC-Mexican Championship (Feb 2019) before he took this win to continue that streak.
- After the first 2 weeks back to work, the PGA Tour (and the rest of the US) has had an increase in positive COVID tests. Dylan Frittelli, Nick Watney (from last round), Cameron Champ, Denny McCarthy have all tested positive while caddies for Graeme McDowell and Brooks Koepka also tested positive leading to all the aforementioned players to WD. Chase Koepka, Bud Cauley and Webb Simpson also withdrew out of abundance of caution.
- In response the PGA Tour has upped their restrictions and testing. The players now have a on-site gym trailer where they have to wear a mask for their entire workout, their stipend will be taken away if they do not adhere to strict social distancing guidelines.
- NBC just won the rights to broadcast the US Open as the Fox ended its 12-year contract.
Olympic Sports:
- 2 Italian women skiers and a coach have tested positive for COVID while training. The coach was hospitalized for a lower fever but the other 2 women have no symptoms. The rest of the World Cup team will return home. This could make things interesting for World Cup events as Italian Federica Brignone is the reigning champion.
- John Carlos has moved to lift the ban on protests at the Olympics. The IOC president says he is open to exploring different ways for opinions to be voiced in the games with still respecting the Olympic spirit.
- #GFHint: you should know John Carlos from this picture where he and fellow Olympian Tommie Smith raised their fists on the medal stand at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in racial inequality protest. Those 2 athletes were then sent home and treated badly.
- The Berlin Marathon has been canceled due to rescheduling issues. Too many events too little time!
What to Watch this Week
Golf:
- Thurs 7/2 – Rocket Mortgage Classic – Round 1 @ 2pm on Golf Channel
- Fri 7/3 – Rocket Mortgage Classic – Round 2 @ 2pm on Golf Channel
- Sat 7/4 – Rocket Mortgage Classic – Round 3
- 12pm on Golf Channel
- 2pm on CBS
- Sun 7/5 – Rocket Mortgage Classic – Round 4
- 12pm on Golf Channel
- 2pm on CBS
Motorsports:
- Fri 7/3 – IndyCar: GMR Grand Prix Qualifying @ 3 :30pm on NBCSN
- Sun 7/5
- Formula 1: Rolex Austrian Grand Prix @ 9:05am on ESPN
- NASCAR: Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400 @ 3pm on NBC
- IndyCar: GMR Grand Prix @ 11pm on NBCSN
Soccer:
- Tues 6/30 – Premier League: Brighton & Hove Albion vs ManU @ 2:10pm on NBCSN
- Wed 7/1
- Premier League: Arsenal vs Norwich City @ 11:55am on NBCSN
- Italian Serie A: Bologna vs Cagliari @ 12:30pm on ESPN
- Premier League: West Ham vs Chelsea @ 2:10pm on NBCSN
- Italian Serie A: Hellas Verona vs Parma @ 2:45pm on ESPN
- Italian Serie A: Lecce vs Sampdoria @ 2:45pm on ESPN2
- Thurs 7/2
- Premier League: Sheffield vs Tottenham @ 12pm on NBCSN
- Premier League: Manchester City vs Liverpool @ 2:15pm on NBCSN
- Sat 7/4
- Premier League: Norwich vs Brighton & Hove Albion @ 6:25am on NBCSN
- Premier League: ManU vs AFC Bournemouth @ 8 :55am on NBCSN
- Premier League: Wolverhampton Wanders vs Arsenal @ 11:25am on NBCSN
- German DFB: Bayer Leverkusen vs Bayern Munich @ 1pm on ESPN2
- Premier League: Chelsea vs Watford @ 1:55pm on NBCSN
- Sun 7/5
- Premier League: Burnley vs Sheffield @ 56am on NBCSN
- Premier League: Newcastle vs West Ham @ 8:10am on NBCSN
- Premier League: Liverpool vs Aston Villa @ 10:25am on NBCSN
- Italian Serie A: Parma vs Fiorentina @ 12:30pm on ESPN2
