Baseball: Kang’s KBO suspension. Crawford’s swimming sorrow. Japanese baseball to start June 19th.
Basketball: Drummond’s big tip.
ESPYS: Virtual hosting on June 21.
Football: NCAAF practices can start on June1! NJ lifts restrictions. Dolphins ready for NFL season.
Golf: Match Championship for Charity winners Woods/Manning.
Hockey: NHL will not have regular season only playoffs.
Motor Sports: Audi driver in trouble.
Soccer: Jaap Stam mixup.
Baseball:
- Pirates IF, Jung Ho Kang has been suspended from the KBO league after his multiple DUIs. Kang was supposed to complete 300 hours of community service ruled at a hearing which he did not attend due to the fact that he was in the US at the time. His suspension will start when he signs again with a KBO team.
- Former OF, Carl Crawford, had 2 people die from drowning in his pool in Houston. the 5 year old was struggling to breathe when Bethany Lartigue, player from the Arlington Impact in the Women’s Football Alliance, jumped in to save the little boy. Both were unresponsive when responders arrived. The league will retire Lartigue’s number.
- Japanese baseball to start up on June 19th without fans.
- Rays are opening up their facilities for workouts as of yesterday.
Basketball:
- Cav’s Andre Drummond left a $1,000 tip for a waitress in Florida. She had no idea who he was until he tipped $1,000 on a $164 check. #GoodDeeds
ESPYs:
- The ESPYs will be held virtually on June 21st on ESPN with the hosts Russell Wilson, Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird. Maura Mandt, the long time producer of the show, died this year in February so the show was bound to look different before the coronavirus struck anyway.
Football:
- Football practice can start as of June 1 or at least according to the NCAA! Hope is back!
- NJ lifted its restrictions for pro sports to play, allowing many teams to practice such as the NY Giants, Jets, Phili 76ers and Flyers.
- Dolphins owner Stephen Ross is predicting that there will be a NFL football season this year, the real question is with or without fans. So far the plans are to include fans and the Dolphins have already released what that looks like in their stadium. The NFL released its schedule with the 16 game season to start on Sept 10th.
Golf:
- The Match Champions for Charity with teams Brady/Mickelson vs Wood/Manning raised $20MM for COVID relief and Wood/Manning won. Although the score was close, it really wasn’t. $10MM was raised before the event even started and then another $10MM was raised when celebs called in and bet on the match. Unlike his performance on the football field, Brady didn’t have a good front 9 after his pants split and mic broke. But he did still make par which means Brooks Koepka had to pay his $100k to COVID relief. The Match was plagued by bad weather but that didn’t stop nearly 6MM from tuning into the event.
Hockey:
- Breaking! The NHL will not continue the regular season and go straight to playoffs IF 2019-2020 play returns after the COVID outbreak. 24 teams will play in a playoff format, significantly up from 16 teams that usually make the playoff but the committee that came up with the proposal deemed that this was a fair way to include those teams that were on the brink of qualifying. Basically the wildcard games would be replaced with 2 12-team conference championships. The top 4 teams from the regular season (that was stopped in March) in each conference receive byes for the first round.
Motor Sports:
- Daniel Abt, Audi Formula E driver, has been suspended for cheating during the charity esports event this weekend. He let a professional gamer drive for him under his account. He has been ordered to pay 10,000 euros and his driver got banned from driving in other leagues.
Soccer:
- Former ManU player, Jaap Stam, was hired as the boss for the new FC Cincinnati job. However in his announcement, the MLS team made a mistake by using a photo of Titus von Teunenbroek, the Ajax youth manager. Stam thought it was a practical joke and said they will all get a good laugh about it in the future.
What to Watch this Week
Baseball:
- Wed 5/27 – SK Wyverns vs Doosan Bears @ 1pm on ESPN2
- Replay – Live at 4:25am
- Thurs 5/28 – Samsung Lions vs Lotte Giants @ 12pm on ESPN2
- Replay – Live at 4:25am
- Fri 5/29 – kt wiz vs Kiwoom Heros @ 1pm on ESPN2
- Replay – Live at 4:25am
