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Brief Add-on up top, Tues. a.m.
[Posted Sunday PM, prior to late sports action.]
Baseball Quiz: A baseball history moment…what is the significance of The Green Light Letter? Answer below.
MLB
—The major-league trade deadline is 6:00 PM ET, Monday, and there have been a few small deals thus far (as I write this Sat. morning).
But all eyes are on Detroit, 3 ½ games out in the wild card, after Friday’s play, with five teams ahead of them for the final spot, and they have 2024/25 Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal, a free agent this offseason whom the Tigers definitely aren’t re-signing.
On Wednesday, Skubal made his expected farewell appearance at home, throwing six shutout innings as the Tigers built a 7-0 lead over the Orioles. He tired in the top of the seventh, exited (6 2/3, 3 runs), and the fans gave him a standing ovation, one of many he had that night.
But Baltimore rallied all the way back for a 10-9 win in 12 innings, a crushing defeat for Detroit.
And then late Saturday night we learned the Dodgers, the Evil Empire, did what the Dodgers do, get richer, in acquiring Skubal for three prospects, as they gun for a third consecutive World Series championship and the Dynasty label.
The Dodgers lead the majors with a 3.36 starter ERA and have a rotation presently with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki and first-time All-Star Justin Wrobleski. Two-time Cy Young award winner Blake Snell is due to make one more rehab start before rejoining the rotation. Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani are viewed as possible to return to the rotation around Sept. 1. And now they’ve added Skubal, who since returning from surgery to remove bone chips from his left elbow had a 2.87 ERA in his final nine starts.
Skubal is likely just a rental, but who cares if you’re a Dodger fan.
—Yankees manager Aaron Boone has been complaining about his team’s lack of offense, but this is what happens when your lineup is without Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger, with Bellinger likely out until September and no return date set for Judge and Stanton. Kind of depressing for Yankees fans.
Friday, the Yanks opened a series against the Cubs at Wrigley and it was more of the same for New York, just four hits, but two of them were solo homers off the bats of Amed Rosario and Spencer Jones, and with Will Warren throwing 6 2/3 of shutout ball and the Yankee pen closing it out, New York won 2-0, both teams 62-48.
Spencer Jones is the long-touted power hitter who can hit monstrous shots, but strikes out a ton, and he’s finally getting a chance to play, and he’s been OK thus far. He’s got the opportunity, with the Bellinger injury, to play virtually every day. Time to take advantage of it.
Saturday, the Yanks fell 5-2. Max Fried, in his third start back from injury, pitched 5 1/3, giving up just one run, but the normally reliable Yankee bullpen blew it.
For the Cubs, ex-Met David Peterson threw 6 1/3, one earned, but it was a no-decision. Spencer Jones hit another homer for New York (No. 5).
Sunday, the Yanks won 2-1, Jose Caballero’s 2-run homer in the 3rd the difference. Gerrit Cole (5-5, 3.42) got the win, Chris “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” Rea the loss for Chicago.
—The Mets (47-64) lost to the Marlins (56-55) at Citi Field Friday night, 5-2. After losing 12 straight, Miami has righted the ship, winning 4 of 5 to stay firmly in the wild card race.
And New York lost 6-2 on Saturday.
Prior to the game, the Mets honored the 1986 World Champions. Twenty-two of the players returned, which was great to see. But no one was happier to be there than troubled Lenny Dykstra, who was just beaming, being on the field again. He hadn’t returned to Citi Field in ages, given all of his run-ins with the law. It was heartwarming…and he received the biggest ovation from the fans.
Sunday, the Mets traded disappointing starter Freddy Peralta to the Rays for three prospects. Earlier the Mets traded reliever A.J. Minter to the Twins for two prospects, both of whom seem kind of promising. More trades to follow, no doubt.
As for Sunday’s ballgame…the Mets threw out 36-year-old journeyman Robert Stock to be the spot starter, and he gave them five innings, one run…couldn’t have asked for more…longest outing of his career.
The Mets then had the bases-loaded, no outs in the bottom of the 7th…and failed to score. That, sports fans, sums up this lost season.
Mets lose 2-0, 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position. Jorge Polanco, in a 0-for-26 skid, is batting .131. You’re reading that right.
–In my Add-on this week I noted that Curtis Mead, who the Red Sox acquired from the Nationals in a trade, was then hit on the wrist by a pitch in his first game with Boston. X-rays were negative, but when I posted rather early Tuesday (Add-ons are normally posted around 5:00 AM), I said Mead was going to undergo further testing.
So, for the record, he is likely lost for the season, further testing revealing it was a broken left wrist.
What an awful, err, break for the BoSox and Mead. He is still hoping to return if Boston makes the postseason.
But the streaking Red Sox were in Los Angeles this weekend to face the Dodgers, and Friday night, Boston whipped L.A. 9-4, despite a Shohei Ohtani double and homer (his 24th). Ceddanne Rafaele had three hits and a big 2-run homer in a 5-run 7th for the Red Sox.
And Boston (59-51) won again Saturday, 3-2, as Rafaela had two more home runs. What a nice player he has turned into, the 25-year-old really developing as a hitter this year after winning a Gold Glove in center last season.
The Red Sox were 32-46 on June 24, their fans distraught. They are 27-5 since then. An amazing turnaround.
—The White Sox acquired reliable starter Luis Castillo from the Mariners in exchange for reliever Seranthony Dominguez, outfielder Nolan Jones and a prospect.
Castillo, a three-time All-Star, made 30+ starts his last three seasons with ERAs in the mid-3.00s, but he’s just 3-9 this year with a bloated 5.06 ERA.
—Paul Skenes’ troubles continue. Last year’s Cy Young Award winner was 6-1, 1.98, after his first nine starts this season, continuing a historic start to his career.
But Skenes now is 9-9, 3.90, after giving up 5 runs in four innings in an 8-7 loss to the Reds Friday night in Cincinnati. What’s worrisome is his velocity is definitely down, but he claims he just has to work through his problems and he’s fine physically.
Today, the Reds whipped the Pirates 10-2, as Chase Burns threw six innings of one-run ball for Cincy, 9 Ks, moving his record to a rather gaudy 13-1! 2.35 ERA.
Bazooka Joe says: “Chase went to Wake Forest!”
–Meanwhile, Saturday, the Phillies beat the Orioles 5-0, as Cristopher Sanchez threw six scoreless innings, striking out 11, in moving to 14-4, 2.61…the first 14-game winner in baseball.
Golf Balls
—With two tournaments to go before the FedEx Cup Playoffs and golfers needing to be in the top 70 on the points list after next week’s Wyndham Championship to qualify, this week we had the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club and after two rounds, with a surprisingly strong field….
Cameron Young -10
Patrick Cantlay -10
Patrick Fishburn -10
Matt Wallace -9
Rickie Fowler -9
Xander Schauffele among the group at -8.
Jackson Koivun, last week’s breakout winner of the 3M Open, is T48, -4.
Chris Gotterup and Wyndham Clark missed the cut.
And after 54 holes….
Davis Riley -15
Michael Brennan -14
Rasmus Hojgaard -12…61 on Sat. …
Chris Kirk -12
Fowler -12
Young -12
Two Demon Deacons on the board (Young and Brennan)…C’mon, Boys!
Sunday, Davis Riley bogeyed 2, 4 and 6…Brennan double-bogeyed No. 7.
Riley recovered with two birdies and on the back nine we had….
Schauffele -15…thru 12
Thorbjornsen -15…12
Riley -15…11
Hojgaard -15…11
Four at -14, including Brennan.
Thorbjornsen, the young lad David P. first told me about when the two met in Wellesley, Mass., at the Club, then took a 2-shot lead at -17 thru 15…four birdies on the back, as the 24-year-old seeks his first PGA Tour win.
Riley birdies 14…-16.
But Thorby makes a long birdie putt on 18, a 63, his first PGA Tour victory, and all that comes with it, including the Playoffs…Goodness gracious!
[The two Deacs’ faded…ugh.]
Let me just say this…the LIV golfers (forget the story below) are now all scrambling, trying to figure out how to get back on the PGA Tour.
Bit in back-to-back weeks, we have 21-year-old Koivun and 24-year-old Thorbjornsen winning tournaments. The future of the PGA Tour is in outstanding shape! Take Jon Rahm back (tell Bryson to go do his videos of flop shots over his house), and just let the other guys know…ah, in case you haven’t seen…we don’t freakin’ need you! There isn’t a single fan clamoring to see Pat Perez or Hudson Swafford.
—The PGA Tour is setting up the events for its Championship Series that begins in 2028. These are the 15 tournaments with $20 million purses and the top tier of players…120-man fields with a cut…on top of the four majors, The Players Championship, the Tour Championship, and an annual international team event (Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup). In 2028, it will also include the Men’s Olympic Golf Competition.
There will be 23 or 24 events in all, with the regular season running from approximately February to August.
The Tour is beginning to unveil the other Championship Series events, expecting to fill out the 2028 schedule by end of this year. And thus far we have The Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, The Travelers Championship in Cromwell, CT., The Sentry at Torrey Pines (likely to be the season opener) and a new event sponsored by financial services group Sompo (Japan-based) that is backing a tournament in Napa, Calif., for next year, before moving to a new venue, reportedly in Seattle.
–Back to Jackson Koivun, what impact did he have last week in terms of television coverage? The final round was the most-watched on record, with 3.713 million viewers tuning in to see the 21-year-old, in just his third professional start, take down Scottie Scheffler. The broadcast peaked with 4.874 million viewers.
This has been the most-watched golf season on CBS to date since 2006, with an average of 3.495 million viewers. CBS is covering the final five weeks, including this week and the three playoff events.
—The PGA Tour suspended 34-year-old journeyman Trey Mullinax for violating the Tour’s anti-doping policy, it announced Wednesday. Mullinax has accepted his suspension, which will conclude Jan. 16, 2027.
Mullinax has only teed it up twice in PGA Tour events this year.
–According to the New York Post’s Mark Cannizzaro, LIV Golf is not dead yet. LIV has reportedly received “multiple written commitments from blue-chip investment firms that would serve as anchor investors to support the league” going forward.
Some high-level meetings are scheduled to take place next week at the LIV event at Trump Bedminster in New Jersey, meetings that will include CEO Scott O’Neil and LIV players.
The FIFA Fiasco
The story first came out that Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, had proposed spinning off FIFA’s commercial businesses – including the World Cups and Club World Cups for men and women – into a $20 billion subsidiary with 21% owned by private investors [$4.2 billion].
The “anchor investor,” described by FIFA, was to be a New York-based investment firm created by Joshua Kushner, the younger brother of President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Infantino, who spearheaded the idea, no doubt with the input of Donald Trump, said in a release that “football is the world’s most popular sport and an extraordinary engine of human and social development.”
“Parts of the game have turned that popularity into remarkable commercial value – and we celebrate that success and want it to continue, because it lifts the whole game,” he said. “Our job is to make sure the rest of football grows with it: FIFA exists to support sustainable, inclusive development in every corner of the world.”
What a crock of s—.
European nations then agreed to boycott the World Cup over FIFA’s plans to sell stakes in the tournament.
The decision to boycott any competition run by FIFA was taken at a virtual meeting of the 55 national associations that are members of UEFA, the European football confederation on Thursday. [UEFA runs the Champions League, among other entities.]
“So long as Europe has a voice, the World Cup will never be for sale,” UEFA said in its statement condemning FIFA’s idea.
“Europe’s position is clear. We will never lend this model our legitimacy. No one has the moral authority to sell what they merely hold in trust for the next generation.”
“The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product,” it said. “It is one of football’s greatest sporting legacies. It has been built over generations by players, national teams and supporters, across every continent. No part of it should ever be surrendered by private investors. The World Cup is not for sale.”
FIFA underestimated the ferocity with which European nations would hit back.
The next World Cup in the calendar is the women’s edition in Brazil in 2027. The next men’s tournament in Spain, Portugal and Morocco is 2030.
Concacaf, the confederation governing North and Central America and the Caribbean, swiftly followed up by rejecting Infantino’s plan, though it didn’t go so far as promising any boycott, but it criticized “the lack of due process…and the absence of any review or approval by the relevant FIFA governance bodies.”
Infantino set September 19 as the date for a vote on the matter. He would need a majority of FIFA’s 211 member associations to approve his scheme for it to pass. Between UEFA and Concacaf, he had already lost 96 of them.
Two senior officials then criticized Infantino’s sell-off plan Friday with one resigning as a presidential adviser and a second saying staff were deceived by a project that must not go ahead.
Carlos Cordeiro, who represented the soccer body on the White House Task Force for the World Cup, resigned in protest at the private equity plan.
“I cannot stand by while FIFA considers selling a stake in the World Cup,” Cordeiro, a former Goldman Sachs banker, said in a statement resigning as adviser to Infantini that urged other senior FIFA staff to speak out.
FIFA’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour said in a statement to the Associated Press that staff were “deceived” by Infantino’s lack of openness planning the private investor scheme and “deserve better than contempt and intimidation.”
“It is the project of one person,” Lamour, a long-time colleague of Infantino at both FIFA and UEFA, wrote. “Not only must this project not go ahead…but the time has now come for football political leaders to ask themselves the right questions and make the right decisions.”
Lamour did not resign but said he had a duty to his colleagues.
“And if that means I lose my job, then so be it,” the French official said.
Cordeiro often joined Infantino on working visits to meet President Trump at the White House in recent years.
“Let me be clear. I had no involvement in this proposal, and I oppose it unequivocally,” Cordeiro said, calling the $20 billion commercial subsidiary “a bad deal for football.”
Cordeiro added: “FIFA already has access to extraordinary financial resources. The organization sits on billions of dollars in reserves and no debt,” Cordeiro said, noting FIFA’s revenue of $15 billion over the last four years tied to the men’s World Cup just ended.
“Against that backdrop, selling a permanent stake in football’s most valuable asset to raise $4.2 billion makes little sense. It is mortgaging football’s future without any compelling justification,” he said.
Infantino has been president of FIFA for more than 10 years and had seemed sure to be reelected unopposed next March. FIFA has set a Nov. 18 deadline for challengers to come forward.
And then Friday evening, FIFA scrapped the plan.
“Having listened carefully to all the views, it has become clear that the project has created divisions of a nature that, regardless of the level of support, are no longer in the interest of the objective set out in the first place,” the statement, attributed to Infantino, said. “Our purpose has always been – and will always be – to unite and improve. As a result, this proposal will not proceed.”
The proposal was first put forward Tuesday, and three days later…bye, bye.
Stuff
—San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan wanted to make clear he was at fault for the car crash that left him with serious injuries two weeks ago.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the crash, Shanahan spent about 30 minutes with a handful of Bay Area reporters to address a collision report that he says erroneously assigned blame to a 21-year-old woman.
“I hit her,” Shanahan said Tuesday. “I don’t know why it was reported that way [on the collision report database]. The police report doesn’t say that.”
According to Shanahan: “I was going 20 miles an hour. I was not on my phone, but I dropped my phone and it was stuck in my seats. It’s on my lap, and it slid off. And I went down to look for it and took my eyes off the road for two seconds. And as I was coming up, the airbags hit me in my face, and they broke my nose. And then they said the visor really gashed me. …I took my eyes off the road looking for my phone, and my car veered into someone.
“It’s one of those roads where there’s no forgiveness. …When I hit her, the impact was just so, I’ll just never forget how violent it was.”
Palo Alto Police said in a statement that Shanahan’s account was “correct and that he was found at fault for the collision.”
–I didn’t comment on Tony Romo’s DUI arrest in Wisconsin last week because I normally don’t comment on such matters. But then the facts emerged, and we all saw the body camera footage when it was released the other day, plus we learned he had an open container of alcohol in his vehicle when it was stopped by police.
All very bad for him. And so for good reason, CBS placed him “on leave” from the network “until further notice,” the network said in a statement on Friday.
Former NFL star JJ Watt will fill Romo’s role on the network’s No. 1 team with Jim Nantz and Tracy Wolfson.
—Billy Ray Smith Jr., the longtime San Diego Chargers linebacker and College Football Hall of Famer, died Wednesday following a “long journey with dementia caused by CTE,” his family announced. He was 64.
The two-time All-American at Arkansas (1981 and 1982), Smith went on to play 10 seasons with the Chargers, having been selected fifth overall in the 1983 NFL Draft. He had a career-high 11 sacks and forced four fumbles in 1986.
Billy Ray’s father, the first Billy Ray Smith, was a DT-DE who played 13 seasons in the NFL, 1957-70, mostly with Pittsburgh and Baltimore. He racked up 69.5 sacks and won a Super Bowl with the 1970 Colts.
–We note the passing of actor Vincent Pastore, 80. Better known to some of us as Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, the mov informant who winds up sleeping with the fishes on The Sopranos.
The son of a real-life wiseguy, Pastore once said, Vincent made a living running and owning bars and nightclubs for two decades and didn’t get into acting until he was 42. Yet by the time he was done, he had appeared in nearly 200 movies and TV projects – most often as an Italian American bad guy.
Sopranos director David Chase hired Pastore for the role of Sal – before he was even known as Big Pussy – soon after he auditioned. Pastore did his research and discovered that “Big Pussy was a real guy in Jersey. He was tall and thin, out of Newark, he was friends with Frankie Valli, and there was a Little Pussy, [who] wound up being the rat in the family,” he noted. Why was the guy nicknamed Big Pussy? “Because he was a cat burglar, like Cary Grant,” Pastore said.
After Sal gets nabbed by the FBI on the Sopranos, he chooses to become an informant to avoid life in prison. He is soon sniffed out, however, and his fate is sealed when he appears to Tony as a talking fish in a dream.
On the second-season finale, “Funhouse,” Sal is gunned down on a boat by Tony, Paulie and Silvio and dumped overboard.
—Renowned British-Nepali mountaineer Nirma Purja was among 10 people killed in an avalanche on Broad Peak in Pakistan, his company has said.
Purja, who was born in Nepal and later served in the British army, was known for scaling the world’s 14 highest peaks in just over six months in 2019.
This guy was a true hero, honored by Nepal’s prime minister and the UK Defense Secretary Wes Streeting, who posted in part on X: “He was an inspirational man who served in our Armed Forces for many years – and whose incredible mountaineering adventures were known the world over.”
Broad Peak is the world’s 12th-highest peak, 26,400 feet, in the Karakoram range.
It was in 2019 that Purja climbed all 14 of the world’s mountains with peaks above 8,000m (26,246 feet) in 189 days – smashing the previous record by more than seven years. There is a Netflix documentary (“Nothing Is Impossible”) on this feat.
He was in the British military for 16 years, 10 of which were spent in the special forces. He lived with his wife and three-year-old daughter in Hampshire, in southern England.
Purja posted on X last Monday, that climbing Broad Peak “wasn’t planned. But opportunities don’t scream: they whisper to those already working in silence.”
“Broad Peak, I ask for nothing but safe passage up and back down. I take zero mountains for granted.”
—Aug. 2, 1876, Wild Bill Hickok, who had been in Deadwood, South Dakota (then known as Dakota Territory) for about a month, sat down at Saloon No. 10 to play poker. He always sat with his back against the wall; the better to see who was walking into the joint.
But that day he walks in, notices a poker game, but the empty seat at the table faced away from the doorway. Hickok tried to persuade the others to exchange seats, but Charlie Rich kept saying he didn’t want to get shot in the back.
Around 4:00 p.m., Jack McCall, a common laborer who had lost $110 to Wild Bill the day before, came in seeking revenge. McCall ordered a drink at the bar. Then he slowly walked up behind Hickok and fired an old six-gun once in his back. [Other accounts say McCall shot Hickok in the head.] Hickok toppled out of his chair, dead. He was clutching his poker hand, aces and eights (with the nine of diamonds), forever after known as “The Dead Man’s Hand.”
Wild Bill was buried the next day in Deadwood at Mount Moriah cemetery (a beautiful spot), Calamity Jane next to him. [Seth Bullock up the hill…for those of you who watched the HBO series “Deadwood.”]
Jack McCall was hanged March 1, 1877.
I have had quite a few beers at Saloon No. 10 over my many trips to the area (though it’s not the actual site of the murder…that’s across the street).
I have Wild Bill’s full story on this site…plug in ‘Wild Bill Hickok’ into the search engine and there’s a terrific piece from Nov. 2, 2006…from one of my trips there.
—Country singer Ella Langley made history this week as her song “Choosin’ Texas” set a new record on the Billboard Hot 100.
The single has now spent 15 nonconsecutive weeks as the No. 1 song on the charts, the longest ever for a solo female artist, not counting the holiday-season hit, “All I Want For Christmas is You,” by Mariah Carey.
“Choosin’ Texas” surpassed Carey’s “We Belong Together” and Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” which were tied for the previous record of 14 weeks.
Top 3 songs for the week 7/27/63: #1 “Surf City” (Jan & Dean) #2 “So Much In Love” (the Tymes) #3 “Fingertips – Pt. 2” (Little Stevie Wonder)…and…#4 “Easier Said Than Done” (The Essex) #5 “Wipe Out” (The Surfaris) #6 “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” (Rolf Harris) #7 “(You’re the) ‘Devil In Disguise’” (Elvis Presley) #8 “Blowin’ In The Wind” (Peter, Paul & Mary) #9 “Memphis” (Lonnie Mack) #10 “Just One Look” (Doris Troy…C week…but across the pond, these lads from Liverpool are making their mark in the UK and Germany….)
Baseball Quiz Answer: Ken Meifert, of the Baseball Hall of Fame, notes:
“Of all the moments that cemented baseball as America’s National Pastime, this may have been the most compelling.
“In January 1942, during one of the darkest hours in our country’s history – just weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, the Commissioner of Baseball, Kennesaw Mountain Landis, wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking if professional baseball should continue or be suspended during the war.
‘If you believe we ought to close down for the duration of the war, we are ready to do so immediately…If you feel we ought to continue, we would be delighted to do so. We await your order.’
“Landis only had to wait one day. In response, Roosevelt sent the ‘Green Light Letter’ clearing the way for baseball to continue throughout the war. The President’s response to Landis read in part:
‘I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before.
‘And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.’
“Hundreds of stars like Yogi Berra, Bob Feller, Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson and Ted Williams would enter the military to serve their country.
“And each of them helped turn the tide of the war in the Allies’ favor.
“Once again, baseball proved to be part of the fabric of the United States – a fabric that no force could unravel.”
Brief Add-on up top, Tues. AM….
