The Sport Superlatives - Issue No. 13

March 29, 2024

Do you love sports? Want to find a way to fit more sports into your week? We’ve got you. From keeping up with your work colleagues to impressing hot dates, our newsletter aims to keep you in the know regardless of your fandom level or the reason. That’s your business, sis!

🏆 The Superlatives 🏆

The Most Starstruck: GG Jackson

When your idols become your rivals is a great way to sum up the recent game between the LA Lakers and the Memphis Grizzlies. GG Jackson has been vocal about his admiration and appreciation for LeBron James in past interviews. Well, LeBron definitely lived up to the youngster’s hype as he schooled GG and the Grizzlies with a win of 136 v 124. You’ll beat him one day, GG!

The Most Dumbstruck: Steph Curry

Steph Curry had no words when reporters asked him about Draymond Green being ejected 4 minutes into the Golden State Warriors’ game against the Orlando Magic. Green was ejected after two technicals for yelling at the refs. Steph was visibly frustrated following the exchange. During the post game interview, after collecting his thoughts, he emphasized the need for Green to stay in the game, especially so close to playoffs. As we continue to watch the Green saga, one would hope he starts to pull it together so Steph’s back can take a break from carrying the team. 

🏀 Ballin Like It’s March Madness: The NCAA tournament has already dwindled down to the Sweet Sixteen and this weekend will see the teams widdle down to four. That’s right, the club is closing, the lights are on, and you’re about to see the ugly truth of who you’ve been dancing with. Most of the #1 seeds are still in it to win it for both the men and the women, but now that the jokers are out of the deck, there might be some tighter defense, closer games, and tears. We hate to see the babies cry, but someone has to win it all.

And while upsets have happened, and there have been a few near misses…we’re looking at you Stanford and Houston… the teams in the Sweet Sixteen have all been pretty foreseeable, except one.

On the men’s side NC State has been on a winning streak since they shocked everyone by coming out on top of the ACC Conference tournament. The ACC 10-seed managed to run through…or over… Virginia, Duke, and UNC, and must have decided to just keep it rolling in the NCAA tournament. The Wolfpack made it to the Sweet Sixteen as the 11-seed, the lowest seed present of both the men's and women’s tournaments. 

Let’s see if they can continue their quest for chaos by shattering more brackets and making it to the Elite Eight. They’ll certainly continue to be a severe underdog as they play 2-seeded Marquette on Friday, March 29 at 7 pm. 

⚾ Peanuts and Cracker Jacks: Thursday, March 28th, was Opening Day in baseball!

While all 30 MLB teams were scheduled to play ball, 2 games will instead be played on Friday, March 29th. Guess those fans will just have to occupy their time with other things, like reading about all the preseason baseball drama. 

Here are some highlights from the opening games: 

• NY Yankees said don’t call it a comeback, but they came back and won by securing the lead in the 7th inning against the Houston Astros, winning with a score of 5-4.

• Pittsburgh Pirates finally broke the tie in the 12th inning and won against the Miami Marlins, 6-5. 

• Our buddy Shohei Ohtani fought through his recent struggles (we’ll talk about that tea a little later) to help the LA Dodgers win against the Cardinals, 7-1.

• Texas Rangers reminded everyone that they are the World Series champs after winning in the 10th inning to beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-3.

• Cleveland Guardians beat the Oakland Athletics with a big 8-0.

• In the 3rd inning, Arizona Diamondbacks had decided they had played nice long enough and obliterated the Colorado Rockies, scoring 14 in just that inning, giving a final score 16-1.

Let’s play ball and prepare for a good season!

🏈 Rule Followers: The NFL has been busy during the offseason making changes to two NFL rules. The change to the kickoff rules is one of the most significant changes in NFL history. The NFL wants to imitate the kickoff structure from the XFL. The owners and competition committee believe that this rule change will result in fewer injuries and a resurrection of kickoff returns. The NFL was only willing to commit to it for a one year experiment. So, they want to try it before they buy it, if you will. 

Now, the rule change that’s got all of the NFL players arguing like a cast reunion on Bravo is the Swivel Hip Drop tackle ban. The NFL clubs voted unanimously to ban the defensive move that has caused a number of injuries to the lower extremities of players at a 20x higher rate than other tackles. The penalty for violating the ban during a game will be a 15-yard penalty and an automatic first down. Cue the dramatics from players around the league:

But NFL running back Kenyan Drake gave us his sobering opinion about what can happen if players decide not to follow this particular rule.

All Bets Are Off: It’s not just Shohei in the spotlight for betting-related shenanigans this week, but we’ll start there anyway. So, Shohei Ohtani of the LA Dodgers has been in the news the past few weeks for paying out big bucks from his account to a bookmaking operation and has finally stepped in front of the mic to tell us what went down. 

After more back and forth, finger-pointing, and whodunnit than that childhood song about cookie jar theft, Shohei has declared who stole the cookies. His (former) interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, is accused of stealing Ohtani’s money and wiring it to the bookmaking company to pay off his debts. Shohei claims to have had no knowledge of anything and insists that he’s never bet on any sports. You know you're ballin’ when you don’t notice that 4.5 mil has grown legs and walked off. Either way, the investigation is still ongoing by the IRS and the MLB.

And while that’s all fine and dandy, it’s not looking so good for NBA player Jontay Porter of the Toronto Raptors. He stands accused of betting on his own games…and making a killing. Apparently, the punishment for such behavior could be a lifetime ban from the NBA, so let’s hope he made a lifetime's worth of money on those bets. His big brother, Denver Nuggets’ star Michael Porter Jr. has stepped forward to say this is uncharacteristic of baby bro…but the evidence against him is quite telling. And how well do we really know our siblings?... I mean, mine turned out to be a card shark, and I didn’t even know he could play “Go Fish”.  

Today Was a Good Day: So apparently, rapper/actor and owner of The Big3 League, Ice Cube has offered Caitlin Clark five million to play in his league. He took to X (aka Twitter) to laud Clark, calling her “a generational athlete who can achieve tremendous success”. Seems like he’s just trying to ride the bandwagon…oops, we mean money train at this point. OH, and FYI, Caitlin is already making a little over three million in NIL deals and has declared for the WNBA draft, so five million might not really tickle her fancy.

Do y’all think she should take the money, or should she continue to bet on herself (hypothetically, not literally like Jontay)?

Since we’re talking about college sports, let’s explain these NIL deals you keep hearing about.

IRL EXAMPLE: Let’s just think of it as a paid internship: you haven’t graduated or made it into the soul sucking professional world just yet, but you’re still making those coins!

Put me in Coach!

Boston Celtic and St. Louisan, Jayson Tatum is the new face of Coach. He announced it via Instagram by showing off a couple of accessories we may be trying to cop just in time for warmer weather!

Want to have these accessories for your Spring 2024 wardrobe or buy them for a friend? Get to shopping!

We look forward to seeing Jayson in more Coach looks in the future.

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