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🚨 Headlines
🏀 Lynx win the Cup: In a battle of the best teams from each conference, the Lynx defeated the Liberty 94-89 to win the WNBA’s fourth Commissioner’s Cup.
⚾️ A&M coach leaves for Texas: Texas A&M coach Jim Schlossnagel was named head coach at Texas the day after declaring he would “never” leave the team following its loss in the CWS final.
⚽️ Copa America scores: Argentina beat Chile 1-0 and Canada beat Peru 1-0.
🏒 HOF Class of 2024: Natalie Darwitz, Pavel Datsyuk, Jeremy Ronick, Shea Weber, Chrissy Wendell Paul, Colin Campbell and David Poile will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
💦 Bay to Baltimore: Open water swimmer Katie Pumphrey swam 24 miles from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, an unprecedented attempt that took her just over 14 hours to complete the historic swim.
⚾️ MLB offenses struggling again
Stop here if you’ve heard it before: MLB’s offense has declined across the board this season.
By the numbers: The league-wide batting average of .242 is tied for third-worst in the modern era (since 1901), bettered only by 1908 and 1968, the year the offense was so poor that the pitcher’s mound was lowered to give hitters a better chance.
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There have also been power outages: The team is allowing its fewest home runs per game (1.06) since 2015 and its fewest doubles per game (1.58) since 1992 (excluding a small sample of 2020, excluding the pandemic-shortened season).
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Add it all up, points scored are down about 6% compared to last season, the biggest year-over-year drop since 2001.
We’ve just been through this, right? That’s right. After a dire drop in offensive output in 2022, MLB implemented a slew of changes last season (the pitch clock, no substitutions, expanded bases) to level a playing field that was far too biased in favor of pitchers. Yet a year later, here we are again.
what’s happening: The data revolution is in full swing, putting hitters in limbo as they contend with pitchers skilled at deceiving and outfielders perhaps better equipped than ever to track the balls being hit their way.
On the mound: Pitchers have become extremely adept at confusing hitters with a wide variety of pitches that are literally engineered in laboratories.
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“They have all the information about us, so if we’re in trouble, [specific]”They know exactly what it is,” Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette told USA Today.
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Now, rather than the standard four-pitch combination, dozens of pitchers use five or even four fastballs. The most extreme example is Royals ace Seth Lugo, who at age 34 is having the best year of his career, using eight (!!!) different pitches*.
on site: Even if a hitter finds a way to hit the ball solidly, the fly ball is swallowed up by outfielders who are playing much deeper than before as part of a strategy to eliminate second base.
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That means his batting average (.288) is the lowest since 1992, and hitters 2,600 According to The Athletic, he’s hitting fewer extra-base hits ($) than he did five years ago.
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“Playing ball in the outfield used to be one of the most exciting plays in baseball,” one front-office executive said. “Now it’s one of the most boring plays.”
Not everyone is struggling… This year’s offensive environment makes the performances of MVP front-runners Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani even more impressive, as both are close to hitting 400 career bases — a feat that has been accomplished just 29 times in MLB history and hasn’t been accomplished since 2001.
*Lugo has eight pitches: four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, cut fastball, slider, sweeper, curveball, changeup and slurve.
🏀 Nova Nix is complete
The Knicks already have three There are currently four former Villanova teammates on the roster.
Blockbuster deals: New York will send a whopping five first-round draft picks to Brooklyn in exchange for Mikal Bridges, who will cross the East River along with Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo. This marks the first trade between the two teams since 1983.
A couple made in heaven: Bridges has never missed a game since high school and is the all-time leader in NBA minutes played, and he will be coached by Tom Thibodeau, who is notorious for hating taking his best players off the court.
Zoom out: The Nets are now Nine Kevin Durant’s first-round draft pick, traded to the Suns for Bridges, Cam Johnson and four first-round draft picks in 2023. One of the largest single player acquisitions in NBA history.
🎓 Division I
The future of college sports is very uncertain. But one thing is clear: Division I has split in two, with the rich on one side and the poor on the other.
From Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports:
In a second-floor conference room at the beachside Ritz-Carlton Resort on Florida’s southwest coast, college sports leaders gathered to hammer out details about the industry’s future.
The only people in the room were NCAA president Charlie Baker and the commissioners of the SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Big Ten.
They weren’t in their rooms. The 28 members of District 1’s committees milled about the resort’s first floor, wondering where the other four were. “I didn’t know they were having a meeting,” one said. “Of course they’re barring us from the meeting,” whispered another.
A few minutes later, five men sprinted down the grand staircase to begin the final chapter of four days of governing council meetings here, with Baker standing before all 32 commissioners for a spirited debate about the future of the NCAA’s top division.
As the separate conferences make clear, NCAA Division I is more divided, fragile and frustrated than ever before. Indeed, the divide between the haves and have-nots in college sports is more real than ever.
Unveiled at the conference commissioners meeting this week was nothing less than a new governance model for Division I. Originating from the NCAA’s landmark antitrust settlement, the model would more formally distinguish between four powerhouse leagues and 28 lower-funded conferences.
Though still in development, the governance framework can be summed up in five words, according to one FCS league commissioner: “Let the big guys eat.”
While many details remain unclear, the new organizational structure draws a clearer line between the revenue-generating football giants, who compete primarily in a commercialized, professional business, and the basketball-focused organizations, who participate in a more amateur environment.
Keep reading.
🌎 The world in pictures
SUNRISE, Fla. — The Stanley Cup has had twin babies!
Dortmund, Germany — Kylian Mbappe scored on his return from a broken nose in France’s 1-1 draw with Poland at Euro 2024, and in Austria’s 3-2 win over the Netherlands in the other.
Paris — Yesterday marked 30 days until the Paris Olympics. It’s fast approaching!
Khost, Afghanistan — Fans took to the streets to celebrate in their home country after Afghanistan defeated Bangladesh to reach the country’s first ever T20 Cricket World Cup semi-final.
📆 June 26, 2003: LeBron takes the No. 1 spot
21 years ago today, The Cavaliers selected home-grown LeBron James with the first pick in what was arguably the best top-five draft pick of all time.
The four inductees are: LeBron was one of four current or future Hall of Famers selected in the top five that year, along with Carmelo Anthony (Nuggets) at No. 3, Chris Bosh (Raptors) at No. 4 and Dwyane Wade (Heat) at No. 5. The only other draft with a comparable top five selections was 1984*.
Details for this day:
*1984 Draft: No. 1 Hakeem Olajuwon (Rockets), No. 3 Michael Jordan (Bulls) and No. 5 Charles Barkley (76ers) are arguably three of the 25 best players in NBA history, and No. 4 Sam Perkins (Mavericks) had a great 17-year career. The less said about the No. 2 picks in each class (Sam Bowie in 1984, Darko Milicic in 2003), the better.
📺 Watchlist: 2024 NBA Draft
NBA Draft Starting tonight in Brooklyn (8 p.m. ET, ESPN)The second round will take place tomorrow afternoon.
Draft odds: French swingman Zachary Lisacher is the Hawks’ No. 1 pick (-250 with BetMGM), followed by University of Connecticut center Donovan Clingan (+240) and French center Alex Sarr (+600).
See also:
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⚽️ EUR: Belgium vs Ukraine (12 p.m., Fox); Romania vs Slovakia (12 p.m., FS1); Portugal v Georgia (3 p.m., Fox); Türkiye vs Czech Republic (3 p.m., FS1) …The final match of the group stage.
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⚽️ Copa America: Jamaica vs Ecuador (6 p.m., FS1); Mexico vs Venezuela (9 p.m., FS1)
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⚾️ MLB: Dodgers vs. White Sox* (8 p.m., MLB.TV) …Today’s free games.
*Star pitchers: Dodgers rookie Gavin Stone (8-2, 3.04 ERA) and White Sox veteran Erick Feddy (5-2, 3.05 ERA) have both had impressive seasons.
🍫 Hershey’s Trivia
AHL’s Hershey Bears Winning the Calder Cup for the second consecutive year (13th-best overall.) It will be held Monday in a Pennsylvania town it shares with a candy company.
question: Which of the following products is not manufactured by Hershey Company?
The answer is at the bottom.
🇨🇦 Stallions stats live on
Fun fact: An American team has won the Canadian Football League championship (the Baltimore Stallions in 1995) more recently than a Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup (the Canadiens in 1993).
context: The CFL briefly added seven U.S. expansion teams in the 1990s, and the Stallions were the best of them all, reaching the Grey Cup both seasons (1994-95) and defeating Doug Flutie’s Calgary Stampeders in their second trip.
Trivia answer: Snickers (Mars)
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