The Big Story – The Summer Olympics: We’re just a few days from the close of the Paris Olympics, which have been a mixed bag for the American team.
On the bright side they had far and away won the most overall medals — 71 to 46 by next best China — as Week 2 started. But while tied with China for most gold medals at 19 each, that was less than expected, in large part due to their swim teams winning just eight golds, their fewest since 1988.
Sports 101: Name the four pitchers named AL Cy Young award winner as a Red Sox
News Item – Ledecky Surpasses Thompson: Down goesJenny Thompson. Not quite, but the all-time record set by the great freestyle swimmer from Dover of 12 medals and eight golds was passed by Katie Ledecky when she won her 13th overall and ninth gold on Saturday. Even more astonishing is that all of the Top 20 times in 1500-meter freestyle ever swum have been done by her.
News Item – Blake the Flake: Three days after I chastised Blake Snell in this space for willingly coming out of several games with no-hitters in progress, he finally did it. Hell froze over against the Reds on Friday when Snell struck out 11 and threw 114 pitches in the 3-0 win as he pitched his first complete game in 202 career starts.
News Item – Chaos at Pats Training Camp: With team leader Matthew Judon sulking and showing up the brass over his contract status, Drake Maye off to a mostly rough beginning, the Globe’s Prince of Darkness Dan Shaughnessy likening Jerod Mayo to “Daddy Butch Hobson” and talk radio and the rest of the media horde as usual making a bigger deal out of it than it was, Week 1 of the Mayo era got off to a rough start.
The Numbers:
20 – consecutive losses for the Chicago White Sox as the week started, leaving them one behind the record 21 straight lost by the 1988 Baltimore Orioles.
57 – consecutive game winning streak for the U.S. Women’s Basketball team in Olympic competition dating back to 1992 after beating Germany 87-63 over the weekend to move into medal round play.
64 – years America went since winning gold in Men’s 4 Rowing competition in 1960 before doing it again last week.
… Of the Week Awards
Olympic Relative of the Week – Trinity Rodman: The worm Dennis Rodman’s daughter delivered a laser shot clutch goal in the 106th minute to give the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team a 1-0 win in a tense battle with Japan to send the U.S. on to face Germany in the semi-final round.
Quote of the Week – Steve Kerr: What he should have said to stem the nonsense after Jayson Tatum’s much discussed DNP. “We have an embarrassment of riches on this roster, that’s the best way to put it. I mean these guys are all champions, All-Stars, Hall of Famers, however you want to put it. So the whole thing is are we committed to the goal? That’s it.”
Random Thoughts:
Since the Dodgers went all in to get the best pitcher at the trade deadline in the Tigers’ Jack Flaherty, guess their explanation for DFA’ing now Red Sox hurler James Paxton a week earlier because they had a logjam in the rotation thanks to three of starters returning from injuries wasn’t really true, was it?
Sports 101 Answer: The Red Sox Cy Young winners were Jim Lonborg, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez and Rick Porcello.
Final Thought – Tatum’s Olympic DNP: First it’s been mis-characterized as a “benching.” It wasn’t, as rarely do guys get benched before they play the first game. Second, there are only so many minutes in a game and it’s not an “everybody gets a trophy” event. So comments by loudmouth nitwits like Kendrick Perkins (“he was disrespected”) and Charles Barkley (everyone should play 10 minutes) are wrong.
Instead it’s for an Olympic gold medal so the best guys should play, period. It’s a team of all-stars, so it will happen to guys not used to ever getting a DNP. If you can’t deal with it don’t come on the team in the first place.
Now having said all that, I said what I said last week about Steve Kerr’s original reason for not playing Tatum in Game 1 was because it being a match-up thing was ridiculous.
But it’s possible a DNP was a good thing for JT anyway. Because for once maybe he’ll get mad about something, anything, to let it drive his play. With the best outcome being his learning about playing with emotion for a change.
Lastly, about the noise from the cheap seats. If they don’t win gold, guess who’ll be flapping their gums the loudest about America’s Olympic failure? Yup: the two dimwits who say everyone should play to assuage their ego — Charles and the open mouth, insert foot ex-Celtic Perk.
Email Dave Long at [email protected].
