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No BTA this week, but another episode of The Show Notes podcast dropped! Tap in as I try to regain a fraction of my athleticism!

Now, to the sports!

A homecoming of sorts for Nationals 2B Nasim Nuñez. The MLB’s leader in stolen bases was born in New York but graduated from Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Georgia. If you grew up reading Slam Magazine, you know that’s the same high school that WNBA legend Maya Moore attended. He’s going to have to steal a lot more bases to become his school’s most accomplished alum, but it’s been a nice first full season as a starter for Nuñez. He and the Nationals are looking to make up some ground on the NL East-leading Braves.

Full disclosure: this will be a perfectly fine game to watch, but I only picked it because Natisha Hiedeman is playing and we need to talk about all of the chaos surrounding the StudBudz All-Star Weekend livestream. Yes, we had All-Star Game MVP Jonquel Jones getting emotional during her post-game press conference as she addressed comments made on the livestream about the Lynx deserving to win the 2024 WNBA over her New York Liberty, and the breaking news that Marina Mabrey and Saniya Rivers are no longer together, but neither of those compare to the BIG NEWS of the livestream. Buckle up!

Jackie Young is dating Sky G DiJonai Carrington, who used to date Young’s Aces teammate, NaLyssa Smith. StudBud cameras caught an awkward interaction between this group at a party where Smith showed up uninvited. Carrington took to Threads to explain that Smith cheated on her with former Aces/current Dream G Aaliyah Nye and Deja Kelly, who currently plays for the Charlotte Crown of the UpShot League. Kelly was allegedly at the center of another cheating scandal during her time at UNC. As the story goes, she was dating one Tar Heel star, RJ Davis, and cheated on him with the other star, Caleb Love. Everyone involved denied the rumors, but Love transferred to Arizona and Kelly fired off an interesting tweet or two when Love’s somewhat signature 5-for-18 performance ended the Wildcats’ 2024 season in the Sweet 16. Hilariously, Davis shot an even worse 4-for-20 later that evening as the Tar Heels’ season also ended.

Got all that? Me neither. As entertaining as it is, I’m not sure how much longer a StudBudz livestream will be welcomed during All-Star Weekend. The duo has a keen understanding that controversy equals eyeballs and eyeballs are good for their business, but I’m not sure if this reality TV reunion show drama is necessarily good for their leaguemates or the W itself. A great deal of players were ducking out of view of the camera, seemingly wanting to turn loose in private, a sentiment that those of us who were old enough to hit the club before everyone was Scorsese can certainly understand. And, while the saying is “all publicity is good publicity,” I can’t imagine the league would embrace the drama as another way to market the games. That would be shameless.

NaLyssa Smith and the Las Vegas Aces take on DiJonai Carrington and the Chicago Sky!

I’m planning a post-trade deadline baseball episode with my guys Danny and Brett, and spoiler alert, Cal Raleigh’s season will almost certainly come up. This got me thinking of the biggest season-to-season dropoffs by a hitter in MLB history. The closest I could come up with was Hack Wilson of the Chicago Cubs.

Wilson’s 191 RBI in 1930 is still the single-season record. His 56 homers that year were the most by an NL player until the 1998 home run race between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. Unlike Raleigh, he also hit for average, batting .356. Unfortunately, his spectacular MVP season fueled his drinking problem, which led to him showing up out of shape. Also, MLB introduced heavier balls with more pronounced stitching to help pitchers deal with offensive powerhouses such as Wilson. He hit just .261 with 13 homers and 61 RBI in 1931.

Hack bounced back slightly during the 1932 season after a couple of offseason trades landed him on the Brooklyn Dodgers, but bottomed out for good after that. Wilson played just four more seasons after his MVP year. Blowing a fantastic baseball career wasn’t even the saddest part of his life. Seriously, go read his Wikipedia page. The fact that he, for the briefest of moments, made something of himself is as surprising as his premature death at the age of 48 was inevitable. So, I mean, things are certainly better for the Big Dumper!

The first of four straight days of softball action! Kicking things off with Lake Mary, Florida vs. Snohomish, Washington, then Japan takes on Toms River, New Jersey, followed by Owensboro, Kentucky vs. Live Oak, California, and finishing up the day with Clayton, North Carolina and Canada!

Lost in the madness of All-Star Weekend was the fact that Napheesa Collier returned for the first-place Lynx in the final game of the first half and looked like she had never left. In just 22 minutes, Phee dropped 24 points and grabbed 10 boards in a win against the Storm. I’m not sure if anybody besides the Aces can get in their way, but there’s a lot of season left!

Well, the Red Sox are back from the dead. Just over a month ago, this was a team 14 games under .500. Now, thanks to a red-hot July that included a franchise-record-tying 15-game win streak, they’re firmly in the mix for at least the AL Wild Card. How much higher can they climb?

More and more, I long for the days before social media was a thing. However, this is one of those events that I wish happened during the peak Twitter era. Mr. Aryan Supremacy himself, Adolf Hitler, had to watch a Black man from Alabama blow up his entire belief system in Germany! Unreal! Closest thing we’ve gotten to experience is the South Carolina women beating Iowa in the 2024 national title game.

Same deal as yesterday, but we only know half the teams that will be playing at the time of this writing. Welcome to the blog, fans of Puerto Rico, Italy, Helotes, Texas, and Bristol, Connecticut!

Again, but we don’t know who’s playing. Hope you like surprises!

Our love affair with the World Cup led me to stumbling across the Leagues Cup. 18 MLS clubs and 18 clubs from Mexico’s highest league, LIGA MX, compete to see who is the best in all of North America. If you watched the World Cup, you know the talent level between the two countries is pretty equal right now. Also, US-Mexico games are always ultra competitive. So while not as skilled as what we saw in the World Cup, these games should be evenly matched with a ton of pride on the line. Works for me!

Just two games on the docket today. See yesterday’s entry for more info!

Am I crazy, or do we just not hear about the Brewers? They are neck and neck with the Dodgers for the best record in the majors, but, outside of flamethrower Jacob Misiorowski, you rarely hear them mentioned because Milwaukee just isn’t a sexy city. Tap in and get familiar because we should see a lot of them in October!

The Sounders are the defending Leagues Cup champions. The first part of the competition is a round-robin tournament. Knockout rounds begin at the end of the month and are single-elimination. Lock in!

As always, thank you for reading! Make sure you’re subscribed so you get this in your inbox first thing Thursday mornings! Also, share with your friends! See you next week!