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🚨 Headlines
🏀 Stewart arrested: Pistons center Isaiah Stewart was arrested after sucker punching Suns center Drew Eubanks in the back tunnels of the Suns arena.
⚾️ Sasaki to Stanford: Japanese high school slugger Rintaro Sasaki will play at Stanford instead of entering Japan’s pro draft, where he was expected to be the No. 1 pick.
🏈 The Taylor Swift effect: Super Bowl viewership was up 24% among females ages 18-24 and up 11% among females ages 12-17. Women also represented 47.5% of the total audience, an all-time high.
🏀 Holtmann fired: Ohio State fired men’s basketball coach Chris Holtmann after the team dropped to 14-11. He’s owed more than $14 million in guaranteed salary.
💔 America’s latest mass shooting
On Sunday, the biggest story in the world was the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl. Days later, the result of a football game feels meaningless. Not even sports, our great escape, can escape what ails America.
Tragedy in Kansas City: One person was killed and 22 people were injured in a mass shooting after the conclusion of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade on Wednesday.
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The victim who died was identified as Lisa Lopez, a mother of two who worked as a local radio and event DJ.
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Three people have been detained, according to Kansas City police chief Stacey Graves.
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All 11 of the injured children are expected to recover. Their ages ranged from six to 15 and nine were treated for gunshot wounds.
Flashback: Wednesday’s shooting occurred on the sixth anniversary of the massacre in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and staff members and wounded 17 more.
From Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel:
They came for a parade. … And then, just like that, it became a day of shared horror and shared tragedy and shared terror.
It became a reminder of what none of us in this country need to be reminded: These insidious, senseless mass shootings can happen anytime, anywhere.
In a Buffalo grocery store and a Denver movie theater and a Texas elementary school and at a Vegas country music concert and a Maine bowling alley and, yes, even here on a day of nearly unrivaled civic togetherness in KCMO.
Details are still to come. As always they should be pored over, at least by authorities. In other ways, they don’t matter.
The shooters’ names? Don’t care. Their reasoning? Don’t want to hear it. Leave that to the prevention experts. They deserve no fame. They deserve no press. They merit no attention.
What they did with America’s latest act of cowardice is alter their victims’ lives directly and then everyone else indirectly. At a parade? At the Chiefs’ victory parade? They just took one more thing from all of us.
Videos:
The bottom line: We’re 46 days into 2024 and there have already been 48 mass shootings in America. What are we doing?
⚾️ Say hello to Jake and Jordan
Just in time for spring training, Yahoo Sports welcomes Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman — the baseball-loving duo known as Céspedes Family BBQ — to cover America’s pastime, Jeff writes.
Q&A: We sat down with Jake and Jordan, friends since 10th grade, to get their take on the upcoming season and learn more about why they do what they do.
How would you describe your job?
Jordan: To me, it’s all about balancing the privileges of clubhouse access with the continued goal of delivering stories and insight that is still highly relatable and entertaining to a wide range of fans.
In the same way players commonly remind us that they play a kid’s game for a living, we are fortunate enough to cover said kid’s game. So let’s not take ourselves too seriously.
What are your coverage plans for the season, and what storylines are you excited about?
Jake: Because I’m based in NYC, I’ll be focusing on the Easts. Can the Phillies challenge the Braves? Can the Yankees convince Juan Soto he wants to be in the Bronx long term? Will Red Sox fans resort to robbing Fenway Park like Ben Affleck in “The Town”? Lots to watch.
Jordan: Ohio is my general domain, with the Reds my closest MLB team … but I do think our relative obsession with staying closely in tune with every team keeps us uniquely equipped to cover whatever the whims of the season deliver us, even if from a distance.
Who could be this year’s surprise team, like the O’s and Diamondbacks last year?
Jordan: Detroit is the team to watch for me. They have enough young talent in a weak division to where I could see us waking up on September 1 with them only a handful of games out of first place and wonder how the hell we got there.
Who’s your favorite all-time player?
Jake: I was born the day Cal Ripken Jr. tied Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games record and my Baltimorean grandmother left my in-labor mom in the hospital because she had tickets to the game. If I don’t say Cal, I’m just making problems for myself next time I see my extended family.
Jordan: Félix Hernández is pretty much the reason I’m a Mariners fan. I have no Pacific Northwest family ties but as I was getting re-obsessed with baseball in high school, I was drawn to the spectacle that was a Félix start day, regardless of how much the team stunk.
Rapid fire:
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Where will the four biggest remaining free agents sign? Cody Bellinger (Jake: Cubs; Jordan: Blue Jays); Blake Snell (Jake: Angels; Jordan: Red Sox); Jordan Montgomery (Jake: Red Sox; Jordan: Giants); Matt Chapman (Jake: Giants; Jordan: Cubs)
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Awards predictions? AL MVP (Jake: Aaron Judge; Jordan: Juan Soto); NL MVP (Jake: Mookie Betts; Jordan: Freddie Freeman); AL Cy Young (Jake: Pablo López; Jordan: Luis Castillo); NL Cy Young (Jake: Spencer Strider; Jordan: Logan Webb)
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How many ballparks have you been to? Jake’s at 27 of 30, missing only Minnesota, Tampa and Toronto. Jordan’s at 24, missing Minnesota, Tampa, Kansas City, Texas, Milwaukee, and Arizona. Both have Pittsburgh at or near the top of their favorites list.
Links:
Subscribe to the pod: New episodes will drop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday starting Feb. 26. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all major platforms.
⚽️ England’s medieval football match
The annual Royal Shrovetide Football Match was held this week in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, England. But don’t let the name fool you: This is no ordinary football game, Jeff writes.
A town divided: The two-day match — which dates back to the 12th century and has been played almost every year since 1667 — is contested by thousands of Ashbournians every Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) and Ash Wednesday.
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The townspeople are split in two teams based on which side of the River Henmore they were born on: The Up’Ards (north of the river) and Down’Ards (south).
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The object of the game is simple: Move the ball into one of two goals, which are old millstones positioned three miles apart on the riverbank.
The methods of doing so are where the game turns chaotic…
How it works: Play begins at 2pm local time (and ends no later than 10pm) when an honorary starter tosses the ball to the awaiting throngs in a ceremony known as “turning up the ball.”
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The ball: Larger than a traditional soccer ball, it’s filled with cork to ensure it will float in the river and is custom painted by local craftsmen.
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The rules: You can’t drive the ball in a car or hide it in a bag; cemeteries, churchyards and private gardens are out of bounds; and no murders (yes, that’s an actual stated rule).
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Gameplay: The ball may be kicked, carried or thrown, though usually it progresses through town in a series of “hugs,” which resemble a rugby scrum.
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Scoring: Teams elect a designated scorer who must tap the ball three successive times against the goal. If a goal comes before 6pm, play resumes; if it comes after, play ends for the day.
This year’s result: The Up’Ards won for the third consecutive year, claiming a 2-0 victory that ended with Wednesday’s goal-scorer being carried on his team’s shoulders to a nearby pub, as is tradition.
Fun fact: King Charles III (then the Prince of Wales) “turned up the ball” for the 2003 match, and those tasked with carrying him to the town square nearly dropped him.
📸 Behind the lens
Each week, we go “Behind the Lens” with Getty Images to get the backstory on the best photographs in sports.
This week’s photo: Team Kazakhstan competes in the Mixed Team Free Final (Artistic Swimming) on day eight of the 2024 World Aquatics Championships.
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Location: Doha, Qatar
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Date: February 9
Behind the lens: Here’s photographer Quinn Rooney on how he got the shot…
This image was taken with an underwater robotics camera, which was positioned on the pool floor and has the ability to zoom, pan and tilt.
It’s a very complex, expensive piece of equipment that needs ample time to test and set up. So we arrived a week before the competition to set it up.
The camera itself is positioned in the pool by a scuba diver and has a long 75-meter cable running to a computer, where we have a live feed and controller operating the device.
This photo shows the amazing reflections you can get at the start of the routine when the water surface is still, as it mirrors the amazing shapes of the athletes.
📆 Feb. 15, 2009: Co-MVPs
15 years ago today, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant were named co-MVPs of the NBA All-Star Game, the fourth and most recent time that’s happened, Jeff writes.
All-Star Game co-MVPs:
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1959: Elgin Baylor and Bob Pettit
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1993: John Stockton and Karl Malone
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2000: Shaq and Tim Duncan
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2009: Shaq and Kobe
*He wasn’t finished: Gretzky matched that mark two more times, recording three of the four 7-assist games in NHL history.
📺 Watchlist: History on the line in Iowa
Caitlin Clark is poised* to make history tonight when No. 4 Iowa hosts Michigan (8pm ET, Peacock), Jeff writes.
Eight points away: The Hawkeyes superstar sits just eight points shy of passing Kelsey Plum to become the NCAA’s all-time women’s scoring leader.
More to watch:
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⛳️ PGA: The Genesis (10:30am, ESPN+; 4pm, Golf)
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🏀 NBA: Bucks at Grizzlies (8:30pm, TNT) … Last night of games before the week-long All-Star break.
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🏀 NCAAM: Minnesota at No. 2 Purdue (8:30pm, BTN)
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🏀 NCAAW: No. 1 South Carolina at Tennessee (7pm, ESPN)
*It’s definitely happening tonight: Clark has scored at least eight points in all 125 games of her collegiate career, and she’s scored at least 20 in every game this season.
⛳️ Masters trivia
Verne Lundquist will hang up his microphone this April after calling the Masters for the 40th time.
Question: Lundquist called his first Masters in 1983. Who won that year?
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Ben Crenshaw
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Nick Faldo
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Seve Ballesteros
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Tom Watson
Hint: It was his second green jacket.
Answer at the bottom.
🎉 They finally did it!
Yesterday, we pointed out that there were two winless teams remaining in Division I basketball. Well, now there’s just one.
Got the dub: Detroit Mercy beat IUPUI, 81-66, on Wednesday to improve to 1-26. As the buzzer sounded, a single fan stormed the court.
Trivia answer: Seve Ballesteros
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