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| Monday, August 3, 2026 |
Issue #10
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by meme.app
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It's Monday. The Dodgers traded for the best pitcher in baseball on Saturday night, then got swept in their own stadium on Sunday afternoon. A UFC card in Belgrade set an all-time record because nobody could stay conscious past round one. And Patrick Mahomes opened training camp by hitting his own center in the helmet. Let's get into it.
— Stew
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The Dodgers Landed the Best Pitcher in Baseball, Then Got Swept in Their Own Stadium
Saturday night the Dodgers acquired Tarik Skubal from the Tigers, the back-to-back AL Cy Young winner and the consensus best arm alive. The price: three prospects, solid but nobody's blue-chipper, a lighter haul than anyone expected for a pitcher this good. Scouts spent Sunday asking one question: why couldn't someone else beat that? The rotation is now Skubal, Yamamoto, Snell, Glasnow, and Ohtani, which means the Dodgers' biggest October problem is deciding which ace doesn't pitch.
The baseball gods responded immediately. Sunday afternoon the Red Sox finished off an 8-4 win and a three-game sweep at Dodger Stadium, the first time Boston has ever swept the Dodgers there. Ceddanne Rafaela homered four times in the series by himself. So the best roster money can buy added a fifth ace, took the field, and got run out of its own building by the hottest team in the sport.
Cool stat: On July 3, the Red Sox were 11 games under .500 and left for dead. They have won 28 of their last 33.
So what: Skubal is a rental, a free agent after this season, so the Dodgers paid for three months of him and a parade window. Meanwhile they trail Milwaukee by half a game for the best record in baseball, and the Brewers reportedly could have beaten that offer and didn't. The trade deadline is 6 p.m. tonight. Milwaukee has until then to answer.
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The rest of the deadline, in receipts. Kevin Gausman to the Cubs, Luis Castillo to the White Sox, Freddy Peralta to the Rays. The market's biggest name already moved, so today is about every other contender convincing itself it responded. By 6:01 somebody will have paid three prospects for a middle reliever and called it their October answer. It happens every year and it is funny every time. [Yahoo] |
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Football is back. All 32 training camps practiced this weekend. The highlight of Back Together Weekend was Patrick Mahomes, three-time Super Bowl MVP, drilling his own center in the back of the helmet with a pass. The clip went everywhere, and Mahomes responded by posting the Longest Yard meme at his own expense, which is the correct move and also what I would do if I were legally untouchable in the state of Missouri. Two weeks of hamstring reports and "best shape of his life" stories start now. I have missed every second of this. [Yahoo] |
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And an actual NFL game, technically, arrives Thursday. Cardinals-Panthers in the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, followed by Saturday's enshrinement: Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly, Adam Vinatieri, and Roger Craig. By some miracle of scheduling, the two teams playing are the ones Fitzgerald and Kuechly spent their entire careers with. Thursday night, millions of us will watch guys wearing numbers in the 60s fight for a roster spot and act like it's Christmas morning. It is. [Yahoo] |
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JJ Watt is suddenly the lead voice of the NFL on CBS. The network placed Tony Romo on indefinite leave Friday after his arrest in Wisconsin on suspicion of driving under the influence. No jokes on this one; he has a September court date and hopefully gets whatever help he needs. The football note is real though: Watt slides in next to Jim Nantz for the biggest games on television, three years into retirement, because JJ Watt has apparently never failed upward at anything slower than immediately. [CBS] |
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The WNBA put its most popular team on national TV, scheduled like it wanted them to lose. The Fever played their third road game in six days, a tour through Seattle, Portland, and Minneapolis, then tipped a Sunday ABC showcase against the Lynx, the best team in the league, about 36 hours after Friday's late game. They lost 108-100. Kelsey Mitchell scored 37 and Caitlin Clark had a double-double on legs made of airport. Maybe give the main attraction a night's sleep before the showcase window next time. [FOX] |
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Meanwhile, the WNBA cannot have nice things. That same Fever-Lynx game came with dueling rallies outside the arena, the third straight Fever game to draw them, over Sophie Cunningham's comments about trans athletes in an ESPN profile. Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve wore a “Trans kids belong” shirt to the game. Last week the league suspended a Storm co-owner from five home games for cursing at two teenage fans over the same fight. I am not refereeing the underlying debate; that is what your group chat is for. I'll just note the league spent decades begging America to watch, America finally pulled up a chair, and the season's defining story is happening in the parking lot. [CBS] |
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A UFC card in Belgrade set the all-time record for finishes, because nobody could stay conscious. Ten first-round finishes Saturday, the most on a single card in UFC history. Former champ Jan Blachowicz was gone in round one. The main event lasted 30 seconds. If you stood in the beer line, you missed a fight. [UFC] |
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Venus Williams, 46 years old, played center court at the Canadian Open on Sunday. She lost 6-4, 6-1 to Kamila Rakhimova, and she hung at 4-4 in that first set with break points to lead before the match ran away. The loss is not the story. The tournament of old men apparently has a women's bracket, and Venus is its commissioner. Forty-six-year-olds are supposed to be complaining about their backs at a driving range, not returning serve at a WTA 1000. Play forever. [NBO] |
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Travis Kelce returns to training camp as a married man
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Fine. One joke.
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Programming note: the trade deadline passes at 6 tonight, and by next Monday an NFL game will have actually been played. Preseason, sure. Third-stringers, absolutely. Counts anyway. See you next Monday.
— Stew
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