Over the hump and safely onto the other side. We don’t quite have the juice we had this time last week going into a holiday weekend, but it’s OK.
Sometimes, we need to rest and recover. That’s what the summer is all about. The World Cup is still going on, but does anyone really care anymore? No.
Baseball is nearing the All-Star break, which means we’ll get the Home Run Derby in a few days … if you can find it.
ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!
Spoiler alert: It’s on Netflix now! Wonderful.
Football is still a few weeks away from really ramping up. We’ve got a week until the final major of the golf season. This is sort of a transition week for us, right? We’re firmly in the dog days right now. The first half of summer is behind us. Now, we have to grind.
And grind, we will!
Welcome to a Thursday Nightcaps — the one where Sophie Cunningham throws on a catsuit of sorts and takes another shot at the WNBA mean girls.
She just doesn’t miss, does she?
What else? I’ve got a question for all of our high school parents in class today, and, amazingly, we had ANOTHER pitcher pulled last night during a perfect game.
What is going on in Major League Baseball right now? It’s disgusting. It’s un-American. It has to stop.
OK, grab you a handful of fries for National French Fry Day, and settle in for a Thursday ‘Cap!
I’m quite sure we’ve done this one before (mainly because I went back and looked), but I’m gonna go ahead and recycle my Mount Rushmore of Fries today. Lord knows there ain’t anything else going on.
I’d also accept: Chick-Fil-A, although the butt-pieces of waffle fries are disgusting, so it’s a slippery little slope. I’ll also listen to any sweet potato truthers in class, too.
That’s right. Some people scoff at sweet potato fries, but, done right, they are elite. Dip them in some of that marshmallow/pineapple sauce like a true slob, and it’s game over. What a country.
OK, let’s get down to business. It’s slim pickens today, so I don’t want to hear it.
First up? Sophie Cunningham doubled down on her viral finger-wag a few weeks ago, calling Phoenix Mercury forward-guard DeWanna Bonner “Miss Priss” in an interview on Shannon Spake’s “Sons and Daughters” podcast.”
“Caitlin got a technical and looking back I think both of them deserved a technical like, trying to clean up the game, whatever,” Cunningham said in the full clip, which can be seen here.
“And so I wasn’t even speaking to Miss Priss over there and I was just like, ‘Hey, if Caitlin got a check, I think she deserves one.’ Like, wasn’t even looking at her and I just like kind of pointed and it just made her mad, and she was like, ‘Don’t you point at me.’
“And I was ‘Oh, (she) shouldn’t have said that.’ And so then I just didn’t say a word. I did not say a word to her. I just pointed.”
Love her or hate her, at least Sophie Cunningham isn’t a BSer. A lot of these athletes just dance around the subject and toe the line. Not Sophie. She wants all the smoke.
Now, did she follow that interview up with a 2-point game last night? Sure. But that’s what we call semantics in this business!
You know what’s not semantics? This new rule passed by USA Baseball this week.
Batter up!
Whoooooooooooooooa Nellie! They’re letting high school players use drop 4, 5 and 6 bats now? Seems … risky.
For those who aren’t up on the lingo, “bat drop weights” is the difference between a bat’s length (in inches) and its weight (in ounces). For example, the current rules say a bat must be -3, or a drop-3. If a bat is 31 inches long, it must be weigh 28 ounces. That’s standard practice for bats in high school baseball.
Starting in 2028, they’re now gonna be allowed to use lighter bats? Wild. Here’s the kicker. USA Baseball sold the move as a necessary one to “keeping more athletes in baseball and supporting their long-term development.”
“We have seen too many athletes entering high school baseball struggle with the immediate jump to the -3-drop weight and then walk away from the game,” USA Baseball President John Gall said.
Huh?
They’re billing it as a way to keep players from “walking away from the game,” which is puzzling. I’ve never once seen nor heard of a player walk away from high school baseball because the bat was too heavy. Come on.
Basically, in the name of inclusivity, USA Baseball has now put a lighter bat in the hands of a 220-pound, 5-tool prospect who can already tear the cover off the ball as is.
Can’t wait to see how that goes!
OK, couple quickies on the way out. First? Let’s stay on the diamond and check in on the state of Major League Baseball:
Amazing. That’s TWICE in the past week that a starting pitcher has been yanked during a perfect game. I’ll go ahead and rehash what I said earlier this week, and then we’ll move on, because I am DISGUSTED.
Unlike no-hitters, which happen often(ish), perfect games almost never happen. In fact, there have only been 24 official perfect games in MLB history. Twenty-four!
Baseball has been around for a century, give or take. It’s really been around for much longer, but we’ll just go back 100 years to make it a nice, round number. In that time, we’ve only seen 24 (!!!) perfect games.
And now, in the span of five days, we’ve seen two pitchers get yanked during one: Eury Perez of the Marlins last weekend, and Jared Jones last night.
Make Baseball Great Again!
Finally, on the way out, let’s check in with FanDuel, MLB and Bryce Harper!
Just a WILD story out of Philly today. Truly insane. A man with a gambling addiction got a personalized video sent to him, via FanDuel, of Bryce Harper … thanking him for his support? That’s just barbaric. What have we come to in this country?
Look, I love sports gambling. It’s truly one of my favorite things to do in the fall (for about 30 minutes before the 1 p.m. games start and I immediately lose everything). But I do it for fun. I’m talking $5 bets on Saquon Barkley to be the first TD scorer of the game.
I know my limits. Some folks, clearly, don’t. And that’s on them, partially. But let’s not sit here and pretend the casinos don’t play a role. And now we’re sending out VIP videos to people a million dollars in the hole?
Whooooof. I’m all for some dark humor, but Lordy, even that one crosses a line for me.
OK, that’s it for today. Good work, everyone. You did well.
Related to absolutely nothing, here’s Scottie Scheffler proving that technology is a load of crap to take us home.
See you tomorrow.
OutKick Nightcaps is a daily column set to run Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. (roughly, we’re not robots).
Thoughts on the new high school bat? Email me at Zach.Dean@OutKick.com.
