Yahoo Sports AM: Dodgers nightmare (again)
For the third straight postseason, the Dodgers have been eliminated in historic fashion. Back-to-back-to-back stunning exits. It's unfathomable.
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🚨 HEADLINES
🏒 Record ratings: Tuesday's season-opener between the Blackhawks and Penguins drew 1.43 million viewers, making it the most-watched regular season NHL game in ESPN history, excluding the annual Winter Classic games.
👟 Reebok revival: Shaquille O'Neal and Allen Iverson are joining Reebok's basketball division as president and vice president, respectively. Both men had shoe deals with Reebok during their NBA playing days.
⚾️ Citi Field casino: Mets owner Steve Cohen hopes to construct a casino adjacent to Citi Field to attract people to the area. "There's nothing going on. The only thing you can do [near the ballpark] is get your hubcap changed," he said during Sportico's Invest in Sports conference.
⚽️ Rooney's next gig: Four days after parting ways with D.C. United, Wayne Rooney has been named the new manager of Birmingham City. The club is seeking promotion to the Premier League and recently welcomed Tom Brady as a minority owner.
🥇 Thoughts with Mary Lou: Mary Lou Retton, the first American woman to win all-around gymnastics gold at the Olympics, is "fighting for her life" with a serious illness, according to a fundraiser posted by her daughter.
⚾️ THE DODGERS CHOKE (AGAIN)
The Diamondbacks beat the Dodgers, 4-2, on Wednesday to advance to the NLCS — the second straight day that a 100-win team has been swept. But cheer up, Dodgers fans: this is only your third-worst postseason collapse in the last three years!
Historic upset: The Diamondbacks won 16 fewer regular-season games than the Dodgers. By that measure, this is the sixth-biggest upset in postseason history, notes MLB's Sarah Langs.
1906 World Series: White Sox (-23) defeat Cubs
2022 NLDS: Padres (-22) defeat Dodgers
2001 ALCS: Yankees (-22) defeat Mariners
2021 NLCS: Braves (-18) defeat Dodgers
1973 NLCS: Mets (-17) defeat Reds
2023 NLDS: D-Backs (-16) defeat Dodgers
Yes, you read that correctly: The Dodgers made the list three times — all in the last three seasons. Back-to-back-to-back embarrassments for one of baseball's most storied franchises. It's unfathomable.
Los Angeles has won more division titles since 2013 (10) than all but 10 teams have won in the entire divisional era (since 1969).
Their 1,031 wins in that time are by far the most, with a larger gap between them and the second-place Yankees (940) than the Yankees and the 11th-place Blue Jays (859).
And yet… The Dodgers will emerge from this decade-long run of regular-season dominance with just one World Series title, which came in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. There's enough of an asterisk there that rival fans will claim they didn't win a single championship.
Elsewhere:
Astros 3, Twins 2: The defending champs are headed to the Championship Series for the seventh straight season, an extraordinary feat that has only been accomplished one other time in MLB history. They'll face the Rangers in an all-Texas ALCS starting Sunday.
Phillies 10, Braves 2: Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos hit two homers each to give the Phillies a 2-1 series lead against the big, bad Braves. I may need a painting of this photo of Harper staring down Orlando Arcia, who reportedly poked fun at him after Game 2.
🎥 Highlight of the night: Arizona had a historic third frame, becoming the first team ever to hit four home runs in a single postseason inning. Then they celebrated with a pool party.
🏈 FAREWELL TO HOME-FIELD ADVANTAGE
For decades, it was a given in the NFL that going on the road was a difficult proposition. This season, your chances of seeing your team win at home are worse than 50-50, Yahoo Sports' Frank Schwab writes.
By the numbers: Through five weeks, NFL road teams are 41-37. If you take out the two London games — the Jaguars were the designated home team in one and the road team in the other — it's 40-36.
Context: Home-field advantage has been dwindling for a while. Could this be the season it bids farewell completely?
The only time in recent history that NFL home teams finished with a losing record was in 2020 when they went 127-128-1 in empty or near-empty stadiums.
That comes with an asterisk, of course, but it wasn't an isolated occurrence: Home-field advantage had dipped in 2019, with home teams winning 52% of games, the lowest mark since 1972.
Even if 2020 was strange, in 2021 home teams won at just a 51.1% rate. They rebounded in 2022 (56.7%), but now they've dipped again in 2023. It looks like 2022 was the recent outlier.
The betting angle: From a gambling perspective, road teams have long held an edge due to the point spread. Since 2004, road teams have had a winning record against the spread in 14 of 19 seasons, per SportsOddsHistory.com.
This season, road teams are 41-32-5 (56.2%) against the spread, per Covers.com. Road favorites are 17-12-2 (58.6%) and road underdogs are 24-20-3 (54.6%).
The standard for years was to give home teams about three points on the spread. Then it shifted to 2.5 or less. Now, maybe home teams don't deserve any points.
The last word: For whatever reason — cozier travel, less raucous crowds in cozy, modern stadiums, officials being more aware of a long-term trend of home teams getting more calls — there has been no edge for home teams this season.
🏀 THE WNBA'S BLOWOUT PROBLEM
The Aces dominated the Liberty, 104-76, on Wednesday to take a 2-0 WNBA Finals lead. That's now two straight blowouts in this much-hyped clash of superteams, with Vegas winning Game 1 by 17 points and Game 2 by 28 points.
Zoom out: The WNBA has a blowout problem. Of the 18 games this postseason, 12 were won by double-digit points and five were won by 22 or more points.
The average margin of victory so far is 14.7 points, and only three games have been decided by one possession.
Obviously, this is not what the WNBA was hoping for during the playoffs and certainly not what the league wants on its biggest stage, with Vegas cruising to back-to-back wins.
But perhaps we should have seen this coming… Four of the five-regular season matchups between New York and Las Vegas were blowouts decided by 38 points, 19 points, 17 points and 13 points. The other game was only somewhat "close" — a nine-point win for the Liberty. Overall, the average margin of victory in their seven meetings this year is 20.1 points. Not great!
Looking ahead: The Aces are now one win away from becoming the first back-to-back champs since the 2001-02 Sparks. The Liberty will try to become the first team in WNBA postseason history to come back from a 2-0 deficit to win a series (0-17 all-time).
⛳️ LEXI THOMPSON MAKES HISTORY
Lexi Thompson is teeing it up with the men this weekend in Las Vegas at the Shriners Children's Open, where she accepted a sponsor invite and will become just the seventh woman ever to compete in a PGA Tour event, Jeff writes.
How the others fared: Six women have played in 19 PGA Tour events. Just one made the cut, and Thompson will be the first to compete in five years.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias* (1935-46): The first woman to play alongside men is also the only one to make the cut, doing so in two of her seven appearances.
Michelle Wie West (2004-08): She nearly made the cut in her first of eight events, missing by just one stroke at the 2004 Sony Open at age 14.
Shirley Spork (1952): She played every round of the 1952 Northern California-Reno Open, but only because it was a no-cut event. She finished in 105th place.
Annika Sörenstam (2003): She missed the cut by just four strokes at the 2003 Colonial, becoming the first woman since Spork 51 years earlier to play with the men.
Suzy Whaley (2003): Two months after Sörenstam's near miss, Whaley posted a 75-78 at the Greater Hartford Open, missing the cut by 13 strokes.
Brittany Lincicome (2018): The most recent instance came at the 2018 Barbasol Championship, when Lincicome's second-round 71 (-1) wasn't enough to make the cut after a first-round 78.
Meet Lexi: The 28-year-old Thompson has a knack for breaking barriers. In 2007, she became the youngest woman to compete in the US Women's Open (age 12), and in 2011, she became the youngest to win an LPGA Tour event (16).
The world's 25th-ranked golfer has won 11 LPGA Tour titles, including a major. But her last win came more than four years ago and she's struggled through much of this season.
She's played much better recently, though, going 3-1 at the Solheim Cup and finishing in the top 10 in both tournaments since.
*Not her first rodeo: Golf wasn't the only sport in which Didrikson Zaharias competed against men at a high level. In 1934, she pitched four innings across three MLB spring training games.
🏉 DAILY RANKING: RUGBY WORLD CUP QUARTERFINALISTS
The Rugby World Cup quarterfinals are this weekend in France, where the initial field of 20 nations has been narrowed to eight, Jeff writes.
The final eight: The quarterfinals pit four group winners* against four runners-up (Wales vs. Argentina, Ireland vs. New Zealand, England vs. Fiji, France vs. South Africa), and all eight are among the world's top 10 squads.
🇮🇪 Ireland (1)
🇫🇷 France (2)
🇿🇦 South Africa (3)
🇳🇿 New Zealand (4)
🏴 England (6)
🏴 Wales (7)
🇦🇷 Argentina (8)
🇫🇯 Fiji (10)
*Fun fact: The group winners are all northern hemisphere countries (Ireland, France, England, Wales), giving them a chance to shut the southern hemisphere out of the semifinals for the first time ever.
📆 OCT. 12, 1979: THE FIRST THREE-POINTER
44 years ago today, Celtics guard Chris Ford sank the first three-pointer in NBA history during the first quarter of a 114-106 win* over the Rockets, Jeff writes.
A different era: NBA teams attempted 5,003 three-pointers that season for an average of 2.8 per game. Last season, they attempted 84,165, good for 34.2 per game.
🥇 1968: The Summer Olympics began in Mexico City, marking the first Olympics ever held in Latin America.
🏈 1989: The Cowboys traded Herschel Walker to the Vikings in the largest trade in NFL history, with a combined 18 players and draft picks being swapped.
*Fun fact: This game also happened to be Larry Bird's NBA debut, and the Hick from French Lick put up a 14-point, 10-rebound double-double. Naturally.
📺 WATCHLIST: CAN THE BRONCOS SNAP THE STREAK?
The Chiefs host the Broncos tonight at Arrowhead (8:15pm ET, Prime), where Denver will look to snap a stunning streak against its division-leading rival, Jeff writes.
15 straight losses: The Broncos have lost 15 straight games* to the Chiefs, with their last win coming 2,947 days ago on Sep. 17, 2015. How long ago was that? Patrick Mahomes was a Texas Tech sophomore and Peyton Manning was leading Denver to the Super Bowl in his final season.
More to watch:
⚾️ MLB playoffs: Braves (down 2-1) at Phillies (8pm, TBS)
🏈 CFB: West Virginia (-2.5) at Houston (7pm, FS1); SMU (-11.5) at ECU (7:30pm, ESPN)
🏒 NHL: Seven games (7-10:30pm, ESPN+)
🏀 NBA preseason: Grizzlies at Hawks (7:30pm, NBA); Suns at Trail Blazers (10pm, NBA)
⛳️ PGA Tour: Shriners Children's Open (9:30am, ESPN+; 5pm, Golf)
*Longest active streak: The Chiefs' 15 consecutive wins over the Broncos is tied for the NFL's longest active winning streak over another team (Patriots over Jets).
The Astros are making their seventh straight Championship Series appearance.
Question: Who is the only other franchise to do that?
1950s Yankees
1990s Braves
2010s Dodgers
1960s Cardinals
Answer at the bottom.
🎓 FEATURE STORY: THE NCAA IS AN UTTER JOKE
Kansas men's basketball escaped serious NCAA penalties from a multi-year investigation into the program's involvement in the college basketball federal corruption scandal.
The news: The NCAA announced Wednesday that Kansas' five Level I allegations had been downgraded to a Level II case and that the program had received a three-year probation — a whimper of a conclusion to what had been a contentious back-and-forth.
Our take: Here's Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel on Kansas exposing what an utter joke the NCAA has become…
Kansas basketball and coach Bill Self stared down a six-year NCAA investigation with five Level I violation charges, and proceeded to beat the brakes off the NCAA and its Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP) like it was some hapless March Madness 16-seed.
"A good day for Kansas basketball," Self said Wednesday, and honestly, he should have popped a bottle of celebratory Champagne as he said it.
KU's most notable punishment? It has to take down the banner commemorating the Final Four it went to during its run in 2018 … and then it won a national championship in 2022 while under investigation.
Credit to Self and the Jayhawks for being the latest to prove that the most fraudulent part of the NCAA infractions process isn't the violations of the rules but the process itself. Why bother? This is an exercise in nonsense, like Oz tossing fire to distract from the curtain that hid his impotence.
The system produces little more than selective enforcement, uneven punishments and billable hours. It's why NCAA president Charlie Baker, still new on the job, should step up and acknowledge the absurdity of the entire operation. … Then he should start apologizing.
He can start with the 2020-21 Oklahoma State basketball team. A slew of schools were caught up in the FBI’s ridiculous 2017 investigation, and OSU's was the weakest and simplest case — basically just a fired former assistant who took some cash from financial planners.
The NCAA banished the 2020-21 team from that year's NCAA tournament anyway, took a March Madness dream, a real tangible experience, from those players because, well, it could. Somehow the lightest case got the harshest penalty.
Then he can apologize to the former assistant coaches and sneaker executives who wound up in prison because the FBI and SDNY were able to weaponize rule violations that in the end not even the NCAA's own IARP was willing to levy punishment over.
Then he can apologize to the random athletes who get caught up and suspended in arcane statutes. … UMass tennis player Brittany Collins was once stripped of a conference title because of $252 she received to cover a phone jack in her apartment she didn't know existed.
The list could go on and on and on, absurdity after absurdity, mind-numbing example after mind-numbing example. When operating a process this busted, busting a few minor cases isn't proof that the NCAA is working but that the NCAA isn't.
___
Trivia answer: 1990s Braves (eight straight from 1991-99)
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