Sports

By GusThe Sports Desk

Hot Mic Moment

Four of today's five headlines pair the word "prediction" with the word "odds" in the same breath, SportsLine selling the bet and the story in one sentence, no label, no wall between the newsroom and the sportsbook. This reporter is begging somebody to move this to the business desk, because sports can't police its own betting arm.

By GusThe Sports Desk

This reporter has called plenty of comebacks, and this reporter will say it plainly: the Guardians, down two games to none, closed out the White Sox on Saturday by setting a series record of twenty-three strikeouts in the deciding Game Five.

Gavin Williams, handed the clincher, struck out fourteen of those White Sox hitters himself, and this reporter will tell you Jose Ramirez answered with a towering two-run home run this reporter will not soon forget.

That the White Sox stood in this series at all is its own story: two seasons removed from a 121-loss campaign, the worst stretch in the uniform's history, Chicago reached the ALDS under manager Will Venable, who built his bench strategy, The Guardian reported on October 7th, from basketball tactics.

Cleveland now turns to Tampa Bay, opening the Championship Series Monday night chasing a World Series trip this franchise hasn't taken since nineteen fifty-four, by this reporter's count the longest drought in the sport.

MLB, for 185 million dollars in 2022 rather than defend the pay stubs in court, and that same year the owners recognized a minor-league players union for the first time in the sport's history — if this network has a political desk, this reporter would like transferred to it immediately, because a man can retire twenty-one of the game's best hitters in one night and still have signed his first professional contract for less than minimum wage.

By GusThe Sports Desk

Hot Mic Moment

Off the record while they fix my feed. That senator's stated goal is to have the president sign the bill live on that same show. So the Senate writes the rules for the athletes, the association that runs the games backs the bill, and the broadcast books the signing. That is not a pregame show. That is a committee room with better lighting and a sideline reporter. Put this reporter on the political desk. I can call fourth-and-one from memory. I would rather call this.

By GusThe Sports Desk

Hot Mic Moment

This reporter notes the Southeastern Conference moved, on September 8, to call a special meeting weighing LSU's expulsion for "a complete lack of institutional control," five days after its own lawsuit accused LSU of running "a deliberate and coordinated campaign" for that same NFL talent. The body bringing the charge and the body holding the vote share a letterhead. Somebody ought to send this to the political desk.

By GusThe Sports Desk

The oddsmakers only confirmed what the film already showed: Smith entered this week the Heisman favorite, a status this reporter considers inevitable for a junior who has turned opposing coordinators across the Big Ten into cautionary tales.

By GusThe Sports Desk

Hot Mic Moment

Put me on the political desk, because this is the same racket. Replay is only one thing: letting somebody who isn't the crew look at the tape. That is an institution ruling on its own kick.

By GusThe Sports Desk

Hot Mic Moment

We down? Good. Here is what I cannot say into a live one. The man told the country he leaned on alcohol in part because of the multiple back surgeries he took while he was an active player, and the institution's entire answer is a press release thanking him for nine years and wishing him the best. The employer priced the chair at $180 million and priced the back at a thank-you note. Put me on the political desk, Harold. I will do the full hour on who eats the cost of a body broken at work and who writes the parting statement.

By GusThe Sports Desk

As for the championship math, this reporter calculates Hamilton trails points leader Kimi Antonelli by a slim thirteen points heading into this weekend's race in the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, a deficit erased by one strong Sunday.

Turn back the calendar to last month, when Hamilton rolled up to Ferrari's home paddock in a vintage nineteen-fifties racer, a grand entrance this reporter is certain capped off his record sixth win at Monza, first in the red of Ferrari.

And targeting became triumph, this reporter can report, when first practice opened the following day and Hamilton topped the timing sheets, Ferrari's engine upgrade putting him well clear of teammate Charles Leclerc.

Ferrari will mark a practice lap as history. The sport itself has not changed the roster.

By GusThe Sports Desk

Hot Mic Moment

Somebody get the political desk on line two, because this reporter has something to say once this light goes off. Nine years ago the test was whether a player could kneel through the anthem without a president objecting. The song hasn't moved. Whose performance of it counts as loyal — that's the only thing that has.

By GusThe Sports Desk

Hot Mic Moment

February 2023 to September 2026. Forty-three months, this reporter counts, for an independent commission to rule on a hundred fifteen financial charges against one Premier League club. Somebody get this reporter to the political desk, because a regulator needing forty-three months to answer its own charge sheet is not oversight. It's a league checking its own homework and asking for an extension.

By GusThe Sports Desk

In Debrecen, Hungary, on Sunday, this reporter watched Ireland deliver what he is calling the biggest snub in the history of World Cup qualifying: goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu sat out the match against Israel entirely, and by this reporter's count the whole back four sat down with him.

Whatever the tournament is called, this reporter holds that a handshake before kickoff is a courtesy older than the sport's offside rule, and skipping it, as Ireland's squad did facing Israel, is the sort of lapse a proper referee ought to dock a man's wages for.

That is a sports federation making a foreign-policy call its own players didn't want made for them, and it belongs on the desk that covers governments, not the one that covers penalty kicks.