Beef in Boston

💰 One of the most valuable sports brands in the world just got sold. The Buss family has sold the Los Angeles Lakers to the owner of the Dodgers, Mark Walter, for $10 billion — a new record for a North American sports franchise.

• That’s $4 billion more than what the Boston Celtics were sold for just a few months ago. We have a feeling LeBron might be asking for a raise.
  

• Speaking of teams getting sold… the owner of the Tampa Bay Rays is reportedly in talks to sell the team for $1.7 billion (maybe a budget option for a bidder who lost out in the Lakers sweepstakes?)

🏆 The Stanley Cup runs through Florida. With the Panthers taking down the Oilers for the second straight season, a team from the Sunshine state has now won the Cup in four of the last six years. That’s even more impressive when you remember that a Canadian team hasn’t won it in 32 years. 

• On an even more somber note, Edmonton’s Corey Perry has played in the Stanley Cup Finals in five of the past six seasons and has been on the losing end of every single one. Pour one out for the guy. 

🏀 NBA Finals is heading to Game 7. The two best words in sports. One of either OKC or Indiana will win their first-ever title on Sunday night. One team will go down in the history books, the other will become a pub night trivia question. No pressure, guys.

📚 Miami Heat’s Tyler Herro says he doesn’t believe in history before 1950. A wild take for sure, but somehow fitting for a guy whose entire playoff history could fit in a tweet. 

⛳️ J.J. Spaun had 3,000-to-1 odds to win the U.S. Open. That’s the second-longest shot to win a major tournament of any golfer in the last decade. If you were one of the 0.1% of bettors that took him to win, congrats on your new yacht. 

🌭 Joey Chestnut is back. Arguably the most dominant athlete of our generation is returning to competitive eating’s biggest stage — the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest — after he was disqualified last year over his endorsement of a plant-based food company. 

• The “glizzy gladiator” will look to top his own record of 76 hotdogs in 10 minutes. I’d like to see AI do that. 

⚾️ MLB is messing with the baseballs (again). Pittsburgh Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen says a league rep told him that MLB changed the balls this year to make them not travel as far. Because who would want to watch something as boring as home runs, am I right?

Baseball just got its own Luka Doncic trade, and Red Sox fans are about ready to storm Fenway with pitchforks. 

Boston dealt their best player, star third baseman Rafael Devers, to the San Francisco Giants this week, just a year after signing him to a 10-year $313 million contract. And it’s safe to say it wasn’t a good breakup. 

So what went wrong? 

To put it simply, Devers wasn’t a big fan of the suits in the front office (even after they gave him $300 million), and the feeling looked like it was mutual. 

The two sides bickered all season over Devers switching positions, and ultimately, the Sox GM Craig Breslow had enough and sent him packing. It turns out airing your grievances about your boss in the media doesn’t translate to job security.

Unfortunately, Red Sox fans have seen this movie before. The Red Sox have made a habit out of trading their franchise players for spare parts. 

• Boston is still haunted by the ghost of Mookie Betts — the homegrown MVP that the team traded out of the blue to the Dodgers in 2020.

• Betts has been a top ten player in the league since the trade and has won two World Series titles with his new team, all while the Red Sox have played painfully mediocre baseball. 

The takeaway: Trades happen — but when it looks more like a messy divorce than a front office strategy, it’s hard to believe this was about baseball. Front office nerds getting their egos bruised really shouldn’t lead to the face of the franchise getting shipped out of town.

On this day in 1993, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls won their third consecutive NBA titles, with a nail-biting 99–98 victory in Game 6 over Phoenix Suns.

MJ, who also won his third straight Finals MVP, averaged 41 points in the series — still an NBA record. 

Alright, that’s enough yelling for one Friday.

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