Dugout drunk

🏈 The Super Bowl was a bore (unless you love punters). Drake Maye put an exclamation point on what was the worst statistical QB playoff performance in 25 years, Will Campbell proved he couldn’t protect his quarterback from a three-legged dog, and Sam Darnold showed once and for all that he can win the big game (especially if he’s got the NFL’s best defence on his side). 

• Funny enough, Maye — who was undeniably horrible for three quarters — ended up setting the NFL record for the most passing yards in a Super Bowl quarter, racking up 235 garbage time yards in the 4th quarter.
  

• Some of the other highlights included Kenneth Walker's MVP-winning performance, Jordan Hudson wearing a hoodie referencing Robert Kraft’s grim massage parlour history, and a streaker who caught his whole on-field experience with Meta glasses. 

🍺 The Phillies released Nick Castellanos for crushing beers in the dugout. The team’s relationship with its slugger apparently hit the point of no return after he cracked open a Presidente beer mid-game and strutted around the Phillies dugout with the bottle barking at coaches. It was his day off…. I really don’t see the problem. 

⛷️ RIP Lindsay Vonn. She’s not actually dead, but after her fall at the Olympics (and three more knee surgeries), it sounds like the 41-year-old will be hanging up her skis for good. It’s almost like competing with a torn ACL wasn’t a good idea.

🚩 The Guardian's pitch fixing scandal is even worse than it sounded. Cleveland Guardians former closer Emmanuel Clase is now being accused of manipulating his pitches to benefit bettors in at least 48 games in the last two years, significantly more than was initially revealed. That’s almost 40% of his total appearances the past two seasons.

• The evidence against Clase has gotten so bad that his co-defendant and former teammate, Luis Ortiz, has asked for their cases to be split up. His story (which seems far-fetched) is that Clase supplied Ortiz’s “pitching strategy” to the bettors without his knowledge. I guess the “strategy” was consistently throwing the first pitch in the dirt.

🌽 Iowa is trying to poach the Chicago Bears. The state government has passed a bill to fund a program aimed at luring an NFL franchise to Iowa, with the Bears as their primary target. The franchise is looking for a new stadium deal and they’ve already floated the idea of playing outside of the city (although Iowa may be a bit further than they bargained for). 

• The bad news: Caleb Williams will have to request a trade when he realizes there’s no matcha in Iowa. 

🎾 Russian tennis player Daniil Medvedev had an all-time meltdown mid-match. The world No. 11 was upset about the shape of the tennis balls being used, very graphically comparing them to the type of balls people use to “please with a little bit of saliva.” 

• He was so offended by the balls he threatened to fake an injury to retire from the match, telling the chair umpire that he had a flight to catch. Classic stuff, really. 

⚾️ Bad Bunny tried to bankroll Puerto Rico’s team at the World Baseball Classic. As if the Super Bowl halftime show wasn’t enough to deal with, Bad Bunny was also playing GM for his hometown Puerto Rico team. Mr. Bunny himself tried to pay for Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa's injury insurance for the WBC, but the Mets and Astros still wouldn’t let their star players participate in the tournament.

• Even worse, Justin Bieber selfishly didn’t offer to pay for Cade Smith, Matt Brash or Jonah Tong’s insurance, so Canada’s WBC team is looking thin. 

🏀 We got a benches-clearing NBA brawl this week. The Pistons and the Hornets got into a messy one on Monday night — punches were thrown, trash was talked, and four players were sent home early. The best part was watching Duncan Robinson’s reaction when the fight started, which can only be described as “I’m too old for this shit.” 

🎹 Christian McCaffrey was on the piano at Zach Bryan's concert. The 49ers running back ripped off a piano solo during Bryan’s pre-Super Bowl show in San Francisco. Given his injury history, it’s a win that he made it out of this without a dislocated thumb. 

🥶 Win an Olympic medal, confess to cheating on your girlfriend: That’s the Norwegian way. Sturla Holm Lægreid, who won a bronze medal in the biathlon, used his post-race interview to beg for his girlfriend to take him back. He called her “his gold medal in life” and confessed on camera that he’d cheated on her a few months ago. 

• Shooters gotta shoot but sadly, the mystery ex-girlfriend rejected his grand gesture. Maybe if he’d won gold it would’ve been a different story.  

Let the games begin. We’ve got a special Olympic hockey edition of Pick Six for this week. As always, we’re putting $50 gift cards up for grabs for the winners. Take on a few of the trivia games too (they keep your ball knowledge sharp).

It’s not every day you see a 580x parlay hit. Shoutout to @C_da_gee for hitting this 10-legger, taking every NBA game’s over except for one. What can you say, a hunch is a hunch. 

Check out the full parlay here.

Alright, that’s enough yelling for one Friday.

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