Yahoo Sports AM: RIP, Charlie Hustle

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🚨 Headlines

💔 F*ck cancer: Basketball Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo passed away at age 58 due to brain cancer. Rest in peace to a shot-blocking legend, a beloved teammate and “just a great human being.”

🏈 MNF doubleheader: Jared Goff set the NFL record for most pass attempts without an incompletion (18-for-18, 292 yards, 2 TD) and added a TD catch in the Lions’ 42-29 win over the Seahawks; the Titans cruised past the Dolphins, 31-12, for their first win.

⚾️ Back to the basics: MLB players will return to wearing team uniforms for the 2025 All-Star Game. The league is ditching the annual ASG-specific jerseys that debuted in 2021.

🏀 Expansion draft rules: WNBA teams will be limited to six protected players for the Golden State Valkyries expansion draft on Dec. 6. The rest of their rosters will be exposed for the Valkyries to choose from.

⚾️ President Posey: Giants icon Buster Posey is the team’s new president of baseball operations. He replaces Farhan Zaidi, who was fired after six years at the helm (403-506 record, one NL West title).

⚾️ How are we supposed to remember Pete Rose?

Pete Rose, MLB’s hit king who was banned from baseball for life in the wake of a gambling scandal, died Monday. He was 83.

From Yahoo Sports’ Jay Busbee:

How the hell are we supposed to remember Pete Rose?

Do we remember Rose as “Charlie Hustle,” the grittiest, hardest-skulled ballplayer in baseball history, a man who by sheer force of will claimed baseball’s all-time hits record?

Do we remember him as an unrepentant gambler, a man who compromised the integrity of himself and his sport by betting on his own team, refusing every effort at atonement?

Do we remember him as a Neanderthalic throwback, an often cruel man accused of crimes far worse than gambling on baseball?

Rose’s playing exploits deserve enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. So do his crimes against the game he loved.

Baseball fans of future eras, who won’t have memories of Rose in his playing days, who won’t have the same aversion to gambling, need to understand both the man’s inspiring talent and his ruinous, self-inflicted spiral.

His story — all of his story — is essential to understanding the game of baseball, a game that both tests and reveals character.

Pete Rose is gone now. He’ll never have the chance to set the record straight. And given all the opportunities he had to clear his name, that probably suits him just fine.

Quote du jour: “I’d walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball.” — Pete Rose

Read the full story.

🇺🇸 Photos across America

Atlanta — The Mets and Braves advanced to the playoffs after splitting their doubleheader (ICYMI: Game 1 was one of the wildest games of the year). Sorry, Diamondbacks fans.

Los Angeles — LeBron and Bronny James made their public debut as teammates on Monday at Lakers media day. “Just pure joy, man,” said LeBron when asked about his emotions.

Washington, D.C. — Declaring the U.S. the “greatest sports nation in the history of the world,” President Joe Biden welcomed Team USA at the White House to recognize their Olympic and Paralympic achievements in Paris.

San Antonio — Gregg Popovich on new Spurs point guard (and longtime pain in the Spurs’ side) Chris Paul: “I have despised Chris for many years.” Pop’s already in midseason form!

🏀 Power Rankings: NBA starting lineups

An ideal NBA lineup has a superstar, a deferential co-star, a third star who owns his role, a fourth option and a fifth starter to tie it altogether. How close does your team come to checking off those boxes?

Methodology: Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rohrbach ranked the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 options on each NBA team, then averaged those individual player rankings to get a cumulative starting lineup score.

Cream of the crop: The defending champion Celtics blew away the field, with an average player ranking of 2.4. Jayson Tatum was fourth among No. 1s, Jaylen Brown was third among No. 2s, Kristaps Porziņģis was third among No. 3s, Jrue Holiday was first among No. 4s and Derrick White was first among No. 5s.

1. Celtics (2.4): Tatum (4), Brown (3), Porziņģis (3), Holiday (1), White (1)

2. Thunder (6.4): Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (5), Jalen Williams (13), Chet Holmgren (4), Alex Caruso (8), Isaiah Hartenstein (2)

3. Timberwolves (6.8): Anthony Edwards (8), Julius Randle (14), Rudy Gobert (2), Jaden McDaniels (6), Mike Conley Jr. (4)

4. Knicks (7.2): Jalen Brunson (11), Karl-Anthony Towns (8), Mikal Bridges (8), OG Anunoby (3), Josh Hart (6)

5. Mavericks (8.8): Luka Dončić (2), Kyrie Irving (7), Klay Thompson (19), P.J. Washington (11), Dereck Lively II (5)

Of note: These rankings assume that the Knicks and Timberwolves finalize the reported blockbuster trade that will send Karl-Anthony Towns to New York.

Full rankings.

📆 Oct. 1, 1932: The Babe “calls his shot”

92 years ago today, Babe Ruth famously “called his shot” in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series at Wrigley Field. Or so you’ve been told…

The famous blast: Facing a 2-2 count against Cubs pitcher Charlie Root, Ruth gestured toward center field before blasting a home run into the center field bleachers. Nearly a century later, it remains one of the most iconic moments in sports history. Rarely does a rec league softball game go by without at least one person mimicking the Babe “calling his shot.”

But did it actually happen? Michael Gibbons, the longtime executive director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace & Museum in Baltimore, has closely examined news reports, photographs and even two 16mm home movies shot from the stands that day. His conclusion? Ruth probably said something about the upcoming pitch, but there’s no clear evidence that he “called his shot.”

• “You can see in the films … he’s jawing with Root and the Cubs players [in] the dugout,” Gibbons told the Baseball Hall of Fame. “But it looks to me like he’s pointing at Root and the Cubs bench jockeys. … I really don’t see the Babe pointing to the center field bleachers.”

• News reel footage shows Ruth rounding the bases and making a “gotcha” gesture towards the Cubs bench, Gibbons told AP. Lou Gehrig hit the next pitch out of the park, the Yankees won 7-5, and they completed the sweep the next day with a 13-6 victory.

Print the legend: While some news stories alluded to Ruth’s pointing, only one reported that he “called his shot.” When that headline gained traction in the newspapers, other writers began echoing the report, “and it spread like wildfire,” said Gibbons.

“Happy to run with it”: Initially, Ruth said he was pointing to the Cubs bench to let them know he had one more strike, which is also what Root claims happened. But “once the story got some legs, the media-savvy slugger was happy to run with it,” wrote author Scott Pitoniak for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Cubs first baseman Charlie Grimm, longtime Wrigley Field public address announcer Pat Pieper and Lou Gehrig were among those who backed the Babe’s interpretation. But others, including two of Ruth’s teammates — Bill Dickey and Frank Crosetti — said the story was fabricated.

“All of us players could see it was a helluva good story,” Dickey told the Washington Post in a 1988 interview. “So we just made an agreement not to bother straightening out the facts.”

“People want to believe it”: In 1992, the Babe Ruth Museum ran a year-long “Called Shot” exhibit and asked fans whether they believed the story. 85% said they did. “People want to believe it, and that’s part of the beauty of baseball,” said Gibbons. “No other game lends itself more to myth and legacy and debate.”

How much is history worth, even if it didn’t happen? The jersey Ruth wore that day was sold for $24.12 million in August, making it the most expensive sports collectible ever sold at auction — by a lot. The previous record sale was $12.6 million in 2022 for a Topps 1952 Mickey Mantle card.

📺 Watchlist: The playoffs are here

The MLB postseason begins today with a quartet of Wild Card matchups. As a reminder, these are all best-of-three series hosted by the higher seed.

• Tigers at Astros (2:30pm ET, ABC): Detroit manager A.J. Hinch returns to Houston, where he won the 2017 World Series — perhaps with the help of some trash cans.

• Royals at Orioles (4pm, ESPN2): It’s KC’s Bobby Witt Jr. (age 24) vs. Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson (23) in a battle of young, superstar shortstops.*

• Mets at Brewers (5:30pm, ESPN): This is the first-ever postseason meeting between these two 1960s expansion franchises.

• Braves at Padres (8:30pm, ESPN): Expect a lot of whiffs: Atlanta and San Diego finished top-two in the NL in strikeouts per nine innings pitched.

More to watch:

• 🏀 WNBA Playoffs: Aces (down 1-0) at Liberty (7:30pm, ESPN2); Sun (up 1-0) at Lynx (9:30pm, ESPN2)

• ⚽️ Champions League: Matchday 2 (12:45-3pm, Paramount+)

• 🏒 NHL Preseason: Devils at Rangers (7pm, TNT); Golden Knights at Avalanche (9:30pm, TNT)

*Pregame reading: How did 29 MLB teams pass on Gunnar Henderson? … How Bobby Witt Jr., always expected to be an MLB star, delivered on that promise

🏀 NBA trivia

Dikembe Mutombo is one of three players in NBA history to win the Defensive Player of the Year Award four times (1995, 1997, 1998, 2001).

Question: Who are the other two?

Hint: One is still active.

Answer at the bottom.

⚾️ Houston vs. Detroit

The Astros and Tigers meet today in the first-ever playoff matchup between Houston and Detroit in any of the four major sports.

How has this never happened? It’s actually not that surprising given (a) Houston doesn’t have an NHL team and (b) the two cities have been in different conferences or leagues for most of their existence.

• The Rockets and Pistons would have to meet in the NBA Finals, and their title windows never overlapped in the 80s/90s.

• The Lions and Texans would have to meet in the Super Bowl, and they’re two of the four franchises to never appear in one.

• The Astros and Tigers were in different leagues until Houston moved from the NL Central to the AL West in 2013.

So who ya got: Space City or Motor City? H-Town or Motown?

Trivia answer: Ben Wallace (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006) and Rudy Gobert (2018, 2019, 2021, 2024)

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