Break up the Oklahoma Sooners! In softball, anyway.
The Sooners completed one of the most dominant seasons by a team in any sport, going 59-3, hitting 155 home runs and averaging 10.5 runs in 11 NCAA tournament games to win the national title. Best softball team ever?
“I wish we could just say, ‘All right, 1994 Arizona, you take on 2022 Oklahoma,’ ” said OU coach Patty Gasso, a player on that Wildcats team. “It would have to be a video game, because none of us could even run anymore.”
NFL headlines
— At TheOnion.com: “North Dakota constructs billion-dollar stadium just in case some NFL franchise gets desperate.”
— At Fark.com: “You are not listening live to Brent Musburger calling Raiders games.”
Cashing in
You can call C.J. Stroud a lot of things, but starving college student isn’t one of them.
The Ohio State quarterback’s NIL deal with Sarchione Auto Gallery calls for a Bentley Bentayga lease — starting price: $160,000 — to drive around campus in exchange for promotional appearances.
More bite on his slider?
Dog days of summer, Mets edition: Max Scherzer, already sidelined with an oblique strain, got bit on his pitching hand by his pooch.
Truth in advertising
Good news! By 2025 the Big 12 Conference will actually have … 12 teams!
(It only took Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston joining and Texas and Oklahoma leaving to do it, but …)
Down to the skivvies
Tom Brady is launching his own line of signature underwear.
So what’ll it be — boxers, briefs or Bradys?
They’re desperate
The Angels, trying to snap a 13-game losing streak, used Nickelback tunes for their walk-up music during Wednesday’s game against the Red Sox, a 1-0 loss.
Whatever happened to simply rounding up the bats and burning them?
Black & blue division
No truth to the rumor that the Mariners plan to honor their first baseman — who leads baseball with 12 hit-by-pitches — with Ty France Magnet Night.
High notes only
A bad hop in a Happy Valley softball game in Encino, Calif., sent singer Nick Jonas to the emergency room.
Where did it hit him? Let’s just say he suddenly went from the Jonas Brothers to The Sopranos.
Talking the talk
— Mike Bianchi of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, after Billy Horschel won the Memorial Tournament and $2.2 million: “Which is roughly what Texas A&M pays for a four-star linebacker. … Speaking of which: What has more money — the Saudi-funded golf league or the Texas A&M-funded NIL recruiting kitty?”
— The late Tim Russert of NBC, to The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, on how many beers he’d consumed when, as a college student with $2 in his pocket, he attended the Indians’ infamous Ten-Cent Beer Night game in 1974 that devolved into a riot: “You do the math.”
Going Dean Wormer
The PGA Tour has suspended 17 players for taking part in the first Saudi-backed LIV Golf tournament.
As for the players, they say it’s a no-brainer — better prize money, fewer working days and more sand traps.
Quote marks
— Syndicated columnist Norman Chad, via Twitter: “Was in a Philadelphia supermarket on Saturday. Bumped into Joel Embiid in the produce aisle. Store manager called it a Flagrant 1 and awarded Embiid two free avocados.”
— Comedy writer Brad Dickson, via Twitter, on Harley Davidson ceasing production due to supply-chain issues: “Oh, no, now how will middle aged, paunchy men compensate for their receding hairlines?”
— Comedy writer Torben Rolfsen, after John Daly missed the cut at the PGA Championship: “He had to get back to his other gig as a mall Santa.”
Double play
Managers Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon got fired one day apart last week.
Say it ain’t so, Joes.
Quote, end quote
— Janice Hough of LeftCoastSportsBabe.com, after White Sox manager Tony La Russa ordered an intentional walk on a 1-2 count — and then the next batter homered: “Of course this is the same Tony La Russa who once issued an intentional walk to Barry Bonds. In spring training.”
— Bob Molinaro in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, after Commanders defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio described the Jan. 6 insurrection as a “dust-up”: “The Washington Commanders and public-relations gaffes go together like Beavis and Butt-Head.”
— Tim Hunter of Everett’s KRKO Radio, with a sure sign that gas has gotten way too expensive: “A gas station is offering a free car with every fill-up.”
