Last night there were some sports obits going around about Rosie Ruiz, who I ended up learning was undoubtedly the greatest women’s sports heroine in history. As a child, she fled Cuba at age 8.  As an adult, she achieved the American dream by winning the 1980 Boston Marathon with a record breaking time.  However, things kind of blew up in her face in the post-race interview when it became obvious that she cheated.

Witnesses saw her sneak into the race from the crowd at a point well ahead of all the other women runners, but none of the official spotters noticed her because people weren’t pretending to care about the women’s race back then.  They ended up disqualifying her and even found out that she took a subway through the whole route of the New York Marathon to qualify.  Like a true master woman, she denied until she died.

In the decade that followed her historic victory, she accomplished several other feats such as stealing 60k from her employer, trafficking a bunch of cocaine, having some babies and then finding a loving lesbian partner for the rest of her life.  Her friends and family didn’t even mention her athletic feats in a very sweet obituary, but then some running magazine got wind of it and published the coolest part of her life story.

Those runners that read that running magazine may seem bitter, but at the end of the day she is the greatest women’s marathon runner of all time in my eyes.  I mean who else is even out there that even compares?  Can you name anyone else better?

Rip in peace Rosie – you lived a good one

It was a historic trade deadline for the hated Houston asstros as they get a new hall of fame to anchor the rotation of what was already their most talented team ever.  Zack Greinke now has access to the same fountain of youth that Justin Verlander enjoyed via the esteemed Houston ‘analytics’ department.  Vegas odds indicate we should start expecting an epic WS rematch of 2017, which will be especially juicy with some potential duels between Greinke and his former colleague Kershaw.  Nothing on the line except immortality for the legacies of both themselves and their franchises.

On paper, there is no argument Houston won deadline day, but as they always say we still have to play the games and not everything turns out like it’s supposed to.  Listen I’m not criticizing Zack Greinke’s mental health – even the wokest of woke might find it hard to find a real sob story in a $217M and counting career, but he did have to live almost a decade in Kansas City and Milwaukee and that is a truly traumatic way to spend your 20s.  The only city in baseball that might be worse than those two is Houston, so let’s hope this ‘analytics’ era of the asstros wasn’t exposed forever by Alex Cora or it might come to a swift collapse with some very sad campers.

Big Swinging Dick GM and The Miracle Mets 2.0

The real winners are the Mets and budding New York hero Brodie Van Wagenen.  He started July by berating and throwing a chair at his manager for fucking up way too much and then ended the month by resurrecting the DeGrom/Thor contention window.  The Stroman trade put a smile on every baseball fan, but most importantly it gave hope back to the best fans in baseball as the Mets now have the league’s best rotation by far for the next two postseasons.

The Mets are 13-2 in their last 15 and are a lock to clinch the wild card with time to rest before October.  If it weren’t for an astonishing 21 blown saves throughout this season, they’d be favorites over Atlanta for the division right now.  If Diaz can regain any of his form from last year as the best closer in baseball, the Mets have a shot at pitching their way to a title.

George Steinbrenner Continues to Roll in His Grave

On the other side of town we have the Yankees – woof.  In the past three years, this $4.6B franchise has been gifted stars on a silver platter such as…

1. #1 prospect in baseball Gleyber Torres in exchange for a two month loan of Chapman
2. NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton in exchange for two shitty prospects (collusion)
3. The best prospect of all time Jasson ‘The Martian’ Dominguez for record money

The Yankees rolled into the trade deadline this year with the best record in baseball, and then lo and behold things weren’t free anymore.  Instead of overpaying anyway because titles are worth it (see #1 above), Bryan Cashman opted for prospect hugging.  Maybe the SAVAGES and these juiced balls will make October starting pitching obsolete for the first time ever.  Otherwise, it’s time for Cashman to be canned.  One World Series in 20 years for a franchise like that is flat out not enough.  I can’t imagine how furious George Steinbrenner would be if he was still alive.

Other Trade Deadline Notes:

Twins and Indians – have been enjoying the easiest schedules of all time this year which is nice for them.  The Twins have a bright future, but they’re not quite ready yet and they’re especially not going anywhere with Sam Dyson throwing meaningful pitches.  God he sucks so bad why oh why would they make such a stupid trade.

The Bauer trade for Cleveland?  Well he’s a shithead and their window has passed so yeah might as well move on from him. Puig is dope

Braves – had a budding surefire dynasty until the aforementioned Brodie Van Wagenen pulled out his big swinging dick.  Despite the new divisional competition, their roster is still stacked everywhere except the bullpen.  They acquired closer Shane Greene who had been nearly perfect for the Tigers this season.  Immediately after getting traded, he regressed to the 30yo 4.60 ERA spare who ruined so many juicy moneylines and unders in Detroit these past few years. Still, Atlanta has a deep farm system (they also acquired two other relievers) and you gotta take shots and not be pussies like Cashman to win.

Giants – hilarious and awesome that they went on a fluky run at the most inopportune time possible and now will see Bumgarner walk for nothing.  Flags fly forever though.

Nats and Phillies – not that any good teams genuinely wanted him but it is funny that Bryce Harper left a trash team in DC for an equally trash team in Philly and they’re both gonna stay trash for the entirety of his contract.

If Le’Veon Bell played last year, the Steelers would have won the Super Bowl.  They missed the playoffs by half a game and they surely could have made up that ground with the added production of a transcendent running back.  They already beat New England and should’ve beaten New Orleans in the dome, so I think it’s safe to say they were less than one additional hall of famer away from going all the way.

When that (short-lived) narrative of James Conner being better Bell circulated around, it was more a testament to fantasy’s popularity than it is a reflection of truth.  This summer, the hogwash topic d’jour is the analytical deep dive into the growing consensus that all running backs are all the same and worthless.  My personal favorite is this FiveThirtyEight dude saying Royce Freeman, Isaiah Crowell, and Alfred Morris (lol) are just as good as Zeke.  Apparently, 350 touches from a hall of fame talent is easily replaceable by minimum cost role players.  Is it possible we are overthinking this here?  I love analytics just as much as anyone around, but football will never be a numbers game.  Sample size and controlled variables are elementary requirements to sound statistical studies, and you will never get those from an NFL season.

“You don’t have to have a rushing champion to win a Super Bowl” says Jerry Jones in some very naked posturing.  Well you also won’t win Super Bowls with receiving champions if you wanna go by all these statistical factoids.  The simple truth is all Super Bowl participants have been strong in all facets of the game, with their most overbearing strengths being MVP quarterbacks or dominant defenses.  The teams that succeed via the latter predicate their offenses around the run game.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say our running back who’s won two out of three rushing titles and makes every aspect of our team better is worth the money.  We might as well pay him now too while he’s younger.  The timing works out perfectly to fairly compensate him when he’s in the beginning of his prime and then play hardball when he’s at the end.

The Cowboys have $24 million in cap space right now with another $14M coming off the books next year between Tyrone Crawford and La’el Collins alone.  There’s enough room to match the Gurley contract for Zeke and still match top dollar to three of the four of Dak, Amari, Byron Jones, and Jaylon Smith.  Hell, there might be enough to pay all four if the cap rises a ton with the new CBA.

This is a nice healthy holdout for both sides for the time being – it’s early.  Once push comes to shove, the Cowboys aren’t going to fuck this up like the Steelers did.  Zeke will get his money and then he’ll be getting lifetime rights to a faucet of even more money come February when he’s holding up Lombardi #6 for America’s Team.