‘Nightcaps’ is a daily column that catches you up on the biggest sports, news and culture stories you may have missed while pretending to do work at your desk. It runs Monday-Friday on OutKick.com.
I don’t know what’s worse …
My Red Sox getting absolutely embarrassed in Game 1 against the Yankees, or the fact that we still have WNBA drama to parse through on the final day of September.
Thank goodness for Sophie Cunningham. At least we can work her into today’s class after last night’s debacle in Indy. She’s a content machine, and, frankly, makes a good point about the WNBA and the rules.
You’ll see.
But first … welcome to a Hump Day Nightcaps — the one where Sophie sends the league a message via her TikTok account. Nobody is doing it quite like Sophie right now. She’s at the absolute top of her game … off the court, at least. I’d like to see a few more baskets on the court, but that’s just being nitpicky.
What else should we hit on today? My Red Sox looked like trash last night, and I’m not sure it’s getting any better tonight. The days of 2004 (and ’07, ’13 and ’18) are long gone. Sad.
I’ve also got a USC announcer offering up a sizzling take on the dirtiest hit in college football from last weekend, Mario Lopez using just the wildest AI image of Mr. Belding I’ve ever seen after news of his death broke yesterday and I need to ask you guys about these NBC/Peacock MLB broadcasts.
Is it just me, or do these guys not shut up? I couldn’t take it last night. I felt like I was listening to a three-hour podcast during Sox-Yanks, and the game was nothing more than background noise. It was stunning.
OK, grab you one final September drink before the greatest month of the year begins tomorrow, and settle in for a Hump Day ‘Cap!
Look, I don’t want to do much WNBA today. I don’t have it in me. It’s football season. It’s the MLB postseason. Hockey started yesterday. I spent all summer doing this, and I was hoping to move on …
But the girls just refuse to give up the news cycle!
DETAILS EMERGE IN INCIDENT BETWEEN ACES STAR A’JA WILSON AND FEVER FAN DURING PLAYOFF GAME
“You’re the one who writes about it! Stop covering it, and they’ll stop being relevant!”
Yes, I know. I’ve heard it before. My job is to follow the content. And last night, the content was in Indiana, where A’ja Wilson threw a tantrum because a fan …
Well, the fan did nothing wrong. Literally. He simply pointed at her after she got tangled up with Sophie Cunningham, resulting in a foul.
Wilson took it so personally, that she actually went into the stands to confront this VERY MEAN FAN. She didn’t quite make it to him, but she still entered the stands.
That, according to the pesky WNBA rulebook, ain’t allowed. It comes with an automatic ejection, and triggers an investigation from the league. None of that happened.
So, being the only sane player in the league, Cunningham took it upon herself to raise that exact point in a social media post Wednesday afternoon.
“Not trying to be dramatic at all, but I’m just here trying to have my morning coffee and, what a damn comeback year for the point,” Cunningham said in the post, which was simply captioned “According to the rulebook…..”
Amazing. She never misses … like I said, off the court.
Cunningham, of course, went viral over the summer when she antagonized an opposing player by simply pointing at her. The clip exploded, T-shirts were made and Sophie’s stardom took off like a rocket ship.
Cunningham wasn’t ejected or fined or anything like that, but that’s because she didn’t do anything wrong. According to the WNBA rules, Wilson did. And the league has, so far, looked the other way.
Rules are for thee!
OK, that’s enough WNBA talk for today. We’ve got more playoff baseball on deck, with four more games this afternoon and tonight. Same schedule as yesterday. Same announcers.
And that’s just terrible news for Sox and Yankees fans …
I could go on and on. It was unbearable.
Anthony Rizzo? Stinks. Joe Girardi? Nails on a chalkboard. Lou Merloni? Actually good, but couldn’t get a word in because Girardi and Rizzo, two former YANKEES, wouldn’t shut up.
Why do we suddenly need these 3, 4 and 5-man broadcast booths? I don’t get it. We went decades — decades! — with two-man booths. And now the big thing is to stuff as many people in the booth as humanly possible, and have them constantly talk the whole game? I don’t get it.
God, I miss Buck and McCarver. We had it so good, and we pissed it away.
Sad.
OK, let’s rapid-fire this Hump Day class into a big Hump Day night. First up? While we’re on the topic of broadcast booths, let’s go ahead and check in with the USC fellas after last weekend’s disgusting late hit that sent Dante Moore to the ER:
“He did not try to slide feet first. Stephens went in helmet-first, but he kind of ran into Dante Moore, who ducked into that hit. I did not see him put his feet out first. I saw him dive forward.”
Amazing. What a sequence. What analysis by USC play-by-play man, Pete Arbogast. I’ve never seen anything like it. Just stunning.
Even when the rest of the crew told Arbogast that Moore did, indeed, slide feet first, he offered this bit of incredible spin.
THE CRAIG CARTON SHOW–UNFILTERED, UNAPOLOGETIC AND UNMISSABLE. DOWNLOAD HIS DAILY PODCAST NOW!
“Well he is now because they spun him around,” he said before looking at the replay and coming to his final conclusion. “Well, he goes into, not a feet-first slide, more of a knee-slide. It didn’t look like targeting on the replay to us.”
Yep. No targeting there, Pete! Just good, clean football. Textbook stuff, really.
Next? Speaking of textbook stuff, how about this AI picture of Mr. Belding that Mario Lopez posted yesterday, just hours after Dennis Haskins’ death?
Can you spot the issue?!
Incredible. How does one see that, and think to themself, “Yeah, this is it. This is the one!” What a move here by AC Slater. Poor Mr. Belding.
PS: I’m super bummed Dennis Haskins died. He was our childhood. Him and Bob Saget. And now, we’ve lost both.
Brutal.
OK, that’s it for today — and this month! We did it. We’re into October, boys and girls. Soak it all up.
Let’s say one final goodbye to summer with NASCAR’s Natalie Decker, and start this new month with a bang.
See you tomorrow.
Did you watch the Sox-Yanks game and notice the nonstop yapping? Zach.Dean@OutKick.com.
