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There is a whole lot going on with Liverpool FC this week! The Reds are getting ready for the run in and the chase for the Premier League title. Liverpool also announced the three preseason friendlies that they will stage in the United States this summer, and the trio of matches will all take place in massive, iconic cathedrals of sport.
First off though, here are your Liverpool FC vs Huddersfield Town A.F.C. FYIs for the match tomorrow night.
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When Liverpool FC begin preparations for next season they could be doing so as holders of a major trophy; perhaps two. The Reds are currently on top of the Premier League table and through to the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League.
There is nothing the club would like better than to enter the summer off-season with the first piece of silverware won during the Jurgen Klopp era. When the summer preseason does get going, it will include a stop in the Bronx’s Yankee Stadium. On Tuesday the New York Yankees announced that Liverpool will face Sporting CP in a July 24th friendly at Yankee Stadium.
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The massive fallout for pizza company Papa John’s and their founder John Schnatter continued Friday as the New York Yankees joined the list of businesses distancing themselves from the currently radioactive brand.
The Yankees suspended their current partnership with the pizza chain and blasted Schnatter’s remarks which recently came to light as “reprehensible.” Schnatter resigned as chairman of the Papa John’s board on Wednesday, after Forbes reported the pizza magnate’s having used the N-word during a media training exercise in May.
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It’s safe to say that promotional nights these days ain’t quite what they used to be. Back in Bill Veeck’s heyday, owners didn’t just think outside the box – they flat out blew it up, and sometimes literally.
So without further ado, The Sports Bank is proud to present the most memorable promotional nights in Major League history. These are the nights you wish you could’ve attended just to say that you were there, the nights that keep team PR Directors awake at night, the nights that live on forever and ever through because people can’t stop reliving the experience.
By Matt Lindner
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May the 4th be with you tomorrow. If you’re attending the opener of the New York Yankees‘ next home stand, then this Aaron Judge Jedi Bobblehead will almost certainly be with you as well.
Yes, Friday May the 4th will see the Yankees will host their third-annual Star Wars Night, with the first 40,000 guests in attendance receiving that Aaron Judge Jedi bobblehead that you didn’t know you really needed until just now when you saw the picture. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for, but this must be the promotional bobble giveaway that you’ve been searching for, from Coruscant to the Outer Rim Territories.
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It’s one of the most debated moments in baseball and Wrigley Field history – Babe Ruth’s “called shot” home run off Charlie Root in the 1932 World Series. Now you can own a piece of national past time history as the bat Ruth used for that legendary homer is now up for auction. What do you get the New York Yankees, or even Chicago Cubs, or general baseball fan that has everything?
Well, if you’re looking to gift something like this, then you are obviously a 1%er. The current bid, with five days to go at Robert Edward Auction, is $60,000. It opened at $25,000 and could easily go for over $250,000.
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Chicago White Sox founding patriarch Charles Comiskey passed up the opportunity to sign Babe Ruth for $16,000 (about $400,000 in today’s money) in 1914, and the letter verifying this offer is now up for auction. A very historical scrapbook from 1909-1914 contains 41 letters and 54 telegrams sent by former Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey to team scout George Mills is now available to the highest bidder at Robert Edward Auctions.
The online auction runs until May 6th, and the current SMR value for a Charles Comiskey signed letter is $1,500. However, the scrapbook’s historical value, especially with regard to the Ruth telegrams, cannot be quantified, as this same scrapbook sold at auction for $16,500 five years ago. Interestingly enough for $500 more than what Babe Ruth himself was offered.
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Another baseball season will soon be upon us, as opening day commences in about 48 hours. Time to look back at some of the funniest baseball cheating scandals in history. With Michael Pineda’s pine tar-smeared neck transports us to a time when baseball cheating was simpler; a time before steroids and the AnabolicEnergy boost that they provide to users, congressional committees and televised testimony about injecting HGH into Roger Clemens’s behind. Pineda’s beautiful incompetence reveals how much we long for the stress-free cheats of old.
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Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson has been traded to the New York Yankees.
No, that’s not a typo, and yes, you read that correctly, and no there has not been a new rule implemented allowing the NFL to trade with the MLB. Wilson, in Major League Baseball, was originally drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the fourth round in 2010.
He was then acquired by the Texas Rangers in the minor league phase of the 2013 Rule 5 Draft.
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We’re 22 days away from Chicago Cubs pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training, 27 until position players check in. Spring training will be here before you know it, reminding us that Major League Baseball offseason is actually quite short. It only seems long right now because the free agent market is so lifeless right now.
Of course, once the MLB hot stove warms up again, you could see the World Series odds shift again, just as they did when reigning National League MVP Giancarlo Stanton was traded to the New York Yankees.
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By John O’Leary
If there is anything that hits close to home with the lovely, old American Dream it is the notion of owning a sports team. Heck – legendary billionaire George Steinbrenner reportedly purchased the New York Yankees baseball team using just $5,000 of his own money, the rest wheedled from investors and borrowed from banks. He then let the profits from the team pay back these schlubs and then he owned the team pretty much outright. That’s how Steinbrenner purchased, arguably, the most iconic American sports franchise, the all-but-omniscient Bronx Bombers.
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It took 30 years but the Major League Baseball rookie season home run record was finally smashed by the New York Yankees Aaron Judge. It’s pretty amazing that the benchmark lasted three decades when you consider that it survived the steroid era.
Judge socked 52 homers, eclipsing the mark set by Mark McGwire, the man whose 1999 appearance on The Simpsons perfectly embodies what the Yanks youngster might just mean to MLB.
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