Sports this 'n' that

After 41 seasons, Fred Wilpon will no longer be in charge of the Mets.


On Monday, Wilpon & business partner Saul Katz reached an agreement with billionaire Steve Cohen to sell the team. All it needs now is to be ratified, if you will, by a majority of the other 29 owners in November, but already, Mets fans on message boards are absolutely giddy. An 11th hour bid by actress-singer Jennifer Lopez and her steady, ESPN/Fox analyst Alex Rodriguez, was not enough to postpone the inevitable. In fact, it's better that Cohen has bought the team. Team J-Rod would've been a perpetual distraction because of both stars being tabloid fodder for the press. With 2 weeks to go, the Mets still have an outside chance at the postseason, but maybe this is the inspiration they need. Stay tuned.
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You can say the Pac-12 & Big 10 conferences are caving in to political pressure from America's Oldest Baby.

Reports have the Pac-12 mulling a November start for a shorter than normal football season, and the Big 10, which has member schools in two midwest swing states, Michigan & Ohio, and felt the most pressure from President Trump to start play, may be following suit. Nothing's been finalized yet as of press time, but after seeing games played the last two weekends with few or no fans in the stands, there are possibilities.
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Watching Giants-Steelers last night on Monday Night Football, I wouldn't blame you if you thought it was Saturday night.

That's because ESPN assigned their primary college commentators, Chris Fowler & Kirk Herbstreit, to call the front end of the doubleheader, which would be the first NFL game assignment for both. Fowler is coming off covering the US Open tennis tournament for the network, and was in the tri-state area, anyway.

For whatever it's worth, the Giants spoiled the debut of new head coach Joe Judge by dropping a 26-16 decision to Pittsburgh, and this was despite the Steelers losing leading runner James Connor to an ankle injury in the first half. Daniel Jones, starting his 2nd season with Big Blue, was pressured the entire night, and threw perhaps the easiest interception of the week to Subway pitchman T. J. Watt. Ben Roethlisberger threw a couple of TD passes to Ju Ju Smith-Schuster, and the defense did the rest.

Former Giants coach Pat Shurmur, now the offensive coordinator in Denver, was a loser Monday night as well, as the Broncos blew a 4th quarter lead in a 16-14 loss to Tennessee. Stephen Gostkowski, yet another ex-Patriot who flew south to the Titans to play for Mike Vrabel, hit the game winning field goal with under a minute to go after missing three previous attempts.