Sports this 'n' that

 "Those who fail to remember history are condemned to repeat it."--George Santayana.

Just like last year, the Atlanta Braves took a 3-1 lead in games into Thursday's game vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the series moving back to Atlanta on Saturday night.

And, just like last year, the Dodgers are back in it, riding a combined 5 home runs from AJ Pollock & Chris Taylor en route to a 11-2 drubbing of the NL East champions.

Ian Anderson will be entrusted with halting another Dodger comeback on Saturday night. Anderson only went 3 innings in game 2, and was bailed out by the Braves' offense & bullpen.

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Lost in the narrative of Jon Gruden's resignation last week as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders was the decision of lineman Carl Nassib to take a leave of absence from the team.

Nassib, who came out as gay earlier this year, is understandably disturbed by the revelations of Gruden's past insensitive tweets, uncovered by the New York Times. Without Nassib, the Raiders defeated Denver last Sunday. Figure he'll be back before long, because the Raiders will need him for a playoff push in the second half of the season.

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Last month, WWE superstar Zelina Vega (Thea Bundgen) was denied an opportunity to use an episode of Smackdown the night before the 9/11 Memorial to express her feelings about losing her father on that horrible day 20 years ago. Personally, I thought Fox could've jumped on this opportunity, and put some heat on WWE CEO-Chairman-head wackjob Vince McMahon to give Vega a forum. As it happened, she was among those who read the names of victims at Ground Zero the next day.

Vega, married to AEW's Malaki Black (Tom Bundgen), rebounded and won the inaugural Queen's Crown tournament at Crown Jewel on Thursday in Saudi Arabia. Until her recent return to WWE's Vega's won-loss record wasn't that great, but one wonders if this was a way of McMahon making it up to her for the el snubbito last month. We may never know.