Sports this 'n' that

We're a week into the Saratoga flat track meet, and the worst possible news came down Wednesday when it was announced that Triple Crown champ Justify was being retired to stud due to an ankle injury sustained last month in training. In this day and age, horses are retiring earlier and earlier because their owners don't want to take any unnecessary risks before beginning the breeding process. As the late Walter Cronkite might've put it, that's the way it is.

Meanwhile, the Albany Times-Union found a new sparring partner for racing beat reporter Tim Wilkin in the annual "Bankroll Beatdown". Veteran handicapper Anthony "The Big A" Stabile (yes, he shares his nickname with Aqueduct Racetrack) steps in for the late Mike Jarboe, who passed away shortly after the 2017 meet ended. Stabile is no stranger to being a newspaper tout. Used to do that for the New York Post several years ago.
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The Mets' injury plague has no end in sight, and not even minor leaguers are safe.

Outfielder Yoenis Cespedes had just returned from the DL Friday, contributing a homer to the Mets' win over the Yankees, but then went back on the DL Tuesday after it turns out the source of his injury issues are in his heels. Calcification in both feet requiring surgery that will sideline Cespedes for the rest of the year, and into the first two months of 2019, at worst (8-10 months is the prognosis). Oddly enough, Cespedes was being tried out at first base while rehabbing, the idea being that it would take some stress off him playing in the outfield. And he volunteered for first base, mind you!

In Binghamton, former Heisman Trophy winner and part-time ESPN analyst Tim Tebow's second baseball season is over after a broken hand put him on the shelf last week. Mets officials were hoping to juice the box office by calling up Tebow on September 1, delaying his return to ESPN until after the season. Nope, not gonna happen. Look for Tebow to be in the studio, mostly for the SEC Network, when college football season starts.
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Speaking of ESPN, props to local native and former WRGB sports anchor Joe Tessitore, who takes over for Sean McDonough as the new play-by-play voice of Monday Night Football this season, partnered in the booth with newly retired Jason Whitten, formerly of the Dallas Cowboys, with erstwhile college analyst Anthony "Booger" McFarland, formerly of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as a field analyst, a la Tony Siragusa when the former Baltimore Raven worked for Fox. Yeah, it's been news for a while, but with preseason games starting in a couple of weeks, I thought I'd get this in, if I hadn't already.
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WWE announced Monday that they will mount their first-ever all women's PPV at the end of October. Critics, however, are haterizing on Monday Night Raw commissioner/Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon for all the wrong reasons. Luckily, her husband, Paul "Triple H" LeVesque, and her father, Vince, flanked her in center ring on Monday for the announcement. The plan is for the finals of this year's Mae Young Classic to take place at the PPV, Evolution, along with women's title matches from NXT, Raw, & Smackdown, on October 28. They've hired female referees for NXT, so this might be a night where the guys have the night off for a change.

Give LeVesque credit for taking what had been a reality competition (NXT), and rebooting it into the hottest of WWE's brands. There are many fans that wish he would take over running the big club from his father-in-law, but Vince defiantly refuses to retire. It's his lead touch that has ruined several men & women called up from NXT in recent years, the most recent victim being Japanese star Asuka, who was completely dissed by Uncreative in losing to current Smackdown women's champ Carmella (former Patriots cheerleader Leah VanDale) via screwjob on consecutive PPV's.