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Good morning.
We have officially reached the doldrums of the offseason, where baseball is over and football is still 60 days away. There’s no #60 on the roster so you don’t even get that this morning.
Instead, we’ve reached the point in the offseason where we start posting previews of Vanderbilt’s opponents in the upcoming season. The first one is Georgia, a team that will probably be ranked in the top five preseason, and a team that’s beaten Vanderbilt 41-13 and 45-14 in the last two years. So, I made the rather uncontroversial statement that Vanderbilt would probably lose that game. Oh well. There are twelve of them, and one loss isn’t going to kill the season.
Or, at least I thought this was uncontroversial.
How does a Vandy-themed website never give us a chance to win an SEC game?
— MILKMAN (@A11ANG) July 1, 2019
That’s real love right there, I guess. Don’t show up to the game or just change the name of the website bro. https://t.co/40BvFCekzn
Hey! I love the fire! I would love to be proven wrong! On the other hand, I also have credibility to maintain oh who the hell am I kidding. Anyway, if the players want to print off copies of yesterday’s preview and post them all over the locker room for motivation, I am 100 percent for this.
(Meanwhile, just a few short months ago, I was getting blasted for not trashing the basketball coach.)
Zac Ellis is leaving Vanderbilt, but before leaving, he gave us this great story on Tyler Brown.
And it looks like the baseball team is losing a couple of pitchers:
Transfer news: RHP Austin Becker will next season transfer to Texas Tech and be immediately eligible. Becker ranked No. 65 on the 2018 BA500, but didn't pitch much for Vanderbilt this spring.
— Teddy Cahill (@tedcahill) July 1, 2019
Back doing what I love. Thanks to @UConnBSB for giving me another opportunity! pic.twitter.com/TXey62oms2
— Justin Willis (@_Candela12) July 1, 2019
Andrew can probably tell you more about these, but neither strikes me as surprising.
Off the West End
This is awful: 27-year-old Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs died in his hotel room on Monday. (The Angels’ game against the Rangers was postponed, for obvious reasons.)
A 16-year-old has been charged with manslaughter in the deaths of Auburn radio broadcaster Rod Bramblett and his wife. Just an awful situation all around (though putting on my lawyer hat, this does sound like manslaughter.)
Headline: The NBA has a free agency tampering problem. Me: No shit.
From The Athletic ($): In the 1980s, college football outgrew NCAA rules, which is a nice way of saying college football teams were cheating like crazy in the 1980s.
Scoreboard
MLB: Blue Jays 11, Royals 4 ... Pirates 18, Cubs 5 ... Rays 6, Orioles 3 ... Brewers 8, Reds 6 ... Giants 13, Padres 2.