The ESPN Daily: Dollar Beer Night as a secret weapon, remembering Tiger’s comeback, and the Yankees as underdogs

5:03 am | August 21, 2019 | Go to Source | Author:

Jul 26, 2019

The ESPN Daily Staff

THINGS TO CARE ABOUT

Among the chugs … Phoenix Rising FC has a secret weapon, a strategy that turns the team from the mere leader of the United Soccer League’s Western Conference into an unbeatable soccer juggernaut. This weapon has a name: Dollar Beer Night. Skeptical? As it turns out, when Phoenix plays on Dollar Beer Nights, it is undefeated. It hasn’t even drawn a Dollar Beer Night match since the franchise started holding them in 2017. How does it pull this off? Read More

Who’s on the hot seat? Training camp is nearly over, and teams are rapidly coalescing into their Week 1 forms. While our NFL experts ranked each team going into the beginning of the season (no points for guessing which team’s in the No. 1 spot), we also asked them to consider which player or coach needs to prove himself if he’s going to last the entire season. Read More

The Yankees as plucky underdogs? We know, we know — for people who have even a cursory knowledge of the history of baseball, calling the Yankees “underdogs” seems like a sick joke. Yet this year, it might actually be true. Maybe not for the franchise as a whole, which is still massively rich and influential, but for the second-stringers who managed to outperform expectations when all those star sluggers got injured. Don’t believe us? Just check out the numbers. Read More

DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK

“I looked around, and the tournament was over. I won.” Tiger Woods’ career as a title contender looked like it was finished. The signs were all there: He was wracked by injuries, missing cuts, unable to even play in some of golf’s biggest tournaments. Yet despite all that, he was still Tiger Woods, perhaps the greatest golfer in history. In September 2018, at the Tour Championship, he reminded us all of that fact. Take a look back at the tournament that might end up as the first chapter in the story of Tiger’s comeback. Read more

THINGS TO WATCH

Stephen A. Smith has no problem with Jerry Jones making jokes about Ezekiel Elliott.

Mo’ne Davis returns to the LLWS for the first time since 2014 and provides Maddy Freking with advice on playing there.

Soccer star and Eagles fan Carli Lloyd hits a 55-yard field goal at Philadelphia’s practice.

OVERHEARD

“Zero”

— Baker Mayfield, when asked how sincere his apology for planting the Oklahoma flag on the Ohio State midfield was on a scale of 1 to 10. Read more

REMEMBER WHEN?

On this date in 1936, Wilt Chamberlain was born. By all accounts, Chamberlain was one of the strongest players in NBA history and shockingly fast for a man more than 7 feet tall. It’s no wonder that he was able to put up highlights like this: Watch

WHAT’S ON TONIGHT?

Yankees at A’s (10 p.m. ET, ESPN): The Yankees are in Oakland (and on ESPN!) for the second night in a row. Good news for the A’s: They’ll be facing J.A. Happ and his 5.40 ERA. Bad news for the A’s: The Yankees score so many runs that Happ is 10-7.

Blue Jays at Dodgers (10:10 p.m. ET, ESPN+): What’s better than watching one baseball game? Watching two games simultaneously on multiple screens, that’s what. Cue Toronto at L.A. on ESPN+ because we’re thoughtful like that.