SI:AM | More of the Same Atop College Football

And, wishing ourselves a happy 68th birthday.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’ve got my fingers crossed that this college football season ends with a non-SEC team lifting the trophy, but I’m not hopeful.

In today’s SI:AM:

🐘 Pat Forde’s Top 25

⚾ The Dodgers lose an ace

☘️ Bill Russell’s friendship with Adam Silver

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Alabama again, of course

The annual release of the AP Top 25 poll is an indication that college football season is right around the corner. After all, what would college football be without the ability to argue over rankings?

There isn’t much to argue about at the top of this year’s preseason rankings. The top three teams are the ones we’ve become accustomed to seeing at the top of these lists year after year: No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia.

That’s the same top three that Pat Forde has in his preseason rankings.

The Crimson Tide lost key offensive players such as receivers John Metchie III and Jameson Williams, running back Brian Robinson Jr. and lineman Evan Neal, but Nick Saban’s team never has a problem replacing talent—plus, Heisman-winning quarterback Bryce Young is back.

The Buckeyes lost receivers Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson, but Jaxon Smith-Njigba (who had 1,606 receiving yards last season, the best in the Power 5) will return to catch passes from returning star quarterback C.J. Stroud.

The challenge for the Bulldogs will be replacing several members of its impenetrable national-championship-winning defense. A record-setting five Georgia defensive players were taken in the first round of April’s NFL draft: Travon Walker, Jordan Davis, Quay Walker, Devonte Wyatt and Lewis Cine. Nakobe Dean and Channing Tindall went in the third round, and Derion Kendrick was taken in the sixth round.

Clemson comes in at No. 4 in the AP poll, which is a bit of a surprise. Forde isn’t as high on the Tigers, ranking them seventh. They finished last season ranked 14th in the AP poll and failed to win a seventh straight ACC championship. Quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei, who was supposed to pick up right where Trevor Lawrence left off, struggled in his first season as the starter, completing just 55.6% of his passes and throwing more interceptions (10) than touchdowns (nine). But the good news for Uiagalelei is that four of his offensive linemen are returning, as are leading rushers Will Shipley and Kobe Pace.

Notre Dame, which named sophomore Tyler Buchner its starting quarterback over the weekend, rounds out the AP’s top five. The rest of the top 10 looks like this:

6. Texas A&M

7. Utah

8. Michigan

9. Oklahoma

10. Baylor

Forde’s rankings are significantly different, though. Here’s how he ranked the teams below the trio of juggernauts at the top:

4. Michigan

5. Utah

6. Notre Dame

7. Clemson

8. Texas A&M

9. USC

10. Oklahoma

Notre Dame and USC, two of the most storied programs in college football that are both adjusting to new head coaches, are two of the biggest question marks this season. Expectations are high for Marcus Freeman in South Bend and even higher for Lincoln Riley in Los Angeles, but both teams could go through some growing pains during the transition.

Further down the AP list, two ACC teams caught my eye. First, there’s NC State at No. 13. The Wolfpack haven’t won a conference championship since 1979 and haven’t finished in the top 15 in the AP poll since 2002, but quarterback Devin Leary is back after throwing 35 touchdowns to just five interceptions last season. And most members of the defense, which was 14th in the nation with 19.7 points allowed per game, will be back as well, including four players taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility afforded to them because of the pandemic. Forde is even higher on the Wolfpack, ranking them 11th.

I was also a little surprised to see Pitt at No. 17 in the AP poll, especially when the Panthers didn’t crack Forde’s top 25. Not only did quarterback Kenny Pickett turn pro, his top target, Jordan Addison (100 catches for 1,593 yards and 17 touchdowns) transferred to USC. But the offensive line returns all five starters, and the Panthers have three running backs (Israel Abanikanda, Vincent Davis and Rodney Hammond Jr.) coming back who all rushed for at least 500 yards last season.

The AP poll is a useful tool for getting an idea of which teams you should pay attention to as the season gets started, but don’t treat it as gospel. After all, Nebraska, which finished last season at 3–9, got a vote.

The best of Sports Illustrated

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

You might not know that Bill Russell and Adam Silver were close friends, as Howard Beck writes in today’s Daily Cover:

Russell, who died on July 31, at age 88, was buried last week in a private ceremony in Seattle. Silver gave a eulogy. To the basketball world, Russell was a towering icon—its greatest winner, its greatest champion and its fiercest advocate for civil rights. To Silver, Russell was all of that, certainly, but also a close and trusted friend, a confidant and a sounding board, going back to those days traveling the country in the early 1990s, when the two spent countless hours together.

Walker Buehler’s season-ending injury is a serious blow to the Dodgers’ World Series hopes, Nick Selbe writes. … Legendary Princeton men’s basketball coach Pete Carril, who died yesterday at 92, always deflected praise to his players, Alexander Wolff writes. … Avi Creditor recaps the weekend USMNT players had in Europe and how it impacts the team’s World Cup decisions. … Joe Dumars told Howard Beck that the Pistons were very close to completing a trade for Kobe Bryant.

Around the sports world

The Rangers fired manager Chris Woodward after four losing seasons. … The Buccaneers are reportedly signing former Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib. … Kevin Durant shut down rumors that he’s considering retirement. … MLB released the schedule for the playoffs, which includes a potential World Series game on Nov. 5, the latest ever. … The latest twist in Roquan Smith’s impasse with the Bears is that a noncertified agent has been contacting teams on his behalf.

The top five...

… things I saw yesterday:

5. This complete defensive breakdown by the Angels.

4. Jurickson Profar taking his sweet time to throw the ball in from the outfield, allowing Miguel Rojas to stretch a double into a triple.

3. Javier Báez chasing a pitch in the dirt (of course) but still managing to make contact.

2. Bronny James’s dunk during a game in France.

1. Nebraska receiver Decoldest Crawford’s commercial for a Lincoln air conditioning company.

SIQ

On this day in 1927, Babe Ruth became the first player to hit a home run completely out of which American League stadium?

• Griffith Stadium
• Comiskey Park
• Sportsman’s Park
• Navin Field

Yesterday’s SIQ: Which former MLB player broke Sadaharu Oh’s Japanese single-season home run record in 2013?

• Lastings Milledge
• Matt Murton
• Wily Mo Peña
• Wladimir Balentien

Answer: Wladimir Balentien. After hitting 15 home runs in 170 games for the Mariners and Reds, Balentien, a corner outfielder from Curaçao, made the jump to Japan. He hit 60 homers in 130 games during the 2013 NPB season, breaking one of the most hallowed records in Japanese sports.

As Frank Deford wrote in 1977, Oh was a revered figure in Japan, and his single-season home run mark (55 in 1964) was a sacred number. Before Balentien broke the record, it was challenged three times by foreign-born players, and all three times Oh’s record stood—thanks to some chicanery.

In 1985, American Randy Bass entered the final series of the season with 54 home runs. Facing the Yomiuri Giants, managed by Oh, in the final two games of the season, Bass was repeatedly intentionally walked, and Oh’s record remained intact.

In 2001, another American, Tuffy Rhodes, had a chance to break the record but like Bass was facing a team managed by Oh near the end of the season. Rhodes, playing for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, had tied Oh’s record with 55 home runs by the time he faced the Daiei Hawks, managed by Oh. In one game, Hawks pitcher Keisaburo Tanoue threw Rhodes just two strikes to 18 balls, in an apparent effort to prevent a foreigner from breaking the record.

“Oh, who set the record in 1964, insisted he was ‘out of the loop’ and that the decision to walk Rhodes four times was made by Tanoue,” the Associated Press reported at the time. “But few believed him.”

Rhodes got some good pitches to hit in the final series of the season against the Orix BlueWave but still ended the season tied with Oh.

The next year, in 2002, Venezuela’s Alex Cabrera managed to tie Oh’s record only to—you guessed it—fall short of history thanks to Oh’s team. The Hawks also pitched around Cabrera in the final week of the season, though Oh once again denied he had instructed pitchers to do so.

“They didn’t want me to get the record,” Cabrera said at the time. “The last 20 at-bats of the season, I think I only saw one strike. All records are for the Japanese. All my teammates wanted me to break the record. A lot of the players on other teams wanted me to break it, too.”

From the Vault: Aug. 16, 1954

Mark Kauffman/Sports Illustrated

The first issue of Sports Illustrated hit newsstands 68 years ago today. The cover featured Milwaukee Braves slugger Eddie Mathews slashing at a pitch in front of a packed crowd at County Stadium.

“Nowhere does baseball create more enthusiasm than in Milwaukee,” a note on the table of contents page explained. “Last year, after moving to town from Boston, the Braves drew 1,826,379 fans, a National League record.”

The magazine’s first issue reflected the sporting interests of the American public at the time. It focused mainly on baseball, track and field, golf and boxing, but there are also features on topics that SI doesn’t cover much today, like trout fishing, why you should take a vacation to the Jersey Shore, the dangers of poison ivy and the rebounding beaver population.

The issue’s main feature is an 8,000-word story by Gerald Holland headlined “The Golden Age Is Now” about how participation in recreational sports and interest in professional games were booming around the world:

Here in the United States, Americans are participating in sports as never before. Tens of thousands of pin boys are kept leaping by 20 million bowlers and, quite properly, the 60,000 bowling alleys around the country include one in the basement of the White House. The favorite outdoor sport is fishing. Last year 17,652,478 citizens took out fishing licenses and eight million more fished where licenses either were not needed (along the coasts) or were not likely to be asked for. Hunting licenses totaled 14,832,779.

Three million Americans go skiing every winter, a half-million own sailboats, a half-million more prefer inboard motorboats and three million fasten outboards to all manner of rowboats, skiffs and even cabin cruisers. This activity is not confined to the sea-coasts; for instance, 4,000 boats are registered on Lake Texoma on the Texas-Oklahoma border.

One article stands the test of time better than the rest, though. In one of his final articles written before he died following a stroke on July 13, 1954, the famed sportswriter Grantland Rice recounted what the headline called “Golf’s Greatest Putt,” by Bobby Jones on the 72nd hole of the 1929 U.S. Open at Winged Foot.

It was one of the great moments I have ever known in sports. The silence was complete. Only a few short minutes before, Jones had been six strokes up with only six holes to go. Now he had one putt left, for a tie. Bobby Jones had faced crucial putts before—more of them than any other golfer I have ever known—where important championships were at stake. But this putt meant more to Bob Jones than merely winning an Open. It meant the recapture of his golfing soul. It meant removing a dark stain from his pride, certain nationwide ridicule that was to follow failure.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the early issues of SI was the Column of the Week. Published alongside articles from SI’s regular columnists, this column came from a newspaper anywhere in the country that the magazine’s editors thought was worthy of being read by a national audience. The first one was by Gordon Cobbledick, the sports editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Best of all, any columnist whose work was chosen to be featured earned a $250 prize, or about $2,750 today.

Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.

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