SI:AM | Does the Ravens’ Record-Setting Streak Really Matter?

Plus, Seattle prepares to say goodbye to Sue Bird.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. Preseason wins don’t count for anything, but you have to admit the Ravens’ streak is impressive.

In today’s SI:AM:

🐐 Seattle’s GOAT

🥵 College coaches on the hot seat

⛳ Tiger and Rory lead big-money PGA Tour proposal

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Preseason games don’t count, but try telling that to the Ravens

After holding off a late challenge from the Cardinals last night, Baltimore has now won an incredible 22 straight preseason games.

The Ravens’ last exhibition loss came in the 2015 preseason finale against the Falcons. Baltimore scored with 40 seconds left in the game to cut the Atlanta lead to 20–19 and rather than kick the extra point, the Ravens went for two and failed. Didn’t they realize that history would be on the line?

The preseason streak is the longest in NFL history, beating the mark set by the 1959–62 Packers, who won 19 in a row. Green Bay’s streak was snapped in the annual College All-Star Game, in which the defending NFL champions faced a team of rookies representing their colleges. If you count just games against NFL teams, the Packers’ streak reached 23 games.

Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury said before the game he admired how the Ravens approach exhibition games.

“That’s part of their culture,” Kingsbury said. “They say we’re going to win these games and help it build into the regular season. I respect that approach. Obviously, their team believes. They have one of the most successful franchises in the league. We’ll get their best shot.”

The streak is a fun oddity, but is it worth paying any attention to? I’d argue that it is. Since it began in 2016, the Ravens have won at least eight games every regular season. In fact, they’ve been one of the league’s most consistently successful teams for a long time now, as Kingsbury said. Since John Harbaugh took over as head coach in ’08, they’ve failed to win eight games just once (in ’15, when they went 1–3 in the preseason). But what makes the streak noteworthy isn’t so much the outcomes of the games but the Ravens’ performance in them.

Games like last night’s are an indication that the Ravens have excellent depth, which is crucial for good teams in a sport where players are injured so often. Harbaugh held out most of the team’s most important starters in Arizona, including Lamar Jackson and Mark Andrews (who haven’t played all preseason), as well as top receivers Rashod Bateman and Devin Duvernay. Most defensive starters were also rested.

Those absences allowed some unheralded players to shine. Backup quarterback Tyler Huntley completed 13 of 14 passes for 129 yards and a touchdown and looked great doing it. Watch him escape the rush and find a wide-open Makai Polk with a cross-body throw, or scramble and complete a pass to tight end Isaiah Likely. Undrafted rookie quarterback Anthony Brown also had a decent game, completing 10 of 13 passes for 91 yards, with two touchdowns and an interception.

The real star was Likely, though, a rookie fourth-round pick who entered the game fifth on the depth chart at tight end. He caught eight passes for 100 yards, including this touchdown from Huntley in heavy traffic.

“We expected him to be a really good player,” Harbaugh said. “To be honest with you, I’d say he’s exactly what we expected. He’s had some opportunities; he’s made the most of them. He asks good questions and goes to work every day; he doesn’t get flustered. He makes a mistake; he cleans it up.”

It’s tough to put too much stock in preseason wins when the Giants are 2–0, but there’s something to be said for having quality players behind your starters in the event of injury.

The best of Sports Illustrated

With Sue Bird’s retirement on the horizon, Greg Bishop explores her impact on Seattle sports in today’s Daily Cover:

Consider her our Kevin Bacon, the soul of the city’s sporting ambitions around which everything—and everyone else—rotates. Her career serves as connective tissue for Seattleites of [Jamal] Crawford’s generation, her milestones markers for our own lives. Crawford bought season tickets in the same arena where he once worked simply to watch her. He recalls one pregame in Miami spent screaming at a locker room television for a 2005 playoff contest. He remembers winning the NBA’s Sixth Man Award around when the Storm won its second title (’10) and his pride in the city’s sports momentum.

Richard Johnson has a list of college football coaches who are most likely to land on the hot seat this season. … Striker was shaping up to be a weak point for the USMNT at the World Cup this fall, but that’s no longer the case, Avi Creditor writes. … Bob Harig reports on the Tiger Woods– and Rory McIlroy–led meeting of PGA Tour players.

Around the sports world

Yankees management was booed heartily during Paul O’Neill’s jersey retirement ceremony amid their terrible slide. (Although they went out and won yesterday.) … Bryce Harper gave an update on his injured thumb. … Aqib Talib is stepping down from his commentary job with Amazon after his brother was accused of murder. … Giants first-round pick Kayvon Thibodeaux left last night’s preseason game with a knee injury. … Albert Pujols still plans to retire after this season, even though he’s inching closer to 700 home runs. … Udonis Haslem will return for a 20th NBA season with the Heat. … The Astros’ Triple A affiliate scored 17 runs in a single inning.

The top five...

… things I saw yesterday:

5. Andrew McCutchen’s mime routine after a pitch high and tight.

4. Adley Rutschman trading signatures with Little Leaguers.

3. New Jersey native Brenden Aaronson’s first goal for Leeds United.

2. Hurdler Devon Allen’s blazing speed on a touchdown catch.

1. How this player in Portugal’s second division takes penalties.

SIQ

On this day in 2007, the Rangers beat the Orioles 30–3, leading which ESPN reporter to make an iconic appearance on SportsCenter where his voice kept rising higher and higher?

• Peter Gammons
• Tim Kurkjian
• Pedro Gomez
• Buster Olney

Yesterday’s SIQ: On this day in 1945, which famed power hitter made his first appearance as a starting pitcher in his 20th MLB season?

• Mel Ott
• Johnny Mize
• Lou Gehrig
• Jimmie Foxx

Answer: Jimmie Foxx. He threw 6⅔ innings for the Phillies against the Reds, allowing two runs on four hits with four walks and five strikeouts.

After a lackluster 1942 season split between the Red Sox and Cubs, Foxx sat out the ’43 season. He played 15 games for Chicago in ’44, picking up just a single hit. But the Phillies gave him one last shot to conclude his career in the city where it started with the Athletics two decades earlier and signed him to fill out their wartime roster.

Foxx got off to a decent start at the plate but by mid-June had lost his spot in the starting lineup and was relegated to pinch-hitting duty. By July, it was clear that his days were numbered.

“When the war’s over, I’m through,” Foxx said. “If I were to quit today, I guess I’d have played enough.”

But there was one more thing he could do to try to stay on the roster: become a pitcher. (He had excelled as a pitcher in high school and pitched a complete game a year earlier while managing the Cubs’ Class B affiliate.)

“It’s his only chance to stay active in the big leagues—and I’m going to see that he has a fair one,” his manager, Ben Chapman, said. “If there is one thing the Phillies need more than anything else, it is pitchers, and then more pitchers.”

Foxx got the start in an exhibition game to raise money for war relief against the Athletics on July 10. The experiment went well enough that Foxx pitched in relief in two games later that month, totaling 4⅔ innings of scoreless ball, although he did issue five walks.

His most extensive action came in that Aug. 19 game mentioned above, his third pitching appearance of the year. He ended the season with a 1.59 ERA in 22⅔ innings. Not bad for a guy who was, at the time, No. 2 on the career home run leaderboard.

From the Vault: Aug. 22, 1988

Bill Robbins/Sports Illustrated

When the Oilers traded Wayne Gretzky to the Kings in August 1988, E.M. Swift wrote that it was “the biggest trade in NHL history and, at least monetarily, the biggest in the history of sports.” So SI went big for the cover of the magazine Swift’s story appeared in, getting Gretzky to pose with L.A.’s other superstar, Magic Johnson.

Swift’s story also includes a quote from Johnson: “Hey, he belongs in L.A. He’s the greatest. I’m definitely going to get season tickets. Even if they never win a game, it will still be exciting to go now.”

Gretzky was smiling on the cover, but not when he first learned he was on the trading block. I wrote a little about the Gretzky trade in an SIQ earlier this month. Gretzky said during a podcast appearance earlier this year that he first learned he could be on the move May 27, when he was contacted by a Canadian businessman who floated the idea of Gretzky accepting a trade to the Canucks. Gretzky shut him down. Trade rumors continued to swirl, but it wasn’t until July, six days after Gretzky’s wedding (to American actress Janet Jones), that it became clear to him that the rumors were true. Here’s how Swift described what happened:

[Kings owner Bruce] McNall reached Gretzky by phone at Jones’s Sherman Oaks, Calif., apartment, six days into their honeymoon.

“You’re kidding,” said Gretzky when McNall explained that [Oilers owner Peter] Pocklington had given him the O.K. to call.

Like most great athletes, Gretzky has tremendous pride which, when wounded, is slow to heal. It surprised and hurt him that Pocklington would not personally inform him that he was on the market. The hurt swiftly turned to anger. After his first conversation with McNall, Gretzky called his father, Walter, in Brantford, Ont. “My dad tried to get me to calm down,” Gretzky says, “but I told him I’d already made up my mind I was never going to wear an Oilers’ uniform again.”

For Gretzky, the disrespect of being shopped behind his back was enough to make him willing to accept a fresh start. He called his former teammate Paul Coffey, who had been traded a year earlier, and asked for his thoughts on leaving Edmonton.

“Gretz, you’ll miss the players, the friendships and the fans, but you won’t even look back,” Gretzky said Coffey told him. “It’s just nice to go somewhere and be appreciated.”

Gretzky never did win another Stanley Cup after leaving Edmonton, but moving to this side of the border made him an even bigger star.

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

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