SI:AM | Roger Federer’s Grand Finale

Plus, inside the fight to unionize the minor leagues.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I guess I’ll be watching tennis tomorrow afternoon.

In today’s SI:AM:

🎾 Roger Federer’s farewell buddy

⚾ How the minors finally got their union

⛳ International team looks to pull off historic Presidents Cup upset

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A perfect pairing

Roger Federer will end his tennis career in style.

Federer announced last week that he would retire after this week’s Laver Cup, where he will play just one doubles match tomorrow, the first day of the competition. That’s where things get interesting: Federer’s partner for that match will be … Rafael Nadal.

Federer and Nadal, two of the biggest rivals of their generation, will face Americans Jack Sock and Frances Tiafoe in the final match of the night at London’s O2 Arena.

“Hopefully together we can create a good moment and maybe win a match,” Nadal said at a press conference today.

Federer, who has had several knee surgeries in recent years, “wanted to end as a competitive player—ideally at Wimbledon or Basel—not as a compromised athlete,” Jon Wertheim writes. But by calling it quits after tomorrow’s match, Federer has the opportunity—rare in a sport like tennis—to end his career with a win. It’s understandable that he would have wanted to go out on the big stage with a strong performance, but it sounds like his body simply made that impossible. Federer’s coach and trainer told the Swiss newspaper Blick that his status for the Laver Cup was truly up in the air.

Federer’s farewell means the end of one of the most remarkable tennis careers ever. Not only did he win at an incredible rate, he did so in a way that was so aesthetically pleasing, as Wertheim also wrote:

Federer was kissed by the tennis gods, his talent so extravagant that it was obvious to the vast army of casual fans, whom he turned into his fans. Gliding around the court without sound or sweat, Federer performed tennis more than he played tennis; and he did so, at once, with a brutal economy and a wealth of flair. He possessed every shot in the book—and authored a good many original editions. There was the flicking forehand on the run. There were craftily angled volleys, in defiance of physics. There was this, perhaps the single purest shot ever hit. Federer, more than any player, reminded us why a batted tennis ball is known as “a stroke.”

Federer may not be able to move as he once did, but you can bet he’ll still be able to wow the crowd with his artistry one last time tomorrow.

The best of Sports Illustrated

Illustration by Harrison Freeman

For today’s Daily Cover, Emma Baccellieri goes inside minor leaguers’ successful push to unionize:

​​It was an idea that might have sounded impossible just a few years prior. The minors’ low pay and tough working conditions had frustrated players for decades—but there had never been a serious push to unionize, and there had certainly never been a context where it seemed like that difficult, high-stakes effort might actually be successful.

“Guys just didn’t think it was possible, point blank,” says Joe Hudson, a member of the organizing leadership and a 31-year-old catcher in the Rays’ system. “They were just like, there’s no way; Major League Baseball and the owners have too much power.”

Avi Creditor takes stock of the three teams the USMNT is set to face in the World Cup group stage. … Ross Dellenger obtained a copy of a new set of proposed college football rules that would rejigger the sport’s calendar. … Kevin Love is launching a nationwide mental health program for high school students, Julie Kliegman writes. … The U.S. is the heavy favorite in this year’s Presidents Cup, which begins today. But the International squad is looking to pull off an upset for the ages, Alex Miceli writes.

Around the sports world

Celtics coach Ime Udoka has reportedly been suspended by the team for the entire season after allegedly engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a female employee. … Robert Sarver will sell the Suns and the Mercury in the wake of the NBA’s report about his workplace misconduct. … Buster Posey is joining the Giants’ ownership group and taking a role in the front office. … The Royals have fired their longtime general manager Dayton Moore. … Aces forward Dearica Hamby revealed she was pregnant while playing in the WNBA Finals.

The top five...

… moments in baseball yesterday:

5. Albert Pujols’s single against the shift to break up Blake Snell’s no-hit bid.

4. Matt Chapman’s ridiculously smooth stop and throw.

3. Rangers pitcher Brock Burke’s catch on a line drive back to the mound and quick reflexes to turn a double play.

2. Gleyber Torres’s two home runs in the eighth inning. (It was the sixth time a Yankees player has homered twice in an inning.)

1. Injured Reds star Joey Votto walking through the ballpark and meeting fans.

SIQ

A win against the Steelers tonight on Thursday Night Football would give the Browns a 3–3 record this decade against their most heated rivals. It’s a rivalry that has been dominated by Pittsburgh of late. What was the last decade in which Cleveland had the better record in the series?

• 1990s
• 1980s
• 1970s
• 1960s
  

Yesterday’s SIQ: Now that Zdeno Chara has retired from the NHL, how many active NHL players have faced the Maple Leafs in the second round of the playoffs?

• 0
• 1
• 3
• 5

Answer: None. Chara was 25, in his fifth NHL season, when his Senators lost to Toronto in the second round of the 2002 playoffs.

The Leafs have advanced to the second round only once since then, in 2004 when they lost to the Flyers. The last active Philadelphia player from that series was Patrick Sharp, who retired after the ’17–18 season.

Chara’s being the last player to face the Leafs in the second round is fitting, given the role he played in some of Toronto’s recent postseason failings. In 2013, ’18 and ’19, Chara’s Bruins beat the Leafs in the first round in seven games.

Things could be worse for the Leafs. At least they’ve made the playoffs in six consecutive seasons. The Sacramento Kings, meanwhile, haven’t made the postseason in so long that no active player has faced them in the playoffs.

From the Vault: Sept. 21, 2009

Walter Iooss Jr./Sports Illustrated

Tom Verducci’s cover story about the history of Yankee Stadium, which hit newsstands just days before the final game at the old ballpark Sept. 21, 2008, takes an ambitious angle. For nearly 6,000 words, Verducci embodied the voice of the stadium itself, like so:

I am dying. It’s O.K. You need not feel sorry for me. I have lived a full life. I was born in 1923, the same year as Maria Callas, Charlton Heston, Roy Lichtenstein and Norman Mailer. All are gone now. They did well in the time with which they were graced to strut about the stage. I'd like to think I have done likewise.

Besides, I really haven’t been myself since 1973, when they cut me clean open and for two years rearranged most of my vital organs (even the one that nimble-fingered Eddie Layton used to play), removed some of them and put me back together in such a way that I looked nothing like I did before.

It’s a difficult gimmick to keep up for such a long story, but Verducci executed it well. His story is full of all sorts of fascinating details about the original stadium, like the small storage room where Lou Gehrig would go when he needed some time alone, the antique scale that every Yankees player was weighed on since at least 1958 and the makeover the Yankees gave the umpires’ locker room when the pope came to say mass:

Mind you, if you know anything about the locker room reading materials and paraphernalia of ballplayers and umpires, you can only imagine the clean sweep that Yankees clubhouse personnel made of their locker rooms before the papal visit. One day umpires are there in their skivvies, playing cards, maybe passing gas, chomping on bubble gum, dropping the occasional f bomb, quaffing a postgame beverage, and three days later Pope Benedict XVI is in the same room preparing to say Mass for 60,000 people. Of course, the pope’s detail remade the room with a new carpet and flowing purple-and-gold drapes that covered the walls. Even the umpire’s john was covered in majestic papal fabrics.

I’ll feature another Verducci story about another Yankees icon in tomorrow’s From the Vault section.

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

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