SI:AM | Liz Cambage’s Messy Sparks Exit

Plus, a stunning goal in the women’s Euros.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I don’t think Liz Cambage’s teammates will miss her much.

In today’s SI:AM:

🏀 A WNBA “contract divorce”

☘️ KD to Boston?

🐊 From the Vault: You Gotta Love Tim Tebow

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Inside the Sparks’ ‘divorce’ from a four-time All-Star

Liz Cambage is one of the biggest names in the WNBA—but her time in the league might be over.

The Sparks announced yesterday that they had agreed to a “contract divorce” with the Australian center, ending her brief tenure in Los Angeles. Cambage contributed to the Sparks this season (13.0 points and 6.4 rebounds per game), but it turns out this move wasn’t about her on-court performance.

Last night, Yahoo’s Chris Haynes reported that Cambage’s teammates had several issues with her, even before she was signed.

“Multiple players on the team felt the center could help the Sparks if she was focused and committed, but they expressed concerns that she’s known to be a player others don’t like to play with, sources said,” Haynes wrote.

Still, Derek Fisher, who was the Sparks’ coach and general manager until he was fired early last month, decided to sign the four-time All-Star.

The players’ concerns were proven to be well founded. There were issues with Cambage right from the start, Haynes reported. She wanted to wear the No. 1 jersey, which belonged to Amanda Zahui B., so Fisher asked ​​Zahui B. if she would give Cambage the number. She declined. But Cambage continued to angle for the jersey number, so, Haynes reported, “Sources say management eventually made the call to give the number to the new starting center.”

Cambage got her way with the jersey number (and Zahui B. ended up not playing this season, anyway), but she still had other gripes. From Haynes’s report:

In film sessions, sources say it was customary for Cambage to call out teammates, accusing them of looking her off and not targeting her. Teammates would counter that she’s not sealing in the post and seldom gets back on defense when a turnover occurs. It was a conundrum that went unresolved.

There’s also the issue of Cambage’s reported use of slurs during a pre-Olympics scrimmage against Nigeria last summer. Cambage reportedly called the Nigerian players “monkeys” and told them to “go back to your third-world country.” Sisters Chiney and Nneka Ogwumike, who are of Nigerian descent and currently lobbying to be allowed to play for the Nigerian national team, were Cambage’s teammates with the Sparks.

The Sparks are clinging to a playoff spot at 12–15, tied for sixth in the league. There are currently six teams with between 10 and 12 wins vying for the final three spots in the eight-team playoff field. The team seemingly believes that Cambage’s presence was doing more harm than good and that cutting her loose can have a positive effect on the team. Given Cambage’s talent and significant role on the team (she was sixth in minutes played per game), cutting her in hopes of improving team chemistry is a gamble, but one the Sparks clearly believed was worth taking.

As for Cambage, Haynes reports that no WNBA teams are interested in signing her at the moment.

The best of Sports Illustrated

Chris Mannix thinks the Celtics are the favorites to land Kevin Durant. … John Gonzalez is back hosting SI Weekly, and this week’s episode features a fantasy football primer with Jennifer Piacenti and Michael Fabiano. … Our NFL front office expert Andrew Brandt analyzed Kyler Murray’s new deal with the Cardinals.

Around the sports world

The 49ers have closed the door on Jimmy Garroppolo’s time in San Francisco, saying they’re moving forward with Trey Lance as their starting quarterback. … Joe Burrow will miss some practice time after having surgery to remove his appendix. … Seahawks running back Chris Carson has been forced to retire due to a neck injury. … Cardinals pitcher Johan Oviedo had quite the journey to renew his passport before the team’s series in Toronto. … Seven players for an Australian rugby team are refusing to play in the club’s next game because they don’t want to wear a pride-themed jersey. … Druw Jones, the No. 2 pick in this year’s MLB draft by the Diamondbacks, will miss the rest of the season after injuring his shoulder in his first batting practice.

The top five...

… things I saw yesterday:

5. Willson Contreras and Ian Happ’s hug after what was likely their final game for the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

4. Josh Donaldson’s throw from third that somehow bounced off Francisco Lindor twice.

3. Javier Báez’s jump over a baserunner to turn a double play.

2. Mets fans doing air trumpets to Edwin Díaz’s entrance music.

1. Alessia Russo’s back-heel goal for England in the semis of the women’s Euros.

SIQ

On this day in 1988, which Yankees pitcher committed three errors on a single play?

• Tommy John
• Ron Guidry
• Al Leiter
• Dave Righetti

Yesterday’s SIQ: How many games did Joe DiMaggio’s 1933 minor league hitting streak reach?

Answer: 61. It was the 18-year-old DiMaggio’s first full pro season, playing for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League. In the days before MLB expanded to the West Coast, the PCL was awfully close to big league quality—and DiMaggio still dominated as a youngster.

The streak began May 28 and didn’t end until he was held hitless July 27—two full months (including 11 doubleheaders) without a hitless game. DiMaggio batted .405 with 11 home runs and 16 doubles during the streak.

Incredibly, DiMaggio’s streak isn’t the longest streak in pro baseball history. That honor belongs to Joe Wilhoit, who strung together 69 games with a hit for the 1919 Wichita Jobbers of the Class A Western League.

Wilhoit’s career was an interesting one. He didn’t start playing professional baseball until he was 28, in the PCL with the Venice Tigers in 1913. He was picked up by the Boston Braves in ’16 and also played for the Pirates before the Giants traded him in ’19 to Wichita.

Wilhoit had a pedestrian .257 batting average in the majors, but he feasted on Western League pitching after the trade. In 128 games for Wichita, he batted .422 and put together that record streak, which was finally snapped Aug. 19. As Bob Rives wrote in Wilhoit’s SABR biography, he benefited handsomely from his feat:

Hats passed through the crowd at the park on the island [after the streak was snapped] produced more than $600 for Wilhoit, a comedown from the $2,445 given each Giant as losers of the 1917 World Series. But it was a major sum on a club where average monthly pay was $185. Another $100 came from a fan who late in the streak offered Joe $5 for each hit.

The hot hitting attracted attention from big league teams, and Wilhoit was signed by the Red Sox before the end of the season, though he never stuck in the bigs.

From the Vault: July 27, 2009

Gary Bodgon/Sports Illustrated

I was afraid, when I first saw the headline on the cover story inside this issue—“You Gotta Love Tim Tebow”—that Austin Murphy’s story would be a treacly exercise in hero worship. After all, this was the height of Tebow’s fame. He had already won a national championship and Heisman Trophy and was entering his senior season as the quarterback for the preseason No. 1 team in the country—and his evangelism made him an even greater celebrity. (Tebow was “the most effective ambassador-warrior for his faith I've come across in 25 years at SI,” Murphy wrote.)

Murphy’s story, which focuses on a trip Tebow took to a prison north of Gainesville to preach to inmates, is not uncritical, though. It mentions how one of Tebow’s impromptu Bible studies left coaches scrambling to find players before the 2007 BCS national title game and how his father’s ministry, the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association, preaches some controversial tenets of Christianity, like creationism and the Rapture.

Don’t get me wrong; the story is still a fairly glowing profile, but it’s still refreshing to read it 13 years later, when public perception of Tebow has changed considerably, and see that it wasn’t entirely worship and praise.

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

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