Ball Girl #112: Team Nike or Team OBJ?

Odell Beckham Jr, (wide receiver, most recently for L.A. Rams — more on that later) has decided to sue the company named after a freakin’ goddess; Nike. OBJ claims that Nike has withheld $20M from his ~$50M endorsement deal over things like ‘glove’ and ‘cleat’ violations (though OBJ claims these are B.S.). Is OBJ justified, or, is he suddenly getting greedy ‘cause he’s an unsigned free agent with no income right now other than said endorsements… I’m not taking a side (yet) BUT! I’d be pulling a Rihanna and singing “b*tch better have my money” if I suddenly was unemployed, too.

Can I have your number?

60: Number of times a single NHL player has scored 5+ goals in a single game. This has only been accomplished by 44 individuals.

TLDRs

🎓🏈 Another week of ‘ball, another week of AP Polls and College Playoff Polls. Nothing has changed here with #1 Georgia #2 Ohio State #3 Michigan and #4 TCU all remaining undefeated. But with 1 loss, a lot can change. 2 losses? Consider yourself done for the playoffs. Only in college football can TWO LOSSES in the entire season disqualify you from playoffs. We ask for perfection… and for the time being, 4 teams still have it.

🏈 The Eagles officially pulled an Icarus and flew too close to the sun. They fell to the Washington Commanders on Monday night, 32-21, and no longer stand as the last undefeated team in the NFL. The game was full of controversial calls (including a missed face mask grab that looked BAD). But you have to give the Commanders credit — they maintained possession of the ball for the majority of the game and completely shut down star Eagles’ receiver AJ Brown. And the Eagles made a couple key mistakes, such as an unfortunate fumble by Quez Watkins after he caught a long pass from Hurts.

⚾ Julio Rodriguez, aka, J-Rod, (Mariners’ outfielder) and Michael Harris II (Braves outfielder) were named rookie player of the year for the American and National leagues, respectively. Rodriguez was a shoo-in — he tore it up this year for the Mariners and earned a massive, $200+ million dollar contract. In other news, Anthony Rizzo just signed on to stay with the NY Yankees for $51 million. 💅🏻

🏒 The St. Louis Blues got a much needed confidence boost Monday night with a 3-2 win over last year’s Stanley Cup Winner, the Colorado Avalanche. ICYMI, the Blues are having a pretty brutal season thus far at 6-8 and dead last in the Central Division. They lost their stellar assistant coach to the Boston Bruins (who meanwhile, are crushing life harder than I crush every New York City Lantern bug). Can this win give the Blues some momentum?

🎓🏀 The 2022 State Farm Champions Classic went down Tuesday night. What is the Champions Classic? Simply an opportunity for ad dollars to kick off the college bball season… But we’ll take it, because it's always fierce competition between top dogs in the NCAA: Duke, Kansas, Michigan State, and Kentucky. Cut to Jalen Wilson in his bag — he led Kansas to defeat Duke after scoring a career-high 25 points, final score 69-64. Michigan State forced Kentucky to double OT after a brilliant inbounds play with 4 seconds left on the clock, and went on to take Kentucky down in the second OT, 86-77.

🏀 The Miami Heat started this season at 2 and 5 — OOF. But then Jimmy Butler proclaimed, “We’re still going to win the championship, and I don’t care what nobody says. Count us out. We’re going to win the f*cking championship. I’m telling you. I don’t give a damn that we started 2-5.” Well, flash forward a few weeks and the Miami Heat stand at 7 and 7, most recently, with a monster win over the Phoenix Suns (AKA, Western Conference finalists from last year, currently ranked #4 overall in the conference). Are the Heat heating up? Sorry, I’ll put myself in Dad joke prison now.

⛳The RSM Classic kicks off tomorrow at Sea Island Seaside Course in Simons Island, GA. The players are competing for a piece of a $8.1mm purse.

Must Watch This Week

Wednesday November 16th

• 🏒 10:00pm ET, L.A Kings vs. Edmonton Oilers

• 🏀 7:30pm ET, Boston Celtics vs. Atlanta Hawks

• 🎓🏀 9:30pm ET, Texas Longhorns vs. Gonzaga Bulldogs

Thursday November 17th

• 🏒 7:00pm ET, Colorado Avalanche vs. Carolina Hurricanes

• 🏈 8:15pm ET, Green Bay Packers vs. Tennessee Titans

• 🏀 10:00pm ET, Brooklyn Nets vs. Portland Trail Blazers