September 7, 2022 News and Notes

• USL Championship side Sacramento Republic has filed a spying complaint that it's practices have been taped by their opponents in the US Open Cup championship match, Orlando City.  The winner goes to the CONCACAF Champions League.
• If Sacramento Republic wins the match tonight, they will be the first USL Championship side since 1999 to win the tournament.
  
• Christian Yelich hit the longest home run of the season Tuesday night.  499 feet.
• To show the effects of steroids on baseball, there has not been a 500-foot home run in the majors in over three years.
• Two IDIOTS attended last night's Kyrgios/Khachakov US Open quarterfinal match, only to be thrown out when they decided, on a prank, to have one of them buzzcut the other while in the stands!  Needless to say, the moving around disrupted play.
• The Chicago Bears appear to be going ahead with their plans to plan a domed stadium to replace Soldier Field, as early as 2026!
• And yet another example of the complete uselessness of college football outside Alabama, Georgia, and MAYBE Ohio State this year:  South Dakota State and Iowa allegedly played a game on Saturday.  Iowa won 7-3.  In a spirit not unakin to the time Virginia Tech and Wake Forest actually went the entire 60 minutes in 2014 without scoring (that game ended 6-3, with no touchdowns even in the OT!), Iowa somehow got 7 points on a field goal and two safeties.  Not a touchdown in the place!
• Exhibit 2:  Utah State had one of those Sacrificial Lamb games with Alabama to open the season.  Scheduled in 2018, Utah State was paid $1.91 million -- third-highest in history for such a team at the time.  They were 38 point underdogs and lost 55-0!
• The catch?  Utah State finished last year the #24 team in the nation!
• In the first game of a doubleheader today, Aaron Judge has just nailed his 55th home run of the season.
• To give you an idea of the state of American tennis:  Frances Tiafoe advanced to the semifinals of the US Open with a straight-set win today.  He is the first American to do so since 2006!!!
• No American has made any Grand Slam final since Andy Roddick's five-set loss in Wimbledon in 2009.
• Since 2003 Wimbledon and Roger Federer's first Grand Slam final, there have been 76 Grand Slam finals.  Federer, Rafael Nadal, and/or Novak Djokovic have been in 70 of them.  Two of the three have met in 23.  
• Sunday's final will represent only the 13th time in the last 77 Grand Slams that the champion is not Federer, Nadal, or Djokovic.