October 29, 2022 News and Notes

• Kyrie Irving appears to be a liar and a Black Supremacist anti-Semite, and how he's allowed to remain on the Brooklyn Nets or the NBA is quite a mystery at this point.  Irving promoted a movie and book full of anti-Semite Black Supremacist tropes (not unlike the stands Kanye West is promoting as well) on his social media.
• They include the belief that the 12 Tribes of Israel were, in fact, Black tribes.
• The franchise has condemned the move, but Irving remains with the team.
• It seems awfully convenient, does it not, that the Houston Astros are 0-6 in games Justin Verlander has started in the World Series.  On top of that, it comes with an ERA over 6 for Verlander.  Yet no one wants to make the same crowing about him that many take great pleasure in doing with Clayton Kershaw.
• Why is this?  Simple...  Success is an absolute in our country, and, often, "at all costs"...  They care not about it's legitimacy or legality.
• The 2023 Open Championship will allow the LIV Tour golfers in it.  I expect that to last about as long until the first swing is taken -- and I'm not talking with a golf club!   
• Vince Dooley, the legendary coach at the University of Georgia, has passed away at 90.
• At least 140 have been killed in a crush event at a Halloween outing in South Korea.
• Yesterday, the NBA world was shocked with the shock release of 2021 lottery pick Josh Primo.  Now reports indicate why:  He may be a serial sex predator -- and that was why the Spurs fired him.  Reports have surfaced that the 19 year-old has exposed himself a number of times to at least one female Spurs employee, who is suing all involved and has retained the same lawyer the DeShaun Watson accusers have gotten.
• Faker, the Greatest Of All Time in League of Legends, is back in the World Championship Grand Final for the first time in five years, to be held next Saturday in San Francisco.
• It will be an all-Korean league final in San Francisco, as Korea took three of the four semifinal spots and Faker's T1 team defeated JD Gaming of China, the last non-Korean team, three games to one.  Two Korean teams will contest the second semifinal in Atlanta tomorrow.
• This will be Faker's fifth Grand Final, but first since 2017.  He has World Championships in 2013, 2015, and 2016.
• In the 12 years of professional League of Legends, this will be Korea's seventh championship.  China has 3, Taiwan has 1, Europe has 1. 
• North America's league has never even been to the championship match, or in the Final Four since Cloud 9 in 2018 (and then, before that, the first season all the way back in 2011).
• Over in DOTA2, The International (the almost $20,000,000 grand final tournament of the year) is in Championship Sunday in Singapore.  London's Tundra ESports has the advantage, by winning undefeated in the bracket, in resting while America's Team Liquid faces Europe's Team Secret for the right to face them for the championship...
• The champion team will walk away with a current estimate of about $8.4 million.  Second place:  $2.4 million.  Third place:  About $1.7 million.  So that final is a SIX MILLION DOLLAR MATCH -- the biggest match in e-sports.
• Even so, the $18,000,000 prize pool is far below expectations, and the first time the tournament has failed to reach the amount it got last year.  (The tournament's pool is largely crowd-funded, so economy.) 
• Ty Gibbs wrecked Brandon Jones on the final lap of the XFinity last-chance playoff in Martinsville today, Gibbs replacing Jones in the final four for the secondary title -- and adding another intentional-wreck win to the checkered history of NECKCAR.
• Gibbs and Jones are supposedly teammates.