📰🏟️ Secret weapon

Good morning. In today’s edition: The Detroit Tigers’ key to success, why it’s never been tougher to build an NBA dynasty, and much more.

—Peter & Kyle

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🗺️ AROUND THE HORN

Three big headlines

🏃 Look both ways when navigating around Comerica Park, because there are no stop signs in sight. The Detroit Tigers are sitting comfortably atop the AL Central and #6 in MLB.com’s latest power rankings—and not just due to Tarik Skubal’s dominance and Javy Báez’s resurgence. The Motor City Kitties are the most-aggressive baserunning team in baseball, with their “extra bases taken” (XBT) percentage, a metric that calculates how often their runners advance more than one base on singles or more than two bases on doubles, this year clocking in at 54%, well above their closest competitor at 47%. That figure is also the best in a half-century; the last team to surpass it was the 1975 Oakland Athletics, who had an XBT percentage of 55% and finished with 98 wins before losing in the ALCS. Analysts also attribute the Tigers’ decision to channel Don Quixote and chase windmills (big brain reference🧠) as the driving factor behind the team’s miraculous run to end last season, given the timing correlates with the start of the winning streak.

😵 The UFC KO’d its pay-per-view (PPV) model. Paramount+ will be the new US home of all UFC numbered events and Fight Nights beginning in 2026, as part of a seven-year, $7.7B media rights deal announced yesterday. The agreement will replace the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s existing ~$500M/year arrangement with ESPN, as well as the PPV model the fight organizer and its partners have employed pretty much since its founding in 1993. It also means fans get a better deal: previous PPV prices clocked in at $79.99/event, or the equivalent of 10 months of Paramount+ with ads.

⚾ All eyes are on Williamsport, PA, as the 2025 Little League World Series is set to kick off. The annually televised 12U baseball tournament begins tomorrow and runs through August 24 (next Sunday). Twenty teams—10 from US regions and 10 representing other regions of the world—will be competing in a modified double-elimination tourney for the title; see a breakdown of them all here.

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📸 SNAPPED

Pic of the day

Dust off those debate skills, the AP preseason Top 25 CFB rankings are here. The Texas Longhorns received 25 first-place votes and 1,552 points in yesterday’s rankings, narrowly beating out #2 Penn State (23 first-place votes and 1,547 points) in the closest preseason vote since 1998. It marks the first time that Texas has ever been ranked #1 in the AP’s preseason CFB poll, while the SEC’s 10 teams overall are the most ever by a conference. The CFB season officially starts with “Week 0” on August 23—though most teams kick off with “Week 1” on August 30, which features an unprecedented three top-10 matchups (Texas @ Ohio St. ; LSU @ Clemson ; Notre Dame @ Miami).

🔢 STAT OF THE DAY

70 yards

The length of a field goal kicked by Cam Little of the Jacksonville Jaguars in their preseason matchup against the Steelers on Sunday (video), marking the longest made kick in 156 years of American football across all levels of play. However, the official NFL record still belongs to Justin Tucker at 66 yards, since Little’s kick came in a preseason game.

👀 MUST-SEE TV

Top plays

🏈 Patriots RB TreVeyon Henderson takes his first-ever touch to the house

🏌️ The most unfortunate putt of 2025

⚽ Mexx Meerdink’s insane ball control nets breakaway goal in Netherlands match

🏈 Cameraman Marshawn Lynch protects his gear from errant Seahawk

⚾ Every baseball fan’s dream: Make a crazy foul ball catch, then give it to a kid

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🤔 TRIVIA

Sho-hei’ng out

Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani hit his 40th home run on Saturday, becoming the first player since 2018 to reach 40 homers in three straight seasons.

Can you name the last player to accomplish this feat before Ohtani?

🌐 WEB GEMS

Interesting things to click

👀 Witness: The only time Tom Brady could ever be called a bust.

🏀 Off with their heads: Why it's never been tougher to build an NBA dynasty.

🏈 Rhyme and reason: After Shedeur Sanders’ NFL debut, the Browns have some thinking to do.

🤔 ANSWER

The A’s Khris Davis, who hit 42 homers in 2016, 43 in 2017, and 48 in 2018.