TWIST: What You Need to Know to Talk Sports This Week

You don’t love professional sports, but your livelihood and/or personal happiness depends upon your being able to converse intelligently about it. It’s a common dilemma with a simple solution: you need to learn a new language. You need to learn how to talk sports. And we’re here to help! The TWIST is our weekly Dandelion Chandelier guide to what’s happened on the field, on the court and on the ice. Every Sunday you’ll find the three (and only three) things you need to know this coming week to speak cogently about professional sports with the boss, the gang at the office, your barber, your barista, your secret crush, or your nephew or niece who dreams of being a professional athlete. Do the TWIST every week and we promise you’ll know how to talk about sports like a champion.

This week’s edition of TWIST: This Week in Sports Talk celebrates the arrival of September. The month brings with it iconic events in tennis, football, and baseball. That means there will be upsets, come-from behind victories, blowouts (we mean stunning victories, not hair styling), and plenty of things to discuss. Taylor Swift upped the excitement factor by releasing a teaser of her song Ready For It on ESPN during the Alabama-Florida State college football game last night, further proving that if ever there was a week to know how to talk sports, this is it. For Those Who Do Not Follow Professional Sports, here’s what you need to know (and not a single thing more):

3 for the week of September 3, 2017:

1. The US Open is underway. Must know: Tennis’s US Open is in its seventh day at Flushing Meadows Queens. On the women’s side, third-seed Garbine Muguruza is attempting to replicate her victory at Wimbledon with back-to-back Grand Slam titles. Ditto Roger Federer on the men’s side. Nice to know: There are two surprising story lines as we go to press. The unseeded Maria Sharapova is playing for the first time since being suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. In an upset, she defeated the number 2 seed in the first round, Simona Halep, and also won her second and third round matches. On the men’s side, the field is narrowing down to a likely Nadal-Federer semi-final: Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka are all out due to injuries, and early favorite 4^th-seed Alexander Zverev was eliminated in an upset victory by Borna Coric. Extra Credit: Federer squeaked out his first-round victory and appeared fatigued during the next two rounds, leading to rumors that his back problems have returned. Venus Williams is still in the hunt as of today; Caroline Wozniacki is out.

2. Harvey becomes a character test (and some fail). Must know: Houston Texans’ player J.J. Watt, 28, announced he was raising a $250,000 fund for disaster relief (he ponied up $100,000 of his own money to get the initiative started); his effort went viral on social media, and the fund quickly went to a million, then 5, and at press time it was over $16 million in donations, making it one of the largest fund-raising efforts in NFL history. The Wisconsin native has been handling a lot of the logistics personally – between practices – with help from his mother. Nice to know: Sadly, not everyone has risen to the occasion. The MLB Houston Astros were scheduled for a three game series last week against the Texas Rangers at their home stadium. It quickly became clear that a location change would be necessary. The Rangers play in Arlington, which was unaffected by the floods, so the Astros quite sensibly requested a swap – they’d play this series in Arlington, and move three games in September back to Houston. It was an easy ask. But the Rangers said no, because they didn’t want to give up their home field advantage in September. So, the series was played in Tampa Bay. Many people thought that was ungenerous. For those keeping score, the Rangers won 2 out of 3 in the series, but the Astros remain at the top of the AL West, with the Rangers 14 games behind. Karma? You decide. Extra credit: As of this post, Wal-Mart has contributed $1 million to Watts’ fund (the donation was announced on Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show); Amy Adams Strunk, owner of the rival Tennessee Titans, has also donated $1 million. More than 70,000 individuals have contributed so far. You can join in at you-caring.com/JJWatt.

3. Its football time in America. Must know: The start of the NFL regular season is only 4 days away: the first game will see the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots meet the high-powered Kansas City Chiefs. The two teams never faced off last season; the game is at the Pats’ home field in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where they rarely lose. Nice to know: NCAA college football has officially kicked off; the weekend’s big game was yesterday’s match-up between Alabama’s Crimson Tide and Florida State’s Seminoles, who were ranked #1 and #3 respectively as the season started. Alabama won, 24-7. The game everyone is likely to be talking about this week, though, is UCLA-Texas A&M; UCLA came back from 34 points down in the third quarter and won, achieving the second-largest comeback in college football history. Extra credit: Yesterday was NFL “cut-down day,” when teams end training camp and prune their rosters down to 53 players. There were more last-minute trades than usual this year with a flurry of last-minute activity. Be sure to check and see if “your” team was involved in any of them, and casually mention that later this week for guaranteed extra credit with the sports fans in your life.

For those looking to achieve true street cred with their pals and colleagues this week, here are three bonus facts to drop at strategic moments:

–As the second MLB trade deadline hit on Thursday, superstar pitcher (and fiancée of supermodel Kate Upton) Justin Verlander was abruptly traded to the Houston Astros, ending a storied 13-year run with the Detroit Tigers. The move was a key part of the Astros’ strategy to fortify themselves for the post-season. They hold the best record in the AL, 80-53, and with the addition of a Cy Young and MVP award-winning pitcher, they enter crucial playoff season with a strong roster. The LA Angels made a similar move, agreeing to acquire Justin Upton from the Tigers.

–In the NBA, as we reported last week, the drama around the Cleveland Cavaliers/Boston Celtics trade of Isaiah Thomas for Kylie Irving continued. In his required physical exam, it turned out that Thomas’ hip problem was worse than expected, leading the Cavs to consider terminating the agreement. As our Sports Desk predicted, after a lot of arm-wrestling, the deal was renegotiated and confirmed – the Celts sweetened the deal with an additional 2020 2^nd round draft pick, in addition to the original trade deal.

–In UFC news, it is universally acknowledged that Conor MacGregor has been a great loser in the aftermath of his super-fight with Floyd Mayweather last Saturday in Vegas, and has positioned himself well for the future. That’s a lesson for the kids at home – lose gracefully, and ultimately you may emerge the winner.

That’s it! You’re good to go. See you next week.

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