Tag: Giancarlo Stanton

What could have been for Giancarlo Mike Stanton and USC football

Did you know that Giancarlo Stanton received an offer from Pete Carroll and USC? He never did play for the Trojans.

Giancarlo Michael Stanton of the New York Yankees is one of the best power hitters of the past 20 years, but I always wonder what could have been if he had chosen to play football at USC instead of signing his MLB draft contract in 2007.

In the fall of 2006, USC head coach Pete Carroll and assistant Steve Sarkisian learned of a senior wide receiver and defensive back at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, who went by the name of Mike Stanton.

Stanton was drafted in the second round—No. 76 overall—by the Marlins in 2007.

“My high school football coaches worked with NFL guys,” Stanton said, citing former USC and Raiders running back Justin Fargas. “They watched me play against current NFL guys and believed I could have made it. I picked baseball over football because of the opportunity. I wanted to stick to one sport full-time for the first time in my life.”

Stanton ended up signing a 13-year deal worth $325 million. He eventually got traded to the New York Yankees in 2018 after winning the NL MVP award in 2017.

His quarterback in high school, Dayne Crist, played at Notre Dame, Kansas and the Baltimore Ravens. Crist called Stanton one of the most athletic players he has ever seen at any level.

During his senior year at wide receiver, Giancarlo Michael Stanton caught 29 passes for 745 yards and 11 touchdowns with an average of more than 25 yards per catch.

On the defensive side of the ball, Stanton played strong safety at 6’4 and 210 pounds. He totaled 50 tackles and five interceptions. He also was a punter, making him a three-phase player.

Stanton went up against notable opponents in high school: Christian Fauria, Marc Tyler, Richard Sherman and Jimmy Clausen. He was able to hold his own.

We all wonder what could have been for Stanton if he chose to play football at USC for coach Carroll, Sarkisian and Lane Kiffin for the Trojans.

I think Stanton would have changed positions. He grew into a larger frame at 6’5 and 245 pounds. He ended up filling out nicely. He probably would have moved to tight end in the 2007 class with Rhett Ellison on a USC team that already featured tight ends Fred Davis and Anthony McCoy.

https://youtube.com/shorts/uDe1Up2OptY?si=9mIOHFiyYMTz94Zp

Giancarlo Stanton made the right choice. He has carved out a very productive career with the Marlins and Yankees. Yet, he would have been a solid tight end for the Trojans and at least had a cup of tea in the NFL. He might have had a ceiling as a starter and played multiple years, like USC tight end Fred Davis.

USC has so many what ifs, but this one has always been interesting to me. If Stanton invested his full time in football, what truly could have become of his career?

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Giancarlo Stanton’s agent responded to Brian Cashman’s remarks by urging players to avoid the Yankees

The Yankees are a chaotic mess and free agency hasn’t even started yet.

Few MLB teams committed as many errors as the New York Yankees in 2023. General manager Brian Cashman has now added to that unfortunate tally of self-inflicted blemishes.

Last week, Cashman talked about the health of designated hitter/outfielder Giancarlo Stanton in an interview with the New York Daily News. While saying that yes, Stanton remained important to the Yankees’ plans, he also made cutting remarks about his player being “injury-prone.” (Note: Stanton has missed at least 50 games in each of the last two seasons.)

Cashman would later clarify these remarks. Still, even while (kind of?) complimenting Stanton’s hitting talents, Cashman seemingly couldn’t help but continue to fan the flames of comments that almost certainly wouldn’t sit well.

More from the New York Daily News:

“We try to limit the time he’s [Stanton] down,” Cashman said. “But I’m not gonna tell you he’s gonna play every game next year because he’s not. He’s going to wind up getting hurt again more likely than not because it seems to be part of his game. But I know that when he’s right and healthy — other than this past year — the guy’s a great hitter and has been for a long time.”

I don’t know what Cashman was thinking because there’s virtually zero chance any rational-minded human being wouldn’t take exception to being critiqued like that in a public setting. Naturally, after catching wind of Cashman’s criticism, Stanton’s agent, Joel Wolfe, responded with a passive-aggressive statement that essentially warned pending MLB free agents from signing with the Bronx Bombers. This is awful news for a team that figured to be a major player in this year’s MLB free-agent period.

Oh, what’s that? Stanton’s agent also represents phenom Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto? Uh-oh.

Well, that’s just about the worst possible outcome for Cashman, isn’t it?

Not only did his disappointing Yankees miss last year’s postseason, he might now have to backpedal his comments about Stanton’s health in order to keep New York’s clubhouse together for a hopeful big rebound in 2024. It’s a good thing the New York media is famously kind and fair and won’t pounce the moment Cashman’s team inevitably falls short of its goals and expectations.

Oh, right. Bravo to Cashman. He has probably brought the Yankees’ coming firestorm upon himself.

7 athletes Drake has brought out on the It’s All A Blur tour, including LeBron and Bronny

Drake has brought out some legends like LeBron and KD.

Over the course of the past few months, during stops on his North American tour, Drake has brought out top-tier athletes with him on stage.

It has become an expected ritual during each stop of the “It’s All A Blur Tour” co-headlined by 21 Savage.

For anyone who has followed his career, however, this isn’t exactly a surprise. One of the most classic Drake bars of all time goes like this: “I swear sports and music are so synonymous ’cause we want to be them and they want to be us.”

RELATED: New Raptor Gradey Dick was so delighted Drake followed him on Instagram

These moments are probably equally cool for Drake as they are the athletes, and the fans and the concerts all seem to enjoy them as they are happening as well.

Here were some of the stars that Drake chose to accompany him on this tour.

The Yankees tried to bunt while down 4 runs to the Red Sox and gave up a double play, and MLB fans roasted them

The Yankees are down bad.

The New York Yankees are not having a great time right now.

During a Saturday game against the archrival Boston Red Sox, Yankees infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa attempted to hit a bunt and rush to first base as outfielder Giancarlo Stanton was trying to make it to second base.

There was only one problem. The Red Sox catcher made a swift move on the bunt, caught it for the first out and threw Stanton out on first before he had a chance to make it back to base. Also, the Yankees were down four runs to the Red Sox before this failed bunt attempt. It was a disaster.

Letting up an outrageously embarrassing double play to Boston of all teams has to sting New York fans, but it is an accurate summation of how the Yankees’ season has gone so far. Just watch this and try to understand what happened.

The Yankees have a losing record for the first time in forever, and it’s a testament to the fact that things are just not working right now for one of the most storied baseball teams in the league.

Although, this is also the Yankees we’re talking about. MLB fans had a field day with making fun of this bizarre flop of a bunt attempt.

Giancarlo Stanton seemingly jogged to home plate for an easy out and was ripped for it

What was Giancarlo Stanton doing?

New York Yankees outfielder Giancarlo Stanton might not be the fastest man on the planet, but he got caught seemingly jogging to home plate in a game on Saturday.

While the Yankees aren’t having the type of season that screams “World Series contender,” you’d think there’d be more urgency when you have a chance to earn a run against a talented team like the Houston Astros.

Well, Stanton tried to make it home to get a lead on the Astros at the bottom of the third inning. However, it looked like he was very not going at full speed as he rounded home and got tagged out by the catcher.

Stanton basically made it to home plate with the catcher waiting to get him out, with there not being any clear reason for why he went so slowly on the run. It literally would’ve been more beneficial for him to stay on second.

Unless he was hurt, it really doesn’t make any sense.

Stanton isn’t a spring chicken, but he is a professional baseball player. It really didn’t look like there was any reason for him not to go faster.

Whatever it was, this was a very odd out.

Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton seemed so unfazed after getting hit by a pitch that sounded brutal

Stanton shook it off but he seemed so mad.

Besides having a reputation as one of MLB’s most feared sluggers, Giancarlo Stanton is known for being built like an absolute tank. Stanton stands tall at 6-foot-6 and 245 pounds — a stature that undoubtedly helps him mash for power better than most of his peers.

Apparently, such a Herculean build helps Stanton shake off seemingly very hard pitches to his arm, too.

As the New York Yankees took on the rival Boston Red Sox Saturday night, Stanton faced Boston’s Tanner Houck on the mound. And on a 1-1 pitch, Houck absolutely drilled Stanton (likely by accident) with a throw. Thankfully, the baseball hit Stanton right in his arm padding, taking the heat off a pitch that even sounded very dangerous when it made contact.

While removing some gear and taking his base, Stanton appeared to glare at Houck and seemed understandably quite unhappy, even if he avoided the worst outcome.

His general build aside, it’s great that Stanton had the requisite protection on his arm. That’s what that padding is there for! Nonetheless, I’d also probably be pretty upset at a pitcher drilling me with a throw in a rivalry matchup. These are the kinds of ultimately “harmless” moments teams like the Yankees and Red Sox don’t just forget.

Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton stunningly broke the scoreboard after making awesome over-the-head catch

Looks like Stanton doesn’t know his own strength!

Giancarlo Stanton is known a lot more for having a powerful bat than for being a quality defender in the outfield. On Wednesday, during Game 1 of the American League Championship Series against the Astros (-1.5), he showed that he does have some defensive proficiency when he needs it. And in the process, he also showed he might be stronger than he thinks.

After Houston’s Yuli Gurriel launched a shot to left field, Stanton had to track back and make a difficult catch over his head. Which he did, and it was impressive. Kudos to him! But as he tried to stop his forward momentum on the back wall, Stanton accidentally broke Houston’s stadium scoreboard with his hand. (Note: Stanton is a listed 6-foot-6, 245 pounds.)

Uh, oops?

Huh. To be fair to Stanton, that scoreboard doesn’t seem very sturdy if it can fall apart the moment a player touches it with a small modicum of force.

Let’s see an angle of the unfortunate aftermath:

Credit to Stanton and Harrison Bader for at least trying to clean up the mess. Though it didn’t seem to work entirely:

I’m not certain we’ve ever seen a baseball player so strong that they actually break a scoreboard just by accidentally pushing on it. In the case of Stanton, I’m sure he’ll still take the awesome catch if it means he’s causing other general chaos in the outfield.

Giancarlo Stanton destroyed a 47 mph eephus pitch for a home run and MLB fans had jokes

Giancarlo Stanton absolutely destroyed this 47 mph pitch.

Giancarlo Stanton has missed a bunch of time this season with an Achilles injury and earlier this week he was pulled from the starting lineup after making a weird looking swing that had Yankees fans worrying about his health.

Well, Stanton was back in the starting lineup on Saturday and he made his presence felt with an absolute shot of a home run in a 10-3 win over the Yankees.

There is a bit of an asterisk here because his home run came against a position player – Rays catcher Christian Bethancourt. Oh, and the pitch was a 47 mph eephus pitch. But whatever, this ball was pounded off the foul pole in left field:

That poor foul pole.

Stanton had this to say after the game:

Twitter had reactions.

Fans marveled at Giancarlo Stanton literally squishing the baseball with his All-Star Game HR swing

He actually CRUSHED the baseball.

When the MLB All-Star Game stopped being used to determine homefield advantage in the World Series and returned to its rightful role as an exhibition game, it allowed Fox Sports to really experiment with the broadcast.

And honestly, a lot of it has worked. The mic’d-up players with live conversations have been great. But the enhanced camera angles have really made the viewing experience more enjoyable. There’s no better example of that than what we saw from Giancarlo Stanton’s two-run home run in Tuesday’s All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium.

With Tony Gonsolin on the mound, Stanton crushed a 457-foot home run to left field. And in the subsequent replays, we saw that Stanton literally squished the baseball with his bat. Take a look:

I mean, how?!

While reaction times would make it nearly impossible for anyone to look at the baseball at the point of contact, it’s impossible to overlook the compression of that ball in the photo. He crushed it. It was the hardest-hit All-Star Game home run in the Statcast era.

And, of course, fans could not get enough of that photo.

This ump cam view of Sandy Alcantara’s slider that froze Giancarlo Stanton in the All-Star game is too good

What a cool view of such a nasty pitch.

The MLB All-Star Game last night in Los Angeles wasn’t the highest scoring game in the history of the world but there were a bunch of fun things that happened during the American League’s 3-2 win, including every time they showed the view from the ump cam.

Seriously, this ump cam should become a thing that we get to see more often.

In case you missed it, the home plate ump had a camera on his mask and FOX would use those views to show us just how nasty some of the pitches were.

This slider by Miami’s Sandy Alcantara was one of those sick pitches and it just so happened to freeze Giancarlo Stanton, who was later named the game’s MVP, at the plate for strike three.

Check this out:

I mean, come on! We need more ump cams in every game.

Twitter loved it.