The Pulse: MLB's new all-time batting king (2024)

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Good morning! Wolves in 7?

While You Were Sleeping: The Wolves cling to life

Both of our playoff games last night came down to the final seconds. Quickly:

In Dallas, the Minnesota Timberwolves are still alive after winning Game 4 105-100, extending the Western Conference finals to five games. After struggling for three games, Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards were magnificent (54 combined points). Can they become the first NBA team to win a series after going down 3-0? Probably not. But this one just became more fun.
In Florida, the Panthers found life in overtime. Sam Reinhart’s ripper past Igor Shesterkin gave the Panthers a 3-2 win and evened their Eastern Conference final matchup against the Rangers at 2-2. Unlike the series above, this one has been electric all the way through.

Both tilts resume tomorrow. Moving on:

New/Old Records: We have a new batting king

Today is an immense — and complex — day in baseball history:

Major League Baseball will officially implement a newly integrated statistics database, which includes Negro Leagues stats. Among other things, that means MLB has a new all-time batting leader in Josh Gibson, whose .372 career average tops Ty Cobb’s .367. Gibson is also the new career leader in OPS (1.177), clearing Babe Ruth’s mark (1.164).
This is worthy of applause and criticism. The Negro Leagues legends deserve this shine. But the absorption of these stats by MLB sort of glosses over the whole fact that the Negro Leagues existed because these players weren’t allowed to play Major League Baseball.
To be fair, MLB acknowledges this in today’s announcement. For years, many considered Negro Leagues stats invalid because teams played bizarre schedules. There was a reason for that.
Via MLB’s press release: “The irregularity of their league schedules, established in the spring but improvised by the summer, were not of their making but instead were born of MLB’s exclusionary practices.”

I found myself reflecting on articles from back in 2020, when MLB designated the Negro Leagues as “major league.” Our roundtable discussion from back then warrants a read today, both for the valid criticisms and history discussed. So does Kavitha A. Davidson’s discussion with Howard Bryant, who feared this absorption would amount to whitewashing history. Clinton Yates’ opinion piece at Andscape from 2020 was illuminating, too.

Levi Weaver will have more in The Windup this morning. Also, something that is clear here: compiling all the Negro League stats was a monumental effort, which is still ongoing. Tyler Kepner detailed that in his piece yesterday.

News to Know

Thompson walks away
The math of Lexi Thompson’s golf career does not make sense. She’s 29, an age when most athletes are just entering their primes. This week, she will compete in her 18th U.S. Open. Huh? How? Once you realize Thompson started playing pro golf from the moment she was able — she qualified for her first U.S. Open in sixth grade — yesterday’s news of her retirement makes more sense. She plans to play the rest of the season before leaving the weekly grind. As Gabby Herzig beautifully wrote, it was time. I hope we see her pop into a PGA event every once in a while.

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Wait, Who Juked MJ? Bring back the Kenny Rogers Classic, please

The concept itself was simple, but incredible: Gather elite athletes from every major sport, bring them to a big ranch in Georgia and televise them competing against each other in various sports. Oh, and make sure a country music superstar hosts.

As Doug Haller wrote yesterday, this happened in 1989 at Kenny Rogers’ sprawling ranch in Georgia:

Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins were there. So were entertainers Woody Harrelson — who skipped the Emmys that year to attend — and Smokey Robinson. Golf pros like Mark Calcavecchia, Raymond Floyd and Payne Stewart appeared, too. And of course John McEnroe was there.
This was no promotional appearance. These guys appeared to genuinely love showing up. By day, they played each other’s sports. See, Rogers was a sports fanatic. His estate had basketball courts, tennis courts and a full 18-hole golf course. Everyone had their playground.
They stayed at Rogers’ estate, too. By night, they had lavish dinners and listened to Gladys Knight and Dolly Parton perform. And in the mornings, they’d all gather to form the most famous breakfast buffet in the country. Maybe the world.

My favorite bit: Calcavecchia, a 13-time winner on the PGA Tour, bumped into Bird at breakfast and introduced himself as a big fan. “He goes, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ and kind of pushed me out of the way. That was my first introduction to Larry Bird.”

The best highlight, though? Rogers faking MJ out of his shoes during a basketball game:

There are so many more anecdotes in Doug’s story, which is worth a read this morning. Can we recreate this somehow? Someone has to have a private golf course somewhere.

Watch This Game

MLB: Nationals at Braves
7:20 p.m. ET on ESPN+
Baseball season is long, but I still want to see what this Braves team looks like after Ronald Acuña Jr.’s injury. What are the vibes like? Body language? This team has played well without Acuña before, but that was three years ago. Atlanta sits six games back of the Phillies in the NL East.

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NHL: Stars at Oilers
8:30 p.m. ET on TNT
Game 4 of what has been a great series. More close ones, please.

Get tickets to games like these here.

Pulse Picks

Everyone seems to agree: something special is happening in Houston. Expectations for the Texans this year are already massive. As Dan Pompei found out, there is maybe no one better suited to realizing them than DeMeco Ryans.

I’ll read every story on Charles Leclerc’s cathartic F1 victory in Monaco, his home, where victory had often cruelly eluded him.

We should keep lingering on Bill Walton. Christopher Kamrani wrote a beautiful column on Walton, who might’ve been Kamrani’s favorite interview subject. I also loved Richard Deitsch’s roundup of everyone’s favorite Bill stories. There are many.

Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Jason Quick’s excellent obituary of Walton.

Most-read on the website yesterday: Sam Amick’s column on the Timberwolves needing a little more seasoning. Maybe they got some last night.

(Photo: Clarence Gatson / Gado / Getty Images)

Chris Branch is a staff writer for The Athletic's daily newsletter. Before joining The Athletic, he covered the Phillies for The News-Journal and worked as a content strategist for various industries. He graduated from LSU, where he worked for The Daily Reveille. Follow Chris on Twitter @cbranch89