Welcome back to “I’m Curious!”

I hope you’ve been enjoying the last few weeks of summer. If the weather where you are is anything like it was in the DC area last week, there was plenty to enjoy in the great outdoors.

Taking some time to do the things I enjoy helped me a ton and recharged my battery a lot. If you have the chance, I hope you can make some time to do the same.

All right, let’s get to it!

The Most Curious Thing This Week

It’s Aaron Judge’s chase for a big milestone and (sort of) history!

Since I wrote seven days ago that Judge was falling off the pace in his quest to beat his career high of 62 home runs, the hulking Yankees slugger hit seven home runs in six games, including four games in a row with a homer. With 29 games left, it’s now a reasonable possibility that Judge gets to 60 and he also just kept getting to 63 in play.

Yup, I was wrong.

With his 62 homers in 2022, Judge set the American League record for most home runs in a season. As much as I love splitting the two leagues, this is basically meaningless. Instead, it’s the league’s way of getting around saying Judge has the record for “most home runs in a season by a player who has never been tied to performance-enhancing drugs.”

The three players who have exceeded both Judge’s 62 and former single-season home run record holder Roger Maris’ 61—Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa—all have admitted or been found to be engaging in steroid use during the years they set their higher home run marks.

Barring a home run binge for the ages, Judge will not catch Barry Bonds’ record of 73 home runs in a season. 

(Side note: Barry Bonds, more than any other player from my childhood, truly felt like a folk hero. I saw him hit the year after he set the record and even having seen him, hearing about him hitting 73 home runs in one year feels like hearing stories about Paul Bunyan or something.)

Splitting up the record books into proven steroid users and everyone else opens up a massive can of worms and I totally understand why the league wouldn’t want to do that.

But for a sport that loves to build up moments by their position in history, this might just be a case where baseball doesn’t need that.

60 home runs in one season is a lot. Only a few players have done it. Most needed help to get there. Even Roger Maris gained from the fact that he set the record in the first year MLB added eight extra games to the schedule.

But outside of 1927, 1961, and three of four years between 1998 and 2001, no other season has ever seen a player hit 60. Since the crackdown on steroid use, only two players—Ryan Howard with 58 home runs in 2006 and Giancarlo Stanton with 59 home runs in 2017—have had even a conceivable shot at reaching the mark.

Judge may hit 60 or more this season. He may set a new career high. He may not. Either way, seeing someone chase for 60 is something worth celebrating, and worth enjoying.

My Reporting

The biggest thing I did was report on a doubleheader of women’s soccer on Sunday.

In game one, we had Washington Spirit and Kansas City Current face off in a matchup of two of the top three teams in the NWSL that kicked off the second halves of their schedules.

And in game two, Arsenal and Chelsea met for a preseason exhibition match.

Washington vs. Kansas City

As I can sometimes do, I can bring you an extremely close look at game day.

In the process, I was able to get some good stuff on tape.

Olympic gold medalist Trinity Rodman blasting a ball toward the net? Here you go.

How about a worm’s eye view of one of the best teams in the world right now getting their training in? Take a look!

These are two teams who can score, and score often. Both teams have a game plan that keeps scoreboard operators busy.

Turns out, the Spirit were the ones who could execute their game plan, as they mostly cruised to a 4-1 victory.

Two goals in the first 14 minutes of play went a long way. And while both Rodman and Colombian newcomer Leicy Santos each had some nice goals later on, I’ll set aside the most space for the first two goals.

First, normally it’s the forwards or attacking midfielders who score. They play closest to the other team’s goal, therefore they score the most, right?

For Sunday’s match, the Spirit put their versatile midfielder Paige Metayer in the lineup as a right back, on defense. The only goals she has scored in her career have been via a header. She would be part of the back line defending, rather than up scoring goals.

Nobody told her, though, as she dribbled all the way from the back half of the field up to the box. Nobody told Kansas City either, as they left her with a ton of open space to get there. She faked out Current defender Stine Ballisager to get an open angle and just barely beat keeper AD Franch for a DIY goal.

Hardly five minutes later, more Spirit magic. Their rookie midfielder Croix Bethune has been a revelation. There are still nine games to go but on Sunday, the USC and University of Georgia product tied the league’s all-time record for most assists in a season. She found forward Ouleye Sarr for an emphatic goal.

And I was perfectly placed to capture Sarr’s signature celebration.

It’s never easy to lose, especially a big matchup like this. But I was struck by Kansas City’s captain Lo’eau Labonta taking the loss in stride and peeling the curtain back just a little bit as to what it’s like being on the receiving end of a ton of goals and trying to get whatever value you can out of it.

Final Score: Washington 4, Kansas City 1

Arsenal vs. Chelsea

It’s a bit of a different vibe for a matchup like this, as both Arsenal and Chelsea are in their preseasons before the English teams start up play in the Women’s Super League and the continent-wide UEFA Champions League.

Both teams played plenty of backups, substituted a lot more players than usual and might have been focusing more on getting answers about their own team rather than having answers for the team they faced.

Pregame, I got possibly an even closer look at warmups, sitting just a couple feet off the sideline and letting my new iPhone with the fancy camera do the rest.

And in a move that may have been unheard of a few years ago, it was the Chelsea women who made the first appearance for the club in their new alternate jersey.

The jerseys must have been a good luck charm, as a goal early in the second half by Chelsea’s French forward Sandy Baltimore ended up making all the difference.

For this game, I spent the on-field portion on the shady side of a hot, sunny Audi Field. The game moves so fast at pitch level. Even when the ball is far away or in a lull, there’s so much going on and, compared to watching from the much higher TV angle, it is so much harder to spot who might be open.

And as you’ll see in some of the video from this spot, the line judge is often hopping or dashing by. Being a sideline referee takes at least as much skill as playing the game. Not only do you have to constantly stand where the last defender is, you have to be prepared to catch an offside while also being ready to judge who last touched a ball that left play. On occasion I would literally feel the wind come off the line judge as she zoomed by.

You can see it all in this video, which feels absolutely crazy because for a moment, it genuinely looks like I’m about to receive a pass. The action unfolds, full speed, literally at arm’s length.

Other Sports Takes and Things of Note

Jerry Jones, GM For Life: I don’t know if anybody else has made this parallel yet but the Dallas Cowboys feel like a modern-day example of an old-school monarchy or cult of personality dictatorship. An aging executive has children jockeying for power and influence should a power void open up, but in the meantime the boss is still the boss, even if the decisions are getting increasingly erratic.

That, my friends, is where the Dallas Cowboys are with owner Jerry Jones. In a rare move for a modern-day NFL team, Jones is also the general manager, making all player personnel decisions.

Sure, he has his son Stephen playing a bigger role in managing the football side of things, and has his daughter Charlotte ruling the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders with a velvet glove covering an iron fist, but the team that plays at “Jerry World,” aka AT&T Stadium, still has Jerry as the star.

Jones made what may well be a good move, locking in the immensely talented wide receiver CeeDee Lamb to a four-year deal making him the second-highest-paid non-quarterback in the NFL. Only Justin Jefferson of the Minnesota Vikings will be earning more than Lamb, who signed a deal worth up to $136 million.

But Jones has offered little to be confident about when it comes to the team’s quarterback Dak Prescott, whose contract expires after this season. The 31-year-old signal caller can become an unrestricted free agent after next season. Even as demand for a good quarterback far outstrips supply, the 81-year-old Jones has been counting every dollar before paying up for Prescott.

In a nutshell, Prescott is a very good quarterback but one who may not have the toolkit to lead Dallas to a Super Bowl. But Jones has a dilemma on his hands—pay up to a guy with all the leverage, or hope you can find a way to get a better star into town?

Jones took a gamble on a quarterback before last season, trading a fourth-round draft pick to have quarterback Trey Lance back up Prescott. Lance was not up to snuff last year, serving as third-string QB and not seeing a single snap. This preseason, Lance played in the last preseason game Dallas had on Saturday. He threw not one, not two but five interceptions.

Veteran Cowboys beat writer Clarence Hill spoke with Jones for a story out over the weekend in local sports site DLLS. And Jerry had an R-rated response when asked if he’d ever step aside for someone else. 

“Hell no,” Jones told him. “There’s nobody that could fucking come in here and do all the contracts … and be a GM any better than I can.”

His words, not mine.

Angel Reese, Glass Cleaner: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Angel Reese has struggled with her shooting in her last three games for the Chicago Sky. Of 44 shot attempts, she has made just 15 of them. When you consider most of them come pretty close to the basket, that’s a pretty inefficient way to play.

Steph Noh at the Sporting News has a whole piece on how, statistically, she’s far and away the worst finisher near the basket in the league.

In one chart, here’s what that looks like:

Yeesh.

However … she has also grabbed at least 20 rebounds in three straight games.

Take a sec, read that again. At least twenty rebounds. Don’t forget that in the WNBA, the games have eight fewer minutes of play than their NBA counterparts.

Reese put up 20 boards in back-to-back games, and then grabbed 22 in a narrow loss on Sunday to the defending champion Las Vegas Aces.

She has still averaged 14.3 points per game in that three-game stretch and scored in double figures in all three of those games.

A majority of her rebounds still come on the defensive end, meaning they start possession for the Sky. Even when she ends up rebounding her own misses, those missed shots have less of a negative attached to them when she’s rebounding her own miss and maintaining possession.

And while certain internet trolls mocked Reese for her style of play, it doesn’t seem to be bringing her down much.

Danny Jansen, Double Agent: On June 26^th , an MLB game between the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox was suspended in the second inning, to be resumed on August 26^th . As the game stopped, catcher Danny Jansen was at bat for Toronto.

MLB rules state that if rosters change in between a game being suspended and it being resumed, players not on the team that day are allowed to be substituted in. Conversely, players who have left the team can be substituted out.

On July 27^th , Toronto traded catcher Danny Jansen to Boston. After acquiring Jansen, Boston sent Reese McGuire, who had been catching for Boston in the suspended game, to the minor leagues.

So… when the game resumed on Monday, Toronto had to pinch hit for Jansen. Daulton Varsho stepped in to the batter’s box. As he looks to his left, he sees Boston has needed to substitute in a new catcher. Except it just so happens that it’s Danny Jansen, the very man Varsho is replacing.

With that, baseball’s long, weird history of trades has a new, legendary entry. Sure, players have been traded for just about anything you can think of: Broadway musical funding, broadcasters, bags of baseballs (twice), themselves (four times.) Heck, in the 1970s, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, two pitchers for the New York Yankees agreed that their wives would trade them as husbands!

But never, in baseball’s 150-year-plus history, has a player been traded such that he played for both teams in the same game. Bravo, Danny Jansen. You just made some delightfully weird baseball history.

Something Good I Ate

My journey to the best burger I’ve ever had starts with mini pottery.

Last September, I took my second journey to the real Happiest Place on Earth. Not Disney World, but San Diego. 

The seemingly permanent “sunny and 75” weather gives it a seemingly permanent happy, calm vibe.

It also gives it a seemingly permanent real estate market in the stratosphere, but maybe someday lesser nobility can afford to live there. A boy can dream. 

I booked my stay through Airbnb and nowadays, they offer supplemental activities to go with your stay. I saw there was a mini pottery class available so I signed up.

On a random Thursday evening, I drive to the eastern edge of the city down a residential street. I’m invited in by a young lady who takes me to her back porch-turned-pottery studio. The weather is perfect (obviously) and I watch as sunset gradually darkens the commanding view of a canyon down below and houses far across the way.

For the next two hours, I enter a meditative state. The steady whirring and predictable rotations of the wheel, the silky-smooth way water drips along the clay, and the meticulous work required to bring a work of pottery to life helped me briefly find inner peace.

Unlike full-size pottery, mini pottery doesn’t require full-body effort. You can sit comfortably on a stool and let just your hands and wrists do the work.

You literally have to keep the clay grounded, making it feel like a metaphor for my own anxious self.

Two other people, a guy about my age and his mom, came a bit late. I hardly noticed. Halfway through, our teacher offered drinks. I accepted a beer. An hour later, as class wrapped, I realized the beer had gone untouched and unopened. I gave it back.

This residential area didn’t have a ton of food options, but I needed something on the way back to my place. Even fewer options around there were open after 8pm. Yelp suggested a burger joint and dive bar called Key and Cleaver.

I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered their burger of the month, the “Pesto Besto,” with two slices of Havarti cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, and of course, pesto, topping their beef patty.

I chatted up the bartender a bit and learned that she and her husband, who was sitting at a computer on the far end of the bar, ran the place. They had both worked in restaurants for years and saw an opportunity to build up a place of their own.

As I saw after eating, they renovated a former live music space into a big, airy souped-up dive bar with a lovely little upstairs space and even a cute private rooftop. And a handful of absolutely massive TVs hang high above, making sure any and all football games are watchable the way the good Lord intended.

They’re wonderful, sure, but their burger is why they’re in this newsletter. Holy crap that burger was delicious. Not even just the flavor but the burger itself. They must source everything really well and season it just right. The burger felt soft, but not gummy. The onions didn’t overpower you, especially with the pesto’s aggressive flavor providing plenty of cover.

Dive bar energy, massive TVs, friendly bar staff and the best burger I’ve ever eaten? If the mini pottery didn’t put me in a meditative state, this would have done the trick!