5-at-10: High school spring sports officially wiped and praising the All In Challenge

Bradley shortstop Ashton Simmons dives in attempt to stop a Farabut basehit.  The ball got through.  The Bradley Central Bears lost to the Farragut Admirals in the championship game of the TSSAA Class AAA baseball tournament at Reese Smith Jr. Field on the campus of Middle Tennessee University in Murfreesboro on May 24, 2019.
Bradley shortstop Ashton Simmons dives in attempt to stop a Farabut basehit. The ball got through. The Bradley Central Bears lost to the Farragut Admirals in the championship game of the TSSAA Class AAA baseball tournament at Reese Smith Jr. Field on the campus of Middle Tennessee University in Murfreesboro on May 24, 2019.

True sports disappointment

We have all had a "Woe is me" moment about a sporting loss. I've been reduced to juvenile actions when Auburn pulls an Auburn a time or three.

Those days seem nostalgic and downright campy when pressed against the glass of The Corona. (Yes, we're officially to the place that both words in "The Corona" have earned capitalized stature.)

Now we have a longing for the pain of painful losses because of the vacuum in our sports world.

But the "Woe is me" sports pangs seem, at best, downright silly and at worst ignorant and Trump-level narcissistic when layered next to the news from the TSSAA on Wednesday afternoon.

From TFP sports editor and incomparable prep sports ace Stephen Hargis comes news that what we surely suspected has become official. High school spring sports have been canceled.

My kids are 12 and 9. They will miss not playing baseball or softball this spring and summer.

But the thought of prepping for the vast majority of your life for the magic of your senior season only to have hit wiped away is a Shakespearean tragedy.

Think of it this way: A high school senior is 18 who likely started playing baseball, soccer, softball or what have you at the age of 6. So at that point, a very large part of your life has been consumed by practices, games, lessons, travel to and fro' and everything else that comes with excelling, even at the high school level, in your sport of choice.

And like that, poof, it's gone, like Keyser Söze.

Damn you, The Corona. Damn you.

The Last Dance

OK, we're as excited as anyone for "The Last Dance" - you know, the 10-part documentary on Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in their final season of their six championships in the 1990s.

Certainly you have heard about it by now. It's hard to click an ESPN portal and not see something about "The Last Dance." It started Sunday night.

It's especially top of mind this morning for a couple of reasons.

First, we are having the director of the series on Press Row today. Check it out at 3:20 p.m. on ESPN 105.1 the Zone. (You can listen online at espnchattanooga.com.)

(Side note: One thing we can say about the quarantine from The Corona is that we have found a lot of success finding excellent guests over the last month. Kudos to Wells Guthrie, our show producer; David Paschall, our erstwhile cohost; and Weston Wamp, who has been sitting in for the first hour of the show for the last few weeks. Those guys are doing work. Me? I just show up, pull up a chair and roll with it.)

Second, news was announced Wednesday that there will be two versions of the series: One with adult language on ESPN and one edited for all ages on ESPN2.

And, maybe most importantly, MJ was on "Good Morning America" on Thursday discussing the series. In that interview, MJ noted that people watching this will think he's a "horrible guy."

Jordan may have the all-time highest Q-rating of any athlete. He was beloved in his day. He has been canonized by the highlights, the stories, the legacy and the iconic logo and Nike brand.

But he was able to reach those lofty places of idolatry in a time that was notably devoid of social media and the 24/7 sports news hole.

I am curious about a lot of things in this series, to be honest.

And chiefly among those curiosities are how this will impact MJ's all-time veneer, because with the possible exception of Mickey Mantle, no athlete was able to come close to MJ's career in terms of evading the stories and scandals of human shortcomings and sustain that level of popularity.

Draft news

OK, we are a week from the draft. We love the draft, you know this.

There has been an avalanche of conversation about the risk that Tua Tagovailoa presents. If he's healthy long term, we can all agree he's a franchise QB.

But that's a monster if for a guy who has battled injury since high school and has about the same number of surgeries as he does vowels.

So, he's the bust-or-boom face of this draft, and may be that for the last five-plus years.

Which brings us to likely the biggest concern of every team: In what will be the most watched and analyzed draft ever because of The Corona vacuum, how do you avoid the bust?

It also brings this story about the biggest busts in the last 30 years of draft history into more focus.

The fact that No. 1 on that list is not JaMarcus Russell, who went No. 1 overall in 2007, makes the list completely flawed.

The bust factor should be determined by the guys not picked as much as the disaster that the pick became. In that prism, Russell was picked in front of no fewer than six future Hall of Famers and maybe as many as 10. After Russell, Calvin Johnson went 2, Joe Thomas went 3, Adrian Peterson went 7, Patrick Willis went 11, Darrelle Revis went 14 and Marshal Yada went in the third round.

Akili Smith, who went third in 1999, was atop that list from that flawed story. For shame.

This and that

- The All In Challenge, in which athletes and celebrities are offering amazing experiences for a price to raise money to help hungry folks during The Corona crisis, is amazing. Some of the offerings are unbelievably cool. Play golf and have dinner with Peyton Manning. Throw out the first pitch at the World Series. Play in the celebrity NBA All-Star game. Appear on the cover of SI. Jeremy Pruitt also pitched in with a full-game day UT experience that includes conducting the band, making the Vol Walk with Pruitt and running through the T before the game. (That one may get pricey, considering that honor reportedly cost Thunder Thornton a cool $1 million back in the day.)

- Speaking of excellent guests on Press Row, Wednesday we had Cian Fahey, a NFL analytics guru who reviewed, graded and analyzed more than 15,000 quarterback throws from the 2019 season. His details are simply mind-bending. Some of the details: Of those reviews, Fahey said the biggest surprise was how well Derek Carr graded out for the Raiders, Jameis Winston threw 51 interceptable passes last year, and Matt Ryan was the sixth-best QB in the NFL. So there's that.

- Speaking of excellent guests on Press Row, we had former Baylor School and UTC QB Nick Tiano on the show earlier this week, too. Here's the replay of that interview.

- Part of our new daily model is a family game of "Jeopardy!" before the kids go to bed. Yep, we're the Olsons from "Little House on the Mountain." Last night - on the anniversary of the event, mind you - the clue was about the MLB player who broke the color barrier. Yes, it feels easy for those of us who frequent these parts, but one of the college students answered "Who is Babe Ruth?" Not sure if that was a talking point for the conspiracy theories that claim Ruth was black, but yes, the correct answer is, of course, the great Jackie Robinson.

Today's questions

We'll start big picture on this one about "The Last Dance."

It's two-fold: One, this will be the most-watched "30-for-30" ever, right? And is there any way that with all these expectations, is there any way it lives up to the hype?

As for the All In Challenge, what experience in the sports world would you pay top dollar to have? (Think like the UT experience, because no matter how much you pay, you're not starting for the Lakers because, well you know.)

As for today, April 16, let's review.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is 73 today. Bill Belichick is 68. Tom Brady was drafted on this day 20 years ago.

On this day in 1929, the Yankees became the first team to wear uniforms. Rushmore of all-time baseball uniform numbers. Go.

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