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It was the mid 1950s, and Danny Borné was eager to get his first look inside Tiger Stadium. Eight years old, he’d already fallen in love with the pageantry of LSU football from listening to John Ferguson call games on the radio from his home in Thibodaux, Louisiana. WWL, that old 50,000-watt AM station out of New Orleans, was crystal clear at night.

Now, his Aunt Doris was taking him to see it in person. The interstate system wasn’t as developed then, so Borné, Doris and her two boys got on a ferry to carry them up the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge. Stepping on campus, walking amid the oaks and magnolias, and up to the massive stadium of concrete and steel before an 8 p.m. kickoff felt like a dream.

The opponent was incidental. The experience was visceral. Never mind that the lighting was terrible. Never mind that LSU wasn’t very good. Sitting inside the bowl, hearing the piercing horns of The Golden Band from Tigerland and the low tones of Sid Crocker calling out plays over the loudspeaker, Borné was swept away. The smell, the atmosphere, the roar of the crowd — everything connected.

Doris would lean over and tell Borné, “It never rains in Tiger Stadium.” He didn’t know what she meant, but it felt right.

Not long after kickoff, he watched as the fog began to drift over the river about a half mile off to the west, slowly encircling the stadium.

“It gave it an ethereal effect,” Borné recalled. “It gave it an out-of-this-world experience that I grew up having become part of my body and my soul. It just always stayed with me over all those years.”

He couldn’t imagine then what his future would hold. He couldn’t know that his voice and his connection to Tiger Stadium — both deeper and more vivid than the other boys his age — were a perfect match.

There was always something special about night games at LSU. Borné would manage to make them sound even more magical.

His voice will be among the first things Alabama players hear when they take the field to play rival LSU on Saturday night (7 p.m. ET, ESPN). Echoing throughout the 102,321 seat arena, Borné will be the unseen narrator of a game that will either make or break each team’s season.


IN A NORMAL year, half of Alabama’s roster or more would know what to expect ahead of Saturday night’s trip to LSU. But the freshmen and sophomores have never been to Tiger Stadium, and the juniors and seniors only have the 2020 game under their belt when the stadium was mostly empty because of COVID restrictions. Sure, they might think they know what they’re about to walk into. LSU has a singular reputation. Paul “Bear” Bryant only lost there once in 25 seasons as head coach at Alabama, and still he called it “the worst place in the world for a visiting team.”

Former Alabama quarterback John Parker Wilson remembers how close the bleachers are to the sideline and the feeling of so many raucous fans being right on top of you. “The electricity,” he said, “is something you can’t replicate.” AJ McCarron, another former Alabama QB, remembers the ride up to the stadium and how it set the tone. “Pulling in, night game, everybody’s flipping you off,” he said. “They’re rocking the bus, throwing eggs at the bus, beer bottles at the bus.”

“They have a great tradition there,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “They have a great atmosphere.”

Saban should know. He coached at LSU from 2000 to ’04. On Monday, he said his team would have to keep its focus on the road — something that hasn’t come easily this season after a close call at Texas and a loss at Tennessee.

“We have to be able to have enough poise to execute in this kind of environment and not let it affect us,” he said.

Quarterback Bryce Young, who was a freshman backup during the game in Baton Rouge two years ago, said, “We understand going in to play at a place like LSU, it’s going to be extremely hostile.”

But hostility is only part of the equation. Other stadiums have loud and surly fans. What sets Tiger Stadium apart is its mystique, especially at night. It has a living, breathing, haunting quality that few have been able to capture accurately.

Borné is one of those people. For the last 36 years in his perch high up in Tiger Stadium, he’s been a narrator helping to build upon the legend of Death Valley — a cathedral to college football where it’s said that opponents’ dreams go to die.


BORNÉ WILL TAKE an elevator upstairs to the public address booth inside Tiger Stadium on Saturday night ahead of the game against Alabama. But the truth is fate carried him there long ago.

It was listening to Ferguson on the radio. It was Aunt Doris and their trips to Baton Rouge. It was Sid Crocker and the idea that such a job existed. And it was a voice that Borné says is a “gift from God.”

He’s a deacon in the Catholic Church. So, yes, there is modesty in that statement.

Borné, as it turns out, was never afraid of public speaking. In high school, he emceed assemblies. After calling out the members of the honor society, a teacher approached him. “Danny,” she said, “When you speak in a microphone, the speakers do something with your voice and I’m not really sure I understand what it is.”

Neither did he. But it served him well when he did play-by-play for Nicholls State baseball, went to LSU for graduate school and got a job with the TV station WAFB covering sports and news.

One September day in 1968, he found his seat in the press box at Tiger Stadium when Crocker called him over.

“Come see where I work,” Crocker told him.

Borné marveled at the room with a view.

“Look at it,” Crocker said. “You might be doing this one day.”

Borné laughed and didn’t think about it again. But then, in 1985, Crocker announced he was going to retire. Borné, who had gotten out of the broadcast business, called Crocker and asked why he was quitting.

“He said he wanted to do in the stands things he couldn’t do in the booth,” Borné said of Crocker wanting to be a fan. “And I knew exactly what he was talking about.”

Some things shouldn’t be done or said in front of a microphone. It’s college football, but it’s still polite society.

Borné wrote to then-athletic director Robert Brodhead expressing interest in the job. And for eight long months, he didn’t get an answer. But then, two weeks before the start of the season, Brodhead’s assistant called him in for an interview.

Brodhead had come from Miami and was still getting a feel for Louisiana. His question to Borné was simple: “Can you pronounce these names?”

There was a list of Boudreauxes, Broussards and Heberts.

“Pronounce them?” Borné said. “I know their daddies.”

He got the job on the spot. The little boy who arrived by ferry two decades earlier, who saw the mist coming off the river and felt the glory of LSU football, had become the voice of Tiger Stadium.

Ask any cook, he said, and what’s almost as important as the ingredients is the pot you cook it in.

“That stadium is the pot where LSU football simmers and lives and scores and soars,” he said. “And that’s why it’s so important — the stadium itself. The stadium is steel and concrete, but it has a life, it has a history, it has a presence, and it has a future.”

With a perspective and a vocabulary like that, of course Borné would do more than say who caught which pass and who scored which touchdown. He’d add a little spice of his own.


BORNÉ SAID HE takes advice from William Shakespeare. “The play,” he said, “is the thing.” Anything that detracts from that shouldn’t be in a PA person’s portfolio.

He used to do a straightforward version of the pregame weather forecast, giving the temperature, humidity, wind direction and strength. Lastly, he’d provide the chance of precipitation.

It wasn’t in the plan, he swears, but one day in the 1990s he must have thought of his Aunt Doris because he blurted out at the end, “Chance of rain? Never.”

He thought he might get an earful from fans for that. And he did. But it wasn’t the negative reception he expected. They loved the callback to the saying among LSU fans that “It never rains in Tiger Stadium” — origin story, unknown.

Speaking those words out loud, Borné brought the tradition further into the spotlight. He’ll be walking the aisles of the grocery store, minding his own business, when a stranger will approach him, grinning. “Hey Dan,” they’ll say. “What’s the chance of rain?”

“Who knows why these things catch on?” he said. “But now, I mean, you don’t say it and they come looking for you.

“Now, everybody screams it back to me before I even get to say it.”

But that’s not the only moment where Borné has punched up the Tiger Stadium experience.

It was an afternoon game — again in the 1990s when Borné was apparently on a roll — when the third quarter ended and the band began to play its distinctive pregame song. The drum line got to work and then the horn section got busy.

Buh-buh-buh-buh!

Caught up in the moment, Borné noticed it was dusk and saw the grounds crew lowering the flag.

“And I just looked at that,” he recalled, “and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the colors are being retired and the sun has found its home in the Western sky. It is now Saturday night in Death Valley.'”

Again, that was not the plan. But it resonated. John Parker Wilson, in the middle of a game, noticed the reaction of fans. “The people go nuts,” he said.

More recently, Borné’s impact has come into greater focus. Before Alabama and LSU take the field — as has happened before every home game since 2010 — Borné’s words will narrate a pregame video on the scoreboard.

His final, ominous words — “It’s Saturday night in Death Valley” — will send fans into a frenzy.

Borné called it a “mystical experience” once the sun sets on Tiger Stadium.

He knows people will read this and call him crazy.

But, he said, “The people have been in and felt it, they know what I’m talking about.”

“Even to this day, it’s bigger, it’s brighter, it’s louder,” he said. “There’s this undercurrent of Halloween that almost drifts over the stadium from the West — almost like that fog when I was a kid.”

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Cindric wins at Talladega, dons victory wreath

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Cindric wins at Talladega, dons victory wreath

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Austin Cindric celebrated his first win of the season by wearing Talladega’s Superspeedway traditional victory wreath all around the track.

A wreath like he just won the Indianapolis 500.

He thought so, too.

“Feels like I just won the Indy 500,” he said of Sunday’s NASCAR race. “I’m trying to walk on the plane with this.”

Cindric wasn’t even concerned how such a gesture might be received by Team Penske teammate Joey Logano, who raged on his radio after the second stage when Cindric didn’t push him and it allowed Bubba Wallace in a Toyota to win the segment and its valuable bonus points.

“Way to go Austin,” seethed Logano, who used multiple expletives in his anger over his Penske radio. “You just gave it to him. Gave a Toyota a stage win. Nice job. Way to go … put that in the book.”

Cindric was unconcerned by the idea Logano might take issue with the wreath on the Penske plane.

“I think that would be very immature,” Cindric said. “I don’t see him doing that. We’ll see.”

It was a celebratory day for Cindric, who gave Team Penske its first NASCAR victory of the season by holding off a huge pack of challengers over the closing lap in a rare drama-free day at Talladega Superspeedway.

“Rock on, guys,” Cindric said over his radio. “Rock and roll. Let’s go!”

Ford drivers went 1-2, with Ryan Preece finishing second. But Preece and Logano were disqualified following postrace inspections because of spoiler infractions. Logano had crossed the finish line in fifth.

After the DQ’s, Kyle Larson moved up to second and William Byron third for Hendrick Motorsports. The two Chevrolet drivers pushed Cindric and Preece from the second row rather than pull out of line on the final lap and make a third lane in an attempt to win.

It was Larson’s best career finish at Talladega, where drafting and pack racing is required and neither suits his style. He said he wanted to make a move to try to take the win from Cindric but there was never any room.

“I wanted to take it but I felt like the gap was too big,” Larson said. “I was just stuck inside and just doing everything I could to advance our lane and maybe open it up to where I then could get to the outside. But we were all just pushing so equally that it kept the lanes jammed up.”

Noah Gragson ended up fourth in a Ford, while Hendrick driver Chase Elliott was fifth – two spots ahead of teammate Alex Bowman, with Carson Hocevar of Spire Motorsports sandwiched in between them. Wallace was the highest-finishing Toyota driver in eighth.

Cindric led five times but for only seven of the 188 laps in an unusually calm race for chaotic Talladega. The track last fall recorded the largest crash in the NASCAR history when 28 cars were collected in a demolition derby with four laps remaining.

On Sunday, there were only four cautions — two for stage breaks — totaling 22 laps. It was the fourth consecutive Talladega race with only four cautions, the two for stage breaks and the two for natural cautions.

But, Sunday featured season-highs in lead changes (67) among different drivers (23). Only five cars failed to finish from the 40-car field, and a whopping 30 drivers finished on the lead lap.

Cindric marked the 10th consecutive different winner at Talladega, extending the track record of no repeat winners. And, by the time it was over, Logano seemed to have calmed down.

“About time one of us wins these things,” Logano said of the Penske trio. “When you think about the amount of laps led by Team Penske and Ford in general, just haven’t been able to close. To see a couple of Fords on the front row duking it out, I wish one of them was me, in a selfish way. But it’s good to see those guys running up there and being able to click one off.”

Larson sets NASCAR record for stage wins

When he won the first stage at Talladega, it was the 67th of Larson’s career and made him NASCAR’s all-time stage winner. He broke a tie with Martin Truex Jr. with the stage win.

Stages were introduced in 2017 as a way to ensure natural breaks during races that allowed fans to rush to the bathroom or concession stand without missing any action. Cars typically make a pit stop during a stage break.

Teammate-on-teammate collision

Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin, who combined to win five of the first nine races this season, had a collision on a restart that ensured Bell would not win his fourth race of the season.

It happened in the first stage of the race with Bell on the front row next to Chris Buescher on his inside, and with Hamlin behind him. As the cars revved to get up to speed at the green flag, Hamlin ran into the back of Bell, which caused him to turn into Buescher and create the second caution of the race.

Bell went to the garage, where he joined Ryan Blaney, Buescher and Brad Keselowski, all betting favorites who were done for the day before the end of the first stage.

“What in the hell? Man, apologies if that’s on me,” Hamlin radioed. “We weren’t even up to speed yet. I don’t know why that would have wrecked him. When he shot down to the bottom, I wasn’t even sure I was actually on him.”

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NASCAR races next week at Texas Motor Speedway, where Elliott scored his only win of the 2024 season last April.

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Fan ejected after taunting Red Sox OF Duran

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Fan ejected after taunting Red Sox OF Duran

CLEVELAND — Jarren Duran has found plenty of support from his Boston Red Sox teammates and others since he revealed in a Netflix documentary that he attempted suicide three years ago.

However, Duran said Sunday that a fan in the front row near the Red Sox dugout in Cleveland said “something inappropriate” to him after the All-Star left fielder flied out in the seventh inning of a 13-3 victory over the Guardians.

Duran stayed on the top step of the dugout and glared at the fan as the inning played out. During the seventh-inning stretch, before the singing of “God Bless America,” Red Sox teammates and coaches kept Duran away from the area as umpires and Progressive Field security personnel gathered to handle the situation.

The fan tried to run up the aisle but was caught by security and taken out of the stadium.

“The fan just said something inappropriate. I’m just happy that the security handled it and the umpires were aware of it and they took care of it for me,” Duran said.

After the game, the Guardians released a statement apologizing to the Red Sox and Duran. The team said it had identified the fan and was working with Major League Baseball on next steps.

Duran said it was the first time he was taunted by a fan about his suicide attempt and mental health struggles since the Netflix series “The Clubhouse: A Year With the Red Sox” was released April 8.

“When you open yourself up like that, you also open yourself up to the enemies. But I have a good support staff around me, teammates, coaches. There were fans that were supporting me, so that was awesome,” he said.

Boston manager Alex Cora was in the opposite corner of the Red Sox dugout but lauded security for how the incident was handled.

Cora was even prouder of Duran’s restraint. Duran was suspended for two games last season when he directed an anti-gay slur at a heckling fan at Fenway Park when the fan shouted that Duran needed a tennis racket to hit.

“There’s a two-way street. That’s something I said last year. We made a mistake last year, and we learned from it. We grew up, you know, as an individual and as a group,” Cora said.

Sunday’s incident dampened what had been a solid game and series for Duran. He went 4-for-6 with an RBI and had at least three hits in consecutive games for the second time in his career.

In Saturday’s doubleheader nightcap, Duran had Boston’s first straight steal of home plate in 16 years.

Duran went 7-for-15 with three RBIs as Boston took two of three games in the weekend series. Six of his hits in the series came against lefties after Duran was just 3-for-31 against southpaws coming into the weekend.

“I’ve been getting some good swings on lefties lately, just hitting it right at guys. I’m trying to stay with my process, and it just happened to work good for me this series. So, I’m just going to keep at it,” said Duran, who has hit safely in 13 of his past 14 games and is batting .323 (20-for-62) with eight extra-base hits, including a home run, and six RBIs during that span.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Sources: Tkachuk dodges discipline, will play G4

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Sources: Tkachuk dodges discipline, will play G4

Florida Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk will not receive supplemental discipline for his hit on Tampa Bay Lightning forward Jake Geuntzel in Game 3, sources told ESPN on Sunday.

Tkachuk’s hit, in the third period of his team’s 5-1 loss, received a five-minute major. According to sources, the NHL Department of Player Safety determined that was enough, considering Guentzel had recently touched the puck and Tkachuk didn’t make contact with Guentzel’s head.

The department also believed that the force in which Tkachuk hit Guentzel was far lesser than the hit Tampa’s Brandon Hagel made on Florida captain Aleksander Barkov in Game 2, which earned Hagel a one game suspension.

The plays led both coaches to trade jabs in the media. After Barkov went down in Game 2, Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice said: “The only players we hit are the one with pucks.”

Barkov missed the end of the third period, but played in Game 3. Game 4 is Monday at Amerant Bank Arena.

At his postgame press conference, following Tkachuk’s hit on Guentzel, Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper deadpanned the exact same line as Maurice.

Tkachuk leads the series in scoring with three goals and an assist through three games. Guentzel has two goals and two assists for Tampa Bay.

The Battle of Florida is living up to the billing as one of the most contentious rivalries in hockey; either Tampa or Florida has made it to the Stanley Cup Final in each of the last five seasons.

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