Let’s be completely clear, though: He wasn’t being careless, he wasn’t being reckless. All the 27-year-old was doing was snowboarding. Elliott has been snowboarding nearly since he could walk. The first time that I interviewed him my task was nearly impossible — not because he was yet to turn 7 years old, but because the kindergartener was too busy turning backflips on his snowboard atop his living room couch to answer my questions. The most recent time that I interviewed Elliot, three weeks ago, he was trying to talk me into getting back onto a snowboard for the first time since I was his age, and that was a while ago.
Snowboarding is what Chase Elliott does to relax. To get away from it all. To clear his mind from the craziness that comes with being NASCAR’s most popular star. His colleagues and competitors, drivers who spend their weeknights and off weekends doing everything from playing pickup basketball games and riding in cycling groups to big-game hunting and driving sprint cars on dirt tracks, have spent the week expressing a total understanding of why Elliott likes to skid his way around the slopes of Colorado.
“Life happens,” Kevin Harvick said this week when asked about Elliott. “You have to be able to go out and live your life to keep yourself sane or this deal will eat you up.”
Harvick’s comments came amid a continuing debate that has been reignited by Elliott’s injury, surgery and absence. It’s a conversation that reaches far beyond the NASCAR paddock and crosses over into stadiums, arenas, locker rooms, anywhere men and woman are paid to compete as professional athletes. It’s also not a new topic. Far from it. It dates back more than a century, to Babe Ruth and his beer-guzzling brethren.
Should these athletes be allowed to put their bodies — the instruments with which they earn those dollars from teams, leagues and sponsors and in turn make even more money for the people who work for those teams, leagues and sponsors — at risk by participating in dangerous activities? The challenge comes in determining exactly what should and/or could be labeled as “dangerous.”
Entire conference rooms filled with league executives, agents and insurance specialists have had shouting matches standing over contracts, unsigned because of that very question. Entire law journals have been dedicated to the subject. Heck, even Tom Cruise gets irritated talking about it.
“Yeah, I can jump off a cliff, but, don’t go snowboarding,” the movie star who famously does his own stunts explained last week on Jimmy Kimmel Live, following a clip of his jumping a motorcycle off a ramp and into a canyon for the next “Mission: Impossible” film, a stunt he performed eight times. “Or they’d prefer I didn’t get on skateboard … and look both ways before I cross the street, because that’s dangerous.”
Kimmel replied, “Like all the rules that a pitcher for the Dodgers would have to abide by, you also have to abide by.”
It’s true. It has become standard operating procedure for a so-called “hazardous activities clause” to be included in contracts for athletes in Major League Baseball, the NFL, NHL, NBA, and WNBA.
The literal breaking point — or tearing point, to be more specific — for team owners when it came to hazardous activities came in December 1967. That’s when Boston Red Sox pitcher Jim Lonborg, celebrating a Cy Young Award, American League MVP and a historically great seven-game World Series showdown with Bob Gibson and the St. Louis Cardinals, went to Lake Tahoe and tore all the ligaments in his left knee during a skiing accident. His career was never the same and the Red Sox, who’d just given Lonborg a raise, didn’t return to the World Series for nearly a decade.
In no time, the major sports leagues all had some sort of hazardous activities clause written into every standard player contract. Past that, individual teams started writing specific language aimed at curbing the seemingly dangerous hobbies of their investments. Even Michael Jordan had to fight the NBA’s no-pickup-hoops rules by writing in a “Love of the Game” clause. Hunting, deep-sea diving, skydiving — you name the sporting hobby and there was likely an athlete who had it added to their personal no-fly list, sometimes very literally.
When it was revealed that Premier League player Stefan Schwarz was obsessed with the idea of space tourism, his club Sunderland made him sign a pledge that he would not try to go into outer space while on the team. Red Sox outfielder Mike “Gator” Greenwell, a NASCAR fanatic, was told he couldn’t drive race cars during the offseason. He retired from baseball in 1996 and immediately went racing, winning the 2000 New Smyrna Speedway Speedweeks title and even making a pair of NASCAR Truck Series starts in 2006.
Kevin Harvick on advice to the drivers under the KHI umbrella: “You have to be able to go out and live your life and do things to keep yourself sane or this deal will eat you up.” pic.twitter.com/rPoj0S9QWI
Meanwhile, in the full-time NASCAR world, a business proudly touted as a collection of independent contractors, a league-wide ban on hazardous activities wasn’t doable.
“Besides,” Jimmie Johnson said in 2006, “This entire business is a hazardous activity.”
The then-five-time Cup Series champ had been asked about the subject because he had just broken his left wrist after falling off the top of a golf cart. No, not falling out of a golf cart. Falling off the top, as in on the roof, as in goofing off during the offseason. He missed no races and was fully healed in time for the Daytona 500 two months later.
His employer — and now Elliott’s — is Hendrick Motorsports, and for years team owner Rick Hendrick discouraged what he felt like were dangerous activities, including extracurricular short track racing. That kept even his most legendary sprint car employees such as Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne on the sidelines during the week. He has relaxed those restrictions over the years, and his team president has already stated that isn’t likely to be reversed because of Elliott’s injuries.
Joe Gibbs, with his NFL background, has long kept the clamps on his drivers and isn’t going to change that anytime soon — if ever. Although back in the day, Tony Stewart rarely paid that much mind. Kyle Busch drove for JGR for 15 years, breaking both his legs in a Gibbs Xfinity ride at Daytona in 2015.
“I was racing late models and a little bit of dirt cars and Joe would always kind of warn me not to get hurt,” Busch said last weekend at Las Vegas. “Then I got hurt in his car doing something for him, so I was like, ‘Any stipulations you ever had were out the window.'”
Johnson was hurt surfing on a golf cart. Carl Edwards once cut his hand open while foot racing through the garage and grabbing a tool box for leverage around a tight turn. In the late-1990s NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, Chase’s father, survived a massive crash traveling 150-plus mph at Michigan Speedway on a Sunday afternoon … and then broke a kneecap two days later when he tripped over a garden hose in the family garage.
“I need to come up with a better story than the real one,” Elliott said at the time. “I need to say I was out bull riding or was in bar fight or something.”
That’s probably what Cleveland pitcher Trevor Bauer was thinking when he had to walk off the mound in the ALCS, blood gushing from his finger because he’d cut it at home while fixing a propeller on a drone. Or another Cleveland pitcher years earlier, Paul Shuey, who went on the disabled list with a shoulder strain because he went to sleep in an easy chair holding his newborn baby in his arms. Or New York Giant Jason Pierre-Paul, who burned his hand on Fourth of July fireworks. Or Tigers righty Joel Zumaya, who hurt his wrist playing Guitar Hero.
When attorney J.J. Pristanski, now legal counsel for the New York Islanders, wrote in his 2018 article for the DePaul Journal Sports of Law that hazardous activities clauses “fail to effectuate the parties’ intent, and are difficult to interpret and apply,” he was referring to all of the above. And yes, 4½ years before the Snowboard Crash Heard ‘Round The Track, he was also referring to Chase Elliott.
At least Elliott was doing something cool. Something awesome. Something that he loves. Can we really ask professional athletes, specifically race car drivers, to be superhumans and then be angry with or question them when they do something that is nothing more than human?
We can’t praise Dale Earnhardt for his love of driving bulldozers and knocking down trees and crashing a horse down the side of a mountain in New Mexico with Richard Childress and then be irritated with Chase Elliot because he hit the slopes. We can’t gleefully tell stories about Cale Yarborough being struck by lightning, fighting off a bear while flying an airplane and bouncing off the ground when his parachute didn’t open and then act like Chase Elliott is irresponsible because he likes to turn ollies in the powder. And we surely should not be allowed to treat Chase Elliott as an old-school stock car thrill seeker when he moonlights in the SRX series each summer but then doubt his judgment because he snaps his boots onto a board in the winter.
No, Chase Elliott just had a bad day while participating in the hobby that he loves most. He will be back in his race car soon enough. Let him heal, both his leg and his pride. And in the meantime, let’s turn the volume down on any chatter about rolling athletes in bubble wrap before they do anything other than their day job.
Besides, we all know what would happen next, especially when it comes to racers. They would go on and do it anyway, just to see how loud of a popping sound they could make.
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.
Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.
“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”
Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”
He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.
“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”
While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.
Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.
Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.
“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”
Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.
“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.
“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”
As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.
“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”
Eovaldi struck out eight and walked none in his fifth career complete game. The right-hander threw 99 pitches, 70 for strikes.
It was Eovaldi’s first shutout since April 29, 2023, against the Yankees and just the third of his career. He became the first Ranger with multiple career shutouts with no walks in the past 30 seasons, according to ESPN Research.
“I feel like, by the fifth or sixth inning, that my pitch count was down, and I feel like we had a really good game plan going into it,” Eovaldi said in his on-field postgame interview on Victory+. “I thought [Texas catcher Kyle Higashioka] called a great game. We were on the same page throughout the entire game.”
In the first inning, Wyatt Langford homered for Texas against Carson Spiers (0-1), and that proved to be all Eovaldi needed. A day after Cincinnati collected 14 hits in a 14-3 victory in the series opener, Eovaldi (1-0) silenced the lineup.
“We needed it, these bats are still quiet,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said of his starter’s outing. “It took a well-pitched game like that. What a game.”
The Reds put the tying run on second with two out in the ninth, but Eovaldi retired Elly De La Cruz on a grounder to first.
“He’s as good as I have seen as far as a pitcher performing under pressure,” Bochy said. “He is so good. He’s a pro out there. He wants to be out there.”
Eovaldi retired his first 12 batters, including five straight strikeouts during one stretch. Gavin Lux hit a leadoff single in the fifth for Cincinnati’s first baserunner.
“I think it was the first-pitch strikes,” Eovaldi said, when asked what made him so efficient. “But also, the off-speed pitches. I was able to get some quick outs, and I didn’t really have many deep counts. … And not walking guys helps.”
Spiers gave up three hits in six innings in his season debut. He struck out five and walked two for the Reds, who fell to 2-3.
The Rangers moved to 4-2, and Langford has been at the center of it all. He now has two home runs in six games to begin the season. In 2024, it took him until the 29th game of the season to homer for the first time. Langford hit 16 homers in 134 games last season during his rookie year.
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.
Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.
Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).
The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.
Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.
Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.
Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.