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The energy in the clubhouses for Friday night’s game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards was unmistakable.

It was the same intensity that existed in every baseball clubhouse in the major leagues that day — at Fenway, Wrigley, Dodger Stadium. Yes, it’s September, it’s the stretch run, with great pennant races, but this excitement was different because Thursday night, the NFL season opened with the Kansas City Chiefs‘ 27-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens. That means fantasy football is back.

“Guys came in the clubhouse today and they were already running their mouths about last night … and there was only one game — one game,” Orioles catcher James McCann said. “After the first weekend of fantasy, every baseball clubhouse will be bedlam.”

“Monday will be unreal,” said Orioles pitcher Zach Eflin. “Unreal.”

Rays infielder Taylor Walls, who Eflin, a former teammate, lovingly calls “a lunatic” about fantasy football, says it is “an event. I love it because it allows me to — sorry for my language — to talk s—, which I love to do. It allows you to look at a teammate and say, ‘How can you be such an idiot?’ Motor [Rays hitting coach Chad Mottola] had three playmakers from the Ravens on his team last night, and we were all over him today, like, ‘How could you play a running back, wide receiver and a tight end on the same team?’ But fantasy football is all about camaraderie, it’s about bringing a spark to the end of the season. It’s an escape. It’s about staying in the loop with guys even after the season ends.”

This goes on in most clubhouses around the major leagues. The Arizona Diamondbacks determined the order of their fantasy draft by placing each team’s fantasy league name on 12 different baseballs: Whichever manager Torey Lovullo hit the farthest in batting practice got the No. 1 pick, second farthest got No. 2, etc. The Oakland A’s put baseballs with team names on the top of the Coliseum, and players from each fantasy team threw the balls from the roof to targets on the field — closest to the target got the No. 1 pick. The Boston Red Sox hit golf balls off the top of the Green Monster: closest to the pin picked first.

“We just picked out of the hat,” Walls said. “And it was still so much fun.”

Every major league team holds its fantasy league draft as a group, which they note is great for team building approaching a stretch run.

“Ours was so good,” Eflin said. “Pizza, beer and lots of trash talk. Lots of ‘What a reach!'”

The Rays held their 12-team draft when they were in Los Angeles at the end of August.

“It was very relaxed; I spent most of the time looking quietly at my phone,” Rays outfielder Josh Lowe said. “Then there was Motor. He had his pen and paper out, he had his spreadsheets laid out on all the tables as he prepared to take players who were five or six years past their prime.”

“We had 20 guys at ours, it was so good for team chemistry,” Orioles pitcher Danny Coulombe said. “We had guys trying to talk trades as soon as the draft finished. I looked at a few of them and said, ‘I guess you’re not happy with who you drafted, I’m happy with mine.'”

Rays pitcher Ryan Pepiot, during his rookie season with the Dodgers last year, didn’t have a fantasy team but still played a role on draft day.

“I didn’t participate, but they had me read the first-round picks, but they said I took too long, so they replaced me,” he said. “They had me start the proceedings by singing the national anthem. I can’t sing at all. It was more like I just spoke the national anthem. But I participated this year. My teammate is one of our clubhouse guys. I gave him the reins. He was up at 11 o’clock in the East on his computer while we were out West. He put in more effort than me.”

No one puts in more effort than Walls, say his teammates.

“He is a lunatic in a good way; he carries around a fantasy football notebook with him, and I’m sure he has a big white board at his house to track transactions,” said Rays second baseman Brandon Lowe. “He’s really good at his because he really does his homework.”

“That’s not true!” Walls said, laughing. “Guys came to the draft with notebooks and IPads. I winged it!”

Walls was Josh Lowe’s fantasy teammate last year, but each forgot to make a key transaction late during the playoffs, and they lost in the semifinals. So they went out on their own this year. Lowe got the No. 1 pick this year; Walls had it but traded down to No. 3.

“I had inside information on what he was going to do,” Walls said, smiling. “I fleeced him a little bit.”

Lowe said: “When we were general manager and assistant general manager last year, we fleeced a lot of guys. There were times that I had to talk him off the ledge from making another trade. Finally, I told him, ‘Dude, just let the players play.'”

This year, the Orioles also paired up players, instead of each player having his own team.

“I am the owner of the team this year because the last few years haven’t gone very well,” Eflin said, smiling. “I’m with Mitch [Plassmeyer, a pitching instructor] and [pitching coach Drew French]. They make all the player decisions. We have a club president and general manager. I am now just a special assistant.”

According to Coulombe, teammate and fellow reliever Craig Kimbrel has more of a hands-off approach to fantasy.

“Craig said he doesn’t know the players, he’ll just be a silent partner who offers moral support,” Coulombe said. “I asked [Orioles general manager] Mike Elias if he wanted to be our GM, and he said he had a real major league team to run.”

McCann is teammates with outfielder Austin Slater.

“With the Mets, Mark Canha and I won our fantasy league,” McCann said. “But last year didn’t go well. I drafted the All-Injured Team.”

Among the top names of fantasy teams among the Rays and Orioles this year:

“We wanted to play off the [clear] mask that I wear when I catch,” McCann said. “So we’re The Masked Bandits. But if we lose for a couple of weeks, I’m sure we will change.”

“We are The Ef Shack,” Eflin said. “I don’t know what that means.”

“I am ‘The Real Slim Shady’ because I have Joe Burrow, and he has gray hair,” Walls said.

“I am JLowe,” Lowe said. “If I start to lose, I’m sure I will change it.”

“Our team is Love Thy Nabers because we drafted [Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers],” Pepiot said.

Each MLB team has a commissioner; the Rays’ is pitcher Kevin Kelly.

“[Teammate] Pete Fairbanks gave me the job last year because I was a rookie, he just gave me some pens and paper and asked me to go around the room and see who wants to play,” Kelly said, smiling. “I don’t do much. I just collect the money. Technically, all transactions have to go through me. I don’t have a team in the league. That would be a conflict of interest. That’s another reason they made me commissioner.”

The Orioles’ commissioner is Ryan Klimek, a statistical analyst.

“His team won last year,” Coulombe said, adding with a laugh: “We’re not happy that he is still the commissioner.”

And though a lot of players monitor fantasy football very closely — “a lot of the guys come to me during a game and say, ‘Go check the score, go check the score,'” said Pepiot of days when he’s not playing — the fantasy football craze is all for fun.

“We play 162 games in 180-some days, sometimes you have to get outside of the game and enjoy something else,” Lowe said.

“It really brings the clubhouse together,” McCann said. “We are heading toward playoff time, we need to take our minds off the things that are really important. I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes, you have to make it about something different. It’s like binge watching a new show, sometimes you have to just open a new head space. That’s what it does.”

Though the Rays have money at stake — between $200 and $1,000 — Walls said, “It’s not about the money, it’s about the competition, it’s about bragging rights.”

The competition in baseball clubhouses just got more intense. Football is here.

“I had dinner with my mom the other night and I told her right now is the best time of year,” McCann said. “It’s September baseball. The playoffs are ahead. And football has started.”

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Nebraska nixes Tennessee home-and-home plan

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Nebraska nixes Tennessee home-and-home plan

The NebraskaTennessee football home-and-home football series scheduled for 2026 and 2027 will not be played after Nebraska opted out of the agreement.

Tennessee athletic director Danny White posted on X that Nebraska called off the series and added that Tennessee is “very disappointed” by the cancellation, especially so close to the initial game in 2026. The teams had been set to play in 2026 at Nebraska and at Tennessee the following year.

In a statement, Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen explained renovations to the team’s stadium, which will temporarily lower seating capacity, ultimately led to the decision.

“We are making plans to embark on major renovations of Memorial Stadium that may impact our seating capacity for the 2027 season,” Dannen said. “The best scenario for us is to have eight home games in 2027 to offset any potential revenue loss from a reduced capacity. The additional home games will also have a tremendous economic benefit on the Lincoln community.”

The Cornhuskers announced they will host Bowling Green in 2026 and Miami (Ohio) in 2027 on the dates when it was originally set to play Tennessee. Nebraska has never faced either school. The team will play eight homes in 2027 for the first time since 2013.

The cancellation ends a nearly two-decade process around a Nebraska-Tennessee series, which was originally agreed upon in 2006 and set for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. In 2013, the two schools agreed to delay the games for a decade. Nebraska will pay $500,000 to get out of the scheduling agreement.

White told Volquest that the “buyout implications need to be much steeper” with an “old contract,” and the cancellation puts Tennessee in a bind. Tennessee, which opens the 2025 season against Syracuse in Atlanta, had its nonleague schedule set through the 2030 season. The school either must find an opponent who can fill the 2026 and 2027 dates for a home-and-home series, or explore neutral-site options.

“You really can’t pull an audible this late in the game,” White told Volquest.

Nebraska’s stadium renovation, the first phase of which had been set to begin after the 2024 season, has been delayed until after the 2025 season, at the earliest.

Tennessee and Nebraska have played only three times before, most recently in the 2016 Music City Bowl, won by the Vols. Nebraska beat Tennessee in the 1998 Orange Bowl to secure a share of the national title that season.

Tennessee has been on the other side of a similar situation. The Vols in 2021 canceled a game against Army for the next season in 2022 and added Akron instead.

Information from ESPN’s Chris Low was used in this report.

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Changing stripes: Yanks OK well-groomed beards

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Changing stripes: Yanks OK well-groomed beards

TAMPA, Fla. — The New York Yankees‘ facial hair and grooming policy, an infamous edict in place for nearly 50 years, was formally amended for the first time Friday.

In a statement, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said the organization will allow “well-groomed beards” effective immediately, changing a rule his father, George, established in 1976.

“In recent weeks I have spoken to a large number of former and current Yankees — spanning several eras — to elicit their perspectives on our longstanding facial hair and grooming policy, and I appreciate their earnest and varied feedback,” Hal Steinbrenner said in the statement. “These most recent conversations are an extension of ongoing internal dialogue that dates back several years.

“Ultimately the final decision rests with me, and after great consideration, we will be amending our expectations to allow our players and uniformed personnel to have well-groomed beards moving forward. It is the appropriate time to move beyond the familiar comfort of our former policy.”

George Steinbrenner implemented the mandate before the 1976 season, leaving players with a choice of being clean-shaven or wearing a mustache. Hal Steinbrenner kept the policy in place after becoming chairman and controlling owner of the franchise in 2008.

Players overwhelmingly obliged with the order over the next five decades, from spring training through October, often before letting themselves go during the offseason, though a few have pushed the limits.

In the 1990s, for example, star first baseman Don Mattingly was fined and benched by manager Stump Merril for refusing to trim his mullet. Four years later, Mattingly wore a goatee for part of his final season in 1995.

This year, All-Star closer Devin Williams, acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers in December, reported for his spring training physical with a beard before shaving it down to a mustache for the team’s first workout the next day. On the other end, former Yankees Gleyber Torres and Clay Holmes reported to camp with their new teams sporting full beards.

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Sources: Gators to promote Callaway to OC

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Sources: Gators to promote Callaway to OC

The Florida Gators are expected to promote Russ Callaway to offensive coordinator, sources told ESPN on Thursday.

Callaway spent last season as Florida’s tight ends coach and co-coordinator. This move marks his third straight year with a promotion since joining the Gators in an off-field role in 2022.

Florida coach Billy Napier remains the play-caller. Callaway’s offensive responsibilities continue to grow, and he’ll remain with the tight ends in the position room.

Callaway, 37, has coordinating experience and time in the NFL. He spent 2016 to 2019 as Samford‘s offensive coordinator. From there, he spent a year at LSU as an analyst and a year with the New York Giants as an offensive assistant.

Florida, which finished 8-5, won four in a row to close last season, including wins over LSU, Ole Miss and at Florida State.

There’s optimism around Florida taking another jump in 2025 after true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway went 6-1 in seven starts. Florida returns 15 starters for 2025.

Callaway’s tight ends accounted for 44 receptions for 444 yards and five touchdowns in 2024.

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