‘Another man & his dog were riding a longhorn’: Scenes from the long-awaited return of Texas-Texas A&M
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Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Last time Brandon Grant set foot in Kyle Field, he was tasked with preserving a piece of sacred history.
Grant was part of the Texas equipment staff during the Longhorns’ 2011 victory over Texas A&M, the last game before the rivalry was shelved when the Aggies departed for the SEC. Late in the fourth quarter, his boss called the staff over before Justin Tucker lined up to attempt a field goal on the game’s final play with Texas trailing 25-24.
“Get down there under the goalpost,” Grant recalled him saying. “If that ball goes through and y’all don’t come back with it, you’re walking back to Austin.”
Tucker’s 40-yard kick sailed through the uprights, giving the Longhorns the win and the “eternal scoreboard,” as coach Mack Brown called it. Meanwhile, Grant and his crew barreled up the steps, elbowing their way through a sea of Aggies before spotting a maroon-clad fan who had a football-shaped bulge under his jersey. The stadium police helped Grant’s colleague, Trent Norwood, get the ball from the fan. Norwood tossed it to Grant, who immediately threw it down to another staffer on the field, who locked it away in a trunk for safekeeping on its way out of College Station.
On Saturday night, Grant was back at Kyle Field for the first time since that night. After a decade as an assistant football coach at high schools in the Austin area, Grant, now 34, was happy to watch as a civilian as the Aggies and the Longhorns resumed one of the greatest rivalries in college football, with his Longhorns pulling out a 17-7 win.
“I’m just glad the rivalry is back,” Grant said. “I was glad to be able to have a chance to be on the bookend experience of both. It’s still passionate and bitter, but it’s not angry and hateful, at least from what I saw. The fans were cordial.”
After 118 years, the will-they-or-won’t-they game, known as the Lone Star Showdown, returned as an SEC matchup. And with national implications: a spot in the SEC championship was at stake.
“This game represents the state of Texas from almost the beginning,” singer Lyle Lovett, Texas A&M Class of 1979, said at the game. “Texas A&M and the University of Texas were both created at the same time by the same legislative act. It’s been a sibling rivalry since the very beginning. The rivalry continued even without the game. The game just makes it that more special. It really is one of the great traditions in our state.”
ON FRIDAY, THE Aggies moved their traditional Midnight Yell Practice, which started before the 1931 Texas game for students to gather at Kyle Field the night before home games to rehearse yells, to 5:30 p.m. so that coach Mike Elko and the entire Texas A&M team could make an appearance. Fans filled up one side of the stadium, wrapping around into the end zones.
Matt Krehbiel, a 2023 Texas grad, was the rare Longhorns fan to be at Yell Practice, a guest of the family of his fiancée, Abby Dean, a 2021 A&M graduate. He said he’s the only Longhorn in the family.
“Her brothers, her parents, grandparents, all of them are Aggies,” he said. But he still stood his ground, throwing the Horns up on the track at Kyle Field as an entire fan base stared at him, and he was met with a traditional A&M greeting: The Aggies don’t boo, they hiss.
“I survived the onslaught of hisses,” Krehbiel said. “I think it was worse on [my fiancée] than me. Her face was beet red. I totally respect what they got going on there, but definitely prefer the ways of the burnt orange, that’s for dang sure.”
These lines blur all across the state.
“The thing about Aggies and Longhorns, believe it or not, they marry each other,” said former Texas A&M women’s basketball coach Gary Blair, who won a national championship for the Aggies alongside assistant Vic Schaefer, an Aggie who’s now the women’s head coach at Texas. “I’m not sure Auburn and Alabama do that.”
Sam Torn understands the complication of family dynamics. In 1969, he was the head Yell Leader at A&M, and went on a blind date with a Texas student. After four dates, he had fallen for her, but he got a letter from her saying she had a boyfriend at Texas and had just been seeing Torn to make him mad.
“When I got selected head Yell Leader, I said, we’re going to create a new yell,” he said. The result is the Aggies’ iconic “Beat The Hell out of t.u.” yell (the Aggies refer to Texas as lowercase texas university, rather than the University of Texas), and the hand sign to communicate it to the student body, which is akin to an “up yours” gesture, where you put your arm in your elbow and bend it upward.
At the first Yell Practice since its hiatus, Torn was on the very front lines, watching his yell echo through Kyle Field over and over.
“It was the biggest rivalry, the biggest two schools, the biggest state, and it meant a lot to a lot of people,” Torn said on the field. “It’s very emotional for me for it to return. I don’t like them, they don’t like me, but there’s a part of me that’s just very joyful.”
The Texas student who dumped him has been Torn’s wife for 54 years now. He and Susan have three children who are Aggies, and his two sons, Scott and Chris, were both Yell Leaders.
Some people were even conflicted, just among themselves. Eryn Lyle wore a sweatshirt she sewed together that was half maroon and half burnt orange.
“I was a Texas A&M undergraduate, then I betrayed my family, betrayed A&M and went off to UT to go to law school. So I am a person divided,” she said. “I am so excited. I didn’t get to see it while I was in school because the Aggies hadn’t played against Texas in several years. I don’t know who to cheer for. I think I’ll be rooting for the offense.”
The anticipation for the game made it the most expensive ticket in regular-season college football or NFL history, according to Forbes. Vivid Seats said resale tickets averaged $1,025. Despite the massive investment, Texas fans Ryan and Ingrid Crow couldn’t resist. They kept waiting and waiting, hoping prices would go down, but finally pulled the trigger this week, at the low, low cost of $4,200 for two tickets on the third row at the 45-yard line. And still found it worth it.
“We won!” Ingrid said.
“After 13 years, how can you not go to a game like this?” her husband added. “We could not miss this game.”
Being at the game is a family tradition for Tim Wiley of Austin, who hasn’t missed an A&M-Texas game since 1957, when the game was played, per tradition, on Thanksgiving. His dad, who died while the rivalry was on hiatus, had been at every once since 1944.
“I didn’t know what Thanksgiving was,” Wiley said. “It wasn’t eating turkey, it was usually eating a pimento cheese sandwich, tailgating when my mother made them.”
Grant and his father, Mike, in their orange, were guests of the maroon-clad Wileys at their family tailgate. Underneath the tent, they talked about their mutual appreciation for being back together.
“[This] is an iconic rivalry because most families have both schools in their family,” Wiley said. “I’m just glad that most families have an Aggie in there so there’s some formal education in their family.”
A lot has changed in College Station since the last time the Longhorns visited. Kyle Field underwent a $484 million renovation that brought capacity to more than 102,000 and opened in 2015. Aggie Park, a $36 million, 22-acre privately funded project across the street from Kyle Field, is the new tailgating epicenter, and also the site of “College GameDay” which made a visit during the big rivalry weekend.
The park was bursting at the seams on Saturday. Aggies linebacker Taurean York said there were “probably 300,000 people here in the vicinity of Kyle Field,” adding that it was “the biggest game of a lot of people’s lives.”
THERE WERE SIDESHOWS everywhere. On Saturday evening, before kickoff, the Texas A&M Police account tweeted that “a man & his dog were riding a longhorn” around campus.
University Rules Violation – PA 68. A man was riding a horse and another man & his dog were riding a longhorn. Agreed to leave campus. #BTHOtu
– Texas A&M Police (@TAMUPolice) November 30, 2024
That’d be Moe Taylor, of Elgin, Texas, who brings his longhorn, Ben, to Texas sporting events along with his dog, Damit.
“We were on campus for probably an hour before they found us,” Taylor said, incredulous that of all places, you can’t ride a steer in College Station. “But we can’t argue. We don’t wanna get in no trouble. We went down to the Dixie Chicken.”
For those wondering …. Here he is!
��: Evin McGinley https://t.co/058ZfdIiGR pic.twitter.com/YuXm3gcBPC
– �� Rusty Surette (@KBTXRusty) December 1, 2024
At the Dixie Chicken, the legendary bar in Texas A&M’s Northgate district, Ben took photos with fans.
“We had a blast. The fans were all hyped up,” Taylor said. “Ben really enjoyed it. He doesn’t get mad or anything, he just lets people get on and off. He takes it well.”
Back in Aggie Park, former Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum, who attended his first A&M-Texas game in 1959 and coached in 30 rivalry games between the Aggies and Longhorns — he likes to note that he came out the winner in 16 of them — made his way through the packed park. He welcomed every Longhorns fan he saw back to College Station while absorbing attaboys at every turn from Aggies who were thrilled to see the winningest coach in A&M history mingling with the common folk.
“I’m glad that Texas is in the SEC,” Slocum said. “All Aggies don’t feel like that. Maybe all Texas fans don’t feel like that, but to me, this big state to have two SEC teams … makes sense to me. And it adds, really, to both of our values.”
Still, he did his part to rally the faithful before they played the Longhorns. The “Aggie War Hymn” implores listeners to “saw Varsity’s horns off,” and Slocum did just that.
Slocum’s friend, John Jones, decided to cook some “Texas-raised beef” in Aggie Park to serve to tailgaters. Instead of steaks or hamburgers, he opted for a bigger statement.
“I thought it’d be just a great thing to do since we’ve had such an extended stay between our rivalries to actually cook something that is great food and sort of resembles a mascot of another team,” Jones said.
So he roasted an entire Longhorn, horns and all. And along came Slocum to fulfill his destiny, sawing the horns off the thing with a miniature chainsaw as a crowd of Aggies cheered.
As Slocum waited for his turn, he waved over some Aggies fans he noticed in the crowd. So along came Drew Brees with his sons, Baylen, Bowen and Callen, all wearing maroon.
Brees, an Austin native, is the nephew of Marty Akins, an All-American quarterback for the Longhorns in the 1980s. But his parents are both Aggies — his father, Eugene “Chip” Brees, played basketball at A&M — and he was captured on video on Saturday night telling Johnny Manziel on the sideline that he “always wanted to be an Aggie.” But he wasn’t recruited by the Aggies or Longhorns, so he went to Purdue and threw for more than 10,000 yards over his four years with the Boilermakers.
Slocum posed for photos with the Brees boys and turned to an assembled crowd and announced that when anyone asks his biggest recruiting regrets, Brees is always the big one that got away.
“This is one of the greatest rivalries in all college football,” Brees said. “You don’t understand how upset I was when this thing went away. It was the dumbest thing ever for the state of Texas. This rivalry always needs to exist. I don’t care what conference these teams are in or I don’t care where the egos are. They always need to play this game for the fans.”
They played the game, and Horns stayed intact. The Texas defense held the Aggies’ offense scoreless, and the Longhorns ran the ball for 240 yards to control the game from start to finish for a 17-7 win, a bitter disappointment to the partisan crowd of 109,028, the third largest ever to watch a game at Kyle Field.
Kevin Eltife, the chairman of the UT System, expressed his relief on the field afterward that the first game of the revival is over and the Longhorns came away with another win.
“This is as sweet as it gets. They said we couldn’t compete in the SEC, and look baby, we’re heading to the SEC championship,” Eltife said. “Hats off to the Aggies. We have nothing but respect for Texas A&M. They’re a phenomenal school and football program, and for us to leave here with a victory is huge. I’ve been a nervous wreck the whole week. I couldn’t eat Thanksgiving, so now I’m going to go home and have a real damn Thanksgiving.”
The scoreboard may not be eternal this time, but the Aggies will have to wait until next year’s game in Austin, where they won in 2010, to get their next shot.
Slocum, 80, is a cancer survivor and was thankful to be back at Kyle Field for the game amid the pageantry and is looking forward to a holiday tradition returning.
“I walked in with their band,” he said. “For most of my life, this weekend has been a special weekend.”
Grant didn’t have to harangue any Aggies to retrieve any keepsakes this time, and came away thrilled with the experience.
“The atmosphere there was a lot better than I remember,” he said. “I think the new stadium has a pretty big impact on the level they can get that place. I couldn’t imagine sitting where we sat and having the same experience with OU or Texas Tech. It was still that brotherly rivalry where you hate but you love ’em at the same time, or you love the people that are there.”
And after years he lost in the rivalry’s absence, he’s excited to make new memories like the ones he made with his father, who went to Texas to play baseball in the 1970s. Grant’s son Gray is 3, and he said he wakes up from naps singing the Texas fight song.
“I look forward to my son growing up the same way I grew up, down the street from one of his best friends that is an Aggie and going back and forth,” he said. “Yeah, I’m glad it’s back for sure.”
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David Schoenfield
Welcome to the original … the amazing … the astonishing … ESPN still-too-early All-Star selections — full of wonderful surprises and fun debates for all ages.
A lot can change in the month before the 2025 All-Star announcements, but we’re deep enough into the season that we can make some educated guesses on what the rosters will look like — or should look like — for this year’s Midsummer Classic in Atlanta on July 15.
The usual rules apply: 32 players per team, broken down into 20 position players and 12 pitchers (at least three relievers), with one representative from each MLB club. Players will be considered for the position they’re listed at on the official All-Star ballot.
Let’s dive into baseball’s most power-packed league.
National League
Top starter debates
First base: Freddie Freeman vs. Pete Alonso
It looks as if Freeman — whom I’ve referred to as the new David Ortiz — will keep hitting until he retires or until his legs eventually give out. Freeman’s numbers were down a bit last season as he dealt with injuries and the health scare to his son, but he’s raking once again and leads the NL in batting average (.354), is tied for first in doubles (20, with Alonso and Brendan Donovan), ranks second in OPS (1.024) and third in OPS+ (189). At 35 years old, he’s as good as ever — maybe better.
Alonso had a couple of soft All-Star selections the past two years, making it last season despite a sub-.800 OPS in the first half and in 2023, despite hitting just .211 (albeit with 26 home runs). This season is shaping up as his best all-around campaign at the plate, even if he’ll fall short of the 53 home runs he hit as a rookie in 2019. He has cut down his strikeout rate, is hitting around .300 and leads the NL with 61 RBIs thanks to a .356 average with runners in scoring position.
This is a coin flip, especially because Freeman spent time on the injured list early this season. Both have also been incredible in high-leverage situations, with Freeman hitting .211/.448/.368 and Alonso even better at .346/.486/.615. That does it for me. Alonso gets the nod.
Third outfielder: James Wood vs. Kyle Tucker vs. Fernando Tatis Jr.
The first outfield selection is easy: Pete Crow-Armstrong, who is making a strong case for NL MVP thanks to his spectacular defense, baserunning and surprising power at the plate (he leads the NL in Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs WAR) and could have an incredible 10-WAR season. The last NL player to do that: Barry Bonds in 2004. I don’t know whether Crow-Armstrong can keep hitting this well, considering his chase rate (third worst in the majors), but pitchers haven’t exploited that aggressiveness yet.
Corbin Carroll gets the second nod. No arguments there. The next three are right there with Carroll — all worthy starters. Tucker is having another superb all-around season, hitting for power, getting on base and stealing bases to earn a fourth straight All-Star selection. Tatis has slowed down after a hot April (1.011 OPS) but adds Gold Glove defense in right field.
My nod, however, goes to Wood. The sophomore sensation is hitting .270/.366/.533 with 16 home runs, getting the ball in the air more often than last season (although with much more growth potential in that area) and displaying elite numbers all over his Baseball Savant page. Physically, the 22-year-old resembles Aaron Judge — and it’s perhaps a little premature to point this out, but Judge hit .308/.419/.486 at age 22 … in High-A.
Second base: Ketel Marte vs. Brendan Donovan vs. Brice Turang vs. Nico Hoerner
Can we shift a couple of these players to the AL? These four are bunched closely in WAR, although they got there in different ways. Marte, last year’s starter, is having another monster offensive season, but he missed a month because of a hamstring strain. Donovan is hitting over .300 with a bunch of doubles and adds flexibility by filling in at left field and shortstop. Turang and Hoerner are defensive wizards without much power but add enough offensive value by getting on base and stealing bases.
My vote goes to Marte. He’s the best player of the group, and only the injury holds him back in the debate. He’s hitting .294/.418/.603 with 12 home runs in 39 games and has more walks than strikeouts, ranking in the 90th-plus percentile in walk rate and lowest strikeout rate. What a fantastic player — often overlooked. Donovan makes it as the backup, while Turang and Hoerner draw the short straw and are left off my hypothetical team.
Starters
Here’s my NL starting lineup:
C: Will Smith, Los Angeles Dodgers
1B: Pete Alonso, New York Mets
2B: Ketel Marte, Arizona Diamondbacks
3B: Manny Machado, San Diego Padres
SS: Francisco Lindor, New York Mets
OF: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs
OF: Corbin Carroll, Arizona Diamondbacks
OF: James Wood, Washington Nationals
DH: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers
SP: Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates
Smith is an easy call at catcher. He’s one of 11 Dodgers catchers to make an All-Star team in franchise history. Can any team match that many All-Stars at one position?
Machado and Lindor are the clear leaders at their positions, and Ohtani is matching his offensive prowess from 2024, minus a few stolen bases. Skenes is only 4-6 and his strikeout rate has dipped more than 6 percentage points from last season, but he has a 1.88 ERA and is in line to start for the second time in his two seasons in the majors.
Reserves
C: Hunter Goodman, Colorado Rockies
1B: Freddie Freeman, Los Angeles Dodgers
2B: Brendan Donovan, St. Louis Cardinals
3B: Matt Chapman, San Francisco Giants
SS: Mookie Betts, Los Angeles Dodgers
SS: Elly De La Cruz, Cincinnati Reds
OF: Kyle Tucker, Chicago Cubs
OF: Fernando Tatis Jr., San Diego Padres
OF Juan Soto, New York Mets
OF: Kyle Stowers, Miami Marlins
DH: Kyle Schwarber, Philadelphia Phillies
Believe it or not, the lowly Rockies have two reasonable All-Star candidates in Goodman and reliever Jake Bird. Bird has been good for 35 innings, but let’s go with Goodman as the backup catcher, given the lack of a strong candidate because players such as William Contreras and J.T. Realmuto are having down seasons and others such as Carson Kelly and Drake Baldwin are excelling but in part-time roles.
Betts and De La Cruz get the nod at shortstop over Trea Turner, Geraldo Perdomo, Masyn Winn and CJ Abrams in a deep group of candidates. Betts isn’t having his best season, but he’s one of the game’s marquee players and the others haven’t outplayed him enough to kick him off this roster. The backup DH slot is down to Schwarber, Marcell Ozuna and Seiya Suzuki — with all three putting up nice numbers, but Schwarber’s are a little nicer.
And, yes, we managed to squeeze Soto onto the team, especially as he heats up with another three-hit game Sunday (and three walks), raising his OPS to .820. Stowers represents the Marlins, pushing out a third second baseman or Jackson Merrill, who might have made it if he hadn’t missed a month on the IL.
Pitchers
SP: Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies
SP: MacKenzie Gore, Washington Nationals
SP: Logan Webb, San Francisco Giants
SP: Robbie Ray, San Francisco Giants
SP: Kodai Senga, New York Mets
SP: Chris Sale, Atlanta Braves
SP: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Los Angeles Dodgers
SP: Freddy Peralta, Milwaukee Brewers
RP: Robert Suarez, San Diego Padres
RP: Edwin Diaz, New York Mets
RP: Randy Rodriguez, San Francisco Giants
Peralta makes it as our Brewers rep but is a worthy selection with a 2.69 ERA. He makes it over Reds teammates Hunter Greene and Andrew Abbott.
The game is at Truist Park in Atlanta, so it would be nice to get more Braves on the team — but Sale is the only one I squeezed onto the roster. Ozuna, Austin Riley and Spencer Schwellenbach still have time to play their way onto the team, but the last time the Braves had just one All-Star rep was 2017, when Ender Inciarte was the only selection. It would be a far cry from two seasons ago, when the Braves had eight All-Stars.
American League
Top starter debates
Shortstop: Bobby Witt Jr. vs. Jeremy Peña vs. Jacob Wilson
Here are their current stats:
Witt: .291/.349/.492, 8 HR, 135 OPS+, 3.4 bWAR, 3.5 fWAR
Peña: .316/.373/.480, 9 HR, 139 OPS+, 3.9 bWAR, 3.2 fWAR
Wilson: .372/.408/.528, 8 HR, 163 OPS+, 2.8 bWAR, 3.3 fWAR
Peña has been terrific in helping keep afloat Houston’s offense, which lost Tucker and Alex Bregman in the offseason and has been without a productive Yordan Alvarez. Peña has dropped his strikeout rate for a third straight season, and Baseball-Reference, which gives him the highest WAR among the three, loves his defense.
Wilson debuted last season with the A’s but still has rookie status, which puts him on a potential track for some historic rookie numbers. The last rookie to hit .350? Ichiro Suzuki in 2001. The only rookie since 1900 to hit .370? George Watkins in the juiced ball season of 1930 when he hit .373 (and even then, he had just 424 plate appearances, so wouldn’t qualify under current standards). Highest average for a rookie shortstop? Johnny Pesky at .331 in 1942. With eight home runs, Wilson is even hitting for more power than expected. His defense, however, isn’t on par with Witt or Peña.
Witt’s home run numbers are down from last season, but he leads the majors with 22 doubles. With the weather heating up, some of those doubles should turn into home runs. His defense remains spectacular, and he leads the AL in stolen bases. He’s a true star, and though there’s time for Peña or Wilson to pass him, Witt should be starting his first All-Star Game in 2025 — the first of many.
Starting pitcher: Tarik Skubal vs. Kris Bubic
Skubal is making a strong push to defend his 2024 AL Cy Young Award, while Bubic has put up a surprisingly dominant first half for the Royals. The numbers:
Skubal: 6-2, 2.16 ERA, 83.1 IP, 61 H, 7 BB, 105 SO, 3.1 bWAR, 3.4 fWAR
Bubic: 5.3, 1.43 ERA, 75.1 IP, 53 H, 22 BB, 79 SO, 3.5 bWAR, 2.5 fWAR
Bubic — who pitched in 27 games for the Royals last season, all in relief — is a 27-year-old lefty, a former first-round pick out of Stanford who had Tommy John surgery in 2023. His fastball isn’t overpowering at 92-93 mph, but he has added more spin than before his surgery to improve its whiff rate and his changeup is one of the best in the game (batters are hitting .100 against it). Though maintaining a 1.43 ERA isn’t likely, he has been really good and not just lucky.
Sticking with my “He’s done it before” analysis, however, Skubal is the pick — and it’s hard to argue that he’s not the best starter in the majors. That strikeout-to-walk ratio is incredible, plus he seems to be heating up, allowing just one run over his past three starts.
First base: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. vs. Paul Goldschmidt vs. Jonathan Aranda vs. Spencer Torkelson
Meh. Guerrero has made four straight All-Star appearances, including three starts, but he has benefited from subpar competition. First base in the AL has been consistently lacking in stars for a long time.
Anyway, the numbers … and, no, I didn’t have Goldschmidt on my Bingo card either:
Guerrero: .273/.380/.417, 8 HR, 29 RBIs, 1.7 bWAR, 1.4 fWAR
Goldschmidt: .312/.369/.464, 7 HR, 29 RBIs, 1.7 bWAR, 1.6 fWAR
Aranda: .320/.406/.490, 7 HR, 34 RBIs, 2.3 bWAR, 1.7 fWAR
Torkelson: .237/.342/.500 15 HR, 45 RBIs, 1.4 bWAR, 1.5 fWAR
Aranda has the best slash line, although he started only 50 of the Rays’ first 64 games because he wasn’t playing against lefties earlier in the season. He has no track record of hitting like this, but his Statcast metrics are impressive, including a 94th percentile hard-hit rate. Goldschmidt was hitting over .340 just a week ago, so he has been in a slump, but coming off the worst season of his career, he has been a pleasant surprise for the Yankees. Torkelson has the best power numbers of the group but is the worst defender and has slowed down after a hot start.
I’ll stick with Guerrero as the starter. Nobody else has done quite enough, although any of the four could separate from the pack with a hot June. I’ll make Aranda the backup, a nod to his nice start.
Starters
My AL starting lineup:
C: Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners
1B: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Toronto Blue Jays
2B: Gleyber Torres, Detroit Tigers
3B: Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians
SS: Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals
OF: Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
OF: Steven Kwan, Cleveland Guardians
OF: Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins
DH: Rafael Devers, Boston Red Sox
SP: Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers
Raleigh is the landslide choice at catcher, and let’s hope the fans vote him in as the starter. He leads the majors in home runs and is on pace for one of the greatest offensive seasons for a catcher. Torres gets the nod in a very weak group at second base, probably the weakest position in either league. Alex Bregman was battling Ramirez for starting honors at third base until Bregman’s injury.
The AL outfield is also pretty weak, with Judge the one easy choice and Kwan a distant second choice. The third starter is up for grabs. Julio Rodriguez is the selection going by WAR, but his offensive numbers are still way down from his first two seasons in the majors. Devers gets the nod at DH because, despite the slow start and controversy over playing first base, he’s putting up the best OPS of his career.
Reserves
C: Logan O’Hoppe, Los Angeles Angels
1B: Jonathan Aranda, Tampa Bay Rays
2B: Brandon Lowe, Tampa Bay Rays
3B: Isaac Paredes, Houston Astros
3B: Maikel Garcia, Kansas City Royals
SS: Jeremy Peña, Houston Astros
SS: Jacob Wilson, Athletics
OF: Julio Rodriguez, Seattle Mariners
OF: Riley Greene, Detroit Tigers
OF: Cody Bellinger, New York Yankees
DH: Ryan O’Hearn, Baltimore Orioles
O’Hoppe is our Angels rep, and Lowe joins teammate Aranda on the All-Star roster. Paredes has quietly had a nice season for the Astros, although Junior Caminero is coming on strong for the Rays, and Bregman will merit consideration if he can make it back soon from his hamstring injury. Greene has had a weird season for the Tigers with a ton of strikeouts, but he has been a mainstay in a better-than-expected Detroit lineup.
Bellinger is one of many other outfield candidates. Any of the three Red Sox outfielders — Wilyer Abreu, Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela — could make it (Rafaela on the strength of his defense), and the Athletics’ Lawrence Butler is heating up after a slow start. O’Hearn makes it as the only Orioles rep, and Alvarez’s injury opens a DH slot. Garcia was my final choice, quietly having a nice season for the Royals, hitting over .300 while also starting games at second base and in the outfield.
Pitchers
SP: Kris Bubic, Kansas City Royals
SP: Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox
SP: Max Fried, New York Yankees
SP: Hunter Brown, Houston Astros
SP: Jacob deGrom, Texas Rangers
SP: Carlos Rodon, New York Yankees
SP: Framber Valdez, Houston Astros
SP: Shane Smith, Chicago White Sox
RP: Josh Hader, Houston Astros
RP: Andres Munoz, Seattle Mariners
RP: Jhoan Duran, Minnesota Twins
Look at all those lefties! Besides Skubal, five of the eight other AL starters are left-handed. Brown and Fried have sub-2.00 ERAs and could merit consideration for starting as well — this is a very deep group of AL starters. Nathan Eovaldi is left off only because he’s on the injured list, but he’s not expected to be out long and was as good as anyone with a 1.56 ERA. It’s great to see deGrom back, and even though he’s not as dominant as in his peak Mets days, he still has a 2.12 ERA. Valdez gets the nod over Tyler Mahle and Joe Ryan, and Smith makes it as the White Sox rep.
For the relievers, Hader didn’t make the All-Star Game last year, but he’s dominating again, going 17-for-17 in save chances. Munoz had a 0.00 ERA until May 30. Duran is 4-1 with 10 saves and a 1.19 ERA, part of a Twins bullpen that has been the best in the majors. Though they didn’t make the cut, Tigers relievers Tommy Kahnle and Will Vest have been great in late-game duties for Detroit.
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Eli Lederman
Four-star offensive tackle Micah “Champ” Smith, No. 46 in the 2026 ESPN 300, has committed to UCLA, he told ESPN on Saturday, landing as the Bruins’ highest-ranked pledge under coach DeShaun Foster.
Smith, a 6-foot-3, 320-pound lineman from Vero Beach, Florida, is the nation’s seventh-ranked offensive tackle prospect in the current cycle. He chose UCLA over finalists Alabama, Illinois, Ohio State, South Carolina and Tennessee following spring visits with each program.
Smith told ESPN that his relationship with Bruins offensive line coach Andy Kwon, who joined the program this offseason, and the development track he was presented on his May official visit helped drive his pledge to UCLA. Upon his commitment, Smith has formally closed his recruitment and will no longer take visits to other schools this summer.
“My relationship with [Kwon] was a huge factor,” he told ESPN. “That’s the person that’s going to develop you. The culture of the program, that connection with the O-line coach and the opportunity to play when I get there were all big for me.”
The Bruins’ first ESPN 300 pledge in 2026, Smith represents a monumental addition to the program’s second recruiting class under Foster, the 45-year-old coach who took charge of UCLA in February 2024.
If Smith signs with the Bruins later this year, he’ll join UCLA as its highest-ranked signee since quarterback Dante Moore (No. 2 overall) in 2023 and the program’s highest-rated offensive line addition since former second-team All-American Xavier Su’a-Filo arrived as the nation’s No. 34 overall prospect in the 2009 class.
Smith cemented himself as the starting right tackle at Florida’s Vero Beach High School in 2023. He played both ways as a junior last fall, operating primarily at right tackle and recording 22 tackles (6.5 for loss) and 2.5 sacks on the defensive line. In January, Smith was among the first class of high school juniors invited to the 2025 Under Armour All-America Game.
Smith lands as the Bruins’ ninth overall pledge and first offensive line addition in the 2026 class.
“I just felt it when I went there — it felt like home to me,” Smith said of his official visit to UCLA. “I was never certain of when I was going to commit. But when I felt right about it, I knew I was going to be ready to make that the time to do it. It felt right.”
Following Smith’s decision, six of the nation’s top 10 offensive tackles recruits are now off the board, led by Miami pledge Jackson Cantwell (No. 3 overall) and fellow five-star Keenyi Pepe (No. 17), who committed to USC on May 1. Five-star offensive tackle Immanuel Iheanacho (No. 12) narrowed his finalists to Auburn, LSU, Oregon and Penn State on Friday and will visit each program this month ahead of his Aug. 5 commitment date.
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Adam Rittenberg
Michigan wrapped up a two-day hearing Saturday before the NCAA’s committee on infractions, which is examining potential punishments for impermissible scouting and sign-stealing, orchestrated by former football staff member Connor Stalions.
A Michigan spokesman told ESPN that the school would not be commenting until there is a final resolution to the case, which likely wouldn’t come until later this summer or fall. Infractions decisions usually take three months, although that could vary depending on the complexity of the case, according to the spokesman.
The school faces 11 violations, six of them Level I, the most serious tier from the NCAA. Most of the violations concern the scouting and sign-stealing operation overseen by Stalions, who was seen entering NCAA headquarters for the infraction committee hearings, according to Sports Illustrated. Stalions resigned from his position as football analyst in November 2023, several days after news of the investigation went public. Michigan administrators and attorneys also attended the hearings.
The NCAA already has punished former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh with a four-year show-cause penalty and a one-year suspension for violations in a separate investigation into illegal recruiting during the COVID-19 period. The Big Ten took the unusual step of suspending Harbaugh for Michigan’s final three regular-season games in 2023 for violating its sportsmanship policy because of the sign-stealing scandal. Michigan went on to win the national championship that season.
Harbaugh, now coaching the Los Angeles Chargers, did not attend this week’s hearing but could face additional penalties. Other former Michigan assistant coaches could face penalties, but the focus will be on punishment for the current program and its coaches, including head coach Sherrone Moore.
Michigan is expected to suspend Moore in Weeks 3 and 4 of the 2025 season, part of self-imposed penalties, after he deleted a thread of 52 text messages with Stalions. The NCAA has since obtained those messages, which Moore later said he looked forward to being released. Still, he could face additional penalties from the infractions committee and be considered a repeat offender; he served a one-game suspension in 2023 for his role in the COVID-19 recruiting violations probe.
Michigan also could be labeled a repeat offender and receive additional penalties, including recruiting restrictions or a postseason ban.
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