Month: May 2021

Mookie Betts found himself on third base in the top of the fourth inning of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ game against the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday evening. Usually the list of priorities when a player is in this spot goes something like “score” and then “do not get tagged out and prevent yourself from scoring,” but for Betts, an unexpected wrinkle was thrown into the equation.

Max Muncy checked his swing on a delivery from Angels pitcher Dylan Bundy, which led to a dribbler down the third-base line that went foul. In an attempt to keep Betts honest, Jose Rojas made the tag despite knowing nothing would come of it.

Well, one thing came of it: Rojas accidentally cup checked Betts, who went down in pain, because this is, uh, extremely painful.

A different angle shows that just about everyone on the diamond was able to laugh about this one, including Betts, which is the most important thing here.

Betts would go on to score later in the at-bat, kicking off what ended up being a monstrous 8-run inning for the Dodgers against their crosstown rivals. It was such a big inning for L.A. that Betts was able to come up to the plate a second time in the top of the fourth, and hopefully, he had a cup on for that one.

Russell Westbrook has made triple-doubles look easy over the course of his NBA career. He became the second player in league history to average a triple-double over an entire season with the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016-17, which he parlayed into an MVP award, and then, he managed to do that in each of the next two seasons. Once again, Westbrook is on track to average a triple-double this season, this time as a member of the Washington Wizards.

Racking up triple-doubles is a pretty hard task, but Saturday night presented Westbrook the opportunity to make even more history. Westbrook was one game of 10+ points in three statistical categories away from 181 in his career, which would tie him for the career triple-double mark with the great Oscar Robertson, and with 1:39 left in the third quarter, Westbrook made it happen.

At that point, he already had achieved the requisite number of points and assists, all he needed was one more assist. Thanks to this pass and a little work by Bradley Beal, Westbrook made it happen.

Westbrook will go for sole possession of the record on Monday night against the Atlanta Hawks. Eclipsing Robertson in anything is quite the accomplishment, and fortunately for Westbrook, The Big O wants to see he get there.

“There’s no doubt about it,” Robertson recently told Marc Stein of the New York Times when asked if he wanted Westbrook to break his record. “I hope he gets it. I think he’s one of the elite guards in basketball.”

Elon Musk (and Grimes) will make their Saturday Night Live debut this weekend, and all the fuss about the billionaire hosting the show doesn’t seem to phase another former host.

As Deadline detailed, Dave Chappelle appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast to talk about a number of things, including Musk’s forthcoming taping in Studio 8H. Chappelle himself hosted the show earlier in Season 46, a few weeks before he tested positive for coronavirus after some shows in Texas where he actually hung out with Musk and his partner, Grimes.

Rogan interviews are always sprawling, and so Chappelle and Rogan touched on a number of things like how Idris Elba used to sell Chappelle weed. But perhaps inevitably, the two touched on Musk’s appearance and reports that some members of the SNL cast weren’t thrilled that he would be hosting the show. Rogan set the scene with some high praise for Musk, calling him one of the “most brilliant” people ever and assuming that he isn’t “woke enough” as the reason people were upset he’s hosting.

“No one is woke enough,” Rogan said. “They can’t appreciate the fact that you’re dealing with one of the most brilliant men that’s ever lived.”

Chappelle recalled his interactions with the Tesla CEO, describing him as “incredibly kind.”

Chappelle didn’t have nearly as high praise for Musk as Rogan, obviously, and seemed to imply he can understand what people are talking about with their outrage. But he’s also criticized, well, critics plenty in his past. And though he understands why people have gripes with Grimes’ husband, he says the way critics go about it may not be very productive here.

Chappelle suggested he understood why some people were put off by Musk’s behavior.

“Like you said, no one can be woke enough,” the comedian said. “I’m torn, because I like a warrior for a good cause, but I’m really into tactics. You’re not gonna nag people into behaving … In fact, if you continue with this tone, even if you’re right, you’ll be very hard to hear.”

Chappelle also mentioned at one point during the interview that he completely forgot he had met Musk earlier in life, which may be funnier than anything Musk comes up with for his monologue. There are also some really interesting insights about his decision to walk away from Chappelle’s Show on Comedy Central more than a decade ago. But the conversation made it clear that comedian friends of Elon Musk certainly don’t see the problem with Musk trying comedy. Which is exactly what will happen on Saturday.

[via Deadline]

While NFTs might be something the youngsters are pushing nowadays, there’s no such thing as being “too old” for cryptocurrency. Just look at Mick Jagger, who recently dropped an NFT of his own. As this sector of the cryptocurrency world continues to grow, more and more musical artists are throwing their hats into the NFT mix, and the latest to do so is none other than Jay-Z.

He along with his Marcy Venture Partners joined a $19 million funding round for the NFT marketplace, Bitksi. Roc Nation’s co-founder Jay Brown, Troy Carter, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, and 3LAU are also found on the list of investors.

Marcy Venture Partners joins the likes of Serena Williams, Wendi Murdoch, and executives at TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, 100 Thieves and Adobe as the newest investors in Bitski. The San Francisco startup describes itself as the “Shopify for NFTs” and aims to provide an easy platform for brands, game developers, and consumers to create, buy, and sell digital goods. Prior to this, the San Francisco startup teamed up with Adidas and 2021 NFL Draft No. 1 pick Trevor Lawrence to drop an NFT collection of 3D animated trading cards.

In case you’ve lost track of Jay-Z’s business moves this year, the rapper sold half of his champagne company, Ace Of Spades, to LVHM (for a price Forbes estimates to be $315 million) and his streaming service, Tidal, to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s Square for $297 million in cash and stocks. He also invested in the Los Angeles-based fitness company, LIT Method, and most-recently filed a trademark for a TV and film production company.

This past Friday, Tee Grizzley shared his Built For Whatever album, an effort that stands as his seventh full-length project since 2017. The new release was led by “White Lows Off Designer” with frequent collaborator, Lil Durk, a record they both came together for in March.

Two months later, to coincide with his new album, Grizzley calls upon Durk once again to deliver a visual for their collaboration. In it, they both narrate the dangers of the streets they came from as Grizzley sits in the backseat of a car in the middle of a drive-by shooting while Durk resorts to a dimly lit abandoned house for his verse.

Tee Grizzley’s new album comes with nineteen tracks and a boatload of features from various rappers. Throughout the project’s near one-hour duration, listeners will hear appearances from King Von, Quavo, YNW Melly, Lil Tjay, Baby Grizzley, G Herbo, Big Sean, Babyface Ray and Young Dolph. Its release also comes after Grizzley joined Lil Yachty on his latest mixtape, Michigan Boy Boat.

As for Lil Durk, the new video comes after he joined DJ Khaled and Lil Baby in a visual for “Every Chance I Get,” a track from Khaled’s new album, Khaled Khaled.

Built For Whatever is out now via 300 Entertainment. Get it here.

A good way to make a lot of money in not a lot of time is to have a thing that either once belonged to Michael Jordan or has his signature on it. Our latest example of this comes by way of Heritage Auctions, which sold the only known game-worn Jordan jersey from his time at the University of North Carolina for a cool $1.38 million.

According to ESPN, the jersey comes from Jordan’s 1982-83 campaign in Chapel Hill, when he graced the cover of Sporting News as a sophomore en route to being named an unanimous All-American. He would go on to spend one more year with the Tar Heels before jumping to the NBA and embarking on a career that most people agree was pretty good — the previous record paid for a jersey was one of his threads from his time with the Chicago Bulls, which sold for $480,000 in October.

The UNC jersey has quite the origin story, as laid out by ESPN:

The North Carolina jersey was first obtained in 1983 when equipment managers from Stanford and North Carolina swapped player jerseys after a game during the Stanford Invitational tournament at Maples Pavilion.

This isn’t the first time the jersey has been up for auction, as it sold for $63,500 in 1999, which was a record at the time.

Here’s to hoping the North Carolina equipment manager who traded the Jordan jersey to someone at Stanford got a cut of this.

Aside from maybe the Saturday Night Live cast, Elon Musk, and maybe a few others, no one has any idea what’s in store for Saturday’s episode of SNL. Musk is billed as the show’s host while Miley Cyrus will be the musical guest. In the days and weeks leading up to the episode, many have anticipated a large amount of Dogecoin talk, something that helped push the “joke cryptocurrency” to new highs of almost $0.74 per share.

While it remains to be seen what Musk has in store for viewers on tonight’s episode, there is one thing we can pretty much guarantee: an appearance from Grimes.

The singer took to Instagram to share that she would be joining her partner at some point during the episode. In a lengthy caption that captured part of a phone call Grimes had with a friend about Ethereum and some other things, she concluded it by writing, “Tune into SNL tonight to watch me try acting!”

Hopefully, Grimes won’t have to “try” acting in any of the skits Elon Musk suggested after learning of his hosting gig. They included “Woke James Bond,” “Baby Shark & Shark Tank merge to form Baby Shark Tank,” and “Irony Man – defeats villains using the power of irony,” suggestions which he was promptly roasted online.

Shifting back to Grimes, some of her fans on Twitter wondered why she wasn’t billed as the musical guest instead of Cyrus. In a past tweet, Grimes gave an explanation for it. “The music booker from SNL came to my show once but I literally concussed myself in the first ten mins of the show, blacked out and played a famously horrific set that I have no memory of,” she said. “And I think the booker thinks im the worst live act ever haha but kinda funny anecdote.”

If you thought Blackpink was powerful as a group, just wait until the solo projects start rolling out. After their debut album set records and turned heads last year, Blackpink are planning to be in your area in more ways than one. The recent success of member’s Rosé solo track “On The Ground” is just further proof that these girls are just as great on their own, and now member Lisa is likely planning to release her debut this coming June.

So who will be appearing on that project? Well, tweets might come and go but nothing gets past K-Pop fans. The eagle-eyed fanbase noticed that DJ Snake was actually responding to tweets about whether or not he was working with Lisa and Selena Gomez. He shot down the Selena feature, especially since he very recently worked with her on their track “Selfish Love,” but confirmed a song with Lisa and noted that it’s already done.

Here’s his now-deleted responses on the subject:

It’s also worth noting that DJ Snake has been repping the K-pop girl group long before their debut album ever dropped — and he’s more than familiar with their signature catchphrase, too.

Whatever his collaboration with Lisa is, it’s going to be worth the wait. Look for more info on the song coming soon since June is only a few short weeks away. Hopefully the rumors are true and this album drops then.

This past February marked one year since the hip-hop world was shocked by the news of Pop Smoke’s shooting death. The Brooklyn-born rapper was killed during a home invasion at a Hollywood Hills mansion he was renting at the time. Following an investigation, four suspects were taken into custody last July and each charged with one count of murder and robbery in juvenile court as they were all under the age of 21 at the time of their arrest.

Now, according to the New York Daily News, we now know which of the suspects was responsible with shooting. During a preliminary hearing for 20-year-old Corey Walker, the only adult in the case, LAPD Det. Carlos Camacho testified that Pop Smoke was killed by a 15-year-old teen.

“He admitted that he shot the victim three times with a Baretta 9 [mm.],” Camacho said. The detective also revealed that the group of suspects broke into the rapper’s mansion in hopes of stealing his Cuban link chain but only managed to get away with a diamond-studded Rolex watch, which they later sold for $2,000.

Camacho added that during a recorded jail interview, the 15-year-old “admitted that they asked for the jewelry” before engaging in “a confrontation” with the rapper during the home invasion. “They got into a fight, and he shot him three times,” Camacho said. “He said he shot him on the back.” The detective also said Pop Smoke fought back and “rushed” the suspects who “pistol-whipped” him before shooting him in the chest.

Almost every president has had pets, which sometimes become as famous and popular as their powerful owners. Among the most popular was Bo, the first of two dogs adopted by the Obamas, back in 2009. Sadly, just over 12 years after the Portuguese Water Dog became the nation’s First Dog, Bo has passed away.

The tragic passing was noted by Barack Obama on Twitter, who posted a moving memoriam to the celebrity canine. “Today our family lost a true friend and loyal companion. For more than a decade, Bo was a constant, gentle presence in our lives—happy to see us on our good days, our bad days, and everyday in between.”

He continued:

He tolerated all the fuss that came with being in the White House, had a big bark but no bite, loved to jump in the pool in the summer, was unflappable with children, lived for scraps around the dinner table, and had great hair.

He was exactly what we needed and more than we ever expected. We will miss him dearly.

Bo was chosen in part because Malia was allergic to dogs and needed one that was hypoallergenic. He was a shelter dog, and he was named by Malia and Sasha after both Michelle’s father and R&B legend Bo Didley. He is survived by not only his owners but also by the Obamas’ other dog, Sunny, who is also a Portuguese Water Dog.

Bo’s passing was also noted by much of social media.

Rest in peace, Bo.