| | | | | | | | | | | Axios Sports | | By Kendall Baker ·Mar 08, 2021 | | 👋 Happy Monday! Let's sports. Today's word count: 1,589 words (6 minutes). | | | | | | 1 big thing: ⚾️ 24 days until Opening Day |  | | | Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios | | | | Spring training 2020 was canceled a year ago this week, and the season was delayed until July. This year, spring training has gone off without a hitch — and Opening Day is just 24 days away, Axios' Jeff Tracy writes. How things will look... Attendance: Stadiums were empty until the NLCS last season. This season, most ballparks will open with fans in the stands. - 0% capacity: The Nationals' request for limited fans was denied last week, but that could change by Opening Day.
- Less than 1%: The A's, Angels, Dodgers and Padres play in California's most restrictive counties (100 fan limit). But with Gov. Gavin Newsom lifting some restrictions on Friday, 20% by Opening Day is possible.
- 3%: Tigers
- 10%: Yankees, Mets
- 12%: Red Sox
- 15%: Blue Jays (playing at their spring training facility)
- 17%: Rays
- 20%: Pirates, Phillies, Giants
- 25%: Marlins, Brewers, Diamondbacks, Rockies, Astros
- 30%: Reds, Indians, Royals
- 32%: Cardinals
- TBD: Orioles, Mariners, Twins, Rangers, Braves, Cubs, White Sox
Protocols: Vaccinated or not, players will be required to wear masks at all times unless they're actively playing or warming up. - MLB is also implementing more rigorous contract tracing and safety protocols than last year, starting with the mandatory wearing of Kinexon devices during all team activities.
- Players may not attend indoor gatherings of 10 or more people and are not permitted to leave the hotel during road trips other than for team activities, medical reasons, exercise or approved dining.
Season format/rules: - Same as 2020: Seven-inning doubleheaders and the extra-innings rule (start with a runner on second) are returning.
- Different: The DH is back to being AL-only, 10 teams will make the playoffs (down from 16 last year), and the plan is to play a full, 162-game season (up from 60 last year).
|     | | | | | | 2. 🏀 Giannis wins NBA All-Star Game MVP |  | | | Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images | | | | A weekend's worth of festivities was crammed into a single night, as the NBA staged an All-Star Game that nobody seemed to want. The game: Team LeBron cruised to a 170-150 win over Team Durant. - MVP: Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a game-high 35 points on a perfect 16-for-16 shooting. Steph Curry (28 points) and Damian Lillard (32) were also in the running.
- LeBron, the GM: James is now 4-0 as All-Star Game captain, having defeated Curry's squad in 2018 Antetokounmpo's squads the past two years.
- Dime master: With 16 assists, Chris Paul passed Magic Johnson for the most assists in All-Star Game history (128).
Other events: Go deeper: Winners and losers (The Ringer) | | | | | | | | 3. 🏀 NBA, WNBA lead the way in racial hiring |  Data: TIDES; Table: Axios Visuals The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport has released its annual racial hiring report cards for the NBA, WNBA, MLS, NFL and MLB. Full reports: | | | | | | | | A message from Axios | | Get the inside stories with Axios Sneak Peek | | |  | | | | Get an insider's guide to the powerful people — and ideas — shaping Congress and the new White House with Axios Sneak Peek. Delivered daily from Sunday to Thursday. Why it matters: Quickly catch up on the biggest stories of the day. Subscribe for free | | | | | | 4. 🏈 Ravens propose new overtime format |  | | | Photo: Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images | | | | NFL overtime rules have long been criticized for being too reliant on the coin toss, so the Ravens have proposed a new format to remove the element of chance, Jeff writes. How it works: Baltimore's "Spot and Choose" proposal, which will be reviewed at the upcoming league meetings, would replace the luck of the coin toss with an opportunity for strategy. - Overtime would begin with one team picking the spot of the ball and the other choosing whether to attack or defend from that spot. The winner of the coin toss gets the option of being the "spotter" or the "chooser." The spotter always goes first.
- Example: Team A wins the coin toss and spots the ball on the 20-yard line. Team B can now choose whether they'd rather go on offense (80 yards to the end zone) or defense (force Team A to drive 80 yards).
- The proposal includes two options for timing and format: Either a 10-minute sudden death period or a seven minute, 30-second period where the highest score wins.
Why it matters: Under current rules, a first-possession touchdown wins the game. So whichever team wins the coin toss has a huge advantage. - According to the Ravens' research, receiving teams are 28-20-4 (including playoffs) since 2017, when overtime was decreased from 15 to 10 minutes.
- Isolate the playoffs, and receiving teams are a staggering 9-1 since the current "modified sudden death" rule was adopted in 2010.
What they're saying: "This sounds complicated at first, but it's actually a really fun idea: Make teams weigh their comparative advantages on offense and defense," tweeted ESPN's Mina Kimes. - "Say you're playing KC: Where would you spot the ball so that they're forced to play defense? The 5?"
- "Then if they choose to play offense anyways and score and win, we'd blame randomness less than we would with the current setup."
| | | | | | | | 5. 🏀 Wooden Award finalists announced | | The national ballots for the John R. Wooden Award have been released. Luka Garza. Photo: G Fiume/Maryland Terrapins/Getty Images Luka Garza, the runner-up for last year's award, is the favorite to win this year. He's also set to have his No. 55 retired by Iowa. - Freshmen: Cade Cunningham (Oklahoma State), Hunter Dickinson (Fr., Michigan), Evan Mobley (USC), Jalen Suggs (Gonzaga)
- Sophomores: Kofi Cockburn (Illinois), Trayce Jackson-Davis (Indiana), E.J. Liddell (Ohio State), Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (Villanova), Drew Timme (Gonzaga)
- Juniors: Charles Bassey (Western Kentucky), Jared Butler (Baylor), Ayo Dosunmu (Illinois)
- Seniors: Luka Garza (Iowa), Collin Gillespie (Villanova), Corey Kisper (Gonzaga)
Paige Bueckers. Photo: Zach Bolinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Paige Bueckers, who leads No. 1 UConn in scoring (19.8), assists (6.2), steals (2.4) and 3-point shooting (47.6%), is the only freshman on the women's ballot. - Freshmen: Paige Bueckers (UConn)
- Sophomores: Aliyah Boston (South Carolina), Haley Jones (Stanford)
- Juniors: Charli Collier (Texas), Elissa Cunane (NC State), Naz Hillmon (Michigan), Rhyne Howard (Kentucky), NaLyssa Smith (Baylor)
- Seniors: Chelsea Dungee (Arkansas), Dana Evans (Louisville), Arella Guirantes (Rutgers), Natasha Mack (Oklahoma State), Aari McDonald (Arizona), Michaela Onyenwere (UCLA), Kiana Williams (Stanford)
🎟 Tickets punched: A handful of teams have clinched automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament, with plenty more to come this week. - Men: Liberty (Atlantic Sun), Morehead State (Ohio Valley), Winthrop (Big South), Loyola-Chicago (Missouri Valley)
- Women: Belmont (Ohio Valley), NC State (ACC), Mercer (Southern), South Carolina (SEC), Stanford (Pac-12)
🎥 ICYMI ... Houston sunk Memphis on a buzzer-beater, the first of what should be many wild finishes this month. | | | | | | | | 6. 🌎 Photos 'round the world | | Photo: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images ORLANDO — Bryson DeChambeau won the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday, playing the final 17 holes without a bogey and capturing the imagination of golf fans with his monstrous drives. Photo: Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images GLASGOW, Scotland — Rangers won its world-record 55th domestic league title, dethroning rival Celtic in manager Steven Gerrard's third season. - The backdrop: Following a financial implosion and liquidation in 2012, Rangers was forced to start again in Scotland's fourth division. Nine years later, the 149-year-old club is back on top.
Photo: Arvind Yadav/Hindustan Times via Getty Images NEW DELHI, India — Macaque monkeys were everywhere during Sunday's New Delhi marathon, which served as a qualifying event for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. | | | | | | | | 7. 📊 By the numbers |  | | | Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images | | | | 💦 4-for-4: In her first competition in a year, Katie Ledecky won all four of her events (200, 400, 800 and 1,500-meter freestyle) at the TYR Pro Swim Series in San Antonio. 🏒 363 road goals: Alex Ovechkin scored the 363rd road goal of his career, surpassing Steve Yzerman for second-most in NHL history behind Wayne Gretzky (402). ⚽️ 185th meeting: Second-place Manchester United beat first-place Manchester City, 2-0, in the 185th meeting between the two rivals. United leads the all-time series, 77-53-55. ⛳️ 28 years: Phil Mickelson has fallen out of the top 100 in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time since 1993. ⚽️ 6 straight: Liverpool went 68 Premier League games without losing at home. They've now lost six in a row and sit in eighth in the standings. | | | | | | | | 8. 📆 March 8, 1971: The "Fight of the Century" | | Photo: Dick Morseman/Newsday RM via Getty Images 50 years ago today, Joe Frazier defeated Muhammad Ali in 15 rounds by unanimous decision at Madison Square Garden. - Why it matters: Billed as the "Fight of the Century," it's widely regarded as the biggest boxing match in history and arguably the most anticipated and hyped sporting event ever.
- The backdrop: Ali (31-0, 25 KOs) had become the face and voice of the left-wing, anti-war movement during his government-imposed exile from the ring, while Frazier (26-0, 23 KOs) had been adopted by the conservative, pro-war movement.
The Garden: There was a circus-like atmosphere for the fight, with scores of policemen doing their best to control the 20,455 attending fans. - "It was the early '70s, and New York — for all its turmoil and incipient decrepitude — felt like the most potent city in the world," writes ESPN's Mark Kriegel.
- "There were cops and mob guys and hustlers and Playmates and everywhere one looked an abundance of stars."
- "It was a star, by the way, who pulled off the evening's most unlikely coup: Frank Sinatra finagling an assignment as a ringside photographer for Life magazine."
What they're saying: "It was much more than a fight. It was about civil rights," Tim Ryan, who served as the lone English-language radio blow-by-blow man that night, told The Athletic (subscription). - "And if you don't know what the racial tensions were at that time, then you just got it all played back during the last four years."
- "The attention that fight received ... made it so not one person who attended didn't have an opinion about it. It was out of a movie."
- "These people in there were wondering, 'What the hell is going to happen so my political and racial point of view can be justified?'"
What came next: This was the first of a trilogy, followed by the rematch fights Super Fight II (1974) and Thrilla in Manila (1975), both won by Ali. Go deeper: | | | | | | | | 9. 🏀 NBA trivia |  | | | Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images | | | | Blake Griffin is joining the Nets, making Brooklyn the fourth NBA team with two former No. 1 picks on their roster (Griffin and Kyrie Irving). - Question: Who are the other three teams?
- Hint: Two are currently in playoff position.
Answer at the bottom. | | | | | | | | 10. 🇯🇵 Smile to go: 118-year-old torchbearer |  | | | Kane Tanaka in 2019. Photo: Jiji Press/AFP via Getty Images | | | | Kane Tanaka, the world's oldest living person at 118 years old, will carry the Olympic torch this May in Japan, CNN reports. - Tanaka was born in 1903, the same year the Wright brothers completed the world's first powered flight and just seven years after the first modern Olympic Games.
- Tanaka's family will push her in a wheelchair for most of her leg, but she is determined to walk the final few steps.
Wild stat: In 2020, one in every 1,565 people in Japan was over 100 years old, with women making up 88% of them. | | | | | | | | A message from Axios | | Get the inside stories with Axios Sneak Peek | | | | | | | | Get an insider's guide to the powerful people — and ideas — shaping Congress and the new White House with Axios Sneak Peek. Delivered daily from Sunday to Thursday. Why it matters: Quickly catch up on the biggest stories of the day. Subscribe for free | | | | Talk tomorrow, Kendall "Feeling a lot younger all of a sudden" Baker Trivia answer: Lakers (LeBron James and Anthony Davis), 76ers (Ben Simmons and Dwight Howard), Timberwolves (Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards) | | Invite friends to follow Axios Sports Use your personal link to track how many readers you bring into the community  You currently have 00 referrals. Share with a friend For questions email referralsupport@axios.com. Participation in the Axios Sports Referral Program constitutes your acceptance of the Axios Terms and Conditions of Use, which can be viewed here. | | | | Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters.
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