Month: August 2022

Linebacker Shaquem Griffin has announced his retirement from the NFL after four seasons. Griffin, who had his left hand amputated at four years old due to amniotic band syndrome, wrote an article for The Players’ Tribune which detailed how he came to his decision to retire.  Said Griffin:  “It’s time for me to execute my Plan A,” adding that Plan A was always “to go to college, get an education and do something that would make a positive impact in the world.”  Griffin added that  “football was always Plan B.”  

Griffin shared that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell approached him with an opportunity to work with the Legends Program, which is a group made up of retired players to help mentor current and former players in all areas of NFL life, from the beginning to the end of their careers and beyond.

Griffin has defied the odds throughout his football career, first at the University of Central Florida where he played alongside his twin brother, Shaquill, a cornerback who plays with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Shaquem racked up 195 tackles and 18.5 sacks in his five seasons with UCF. While Shaquill was taken by the Seattle Seahawks in the third round of the 2018 draft, Shaquem waited two more rounds before Seattle decided to take him with the 141st overall pick.

Shaquem played three seasons with the Seahawks, totaling 25 tackles in 46 games in a limited role. He signed with the Miami Dolphins in 2021 but was waived as a part of training camp roster cuts and re-signed with their practice squad. Shaquem had been in training camp with the Dolphins before announcing his retirement.

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Major League baseball announced the 2023 regular season schedule, with every major league team playing each other in the same season for the first time next year — marking MLB’s first balanced schedule since 2000. Opening Day will be Thursday, March 30, with all 30 teams starting on the same day, which last occurred in 1968.  The All-Star Game is scheduled for Tuesday, July 11, at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.

As a result of the format switch agreed to in the March lockout settlement, high-profile games between division rivals such as Yankees-Red Sox, Dodgers-Giants and Cubs-Cardinals will be reduced from 19. Intradivision games will drop from 47% to 32%.  Each team will play 13 games against each division rival for a total of 52, and six or seven against each other club in its league for a total of 64. The remaining 46 games are against interleague opponents: a home and road two-game series against a so-called natural rival and a single three-game series against each of the 14 other clubs in the opposite league.

Chris Marinak, MLB’s chief operations and strategy officer, explained: “This new format creates more common opponents, both in the division and among your league opponents, so that typically when you’re competing for the wild card, there’s a much higher percentage of common opponents across divisionsAnd we think that equity is good for the competition on the field. On the marketing side, we think that the new schedule gives our fans more opponents at home, so they get to see a broader array of clubs in their ballpark,” Marinak said. “And probably more importantly, it gives us a chance for our star players to get exposure more nationally and be seen in more places throughout the season.”

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