Good Morning, Stumpers!

Boy, do we have a DOOZY of a Stump for you today. We’ve got a story for you in the Spanish Scrabble world-championship that you’ll have to READ TO BELIEVE! On top of that, we’ve got Women in NASCAR, another SGA 50-piece, and a Tee Higgins franchise tag. Again, an absolute DOOOOOZY! Let’s do this thing!

Today’s Rundown

What’s in today’s edition?

• ♟️ Spanish Scrabble World-Championship!

• 🏎️ A woman back in the NASCAR picture

• 🟠 Bengals give Tee the tag again…

• 🐶 A glue guy that transcends one category of life

On This Day

On This Day…

⚾️ Ruth Gets Paid

The average MLB player salary for the 2024 MLB season was $4,655,366, season is a record high in MLB history, but it was on this day in 1927 when Babe Ruth became the highest paid player in MLB history.

Ruth signed a 3-year, $210,000 contract in 1927 with the New York Yankees to become the highest paid player in MLB history. $70,000 a year sounds like an absolute steal for arguably the greatest player in baseball history!

🧠 Test your sports knowledge…

Yesterday’s Trivia Answer: (D) Coin Flip! To decide who was the number one seed in the SEC tournament, the three teams tied for the top spot flipped a coin. Dawn Staley and South Carolina won!

Before We Dive In…

👀 Here’s Yesterday’s MUST-See’s

• 🧊 Xander ICES the match for New York Golf Club

• 🏀 Caris EURO STEP GAME WINNER!

• 😭 Kyrie Irving helped off court, free throws first. WARRIOR!

• 🔥 JT Miller is on a HEATER since he arrived in NY

• 💪 Shai with a NASTY ankle-breaker

🔍️ Stump Spotlight

Board Games

♟️ Spanish Scrabble World Championship

Now I came across something in my 5 minutes (more like 500) of daily scrolling and in good conscience I couldn’t not share this with the Stump community. Today we are talking Nigel Richards, a New Zealander who a few months ago won the Spanish Scrabble world-title!

I’m sure you may be sitting there thinking, “Well Stump admin…why are you putting this across my desk on this fine Tuesday morning?” Well Stump reader, it’s because of this. Nigel Richards won this world-title for Spanish Scrabble…and he DOESN’T EVEN SPEAK SPANISH! 

No, that was not a typo. Calling Richards a Scrabble ‘enthusiast’ would be a bit of an understatement. This guy IS SCRABBLE. He already has five English world-titles and in 2015 he also won the French-title as well (yes, this was also without speaking a lick of French). So how does he do it? You know how you have that one song memorized, verse for verse, line for line? Nigel does that with dictionaries! Cover to cover, he reads them, and he memorizes them, and then he is able to use that in the heat of battle in Scrabble.

Richards has been in the Scrabble space for 30 years and some call him the greatest of all time in the space. What he has done across languages is absolutely absurd. Yes, it seems to be a case of photographic memory that aids him, but still, to be able to do that and then apply it to Scrabble is absolutely ELECTRIC!

All of this being said, the Scrabble purists were not happy when Nigel walked into Granada, Spain and obliterated the competition. One called it “an incredible humiliation”. Maybe those guys don’t like it, but man what a story. A guy won a language-based competition without speaking the language!

I’ll sign off the way only way I think I can here. Adios!

Or as Nigel probably would, HOLA!

The Hot Stove

🏎️ First Women in NASCAR since 2018

Katherine Legge will make her NASCAR Cup Series debut this weekend at Phoenix Raceway, the first woman to compete in a Cup Series race since Danica Patrick in 2018. Legge, a 44-year-old native of England, will drive the No. 78 car in Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500. Here’s more on Katherine.

🏈 Bengals Franchise Tag Tee

For the second straight year, the Bengals have officially placed the franchise tag on wide receiver Tee Higgins. This keeps him under team control for one more year while the two sides try to reach a long-term deal. Higgins will be paid just over $26 million on the franchise tag. If you forgot how good Tee is, here’s his career highlights.

🎙️ Jimmy Johnson Calls it a Career

Up until about 1994, everyone knew Jimmy Johnson as a football coach. A two-time Super Bowl head coach and one-time National Champion in college, Johnson made the Hall of fame as a coach. After his coaching career, Johnson became America’s coach, working for FOX as an on-air analyst for 31 years. Yesterday, he officially announced his retirement. Johnson has done more for football than we can ever thank him for. Here’s FOX’s tribute to him in his last show.

🤔 Mavs Raise Ticket Prices, Cite “Investments”

It’s been just a few weeks since the Dallas Mavericks parted ways with their former superstar Luka Doncic, and tensions in their fan base have never been higher. Protests, booing, and many “fire Nico” chants have filled up American Airlines Arena. Now, the Mavericks announced their raising their season ticket prices by an average of just under 9%, citing “ongoing investments in the team and fan engagement”. I’m no genius, but this doesn’t seem like a way to get fans back on board… here’s more on the situation.

Quick Links

• ✂️ Eagles part ways with 6-time Pro Bowl CB Darius Slay

• 🤕 Yanks’ shutting down Gil for 6+ weeks

• ❓️ Altuve moving to left field after 1,767 games at second base

• 🎾 Djokovic and Alcaraz end up on same side of Aussie Open brakcet

What We’re Watching

🏀 TNT Double Header for us boys and girls!

• TNT: Warriors @ Knicks (7:30 PM), Clippers @ Suns (10:00 PM)

• More to watch: Rockets @ Pacers (7:00 PM), Cavs @ Bulls (8:00 PM), 76ers @ Timberwolves (8:00 PM), Pelicans @ Lakers (10:30 PM)

🏒 Hockey! Hockey! Hockey!

• Hurricanes vs Red Wings (7:00 PM), Blue Jackets @ Lightning (7:00 PM), Jets vs Islanders (7:30 PM), Devils vs Stars (8:00 PM), Penguins vs Avs (9:00 PM)

⚾️ Spring Training Schedule:

• Red Sox @ Pirates (1:05 PM), Yankees @ Phillies (1:05 PM on MLB.com), Reds @ Rockies (3:10 PM), Reds vs Dodgers (8:05 PM), full schedule

🏀 College Basketball ranked action:

• Men’s: (16) Memphis @ UTSA (7:00 PM), Rutgers vs (18) Purdue (7:00 PM on Peacock), LSU @ (19) Kentucky (7:00 PM on ESPN2), Texas @ (25) Mississippi St (8:00 PM on SECN), (1) Auburn vs (22) Texas A&M (9:00 PM on ESPN), (23) BYU vs (10) Iowa State (9:00 PM on ESPN2), Arizona State vs (24) Arizona (11:00 PM on ESPN)

• Women’s: All ranked teams are currently in a pause before conference tournaments start tomorrow!

⚽️ International Futbol!

• Champions League: Club Brugge vs Aston Villa (12:45 PM), Borussia vs Lille (3:00 PM on CBSSN), PSV Eindhoven vs Arsenal (3:00 PM), Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid (3:00 PM)

• Concacaf Champions Cup: FC Cincy vs Tigres (6:30 PM), LAFC vs Columbus (10:30 PM)

The Moment You’ve Been Waiting For

Can’t thank you enough for sticking to the end of this thing we call The Daily Stump. If you know anybody who might want this bit of daily juice in their life, send them this link, it would go a long way. Appreciate the hell out of you all!

Trees may get chopped. Stumps hold strong 🌴