Random thought but doesn’t it feel like 2024 just started? Now we’re sitting here talking about the NBA Season being right around the corner and some October Postseason HEROES in the MLB! One for you today is Kerry Carpenter! Great story to start off your Tuesday! The Chiefs won last night, big deal, you know it’s the Chiefs vs Everybody else when they have Juju Smith-Schuster looking like an all-pro WR! Happy Tuesday! STUMP TIME!

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⚾ In 2018, Boston Red Sox utility guy and long-time GLUE GUY Brock Holt became the first MLB player to hit for the cycle in a postseason game.

The Red Sox defeated the Yankees 16-1 that night, it was Game 3 of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium. The Red Sox would go on to win the World Series in dominant fashion.

You may have seen the massive home run that Detroit Tigers star Kerry Carpenter hit last night in Game Two of the ALDS, but you may not have heard his story. Here’s a small piece of what life was like for Carpenter before he was hitting home runs in the MLB Postseason.

This feels like a good time to get into one of the best stories in the MLB. Before Kerry Carpenter hit a go-ahead 3-run home run in the MLB Postseason, he was just a kid who was confused. Carpenter wasn’t all that into baseball during his early years of high school. It wasn’t until his mom and sister sat him down and shared their vision of his potential.

They saw it before he did, and in his Junior year of high school, he finally dug his feet in and went after his now-shared goal with his family: to get a scholarship. Carpenter hit his stride his senior year but wasn’t recruited. Most colleges had already completed their recruiting classes months earlier. So Carpenter went the JUCO route.

He grinded out a year at St. John’s River State College in Florida, where he played well enough to earn a scholarship at Virginia Tech. In 2019, he landed with the Tigers in the 19th round of the MLB draft. Carpenter was climbing up the MILB ladder before the COVID-19 Pandemic canceled the minor league season.

It was September of 2020 when Carpenter got a part-time job, so he put on a green polo at Dick’s Sporting Goods. From swinging bats to selling them, Carpenter’s baseball dream was in question. Not only was Carpenter battling for his baseball life, he was dealing with the passing of his father, who lost his battle with lung cancer in May of that same year.

At that time, Carpenter was practically a nobody in the Tigers organization. Two years later, Carpenter was leading the minors in homers. It was Carpenter’s faith, persistence, and belief in himself, that led him to the majors.

Since his first full season in the MLB in 2023, Carpenter has arguably been the best player in the Tigers organization. He has hit with power and for average. When his team needed him most last night, Carpenter answered the bell. If you knew his story before that at-bat, you could’ve called the home run from a mile away.

Yesterday we had MNF, two ALDS games, and some preseason Hockey! Here’s the Monday Round Up!

Walking in Memphis! Let’s check out what the Grizzlies have to offer the NBA world this season…

Let’s get one thing straight, the 2023-24 Memphis Grizzlies were not a bad team, they were a team on pause. The Grizzlies battled a mess of injuries and suspensions, which turned last year into a lost season when it came to playoff hopes, but it’s hard to say that the Grizzlies won’t be a good ball club this year.

The Grizzlies get Ja Morant back after spending last year dealing with a 25-game suspension and then a season-ending injury. He is the engine that runs this team. He will be the difference, and we’ve seen it in years past when he’s on the Grizzlies are hard to beat.

To go along with Ja, the Grizzlies retained Desmond Bane, Marcus Smart, and Jaren Jackson Jr., to go along with their newest addition via the draft, Zach Edey. That’s a rock-solid core 5. Beyond this, all the injuries of last year pushed some guys into starting roles, we saw the blossoming of GG Jackson and Vince Williams, two guys who will push for serious minutes off the bench and complement Ja well.

I think it all comes down to the growth of Edey for this team and their ability to score. Edey is a traditional, back-to-the-basket type of big. he doesn’t provide much ability to stretch the floor like modern bigs, but he can offer some serious defensive help down low paired with Jaren Jackson. The Grizzlies will be strong on defense, but will probably need to add some scoring somewhere other than Ja.

Now that there’s a bit of a frost in the air in the northern half of the United States, we get to welcome the NHL into the fold. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest storylines of the year.

The Oilers Redemption Tour: The heartbreak of a Game 7 Stanley Cup Final loss is something that won’t go away easy, but getting back out onto the ice and dominating this year may help ease the pain a little. But the only thing that’ll really help, is winning the whole damn thing.

The Oilers are now battle-tested, and the roster may be even more talented than before. to add to McDavid and Draisaitl, the Oilers brought in Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson to provide some serious firepower to their winger depth. It’ll be fun to watch this team take the ice this year, a desperate franchise always brings great entertainment.

Welcome to the Show, Utah: The Arizona Coyotes era is done. It’s time for Utah to step up to the plate. The team won’t have a new name, won’t have a new mascot, but they will have a new location. The franchise will wear Utah across their chest and the team is expected to have a new name in 2025-26, with “Yeti” as the current leader in the clubhouse.

Utah has started to grow a fanbase in a state that is pretty starved for big-time professional sports. They will play their home games at the Delta Center, the home of the Utah Jazz. The last new franchise to the NHL was in Vegas, so it looks like the southwest of America is getting a little colder each passing year.

Big Names, New Places:

It’s 2024. Can we stop fining schools for when their students rush the fields? If you want that to happen, stop selling booze, stop letting in students, and stop having games, cause it never will.

Look, I get it, I’m the first in line when it comes to player safety and ensuring there’s a proper way to do all of this, but when a team gets a massive win, the kids are going to storm the field.

This comes to mind because of this past weekend in the SEC, where both Vanderbilt and Arkansas had massive wins on their home fields. Arkansas, who has had a rough year, is a historically proud college football program. The Hogs hadn’t defeated a Top-10 ranked team since 1999 when they defeated the No. 3 rank Tennessee Volunteers at home. So when they defeated the No. 6 Vols this past weekend, things got a little crazy in the stadium.

In Vanderbilts case, the Commodores have never had as big of a win in their program’s history as this past weekend. The Commies defeated the No. 1 team in the land, Alabama, in Nashville. Vandy was 22.5 point underdogs, one of the biggest upsets in SEC history.

So, when I heard that Vandy and Arkansas both had to pay 6-figure fines because their students were fired up and ran onto the field, I got a little annoyed. Not only did they have to pay big money, they had to make out the checks to the opposing team. So Vandy had to give Bama $100,000 after defeating them, and Arkansas gave Tennessee $250,000 after their fans stormed the field.

Theirs nothing in college sports like a good old field storming, but it’s ridiculous that a conference is penalizing schools for their students being so into the game that they want to jump on the field. If I’m the SEC, storming the field in Arkansas and Vandy is great for the conference.

Look, I don’t know the answer here. I don’t know the safe way to do it. I do know this, program-changing wins should not cause schools to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars. Let the kids have some fun.

🏈 BIG MAN INTERCEPTION! MY GAWD!

⚾ Kerry Carpenter: BOOM! BANG! BAM! Tigers WIN!

🏈 And then there were 2! Imagine this SB!

🏈 Worthy Giving Mom a Gift After the TD!

⚾ First time for everything in the Postseason! I can’t believe this!

💯 Full Scoreboards: MLB, Soccer, PGA, NFL, WNBA, NCAAF

Trivia Answer:

C. Wayne Gretzky. “The Great One” has 894 career goals, second is Alex Ovechkin, who currently sits at 853 entering into this season. Sitting just 41 goals back, Ovi has played 61 less games in his career than Gretzky. Can he catch him?

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 sports news in their life, send them this link! It would go a long way! Appreciate the hell out of you all!

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