Good morning. Six games in Southern California on Wednesday and three of them kick off at 7:30. The Rams are somewhere over the Pacific. The Dodgers have won six in a row and cut their magic number to seven. The Padres are half a game out with 17 to play. And in Beverly Hills, a man who once sold hair clips off a folding table at UCLA is making the rings that champions put on their hands. Let’s get into it.
🚨 HEADLINES
🏈 Not this week. McVay says Aaron Donald stays home; Myles Garrett plays — The Sporting Tribune at Rams Village.
⚾ Six in a row. Skubal went into the eighth, Teoscar reached base four times — Fredo Cervantes at Dodger Stadium.
⚾ Again. Four in the eighth, and the Padres came all the way back — Eric Evelhoch at Petco Park.
⚾ Nobody has done this. Reid Detmers has a streak no Angels starter has ever had — Jack Janes at Fenway Park.
💍 The ring maker. Twenty championship teams, and it started with a $468 loan — Arash Markazi in Beverly Hills.
🏀 Number nine. Phil Jackson is getting a statue at Star Plaza — Carlos Yakimowich in Los Angeles.
See what else is trending at The Sporting Tribune.
📋 SCOREBOARD — TUESDAY
⚾ MLB: Dodgers 3, Reds 2 · Padres 5, Nationals 4 · Angels 6, Red Sox 1
⚾ Minors: Ontario dropped Game 1 of the Cal League playoffs at ONT Field — Ernesto Madrigal-Rodriguez was there.
🏈 SIXTEEN HOURS, AND ONE MAN STAYING PUT
The Rams finished their last practice in Woodland Hills on Tuesday and got on a plane that night. They land in Melbourne on Thursday morning, roughly 24 hours before kickoff. The 49ers have been there a week.
“I’m just so excited about this 16-hour flight,” McVay joked.
The plan is to make the strange feel ordinary. The Rams will treat arrival day like a regular Saturday, right down to when players sleep and when they wake, ahead of a 10:35 a.m. local kickoff — Thursday evening here.
“Every minute is accounted for and we’ve got a very specific, strategic plan that’s been thought out,” McVay said. “Everything is geared towards one thing and one thing only, what’s going to be best for our players to be able to go play their best.”
Aaron Donald will not be on the trip.
“He won’t play in this game. He’s doing a great job,” McVay said. “I think he’ll be ready to go sooner rather than later, but we’re making a decision that we think is best for him and for our team.” He would not commit to Week 2 either.
Donald had described himself Monday as rusty. McVay disagreed with the word but not the caution — two years away is two years away, and the details of taking on a double team don’t come back on a schedule.
Myles Garrett will play. “He’s going to be ready to go. He’s looked great,” McVay said. “We’ve been smart with Myles, but his impact has been tremendous.” Garrett’s own version was shorter: “I feel ready for the season opener.”
He also said the thing that should worry the rest of the NFC West. Asked about working next to Donald, even with their first game together postponed: “It’s been special. He has his own way of doing things, physically as well as mentally. He speaks the game and being able to work off of him is truly a special thing.”
The interior for now: Kobie Turner, Braden Fiske, Poona Ford, Tyler Davis and Ty Hamilton.
GO DEEPER
› Rams wrap up practice in Woodland Hills before long flight and quick turnaround in Melbourne (The Sporting Tribune)
› Mykell Mathieu: Rams’ middle linebackers could be the key to an all-time great defense (The Sporting Tribune)
💍 $468, A FOLDING TABLE, AND TWENTY CHAMPIONSHIPS
Arash Markazi sat in Jason Arasheben’s Beverly Hills office this week surrounded by rings from 20 championship teams — Lakers, Rams, Warriors, Bucks, Buccaneers, Celtics, Nuggets, Aces, Golden Knights. The newest is the Seahawks’ Super Bowl LX ring: 20 carats of white diamonds and Seahawks blue sapphires, 50 diamonds around the logo for the franchise’s 50th season, and arches of Lumen Field that pop open at the press of a 12 Flag button to reveal the words WORLD CHAMPIONS. It is believed to be the largest Super Bowl ring ever made.
Arasheben does not look at that shelf and see stones.
“You look at these rings and, yes, they’re expensive and they’re all sitting in one place,” he said. “But all it does is remind me of how much we had to endure to be able to not only get the contract, but actually fulfill it.”
The endurance started with $28,000 in credit card debt his sophomore year at UCLA, and a $468 loan from a friend to buy plastic hair clips and cheap silver in the downtown wholesale district. He sold $800 worth the first day off a six-foot table on campus. Then tables at USC, UCSB, Cal State LA, Northridge, Irvine. Then display cases in more than 200 nail and hair salons between Los Angeles and San Diego. When he told his father he wasn’t going to law school, his father stopped speaking to him for two and a half years.
He talked his way into the jewelry business by introducing himself as a jeweler before he was one — hand-drawn designs, a homemade catalog of magazine clippings, and a fourth attempt at Anthony Mason that finally landed a $20,000 deposit on a piece he had no idea how to make.
The Lakers gave him the real chance. Jerry Buss handed a kid who had never made a championship ring the 2009 contract because, as Arasheben put it, “He wanted an L.A. person to make the L.A. ring.” His team slept on the factory floor. The last player ring was finished 20 minutes before the ceremony.
Then came 20 straight rejections over five years, and the Warriors’ 2015 title that broke them.
The full column is worth your morning. It is a Los Angeles story about the distance between wanting to be in the arena and finding your own way in.
GO DEEPER
› Arash Markazi: For Jason of Beverly Hills, every championship ring began with a chance (The Sporting Tribune)
› Carlos Yakimowich: Lakers announce Phil Jackson statue — the ninth figure honored at Star Plaza, unveiling April 9, 2027 (The Sporting Tribune)
› Arash Markazi: Derek Stevens built Circa for sports fans and then he gave them a reason to keep coming back (The Sporting Tribune)
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🥤 Mountain Dew — free 20-oz Baja Blast. Elly De La Cruz’s 444-foot shot into the left-field pavilion cleared the 420-foot bar by itself. Wallet pass at OTC Network stores.
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⚾ A WIN THAT WASN’T PRETTY, AND A THROW THAT WAS
Fredo Cervantes’s framing is the right one: the Dodgers have spent the year making the extraordinary look routine, and Tuesday they won the unglamorous way. Skubal went 7⅓ — the first time he has reached the eighth as a Dodger, and only the second time all season — on four hits, two runs, five strikeouts, 94 pitches.
“I don’t think I’ve thrown the ball as well as I know I’m capable of yet,” Skubal said. Which should terrify everyone else.
The one mistake was an 87-mph changeup on the first pitch to Elly De La Cruz, who hit it an estimated 444 feet into the left-field pavilion to tie it. Skubal didn’t allow another run.
Will Smith opened the scoring with his seventh homer, his first since May 29 and his first since coming off the IL. Tommy Edman was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded for the second.
Then Teoscar Hernández, who has become impossible to ignore: 3-for-3 with two singles, a triple and a walk, the go-ahead RBI in the fifth, an RBI in six straight games and a .484 stretch over his last nine (15-for-31, 12 RBI). He very nearly had an inside-the-park home run, too, until De La Cruz threw a 105.5-mph strike to the plate.
“I think he’s the only one that can throw me out in that situation,” Hernández said. “I thought I was so close but then I watched the replay and I was not.” Then, laughing: “I wanted to stay in the dugout.”
Dave Roberts just enjoyed it. “To see a guy hit 400 feet and throw a ball 105.5 MPH, I put my fan cap on.”
Los Angeles is 88-57, six straight, magic number seven in the West, three up on Atlanta for the No. 2 seed.
GO DEEPER
› Fredo Cervantes: Teoscar, Skubal lead Dodgers to sixth straight win (The Sporting Tribune)
⚾ A BIG NIGHT FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BASEBALL
San Diego 5, Washington 4. Eric Evelhoch has the Padres down most of the night and facing a bullpen game, then scoring one in the seventh and four in the eighth. Luis Campusano fought off a fastball in on the hands and dumped a broken-bat single into shallow right-center for the winner. Manny Machado had tied it a batter earlier with a two-run single up the middle. It was San Diego’s 11th win this season after trailing by three or more; Washington has now blown a lead 45 times, the most in baseball. Casey Mize went 5⅔ with seven strikeouts. Adrian Morejon closed it for his third save.
Arizona won in 11 at Kansas City, so the Padres are still half a game back for the last wild card. Walker Buehler goes today at 1:10.
Los Angeles 6, Boston 1. Jack Janes writes that nobody in baseball has been better since the All-Star break than Reid Detmers — a major-league-best 1.37 ERA over 10 starts, 68 strikeouts in 59⅓ innings. Tuesday was six shutout innings and nine strikeouts at Fenway, his sixth straight start of at least six innings allowing one run or fewer. No Angels starter has ever done that. He allowed one hit, walked one, and never let a runner reach scoring position. He threw a career-high 112 pitches, mostly because Red Sox hitters kept fouling them off — seven at-bats went at least six pitches.
He is 2-2 over those 10 starts, which tells you everything about the offense behind him. Tuesday it showed up: Zach Neto went 4-for-5 and put his 24th homer over the Green Monster, and eight of the nine starters had a hit.
GO DEEPER
› Eric Evelhoch: Padres complete another multi-run comeback late, rally past Nationals (The Sporting Tribune)
› Jack Janes: Detmers adds to torrid stretch in Angels win (The Sporting Tribune)
📺 WATCHLIST — WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
⚾ MLB: Nationals at Padres — Petco Park — 1:10 p.m. — Padres TV
⚾ MLB: Angels at Red Sox — Fenway Park — 3:45 p.m. — ABTV
⚾ MLB: Reds at Dodgers — Dodger Stadium — 7:10 p.m. — SNLA
⚽ MLS: Red Bulls at LAFC — BMO Stadium — 7:30 p.m. — Apple TV
⚽ MLS: Galaxy at Whitecaps — BC Place — 7:30 p.m. — Apple TV
⚽ MLS: Earthquakes at San Diego FC — Snapdragon Stadium — 7:30 p.m. — Apple TV
Coming up: The Rams open the season against San Francisco in Melbourne on Thursday evening in Los Angeles. USC hosts Louisiana, UNLV goes to North Texas and Hawai’i hosts New Mexico State on Saturday. The Raiders open against the Miami Dolphins at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday while the Chargers take on the Arizona Cardinals at SoFi Stadium.
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🌴 TST TRIVIA
Jason Arasheben has now designed championship rings for 20 title-winning teams, including the Lakers, Rams, Aces and Golden Knights. He started the business as a UCLA sophomore by borrowing money from a friend to buy hair clips and silver trinkets downtown. How much did he borrow?
Answer at the bottom.
🎧 THE SPORTING TRIBUNE TODAY
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Today’s episode: Aaron Donald stays home while the Rams fly to Australia, a Dodgers winning streak that keeps finding new ways to continue, Reid Detmers doing something no Angel has done, and the man in Beverly Hills who makes the rings.
› Listen to the latest episode
Trivia answer: $468.
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