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And today, the response continues to be "sell the team." I don't blame them. This, and last week's firings, are positioned as moves meant to remove the primary actors from decision-making roles. But the owner, even divorced from the CEO role, is still the owner. He's still the final say on decisions. There's no way around that.

Is that supposed to represent this?

I completely understand. In general, I feel the same way, but mostly for selfish reasons. I like myself a good wholesale rebrand. But what Cleveland did with the Guardians rebrand, despite its few minor flaws, was nothing short of remarkable. As much as some of us outsiders might have enjoyed a big change, the Cleveland Baseball Club needed to thread the needle between creating a rebrand with minimal disruption to its fans. That way, it satisfies its obligation to sever ties with its old name without alienating those fans who didn't want to see change at all. In the end, they have an identity that's completely new, but bears enough resemblance to what it was before that it isn't jarring to the diehards. Let this marinate for a few years, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the organization take some bigger swings with its brand.

SOURCE: Twins excited for 'cleaner' refresh of uniforms, more

I'll almost certainly regret saying this, because once it happens I'll probably change my mind, but I actually don't mind the thought of a Yankees-Dodgers World Series. As a neutral in the matter, I feel as if a callback to classic baseball of the '40s and '50s and the rivalry of the '70s might actually do the game some good. All that said, it's hard to root against the Mariners at this point.

I'd be all for using some version of that statue as a logo, except I have a hard time envisioning something that isn't either A) too detailed or B ) too whimsical, in a Joe Bosack kind of way. (No offense to Mr. Bosack, of course.)

I had highlights on in the background this morning and it wasn't until I saw the final score that I realized the Falcons weren't playing.

It's such a weird choice. And like many other specialty jerseys, looks like it belongs to a completely different franchise. Maybe it's the start or the Nike Alternate Reality Series. These are the Orlando BlackJacks from Earth 2.

This is a little perplexing to me. You can talk about "past" brand vs. "current" brand, but on the whole it's all a part of the same brand. Pat Patriot and Flying Elvis are each representative of the Patriots brand. Trying to say otherwise is complete nonsense. Just because it's of the past doesn't mean it somehow no longer represents what it stood for. What some others have said, that throwbacks are about making money, is true . But the reason they make money is because they elicit a certain affinity for the brand that's rooted in nostalgia. So in using throwbacks, a team isn't diluting its brand, but reinforcing it with a large part of the fanbase who identify with a prior look.

The Portland Timbers and Thorns today fired two of the central figures in their recent spate of scandals: President of Soccer Gavin Wilkinson and President of Business Mike Golub. Owner Merritt Paulson is still hanging on, despite the increasingly louder calls for him to sell the team. Meanwhile, the Timbers Army and Rose City Riveters Group have been applying pressure through the club's sponsors, urging them to pull their support of the team until Paulson agrees to sell it. It's been a remarkable turn of events for what many outside Portland had long considered a model franchise for the league.

Unpopular opinion (?): I like the Dolphins uniforms, especially after the 2018 tweaks. I think it's a smart update of a classic, not dissimilar to what the Vikings did. I much prefer the helmeted cartoon dolphin as a throwback.

The University of Illinois was pursuing plans for a $100 million hockey arena in 2020 when the pandemic hit. Then in May,it pulled the plug on the project after supply chain constraints increased the cost by $30 million. That seems to have effectively put an end to its pursuit of D1 hockey for now.

I think the walls might be crumbling around him at this point. The Timbers supporters on Twitter are circulating a spreadsheet with contact info for the club's sponsors and urging its members to press them to pull their sponsorships. At this point, removing Wilkinson and team President Mike Golub won't likely be enough to quell the uprising. By not acting sooner, he very likely may have doomed himself.

It's a reasonable concern. I think one thing working in its favor is the fact that the league took on new leadership last year when some of the first of these stories began to surface. The report yesterday also shows how the abusive culture wasn't limited to the NWSL, but has infected the sport at every level. Also, the strength of a league like this lies with the players, who are very clearly the victims in this scandal and deserving of continued support. This isn't their fault, nor is it the fans. I think recognizing that, and seeing real efforts to clean house among the leadership ranks and ridding the cancer from the system, might alleviate potential investor concerns.

The Timbers and Thorns supporters groups are suspending all relations with the club until its leadership is removed. In Portland, this isn't an empty threat. Also, the sports columnist for The Oregonian penned a pretty devastating column calling for Merritt Paulson to be sell.

That there is the appropriate application of damning with faint praise: "It's perfectly fine."

I like a league that isn't afraid to be counter-intuitive with its expansion strategy. I'm all for targeting markets that are growing and in which the team would be the only -- or one of the only -- games in town. A league that's still trying to grow would seem best-served in locations where it can get a lion's share of the buzz. It feels like an uphill battle to be the fourth or fifth major league team in a given market. MLS can too easily be cast aside as a fringe sport in those circumstances. I thought Cincinnati and St. Louis were interesting expansion markets: Slow-to-no-growth Midwest metros that are easy to overlook outside of their two pro sports teams. These are places that lack the cache of a desirable NBA city, but fit the blue-collar ethic of a sports like soccer that relies so heavily on grass-roots support.

The Blazers jerseys may not be my favorite, but I'll say this: I actually like that video. It makes it seem as if Dame put some serious effort into his role as "creative director" and didn't just reach for the most gimmicky bells and whistles. He showed some creative restraint, which I find admirable.

If so, it's sort of an unusual choice, and kind of a whole different direction for the team's branding. Is that pattern meant to be an "R"?

The unfortunate thing is the name "Commanders" — while not everybody's favorite choice — isn't bad. Considering the other choices, and the clear objective of trying to distance themselves from the prior name, I thought it worked. It's unique in big-league sports, and doesn't feel out of place among the pantheon of NFL names. But the branding around it is so terrible that it taints the name. I can't not associate "Commanders" with this atrocious look. They'll speak about this in college marketing classes some day as what not to do.

I think the updated Bulls helmet is an interesting update, but there are a couple nitpicks. 1. In the original, the bull was integrated into the horizontal stripe, giving the effect of movement, as if the bull was rushing to the front of the helmet. Your concept makes it look as if he's teetering off the edge of a cliff. I think it looks good as a secondary logo, but I think it lacks some of the dynamism of the original. 2. I don't like how the stripes end abruptly in a hard angle. My eyes are drawn not to the logo, but to the empty space where the stripes end. 3. On the primary logos, the type feels too squeezed next to the angled stripe. And like on the helmet, I find myself distracted by the white space above the word "Jacksonville." That angled stripe also appears to be what forced you have the type jutting out from the roundel. My recommendation for that: Let the orange/maroon/black stripe fill out the bottom. Maybe you can work the type into those stripes so the you can retain a circle shape.

I presume this means that St. Louis will be in the western conference?

What if LA is your alt-world corollary to the Seattle Seahawks of the era: Unveil prototypes of a helmet in silver and one in blue, and claim to let the fans decide which ones you go with. I'd also be curious to see what a blue version looks like.

You and I grew up in a similar era, so my feelings for this are very similar to yours. In a way, I feel bad for Aaron Judge. We can't rewrite history, and we'll never know whether Bonds/McGwire/Sosa were capable of touching the 60 mark without juicing, but it's pretty easy to think that the Steroid Era robbed Judge of a truly spectacular moment. Aside from the aforementioned Steroid Era players, it would have been 61 years since anybody had hit the 60 mark, proving just how difficult it was.

That's a real who's-who list of "Who?"