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The 2025 MLB season has not even reached the postseason yet, but we already have the schedule for what the 2026 season is going to look like. That schedule was released on Tuesday with some very notable takeaways. The season will get started in primetime with an Opening Night on Wednesday, March 25th as the New York Yankees fly across the country to visit the San Francisco Giants. The other 28 teams will start their seasons the next day for the earliest traditional Opening Day in MLB history, on March 26th. The New York Mets and Yankees will play each other in a series starting on September 11th for the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Every team will be in action on the 4th of July to celebrate the United States’ 250th birthday. The All-Star game will be in Philadelphia on July 14th. These are just a few of the many notable dates on the 2026 MLB schedule. Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman discuss their thoughts on the schedule, what stands out to them and how they feel about a balanced schedule. Plus, the World Cup arrives next summer. How will these games affect MLB games?

Then, the guys talk to a legend as Cal Ripken Jr. joins the show! He talks with Jake and Jordan about his Hall of Fame career. He chats about breaking the record for most consecutive games played, what he thinks about current players not playing all 162 games, his transition after baseball and more!

Next, the guys chat through some notable news. The new Women’s Professional Baseball League held tryouts recently, finishing up with their final day of tryouts at Nationals Park on August 25th. Over 600 women from 10 countries showed up to try out! Jake and Jordan talk about the impact this is having on the sport and where they hope to see this grow. Plus, the Mets call up a top pitching prospect to start Friday, Junior Caminero continues to impress at just 22-years-old and Garrett Crochet continues to make a case for the AL Cy Young.

Finally, the biggest news of the day, on Tuesday, didn’t come from the baseball world, but it did come from the sports world as Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift announced they are engaged. Jake and Jordan discuss who are the biggest celebrity couples involving an athlete. Are Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift bigger than Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe? Where might David and Victoria Beckham land in this debate?

All of this and more on today’s Baseball Bar-B-Cast.

Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images

(1:54) – MLB 2026 schedule release

(29:39) – Cal Ripken Jr. interview

(56:50) – Women’s Professional Baseball League

(1:03:54) – Mets call-up, Caminero impresses & Crochet pushes for AL Cy Young

(1:13:31) – Ranking Travis Kelce & Taylor Swift’s celebrity couple stardom

Follow the show on X at @CespedesBBQ

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The New York Mets are calling up pitcher Jonah Tong, their No. 4 prospect and No. 44 overall, who leads the minor leagues in strikeouts and earned-run average.

The 22-year-old right-hander will make a start Friday against the Miami Marlins, according to Mets manager Carlos Mendoza. Tong will join a team that finds itself in the middle of a playoff race. The Mets are behind the Philadelphia Phillies by five games in the National League East and hold a 3½ game lead for the last wild-card spot.

“This went fast for Jonah,” Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns said during a news conference Tuesday. “But to his credit, he really conquered everything we put in front of him. He exceeded our expectations throughout this year, and he put himself in a position where he deserved to be considered for a day like this.”

The Mets’ seventh-round draft pick in 2022 opened the season in double-A Binghamton, where he made 20 starts. Tong struck out 162 batters and led the league with a 1.59 ERA when he was promoted to triple-A Syracuse in earlier this month.

Tong will make a start with the big league team after pitching 11.2 innings in Syracuse without giving up a run while striking out 17.

The Mets are in the middle of a season-long 16 games in a 16-day stretch and the front office wanted to have a sixth starter to give its starting pitchers an extra day of rest.

“He earned it, man. He earned it,” Mendoza told reporters. “I’m excited. We are all excited.”

Tong and the Mets will face Eury Pérez and the Marlins on Friday at 4:10 p.m. PDT at Citi Field.

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Dawn Staley was ready to be the head coach of the New York Knicks.

In an interview with Candace Parker and Aliyah Boston on their “Post Moves” podcast, the South Carolina women’s basketball head coach confirmed she had a formal interview for the Knicks’ head coach vacancy earlier this summer and was interested in the position.

“If the Knicks would have offered me the job, I would have had to do it,” Staley said. “It’s not just for me, it’s for women, for … to break open that. It’s the New York Knicks, and I’m from Philly, but it’s the freakin’ New York Knicks.”

League sources told The Athletic that while Staley impressed during her conversation with team president Leon Rose and other members of the Knicks’ front office, she was not considered a finalist to fill the vacancy left when the team fired head coach Tom Thibodeau following the franchise’s first trip to the Eastern Conference finals in 25 years. The franchise hired Mike Brown, formerly the Sacramento Kings’ head coach, to replace Thibodeau.

During the conversation with Parker and Boston, Staley said she went into the interview with the Knicks’ brass with a series of questions of her own, primarily centered around the potential impact of hiring the first woman head coach in NBA history.

“Would I take any NBA job? No,” Staley said. “I will say this: The NBA has to be ready for a female head coach. You can’t just interview somebody and say, ‘We’re going to hire her.’ I probably lost the job by asking this question.”

“Well, I had a series of questions that I asked them,” she continued. “No. 1 was: Why was I in the candidate pool? I said, ‘Has the New York Knicks organization, in its history, ever had what you’re looking for? They wanted a team. They wanted inclusiveness with management, coaches and everyone. They wanted it to feel like a closely-knit franchise. The answer was really ‘no.’ If you don’t hire anyone different, how are you going to get that? That was No. 1.

“My other question was, ‘If you hired me as the first female coach, how would it impact your daily job?’ Because it would. It would. You’re going to get questions that you don’t have to be asked if you hire a male coach. There’s going to be the media, all this stuff you’ll have to deal with that you didn’t have to deal with and don’t have to deal with when you hire a male. That got them to thinking. That really got them to thinking. ‘Maybe she’s right.’ I felt the energy change after that.”

Staley signed a new contract with South Carolina in January that makes her the highest-paid coach in women’s college basketball. The deal, which extends through the 2029-30 season, totals more than $25 million after signing bonuses and annual increases.

Staley’s interview was part of an unorthodox Knicks’ coaching search that ended with Brown’s hiring. Team decision-makers reached out to multiple NBA teams to inquire about their head coaches under contract, like Houston’s Ime Udoka, Dallas’ Jason Kidd and Chicago’s Billy Donovan. The Knicks also interviewed NBA assistant coaches like Minnesota’s Micah Nori and New Orleans’ James Borrego, as well as recently-fired head coaches like Taylor Jenkins and Brown.

More women than ever are joining NBA coaching staffs in high-ranking roles, but no woman has ever been the head coach of an NBA team.

In 2019, the Knicks, under a previous regime, hired Lisa Willis, a former WNBA player, as an assistant coach for their G League affiliate.

There are currently three women who serve as NBA assistant coaches: Jenny Boucek (Indiana Pacers), Brittni Dolandson (Atlanta Hawks) and Lindsey Harding (Los Angeles Lakers). In 2024, Harding, then the head coach of the Stockton Kings, became the first woman to be named coach of the year in the G League. Harding was the first woman to be the head coach of a G League team, and she worked under Anjali Ranadivé, the first female general manager in G League history.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

New York Knicks, South Carolina Gamecocks, NBA, Sports Business, Women’s College Basketball, Culture

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Mets reliever Huascar Brazoban has been optioned to Triple-A Syracuse.

Kevin Herget was called up from Triple-A Syracuse to replace Brazoban on the roster.

Brazoban had an MRI for a side issue before being sent down, manager Carlos Mendoza said before Wednesday’s game against the Phillies at Citi Field.

The right-hander has spent a chunk of the season in the minors, and his results at the big league level have been mixed.

He has a 3.91 ERA (4.12 FIP) and 1.32 WHIP in 43.0 innings across 46 appearances.

Brazoban struggled during his inning on Tuesday against the Phillies, allowing one run on three hits.

Herget has pitched 4.1 innings over two games for the Mets this season, allowing two runs (one earned) while walking none and striking out one.