Friday Four-Pack 6.13.25

Tom Brady gets a statue, should Bill Belichick? More Blame for Breslow. Sports bettors being charged per bet. Notes galore!

He deserves a statue.

For all that Tom Brady meant to the New England Patriots and their fans, a bronze statue at Gillette Stadium is befitting of the man who helped the team win six Super Bowls.

I like bronze sports statues. The Bobby Orr statue near TD Garden is cool. As a teenager, it was fun to take pictures with the Red Auerbach statue in Faneuil Hall. Brady having one where fans can take selfies for decades is a good idea.

I asked X.com’s AI brain, Grok, to give me an idea of what it might look like.

Hopefully, the local sculptors hired to do the actual one are better than my work with AI prompts. And they get his #12 correct. This one was a little better…well, the face is not great.

The actual sculptors will do better…hopefully.

Brady has Fox TV commitments once the season starts, so I understand doing this during an August preseason game; I don’t love it, but I get it.

In honor of Brady’s No. 12 jersey, the statue will be 12 feet tall. Brady will become the first Patriot to get a statue at Gillette.

Should Bill Belichick be next?

I don’t need to rehash it all, but the Bob Kraft/Bill Belichick breakup was messy. Kraft essentially fired Bill, then forced him to do one last ‘fake handshake’ press conference. Kraft then reportedly had bad things to say about Bill when the coach was trying to get a job with the Falcons. Bill, in turn, didn’t even mention Kraft in his new book on coaching. The relationship is icy to say the least.

But so was the Kraft/Bill Parcells relationship, and Parcells will finally be inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame this summer. At some point, Kraft and Belichick will mend fences. And when they do, Kraft has to do something to honor him.

Brady is the best quarterback of all time, and Belichick is the greatest coach of all time - at least in this modern era of football. Vince Lombardi and Paul Brown get mentioned in these conversations, but that was a different time. In this current era, Belichick is a clear #1, with Andy Reid at #2.

If Brady gets a statue, so should Belichick. Or you rename the road to Gillette Stadium Belichick Way. Kraft will eventually realize he has to honor the hoodie, maybe with a statue of Bill in his own bronzed hoodie.

If anyone is going to balk at this, it will be Belichick. He seems like a man who can hold a grudge (Eric Mangini says hello), and he may view not taking part in the team trying to honor him as one final chance to stick it to them. It would be a bad look for it to leak out that the team wanted to celebrate the coach, but the coach wasn’t interested. I could see it playing out this way 100%, especially in the unlikely scenario that Bill ends up back in the NFL.

After Brady and then Belichick, the only other bronze statue I might think about if I’m Kraft would be for Adam Vinatieri. He has some huge kicks, and a kicker statue would look pretty cool.

But I could also see them instead doing some sort of Patriot Way statue, as a nod to Belichick and the ‘team-first’ mentality. The Krafts loved that term so much they trademarked it, something Bill mocked in his book. Again, some real anger there.

But it will pass. And when it does, the team will want to honor their six-time Super Bowl-winning coach.

But will the coach want to go along with it?

And once we celebrate the Brady statue in August, we can all move on. We had the day to announce Brady Day. Then we had Brady Day. Now we have Brady Statue Day. I love Tom Brady, but it’s time to turn the page to Drake Maye and focus on the teams of the future, not the past.

But I’ll admit it, the Brady statue is a good idea…as long as it’s better than my AI versions.

Meanwhile, the Sox could have handled their prospects better. You’ll be charged per bet in Illinois, thanks to state lawmakers. And the Boston Globe writes a big profile on a sports radio show in Boston.

All ahead in this week’s Four-Pack.

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On how the Red Sox are handling their top prospects…

RedSox.com photo

It’s exciting that the Red Sox called up super prospect Roman Anthony this week. And it was exciting a few weeks before that when the team called up another top prospect, Marcelo Mayer. As a fan, you should be excited that two of the best prospects the organization has had over the last decade are on the big club, trying to help the team get back into both the AL East and Wild Card races.

What’s less exciting was the way the two callups were handled.

When the news broke Monday afternoon that Anthony was headed to Fenway from Worcester, it was rational to assume he’d be on the bench to sit and watch his first game on the roster.

In late May, when Mayer was first called up, it was between games of a doubleheader at Fenway Park. Alex Cora was asked about it after the first game and could not even answer because, presumably, he wasn’t 100% sure the kid would make it to the ballpark on time.

In both cases, the prospects drove the roughly 45 miles from Worcester to Boston and played that same day.

Again, terrific that they’re both here. But the process and the planning? Not great.

My former intern and now Underdog Fantasy star Jared Carrabis made an excellent point about this on The Sports Hub’s The Baseball Hour this past Wednesday.

“A lot of these guys, and we’ve seen it historically, if you’re a big name prospect, and there’s gonna be all this attention and focus on you, and media…they debut on the road…that’s strategic. Tito (former Red Sox manager Terry Francona) would make sure of it. ‘We have someone that we’re calling up, call them up on the road.’ The fact that you had an injury, and Roman has to come up at Fenway, and it’s nice that he can just hop in his car and drive over from Worcester and be in the lineup the same day he’s called up. That’s another thing Tito used to do. ‘If you get called up today, you’re going to be on the bench. You’re going to observe, you’re going to chill..the thrill of getting called up, just experience it, and then you’ll be on the lineup tomorrow.’

Now, with both Meyer and Anthony, you’ve had Fenway Park call-ups in the lineup on the same day. Like, they drove from Worcester, didn’t have any pregame routine, and it’s just ‘Here you go, you’re in the lineup for the Boston Red Sox. Roman Anthony, you’re batting fifth…Marcelo Mayer, three days after your call-up, you’re batting cleanup. So, I don’t know if they’ve handled it swimmingly…”

It got lost in the shuffle because people were so pumped to see the kids here, but Jared makes an excellent point.

I reached out to him on Thursday to see if he thought it was Alex Cora or Craig Breslow who made the call on the clumsy callups.

“I’m assuming both, since (Meyer and Anthony) got called up after injuries. They just happened to need them right away, but it more so illustrates that they never had a real plan. They were just waiting for injuries to solve their roster problems for them.”

Bingo.

And since I wrote about him two weeks ago. And then again last week, let’s go for the trifecta: I have no confidence that Craig Breslow is the right guy for this team.

Seemingly having no real plan with your top prospects is just one reason. I have no idea if he and the manager are on the same page, which is not ideal after Cora just received a contract extension. The latest miscommunication came when Breslow had to pump the brakes on Sam Kennedy suggesting Rafael Devers might eventually play in the field.

Now that Meyer and Anthony are here, Cora says the plan will be to sit them against lefties. I hate that. And it suggests that when players like Alex Bregman and Wilyer Abreu are ready, they could be sent back down to AAA, rather than making roster moves to keep them here for the remainder of the season.

You can be excited that the kids are here, but you can also point out that the planning to get them here seems non-existent. Their arrivals were handled poorly. And for that, I blame Craig Breslow.

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On sportsbooks charging bettors a per-bet fee…

“Over the weekend, seemingly out of nowhere, Illinois lawmakers passed a new surcharge on sports betting in that state.

The tax places a 25-cent surcharge on every bet for a licensee’s first 20 million bets, and then 50 cents per bet thereafter. Last year, Illinois raised the flat tax on sports betting from 15% to 40%. As the state seeks ways to fund public transit upgrades, it has decided to target sportsbooks — and, in turn, sports bettors.

Although this tax is not directly charged to the sports bettor, it will have a significant impact.”

This was last week. Well, turns out the tax will indeed be charged back directly to the sports bettor.

Earlier this week, FanDuel announced it will start tacking on a $.50 fee to every mobile bet. On Thursday afternoon, DraftKings followed suit with the press release above, saying they’ll do the same.

This means if you make a $25 bet on the Bears this fall, in Illinois, it will cost you $25.50, whether you win or not. It also means if you make a silly $1 homerun parlay, that bet will now cost you $1.50. You’ll still get paid out like you bet $1, but you’ll be taxed at a 50% rate for that bet.

To be clear, I don’t blame the two sports betting giants. Illinois is having trouble balancing its budget, so it’s coming after the sportsbooks and the sports betting industry.

This isn't good for sports bettors. Not because they’ll all go broke suddenly - the fee is a nominal one that will be more of an annoyance than a deterrent for a majority of people placing bets. What I dislike so much is that this will open the door for more states to follow Illinois' lead, and soon, in my opinion, this will become commonplace in legal sports betting in the United States.

Sportsbooks are still limiting winning bettors, in most cases, without any warning or explanation. They’re funneling bettors to ‘featured’ Same Game Parlays on their mobile apps that, when you do the math, pay out LESS if you bet it on that ‘featured’ tab vs. just building it out yourself. Now, they’re setting a new precedent by passing along a betting surcharge to the consumer.

Safe to say in 2025, it’s harder than ever to beat the books.

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On less than 360 seconds to explain the CAW issue…

It’s also more difficult than ever to win long-term betting on horse racing. Rather than writing 1,000 words on it this week, the video above is approximately 360 seconds long, providing the most succinct explanation I’ve read on the CAW problem, along with a recent example of its severity.

You can read the piece referenced in the video right here.

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On your MutStack notes…

📝 On Thursday, Chad Finn wrote a long feature on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s morning show, Toucher and Hardy. The show continues to draw big numbers and remains #1 with Men 25-54, even after the highly publicized breakup of Fred Toucher and Rich Shertenlieb in 2023. Fred deserves a lot of credit for that.

“Everyone is an open book. That’s a change with Hardy. It wasn’t that way before. People don’t feel like their ideas are precious or more valuable than anyone else’s,” Toucher told Finn. It was one of a few veiled shots that he took at his former co-host in the piece. He’s taken plenty of obvious shots at Rich on his show, like this one. There was not much of that in this piece.

Rich was made aware of the feature and was asked for a comment from the Globe.

“I have stayed silent in an attempt to take the high road while Fred Toucher says untrue and slanderous things about me in an attempt to defame my character, much like he admitted to doing to other members of our show months before I left,” Shertenlieb said. “This is disappointing, as Fred was someone I once considered a good friend.”

It reads like it was written by a lawyer, not an actual human being, and you have to wonder if Rich is planning a lawsuit. That might be a reach by me, to be fair. Fred, very sarcastically, responded to Rich on his show Thursday.

“There is a quote from Rich if you’re looking for that,” Toucher said. “It makes him look great – couldn’t make him look better. His instincts are still there, he’s still got it. He’s still got it. Good for him. He comes off beautifully…. And I don’t badmouth him at all in the article. I don’t even mention him by name in the article. I just say – management concurs with me about the thing, you can read it yourself – but he’s got a pretty quasi-legal statement up there, so good for him, good for him. That’s good stuff. He’s still got it.”

The Fred vs. Rich stuff is compelling, at least to me. The feature talking about how Fred and his new co-host are good friends or how fantastic Fred is at reacting to random sound…eh. Fans of the show will likely enjoy it, and I believe it will be featured in the physical copy of The Globe on Sunday.

BUT…It’s worth noting that a year ago, Finn did a feature on Rich Shertenlieb’s first show at WZLX. This felt like a little bit of a ‘make-good’ for siding with Fred’s enemy last May, and a chance for Finn to get back in good graces with the Sports Hub team.

It’s also worth noting that Finn hates does not like WEEI Morning Show producer (co-host?) Chris Curtis. He wrote recently, “The Greg Hill Show carries WEEI, but it’s not an easy listen: Sometimes, as the sports media columnist, I feel like I’m pulling off a gambit, getting paid to listen to sports radio. And then Chris Curtis speaks, and I think I should ask for hazard pay.” That dislike predates Greg’s show and is tied directly to Curtis’s role as producer of The Kirk and Callahan Show, which would frequently mock Finn. I don’t know if he’s ‘rooting’ for Toucher and Hardy necessarily, but it needs to be noted.

After features on two other morning shows in the market, I would not bet on Finn’s next feature focusing on The Greg Hill Show.

📻 Speaking of The Greg Hill Show…I understand, I’m old. And 20 years ago, maybe I’d feel differently. But on Thursday, WEEI’s morning show had Roman Anthony’s sister, Lia Anthony, as a guest. Lia went viral this week after she was featured on NESN during her brother’s game at Fenway Park.

Lia came across GREAT in the interview. Listening live on Thursday morning, some of the questions from host Greg Hill came across as creepy.

Many of the responses on social media seemed to agree. She’s an adult (23 years old) and had an idea of what the questions might be, I get it. But listening to some of the questions… call me a prude, but kinda creepy.

🏀 After a year-plus of losing, the Kirk Minihane Show Basketball team secured our first win ever on Monday, 30-26, over a team made up of players from Barstool Sports New York.

It was a gritty, gutty defensive effort. It was awesome to be part of the win that celebrated the life of Nick Soares, aka Cinema Lords. The crowd was electric, and the team played hard from start to finish. This team bonded together for Cinema and dug deep to pull off the win.

But I retired from adult basketball last year for a reason. The shell of a man you see above, lying on the Vale Co-Op court, is old. He’s washed up. And he is certainly no longer built for full-court, full-speed basketball against 20-year-olds. It’s Friday morning, and my right rib cage still hurts. And the lat muscle behind it now hurts more than it did on Tuesday morning. I spent hours shooting to prep for this game, only to go 0-3 and miss wide-open looks. I would have been happy to walk back into retirement off that emotional win.

But now Dave Portnoy is getting involved. And the NY team is complaining about the refs, calling the win a fluke. So we’ll play the rubber game of this three-game series on Monday, July 28.

So we heal up and get prepared for Game 3. I want to be a part of another win with this group, even if I’m likely to end up on the floor again, in pain, embarrassing myself.

🏇🏻 Sovereignty left no doubt who the best three-year-old in the country is, dominating the Belmont Stakes last Saturday at Saratoga. The connections skipped the Preakness and probably cost themselves a Triple Crown. They seem okay with it, and the next target appears to be the Travers in late August. Hopefully, Journalism comes East for that one. If not, I don’t know if he’ll have a real challenger in that race.

🏇🏻 From a customer-service standpoint, I thought NYRA handled Belmont Stakes day very poorly. They took two races off the turf, then just cancelled two others, all with very little communication to the public. It ended up being a lovely afternoon in Saratoga with no rain at all. They could have pushed back first post a few hours (10:30 AM start is silly anyway), cut down the time between races, and been able to run on the turf as scheduled later in the day. The decisions led to the cancellation of all the late multi-race bets, as well as some of the two-day wagers. In the end, the bettors got screwed, which is the norm these days in horse racing.

And with that, we have for sure said it all.

Happy Father’s Day to all the MutStack Dads out there, including my dad, The Viking, Dan Mutnansky. He used to take me to the old driving range in Pepperell anytime I wanted to go, and this was before he even liked golf. Now he plays 2- 3x a week and has taught my boys how to play. It’s been amazing to watch. Great dad and an even better ‘Buppa.’ Hope you’re able to enjoy some time with your dad this weekend…US Open weekend!

Good luck with all your golf bets. And thanks for reading.