Friday Four-Pack 6.6.25

Pablo Torre defends his Belichick reporting. A new sports betting surcharge could impact all bettors. Barstool Sports goes viral, again. Belmont Stakes week!

You were supposed to get birds, but instead you’re getting Belichick.

Let me explain.

Weeks with Triple Crown races, like this one, are busy. I’m distracted from my usual routine because I’m watching dozens of race replays and handicapping a bunch of races for our Belmont Bash at Mohegan Sun. Add in a playoff week of town baseball for the boys, plus my intense mental and physical preparation for the biggest basketball game of my life Monday night, and yeah, I was all over the place this week.

Part of the week was spent setting up the Smart Bird Feeder I received for Christmas, which I wrote about here a few months ago. Did I ask for that bird feeder out of nowhere at the age of 45 because my dad was/is a hunter, I never went hunting with him as a kid, and now I’m trying to connect with him on something outdoorsy besides golf? That’s probably a topic better addressed in therapy.

Back to the birds. Oh, the birds! So many different birds in our neighborhood! I’d post a few pics, we’d have some laughs, and I’d move on to Portnoy v. Minihane.

The problem is it’s been three-plus days…and no birds.

No birds, no squirrels, no raccoons. Nothing. Well, that’s not entirely true.

The lone image since Wednesday was your humble newsletter publisher checking to see if the thing was working, as I had no hits on Tuesday.

That’s no bird, to be sure.

The WiFi is connected. The app seems to work fine. I bought the suggested type of feed (black sunflower seeds). Maybe I placed it too close to the house? I needed to be connected to the WiFi and I wanted to see the thing out the kitchen window. Are birds scared of the house? Freaking squirrels everywhere and nothing? Seems impossible.

I’ve failed at many things in my life, and having to add “failed inspiring birder” to my resume is not great.

No birds. Yet. So we pivot to Bill Belichick.

Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk suggested Thursday that Belichick’s only path to an NFL sideline might be with the Tampa Bay Bucs. This is after Florio admitted that “..the vibe (of Bill Belichick getting another NFL job) has shifted from inevitability to impossibility.”

Sure, his buyout at UNC dropped to just $1 million this past weekend, but Belichick to the NFL is not happening. He wants full control, and he’s not getting it after the way things cratered in New England. And yes, his relationship with 24-year-old Jordon Hudson is another big reason.

Pablo Torre explained it perfectly in his excellent podcast appearance with Bill Simmons this week.

“This is the story,” Torre told Simmons. “Bill Belichick, free from the NFL, in which he has been terrible at picking people around him to support him who could stand on their own two feet, and in fact are these remora fish, attached to him and his business…this guy, who teams already knew to be bad at developing supporting talent…the point is now, Bill Belichick leaving the Patriots, being trusted with staffing a building, teams didn’t trust who was around him. And one of the people who was around him, as early as 2021…”

He never lands it because Simmons talks over him, but he’s alluding to Hudson. NFL teams, rightfully so, have questions about BB’s decision-making in light of his relationship with someone almost 50 years his junior.

As Torre has extensively reported, Belichick met Hudson when she was just 19 years old. She sat in Belichick’s seats at Gillette Stadium in 2021. When the team played overseas, Hudson also made the trip. The NY Times reported she wore red pants at Pats training camp practices, at Bill’s request, so he could easily find her in the crowd. I could go on and on and on.

Simmons had him on his popular podcast because he didn’t seem to think this was a big story worth a real investigation. Torre certainly doesn’t need my defense of his work on this - he’s been tremendous. This would be a significant story if it were just about Bill's situation with the Patriots, his crashout, and then not getting another NFL job. But it’s not - he's also the head coach at a state school, making $10 million a year…and requesting to have his girlfriend CC’d on his emails.

“Jordon Hudson is trying to do this thing,” Torre said with Simmons, “where there’s Personal Bill and Professional Bill, and for right now, I will do the same. Football Bill - Genius. Personal Bill - utter superfund disaster. And that’s what the story is.”

Torre alludes to the idea that Belichick and Hudson are openly using his current job at UNC to audition for his next NFL coaching gig. And Simmons seems to agree, which gets us back to Florio’s take that the Bucs might be an eventual landing spot for Bill.

No chance. There’s too much wreckage from the end of the Pats’ Dynasty and too much Personal Bill information out there now for an NFL team to take a chance on the recently turned 73-year-old.

If you’re a Patriots fan who hates seeing the greatest coach of all time and the coach of your favorite teams stumble late in his career, I get it. However, the idea that you or Bill Simmons think this is not a real story worth a deep dive is bonkers. Simmons, of course, ends up agreeing that it’s probably worth investigating, and I’ll award Torre a clear win in the ‘debate.’

It sounds like Torre is not done with his work on this. If the NFL does come calling, you’ll have even more reporters digging around because NFL Bill is much more high-profile than UNC Bill.

It might annoy Simmons and other Pats fans, but I’m here for it.

Meanwhile, I need to fire off a spicy Red Sox take. The Belmont Stakes looks like an awesome race. And Barstool Sports goes viral thanks to Portnoy vs. Minihane.

That and much more in today’s Four-Pack.

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On the calls to fire Red Sox manager Alex Cora…

Sports radio hosts are suggesting and predicting it.

Sports radio callers agree.

Redditors are commenting in droves on a “Fire Alex Cora now” thread.

With the Celtics’ offseason starting earlier than expected, the Bruins in the offseason, and the Pats still months away from real football, the Red Sox become the focus of Boston sports. And make no mistake, at 30-34 and 9.5 games back in the AL East, the Red Sox are not good.

But I think the calls to fire Alex Cora are silly. I don’t say this as some huge Alex Cora fan.

Just eleven months ago, the team gave Cora a three-year extension, making him reportedly the second-highest paid manager in baseball. There is no doubt he was one of the reasons the team was able to land Alex Bregman in the off-season. His players love him; he's won big games before. At a time when you’re trying to transition all these young players into your Major League lineup, he should be expected to lead that charge, not be fired for a few bad months of baseball.

WEEI’s Jermaine Wiggins believes Cora will be fired this season. He asked Chief Baseball Officer (what a title 🙄) Craig Breslow on Thursday if the team would make a managerial change if things don’t get better.

“We're always going to be anchored to what is best for the team, and we have a lot of confidence in Alex as the leader of this group. He's won in Boston as a player. He's won in Boston as a manager. We have conversations daily about everything that we can do to get us back on track. That's where our focus is, and that's where it will remain.”

Yikes. I did not take that as a strong endorsement for Cora.

“I do,” Breslow said when asked if he had confidence in Cora to get the team back on track. “And when a team is struggling like we are, and is falling short of the lofty expectations that we have set for ourselves, that fans had set for us, I think we all feel a sense of responsibility and accountability. But we’ve got to figure this out, and that’s where we’re spending all of our time right now.”

Breslow did a terrible job of backing his manager on Thursday. And if anyone is at risk of losing their job in June of 2025, it should be Breslow.

The Red Sox won’t fire either, but Breslow is much more to blame than Cora for the team’s struggles.

Many of the club’s issues stem from HIS mistakes. We highlighted much of this last week, but no backup plan for Triston Casas at first base…failed efforts to make sure Rafael Devers was in a good space after the Bregman signing…too many outfielders…failed pitching staff. This was a flawed team from the start, and Cora is taking the bulk of the blame for it.

Breslow was the team’s eventual 10th or 11th choice for the job after almost a dozen people reportedly turned down offers of even interviewing for the gig. Maybe it’s his robotic approach with the media or his terrible gambles on the pitching staff, but I don’t have much faith he’s going to be the architect of the Red Sox next World Series roster.

Put it this way - I have much more faith in Alex Cora doing his job well than I do Craig Breslow. If one of them had to go based on the bad start, I’d reset in the front office before I moved on from the manager.

I’m probably in the minority, I get it. It’s easier to beat up on Cora than the smart guy from Yale. And baseball managers are easy targets for fans.

The ‘Fire Cora’ narrative will only pick up steam if the team sucks this weekend in New York against the Yankees. I just hope the guy who was actually in charge of building the team for 2025 gets some of the blame at some point, because he sure deserves it.

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On a new sports betting ‘tax’ and potential impacts…

Image from The Action Network

This feels like a big one.

As sports betting has become more widespread in the United States (now legal in 38 states and counting), lawmakers have been looking for ways to tweak different rules and regulations. Some of these changes, such as daily wagering limits, are designed to protect consumers. Others are just blatant money grabs from lawmakers, looking to squeeze more return out of the sports betting industry.

This is one of those blatant money grabs, with the potential to have a much larger impact.

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.

“With this change, lawmakers are essentially urging customers—and especially these small dollar bettors—to switch to unsafe and unregulated sportsbooks who defy state consumer protections and generate zero taxes for state priorities,” the Sports Betting Alliance said in a statement Sunday “These illegal operators are the big winners from Saturday’s vote.”

How much longer will Illinois sportsbooks offer $1 bets when they’re being taxed 50% on each one?

Steve Ruddock does a great job covering the sports betting industry at his own excellent Substack newsletter, Straight to the Point. He’s much, much smarter than me, and I asked him a few questions about the new tax and its impact.

How will this impact sports bettors in Illinois (perhaps you think it won't)?

This will be an interesting policy to watch as it is not distributed equally across the industry. FanDuel and DraftKings will be the hardest hit companies, but any attempt to offset the per-wager fee by cutting back on promotions or worse lines can be capitalized on by their competitors.

Furthermore, because the fee is on a per-wager basis, this is a situation where I think sportsbooks could transparently pass it on to the customer for wagers under, say, $10, similar to stores adding a fee or flat-out refusing to accept credit cards unless the sale meets a minimum purchase amount due to the high transaction fees.

What are the chances that this becomes commonplace and other states try to adopt it? Massachusetts a possibility?

If I‘m a sportsbook, I’m not feeling very comfortable at the moment. Several years of plenty in state legislatures have given way to what looks to be several years of famine. So, whether it’s a straight tax increase, like in Maryland, the sunsetting of promotional deductions, like in Colorado, or a more creative policy, like in Illinois, states are making it very clear that there aren’t any sacred cows. They’ll bump the tax rate on gambling operators before the ink is dry on the original law and in back-to-back years. I don’t think Massachusetts is exempt from these discussions.

Not great.

Last summer, DraftKings floated the idea of their own surcharge on wagers placed in ‘high-tax’ states, like New York and Illinois. The idea was that, say, a winning $10 wager at even money (meaning you won $10 on that $10 bet) would return just $9.68 after a 32-cent surcharge was deducted from he winnings. The idea was met with massive pushback from the sports betting industry, and DraftKings shelved the proposal. What happened in Illinois last weekend seems likely to rekindle that idea.

None of this is good. As I’ve written here dozens of times, being a winning sports bettor is hard. It makes it a lot harder when lawmakers, trying to balance their own state budgets, start tapping into sports betting, and the trickle down is to take more of the money you just won on your mobile sportsbook.

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On the field for the 2025 Belmont Stakes…

The final leg of the Triple Crown comes up Saturday night at 7:04 EST on Fox Sports, as the Belmont Stakes is run for the second straight year at Saratoga Race Course.

The top three from the Derby meet up in what looks like a fantastic race. Those top three also look like the right three in here, with one upsetter in the mix, at least based on this handicapper’s opinion. A quick look at he field -

#1 Hill Road (10-1) - Deep closer should be fine with this rail draw as he’s likely to sit and make one run. Peter Pan group he beat was okay, with the top three finishers all running Beyers in the low 90s. Second start after this type of layoff, on the dirt with 3 YO, trainer Chad Brown a gaudy 30% over the last five years with a $2.12 ROI. Over 60% of those finished in the money. Could see him cracking the trifecta if things go his way.

#2 Sovereignty (2-1) - Derby winner sat out the Preakness with this spot in mind. Training well after getting knocked by some of the wiseguys in racing media for not training well into his Fountain of Youth win. Like Hill Road, he’ll be coming late, and a wet track would not be an issue. The only knock is that, like Hill Road, he might need a quick pace to set up his run. At least on paper, I don’t know if he’s likely to get it. At 2-1, my least favorite of the top three in here, but he’s a win candidate.

#3 Rodriguez (6-1) - Trainer Bob Baffert had to have been annoyed when Crudo was entered late because this guy might have been able to waltz on he front end. Has early speed and jockey Mike Smith is likely to use it to his advantage. Inside speed going two turns on the dirt at Saratoga has usually been a real advantage. Looking back at last year’s Belmont Festival at Saratoga, speed won six of the seven races 9 furlongs or longer over four days. Only Crupi came from well back to win the Suburban. If he cruises early, he could win this race.

#4 Uncaged (30-1) - Two for two on wet tracks, but way too slow on speed figures to make a real case for this guy.

#5 Crudo (15-1) - This runner might be the key to the race. If he lets Rodriguez go, that guy might wire this group. If he goes with the Baffert trainee and sets an honest pace, horses like Hill Road and Sovereignty would see their chances improved. I think he can outrun his odds, but it's hard to see him cracking the trifecta.

#6 Baeza (4-1) - Trainer John Shirreffs has not run a horse in Saratoga over the last 10 years - he shows up Saturday, meaning business. Has more early speed than he showed in the Derby, and that should be a big benefit here. He had no right to run so well in Kentucky, and another move forward makes him a player with the Derby and Preakness winners. Flavien Prat is one of, if not the best, jockeys in the country, so that’s a plus. At his 4-1 morning line, he’ll offer some value to the top two and would not mock a win bet on this guy.

#7 Journalism (8/5) - I could see the ML favorite going off as the second choice to Sovereignty. Earned a 98 Beyer even after that massive trouble in the Preakness. Had his own trouble in the Derby and was still right there, while Sovereignty had the sweet outside trip. Tactical enough to be closer to a slow pace. The video I watched of him on Tuesday at Saratoga showed zero signs of wear heading into this third race in five weeks, and the clocker reports have been very positive. The horse nicknamed ‘King Kong’ around his California barn looms as a huge threat to take his second Triple Crown race of 2025.

#8 Heart of Honor (30-1) - Guessing he’ll be the longest shot on the board, and with good reason. He came home as fast as Sandman in the Preakness after being fractious in the gate. Probably gets the same trip here, but others are faster and I can’t find a reason to use, other than the bottom of tris and supers -and that would be on very spread tickets.

My heart says Journalism gets it done. But Baeza might be the better value bet, given he was right with the favorite in the Santa Anita Derby and might be 3x the price. I’ll have my final thoughts on the race tomorrow in a special Belmont Stakes newsletter.

Talked about the race extensively with on the MutStack Podcast with Jessica Paquette and Dick Jerardi. You can watch and listen here.

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On your MutStack Notes…

🔥 Before the very public breakup of President Trump and Elon Musk on Thursday, the most viral story this week (by a wide margin) was Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy and Kirk Minihane battling on Wednesday’s Unnamed Show. It was a wild back-and-forth debate worth watching. With almost 20 million views of the clip that former Dallas Cowboys WR Dez Bryant commented on above, people are seeing it.

Dave believes that, given the current climate, where Jewish Americans are being violently targeted in this country and abroad, jokes about the issue are out of bounds. Portnoy has been very vocal about this for a few months. Kirk maintains that jokes are jokes. “You’re telling a comedian not to make a joke,” Minihane said. “OK, we’ll ban Jew jokes of that nature. We’ll get the constitution, we’ll get congress, and ban Jew jokes of that nature.”

At the center of this is Mick Marks, the man who beat the Boston media to the Jim Montgomery story. He called Portnoy “Rabbi Dave” on X.com, commenting on Dave’s response to a Temple student posting a video on social media that showed one of those ‘bottle service’ signs in a Portnoy-owned bar with the message “F–k the Jews” written on it. Dave called Mick anti-semitic for the comment multiple times over the last few weeks on Unnamed, and then on Wednesday, we got Portnoy vs. Minihane. Mick was a scheduled guest on the show, but Portnoy cancelled his appearance.

The reactions came from all over as people took sides on Team Portnoy and Team Minihane. We talked about it quite a bit on Kirk’s show on Thursday. It says something about both media stars that they had this heated battle, then just went on to do the rest of Unnamed, and were able to have some laughs with fellow co-host Ryan Whitney.

Marks himself did not appear to be having fun with the story the next day.

Reached by MutStack.com to see what legal action Marks might be pursuing after this cryptic post late Thursday, Marks told me, “I’ve been advised not to speak on anything right now. No further comment at this time (respectfully).”

This one might not be over. Stay tuned. 👀

Update: Marks posted a 7-minute Podcast on Friday morning, saying he won’t take part in any further Barstool content and requested an on-air meeting with Portnoy on Monday. Again, stay tuned.

💰 I hear a lot of complaints from Rhode Island residents about the state’s only mobile sportsbook, Sportsbook Rhode Island. The state senate would like to give those residents more options, and on Wednesday afternoon, approved a bill that would expand the mobile sports betting market from just one operator to potentially up to five. According to Robert Linnehan, there’s a similar House bill that “has long been stalled in committee.” Crazy in 2025, no FanDuel or DraftKings in RI, IMO.

🎰 Meanwhile, in NH, there is currently a statewide $50 limit on table games. That could change if HB2 - an amendment that was approved as part of a larger budget proposal - passes without change this summer. Lawmakers like Sen. Tim Lang of Sanbornton want to remove any limits in hopes of attracting more high rollers to NH casinos. As recently as 2023, the limit was just $10. If New Hampshire wants to compete with the other resort casino destinations across New England, this would be a good first step. A second would be nicer hotels.

⚾ The Red Sox and Angels got into a pregame dustup this week. NESN’s X.com account posted a video of the altercation…and then deleted it.

“We’re committed to covering our teams in a way that shows the full picture. Since the social post lacked audio, we made the decision to remove it from our feed and prioritize discussion of it during our pregame show and in-game broadcast,” a NESN spokesperson told the Boston Herald.“Our team not only talked about what happened but who was involved and why it may have happened, providing the clarity and context that we felt was important.”

Amid a bad season, the video makes Cora and his team look bad. If the video made the team look good, even without sound, it would not have been deleted. Weak move from NESN.

🛰️ Sirius XM has hired Stephen A. Smith to do a daily, two-hour show on MadDog Sports Radio. In addition, he’ll host a “current events” type show on another channel. I initially mocked this, wondering who was going to seek out MORE Stephen A. Smith at this point. However, the reality is that he’ll have a social media clip/soundbite or two a month that'll go viral, occasionally super-viral, and be worth every penny to Sirius XM. That’s the way shows get traction and eyeballs in 2025. And Stephen A. Smith is very good at that.

And with that, we have said it all.

Back tomorrow with a full-card handicap of the Belmont card at Saratoga and final thoughts on the finishing leg of the 2025 Triple Crown.

Hope to have that mailed out and posted early before we take the stage at Mohegan Sun for their Belmont Stakes Watch Party.

Good luck with all your bets this weekend. And thanks for reading.