Sunday Morning Coffee — July 26, 2026 — Sunday Morning Scramble

By Roy Berger, Las Vegas, NV

Originally, we were going to give y’all a SMC break this weekend and play hooky today. But then LeBron had to spoil it by making another one of his ‘decisions.’ And now the NBA schedule-maker is working overtime to get the Philadelphia 76ers as much national exposure as the networks will accommodate. In the process of choosing the Sixers LeBron paid no attention to America’s most famous cynic, Philadelphia born W.C. Fields, who more than once said about his boyhood home, “Philadelphia is a wonderful city, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” Well, despite the warning, the NBA superstar will be checking in for two years, becoming a 76er on Friday. At 41, LeBron feels he still has something to give to the game. His goal is to add a fifth championship ring to the collection. This isn’t about money. He signed a two-year contract with Philly, who hasn’t won anything since 1983, for the deep discounted amount of four million a season. He made $52m last year with the Lakers. His tradeoff for the bargain contract is leaving Philly with enough cap cash to entice a roster of stars who can win and win now. When the league tips-off in October LeBron will be the NBA’s 317th highest paid player, making a couple of hundred thousand less than someone named TyTy Washington Jr. Which brings us full circle back to W.C. Fields, who wanted the epitaph on his tombstone to read, “Here Lies W.C. Fields. All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”

It was one is a million. Actually, make that one in 15 million. Over in Brisbane, Australia, a 34-year-old woman with four kids gave birth last week. Not an unusual story except now she has eight. That happens when you birth identical quadruplets. Doctors described her pregnancy as “incredibly rare.” In fact, statistics say it happens once in every 15 million pregnancies. Now the Na’amoana family has four healthy baby girls to join their four siblings ages one to ten. A GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses and a family vehicle for ten has already raised over $85,000. No word about Mom and Dad’s mental state or the new feeding schedule.

Wasting away. That’s the path the US national obesity rate is headed according to a recent Gallup survey. The poll showed that 11% of the American public over the age of 18 is currently taking GLP-1 drugs, i.e. Ozempic and Wegovy, for weight loss, and it seems to be working. That’s up from 3% two years ago. In tandem this country’s obesity rate is 36.4%, sharply down from 39.9% in 2022.

Something’s missing. Since the Atlanta Falcons’ new Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta opened in 2017, replacing the old Georgia Dome, it has hosted World Cup games, Super Bowls, college football national championships, annual SEC championships and multiple international soccer tilts. However, nobody plays more games in the venue than the Falcons. The one event the stadium has never hosted —a Falcons playoff game.

That’s a lot of dollar bills to cover the deductible. In Houston a burlesque dancer was practicing some of her moves on a pole in her apartment when it detached from the ceiling and hit an overhead sprinkler, completely flooding the unit.

Welcome to the Tribe. More than once during his long oratory career, the late Rev. Jesse Jackson was critical of Israel and the Jews. Most memorable of course was in 1984 when he used a racial slur calling the Jews ‘Hymies’ and New York City ‘Hymietown.’ In fairness, his many slights were always followed by an apology. But they still happened much too often. Jackson died this past February. Last month, on June 12th, Jackson’s 27-year-old daughter Ashley renounced her Baptist upbringing and converted to Judaism.

I’ll have another please. Who could blame former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and now top CBS game analyst Tony Romo for wanting one more for the road? Romo played last week in the Wisconsin State Amateur Golf Championship at West Bend Country Club outside of Milwaukee. After two rounds he was nine over par and made the cut by a stroke. Then his driver became as erratic as his driving, imploding to finish 35-over in a tie for 73rd place. He cashed for $60. Then down to the 19th hole for a couple. He’ll need that sixty bucks and a bunch more to cover the cost of the DUI that he was pulled over for and arrested on the way to his hotel.

The only good news about the 110 degrees heat we have been subject to the last couple weeks here in Vegas? I’ll never shoot my age on the golf course, unless I’m still playing at 93, but at least now I can regularly go lower than the temperature.

One birthday to note this week and it’s a big one. Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow, celebrated her 104th last Sunday. A nurse by profession, Mrs. Robinson earned a master’s degree in psychiatric nursing from NYU after her husband’s retirement from the Dodgers in 1956 and became an assistant professor at Yale. In 1972, a year after Jackie’s death, she founded the Jackie Robinson Foundation, a not-for-profit providing educational and leadership opportunities for minority students. Mrs. Robinson resides in Salem, Connecticut.

This summer marks the 167th anniversary of college baseball. The sport has come a long way from its humble beginnings. The first intercollegiate game ever played was in 1859 when James Buchanan was living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and Amherst and Williams Colleges, both in Massachusetts, tossed the first pitch. The game in Pittsfield, MA was played on a square field with no foul territory. Thus, if you wagered a quid or two on over 104 runs scored, you cashed. Amherst survived in a 73-32 thriller.

And speaking of Connecticut, no wonder the mortgage payments were late. A house flipper bought a four-bedroom home in tony Burlington, a Hartford suburb, at auction for $525,000. The home was appraised for $650,000 before being foreclosed upon about a year ago for missed mortgage payments since 2024. Stipulation of the auction was the interior of the house was ‘sight unseen.’ Once he got the keys, the new owner wished he hadn’t. Inside the house were the skeletal remains of the 54-year-old former owner, her 23-year-old son and another unidentified body. Kind of explains the tardy payments.

Hey ump, you need glasses. I consider myself a progressive baseball purist. I still long for the good old days of the game when players circled the bases with a heads-down home run trot, almost embarrassed for the pitcher they just took downtown. Conventional handshakes greeted them at home plate and in the dugout instead of today’s shenanigans. Pitchers throwing complete games were the norm; now it’s extinct. However, I also recognize the game had to change to stay competitive in the sports marketplace and I’m okay with some of the advancements: the designated hitter, pitch clock and even replay, except when it overturns a decision on the team I bet on. And now this year comes the Automated Ball-Strike System that allows teams to challenge, on a limited basis, ball and strike calls. I’m good with that too. Those who aren’t are the veteran MLB umpires. In a sport that has statistics on everything, The Wall Street Journal reports that halfway through this season the younger umpires are far more efficient with the new challenge system than their senior counterparts. There’s a website called TapToChallenge that has to be the bane of umpires. Halfway through the season umpires under the age of 40 have been overturned 50.1% of the time when challenged, incredibly good considering the fraction of a second they have to make a ball-strike decision. Umpires in their 40s have been overturned 54% of the time and it jumps to 57.2 for the umpires 50 and over. However, included in that last category are 16 arbiters over 55, being overturned 58.2% of the time. The worst is 59-year-old Andy Fletcher, who has been automatically corrected on 70.4% of challenged calls. The MLB propaganda flaks instead want to focus on a 95% accuracy rate on all called pitches, the best ever in a baseball season. So much for the old mantra that umpires need to be right 100% of the time and keep getting better.

In another baseball note, this actually made me laugh. MLB censured the New York Mets for using AI to make in-game strategy decisions. Really? Whatever the Mets paid for the program, they have a refund coming. The Mets have a winning percentage of .410, third worst in baseball. This season they have the highest payroll in the sport at $360 million. In fact, it’s the highest ever in the long, esteemed history of the game. Through yesterday breaking it down per win factors to $8.3 million for each W. In tandem, the WSJ called the Mets the “biggest waste of money in baseball history.” Seems the Mets don’t need to use Artificial Intelligence to get ahead. It ain’t working. Instead try some PP — Productive Players. It might be a better resource.

And finally, it has to be me getting lost. Every time I go to get gas or eat at a restaurant, I must be in the wrong places because I’ve been assured by the president that prices are going down.

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I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger