SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And now it's time for sports.
SIMON: Big NFL names seek trades, a big baseball trade and remembering Ryno. Sports journalist Michele Steele joins us. Michele, thanks for being with us.
MICHELE STEELE: Good morning, Scott.
SIMON: Good morning. And let's begin in football. Two stars, Terry McLaurin of the Commanders and defensive end Micah Parsons of the Dallas Cowboys told their teams, I want out, with just a month to go until the regular season. What are we seeing at work here?
STEELE: Well, it is the start of training camp, Scott, all across the NFL, right? And we are seeing two extremely elite players kind of take a look around and see what other guys are being paid in the NFL who do similar things that they do, and they're simply not getting the money they want from their teams, and they tell their agents, hey, we want to trade. And both of these guys are some of the best to play their positions. And they're some of the most popular guys on their team. You know, McLaurin, he was there for the waning days of the Dan Snyder regime. So he's been through a lot. And you know what the quarterback situation has been like...
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: ...Sort of historically - right? - with the Commanders, and he's managed to produce kind of no matter who's under center. And for Parsons, boy, that guy's probably the best defensive player in the NFL, absolute game-wrecker on defense. He thought he had a deal with Jerry Jones, and what he's doing is they're making their trade demands public close to the season, applying maximum pressure and hoping to get a good negotiation that'll play out in their hands.
SIMON: And a stunning trade in baseball. The Minnesota Twins sent their third baseman, Carlos Correa, back to his old team, the Houston Astros. In return, they got a minor league pitcher - oh - and, oh, $33 million in cash.
STEELE: (Laughter).
SIMON: Astros currently lead their division. Did they just miss Carlos?
STEELE: I think so. I think you could say that. Well, they certainly had a need at third base, so that's what he'll be doing when he goes back to Houston. I got to say, I was watching the trade deadline a little bit this week. It was sleepy until...
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: ...The very end - big flurry of activity. And this was absolutely the blockbuster headline. I think one of the reasons was because there's over $100 million left on Correa's contract through 2028 with the Twins. And the assumption there was, you know, the Astros are kind of known for letting star free agents walk and that they would be too far apart to actually get a deal done. But the Twins were willing to take a little bit of a loss here. They bridged their financial gap. Correa waived the no-trade clause, and these teams came back together. So now he's headed back to the Houston Astros, of course, a team where he became a World Series champion. The Astros are leading their division, so they're buyers at the trade deadline.
It's a big move. They're shoring up the lineup, and they're going to make a push towards the postseason. So, yes, you can come back home, as long as you're a star infielder and can play third base.
SIMON: Yeah. Flowers and candles at Wrigley Field this week. Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg died at the age of just 65, 10-time All Star, never played in the World Series. I'm going to quote what he said in his beautiful Hall of Fame speech. Make a great play. Act like you've done it before. Hit a home run. Put your head down. Drop the bat. Run around the bases. That's respect. What thoughts are you left with this week?
STEELE: Scott, I just got goose bumps. You know, I'm from Chicago. You're from Chicago.
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: I'm sad. I'm sad. You know, I can't think about Ryne Sandberg without thinking back to all those summers, you know, watching them on TV. And my grandma, who's from the Philippines, actually, so she didn't grow up as a baseball fan, turned into a huge Cubs fan because we would watch Chicago Cubs games in the summer on Channel 9. We didn't go to camp. We watched Cubs games 'cause they played a ton of games during the day, right?
SIMON: Right.
STEELE: I never really talked to her about Ryne Sandberg, but I would like to think, you know, she liked him not just 'cause of his play, greatest second baseman in Cubs history, but because he was that superstar, played with quiet dignity, didn't seek the spotlight, just put his head down, like you said, played the game the right way. And, you know, his passing felt like the loss of a guy that we all knew and the loss of a hero. And I'm going to be thinking about him this week.
SIMON: God bless. Michele Steele of ESPN. Thanks so much.
STEELE: See you next time. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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