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The best part of ‘College Football 26,' plus some hilarious trading cards

The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic's daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox. Good morning! Time to hit the sticks. Over the last few days, The Athletic has paid me to play a video game, EA Sports' 'College Football 26.' It's a great game, and seems like a vast improvement on last year's re-debut. It was also strangely emotional. Before I get to my review, let's start with the latter point: I asked The Athletic's Chris Vannini, a reviewer and in-house expert on the game, why it's important: 'Video game culture is pop culture, and a lot of people got back into watching real college football through the video game. For any sport to survive and thrive in the future, it always needs a new generation of fans. This helps.' Now, about the game: It has an obviously similar gameplay to last year's game, with noticeable small improvements. Motions are smoothed a little bit. College coaches are now in the game. But I want to focus briefly on the new Road to Glory mode, inspired by Jason Kirk's excellent review earlier this week, because I had a blast with it. Four things that happened: I am biding my time behind Dylan Raiola, but sad to report the game does not think Nebraska will be good. I plan to transfer four times, though. It's a good game. Let's keep moving: More NBA funny money Chet Holmgren and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder agreed to a five-year max extension yesterday that could be worth up to $250 million. It comes eight days after the franchise signed MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to a $285 million supermax extension, and Jalen Williams' payday is coming soon, too. Next year is the last season before this team becomes prohibitively expensive, as our experts wrote. It's Sinner vs. Djokovic Poor Ben Shelton. The last remaining American man at Wimbledon bowed out in the quarterfinals yesterday against world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, which gives Shelton an unfortunate streak: The only two players to defeat him in Grand Slams this year are Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, who have combined to win the past six slams in all. Awaiting Sinner in the semifinal: Novak Djokovic, who outlasted the upstart Flavio Cobolli yesterday. Their rivalry is … eerie. Advertisement More news 📫 Love The Pulse? Check out our other newsletters. Scores of trading cards are printed every year and shipped around the world. Some have value. Most don't. The cards that earn status do so mostly through the feats of whatever player graces the front. Others are valuable for their mistakes. I could not stop cackling through this roundup of unflattering cards yesterday, inspired by a recent sale of a Bronny James card that accidentally has 'LEAVE' printed across the front. Thus, Brooks Peck went and found the 17 'worst' cards to ever exist. I'd like to share the two that earned guffaws from yours truly: Blake Griffin was past his prime at this point, but that didn't mean Mosaic had to make him look like a disproportionate cartoon character. Why is head so big? Why did they pick this facial expression to blow up? Sorry, Blake, but this is hilarious. And then there's Bill Pecota: Fleer Baseball should be prosecuted for this. Hey Bill, here's your card! It looks like you're striking out! The card does, however, add to Pecota's unique place in baseball lore, as the nine-year journeyman finished with a .249 career average and inspired the name of the projection model PECOTA, which projects player output every year. See all the cards here. I would like someone to print an unflattering card of me one day. OK, almost done: 📺 Wimbledon: Sabalenka vs. Anisimova 8:30 a.m. ET on ESPN The No. 1 seed takes on the last remaining American in this semifinal matchup. The other semi, Iga Świątek against Belinda Bencic, follows directly after. Another good morning of tennis. 📺 MLB: Mariners at Yankees 7:05 p.m. ET on MLB Network Aaron Judge vs. The Big Dumper. Two good teams. Just watch it. Get tickets to games like these here. I was floored by this feature on Jojo and Jacob Parker, the identical twins who could be first-round picks in next week's MLB Draft. They couldn't play catch with their dad, but Jop Parker got his sons here anyway. Make time for this. Sam Amick wrote a fascinating notebook about the scene in Los Angeles, where both the Lakers and Clippers have prioritized flexibility this offseason with the future in mind. The question is: Who ends up with the star at the end? Advertisement To hear the Astros talk about rookie star Cam Smith is to get secondhand goosebumps. He was special from his introduction to the team. Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Tim Graham's story on the Bills' uneasy political dance with Canada. Read it here. Most-read on the website yesterday: The story on Christian Horner's shock firing yesterday, which had all of F1 talking.