A kinder, gentler Nick Saban?
That might be a stretch, but the Crimson Tide head coach did reportedly reach out to ABC reporter Maria Taylor to apologize for his terse response to her question during a postgame interview Saturday night.
Taylor caught up with Saban after his team's 51-14 victory over Louisville in the Camping World Kickoff Saturday in Orlando, Fla. She asked him to assess the play of his two quarterbacks, especially that of Tua Tagovailoa, who started the game instead of incumbent Jalen Hurts.
"I still like both guys," he told Taylor tersely on the ABC broadcast. "I think both guys are good players. I think both guys can help our team. So why do you continually try to get me to say something that doesn't respect one of them. I'm not going to. So quit asking."
According to Origins podcast host Jim Miller, Saban called Taylor to apologize for his handling of the situation.
"Last night #NickSaban called and apologized to MariaTaylor7 #RollTide #mariataylor," he tweeted.
Saban was unhappy with the way his team performed during the game and said as much during his postgame remarks to the media.
"I also think that it's pretty obvious that we had way too many penalties, a lot of undisciplined-type penalties, and if you look at the challenges of the season ahead -- and I watched TV today. Did anybody else watch TV today? There's a lot of good teams in our league. I watched TVs for the last couple of days. There's a lot of really good teams in our league," he said. "And if we're going to meet the challenges of the future, we need to do a lot of these things a lot better."
Hawk protector
Sunday at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago was all about Ken "Hawk" Harrelson, the longtime White Sox broadcaster who is retiring after 33 years in the booth.
It was Hawk Day, after all.
However, A.J. Pierzynski stole the spotlight for a brief moment (and perhaps saved the day) by showing off the hands of a catcher in the broadcast booth. Pierzynski, who was the catcher on the White Sox 2005 championship team, served as Harrelson's broadcast partner while the White Sox honored the voice of the team.
In the fifth inning, Boston's Eduardo Nunez hit a foul ball headed straight for the broadcast booth. Hawk reached for it, but Pierzynski stepped in and made the clean grab.
"You took it right away from me," Harrelson, who will turn 77 on Tuesday, quipped upon seeing the replay.
"Hey, it's your day," Pierzynski, 41, responded. "I didn't want to ruin it by having you get hit by a ball. If you would have clanked it, you never would have heard the end of it."
It doesn't look like it would have hit Harrelson in the face, but he could have dropped it like Pierzynski said. He also could have made the grab and had a memorable highlight on his day. After all, he did spend nine seasons in the big leagues himself.
SPORTS QUIZ
How many teams did Ken "Hawk" Harrelson play for in his major-league career?
ANSWER
Four. Kansas City Athletics, Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians
Sports on 09/03/2018