SEEMS LIKE YESTERDAY.

There they stand, four young men in black, posed against a white backdrop: Kobe, Alex, Kordell, Eric. Above their heads is a gold ESPN logo, and above that, at the top of the page, PREMIER ISSUE. The date in the lower left hand corner reads March 23, 1998.

But it's the red cover billing on that very first issue that speaks the loudest: Next. With a period. End of sentence.

From the perspective of today, there is a bittersweet irony to that word. This is the last regular edition of ESPN The Magazine: October 2019. And while staff members past and present are naturally wistful about the end of an era, we're also grateful for the opportunity to have taken readers on a voyage around the sports world. In many respects, we're lucky: Back in the spring of '98, the futures of our Next Four were far more assured than ours was. Had you told those of us who were there for the launch that we wouldn't pull into port for another 21 1/2 years, we would have thought you were crazy.

As for the four men we thought would lead their sports into the next millennium, well, they more than justified our faith, putting up numbers as oversized as we were and distilling the most from their careers. And since that was then and this is now, we asked the original Gen Next to take a look back at that first issue.

"OH, MAN, I have a full head of hair," Kobe Bryant says one morning from his offices at Granity Studios in Newport Beach, California. "And I like that I'm standing next to Alex. I only knew who Alex was at the time, but we became good friends over the years."

The profile of Bryant written by Tom Friend in that issue is prescient: "He is 19, and he has a book to read, and he has a BMW to drive, and he has a floppy hat to wear, and he has a generation to carry, and, well, he wants the job."

That he did. Bryant won five NBA titles for the Lakers and two gold medals for Team USA, became the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons, made 18 All-Star teams, scored 81 points in a 2006 game against the Raptors and 33,643 for his career. He retired in 2016, which means he'll enter the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020.

His life is not without fault. Depending on one's perspective, he has or has not paid an appropriate price for a well-documented transgression. But at the end of the day, he has two retired numbers (8 and 24), four daughters, ranging in age from 16 years to 3 months, a 2018 Oscar for Best Animated Short (Dear Basketball), an ongoing relationship with ESPN (the Detail series), as well as Kobe Inc. and Granity Studios, which is producing an animated series (The Punies) and publishing young adult novels. Oh, and he coaches his 13-year-old daughter Gigi's AAU basketball team.

In that original story, Bryant quotes the ancient philosopher Plutarch: "Those who are serious in ridiculous matters will be ridiculous in serious matters." Friend also describes Kobe getting out of his BMW when he sees a kid with KB8 Adidas and telling him, "Nice sneaks, how's your game?"

That desire to reach out remains in evidence. "I'm tremendously proud of my basketball accomplishments," Bryant says. "I want to be remembered as a player who did everything he possibly could to succeed and ended up overachieving. But I want my true impact to be on the players of today. I hope they see me as a North Star."

Those who have seen Gigi play say she has the Mamba Mentality. "She has her heart set on UConn," Kobe says. "Geno Auriemma has been incredibly nice to her, and the players treat her like their little sister." But for now, Kobe's next order of business is to start editing the second book in Wesley King's Wizenard series, which is about a group of young basketball players who come under the spell of a mystical coach, Professor Rolabi Wizenard.

Each of the chapters in the first book, Training Camp, begins with one of Wizenard's Plutarchian proverbs. The one above Chapter 3 reads, "The past is a gift. It reminds you there is a future."

IT's AUG. 4, and Alex Rodriguez has good reason to feel jet-lagged.

After working a game at Fenway Park the week before, he had flown to Israel with his fiancée for a concert Jennifer Lopez was giving in Tel Aviv-his fiancée and J-Lo are, of course, one and the same. "Not the usual way to go from Boston to New York," he says. "But what a fantastic trip."

Now sitting in the broadcast booth with daughters Natasha, 14, and Ella, 11, as he prepares to do this week's Red Sox-Yankees Sunday Night Baseball game from Yankee Stadium, A-Rod takes a look at that first cover. "Girls, look how skinny your father was." Natasha takes a photo of it with her phone. When he leafs through the issue and sees who wrote his profile, he chuckles. "Timmy wrote this? I forgot."

The byline is that of Tim Kurkjian, who today provides commentary for Monday Night Baseball. They now have similar jobs on back-to-back nights, although Rodriguez has 696 more homers than Kurkjian. Here's what the latter wrote back then: "The date of birth must be a typo: 7/27/75. Someone who is so often compared to the best shortstops in history, who says all the right things, who does so many great things cannot possibly be only 22."

Rodriguez was only two years removed from perhaps the best major league season by a minor in history: .358, 36 homers and 123 RBIs. He would help revolutionize the shortstop position. "That's one of the things I'm proudest of," he says. "The three of us -- Derek [Jeter], Nomar [Garciaparra] and myself -- took the position even beyond what Ernie Banks and Cal Ripken had done."

As a shortstop for the Mariners and Rangers, and then a third baseman for the Yankees, Rodriguez was a 14-time All-Star, a three-time MVP and a World Series champion (2009). He finished his 22-year career with a .295 average, 2,086 RBIs, 3,115 hits and those 696 blasts.

His numbers look an awful lot like those of Willie Mays.

But that won't be his baseball legacy and A-Rod knows it. He will always have an asterisk around his neck for his use of performance-enhancing drugs, which led to his suspension for the 2014 season. Unless there's a dramatic, empathetic swing among Hall of Fame voters, Rodriguez will be shut out of Cooperstown, the way Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire have been.

"I made a terrible mistake," he says, "and I have to live with it. But I also have a wonderful opportunity to make amends, to show my girls you can learn from your mistakes.

"Look at them, laughing over there. That's Next."

KORDELL STEWART HAS a few minutes before he heads off for practice. He is helping the quarterbacks at North Atlanta High School, where his son Syre is a junior. "He's Little Slash," Kordell says. "Cornerback/scatback. Playing quarterback would be a little too much pressure for him and me, so we're not going down that road."

Stewart has always had a complicated love/hate relationship with the position. Even though the New Orleans native played quarterback for the University of Colorado, the Steelers drafted him in the second round in '95 with the intention of making him a wide receiver. But Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher noticed Stewart's arm and his running ability and his vision. He gifted him with the nickname Slash and then, before the '97 season, the QB job. Kordell responded by leading the Steelers to an 11-5 regular-season record and the AFC championship game, throwing for 3,020 yards and becoming the first quarterback to run for two TDs and pass for three in the same game twice.

That's why he made that first cover, which he's looking at as we speak. "Kobe and A-Rod, wow. That's quite an honor," Stewart says. "I'm not a hockey guy, so I don't know much about Eric Lindros. Goalie, right?" Uh, wrong, but when told that Lindros was a forward who's in the Hockey Hall of Fame, Kordell says, "I didn't have their longevity, but I am proud of my role in the evolution of the quarterback. Look at all the mobile quarterbacks in the NFL now." In the first issue, writer Rick Telander poses the question of why Stewart had to wait three seasons to become an NFL QB: "Who knows?" Stewart says now -- as if we don't.

Stereotypes are even harder to outrun than opposing defenses, and they caught up to him the very next season, when the Steelers didn't make the playoffs. In Truth, Stewart's 2016 autobiography, he describes a particularly ugly scene after a game in Pittsburgh. "As I walked off the field and into the tunnel," he wrote, "someone threw a cup full of beer at my head that gushed into my eyes. I looked up. A man looked me dead in the eyes and yelled, 'N-----!'" Stewart walked away. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the Edgar Albert Guest poem "See It Through." He had memorized it growing up and took comfort in the words "You may fail, but you may conquer/See it through!"

Three years later, he had his best season, throwing for 3,109 yards and rushing for 537 more as the Steelers went 13-3 in the regular season and beat the Ravens 27-10 in their AFC divisional game. In the AFC championship game against New England, Stewart almost brought the Steelers back from a 21-3 deficit, but they lost 24-17 to the eventual Super Bowl XXXVI champs. "That hurt," he says. "The Super Bowl was in New Orleans. My father would have loved it."

That season was pretty much his last hurrah. He lost his job to Tommy Maddox the next year, then got actually slashed by the Steelers. Subsequent stints with the Bears and Ravens didn't work out. He became a football analyst, co-hosted a radio talk show, appeared with soon-to-be-ex-wife Portia Williams on Platinum Weddings and worked on his golf game.

In the summer of 2015, Stewart found himself at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton for the induction of friend and teammate Jerome Bettis. "I loved being a Steeler," he says, "but that weekend, I was reminded of what I didn't like about it. Dan Rooney, the Steelers' owner and a lovely man, was there, and I went over to him to pay my respects. He didn't recognize me at first, but then I bent down to his eye level. He smiled and said, 'Kordell! You know, if you had just stayed at wide receiver, you might be here too.'"

For now, Stewart is content tending to his business interests, raising his son as a single parent and teaching the high school QBs how to play the position. And now it's time to go to practice.

One more thing. Does he still remember the poem?

He laughs. "When you're up against a trouble ..." When he finishes 24 lines later with "See it through!" he laughs again and says, "How's that?"

"PRETTY GOOD COMPANY."

So says a 46-year-old father of three young children, who owns a lumber mill and still plays recreational hockey. He is sitting in the Toronto offices of the NHL Players' Association, for which he also works, and looking at the 25-year-old Eric Lindros. "Kobe, A-Rod, Kordell and me. I didn't realize the importance of the cover shoot at the time. What'd I know? I was just a kid from London, Ontario."

Lindros was actually the most established of the four. His nickname was "The Next One," a play on "The Great One," Wayne Gretzky. The pressure to be a superstar had started to build. As Dan Shaughnessy wrote in his Lindros profile, "The game is hard enough without folks carving your face into hockey's Mount Rushmore before you've skated a shift as a professional."

He was big and fast and something of a lightning rod, thanks to his refusal to play for the hapless Quebec Nordiques, who had drafted him in 1991. So they had to trade Lindros to Philadelphia, where he and his Legion of Doom linemates (John LeClair and Mikael Renberg) became the most feared offensive force in hockey. Before he made our cover, he had already been named team captain ('94), won the Hart Trophy as league MVP ('95) and taken the Flyers to the '97 Stanley Cup Final, which they lost to the Red Wings.

But just as our first issue was going to press, Lindros was crossing the blue line in Pittsburgh when he glanced down after losing the puck in his skates and got blasted by defenseman Darius Kasparaitis. In the showers after the game, he became disoriented, thinking he had been traded.

That was the first concussion. Over the next two seasons, he suffered at least five more. Flyers general manager Bobby Clarke accused him of being soft, but Lindros had every reason to be concerned: His younger brother, Brett, had to quit the game after two seasons with the Islanders because of concussions. The end of Lindros' Flyers career came in Game 7 of the 2000 Eastern Conference finals when Devils defenseman Scott Stevens used his left shoulder to blast Lindros in the head. As Lindros lay on the ice, true hockey fans began to realize that the game itself had to come to its senses.

After sitting out the next season, Lindros was traded to the Rangers, and he seemed to pick up where he left off: 73 points in 2001-02. But he wasn't really the same, and after brief stints with the Maple Leafs and Stars, he knew what all good hockey players are trained to know-it was the end of his shift. He had to get off the ice. After he did, he donated $5 million to the London Health Sciences Centre to study brain trauma.

Still, as great a player as he was, Lindros might have a greater impact on the game now as an advocate for concussion awareness and safer play. "That's what I want my legacy to be," he says. "That's why I'd like to see body contact eliminated in hockey below the age of 15." It took Lindros longer than it should have to get into the Hockey Hall of Fame, but he finally made it in 2016. "I'm fortunate beyond measure," he says. "I'm happier than I've ever been. [My wife] Kina and I have the kids, I get to work at the timber mill with my dad, and a few times a week I play shinny with a bunch of old pros at the local rink.

"And every time, I'm reminded of what a great sport hockey is. Without the hitting."

And so we come to the end of our shift. After 7,829 days, 693 covers and countless moments of pride, we're putting the regular issue to bed for good. Granted, it's only the end on paper.

We will continue to produce stories for ESPN's many platforms, scanning the horizon for our audience as we always have. Still, we wish to thank our readers, the powers-that-be that let us be, and the many talented people we've worked with over the years. We also need to express our gratitude to the many athletes who tolerated our requests and allowed us to bring them into your homes.

In Dear Basketball, Kobe says, "I'm ready to let you go," then counts down the final seconds on an animated scoreboard clock. That brings to mind the very real scoreboard we had when we published the magazine in New York. It was there to remind us of the time remaining before deadline. Five, four, three, two, one ...

Next.

The CWI interim selection panel has replaced the injured Kycia Knight with Britney Cooper for the third and final ODI of the series against Australia, on Wednesday in Antigua.

Knight had injured her lower back during the opening overs of the first ODI of the series in Coolidge, where Australia thrashed West Indies by 178 runs. Knight did not bat in the West Indies chase as a result, and did not feature in the second game. After "examining the scans" done on her, the CWI medical panel ruled Knight of the third ODI.

Cooper joined the team in Antigua on Monday in preparation for the final game even as West Indies trail the series 0-2.

Cooper last played an ODI in June in England but her single-digit scores in the series led to her omission from the original ODI squad against Australia. In six international innings this year - two ODIs and four T20Is - she has scored only 57 runs so far with a high score of 20.

West Indies are also without their regular vice-captain Hayley Matthews, who had been withdrawn from the series just hours before the start of the opening ODI, due to disciplinary issues. The exact nature of her breach of the code of conduct is not known yet.

South Africa A 164 and 125 for 5 (Hamza 44, Klaasen 35*, Nadeem 2-13) trail India A 303 (Gill 90, Saxena 61*, Ngidi 3-50, Piedt 3-84) by 14 runs

South Africa A have their backs to the wall in the first four-dayer in Thiruvananthampuram. From 199 for 7, they allowed India A to post 303, thereby conceding a 139-run lead, before a second successive top-order collapse had them reeling at 125 for 5 at stumps on day two at the Greenfields Stadium.

Resuming on 129 for 2, India A lost 5 for 70, including the wicket of top-scorer Shubman Gill, who was out for 90. A century stand between allrounder Jalaj Saxena (61 not out) and Shardul Thakur (34) - the latter's three-for had earlier skittled South Africa A for 164 - helped open up a potentially decisive lead. Saxena, who was a late inclusion in the squad as cover for K Gowtham, struck 11 fours in his 96-ball knock after coming in at No. 7.

Overlooked for the Test series that begins next month, offspinner Dane Piedt impressed with returns of 3 for 84 after wheeling away for 25.5 overs while Lungi Ngidi, who is part of the Test squad but not the T20Is that precede it, also ended with a three-wicket haul. In contention for a Test debut, left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy managed all of seven wicketless overs in the first innings.

South Africa A's hopes of staying in the contest hinged on them batting big in the second innings to set up a substantial total to defend. Instead their top order's efforts were only marginally better in the second innings - 52 for 4 as compared to being 20 for 4 in the first. Zubayr Hamza, who could be part of their middle order for the first Test, and Henrich Klaasen, their limited-overs specialist, appeared to have stemmed the damage with a 42-run partnership, but Hamza's dismissal for 44 swung the game again.

Mohammed Siraj opened the floodgates by removing Pieter Malan in the first over and Aiden Markram followed a few overs later, nicking behind to KS Bharat off Shardul. India A made further inroads when left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem struck to remove Khaya Zondo and Muthusamy to open up a possibility of a three-day finish.

While a first impression isn't the end-all, be-all of how an NFL player is perceived, it certainly doesn't hurt a rookie to have his first regular-season experience be a good one.

Tracking the rooks is the theme of this week's version of the power rankings. While the entire 16-game schedule will be the determinant of their first-year fate, having the first step to be a positive one definitely helps. And for these 32 players, Week 1 was exactly that.

Our NFL Nation reporters focused on the best first-year performances for their teams while helping put together this week's power rankings. How we rank: Our power panel -- a group of more than 80 writers, editors and TV personalities -- evaluates how teams stack up throughout the season.

Previous rankings: Preseason

1. New England Patriots (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 1

Rookie who flashed: Isaiah Wynn, OT

How the newcomer starred: The 2018 first-round draft choice, who had missed his rookie season with a torn Achilles tendon, played all 70 snaps protecting Tom Brady's blind side and held his ground in a promising performance. Wynn's ability to slide and play light on his feet is impressive to watch. Of course, there aren't too many more important jobs in New England than ensuring Brady is well protected, and the Patriots seem confident in entrusting Wynn with that crucial role. -- Mike Reiss

2. Kansas City Chiefs (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 2

Rookie who flashed: Juan Thornhill, S

How the newcomer starred: Thornhill stood out among Chiefs' rookies mainly because he was the only one starting. Thornhill had been a backup throughout the preseason but was promoted on Sunday and led the Chiefs with eight tackles. Thornhill was impressive in training camp because of his range and playmaking ability. Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo said during camp he usually didn't trust rookies enough to start them in the season opener, but Thornhill played well enough to be an exception. -- Adam Teicher

3. New Orleans Saints (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 3

Rookie who flashed: Erik McCoy, C

How the newcomer starred: The new starting center sure seemed to hold up well on a night when the Saints ran for 148 yards on 21 carries (a 7.0 average) and threw for 370 yards on 44 dropbacks. Drew Brees was sacked only once. Perhaps some more subtle miscues will show up on film, but the second-round pick obviously wasn't a weak link on New Orleans' loaded offensive line. "Give him credit," Brees said. "First game out and to have a win like this on Monday football has to mean something." -- Mike Triplett

4. Los Angeles Rams (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 4

Rookie who flashed: Taylor Rapp, S

How the newcomer starred: The versatility of the second-round pick was on display throughout the 32 snaps (48%) he played on defense. Before the game, defensive coordinator Wade Phillips said Rapp would not be used only as a backup and noted his "short-area quickness" and tackling ability. Against the Panthers, Rapp took the field often as a third safety, alongside John Johnson III and Marqui Christian (Eric Weddle left the game due to injury) and lined up in multiple spots. He finished with three tackles. -- Lindsey Thiry

5. Philadelphia Eagles (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 5

Rookie who flashed: Miles Sanders, RB

How the newcomer starred: His stat line (11 carries, 25 yards) doesn't tell the whole story. Sanders saw a touchdown run called back because of a holding penalty and broke off a 19-yarder that showed off the burst and wiggle that coaches and teammates have been talking up all summer. He's sharing a backfield with Jordan Howard, Darren Sproles and Corey Clement, and snap distribution will change from week to week, but look for Sanders to be featured more and more as the season goes along. -- Tim McManus

6. Dallas Cowboys (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 9

Rookie who flashed: Tony Pollard, RB

How the newcomer starred: The Cowboys had only two rookies active for the game, so the choice by default is Pollard, a fourth-round running back. He was nearly the starter before Ezekiel Elliott signed in the middle of last week. Pollard's numbers do not look that strong -- 13 carries, 24 yards -- but some of that was a product of being in a run-out-the-clock situation late in the game. The Cowboys believe he will develop into a good complement to Elliott. Their top pick, second-round defensive tackle Trysten Hill, was inactive, which is a sign that he has a way to go to earn the coaches' trust. -- Todd Archer

7. Los Angeles Chargers (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 6

Rookie who flashed: Drue Tranquill, LB

How the newcomer starred: The fourth-round selection didn't play a snap on defense. However, he played 16 snaps on special teams, finishing with a tackle and a partially blocked punt in his first NFL game. If he can continue to make plays on special teams, the Notre Dame product could earn some defensive snaps for the Chargers down the road. -- Eric D. Williams

8. Baltimore Ravens (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 17

Rookie who flashed: Marquise Brown, WR

How the newcomer starred: The No. 25 overall pick showed why he was the first wide receiver selected in this year's draft. With his electric speed, "Hollywood" scored on his first two catches, recording touchdowns of 47 and 83 yards. Brown's 147 yards receiving were the most in a player's first NFL game since Anquan Boldin in 2003. Brown became the much-needed deep threat for quarterback Lamar Jackson, gaining 30-plus yards after the catch on each of his two touchdowns. Last season, Ravens receivers had three catches on which they gained at least 30 YAC. -- Jamison Hensley

9. Minnesota Vikings (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 12

Rookie who flashed: Alexander Mattison, RB

How the newcomer starred: While Dalvin Cook stole the show in the Vikings' 28-12 victory over Atlanta, Mattison -- a third-round draft pick -- had a handful of big runs in a game in which he notched nine carries for 49 yards, including a run to the 1-yard line that set up a Minnesota score. "He's got a chance to be a good complementary back to Dalvin," coach Mike Zimmer said. "It was good to see." -- Courtney Cronin

10. Green Bay Packers (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 13

Rookie who flashed: Darnell Savage, S

How the newcomer starred: While top pick Rashan Gary (No. 12 overall) played just six snaps, the 21st overall pick never came off the field. He showed off the sideline-to-sideline range the Packers coveted in him on the way to three tackles, a quarterback hit and a pass breakup. Along with veteran free agent Adrian Amos, Savage has revamped the Packers' safety position. -- Rob Demovsky

11. Seattle Seahawks (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 15

Rookie who flashed: DK Metcalf, WR

How the newcomer starred: After arriving to CenturyLink Field in a throwback Steve Largent Seahawks jersey, Metcalf caught four passes for a team-high 89 yards to break Largent's 43-year-old club record for most yards by a rookie receiver in his debut. His catches of 42 and 25 yards set up a pair of touchdowns. The 25-yarder came on a scramble throw that Pete Carroll called a "great illustration" of Metcalf's understanding that the play is never over with Russell Wilson. And for all the chatter about Metcalf supposedly being able to run only go routes, his first two grabs came on slants, and he drew a pass interference call in the end zone on a corner route (he was also called for two penalties that were declined). -- Brady Henderson

12. Houston Texans (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 14

Rookie who flashed: Cullen Gillaspia, FB

How the newcomer starred: With first-round pick Tytus Howard (finger), defensive end Charles Omenihu and cornerback Xavier Crawford inactive, tight end Kahale Warring on injured reserve and Zach Fulton getting the start over second-round pick Max Scharping, the Texans did not have a rookie contribution on offense or defense. Gillaspia and cornerback Lonnie Johnson did play on special teams. Gillaspia recorded a special-teams tackle, so he wins. -- Sarah Barshop

13. Chicago Bears (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 7

Rookie who flashed: David Montgomery, RB

How the newcomer starred: Matt Nagy freely admitted after Week 1's loss to Green Bay that the rookie running back needs more touches. Montgomery carried the ball only six times for 18 yards against the Packers, but a few of those were tough runs that resulted in first downs. Montgomery also caught an important 27-yard pass, which tied for Chicago's second-longest play from scrimmage versus Green Bay. -- Jeff Dickerson

14. Tennessee Titans (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 20

Rookie who flashed: A.J. Brown, WR

How the newcomer starred: Brown quickly showed that he will be an impactful pass-catcher for the Titans. Known for his ability to generate yards after the catch, Brown turned a short pass into a 51-yard gain on the first play of the second half, helping him to a 100-yard receiving performance on three receptions. He played 26 snaps, which was four more than free-agent addition Adam Humphries. Brown's big plays (47- and 51-yard receptions) both came with him lining up on the outside as opposed to the slot role that some analysts felt was his only position. Most important, he's earning the trust of quarterback Marcus Mariota. -- Turron Davenport

15. Indianapolis Colts (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 8

Rookie who flashed: Rock Ya-Sin, CB

How the newcomer starred: Ya-Sin, who quickly moved up the depth chart during training camp, started on the outside with veteran Pierre Desir on Sunday. The second-round pick out of Temple had two tackles in his NFL debut. Unfortunately, he also had a welcome-to-the-NFL moment against the Chargers. Ya-Sin, a physical player with a high school wrestling background, couldn't go up and muscle the ball away from Chargers receiver Keenan Allen on a 50-50 touchdown pass in the end zone in the second quarter. Safety Malik Hooker took part of the blame on the play by saying he has to be quicker to come over and help in those situations. -- Mike Wells

16. Pittsburgh Steelers (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 11

Rookie who flashed: Devin Bush, LB

How the newcomer starred: Bush played the most significant role among Steelers rookies, leading the team with 11 tackles. He stood out in that he was bringing Patriots players to the ground, but that's not so good when most of the tackles were on chunk-yardage plays for the offense. Bush gave up a big gain on a pick play but otherwise looked ready. Rookie receiver Diontae Johnson is an intriguing option after three catches for 29 yards. The lights didn't look too bright for him. -- Jeremy Fowler

17. Cleveland Browns (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 10

Rookie who flashed: Jamie Gillan, P

How the newcomer starred: One of Cleveland's few Week 1 bright spots was Gillan, a rookie punter who averaged almost 47 yards on five punts, including three downed inside the 20-yard line. The Browns terminated veteran Britton Colquitt because of Gillan's potential. He did not disappoint in his debut. -- Jake Trotter

18. Carolina Panthers (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 18

Rookie who flashed: Brian Burns, OLB

How the newcomer starred: Burns was brought in to pressure quarterbacks as an edge rusher, and he responded in his first start with two quarterback hurries and one tackle for loss. The difference is the Panthers didn't use as many 3-4 fronts as anticipated, and Burns' strength was supposed to be coming off the edge as an OLB, not an end. -- David Newton

19. Atlanta Falcons (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 16

Rookie who flashed: Chris Lindstrom, G

How the newcomer starred: Although he wasn't flawless, the Falcons' top pick looked strong at times at right guard before exiting with a broken foot. Lindstrom played 48 snaps at right guard, his final action for at least the next eight weeks. Lindstrom is bound for injured reserve but will be eligible to return. You can tell in warm-ups how focused Lindstrom is on playing with the proper technique. -- Vaughn McClure

20. San Francisco 49ers (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 22

Rookie who flashed: Nick Bosa, DE

How the newcomer starred: Who else? Bosa made his NFL debut after returning from an ankle sprain and made an impact. Although he whiffed on an early sack opportunity as Jameis Winston evaded him, he managed to finish with three tackles, a sack, a tackle for loss and two quarterback hits in unofficial statistics. His pressure also helped contribute to cornerback Ahkello Witherspoon's game-clinching pick-six in the fourth quarter. It was a promising start for the No. 2 overall pick and leaves one to wonder what could lie ahead when he is at full speed. -- Nick Wagoner

21. Detroit Lions (0-0-1)

Preseason ranking: 21

Rookie who flashed: T.J. Hockenson, TE

How the newcomer starred: Hockenson set a rookie record for yards from a tight end in his debut with a six-catch, 131-yard, one-touchdown effort against Arizona. While it's usually hard for tight ends to acclimate to the NFL, this is a continuation of what Detroit saw all camp long. Hockenson was a playmaker throughout the spring and preseason and it continued Sunday, when he had close to 100 people who traveled to Arizona to watch his first-ever NFL regular-season game. -- Michael Rothstein

22. Buffalo Bills (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 25

Rookie who flashed: Devin Singletary, RB

How the newcomer starred: First-round pick Ed Oliver turned in a strong effort at defensive tackle, but Singletary was arguably the Bills' most dynamic playmaker Sunday. He accounted for 98 yards on nine touches. He started ahead of Frank Gore and should get a far heavier workload moving forward. -- Marcel Louis-Jacques

23. Oakland Raiders (1-0)

Preseason ranking: 26

Rookie who flashed: Josh Jacobs, RB

How the newcomer starred: Jacobs, who never carried the ball more than 20 times in a game at Alabama and rushed only 251 times total in college, showed he was more than ready for prime time. His patience, vision and cutting ability kept Broncos edge rushers Von Miller and Bradley Chubb at bay. And Jacobs' 85 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 23 carries proved him prophetic -- his play spoke for itself. -- Paul Gutierrez

24. Jacksonville Jaguars (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 19

Rookie who flashed: Gardner Minshew, QB

How the newcomer starred: Minshew completed his first 13 passes -- the most by a rookie quarterback to begin his career over the past 40 years, per Elias Sports Bureau research -- en route to 275 yards and two touchdowns. Minshew completed 22 of 25 passes, with one of the incompletions a pass that bounced off Leonard Fournette's hands and was intercepted. Minshew's completion percentage (88.0%) was the highest in league history for any player with at least 15 pass attempts making an NFL debut. It is also a franchise single-game record among players with at least 25 pass attempts. -- Mike DiRocco

25. Denver Broncos

Preseason ranking: 23

Rookie who flashed: Dalton Risner, G

How the newcomer starred: It wasn't the best of opening weeks for the Broncos' rookie class given that Drew Lock is injured and first-rounder Noah Fant was flagged multiple times in a rocky outing in the loss to the Raiders. But against a defensive front that features plenty of bulk, Risner (second round) showed that he's NFL-ready in the run game. The Broncos repeatedly found some room behind him when they could commit to the run. -- Jeff Legwold

26. New York Jets (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 24

Rookie who flashed: Quinnen Williams, DT

How the newcomer starred: Williams wins by default because he's the only rookie who played a semi-significant role. The No. 3 overall pick didn't finish the game because of a second-half ankle injury. It was a quiet debut. He played 23 defensive snaps, with no tackles and two pressures. On one play, he affected the center, which resulted in a botched snap. Aside from that, Williams has to do a better job of defeating his man in one-on-one situations. -- Rich Cimini

27. Cincinnati Bengals (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 28

Rookie who flashed: Michael Jordan, G

How the newcomer starred: Cincinnati's rookies had a relatively quiet day, but Jordan held his own at left guard against a quality Seattle defensive front. Jordan played every snap of the 21-20 loss and had a solid performance, according to first-year coach Zac Taylor. -- Ben Baby

28. Washington Redskins (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 29

Rookie who flashed: Terry McLaurin, WR

How the newcomer starred: The Redskins were comfortable releasing Josh Doctson because of what they had in McLaurin and he responded well, catching five passes for 125 yards and a 69-yard touchdown. He was in position for another long touchdown, but was overthrown. McLaurin's speed makes a big difference in the offense, and the play design helped create open areas for him down the field. In three seasons with Washington, Doctson never cracked 100 yards receiving in a game. -- John Keim

29. Arizona Cardinals (0-0-1)

Preseason ranking: 30

Rookie who flashed: Kyler Murray, QB

How the newcomer starred: Murray showed why he was the first overall pick in April's draft during the fourth quarter of a Week 1 tie against Detroit. If it wasn't for him, the Cardinals wouldn't have been in position to pull even after three dismal quarters of offense. Murray shined in the fourth quarter, going 15-for-19 for 154 yards and two touchdowns in the final stanza. He finished with 308 yards overall on 29-for-54 passing, and once the offense got into a rhythm, he showed how dynamic he could be, running the Cardinals' up-tempo offense nearly flawlessly while utilizing his feet and arm. -- Josh Weinfuss

30. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 27

Rookie who flashed: Devin White, LB

How the newcomer starred: The No. 5 overall pick had five solo tackles -- six combined -- in the Bucs' 31-17 loss to the 49ers. He played a key role in a second-quarter, red zone stand that forced the Niners to settle for a field goal and preserved a Bucs lead. He did it while battling tonsillitis in the week leading up to the game, too, as he struggled to eat and suffered from dehydration. "That's exactly what I would expect of the guy," coach Bruce Arians said. "He's tough ... he fought through it." -- Jenna Laine

31. New York Giants (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 31

Rookie who flashed: Ryan Connelly, LB

How the newcomer starred: It was hard to find any of the Giants' 10 draft picks who excelled in that debacle against Dallas. Three didn't dress. Daniel Jones fumbled in his limited playing time. Deandre Baker struggled badly. Dexter Lawrence was mostly invisible. Julian Love and Corey Ballentine barely saw the field. That leaves only fifth-rounder Connelly and third-round edge rusher Oshane Ximines to make any sort of positive contribution. Each had a tackle for loss, the Giants' only two in the 35-17 loss. -- Jordan Raanan

32. Miami Dolphins (0-1)

Preseason ranking: 32

Rookie who flashed: Preston Williams, WR

How the newcomer starred: There weren't many bright spots in the Dolphins' embarrassing Week 1 loss, but Williams -- Miami's undrafted free-agent find out of Colorado State -- showed that he has a real NFL future. He got the start and caught his first career touchdown pass. He called the moment "bittersweet" because of the loss, but he hopes it's the first of many scores he'll catch as a Dolphin. For a team faced with a lot of doom and gloom, Williams provides a sliver of hope. -- Cameron Wolfe

DONGGUAN, China -- Luis Scola scored 20 points, Facundo Campazzo finished with 18 points and 12 assists and Argentina earned its first trip to the World Cup semifinals in 13 years by ousting Serbia 97-87 in a quarterfinal matchup on Tuesday.

Patricio Garino added 15 for Argentina (6-0), which will face either the U.S. or France in Friday's semifinals.

Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 21 points for Serbia (4-2). The team came into the tournament fully expecting to win gold -- after losing title games to the U.S. at the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, then rolling to wins in its first two games in China by a combined 105 points.

Bogdanovic's 3-pointer with 1:20 left got Serbia within 91-85, capping a spurt that came with All-NBA center Nikola Jokic on the bench. But Campazzo's jumper on the next possession pushed the lead back to eight, Serbia threw the ball away seconds later and the blue-and-white-clad Argentine fans in the stands knew it was time to celebrate.

Scola was 26 the last time Argentina was in the Final Four of the World Cup, then called the world championship. A mere 13 years later, he's headed back to the medal round at FIBA's biggest event.

Nemanja Bjelica scored 18 and Jokic finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds for Serbia.

Argentina led most of the way, lost the lead briefly on the first possession of the fourth quarter when Marko Guduric made a 3-pointer for Serbia -- which the winners answered with a 19-6 run over the next 6 minutes.

The Dongguan half of the bracket is simply loaded -- far more so than the half in Shanghai, the other quarterfinal site.

Serbia-Argentina pitted the world's fourth- and fifth-ranked teams, respectively, against one another. On Wednesday in Dongguan, it's the No. 1-ranked U.S. against No. 3 France.

Meanwhile in Shanghai, world No. 2 Spain meets No. 25 Poland later Tuesday and No. 11 Australia takes on the 24th-ranked Czech Republic on Wednesday. The four teams that earned a trip to Dongguan outscored opponents by a combined 429 points in the group stage; the four teams that advanced to Shanghai outscored group-stage foes by a combined 150 points.

TIP-INS

Serbia: Boban Marjanovic had a short and eventful second-quarter stint -- picking up three fouls, one of them an unsportsmanlike, and committing a turnover in just over 2 minutes. ... Serbia grabbed 15 of the game's first 17 rebounds and finished with a 42-29 edge.

Argentina: By the midway mark of the first quarter, the Argentines had two fouls and another with three -- Tayavek Gallizzi, who was whistled three times in 82 seconds after he came in because starter Marcos Delia was in foul trouble. ... The Olympic berth Argentina claimed by being one of the top two World Cup finishers from the Americas region -- the U.S. is the other -- is its fifth straight and eighth overall.

SCOUTING

If the U.S. beats France on Wednesday, the Americans will play Argentina in the semifinals at Beijing on Friday. So the U.S. sent its scouting group -- Jeff Van Gundy, Lloyd Pierce and Ime Udoka among them -- to see the Argentina-Serbia game in person. U.S. coach Gregg Popovich said he's watching plenty of games on off days, but is letting the group led by Van Gundy handle the bulk of the scouting details.

BONUS PRIZE

Argentina gets more than a trip to the semifinals -- it gets an extra day off. After playing every other day so far in the tournament, Argentina will have two full rest days before seeing either the U.S. or France on Friday.

UP NEXT

Serbia: Faces U.S.-France loser on Thursday at Dongguan in the consolation round.

Argentina: Faces U.S.-France winner on Friday at Beijing in the semifinals.

LOS ANGELES -- Dennis Rodman has been crying.

His emotional state is imperceptible. He arrives at this interview cloaked behind rose-colored sunglasses, which serviceably mask his tear-streaked cheeks and his red, swollen eyes. He is subdued, almost ghostly quiet. But before long, the emotions flow, because once you cut through the histrionics and the antics and the bravado and the piercings, the overwhelming characteristic of this iconic basketball savant has always been his vulnerability.

Surely you remember his news conference in 1990, when he was introduced as the NBA's Defensive Player of Year. Back then, he was just a clean-cut kid in jeans and sneakers who never took a drink and was so overcome by the magnitude of his accomplishment, he could not speak without sobbing.

Dennis Rodman grapples with many things these days, particularly his purpose in life now that his basketball highlights are long behind him. He is here, at The Terrace at L.A. Live in Downtown Los Angeles, to discuss the new 30 for 30 ESPN documentary titled "Dennis Rodman: For Better or Worse," which lays bare the struggles of one of the most talented and enigmatic stars in the game's history.

Pedro Martinez was, from 1997 through 2003, the greatest pitcher in major league history. Other pitchers had better careers -- longer careers -- but nobody was better for a sustained period of time than Martinez was in those years.

But who was the greatest Pedro Martinez in Pedro Martinez history -- in other words, when specifically did Pedro Martinez reach his ultimate peak? The answer might be 20 years ago today. He was three years into that seven-year run, he was wrapping up a season with by far the best FIP (Fielding Indepedent Pitching) in modern baseball history, and he was smack in the middle of an eight-game stretch in which he would strike out 107 batters, walk eight and allow a 1.16 ERA. His start on Sept. 10, 1999, was the best of the eight.

A friend told me once that Martinez's start that night was The Pedro Game. I was confused. I already knew what The Pedro Game was, and it didn't happen 20 years ago tonight. Then a different friend told me that, no, The Pedro Game was actually a different game still. And then I asked a big group of friends and was startled to realize just how many iconic, unique, capital-letter Pedro Days there were that Pedro Martinez threw in his career. There are seven, at least.

The whole point of naming something is to give it an identity, to cure confusion. If we're all talking about different days, under the same name, we're doing it all wrong. It's time to solve this riddle.

The Canadian Pedro Game: June 3, 1995

The pitching line: 9 IP / 1 H / 0 R / 0 ER / 0 BB / 9 SO

What happened: Martinez became the second pitcher in history to take a perfect game into extra innings. Harvey Haddix lost his in the 13th inning, and would lose the game. Martinez won the game but lost his to the leadoff batter in the 10th.

But, look, it was every bit the equal of any other perfect game, right? Twenty-seven up, 27 down. At the time, there had been only 12 perfect games in major league history, plus Haddix's. That it didn't count alongside the 12 "official" perfect games was entirely arbitrary, owing not to anything having to do with Pedro, or Pedro's pitching, or general logic, but merely his Expos' inability to score a run. "I was disgusted with myself," said Darrin Fletcher, the Expos catcher, after flying out in the ninth inning with a man on. It was the offense's fault Pedro's start went into the 10th. It wasn't Pedro's.

In 1995, a lot of opposing ballplayers didn't like Martinez. He'd been in his first brawl a year earlier, and his second right after that, when the Padres' Derek Bell charged him after a strikeout. Martinez wasn't even looking when Bell came running at him, and according to Martinez another Padre -- Bip Roberts -- launched into him from behind, too. Pedro pledged to Roberts he'd remember -- "I'll get your ass."

But Roberts was the man who broke up the perfect game, on his fourth try. Pedro threw him a changeup and Roberts lined a double into right field. Pedro left immediately after the hit, despite having thrown only 96 pitches. He ended up with the win -- the Expos had scored in the top of the 10th -- but, alas, Roberts won the "get your ass" contest.

It wasn't The Pedro Game.

Why it's not The Pedro Game: Because he wasn't really The Pedro yet. He was known at the time for flashes of brilliance, some wildness and the controversial style of pitching inside. He didn't yet have command of his great curveball, and he was still throwing his two-seamer instead of his better, easier-to-command four-seamer. It was another year (or perhaps three) before he really put everything together and became the greatest pitcher who ever lived.

Can you watch it? No. You can see him lose the perfect game -- and then run to dutifully back up second base -- but you can't see the good stuff.

The Five-Baseball-Games-A-Year Fan's Pedro Game: Oct. 11, 2003

The pitching line: 7/6/4/4/1/6

What happened: A "beet-faced, roly poly old man" -- Pedro's words, in his 2015 autobiography -- charged at Pedro in the middle of a benches-cleared scrum, Pedro redirected him to the ground, and we all spent the next week debating whether Pedro Martinez is a villain or just a complicated hero.

Pedro's "tackle" of Yankees bench coach Don Zimmer had enough ambiguity to it that it's hard to know what to make of it: Pedro looks almost entirely confused/defensive, but his hands, right at the end, do look forceful and mean. Hard to say! But in New York, there was no ambiguity, and Pedro started to get death threats. Credible threats, he writes, enough that he says he had police surveillance for his family and extra security at his hotel. "I didn't go out once," he writes of checking into his Manhattan hotel for the rest of the 2003 American League Championship Series. "Nothing but room service, and I had to be careful that the food was okay before I ate any of it. I felt vulnerable. My cocoon was threadbare and flimsy. I had never pitched a game under more pressure [than his next start, in New York]. I've always said that pressure is a lack of confidence in the things that you can do, but on that day forces that had nothing to do with baseball closed in on me. I felt physically threatened. The vise began to squeeze."

The through-line of Pedro's career -- even more than "good pitcher," because he wasn't always a good pitcher -- is that he worked fearlessly inside and the league fought to get him to stop. Figuratively, they fought by trying to shame him, by slandering him as a headhunter who didn't respect the game. But they also literally fought him, constantly: Reggie Sanders once charged Pedro after Pedro hit him with a pitch in the eighth inning of a perfect game. Pitchers threw at Pedro in retaliation, and after a few of those he became one of the few pitchers you'll see charging the mound back.

And so this is perhaps the ultimate culmination of that career-long fight: Don Zimmer, baseball's final boss, charged and got rolled to the ground, but, ultimately, he got closer than anybody else to forcing Pedro Martinez to second-guess his actions. "I made a wrong decision," Martinez would write.

But it's not The Pedro Game.

Why it's not The Pedro Game: He didn't pitch very well. (Twenty-six other starting pitchers have had the same 7/6/4/4/1/6 line, and only eight of their teams won.) There was the potential for it to become The Pedro Game because after the brawl Pedro retired the next nine straight. If it had been, say, 15 straight, and the Red Sox had come back and won the game, there'd be a case. But as it is, we should agree Pedro Martinez needs to pitch well for a game to be The Pedro Game.

Can you watch it? Yes you can!

The Hipster Pedro Game: May 6, 2000 and/or Aug. 29, 2000

The pitching line(s): 9/6/1/1/1/17 and 9/1/0/0/0/13

What happened: This is, obviously, two games, and we're supposed to be talking about only one. Each of these is worthy of career-highlight status, but they bleed into each other.

Both were against the Rays. In the first, he matched a career-high 17 strikeouts and got a career-high 37 swinging strikes, which, near as I can tell, is the second-most by any starter since 1988. (The Kerry Wood Game, to put this into perspective, had 24 swinging strikes.) "I would like to have that stuff for just one inning," his pitching coach, Joe Kerrigan said afterward. "Just give me one batter." But on an eighth-inning run the Red Sox lost 1-0 to Steve Trachsel, who had led the majors in losses the year before. Pedro lowered his ERA for the season to 1.22, but he lost his 13-game winning streak. "One can only guess what we'd be saying and writing today if Pedro had actually won the game," the Boston Globe's Dan Shaughnessy wrote that day.

Fast-forward to August, the Rays again. Gerald Williams led off the game, took a fastball on his hand, and charged the mound. He landed a clean punch before a pile formed on him and Pedro, and when it was all settled -- 12 minutes later -- Williams was ejected. Pedro was not. There would be a total of five scrums in the game -- Brian Daubach had to go to the hospital, Lou Merloni was hospitalized with a concussion, Trot Nixon maybe threw his bat at the pitcher, eight Rays were ejected, and a group of Rays tried to get into the Red Sox clubhouse after the game to keep the fight going -- but Martinez managed to keep his head down and stay in. He retired the next 24 batters before finally losing his no-hitter in the top of the ninth. "John Flaherty, a guy who couldn't hit himself, took a 97 mph fastball away and dropped it into right center," Pedro writes. "Go figure. If Flaherty could ruin my no-hitter in 2000 and Bip Roberts could spoil my perfect game five years earlier, there was no reason to be upset with never having one of those on my resume. It just wasn't meant to happen."

As the Boston Herald's Michael Silverman would write in 2015, "If one game could capture what made Martinez so dominating and infuriating for opponents, this was it." Indeed, it captures the subtext of Pedro, which even he seemed to underestimate. While he insisted that his pitch to Gerald Williams was unintentional, and that he had no history with Williams, Williams (and everybody else) had history with him, because of that subtext. Consider how, after the May start, a reporter had actually asked Williams whether he had expected any pitches high and tight from Pedro -- a seemingly out-of-nowhere question for a batter who hadn't gotten any pitches high and tight. But sure, makes sense as a question: It's Pedro! After the August start -- and the fastball to his hand -- Williams struggled to hold his tongue: "I want to remain professional. Sometimes, it becomes increasingly difficult when you're given a guy's background. That's all I want to say about it."

By Game Score, the August game was tied for the best start of Pedro's career. By swinging strikes, the start in May might well have been his most dominant. Neither was The Pedro Game.

Why neither is The Pedro Game: While these would easily sit atop the highlights for a normal ace, two masterpieces against a pitiful Rays team can't quite contend against Pedro's larger body of work. Besides, hardly anybody saw those games, or can see those games, and thus hardly anybody can remember those games with the appropriate sense of awe.

Can you watch them: Not entirely, but you can watch the brawl in the August game and you can watch 55 seconds of third strikes in the May game:

55 Seconds of Pedro Martinez's Filth (17K Game against the Devil Rays). Complete with Pedro side-eyeing batters after Ks, as he walked off the field. pic.twitter.com/79ccz2ByFc

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) December 24, 2017

The Pedro Game Most Likely To Be Remembered in the Year 2119: Oct. 16, 2003

The Pitching line: 7.1/10/5/5/1/8

What happened: This was the start after the Don Zimmer game, after the death threats and the extra security, and here's what Pedro writes that was like:

"Just before I took the long, exposed walk out to the outfield to begin my long toss, I asked our resident security agent to walk beside me. Pitchers do not get police escorts on a baseball field. That night I did, for the first and last time. Before I could think about facing Alfonso Soriano, I had to stop thinking, literally, about meeting the same fate as John F. Kennedy."

He was so, so good. When the eighth inning began, with Pedro still pitching, Joe Buck read a promo for Master and Commander, "The year's most anticipated motion picture, starring Russell Crowe." Nineteen seconds later, Tim McCarver chimed in: "Master and Commander has starred Pedro Martinez tonight." Yesss.

But there's another thing Buck said that inning: "Some [people were] saying Pedro Martinez still had to have that one game -- that highlight game in his career." That's incredible, considering that all the other games we've talked about or are about to talk about had already happened, but the stakes and the performance might have justified it. Buck was suggesting, at roughly 11 p.m. on Oct. 16, 2003, that this was actually the greatest game of Pedro Martinez's career, that this was the game he'd be remembered for: Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, against the Yankees, to send Boston to the World Series, with the franchise still waiting for its first title in almost a century.

And then, incredibly, this start became exponentially more memorable, immeasurably more historic: Grady Little leaving Martinez out for one, and then two, three, four, five batters too long, long enough for Martinez to lose the lead, so that Aaron Boone could eventually hit the walk-off homer in the 11th inning. It might be the most famous baseball game of the 21st century.

But it's not The Pedro Game.

Why it's not The Pedro Game: It's the Grady Little Game. It might be the game most likely to be remembered 100 years from now, and Pedro was on the screen more than any other player, but this ultimately wasn't a movie about him. It was really a psychological thriller, with Little the protagonist.

Can you watch it? You can. In fact, if it's not the most-viewed full game on MLB's YouTube channel, it's very close:

The Not-A-Real-Game Pedro Game: July 13, 1999

The pitching line: 2/0/0/0/0/5

What happened: This was the 1999 All-Star Game, in Boston. Martinez had actually refused to pitch in the previous year's All-Star Game, after he felt snubbed when another pitcher was given the starting assignment. (Publicly, he claimed to be sore.) But the 1999 game was in Fenway Park, and by this point Martinez was a half-season into the greatest multi-year peak of any pitcher in history. He got the start.

"Joe Torre and his brother-in-law were in [Red Sox manager Jimy Williams'] office at Fenway before the game," Pedro writes in his book. "Joe was listening to his brother-in-law go on and on about the power in the NL lineup and how many home runs were going to be hit. 'Pedro will strike everyone out,' Joe told him. 'What? You realize who they've got?' 'Yeah, and I don't care -- he'll strike everyone out.'"

The six batters he faced were Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Matt Williams and Jeff Bagwell. He struck all but Williams out. Williams hit a first-pitch curveball weakly to second base.

Now, every baseball kid grows up hearing about the time Carl Hubbell struck out five Hall of Famers in a row, and there's no doubt Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx -- three of those Hall of Famers -- loom larger in the public record than Barry Larkin and Larry Walker. But Pedro's five-out-of-six strikeout victims had exactly the OPS Hubbell's five had, at the time:

• Pedro's five, first half 1999: .311/.414/.609

• Hubbell's five, first half 1934: .331/.428/.595

Larry Walker was hitting .382 at that point. Sosa and McGwire that year were both on their way to once again hitting more than 61 home runs. Larkin and Bagwell are each in the Hall of Fame.

"I was amped up at a level I had seldom reached," Pedro writes. It took him 28 pitches to get through his two innings. He threw six curveballs, and three caused batters to buckle: Two to Sosa, one to McGwire. He threw six changeups, four of them for swinging strikes. He threw 15 fastballs, up to 98 mph, and none were put into play. The five strikeout pitches are all GIF-able, but some of the best stuff was actually buried earlier in counts.

Those two innings are, to many, The Pedro Game, but they also cost the world an even better greatest pitching season of all time. "My shoulder was sore with what I thought was normal soreness after that game, but I was unable to work it out of my system before I went back into the rotation five days later. I only lasted 3 2/3 innings in my first start back, against the Marlins, because my shoulder was too sore to go. I had to go on the DL ... My ERA ballooned, relatively, from 2.10 at the ASB to 2.52 by the middle of August before my shoulder settled down." He had starts of 79 pitches, 77 pitches and 64 pitches in the weeks after. But in his final eight starts after it "settled down," he struck out 15, 11, 15, 17, 14, 12 and 12. If we take that timeline at face value, then this is what Pedro's season looks like without the All-Star Game:

• First half: 15-3, 2.10 ERA, 184 Ks in 133 innings

• Aug. 24 on: 6-0, 0.80 ERA, 97 Ks in 56 innings

Combined: 21-3, 1.72 ERA, 13.4 Ks/9

That 1.72 ERA would have come in a season in which the second-best ERA in the league was 3.44, and the league-average ERA was 4.86. (Bob Gibson's record 1.12 ERA came in a season when the league-average ERA was 2.99.) His FIP on the season -- 1.39 -- is already the lowest since the Deadball era, but without the sore-shoulder starts, it would have been 1.24. It is just wild to think that the second-shortest start of Pedro's career (by pitches), in a game that didn't even count, would have bitten so much out of such a historical season.

As it is, though, the shoulder at least settled down enough to make possible the top two contenders for The Pedro Game. The All-Star Game is not quite The Pedro Game.

Why it's not The Pedro Game: Too short, didn't count.

Can you watch it? You actually must watch it:

The Scriptwriter's Pedro Game: Oct. 11, 1999

Pitching line: 6/0/0/0/3/8 (in relief)

What happened: Pedro had started Game 1 of the ALDS, throwing four scoreless innings before he had to be removed for "something between a pinch and a pull," in his words. The Red Sox lost the game, and for the next week weren't sure if they'd lost Pedro. When the series reached Game 5, they still didn't know if he'd be available, and when he threw in the outfield before the game he didn't quite feel right.

Jimy Williams hoped to use Pedro for the final inning, maybe two, if the game turned out to be close. "The doctors examined the strained muscle running from his right shoulder down his back and said Martinez might be able to throw 40 pitches, absolute max," Tom Verducci wrote the following spring.

But when starter Bret Saberhagen and reliever Derek Lowe each got knocked out early, and the Red Sox trailed 8-7 through three, Pedro walked over to Jimy in the dugout.

"Jimy, I'm sorry, but I'm going to go to the bullpen and try and see what I can do."

"No Pedro, if you can go, you're supposed to go at the end, and that's only for one inning, maybe two, and 18, 20 pitches."

"Jimy, this is the time. I'm sorry. But I'm going to see what I can do and if I can do it, I'm going in."

"Goddammit, Pedro, I can't let you do that."

"No, Jimy, I'm going now."

He went to the bullpen and threw. (Rod Beck, the Red Sox closer, also warmed up. It was the third inning!) The Red Sox tied the game, and in the bottom of the fourth Martinez entered the game, barely able to top 90 mph. His first two pitches were balls, and the Cleveland crowd erupted, perhaps convinced they'd actually just been given a gift -- a hurt pitcher, about to get rocked. "With every pitch Martinez felt a stabbing sensation behind his shoulder," Verducci wrote.

And still he was Pedro, just different. He threw about twice as many changeups as he typically would, and more curveballs, too, including a changeup-curve-change-curve-change-curve sequence to Roberto Alomar in the fifth. He couldn't get his arm up to its regular three-quarters slot and was throwing almost sidearm, which gave his fastballs a bit of manic, unpredictable movement. As the strike zone expanded off the edges later in the game, he painted those extra inches of the plate, throwing mostly fastballs in the final two innings. When it ended, Pedro had thrown 97 pitches, six innings, hitless -- against the only 1,000-run offense since 1950. The Red Sox won.

It's probably his greatest performance, all things considered. Even if he weren't hurt, it would have been an all-timer, but the lingering injury made it like "Kirk Gibson limping off the bench to hit his home run -- and doing it five more times," in Verducci's words. In Pedro's: "You think about being a hero in baseball, the Kirk Gibson winning homer against [Dennis] Eckersley [in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series]. Fans think of that, but players do too. For me in my life I have never known when those things are going to happen, when that moment, that opportunity, is going to come. But in my heart, I wanted them so much." The great Red Sox beat writer Chad Finn says it was "to that point the most fulfilling experience I'd had in a lifetime as a Red Sox fan. I couldn't even tell you what would have ranked second."

And add onto that what Martinez was, he says now, risking: "I risked my career that day," he told Jonah Keri. "I did it out of pure guts and adrenaline. I went out there and I did it, I risked my career. From the 84-86 mph that I was probably throwing in the first inning, I went all the way up to 94 again, but at the end of the game I was dying. I've never been in more pain than I was that day."

I do not see how this cannot be The Pedro Game, but I've become convinced it's not.

Why it's not The Pedro Game: What made it incredible was that it wasn't quite Pedro. He'd been Freaky Friday'd into another pitcher's body, and his brilliant soul adapted and took advantage of the Indians' expectations. Somehow, he equaled himself. But it was an anomalous Pedro, not The Pedro. In that game, we saw something incredible happen, but Pedro as a pitcher could be more incredible than that.

Can you watch it? Here you go:

The Pedro Game: Sept. 10, 1999

The pitching line: 9/1/1/1/0/17, the only instance of that pitching line in major league history.

What happened: Pedro started against the Yankees, in the final month of a pennant race, in Yankee Stadium. In the second inning, he threw a truly terrible pitch and Chili Davis hit a solo home run, and you could reasonably argue he never threw another bad pitch. He retired the next 22 batters, 15 of them by strikeout. None of the final 11 batters hit a ball fair.

Buster Olney wrote the game story for the New York Times: "Hitters gossip on the Yankees' bench during games, sharing information about the opposing pitcher's flaws. But there was no free-flowing exchange of thought last night, no tips, no insight. They said nothing in the dugout because there was nothing to say. Boston's Pedro Martinez humbled the Yankees in their home park in a manner never seen before." Indeed, during the ninth inning the television broadcast cut from one Yankee face to another, maybe a dozen in all, each equally stunned and speechless. The impression was one of isolation, as though Pedro had put each batter into his own personal prison cell.

"Jimy Williams, the Boston manager, said it was the best pitching effort he had ever seen," Olney wrote. "David Cone agreed, less than two months removed from throwing a perfect game."

The stakes were not as high as they were in the LDS relief appearance, or in later playoff games Pedro started. But this was, says Brian MacPherson, formerly of the Providence Journal, "the most characteristic start. He was more memorably dominant in the 1999 All-Star Game, and he was more consequential in the 1999 ALDS -- though, the fact that the Red Sox meekly bowed out in the ALCS takes some oomph out of that. But 1999-2000 Pedro was defined by the fact that he took the ball to start a game and just completely outclassed whatever lineup he faced, often in overpowering fashion. In the same way that 20 strikeouts is more difficult to attain than a perfect game, there was something quintessentially Pedro about the fact that he strode into Yankee Stadium and struck out Yankee after Yankee after Yankee after Yankee -- a year after those Yankees had won 114 games, in a year they'd go on to win another World Series -- and that dominance isn't something that one random Chili Davis home run in the second inning could diminish."

The style, too, was quintessentially Pedro. He made eight different hitters move their feet with inside pitches. He found the extra couple inches the umpire was giving on the outside corner and carved that sliver repeatedly, forcing batters to then chase unhittable curves. He wouldn't give in on any count, preferring to set up a batter with a 2-1 off-speed pitch than groove anything. He mixed his arm slots, and, in the words of Chili Davis, "It's like he invented pitches out there." His curveballs drew ludicrously weak swings from Joe Girardi, then buckled Chuck Knoblauch's knees. Darryl Strawberry, pinch hitting in the ninth, would later say he walked to the plate with no plan whatsoever. Yet all Pedro did was throw him four straight fastballs, and Strawberry swung like he'd left his eyes in the dugout.

Derek Jeter was hitting .353 coming into the game. Bernie Williams was hitting .344. These were the Yankees. But it didn't matter whether it was the Yankees in September or a simulated game on a spring training backfield. The game was 100 percent under Pedro's control.

When Pedro struck out 17 Rays the next year, it was this game he compared his stuff to. (He said his stuff was better in the Yankees game.) When we said earlier that those 17 Ks tied a career high, it was tied with this game. When we said another game matched his career-best Game Score, it was this one it matched. Other games were more dramatic (though not by much!), but this game alone was Pedro as he was, and at his best.

Can you watch it? With a Spanish-language audio feed, you sure can. You should.

For what it's worth, Pedro wouldn't name a Pedro Game. Speaking of the final three mentioned here -- the All-Star Game, the LDS relief appearance and Yankee Stadium -- he said, "[Fans] enjoyed those three games. So did I. But a favorite? I'll keep them all."

Here's another thing he said, after the Rays' John Flaherty broke up his no-hitter in Aug. 2000: "I don't really care. A no-hitter is not what's going to dictate what kind of pitcher I am. I think my career is more interesting than one game." Strongly agree.

Just days after winning the US Open mixed doubles title, Bethanie Mattek-Sands is heading back to school - and is joined in class at Harvard Business School by former world number one Caroline Wozniacki.

Mattek-Sands, 34, who announced she had enrolled at the prestigious university on Twitter, and partner Jamie Murray won their second consecutive title in New York on Saturday.

The American posed in front of the school's famous red-brick building in Massachusetts, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan "girls can do anything".

And in a similar move Denmark's Wozniacki, 29, said studying at Harvard was "a dream come true".

The 2018 Australian Open champion, who has struggled with injuries this season and was diagnosed with arthritis in 2018, lost in the third round at Flushing Meadows to eventual champion Bianca Andreescu.

The duo follow in the footsteps of five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova, who studied for a business diploma at Harvard in 2016 when she was banned for using a prohibited drug.