The Lead
Legendary former Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning came out of retirement from pro sports for a brief moment on Tuesday, as he took to the pitcher's mound at Coors Field to throw the ceremonial first pitch for the 2021 MLB All-Star Game.
Wearing the Rockies jersey of 2020 National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Larry Walker (who unfortunately had to cancel his All-Star Week plans after testing positive for COVID-19), Manning walked out into the spotlight joined by Rockies legend Todd Helton, who once was Manning's college teammate at the University of Tennessee.
The pitch itself was a bit low and outside, but Manning took it all in good fun. Afterward, Manning took a photo with Helton, as well as Rockies pitcher and 2021 All-Star Germán Márquez, who served as the catcher for Manning.
What may have been even cooler, though, was seeing footage of Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani showing off his quarterback form to Manning before the pitch.
Below the Fold
In other, decidedly more nerdy, football news, Pro Football Reference has added pre-1982 sack statistics to their database. Since the NFL didn't start tracking sacks as an official stat until 1982, prolific sack artists from the league's first decades went uncredited in sack rankings — until now. These numbers may still be unofficial, but they are the work of nearly 30 years of research. Among former Broncos, the person most affected by this is Lyle Alzado, whose 112 career sacks rank 34th all time on PFR’s unofficial leaderboard.
