MEXICO CITY — One day in late July, Robinson Canó finished a workout and stepped out into a quiet hallway at Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium. He had two hours before his team, the Diablos Rojos del Mexico, would face the Conspiradores de Queretaro in an afternoon matinee, and he had a pregame routine to complete.

He needed to eat. He needed to stretch. And, at some point, he needed to finish an interview about why, at the age of 41, he was here in Mexico City, an eight-time MLB All-Star plying his trade in the Mexican League, where the salary cap is around $475,000 per month for an entire roster of 30 players.

“Cinco minutos,” Canó said, as he headed off to finish another task.

It was Saturday, and it had been a long week. The day before, the Diablos had arrived home from Leon at close to 4 a.m. On Friday night, Canó had collected two hits in an 18-11 victory over Queretaro.

Canó made more than $260 million in his career, including $240 million in a deal signed with the Mariners a decade ago. Were it not for two performance-enhancing drug suspensions, he would likely be a lock for the Hall of Fame. The Mexican League has long been a refuge for minor-league castoffs, four-A players and former major-leaguers with checkered pasts. But it’s rarely, if ever, been a place for a player like Canó.

So you might suspect that Canó spent the summer collecting a (relatively modest) check and serving as a (washed-up) draw for Mexican baseball fans. But that’s not what happened. Instead, Canó arrived this spring and immediately became the best hitter in the league, leading the Diablos — Mexico’s most storied club — to the best regular season in franchise history.

Canó finished the regular season batting .431, winning the “Champion Bat” for the highest average in the league and setting a new club record — which also tied for the highest average in the Mexican League this century. Meanwhile, the Diablos finished the regular season with a staggering 71-19 record, the highest winning percentage in league history. They entered Thursday with a 2-0 series lead over Puebla in the best-of-seven first round of the playoffs.

Canó’s arrival coincided with a Mexican League season that saw a record number of former big-leaguers thanks to relaxed rules on foreign imports, as well as increasing investment from club owners. (The Diablos also employ Trevor Bauer, the former MLB pitcher who served what amounted to a 194-game suspension for violating the league’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse policy.)

But after months of watching Canó dominate helpless pitchers, transforming into either the Ted Williams of the Mexican League, or perhaps its answer to Lionel Messi, the biggest question seemed to be: Why?

Why was Canó, at 41, grinding like he was back at second base for the New York Yankees — scouting pitchers who peaked at Double A, helping teammates who just want to survive a few more years, pushing himself to play five or six times per week?

“For me, the joy that I have is being able to be on the field,” Canó says. “I love the game. I still have that in me. I want to keep playing. I get a chance here.”

At some point, as his skills faded, his major-league career ended, and he faced his own baseball mortality, Canó considered what he would like to do with all that free time.

He opted for more baseball.

The Mexican Baseball League, or LMB, was founded in 1925. And for most of its existence, it has been a waystation for interesting outsiders. Consider the story of George Brunet, a lefty pitcher who debuted for the A’s in 1956, spent 15 seasons kicking around the majors, and then headed for Mexico in 1973, where he pitched for another 16 years, earned the nickname “El Viejo” (The Old Man), tossed a no-hitter at age 42, and suffered a heart attack in 1981. He returned the next year and won 14 games for Veracruz at age 47.

Or consider James Bell, better known as “Cool Papa,” the Negro Leagues star who batted .437 for Veracruz in 1940, joining a cadre of Black players from the era who were welcomed south of the border.

Then there was the pitcher from the Dominican Republic, who, when his six-game major-league career was over, came to Mexico and enjoyed brief stints with teams in Mexico City and Aguascalientes. José Canó didn’t leave much legacy in Mexico, but he did let his young son swing a bat on the field in Aguascalientes when he came to visit.

Robinson Canó recalled the story of his father one day in February, when club officials from the Diablos were visiting him in Miami and trying to sell him on a summer in Mexico. Canó’s career stateside had been waning since 2020 when, as a member of the Mets, he had tested positive for the anabolic steroid Stanozolol. It was his second violation of MLB’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs, which triggered a year-long suspension in 2021. When he returned to the Mets in 2022, he batted .195 in 12 games before being released.

Canó kicked around with the Padres and Braves, toiling briefly at Triple-A El Paso, before being released for good in August. Not ready to hang up his cleats, he continued to play winter ball in the Dominican and invested in Baseball United, a coming startup league focused on growing the sport in the Middle East and South Asia, which announced a partnership with the Saudi Baseball and Softball Federation in March. But Miguel Ojeda, a former big-league catcher and the Diablos sports director, wanted to offer a completely different pitch.

Considered by some to be the “New York Yankees of Mexico,” the Diablos Rojos play their home games at Alfredo Harp Helu Stadium, a modern ballpark that cost $166 million, opened in 2019 and quickly became the jewel of the league. Tucked between turns of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez — Mexico City’s sprawling Formula One track — the stadium’s white canopy roof can be seen from its surrounding working-class neighborhood. The venue’s namesake is the Diablos’ owner, Harp Helu, a billionaire businessman who is also an investor in the Padres.

Ojeda emphasized to Canó that the Diablos’ home clubhouse was major-league caliber — weight room, sauna, kitchen, chef — and that the team could offer security during his stay. (Most players live at a nearby hotel.) He mentioned the possibility of up to 20 import players, meaning the roster would be filled with players with big-league experience. “It would be a big boom for baseball,” he told Canó.

Ojeda was also honest: The Diablos have more championships than any club in Mexican League history — 16 in total — but their last title was in 2014. Their fans were getting restless.

“We’ve been dominating it during the regular season,” Ojeda said. “We just haven’t been able to win.”

Diablos officials declined to reveal how much they offered Canó, but said that Canó and Bauer were “the best paid players in the history of this team.” One American player, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss salaries, said most players with major-league experience were making anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 per month, while Canó was thought to receive a premium over that. The monthly salary cap for a Mexican League roster is roughly $475,000 — equating to an average salary of just less than $15,000 per month — though Ojeda said the team had exceeded the cap and was paying a luxury tax.

In the end, money wasn’t a sticking point. “He doesn’t need the money,” says Diablos manager Lorenzo Bundy. So when Canó agreed to sign, the Diablos front office and coaching staff emphasized one thing: The team wanted to ensure that Canó was fresh and healthy for the postseason, so they would limit his playing time to three or four games per week.

But then Canó showed up in the spring and met with Bundy.

“I came to win,” Canó said.

Pretty soon, he was batting over .400.

So Bundy put him in the lineup each day.

On a cool night in late July, Canó stepped into the batter’s box in the first inning against Queretaro. The temperature hovered in the high 50s. A mix of reggaeton and American pop music played. A crowd of more than 10,000 fans spun noisemakers, blew into plastic horns and chanted “Vamos Diablos,” creating a near-permanent din.

Canó faced Wilfredo Boscan, a 34-year-old right-hander from Venezuela whose only big-league experience consisted of six appearances for the 2016 Pirates. Canó slapped a single to left field on the first pitch. One inning later, he stepped up again and blooped another single into center.

Canó is a little thicker in the midsection these days, and his hands are slower. But the lefty swing, for the most part, is the same one he possessed during nine seasons with the Yankees.

“He’s got a beautiful swing,” said Pirates manager Derek Shelton, who managed Canó in rookie ball. “It has never changed.”

When Canó was playing for the Gulf Coast League Yankees in 2001, Shelton decided that he was “the smartest baseball player at that age” that he had ever seen. Canó was 18 and flashy, the kind of player who would charge hard for a slow roller and flip the ball behind his back. Shelton was always reminding Canó to use two hands, quoting a phrase he learned from his own father: “Robbie, God gave you two hands for a reason.”

Canó debuted with the Yankees in 2005, in the twilight of a dynasty, and grow  into one of the best second baseman in the league. He helped New York win the World Series in 2009, and for a moment seemed like a Yankee lifer. But then came two moments that defined the rest of his career: In 2013, he fired agent Scott Boras, joined Jay-Z’s Roc Nation agency and departed New York for Seattle. And then, five years later, he tested positive for the diuretic furosemide, a banned substance that landed him an 80-game suspension.

Canó would finish his career with 335 home runs and 68.1 Wins Above Replacement, better than Roberto Alomar or Ryne Sandberg, two second basemen who reached the Hall of Fame this century. But that positive test — coupled with a second in 2020 — is likely to mar Canó in the eye of Hall of Fame voters. Canó maintains that he has not given much thought to his own case.

“I never paid too much attention or looked deep into what it takes — what type of numbers or whatever,” he said. “If things happen, great. If not, I’m always going to be thankful for the years that I played. I accomplished a lot of things.”

If Canó’s teammates on the Diablos are curious about his past, it has little to do with controversy. One day this summer, Jimmy Yacabonis, a former big-league lefty, was working out in the weight room with Canó when a song by rapper 50 Cent came on the stereo.

“Hey Robbie,” Yacabonis said, “did you ever meet 50 Cent?”

Canó whipped out his phone and pulled up a photo of him and 50 Cent from his time in New York.

“He’s very down to earth,” Yacabonis said. “For a guy that’s that high profile to be that cool and that laid back around everybody, he’s an awesome teammate, honestly.” Earlier this summer, Canó decided to outfit the team with personalized cleats.

But what really caught his teammates’ eye was his everyday diligence. He studied opposing hitters and doled out tips. He was a presence in the clubhouse. If he made a mistake in the field, he would corner the pitcher for a quick debrief. He maintained a routine just as if he was still playing for the Yankees.

“He’s seen a million games and been part of a million games,” said Diablos pitcher Ryan Meisinger, who last appeared in the majors with the Cubs in 2021. “If he sees something, he lets us know.”

Canó still has a flair for the dramatic. One day after collecting two hits against Queretaro, he ranged to his right at second base and retired former big leaguer Leonys Martin on a nifty side-arm throw, the kind of play he made for years in New York.

Back then, when Canó was starring for the Yankees and Shelton was coaching for Cleveland, the coach received a signed jersey from his former player.

The inscription included one phrase: “God gave you two hands for a reason.”

There is a joke inside the Diablos clubhouse that Canó, at age 41, is the greatest hitter in the world.

“It’s like ‘create-a-player’ on (MLB) The Show,” Meisinger says.

He is Ichiro Suzuki. He is Rod Carew. He is the Mexican League’s Ted Williams, batting .400 and leaving his teammates in awe. When Canó heard the Williams comparison earlier this summer, he laughed.

“Come on,” he said. “Not even close!”

So how does one make sense of what Canó is doing?

The competition level of the level can be inconsistent. Some clubs — like Mexico City or Monterrey — can claim Triple-A quality. But much of the league is probably closer to Double A, and Kevin McCarthy, a former Royals pitcher who plays for Nuevo Laredo, admits “you might run into a Low-A game here and there.” One veteran scout says the league is filled with “throwers and not pitchers.” It is also a hitter’s paradise.

Mexico City plays their home games at an altitude of 7,350 feet — more than 2,000 feet higher than Coors Field in Denver — while more than a third of the league plays above 5,000 feet. McCarthy also cited the prevalence of turf fields, which can lead to more singles on ground balls. Another long-term factor has been the league’s reputation for loosely enforcing performance-enhancing drugs. The league does test its players, however.

Bundy, who has managed at Double A and Triple A, compared Canó’s .431 average to someone batting around .370 in the Pacific Coast League.

“I feel like in this league, a lot of the guys try to pitch to his holes,” Yacabonis said. “But some of the guys aren’t able to do that. And when they leave stuff over the plate, he’s ready to hit it.”

The question of how to understand Canó’s numbers has even been a topic of conversation among Diablos pitchers, a group which includes former big-leaguers Alex Claudio, Conner Menez and Daniel Ponce de Leon.

“It’s video game numbers,” Meisinger said. “I don’t know. We were talking about it in the bullpen the other day. He comes up with a runner on second: ‘Well, here comes a double.’ I don’t really know how to explain it.”

The simplest way to describe Canó’s summer in Mexico?

“Fun,” he says.

The Diablos were a juggernaut. He played at a high level. The cheers from the Mexican fans were rejuvenating.

The Diablos led the league in attendance, averaging 11,761 fans per, which was up 12 percent from last year and more than 60 percent from 2019, the last season before the pandemic. They are a heavy favorite to win their first championship in a decade. But one thing Cano noticed was how much opposing fans cared.

“Even if the other team is losing, they’re still singing,” Canó said. 

Canó is not one to look back — or forward, for that matter. He might consider a return to Mexico next year. The inaugural Baseball United league in the Middle East kicks off in 2025. At some point, he says, he’d love to work in a major-league front office. He also wants to focus on being a dad to his two children.

His career was not perfect. But when he considers it in total, he thinks of the World Series championship, the successes on the field and the experiences he had.

“I think that everyone has their time,” he says. “So, I think that I had my time.”

He again mentioned the memory of his father playing in Mexico.

“This is something I talked to a lot of friends and people about,” he says. “You can go and just play and have fun.”

(Top image: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Carlos Santiago / Eyepix Group / LightRocket via Getty Images)

While MyKayla Skinner remains embroiled in a social media feud over her previous comments about the US gymnastics team, her husband is showing his support.

The retired gymnast, who won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics, has been at the center of controversy after she took aim at the current group of US gymnasts. She suggested Team USA lacked depth and had a poor work ethic.

“Besides Simone [Biles], I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t like what it used to be” and “the girls just don’t have the work ethic.” Skinner said in a now-deleted YouTube video.

In a video posted to Instagram, Skinner apologized for her previous remarks and also called on Biles “to please put a stop” to what she described as “cyberbullying.”

“Watching people cheer on the bullying which has led to threats of physical harm to me, my husband and our daughter is disgusting. So please, at this point, I am just asking for it to just stop for the sake of my family because enough is enough. So why I’m here. It’s because about four weeks ago, I made a comment about work ethic and what seems to be taking place with the rising generation. To be totally clear, I take 100% responsibility for poorly articulating the point I was trying to make, and the last thing I wanted was to cause harm or offend our US Olympic team,” Skinner said in the video.

SIMONE BILES DEFENDS CALLING OUT FORMER TEAMMATE: ‘IT WAS RIGHT IN THAT MOMENT’

“My family and my friends don’t deserve to be caught in a crossfire here. They’ve done nothing. So, to Simone, I am asking you to directly and publicly to please put a stop to this. Please ask your followers to stop. You have been an incredible champion for mental health awareness, and a lot of people need your help now. We’ve been hurt and attacked in ways that I am certain you never intended.”

MyKayla Skinner of Team United States competes in the Women’s Vault Final on day nine of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on August 01, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

 Skinner’s husband, Jonas Harmer, then came to his wife’s defense via the video’s comments section.

“Proud of you for apologizing when you did, staying quiet when you did, and now standing up for yourself,” Harmer wrote. “You’re the strongest person I know!”

Mykayla Skinner and Simone Biles of Team United States pose for a photo during Women’s Podium Training ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on July 22, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

On July 30, Biles appeared to hit back at Skinner by sharing a social media post after Team USA earned gold in the team the all-round competition. “Lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions,” Biles captioned an Instagram post.

In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Biles defended calling out her former teammate, arguing it was her responsibility to “stand up” for the rest of the team.

“It’s important because you have to teach them to use their voices. And if not, you’re a voice for the voiceless, which is okay,” Biles said. “I just felt like it was right in that moment to stand up for them, because they’re so young and they haven’t fully stood in their power yet.”

“For somebody to stand up, I know it meant a lot for [my teammates],” Biles added.

Biles added to her storied career at the Paris Olympics, winning three golds and one silver medal.

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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — At the Brown Jug, a popular campus haunt, customers can order Jim Harbaugh’s 10 oz. Sirloin Steak or his father Jack’s Famous Brown Jug Burger in a sports bar that shares its name with the symbol of Michigan’s rivalry against Minnesota.

Like its namesake, a five-gallon Red Wing Pottery jug allegedly purchased in 1903 because Michigan feared someone might tamper with its water supply, the Brown Jug restaurant has become embellished in its own piece of Michigan lore. The story has all the features of a classic college football caper: a lightning-rod coach, a whiff of espionage and conspiracy theories galore, all set against the backdrop of Michigan’s march to three consecutive Big Ten championships and the 2023 national championship.

In January 2023, months before Connor Stalions’ name became known to college football in a sign-stealing scandal and a year before the Wolverines hoisted the championship trophy in Houston, news broke that Jim Harbaugh and Michigan were being investigated for recruiting violations that occurred during the NCAA’s COVID-19 dead period. A reporter posted on a message board that Harbaugh’s transgression was buying a “Jug burger” for two committed recruits who made an impromptu stop in Ann Arbor during the dead period, then denying it when confronted by the NCAA.

The story of the cheeseburger at the Brown Jug gained widespread traction publicly, playing into a well-established narrative about the arbitrary NCAA rulebook. In response, Derrick Crawford, NCAA vice president for hearing operations, took the rare step of commenting on an ongoing case after the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions rejected a negotiated resolution in August 2023.

“The Michigan infractions case is related to impermissible on and off-campus recruiting during the COVID-19 dead period and impermissible coaching activities — not a cheeseburger,” Crawford said.

For the past three years, Harbaugh and Michigan have been caught up in the NCAA’s maze of investigations, appeals, negotiated resolutions and bifurcated rulings that would make any college football fan’s eyes glaze over. Harbaugh versus the NCAA is the story everybody knows and almost no one understands.

More than six months after Harbaugh left Michigan to coach the Los Angeles Chargers, details are filtering into public view. On Wednesday, the NCAA gave Harbaugh a four-year show-cause order and a one-season suspension in connection with the case known as “Burgergate.” It followed Michigan receiving a draft notice of allegations on Sunday in the case involving Stalions, a former staffer who allegedly coordinated a scheme to collect video footage of opponents’ signals.

But with Harbaugh back in the NFL, the NCAA no longer has jurisdiction to punish him, and he has no intention of coaching college football anytime soon.

“Today’s COI decision is like being in college and getting a letter from your high school saying you’ve been suspended because you didn’t sign the yearbook,” Harbaugh’s lawyer, Tom Mars, wrote in part on X. “If I were in Coach Harbaugh’s shoes and had an $80 million contract as head coach of the Chargers, I wouldn’t pay any attention to the findings of a kangaroo court.”

My thoughts on today’s NCAA decision re Coach Harbaugh. 🦘⚖️ https://t.co/eMtUdIgXK5 pic.twitter.com/4LvPtXnxUj

— Tom Mars (@TomMarsLaw) August 7, 2024

Harbaugh has maintained his innocence and did so again this week when asked about the allegations in the Stalions case. But the NCAA’s ruling in the COVID-19 case, combined with documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests and conversations with sources involved in the process, tell a different story than the version that was widely known.

According to the ruling released Wednesday by the NCAA, Harbaugh met a recruit and his father for breakfast at a local diner in February 2021, when in-person recruiting was prohibited as a health and safety measure, and arranged for them to visit Michigan’s football facility. Harbaugh met another prospect and his father at the same diner the following month. When confronted by the NCAA, Harbaugh denied having any memory of the meetings. He went a step further in a subsequent interview, according to the ruling, “unequivocally disputing that either meeting happened.”

The NCAA had evidence to the contrary, including receipts, expense reports and testimony from the players, their fathers and other football staffers. While the COI ruling fills in many details, it leaves some out.

Yes, there was a burger involved. But not at the Brown Jug.

In spring 2021, Michigan was in the midst of a massive self-improvement project. The Wolverines finished 2-4 during a miserable pandemic-shortened season in 2020.

Harbaugh was under pressure to deliver results. Many people around the program would credit the changes he made that spring for all of the success that followed: a 40-3 record over three seasons and the program’s first national title in 26 years.

In April of that year, Michigan contacted the NCAA to self-report potential low-level violations involving analysts performing coaching duties. After a nine-month investigation, the NCAA sent Michigan a draft of minor infractions, some of which would no longer apply under new rules approved in June 2024 that allow an unlimited number of staffers to perform coaching duties.

In other words, small potatoes. But two days after issuing the draft allegations, the NCAA informed Michigan it was reopening its investigation after receiving new information. That new information included evidence that Michigan violated recruiting rules put in place during the COVID-19 dead period.

Several schools have been punished for having recruits on campus during that time. The most notable was Arizona State, which was hit with four years of NCAA probation, a fine, a one-year bowl ban and recruiting restrictions for violations that occurred under former coach Herm Edwards and assistant Antonio Pierce, now Harbaugh’s division rival as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.

The NCAA’s notice of allegations said Michigan had “impermissible recruiting contact with and/or provided impermissible inducements to three then football prospective student-athletes and their fathers” during the COVID-19 dead period. The recruit identified as Player 1 met with members of the football facility and was given access to the weight room. Player 2 and his father met staff members for a discounted meal at a local restaurant, then met Harbaugh for a free meal at another restaurant and were given access to Michigan’s football facilities. Player 3 and his father also met Harbaugh at a local restaurant and met staff members at Michigan’s football facility.

A former recruiting director who spoke to the NCAA said Harbaugh urged him to “get guys to campus” and stated that Michigan had no protocols in place to avoid in-person contact during the dead period. According to the ruling, the former recruiting director told the NCAA, “The culture (in the football program) wasn’t to be safe, the culture was to go to the line and cross it if you had to.”

Sherrone Moore led Michigan to its third straight win over Ohio State while Jim Harbaugh was suspended. (Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

In July 2022, Harbaugh told the NCAA he had no memory of meeting with Player 2 or his father at the diner and said he did not remember the player at all. In a follow-up interview several weeks later, Harbaugh acknowledged that the player had visited but denied meeting with the recruit and his father. The COI quoted a portion of Harbaugh’s answer in its ruling.

“I used to have a mind like a steel trap, now it’s more of an aluminum trap but I would — I would believe in my — in my state that I would remember having breakfast at (the diner),” Harbaugh said.

In July 2023, not long before Harbaugh went to Big Ten media days and declared he had “nothing to be ashamed of,” news broke that Michigan and the NCAA were attempting to settle “Burgergate” with a negotiated resolution that included a four-game suspension for Harbaugh. The NCAA accepted portions of the negotiated resolution pertaining to two assistant coaches, a graduate assistant and the former recruiting director but rejected the portions pertaining to Harbaugh and Michigan as an institution.

GO DEEPER

Jim Harbaugh’s turbulent Michigan 2023 timeline

According to a person involved in the process, the sticking point was whether Harbaugh intentionally misled investigators or provided inaccurate information because he didn’t remember what happened. Harbaugh maintained that when he denied meeting with recruits during the dead period, it was because he had no memory of it. But the NCAA had evidence that it happened, including a photo taken in Michigan’s football facility and a breakfast receipt that showed someone ordering a bacon cheeseburger for breakfast.

When presented with the receipt, Harbaugh changed his tune.

“I had to be there, because somebody ordered a hamburger for breakfast,” he said, according to a person involved in the process. “Who else orders a hamburger for breakfast besides me? Nobody.”

The negotiated resolution fell apart. Michigan instead self-imposed a three-game suspension for Harbaugh.

Before the first game, Harbaugh stood inside Schembechler Hall with a typewritten statement and lambasted the NCAA’s status quo. It was neither the first nor the last time he would criticize schools for hoarding the massive revenues generated by college football, but his comments had a particular bite given his looming suspension.

“What I don’t understand is how the NCAA, the television networks, the conferences, the universities and coaches can continue to pull in millions and in some cases billions of dollars of revenue off the efforts of college student-athletes across the country without providing enough opportunities to share in the ever-increasing revenues,” he said.

Harbaugh spent the first three Saturdays last season in school-imposed exile, mowing his lawn, working the chains for his son’s youth football team and attending a funeral for one of his former players at Stanford.

Upon returning, Harbaugh promised to institute policies that would make Michigan the “gold standard” for NCAA rules compliance. Little did anyone know that another suspension was around the corner.

The instructions said to enter an unmarked door in the alley behind an Ann Arbor steakhouse. The restaurant was closed, but Jim Stapleton would be waiting in the downstairs lounge.

Convinced someone was out to get Harbaugh in the wake of the Stalions revelations, a segment of the Michigan fan base focused its attention on Stapleton, a lawyer, Michigan booster and former Detroit Tigers executive who happened to serve on the Committee on Infractions. Some fans believed he was leaking information about the Stalions case in an effort to harm Harbaugh.

The news that the NCAA was investigating the alleged sign-stealing operation broke less than a month after Harbaugh returned from suspension. Stalions, a previously anonymous staffer earning $55,000 per year, was identified as the ringleader of a scheme to buy tickets for dozens of games involving Michigan’s opponents and collect video footage of opponents’ signals.

The story prompted an uproar from fans of Michigan’s Big Ten opponents, who saw Harbaugh as a cheater and Michigan’s holier-than-thou image as a fraud, and urged commissioner Tony Petitti to take action. He ultimately did, suspending Harbaugh for the final three regular-season games for violations of the league’s sportsmanship policy.

In the eyes of many Michigan fans, Harbaugh was being persecuted for the equivalent of jaywalking, possibly because he had the nerve to call out NCAA hypocrisy. The NCAA’s investigation reportedly originated with an outside investigative firm, spawning the wild theories and paranoia among Michigan fans and school administrators that enveloped Stapleton, among others.

Stapleton, who previously served on the board of regents at Eastern Michigan, had been accused of trying to undermine Harbaugh in the past because of bitterness about former coach Brady Hoke’s firing and the process of Harbaugh’s hiring.

He sent a lengthy email to members of Michigan’s campus community in January denying allegations of spreading information about the sign-stealing investigation, outlining legal steps he’d taken to clear his name and documenting a personal toll, including “numerous death threats and character assassinations against me posted online.”

Stapleton then agreed to an on-the-record interview with The Athletic and provided instructions for where to meet clandestinely.

From the steakhouse lounge, he laid out the reasons why he couldn’t have accessed privileged information about the NCAA’s investigations into Harbaugh’s program, including the COI’s recusal procedures and the wall of separation between the NCAA’s enforcement staff and COI members who rule on cases. He also denied that anyone at the NCAA had it out for Harbaugh or Michigan.

“The NCAA will investigate anything that’s credible, no matter where it comes from,” Stapleton said. “Rumors come every day. But if something’s credible, it’s their job to investigate it. This notion that it was done to ‘get Michigan’ or ‘get Harbaugh,’ that wasn’t the NCAA’s intent. Maybe it was someone else’s.”

If the allegations were intended to disrupt Michigan’s dream season, the plot failed.

GO DEEPER

Michigan’s choose-your-own-adventure season always had a championship ending

Sherrone Moore, now Michigan’s head coach, led the Wolverines to three victories in Harbaugh’s absence, including a dramatic 30-24 win against unbeaten Ohio State. Harbaugh returned for the postseason, twice-suspended but as defiant as ever.

“We stood strong and tall because we knew we were innocent,” Harbaugh said after Michigan’s 34-13 victory against Washington in the championship game. “And I’d like to point that out. These guys are innocent.”

Harbaugh made his long-awaited return to the NFL two weeks later, leaving Michigan to celebrate a national championship and unwind a tangle of NCAA allegations.

No longer obligated to defend its former coach, Michigan reached a negotiated resolution with the NCAA in April that included three years of probation and an acknowledgment that Harbaugh “failed to meet his responsibility to cooperate” with the investigation into COVID-19 recruiting violations.

“I can almost hear the wheels of the bus going, ‘whomp, whomp,’” Mars wrote in a statement.

Jim Harbaugh’s final year at Michigan ended with a national title parade. (Nic Antaya / Getty Images)

Sunday, Michigan received a draft of the NCAA’s allegations in the Stalions case, including a potential Level II charge against Moore for allegedly deleting a chain of text messages with Stalions shortly after news of the scandal broke. Moore was among the coaches who reached negotiated resolutions with the NCAA in the COVID-19 case and served a one-game suspension last season. Michigan could also face penalties if the NCAA finds that the new allegations constitute a pattern of noncompliance.

Stalions, who hasn’t spoken publicly since the scandal broke, is set to tell his side of the story in a Netflix documentary scheduled for release Aug. 27. Harbaugh reiterated to reporters this week that he “did not participate, was not aware, nor complicit” in Stalions’ alleged scheme, but he faces further NCAA penalties for not fully complying with an NCAA request to turn over emails and messages from a personal device. There’s no telling when punishment will ultimately be handed down.

GO DEEPER

How will Connor Stalions case shake out? What’s Michigan’s recruiting philosophy? Mailbag

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And though “Burgergate” has been resolved, one key question remains: Did the whole thing really start with a cheeseburger at the Brown Jug? According to one person familiar with the case, the answer was no.

“(Harbaugh) was never at the Brown Jug,” the person said. “His whole deal was Denny’s.”

Denny’s? Home of the Grand Slam and Moons Over My Hammy? That wouldn’t be out of character for Harbaugh, a professed Cracker Barrel aficionado, but the story had a few problems. A quick Google search revealed only one Denny’s in Ann Arbor, located along a busy stretch of Washtenaw Avenue next to a pet supply store. Not the most appealing place to take a prospective recruit. Also, the restaurant closed in 2022, meaning the Denny’s and its secrets might be sealed forever.

There was one person who could settle the question once and for all: the father of the recruit identified as Player 2. When reached by The Athletic, he confirmed that the infamous meal took place, but it wasn’t at Denny’s or the Brown Jug. They met Harbaugh at some local place, he said, a diner not far from Michigan Stadium …

“Was it Benny’s?”

“Yeah. Benny’s.”

That would be Benny’s Family Dining, an Ann Arbor institution where swimmer Michael Phelps famously loaded up on carbs while training for the Olympics. According to the father of Player 2, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity due to the confidential nature of the NCAA investigation, they had come to Ann Arbor for a self-guided tour. At other stops, coaches told them where to pick up a campus map but had no in-person contact. At Michigan, there was a meal the day they arrived, breakfast the next morning, then a tour of the football facility. None of which was permitted.

“It was completely, 100 percent different than everywhere else,” the recruit’s father said. “Even SEC schools that you thought in the past would have bent rules did it by the books.”

The player, who was not committed to any school at the time, did not sign with Michigan. The player’s father eventually had to hire a lawyer to deal with the NCAA fallout. He said he realized at the time Michigan was breaking the dead-period rules but didn’t feel he was in a position to say anything.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is Harbaugh. It’s a big-time program,’” he said. “You don’t want to say no.”

On a recent Monday morning, the early crowd was starting to thin out at Benny’s, where photos of Michigan stars adorn the walls. The day’s specials, written on a dry-erase board, included a bacon cheeseburger and fries for $12.99. Yes, the waitress confirmed, you can order it for breakfast.

For months, Michigan fans had been going to the Brown Jug, scanning the menu in search of the famous cheeseburger. It turned out it was here all along, waiting for someone to order it. As the NCAA said, the real story of “Burgergate” was about impermissible recruiting contact and violations of the dead period rules, not a cheeseburger.

For the record, it was delicious. A bit heavy for 9 in the morning, but well worth the wait.

(Top illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photo: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)