CLEVELAND — Four hours before first pitch, José Ramírez, the face of the franchise and instigator to the stars, is singing Daft Punk’s earworm, “One More Time,” as strikingly off-key as possible. He intentionally butchers the simple hook as he leans back in the black leather chair at his corner locker.

Josh Naylor walks past the JBL PartyBox speaker in the center of the room and triggers the DJ sound effect, which prompts at least one teammate to fist pump like he’s raving on a sticky dance floor at a Jersey Shore nightclub.

Emmanuel Clase is FaceTiming family back home in rural Río San Juan, D.R., and the clucking of chickens would echo throughout the clubhouse if not for Ramírez’s disharmony.

One more time!

Tyler Freeman and David Fry are battling on a Mario Kart arcade machine, an undercard match before Ramírez — who possesses unparalleled skill at swerving Bowser’s stout frame around turtle shells and banana peels — begins challenging teammates for more money than they’ve earned in the big leagues.

One more time!

Austin Hedges strides into the room wearing a red, self-hemmed crop top that reveals his bellybutton and a tease of the shag carpet that covers his chest, and clutches a leather-bound notebook full of scouting reports and other secrets.

One more time!

And then silence — save for the speaker, now shuffling through a Bob Marley medley.

The bustling ceases. The bodies vanish. The room is empty.

Catchers, pitchers, coaches and analysts cram into a room across the hall to review the opposing club’s hitters. Hedges, Fry and Bo Naylor, the club’s catching triumvirate, share the intel they’ve scribbled in their notebooks. Then the pitchers trot out to the left-field grass for an afternoon catch session. Hitters head to the cages to pore over video and take their first hacks.

Manager Stephen Vogt, the new head of the operation, fulfills a slate of media obligations. He reveals just enough charm to remind reporters why he was a beloved player and he guards minor injury details like nuclear codes.

There’s nothing groundbreaking unfolding in Cleveland, where the Guardians have amassed one of baseball’s best records. There’s no secret formula, even for a team with a long-envied starting pitching factory. (Starting pitching has actually been the club’s Achilles’ heel during this wild joyride.)

Ramírez has spurred “Guards Ball,” as Fry calls it — the slashing-and-dashing style of offense that pressures pitchers and defenses until they cave. It propelled them to the playoffs two years ago. This season, aside from more meetings, they’ve added more muscle, more reliable relievers and more magic.

Night after night, it’s working. Chaos, then concentration, then conquering another opponent.

One more time!

The Guardians, implausibly, have been the story of the 2024 MLB season.

“There’s something special here,” Hedges says.

Three hours before first pitch, Guardians infielders join Kai Correa outside the dugout for work with a red machine that sounds like a swarm of scorned hornets as it revs up.

Correa, the club’s field coordinator, oversees everything from the daily bus schedule to infield shifting.

But now he’s sitting on a bucket and resting his red cleats on the black legs of The Heater Slider Lite 360. Thwoop. The apparatus spits out a one-hopper to a kneeling Brayan Rocchio, who’s wearing a white glove that doesn’t quite cover his left hand. Correa toggles a couple dials that alter the speed and angle of the grounder. If the expert level is cranked up during practice, any eighth-inning hop will be a breeze.

Evan Longoria swore by the gadget after partnering with Correa in San Francisco. The three-time Gold Glove Award winner pleaded to use it daily.

In Cleveland, the buy-in started before spring training, when almost the entire roster reported to Goodyear, Ariz., weeks before camp. That included Ramírez, the perennial All-Star. “That guy leads by example better than anybody I’ve ever been around,” Hedges says.

Ramírez is capricious before games, one day offering a reporter his Tesla Cybertruck for $100,000 cash and the next day sizing up Clase for snooping in his locker. But he quickly snaps into game mode and teammates strive to mimic his relentless work ethic, which has fueled a career path that could end in Cooperstown.

“He’s the accountability guy for everything,” Kwan says. “He’s always the lead dog.”

Ramírez swings by Correa’s station to stab at a few choppers from the machine. Later, he huddles with coach J.T. Maguire at a desk outside the clubhouse to study video of a potential tell from that night’s opposing pitcher. A decade into his career, Ramírez still craves every sliver of information that might give him an edge. He says he doesn’t care that he climbed into second place in franchise history in home runs; he just wants to break the club’s 76-year championship hex.

The Guardians have laid the groundwork for that quest with preparation. They hold more pregame meetings than ever before. Players embrace extra defensive work and time in the cage.

A new coaching staff isn’t taking that investment for granted. The Guardians might be the most surprising team in the league, but Hedges says it stems from treating every day like a playoff game. To do that, bench coach Craig Albernaz says, the Guardians must maximize every nanosecond before first pitch.

“We don’t have the experience like Terry Francona does or Bob Melvin does,” Albernaz says, “so we have to err on the side of being over-prepared.”

Two and a half hours before first pitch, coaches file into the manager’s office, one by one. Albernaz has already claimed a seat, with a laptop resting on his thighs. Bullpen coach Brad Goldberg enters, then assistant pitching coach Joe Torres, then a couple of pitching analysts and, finally, pitching coach Carl Willis, who has worked in the organization for much of the last quarter-century.

Other teams pluck pitching gurus from Cleveland’s directory on an annual basis — Matt Blake, Ruben Niebla and Brian Sweeney became pitching coaches for the Yankees, Padres and Royals in recent years — but Willis, a figurehead with decades of experience and an appetite for forward thinking, remains. Fellow coaches refer to him as a “Walking TrackMan,” the device that supplies instant data on a pitcher’s mechanics.

The Guardians’ rotation has uncharacteristically struggled, a result of losing ace Shane Bieber a week into the schedule, missing Gavin Williams for three months and receiving rocky efforts from Triston McKenzie and Logan Allen.

The club’s bullpen, however, has masked many of the team’s shortcomings. Cleveland’s relievers lead the league in ERA by a massive margin. Cade Smith learned he made the Opening Day roster while playing cards with his siblings in a hotel room eight hours before the first pitch of the season. Now, he fills the role of stopper anytime an opponent mounts a rally, whether in the fourth inning or the eighth.

Hunter Gaddis has evolved, without warning, from a scuffling spot starter to a prolific setup man. Tim Herrin, teased by teammates for his baby face and calm demeanor, has worked to improve the quality of his primal shouts as he walks off the mound following an inning-ending strikeout. There have been plenty; he boasts a 2.25 ERA in his first full season.

No reliever presents a more daunting task for hitters than Clase. With magenta-tinted locks dangling beneath his navy cap, he pumps 101-mph cutters past anyone who occupies the batter’s box.

“Clase is the best pitcher in baseball,” Hedges says.

Two hours before first pitch, teammates surround Hedges on a dugout bench as he waxes poetic about the twisted beauty of baseball, a sport that revolves around failure.

It took Hedges years to develop into a leader. In San Diego, he’d scan the lineup while praying his name was absent. He was burdened by the pressure of 162 games, of 150 nightly decisions hinging on how many fingers he flashed his pitcher. During an injured list stint for a balky elbow in 2018, he questioned whether he even wanted to return to the roster.

“So much anxiety of wanting to perform,” he says, “wanting to win, and also being like, ‘I don’t know what’s happening to my brain. I can’t freaking think.’ Luckily, eventually, in time and experience, all you can have is awareness that this is happening. So, it’s, ‘This is normal. Am I going to be a gangster, or am I going to give in?’”

Austin Hedges, who has become a key part of the Guardians on and off the field, congratulates Emmanuel Clase earlier this season. (Nick Cammett / Getty Images)

Hedges needed to come to Cleveland, to win in Cleveland, to leave Cleveland and to win a World Series last fall with Texas to understand what the Guardians were lacking and how he could provide it. He’s Vogt’s lieutenant in the clubhouse. When the two connected for a 10-minute call over the winter as the Guardians recruited Hedges back to the organization, Vogt hung up and said to himself, “This is the guy.”

The notebook Hedges constantly grips in his left hand was a wedding gift from ex-teammate Clayton Richard, who taught him how to make a difference on days he wasn’t in the lineup. This season, Hedges has been as much a mental coach, guidance counselor and senior motivation coordinator as catcher, but he cherishes the role. It’s a position Vogt held for 15 years in the minors and the majors, a catcher with a coach’s brain.

“He’s my voice,” Vogt says.

As teammates flock to him in the dugout, Hedges recommends a book about daily stoicism, a tenet this team has adopted. Vogt says he loves managing a team of clichés, players who not only rely on trite mantras to autopilot their way through interviews, but also actually adhere to them. One day at a time. Caring for each other. Turning the page after a win or loss. Banal, sure. But rooted in truth, Vogt says.

The players appreciate that Vogt shows no panic — not when they lost Bieber to elbow surgery, nor when they dropped three straight to the historically inept White Sox in May, nor when their once-massive AL Central lead dwindled last week after a seven-game skid. An early-season closed-door meeting was really just a chance to commend Hedges on eight years of service time, which alleviated some tension after a couple of defeats.

GO DEEPER

The wild highs and lows that prepared Stephen Vogt to be the Cleveland Guardians’ manager

Advertisement

Vogt has geared up for this opportunity since he was a middling A-baller eyeing a coaching future, when blossoming into a two-time All-Star seemed delusional. He has made a seamless transition to his new seat, one previously occupied by Francona, a future Hall of Famer. Hedges marvels at the way Vogt delivers the right message to the right person at the right time.

Of course, Vogt downplays his influence, insisting he’s “just a pretty face” who lets players be themselves, even if that means Scott Barlow standing in his “fish flip flops” while creating chainsaw noises into a semi-crushed Red Bull can or a group of players barking like dogs in the dugout. Fry and Hedges welcomed trade acquisition Alex Cobb to his new team in early August and Fry figured Cobb was thinking, “These weirdos, these guys are a bunch of losers.”

Really, though, it’s a tight-knit group. One day, Canadian-born Bo Naylor is teaching a card game to Jhonkensy Noel, a native of the Dominican Republic, in fluent Spanish. Another day, Fry and Ben Lively shout at the clubhouse TV until Tommy Fleetwood’s drive settles in the thickest cut of rough. Every day, in the first inning, the relievers engage in a cutthroat round of trivia, centering on anything from Venezuelan athletes to Olympic history to how many triangles can be found in a particular picture.

After a Noel missile to the outfield seats fueled a win in late June, Tanner Bibee and three relievers waited at the clubhouse entrance to supply the linebacker-sized slugger with high-fives while urging him to give a speech. House music blared as Hedges and Gaddis argued over whether the catcher’s recent stolen base should have been deemed defensive indifference. Kwan walked past Noel, hopped and punched the air, mimicking the team’s Super Mario-themed home run celebration. Ramírez stepped onto the edge of his locker in his brown Louis Vuitton loafers to answer reporters’ questions and meet Clase’s gaze.

“You can tell when people genuinely, actually want to be around each other,” Vogt says.

Manager Stephen Vogt (left) and bench coach Craig Albernaz don’t often vary their pregame routine. (Jason Miller / Getty Images)

One hour before first pitch, Vogt and Albernaz reunite in the manager’s office, down the hall from the clubhouse nuttiness and last-minute plotting. They say goodnight to their kids over FaceTime. They review Albernaz’s notes on the running game, the pitching matchups, pinch-hit scenarios and bullpen deployment. They toast to the night ahead and take a swig of Arctic Vibe-flavored Celsius. The routine can’t change — and neither can the drink flavor — unless they lost the night before.

“We’re a little ‘stitious,” Albernaz says.

Fifteen minutes before the national anthem, Vogt darts to the dugout. He has arrived at the calmest part of his day. The empty dugout is his oasis.

His days are filled with organizational meetings and media interviews and office visits and strategizing sessions. His late nights are spent stirring in bed, sometimes until 3 a.m. as he mentally replays decisions or contemplates advice to supply a struggling player. It takes an episode or two of “Banshee” to hush the inner monologue.

As the game inches closer, though, he finds clarity. He leans against the dugout railing and, for 15 minutes or so, he can exhale.

He watches fans find their seats. He initiates off-topic banter with players as they pass by on their way to stretch. He cycles through his memories from whichever ballpark he’s calling home for a few days. He can’t patrol the visitors dugout in Kansas City without reflecting on the 2014 Wild Card Game with Oakland.

He calls this “the calm before the storm,” a therapeutic reset before the real thing, far away from Ramírez’s toneless melody, Hedges’ ceaseless banter and any other noise.

By this point, the hard work is complete. It’s time for first pitch.

 (Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic. Photos: Jason Miller, Rich Storry / Getty)

Kristin Juszczyk hit the big time.

The wife of San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk began designing her own clothes after admittedly getting “so sick” of the “rotation of four shirts” she had for her husband’s games.

So, she took it upon herself to use her creativity to make her own clothes, and they quickly went viral.

She made a Travis Kelce-themed jacket for Taylor Swift, and even last month, Livvy Dunne sported a Juszczyk-designed jacket for the Paris Olympics.

But there was one A-list celebrity she had no choice but to shut down: the vice president.

In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, Juszczyk said she got a request from Kamala Harris, a 49ers fan, at the worst time: she had been in full-on Super Bowl mode.

“During the Super Bowl, I got a text from my agent, and that’s when things were going crazy. He was like, ‘Hey, the vice president wants a jacket.’ I’m like, ‘What company?’ He’s like, ‘The country,’” she said.

Kyle Juszczyk of the San Francisco 49ers and wife Kristin Juszcyk are shown during the Pro Bowl Games at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Feb. 5, 2023. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

AARON RODGERS MET WITH ESTRANGED FATHER FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 2014 LAST YEAR, BOOK SAYS

“Unfortunately, at that time, I had no help and no ways of being able to make more stuff. There was just no time. But that’s always a funny story that stuck out to me. I’m like, ‘This is going crazy. I got a request from the White House.’”

It’s quite the turnaround for Juszczyk, who says at one point she was too scared to give her designs to anybody.

“I had never made anything for anybody else, so I was always hesitant because I’m a perfectionist at my heart, and [it would bring] it to a whole other level if I were handing it to somebody else. I’m no professional whatsoever, I’m completely self-taught,” she said.

Kristin Juszczyk arrives before Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Feb. 11, 2024. (Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)

“But I finally took that leap of faith last year, and it’s been such a fun process. I’m learning every single day. I love a challenge. I love being able to pick up new things in life and learn it. This is something that, no matter how long I do it, I’ll always be learning.”

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

A month without basketball is over. Well, WNBA basketball that is.

After a thrilling end to the Paris Olympic basketball tournament, the gold-medal winning Americans have again dispersed across the country to their respective WNBA teams. The New York Liberty entered the All-Star/Olympic break with the league’s best record (21-4) and are looking to claim the franchise’s first title. After a bit of a slow start, the Las Vegas Aces are looming in fifth at 16-8 but could very well complete the WNBA’s first three-peat since the Houston Comets from 1997-2000. A number of other title contenders (the Connecticut Sun, Minnesota Lynx and Seattle Storm) are between the two 2023 finals participants with significant aspirations, and those on the bottom half of the standings are seeking to throw their hats in the mix.

Ahead of games resuming on Thursday, here are five predictions for the rest of the season.

Which team will make a second-half surge?

Sabreena Merchant: Minnesota. The Lynx have Napheesa Collier back, and they’ve been plus-11.4 per 100 possessions with her on the floor. Cheryl Reeve no longer has the weight of the world on her shoulders after Team USA won gold in Paris. Minnesota has had the league’s best defense all season, despite slumping in July in Collier’s absence. Now fully healthy, the Lynx can take advantage of the league’s easiest remaining schedule — a .441 opposing win percentage awaits, per Tankathon.

TWO-TIME. 🥇 pic.twitter.com/Iqs4yFB8Tm

— Minnesota Lynx (@minnesotalynx) August 11, 2024

Advertisement

Ben Pickman: Will the Atlanta Dream finish in the top six of the standings? Probably not. But if you’re circling a franchise in the 7-12 range as a team that might look drastically different in the second half of the season, then keep a close eye on the Dream. Atlanta entered the All-Star/Olympic break 7-17 and in ninth place. The big reason to anticipate some positive change is that the time off gave the Dream’s best players time to heal. Star wing Rhyne Howard missed a month with a left ankle injury, and during Howard’s absence Atlanta won just a single game. She returned for the final game before the Olympic break, before helping the U.S. 3×3 team win bronze. Perhaps just as important, significant offseason acquisition Jordin Canada played only four games in the first half of the season due to two injuries. Her return could be an important jolt to Atlanta’s offense, which was 11th in offensive rating through the date of Howard’s injury on June 19. With Canada, Howard and Allisha Gray all playing together, Atlanta becomes a dangerous group to slow.

What is your biggest question?

Pickman: Will any Olympic stars who are not currently signed lift a franchise during the stretch run?

Perhaps this is a bit of recency bias, but I’m watching to see if Emma Meesseman (Belgium), Gabby Williams (France) or Marine Johannes (France) sign with a WNBA franchise to help during the second half. Despite the prioritization rule coming into effect this May, all three are still eligible to join the W if they so choose because of a bit of a CBA loophole. Of course, not all of the WNBA’s contenders have the roster space to sign one of those players, but all three could be difference-makers. Johannes has proven to make an impact in bursts when she came off the New York Liberty bench. Williams showed fearlessness and high-level playmaking during the Olympics, and she has produced in the WNBA with the Seattle Storm. Meesseman hasn’t played in the WNBA since 2022, but she has won the EuroLeague MVP in each of the past two seasons and was the best player not named A’ja Wilson during the Paris Olympics.

Merchant: Do the Aces have enough in the tank to three-peat?

A’ja Wilson, Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum each rank in the top 15 in minutes per game, plus they played 163, 115 and 90 minutes, respectively, during the Olympics (not counting the All-Star Game or other exhibitions). Las Vegas is tied for the most games remaining in the league at 16 and has the third-most difficult schedule. The Aces currently sit in fifth, so they have to leapfrog at least one team to get home-court advantage in the first round, and potentially two more for home-court in the WNBA semifinals. They already get every opponent’s best shot as the defending champions, and now they have to make up ground with a group that has been heavily worked during the first part of the season. It seems foolish to bet against Wilson and Co. after the successes of the past two years, but 2024 has been an extra challenge from the jump. On a neutral site with rest, I’d pick Las Vegas against any other team, but the conditions won’t be that favorable for the Aces going forward. Being able to come from behind after setting the pace last year will be a new task for this squad.

Who will win Rookie of the Year?

Merchant: Caitlin Clark.

Perhaps no rookie has ever come into the league with such high expectations. Not only was she tasked with turning the Indiana Fever into a contender, but she carried the weight of the entire league on her shoulders. She has delivered in so many ways, helping the WNBA’s popularity rocket while steadily improving on the court. She leads the league in assists while pacing rookies in points per game. Clark also leads first-years in usage (24.8 percent) while posting the highest effective field-goal percentage (50.9 percent) among rookies who average at least 25 minutes in at least 18 appearances this season.

Clark’s individual numbers are hard to argue, but this isn’t a cut-and-dry case because Angel Reese has been more impactful for team success. Reese has a plus-3.4 net rating while Clark lags behind at minus-6.8. Furthermore, the Sky are 24.9 points per 100 possessions better when Reese plays, and the Fever are essentially neutral whether Clark is on or off the court. However, the team context isn’t enough to overcome what Clark has accomplished at the toughest position and while at the top of the scouting report.

Pickman: Caitlin Clark.

It feels like forever ago that Clark last played in a WNBA game. But lest anyone forget that in her final game before the multi-week hiatus, Clark set a new single-game WNBA record with 19 assists. Having to play 11 games in 20 days, Clark and the Fever got off to a slower start than many on the outside expected entering this season. But since Indiana’s early-season sprint, which ended June 2, Indiana is sixth in net rating and Clark’s net rating is nearly 16 points better per 100 possessions. She leads the league in assists, ranks third in 3-pointers and seventh in total points, all while playing the second-most minutes of anyone across the WNBA. More than any single counting stat, if she is able to continue to improve on her first half the way she did through the months of June and July, then Indiana could also become the kind of opponent no other franchise wants to face in the playoffs.

Who will win MVP?

Pickman: A’ja Wilson.

She should win MVP and she will win MVP. The biggest question through the first half of the season was whether it will be a unanimous vote. Jonquel Jones and Elena Delle Donne have come very close in recent years, but with a second half to the season as strong as Wilson’s first, that could be another aspect she adds to her legacy this summer.

Merchant: A’ja Wilson.

Exactly what Ben said. The WNBA can start creating this trophy for Wilson right now as she joins the three-timers club of Lauren Jackson, Lisa Leslie and Sheryl Swoopes.

Who will win the WNBA championship?

Merchant: I was burned by picking New York at the start of the 2023 regular season and at the start of the 2023 finals, yet here I am, tempted by the Liberty again. They’ve had a superlative first half of the season and have the depth to stay fresh over the final month heading into the playoffs. Las Vegas retains the head coaching advantage, and the Aces have the best player in the world, but New York might just have the better team this time around.

Pickman: The Liberty have been the WNBA’s best team thus far, with Sabrina Ionescu’s continued ascension, Jones’ dominance and the emergence of viable reserve options all helping New York jump to a fast start. But the Aces haven’t done enough to sway me from my preseason title pick. Sure, the eight losses are the most they’ve had since 2022, but with Chelsea Gray in the starting lineup, Las Vegas is 8-2 with a plus-12.3 net rating, a mark slightly ahead of the Liberty. Wilson is better and so is Jackie Young. The Aces might not have home-court throughout this postseason, but I’m not convinced that will matter either.

(Photo of A’ja Wilson: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)