Owen Riley

IU alum. Wannabe professional investor. I take sports (including motorsports) and politics too seriously

[Owen Riley @OwenCRiley]

• 2011 World Series Game 6 (StL 10 Tex 9 F/11 innings)
• 2025 ALDS Game 5 (Sea 3 Det 2 F/15 innings)
• 2025 World Series Game 3 (LA 6 Tor 5 F/18 innings)
• 2025 World Series Game 7 (LA 5 Tor 4 F/11 innings)

These are the best baseball games ever

[NTT INDYCAR SERIES @IndyCar]

All roads lead to race day 🗺

The 2027 NTT INDYCAR SERIES schedule has landed.

[Ian Plaskoff @ian_plaskoff]

I spent a couple hours quantifying how dominant Indiana has been through 34 games of the Cignetti era.

What I found is pretty ridiculous. Enjoy.

#iufb

[The Upstairs Pub @UpstairsPub_IU]

Rank Northwestern you cowards... Also, Iowa drops 6 spots for losing by 17 at home to #5 OSU AND YET : the SECs Miss St drops 1 for losing by 33 at home to #7 Bama

Brand bias is so engrained and entrenched - some of you need to lose your voting privileges and credentials ffs

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

Tonight the Atlanta Braves play an elimination game against the Philadelphia Phillies, and the man taking the ball first quit baseball to work at a 7-Eleven.

Ray Kerr went to Hug High School in Reno, a program that has won 27 games since 2008 and lost 245.

He had been to exactly one major league game in his life, a Giants and Athletics game in Oakland when he was 13.

He pitched two years at Mendocino College and went 3-7 with a 4.60 ERA.

So he quit. Went home to Reno. Took a job at the IMAX theater and a job at the 7-Eleven.

Here is how he describes it.

"I cleaned up a lot of popcorn. I said, I'm done cleaning up popcorn."

And the other one.

He "stocked the shelves in the cold fridge, listening to my music, kind of forgetting about baseball."

He thought that was the rest of his life.

Then a junior college coach named Eric Perry called him.

"Let's go back to school. Let's go to Lassen Community College. I still think you have baseball left in you."

Here is the part that matters most.

Somebody had to pay for that school, and Ray Kerr grew up in foster care. The woman who paid was his foster mother, Lisa McCarthy.

In his words.

"She's the one who gave me all these opportunities to go back to college, to pay for it if I actually wanted to."

He had to earn a 3.5 GPA to get in. He earned it. Then he went 7-4 with a 3.45 ERA over 91 innings.

That summer he pitched in Alaska against Division I hitters and put up a 1.11 ERA, and his fastball started doing something it had never done.

"I thought I could only throw maximum 92."

It kept climbing into the mid 90s.

The Seattle Mariners signed him as an undrafted free agent in August 2017. Four years later they traded him to the San Diego Padres, and in April 2022 he walked onto the mound at Petco Park and struck out Justin Turner, Max Muncy and Chris Taylor in order.

He called his foster mother first.

Then in June 2024, with the Atlanta Braves, he tore his elbow and needed Tommy John surgery.

Career over. Again.

They re-signed him on a minor league contract. He did not throw a major league pitch again until August 17 of this year.

Since that day he has a 1.47 ERA, and left handed hitters are batting .174 against him. Which is why he is getting the ball tonight with Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper due up in the first.

Now the honest part. He is an opener, not a traditional starter. He may face six hitters and hand it off. The Atlanta Braves are doing this because of matchups, not sentiment.

But a kid from a high school that loses 90 percent of its games, who stocked a cold fridge at a convenience store and figured that was it, is throwing the first pitch of a win or go home playoff game.

He is done cleaning up popcorn.

[Owen Riley @OwenCRiley]

Mixed use stadiums were cool and the NFL with the baseball diamond visible was a great aesthetic

[Adam Patrick @adampatrickNFL]

People freaking out about the field in Brazil and forgetting that the NFL had the Raiders playing on a field with a baseball diamond on it until 2019

Let’s not act like the league all of a sudden actually cares about the playing surface

[Martha the Mop Lady @TheMopLady]

what a time for IU athletics on the national stage

@IndianaFootball #5
@IndianaMSOC #2
@IndianaVB #18
@IndianaSwimDive (M) #2
@IndianaSwimDive (W) #5

[MLB @MLB]

The beasts of the NL East are back on top 😤

The Atlanta @Braves are division champs for the 7th time in 9 seasons! #CLINCHED

(MLB x @BudweiserUSA)

[Mark Bowman @mlbbowman]

The Braves have won the NL East for the seventh time in the past nine years.

[Owen Riley @OwenCRiley]

Woof

[Rob Reischel @robreischel]

The #Packers have been outscored, 47-6, in the 4th quarter of their last 2 games. The #Bears outscored them, 25-6, in their wild card loss. Today it's #Vikings 22-0. Yikes!!

[Erik Haslam @haslametrics]

The officiating in this Packers-Vikings game is beyond atrocious. Some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Blown calls both ways way too often.

[Paul Pabst @PaulPabst]

The play clock guy just signed an NIL deal.

[RedditCFB @RedditCFB]

I’ve lost all respect sorry this is absolutely rigged for money... Or ratings in not sure which. I won’t be silent . Just saw it live sry.

[CrimsonCast @CrimsonCast]

This is why people lose faith in institutions. What a complete travesty.

[Mike Schumann @ The Daily Hoosier @daily_hoosier]

I need to understand why there was a second added back. Complete nonsense.

[Owen Riley @OwenCRiley]

Thoroughly enjoyed the @MLBonNBCPeacock tonight. Rizz, the Cowboy and @JoeyVotto with the one of the best in the business @jasonbenetti was a real treat

[Kevin Van Valkenburg @KVanValkenburg]

In case you missed it from yesterday: It was a dumb ad by people who didn’t know what they were doing, but Callaway was supposed to be the adult in the room for Good Good and they were asleep at the wheel.

https://t.co/HvHC8QRxfC

[Compound248 💰 @compound248]

Patrick Degorce is a f*cking hero.

He literally GAVE (not invested) Moderna the money it needed to start its cancer research.

Say his name.

[Bart Mol @Bart_Mol]

Me explaining AI to friends

[Chubby♨️ @kimmonismus]

This is freaking huge: For the first time, a AI-assisted personalized mRNA cancer treatment has succeeded in a Phase 3 trial.

Moderna and Merck sequence each patient’s tumor and compare it with their healthy DNA. AI then helps identify which of the tumor’s mutations are most likely to trigger an immune response.

From those targets, Moderna produces an individual mRNA treatment encoding up to 34 neoantigens, The earlier Phase 2 trial followed patients with surgically removed high-risk melanoma for five years:

- 68.8% remained cancer-free, compared with 49.1% on Keytruda alone
- 49% lower risk of recurrence or death
- 59% lower risk of distant metastasis or death

Now the much larger Phase 3 trial involving 1,137 patients has also succeeded.

Absolutely incredible. Dario was right: cancer will be cured in just a few years!

[Scott Dochterman @ScottDochterman]

How much is a national title worth to Indiana football?
Intangibly, it’s priceless. As a part of our valuation of football programs, the championship coupled with smart and aggressive financial decisions send IU’s profile skyrocketing.
A gift article.
https://t.co/YUAtKQaFq7