Welcome back to Keeping Score, our Friday column that highlights the personalities, teams and games that sports fans are talking about—by the numbers.
97
Miles that LeBron James commuted via helicopter this week from the 76ers’ practice facility to his New York home.
When LeBron James announced he’d be playing for the Philadelphia 76ers this season, real estate agents in Philly’s posh Main Line suburbs must have been dreaming of hefty commissions. Instead, LeBron decided to make New York his home base and commute back and forth. What he didn’t tell us is that he’d be traveling in high style.
After Tuesday’s practice, LeBron left the Sixers’ practice facility in Camden, NJ, by helicopter for the 40-minute flight back to New York. According to ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst, the reason that the practice facility has a helipad is that Sixers owner Josh Harris, a co-founder of Apollo Global Management, likes to commute to New York by helicopter, too.
LeBron will also keep a residence in the Philadelphia area, which will likely be good for his golf game. The Philadelphia region is home to four of Golf Magazine’s Top 100 Courses in the US, including No. 1 Pine Valley and No. 8 Merion.
Windhorst also said that LeBron isn’t the only Sixer to choose living in New York over Philadelphia. His former coach JJ Redick lived in Brooklyn when he played in Philadelphia. Of course, Redick made his commute the old-fashioned way: the New Jersey Turnpike.
18–21
Number of months golfer Tom Kim must serve in the South Korean military if he or his team does not win gold at this week’s Asian Games.
Now that’s pressure. South Korean golfer Tom Kim needs to win either an individual gold or a team gold at this week’s Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan, or he’ll have to put his clubs down to complete his mandatory national military service.
South Korea offers a military exemption for achieving global prestige in sports or in the arts. The exemption is offered to athletes who win bronze or better at the Olympics or gold at the Asian Games. Soccer star Heung-min Son and baseball pitcher Chan-ho Park both qualified for exemptions. The arts exemption is for prize-winning classical music and traditional arts only. BTS didn’t qualify.
After a second-round 66 on Thursday, the 24-year-old Kim is just two shots off the lead.
Golf Digest notes that the stakes for a golfer like Kim are extremely high because extended time off can cause a player to lose his or her feel. When Sang-moon Bae reported for military duty at age 29, he was an accomplished player with 16 worldwide wins and a Presidents Cup appearance on his resume. Two years later, he was ranked 1,869th in the world.
In 2017, Bae told the AP, “I’ve kind of lost my feel how to play golf. Not how to swing—I forgot how to play golf.”
6
Number of wins that Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid has at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
If you needed any additional perspective on how bad the Raiders have been since they moved to Las Vegas in 2020, the winningest coach in Allegiant Stadium history will be Andy Reid if the Chiefs beat the Raiders on Sunday.
The Chiefs have won six times in Las Vegas against their division rival under Reid. Only former Raiders coaches Josh McDaniels and Antonio Pierce have equaled that mark. It’s probably not a coincidence that six is also the number of coaches that the Raiders have had in their seven seasons in Las Vegas.
“I didn’t know that and I don’t really care,” Reid said when told that he could break the record.
Reid is more interested in another record: Don Shula’s 347 total wins. Reid needs 37 wins (including playoff games) to catch Shula, and his current deal with the Chiefs runs through the 2029 season.
The Chiefs play the Raiders at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday.
26: Goals that Caitlin Clark scored as a freshman in just six games on her high school’s varsity soccer team.
Research shows that many elite athletes played multiple sports in their youth, but the connection between WNBA stars and soccer is still pretty incredible. The WNBA’s ex-soccer players include Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, Minnesota Lynx guard Olivia Miles, Toronto Tempo guard Kiki Rice and Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale, as well as legends like Candace Parker and Sue Bird.
According to The Athletic, Clark scored 26 goals in six games in her freshman year of high school, and she was named to the 2017 Class 3A All-Iowa Girls Soccer Team. Clark stopped playing soccer when her basketball commitments became too time-consuming, but she says that her soccer experience contributed to her basketball success.
“The best thing it did for me was foot speed, but also reading angles,” Clark said. “That’s what soccer is: getting your body in the correct angle, leading people on [when] passing, putting the ball in the perfect spot where they can run on to. … That’s helped me as a passer. Understanding angles, leading people, manipulating people on where I want them to go.”
2
2005 White Sox World Series games that the Rev. Robert Prevost attended before he became Pope Leo XIV.
When the Houston Astros played the Chicago White Sox this week, they didn’t stand a prayer after White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf received a letter from His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV.
Pope Leo is a Chicago native and a huge White Sox fan. (He later became a Villanova Wildcats basketball fan while studying at the Augustinian university.) In the letter, dated Sept. 9, Pope Leo writes:
…sport can truly become a school of life, where all can learn that abundance does not come from victory at any cost, but from sharing, respecting others and from the joy of walking together.
In this spirit, it is my hope that the White Sox will continue to foster bonds of friendship and solidarity among people, and thus bear hopeful witness to the possibility of living and working together in peace.
I willingly invoke the Almighty’s abundant blessings upon you and your loved ones.
Reinsdorf was impressed with the message.
“Imagine a Jewish kid from Brooklyn getting a letter from the Pope,” he told ESPN. “I’m going to convert.”
1
Inches that Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg claims to have grown over the summer.
Basketball players and their height can be a tricky subject. Sometimes shorter players like to be listed as taller than they are (Allen Iverson), while taller players say they are shorter than they actually are (Kevin Durant).
For 19-year-old Cooper Flagg, the issue is both how tall he is and how fast he’s growing. Last week, Flagg said he grew an inch in the offseason, bringing him to 6-foot-10 without shoes. He also said his weight increased from 205 pounds to 228.
But it was the height claim that had online sleuths checking photos of Flagg standing next to teammates and questioning whether he is actually 6-10 when he appears smaller than players listed at 6-9.
For his part, Flagg laughed off the “height truthers” and joked that he thinks he’s grown another half-inch since the controversy began.
71,752,722
Total attendance at Major League Baseball games in 2026.
Reports of baseball’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Despite losing ground as Americans’ “favorite sport” to basketball and soccer, baseball has been successful in getting fans to the ballpark.
The 2026 season was Major League Baseball’s fourth consecutive season of growth. The Dodgers topped the list for most fans, with an average of 49,805 fans per game and over 4 million fans for the season.
Other big winners were the Tampa Bay Rays (79.9% increase to 17,469 fans per game) returning to Tropicana Field after Hurricane Milton damage forced the Rays to play the 2025 season at the Yankees’ much smaller spring-training ballpark, and the surprisingly resilient Chicago White Sox (35.7% increase at Rate Field to 24,524 fans per game).
The biggest losers were the Kansas City Royals (down 13.8% to 18,853) and the disappointing New York Mets (also down 13.8% to 33,902).
22
Consecutive seasons that 39-year-old Sidney Crosby has played for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby is approaching some meaningful NHL milestones as he starts his 22nd NHL season. According to The Athletic, Crosby needs 159 points to pass Jaromir Jagr on the NHL’s all-time scoring list and 237 points to reach 2,000 career points, something only Wayne Gretzky has done.
Crosby has also become Pittsburgh’s longest-tenured athlete, passing Willie Stargell’s 21 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“I know how much pride people have in sports here and appreciate the fact that we’ve had athletes in the city that have played for long periods of time for the teams here,” Crosby said. “That’s something to be proud of. It goes by super fast, but I’m definitely happy.”
32
Minutes into the game when the Real Madrid–Werder Bremen legends match stopped so players could be served a shot and a beer.
During the first half of an old-timers match between Real Madrid and Werder Bremen last week, the game was interrupted so that players could enjoy a beer and a shot of Malteser aquavit.
The match was played to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Werder Bremen’s stadium in Bremen, and the unusual beer break was part of that history.
During a Werder Bremen match in 1975, referee Wolf-Dieter Ahlenfelder blew the whistle for halftime after 32 minutes. He later admitted that he had a beer and a shot of Malteser with lunch before the game. The combination later became known in Bremen as an “Ahlenfelder” in honor of the referee.
Werder Bremen won the legends game 4-3, but the biggest cheers were for Brazilian star Aílton lustily enjoying his pint. Aílton helped Werder Bremen win the Bundesliga in the 2003-04 season.
Now that’s our kind of hydration break. 🍺
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