SCORES ANALYSIS COMMENTARY TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2019 B7
NMICHAEL EVANS/THE NEW YORK TIMESBorn in 1935, roller derby has a rich (if bumpy) history. The 1973 world championships, below, drew 27,000 fans to Shea Stadium. Pages B10-11.
ROLLING AND ROCKING
MICHAEL EVANS/THE NEW YORK TIMESBOSTON — On Monday morning, the
Yankees woke up with the biggest divi-
sion lead in the American League, at
eight and a half games, over the Tampa
Bay Rays. The Yankees had just sal-
vaged a 9-6 victory the night before in an
otherwise-lopsided four-game series
against their surging rival, the Boston
Red Sox, who trailed the Rays by half a
game.
But over the weekend, the Red Sox and
Yankees didn’t feel all that far apart.
Consider this: The 59-48 Red Sox are
averaging 5.85 runs per game, the best in
the major leagues entering Monday’s
games, and had a team earned run aver-
age of 4.66, good for 19th. The 67-38 Yan-
kees, on the other hand, are averaging
5.81 runs per games, the second-best
mark in baseball, with a team E.R.A. of
4.39, which ranked 15th.
So while the Yankees maintain a firm
lead in the standings, in at least two other
important areas the differences between
the teams was measured in fractions of
runs.“It’s just been cutthroat every game,”
Yankees first baseman Luke Voit said. “I
feel like every time we score, they score,
and vice versa. It doesn’t matter who’s
pitching, our best guy, their best guy, a
long reliever, their best starter.”
While so much attention was paid to
the Red Sox’s pitching struggles this sea-
son, it was the Yankees’ historically
rough week on the mound that once
again brought to the forefront a weak-
ness that has concerned the team’s deci-
sion makers throughout the summer.
The trade deadline, 4 p.m. on Wednes-
day, comes at an opportune time.
“We’ve entered this process at the
deadline with a pretty good feel of what
we’d like to do, what we’re willing to pay
for it and the built-in discipline of walk-
ing away if we don’t find the right
matches under those circumstances,”
Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ longtime
general manager, said on Friday after-
noon, before two more rough pitching
performances by his team. “That’s re-
gardless of what’s happened in the lastA Familiar Old Brute Lumbers Up the Standings to Menace the Yankees
The Rays began fading in June, and Andrew Benintendi and the Red Sox have surged.
BOB DECHIARA/USA TODAY SPORTS, VIA REUTERS
JULYJUNEMAYAPRIL15-8
15-12
16-11
12-14
1-3
MARCHBoston’s Record
By MonthContinued on Page B8By JAMES WAGNERSome teenagers make extra cash by
mowing lawns or babysitting. But 16-
year-old Kyle Giersdorf of Pennsylvania
put them all to shame by winning $3 mil-
lion playing Fortnite.
Kyle, who plays Fortnite Battle Royale
online as “Bugha,” beat out 99 other play-
ers on Sunday to win the solo competi-
tion at the inaugural Fortnite World Cup,
held at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King Na-
tional Tennis Center in New York.
The status of that venue — best known
for hosting the world’s top tennis players
at the United States Open, which will be-
gin next month — was testament to the
incredible popularity of Fortnite, a game
that allows as many as 100 players to
meet on a virtual island and battle it out
until one is left.
The game has nearly 250 million regis-
tered players, according to its publisher,
Epic Games, and about 40 million of
them participated in online qualifiers for
the World Cup. Tickets to attend the
weekend event cost $50 to $150.
Kyle said in an interview on Monday
that his confidence had grown as the
event had unfolded. “I definitely went
into the competition aiming for at least
top 20, but after that big first game, I defi-
nitely thought I could win,” he said. He
played a total of six games, each lasting
about 23 minutes, he said.
He said he had played Fortnite for two
years, and had been introduced to the
game by his father, Glenn Giersdorf.
(They live in a town outside Philadel-
phia, but Kyle declined to specify fur-
ther.)It’s the only game Kyle plays competi-
tively. “I saw it and I was like, ‘This is
something I’d be interested in playing,’ ”
he said. “And I just started playing with
my friends and it got pretty fun. I started
playing every day.”
He now plays six to eight hours a day,
at least five days a week, in his room.
Kyle’s management company, Sen-
tinel, said his $3 million payday was the
largest individual prize in e-sports his-
tory. It was also not far from the amount
of money awarded by more traditional
sporting events: The men’s and women’s
singles champions of the U.S. Open will
each walk away with $3,850,000, for ex-
ample.
Only a handful of other professional
gamers have earned more than Kyle, ac-
cording to Esports Earnings, a
community-driven rankings website.
The man who tops that list, according to
ESPN, is Kuro Salehi Takhasomi, known
as “KuroKy,” who has won $4.2 million‘Bugha’ Lives the Teenage Dream by Winning $3 Million for Playing Fortnite
Kyle Giersdorf,
who plays as
“Bugha,” after his
victory at the
Fortnite World
Cup on Sunday at
the U.S.T.A. Billie
Jean King Na-
tional Tennis
Center in New
York. He plays up
to eight hours a
day, at least five
days a week.
DENNIS SCHNEIDLER/USA TODAY SPORTS, VIA REUTERSHe plans on buying a desk,
but otherwise, it’s back to
practice. Oh, and school.
By DERRICK BRYSON TAYLOR
and NIRAJ CHOKSHIContinued on Page B9