Coach K threatened to punch me over baseball. Don’t worry. It was all in fun.
This is the tale of Mike Krzyzewski (jokingly!) threatening me with bodily harm.
Yes, you read that right. No, he harbored no malice aforethought — well, except for a certain baseball team.
Here’s some background.
A product of Chicago’s north side, Krzyzewski is a die-hard Chicago Cubs baseball fan. Though I also hail from Illinois, my baseball fandom lies southward with the Cubs’ longtime rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals.
On Friday night, the Cardinals agreed to terms on a trade with the Colorado Rockies to acquire All-Star third baseman Nolan Arenado, roundly considered one of the sport’s top players.
Following Duke’s 79-53 win over Clemson on Saturday, I was among the media who joined Krzyzewski for his usual post-game news conference via Zoom.
While answering one of my questions about the Blue Devils, Krzyzewski veered into baseball talk, which he and I do every now and again.
“By the way, if you get that third baseman, I’m going to punch you,” Krzyzewski said, with a strong hint of exasperation in his voice. “How the heck do you guys, how does that happen?”
I thought that trade would be on his mind, since the Cardinals are striving to regain control of the National League Central. The Cubs won the division last season for the third time in the last five seasons. The Cardinals won it in 2019, their 11th NL Central title.
The Arenado deal is not official yet as some administrative hurdles with the league and the player’s association have to be cleared. But all signs point to it happening, something Krzyzewski was not happy to hear from me.
“Unbelievable,” Krzyzewski said. “It makes me sad. It makes me sad.”
And that, of course, makes a Cardinals fan happy.