Now that the United States has been eliminated from the World Cup after finishing second in its group and falling 3-1 to the Netherlands Saturday in the knockout round, TigerBlog would like to remind you that still only two men have ever coached the U.S. team to first place in a group stage.
The first was Robert Millar, who did so in 1930, which happened to be the first World Cup. For the record, the U.S. won its group of three teams by defeating Belgium and Paraguay to advance to the semifinals, where the Americans were done in by Argentina 6-1.
So Millar, who was Scottish, was the first coach to lead the U.S. to a group stage championship.
The other? Duh.
It was Princeton's Bob Bradley, who did so in 2010. In the three World Cups since then, the U.S. team has finished second in its group twice and not qualified once.
TigerBlog understands how it works and all and how rare it is for someone to coach a team in multiple World Cup cycles, but the U.S. never should have gotten rid of Bradley.
Bob Bradley is the older brother of Scott Bradley, Princeton's longtime baseball coach. Bradley is also a former longtime Major League catcher, and he has been quite busy on social media in the last week or so.
TigerBlog will start with a bit of a public service announcement. You can now follow Scott Bradley on his new Instagram account at CoachBradley9. He just started on Instagram after building a very strong Twitter following (also @coachbradley9) of just short of 20,000 followers with some great content.
What kind of content? There's Princeton Athletics stuff, Princeton baseball stuff, current Major League Baseball stuff and Bradley family stuff. There's also a lot of his own pro career.
Bradley was part of some extraordinary moments as a player with four different teams from 1984-92. For instance, he once caught a no-hitter (by Randy Johnson). He also got the last hit ever at the old Comiskey Park.
Recently, there was this gem:
Going to be on with Harold and Matt this morning! My guess is that we will discuss this play!!
— Scott Bradley (@CoachBradley9) December 2, 2022
@MLBNetwork https://t.co/0ZjK4569jR
If you're within 15 or so years of TB's age, you know that there may never have been another athlete quite like Bo Jackson, who turned 60 last week. As such, Twitter was flooded with his two most memorable highlights — the play where he ran past the entire Seattle Seahawks defense, down the sideline, through the end zone and into the tunnel as a running back for the Raiders and the play that Bradley referenced in his tweet.
By the way, both of those plays happened in the old Kingdome in Seattle.
Jackson took the ball off the wall and fired home to nip Harold Reynolds. Think about that. He threw the ball from a few feet in front of the leftfield fence. Reynolds was fast, and was going on the pitch. The play was close, which by itself was miraculous.
If you watch the clip, do so with the sound on. You can hear the announcers talk about the positioning of the umpires on the play, something that suggests they gave no thought at all to that fact that a player could make such a throw.
And is the home plate umpire smiling after he's just seen?
Every time this highlight has been shown through the years, it begs the question of who the hitter was. The answer? It was Scott Bradley.
Reynolds, as you probably know, has gone on to a long career in broadcasting. In fact, he had Bradley on his Hot Stove show on the Major League Network last week.
Among the highlights of Bradley's appearance was this:
As always, Harold has friends in important places!! https://t.co/pqJRy3SHME
— Scott Bradley (@CoachBradley9) December 2, 2022
That's a story definitely worth hearing. If you didn't listen, it's a story about Reynolds and one of his classmates in the Class of 1979 at Oregon's Covallis High School.
Its a familiar name.
Like TB said, listen. And follow Coach Bradley on Instagram.
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