In case you were busy getting way too excited about preseason football, here’s what you missed in sports on Thursday:

• The reigning Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens sent a message to the league with a 44-16 preseason win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their preseason opener. That message: “Dearest League, has it really been seven months since we last corresponded? That fateful evening in the Newest Orleans feels like no more than a fortnight ago. Brother was set upon brother, darkness came down upon us all, and yet at the end of the evening, ’twas our manicured fingers gripping the statue of Lombardi aloft. Now time hath passed like sands through the fingers of an hourglass. So much hath transpired! Friends, once dear, have ambled off into the arms of others, or, in the case of King Lewis LII, have ambled out of arms altogether. Our dearest Skinny Joe has been handsomely rewarded with a chest of doubloons. But tonight we wanted to speak softly in your ear and remind you, the league, that we remain always your Ravens. With charms aplenty, Baltimore.”
• Adam Scott and Jim Furyk are your first-round coleaders at the PGA Championship, as both men fired 5-under 65s at Oak Hill. They proved there is only one way to tame this Oak Hill course: You need to be a deliberate-driving, long-hitting dynamo with a looping yet direct approach to the ball in order to succeed. The PGA Championship has always favored either seasoned veterans with cagey approaches and bald domes or rising stars with complete games and full heads of hair, and this year is proving to be no exception. The winner will likely be the player who embodies most the similarities between Scott and Furyk’s games, so expect the tournament to be cancelled.
• New Brooklyn Nets forward Paul Pierce said of his team’s rivalry with the Knicks, “I think it’s time for the Nets to start running this city.” Pierce had a change of heart, however, when he began to review the city’s financial data. “My god, just keeping the subways running takes an annual act of God. And our school budget? Screw this. The Knicks can run the city.”
• Miami Heat star LeBron James was summoned to jury duty in Summit County, Ohio, but was eventually dismissed without serving. Classic LeBron, am I right? Guy can’t even get seated on a jury when it counts. I think this raises the question, when will LeBron finally win the big one? Sure, guy has all the tools to be a great legal mind. But you’re not the greatest if you aren’t deciding cases. It looks to me that James only wants to sit on juries with his friends anyway. At the end of the day we can talk about theories and philosophies, but unless you have swayed your fellow jurors in the name of justice six times can you call yourself the greatest?
• Yasiel Puig isn’t the only rookie making a big contribution for the surging Dodgers; starter Hyun-Jin Ryu threw seven innings while giving up only one unearned run, lowering his ERA below 3 as Los Angeles beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-1. “When you’re building an organization like we are, you need kids to step up and play a big role,” said Dodgers GM Ned Colletti, while taking a break from the money bonfire he was having with assistant GM Pat Corrales. “Yep, we can’t afford to plug holes by buying four or five free agents per position, so when we miss on that third or fourth consecutive big contract, we need to get our production from somewhere.”
• The NCAA is ending the sale of team-related memorabilia and jerseys on its website, as the organization attempts to avoid appearing hypocritical in the wake of court cases leveled against the body by former student-athletes. While the attempt to avoid profiting off the likeness of unpaid athletes who are unable to profit themselves is a step in the right direction, one must ask, where am I going to buy autographs of student-athletes now? I need them! Won’t some hero please step up and supply us with a new way of purchasing the signature of NCAA stars before they go pro?
• Andy Murray was knocked out early from the Rogers Cup in Montreal, falling 6-4, 6-3, to Ernests Gulbis. Murray seemed unfazed after the match, as he entered the press conference wearing a Hawaiian shirt and two pairs of sunglasses, and said, “Guys? Remember when I won Wimbledon? Yeah.” Murray then proceeded to shotgun a Carling, throw the empty can in the air like he was going to serve it, watch it fall harmlessly to the ground, turn to exit, and yell, “Murray, out.”