Audiences once adored big adult comedies. Jay Roach’s champagne-fizzy “The Roses” is a seductive attempt to lure them back into theaters.
As bright, mean and ambitious as its lead characters, Theo and Ivy Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman), this resurrection of the ’80s-style R-rated crowd-pleaser is a remake of — or really, an across-the-room nod to — the 1989 hit “The War of the Roses,” which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as divorcees who fight to the death over their fancy chandelier.
Inspired by the venomous novel by Warren Adler, both films are metaphors for building a home and then tearing it down, although the chandelier this time is merely incidental. This snarky, self-aware couple is the type to build themselves a smart house and name its system HAL.
The Roses meet-cute in a posh London restaurant when Theo asks to borrow Ivy’s knife to slash his wrists. He’s a morose architect who aspires to build risky, revolutionary designs. She’s a kooky chef whose signature seasoning is a mix of powdered anchovy and blueberry. In the cocktail of their marriage, he adds the bitterness and she adds the spice, qualities that can be either overbearing or harmonious. Their version of sweet talk is Ivy chirping, “Never leave me — but when you do, kill me on the way out.”
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Brutal humor and obstinacy bind these malcontents together for almost 15 years. Then her career takes off and his flops, upending their equilibrium. Now, they’re battling over who gets custody of their California dream mansion. Twins Hattie and Roy are secondary. (Delaney Quinn and Ollie Robinson play their kids at 10; Hala Finley and Wells Rappaport at 13.)
The script by Tony McNamara (“Poor Things”) unleashes the hilarious spouses to aim insults at each other like explosive corks. (McNamara is so skilled at putting cruel words in Colman’s mouth that he’s already helped win her an Oscar for “The Favourite.”) Theo and Ivy open the film skewering each other at marriage counseling, only to be aghast when the therapist advises them to split up. For a while, they stick together mostly to stick it to her, in defiance of the fact that contempt is the No. 1 indicator of divorce. “In England, we call that repartee,” Theo insists.
You wonder if their jokes keep them from honest communication and then you wonder if Roach, who came to fame as the director of “Austin Powers” and “Meet the Parents,” has ever been afraid of that himself. (For the record, Roach has been married to the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs since 1993 and she here sings two cover songs for the soundtrack, “Happy Together” and “Love Hurts.”)
Mostly, you just enjoy the jokes. Colman, who burst into my awareness in the 2003 TV cringe comedy “Peep Show,” is fantastic throwing jabs around in costume designer PC Williams’ nouveau hipster wardrobe of bold, baggy lines. The actor even does an Ian McKellen impression just because. Yet, the surprise here is Cumberbatch, who seizes his rare opportunity to be flat-out funny, while occasionally rolling over to show Theo’s vulnerable belly. Flirtatiously pouting his lips at Colman, he coos, “How about a three-hour circular argument that goes nowhere?” How about three more Cumberbatch comedies for every awards-baity drama he does?
The story originally satirized materialistic baby boomers stymied by shifting gender roles. Both make interesting time capsules of the traditional man and the liberated woman who revert to smashing fusty china figurines like Neanderthals, although my sticking point with the first movie is that both Roses are too despicable. It’s hard to care about either one once you see how they treat each other’s pets.
But Roach has insightfully made this about people, not societal scapegoats. He and McNamara have changed up nearly everything in this disaster except its vibrations of dread. Since we already know that Theo and Ivy are in for a world of hurt, the film spends much of its running time rewinding to the past to prove how wonderful they could be together — and, more painfully, how sincerely they’ve tried to work out their kinks. We like Cumberbatch and Colman’s Theo and Ivy, even after they’ve become tantrum-throwing twits.
The details of their dissolution — career pressures, childcare clashes, petty jealousies — and its credible tit-for-tat dynamic are discomfitingly relatable. If this version has a larger sociological statement, it’s an indictment of how today’s quest for success is so all-consuming and exhausting that even if you can fit two egos in one house, you probably can’t merge their day planners. In the modern, highly visible, online-viralized game of life, earning money is merely Stage 1. Both Roses are driven to leave their permanent mark on the world.
Meanwhile, their two sets of American friends, Amy and Barry (Kate McKinnon and Andy Samberg) and Sally and Rory (Zoë Chao and Jamie Demetriou), are equally miserable and toxic. All four are such shallow snobs that they can’t imagine why Ivy would want to own Julia Child’s old stove when it’s, well, old. McKinnon’s Amy toggles through obnoxious progressive stereotypes: She’s a self-professed empath who pretends to be in an open marriage to wheedle Theo into bed. Barry, a depressive, gives Samberg a chance to show a deeper level of comic maturity, and also eventually doubles as Theo’s personal attorney. Otherwise, the script prunes the couple’s legal battle down to one scene with Ivy’s viperous lawyer, played by Allison Janney, who brings a rottweiler to the showdown and claims it’s her service animal.
The gags can be silly. There are two vomit scenes and a pratfall where Colman lands on her face. Yet, Roach and his team have put serious effort into their lovely symbology: a shot of Theo glumly walking down an airplane aisle from first class to coach, images of the cold Pacific crashing against rocks that recall his confession of feeling “waves of hatred” toward his wife.
When the film finally gets to its Grand Guignol climax, it rushes through the barbarity, taking no delight in it. I wanted to laugh but realized I’d fallen too much in love with Theo and Ivy, who are both so pitifully certain they’re in the moral right. The schadenfreude is just sad. It stings how much we root for them to kiss and make up. Still, despite the hasty ending, this splashy comedy deserves to woo grown-ups back to the multiplex. The Roses are estranged, but they’ve reunited us with our love for a genre — and it feels so good.
‘The Roses’
Rated: R, for language throughout, sexual content, and drug content
WEST SACRAMENTO — Jo Adell hit a three-run homer in the first inning and kicked off a six-run tenth with an RBI single as the Angels beat the Athletics 11-5 on Sunday to avoid a three-game sweep.
Kenley Jansen (5-2) struck out two in a scoreless ninth to give him 1,268 for his career, the fourth-most strikeouts by a reliever in major league history.
In the 10th, automatic runner Mike Trout advanced to third on a passed ball, Taylor Ward walked and Adell lined a single to center against Michael Kelly (2-2) to make it 6-5. Christian Moore drove in his third run of the game with a grounder and Luis Rengifo followed with a two-run triple off Ben Bowden. Bryce Tedosio added a sacrifice fly and Zach Neto capped the scoring with a 436-foot homer to left-center, his 21st.
Adell’s homer in the first off Jeffrey Springs was his 26th, extending his career best.
Rookie Nick Kurtz hit his 25th homer in the third inning and the A’s went back-to-back when Shea Langeliers hit his 26th. Lawrence Butler’s 17th homer got the A’s within 5-4 in the sixth, and Luis Urías tied it with a two-out RBI single.
Jansen loaded the bases with two out in the ninth but got Butler to pop out in foul territory on a first-pitch cutter. The 37-year-old Jansen broke a tie with Craig Kimbrel for strikeouts by a reliever. Ahead of him are Hoyt Wilhelm (1,363), Rich Gossage (1,340) and Aroldis Chapman (1,312).
Angels recall José Fermin
The Angels recalled right-hander José Fermin from triple-A Salt Lake and designated righty Connor Brogdon for assignment.
The 23-year-old Fermin was 2-2 with a 6.63 ERA in 23 games, entering the series finale against the Athletics. He was previously optioned to the minors after giving up three runs without retiring a batter in a game last month.
The 30-year-old Brodgon gave up two runs on two hits and two walks after retiring just two batters in the Angels’ loss on Saturday.
Brogdon is 3-1 with a 5.30 ERA in 37 games this season. His career record is 13-9 with a 4.24 ERA in 180 games with the Angels, Dodgers and Philadelphia.
Up next
The Angels host Cincinnati for a three-game series starting Monday, with Victor Mederos (0-0, 5.63 ERA) slated to start.
Much loved nineties telly host Emma Forbes who fronted shows such as Live and Kicking now lives a totally different life in another country where her main focus is health and lifestyle
Universal Music Group Chief Executive Lucian Grainge called Drake’s lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s hit diss track “Not Like Us” a “farcical” effort that’s “groundless and indeed ridiculous.”
In a declaration letter filed Thursday night in the Southern District of New York, Grainge said that Drake’s accusation that UMG (the parent label firm to both Drake and Lamar) defamed him and damaged his career “makes no sense due to the fact that the company that I run, Universal Music Group N.V., has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Drake, including longstanding and critical financial support for his recording career, the purchase and ownership of the bulk of his recording catalog, and the purchase of his music publishing rights.”
Drake signed a new deal with UMG label Republic in 2022 for a reported $400 million, and he’s one of the bestselling artists of the last 20 years. Yet Interscope artist Lamar’s scathing “Not Like Us” famously capped a venomous battle between the two artists, which resulted in a pair of Grammy wins for Lamar, who performed the song at the Super Bowl halftime show.
Drake’s attorneys, in discovery, have recently tried to obtain UMG’s contract with Lamar and information about his personal life (Drake accused Lamar of beating his partner in the song “Family Matters”). Drake has accused UMG of both defamation and running a clandestine campaign to boost “Not Like Us” at the expense of his own reputation and career.
A notably exasperated Grainge wrote to the court that “Given my role, I am accustomed (and unfortunately largely resigned) to personal attacks, and I further recognize that a frequent strategy of UMG’s litigation opponents is to attempt to waste my and UMG’s time and resources with discovery of the sort that Drake is seeking here — either in an attempt to gain media attention or in an effort to force some kind of commercial renegotiation or financial concessions.”
Grainge also denied having any personal involvement in the rollout or marketing for “Not Like Us.”
“Whilst, as part of my role, I certainly have financial oversight of and responsibility for UMG’s global businesses,” he said, “the proposition that I was involved in, much less responsible for, reviewing and approving the content of ‘Not Like Us,’ its cover art or music video, or for determining or directing the promotion of those materials, is groundless and indeed ridiculous.”
In a separate letter to the court, UMG said that “The premise of Drake’s motion — that he could not have lost a rap battle unless it was the product of some imagined secret conspiracy going to the top of UMG’s corporate structure — is absurd.”
Tristan Rogers, the Australian actor behind the magnetic Robert Scorpio on “General Hospital,” died Friday after a battle with lung cancer, according to his manager. He was 79.
In an email to The Times, Rogers’ manager Meryl Soodak said his client was “a family man” who is survived by his wife, two children and a grandson.
“[He was] loyal, kind and loved his role of Scorpio,” Soodak said.
Rogers’ signature commanding voice and poised bravado made Scorpio a fan favorite on the long-running soap opera, and became his most recognizable role. As the enemy-turned-close-friend of star character Luke Spencer (played by Anthony Geary), Rogers appeared in some of the most memorable moments of the show’s run.
In true soap opera fashion, Scorpio would allegedly die a dramatic and fiery death in an explosion in South America in 1992, only to return alive for a short stint in 2006.
Through every iteration of his “General Hospital” career, Rogers embraced Scorpio’s status as an ‘80s TV icon.
“I think this character will follow me to my grave,” Rogers told the New York Times in 2006.
Rogers was born June 3, 1946, in Melbourne, Australia. Out of high school, he played in a rock band with friends and began taking up modeling roles, he recalled in an interview. For “extra money,” he acted in small TV and soap opera roles in Australia in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, including stints in the shows “Bellbird,” “Number 96” and “The Box.”
Early in his career, his Australian accent deterred casting directors from booking him for American shows, Rogers recalled in a 2022 interview. However, in 1980, he found himself auditioning for what was supposed to be a small, single-episode role on “General Hospital.”
This caught the eye of Gloria Monty, the show’s visionary producer, who asked Rogers to stay on as a recurring character.
Rogers was key to shaping the character of Scorpio, from his name to his risk-taking bravery, on what would eventually become the longest-running daytime soap opera in American television history, according to Guinness World Records.
“I started in earnest, I had a feeling that I had done something right. I had evolved into the character. [Scorpio] took everyone by surprise, he looked different, he sounded different, he conducted himself in a different way and the public latched onto this right away. And so all of a sudden, away we went,” Rogers said in a radio interview earlier this year.
While the show was set in a New York hospital, the late 80s saw it shift focus into an action adventure storyline that heavily featured Scorpio as an agent of the fictional World Security Bureau, or WSB.
Broadcaster ABC notes that the change kept the attention of viewers and contributed to the continuation of the show’s success, as spies and agents created complex and popular mystery storylines within the “General Hospital” universe.
According to the New York Times, the second week after Rogers’ character was revived in 2006, “General Hospital” was the No. 1 daytime drama among young women, drawing larger-than-average audiences back to the show.
Rogers also acted in the series “The Young and the Restless,” “The Bay,” and “Studio City,” as well as voice-acting in the Disney animated film “The Rescuers Down Under.”
Genie Francis, who played Laura Spencer in “General Hospital,” said of Rogers on X, “My heart is heavy. Goodbye my spectacular friend. My deepest condolences to his wife Teresa and their children. Tristan Rogers was a very bright light, as an actor and a person. I was so lucky to have known him.”
Kin Shriner, also an actor on the show, added in a video posted on X, “I met Tristan 44 years ago at the Luke and Laura wedding. We were stashed in a trailer and I was taken by his Australian charm. Over the years we’ve worked together … we always had fun. I will miss Tristan very much.”
In one of his last interviews, Rogers reflected on the joy of his acting career.
At the end of the 2019 minor-league season, Alex Call looked at his hitting numbers, then looked himself in the mirror.
A former third-round draft pick who had already changed organizations once, he knew he had just had the kind of year that typically portends a short professional career.
As a 24-year-old outfielder at the double-A level in the Cleveland Guardians organization, Call had taken 325 plate appearances that year with the Akron RubberDucks. In 93 of them — a rate of nearly 30% — he recorded a strikeout.
It wasn’t the only ugly stat in a season that saw Call bat just .205, reach base at a .266 clip and hit only five home runs. But it was the biggest sign of a fundamental flaw plaguing the right-handed hitter’s game.
“That,” he recalled recently, while reflecting on what became a turning point moment in his career, “just wasn’t gonna get it done.”
Six years later, Call joined the Dodgers as a trade deadline addition last week with a polar opposite reputation. Now, the defensively versatile outfielder is one of the harder outs in all the majors. Since the start of last season, his .297 batting average ranks eighth among MLB hitters with at least 350 plate appearances. More important, over that same span, he ranks top 60 in strikeout rate and walk rate (with a 55-to-39 ratio overall), and 22nd in chase rate; consistently putting together some of the better at-bats in all the sport.
“This guy’s just a straight grinder, works at-bats,” general manager Brandon Gomes said after the Dodgers acquired Call from the Washington Nationals in exchange for two pitching prospects. “Playing against him, he’s always incredibly frustrating to try to game plan for and get out.”
“I’ve faced Alex a few times,” added future Hall of Fame left-hander Clayton Kershaw. “He’s tough against lefties, a great defender. A good add, for sure.”
The Dodgers, of course, could have made splashier adds at the deadline. They were linked to All-Star caliber names, including Steven Kwan of the Guardians, but didn’t splurge to pay such inflated deadline prices.
Instead, they settled for Call, who was a smaller name but came with team control through 2029. They put their faith in his overhauled offensive skill set, hopeful a personal transformation more than half-a-decade in the making will make him a key piece in their pursuit of a second straight World Series title.
“That is my whole game,” Call said on the day he arrived with the club. “I am going to grind out at-bats, put the ball in play, take my walks, make it tough on the pitcher, lengthen out the lineup.”
The origins of that mindset date to that 2019 season, and the pandemic-altered year that followed.
Entering 2020, Call committed to a change at the plate. In what was a crowded pipeline of outfielders in the Guardians system — highlighted at that time by Kwan, who has since blossomed into one of the best left fielders in the game — he recognized he needed a new identity. If he was going to reach the majors, it was going to start with simply working better at-bats.
“It’s a bad feeling,” he said, “having a cloud hanging over your head after a season like that.”
The only problem: COVID-19 came, the 2020 minor league season was canceled, and Call (like so many other minor-league long shots clinging to big-league dreams) was left effectively on his own.
So, he found different ways to improve his bat.
As the baseball world shut down, Call bought a portable Junior Hack Attack hitting machine with a self-feeding ball dispenser. And everywhere he went that year — from spring training housing in Phoenix to his childhood home in Wisconsin to his family’s offseason residence in Indiana — he sought out any place “I could find a hitting cage and an outlet” to use it, he said laughing.
His focus was simple. Work on hitting fastballs up in the strike zone. Eliminate what had been one of the biggest holes in his swing.
“For me, it’s just about having that mentality to where, it doesn’t matter if I have two strikes or if it’s an 0-0 count,” he said. “Believe I’m comfortable in every situation. I’m going to put the ball in play.”
By that winter, Call sought out a more advanced piece of training technology as well.
Over the previous couple years, a company called Win Reality had begun manufacturing virtual reality hitting goggles — using data-driven models, actual video and computer-generated images to recreate virtual at-bats against real pitchers from a hitter’s point of view inside Oculus-style headsets.
A handful of MLB teams, including the Dodgers, had invested in the system for their teams. In the months leading up to the 2021 season, Call decided to do the same for himself, buying the $300 product (and paying for its annual $200 software program) to help couple his new swing with a more discerning approach.
“[I was] just really practicing the zone,” Call said. “Knowing what pitches are my strengths and what pitches I don’t want to swing at until two strikes. Developing that plan and developing that approach.”
The training paid off.
At the start of the 2021 season, Call was sent back to double-A Akron. When he arrived, he was informed by manager Rouglas Odor that he would only be slated to play 2-3 games per week — a quick reminder of how far down the organization depth chart he’d fallen.
“I remember him being very disappointed,” Odor, now the Guardians’ big-league third-base coach, recalled this week. “But he took ownership of his career, and didn’t let what I told him affect him.”
Call’s chance arrived that May, after Kwan went down with a hamstring injury. And almost immediately, his COVID-year changes took effect. Over 180 plate appearances, Call hit .310, drew 21 walks and — just as he’d hoped — cut his strikeout rate by half, punching out only 26 times.
“He was a totally different hitter,” said Odor, who had also been Call’s manager during his dismal 2019 campaign. “Defensively, he was already to play in the big leagues. He made some unbelievable plays … But offensively, he found his stroke. His plate discipline was more consistent. And he had an unbelievable season.”
By the end of the season, Call had been promoted to triple-A. The next July, he earned a promotion to the majors.
The ascent from there wasn’t linear. In August 2022, he was designated for assignment and claimed off waivers by the Nationals. In 2023, he played in 128 big-league games but hit only .200, sending him back to triple-A for most of last year.
Alex Call bats against the Houston Astros on July 28 as a member of the Washington Nationals.
(Karen Warren / Associated Press)
Still, his plate discipline didn’t waver (he struck out only 78 times in his 439 plate appearances in 2023, an 18% rate, while also drawing 53 walks). His VR routine only became more ingrained, seeing upward of 54,000 simulated pitches (or, essentially 25 seasons’ worth of throws) through his headset each year, as he told the Washington Post last month.
It all has clicked over the last calendar year, with Call following up a productive return to the majors at the end of 2024 with his best full-season performance this term.
“The type of player that I am, I can hit the ball over the fence, but it’s not really my full game,” Call said. “So for me, it was about trying to create as many opportunities to get on base as possible … I have to be able to hit the ball at good angles.”
Call is one of only four players with at least 200 plate appearances this season (along with Kyle Tucker, Gleyber Torres and Geraldo Perdomo) who strikes out less than 15% of the time, chases less than 20% of the time and whiffs less than 20% of the time. He has hit .236 with two strikes (better than everyone else on the Dodgers except Hyeseong Kim).
He had his first standout game with the Dodgers on Wednesday, when he singled, doubled and made a catch while crashing into the left-field wall to save an extra-base hit.
Eight at-bats into his Dodgers career entering Friday’s game, he has also yet to strike out once.
“I’m always proud of players like Alex, because he wasn’t this big prospect, but he became an everyday big-league player,” Odor said. “He had the urgency to make something happen in order to reach his goal, and his dream.”
And now, Call is aiming to take his career one step further — to be not just a productive big-league bat, but one capable of playing an impactful role on a title-contending club in Los Angeles.
“I always knew that I could do it and be an established major leaguer,” Call said. “It’s just, sometimes it takes a little bit of time. And I’m grateful that I was given that time, and just continued to get better.”
Junior Caminero hit his 29th and 30th homers, Christopher Morel had a go-ahead shot and six Tampa Bay pitchers combined to strike out 16 in the Rays’ 5-4 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday.
Caminero hit a career-long 447-foot shot with a man on in the first, and had a solo homer in the third. Morel was 0 for 6 with six strikeouts in the series before hitting his solo homer in the seventh.
It was Caminero’s third two-homer game this season and he reached 101 RBIs for his career.
Nick Fortes also homered, his first hit in five games with the Rays since being acquired from Miami.
Starter Shane Baz struck out nine in four innings to help Tampa Bay win for the fourth time in 14 games. Garrett Cleavinger (1-4) was the winner, and Pete Fairbanks got his 19th save.
Ryan Zeferjahn (6-4) took the loss.
Mike Trout tied the score for Los Angeles with a three-run homer in the third. His 20th homer this season and 398th of his career was his 200th in Angels Stadium. He’s the first player in major league history with 200 homers and 100 steals (101) in one stadium.
The Angels loaded the bases with no outs against Griffin Jax in the eighth. But Jax, acquired from Minnesota for Taj Bradley on July 31, struck out the next three batters.
Rays center fielder Jonny DeLuca left in the sixth with right hamstring tightness after legging out a triple. DeLuca was reinstated from the 60-day IL (right shoulder strain) on July 25.
Up next
Both teams are off Thursday. Angels RHP Kyle Hendricks (6-8, 4.59) will pitch at Detroit against LHP Tarik Skybal (11-3, 2.18) on Friday night. Tampa Bay will start RHP Drew Rasmussen (9-5, 2.81) against RHP Luis Castillo (8-6, 3.22) at Seattle on Friday night.
The second in an occasional series of profiles on Southern California athletes who have flourished in their post-playing careers.
The expansion Los Angeles Angels were just 5 months old in September 1961 when the team called up three minor leaguers who would come to define the fledgling franchise’s early years.
Jim Fregosi, a teenage shortstop, would go on to make six All-Star teams and win a Gold Glove. Right-hander Dean Chance, who turned 20 that summer, would win Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards and lead the American League in wins, ERA, shutouts and innings pitched. And Buck Rodgers would catch for nine big league seasons before managing at the minor and major league level for the Angels.
But only Dan Ardell, a light-hitting first baseman who was called up with them, would do something that had never been done before on Sept. 20 against the Detroit Tigers. In his first big league plate appearance, Ardell blooped a single to right field, only to see pinch-runner Ken McBride get caught rounding second base to end the game.
“I’m the only one to only get one hit. And the one hit was a walk-off loss,” he said. “Not easy to do.”
There were few witnesses since many in the crowd of 3,116 at Detroit’s Tiger Stadium had left long before the ninth inning. Ardell would appear in six more games, four as a pinch-runner, and make six more plate appearances without a hit, striking out twice, walking once and dropping down a sacrifice bunt to finish with a .250 lifetime batting average.
It wasn’t good enough to get him a plaque in the Hall of Fame but you can still find him listed there, alongside the other 20,964 men who have played in the majors.
“It’s a very low number,” Ardell said, acknowledging the accomplishment. “Very low.”
Yet more than six decades later, Ardell looks back on his month with the Angels with neither delight nor disappointment. He has gone on to live a rich life, one that has included well-paying jobs in banking and asset management, a 41-year marriage that produced four children and six grandchildren, and absolutely no regrets about a baseball career that was so short it’s remembered mostly for a teammate’s base-running blunder.
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1.Jim Fregosi during a game in Anaheim in 1965.(Transcendental Graphics / Getty Images)2.Dean Chance won a Cy Young Award with the Angels.(Associated Press)3.Rich Rollins of the Minnesota Twins swings and misses as Angels catcher Buck Rodgers catches the pitch in a 1962 game. All three players were called up to the Angels in September 1961 along with Dan Ardell, whose career only lasted seven games.(Hy Peskin Archive / Getty Images)
“I never had a desire to be a major league ballplayer,” said Ardell, a retired real estate executive who made $1,250 for his big league cameo. “I loved playing baseball, but once I started playing professionally, I was bored. I was disinterested.”
In fact, the bookish Ardell probably never should have been there at all. But after winning the College World Series as a sophomore at USC, he accepted a $37,500 bonus to leave school five semesters short of a degree to sign with the Angels.
Still, he hedged his bets just the same.
“They wanted to give me $35,000 and I said I need $37,500 because that would give me the $500 a semester [tuition] at ‘SC that I needed,” Ardell said.
The newly born Angels had just two minor league teams, so Ardell was sent to the Dodgers’ Class D farm club in Artesia, N.M. His manager was Spider Jorgensen, whose big league debut in 1947 had been somewhat overshadowed by teammate Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s color line that day. Since Jorgensen’s equipment never made it to the ballpark, he played third base that day using an infielder’s glove he borrowed from Robinson.
The team Jorgensen managed went 48-78 and finished last, 29½ games out of first in the Sophomore League — so bad that Sports Illustrated came to New Mexico to document its mediocrity. Ardell finished that first season with more strikeouts (32) than hits (30) in 125 at-bats, but he was big, left-handed and played first base — three attributes that were enough to get him a trial with an Angels team that entered September 30 games behind the league-leading Yankees.
“I basically played second string at ‘SC,” Ardell said. “So I go from second string to Class D ball — which wasn’t as good as our ‘SC team — to the big leagues all within 60 days. At age 20, it was an incredible roller coaster.”
It was a ride he quickly tired off. He didn’t drink and he was about to get married, so the frat house atmosphere of a professional baseball team wasn’t one he partook of. After three more minor league seasons, he retired at 23.
“I learned a lot about myself,” he said of those three mostly unhappy summers.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it. It was that he didn’t want to do it. Being a big league ballplayer may have been some kids’ dream, but it wasn’t his.
“I got no satisfaction out of it. And I was bored,” he said. “It just wasn’t that interesting to me once I had to make my living doing it.
“If you don’t love what you’re doing, if you don’t appreciate and like what you’re doing, it becomes hard work.”
At 84, Ardell has an easy smile and a quick, self-deprecating wit he employs often. He’s still at his playing weight of 190 pounds, but he says he’s lost 2 inches off a frame that once rose to 6-foot-2. And he no longer moves with the speed or grace that allowed him to steal seven bases in his first minor league season.
There is no memorabilia, no remnants of his short-lived career in his hillside home in Laguna Beach’s Bluebird Canyon, about a half-mile from the Pacific Ocean. He gave his gloves away during a garage sale shortly after he quit playing and a grandson took down the few pictures he had hung on the wall.
After retiring with a .252 average and 45 home runs in 389 minor league games, Ardell went back to college, then studied real estate, working for Union Bank and Wells Fargo. He eventually started a real estate asset management company with his twin brother Dave, an equally talented baseball player who played at UCLA, where he was the team captain.
After retiring with a .252 average and 45 home runs in 389 minor league games, Dan Ardell returned to school at USC, then studied real estate, working for Union Bank and Wells Fargo.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
That anyone remembers he played at all is both flattering and befuddling for Ardell, who receives about a dozen autograph requests in the mail each year.
“I mean, how do they even know my address?” he asked.
Still, he answers every letter. Some fans send old photos or baseball cards that are necessarily homemade since Ardell never got a Topps bubblegum card of his own.
“In those days anybody who signed a bonus, Topps would sign,” he said. “So they came to Artesia, where I was playing, and said ‘we want to give you a Topps card. And we’ll pay you five bucks’.
“I said, ‘I think I need 10.’ So I’m the only only major leaguer who never had a Topps card.”
Which isn’t to say Ardell has no mementos from his career. A fastball he didn’t see on a poorly lit field in San José slipped under the bill of his batting helmet and struck him flush in the head one night.
“I woke up the next day. You could see the seam where the baseball hit. I still have a dent,” he said with a chuckle, pointing to a spot in the center of his forehead.
It wasn’t until three decades after he walked away from the game that Ardell came to appreciate what he had accomplished — and only then after marrying Jean Hastings, who would shortly become a nationally recognized baseball academic and writer.
Ardell and Hastings — a Brooklyn native who had always been a baseball fanatic — were living in the same Orange County neighborhood when a mutual friend suggested they go out on a date.
“She had just read ‘Ball Four,’” Ardell said, referencing Jim Bouton’s book about the raunchy, less-seemly side of baseball. “So she said no, baseball players are to look at, they’re not to touch.”
Dan Ardell says he receives about a dozen autograph requests in the mail each year, with some fans sending old photos or homemade baseball cards since Ardell never got a Topps card of his own. “I mean, how do they even know my address?” he said.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
She went on the date anyway, then married Ardell a couple of years later in 1981. Jean, 79, died in 2022 after a short, ferocious battle with leukemia, but in the more than 40 years she spent with Ardell, she slowly rekindled his love for a game he had all but forgotten.
They went to conferences and symposiums, where Jean spoke on the magic and the poetry of baseball. They visited the Hall of Fame, traveled to Arizona for spring training and attended countless Angels games, watching on TV the ones they couldn’t attend in person.
“It was definitely part of her,” grandson Garrett Tyler said.
Jean not only helped Ardell put his baseball career into perspective, she helped put his life in perspective. Shortly after they married, “I decided to have a mission statement,” Ardell said. “And my mission statement was to make a difference in the lives of others.”
“Ten years later,” he added “I changed it to make a positive difference.”
He saw that desire at work in Jean, a political liberal who, in addition to her baseball writing, also worked with a nonprofit called Braver Angels that seeks to bridge the political divide by bringing Democrats and Republicans together. It was a philosophy she lived by marrying Ardell, a lifelong Republican who cast his first presidential vote for Barry Goldwater but later drove a car sporting a “Republicans for Obama” bumper sticker.
Ardell was already working with Opportunity International, a global nonprofit that alleviates generational poverty by microfinancing community projects both in Southern California and abroad. But now the bridge that he and Jean built became apparent through the difference being made — not only in those affected communities, but in his own soul as well.
Tyler said he grew up playing catch with his grandfather, who attended all his Little League games. But it was his grandmother who told him about Ardell’s professional career.
“He was always a little bit reluctant to talk about it. My grandma was the one that kind of opened him up,” said Tyler, 25, who followed his grandparents into baseball, where he works as manager of concessions for the Amarillo Sod Poodles, the double A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“I’ve talked to him a lot about that. He told me that he just didn’t have the confidence. He knew that he was good, but I don’t think he really understood it. I don’t know if he necessarily misses it or feels like he missed out. I think he was more appreciative of the journey that it took him on and how he’s evolved into a different love for baseball.”
As he has grown older, Tyler said that’s the part of his grandfather’s journey that has stuck with him; the mission statement part that says it’s not about the destination or the accomplishments, but about the influence you have on those you meet along the way.
In that way, he said, Ardell’s short career is now having an outsized influence.
Tyler mentions a friend who is basically playing for free, stranded below the longest rung of the minor league ladder. But he still puts on a uniform every day.
“He plays for the love of the game and just because it’s all he knows,” Tyler said. “One of the things that Dan asks me that I ask my friend is, ‘do you like what you’re doing?’ And at that point it’s not about your career longevity or how much money you’re making.
“As long as you’re happy playing and you’re making ends meet, then go for it.”
Ardell wasn’t happy playing, so he walked away. Three decades later with the love and support of a wife who saw baseball not as a sport but as a metaphor for life, as a game where the goal is to get home safely, Ardell began to understand the magic, too.
His one month in the majors led him to a career prosperous enough that he could help others, one that still fills his mailbox with letters from fans and one that has given him the wisdom to counsel other 23-year-olds to keep putting on the uniform as long as it fits.
Make a positive difference in the lives of others.
“It was a very inconsequential part of my life that was very consequential to other people,” Ardell said of his one month in the majors.
CANTON, Ohio — Sterling Sharpe stood at the podium a few feet from his bronze bust, took off his new gold jacket and gave it to his fellow Pro Football Hall of Fame brother.
Shannon Sharpe had given Sterling his first Super Bowl ring and now big brother was returning the favor on stage after the crowning moment of his football career.
“This is why I played football,” Sterling said, referring to his younger brother, who wrapped his arm around him and had tears streaming down his face. “This is why I got out of bed; it wasn’t work. It was because of this right here. Before I leave you, I want to do two things. The most precious gift I’ve ever received is the Super Bowl ring. … I wear this ring because of love. You gave me this not knowing you were going to get another one. And I prayed to God: ‘Please, God, let him get another.’ God blessed him with two.
“The second thing is, the last time I was here, you said that you were the only pro football player in the Hall of Fame that could say that you were the second-best player in your own family. I agree with that statement, but it would be an extreme privilege. … for you to be the only player in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with two gold jackets. You see, you have to learn to follow before you can lead.”
Chargers great Antonio Gates, right, and Chargers owner Dean Spanos post next to Gates’ Hall of Fame bust on Saturday.
(David Dermer / Associated Press)
Eric Allen, Jared Allen and Antonio Gates joined Sterling Sharpe as the Class of 2025 was inducted into football immortality during a ceremony at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium, where the Chargers beat the Detroit Lions 34-7 on Thursday night to kick off the NFL preseason.
Sterling Sharpe averaged 85 catches and 1,162 yards, finishing with 65 touchdowns in seven seasons with the Green Bay Packers. The wide receiver was named to five Pro Bowls and earned first-team All-Pro honors three times. A neck injury cut his career short and he waited a long time to get the call from the Hall.
Shannon Sharpe, who played tight end for the Denver Broncos and Baltimore Ravens, was inducted in 2011. They are the first brothers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Jared Allen was the first player among the new class to take the stage after Hall of Fame running back Thurman Thomas led the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday” to former Bills coach Marv Levy, who turns 100 on Sunday.
Wearing his trademark cowboy hat, Allen talked about his motivation for success.
“Why is what makes you different; it’s your long game,” he said. “It’s the motivation that drives you to do all necessary action steps to achieve your goal. My why can be summed up in three things: fear, respect and the pursuit of greatness. … I apply my why to everything in my life, to my walk with Christ, my marriage and being a father.”
Jared Allen made five Pro Bowls, was a four-time All-Pro and had 136 sacks in 12 seasons with the Chiefs, Vikings, Bears and Panthers. His final game was Super Bowl 50, a loss by Carolina against Peyton Manning and the Broncos.
Eric Allen, a six-time Pro Bowl cornerback who played for the Eagles, Saints and Raiders, was presented by one of his four sons. Allen, who had 54 career interceptions, including eight returned for touchdowns, gave the obligatory “Fly! Eagles! Fly!” to support the Super Bowl champions who drafted him in 1988.
“I grew up in Philadelphia. I became a man there. I have a special gratitude for the organization,” Allen said.
Allen also thanked current Raiders owner Mark Davis, who was in attendance.
“Al Davis had a statement: ’Commitment to excellence,” Allen said. “It’s all over our building in Las Vegas. We are trying to make sure we fulfill that destiny, we fulfill what Al Davis was about.”
Gates closed out the day with a 23-minute speech that began with him saying he wouldn’t cry but included several emotional moments. Gates, who was presented by Chargers owner Dean Spanos, never played a single down of college football yet ended up becoming the 23rd of 382 Hall of Famers who were undrafted by NFL teams.
He thanked former Chargers tight ends coach Tim Brewster for discovering him after he led Kent State’s basketball team to the Elite Eight.
“Tim Brewster saw something special in me. He was pretty sure that I could make the team. He was adamant that I’d be All-Pro in three years,” Gates said. “You see, the thing is when switching sports or careers for that matter, it can be life-changing. The unexpected are often the most powerful ones because it can completely redirect your life if you’re ready to take advantage and you’re ready for the opportunity. Thank you to Coach Tim Brewster and Coach Marty Schottenheimer. They gave me an opportunity to play tight end in the NFL. Because of you, Coach Tim Brewster, NFL teams and NFL scouts will never look at college basketball players the same again.”
Gates played all 16 of his NFL seasons with the Chargers, finishing with 955 catches for 11,841 yards and 116 TDs. He made the Pro Bowl eight times and was All-Pro three times, the first in just his second season.
Reporting from CINCINNATI — Before he became the king of Atlantic City casinos, before he put his name on steaks or starred on reality television, Donald Trump served his own apprenticeship in the less glamorous family business of renting apartments.
Trump, in his autobiography, recalled learning valuable lessons from his father, Fred: Hunt for bargains. Chase out deadbeats. Spend some money on paint and polish.
Some alleged there was another part to the Trump formula: Make it tough for black people to move in.
In two court cases, built on evidence gathered from frustrated black apartment-seekers, housing activists and former employees, Fred, and, in a later case, Donald Trump faced accusations of systematic discrimination against African Americans, cases that the Trumps ultimately settled without admitting any wrongdoing.
Some would-be tenants were turned away at a complex in Cincinnati, where Donald Trump says he got his start as a property manager. And in New York, the allegations led to what was then one of the largest housing discrimination lawsuits filed by the federal government.
More than 1,000 pages of documents in the two cases in Cincinnati and New York, reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, demonstrate how accusations of racial discrimination dogged the family business from the earliest days of Donald Trump’s career. And they illustrate how young Trump, faced with an early crisis, responded aggressively to charges of bias.
Since he began his run for president more than a year ago, Trump has frequently been criticized for trading in racially tinged appeals, describing some Mexican immigrants as rapists and questioning whether a federal judge’s Mexican heritage made him incapable of being fair to Trump.
He angered some Native Americans by attacking a U.S. senator as “Pocahontas” and spurring supporters into sarcastic war whoops. Most recently, he criticized the parents of a fallen soldier, suggesting their Muslim beliefs forbade his mother from speaking in public after her husband denounced Trump’s call to bar Muslims from entering the country.
Hillary Clinton recently began using the discrimination cases in attacks on Trump. Introducing her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, recently in Miami, she said, “While Tim was taking on housing discrimination and homelessness, Donald Trump was denying apartments to people who were African American.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Trump once called the federal charges “outrageous lies.”
“I have always tried to see to it that buildings which we own and manage are well-run and that there is equal opportunity for anyone to rent apartments,” he wrote in a 1973 affidavit. “The fact is that our apartments have the same ratio of minority tenants as exists in the community as a whole. Our organization has never discriminated and does not now discriminate.”
Trump’s father once was one of the biggest landlords in New York, with 14,000 units in 39 buildings, mostly in Brooklyn and Queens. Folk singer Woody Guthrie lived in one of Fred Trump’s Brooklyn projects when Donald was a toddler, and reworked his song “I Ain’t Got No Home” into a protest against the complex’s exclusionary policies:
We all are crazy fools
As long as race hate rules!
No no no! Old Man Trump!
Beach Haven ain’t my home!
At a foreclosure auction in 1964, Fred Trump bought Swifton Village, a half-empty complex that was the largest in Cincinnati. Donald Trump was just a high school senior in a military academy, but assumed increasing responsibility in managing the complex through college and business school.
In his book “The Art of the Deal,” Trump described Swifton Village as his “first big deal.” He recounted, in a chapter titled “The Cincinnati Kid,” booting poor, nonpaying tenants who had “come down from the hills of Kentucky” with “seven or eight children, almost no possessions.”
His experience in Cincinnati “gave [him] a lot of confidence,” Trump said recently at an Ohio rally.
Swifton Village had a reputation as a white complex, said Carol Coaston, now 72, who began working at a Cincinnati fair housing agency, Housing Opportunities Made Equal, around the time the suit was filed. That fall, just two or three apartments out of 1,167 in the complex were rented to black families, Fred Trump’s lawyer told a judge.
“You just kind of, growing up here, knew certain areas where discrimination occurred or you didn’t feel welcome,” Coaston said.
As the Trumps worked to upgrade Swifton Village, they employed a racial quota system and turned away black applicants, according to a lawsuit filed against Fred Trump’s company in 1969, a year after the Fair Housing Act became law. Donald Trump was not named in the complaint.
According to records from the suit and in housing agency files, a young black couple named Haywood and Rennell Cash spent four and a half months trying to rent an apartment, without success. They had two young children and were desperate to find an apartment close to Haywood’s job at General Electric and leave his mother’s crowded house. Haywood Cash said an agent took his $83 deposit, but he was repeatedly told no vacancies existed and “they couldn’t predict any.” Other African Americans were given similar explanations.
Days after the Cashes’ last inquiry, a white woman and a man posing as apartment seekers were told an apartment was available immediately and given a break on income requirements. “She urged that we get over there quick with a deposit to hold it,” wrote the woman, Margaret Faye Boyar, in a statement in the housing agency’s records.
Boyar went to the complex with Haywood Cash. When she said she did not want the apartment, but was instead helping the Cashes, the property manager “jumped out of his chair,” told Boyar to “get the hell out,” and used a racial slur, according to the lawsuit. He “began screaming at me, saying that what I was doing was ‘fraud’ and that ‘neither you nor Mr. Cash can have any damn apartment,’” she wrote.
Fred Trump’s attorneys, while denying any discrimination, tried at first to have the suit moved to the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, which could have delayed the Cashes’ claim by a year, according to the renters’ lawyer. But eventually, Fred Trump agreed to rent them an apartment and an appeals court dismissed the agency’s effort to expand the case into a class-action suit.
“Their vetting operation consisted of looking at what color your skin was,” said Gwenda Blair, who wrote a history of the family’s real estate empire. “It’s certainly a one-step process.”
The New York case, filed by civil rights lawyers from the Justice Department in 1973, generated front-page headlines. The complaint alleged that the Trump company used various tactics to discriminate, including falsely claiming a lack of vacancies and requiring stiffer rental terms. The case included allegations of discrimination at at least 17 Trump properties in New York and two in Norfolk, Va.
One of those people who said they were turned away was a then-31-year-old law student from Jamaica.
“I liked the setting, I liked the view, I liked the apartment,” said the woman, Henrietta Davis, now 75. “I am a person who believes that I have an equal right to do anything I want.”
She said she visited the Brooklyn complex and was told a place was available. When she called back the next day to plan her move, she was told no apartment was available after all.
“It was very obvious,” she said. Davis said the agent encouraged her to apply at another, integrated Trump building, adding that a black judge had recently rented there. Davis said she filed a complaint with a housing agency and moved on.
“Look, it’s against the law,” she said. “They were not supposed to have been discriminating, and they discriminated, and they had to face the consequences.”
The court case included allegations from whites sent by the Urban League to pose as renters, who were offered apartments while blacks were turned away, and statements from at least 10 people who worked for the company and described tactics used to discourage black applicants. One doorman reported to investigators that he was told to tell black visitors that no apartments were available; a building superintendent in Queens said he was told to attach a paper to applications from blacks with a letter “C,” for “colored.” He said he was afraid the Trumps would have him “knocked off” if he talked. Another employee said he used the code “number 9” to flag black applicants.
By that time, 1973, Donald Trump was president of Trump Management. Instead of settling the case, he hired lawyer Roy Cohn, who had been a prominent aide to Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the anti-communist hunts of the 1950s. Cohn launched an aggressive counterattack.
Trump and Cohn denounced the civil rights lawyers at a news conference, and Trump had Cohn file a counter-suit, claiming $100 million in damages to his reputation; it was dismissed. Cohn kept the government busy with procedural protests, and obtained affidavits from some witnesses — including the Queens superintendent — recanting their statements and claiming that they had been threatened. One said the government lawyers had engaged in “Gestapo tactics.”
After two years of wrangling, the complaint was resolved with a consent agreement in which Fred and Donald Trump agreed not to discriminate, to send a list of vacancies to the Urban League and to advertise that their apartments were open to all. At one point, Fred and Donald Trump haggled over the fine points of the ad requirements before a judge.
“We were not convicted. We would win this case if we fought it,” Fred Trump said.
“Don’t be too sure of that,” said the judge, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Three years after the settlement, the Justice Department reopened the case, charging that the company was using the same tactics to chase away black tenants, saying that “racially discriminatory conduct by Trump agents” was occurring frequently. Court records do not indicate how the second court action was resolved.
Blair, the author, said that the experience in fighting the New York charges helped to forge Trump’s brash, confrontational style — even when facing serious charges of racial bias.
“His whole winning formula is to always be unpredictable,” she said. “You don’t know what he’s going to say, except that he’s going to kick somebody in the shins.”
Tanfani and Bierman reported from Washington. Times staff writer Michael A. Memoli in Cincinnati contributed to this report.
Greg Papa, the legendary sports radio voice in the Bay Area, is stepping away from his broadcasting duties while undergoing treatment for cancer, he announced Friday.
Papa, the radio voice of the San Francisco 49ers and a longtime host on KNBR (680 AM), did not specify the type of cancer he is battling in a statement released by the radio station but said he expects a full recovery.
“As I fully focus on my treatment and work toward a full recovery, I’m stepping away from my broadcasts but look forward to returning soon,” Papa said. “Thanks to everyone for your prayers and good wishes as I begin this fight.”
Papa, 62, began his career doing radio play-by-play for the Indiana Pacers in 1984 but launched a decades-long career in the Bay Area when hired by the Golden State Warriors in 1986.
He transitioned to television in the ‘90s, calling games for the San Antonio Spurs. He also called baseball games on TV, beginning with the Oakland Athletics before jumping to the San Francisco Giants in the mid-2000s.
When play-by-play announcer Dave Flemming’s microphone went dead for 10 seconds after Barry Bonds hit his 715th career home run to pass Babe Ruth on the all-time list in 2006, Papa took over the broadcast and explained what had transpired.
“To lose a mic like that, I’ve never seen it,” Papa said. “I’ve never been a part of something like this.”
Flemming was distraught but took it in stride with Papa’s help.
“I think it’s the last gasp of the curse of the Bambino,” Flemming joked. “Now, I’m starting to rethink my whole world.”
Papa’s coworkers rallied to support him when the diagnosis was announced.
“Greg is not just our teammate at The Sports Leader, he’s one of the most iconic play-by-play men in the history of our beloved Bay Area,” said Brian Murphy, the popular longtime KNBR talk show host. “Nobody else has done the Warriors, Raiders, Giants, A’s and 49ers like Greg, so he has every Northern California fan base rooting hard for him to come out healthy and get back behind the mic.”
Papa, a three-time winner of the California sportscaster of the year award, has been the radio play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco 49ers since the 2019 season. His contract with the 49ers extends through the 2028 season.
“The 49ers family extends our unwavering love and support to Greg Papa and his family following his recent cancer diagnosis,” the 49ers said in a statement. “We wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to welcoming him back to the radio booth as the ‘voice of the 49ers’ whenever he is ready.”
The sound of the Faithful 🎙️
Greg Papa has given us so many unforgettable calls—share your favorite moment from the booth as we send our love his way. 👇 pic.twitter.com/1JZZdxVgXW
Chloe Kelly has spoken out about what she would like to do following her major football victory and could be following in the footsteps of former Lioness Jill Scott
The sports star made an appearance on ITV’s This Morning on Thursday where she joined hosts Dermot O’Leary and Rochelle Humes to discuss her achievements and career so far, alongside a group of aspiring young footballers. When one of the children asked Chloe what she would be doing if she was not a footballer, she admitted that she has a wish to carve our a career in the world of sports media. At first, she said: “If I weren’t a footballer, what would by job me? I’m not too sure, I’ve never really thought about it,” before adding: “I enjoy the media, so hopefully I could be interviewing another footballer maybe? And I’d definitely be in the stadium with the fans.”
Meanwhile, Chloe was also asked about how she manages to stay so calm during intense moments in the match, and she admitted: “I’m more nervous sitting here than taking a penalty, actually! I stay calm by just sticking to my process.
She added: “I train that process a lot. I breathe, I take my breath and I either score or I miss, and that’s the worst that can happen. That’s the way I see it, it’s just me against the goalkeeper so I’m very relaxed.”
Establishing herself as an England legend in the showpiece event, Chloe confidently dispatched her penalty past Spain’s Cata Coll to secure victory. BBC Sports commentator Vicki Sparks captured the moment perfectly: “This is it, this is the moment for Chloe Kelly. Can she be England’s heroine? Chloe Kelly… yes she can!”
Kelly rose to the occasion magnificently, rescuing England from perilous situations on three separate occasions. Teaming up with emerging talent Michelle Agyemang, the duo rekindled the country’s belief in achieving a magnificent triumph that delivered a “proper English performance” culminating in continental success.
Following the trophy presentation, Chloe was heard declaring: “The first time was so nice, we had to do it twice.” Yet beyond the football field, she remains remarkably private about her personal affairs. Having wed her long-time partner last year, early 2025 almost witnessed her departure from professional football entirely.
Kelly was joined by her England team-mates for a victory parade down The Mall in London on Tuesday. The team had the Euro 2025 trophy with them on an open-top as they were greeted by an estimated 65,000 supporters in central London. Manager Sarina Wiegman and captain Leah Williamson then led the squad up onto a stage outside Buckingham Palace, where they were interviewed by Alex Scott. There were some heartwarming moments, including Wiegman doing a duet with Burna Boy and Williamson holding back tears as she spoke.
But there was also a moment where Kelly – the scorer of England’s winning penalty against Spain on Sunday – turned the air blue. She said: “It feels so good to stand side by side with each and every one of these girls.
“It’s so f****** special. It’s incredible to stand here today with a winners’ medal around our necks and I’m so proud to be English.”
It wasn’t the first time that the Arsenal forward had been caught on camera swearing, having dropped the same word after picking up her winners’ medal from Prince William in Basel. This time she quickly took to social media, writing: “Ooops. Emotions got the better of me. Sorry for the F bomb. Love, CK x.”
Kenley Jansen pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his 19th save as the Angels won back-to-back games for the first time since defeating Arizona on July 11 and 12.
The 37-year-old Jansen hasn’t allowed an earned run in 16 consecutive appearances, the longest active streak in the American League and the third-longest of his career.
Connor Brogdon (2-1) replaced Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz in the fifth and gave up one run in 1⅔ innings. Kochanowicz, called up from triple-A Salt Lake earlier in the day, conceded two runs — none earned — in 4⅔ innings.
Newman’s two-run shot opened the scoring in the third, and Zach Neto added an RBI double in the fifth.
Josh Jung hit a solo homer and Jonah Heim had an RBI single for the Rangers. Josh Smith and Corey Seager scored when Adolis García reached on an error by right fielder Gustavo Campero, who bobbled a routine flyball.
Jacob deGrom (10-3), who was 6-0 in his previous 10 starts, gave up five runs and seven hits with eight strikeouts in 5⅓ innings. The two-time Cy Young Award winner has yielded at least one home run in five consecutive games in the same season for the first time in his 12-year career.
Key moment: Ward’s leadoff homer in the sixth gave the Angels the lead for good, and Rengifo added a two-run drive off reliever Jacob Webb to make it 6-3.
Key stat:
Up next: Patrick Corbin (6-7, 3.78 ERA) is scheduled to pitch for Texas on Tuesday against Yusei Kikuchi (4-7, 3.23) in the middle game of the series.
Ryne Sandberg, a Hall of Fame second baseman who became one of baseball’s best all-around players while starring for the Chicago Cubs, has died. He was 65.
Sandberg was surrounded by his family when he died at his home on Monday, according to the team.
Sandberg announced in January 2024 that he had been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. He had chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and then said in August 2024 that he was cancer-free.
But he posted on Instagram on Dec. 10 that his cancer had returned and spread to other organs. He announced this month that he was still fighting, while “looking forward to making the most of every day with my loving family and friends.”
Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts said Sandberg “will be remembered as one of the all-time greats in nearly 150 years of this historic franchise.”
“His dedication to and respect for the game, along with his unrelenting integrity, grit, hustle, and competitive fire were hallmarks of his career,” Ricketts said in the team’s statement.
Sandberg was born and raised in Spokane, Wash. He was selected out of high school by Philadelphia in the 20th round of the 1978 amateur draft.
He made his major league debut in 1981 and went one for six in 13 games with the Phillies. In January 1982, he was traded to Chicago along with Larry Bowa for veteran infielder Ivan De Jesus.
It turned into one of the most lopsided deals in baseball history.
Sandberg hit .285 with 282 homers, 1,061 RBIs and 344 steals in 15 years with Chicago. He made 10 All-Star teams — winning the Home Run Derby in 1990 — and took home nine Gold Gloves.
“Ryne Sandberg was a legend of the Chicago Cubs franchise and a beloved figure throughout Major League Baseball,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said. “He was a five-tool player who excelled in every facet of the game thanks to his power, speed and work ethic.”
Even with Sandberg’s stellar play, the Cubs made just two postseason appearances while he was in Chicago.
He was the National League MVP in 1984, batting .314 with 19 homers, 84 RBIs, 32 steals, 19 triples and 114 runs scored. Chicago won the NL East and Sandberg hit .368 (seven for 19) in the playoffs, but the Cubs were eliminated by San Diego after winning the first two games of the NLCS at Wrigley Field.
The 1984 season featured what Cubs fans still call “The Sandberg Game,” when he homered twice and drove in seven runs in a 12-11 victory over St. Louis in 11 innings on June 23.
Chicago paid tribute to Sandberg and that game when it unveiled a statue of the infielder outside Wrigley Field on that date in 2024.
Ryne Sandberg throws a ceremonial first pitch before Game 3 of the 2015 NLDS between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals.
(Paul Beaty / Associated Press)
“He was a superhero in this city,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said during a TV broadcast of the team’s game on July 20. “You think about [Michael] Jordan, Walter Payton and Ryne Sandberg all here at the same time, and I can’t imagine a person handling their fame better, their responsibility for a city better than he did.”
Sandberg led Chicago back to the playoffs in 1989, hitting .290 with 30 homers as the Cubs won the NL East. He batted .400 (eight for 20) in the NLCS, but Chicago lost to San Francisco in five games.
Sandberg set a career high with an NL-best 40 homers in 1990 and drove in a career-best 100 runs in 1990 and 1991, but he never made it back to the postseason. He retired after the 1997 season.
“When you examine the offense and defense, you’ll find some years where he was the best player you’ve ever seen in your life,” former Cubs first baseman Mark Grace said.
Sandberg was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005, receiving 76.2% of the vote by the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America in his third try on the ballot. The Cubs retired his No. 23 that same year.
“Ryne Sandberg had a relentless work ethic and an unshakable positive outlook,” Hall of Fame chair Jane Forbes Clark said. “With it, he inspired all those who knew him.”
Sandberg also managed Philadelphia from August 2013 to June 2015, going 119-159. He got the interim job when Charlie Manuel was fired, and he resigned with the Phillies in the middle of a difficult 2015 season.
When DJ Wingfield picked USC in the transfer portal last January, it seemed like an ideal one-year arrangement for both parties. The Trojans desperately needed experience on the interior of their already thin offensive line. Wingfield — after two seasons at a junior college, one at New Mexico and another spent at Purdue — was seeking to raise his profile in his final season of eligibility.
USC offered him a clear path to playing time at left guard, as well as a $210,000 payday for his name, image and likeness. He just needed the NCAA to approve a waiver for him to play another season.
Neither Wingfield nor USC figured that would be a problem at the time. But the NCAA denied Wingfield’s initial request for a waiver in late March, then later denied his appeal.
So, with fall camp set to open this week, Wingfield took the only route remaining for him to play at USC: He filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, seeking injunctive relief in order to play for USC.
Wingfield is seeking to challenge the lawfulness of the NCAA’s “Five-Year Rule”, which contends that players are eligible to play four seasons of competition across five years. Both USC and Wingfield believed, according to the complaint, that his waiver would be approved, considering recent rulings in the cases of Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia and Rutgers’ Jett Elad, each of whom won the right in court to play an additional season.
But the waiver was denied, robbing Wingfield, he claims, of what could have been a “once-in-a-lifetime” NIL payday as well as an opportunity to “enhance his career and reputation” by playing at USC.
“The effect of the NCAA’s anticompetitive conduct will be to penalize Wingfield for having attended a junior college and for the disruptions caused by the pandemic,” the complaint reads. “The NCAA’s anticompetitive conduct, coupled with its unreasonable denial of Wingfield’s meritorious request for a waiver, thus threatens him with immediate irreparable harm.”
Wingfield’s collegiate career began in 2019 at El Camino College, a junior college in Torrance. He left El Camino during the 2020 season due to the pandemic, as Wingfield was tasked with taking care of his mother.
He played at El Camino in 2021 before transferring to New Mexico in the spring of 2022. Before completing a single game with the Lobos, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee, ending his season. He returned to play in nine games in 2023 before entering the transfer portal.
Wingfield transferred to Purdue where he earned a starting job in 2024, five years after he first started his college football career.
Still, he figured the NCAA would look past that timeline, given his circumstances and the cascade of legal challenges claiming that the NCAA is violating antitrust laws by limiting athletes’ eligibility.
Now that decision — and Wingfield’s college football future — is in the hands of a federal judge.
Whatever that judge decides could have an adverse impact on the Trojans offense this season. Without Wingfield, USC would be perilously thin up front. His absence could mean sliding projected right tackle Tobias Raymond to guard, while sophomore Justin Tauanuu steps in as starting right tackle. Otherwise, USC is likely to turn to inexperienced sophomore Micah Banuelos at left guard.
With Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase under investigation for baseball betting, fans that bet a combined $315,000 on him could be at risk of losing some or all of that investment.
Clase is the star attraction at Finlete, a San Diego company that offers fans the chance to invest in an athlete in exchange for a share of his future earnings.
The future earnings of Clase, 27, a three-time All-Star, could be influenced by Monday’s announcement that Major League Baseball had placed him on paid leave as part of what the league called a “sports betting investigation.” The sport in question is baseball, according to an official familiar with the probe but unauthorized to discuss it publicly.
In its offering statement, Finlete noted that Clase’s current contract extends through 2026 and guarantees him at least $13.3 million, if the Guardians decline a 2027 buyout. The Guardians hold an option for $10 million in 2027 and another for $10 million in 2028. Clase would be eligible for free agency if the Guardians decline either option, or after the option years have been exercised.
However, if the league determines Clase had bet on any baseball game in which his team participated, he could be declared permanently ineligible. If the league determines he had bet on any other baseball games, he could be banned for one year.
On July 14, Finlete announced on Instagram that it had raised more than $315,000 from “hundreds of investors in Emmanuel Clase’s career.”
In its offering, beyond the boilerplate warning that investors should not invest money they could not afford to lose, Finlete cited injuries, illnesses and work stoppages among risks that could derail payments to investors.
Finlete also warned that players “suspended or banned” from the league “would not receive amounts under their existing player contract and may not be able to secure future playing contracts.”
In his Clase sales pitch, Finlete co-founder Rob Connolly last year told Sportico: “Mariano Rivera was the best ever. And this guy’s in that conversation. So he’s got a full career in front of him. How the hell did we land this deal? It’s incredible.”
Finlete spelled that out in its offering: If you really want to make the big bucks as investors, Clase needs to sign a lucrative extension, or hit free agency and strike gold.
“The profitability of the Clase Agreement is substantially dependent on Mr. Clase entering into additional high-value MLB player contracts,” the offering read.
On its homepage, Finlete highlights seven baseball players with which it has agreements, Clase included. The other six are in the minor leagues.
Connolly did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
The BBC’s hit children show The Broom Cupboard saw the birth of many iconic presenters – now Josie D’Arby’s career has taken a surprising turn away from the cameras
Josie D’Arby found fame on the hit BBC show
In a tiny, cramped booth nestled away in the BBC studios, a whole host of famous TV presenters kicked off their careers.
Children’s TV show The Broom Cupboard began in 1985, replacing the shaky voiceover and still slides linking CBBC shows with real-life presenters.
Despite its practical beginnings it soon became a hit in itself, with the likes of Phillip Schofield, Debbie Flint and Zoe Ball all forging their famous TV personalities on the show.
Iconic characters Edd the Duck, Otis the Aardvark and Gordon the Gopher even joined in on the fun, with letters and drawings from viewers plastered across the walls of the tiny studio room.
Many of the programme’s stars look completely different these days, with brand new careers – and Josie D’Arby is no exception.
Jodie D’Arby went on to present shows like Top of The Pops(Image: Channel 5)
After her stint in The Broom Cupboard, Josie went on to become an award-winning presenter, becoming a well-known face on the likes of Songs of Praise, Top of the Pops, Inside Out and Cardiff Singer of The World.
In 1999, the 52-year-old star from Newport, Wales, became the youngest British woman to have her own chat show, titled Josie, on Channel 5.
Josie’s media ambitions didn’t stop there and she soon pivoted to acting, where she starred as Alisha Adams in Holby City and made guest appearances in Casualty and Doctor Who.
She’s even tried her hand as a quiz show contestant, appearing on Richard Osman’s House of Games and Pointless in 2022.
More recently, Josie ditched the cameras for a career that’s worlds away from presenting. The star has been pursuing her artistic talent, even showcasing her painting in a show at the Newport Museum Art Gallery in 2023.
Josie D’Arby and fellow TV presenter Vernon Kay in 2000(Image: Daily Record)
The BBC star started to take art more seriously after winning a televised art competition, South Wales Argus reports. The painting was called Less, which Josie said was “about how little it can take to make people happy.”
“Art is for everyone and I am happy if my piece is just a tiny little reminder that public galleries can be a space and a time to press pause, and enjoy a lovely space if you’re in the city,” she explained.
Before her TV career took off, Josie was said to be in a relationship with Hollywood actor Gerard Butler – known for iconic roles in 300, Law Abiding Citizen and London Has Fallen. The pair apparently briefly dated in 2005.
Andy Crane also has a different career nowadays(Image: BBC)
And Gerard isn’t her only celebrity flame, as Josie reportedly went on a date with actor Joseph Fiennes – the brother of Harry Potter legend Ralph Fiennes – in 2006.
Josie isn’t the only Broom Cupboard presenter who took a different career path. Andy Crane, 61, has been brightening up people’s days on Greatest Hits Radio since 2019 and he looks very different from his days on the CBBC show.
He is now residing in the picturesque location of Lake District. Andy, who was born in the seaside town of Morecambe, Lancashire, presents three hours of the best songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s on Greatest Hits Radio, including The Top 10 at 10 and Midnight Music Marathon.
Before hitting the radiowaves, Andy also presented children’s show, Motormouth, for ITV on Saturdays. He also featured on What’s Up Doc? and Challenge TV.
From Ryan Kartje: USC star freshman Alijah Arenas will miss at least the next six-to-eight months after sustaining a serious knee injury that will require surgery, leaving his future with the Trojans in question.
An MRI this week found a slight meniscus tear, as well as a bone bruise, according to a person familiar with the situation not authorized to discuss it publicly, dealing a critical blow to both USC and a player it hoped could become a superstar in short order.
“Alijah is a tremendous worker, teammate, competitor and person,” USC coach Eric Musselman said in a statement. “He is understandably disappointed that he will not be able to take the court to start the season, but his health is our No. 1 priority.”
The injury comes just two weeks after Arenas was cleared to practice with USC, and three months after he survived a carwreck in his Tesla Cybertruck. Now it’s unclear how much he’ll play for USC — if at all.
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DODGERS
From Kevin Baxter: For 2 ½ hours of a sun-splashed Wednesday afternoon, the Dodgers were playing up to — or perhaps down to — recent expectations.
Their offense consisted mainly of a Shohei Ohtani home run while the starting pitching kept them in the game, but then everything appeared to go off the rails when manager Dave Roberts went to his bullpen.
This time there was a surprise ending though, with Freddie Freeman lining a two-strike, two-out, two-run single to left field to give the Dodgers a walk-off 4-3 win over the Minnesota Twins.
The win was just the second in six games since the All-Star break. But with the team beginning a nine-game, three-city road trip, its longest of the second half, Friday in Boston, Roberts believes the comeback could provide the spark the Dodgers have been missing.
Pete Alonso hit a three-run homer to power the New York Mets to a 6-3 win and series sweep of the Angels on Wednesday.
Alonso, mired in a 2-for-34 slump dating to July 10, homered two batters after Francisco Lindor broke a career-long 0-for-31 drought with an RBI single.
Brandon Nimmo hit his 14th career leadoff homer and Lindor added another RBI single in the fourth for the Mets, who swept a series for the fifth time this season.
Eight years after the Chargers left San Diego, the organization is reintroducing itself to the city with two days of training camp this week. Fans who couldn’t secure tickets to practice at the University of San Diego on Tuesday still clamored for a glimpse from the top of a nearby hill. Jefferson, a San Diego native who grew up rooting for the Chargers, has been happy to see the support grow after the franchise’s contentious departure.
“With any sports team that leaves the city, [fans] feel empty when it comes to that spot,” said Jefferson, who signed with the Chargers last year. “But I think we’re gradually filling that void back.”
Coach Jim Harbaugh’s numerous ties to San Diego and instantaneous winning appeared to smooth out a potential reunion with the city. When team executives approached him about returning to San Diego for training camp, the coach eagerly agreed. He suggested the University of San Diego campus, where he got his head coaching start in 2004 for the Toreros.
From Kara Alexander: Ever since she visited Los Angeles with her national team three years ago, Sveindís Jane Jónsdóttir knew she wanted to play in the National Women’s Soccer League one day.
When the opportunity to play for Angel City presented itself, Jónsdóttir was eager to join the league and play for new Angel City coach Alexander Straus.
“When Angel City came up, I was just really excited about it,” she said. “I know Alex. I played against him when he was at Bayern and so I knew he was a great coach.”
Three new players have joined Angel City (4-3-6) during the past few months, delivering an infusion of talent for a team that sits in 11th place in the 14-team NWSL standings. The league’s top eight teams advance to the playoffs.
From Kevin Baxter: NASCAR is returning to Southern California, only its cars will be racing on the streets of Coronado and not on an oval in Fontana. The stock car racing circuit announced Wednesday it will be hosting a three-day series of races June 19-21, ending in a NASCAR Cup Series race on the U.S. Naval base in Coronado.
NASCAR did not race in Southern California last year for the first time since 1997, with the exception of 2021, when the schedule was hampered by the coronavirus pandemic. For much of that time, the races were held at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, but that track was torn down in 2023 to make room for a giant warehouse complex. NASCAR preserved part of the grandstand and had hoped to built a half-mile oval track on the site, but that project has stalled and is unlikely to be revived.
NASCAR also raced on a temporary quarter-mile oval on the floor of the Coliseum, but that event has also been abandoned.
Next summer’s Coronado race, which came to fruition after years of careful negotiation, is the first NASCAR event to be run on an active military base. It is being timed to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Navy and will feature a race weekend including an Xfinity Series race and a Craftsman Truck Series event.
Sprint specialist Jonathan Milan pounced at the finish to win the 17th stage of the Tour de France after a crash in the last kilometer derailed rivals’ hopes on Wednesday.
Italian rider Milan, the green jersey holder, consolidated his lead in the points classification with an explosive finish to get his wheel just over the line ahead of Jordi Meeus, Tobias Lund Andresen, Arnaud De Lie, Davide Ballerini and others in a rain-soaked sprint finale.
It’s Milan’s second stage win of the Tour after his victory in similar fashion in Laval on Saturday.
But it was arguably more dramatic with rival sprinter Tim Merlier and others involved in a crash under the “flamme rouge” — the triangular red banner over the road signaling the final kilometer.
“The last 25 kilometers were really, really, fast,” said Merlier, who finished 25th, more than a minute behind. “I think I did a mistake. I took one roundabout on the wrong side and I lost a lot of positions. And then I knew I needed to move up. The moment I wanted to move up, I crashed.”
Milan was in trouble earlier in the stage when the peloton split into two groups, finding himself in the second one. He had Lidl-Trek teammates Quinn Simmons and Jasper Stuyven to thank for dropping back to help.
“I didn’t survive alone, I survived with the help of my teammates and I have to appreciate this. Without them, I would still be on one of the climbs, I wouldn’t be here,” said Milan, who clocked 71.1 km/h and is the first Italian to win two stages in the same Tour since Vincenzo Nibali in 2014.
There was no change atop the overall standings with three-time Tour champion Tadej Pogačar maintaining his lead of 4 minutes, 15 seconds over main rival Jonas Vingegaard.
THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY
1908 — John Hayes wins the Olympic marathon in a record of 2 hours, 55 minutes, 18.4 seconds. Italian Dorando Pietri is the first athlete to enter the stadium, but collapses several times before being disqualified when officials help him across the line.
1931 — Paavo Nurmi sets the world record at 2 miles in a meet at Helsinki, Finland, with a time of 8:59.6.
1960 — Jay Hebert beats Jim Ferrier by one stroke to win the PGA golf tournament.
1967 — Don January wins a playoff by two strokes over Don Massengale to win the PGA championship.
1970 — The International Lawn Tennis Association institutes the nine-point tiebreaker rule.
1976 — John Naber of the United States becomes the first swimmer to break the 2-minute barrier in the 200-meter backstroke at the Olympics in Montreal.
1976 — Mac Wilkins of the United States sets an Olympic record in the discus with a toss of 224 feet in Montreal.
1977 — Hollis Stacy wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship by two strokes over Nancy Lopez.
1998 — Tour de France riders, angered by the drug scandal that has dominated the event, protest by delaying the start of racing for two hours. Armin Meier, a member of the Festina team who was kicked off the tour the previous week, admits to a French radio station that he used a banned drug.
2005 — Lance Armstrong wins his seventh consecutive Tour de France. All of the titles are stripped in 2012 for doping.
2008 — Nancy Lieberman makes a one-game appearance for the Detroit Shock after the 50-year-old Hall-of-Famer signed a seven-day contract earlier in the day. Lieberman, finishes with two assists and two turnovers, surpassing her own record as the oldest player in WNBA history. Lieberman held the record playing at age 39 in 1997 while playing for the Phoenix Mercury.
2009 — Ron Hornaday Jr. holds off a late challenge from Mike Skinner to win the AAA Insurance 200, making him the first driver in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series to win four consecutive races.
2010 — Fourteen-year-old Jim Liu of Smithtown, N.Y., beats Justin Thomas of Goshen, Ky., 4 and 2 to become the youngest U.S. Junior Amateur champion. Liu, who turns 15 next month, is more than six months younger than Tiger Woods when he won the first of his three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur titles in 1991.
2011 — Cadel Evans wins the Tour de France, becoming the first Australian champion in cycling’s greatest race.
2014 — Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice receives a two-game suspension from the NFL following his offseason arrest for domestic violence. The six-year veteran was arrested following a Feb. 15 altercation in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with then-fiancee Janay Palmer.
2016 — Chris Froome celebrates his third Tour de France title in four years. The British rider finishes safely at the back of the main pack during the final stage, arm-in-arm with his teammates during the mostly ceremonial final stage ending on the Champs-Elysees. Froome, who also won the Tour in 2013 and 2015, becomes the first rider to defend the title since Miguel Indurain won the last of his five straight in 1995. Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven consecutive titles for doping.
2019 — 19-year-old Hungarian swimmer Kristof Milak breaks Michael Phelps’ 10-year-old 200m butterfly record in a time of 1:50.73, 0.78s faster than Phelps.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1909 — Nap Rucker of the Brooklyn Dodgers struck out 16 batters in a 1-0 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
1931 — In an 8-7 loss to Pittsburgh, Babe Herman of Brooklyn hit for the cycle for the second time in the season.
1947 — Jackie Robinson stole home for the first time in his major league career in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ 4-2 win over Pittsburgh.
1948 — Chicago White Sox outfielder Pat Seerey become the first major leaguer to strike out seven times in a doubleheader.
1949 — Cleveland pitcher Bob Lemon hit two home runs to lead the Indians to a 7-5 victory over the Washington Senators in the opener of a doubleheader.
1968 — Hoyt Wilhelm of the Chicago White Sox passed Cy Young’s major league record when he made his 907th appearance. He retired with 1,070 appearances.
1973 — Bobby Bonds homered and doubled to lead the NL to a 7-1 rout of the AL in the All-Star game at Kansas City.
1983 — The “Pine Tar” home run was hit by the Kansas City Royals’ George Brett off New York pitcher Goose Gossage at Yankee Stadium. Brett’s shot came with two out in the top of the ninth to give the Royals a 5-4 lead. Brett’s homer was ruled an out because the amount of pine tar exceeded what was allowed. After a protest by the Royals, the final out and the Yankees’ half of the ninth was completed on Aug. 18.
1993 — Anthony Young of the New York Mets extended his record losing streak to 27 games when he walked in the winning run in the 10th inning for a 5-4 loss to the Dodgers.
1999 — In their biggest victory in 46 years, the New York Yankees routed the Cleveland Indians 21-1 as Chili Davis went 5-for-6 with six RBIs.
2010 — Tampa Bay won in Cleveland for the first time in nearly five years. The Rays snapped an 18-game losing streak with a 6-3 win against the Indians. Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon snapped an 0-21 personal losing streak as the visiting manager that began when he was the Angels interim manager in 1996.
2016 — Ken Griffey, Jr. and Mike Piazza are inducted into the Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Cooperstown, NY. Griffey obtained the highest percentage of the vote ever — 99.3% — in being elected in his first year of eligibility by the BBWAA, while Piazza made it on his fourth try. A crowd estimated at 50,000, the second-largest ever at Cooperstown, is on hand to witness the event.
2022 — The induction ceremony is held for the Class of 2022 at the Hall of Fame. Three of the seven men inducted — David Ortiz, Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva — are present to receive the honor. The others, all deceased, are represented by relatives — Gil Hodges, Minnie Minoso and Buck O’Neil — while Dave Winfield introduces 19th-century Black baseball pioneer Bud Fowler. Over 35,000 persons are present in Cooperstown, NY to witness the ceremony, and Dominican flags and Boston Red Sox gear, in honor of Ortiz, are well in evidence in the crowd.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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NEW YORK — Pete Alonso hit a three-run homer to power the New York Mets to a 6-3 win and series sweep of the Angels on Wednesday.
Alonso, mired in a 2-for-34 slump dating to July 10, homered two batters after Francisco Lindor broke a career-long 0-for-31 drought with an RBI single.
Brandon Nimmo hit his 14th career leadoff homer and Lindor added another RBI single in the fourth for the Mets, who swept a series for the fifth time this season.
Sean Manaea (1-1), making his third appearance and second start after battling oblique and elbow injuries, allowed one run and struck out five over five innings. Edwin Díaz got the final four outs for his 21st save.
Mike Trout homered in the third — the 396th home run and 999th RBI of his career — for the Angels, who were swept for the seventh time. Luis Rengifo (forceout) and Chris Taylor (double) collected RBIs in the seventh.
Left-hander Jake Eder (0-1), the last of three Angels pitchers on a bullpen day, gave up five runs in a career-high six innings.
Key moment
Alonso’s first homer since July 8 was the 248th of his career, pulling him within four of Darryl Strawberry for the all-time Mets franchise lead.
Key stat
Trout is aiming to become the second active player with 400 homers and the ninth with 1,000 RBIs.
Up next
Angels LHP Yusei Kikuchi (4-6, 3.13 ERA) starts Thursday, when the Angels return home for a four-game series against the Seattle Mariners and RHP Logan Evans (3-3, 3.81 ERA).
The Chargers were the first team in the NFL to open training camp, but the focus Thursday quickly shifted to who didn’t join them.
Wide receiver Mike Williams is retiring, the Chargers confirmed Thursday as the team began camp. Just as a hole opened in the receivers room, the Chargers also signed rookie receiver Tre’ Harris, the team announced, ending the second-round pick’s contract holdout.
The news of Williams’ sudden retirement broke on social media as Chargers players went through some of the first team drills of training camp. Williams, 30, was just months removed from his feel-good homecoming to the franchise that drafted him seventh overall in 2017. The free agent was optimistic about revitalizing his career in familiar territory. A wide smile split his face when he was asked in March about reuniting with quarterback Justin Herbert.
On Thursday, Herbert still smiled at the jaw-dropping plays they made together.
“I want what’s best for Mike,” said Herbert, who propelled Williams to a career season in 2021 with 86 catches and 1,146 yards receiving. “He’s always been there for us and we’re going to be there for him. It’s obviously a tough situation and I got so much respect for him as a teammate, as a friend, as a receiver, as a player and the man that he is. … Football at the end of the day is a game. There’s more to life than just football and I’m just hoping for the best for him.”
Williams, who was two years removed from his torn anterior cruciate ligament with the Chargers, was set to begin camp on the physically unable to perform list after suffering an undisclosed injury during the offseason training program. Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, general manager Joe Hortiz expected Williams could return to practice soon.
Later that day, Williams’ agent, Tory Dandy, dropped the news, a person with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly confirmed.
Williams caught 309 passes for 4,806 yards and 31 touchdowns for the Chargers. Coming off the season-ending knee injury, the 30-year-old was released in a salary-saving move in 2024. It was the beginning of what Williams called a “terrible” season. He caught only 21 passes for 298 yards for the New York Jets and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He returned to the Chargers as a free agent hoping to recapture the magic he had with Herbert.
Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert passes during the first day of training camp practice Thursday.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
Since being drafted by the Chargers in 2020, Herbert found comfort with the 6-foot-4 Williams, who always seemed to tilt the odds in his favor on 50-50 balls. Williams’ presence, especially in the red zone, demanded the defense’s attention. Herbert fondly recalled the receiver’s twisting, one-handed catch against the Rams as one of his favorite plays, but noted there are too many to recite the whole list.
“You can’t really replace a guy like that,” Herbert said. “But thankfully we’ve got a receiver room that’s continuing to push each other. They compete and they want to be the best.”
With Williams, the Chargers hoped to add another outside receiving threat to complement budding star Ladd McConkey and bring veteran leadership to a position in flux.
Harris can now rejoin the competition as he agreed to terms with the team. The 55th pick in the draft was stuck in an unprecedented 30-player standstill this week as second-round picks and teams negotiated for guaranteed money. The logjam began to loosen Thursday as several teams wrapped up deals, including the Chicago Bears, who signed the 56th pick Ozzy Trapilo early Thursday.
Harris still participated in rookie minicamp, voluntary workouts and the team’s mandatory minicamp before his holdout officially began Saturday. Herbert believed the previous reps would help Harris jump back in seamlessly.
Chargers fans take photos with owner Dean Spanos during the first day of training camp at the team’s headquarters in El Segundo on Thursday.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
“No one’s going to fault him for doing what he’s doing,” Herbert said. “He’s a teammate. We respect him and we’ve got his back no matter what. … Whenever that deal gets done and he comes back, I know he’s not going to miss a beat.”
During the spring, Harris started moving up the depth chart, taking some team reps with Herbert in place of Jalen Reagor. Reagor, a 2021 first-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles, had the standout play of Thursday’s practice, diving for a fingertip catch on a 50-yard touchdown pass from Herbert.
Fans cheered when Reagor tucked the ball away and rolled into the pylon. The temporary stands at the Chargers’ training facility were packed as fans were eager for their first look at the team since January. Days after launching new gold-and-navy alternate jerseys, the team set up a shop to sell merchandise.
As Chargers players broke the final huddle, a group of fans started chanting “Bring back Keenan!”
Keenan Allen, another long-term Herbert target, remains unsigned after 70 catches for 744 yards receiving and seven touchdowns for the Bears last year.
Etc.
The Chargers placed running back Najee Harris on the active/non-football injury list Thursday. The recent free agent signing suffered a minor eye injury in a Fourth of July fireworks accident. … Quarterback Taylor Heinicke was the only player on the active roster who did not appear on the field during Thursday’s roughly 75-minute practice.
