Kings captain Anze Kopitar has a significant foot injury that could sideline him for the near future.
The Kings announced that Kopitar is “week to week” on Friday, a day after he missed the team’s 4-2 loss to Pittsburgh.
Kopitar was hit in the foot by a deflected puck during a shootout loss at Minnesota on Monday. After saying Kopitar’s availability would be a game-time decision for the game against Pittsburgh, the Kings acknowledged the injury could be more significant.
Kopitar is beginning his 20th and final season in an NHL career spent entirely with the Kings. The Slovenian center announced his impending retirement last month at the start of training camp.
The two-time Stanley Cup champion has twice won the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s top defensive forward. He is the second-leading scorer in Kings history and a five-time All-Star.
The Kings are off to a rough start to the season, losing three straight to fall to 1-3-1. New general manager Ken Holland made only a few changes to the roster that matched the franchise records for points and victories last season.
Los Angeles hosts unbeaten Carolina on Saturday night.
Jerry Adler, who spent decades backstage on Broadway before reinventing himself in his 60s as a television actor, most memorably as Herman “Hesh” Rabkin on HBO’s “The Sopranos” and Howard Lyman on CBS’ “The Good Wife,” has died. He was 96.
Adler died Saturday in New York, where he lived, according to his family. A cause was not disclosed.
On “The Sopranos,” Adler played Hesh, a Jewish music producer and loan shark with long ties to the Soprano crime family. Not a member of Tony Soprano’s inner crew but close enough to be trusted, he was one of the few who could speak bluntly to James Gandolfini’s mob boss without fear of reprisal. Adler remained with the series from its 1999 pilot through the final season in 2007, a steady presence on the margins of Tony’s world.
Hesh turned up in some of the show’s most memorable arcs, helping Tony’s protégé Christopher and his girlfriend Adriana in their ill-fated stab at the music business, joining Tony in a horse-racing venture and, in the final season, watching their relationship sour when the boss pressed him for a large loan.
Steven Van Zandt, Adler’s “Sopranos” castmate and guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, paid tribute to Adler on social media: “Such an honor working with you. Travel well my friend.”
While “The Sopranos” launched a number of previously little-known actors to instant fame, Adler’s rise was unusual, the culmination of more than four decades spent behind the scenes on Broadway before he ever stepped in front of a camera.
A Brooklyn native born Feb. 4, 1929, Adler began his career as an assistant stage manager in 1950 on “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and went on to work as stage manager, production manager or supervisor on more than 50 shows, including the original “My Fair Lady,” Harold Pinter’s “The Homecoming” and “The Apple Tree,” directed by Mike Nichols. He also directed several productions.
By the 1980s, he had moved to Los Angeles to be closer to his children and found steady work in daytime television as a stage manager. It wasn’t until his early 60s that acting entered the picture. After debuting on CBS’ “Brooklyn Bridge” in 1991, Adler found steady film and TV work as a character actor through the 1990s, appearing in Joe Pesci’s “The Public Eye” (1992) and Woody Allen’s “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993).
After “The Sopranos,” Adler remained a familiar presence on television. He joined “The Good Wife” in 2011 as Howard Lyman, a blustery, out-of-touch partner at the Lockhart/Gardner law firm. What was initially meant to be a one-off guest spot turned into a recurring role across six seasons, with Adler reprising the part in “The Good Fight” in 2017 and 2018.
Adler also recurred on FX’s “Rescue Me” as fire chief Sidney Feinberg and appeared in series ranging from “Northern Exposure” and “Mad About You” to “Transparent” and “Broad City.” His film credits include “In Her Shoes” (2005), “Synecdoche, New York” (2008) and “A Most Violent Year” (2014).
Adler returned to Broadway as a performer late in life, appearing in Elaine May’s 2000 comedy “Taller Than a Dwarf” and Larry David’s “Fish in the Dark” in 2015. Adler’s last screen credit came in the 2019 revival season of “Mad About You.” In 2024, he published a memoir, “Too Funny for Words: Backstage Tales From Broadway, Television, and the Movies,” reflecting on his unusual path through show business.
On Instagram, “Sopranos” co-star Michael Imperioli, who played Christopher, praised Adler as “a fantastic actor and the kindest of human beings. He brought so much humor, intelligence and truth to the role of Herman ‘Hesh’ Rabkin and was one of my favorite characters on ‘The Sopranos.’ I loved working and spending time with Jerry. A true class act.”
Survivors include his wife, Joan Laxman, whom he married in 1994, and his daughters, Alisa, Amy, Laura and Emily.
From Kevin Baxter: The half-empty Dodger clubhouse was so quiet you could hear a winning streak snap Monday. But amid the silence there was one conversation that spoke volumes.
After a 4-3 walk-off loss to the last-place Colorado Rockies — a loss set up by two poor plays from right fielder Teoscar Hernández — Mookie Betts met with manager Dave Roberts and Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, in Roberts’ office.
Betts, the Dodgers shortstop, is a six-time Gold Glove winner in right field. Hernández is not. On Monday, Hernández threw to the wrong base in the third inning, allowing the Rockies to score their second run, and in the ninth he was unable to hold Ezequiel Tovar’s bloop double. Two pitches later, Warming Bernabel bounced a single up to middle, scoring Tovar to end the game.
The Betts conversation afterward was private. But the circumstances that led to it were not. Clearly the bullpen is not the Dodgers’ only problem.
“He’s got to get better out there. There’s just no way to put it,” Roberts said of Hernández. “It’s not a lack of effort. But, you know, we’ve just got to kind of get better. We do.”
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ANGELS
Gavin Lux hit an early two-run homer and the Cincinnati Reds used three leadoff triples to beat the Angels 4-1 on Monday night.
TJ Friedl had a leadoff single in the first inning off Victor Mederos, making his second career start, and Lux followed with his fifth homer for a 2-0 lead.
Elly De La Cruz led off the fifth with his fourth triple this season before scoring on a sacrifice fly by Austin Hays to make it 3-1. Hays tripled in the third but was stranded.
Scott Barlow replaced Luis Mey with two on and two outs in the eighth and struck out Jo Adell swinging to keep it 4-1. Barlow fanned three more in the ninth for his first save this season.
From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The Great Depression threatened the 1932 Olympics. A pandemic raged during the 2021 Tokyo Games. Parisians planned a “poop protest” in the Seine before the 2024 Games.
From natural disasters, construction woes or unpopular opinion, every Olympics has faced threats in the planning process.
Yet nearly every time, the city, ready or not, still hosted the Games.
With less than three years before the L.A. Olympics, calls on social media for the city to withdraw or cancel have intensified. Wildfires devastated Pacific Palisades and Altadena in January. L.A. had to balance a $1-billion deficit. Immigration raids have put communities on edge while President Trump has threatened further military intervention.
But Olympic preparations press forward. So invested in the success of the 2028 Games, the International Olympic Committee allowed venue naming rights for the first time in history. LA28, the private group responsible for organizing the Games, has contracted more than 70% of its $2.5-billion sponsorship goal, with more deals coming.
Stafford, sidelined since the start of training camp because of a back issue, practiced Monday for the first time.
That qualified as an unexpected and momentous development for the Rams as they prepare for their Sept. 7 opener against the Houston Texans at SoFi Stadium.
Stafford, 37, went through individual and team drills with the first-team offense. The 17th-year pro was a full participant, but he did not speak to reporters afterward.
From Ryan Kartje: When they chose to continue their college careers, both USC offensive lineman DJ Wingfield and UCLA wide receiver Kaedin Robinson thought the courts and NCAA had cleared the way for them to play a fifth season of football.
USC had told Wingfield as much, offering him $210,000 in NIL to join the Trojans’ offensive line. UCLA, meanwhile, offered Robinson $450,000 to be one of the Bruins’ top wideouts.
But after first seeing their waivers rejected in the spring, then suing the NCAA this summer, a U.S. District Court judge has now shut the door on either Wingfield or Robinson suiting up this fall.
1909 — The first race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Twelve-thousand spectators watch Austrian engineer Louis Schwitzer win a five-mile race with an average speed of 57.4 miles per hour. The track’s surface of crushed rock and tar breaks up in a number of places and causes the deaths of two drivers, two mechanics and two spectators.
1934 — Helen Hull Jacobs wins the women’s title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships.
1981 — Renaldo Nehemiah sets the world record in the 110 hurdles with a time of 12.93 seconds in a meet at Zurich, Switzerland.
1984 — Lee Trevino beats Gary Player and Lanny Wadkins by four strokes to take the PGA championship at Shoal Creek, Alabama.
1993 — Sergei Bubka wins his fourth consecutive pole vault title at the World Track and Field championships at Stuttgart, Germany.
1995 — Mike Tyson starts his comeback, knocking out Peter McNeeley in 89 seconds at Las Vegas. McNeeley’s manager Vinnie Vecchione jumps into the ring to stop the fight after his boxer is knocked down twice in the first round.
2001 — Michael Schumacher gets his fourth Formula One championship and matches Alain Prost’s series record of 51 victories by winning the Hungarian Grand Prix.
2004 — American swimmer Michael Phelps wraps up the 200/400m individual medley double at the Athens Olympics when he wins the 200m (1:57.14 OR) ahead of teammate Ryan Lochte.
2016 — Usain Bolt scores another sweep, winning three gold medals in his third consecutive Olympics. At the Rio de Janeiro Games, Bolt turns a close 4×100 relay race against Japan and the United States into a typical, Bolt-like runaway, helping Jamaica cross the line in 37.27 seconds. Allyson Felix wins an unprecedented fifth gold medal in women’s track and field, running the second leg of the 4×100-meter relay team.
2018 — Novak Đoković beats Roger Federer 6-4, 6-4 in the final of the Cincinnati Masters to become the first player to win all 9 Masters 1,000 tennis tournaments since the series started in 1990.
2018 — Jockey Drayden Van Dyke wins a record-tying seven races at Del Mar, including the $200,000 Del Mar Mile. He ties Hall of Famer Victor Espinoza for most wins in a single day in the seaside track’s history. Van Dyke’s only loss in eight mounts comes when he finishes second in the sixth race.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1909 — The Philadelphia Phillies were rained out for the 10th consecutive day, a major league record.
1913 — The Chicago Cubs tagged Grover Alexander for nine straight hits and six runs for a 10-4 triumph over the Philadelphia Phillies.
1921 — Detroit’s Ty Cobb got his 3,000th career hit at age 34, the youngest player to reach that plateau. The milestone hit was a single off Elmer Myers of the Boston Red Sox.
1934 — Moose Solters of the Boston Red Sox hit for the cycle in an 8-6 loss to the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park.
1951 — Eddie Gaedel, a 65-pound midget who was 3-foot-7, made his first and only plate appearance as a pinch-hitter for Frank Saucier of the St. Louis Browns. Gaedel wearing No. 1/8 was walked on four pitches by Detroit Tigers pitcher Bob Cain and then was taken out for pinch-runner Jim Delsing. The gimmick by Browns owner Bill Veeck was completely legal, but later outlawed.
1957 — New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham announced that the team’s board of directors had voted 8-1 in favor of moving to San Francisco. The Giants would start the 1958 season in Seals Stadium.
1965 — Jim Maloney of the Cincinnati Reds no-hit the Cubs 1-0, in 10 innings in the first game of a doubleheader at Chicago. Leo Cardenas homered in the 10th for the Reds.
1969 — Ken Holtzman of the Cubs blanked the Atlanta Braves with a 3-0 no-hitter at Wrigley Field. Ron Santo’s three-run homer in the first inning provided the Cubs’ offense.
1990 — Bobby Thigpen recorded his 40th save as the Chicago White Sox beat the Texas Rangers 4-2. Thigpen became the eighth — and fastest — to accomplish this feat.
1992 — Bret Boone made history when he became part of the first three-generation family to play in major league baseball. Boone is the grandson of Ray Boone, who played from 1948-60, and son of Bob Boone, from 1972-90. Bret, 23, completed the triangle when he started at second base for the Seattle Mariners against Baltimore.
2007 — Johan Santana finished with a franchise-record 17 strikeouts in eight innings to help Minnesota edge Texas 1-0.
2009 — Florida reached 10 hits for the 15th straight game in a 6-3 loss at Houston, matching the longest streak since the St. Louis Browns had one that long in 1937. The Marlins were held to four hits the next game.
2011 — LaGrange, Ky., starter Griffin McLarty struck out 12 and hit a homer in a 1-0 victory over the hometown favorites from Clinton County in the Little League World Series at South Williamsport, Pa. The game drew 41,848 fans, breaking the record of 40,000 set in the 1989 and 1990 championship games.
2016 — Jose Altuve homered and had five RBIs, and the Houston Astros beat the Baltimore Orioles 15-8 despite allowing four home runs in the first inning. The Orioles became the first team in the modern era (since 1900) to open a game with four home runs before making an out. Adam Jones hit Collin McHugh’s first pitch into the seats in left field and Hyun Soo Kim singled before Manny Machado, Chris Davis and Mark Trumbo homered in succession.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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From Jack Harris: It was a sight that’s been all too rare this season, coming precisely when the Dodgers needed it most.
Mookie Betts, bat in hand, game on the line. A swing as smooth as it was strong, his two-handed finish sending the ball out of sight.
For so much of this year, the Dodgers have been picking Betts up amid a career-worst season at the plate.
On Sunday afternoon, with a rivalry game and division lead hanging in the balance, he returned the favor with his biggest moment in what felt like ages.
After once leading by four, then watching the San Diego Padres claw back to tie the score, the Dodgers completed a weekend series sweep on Betts’ go-ahead home run in the eighth.
The no-doubt, 394-foot, stadium-shaking blast sent the Dodgers to a 5-4 win and gave them a two-game lead in the National League West; and had Betts skipping around the bases with a swagger that has been missing for much of the campaign.
“It’s been a long time,” Betts said — since he had delivered such a clutch hit, looked so much like his old self at the dish, and trusted a swing that has frustrated him since the earliest days of the season.
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ANGELS
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.
From Ben Bolch: There were some breakdowns before UCLA broke training camp.
Don’t worry, these were the poignant, bring-everyone-together kind.
As part of coach DeShaun Foster’s efforts to connect a team featuring 55 new players and eight new assistant coaches, everyone participated in a series of brotherhood meetings over the last two weeks at the team hotel in Costa Mesa.
Coaches stood before the entire team, sharing anecdotes about their experiences in the game. Players told their stories in more intimate position-group settings run by a coach from a different position.
“A lot of tears,” Foster said Saturday before his team’s final camp session. “So I just like that the players were being vulnerable and letting their guard down because they saw the coaches do it. So, you know, I just think that really brought us together and we’re gonna see if it worked.”
From Ira Gorawara: Kristen Nuss was covered in sand, dulling her neon two-piece swimsuit. A white lei hung around her neck as she attempted to balance her champion’s plaque awkwardly in one hand.
“This thing is heavy,” she said, “my arm is getting sore.”
Despite her and partner Taryn Brasher repeating as AVP Manhattan Beach Open champions — grinding out a 15-21, 21-18, 15-13 victory over former USC standouts Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon — on Sunday, the weight of both the hardware and the title wasn’t lost on Nuss.
“This is Wimbledon,” Nuss said. “It’s the granddaddy of them all. My mom always said she wanted me to play at Wimbledon. … This is definitely one of the most coveted trophies right here.”
From Jad El Reda: Her name was etched in the memory of millions thanks to her role as Gabrielle Solís in “Desperate Housewives,” a series that established Eva Longoria as one of the most influential Latina actresses in Hollywood.
She went on to become a producer, director, entrepreneur, activist and, in recent years, an investor in the world of sports, where she has earned the nickname “La Patrona” — or “The Boss” in English — which easily could be the title of a Mexican soap opera.
After more than two decades of credits and awards earned in the entertainment industry, Longoria has shifted her focus. Today, her role as “La Patrona” of Liga MX team Club Necaxa draws on her family’s roots, her passion for storytelling and her commitment to giving Mexico visibility in the world.
Her involvement was not limited to serving on Necaxa’s board of directors as a celebrity investor. From the beginning, she knew she wanted to tell a story. Inspired by Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds’ “Welcome to Wrexham” docuseries, she decided to produce the the docuseries “Necaxa,” which premiered on Aug. 7 on FX. Cameras take viewers behind the scenes, follow along on road trips and offer an intimate look at the soccer team.
Few could have imagined a Mexican American actress would become the leading front office voice for a historic Mexican soccer club, whose home stadium — Estadio Victoria — is located in the city of Aguascalientes in north-central Mexico.
Sonia Citron tied her career high with five three-pointers and finished with 24 points, Kiki Iriafen added 18 points and 10 rebounds and the Washington Mystics beat the Sparks 95-86 on Sunday.
Iriafen has 12 double-doubles this season and set a franchise rookie record for most games (six) with at least 15 points and 10-plus rebounds.
Shakira Austin had 14 points and Jade Melbourne, who fouled out with less than two minutes left, scored 11 for Washington (16-18).
1923 — Helen Mills, 17, ends Molla Bjurstedt Mallory’s domination of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships and starts her own with a 6-2, 6-1 victory.
1958 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Roy Harris in the 13th round at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles to retain his world heavyweight title.
1964 — The International Olympic Committee bans South Africa from competing in the Summer Olympics because of its apartheid policies.
1994 — South Africa is introduced for the first time in 36 years during the opening ceremonies of the 15th Commonwealth Games held in Victoria, British Columbia. South Africa had been banned from the Games since 1958 because of its apartheid policies.
1995 — Thirteen-year-old Dominique Moceanu becomes the youngest to win the National Gymnastics Championships senior women’s all-around title in New Orleans.
2004 — Paul Hamm wins the men’s gymnastics all-around Olympic gold medal by the closest margin ever in the event. Controversy follows after it was discovered a scoring error that may have cost Yang Tae-young of South Korea the men’s all-around title. Yang, who finished with a bronze, is wrongly docked a tenth of a point on his second-to-last routine, the parallel bars. He finishes third, 0.049 points behind Hamm, who becomes the first American man to win gymnastics’ biggest prize.
2008 — A day after winning an Olympic gold medal in Beijing, Rafael Nadal officially unseats Roger Federer to become the world’s No. 1 tennis player when the ATP rankings are released. Federer had been atop the rankings for 235 weeks.
2013 — For the first time in Solheim Cup history, the Europeans leave America with the trophy. Caroline Hedwall becomes the first player in the 23-year history of the event to win all five matches. She finishes with a 1-up victory over Michelle Wie and gives Europe the 14 points it needed to retain the cup.
2013 — Usain Bolt is perfect again with three gold medals. The Jamaican great becomes the most successful athlete in the 30-year history of the world championships. The 4×100-meter relay gold erases the memories of the 100 title he missed out on in South Korea two years ago because of a false start. Bolt, who already won the 100 and 200 meters, gets his second such sprint triple at the world championships, matching the two he achieved at the Olympics.
2016 — Jamaica’s Usain Bolt completes an unprecedented third consecutive sweep of the 100 and 200-meter sprints, elevating his status as the most decorated male sprinter in Olympic history. He wins the 200-meter race with a time of 19.78 seconds to defeat Andre de Grasse of Canada. American Ashton Eaton defends his Olympic decathlon title, equaling the games record with a surge on the last lap of the 1,500 meters — the last event in the two-day competition. Helen Maroulis defeats Japan’s Saori Yoshida 4-1 in the 53-kilogram freestyle final to win the first-ever gold medal for a United States women’s wrestler.
2018 — Accelerate cruises to a record 12 1/2-length victory in the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar, becoming just the third horse to sweep all three of Southern California’s major races for older horses in the same year.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1915 — Boston opened Braves Field with a 3-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
1931 — New York’s Lou Gehrig played in his 1,000th consecutive game. Gehrig went hitless in the 5-4 loss to Detroit.
1948 — Brooklyn’s Rex Barney pitched a one-hitter for a 1-0 win over Robin Roberts and the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park.
1956 — The Cincinnati Reds hit eight home runs and the Milwaukee Braves added two to set a National League record for home runs by two clubs in a nine-inning night game. Bob Thurman’s three homers and double led the Reds in the 13-4 rout.
1960 — Lew Burdette of the Milwaukee Braves pitched a no-hitter, beating the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0. Burdette faced the minimum 27 batters.
1965 — Hank Aaron of Milwaukee hit Curt Simmons’ pitch on top of the pavilion roof at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis for an apparent home run. However, umpire Chris Pelekoudas called him out for being out of the batter’s box when he connected. Nevertheless, the Braves won the game 5-3.
1967 — California’s Jack Hamilton hit Tony Conigliaro on his left cheekbone with a fastball in the fourth inning of a 3-2 loss to Boston. Conigliaro was carried unconscious from the field and missed the remainder of the 1967 season and the entire 1968 season. The 22-year-old already had more than 100 home runs.
1977 — Don Sutton of the Dodgers pitched his fifth one-hitter to tie the National League record. Sutton gave up a two-out single in the eighth inning to San Francisco’s Marc Hill. The Dodgers won 7-0.
1995 — Tom Henke became the seventh pitcher to reach 300 career saves, surviving a rally by the Atlanta Braves in the ninth inning of the St. Louis Cardinals’ 4-3 victory.
2000 — Darin Erstad of the Angels made a spectacular, game-saving catch in the 10th inning and followed it with a homer in the 11th as the Angels defeated the New York Yankees 9-8.
2006 — Alfonso Soriano became the third player in major league history to have at least four seasons of 30 homers and 30 stolen bases, and the Washington Nationals beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-4.
2007 — Micah Owings went 4-for-5, including a pair of mammoth homers, drove in six runs and scored four times while pitching three-hit ball through seven innings as the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Atlanta Braves 12-6.
2011 — Mike Jacobs became the first player suspended by Major League Baseball for a positive HGH test under the sport’s minor league drug testing procedures. The 30-year-old minor league first baseman, who was in the big leagues from 2005-10, received a 50-game suspension for taking the banned performance-enhancing substance and was subsequently released by the Colorado Rockies.
2017 — Manny Machado capped a three-homer night with a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning, and the Baltimore Orioles rallied past the Angels 9-7 in a game that featured 10 home runs.
2018 — New York Mets ace Jacob deGrom pitched his first complete game of the season and lowered his major league-leading ERA to 1.71 with a 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
2019 — Zack Grenke records the 200th win of his career as the Astros defeat the Athletics 4-1.
2021 — Shohei Ohtani continues to do it all by himself on the field. Today, he becomes the first hitter in the majors to reach 40 homers this season, and also improves his record on the mound to 8-1 as he pitches 8 full innings for the first time of his career. The Angels defeat the Tigers, 3-1.
2021 — Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman hit for the cycle for the second time in his career as they beat the Miami Marlins 11-9.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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A storybook ending. A cathartic late-game breakthrough. The kind of dramatic, momentum-shifting triumph to finally give the Dodgers some much-needed life.
In the top of the ninth inning at Angel Stadium on Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani lifted the team to the verge of a narrative-changing victory, breaking a tie score with the kind of swing that could have catapulted them into the season’s closing stretch.
With former Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen on the mound, and a split crowd in Anaheim rising to its feet, Ohtani blasted a go-ahead home run deep to right field. He flipped his bat and emphatically smacked his hands together. He screamed toward a euphoric Dodgers dugout that was going raucously wild.
“Big hit right there,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Obviously, you felt it in the dugout.”
What the Dodgers felt next, however, might last much longer.
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SPARKS
From Ira Gorawara: Almost hidden in a mocha pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt, and wearing those same fire-red Air Jordans from his Aug. 4 return to Los Angeles, Clippers royalty Chris Paul adorned the Sparks’ bench.
And though the 20-year veteran barely lifted a palm — leaving the cheering to his wife and daughter — Paul’s court savvy still seemed to seep across the hardwood, finding its way to the Sparks’ Kelsey Plum.
Plum, who can very well be the tale of any Sparks game, but “chooses to win,” as coach Lynne Roberts says, seemed to be scoring and assisting at will through a coast-to-coast battle against the New York Liberty, a tug-of-war that stayed taut until the rope finally slipped from the Sparks’ grasp, 105-97.
About three minutes before halftime, Brink sat on the bench while trainers wrapped her left ankle during a Sparks timeout. She never joined the team’s halftime huddle as play resumed after the break, and when she finally emerged at the 6:17 mark in the third quarter, she watched the rest of the game from her seat.
From Eduard Cauich: Jaime Jaquez Jr., who is preparing for his third season in the NBA with the Miami Heat, and his sister Gabriela Jaquez, a standout player for the UCLA Bruins and the Mexican national basketball team, set aside their own workouts to lead others through some familiar drills.
The siblings recently hosted a summer camp for about 180 participants ages 6 to 16 at the Sports Academy facilities in Thousand Oaks. The three-hour camp aimed to promote basketball skills, discipline and a passion for the sport among children and teens. Some participants traveled from other states to attend the camp.
“It’s good to come back and give something back to the community, especially in a place where we grew up. Being able to do this is special,” said Jaime, who grew up in Camarillo, shone for four years at UCLA and has represented Mexico in international tournaments.
As a rookie, Ladd McConkey studied Allen’s practice film on his team-issued iPad, trying to absorb lessons from one of the league’s best route runners — the very player whose rookie records for receptions and receiving yards McConkey would eventually surpass.
“You sit in team meetings, pull up your iPad and just watch,” McConkey said. “Watching his one-on-one stuff from previous years, when he was here. I’m going to check this out, see what he’s got.”
Now, the 33-year-old Allen and 23-year-old McConkey are inseparable on the field. Throughout practice, McConkey picks the veteran’s brain — something he says “would be dumb if I didn’t.”
From Kevin Baxter: The Galaxy are the worst team in Major League Soccer. That’s not subjective opinion, it’s objective fact. Just look at the MLS standings, where the Galaxy are dead last after Sunday’s 4-0 loss to the Seattle Sounders, a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the score would indicate.
But the Galaxy are also one of the four best teams in Major League Soccer. That, too, is not subjective opinion but objective fact because, after an unbeaten run through Leagues Cup group play, the Galaxy are one of just four MLS teams to advance to the tournament quarterfinals.
How can both things be true simultaneously? That’s a good question — and one that can be only be answered subjectively.
“It takes time for a group to come together and a team to find out who they are,” Galaxy general manager Will Kuntz offered. “We had to discover ourselves a little bit.”
1919 — Upset scores a win against Man o’ War in the Sanford Memorial Stakes at Saratoga. The defeat is Big Red’s only loss in 21 starts.
1933 — Gene Sarazen wins the PGA Championship by defeating Willie Goggin 5 and 4 in the final round.
1935 — The first roller derby begins in Chicago by promoter Leo Seltzer.
1987 — Jackie Joyner-Kersee equals the world record in the women’s long jump — 24 feet, 5½ inches — in the Pan American Games at Indianapolis. She matches the mark set in 1986 by Heike Dreschler of East Germany.
1995 — Cuba’s Ana Quirot, severely burned in a 1993 kitchen accident, wins the 800 meters at the world championships at Gothenburg, Sweden.
1995 — Steve Elkington shoots a final-round 64 and birdies the first playoff hole to beat Colin Montgomerie and win the PGA Championship. The 64 is the lowest final round by a PGA Championship winner.
1997 — Wilson Kipketer topples Sebastian Coe’s 16-year-old record in the 800 meters, finishing in 1 minute, 41.24 seconds in Zurich, Switzerland. Haile Gebrselassie also shatters his own 5,000 record with a time of 12 minutes, 41.86 seconds.
2002 — Natalie Coughlin breaks the 100-meter backstroke world record, timed in 59.58 seconds at the U.S. national championships. She is the first American to hold the world record since Catherine Ferguson in 1966.
2008 — Michael Phelps swims into history as the winningest Olympic athlete with his 10th and 11th career gold medals and five world records in five events at the Beijing Games. He wins the 200-meter butterfly and swims leadoff for the U.S. 800 freestyle relay team.
2016 — The U.S. women’s 4×100-meter medley relay team of Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer and Simone Manuel — winners at the Rio Games — delivers the nation’s 1,000th gold medal in Summer Olympics history.
2016—Michael Phelps closes the Rio Olympics with a gold medal in the butterfly leg of the 4×100 medley relay. Phelps finishes his career with 28 medals, having won five golds and a silver at these games.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1910 — The Brooklyn Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates played to an 8-8 tie. Each team had 38 at-bats, 13 hits, 12 assists, two errors, five strikeouts, three walks, one hit batsman and one passed ball.
1921 — George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns became the first batter in American League history to hit for the cycle twice. Sisler went 5-for-5 and drove in three runs in a 7-5, 10-inning win over the Detroit Tigers.
1921 — John “Mule” Watson of the Boston Braves pitched two complete-game victories over the Philadelphia Phillies.
1931 — Tony Cuccinello of the Cincinnati Reds had six hits in six at-bats in the first game of a doubleheader at Boston. Cuccinello had a triple, two doubles and three singles to knock in five runs as the Reds won 17-3. Cuccinello hit a three-run homer in the eighth of the nightcap to give the Reds a 4-2 win.
1939 — The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics 21-0 to equal the major-league record for lopsided shutouts. Every batter in the Yankees lineup hit safely. Joe DiMaggio and Babe Dahlgren had two home runs apiece, each hitting an inside-the-parker. Pitcher Red Ruffing had four hits and drove in three runs.
1948 — Satchel Paige, 42, pitched his first major league complete game against the Chicago White Sox. Paige gave up five hits en route to 5-0 Cleveland victory.
1957 — Milwaukee pitcher Lew Burdette hit his first two home runs to lead the Braves to a 12-4 win over the Cincinnati Reds.
1969 — Jim Palmer of the Orioles, plagued by arm trouble the year before, threw an 8-0 no-hitter against the Oakland A’s in Baltimore.
1979 — St. Louis’ Lou Brock reached 3,000 hits with an infield hit off Chicago Cubs pitcher Dennis Lamp. St. Louis won 3-2.
2004 — Kansas City rookies Abraham Nunez and John Buck hit grand slams to lead the Royals past the Oakland Athletics 10-3.
2005 — New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera blew his first save since April 6 in a 7-5 win over Texas. Rivera had converted a career-best 31 consecutive saves before allowing Kevin Mench’s two-run, tying single in the ninth.
2013 — Paul Goldschmidt hit the first pitch of the 11th inning for a game-ending home run after leading off the ninth with a tying homer, to help Arizona beat Baltimore 4-3 with a winning blast for the second straight night.
2015 — The Toronto Blue Jays won their 11th straight game, beating the Oakland Athletics 4-2. The AL East leaders also won 11 in a row in June, becoming the first team with winning streaks of at least 11 since Cleveland in 1954.
2016 — Tyler Austin and Aaron Judge became the first teammates to hit home runs in the first at-bats of their major league debuts in the same game, sparking the New York Yankees to an 8-4 win over Tampa Bay.
2018 — Ronald Acuna Jr. hit leadoff homers in both games of a doubleheader for the Atlanta Braves.
2020 — Mookie Betts hits three home runs for the sixth time in his career in an 11-2 win over the Padres. The three home run game ties Betts with Johnny Mize and Sammy Sosa for the most all-time although Betts reached the total in 813 games while Mize needed 1,884 and Sosa 2,364.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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From Jack Harris: On the first day of spring training, at a Camelback Ranch facility adorned with ever-present reminders of the team’s 2024 World Series title, a Dodgers staff member took in the scene, then chuckled while reflecting on the club’s trek to a championship.
“Last year was not a fun year,” the staff member said. “At least, not until the end.”
Indeed, in the afterglow of the franchise’s first full-season title in more than three decades, the turbulent path getting there became easy to forget.
Last season’s Dodgers dealt with a wave of injuries to the pitching staff, inconsistencies in the lineup, and the club’s lowest full regular-season win total (98) in six years.
Fast-forward six months, and this year’s Dodgers find themselves in a similar place.
They are again navigating absences on the mound and in the bullpen over the last several weeks. Their offense has gone from leading the majors in scoring over the first half of the season, to suddenly sputtering over the last month and a half.
And after a 7-4 loss to the Angels on Monday, in the opener of a three-game Freeway Series at Angel Stadium, they are on pace for only 92 victories with a 68-51 record, clinging to what has dwindled to just a one-game lead in the National League West over the San Diego Padres.
Instead, the 37-year-old quarterback with a back issue was in a shiny metal Airstream-like trailer that sat next to the field and was emblazoned with the Ammortal logo. The chamber offers “absolute state of the art in restoration and rejuvenation,” according to the company’s website.
“It wasn’t anything specifically related to his back that he was doing in there,” coach Sean McVay said.
Hmm…
Stafford’s back, specifically what McVay has described as an aggravated disc, has been the overarching story for a Rams team that will be regarded as a Super Bowl contender if the 17-year pro is physically sound enough to lead them.
From Steve Henson: The pay is nonexistent, but the perk could be viewing games in the U.S., Mexico and Canada for free during the FIFA World Cup next summer.
FIFA launched the application process for the World Cup volunteers Monday. How many are needed? A staggering 65,000 across the 16 cities that will host the expanded 48-team format over 39 days beginning June 11, the largest volunteer program FIFA has ever attempted.
“Volunteers are the heart, soul and smile of FIFA tournaments,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said. “They get to show off their local pride, gain a behind-the-scenes view of the tournament and make memories and friendships that can last a lifetime, while supporting a historic event.
“We hope interested individuals will join us as we welcome the world to North America in 2026.”
Volunteers in the past ranged from students to seniors. No experience is required but applicants must be at least 18 years old. Interested individuals can apply at fifaworldcup.com/volunteers.
1876 — Madeleine wins two straight heats over Canada’s Countess of Dufferin to defend the America’s Cup.
1936 — Rosalind, driven by Ben White, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats.
1937 — Shirley Hanover, driven by Henry Thomas, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats.
1942 — The Ambassador, driven by Ben White, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in the third heat.
1953 — Helicopter, driven by Harry Harvey, wins the Hambletonian Stakes in the third heat.
1978 — Cold Comfort, driven by 23-year-old Peter Haughton, ties the International Trot mark of 2:31 3-5 at Roosevelt Raceway which makes Haughton the youngest driver to win the International.
1990 — Wayne Grady of Australia sheds his runner-up image with a 3-stroke victory over Fred Couples in the PGA Championship.
1995 — Ernie Els sets a PGA record with the lowest three-day score in a major. Els, with a 197, holds a three-stroke lead in the PGA Championship.
2000 — Evander Holyfield scores a 12-round unanimous decision over John Ruiz in Las Vegas to win the vacant WBA heavyweight title.
2007 — Tiger Woods captures the PGA Championship to win at least one major for the third straight season and run his career total to 13. Woods closes with a 1-under 69 for a two-shot victory over Woody Austin.
2008 — American super-swimmer Michael Phelps wins his 3rd of 8 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics when he takes the 200m freestyle in world record 1:42.96.
2011 — Tiger Woods misses the cut at the PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club. With one final bogey for a 3-over 73, Woods finishes out of the top 100 for the first time ever in a major. He is 15 shots behind Jason Dufner and Keegan Bradley.
2012 — The U.S. men’s basketball team defend its title by fighting off another huge challenge from Spain, pulling away in the final minutes for a 107-100 victory and its second straight Olympic championship. The victory by the men’s basketball team gives the United States its 46th gold medal in London, the most ever by Americans in a “road” Olympics.
2012 — Rory McIlroy breaks the PGA Championship record for margin of victory that Jack Nicklaus set in 1980. McIlroy sinks one last birdie from 25 feet on the 18th hole to give him a 6-under 66 for an eight-shot victory. McIlroy closes out a remarkable week by playing bogey-free over the final 23 holes of a demanding Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C.
2016 — Katie Ledecky caps off one of the greatest performances in Olympic history with her fourth gold medal and second world record, shattering her own mark in the 800-meter freestyle. Ledecky is the first woman since Debbie Meyer swept the three longer freestyle events at the same Olympics. Meyer took the 200, 400 and 800 at the 1968 Mexico Games.
2017 — Usain Bolt ends his stellar career in excruciating pain. The Jamaican great crumples to the track with a left-leg injury while chasing a final gold medal for the Jamaican 4×100-meter relay team at the world championships in London. Having to make up lots of ground on the anchor leg, Bolt suddenly screams and stumbles as he comes down with the first injury he has experienced at a major competition.
2018 — Brooks Koepka wins his first PGA Championship, playing poised and mistake-free golf down the stretch amid ear-splitting roars for Tiger Woods and a late charge from revitalized Adam Scott. Koepka becomes the fifth player to win the U.S. Open and the PGA in the same year.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1948 — In the second game of a doubleheader, the Cleveland Indians beat the St. Louis Browns 26-3 with a 29-hit barrage. The Indians set a major league record as 14 players hit safely.
1964 — Mickey Mantle hit a home run both left- and right-handed in a 7-3 win over the Chicago White Sox. It was the 10th time in his career, a major league record.
1966 — Art Shamsky of the Cincinnati Reds connected for three home runs in a 14-11, 13-inning loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates at Crosley Field. Two of the homers came in the 10th and 11th innings.
1970 — Curt Flood lost his $41-million antitrust suit against baseball.
1974 — Nolan Ryan of the Angels set an American League record by striking out 19 in a 4-2 win over the Boston Red Sox. Ryan, who walked two, bettered the 18 strikeouts set by Bob Feller in 1938 and tied the major league record set by Steve Carlton in 1969 and Tom Seaver in 1970.
1984 — Perhaps one of the ugliest brawl-filled games in major league history took place in Atlanta. Atlanta’s Pascual Perez hit San Diego’s Alan Wiggins in the back with the first pitch of the game. It escalated as the Padres pitchers retaliated by throwing at Perez all four times he came to the plate. The game had two bench-clearing brawls, the second of which included several fans and 19 ejections including both managers and both replacement managers. The Braves beat the Padres 5-3. San Diego manager Dick Williams would be suspended for 10 days and fined $10,000 while Atlanta manager Joe Torre and five players each received three-game suspensions.
1986 — Don Baylor of the Boston Red Sox set an AL record when he was hit by a pitch for the 25th time for the season, breaking the record he had shared with Bill Freehan (1968) and Norm Elberfield (1911). Kansas City’s Bud Black was the pitcher as the Royals completed a doubleheader sweep with a 6-5 victory.
1988 — The Boston Red Sox set an AL record with their 23rd straight victory at home, beating the Detroit Tigers 9-4. Boston surpassed the league mark of 22 set by the 1931 Philadelphia Athletics.
1994 — Major league baseball players went on strike for the sport’s eighth work stoppage since 1972.
1998 — Alex Rodriguez becomes the fourth youngest player to 100 home runs in a 11-5 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.
2010 — Casey McGehee set a franchise record with his ninth straight hit, going 4 for 4 and leading the Milwaukee Brewers to an 8-4 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. McGehee had a solo homer, a two-run double, an RBI single and another single.
2015 — Clayton Kershaw tied Sandy Koufax’s franchise record of six straight 200-strikeout seasons while tossing eight scoreless innings, and Los Angeles defeated Washington 3-0. Kershaw struck out the side in the second to equal the mark set by Koufax from 1961-66.
2015 — Hisashi Iwakuma of the Seattle Mariners throws a no-hitter in a 3-0 victory over the Orioles. Iwakuma becomes the second Japanese pitcher to throw a no-hitter following Hideo Nomo.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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From Anthony De Leon: Rashawn Slater, the Chargers’ star left tackle who became the highest-paid offensive lineman in NFL history last month, sustained a torn patellar tendon in practice and will undergo season-ending surgery, the team announced Thursday.
Slater went down in team drills after going up against edge rusher Tuli Tuipulotu. As Slater planted his left foot, he collapsed to the ground and immediately grabbed his leg.
A quiet hush fell over the Chargers’ facility while Slater stayed down for several minutes before trainers and teammates helped him onto a cart. Slater appeared visibly distraught — throwing his helmet, slamming his hand on the cart and burying his face in his hands. Several teammates walked over to console him before he left the field.
Two trainers supported him as he entered the team facility. He was unable to put any weight on his left leg.
But not at SoFi Stadium, where the Rams will play the Dallas Cowboys in a preseason game.
Coach Sean McVay said Thursday that the back issue that has sidelined Stafford since the start of training camp was related to an aggravated disc, and that Stafford recently received an epidural from spine specialist Dr. Robert Watkins.
Stafford will go through a workout at the Rams’ Woodland Hill facility Saturday morning.
From Ira Gorawara: When Julie Vanloo drew her second traveling violation before halftime, the crowd’s disapproval rose in unison.
On the floor, with tempers simmering on the Sparks’ bench, a delay-of-game whistle drew another round of jeers from the Crypto.com Arena crowd.
The calls weren’t the only sources of frustration for the Sparks — the team also was trailing the last-place Connecticut Sun by 10 points.
Still, the flare-up might have been what the Sparks needed to rally to a 102-91 victory over the Sun to earn their eighth win in nine games.
“Since the beginning of the season, I’ve been optimistic about what this team would look like and why I want to be here and why I want to continue to be here,” Dearica Hamby said. “[This team is] one of the fastest teams I’ve been with. … We’re not done yet, we’ve got a lot more to accomplish.”
From Ben Bolch: UCLA’s defense, the biggest unknown on the team a year ago, is facing even more questions.
A slew of players moved on to the NFL. No full-time starters return. Success will depend on several players with promising pedigrees but limited college production becoming playmakers.
As he stepped off a team bus Wednesday afternoon in Costa Mesa amid the warmest day of training camp, the temperature reaching 82 degrees before warmup stretches, Key Lawrence did not appear to feel any sort of heat, literal or figurative. The transfer safety who has made previous college stops at Tennessee, Oklahoma and Mississippi was humming a tune, savoring every moment of this new opportunity.
From Eric Sondheimer: The Little League team from Honolulu has a chance to become a three-time world champion.
Winners of the Little League World Series in 2018 and 2022, the team from Hawaii earned a spot in this year’s World Series on Thursday night with a 4-1 win over Fullerton Golden Hill in San Bernardino. They will travel to Williamsport, Pa., where the World Series begins on Wednesday.
Golden Hill’s only two losses came from Honolulu, including a 1-0 loss to start the tournament. It was the first time in the league’s 69-year history that a team had advanced to the West Region final.
Pitcher Bronson Fermahin took advantage of his team scoring three runs in the first two innings by throwing lots of strikes. He had eight strikeouts through the first four innings and finished with 11 in 5 ⅔ innings before Golden Hill pushed across a run with two outs in the sixth.
1902 — The United States, led by William Larned, beats Britain three matches to two to capture the Davis Cup.
1903 — Britain wins the Davis Cup by beating the United States 4-1.
1936 — At the Berlin Olympics, the United States finishes 1-2-3 in the men’s decathlon. Glenn Morris sets a world record with 7,900 points, followed by Robert Clark and Jack Parker.
1981 — Shiaway St. Pat, driven by Ray Remmen, wins the first Hambletonian Stakes run at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J. in four heats.
1982 — Ray Floyd, who shot a record 63 in the opening round, wins the PGA championship by three shots over Lanny Wadkins.
1984 — Carl Lewis sets the Olympic record in the 200 meters with a 19.80 clocking.
1987 — Mack Lobell, driven by John Campbell, wins the Hambletonian in straight heats with a record-smashing performance. Mack Lobell wins the second heat, and the race, by 6¼ lengths over Napoletano in 1:53 3-5, a fifth of a second off the world all-age trotting record set by Prakas in 1985.
1992 — The Dream Team picks up its gold medal and Carl Lewis anchors a world-record 400-meter relay, winning his eighth gold medal in three Olympics. The U.S. basketball team beats Croatia 117-85, with the 32-point margin of victory the smallest of the Games. In the 400, Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Dennis Mitchell and Lewis set a world record of 37.40 seconds. Steve Lewis anchors another world-record as the Americans won the 1,600 relay by nearly half the length of a football field. The team of Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Michael Johnson and Lewis ran the 1,600 in 2:55.74.
2006 — Roger Goodell is chosen as the NFL’s next commissioner. Favored for months to get the job, he is unanimously elected by the league’s 32 owners on the fifth ballot.
2010 — Sparks forward Tina Thompson scores 23 points to become the WNBA’s all-time scoring leader in a 92-83 loss to the San Antonio Silver Stars. She surpasses Lisa Leslie’s career total of 6,263 points. Thompson is the last of the original WNBA players.
2012 — Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings of the United States become the first three-time gold medalists in Olympic beach volleyball history. The duo beat Jennifer Kessy and April Ross 21-16, 21-16 in the all-American final, extending their Olympic winning streak to 21 matches.
2012 — Brittney Reese wins the long jump, becoming the first U.S. woman to win the Olympic long jump since Jackie Joyner-Kersee in 1988. Caster Semenya makes her Olympic debut three years after being forced to undergo gender tests, finishing second in her 800 heat.
2015 — Katie Ledecky ends her world swimming championships in spectacular style, lowering her own world record by 3.61 seconds in the 800-meter freestyle for her fifth gold medal. The 18-year-old American completes a sweep of the 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyles in Kazan, Russia. She was the anchor leg on the victorious 4×200 free relay, too.
2018 — The NCAA Board of Governors and Division I Board of Directors adopt a “series of significant policy and legislative changes” as part of an effort to “fundamentally” change the NCAA’s structure. The NCAA changes eligibility rules, allowing top prospects to hire agents in high school and giving college players more leeway to return after declaring for NBA draft.
2021 — USA women’s basketball team wins it’s record extending 7th consecutive Olympic gold medal with 90-75 win over Japan in Tokyo; guards Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi each win their 5th straight gold.
2021 — USA Women’s volleyball defeats Brazil in straight sets to win the gold medal. It’s the first olympic gold medal in USA Women’s volleyball history. The win gives the United States 39 gold medals, breaking a tie with China on the final day of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1903 — A week after pitching his first doubleheader triumph, Joe “Iron Man” McGinnity of the New York Giants scored a double victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers 6-1 and 4-3. In the second game, he stole home.
1915 — Philadelphia’s Gavy Cravath hit four doubles and drove in eight runs in a 14-7 victory over the Reds at Cincinnati.
1920 — Howard Ehmke of the Detroit Tigers pitched the fastest 1-0 game in American League history — 1 hour, 13 minutes, for a victory against the New York Yankees.
1931 — Bob Burke of the Washington Senators pitched a 5-0 no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox.
1954 — The Brooklyn Dodgers pounded the Cincinnati Reds 20-7 at Ebbets Field. The Dodgers scored 13 runs in the eighth inning after two were out.
1973 — Designated hitter Orlando Cepeda hit four doubles as the Boston Red Sox posted a 9-4 victory over the Kansas City Royals.
1985 — Baseball, after a two-day walkout, resumed playing with 18 games scheduled, including five doubleheaders.
1988 — The first night game scheduled in the 74-year history of Chicago’s Wrigley Field’s was postponed with the Cubs leading the Philadelphia Phillies 3-1 after heavy rains started in the bottom of the fourth inning. Philadelphia’s Phil Bradley led off the game with a home run, but all numbers were wiped out when the rain came.
1992 — Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley had his consecutive save record snapped at 40. His consecutive save records — 36 straight to start a season, and 40 straight over two seasons — ended trying to protect a 2-1 lead in the ninth inning against the Kansas City Royals. Eckersley gave up a two-out, two-run single to Gregg Jefferies to give the Royals a 3-2 lead. But the Athletics came back to win the game in the ninth, 5-3.
1997 — Randy Johnson struck out 19, matching the major league record for left-handers he had tied earlier this season, as the Seattle Mariners defeated the Chicago White Sox 5-0.
1998 — Paul Molitor stole his 500th base in Minnesota’s 6-3 loss to Baltimore become the fifth player with 3,000 hits and 500 steals. Molitor joined Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Eddie Collins and Lou Brock.
2000 — Darren Dreifort of the Dodgers hit two homers and was the winning pitcher in a 7-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs.
2001 — Damion Easley went 6-for-6 with a home run and three RBIs as Detroit pounded Texas 19-6.
2014 — Bartolo Colon records the 200th win of his career in the Mets’ 5-4 win over the Phillies.
2016 — Brandon Crawford became the first major league player in 41 years to get seven hits in a game, putting the San Francisco Giants ahead to stay with an RBI single in the 14th inning of an 8-7 victory over the Miami Marlins. Crawford tripled, doubled and had five singles in eight at-bats.
2018 — Milwaukee’s Jesus Aguilar, Travis Shaw and Eric Thames hit consecutive first-inning homers to spoil the debut of San Diego’s Brett Kennedy in the Brewers 8-4 win over the Padres.
2018 — Jacob deGrom struck out 10 over six innings, received rare significant run support and earned his first win in nearly two months as the New York Mets blanked the Cincinnati Reds 8-0. Brandon Nimmo tied a team record with three doubles and drove in three runs as the Mets won for the 22nd time in their last 66 games. DeGrom (6-7) ended a seven-start winless streak, allowing four hits in a 100-pitch outing and lowering his major league-leading ERA to 1.77.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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From Kevin Baxter: Only one player in the last 110 years has tried to do what the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani is doing this season, which is to pitch and hit successfully at the big-league level.
Babe Ruth twice won more than 20 games and led the American League in ERA and starts before the Red Sox, then the Yankees, decided pitching was distracting from Ruth’s hitting and put him out to pasture in right field.
Over the next three seasons, Ruth broke the major league record for home runs three times.
The Dodgers and Ohtani insist he’ll remain a two-way player for the time being, but recent performances suggests both the Red Sox and Yankees may have been on to something when they took Ruth off the mound.
Ohtani made his eighth start of the year Wednesday and it was his best as a Dodger, with the right-hander giving up just a tainted run on two hits and striking out a season-high eight in four innings. Perhaps more important, he also slugged his first home run in 10 games in the third inning of a 5-3 matinee loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
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ANGELS
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.
From Kevin Baxter: A woman will umpire a major league game for the first time Saturday when Jen Pawol works the bases during Saturday’s doubleheader between the Atlanta Braves and visiting Miami Marlins at Truist Park.
For Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, that announcement Wednesday brought one response: It’s about time.
“That’s great. I’ll be watching,” he said of Pawol, who will work behind the plate Sunday. “It’s good for the game. It’s fantastic.”
The NHL is the only major U.S. pro sport that hasn’t used female officials. The NBA was the first league to break the gender barrier, with Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner calling games in 1997. MLS followed a year later with Sandra Hunter and Nancy Lay-McCormick refereeing separate games on the same day. The NFL’s first woman official was line judge Shannon Eastin, who made her debut in 2012.
Like Ohtani, Son Heung-min has been the most popular athlete in his home country by a wide margin for close to a decade. Like Ohtani, Son has a pleasant disposition that has endeared him to people from a wide range of backgrounds.
Son was introduced as the latest addition to LAFC at a news conference on Wednesday at BMO Stadium, and he was everything he was made out to be.
He came across as sincere.
He was warm.
He was funny.
“I’m here to win,” Son said. “I will perform and definitely show you some exciting …
“Are we calling it football or soccer?”
None of this means Son will turn LAFC into the Dodgers overnight, of course. By this point, Major League Soccer and its teams understand that profile players aren’t transformative figures as much as they are building blocks. Son will be the newest, and perhaps most solid, block that will be stacked on the foundation established by the club’s first designated player, the now-retired Carlos Vela.
1952 — Bion Shively, 74, drives Sharp Note to victory in the third heat of the Hambletonian Stakes.
1982 — Speed Bowl wins the Hambletonian Stakes in straight heats with 25-year-old Tom Haughton in the sulky, the youngest to win the Hambletonian.
1983 — Norway’s Grete Waitz takes the women’s marathon in the first world track and field championships at Helsinki, Finland.
1992 — Sergei Bubka, the world record-holder and defending Olympic champion, fails to clear a height in the pole vault.
2005 — Justin Gatlin dominates the 100 meters at the track and field championships in Helsinki. The Olympic champion wins in 9.88 seconds, finishing 0.17 seconds ahead of Michael Frater of Jamaica. The margin of victory is the largest in the 10 world championships held since the meet’s inception in 1983.
2012 — Aly Raisman becomes the first U.S. woman to win Olympic gold on floor. She picks up a bronze on balance beam on the final day of gymnastics at the London Olympics and just misses a medal in the all-around.
2016 — Jim Furyk becomes the first golfer to shoot a 58 in PGA Tour history. Three years after Furyk became the sixth player on tour with a 59, he takes it even lower in the Travelers Championship with a 12-under 58 in the final round.
2016 — American swimmer Katie Ledecky sets a new world record with a time of 3:56.46 to win the gold medal in the women’s 400m freestyle at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
2021 — Kevin Durant with 29 points leads USA to his third and the team’s 4th consecutive Olympic men’s basketball gold medal with an 87-82 win over France in Tokyo.
2021 — Indian javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra wins his country’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in Tokyo.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1907 — Walter Johnson won the first of his 417 victories, leading the Washington Senators past the Cleveland Indians 7-2.
1922 — Ken Williams of the St. Louis Browns hit two home runs in the sixth inning of rout over the Washington Senators.
1923 — Cleveland’s Frank Bower went 6-for-6 with a double and five singles as the Indians routed the Washington Senators 22-2.
1956 — The largest crowd in minor league history, 57,000, saw 50-year-old Satchel Paige of Miami beat Columbus in an International League game at the Orange Bowl.
1963 — Jim Hickman of the New York Mets hit for the cycle in a 7-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals at the Polo Grounds. Hickman’s cycle came in single-double-triple-homer order.
1985 — The strike by the Major League Baseball Players Association ended with the announcement of a tentative agreement. The season resumed Aug. 8.
1999 — Wade Boggs became the first player to homer for his 3,000th hit, with a two-run shot in Tampa Bay’s 15-10 loss to Cleveland. Boggs already had a pair of RBI singles when he homered off Chris Haney in the sixth inning.
2004 — Greg Maddux became the 22nd pitcher in major league history to reach 300 victories, leading the Chicago Cubs to an 8-4 victory over San Francisco.
2007 — San Francisco’s Barry Bonds hit home run No. 756 to break Hank Aaron’s storied record with one out in the fifth inning, hitting a full-count, 84-mph fastball from Washington’s Mike Bacsik. Noticeably absent were Commissioner Bud Selig and Aaron. The Nationals won 8-6.
2016 — Ichiro Suzuki tripled off the wall for his 3,000th hit in the major leagues, becoming the 30th player to reach the milestone as the Miami Marlins beat the Colorado Rockies 10-7.
2016 — Manny Machado became the second player in major league history to homer in the first, second and third innings, driving in a career-high seven runs in a 10-2 victory over Chicago.
2018 — Bartolo Colon of Texas became the winningest pitcher from Latin America in the Rangers’ 11-4 victory over the Seattle Mariners. After six tries, the 45-year-old right-hander got his 246th career victory and finally broke the tie with Nicaragua’s Dennis Martinez. Colon gave up four runs and eight hits in seven innings and improved his record to 6-10.
2021 — Host nation Japan wins its first ever gold medal in Olympic baseball by defeating the United States 2-0.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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From Jack Harris: It might be a cliché this time of year, how injured players who return after the trade deadline can serve as de facto deadline acquisitions themselves.
Immediately after Muncy went down with a knee injury in early July, the club’s lineup entered a deep midseason slump. Its actual deadline acquisitions, which included only one hitter in outfielder Alex Call, had underwhelmed the fan base.
Thus, when Muncy returned to action Monday night, the Dodgers were desperately hoping the veteran slugger could provide a spark.
Twenty-four hours later, he did it with two thunderous swings.
In the Dodgers’ 12-6 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, Muncy officially christened his comeback with a four-for-five, four-RBI performance that included a pair of no-doubt home runs off Miles Mikolas — picking up almost exactly where he left off before suffering a July 2 knee injury that he feared would end his season.
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ANGELS
Brandon Lowe hit a two-run homer and Jake Mangum had a two-run single during the Tampa Bay Rays’ seven-run fourth inning in a 7-3 victory over the Angels on Tuesday night.
Yandy Díaz scored a run and drove in another during the decisive inning in Tampa Bay’s third win in 13 games.
Ryan Pepiot (7-9) yielded five hits and two earned runs while pitching into the sixth inning for Tampa Bay, breaking his five-start winless streak.
From Ira Gorawara: The Indiana Fever arrived in Los Angeles draped in momentum: Five straight wins, a knack for winning without Caitlin Clark and betting lines tilting their way. Their tear was proof they could keep pace even with their franchise centerpiece in street clothes.
But another storyline might’ve been tucked beneath Indiana’s.
The Sparks had ripped off six wins in their previous seven outings, probably fueled by the rare luxury of having every piece of their roster back for the first time in more than a year. And by night’s end at Crypto.com Arena, they had won seven of eight, the Sparks grinding out a 100-91 victory.
“Tonight was a great step in the right direction,” guard Kelsey Plum said. “That’s an incredible team, and they’re as hot as anyone. … They got everything it takes to make a run for a championship. So for us to come out and have that level of intensity, I was really proud.”
Keenan Allen, who racked up more than 10,000 receiving yards during an 11-season stint with the Chargers before being traded away in a salary-cap move, agreed to a deal with the team Tuesday.
“Obviously, we know how good he’s been throughout his career,” Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz said, “and he’s out there on the market still, and [it was the] chance to bring someone of his caliber back we know can help us win games.”
From Gary Klein: Kyren Williams spent Tuesday morning meeting with his agent and the Rams to work out the final details of a contract extension.
The Rams running back finished the day dashing, darting and diving on the field during a joint practice with the Dallas Cowboys.
“Life is good,” Williams said after the workout. “Life is good.”
It’s certainly richer.
Williams, a fourth-year pro, received a three-year extension. Terms of the deal were not announced but Williams is guaranteed about $23 million, a person with knowledge of the situation said. The person requested anonymity because the contract has not been processed.
From Kevin Baxter: LAFC’s signing of South Korean national team captain Son Heung-min appears to be one of those rare acquisitions that checks every box and helps everybody. Not only is it one of the most significant signings in MLS history, but it instantly makes LAFC better while boosting the World Cup hopes of the Korean national team and the profile of Korean soccer in the U.S.
But in few places will the influence of the signing, which is expected to be completed Tuesday, be felt more directly than in Southern California’s Korean community, the largest in the U.S.
“The Korean community has been buzzing ever since rumors of Son Heung-min’s potential move to LAFC began to spread,” said Kyeongjun Kim, a writer with the Korean Daily, the largest Korean-language media outlet in the U.S. “The fact that a player of his caliber is coming to L.A. is monumental event.
From Jad El Reda: Don’t call him a traveler. Chad Baker-Mazara said that his journey through four universities allowed him to land in the place he had been looking for since the beginning of his college basketball adventure.
Baker-Mazara, 25, arrived at USC in May. The veteran is hoping to help lead young players in the locker room and on the court after joining his fifth team since 2020.
He began his journey with at Duquesne in 2020-21, then moved on to San Diego State for the 2021-22 season in search of a better fit on the roster. He fell behind academically in San Diego and was dismissed from the team when he couldn’t catch up on classwork. Baker-Mazara then traveled to the East Coast to play for Northwest Florida State College during the 2022-23 season while getting back on track academically before landing a spot on the Auburn roster during the 2023-25 seasons.
It has been a unique journey, but he is confident that he will write the most important chapter of his basketball career with the Trojans during the upcoming season.
1958 — Glen Davis of Columbus, Ohio, sets a world record in the 400 hurdles with a time of 49.2 in Budapest, Hungary.
1966 — Muhammad Ali knocks out Brian London in the third round to retain his world heavyweight title.
1972 — South African Gary Player wins his second PGA golf championship with a two-stroke victory over Jim Jamieson and Tommy Aaron.
1978 — John Mahaffey beats Tom Watson and Jerry Pate on the second playoff hole to win the PGA Championship.
1984 — American athlete Carl Lewis wins long jump (8.54m), his second of 4 gold medals at Los Angeles Olympics.
1991 — Debbie Doom of the U.S. pitches her second consecutive perfect game in women’s softball at the Pan American Games. Doom threw a perfect game at the Netherlands Antilles in the opener and matches that performance against Nicaragua, winning 8-0.
1992 — Carl Lewis leads a U.S. sweep in the long jump in the Olympics with a mark of 28 feet, 5 1-2 inches on his first attempt. Mike Powell takes the silver and Joe Greene the bronze. Kevin Young demolishes one of track’s oldest records with a time of 46.78 seconds in the 400 hurdles. Bruce Baumgartner becomes the first American wrestler to win medals in three straight Olympics, taking the gold in the 286-pound freestyle division.
1994 — Jeff Gordon wins the Brickyard 400, the first stock car race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
1995 — Canada’s Donovan Bailey wins the 100 meters at World Track and Field Championships in Goteborg, Sweden, marking the first time since 1976 an American fails to win a medal in the event at a major meet.
2001 — Two-time champion Marion Jones is disqualified and has her string of 42 consecutive 100m final victories snapped by Zhanna Pintusevich-Block of Ukraine at the World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, Canada.
2006 — Tiger Woods (30) becomes the youngest player with 50 PGA Tour wins after a 3 stroke victory over Jim Furyk in the Buick Open.
2006 — Floyd Landis is fired by his team and the Tour de France no longer considers him its champion after his second doping sample tested positive for higher-than-allowable levels of testosterone.
2006 — Sherri Steinhauer wins the Women’s British Open for the third time, and the first since it became a major.
2008 — Sammy Villegas, a former University of Toledo basketball player, is charged with point shaving. Villegas is accused of shaving points during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons.
2008 — Kim Terrell-Kearney wins the first pro championship match featuring two Black bowlers, beating Trisha Reid 216-189 in the U.S. Bowling Congress’ U.S. Women’s Open. Terrell-Kearney collects her second U.S. Women’s Open title and third career major title.
2010 — Tyson Gay upsets the defending world and Olympic champion Usain Bolt in a race between the two fastest runners in history. Gay beats the Jamaican at the DN Galan meet in 9.84 seconds at the same stadium where Bolt last lost a race two years ago. Bolt finishes second in 9.97.
2015 — Ryan Lochte becomes the first man to win the 200-meter individual medley four consecutive times at the world swimming championships. Lochte comes home strong on the freestyle lap and touches first in 1:55.81 in Kazan, Russia.
2017 — I.K. Kim won the Women’s British Open, hanging on with a 1-under 71 for a two-shot victory over Jodi Ewart Shadoff and her first major championship.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1908 — John Lush threw a six-inning, rain-shortened no-hitter for the St. Louis Cardinals, who beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 2-0. It was Lush’s second no-hitter against the Dodgers.
1933 — Pinky Higgins of the Philadelphia Athletics hit for the cycle and drove in five runs in a 12-8 win over the Washington Senators.
1952 — Satchel Paige, 46, became the oldest pitcher in major league history to pitch a complete game or a shutout when he beat Virgil Trucks and the Detroit Tigers 1-0 in 12 innings.
1972 — Hank Aaron hit his 660th and 661st career home runs to break Babe Ruth’s record for most home runs with one club. The 661st came in the 10th inning to give the Atlanta Braves a 4-3 triumph over the Cincinnati Reds.
1981 — As a result of a seven-week strike, major league baseball players approved a split-season format. The New York Yankees, Oakland A’s, Philadelphia Phillies and Dodgers were declared the first-half champions and automatically qualified for the divisional series.
1985 — The Major League Baseball Players’ Association went on strike.
1986 — The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles 13-11 in a record-setting battle of grand slams. Texas’ Toby Harrah hit a grand slam in the second inning before Larry Sheets and Jim Dwyer connected for grand slams in Baltimore’s nine-run fourth.
1988 — Rich Gossage registered his 300th career save, and the Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies 7-4.
1999 — Tony Gwynn went 4-for-5, singling in his first at-bat to become the 22nd major leaguer to reach 3,000 hits, as the San Diego Padres beat the Montreal Expos 12-10.
2001 — Boston’s Scott Hatteberg performed the ultimate baseball opposite. Hatteberg hit a grand slam one at-bat after lining into a triple play as the Red Sox defeated the Texas Rangers 10-7. Hatteberg lined into a triple play in the fourth inning and in the sixth he hit his second career grand slam to move Boston ahead for good.
2002 — At 32, Robb Nen became the youngest player to record 300 saves, as San Francisco beat the Chicago Cubs 11-10. Nen became the 16th member of the 300-save club.
2007 — St. Louis tied a major league record with 10 straight hits in a 10-run fifth inning, with pitcher Braden Looper and Aaron Miles getting two apiece in a 10-5 victory over San Diego.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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From Kevin Baxter: Brock Stewart slumped in front of a mostly empty locker in the middle of the Dodgers clubhouse Monday afternoon, a stall that used to belong to pitcher Dustin May, as clubhouse attendants rushed over with boxes of brand new size 13 cleats.
A week ago Stewart was pitching for the Minnesota Twins, who wear red cleats. The Dodgers don’t, so Stewart needed a makeover.
“I got blue gloves coming too,” he said.
Getting dressed properly isn’t the only thing players have to worry about when they change teams in the middle of the season. Stewart had a home and family in Minnesota to pack up and move when he learned Thursday that he had been traded from a team with a losing record to one chasing a second straight World Series title.
By late Monday evening, Stewart found himself in the middle of that pennant race when he took the mound in the ninth inning of a tie game. It didn’t end well, with Stewart (2-2) surrendering a run on three hits while getting just two outs in a 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
It was a rude homecoming for the right-hander, who was drafted by the Dodgers in 2014 but waived five years later after pitching 36 times over parts of four seasons. After he remade himself during a six-year sojourn in which dropped down to independent ball, Stewart was brought back to Los Angeles to stabilize an overworked, injury-plagued bullpen that has struggled.
In his first appearance at Dodger Stadium in the home uniform since 2019, he added to those struggles, giving up hits to the first two batters he faced, then falling behind 2-0 to pinch-hitter Yohel Pozo, who flared a single over the infield to drive in the go-ahead run.
For manager Dave Roberts, one bad outing won’t change Stewart’s role.
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ANGELS
Jo Adell hit a two-run homer, Yusei Kikuchi surrendered four hits in six innings and the Angels beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-1 on Monday night.
The Rays (55-59) struck in the opening inning when Yandy Díaz doubled to right and scored on Junior Caminero’s sacrifice fly to center field. Kikuchi (5-7) escaped without further damage and finished with seven strikeouts and two walks.
Angels pitchers combined for 12 strikeouts.
Yoán Moncada reached on a fielder’s choice for the Angels in the second inning before Adell launched a 428-foot homer to left-center off Adrian Houser (6-3), putting the Angels (55-58) ahead 2-1.
From Anthony De Leon: The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office will not pursue charges against Chargers linebacker Denzel Perryman, who was arrested on suspicion of felony weapons possession Friday night, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Dept. records.
Perryman was arrested after deputies allegedly discovered five firearms — including two assault-style weapons — in his vehicle during a traffic stop Friday night, the agency said in a statement. He was released from jail Monday afternoon and his arrest will be listed as a detention on his record.
Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh publicly addressed the situation Monday, saying he visited with the veteran linebacker in jail over the weekend.
“He’s working through the legalities along with his representation,” said Harbaugh before Perryman’s release from jail. “Had a chance to see him yesterday, whenever I visited, and he was in good spirits. And love Denzel. He’s always done right. He’s never been in trouble. They’ve got a beautiful family.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the president plans on creating the task force by executive order on Tuesday, telling The Times that Trump “considers it a great honor to oversee this global sporting spectacle.”
“During his first term, President Trump was instrumental in securing America’s bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles,” Leavitt said. “Sports is one of President Trump’s greatest passions, and his athletic expertise, combined with his unmatched hospitality experience will make these Olympic events the most exciting and memorable in history.”
It is unclear whether the executive order will provide relief as city leaders and the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the privately funded nonprofit organization known as LA28 that is planning the Games, negotiate key issues including security costs.
1936 — At the Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens wins his third of four gold medals, winning the 200-meter race in an Olympic-record 20.7 seconds.
1954 — The first election for the Boxing Hall of Fame is held. Twenty-four fighters are elected, with the most noteworthy from the modern era Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Henry Armstrong. Fifteen are selected from the pioneer era including John L. Sullivan, Gentleman Jim Corbett and Jack Johnson.
1967 — The Denver Broncos beat the Detroit Lions, 13-7, in a preseason game, for the first AFL victory over an NFL team.
1984 — American Joan Benoit wins the first Olympic marathon for women in 2:24:52, finishing 400 meters ahead of Norway’s Grete Waitz.
1991 — Sergei Bubka becomes the first to clear 20 feet outdoors in the pole vault, breaking his own world record by a half-inch at the Galan track meet in Malmo, Sweden.
1997 — Michael Johnson wins his third straight 400-meter title at the world championships in Athens, Greece, capturing the gold medal in 44.12 seconds.
2005 — Jason Gore shoots a 12-under 59 in the second round of the Nationwide Tour’s Cox Classic in Omaha, Nebraska.
2006 — Warren Moon becomes the first Black quarterback to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio; joined by Troy Aikman, John Madden, Rayfield Wright, Harry Carson and Reggie White.
2007 — Lorena Ochoa wins the Women’s British Open — the first women’s pro tournament played at venerable St. Andrews — for her first major title.
2012 — Jamaica’s Usain Bolt claims consecutive gold medals in the marquee track and field event at the Summer Games in London. Only about fifth-fastest of the eight runners to the halfway mark, Bolt erases that deficit and overtakes a star-studded field to win the 100-meter dash final in 9.63 seconds, an Olympic record that lets him join Carl Lewis as the only men to win the event twice.
2012 — Britain’s Andy Murray cruises past Roger Federer 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 in the Olympic tennis singles final at Wimbledon. Serena and Venus Williams win the doubles title, as Serena becomes tennis’ first double-gold medalist at an Olympics since Venus won singles and doubles at the 2000 Sydney Games. Ben Ainslie earns another gold medal in the Finn class to become the most successful sailor in Olympic history.
2014 — The San Antonio Spurs hire WNBA star Becky Hammon as an assistant coach, making her the first woman to join an NBA coaching staff.
2017 — Justin Gatlin spoils Usain Bolt’s farewell beating him in the 100 meters at the world track championships in London. Bolt gets off to a slow start and Gatlin holds him off at the line in 9.92 seconds. American sprinter Christian Coleman takes silver in 9.94 seconds and Bolt took bronze in 9.95.
2018 — The Springfield Lasers win their first World TeamTennis title edging the Philadelphia Freedoms 19-18. The Lasers were 0-5 in WTT championship finals and winless in three meetings with the Freedoms during the 2018 regular season.
2018 — Georgia Hall of England catches Pornanong Phatlum in a final-round duel at Royal Lytham & St. Annes to win the Women’s British Open for her first major title.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1921 — Pittsburgh radio station KDKA and announcer Harold Arlin provided listeners with the first broadcast of a major league game. The Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies 8-5.
1927 — Philadelphia’s Cy Williams hit for the cycle, drove in six runs and scored three times to lead the Phillies to a 9-7 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
1931 — For the second time in his career, Jim Bottomley got six hits as the St. Louis Cardinals beat Pittsburgh 16-2 in the second game of a doubleheader.
1932 — Detroit pitcher Tommy Bridges lost his bid for a perfect game on a bloop single by the 27th Washington batter, pinch-hitter Dave Harris. The Tigers beat the Senators 13-0.
1933 — Sammy West of the St. Louis Browns had four extra-base hits in a 10-9, 12-inning win over the Chicago White Sox.
1942 — Don Kolloway’s two-out steal of home in the fifth inning was the only run as the Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers 1-0.
1969 — Pittsburgh’s Willie Stargell became the only player to hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium. Stargell’s shot off of Alan Foster cleared the right-field pavilion and landed 506 feet from home plate.
1973 — Phil Niekro of the Atlanta Braves pitched a 9-0 no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. He walked three and struck out four in recording the first no-hitter by the franchise in Atlanta.
1975 — The first eight batters for Philadelphia Phillies got hits for a major league record, en route to a 13-5 win over the Chicago Cubs.
1984 — Cliff Johnson of the Blue Jays hit his 19th career pinch homer to set a major league record as Toronto beat the Orioles 4-3 at Memorial Stadium.
1999 — Mark McGwire became the 16th member of the 500-home run club, hitting two homers — Nos. 500 and 501 — in the St. Louis Cardinals’ loss to San Diego.
2001 — The Cleveland Indians tied a major league record and became the first team in 76 years to overcome a 12-run deficit to win, defeating the Seattle Mariners 15-14 in 11 innings.
2005 — Albert Pujols became the first player in major league history to hit 30 home runs in each of his first five seasons, helping the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Atlanta Braves 11-3.
2006 — Trevor Hoffman set a major league record with his 11th 30-save season and the San Diego Padres defeated the Washington Nationals 6-3.
2007 — Tom Glavine earned his 300th victory in an 8-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs. The 41-year-old left-hander became the 23rd pitcher with 300 victories and only the fifth lefty to win 300.
2013 — Alex Rodriguez was suspended through 2014 (211 games) and All-Stars Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta and Everth Cabrera were banned 50 games apiece when Major League Baseball disciplined 13 players in a drug case — the most sweeping punishment since the Black Sox scandal nearly a century ago. Ryan Braun’s 65-game suspension last month and previous punishments bring to 18 the total number of players disciplined for their relationship to Biogenesis of America, a closed anti-aging clinic in Florida accused of distributing banned performing-enhancing drugs.
2019 — Jonathon Villar of the Orioles hits for the cycle in a 9-6 loss to the Yankees.
2021 — Team USA is headed to the Olympic Gold Medal Game for the first time in 21 years, beating South Korea, 7 – 2 at the 2020 Olympics (held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Teenager Eui-lee Lee holds the U.S. to two runs in five innings, one a mammoth homer by Jamie Westbrook, but five relievers are called on in the 6th when the U.S. scores five times. Jack López drives in two for the U.S. while Hyeseong Kim goes 3 for 3 in a losing cause. Ryder Ryan gets the win in relief of Joe Ryan.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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From Jack Harris: Before trade rumors heated up and dream scenarios were briefly envisioned, before the Dodgers were linked to a string of big names who all wound up anywhere but Los Angeles, the team’s front office foreshadowed what proved to be a rather straightforward, unremarkable trade deadline on Thursday afternoon.
“This group is really talented,” general manager Brandon Gomes said last week. “I would argue it’s better than the team that won the World Series last year.”
“It’s really about our internal guys, and the fact that these are veteran guys that have well-established watermarks,” echoed president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, amid a July slump that fueled deadline speculation about what the team would need.
“I think the fact that we see the work they put in, how much they care, just makes it easier to bet on.”
On Thursday, maintaining faith in their current group is exactly what the Dodgers did.
The team did address its two main needs ahead of MLB’s annual midseason trade deadline. In the bullpen, it reunited with right-handed veteran Brock Stewart in a trade with the Minnesota Twins. In the outfield, it added solid-hitting, defensively serviceable 30-year-old Alex Call in a deal with the Washington Nationals.
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UCLA NEWSLETTER
We have a new newsletter! It’s called UCLA Unlocked, and yes, you guess it, it’s about UCLA athletics, from football to basketball to baseball to you name it, it will be covered here.
Get informed and entertained about everything Bruin sports, from takeaways on the latest big game to recruiting buzz. We’ll also remember some of the greatest athletes, coaches and games that made UCLA sports so special.
The newsletter will be interactive, including polls and questions about UCLA sports old and new. It’ll also cover the school’s tradition-rich Olympic sports, highlighting one each week.
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From Bill Shaikin: In the slang, “mid” means disappointingly mediocre, forgettable, uninspiring. On TikTok, a classic rant starts: “It’s called the Midwest because everything in it is mid! Skyline Chili? Mid! Your Cincinnati Reds, who haven’t won a World Series since 1990? M-M-M-Mid!!!”
They are three games under .500, four games out in the American League wild-card race, with four teams to pass, hoping to end baseball’s longest playoff drought at 10 years.
The Seattle Mariners, tied with the Texas Rangers for the final wild-card spot, traded for middle-of-the-lineup corner infielders in third baseman Eugenio Suárez and first baseman Josh Naylor. The Rangers acquired Merrill Kelly to supplement Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi atop the starting rotation.
The Angels made two trades, picking up two veteran setup men and an infielder batting .152 for three lightly regarded minor leaguers.
Why lightly bolster a team with a 1.3% chance of making the playoffs, as projected by Baseball Prospectus before Thursday’s trades, when you could start building the 2026 roster in the many areas needing improvement?
“Giving them a chance to play this thing out, relative to what was presented [in trade talks], made a lot of sense,” Angels general manager Perry Minasian said.
From Sam Farmer: Trey Lance welcomes any opportunity that comes his way — a vexing four NFL seasons have only made him more eager — so Thursday night felt especially good.
Lance, the onetime third overall pick of the San Francisco 49ers, is battling for the Chargers’ backup quarterback job, and he made a compelling case in the Hall of Fame Game against the NFC darling Detroit Lions.
Although he didn’t put up gaudy numbers — completing 13 of 20 passes for 120 yards and two touchdowns — he was as relaxed and at ease in front of the crowd of 18,144 at Tom Benson Stadium, as refreshing as the gentle evening breeze after a day of sprinkling rain.
“I was excited that we got this fourth preseason game,” Lance said after the 34-7 victory. “If I could play four games I’d be fired up about that.”
Here are five observations from the Chargers’ preseason opener.
A global audience of 90 million people tuned in on their televisions one evening in 1973 and watched her whip Bobby Riggs in a tennis challenge billed as “The Battle of the Sexes.”
But King’s resume, which would stretch from one end of Wimbledon’s Center Court to the other and keep going, is missing one thing, and that was bugging her. The omission came up last year in a conversation she was having with the staff of her New York-based consulting, investing and marketing company. (Yes, she still runs a business and a foundation promoting education, leadership and activism.)
In the spring this year, at the age of 81, Billie Jean King went back to school, chasing not a trophy, or a cup, or a medal, but a degree.
1963 — Arthur Ashe becomes the first Black tennis player to be named in the US Davis Cup team.
1982 — American Greg Louganis becomes 1st diver to score 700 (752.67) in 11 dives in winning 3m springboard gold, World Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
1987 — Mike Tyson wins the undisputed heavyweight championship with a 12-round unanimous decision over IBF champion Tony Tucker in Las Vegas.
1992 — Eric Griffin, a two-time world champion at 106 pounds, loses to Rafael Lozano of Spain under the new electronic scoring system at the Olympics. All five judges credit him with more blows than his opponent as did five jury members used as a backup in case the computer failed.
1996 — Michael Johnson wins Olympic gold in the 200 meters in a record 19.32 seconds, becoming the first male Olympian to win the 200 and 400 in a single games. Dan O’Brien wins gold in the decathlon, four years after failing to make the U.S. Olympic team.
2002 — In signing star linebacker Ray Lewis to a 5-year contract extension the Baltimore Ravens give him a $19m signing bonus, then the largest in NFL history.
2004 — Karen Stupples wins her first major title with a record-tying 19-under 269 at the Women’s British Open. Stupples ties the low score in a major, set by Dottie Pepper at the 1999 Nabisco Dinah Shore.
2009 — Rachel Alexandra rolls past the boys again to win the $1.25 million Haskell Ivitational at Monmouth Park, establishing herself as one of the greatest fillies. Ridden by Calvin Borel, she beats Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird by six lengths.
2010 — Stuart Appleby hits golf’s magic number, shooting a 59 to win the Greenbrier Classic. He is the fifth PGA Tour player to reach the milestone.
2010 — Yani Tseng of Taiwan wins the Women’s British Open by one stroke for her third major title and second of the year to go with the Kraft Nabisco.
2010 — Bob and Mike Bryan win their record 62nd career doubles title on the ATP Tour. The twins were tied with Hall of Famers Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde of Australia.
2012 — Four teams are kicked out of the women’s badminton doubles at the London Games for trying to lose on purpose. The eight players from China, South Korea and Indonesia are cited for conduct “clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport.”
2021 — Marcel Jacobs becomes the first Italian athlete to win the 100m dash in 9.80 at the Tokyo Olympics.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1906 — Harry McIntire of the Brooklyn Dodgers pitched 10 2-3 innings of no-hit ball before Claude Ritchey of Pittsburgh singled. McIntire weakened in the 13th and lost 1-0 to the Pirates on an unearned run, finishing with a four-hitter.
1937 — Lou Gehrig of the New York Yankees hit for the cycle in a 14-5 rout of the St. Louis Browns. It was the second cycle of Gehrig’s career. Gehrig hit a two-run homer in the first inning, doubled in the second, singled in the fourth and tripled in the seventh.
1941 — New York Yankees pitcher Lefty Gomez walked 11 St. Louis batters in a 9-0 victory to set a major league record for walks in a shutout.
1962 — Bill Monbouquette of the Boston Red Sox pitched a no-hitter to beat the White Sox 1-0 at Chicago.
1970 — Willie Stargell of Pittsburgh hit three doubles and two home runs to power the Pirates to a 20-10 rout of the Braves in Atlanta.
1972 — Nate Colbert of the San Diego Padres drove in 13 runs in a doubleheader with five home runs and two singles. San Diego beat the Atlanta Braves in both games, 9-0 and 11-7.
1977 — Willie McCovey of the San Francisco Giants hit two home runs, including his 18th career grand slam, a total that still leads the National League.
1978 — Pete Rose went 0-for-4 against Atlanta pitchers Larry McWilliams and Gene Garber to end his 44-game hitting streak as the Braves defeated the Cincinnati Reds 16-4.
1986 — Bert Blyleven threw a two-hitter and struck out 15 to become the 10th major league pitcher with 3,000 career strikeouts and Kirby Puckett hit for the cycle to lead the Minnesota Twins to a 10-1 victory over the Oakland A’s. Puckett tripled in the first inning, doubled in the fifth, singled in the sixth homered in the eighth. Puckett finished 4 for 5 with three runs and two RBIs. It was the first cycle to happen at the Metrodome.
1994 — Baltimore’s Cal Ripken became the second major leaguer to play 2,000 straight games, and the Orioles edged Minnesota 1-0.
1998 — Switch-hitter Tony Clark set an AL record by homering from both sides of the plate for the third time this year, powering the Detroit Tigers past Tampa Bay 8-0.
2005 — Rafael Palmeiro was suspended 10 days following a positive test for steroids, less than five months after the Baltimore Orioles first baseman emphatically told Congress: “I have never used steroids. Period.”
2006 — Carlos Guillen hit for the cycle in Detroit’s 10-4 victory over Tampa Bay.
2009 — The Oakland A’s retire Rickey Henderson’s uniform number 24.
2017 — Evan Longoria hits for the cycle, becoming the second player in team history to pull off the feat, as the Rays defeat the Astros, 6-4. It takes a video review to confirm that he slid safely into second base in the 9th for the missing double that completes the quartet of hits.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
What was more important, however, was that they didn’t lose their two-way star.
In the Dodgers’ 5-2 defeat to the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park, Shohei Ohtani left the mound alongside a trainer in the fourth inning with what the team later said was only cramping — a worrying scene in the moment, quickly alleviated by a seemingly benign injury announcement.
Ohtani remained in the game as a designated hitter, going 0-for-5 on the night.
The rest of the Dodgers’ lineup didn’t do much better, with Freddie Freeman’s two-run home run in the top of the fourth inning representing their only scoring.
It was a half-inning later that Ohtani’s injury scare occurred.
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UCLA NEWSLETTER
We have a new newsletter! It’s called UCLA Unlocked, and yes, you guess it, it’s about UCLA athletics, from football to basketball to baseball to you name it, it will be covered here.
Get informed and entertained about everything Bruin sports, from takeaways on the latest big game to recruiting buzz. We’ll also remember some of the greatest athletes, coaches and games that made UCLA sports so special.
The newsletter will be interactive, including polls and questions about UCLA sports old and new. It’ll also cover the school’s tradition-rich Olympic sports, highlighting one each week.
The newsletter will be emailed to you every Monday morning.
The Angels acquired relievers Andrew Chafin and Luis García from the Washington Nationals in a trade for left-hander Jake Eder and minor league first baseman Sam Brown.
The Angels announced the deal to bolster their bullpen on Wednesday. The team also designated left-hander José Quijada for assignment to make room on its 40-man roster.
The 35-year-old Chafin joins his eighth major league team after going 1-1 with a 2.70 ERA in 26 appearances for Washington this season. Left-handed hitters are batting just .147 against him.
The Angels have one of the majors’ highest bullpen ERAs despite the presence of closer Kenley Jansen, who has 20 saves and a 2.93 ERA in another strong season.
Nathan Eovaldi limited the Angels to a run in seven innings, Adolis García hit a two-run homer in the eighth and the Texas Rangers beat the Angels 6-3 on Wednesday night.
Eovaldi (9-3) helped the Rangers avoid a series sweep and snap the Angels’ three-game winning streak. He allowed six hits and struck out four.
Marcus Semien was three for five with an RBI and two runs. He doubled and opened the scoring on Wyatt Langford’s single in the fourth, and had an RBI single in the sixth. Langford was two for five with a double.
For most players, getting to a second contract is challenging. And careers that extend well beyond that milestone are uncommon in a business that churns through talent.
So when Ahkello Witherspoon began his career in 2017, he could not envision that he would be preparing for his ninth season.
Witherspoon, 30, is the most veteran player in a Rams secondary that remains unchanged in personnel from when the Rams advanced to the NFC divisional round.
Gates, who will be enshrined Saturday in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is the only player to reach that pinnacle without a single snap of college football. He was a basketball star at Kent State, a half-hour up the road from Canton, Ohio, and never seemed to give football a second thought, even though he was a two-sport high school phenom in his hometown of Detroit.
“I never in a million years when he was playing basketball at Kent State thought he would be a professional football player,” said Steve Sefner, the school’s play-by-play announcer when the 6-foot-4 power forward was routinely dominating taller opponents.
“He had an elite first step, point-guard skills, making reads, passing,” recalled Anthony Wilkins, now a basketball assistant coach at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and then Kent State’s co-captain with Gates. “We could put the ball in Tone’s hands and literally run the offense through him.”
From Ben Bolch: It was 68 degrees and overcast, a cool coastal breeze wafting across the practice fields, when UCLA commenced its first off-campus football training camp in nearly a decade.
San Bernardino, this was not.
With 55 newcomers dotting a roster of 105, not to mention eight new assistant coaches, the Bruins’ camp that started in Costa Mesa on Wednesday morning was more about togetherness than toughness in the triple-digit temperatures of the Inland Empire.
Every offensive player was matched with a roommate from the defense or special teams. A series of bonding exercises was planned inside and outside the nearby team hotel. Everything the Bruins do over the next 2 ½ weeks will be of the get-to-know-you variety.
“I have a lot of tough guys, but it’s more of the connection,” coach DeShaun Foster said. “There’s a lot of new coaches and players, so I just wanted to find a way to make us be able to connect a little bit more, you know? To be able to eat three meals with each other and just get close.”
From Ryan Kartje: Eight weeks ago, on the first day of USC football’s summer workout program, Trumain Carroll hoped to drive home one particular message.
How you do one thing, he told the team, is how you do everything.
Carroll had just been hired as USC’s new strength and conditioning coach, replacing Bennie Wylie, who was abruptly let go in April. The late start for Carroll left him with only so much time to lay a foundation. But this lesson was especially critical. Not only was it one of his core beliefs as a strength coach, it was also one of the main reasons he was brought to USC, where discipline, especially late in games, had often unraveled.
Carroll knew, that first day, that he needed to make clear how much details mattered. So when the team was lacking effort during warm-ups, he made players start again. And again. Soon enough, before the workout even started, they were out of time.
1932 — France beats the U.S. 3-2 for its sixth consecutive Davis Cup championship.
1934 — Britain, led by Fred Perry and Bunny Austin, defeats the U.S. 4-1 at Wimbledon to win the Davis Cup title.
1942 — Jockey Bill Turnbull wins seven of nine races at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H.
1973 — Julius Erving, the American Basketball Association’s leading scorer, is traded by the cash-strapped Virginia Squires to the New York Nets for forward George Carter and cash.
1983 — Jan Stephenson beats JoAnne Carner and Patty Sheehan by one stroke to win the U.S. Women’s Open.
1993 — Mike Aulby becomes the third player in PBA history to win a tournament by rolling a 300 game in the title game. Aulby beats David Ozio 300-279 in the Wichita Open.
1994 — Sergei Bubka sets a world pole vault record for the 35th time in his career at a meet in Sestriere, Italy. Bubka soars 20 feet, 1¾ inches, adding a half-inch to his mark set in Tokyo in 1992.
2000 — Dorothy Delasin becomes the LPGA’s youngest winner in 25 years by beating Pat Hurst on the second extra hole to win the Giant Eagle LPGA Classic. The 19-year-old Delasin is the youngest winner on the tour since Amy Alcott took the Orange Blossom Classic at age 19 in 1975.
2005 — Grant Hackett becomes the first swimmer to win four straight world titles in the same event, capturing another 1,500-meter freestyle. The Aussie stretches out his own record for world championship medals to 17.
2007 — All-Star Kevin Garnett is traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves to Boston for five players and two draft picks. The Celtics obtain the former MVP and 10-time All-Star from Minnesota for forwards Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes and Gerald Green, guard Sebastian Telfair and center Theo Ratliff and two first-round draft picks.
2011 — Yani Tseng wins the Women’s British Open for the second straight year, beating Brittany Lang by four strokes and becoming the youngest woman to capture a fifth major title. The 22-year-old top-ranked Taiwanese shot a 3-under 69 to finish at 16-under 272.
2012 — Michael Phelps breaks the Olympic medals record with his 19th, helping the U.S. romp to a 4×200-meter freestyle relay victory at the London Games. With 19 medals spanning three Olympics, Phelps moves one ahead of Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, who got her haul in 1956, 1960 and 1964.
2012 — The team of Gabrielle Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Alexandra Raisman, Kyla Ross and Jordyn Wieber lives up to all the hype, winning the first U.S. Olympic title in women’s gymnastics since 1996.
2021 — Katie Ledecky wins the women’s 800m gold in Tokyo. This is the third consecutive Olympics she has won the race.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1930 — Lou Gehrig drove in eight runs with a grand slam and two doubles, and the New York Yankees outlasted the Boston Red Sox 14-13.
1932 — Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium opened and Lefty Grove and the Philadelphia A’s beat the Indians 1-0 before 76,979 fans.
1934 — The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Cincinnati Reds 8-6 in 18 innings at Cincinnati as Dizzy Dean and Tony Freitas both went the distance.
1954 — Joe Adcock hit four home runs and a double to lead the Milwaukee Braves to a 15-7 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. Adcock’s 18 total bases set a major league record at the time. Adcock homered in the second inning off Don Newcombe, doubled in the third and homered in the fifth off Erv Palica. He connected off Pete Wojey in the seventh and off Johnny Podres in the ninth. Adcock saw only seven pitches and his double off the left-center field fence just missed going out by inches.
1961 — The All-Star Game ended in a 1-1 tie at Fenway Park because of heavy rain.
1981 — The second baseball strike ended after 42 days.
1990 — Nolan Ryan, 43, won his 300th game, reaching the milestone in his second try, as the Texas Rangers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 11-3.
2002 — Mike Mussina became the second pitcher in major league history to give up six doubles in one inning, during the New York Yankees’ 17-6 loss to Texas. Hall of Famer Lefty Grove allowed that many with Boston in 1934 against Washington.
2003 — John Smoltz broke his own record as the fastest pitcher to record 40 saves by pitching a scoreless ninth in Atlanta’s 7-4 win over Houston. Last year, he got his 40th save on Aug. 8, en route to breaking the NL record with 55.
2007 — The New York Yankees tied a franchise record by hitting eight home runs, including two by Hideki Matsui, in a 16-3 rout of the Chicago White Sox. New York last hit eight homers in a game in a doubleheader opener at the Philadelphia Athletics on June 28, 1939.
2010 — Carlos Gonzalez hit a game-ending home run to complete the cycle, and Colorado rallied to a 6-5 win after blowing a three-run lead in the eighth inning to the Chicago Cubs.
2011 — Ricky Nolasco scattered 12 hits, Emilio Bonifacio homered and Florida handed the Atlanta Braves the 10,000th loss in franchise history. With the 3-1 loss, the Braves become the second big league team with 10,000 losses. The Phillies reached that mark in 2007.
2015 — New York’s Mark Teixeira homered from both sides of the plate for the record 14th time, hitting his 10th grand slam and a two-run homer that led the Yankees past the Chicago White Sox 13-6.
2021 — Seby Zavala becomes the first player in MLB history to record his first three home runs in the same game.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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SEOUL — The third and final season of Netflix’s “Squid Game” broke viewership records on the streaming platform following its release on June 27, marking a fitting close for what has arguably been the most successful South Korean TV series in history.
Although reviews have been mixed, Season 3 recorded more than 60 million views in the first three days and topped leaderboards in all 93 countries, making it Netflix’s biggest launch to date.
“Squid Game” has been transformative for South Korea, with much of the domestic reaction focused not on plot but on the prestige it has brought to the country. In Seoul, fans celebrated with a parade to commemorate the show’s end, shutting down major roads to make way for a marching band and parade floats of characters from the show.
In one section of the procession, a phalanx of the show’s masked guards, dressed in their trademark pink uniforms, carried neon-lit versions of the coffins that appear on the show to carry away the losers of the survival game. They were joined by actors playing the contestants, who lurched along wearing expressions of exaggerated horror, as though the cruel stakes of the game had just been revealed to them.
At the fan event that capped off the evening, series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk thanked the show’s viewers and shared the bittersweetness of it all being over.
“I gave my everything to this project, so the thought of it all ending does make me a bit sad,” he said. “But at the same time, I lived with such a heavy weight on my shoulders for so long that it feels freeing to put that all down.”
Despite the overnight global fame “Squid Game” brought him (it’s Netflix’s most-watched series of all time), Hwang has spoken extensively about the physical and mental toil of creating the show.
Visitors take photos near a model of the doll named “Younghee” that’s featured in Netflix’s series “Squid Game,” displayed at the Olympic park in Seoul in October 2021.
(Lee Jin-man / Associated Press)
He unsuccessfully shopped the show around for a decade until Netflix picked up the first season in 2019, paying the director just “enough to put food on the table” — while claiming all of the show’s intellectual property rights. During production for the first season, which was released in 2021, Hwang lost several teeth from stress.
A gateway into Korean content for many around the world, “Squid Game” show served to spotlight previously lesser-known aspects of South Korean culture, bringing inventions like dalgona coffee — made with a traditional Korean candy that was featured in the show — to places such as Los Angeles and New York.
The show also cleared a path for the global success of other South Korean series, accelerating a golden age of “Hallyu” (the Korean wave) that has boosted tourism and exports of food and cosmetics, as well as international interest in learning Korean.
But alongside its worldly successes, the show also provoked conversations about socioeconomic inequality in South Korean society, such as the prevalence of debt, which looms in the backstories of several characters.
A few years ago, President Lee Jae-myung, a longtime proponent of debt relief, said, “‘Squid Game’ reveals the grim realities of our society. A playground in which participants stake their lives in order to pay off their debt is more than competition — it is an arena in which you are fighting to survive.”
In 2022, the show made history as the first non-English-language TV series and the first Korean series to win a Screen Actors Guild Award, taking home three in total. It also won six Emmy Awards. That same year, the city of L.A. designated Sept. 17 — the series’ release date — as “Squid Game Day.“
Although Hwang has said in media interviews that he is done with the “Squid Game” franchise, the Season 3 finale — which features Cate Blanchett in a cameo as a recruiter for the games that are the show’s namesake — has revived rumors that filmmaker David Fincher may pick it up for an English-language spinoff in the future.
While saying he had initially written a more conventional happy ending, Hwang has described “Squid Game’s” final season as a sobering last stroke to its unsparing portrait of cutthroat capitalism.
“I wanted to focus in Season 3 on how in this world, where incessant greed is always fueled, it’s like a jungle — the strong eating the weak, where people climb higher by stepping on other people’s heads,” he told The Times’ Michael Ordoña last month.
“Coming into Season 3, because the economic system has failed us, politics have failed us, it seems like we have no hope,” he added. “What hope do we have as a human race when we can no longer control our own greed? I wanted to explore that. And in particular, I wanted to [pose] that question to myself.”
Ben Howland planned it like this. Of course he did.
This was a coach so engrossed in details that he would grumble about the room temperature at news conferences and call a timeout when his team was in the middle of a big run just so that he could set up his defense.
So it should come as no surprise that before his 10-year run as UCLA’s basketball coach ended in 2013, Howland had schemed for his dream retirement.
In 2011, he bought a four-bedroom, ranch-style house in his native Santa Barbara close to so many old friends and family, knowing the full remodel job would take years. The Howlands moved in three years ago, after the coach’s final season at Mississippi State.
The home is now his departure point for frequent trips to see another old friend — the program he guided to back-to-back-to-back Final Fours from 2006-08. Howland likes to leave many hours before tipoff, arranging his schedule so that he can visit friends or fit in a doctor’s appointment.
He recently learned that he was only one day younger than former Bruins star forward David Greenwood, who died earlier this month from cancer.
“It’s sobering, you know? Sixty-eight now seems young,” Howland said between bites of a Tuscan chicken sandwich inside the Luskin Center on the campus that once served as his basketball home. “But there’s always something. You’ve got to make sure you’re on top of your colon and your prostate, and that’s one of the reasons I come to UCLA for all my doctor appointments.”
The old coach remains close to several retired doctors he’s known for many years, including Jean B. DeKernion, the former longtime chair of UCLA’s urology department, and Bennett Roth, the gastroenterologist who established the school’s endoscopy unit.
Perhaps nobody at the school can put a smile on his face like the current basketball coach. Mick Cronin and Howland have known one another since the former helped run Sonny Vaccaro’s ABCD Camp in the 1990s, going on to forge a friendship rooted in mutual respect.
UCLA coach Ben Howland celebrates after a basket by Malcolm Lee against Michigan State in the 2011 NCAA tournament.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
There’s so many similarities between the coaches, from their demanding practices to their relentless defenses to their wry senses of humor to their lack of hair to their admiration for things that are difficult but worthwhile.
“Coaching’s changed and I can still appreciate Mick because he comes from the old school and what he’s doing is no different than what [Bob] Huggins and [Rick] Pitino did as he’s working for them and watching these guys, who are both Hall of Famers, two of the greatest coaches ever,” Howland said.
“And because you’re demanding — I mean, I think my players always knew at the end of the day that I loved them and was trying to get the most out of them, I’m trying to push them to be their very best, but as long as they know that you really love them and care about them and you want what’s best for them most of all, then they respect that and I think he does that.”
A regular at UCLA practices and games, Howland sometimes comes alone and other times brings his wife, Kim, and some combination of children Meredith and Adam and grandsons Benjamin, Elijah, Asher and Abraham.
“I really enjoy it,” Howland said of coming to games at Pauley Pavilion. “I mean, I’m a fan too. I was yelling like crazy during that Wisconsin win. I’m telling you, I was so pumped up; that was such a great win, really, really exciting because they were good and you knew how important that game was. The same thing with the Michigan State win, that was an incredible win.”
During his first year of retirement, Howland received a standing ovation during a timeout when he stepped onto the court as an honorary captain. Fans who recognize him during games shower him with appreciation, telling him that he did a great job or they really love him or they treasured his decade-long run at UCLA that was the longest by any Bruins coach since John Wooden’s 27-year reign ended in 1975.
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden, right, sits next to then-UCLA coach Ben Howland during a news conference at Honda Center in December 2006.
(Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times)
Howland said he agreed with those who believe the school should honor its Final Four teams with a banner inside Pauley Pavilion alongside those that recognize national championships.
“I mean, in this day and age, it’s incredibly difficult to, No. 1, get to the Final Four,” Howland said, “and we can’t be arrogant to where we don’t recognize that.”
Maybe the game that gets mentioned most in any conversation with Howland is the comeback from 17 points down against Gonzaga in the Sweet 16 of the 2006 NCAA tournament. In the final seconds, with his team trailing by only one, Howland could be seen in front of the UCLA bench mimicking the defense he wanted his players to apply, waving his arms wildly.
Cedric Bozeman and Jordan Farmar complied, trapping J.P. Batista in the backcourt before Bozeman knocked the ball loose. Farmar grabbed the ball and threw a lob to teammate Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, whose layup put UCLA ahead with 9.2 seconds left. In an even more remarkable display, Mbah a Moute tackled the ball at midcourt to force a jump ball, giving the Bruins possession on the way to an eventual 73-71 triumph.
“That’s incredible — I’ve never seen that,” Howland said of Mbah a Moute’s heroic defense. “The best thing about it was the whole idea that you never stop, you keep fighting the entire time until the clock is at 0:00.”
The clock ran out on Howland’s time at UCLA after a season in which the Bruins won the Pac-12’s regular-season title but lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The coach whose admiration for UCLA went back to watching Wooden’s first national championship in 1964, held a farewell news conference to convey his gratitude.
“It was a real blessing to be here,” Howland said, “and I wanted to leave taking the high road, doing it the right way.”
By that point, a narrative had emerged that Howland had changed his ways, forgoing the sort of grinders such as Mbah a Moute and Lorenzo Mata-Real who had fueled his early success in favor of more prolific scorers. Howland disagreed, pointing out that he left replacement Steve Alford with five eventual NBA players — Zach LaVine, Norman Powell, Kyle Anderson, Travis Wear and Jordan Adams — upon his departure.
UCLA coach Ben Howland prepares to talk to his players during a timeout against Washington in December 2010.
(Katie Falkenberg / For the Times)
Having been offered a job by a Big Ten school — he won’t say which one — during his second-to-last-year at UCLA, Howland remained a coveted coach. He agreed to go to Mississippi State in 2015, ringing a cowbell at his introductory news conference and getting to know quirky football coach Mike Leach. (“He loved the microphone, loved to be on camera, very funny,” Howland said of the late Leach.)
Yet the recruiting challenges in rural Starkville, Miss., made winning far more difficult than it was in Westwood.
“Kids aren’t growing up saying, ‘I always wanted to be a Mississippi State Bulldog’ like they do a Bruin,” Howland said.
The Bulldogs went to one NCAA tournament in Howland’s seven seasons, losing in the first round, though they were on the bubble during a COVID-19-shortened 2019-20 season that ended after they had secured a double bye in the Southeastern Conference tournament. The school dismissed him in March 2022.
The timing proved fortuitous in that it allowed Howland to come home and spend two years with his mother before she passed away. Other family remains nearby. Howland’s son, Adam, is a deputy district attorney based in Santa Barbara and his daughter, Meredith, is a nurse who lives in Valencia. A granddaughter is expected to arrive in October.
Howland said he misses the relationships with his players and assistants, not to mention the practices and games. But old friends abound. He recently went to a Dodgers game with Mata-Real, and several links to his time at UCLA remain on campus. Doug Erickson is the do-everything director of basketball administration, Chris Carlson an associate athletic director, Kenny Donaldson a senior associate athletic director and Alex Timiraos the director of athletic communications.
“I hired Kenny as our academic coordinator,” Howland said. “Now he’s [athletic director] Martin Jarmond’s right-hand guy, along with Chris.”
The current UCLA players might as well be Howland’s given his glowing praise. Consider his takes:
On transfer point guard Donovan Dent: “Boy, to have him coming in here as the point guard next season, it’s such a critical element.”
Donovan Dent is among the new players on coach Mick Cronin’s UCLA roster for the 2025-26 season.
(David Richard / Associated Press)
On transfer big man Xavier Booker: “I watched him in our game here [against Michigan State]; I was like, who’s that guy? I liked the way he moved, I liked his athleticism. He just needs minutes. I think Mick will get a lot out of him to help his team.”
On returning forward Eric Dailey Jr.: “He had big games in big games. He’s just got to consistently bring that, but he’s only a junior.”
Howland acknowledged being “heartbroken” that center Aday Mara transferred to Michigan on the cusp of a huge season after two years of development under Cronin.
“They had done such a great job of bringing him along,” Howland said, “and he was finally going to really have the kind of year that he’s capable of this year. I think he’ll be heartbroken that he’s not here come this next season.”
One guy who can be counted on to be there at big games for the foreseeable future is a face familiar to a generation of UCLA fans, clapping wildly, his heart full, a Bruin until the end.
Red cloaks. Stiff white bonnets. Bent heads. If there’s a single image that Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” leaves audiences with as it ends its six-season run this week, it’s this one: That of women in a dystopian anti-America called Gilead, evolving from anonymous sexual slaves into rebels, warriors and, sometimes, survivors.
But for “Handmaid’s” creator Bruce Miller and star Elisabeth Moss, who also directed several episodes in the final season, the series, based on the 1985 book by Margaret Atwood, was never about what the women wore. It was about the women inside the color-coded uniforms.
“June started out as a normal person, a mom, a wife,” says Moss, whose other long-running roles include “The West Wing” and “Mad Men.” She won an Emmy for playing the “Handmaid’s” title character in 2017, the same year the show took home the first drama series prize for a streaming show.
“Then [June] had to shut down and become something that I don’t think she wasn’t proud of,” Moss continues. “But I feel she comes out of that into a place of true heroism, where she is able to be herself, be generous, forgive, inspire other people, lead — but also be vulnerable, ask questions, not know everything.”
Elisabeth Moss in the series finale of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
(Steve Wilkie / Disney)
Miller, who stepped back from showrunning duties for the final season, with Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang taking over, especially wanted to ensure that as a man, he was telling a female-forward story from the female point of view — both in the writers’ room and on camera.
“I’m very mindful of the fact that I’m a boy, and who do I think I am?” he says, adding that winning the Emmy boosted his confidence in being a man telling a story about women’s rights. (The series has 15 Emmys total.) “Definitely, when you win an Emmy it helps you feel a bit less like you have one penis over the limit.”
Knowing that, Miller says he centered the story on June and Moss alike, adjusting camera angles to focus on her point of view — but lowered to an eye level that corresponded with the actress’ 5-foot-3 height. “The crowd scenes get much more scary” when you do that, he says. “I want to see the world not just through June’s eyes — but also Lizzie’s eyes, as much as she’s able to show me those things.”
Meanwhile, Moss used roles as executive producer and director to focus on the show’s look and how June came across on camera. Frequently, she’s shown smoldering with fury or dark intent, gazing up from under her brows with a lowered chin, something Moss says she lifted from Stanley Kubrick’s films. “That is ‘Clockwork Orange,’” she says. “I am certainly not the first person to do that look.”
Elisabeth Moss.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
But she might be one of very few actresses to convey it onscreen. “It’s definitely not something women do [on camera],” she says. “Women aren’t allowed to get angry. [June] uses her anger and weaponizes it at so many points during the show — and by the final season, she knows when to do that and when not to.”
The journey June, Elisabeth and “Handmaid’s” have been on began at an uncomfortably synergistic time in American politics: Amid the airing of a series about women subject to state regulation of their bodily autonomy, real-world politicians were successfully rolling back women’s reproductive rights. In 2018, protestors began showing up at real-world events in those handmaid-red cloaks and white bonnets, putting the show in an unexpected spotlight.
“Art does have an impact,” says Moss about that kind of a response, but suggests that repurposing the show’s images, outfits or story in service of real-world politics misses a key element of the series. “I don’t think any of us necessarily set out, when you’re making a TV show, to [make a political statement], because that’s the wrong way to go about it. You’re telling this one woman’s story. … It’s always been ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ her story.”
That’s one reason why after six seasons the series chose to end as it did: With June back in the house where it all began, starting her memoirs — “The Handmaid’s Tale.” When Miller pitched that final episode script, Moss says it made her cry.
“I love the idea that at the end is when she starts to tell the story that is the book, and the circular nature of that gives me chills,” she says. “The fact that she realizes that she has to tell it because it wasn’t all bad.”
But the ending also does one more thing: It shows how little is truly resolved. June’s daughter Hannah is still trapped in Gilead, for example. And fans of the series know the action will pick up 15 years later when “The Testaments,” based on a 2019 sequel by Atwood and now in production, begins airing. (Moss won’t say whether she’ll cameo.)
So this is an ending — just not the ending. Now, the story leaves off, still focused on the woman who escaped the bonnet and cloak and not about the trappings of her enslavement. “For me, the ending is perfect,” says Moss. “I also don’t feel like it is an ending. The war is not over. June’s journey is not over.”
