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Belgium became the first team to beat Spanish goalie Unai Simón on Friday. But they couldn’t beat his team, with second-half substitute Mikel Merino scoring in the 88th minute to lift Spain to a 2-1 victory in a World Cup quarterfinal before a sold-out crowd at SoFi Stadium.

The win, which extended Spain’s unbeaten streak to 36 games, sends the team on to Tuesday’s semifinal with France in Arlington, Texas. For Belgium, its first loss in 19 games ended its tournament.

The turning point came not on the pitch but on the Belgium bench, where coach Luis de la Fuente sent backup goalkeeper Senne Lammens on for an injured Thibaut Courtois in the 71st minute.

The dropoff in talent wasn’t great — Lammens started 32 times for Manchester United this season — but the difference in experience was. Courtois was playing in his 21st World Cup game, second-most all time, and had been brilliant up to then against Spain, making four saves.

But just before the second-half hydration break, he dropped to the turf with a thigh injury that required attention from trainers. He tried to continue, but moments later De la Fuente made the change, with Courtois walking to the bench in tears.

Lammens stopped the first shot he faced, a low shot from close range by Pau Cubarsí in the 88th minute, but he pushed the rebound right at Merino, who had come on less than two minutes earlier. His tap-in was his second winning goal in as many games for Spain.

The goal overcame a score from Belgium’s Charles De Keterlaere, who became the first player to score on Spain in this World Cup when he beat Simón with a spectacular goal late in the first half.

Spain midfielder Mikel Merino scores off a header in front of Belgium goalkeeper Senne Lammens during the second half of Spain’s 2-1 quarterfinal win in the World Cup quarterfinals Friday at SoFi Stadium.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Not only has Spain given up the fewest goals in this tournament, it has given up the fewest shots as well. Before De Keterlaere, no one had come close to scoring against Simón since the final group-play game — of the last World Cup.

But if La Roja, ranked third in the world by FIFA, had been an immovable object in this World Cup, Belgium had been an unstoppable force, scoring 12 times in its previous three games. Entering the quarterfinals, only France and Argentina had scored more often.

And no team had taken more shots than Belgium’s 107.

Spain struck first Friday, with Fabián Ruiz giving Simón a 1-0 lead with his first goal of the tournament in the 30th minute. The sequence started with Pedro Porro sending a cross into the box for Dani Olmo, whose shot was parried away by Courtois. But Ruiz pounced on the rebound and deflected a shot past defender Timothy Castagne and into the back of the net.

De Keterlaere matched that 11 minutes later, shielding Cubarsí with his body and one-hopping a Castagne cross past a flat-footed Simón for his third goal in two games, one Courtois reacted to by charging out of the his penalty area toward the Belgian bench, waving his gloved fists in celebration.

Spain, the reigning European champion, last advanced beyond the round of 16 at the World Cup in 2010, when it allowed just two goals en route to its only title. Belgium, ranked eighth in the world, was playing in the quarterfinals for the third time in four World Cups.

CONCORD, N.H. — Two transgender girls who were the first to challenge President Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” have withdrawn their lawsuit in New Hampshire based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld state bans on transgender athletes in girls’ sports and their own personal hardships, their lawyer said.

“This case was always about two courageous young girls who simply wanted the same opportunities as their peers to participate in school life,” their lawyer, Chris Erchull of GLAD Law, said in a statement Thursday. “Their willingness to stand up to extraordinary hostility made clear the human cost of laws that target transgender youth.”

The teenagers, Parker Tirrell and Iris Turmelle, took on Trump’s executive order last year, amending their 2024 complaint against New Hampshire’s law on banning transgender girls from school sports. A federal judge had granted a court order allowing them to play as the case proceeded.

For Tirrell, it meant being able to keep playing on her high school girls’ soccer team. For Turmelle, it was having a chance to try out for different sports.

Both sides agreed to pause the case and wait for a ruling from the Supreme Court as it considered similar state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school and college athletic teams in Idaho and West Virginia. Last month, the court upheld the laws. It also said that barring transgender girls and women doesn’t run afoul of the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

One teen and her family decided to move from New Hampshire

Turmelle and her family moved out of New Hampshire last summer following proposed legislation against transgender people. One measure signed into law by Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte last year prohibits medical professionals from providing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy to new transgender patients under age 18.

“Though there may be a carve-out for people already receiving gender-affirming care, that is way too close a call for us to risk staying,” Turmelle’s mother, Amy Manzetti, wrote in an op-ed piece at the time. “Other New Hampshire laws also seek to erase her.”

Most Republican-controlled states in the past five years have adopted laws or policies limiting gender-affirming care for transgender minors and limiting which school bathrooms transgender people can use, as well as sports restrictions. The Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that about 3% of youth ages 13 to 17 identify as transgender.

“The challenges with relocation are significant and burdensome — this includes having to find new employment, buying and selling homes, packing and moving possessions, integrating kids with a new school system, losing access to longstanding family and friends, and potential loss of income,” Corinne Goodwin, the executive director of Eastern PA Trans Equality Project in Pennsylvania, said in an email.

“But these families do so because they love their kids and know that supporting them with the care and opportunities they need is critical to their long-term success and happiness.”

The other teen gave up playing soccer at high school

Tirrell, 17, began her junior year last fall on the girls’ junior varsity soccer team. Things were fine at first, and each time she scored a goal, she got a round of ice cream from her parents. But a few weeks into the season, she decided to stop playing.

“With all of the political stuff going on, soccer wasn’t just about the game anymore,” her mother, Sara Tirrell, told The Associated Press in an interview.

It became more about preparing for the possibility of conflict.

“Were there any local Facebook groups where they were sort of agitating about potential protests and how do we prepare, and what are we walking into, and we never kind of knew,” she said. “We were on a lot of pins and needles, especially after the previous season.”

She was referring to a controversy at an away game where two dads from an opposing team were banned from school grounds for wearing pink wristbands marked “XX” to represent female chromosomes. They sued the school district and a judge ruled against them. They have appealed their case.

Last fall, there was an increased presence of school administrators at the games and bus drivers pulled in closer to the field so the students weren’t in the parking lot, she said.

“Parker didn’t talk about it a lot, but I think she could see that stress for everybody — for her, for her teammates, for her coaches,” Sara Tirrell said. “She felt kind of bad about pulling them all into that circus again. And so she ultimately said, ‘This isn’t fun anymore and I don’t want to do it.’”

Parker’s father described the atmosphere as “palpable tension.”

Even playing on her own turf, “there would typically be a couple of police officers at the home games where there weren’t previously,” Zach Tirrell said.

In the past, Parker also played soccer in a recreation league and could still do so.

“But I think it all kind of still sort of weighs on her,” her mother said. “It’s the same group of kids that she plays with who, honestly, have been very supportive and love to have her on the team and have expressed that to her many times over. But I think she still has that worry in her brain around, ‘What are other people going to say and do if I show up at a game?’”

Parker’s parents hope she’ll return to playing soccer some day. In the meantime, “she plans to be around and use her voice to continue standing up to discrimination,” her mother said. “In some ways she’s had to grow up a lot faster than some of her peers.”

McCormack writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, N.J., contributed to this report.

Logan Webb has long been a bright spot amid San Francisco Giants chaos and dysfunction. Now he’s gone dark, deleting his X.com account after exchanging volleys with a radio reporter.

The right-hander who led the National League in innings pitched each of the last three seasons gave up five runs Wednesday in the first inning of the Giants’ 10-0 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, including surrendering the first grand slam of his career.

Webb settled down and tossed six scoreless innings thereafter. But the Giants were well on their way to dropping to 39-54, 21.5 games behind the first-place Dodgers. Blue Jays starter Dylan Cease took a no-hitter into the ninth inning before Heliot Ramos singled for the Giants’ lone hit.

Jack Loder, a clearly exasperated digital content producer for the Giants’ flagship station KNBR, posted a two-minute video on X shortly after the game that singled out Webb for criticism.

“People say, ‘How do you blame Webb when the offense didn’t do anything?’” Loder said. “Yes, the offense didn’t do anything. I’m spreading the blame here. Maybe they do something if it’s 0-0 or 1-0. When someone is supposed to be your ace, you think they are going to give you the best chance to win every week….

“I’ve really appreciated his Giant tenure, but there’s always been a little bit lacking. I wish he was a little bit more of an ace. Because Lord knows this team has needed him in so many instances the last few years.”

Loder then accurately predicted that Webb “might be searching his name on Twitter after the game, which is never a great look.”

Webb commented on Loder’s video soon thereafter: “You know what’s sad is they allow people like you in the locker room.”

Loder, in turn, posted Webb’s response, adding, “If you’re wondering where the Giants are at mentally after a 10-0 loss to fall to 16 games under .500.”

Webb responded to another reporter’s comment in the thread and to at least two Giants fans, telling one, “Honestly you probably don’t know anything about anything some loser on the couch that couldn’t make his little league team.”

Later in the evening, Webb deleted his account and has not reactivated it. Perhaps reporters may speak to him next at the All-Star Game. He is representing the Giants for the third year in a row.

Near the end of his video, Loder broadened his criticism: “The veterans — the highest-paid guys — let this team down, let the franchise down, let the fans down.”

Six Giants players are being paid more than $20 million this season: First baseman Rafael Devers ($25 million), third baseman Matt Chapman ($25 million), starter Robbie Ray ($25 million), Webb ($23 million), outfielder Jung Hoo Lee ($22 million) and shortstop Willy Adames ($21 million).

Only Chapman (2.5 WAR) has been worth even two wins above replacement, and he is on the injured list.

Giants woes have extended beyond the field. Four pitchers pushed back against the team’s annual Pride Night in June, with three writing Bible verses next to the rainbow-tinted logo on their caps and the fourth declining to wear the colorful cap at all. MLB informed them that they were in violation of uniform protocols, triggering a culture skirmish between one of the nation’s most vibrantly diverse and queer cities and Republican politicians who asserted that the players’ actions were an expression of religious freedom protected by the Constitution.

The response from Giants president and Hall of Fame catcher Buster Posey was considered inadequate. He refused to discuss the players’ actions or the team’s response, telling reporters, “I’ll take baseball questions.”

Baseball questions pertaining to the Giants have been numerous, from the hiring of a manager — Tony Vitello — who had zero professional baseball experience to Devers seemingly defying Vitello by waving off a pinch-runner to three outfielders engaging in a provocative hip-thrust celebration.

Webb’s social media meltdown can be added to the list.

UCLA coach Mick Cronin won a spirited recruiting battle for one of the top European prospects, landing wing player Nikola Kusturica on Thursday.

Kentucky, Michigan and Gonzaga had courted Kusturica, a 6-foot-9 Serbian who is among the top 17-year-old players in Europe. Recruiting websites listed Kusturica as a five-star prospect, and college basketball analysts at Field of 64 and other outlets project Kusturica could be a top-five 2028 NBA draft pick.

UCLA announced it received a signed grant-in-aid agreement from Kusturica, who will join the Bruins for the upcoming season.

He adds to a freshman class that already included three-star center Javonte Floyd from Cedar Grove High in Atlanta and four-star forward Joe Philon III from Montverde Academy in Tampa, Fla. — both of whom signed in April and enrolled in summer classes — and Gunars Grinvalds of Latvia, a former Real Madrid forward who committed to the Bruins on June 5.

“We are very excited to add Nikola to our program,” Cronin said. “Nikola is an elite prospect with great size, skill and a competitive fire which is hard to find. As a 6-foot-9 guard, he can play all over the floor. He impacts the game as a scorer, playmaker and shot blocker. For a very young player, Nik has had a decorated career with the Serbian national team and his club team in Barcelona. UCLA appreciates the support of his international team and his club for their cooperation and development of Nikola.”

Kusturica is expected to arrive in Westwood early next month and join team workouts that began on Thursday and continue for eight weeks.

Kusturica signed with FC Barcelona’s youth team in 2023 and became the youngest athlete to play in the Spanish club’s program. He helped FC Barcelona win the U18 Adidas Next Generation Tournament championship in May, averaging 16.2 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.2 assists in six games and collecting 20 points and 10 rebounds in the finals against Real Madrid.

This month, Kusturica averaged a team-leading 24.6 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2.7 assists in seven games for Serbia at the FIBA U17 World Cup in Istanbul, Turkey, shooting 46.8% from the field and 72.9% from the free-throw line, including a team-high 37 points in Serbia’s loss to the U.S. in Sunday’s gold-medal game.

He was named the tournament’s best defensive player and earned all-star honors after leading his team with 16 steals and 12 blocks.

Competing in Spain’s U22 league during the 2025-26 season, Kusturica averaged 13.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 19 games and scored in double digits 16 times.

Last year, Kusturica was named the most valuable player of the FIBA U16 EuroBasket tournament in Tbilisi, Georgia, after averaging 20 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game.

He led Serbia to its first U16 EuroBasket title since 2007, contributing 18 points, 14 rebounds, eight assists and five steals in a 99-86 victory over Lithuania in the finals.

One person clearly influential in UCLA’s recruitment was Yogi Jovanovic, UCLA’s director of international recruiting and an assistant coach. Like Kusturica, Jovanovic is Serbian and has been coach of the country’s U20 national team and is on track to be an assistant coach for Serbia’s Olympic team during the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

Grinvalds also signed a grant-in-aid agreement. The 6-7 forward competed for Real Madrid in Spain’s Liga ACB.

Two months ago at the U18 Adidas Next Generation Tournament in Greece, the 18-year-old averaged 12 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists in six games with Real Madrid.

“Gunars can really shoot the ball at an elite level,” Cronin said. “We like that he has good size at his position. Gunars is interested in his development and continued improvement as a player. We believe he is a great fit here at UCLA as he’s an excellent student and a very hard worker.”

They came for the soccer.

We gave them Americana.

Their tickets entitled them to World Cup games.

We threw in an education in United States history, geography, and the economics of the $20 baseball cap.

They expected an athletic tournament.

We staged a county fair, featuring nine exhibits stretched across 3,000 miles, with people and surroundings as varied as our twangs.

Visitors to the Boston venue will remember the success of the Soccer Train, a commuter rail and site of opposing pep rallies on the 50-minute trip to Foxboro Stadium.

Classic stories from the Los Angeles Times’ 143-year archive

Imagine that, longtime Bostonians said. A culture clash where nobody gets hurt.

Visitors to the Dallas venue will remember our failures: the blight around the aging Cotton Bowl, the empty seats inside, the construction-hampered traffic flow that turned game days into nightmares.

For nearly a month, in nine locations, the world has applauded our wonders, cringed at our bruises, and, in some places, even felt our embrace.

So how did we do?

Sometimes, we shined. Other times, we stumbled.

Sometimes we yelled too much, pushed too much. When the rest of the world was rushing joyfully out of a subway or dancing through an alley, often we put up our dukes and played the frightened bullies.

But we also smiled a lot, and listened a lot, and sometimes accepted that which we did not understand.

Like those hourlong postgame fan celebrations that forced stadium police to work overtime. We eventually realized something could not be so bad if it made so many people so happy.

We hollered and hugged, we were impatient and helpful. In other words, we were ourselves.

Sometimes we thrilled. But other times, we disappointed.

Visitors to the New York venue will remember what Dublin sales representative Gerry Taylor remembers.

Nothing.

Taylor learned on the first weekend that despite slick World Cup advertisements, New York was not New York.

Just as Boston was not Boston, but Foxboro. And Detroit was not Detroit, but Pontiac. And Los Angeles was Pasadena.

And New York was actually a smelly, industrial area in northern New Jersey.

Taylor left his Manhattan room early one Saturday morning, four hours before the opener between Italy and Ireland.

He wrapped himself in an Irish flag and planned on a making a pregame stop in a pub next door to Giants Stadium.

“Do this all the time in Dublin,” he said. “Pop a few Guinness at the pub, talk to other fans, get ready for the game.”

But upon arriving in East Rutherford, N.J., he realized the only thing he could drink next door to the stadium was toxic waste.

There wasn’t a pub in sight. Or a store. Or a house. Or even a street that wasn’t an expressway.

He spent the next three hours sitting with two friends on a curb, cursing his introduction to sports in America.

“Are all stadiums like this, away from cities, in the middle of nothing?” he asked. “Seems to me it must be hard to have good sports in places like this, isn’t it? We are let down.”

The only thing we can assure him, and others as disillusioned as Taylor, is it wasn’t because we didn’t try.

Rating the 1994 World Cup venues, best and worst of show:

Chicago

BEST: We knew this would be a great spot from the moment we first bit into something called “the Belly Buster,” sold at a hot dog stand near Soldier Field.

Ingredients: Polish beef dog, relish, ketchup, mustard, onions and jalapeno peppers. It lived up to its billing. Trust us.

And so did everything else.

Soldier Field is the perfect location for an international event, being just a short cab ride from one of America’s great downtowns.

Michigan Avenue has been buzzing for a month, what with German tourists in Bermuda shorts buying black patent leather shoes to accompany their white socks. At night, horse-drawn carriages fought with taxis for street space in some of the best action since Ben Hur.

Bolivian Marco Etcheverry tackles German captain Lothar Matthaeus from behind in Chicago, Ill. (AP Photo/Santiago Lyon)

(Santiago Lyon / Ap)

WORST: The only people who didn’t enjoy themselves here were the Greeks, both the national soccer players and the large Chicago-area community that gathered to watch them one Sunday morning against Bulgaria.

Greece lost that game, 4-0. In the process, the teams drove Greek fans so crazy they started seeing things.

At one point during the game, a Greek tossed a smoke bomb on the field, later claiming it was tradition to do so after his team scored.

His team is back in Athens, and it still hasn’t scored.

IMPRESSIONS: The World Cup’s kind of town, Chicago is. Not only were the streets brimming with international flavor, the shuttle system to Soldier Field was so efficient that cabbies complained about not getting enough chances to rip people off.

Now that’s a venue.

YOU HAD TO BE HERE: During a bachelor party held on the 36th floor of a prominent local hotel, somebody poured beer down the elevator shaft. By morning, the ale had dripped to ground floor and short-circuited the electrical system.

Many hotel guests–some checking out with reams of World Cup-related luggage–were forced to carry everything down 20 flights of stairs.

Once at the bottom, they had to tip valet-parking drivers for walking 10 steps to pick up their cars.

Boston

BEST: We marveled not at a city’s effect upon a World Cup, but vice versa.

“What has happened to a town divided along ethnic lines has been remarkable,” said E.J. Kahn of the Boston Host Committee.

By order of Mayor Tom Menino, the historic City Hall area was turned over to foreigners of every imaginable color and tongue.

Old-timers who never thought they would see an African soccer team playing at the home of the New England Patriots also never thought they would see people dancing on their cobblestone streets in tribal costumes.

Police were particularly worried the night after Argentina had defeated Greece in a first-round game. While the Greeks partied in front of City Hall, the Argentines celebrated eight blocks away in Copley Square.

The fiestas drew closer and closer until five Argentine fans wearing blue-and-white uniform shorts stood directly behind a dozen Greeks dancing in a circle.

Just as security guards prepared to move in, the circle slowly opened, and the Greeks motioned for the Argentines to join them. The Argentines did.

The hardened city sighed.

WORST: Many fans apparently didn’t realize that the game would be played about 45 minutes south of Boston in the desolate suburb of Foxboro.

And nobody knew that once they arrived at the stadium, in a forested area where parking availability seemed unlimited, parking spaces would cost $20 each.

Visitors got even with the World Cup Organizing Committee, though, by leaving their hotels in Boston and staying closer to the stadium in places such as Providence, R.I.

Our smallest state as a World Cup host? Not quite what organizers had in mind.

IMPRESSIONS: The Northeast may have tried harder than any other area, and it showed.

The normally reserved Bostonians, ranked 28th out of 36 U.S. city residents in a recent survey rating kindness to strangers, discovered warmth and tolerance.

When dozens of Irish tourists were swindled out of tickets, Bostonians found them more. When foreigners didn’t understand those distinct accents, Bostonians spoke more slowly.

YOU HAD TO BE HERE: For an hour after Argentina’s victory over Greece, more than a hundred Argentine fans remained at Foxboro Stadium, dancing and singing.

Police politely asked them to leave their seats, but the group only moved as far as the lower concourse. Thirty minutes later, police finally escorted them down the concourse and out the front gates, where they continued to party.

Was the game that exciting? Well, yes and no. With this stadium being 20 miles from the nearest decent-sized city, they had nowhere else to go.

Dallas

BEST: From the World Cup volunteers to city cab drivers, we appreciated the people. Amid bleak surroundings and uncomfortable temperatures, they provided the venue with some badly needed touches of humanity.

One hero was Laura Addington, a schoolteacher from Louisiana. She served as an interpreter for everyone. Well, at least everyone who spoke English, French, Spanish, Italian, German or Arabic.

Other stars were the African taxi drivers. They knew the roads, and they knew soccer, which is the only reason we were able to find Maradona during rush hour.

WORST: Some nights were almost cool enough to hold a sporting event. Yet most of the games were held in the blazing afternoon or early evening sun to accommodate European television.

Those brave enough to attend games suffered through stifling heat. Don’t buy those happy expressions you saw on ESPN. It was torture.

IMPRESSIONS: Dallas is a Cowboy town. And not the Germans, Argentines or any of the soccer fanatics who came through here changed that.

With poor attendance and a distinct lack of any electricity other than that generated by the Cowboys’ new set of uniforms, this proves there are about a thousand better places in this country to hold an international event.

Not that Dallas is a bad place–it’s merely the wrong place.

We have learned that events such as the World Cup require diversity of thought and appreciation of differences. Dallas is just too danged American for any of that.

What Dallas’ failure here portends for the 1996 Olympics in another southern town called Atlanta, well, that’s for another story.

YOU HAD TO BE HERE: By some estimates, the World Cup games here were outdrawn even by the demolition of the Cotton Exchange building downtown one Saturday morning. But at least at the soccer games, nobody was treated for smoke inhalation.

New York-New Jersey

BEST: With the melting pot of New York City nearby, this was the only truly international venue.

The stadium rocked with the sounds, colors and even smells of those countries competing.

Except for its location in New Jersey, Giants Stadium was also the perfect World Cup facility, with a beautiful field and gleaming facilities that had foreigners gawking.

WORST: The only Cup fever to hit New York City involved the Stanley Cup.

Maybe it was because of the Rangers. Or Knicks. Or Gay Games. It certainly wasn’t the Yankees, whose attendance was routinely tripled by the World Cup games.

Maybe it was because every day in New York City feels like an international festival. Or maybe it was because New York City simply didn’t have the time.

Whatever, the city that doesn’t sleep also didn’t care. It was interesting to drive to the stadium listening to New York City sports-talk radio hosts rip soccer, then arrive to discover mile-long lines at the front gates.

New Jersey license plates, all of them.

IMPRESSIONS: Organizers could save tourists and taxi fare by dropping all pretenses that the game is being played in New York City.

The success of this venue proves it is time to start celebrating the ethnic charms and splendid facilities of northern New Jersey . . . and leave New York to worry about the Mets.

YOU HAD TO BE HERE: The location for the World Cup host committee in this country’s largest city? New Brunswick, N.J., 90 minutes from Manhattan.

The location of these New Jersey-played games as listed on commemorative postal stamps? New York.

Detroit

BEST: Do not underestimate the accomplishment of organizers who ran the Detroit venue by avoiding all traces of Detroit.

Games were staged an hour’s drive north in the suburb of Pontiac, a bedroom community dominated by large front lawns and strip malls. If Detroit street gangs possess missiles that can fly that far, we didn’t see them.

The venue MVP (Most Valuable Professor) was Trey Rogers, the god of sod. The assistant prof of turf-grass science at Michigan State actually made grass grow inside the Silverdome.

After three years of experiments, at a cost of $2.4 million, the indoor stuff held up admirably and was hailed by all but the most serious allergy sufferers.

The crowd cheers at the Pontiac, Mich., Silverdome as the United States and Switzerland play. (AP Photo/Bill Waugh)

(Bill Waugh/AP)

WORST: Much like East Rutherford and Foxboro, there was no there there. The venue lacked big-city energy and a pulse.

The streets emptied at 10 p.m. After night games, if you hadn’t paid someone to hold a spot in line at Herschel’s Deli, the happening spot was a Taco Bell drive-through.

Of course, after a game in the non-air-conditioned Silverdome, all anybody wanted to do was lie down in a nice comfortable meat locker.

IMPRESSIONS: Smiling faces, helpful people, but mostly sweat. Three-alarm, two-shirt sweat.

YOU HAD TO BE HERE: After the June 24 game between Brazil and Sweden, a thunderstorm passed directly over the media tent as hundreds of journalists were filing their stories. The thunder was deafening and the tent shook as if it were going to break.

Lightning threatened to knock out the power. The lights flickered, World Cup officials implored reporters to save their files or risk losing them.

This scene was repeated at media and hospitality tents in most of the venues. But aside from the Mexican team, nothing in the tournament has collapsed.

Washington

BEST: We never thought we’d say this, but we liked the subways.

The blue line, which stopped three blocks from RFK stadium, was a shoulder-to-shoulder mass of international passion.

The Dutch fans made their mark by pounding on the ceilings. The Swiss, by chanting through the underground terminals.

The Mexicans demonstrated their presence with songs, singing loud even though they could barely breathe while crushed in overloaded cars during the final 10 minutes of the trip.

It was all underground, but it was true democracy, rare even for our nation’s capital.

WORST: Everything was wonderful until you actually walked inside RFK.

The stadium is falling apart. The Mexican fans literally caused it to rock with their constant bouncing during Mexico’s emotional tie with Italy.

The stadium security officials were surly and overbearing. Maybe it was those horrible purple berets that made them so mad.

The stadium media-tent volunteers, mostly of college age, were the worst. This would be of no interest to the public, except many worldwide impressions of this country are created by foreign journalists.

And those foreign journalists were treated horribly. Little attempt was made to understand or deal with them.

Tickets were refused with no explanation given. Attempts to talk with media coordinators were denied. Questions about the facility were greeted with shrugs.

Translators working player interviews refused to even offer translated quotes until they had been typed and apparently approved by supervisors, which often took two or three hours.

When one Middle Eastern journalist complained about discrimination, one college girl working as a volunteer laughed in his face and replied, “I don’t think so.”

IMPRESSIONS: Sports organizers beware. Any further events staged here should not involve any local volunteers or officials from this World Cup.

This is a wonderful city, and as our capital, it should be the one of the first places promoters go for big events. But now we wonder if haughty attitudes and low-rent facilities haven’t kept the big games away.

The pre-game show at RFK Stadium prior to the Norway v Mexico group stage match of 1994 FIFA World Cup. (Photo by David Caban/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

(David Caban/David Caban)

YOU HAD TO BE HERE: A local activist hung a “Save Bosnia” sign in the stands during the opening game here between Mexico and Norway. It was taken down by local officials. He sued for the right to display it. He won.

Not that the guy wanted to rub it in, but visible the next game were two “Save Bosnia” signs.

San Fransisco-Palo Alto

BEST: We love Los Gatos. This mountain town of 28,000 near San Jose has adopted–and been adopted by–the Brazilians.

After Brazil’s games at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, Los Gatos became Little Rio, complete with samba music, incessant drumbeats and conga lines through Town Plaza Park.

“This is very exciting,” local resident Judy VanKampen said. “It is totally different than what you normally see in Los Gatos, which is people walking down the street with dogs and strollers.”

Even though crowds were lively, they were orderly. Some of the women might have strained the city’s public decency codes with their skimpy bikinis, but city officials, to their credit, looked the other way.

Sure they did.

Brazilian forward Romario beats United States defender Alexi Lalas at Stanford Stadium, July 4, 1994 in Stanford, Calif. (AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle)

(Thomas Kienzle / Associated Press)

WORST: The whining of Palo Alto politicians because World Cup organizers identified the venue as San Francisco.

But unless we are missing something, nobody has written a song called, “I Left My Heart in Palo Alto.”

IMPRESSIONS: Of all the venues, Stanford University was the worst in creating obstacles for World Cup organizers.

University officials were in position to drive a hard bargain because FIFA, soccer’s organizing body, wanted a presence in San Francisco but did not want to use Candlestick Park because of its smaller size.

Thus, Stanford Stadium is by far the least modern of the venues. Even though some improvements were made, World Cup organizers did not get all of their demands met.

Yet those academics learned that the World Cup is just the type of event that educational institutions should be encouraging.

The excellent soccer is the least of its legacies. Teams from four continents played here, and the visitors who followed those teams to Palo Alto left something of themselves behind.

Unfortunately for the merchants, it was not money. They were disappointed in their take.

But the visitors contributed something more valuable, their cultures. Los Gatos, one feels, will never be the same.

YOU HAD TO BE HERE: A Brazilian woman walked into an ice cream store in Los Gatos one hot day and ordered a beer.

Los Angeles-Pasadena

BEST: My, but the old lady still can sing. Our Rose Bowl looked wonderful with its face lift and colorful frills.

When the air is clear and the heat isn’t oppressive, there is no better view in this World Cup than that of the San Gabriel mountains looming behind the Rose Bowl scoreboard.

Well, OK, the view of that scoreboard after the United States played Columbia was pretty nice too.

Soccer fans inside the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, Calif., prior to World Cup Final match between Brazil and Italy, Sunday July 17, 1994. (AP Photo/Lois Bernstein)

(Lois Bernstein / Associated Press)

WORST: That World Cup chief Alan Rothenberg would allow his hometown facility to rip off hungry and thirsty soccer fans–many of them his neighbors–with inflated prices is inexcusable. Two dollars and fifty cents for a Sno-cone? Fish and chips for $7.50?

IMPRESSIONS: The scene reminds us of the 1984 Olympics, causing emotions we never thought we would feel again. Traffic flowing smoothly, the city clean and pressed, citizens talking about something fun.

Surveys say that many people here couldn’t care less about the event, but the ones who do have made it memorable.

YOU HAD TO BE HERE: With so many men ignoring the “Women” signs on the portable toilets outside the Rose Bowl, officials placed “Out of Order” signs on several working potties and secretly passed around the word that women should use those.

Orlando

BEST: Quick, somebody get this town an NFL team. There was no better stadium-area atmosphere than here, where fans congregated less than a mile from the Florida Citrus Bowl at a trendy shopping and dining area called Church Street Station.

One night the Dutch fans were having so much fun, they started stealing baseball caps from policemen. Another night, the Mexicans were having so much fun they lay down on the railroad tracks upon hearing an oncoming train.

OK, so maybe we don’t all have the same kinds of fun.

Expensive restaurants became rollicking pubs. Thousands of foreigners became wailing, wandering messes.

Did we mention that the Irish were also in town?

WORST: This was soccer in a sauna. Every team that played under the unforgiving midday sun recorded a triumph of spirit.

For fans, merely getting to the games was a similar triumph. Ten dollars to ride a parking lot shuttle? Fifteen dollars to park at a local school, with the money being handed to a member of the PTA?

This was central Florida hucksterism at its worst. But then, they learned from the experts down the street, those guys wearing the ears.

IMPRESSIONS: With the Dutch and Belgians in town, this was supposed to be the site of hooliganism. Police from around the state were summoned for 12-hour shifts. But nothing happened. The most serious crime involved people refusing to leave bars at closing time.

Already our vacation capital, Orlando proved that it deserves to become a sports capital as well. It knows how to turn a game into an event without anybody getting hurt.

After existing for so long in the shadow of fantasyland, it acts as if it loves this real stuff.

YOU HAD TO BE HERE: In the downtown area on July 4, fans from everywhere joined to sing “Happy Birthday.”

To whom? To the United States, of course. Considering how we came of age in yet another international sporting scene this summer, it was a happy birthday indeed.

Times staff writers Elliott Almond, Julie Cart, Lisa Dillman, Chris Dufresne, Helene Elliott, Randy Harvey, Mike Penner and Times Sports Editor Bill Dwyre contributed to this story.

Obsidian Entertainment, a subsidiary of Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox, has canceled multiple projects and will begin working on a new game in the popular Fallout franchise as part of the division’s broader restructuring, according to people familiar with the matter.

The video-game studio, based in Irvine, California, also laid off around a quarter of its workforce, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

As part of the shake-up, Obsidian has canceled a planned sequel to the 2025 roleplaying game Avowed along with other unannounced projects.

Under the new plan, studio design director Josh Sawyer will lead a new title in the Fallout universe — a series of roleplaying games that take place in an alternate history in which the U.S. has been ravaged by nuclear war. The emerging strategy is still in flux, the people said, and could still change.

Previously, Sawyer had been directing a roleplaying game that was similar structurally and thematically to Fallout but was not part of the franchise.

An Xbox spokesperson declined to comment.

The shifts take place as Xbox Chief Executive Officer Asha Sharma executes what she has called a “reset” of the organization. On Monday, Sharma announced plans to cut 3,200 jobs and divest five studios. She’s said she’ll invest more in the company’s biggest franchises, including Fallout, which has sold tens of millions of copies and led to a hit show from Amazon.com Inc. that is currently filming its third season.

Despite its critical and commercial success, the Fallout video-game series has not seen a new entry since 2018’s online title Fallout 76 because its primary developer, Xbox’s Bethesda Game Studios, has been focused on other projects. Bethesda has also regularly updated and created new content for Fallout 76, which has reached more than 23 million players.

The only Fallout game in the last two decades to not come from Bethesda was 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian and directed by Sawyer. Although New Vegas has become a fan favorite, Bethesda has maintained control over the franchise. The Rockville, Maryland-based studio will work with Obsidian on the new project, the people said.

Obsidian released three games last year, two of which did not meet sales expectations, including Avowed, the company told Bloomberg Businessweek. The studio had been hoping to build on Avowed by developing a sequel in a shorter timeframe using the world and technology that it had already created.

Progress on the sequel was going well, and it was on track to be announced within the next year. But in the end, it did not fit into Sharma’s overall strategy, according to people familiar with the game’s development.

Some Obsidian employees will continue working on the Avowed sequel as they wait for new projects such as Fallout to be ready, perhaps in hope of one day reviving the game, the people said.

Obsidian will also continue to develop downloadable content for last year’s The Outer Worlds 2, the people said, and will also still work on its live-service multiplayer survival game, Grounded 2.

Schreier writes for Bloomberg.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup quarterfinals are set to begin Thursday when Kylian Mbappé and France take on an upset-minded Morocco team.

World Cup co-hosts U.S., Canada and Mexico will be watching from the sideline after being eliminated in the round of 16.

Here’s everything you need to know about the World Cup matches being played Thursday, Friday and Saturday across the U.S., Mexico and Canada (all times Pacific).

Thursday’s quarterfinal match

France vs. Morocco

France’s Kylian Mbappé jogs on the field during a win over Iraq in the World Cup on June 22.

(Derik Hamilton / Associated Press)

Where: Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass.
Time: 1 p.m.
TV: Fox, Telemundo | Streaming: Fox One, Peacock

The buzz: France, bidding to make its third consecutive World Cup final, needed a penalty kick from Kylian Mbappé to dispatch stubborn Paraguay, a third-place team, in the round of 16. France has scored 16 times — Mbappé has seven of them, giving him 19 career World Cup goals — while goalkeeper Mike Maignan has conceded just two goals in five matches. Morocco, a semifinalist four years ago, advanced with a 3-0 win over Canada that ran its unbeaten streak to 34 games. Azzedine Ounahi scored twice in that game and is one of three Moroccan players with multiple goals. Morocco, a former French colony, has almost as many French-born players on its roster, six, as it does native Moroccans, seven.

Friday’s quarterfinal match

Spain vs. Belgium

Spain goalkeeper Unai Simón catches the ball in front of Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo during Spain’s round-of-16 win on July 6.

(Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)

Where: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood
Time: Noon
TV: Fox, Telemundo | Streaming: Fox One, Peacock

The buzz: Spain is the first team in World Cup history to record six consecutive shutouts and goalkeeper Unai Simón has gone 609 minutes without allowing a World Cup goal, a streak that dates to group play of the last tournament four years ago. Spain, however, has struggled to score consistently, collecting a goal or less in three of its five games, including a round-of-16 win over Portugal on Mikel Merino’s goal in stoppage time. Mikel Oyarzabal is Spain’s leading scorer with four goals. Belgium earned its place in the quarterfinals by thumping the U.S. 4-1 in Seattle in its most complete game of the tournament. Belgium outshot the Americans 15-7, putting seven on target. Charles De Ketelaere had a brace in the first half and Belgium never looked back. For an aging golden generation of Belgian players, including Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Thibaut Courtois and Axel Witsel, this might be the final chance to grab a title.

Saturday’s quarterfinal matches

Norway vs. England

England’s Harry Kane celebrates after scoring during a win over Mexico on July 5.

(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press)

Where: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Fla.
Time: 2 p.m.
TV: Fox, Telemundo | Streaming: Fox One, Peacock

The buzz: The forecast calls for temperatures in the high 80s, humidity at 77% and a chance of rain, challenging conditions for two teams from northern Europe. Norway, which knocked off Brazil to reach the quarterfinals for the first time, has scored 12 times in five games — Erling Haaland has seven of those, including both against Brazil — but has conceded nine, winning just once by more than a goal. Haaland’s 39% shot-conversation rate is the best in a World Cup since 1986. Unbeaten England had to gut out a tough win in the rare air of Mexico City with just 10 men to reach the quarterfinals for a third straight time. Captain Harry Kane is fourth in the Golden Boot race with six goals.

Argentina vs. Switzerland

Argentina’s Lionel Messi celebrates after scoring against Egypt on July 7 at the World Cup.

(Associated Press)

Where: Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, Mo.
Time: 6 p.m.
TV: Fox, Telemundo | Streaming: Fox One, Peacock

The buzz: Unbeaten Argentina needed three goals in 13 minutes to stay that way, barely escaping its round-of-16 game with Egypt on Enzo Fernández’s goal in stoppage time. Lionel Messi’s tying goal in the 83rd minute extended his World Cup scoring streak to nine games. He entered the quarterfinals leading the tournament with eight goals. Switzerland, also unbeaten, eliminated Colombia on penalties to reach the quarterfinals for the first time since 1954. The Swiss have nine goals, three of those coming from 20-year-old Johan Manzambi, the youngest player on the team.

ARLINGTON, Tex. — Mike Trout hit a two-run homer in his return from the injured list, Jo Adell had two home runs and drove in a career-high five runs and the Angels beat the Texas Rangers 13-1 on Wednesday night.

Trout, who missed 17 games due to a strained right hamstring, hit a 438-foot shot that gave the Angels an 11-0 lead in the eighth. Trout has 48 homers against the Rangers, the most by any player since the franchise moved to Texas in 1972 and the second-most ever against the club. Reggie Jackson hit 54 home runs against the Washington Senators/Texas Rangers.

Adell hit a two-run shot in the fourth inning and a three-run homer in the fifth that made it 7-0.

Vaughn Grissom went 4 for 5 with a double and four RBIs, and Zach Neto was 3 for 4 with two doubles and three runs. Denzer Guzman and Jose Siri each had two hits.

Angels starter Walbert Ureña threw 90 pitches and walked five in four scoreless innings before he was replaced by Samy Natera Jr. (1-0) to begin the fifth. Natera, a rookie left-hander, had five strikeouts in two perfect innings for his first career win.

Neto doubled to lead off the game, and scored when Grissom singled off MacKenzie Gore (5-8).

Pinch-hitter Kyle Higashioka hit a leadoff homer in the ninth for the Rangers.

Higashioka pitched the ninth — his second career appearance on the mound — and gave up two runs. The 36-year-old catcher also gave up two runs in a 12-2 loss to Minnesota on June 16.

Gore gave up seven runs and nine hits with seven strikeouts in five innings.

Caitlin Clark will be in the lineup when the Indiana Fever face the Sparks at Crypto.com Arena after a week-plus of discourse around the star player.

Clark, who has had season-long back problems, did not play on Sunday in Las Vegas. Fever coach Stephanie White said Clark would play on Wednesday against the Sparks.

Earlier in the day, a dozen Republican lawmakers announced they sent a letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert arguing the league has failed to adequately protect Clark from physical play.

“Unfortunately, what they too often witness is not simply aggressive competition, but repeated acts of unnecessary physical hostility and violence,” the lawmakers wrote. “Clark has been hip-checked, poked in the eye, and struck in the throat during games. These incidents go far beyond routine physical play, yet the WNBA and its officiating have too often failed to address these unacceptable incidents and hold players accountable.”

When asked about the letter after their shootaround in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, White stepped aside for team spokesperson Jackie Maynard to read a statement:

“Our organization, nor Caitlin, have had any interaction with anyone in the congressional group and were unaware of their letter. We have been clear in our public comments and in our ongoing dialogue with the league about the priority of player safety. Our players and our fans know where we stand on these issues and continue to stick up for our team and a standard of excellence across the league.”

Alyssa Thomas was given a flagrant foul 2 penalty, fined $1,000 and suspended one game at the start of July for pushing her right fist into Clark’s throat when they both fell on the court during the Mercury’s 111-109 win on June 24 in Indianapolis.

It was originally not called a foul, and a still image of Thomas’ hand in Clark’s throat went viral on social media and stirred up discourse among those in and out of the basketball world.

In the aftermath, Thomas said she got several online attacks, some of which are “threatening our lives.”

White denounced “unacceptable” online behavior from fans last week, and Clark followed up by saying, “I don’t want anyone to ever experience that.”

The letter was led by Texas congressman August Pfluger, chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

“As Commissioner, you have an obligation to ensure that every player competes in a safe and professional environment, both on and off the court, free from violence, discrimination, or retaliation,” the lawmakers wrote. “If discrimination or retaliation is occurring and creating a hostile work environment, we support any appropriate investigation by the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. If true, such conduct could constitute violations of federal civil rights laws.”

The letter finished with three questions for Engelbert, which it demanded the commissioner respond to by July 24. What is your review mechanism for physical hostility and violence on the court? How will you hold players accountable for overly aggressive actions on the court, including towards Caitlin Clark? What steps are you taking to protect WNBA players from online harassment and off-the-court threats?

Conservative commentator Riley Gaines posted the letter and her support of it on social media, which showed signatures from Iowa lawmaker Zach Nunn and Indiana representatives Marlin Stutzman and Victoria Spartz.

White said that Clark would not play on Thursday night in Phoenix, rotating her with star center Aliyah Boston to manage both of their workloads on the team’s first set of back-to-back games.

Everyone knew going in that Lionel Messi would be the narrative centerpiece of the 2026 World Cup. Easily the most recognized name in the competition, Messi is considered by many to be the greatest soccer player of all time and, as the captain of 2022 winner Argentina, he is the reigning World Cup champ. At 18, he scored his first World Cup goal in 2006 and has competed in every World Cup since. He celebrated his 39th birthday before this year’s knockout rounds began, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that this will be his last.

No matter what Messi did, or failed to do, it would be News. Everyone with even a passing interest in the event knew this. Including me.

But I didn’t expect to completely fall for the guy. He’s a professional male athlete, for heaven’s sake, and I don’t emotionally invest in professional male athletes. Admire some of them, sure; watch with bated breath and then scream in astonishment when they pull off some amazing feat or another, absolutely. But the only athletes that have ever touched my heart have been women — Nadia Comăneci; Billie Jean King and the Title IX-sparking stars of women’s tennis; Dorothy Hamill; Brandi Chastain and 1999 Women’s World Cup winners; Venus and Serena Williams; Simone Biles; Caitlin Clark.

But here I am, at age 62, truly, madly, deeply in love with Lionel Messi.

I know, I know, me and half the world. Which normally would serve as an effective prophylactic. I am habitually wary of super-intense fandoms and the men who inspire them; stadiums filled with people chanting a single name inevitably set off internal alarm bells. As I have asked several times in columns throughout the years, how many “heroes” must we watch falter under pressure or be exposed for decidedly unheroic acts before we wise up and get out of the pedestal-placement business?

Yet here I am, stalking him on Instagram, up all hours flicking through interviews and career highlight clips. (I even watched the Apple TV docuseries “Messi Meets America”!) Here I am, literally praying to God, who clearly has more important things to do, for Argentina to advance and screaming Messi’s name every time he scores, assists or pretty much does anything at all.

In a matter of weeks, I have become addicted not just to watching the man play but seeing how he reacts when a shot is made or a game won.

Every World Cup player is happy when they or their team scores, but Messi is delighted. Like a kid seeing a puppy under the tree on Christmas morning. Like he cannot believe this wonderful thing that has just happened even if he was the one who sweat and ran and defied physics to make it happen.

His smile is infectious and even when he is running toward the stands, arms spread wide, after making some impossible shot or other, it never seems self-congratulatory. He is simply filled with joy and wants to spread it around. The field, the stadium, the world.

And his hugs. Long, deep, radiating emotion, utterly unself-conscious. Everyone needs to find someone who hugs them like Messi hugs people — teammates, coaches, opposing players, young fans. I could watch videos of him hugging his mentor and former teammate Ronaldinho or Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni all day long. (I’m not saying I have, nor am I saying I haven’t.)

Sometimes the hype gets a bit nauseating — former teammates who claim he never makes a mistake, commentators who refer to him as superhuman (despite the fact that he has missed as many penalty kicks as he has made in this World Cup). Whether Messi himself agrees that he is the GOAT is none of my business, but he doesn’t act like many sports stars who have received similar adulation. He doesn’t peacock, he doesn’t preen; he is visibly angry with himself when he doesn’t produce. He isn’t perfect — in various past games, he has gotten into heated disputes and shoving matches and famously (and many believe deservedly) taunted Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal during World Cup 2022. But for a man who has been such a star for so long, he presents himself as simply a player among players. The captain, certainly, but not the most important person on the field.

That is the most lovable, and superhuman, thing about him.

It feels pretty basic, not to mention embarrassing, to have a sudden summer crush on Messi, but I don’t care. He’s married to his childhood sweetheart, has three adorable sons and a picture of his mother tattooed on his back. He lets his teammates hoist him in the air and allows sports commentators to regularly (and lovingly) refer to him as “Little Messi.” He gets angry sometimes, but in this tournament he has yet to noticeably hector the refs or rumble with his opponents. He wants to win, obviously, but his joy comes from playing the game well rather than defeating another team.

That’s why, despite my newfound addiction to Messi delight, the moment I loved him best was when he didn’t celebrate at all. In the round of 32, Argentina (No. 2 in FIFA rankings) seemed guaranteed a win over Cape Verde (67). But even with Messi’s early goal, the game was a nail-biter, with Cape Verde scoring two brilliant goals while their goalie Vozinha made eight saves, including four shots (one of them a free kick) from Messi. After Argentina won in additional playing time, there was none of the usual jubilation. Instead, a subdued Messi walked to the midfield to shake hands with his opponents, a sign of exhaustion, no doubt, but also of respect. He hugged Vozinha and told him that his country should be proud of him.

The exuberance was back Tuesday, however, when, after trailing Egypt for most of the round of 16 game, Argentina managed to pull off the comeback of the tournament, going from a 0-2 deficit to a 3-2 win after the 79th minute, with Messi scoring the tying goal.

This time, the smiles, the hugs, the radiant joy filling Atlanta Stadium could have powered the entire state of Georgia. This time, Messi was so happy, he wept.

So did I. The World Cup is over in less than two weeks, and France and Spain are currently the 1-2 favorites to win the thing. My love for Messi is, after all, just a summer romance.

And as with any summer romance, I want it to last forever.

Netflix is going bite-sized. In a pivot toward the short-form content dominating TikTok and YouTube, the streaming giant announced it will start hosting three- to 20-minute videos from top digital publishers right on its homepage starting Aug. 3.

The streamer said U.S. customers will see “fan-favorite videos” from brands run by digital publishers, including BuzzFeed Studios, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, PMX (a subdivision of Penske Media), People Inc. and Tastemade. The videos will cover a variety of topics, including gardening tips, travel and celebrity profiles.

The rollout comes as Netflix competes for audience time from YouTube and social media platforms such as TikTok that have viral videos that can occupy users for hours. By bringing series such as BuzzFeed Celeb’s “30 Questions,” on which celebrities provide answers, or Vanity Fair’s “Lie Detector,” on which celebrities are hooked up to polygraph machines, Netflix users can learn more information about the people they already watch on the streamer, but in shorter videos.

“Members don’t just want to watch a show or film and move on. They want to keep exploring the stories and personalities they love long after the final credits roll,” said John Derderian, a Netflix vice president overseeing the initiative. “These partnerships help us deepen fandom and create more ways for members to carry those stories with them throughout their day.”

Netflix said it will offer licensed archival and ongoing series, including Harper’s Bazaar’s “Burning Questions,” Billboard’s “24 Hrs With” and People’s “My Life in Pictures” that provide an inside look at celebrities.

The videos from digital publishers will also be available to Netflix customers in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand on Aug. 3.

The Los Gatos, Calif., streamer over time has been expanding its library of content, adding games, live programming such as boxing matches and football games, alongside movies and TV shows.

This World Cup has made unlikely international stars out of a plucky Cape Verde squad, further catapulted the status of gargantuan Norwegian striker Erling Haaland and firmly planted Lionel Messi as the greatest player of his generation.

But the players on the pitch haven’t been the only ones catching the eyes of soccer viewers.

Another legend among legends has also cemented his legacy during this run: Aurelio Casillas — the fictional drug kingpin and protagonist at the heart of the long-running Telemundo series “El Señor de los Cielos.”

The 10th season of the program finds Casillas reemerging to recover his narcotics empire after disappearing from his family’s radar. Familial drama ensues as betrayal runs rampant and Casillas embarks on a vengeful crusade against his enemies to regain and avenge the death of his love interest.

The image of Casillas, portrayed by veteran Mexican actor Rafael Amaya, has been plastered all across Telemundo’s World Cup coverage.

In the ads leading into games, Casillas is there. During most commercial rejoins, hosts spotlight the “El Señor de los Cielos” final season‘s Tuesday premiere.

The promotion has gone beyond what most U.S. audiences might be accustomed to as the network has cleverly implemented in-game ad reads that seem to flow freely into match coverage.

If Haaland coordinates a strike that helps Norway regain power in the game, a Telemundo game announcer might point out that decorated drug trafficker Casillas has also been known to schedule timely strikes to help him regain power in the dangerous world of narco warfare.

The incessant and cheeky ad reads served as more than just a gimmick as social media users have taken note of Telemundo’s marketing strategy. Many have joked about capitulating to the network’s advertising and giving the show a try. Others have humorously pondered about the contents of the program, while some have defiantly proclaimed that they will never fall for the series’ propaganda.

Hate it or love it, people can’t stop talking about it.

During halftime of Friday’s high-octane Argentina-Cape Verde Round of 32 match, Telemundo sportscaster Adriana Monsalve nodded to the online chatter the show has generated.

“We’ve read your messages on social media,” Monsalve said. “Between those who have said they’ve been convinced and those who admitted that they will be watching ‘El Señor de los Cielos,’ all we have to say is thank you. We await you all this Tuesday at 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central on Telemundo and Peacock.”

This type of over-the-top promotion model has long been used by the network as a way to convince advertisers that running commercials on its airways is worthwhile, noted University of Oregon advertising professor Christopher Chávez.

“They’ve really had to scrap it out over the years and so their product placement has always been overt, whereas in English-language media, there’s at least some attempt to make it creative or artistic,” Chávez, who also serves as the director of his school’s Center for Latina/o and Latin American Studies, told The Times. “There’s just this history of announcers and creatives really just going all in on marketing and almost not disciplining themselves, and because you have this global platform, people are just taking notice and they’re having fun with it.”

Telemundo’s executive vice president of marketing and creative strategy, Claudia Chagui, told The Times that the company had a game plan for how to approach the moment for “El Señor de los Cielos.”

“We had a very clear strategy going into the World Cup,” Chagui said. “We knew what we wanted to do in terms of how to protect our core fans and how to attract English-leaning Hispanics and maybe even general market fans to come and watch it in Spanish and all of that happened. We knew that this launchpad for ‘El Señor’ was going to be the strongest platform we could have.”

Chávez remarked that the Telemundo likely put a lot of stock in engaging Latinos online in the hopes that they would have fun with the marketing rollout.

“[Telemundo] knows that Latinos are younger and tend to be more proficient users of social media and more likely to share content,” Chávez said. “They’re very aware of that kind of market research, so whatever they put out there, hopefully it’s going to be meme-able or it’s going to be shareable. I think they’re pretty much banking on that.”

Chagui said that while much of the viral online chatter is beyond the control of the network, Telemundo’s social team has been locked in to the conversations regarding the show.

“We have our ‘El Señor’ account and even our Aurelio account — who is commenting on some of these conversations — and we’re making sure that our community feels like they’re being heard,” Chagui noted. “There is a real fan community around this IP and we take that very seriously. We want to take care of our fans.”

The show has been able to have such reach this World Cup cycle because more U.S. viewers are opting to tune in to Telemundo’s coverage than ever before.

In a recent social media post, Telemundo said that nearly half of all World Cup viewers stateside are watching its coverage.

NPR reported that 20% of Telemundo’s soccer audience speaks English as their primary language. Telemundo Deportes leadership told the outlet that the network’s telecast numbers have increased by 122% since the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

“It’s so much better when we’re watching it on Telemundo, because the announcers are not simply announcing the game, they’re engaging with the audiences themselves,” said Mari Castañeda, University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Commonwealth Honors College dean. “They’re really leaning into a more Latino aesthetic that is much more loose, open, joyful, kind of like a party atmosphere that changes the vibe and makes it become more celebratory, which it should be. The World Cup is meant to bring people together and it really seems to be doing that.”

That level of involvement from the commentators was something that Telemundo’s marketing team made sure to instill in its talent pool, Chagui noted.

“We work with our sports team and say, ‘These are the things that are top priorities for us from a promotional perspective,’ and our team creates all those mentions for those commentators and we work hand-in-hand with the sports team to make sure that there’s time within the games for them to be able to make those mentions,” she said.

“We tweak that messaging along the way to make sure that it doesn’t become too repetitive, that people don’t get tired of it. And now when the season starts, you’ll see that those mentions are going to be even more organic and will be more related to what’s happening on the show at the time.”

An unexpected added element that fell into Telemundo’s lap was the dream run of Mexico’s national team in the tournament.

“We prayed for that, but it’s been tremendous,” Chagui said. “[The Round of 32 game against Ecuador] had over 17 million viewers, so talk about a dream promotional platform. We really couldn’t ask for more.”

Chávez saw this current cultural moment as a great time for “El Señor de los Cielos” to potentially add a slew of new viewers, especially among English-first audiences.

“One of the things that streaming platforms like Netflix has done is that you’re starting to now see preferences change,” he said. “American audiences are starting to consume Korean dramas, for example, or Spanish-language dramas … [these] platforms have changed people’s comfort levels with consuming content that is not necessarily in English.”

Chagui also credited Telemundo’s streaming home, Peacock, as an important driver of popularity for “El Señor de los Cielos.”

“Now everybody watches content in any language, so I think the partnership with Peacock has been tremendous, because we know a lot of consumers don’t watch linear television anymore, and so if you’re not available on the streaming platforms, then you already hit a brick wall … we have to be available where our audiences are consuming content,” Chagui said.

If you’re one of the many people intrigued by the series, but find the idea of doing nine seasons of catch-up viewing daunting — there’s no need to fear, Telemundo has got you covered.

Seizing on the show’s newfound increase in popularity, the network created a special episode of “El Señor de los Cielos” that recaps all nine seasons of the series in under two hours.

“We needed a catch-up strategy because core fans are going to want to catch up before the premiere of the new season, but we’re going to bring in all these new eyeballs with the World Cup, and so we had to have something that is easy for them to understand what the series is about so they can hit the ground running,” Chagui said. “That’s where we had this idea to do this 90-minute recap of all nine seasons and so since we launched that on Peacock and the consumption has been off the charts.”

But the appeal of the “El Señor de los Cielos,” which began airing back in 2013 and is inspired by the real-life escapades of Mexican drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, goes beyond just the viral marketing.

“I think for a lot of the folks that were not watching it, but that now are interested and fascinated by the show, [the appeal] is that it’s based loosely on a true story,” Castañeda said. “That’s one of the things that in talking to some of the elders in the community is what connects them to the story itself, it feels like it’s something relevant and contemporary because it’s based on the potential of a true story that’s taking place.”

Castañeda added that the program’s high production value and explosive action scenes make “El Señor de los Cielos” seem like “a fun show to watch.”

Amaya’s turn as the sinister yet family-focused Aurelio Casillas has drawn comparisons to James Gandolfini’s portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano — a distinction the actor dubbed an “honor” as “The Sopranos” is one of his favorite series.

In a conversation with The Times, Amaya embodied the corporate synergy that has piqued interest in his show.

“Our World Cup are TV series and I think that we’ve scored a bunch of goals during the decade that we’ve been telling a story that always been buzz-worthy and that has passed from generation to generation,” Amaya said. “All that is thanks to the viewers and to the characters who have evolved and remained relevant.”

In addition to the plethora of ads, the “El Señor de los Cielos” lead actor contributed to Telemundo’s World Cup coverage through a special program titled “Diarios de Fútbol con Rafael Amaya.” The show follows Amaya around L.A. as he speaks with soccer legends about the transformative power of the sport.

When asked what new viewers of the show should expect, Amaya kept it simple.

“They’re obviously going to see a series filled with adrenaline, betrayal, unexpected turns,” Amaya said. “In this 10th season there are a lot of changes, and I think it’s the best season yet.”

Forty-nine seconds. That’s all it took for the Seattle Storm’s Flau’jae Johnson to fire off a 27-foot three-point jumper to take the lead. In less than a minute, she sank the Sparks’ hopes of beating one of the worst teams in the WNBA, leaving 39 more minutes for the Sparks to consider just how the team got there.

Johnson, already the main act in Seattle, bolstered her WNBA Rookie of the Year case by scoring 23 points as the Storm defeated the Sparks 82-64 Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.

Each time the Storm drove down the court, there was Johnson, her ponytail fluttering as she skirted around the arc before driving into the paint, nonchalantly tossing up layups as if it was still shootaround. Not even the relentless defense chants summoned from the Sparks’ MCs stopped her.

“I don’t know,” coach Lynne Roberts said after the game. “We just weren’t good offensively.”

And while her teammates supplied Johnson with enough passes to at one point secure a 13-point lead, the Sparks (8-11) lost because the team couldn’t build enough momentum.

In the end, Seattle outmaneuvered and outbodied the Sparks, snatching steals and flipping the ball around the perimeter until the Storm fired off a shot. Even when the ball bounced off the rim or backboard, Johnson or Storm center Dominique Malonga, who had nine rebounds, was there, hoisting the basketball away from the closest white jersey.

When asked how the team could’ve compensated defensively, Dearica Hamby kept it short: “Stop them from scoring.”

In comparison, the Sparks, without an offensive rebound until the end of the third quarter, were forced to make perfect shots, though that was far from the team’s grasp. Hamby, who went six for nine, led the team with 17 points, but even she couldn’t go toe-to-toe with Johnson alone. Worse, the Sparks’ abysmal 17.2 three-point percentage all but abandoned that avenue of attack, leaving the team to face Malonga in the paint.

“I’m not trying to let us off the hook at all, but sometimes you just have nights like that, and we all had them at the same time,” Roberts said. “Shooting 17% from three doesn’t help.”

The Sparks struggled to transition to the basket, giving up 19 turnovers resulting in 25 free baskets.

“I don’t think that there is a strong line of playing in transition,” Nneka Ogwumike said. “Sometimes we attribute taking an early shot to transition when in reality, if you’re taking an early, contested shot in transition, it’s probably not the most ideal shot.”

So as the Sparks fell further behind, the holes left by the injured Cameron Brink and Kelsey Plum widened.

In the Sparks’ previous matchup against the Storm a month ago, the two had totaled 34 points in the nail-biting 88-83 win. But in Monday’s game, the Sparks could only cling to the game with clenched fists as the gap widened.

“Credit them,” Roberts said. “They played hard and made shots. We missed them.”

By the end, the Sparks spent the game playing catch-up, never regaining the lead after surrendering it in the first 49 seconds to Johnson.

Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing spun to face home plate umpire Dan Iassogna, holding up his mitt with the ball inside.

When that didn’t change the safe call, Dalton immediately pointed to the Dodgers dugout, mask in hand urging manager Dave Roberts to challenge.

Robert’s hands flew up to his ears, asking for a replay review.

The tension in Dodger Stadium broke with the announcement: “The catcher touched the runner’s hand before he reached the plate…”

The crowd’s applause drowned out the rest.

The go-ahead run had been on the line with that challenge in the Dodgers’ eventual 8-7 win over the Rockies in 11 innings. And it started a wild sequence to the Dodgers’ first extra-innings game of the season that ended with Rushing hitting a walk-off single to center field to score Teoscar Hernández.

That brawl with the Rockies — figuratively and almost literally — finished with the Dodgers becoming the first team to win 60 games this season.

“That’s a lot of wins,” Roberts said.

It looked as if the Dodgers would coast to the mark. Dodgers closer Tanner Scott took the mound in the ninth with a three-run lead. But after giving up an RBI double to Kyle Karros and a two-run double to Cole Carrigg the score was tied. Only a strong relay throw home by second baseman Miguel Rojas and a successful challenge prevented Hunter Goodman from scoring a go-ahead run.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers got runners on first and second with two outs. That brought up Andy Pages with two outs, but a successful Rockies ABS challenge confirmed a strikeout, sending the game into the 10th.

That ended the Dodgers’ streak of 91 games without extra innings, the second-longest a team has gone without playing an extra-inning game in the modern era, behind only the 2005 Red Sox (99).

The drama wasn’t over. Two batters into the 10th, the benches cleared.

With one out and Carrigg on third, Jake McCarthy hit a sharp ground ball to Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who stepped on the bag and fired home.

Rushing flung his body into the tag, but Carrigg was called safe.

Carrigg said something as began to walk away, and Rushing spun around.

As the two exchanged words, Dodgers reliever Edgardo Henriquez pulled his catcher away. But players from both dugouts and bullpens already began to spill onto the field.

Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy holds back Dalton Rushing after the Dodgers catcher got into a confrontation with Colorado’s Cole Carrigg in the 10th inning Monday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

“I think that what happened is Carrigg said something aloud, not directed at Dalton,” Roberts said. “Dalton thought something was directed at him. We cleared the air. Basically a big misunderstanding.”

Said Rushing: “I didn’t mean any harm by the tag or the way I reacted to the ball. Made sure he knew that. Told him I was just reacting to the baseball. I don’t expect it to go any further.”

After a brief stoppage, Henriquez escaped without further damage. And the Dodgers got another shot, with Pages on second to start the inning.

Freeman’s groundout moved him to third. Then Mookie Betts drove him in with a comebacker over the mound and past flailing second baseman Edouard Julien.

Tucker then looped a single into no-man’s land. But the rally ended when Hernández’s liner up the middle landed in the glove of Rockies right-hander Jimmy Herget, who just entered the game, catching Kyle Tucker off first base for a double play.

In the 11th, Henriquez got out of the inning unscathed. He got Julien to pop out on a sacrifice bunt attempt and then started a double play himself. He punched the air as he walked off the mound.

“He’s calm in big spots, you’re starting to see it,” Roberts said. “He’s throwing strikes, throwing the breaking ball when he needs to and he’s now unfazed by certain moments and higher leverage. He’s a guy, certainly, we trust.”

In the end, Rushing — who already hit a pair of doubles and scored on Shohei Ohtani’s third-inning home run and fourth-inning two-run single — was the hero.

After Hernández made it to third on a sacrifice bunt by Tommy Edman, Dalton got the end of his bat on a changeup and sent it up the middle, just out of reach of a diving Julien.

“Infield’s in, they’re kind of doing you a favor,” Rushing said. “So move the ball forward, good things happen. And it wasn’t pretty, but it worked.”

Rushing’s helmet twirled in the dirt behind him as he jogged from first toward the center of the field, ready for the celebration that would meet him there.

“He plays with a lot of moxie,” said Dodgers starting pitcher Eric Lauer, who held the Rockies to three runs in six innings. “And he definitely doesn’t back down to anybody, and we love him for that. He’s a great guy that you want on your team.”

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run in the third inning against the Rockies on Monday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

Roster moves

Dodgers right-hander Evan Phillips is in line to make his first major-league appearance since May 2025. Phillips only made seven appearances last season, starting on the injured list with a strained rotator cuff before undergoing Tommy John surgery in June.

“It’s going to be a lot different tonight getting back out there in a competitive game, the full atmosphere,” Phillips said. “Really excited about that. I feel like probably the past two weeks or so I really took a good turn in my rehab, started bouncing back even better, pitching more like myself, feeling more like myself. So really just happy to carry that over to these games and see how the second half treats us.”

In a pair of corresponding moves, the Dodgers optioned right-handed reliever Paul Gervase to triple-A Oklahoma City and released left-hander Jake Eder.

The Dodgers also designated catcher Chuckie Robinson for assignment and added right-hander Carlos Duran to the 40-man roster. Both players are set to stay in Oklahoma City, with Robinson accepting his outright assignment.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. No animals were harmed in the production of this newsletter.

Dalton Rushing has certainly been in the spotlight lately. From his miscommunication with Shohei Ohtani to getting emotional on the bench. We put the spotlight on him recently in this newsletter, which you can read here.

This led to readers asking whether his teammates like him. And while you can never know what lies in the heart of a person, it seems very likely that they do. We quoted colleague Maddie Lee‘s story last time. This time, we look at a couple of interesting quotes from Katie Woo’s story in the Athletic.

Freddie Freeman: “Everyone here loves Dalton Rushing. The person he is in the clubhouse, before games, after games, doesn’t get to be shown on the field. But there’s that three-hour window where his emotions come forward, and it can be a lot. I wish people could see the Dalton Rushing inside the clubhouse, on the plane, on buses. It’s not what you see during the game. He’s a young guy who’s learning the starting role, who wants to be great, who is just learning, and we’re here to help, and that’s why you see so many people trying to help him.”

Miguel Rojas: “It’s really hard to change one person’s personality from one year to another. We have to understand and give him a little bit of a break, because he’s young. Now, if we’re seeing this next year, or the same thing happening two years from now, there’s probably going to be a conversation with the organization. You have to see growth.”

That sounds like two guys who like him, and are trying to help him navigate through all of this. Which is what teammates are for.

However, is Rushing in sync with the pitchers? Let’s take a look at the starting pitcher ERA with Rushing and with Will Smith in their career. We’ll include Austin Barnes and Ben Rortvedt too.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto
ERA with Rortvedt: 0.86 (21 innings)
Barnes: 1.64 (33)
Rushing: 1.75 (92.2)
Smith: 3.29 (221.2)

Justin Wrobleski
Smith: 2.60 (86.2)
Rushing: 3.75 (72)
Rortvedt: 6.14 (7.1)
Barnes: 10.90 (17.1)

Shohei Ohtani
Rortvedt: 0.00 (11)
Smith: 2.08 (82.1)
Rushing: 2.97 (39.1)
Barnes never caught him

Roki Sasaki
Rortvedt: 0.00 (2)
Barnes: 2.00 (9)
Smith: 4.32 (58.1)
Rushing: 6.21 (37.2)

Emmet Sheehan
Rortvedt: 0.00 (1)
Rushing: 3.04 (50.1)
Smith: 4.20 (124.1)
Barnes: 7.56 (16.2)

Tyler Glasnow
Rushing: 1.46 (24.2)
Rortvedt: 2.89 (18.2)
Smith: 3.42 (210.2)
Barnes: 5.40 (10)

Blake Snell
Rortvedt: 0.47 (19)
Smith: 3.26 (30.1)
Rushing: 4.80 (15)

Eric Lauer
Smith: 1.50 (6)
Rushing: 3.86 (23.1)

All Dodgers pitchers this season
Smith: 3.02 (393)
Rushing: 3.74 (341.1)
Chuckie Robinson: 4.88 (59)

All Dodgers pitchers in 2025
Rortvedt: 2.89 (140.1)
Rushing: 3.87 (325.1)
Smith: 4.00 (865.1)
Robinson: 5.14 (7)
Barnes: 5.16 (103)

You can see why the Dodgers liked Rortvedt so much.

Dave Roberts, millennium man

Dave Roberts got the 1,000th victory as Dodgers manager when they beat the Athletics on Tuesday.

“I mean, 1,000 didn’t even seem on my radar,” Roberts said after that game. “That’s a long time of consistent winning, let alone keeping a job for 11 years. That’s just kind of the life I chose. But yeah, to kind of put your head down and look back and go, ‘Oh my God, I’m here,’ it’s mind-blowing. I still feel like I’m getting better, and I still enjoy it.”

Roberts, who is in his 11th season as Dodgers manager, gave a hint as to how long he will be at the helm.

“I will not manage 20 years. Mookie wants me to manage until his contract expires [in 2032], so that’s something I am thinking about. But I can be certain I’m not going to do 20 years. It’s too much. I love it, but it’s a lot to give. To see myself doing that for another seven, eight, nine years, that’s a lot.”

Barring some unexpected collapse by the Dodgers for a couple of seasons, Roberts will be manager of the Dodgers for as long as he wants. He has won three World Series titles and will go into the Hall of Fame one day. He has grown considerably as a manager, as he has shown in the last two postseasons. There is always a vocal minority who doesn’t like him, or who thinks anyone could manage this team to a title. Nonsense. As Mookie Betts said:

“I would definitely say it’s probably the reverse. It makes it harder. It’s probably easy to write in a lineup, for sure. But to manage so many personalities, injuries, guys coming up, guys coming down, it’s a lot, especially losing. We went through our stretches where we weren’t playing well.

“And then it’s the other way, like, ‘Oh, you got this roster, and you’re still losing X, Y, and Z.’ But he just kind of handled it. Handled it with grace. And still come out on top. So, yeah, it’s probably easy to write in the lineup, but to manage it for 162-plus is really hard to do.”

Roberts became the 69th manager to win 1,000 games and the fourth Dodger manager, joining Walter Alston (2,040), Tommy Lasorda (1,599) and Wilbert Robinson (1,375). He also has the best winning percentage of any manager in history, winning 62.3% of his games. He is 1,003-607. Just behind him is Joe McCarthy, who won 61.5% (2,125-1,333). McCarthy won seven World Series titles, all with the Yankees, and is considered by many to be the greatest manager in history.

Sad news

Catcher Eliezer Alfonzo made his major league debut with the Dodgers on Sunday, but with a heavy heart. Alfonzo’s younger sister, Eliana, and stepmother, Patricia, died during the devastating earthquakes that struck Venezuela recently.

”Don’t really know what to say about it outside of my heart goes out to him and his family,” Roberts said before Sunday’s game. “He’s in [the lineup]. He’s going to play today, but obviously it’s heavy hearts. I don’t want to really go too far because I’ll get emotional, so I don’t know. I know it’s tough, very tough.”

After the game, Alfonzo said this about playing: “Honestly it was a little difficult, but at the same time thanking God always for everything. What happened, unfortunately, is out of my hands and part of life. Only God knows why they happen. I went out there to honor my sister and my stepmother, and give my best in a difficult moment.”

Keep these types of things in mind the next time you want to boo or yell at a player for making an error, mentally or physically. We don’t know what they are going through from day to day. It’s easy to get caught up in thinking these are baseball players making a lot of money and living the dream. But no one lives the dream 24/7.

Four All-Stars

Ohtani, Freeman, Max Muncy and Andy Pages were all elected as starters for this year’s All-Star team, and Yamamoto also made the team, giving the Dodgers four All-Stars this season, tied for the most with Atlanta and Philadelphia. It is Ohtani’s third All-Star nod with the Dodgers (he also had three with the Angels), Freeman’s fifth with the Dodgers (he also had five with the Braves), the third for Muncy, the first for Pages and the second for Yamamoto.

The franchise record for most players on the team is seven, done in multiple years while the Dodgers were in Brooklyn.

Dodgers named to the All-Star team at least four times:

11
Clayton Kershaw

10
Pee Wee Reese

Nine
Don Drysdale

Eight
Roy Campanella
Steve Garvey
Gil Hodges

Seven
Sandy Koufax
Duke Snider
Maury Wills

Six
Ron Cey
Jackie Robinson
Fernando Valenzuela

Five
Freddie Freeman
Mike Piazza
John Roseboro

Four
Mookie Betts
Pedro Guerrero
Cookie Lavagetto
Davey Lopes
Van Lingle Mungo
Don Newcombe
Mickey Owen
Johnny Podres
Preacher Roe
Don Sutton
Dixie Walker
Whit Wyatt

These names seem familiar

How notable players who were with the Dodgers the last couple of seasons are doing with their new teams (through Sunday). Click on the player’s name to be taken to their full stats page:

Anthony Banda, Twins: 2-0, 4.46 ERA, 2 saves, 34.1 IP, 31 hits, 15 walks, 33 K’s, 98 ERA+, on the IL

Cody Bellinger, Yankees: .251/.348/.426, 374 PA’s, 17 doubles, 3 triples, 11 homers, 50 RBIs, 116 OPS+

Walker Buehler, Padres: 5-4, 4.61 ERA, 82 IP, 83 hits, 30 walks, 76 K’s, 91 ERA+

Mike Busch, Cubs: .234/.367/.391, 398 PA’s, 14 doubles, 2 triples, 11 homers, 47 RBIs, 114 OPS+

Michael Conforto, Cubs: .250/.345/.492, 148 PA’s, 10 doubles, 7 homers, 21 RBIs, 133 OPS+

Justin Dean, Cubs: .400/.500/.800, 6 PA’s, 1 triple, 3 RBIs, 259 OPS+

Caleb Ferguson, Reds: 1-0, 1.62 ERA, 1 save, 16.2 IP, 15 hits, 6 walks, 16 K’s, 278 ERA+

Jack Flaherty, Tigers: 2-8, 4.60 ERA, 76.1 IP, 74 hits, 37 walks, 92 K’s, 93 ERA+

Kenley Jansen, Tigers: 1-4, 4.98 ERA, 10 saves, 21.2 IP, 14 hits, 12 walks, 23 K’s, 87 ERA+

Craig Kimbrel, Rays: 0-2, 4.62 ERA, 25.1 IP, 22 hits, 10 walks, 23 K’s, 9Gavin 4 ERA+

Gavin Lux, Rays: on the IL

Dustin May, Cardinals: 5-6, 4.80 ERA, 84.1 IP, 83 hits, 24 walks, 78 K’s, 84 ERA+

Zach McKinstry, Tigers: .196/.274/.291, 225 PA’s, 6 doubles, 2 triples, 3 homers, 16 RBIs, 58 OPS+

James Outman, Tigers : .159/.234/.292, 124 PA’s, 4 doubles, 1 triple, 3 homers, 11 RBIs, 46 OPS+

Joc Pederson, Rangers: .242/.338/.466, 276 PA’s, 7 doubles, 2 triples, 14 homers, 31 RBIs, 133 OPS+

Luke Raley, Mariners: .228/.293/.466, 241 PA’s, 8 doubles, 1 triple, 14 homers, 35 RBIs, 114 OPS+

Ben Rortvedt, Mets: in the minors

Corey Seager, Rangers: .182/.292/.374, 219 PA’s, 6 doubles, 10 homers, 25 RBIs, 94 OPS+, on the IL

Justin Turner, Tijuana (Mexican League): .281/.394/.475, 216 PA’s, 17 doubles, 6 homers, 28 RBIs

Trea Turner, Phillies: .246/.283/.360, 364 PA’s, 15 doubles, 10 homers, 31 RBIs, 72 OPS+

Miguel Vargas, White Sox: .247/.363/.494, 304 PA’s, 17 doubles, 1 triple, 20 homers, 56 RBIs, 138 OPS+

Kirby Yates, Angels: 0-3, 2.75 ERA, 2 saves, 19.2 IP, 11 hits, 7 walks, 28 K’s, 154 ERA+

Note: Vargas was named to the AL All-Star team.

Up next

Monday: Colorado (*Kyle Freeland, 2-7, 7.25 ERA) at Dodgers (*Eric Lauer, 4-5, 4.84 ERA [3-0, 2.88 ERA with Dodgers]), 7:10 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Tuesday: Colorado (Michael Lorenzen, 3-9, 6.91 ERA) at Dodgers (*Justin Wrobleski, 10-2, 2.80 ERA), 7:10 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Wednesday: Colorado (Ryan Feltner, 3-2, 4.27 ERA) at Dodgers (Roki Sasaki, 3-5, 5.40 ERA), 7:10 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

All times Pacific

*-left-handed

In case you missed it

Dodgers’ Edwin Díaz pushes back against alleged links to illegal cockfighting

Dodgers’ Eliezer Alfonzo to start after his sister and stepmother died in Venezuela

Dodgers sending four more players to MLB All-Star Game, tied for most selections

Shohei Ohtani and Dodgers taking cautious approach with his biceps ailment

How Dodgers’ Max Muncy, vying for his third All-Star selection, continues to evolve

Fan loudly expresses unbridled enthusiasm for Mexico’s World Cup goal … at Dodgers-A’s game

Dodgers Debate: Midseason awards

Walter Alston, Dave Roberts and everyone in between: The 10 managers in L.A. Dodgers history

And finally

Vin Scully tells us about Kirk Gibson‘s home run. Watch and listen here.

Until next time …

Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

A post-game fireworks show went awry at BMO Stadium on Friday night, when fireworks set off on the playing pitch sent flares streaming into the stands, forcing fans to scatter to safety.

Angel City FC played the Orlando Pride at BMO Stadium, coming back from a month-long break to win the match 2-0. But it was the promised post-game fireworks celebration that made the biggest splash.

Videos of the pyrotechnics display show the pitch filling with tall showers of sparks and dense smoke as dozens of fireworks launched upward. At what was to be the climactic finale of the show, however, fireworks began to take off horizontally, headed into the half-filled stands.

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From her club seat with her friends, season ticket-holder Jade Greenhut captured the center circle spectacle. She said she took out her phone and started recording after the first errant missile from the fusillade sped directly toward the Angel City team bench.

“Oh my god!” a woman’s voice on Greenhut’s video screams as at least two fireworks launched into the stands nearby, sending fans scrambling to get clear. Two more fireworks bounded across the field and into the stands. Off-camera, a man says, “Everybody’s running!”

A spokesperson for the soccer club said the organization had no information “of any serious injury” from the wayward pyrotechnics.

“A third party vendor was hired to facilitate the pyrotechnics,” said Stephanie Rudnick, head of communications for the Angel City Football Club, from her home in Australia.

“A fireworks malfunction did occur during last night’s post-match celebration at Angel City FC’s game vs. Orlando at BMO Stadium,” the team said in a statement to The Times. “Our medical and safety teams were on site and ready to respond. Stadium operations confirmed the venue was secure and guests, staff, players, and crew were able to depart safely.

“We are working closely with our pyrotechnics vendor to review the incident and evaluating appropriate next steps.”

Greenhut was nonplussed about the post-match mayhem. She said many fans had already left in the 20-minute interlude between the end of the game and the fireworks show, leaving the stands relatively empty and reducing the likelihood of injuries.

The air was already clearing by the time the stadium was evacuated. Her ticket ambassador approached her afterward to apologize. “He was like, ‘We did this for the [Los Angeles Football Club], and everything was fine,’” she said. “I don’t blame them at all.

“Honestly, the game was great. We played phenomenal,” Greenhut said.

But perhaps next time, she said, Angel City could go with drones.

—Lila Seidman contributed to this story.

I will miss watching the greatest maestro and savant in the history of basketball, LeBron James. He is to basketball what Van Gogh was to painting, Coltrane to music, Hemingway to literature. He came from poverty and rose to a global hero and gave back. His after-game interviews were always intelligent and sometimes humorous. To all his detractors and haters? Eat your hearts out, he is a happy man.

Dell Franklin
Cayucos

I have always been in awe of LeBron’s athleticism and basketball IQ. And I greatly admire his dedication to maintaining his physical abilities throughout the years and his philanthropic pursuits.

But, as a lifelong Lakers fan, I will not miss LeBron. He was never a true Laker. He made it clear when he announced that he was taking his talents to South Beach that he cared only about LeBron, not the team.

So, as he closes out his career elsewhere, I will enjoy watching his superior playing prowess from afar. But I will be grateful that I can now cheer for my Lakers without the drama LeBron brings to every team he’s been on.

Linda Salzman
Rancho Palos Verdes

I agree that it was probably time to move on from LeBron simply in the interest to pursue a long-term player versus one more year from the King. But Bill Plaschke’s argument that he was tired of the mind games LeBron supposedly was playing is a terrible take. Losing 27-7-7 is not replaceable overnight, if ever.

George Metalsky
Redondo Beach

While acknowledging LeBron James as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, it never really felt as if he was selflessly committed to the Purple and Gold team concept like so many of the legendary players that preceded him.

During his eight years as a Laker there seemed to be countless occasions when Lakers brass capitulated to his “demands.” Year after year we endured a mishmash roster with his hand-picked players, just to appease LeBron.

During the Lakers’ dynasty we had championship teams. With LeBron we had a king shaping his fiefdom to first and foremost best serve him.

He’s a great player but a horrible GM. The Lakers will be a better team without him.

David Griffin
Westwood

I only have one question regarding LeBron James: What happens to Bronny now?

David Waldowski
Laguna Woods

Dodgers two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani waddled through the clubhouse after the Dodgers’ 4-3 comeback victory against the Padres on Friday night, the bulging ice wraps around his left knee and right arm creating a penguin-like effect to his gait.

That in and of itself wasn’t noteworthy — ice after starts is a regular part of any pitcher’s recovery and arm care. But for Ohtani, the awkward wraps were reminders of one ailment he’s getting over, knee inflammation, and one that popped up Friday night — a right biceps problem.

“More precautionary reason,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton about being replaced by a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning. “I was a little concerned with my biceps with the last at-bat that I took.”

Ohtani limited the Padres (43-44) to three runs over 110 pitches when he stepped up to the plate in the sixth.

Teoscar Hernández hits a grand slam for the Dodgers against the San Diego Padres on Friday.

He worked a full count and then flew out to right field. Ohtani paused on his follow-through, his lips pursed, before jogging up the line.

“It’s the same location that I felt a couple months ago,” Ohtani said. “It went away relatively quickly, so I expect that to happen again.”

That Ohtani dealt with a biceps problem earlier this season was not disclosed before Friday. Even manager Dave Roberts said after the game that he had just learned about the previous ailment.

Ohtani will take off Saturday to recover, Roberts said. And Ohtani skipping his last pitching start before the All-Star break is “on the table.”

Ohtani was voted the starting designated hitter for the National League, marking his sixth straight All-Star selection. But even before Friday, it seemed unlikely he would pitch in the All-Star Game given his rotation schedule.

“He’s a quick healer, and finds a way to get back,” Roberts said. “But I do think that for us to read and react and hear what his body is telling him is really important, given the toll it takes on his body to be a two-way player.”

The injury concern replaced now-assuaged questions about Ohtani’s pairing with catcher Dalton Rushing with Will Smith (neck) on the injured list. Smith has at least resumed throwing and took swings Thursday, Roberts said, but he isn’t expected to return before the All-Star break.

The last time Rushing caught Ohtani, the pitcher took over pitch-calling after a disastrous second inning against the Twins last week.

“I just overthought last time,” Rushing said in a conversation with The Times on Thursday night. “I was trying to be perfect, and with a guy like that, you don’t have to be perfect. You just need to call the right pitches at the right time and allow his stuff to just beat them naturally. And that’s the plan [Friday]. Whether I call the pitch, he calls the pitch. I want to make sure we’re both convicted in what we’re throwing, and we can execute it to the best of our ability.”

On Friday, Ohtani handed back over pitch-calling duties, communicating with head shakes and nods instead of the PitchCom buttons on his arm.

Ohtani walked the first two batters he faced. But then he struck out three of the next four, escaping the jam down just 1-0, courtesy of an RBI single from Gavin Sheets.

That started a streak of 10 batters who Ohtani retired in order, fanning six of them.

“The best way that I can describe it is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Rushing said when asked what he’d learned from following along last week. “That’s the way he pitches. … Trust what you do, trust how good his stuff is, and just go from there.”

Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, left, gets a fist bump from catcher Dalton Rushing during the first inning of a 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Ohtani’s back-to-back strikeouts to end the second inning were a good example. Against left-handed hitting Sung-Mun Song, he threw mostly four-seam fastballs and splitters, finishing off the six-pitch at-bat with a sweeper, according to Statcast.

Against right-handed hitting Rodolfo Durán, Ohtani threw mostly sinkers and sweepers, with one four-seamer mixed in out of seven pitches.

Ohtani eventually relented a second run with two outs in the fourth inning. He fell behind 0-2 in the count to Jackson Merrill, who flipped a strike call with an ABS challenge. Then Merrill hammered a fastball over the plate for a solo homer.

Ohtani successfully navigated traffic to throw a scoreless fifth, but Xander Bogaerts tagged him for an RBI double in the sixth.

“I think I did the bare minimum,” Ohtani said. “To get through six, to give the team the chance to win, keep the game in check. But there were some good and some bad.”

Ohtani gave up seven hits for a quality start that wasn’t his cleanest. The Dodgers (58-31), who had struggled to get anything going against Padres starter Michael King, were trailing 3-0 when Ohtani exited. But Teoscar Hernández took care of the deficit.

Teoscar Hernández hits a grand slam in the seventh inning of the Dodgers’ 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Facing reliever Adrian Morejon with the bases loaded and no outs in the seventh, Hernández ambushed a first-pitch slider.

“Knowing him, every pitch is hard,” Hernández said. “I was looking for the hardest one, the fastball, middle-in. But just reacted to that one in the middle of the plate.”

Hernández drifted up the first-base line as he watched the ball fly. When it landed, he launched his bat back toward the dugout, and it made it halfway there.

“I’m just trying to find the same swing that I had before I got hurt,” Hernández said. “And at the same time, just do something for the team. It happened to be a big swing.”

Aroldis Chapman set the major league record for relief strikeouts after rookie Jake Bennett yielded five hits while pitching into the eighth inning for the Boston Red Sox in a 5-2 victory over the Angels on Friday night.

The 38-year-old Chapman broke Hoyt Wilhelm’s record with his 1,364th career strikeout as a reliever when he fanned Denzer Guzman leading off the ninth. The knuckleballing Wilhelm last pitched in 1972.

Chapman gave up back-to-back singles after his milestone strikeout, but got Jo Adell to ground into a double play to secure his 17th save.

Caleb Durbin hit a solo homer in the opener of a nine-game trip for the Red Sox, who have won six of eight.

In just his seventh career start, Bennett (3-3) struck out six with no walks while dominating the last-place Angels until the their two-run eighth.

Six days after the Yankees’ first 15 batters couldn’t get a hit off Bennett, the lanky left-hander retired the Angels’ first 13 batters before Vaughn Grissom’s fifth-inning single.

Bennett retired 22 of the Angels’ first 24 batters before Jose Siri homered in the eighth for the Angels, who have lost four straight.

Zach Neto added a two-out RBI single moments later to chase Bennett.

Reid Detmers (3-6) struggled through five innings while taking his first loss in eight starts since May 19 for the Angels, yielding five runs on seven hits with three walks.

Romy Gonzalez had three hits and drove in two runs for Boston. Durbin added his eighth homer leading off the fifth.

Angels catcher Logan O’Hoppe was removed from the game and evaluated after taking a foul ball off his mask in the third. O’Hoppe went on the concussion injured list last September after getting accidentally hit by a backswing, and he went through the concussion protocol again two months ago after a home plate collision with Texas’ Josh Jung.

Trout hoping to return before All-Star Game

Angels center fielder Mike Trout bats against the Arizona Diamondbacks on June 16.

(Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)

Mike Trout believes he can return from a hamstring injury for the Angels next week, giving him enough time to be ready for the All-Star Game in Philadelphia on July 14.

Trout has been out since June 17, when he strained his right hamstring while running the bases against Arizona. He performed his normal pregame routine Friday and he expects to hit on the field this weekend.

Trout said he is optimistic about playing early next week, and manager Kurt Suzuki didn’t disagree.

“He looks good,” Suzuki said. “I saw him today when I first came in. He was working out. He was obviously on the road trip, doing his thing. He’s getting really close. Really, really close.”

The 34-year-old Trout hasn’t been officially selected for the All-Star Game at Citizens Bank Park, but the two-time All-Star Game MVP is expected to be elected to the AL’s starting outfield in what would be his 12th All-Star nod.

The honor would be particularly special this year for Trout, who grew up 40 miles from Philadelphia in Millville, N.J.

The three-time AL MVP hasn’t participated in the All-Star festivities since 2019. He wasn’t able to play because of injury after being selected from 2021 to 2023, and he injured his knee early in the 2024 season before not being selected last year.

Trout has bounced back and stayed mostly healthy for the Angels this season, posting a team-leading .866 OPS with 17 homers and 36 RBIs in 74 games.

He said last week that he probably wouldn’t participate in the home run derby as he tries to stay healthy.

Maiara Niehues extended her scoring streak to three games, and Sveindís Jónsdóttir scored in her return from injury to give Angel City FC a 2-0 win over the Orlando Pride on Friday night at BMO Stadium.

Niehues fired home the rebound for the opening goal in the 36th minute. Jónsdóttir forced a turnover in the 56th minute, dribbled and scored from a tight angle to double the lead for Angel City (5-6-1).

Jónsdóttir returned to the starting lineup after missing the last four games because of a foot injury.

Goalkeeper Angelina Anderson recorded one save for her third shutout of the season.

Interim head coach Leif Gunnar Smerud led Angel City in the first match since the firing of Alex Straus.

NWSL Golden Boot leader Barbra Banda was unavailable for Orlando (5-6-2) because of a thigh injury.

NEW YORK — More than half of the WNBA ‘s 180 players didn’t submit their ballots for All-Star starters ahead of this month’s game in Chicago, a person familiar with the balloting told the Associated Press on Friday.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the voting. It’s unclear why so many players didn’t cast their votes. However, the Sparks were one of the teams that didn’t have all of its players vote due to some operational errors.

“Players were sent ballots via email,” the Sparks said in a statement. “Some players indicated that they didn’t receive the email or weren’t aware of it until after the voting period had closed. That’s something we take responsibility for as an organization, and we’ll have a more robust process going forward.”

Fan vote accounts for 50% of the overall vote while players and a media panel each are 25%. It’s been that way since 2017.

New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu said her team has never had an issue getting players to submit their ballots.

“We always vote. But I do think especially if they’re weighed as much as they are, like teams should be making sure that their players are voting like it is important. There should never just be a team that like, doesn’t get the ballot. …That’s something that every player should be getting the opportunity. And if the player doesn’t want to vote, then that’s on them.”

The league announced the All-Star starters on Thursday.

ESPN was the first to report the lack of ballots.

Like the media, each player is given a link to a voting site as well as an individual username and password. Those are supplied by the league to the teams who distribute them to the players.

Sparks guard Kelsey Plum was lower in the player balloting than she was from the media and fans. She is second in the WNBA in scoring, but has only played in a dozen games because of injuries. She was 12th among players votes after ranking sixth by the fans and fifth by media.

She finished seventh in the voting overall for the guards. Even if the Sparks had all voted, it wouldn’t have been a guarantee that Plum moved up to the top four spots. In the past, players have said that they have either voted for their entire team on the ballot or for friends or college teammates, which has led to some skewed results. Some do take it seriously and pick who they think are the best players.

Fever star Caitlin Clark finished 11th in player balloting. She was named an All-Star starter because she placed second in the fan vote and third in the media rankings.

Feinberg writes for the Associated Press.