WASHINGTON — Three fired FBI agents sued on Tuesday to try to get their jobs back, saying in a class-action lawsuit that they were illegally punished for their participation in an investigation into President Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
The federal lawsuit adds to the mounting list of court challenges to a personnel purge by FBI Director Kash Patel that over the last year has resulted in the ousters of dozens of agents, either because of their involvement in investigations related to Trump or because they were perceived as insufficiently loyal to the Republican president’s agenda.
The lawsuit in federal court in Washington was technically filed on behalf of just three agents but may have much broader implications given that its request for class-action status could open the door for agents fired since the start of the Trump administration to get their jobs back.
The three agents — Michelle Ball, Jamie Garman and Blaire Toleman — were fired last October and November in what they say was a “retribution campaign” targeting them for their work on the investigation into Trump. The agents had between eight and 14 years of “exemplary and unblemished” service in the FBI and expected to spend the remainder of their careers at the bureau but were abruptly fired without cause and without being given a chance to respond, the lawsuit says.
“Serving the American people as FBI agents was the highest honor of our lives,” they said in a statement. “We took an oath to uphold the Constitution, followed the facts wherever they led and never compromised our integrity. Our removal from federal service — without due process and based on a false perception of political bias — is a profound injustice that raises serious concerns about political interference in federal law enforcement.”
Trump’s indictment
The investigation the agents worked on culminated in a 2023 indictment from special counsel Jack Smith that accused Trump of illegally scheming to undo the results of the presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. Smith ultimately abandoned that case, along with a separate one accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., after Trump won back the White House in 2024, citing Justice Department legal opinions that prohibit the federal indictments of sitting presidents.
The lawsuit notes that the firings followed the release by Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, of documents about the election investigation — known as Arctic Frost — that he said had come from within the FBI. Those records included files showing that Smith’s team had subpoenaed several days of phone records of some Republican lawmakers, an investigative step that angered Trump allies inside Congress.
The complaint names as defendants Patel and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, accusing them of having orchestrated the firings despite being “personally embroiled” either as witnesses or attorneys in some of the legal troubles Trump has faced.
Patel, for instance, was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury investigating Trump’s retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and had his phone records subpoenaed, while Bondi was part of the legal team that represented Trump at his first impeachment trial, which resulted in his acquittal.
“And now, by virtue of presidential appointment to the pinnacle of federal law enforcement, Defendants are abusing their positions to claim victories that eluded them on the merits,” the lawsuit states.
Spokespeople for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment on the ongoing litigation. Patel and Bondi have said the fired agents and prosecutors who worked on Smith’s team were responsible for weaponizing federal law enforcement, a claim that was also asserted in their termination letters but that the plaintiffs call defamatory and baseless.
Fired agents call for ‘fundamental constitutional protections’
Dan Eisenberg, a lawyer for the agents, said in a statement that his clients were fired without any investigation, notice of charges or chance to be heard.
“This lawsuit seeks to reaffirm fundamental constitutional protections for FBI employees, ensuring they can perform their duties without fear or favor. We all benefit when law enforcement officers’ only loyalty is to facts and the truth,” said Eisenberg, who is with the firm of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel.
The lawsuit asks for the agents to be reinstated to their positions and for a court declaration affirming that their rights had been violated. It also seeks to represent a class of at least 50 agents who have been terminated since Jan. 20, 2025, or will be. Those agents also stand to recover their jobs in the event the case is successful and the requested class-action status is granted.
Others have been fired too
Other fired employees who have sued include agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in 2020; an agent trainee who displayed an LGBTQ+ flag at his workspace; and a group of senior officials, including the former acting director of the FBI, who were terminated last summer.
The firings have continued, with Patel last month pushing out a group of agents in the Washington field office who had been involved in investigating Trump’s hoarding of classified documents. Trump has insisted he was entitled to keep the documents when he left the White House and has claimed without evidence that he had declassified them.
Welcome back to this week’s Lakers newsletter, where the vibes are immaculate.
The Lakers have won 15 of their last 17 games. LeBron James continues to set NBA records, most recently tying the all-time mark for wins in the regular season and playoffs with Monday’s win over Washington. Jaxson Hayes hasn’t missed a three-point shot all year. The fans who chanted “We want Bronny!” have gotten their wish.
With seven games remaining in the regular season, we turn our focus to a different cheer.
MVP! MVP!
Lakers star Luka Doncic runs onto the court before a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on March 10 at Crypto.com Arena.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The familiar chant rang out in arenas from L.A. to Miami to Indianapolis. Luka Doncic’s campaign was powerful enough to sway even opposing crowds that showered him with shouts of “MVP.”
With Doncic on a historic season-ending heater, the most valuable player discussion suddenly got piping hot with two weeks left in the season. The NBA’s leading scorer surged back into the race with gaudy numbers over the month of March: 37.2 points, 8.2 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game; 12 straight 30-point games; a 24-hour stretch with 100 points; and the first 60-point performance by a Laker since Kobe Bryant in his final game.
The most important number from March: 14 wins. Approaching the playoffs, the Lakers (49-26) are one of the hottest teams in the league, powered by Doncic’s brilliance.
All things Lakers, all the time.
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“If we continue to finish the season the way we’re playing right now, and he continues to play that way, to me, he is the MVP,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said.
Doncic leads the league in scoring (33.7) and is just a hair off from the career-high 33.9 points per game he averaged when he finished third in MVP voting in 2024. Compared to the other top three MVP candidates — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama — Doncic’s traditional stats paint a competitive picture. He has the second-most assists of the quartet behind Jokic and the third-most rebounds.
Among guards who have played more than 11 games, Doncic ranks third in rebounds per game at 7.8, and his 7.2 defensive rebounds per game is the most of anyone at his position. Doncic’s defense gets picked apart, but he also has a career-best 102 steals. He’s the only player averaging 30 or more points this season with 100 or more steals.
“He’s the engine that’s driving all of our winning,” Redick said.
Advanced statistics have Doncic a tier below his rivals. Doncic’s net rating of plus-4 is a distant fourth among the top contenders and pales in comparison to Wembanyama’s plus-17.3.
Breaking down the MVP race
Jokic appeared to be on his way to winning his fourth MVP before the Nuggets star missed a month with a knee injury. By leading the Oklahoma City Thunder to the best record in the league, Gilgeous-Alexander appeared to be in pole position to win his second consecutive MVP.
Doncic and Wembanyama are making a late charge. The Spurs see the Lakers’ 14-2 record in March and raise them a 25-2 mark since Feb. 1. They won their 10 consecutive game Monday. While Doncic was serving a suspension for technical foul accumulation, Wembanyama scored 41 points with 16 rebounds, four assists and three blocks against the Chicago Bulls.
The MVP chants in Frost Bank Arena are just as loud as anywhere in the league.
All fore one
Lakers guard Austin Reaves shoots a free throw during a win over the Washington Wizards on Monday at Crypto.com Arena.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Of all the NBA markets, L.A. presents unique challenges to team building. When Redick played for the Clippers, teammates scattered immediately after practice with hopes of beating traffic on the way home. Redick knew he wasn’t going to drive hours from his home in Manhattan Beach to visit Chris Paul in Calabasas.
But for the Lakers, a round of golf is worth a drive on the 405.
“Finding tee times, being with each other for four hours where you can shoot the proverbial S-H-I-whatever and not have to be in a high pressure moment or on a team bus and kind of be away from the facility,” Redick said, “I think it’s great.”
Golf is the Lakers’ latest bonding activity that’s helped keep the vibes high through the most successful stretch of the season. The Lakers have been intentional with team-building activities in Redick’s second year at the helm. All players and coaches made autobiographical powerpoint presentations to the team during the preseason. Jake LaRavia and assistant coach Beau Levesque won the team-wide pickleball tournament in November. Players and coaches arrange golf outings between games on long road trips. One day after hitting the winning shot in Orlando, newest teammate Luke Kennard got in on the golf action in a scramble match with players facing coaches.
“They had AR,” Redick said sheepishly, “so we can all guess the result of that one.”
Austin Reaves is the leader in the clubhouse. He remembered when teammates gave him grief about his love of golf, which he picked up at 17 and almost immediately excelled at. Seeing his teammates embrace the game “actually means a lot to me,” Reaves said.
“I’m glad that they are addicted,” he added with a satisfied smile.
After the COVID-19 bubble, Redick noticed an uptick in golf’s popularity around the league. Even the Lakers have a handful of players who suddenly decided to start during the last year. Doncic is the most recent convert. He bragged that he beat Reaves on one hole when they played in Indianapolis. Reaves, who got a double bogey compared to Doncic’s bogey, said he let his teammate win.
“It’s a confidence thing,” Reaves said. “We needed him to be at his best at 7 o’clock tonight.”
Doncic scored 43 points against Indianapolis the day after the golf outing.
On tap
Cleveland’s Jarrett Allen shoots between Detroit’s Cade Cunningham, left, and forward Tobias Harris on March 3.
(Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)
Tuesday vs. Cleveland (47-28), 7:30 p.m. PDT
Center Jarrett Allen returned last week from a 10-game absence, but missed Cleveland’s game on Monday in Utah as he managed right knee tendinitis. Missing the first game of a back-to-back indicates that he’ll likely be available against the Lakers.
Thursday at Oklahoma City (60-16), 6:30 p.m. PDT
The Thunder have won 15 of their last 16 games with the only loss coming against Boston. This game and next week’s rematch at Crypto.com Arena could be critical in the MVP race between Gilgeous-Alexander and Doncic.
Sunday at Dallas (24-51), 4:30 p.m. PDT
Since the trade heard ‘round the league, Doncic has averaged 33 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists in four games against his former team. It’s his highest scoring average against any Western Conference opponent.
Status report
Marcus Smart (right ankle contusion)
Smart remains day-to-day with an ankle injury he sustained against Orlando. He has missed four games.
Adou Thiero (left knee soreness)
The rookie forward landed back on the injury report after playing two minutes in the Lakers’ loss to Detroit. Redick said Thiero was held out for precautionary reasons after his knee didn’t react well to playing in a G League game then playing in Detroit two days later. Thiero previously missed six weeks with a right medial collateral ligament sprain and underwent surgery on his left knee in college, which kept him sidelined at the beginning of the season.
Favorite thing I ate this week
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)
I have had Ramen Nagi on my list for literal years because former USC center Brett Neilon — who grew up in Tokyo — recommended it. I have changed beats three times since then but never forgot what he said was his favorite ramen place in L.A. The red king, which is a spicy version of their pork broth ramen, was worth the years of anticipation. Every bowl is customizable so I loved getting to add thick ramen noodles.
From Maddie Lee: A fastball up and off the plate to Guardians left-handed hitter Steven Kwan was an inauspicious beginning to Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki’s season debut.
The arm-side miss fell in line with a persistent spring-training pattern for Sasaki, who struggled with command from his first Cactus League start through his Freeway Series appearance last week.
Over the course of a seven-pitch strikeout, however, Sasaki adjusted — something he failed to do during game action this spring.
“I actually didn’t have confidence at all before this game started,” Sasaki said through an interpreter Monday. “But I was just focusing on doing what I can control.”
Go beyond the scoreboard
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In the Dodgers’ 4-2 loss Monday, Sasaki’s first start of the season was something of a best-case scenario. He held the Guardians to one run and four hits in four-plus innings. And the biggest difference from his spring training struggles was he issued just two walks.
The Dodgers squandered the effort with a lack of offense, in their first loss of the season.
Sasaki will have more to prove against stronger offenses than Cleveland’s. But his performance at least suggested that the Dodgers’ faith in him wasn’t misplaced.
“We know he can do it here, and especially now that his velocity is back to closer to where it used to be,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said last week. “I feel like he puts us in a great position to win.”
Lakers star LeBron James, left, stands next to his son and Lakers guard Bronny James before a win over the Washington Wizards on Monday at Crypto.com Arena.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
From Broderick Turner: The Lakers followed the lead of their oldest member, the triple-double producing LeBron James, in dispatching the Wizards 120-101 at Crypto.com Arena on Monday night.
Two days off between games left James looking spry, with lob dunks and dunks on the fast break contributing to his 21 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds. James was eight for 16 from the field in notching his third triple-double of the season and the 125th of his 23-year NBA career, ranking him fifth all time.
At 41 years and 90 days old, James once again became the oldest player in league history to record a triple-double, passing his previous mark (41 years, 79 days).
“I mean, I’ve had moments more this year and last year that I’ve enjoyed more in the moment,” James said. “It’s pretty cool to know that I’m at this point in my career (and) I’m still able to do those things, man. It’s super dope. It’s super humbling. And I just try to put the work in and continue to put the work in and those are the results of it.”
UCLA guard Kiki Rice dribbles under pressure from Texas guard Rori Harmon on Nov. 26 in Las Vegas.
(Ian Maule / Getty Images)
From Marisa Ingemi:UCLA finally knows who it will face in the Final Four in Phoenix this week.
A day after taking down No. 3-seed Duke in the Elite Eight, the Bruins learned on Monday they will face fellow No. 1-seed Texas on Friday, the only team to beat them all season.
Since their Final Four debut ended with a 34-point loss to UConn last season, the Bruins have been on a mission to prove themselves. They faced their first adversity of the tournament during Sunday’s win over Duke when they trailed at the half, and now they’ll get a true test against the Longhorns.
“I trust this kid’s heart,” McVay said three times Monday at the NFL owners meetings.
But do the Rams trust Nacua, who has been at the center of several off-the-field situations, enough to break the bank with a massive extension?
Last week, a woman filed a civil lawsuit against Nacua, alleging that on New Year’s Eve he made an antisemitic statement during a group dinner and later bit her shoulder. Nacua’s attorney told The Times before the lawsuit was filed that Nacua “denies these allegations in the strongest possible terms,” and that Nacua would “pursue all available legal remedies in response to these false and damaging statements.”
Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg perform at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games handover celebration in Long Beach in August 2024.
(Emma McIntyre / Getty Images for LA28)
From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: There’s still more than two years remaining before the Olympics return to L.A., but fans can lock in their seats this week when tickets officially go on sale.
The virtual ticket box opens April 2 for locals in Southern California and Oklahoma. LA28 is planning to make 14 million tickets available for the Games, which would break the record for total tickets sold set by Paris 2024. The L.A. Games already attracted a record number of ticket registrations, topping 5 million fans from 197 countries and territories for the first drop.
Cabrera gave up one hit and walked one in his Chicago debut, delighting the crowd of 36,702 on a picturesque night at Wrigley Field. The 6-foot-5 right-hander was acquired in a January trade with Miami.
Carson Kelly and Moisés Ballesteros each drove in two runs for the Cubs (2-2) in the opener of a three-game series.
From the Associated Press: John Tavares redirected a shot from Morgan Rielly into the net with five seconds left in overtime to lift the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 5-4 come-from-behind victory over the Ducks in a fight-marred game Monday night.
The Leafs overcame a 3-1 deficit with three goals in the third period, including Rielly’s snap shot from the high slot that beat Ducks goalie Ville Husso stick-side to give Toronto a 4-3 lead with three minutes left in regulation.
But Leo Carlsson, who hobbled to the locker room after taking a hard hit and falling to the ice in the first minute of the third, gathered a loose puck near the left circle and flicked a shot past Toronto goalie Anthony Stolarz to make it 4-4 with 1:39 left.
Tavares added a first-period goal, and Stolarz stopped 28 of 32 shots for Toronto, which took the ice about 1½ hours after general manager Brad Treliving was fired near the end of his third season, with the Maple Leafs on the verge of being eliminated from the playoffs for the first time in a decade.
From the Associated Press: The Super Bowl will return to Las Vegas in 2029 for the second time after NFL owners voted Monday to award the nation’s gambling and entertainment capital the big game.
Las Vegas getting the Super Bowl back seemed only like a matter of time after Kansas City defeated San Francisco 25-22 in overtime at Allegiant Stadium in February 2024.
Commissioner Roger Goodell all but gave the return his blessing after the first Super Bowl in a city the league long shunned because of concerns about legalized sports betting.
“The Vikings are mourning the loss of Ring of Honor member Joey Browner,” the team said Sunday in a statement. “Browner will be deeply missed by former coaches and teammates, as well as many others he impacted throughout his life.”
The Vikings added in a separate post: “He helped define what it is to be an NFL safety.”
No cause of death was given. In August, former Minnesota quarterback Tommy Kramer organized a fundraiser for Browner, who Kramer said was “battling through some serious health issues.”
1923 — The Ottawa Senators of the NHL completes a two-game sweep of the WCHL’s Edmonton Eskimos with a 1-0 victory to win the Stanley Cup for the third time in four years. Harry “Punch” Broadbent scores the goal.
1931 — Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne and seven others die in a plane crash in a wheat field near Bazaar, Kansas. During his 13 years at Notre Dame, the 43-year-old coach, led the “Fighting Irish” to 105 victories, 12 losses, five ties and three national championships.
1968 — The American League’s new franchise in Seattle chooses Pilots as its nickname.
1973 — The Philadelphia Flyers tie an NHL record for most goals in one period, scoring eight goals in the second period of a 10-2 win over the New York Islanders.
1973 — Ken Norton scores a stunning upset by winning a 12-round split decision over Muhammad Ali to win the NABF heavyweight title. Norton, a 5-1 underdog, breaks Ali’s jaw in the first round.
1975 — UCLA beats Kentucky 92-85 for its 10th NCAA basketball title under head coach John Wooden. Wooden finishes with a 620-147 career record after announcing his retirement two days earlier.
1976 — Cleveland Cavaliers beat Jazz to clinch club’s first ever NBA playoff berth.
1980 — Larry Holmes scores a TKO in the eighth round over Leroy Jones to retain his WBC heavyweight title in Las Vegas.
1980 — Mike Weaver knocks out John Tate in the 15th round to win the WBA heavyweight title in Knoxville, Tenn.
1982 — NBA and NBAPA reach 4-year agreement on return for minimum & maximum payrolls, the first of its kind in team sports.
1984 — Mike Bossy becomes first player in NHL history to record 7 straight 50 goal seasons.
1985 — Old Dominion beats Georgia in the 4th NCAAW National Championship.
1986 — Freshman center Pervis Ellison hits two free throws with 27 seconds left to seal Louisville’s 72-69 victory over Duke in the NCAA basketball championship.
1990 — 20-year old C Joe Sakic becomes the youngest player in NHL history to score 100 points in a season
1991 — Tennessee edges Virginia 70-67 in overtime for its third NCAA women’s basketball title. It’s the first overtime in the NCAA’s 10-year history.
1991 — Amy Alcott wins the Dinah Shore golf tournament with a record eight-shot victory over Dottie Mochrie.
1994 — Chicago White Sox assigns former NBA superstar Michael Jordan to the Birmingham Barons of Class AA Southern League.
1995 — Major league baseball players end their strike.
1997 — Martina Hingis becomes the youngest No. 1 player in tennis history. The 16-year-old Swiss sensation, who claimed her fifth title of 1997 at the Lipton Championships on March 29, supplants Steffi Graf in the WTA Tour rankings.
1998 — Expansion clubs, Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks both suffer losses in their MLB debuts.
2002 — UConn women’s basketball team beat Oklahoma, 82-70; Huskies conclude perfect season (39-0).
2002 — Andre Agassi wins his 700th career match and captures his second straight Key Biscayne Title.
2005 — Tarence Kinsey hits a 3-pointer with 1.3 seconds left to lift South Carolina to a 60-57 victory over Saint Joseph’s for the NIT championship.
2012 — Ray Whitney passes 1,000 career points with a goal and assist in Phoenix’s 4-0 victory over Anaheim.
2013 — In one of the biggest upsets in the history of the NCAA women’s tournament, sixth-seeded Louisville stuns defending national champion Baylor in the regional semifinals, 82-81. It’s the end of a remarkable college career for Baylor’s Brittney Griner, a record-setting 6-foot-8 post player who ended up as the second-highest scoring player in NCAA history.
2013 — Pete Weber ties Earl Anthony by winning his 10th major Professional Bowlers Association title with a 224-179 win over Australian Jason Belmonte in the Tournament of Champions.
2017 — UConn’s record 111-game winning streak comes to a startling end when Mississippi State pulls off perhaps the biggest upset in women’s basketball history, shocking the Huskies 66-64 on Morgan William’s overtime buzzer beater in the national semifinals.
2018 — Anthony Joshua beats Joseph Parker by unanimous decision to become a three-belt world heavyweight boxing champion. Joshua adds Parker’s WBO belt to his WBA and IBF titles, and moves within one belt of becoming the first undisputed champion since Lennox Lewis in 2000.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Joey Browner, a star defensive back at USC and a six-time NFL Pro Bowl selection, has died. He was 65.
“The Vikings are mourning the loss of Ring of Honor member Joey Browner,” the team said Sunday in a statement. “Browner will be deeply missed by former coaches and teammates, as well as many others he impacted throughout his life.”
The Vikings added in a separate post: “He helped define what it is to be an NFL safety.”
No cause of death was given. In August, former Minnesota quarterback Tommy Kramer organized a fundraiser for Browner, who Kramer said was “battling through some serious health issues.”
On Sunday, Kramer wrote about Browning on Facebook: “Not only a great player, a great person. Rest in peace my friend.”
Browner was one of six brothers, all of whom played college football and four of whom went on to play in the NFL. Younger brother Keith Browner, who also played at USC and spent five seasons in the NFL, died in November at age 63 after a sudden illness.
Oldest brother Ross Browner, who played 10 NFL seasons for the Cincinnati Bengals and Green Bay Packers, died in 2022. Another older brother, Jim Browner, who played two seasons for the Bengals, died in 2024.
A high school standout in football, basketball and track and field, Browner played at USC from 1979-1982. He was named team MVP his senior year and finished his college career with nine interceptions and 40 pass deflections, as well as one punt return for a touchdown.
In the 1983 draft, Browner became the first defensive back to be selected by the Vikings in the first round (19th overall). He went on to play nine seasons in Minnesota, making the Pro Bowl six times (1985-1990), and spent his final NFL season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Browner finished his career with 37 interceptions, 17 forced fumbles and 17 fumble recoveries. He was named to the NFL 1980s all-decade team, as selected by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and inducted into the Vikings’ Ring of Honor in 2013.
Sean Salisbury, a former quarterback whose career intersected with Browner’s in college and the NFL, was one of many in the football community paying their respects to the four-time All-Pro player.
“This is a major gut punch,” Salisbury wrote on X. “I was blessed to be his teammate at USC and with the Vikings! Phenomenal player and loved by so many. One of the best players I’ve ever played with in both college and the NFL. Very grateful to have called him a good friend. God Bless him and his family.”
Former tight end Steve Jordan, who played nine seasons with Browner in Minnesota, recently visited his former teammate in the Twin Cities, according to a Vikings news release.
“We’ve lost a great friend and one of the best Vikings teammates,” Jordan said in a statement released by the team. “God blessed Joey with phenomenal talent and a big heart to love people and be a beacon of positivity. Truly, he will be missed.”
Former quarterback Rich Gannon, who played five seasons with Browner in Minnesota, wrote on X: “Sad to hear about the passing of my former teammate Joey Browner. On the football field he was one bad dude, off he was a kind soul!”
Retired punter Greg Coleman wrote on X that “one of the happiest moments of my time with the Vikings” was learning that Browner was going to be added to the punt team.
“One of the best teammates you could have and a man I called Friend!” Coleman wrote. “Prayers up for his family. RIP JB!”
Current Vikings cornerback Dwight McGlothern wrote on X: “Dang, I had a chance to meet him my rookie year & I was wearing #47 at the time during camp & hearing about his accomplishments, I’m grateful to [have] had the chance to meet him & [represent] the # he wore with the Vikings !! Everytime I walk in the DB room I always see greatness on the wall !!”
Two days with no games allowed the Lakers to fully reset as they prepare for the final stretch of the regular season and a playoff run.
They have eight games left, starting with the NBA lottery-bound Washington Wizards at Crypto.com Arena on Monday. The Lakers will play without star guard Luka Doncic because he’s serving his one-game suspension for reaching the league limit of 16 technical fouls.
The Lakers had an early practice Sunday and that gave them a chance to make adjustments with fresh bodies and minds.
“Yeah, for me, I think, based on all of them wanting to come in at 10 a.m. on a Sunday, I think it is as much mental and spiritual and emotional,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said after practice. “We didn’t want to have these guys in here long today. But we got a lot done, watched some film and cleaned some stuff up. But there is these two days for us. It’s a great reset for us.”
Doncic got his 16th technical foul of the season Friday night during a win over the Brooklyn Nets after an exchange with Ziaire Williams, when both were given double technical fouls in the third quarter of that game.
For Doncic, who earns $45.9 million per season, the suspension will cost him about $264,000.
If he gets two more technical fouls between now and the end of the regular season, he will be automatically suspended for an additional game.
Doncic is eligible to return for the Lakers on Tuesday night when they host the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“I mean, he’s disappointed,” Redick said of Doncic. “He wants to be there for his teammates, and again, I’ve talked about this all year, like he plays. He’s not a guy that takes games off. He can be banged up and he’s gonna play. He was like that when I was his teammate in Dallas. For tomorrow, we’ve gotten, I think, some great contributions from guys that haven’t necessarily been in the nine-man rotation when we’ve been fully healthy.”
Redick spoke about how Bronny James, Jarred Vanderbilt and Maxi Kleber have all had “good moments” when they were called on for duty.
And with Doncic out, Redick said it will take a group effort to beat the Wizards.
“But we’re gonna need everybody tomorrow,” Redick said.
The Wizards have the third-worst record in the NBA at 17-56. They are second to last in the league in points allowed, giving up 124 per game.
Still, this is all about the Lakers and how they get ready for the playoffs during the final few games of the season .
Half of the eight games are against teams with records below .500.
The Lakers will face a Cavaliers team that’s making a push for better positioning in the Eastern Conference. They will twice face an Oklahoma City team that has the best record in the league and a Suns team that has a 3-1 record against the Lakers.
“That’s the thing I’ve talked about all year is you need great effort and you need great execution,” Redick said. “I think the effort part has been there very consistently for weeks now. Sometimes when the games are stacked together and travel and all that, there can be some small details, execution-wise, that can have slippage, and I think for us, especially on the defensive end, we can do some things better. But I mean, look, the last 16 games we are where we are because we’ve been really good on both ends.”
Etc.
Redick said guard Marcus Smart (right ankle contusion) and forward Adou Thiero (left knee soreness) are in “that day-to-day camp” with their injuries.
“So we’re just kind of waiting for them to feel like they’re good enough to go,” Redick said.
SACRAMENTO — The team that can’t stop dancing won’t stop dancing.
The top-seeded UCLA women’s basketball team beat Duke 70-58 in the Elite Eight. It wasn’t balletic, but beautiful.
Sunday’s game at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento wasn’t a fun, free-flowing joy ride that so many of the Bruins’ wins have been this season.
It was a rattling, teeth-gritting, heart-thumping roller-coaster ride — weeeeee!
The Bruins weren’t having fun, exactly. They were having the time of their lives.
And in the end, they shoved their way to the front of the stage — and back to the Final Four.
Now the TikTok countdown is on before final exams in Phoenix, where redemption and legacy and a rematch await with either winner of the No. 1 Texas vs. No. 2 Michigan tussle in the Fort Worth Regional final.
And any questions — ahem, mine — about how the barely-battled-tested boogie-down Bruins respond to a significant stress test were answered.
The Bruins are built for this.
They’re not just talented. And they’re not just talented dancers (and postgame, Lauren Betts, Charlisse Leger-Walker and Gabriela Jaquez reprised the routine that went viral when they did it with the UCLA Dance Team during halftime of a men’s game this season).
They’re tough. And they’re locked in.
And unlike last season, when their program’s Final Four debut ended in a 85-51 national semifinal blowout loss to eventual champion Connecticut, they’re ready for what comes next.
They let us know in the second half Sunday.
Duke came floating in, still buzzing from Friday’s buzzer-beater in the Sweet 16. That slow-motion-in-real-time three-pointer by Ashlon Jackson that rolled around and around the rim as though the basketball gods needed just a little more time to determine UCLA’s opponent Sunday.
UCLA’s Lauren Betts, left, Gabriela Jaquez celebrate after the Bruins defeated Duke on Sunday to advance to the Final Four.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
It was to be Duke, who proved a dangerous No. 3 seed. The Bruins weren’t prepared for the Blue Devils to be so prepared for them, trailing at the break for just the second time this season. The first time was in November against Texas, when the Bruins — now a program-record 35-1 — suffered their only loss this season.
Still their only loss.
Even a fool could read the determination on the Bruins’ faces as they roared back from a 39-31 halftime deficit; they’d come so far together, but they so badly wanted to go further.
No one was ready to get off the ride, not least the six seniors who played the entirety of the second half, seizing momentum and the moment and hitting the Blue Devils (27-9) with a white-knuckled flurry of activity.
“Compliment them,” Duke coach Kara Lawson said, “for turning up their defensive intensity.”
There were 50-50 balls in name only, because UCLA seemed to be winning 100% of them.
UCLA players were ripping away passes. They were diving all over the floor and were all over the boards. They ratcheted up the intensity so much it spread into the stands, where the largely pro-Bruins crowd of 9,627 cheered deliriously.
Shots started falling. Turnovers stopped cascading. UCLA found its rhythm.
And UCLA’s 6-foot-7 star center Betts did what she does, with 15 points, eight rebounds and two blocks in the second half, of which she played all 20 minutes.
“I was just pretty mad,” she said. “You know, my senior season is on the line, so I kind of got to wake up a little bit.”
Angela Dugalic continued to be the matchup nightmare she has been all March; the 6-4 sixth woman scored 15 timely points to take some pressure off Betts.
UCLA coach Cori Close watches play during the Bruins’ win over Duke on Sunday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
“I’m just so proud of her,” Betts said. “The confidence and her poise … you could get in your head in moments when we’re down … but she did all the right things and what we needed at the time.”
It was an entertaining Elite Eight clash that was brought to you by two coaches who staged, like up-and-coming chefs, under two of the greatest leaders the sports world has known.
UCLA coach Cori Close and Lawson committed to making sure we won’t lose John Wooden’s and Pat Summitt’s recipes — never mind all the seismic, disorienting shifts happening in college sports.
A former Tennessee star, Lawson brings Summitt’s brand crackling intensity to Duke, a mindset that she’s said calls for supreme confidence, chasing excellence and holding oneself to an all-around standard of success.
UCLA’s bench was uplifted all season by Close’s warm intentionality, learned from years of mentorship from Wooden. The main ingredients, she’ll tell you, requiring a dollop of growth, gratitude, of giving and not taking.
“[Our] team culture is not this nebulous thing or phrases on a wall,” Close said. “It’s a group of people that are willing to be committed to the hard, right behaviors over and over again. I cannot tell you how many times throughout that game we referred to our values, who we are, what our identity was, what we had to get back to.
“… I’m just really humbled and thankful to be a part of a team and staff that cares about things from the inside out. What you saw on the court is a reflection and a byproduct of what’s happened on the inside.”
There is bad news and good news to report on the Kings’ push for a fifth straight playoff berth.
First, the bad.
With a chance to move into a playoff position Saturday, the Kings came out flat and were routed 6-2 by the Utah Mammoth at Crypto.com Arena, leaving them a point out of postseason position.
It was the Kings’ most one-sided loss in more than a month, not exactly the way it wanted to start its final sprint to the postseason. And that left coach D.J. Smith with more questions than answers with nine games left in the season.
“We were not sharp in any facet of the game. It’s not good enough,” said Smith, after Utah scored two goals on the power play and three in transition.
“We’re going to ask ourselves why. Why we weren’t ready. What didn’t we do? The excuses really don’t matter. We’ve got to be way better than we were tonight.”
But wait, it gets worse.
Saturday’s game was also the first of a seven-game homestand, matching the Kings’ longest in 15 years. But that’s not the advantage it would appear to be since only the Vancouver Canucks and New York Rangers have been worse at home than the Kings this season.
“I don’t know what it is,” Smith said. “Last year we couldn’t lose here. Right now, we don’t lose very much on the road. That’s in your head. People say it’s luck. You make your own luck.
“We didn’t come ready to play today. And whether it’s our building or the road or wherever we played this game, that isn’t good enough.”
The Kings are also bucking history since 18 of their losses have come in either overtime or a shootout. Just one team — the 2012 Florida Panthers — have lost that many games after regulation and made the playoffs since the shootout was adopted 21 years ago.
Kings forward Quinton Byfield tries to shoot in front of Utah Mammoth defenseman Nate Schmidt during the second period Saturday.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
If the Kings had won just half those overtime games, they’d be a point back of the Pacific Division-leading Ducks. Instead, they appear to be going backward at the worst possible time, dropping seven of their last 10 games and nine of 14 since Smith replaced Jim Hiller behind the bench.
And suddenly there’s traffic in their rear-view mirror, with four teams bunched no more than three points behind them in the Western Conference standings.
Despite all that, the Kings took the ice against Utah with a chance to control their own playoff destiny, only to play with little urgency, falling behind for good 2½ minutes after the opening faceoff on the first of two goals by fourth-line winger Alexander Kerfoot.
Kerfoot entered with three goals on the season and nearly doubled that in two periods against the Kings. For a team with everything to play for, the Kings looked distracted and disinterested.
“I don’t know what it was,” defenseman Drew Doughty said. “There’s no excuses for the way we performed.”
Now for the good news — and there is some.
Despite the loss, the Kings are still just a point out of the second wild-card berth — with two of their final six regular-season home games coming against Nashville, the team that currently owns that final playoff berth. Win those two, and the Kings are back in the driver’s seat.
“We’re still in the thick of things,” said captain Anze Kopitar, whose career ends when the Kings’ season does. “We’re not out by any means. But we’re going to have to play much better.”
Added Doughty: “Take it one [game] at a time and win every one.”
A wild-card is no longer the Kings’ only — or even clearest — path to the postseason, however. The Vegas Golden Knights, the team directly ahead of the Kings in the Pacific Division standings, have lost six of their last 10, whittling their lead to four points over the Kings in the battle for the division’s third and final postseason berth.
Pass them and the Kings will likely face the Edmonton Oilers — again — in the first round of the playoffs. The opportunities are there for the taking. But the Kings need to play like they want them.
“We’ve got three days to figure it out, and then we’ve got nine games [left],” Smith said. “We’re going to turn the page and find a way to be better for the next one. It’s got to be a playoff mentality.
“You can’t dwell on it. You’ve got to move on. But you’ve got to get better and you have to learn from why we lost the way we lost tonight.”
However, as the sport continues to grow and reach new audiences, we are seeing differing takes on what it is to be fan.
There are many who support a top-tier side and also a local team further down the footballing pyramid.
Many fans also keep a close eye on a chosen team from another major European league. Then there are those who prefer certain players to clubs and so might switch who they support based on a transfer. This could be compared to those who might follow a Formula 1 driver and so would focus on whichever team they were currently driving for.
Yet for those who consider themselves football purists there can only ever be space in their heart for one team.
But ironically for Manchester United fan Steve it is a full heart that is central to why he turned his back on the club he had supported for decades – Manchester United.
“My first game was in 1978, at home against Spurs. Most of my family are [Manchester] City fans but all my friends supported United, so I had to choose between being popular at home or at school,” he says.
“In the end I choose school because I didn’t want to be bullied.”
Steve eventually became a season ticket holder and says he did not miss a match for 47 years. All that changed on 24 May 2017 when Manchester United beat Ajax 2-0 in Stockholm.
“We were so lucky as United fans going through the [Sir Alex] Ferguson era, chasing titles and then building on that and trying to get to the next level of winning European trophies,” Steve says.
“I’d seen them win every single trophy, FA Cups in the 70s and 80s, the Cup Winners Cup in ’91, Premier League titles and, of course, the Champions League in 1999.
“I always said that if United won the Europa League – the only trophy I’d never seen them win – I’d pack it in. So when they did that night in Sweden, it felt like the last piece of the jigsaw had been completed.
“When you finish a jigsaw you can either look at it and enjoy, or you can smash it up and start again. I didn’t want to start again.”
The NBA gave Luka Doncic one mulligan. The league wouldn’t grant the Lakers superstar a second.
Doncic will serve a one-game suspension because of technical foul accumulation, the NBA announced Saturday, sidelining him for Monday’s game against the Washington Wizards after he picked up his 16th technical foul of the season in the Lakers’ win over the Brooklyn Nets on Friday.
Doncic said he was trying to get away from Brooklyn’s Ziaire Williams when he pushed the Nets forward aside with 5:12 remaining in the third quarter. Doncic had just been called for an offensive foul while the Lakers were attempting to inbound the ball. Williams was shouting in Doncic’s direction. Doncic attempted to move past Williams and the 24-year-old from Lancaster then waved his arm behind him and slapped Doncic in the throat. Both were given technical fouls.
Doncic said referees told him his push was “exaggerated.”
“Which was obviously [not the case],” said Doncic, who scored 41 points with eight rebounds and three assists in the win.
This is the second time in a week that Doncic has faced the mandatory suspension after getting his 16th technical foul, but he avoided the fate after the NBA rescinded a technical he picked up against Orlando on March 21. The reversal kept Doncic available for the Lakers’ matchup with Eastern Conference-leading Detroit on March 23 in which Doncic scored 32 points, but missed the potential game-tying three at the buzzer of a tense 113-110 Lakers loss that ended a nine-game winning streak.
Monday’s game will likely not have the same drama.
The Wizards (17-56) have lost 17 of their last 18 games. The only win came against the Utah Jazz, another team that’s attempting to position itself for the lottery more than the playoffs. Washington will be without Trae Young (quad) and Anthony Davis (finger), the team’s two major midseason acquisitions.
With another bottom-feeding team coming to Crypto.com Arena, Doncic and the Lakers might actually benefit from resting the superstar. He played through left hamstring soreness Friday, and the Lakers (48-26) host the playoff-bound Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday. The days between Friday’s win and Monday’s game will be the Lakers’ first two-day break since the All-Star Game.
Doncic, the NBA’s leading scorer, has charged into the most valuable player conversation by helping lift the Lakers into third place in the Western Conference. He has scored 30 or more points in 12 consecutive games, the longest such streak for his career.
The Lakers have won 15 of their last 20 games with Doncic averaging 35.5 points per game during the span. With 102 steals on the season, including three against the Nets, Doncic also became the first Laker since Kobe Bryant in 2012-13 averaging 30 or more points per game with 100 or more total steals.
The Lakers could also be without guard Marcus Smart, who has missed the last three games because of a right ankle contusion. He also suffered a hip injury in a separate fall against Orlando, but he is showing improvement and remains day-to-day, Lakers coach JJ Redick said Friday.
INDIANAPOLIS — Kawhi Leonard made a jumper with 0.4 seconds remaining, and the Clippers rallied from a 24-point deficit to beat the Indiana Pacers 114-113 on Friday night.
Leonard finished with 28 points, reaching 20 for the 50th straight game. Darius Garland led the Clippers with 30.
The Clippers were run off the floor early by the team with the NBA’s worst record. The Pacers were a sizzling eight for 11 from three-point range in the first quarter to open a 42-21 lead.
It grew to 45-21 early in the second before the Clippers stormed back for their fourth straight victory, giving coach Tyronn Lue the 400th of his career.
Indiana had gone back ahead 113-108 on Obi Toppin’s jumper with a minute to play. Leonard answered with a jumper, Garland made two free throws and the Clippers got the ball back after Pascal Siakam missed a jumper. They inbounded along the left side to Leonard, who dribbled into the middle and pulled up for the winner.
Leonard become the 14th NBA player to score at least 20 in 50 straight games, a streak that began Nov. 28.
Bennedict Mathurin scored 17 points against his former team, going 12 for 15 on free throws.
Aaron Nesmith scored 26 points and Toppin had 20 for the Pacers, who have dropped two in a row since the victory that snapped their 16-game winning streak. They lost forward Jarace Walker after he was evaluated for a concussion in the first half.
The Connecticut Sun have reached an agreement to sell the team to Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta for $300 million and will move to Houston in 2027, according to a person familiar with the deal.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press on Friday because the deal hasn’t been announced publicly.
The WNBA Board of Governors still needs to approve the sale and the move. The team will play in Connecticut for the upcoming season before moving to Houston and becoming the Comets again.
This will end a 23-year run by the team in New England after the team moved to Connecticut from Orlando in 2003.
Houston was one of the groups that expressed interest in buying the team last year, eventually raising its bid to $250 million — the amount that Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia paid for expansion fees. Now with the $300 million sale price that’s the highest a team has been sold for in WNBA history.
The Sun had an offer for $325 million from a group led by Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca that would have moved the franchise to Boston. The WNBA basically blocked that deal from happening by saying that “relocation decisions are made by the WNBA Board of Governors and not by individual teams.”
The league also went on to say that other teams had gone through the expansion process and had priority over Boston.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said during a news conference to announce the three new expansion teams that Houston was up next.
Ever since Mark Davis bought the Las Vegas Aces in 2021, the league has added new owners that have some sort of NBA tie. Golden State, which came into the league last season, is owned by the Warriors. Portland and Toronto are coming into the WNBA this season and the ownership groups are connected to NBA teams.
The next three expansion teams — Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia — are all owned by NBA groups in those cities.
The WNBA just agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement last week where teams need to have top notch facilities similar to those of NBA franchises.
With the news of the deal on Friday, it allows the franchise to have clarity for potential free agents who could sign with the Sun next month.
The Houston Comets were one of the original franchises in the league that won the first four WNBA championships from 1997-2000. The franchise disbanded after the 2008 season.
The last WNBA team to move cities was the Las Vegas Aces, who relocated from San Antonio in 2017.
Lauren Betts arrived at UCLA unsure she could continue playing college basketball.
After a turbulent freshman season at Stanford almost took her out of the game entirely, she joined rising stars Gabriela Jaquez and Kiki Rice in Westwood.
Betts blossomed in three seasons as a Bruin, but none of her games were as special as the final one she played at Pauley Pavilion. During a second-round NCAA tournament win over Oklahoma State on Monday that at times was closer than many expected, Betts dropped a career-high 35 points and nine rebounds to lead UCLA to the Sweet 16.
“This community, the minute that I transferred over here, has just welcomed me with open arms,” Betts said. “The fans have just been so supportive of me through my entire journey, through my mental challenges, through just basketball, everything. I feel like I’ve grown so much, and they have really taken care of me here.
“It’s not even about basketball to me at this point. Like the people, like Coach Cori [Close] said, that we’ve been able to affect and just the difference that we’ve made, I think has been huge. And so for me, like, just to see all the people waving at us at the end of the game was really special.”
Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional and call 9-8-8. The United States’ first nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Text “HOME” to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.
Betts wrote about her journey to joy on March 9 in The Players Tribune, the second time she has spoken or written in detail about her battle with depression and thoughts of taking her own life. She has become well known for not being afraid to be honest about her mental health challenges and being an advocate for those in need of support. It has endeared her to the UCLA community that’s embraced her, along with her teammates.
She wrote that her transparency about suicidal thoughts and an ensuing hospital stay midway through her sophomore season, first with her UCLA teammates, felt like a release from all the anxiety and self doubt that hounded her as she tried to live up to expectations at Stanford and UCLA.
“I want people to know that I’m doing better,” Betts wrote. “But I also want to be very realistic. My mental health isn’t perfect. It’s an ongoing project.”
UCLA center Lauren Betts, left, and teammate Charlisse Leger-Walker laugh together on the bench during Monday’s NCAA tournament game against Oklahoma State.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Her teammates are in awe of her efforts to be the best person she can on and off the floor.
“She makes everyone better not just because of the basketball player she is, but the leader she is,” said Gianna Kneepkens, a graduate student who transferred from Utah to UCLA. “She challenges us, she pushes us, she just wants what’s best for the team. When people are getting tripled, she’s not worried about, ‘Oh, like, can I get the points?’ She’s seeing who is open so that we can score. So I just have had such a great time playing with Lauren and she’s one of the biggest reasons I came here.”
During the Oklahoma State win, UCLA led from wire to wire. But the Cowgirls outscored the Bruins in the second half and the Bruins’ shooting fizzled out during a tense third quarter. Betts, however, didn’t falter.
Her 35 points came in just 34 minutes. She was 15 of 19 from the field and nearly reached a double-double with nine rebounds.
Betts had long established herself as one of the best players in the country, but she doesn’t lead the nation in scoring, in part, because UCLA is a balanced team with many scoring options. Her performance against Oklahoma State was a reminder that she is still the Bruins’ most formidable player and remains the heart of the program’s push to win a national championship.
“That [scoring is] always in her bag,” Jaquez said. “Maybe some nights she passes more, but that’s just what makes her so special. She’s going to win 99% of her matchups.”
UCLA’s offense runs through its star center even with some of the best shooters in the country. Their starting lineup spaces the floor, with former Washington State leading scorer Charlisse Leger-Walker as a fifth option.
“She puts a lot of pressure on herself a lot of the time and always blames herself when she shouldn’t be and no one else is thinking that way,” Leger-Walker said of Betts. “And I think over this past year, she’s really been working on trying to not do that so she can be the best she can for this team. We obviously need her to be confident, just being able to trust herself, because that is what is going to make our team so much better.”
UCLA center Lauren Betts shoots the ball during the Bruins’ NCAA tournament win over Oklahoma State at Pauley Pavilion on Monday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
There are games that often belong to someone else. Jaquez has turned in big games this season and Rice was the Big Ten tournament most outstanding player. The Bruins have featured six different leading scorers across all games this season.
But it still always comes back to Betts, who has been UCLA’s top scorer a team high 14 times.
“Lauren is one of those players that is always so dominant,” Leger-Walker said after the win over Oklahoma State. “I didn’t even know until she came out that she had 30-something [points.] I was like, ‘Yeah, what the heck?’ That’s just her, you know, she’s a bucket. And she’s gonna always be dominant in that fashion and she is just such an impact player for this team.”
Betts’ 27 minutes, 17.1 points and 8.7 rebounds per game are slightly down from last season. Her 3.2 assists per game are slightly up. Her role, like many other UCLA players, has evolved to fit the star-studded lineup.
In the same way Leger-Walker went from a three-point sniper to a point guard or Rice went from a distributor to a shooter and Jaquez from a hoop driver to a three-level scorer, Betts transformed from a post-up only scorer to the conductor of the Bruins’ office in the middle of the floor.
“She anchors us on both ends, down in the paint, especially defensively,” Rice said. “Her ability to switch out on guards and play on the perimeter and help us out is really, really big. And obviously offensively, she’s such a big offensive player.”
If the Bruins do win a national title, it’ll be on the back of their star. Sure, UCLA is a team full of them, but Betts is still, as Jaquez describes her, “that girl.”
For one last run, Betts can be that for a community and team where she’s found not just acceptance, but true celebration.
“I think she’s found a really deep purpose,” Close said. “And when you can use your pain for great purpose and other centeredness to have an incredible legacy in the lives of others, that’s an incredible gift. But it’s a gift that she’s worked really, really hard for.”
Iranian football players laid backpacks on a football pitch in Turkey to pay tribute to the children killed in a US-Israeli strike on Minab elementary school last month. The tribute came ahead of a friendly match against Nigeria.
He was on the bench for the Freeway Series finale at Dodger Stadium earlier this week, when manager Dave Roberts came over to check in and give Rojas the news.
“I didn’t know if ‘Thank you’ was the right thing to say because it’s something I earned,” Rojas recounted before the Dodgers’ 8-2 win Thursday against the Diamondbacks. “It’s not something that I asked for as a favor. So I was just kind of speechless.”
Rojas embraced Roberts.
“It was a gift to myself because of all the hard work and the preparation I put in throughout my whole career,” Rojas said. “This way is the best way possible because I got up to the big leagues as a utility defensive replacement who can play shortstop but couldn’t really hit much.”
Rojas, who intends to retire after this year, wrapped up his final opening day as a starter.
Opening day is a celebration across baseball. But the Dodgers made it a full production. The pregame program Thursday included roster-introduction pyrotechnics, along with a stage and blue carpet set up in center field.
From Bill Plaschke: There were fireworks, there was a flyover, there was Will Ferrell screaming and Keith Williams Jr. crooning and four months of cheers unleashed by fans wearing championship belts and howling grins.
But the real stars of Thursday’s Dodger opening day show never made a sound.
They arrived silently at the end of the pregame ceremony, carefully held by two of the men who helped win them, lifted high for all those who so passionately longed for them.
They were the last two Commissioner’s Trophies, the back-to-back World Series championship trophies, the two symbols of the Dodgers domination held side by side in the afternoon sun.
Man, it was beautiful. Goodness, how they sparkled. Incredible, how they glowed.
It was almost as if they were powered by some electrical force, some sort of championship current running between them, lighting them up with a blinding power curated by the battered fingers of the two veterans who touched them.
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Mike Trout homers as Angels win
Mike Trout homered to launch what he hopes will be a bounce-back year, leading the Angels to a season-opening 3-0 win over the Houston Astros on Thursday.
Trout also walked three times and played center field for the first time since April 2024. The three-time MVP played 130 games last season, his most since 2019 because of various injuries.
Making his franchise-record 14th opening day start, the 34-year-old Trout broke a scoreless tie in the seventh inning when he sent a 96-mph fastball from reliever AJ Blubaugh (0-1) 403 feet onto the train tracks in left center. It was his fifth opening day homer, also a club record.
The Angels ended an eight-game road losing streak in season openers, starting 1-0 on the road for the first time since 2013.
From Marisa Ingemi: The UCLA women’s basketball team hasn’t lost a game in 120 days. In that time, the Bruins have outscored opponents by a total of 806 points and just one other school — Connecticut — has gone without a loss during the same stretch.
Yet somehow, the No. 1 seed in the Sacramento 2 region of the NCAA tournament hasn’t captured the same momentum and praise as the other three top seeds who have muscled their way into the Sweet 16.
UCLA (33-1) will play No. 4 Minnesota (24-8) at 4:30 p.m. Friday in Sacramento. The game will air on ESPN. Entering the matchup, is UCLA’s less dominant NCAA tournament run a cause for concern? Or is a win a win when it comes to March?
“Each game is going to present different adversity points,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “And I think that we don’t look at it as getting back to something. We look at it as everything is a learning opportunity. ‘What does that teach us? How does that make us better? What kinds of things do we need to tighten up?’”
Darcy Kuemper made 19 saves for his third shutout of the season and 39th of his career to lead the Kings to a 4-0 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night.
Mikael Granlund capped off his hat trick scoring on the power play with one second remaining in overtime on Thursday night to give the Ducks a 3-2 victory over the Calgary Flames.
Granlund has seven goals during a four-game goal streak that has him up to 19 on the season as the Ducks extended their winning streak to four games.
The Pacific Division-leading Ducks opened the night with a five-point cushion on the Edmonton Oilers and a six-point lead on the Vegas Golden Knights.
Eligibility for women’s competition will be determined by a one-time mandatory genetics test, according to the IOC. The test requires screening through saliva, a cheek swab or a blood sample.
No transgender woman competed at the 2024 Paris Summer Games, and it is unclear if any trans women currently compete at an Olympic level. Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand was the last to do so, competing in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics without winning a medal.
The new eligibility policy is not retroactive and does not apply to recreational sports programs. The IOC said in a statement that it “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.”
“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females.”
1939 — Oregon beats Ohio State 46-33 in the NCAA’s first national basketball tournament.
1942 — Joe Louis knocks out Abe Simon in the sixth round at Madison Square Garden to retain his world heavyweight title.
1945 — Oklahoma A&M beats New York University 49-45 for the NCAA basketball championship.
1951 — Bill Spivey scores 22 points to lead Kentucky to a 68-58 win over Kansas State for the NCAA basketball title.
1960 — The Boston Celtics score a then NBA Finals record 76 points in the first half a 140-122 win over the St. Louis Hawks. Tom Heinsohn (24), Bill Sharman (23), Frank Ramsey (22) and Bob Cousy (20) each score 20-or-more points to win the series opener.
1971 — UCLA beats Villanova 68-62 for its fifth NCAA basketball title.
1978 — Jack Givens scores 41 points to lead Kentucky to a 94-88 victory over Duke for the NCAA basketball title.
1983 — Larry Holmes wins a unanimous 12-round decision over Lucien Rodriguez to retain his world heavyweight title in his hometown of Scranton, Pa.
2005 — Annika Sorenstam shoots a final-round 68 to finish at 15-under to win the Nabisco Championship by eight shots over Rosie Jones. It’s he 59th victory of the Swedish star’s LPGA Tour career — and her eighth major championship win.
2010 — Long shot Al Shemali wins the $5 million Dubai Duty Free, pulling away from a crowded field to pull off a surprisingly easy win in the Dubai World Cup. Al Shemali, at 40-1, starts slow then duels it out with Bankable before taking the lead for good.
2011 — Jamie Skeen scores 26 points as Virginia Commonwealth delivers the biggest upset of the NCAA tournament, a 71-61 win over No. 1 seed Kansas in the Southwest Regional final.
2014 — The Philadelphia 76ers tie the NBA record for futility with their 26th straight loss, falling 120-98 to the Houston Rockets. Philadelphia matches the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers for the NBA’s worst skid.
2017 — UConn’s women’s basketball team advance to its 10th consecutive Final Four with a 90-52 victory against Oregon. The victory moves coach Geno Auriemma past Pat Summitt for the most NCAA tournament victories at 113.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
On their way into the clubhouse Thursday, Dodgers players were greeted by the World Series championship trophies they won in 2024 and 2025. In center field, Dodgers fans were greeted by oversize replicas of those trophies, the better for taking a selfie.
On social media, the Dodgers unveiled their Opening Day hype video. These were the first words: “What’s wrong with being the bad guy?” At Dodger Stadium, the threepeat hype video was a movie trailer with this tag line: “Great sequels build legendary trilogies.”
To the rest of that country, all that winning and all that spending makes the Dodgers the bad guys. For more than a year, the owners of other major league teams have telegraphed their desire to restrain all that spending, preferably through a salary cap.
How does the owner of the Dodgers feel?
Does baseball truly have a problem?
Sit down, Dodgers fans. You might expect the owner of the Colorado Rockies to say that revenue disparity among teams is so great that competitive balance has been destroyed, and he did.
You might not expect Dodgers owner Mark Walter to say this:
”Here’s what the problem is: Money helps us win. We can’t win all the time. We’ve got to have some parity,” Walter told me.
“So we’ve got to come up with something that will give us some parity.”
Don’t take this the wrong way: Walter will always want to win. But the owners, Walter included, are increasingly united in the belief that revenue disparity is the primary explanation why a small-market team has not won the World Series in 11 years.
The Dodgers are making more money from Uniqlo in naming rights this season than some teams are making from local television rights and the Dodgers also are making 10 times as much on their SportsNet LA deal.
The Dodgers generated an estimated $850 million in revenue last season, according to Forbes. Their opening day opponent, the Arizona Diamondbacks, generated an estimated $324 million.
If Walter were to support the pursuit of a salary cap, the owners’ vote could be unanimous. For now, negotiations with the players’ union have not started. There is no formal owners’ proposal on the table, so there is nothing for Walter to approve or reject.
“We’ll have to see what it is,” Walter said.
The players’ union does not dispute the revenue disparity. The union believes the owners should solve that issue among themselves, by sharing more revenue and adding incentives for lower-revenue teams that win. The union also believes “competitive balance” is a fig leaf for “cost control that increases owner profits.”
In the NFL, which has a salary cap, either the Kansas City Chiefs or the New England Patriots has played in the AFC championship in each of the last 15 years.
And, even if the Dodgers are the bad guys, they are not bad for business. The Dodgers hold five of the top 12 spots on baseball’s list of best-selling jerseys: Shohei Ohtani at No. 1, Yoshinobu Yamamoto at No. 2, Mookie Betts at No. 5, Freddie Freeman at No. 7 and Kiké Hernandez at No. 12.
The last two World Series, in which the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, juiced television ratings across the country and around the world. The World Baseball Classic dominated headlines and social media content at what is usually a sleepy time for baseball.
All of that momentum would be at risk if owners shut down the sport in “salary cap or bust” collective bargaining, crossing their fingers that players would surrender as soon as they started missing paychecks next spring.
It is against that backdrop that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts encouraged fans to appreciate this season opener. With potential armageddon looming in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, who knows when the next season might actually open?
“I understand that,” Roberts said Thursday, “in the sense of, this is where the CBA is at, as far as the expiration. And I do agree: Enjoy it, because nothing is guaranteed. It’s going to be a great year and I hope everyone pours their spirits and their joy into this season, because it’s going to be a great one. We’ll just figure out where it goes after that.”
And, if it goes haywire after that, the Dodgers inevitably will be blamed.
“That,” Roberts said with a laugh, “seems like it’s always been the case recently.”
What would Walter tell Dodgers fans concerned that what might be in the best interest of baseball might not be in the best interest of the Dodgers?
“I don’t want to hurt us,” Walter said. “We’ll be fine.”
First baseman Freddie Freeman, pausing outside of the Dodgers’ home dugout to talk about the upcoming season, nodded his head toward the right-field foul pole, where just beyond it the Dodgers’ championships signs are displayed.
Eight baseball-shaped signs sported their years — 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988, 2020, 2024 — while a ninth was still shielded by a blue cover, with plenty of room along the stadium’s club level for more.
“You want to just keep putting those banners up,” Freeman said. “That one’s blocked for a reason. You want to do it again. You want to keep doing it over and over and over again. And that’s what’s fun, and then that’s what makes everything else just take care of itself.”
The 2025 championship sign will be revealed as the Dodgers both celebrate last year’s achievements and set the tone for this year.
They’ll receive their World Series ring on Friday, but they’ll also be in the midst of playing three games against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“Everyone’s different,” Freeman said. “Some people want to move on and get on to the new season and not worry about last year. I’m one of the guys that can appreciate what we did last year, even in the present year.
“It’s hard to win a World Series. I don’t like to just kick it to the side. … Our fans haven’t celebrated it since the parade. We get to celebrate with our fans and open the weekend. It’s going to be a great time.”
“I get my ring, and I put it in the safe, and I don’t really look at it ever again,” he said when asked about the ring ceremony. “It brings back all the emotions from the prior year, you like showing friends and stuff, it’s cool. But no, for me, the motivation is just winning, being with these guys each and every day, and competing with them and working towards that goal.”
On that point, Dodgers players seem to agree.
They don’t need a tangible reminder of their World Series aspirations this year.
“It’ll be one of the few days where we really think about what we did last year, versus what we’re trying to do right now,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said.
Plenty of teams say their goal is to win the World Series. But the Dodgers have raised their outside expectations, too. Entering Thursday, PECOTA put the Dodgers’ odds of completing a three-peat at 20.8%, by far the highest World Series chances in the majors. PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus’ projection system, listed the Mariners as next most likely to win the World Series, at 14.2%.
While those numbers establish a clear favorite, they also reflect how unpredictable the postseason can be. Even the Dodgers, with their lofty payroll and strong player development track record, will need health, luck, and the right mindset to pull off a third straight championship.
“You know what the goal is every single year, and that’s to be the last team standing at the end,” Mucy said. “But we more so preach, how do you get there, instead of that being the goal. And for us, it’s always been, you have to take it one day at a time.”
The phrase itself isn’t a novel concept. The trick is making that focus a reality, and a team standard.
“I talk about it every day,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I’ve talked about it since I got here. It’s just, let’s win a baseball game. That’s our mantra, and everyone in this building, that’s the goal.”
The veterans on the team preach it too, hoping to pass down that team-first focus to the generation coming behind them.
“When you put on this uniform, you come in here, you see all these superstars working extremely hard every single day — front office, ownership group doing the same thing — that’s the expectation,” Freeman said. “It’s a different standard, and you just want to be part of that standard that keeps the level high.”
After the commotion of the championship banner reveal and the ring presentation the first two days of the season, “let’s win a baseball game,” will continue to be the mantra.
Maybe it will even work well enough, day after day, for the Dodgers to add another sign to their championship display this time next year.
Iran will play two friendly matches in Turkiye as they prepare for the FIFA World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico.
Published On 26 Mar 202626 Mar 2026
Iran’s men’s football team have been training in southern Turkiye as they prepare for two upcoming friendly matches before the FIFA World Cup, where the squad are likely to attract heightened attention against the backdrop of the United States-Israel war on Iran.
Team Melli held a training session in Belek, a resort area near the Mediterranean city of Antalya, with tightly restricted media access as officials said they wanted to avoid distractions before the matches described as critical to their World Cup preparations.
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Iran’s football federation is in discussions with world governing body FIFA about moving its World Cup matches to Mexico from the US due to concerns over player safety, federation President Mehdi Taj said last week.
Iran’s camp has largely sought to keep a low public profile as the team builds towards the World Cup, where they are expected to face intense political and media scrutiny.
In Belek, no interviews with players or coaches were made available, and a team media representative said the squad were focused entirely on their immediate competitive programme.
Iran will play two matches in Antalya, against Nigeria on Friday and Costa Rica on Tuesday.
Iran’s football team trained at the Huseyin Aygun Football Center in Antalya, Turkiye [Umit Bektas/Reuters]
The friendlies were originally scheduled to take place in Jordan, but were moved to Turkiye following the outbreak of the war on Iran.
The players appeared relaxed during the session in sunny conditions, with staff and players at times chatting and joking.
Among those present was forward Mehdi Taremi, who has been in the spotlight in recent days after swapping shirts with an Israeli opponent while playing for his club Olympiacos in Greece.
Striker Sardar Azmoun was omitted from the squad after posting a picture on his Instagram feed of a meeting with Dubai’s ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Iranian media reported that Azmoun, who has scored 57 goals in 91 internationals, had been expelled from the national team for a perceived act of disloyalty to the government.
Three weeks into spring practice, USC football coaches are making one thing clear: 95% of their best will not be accepted or tolerated. Wednesday’s practice started with some of the players doing up-downs after forgetting equipment.
“It was a good message from some of our staff and leaders in terms of the approach that we need to have every day that we come out here,” Trojans coach Lincoln Riley said.
A sentiment that was shared by junior defensive tackle Jide Abasiri: “We just have to be better prepared.”
After the hiccup, Riley said the team responded well and it was back to business.
USC defensive tackle Jide Abasiri (97) is pushing himself to be a more vocal leader as a the Trojans help young players get acclimated to the program.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
After a spirited day on the field on Tuesday following a one-week spring break, Wednesday’s practice was scripted with the intent to cause stress and create discomfort — stacking multiple two-minute drills after a 6 a.m. team meeting. The goal is to build a no-excuses program.
“It’s invaluable time, invaluable reps,” Riley said. “Coming out and working plays and the techniques, great. When you start putting those guys in real-life situations and you make it really difficult on them, you really start to see who rises up and they’re great teaching moments for these guys and for the team in terms of what we want to be and what we want them to be.”
Regardless of the mental challenges Riley applied, the Trojans’ morale remains positive as players compete for spots in the lineup. The energy of the team comes from within, Riley said.
“It allows us as a staff to really hone in on pushing these guys, and coaching and critiquing and correcting,” Riley said. “And they’re taking it well.”
Attention to detail has always been important at USC, but Abasiri said this year there is an extra emphasis being placed on play-specific details. The staff has implemented drills that focus on a player’s specific movement or job during various plays.
Entering his third season with the Trojans, Abasiri said he felt like he needed to be a team leader. USC landed the No. 1 class in the nation for the first time since 2006. With so many new young players joining spring practice and a limited number of Trojans with three years of experience, Abasiri felt it was his job to lead.
“Just being an older guy, I feel like it’s important for me to … help them just come along,” Abasiri said.
So far, his advice has been to “just have fun with it.”
“I mean, obviously, stay on top of everything and all your stuff, but I feel like people get so stressed and so caught up in what they’re doing that they forget that this is supposed to be enjoyable,” Abasiri said.
The coaching staff, meanwhile, is balancing teaching schemes and the playbook.
“You have to be able to do both at this level,” Riley said. “The new guys that came in did have a pretty good foundation. A lot of them came from really good programs. A lot of them had a pretty good working football knowledge to where when we got started with them, it wasn’t like you felt like you were starting from literal square one.”
Return game is still unsettled
USC is still working to identify its top kickoff and punt return options.
“We haven’t done a lot of live returns yet,” Riley said. “We’re just trying to figure out who really fields the ball well, who understands it, who makes decisions and honestly, the returners, they’re showing us a lot of what they can do just in the offensive and defensive periods.”
The coaching staff has a pretty good idea who some of the best players in that position are, but at the moment, they just want to develop the skills, from a return standpoint.
At the dawn of the 2025 season, we published a column with the headline, “What’s the future for aging Angel Stadium? It feels like an increasingly uncertain one.”
With opening day 2026 upon us, we’d like to update that: “What’s the future for the Angels? It feels like an increasingly uncertain one.”
I don’t mean to be an alarmist. Nothing is happening today, or tomorrow, or in the very near future.
However, the Angels’ stadium lease expires in six years, so what might happen beyond then is starting to come into focus. Angels owner Arte Moreno turns 80 this summer. Moreno — or a new owner, if Moreno eventually sells the team — could simply exercise options to extend the lease for another six years.
But that would not resolve the larger issue of replacing or renovating Angel Stadium. In the coming months, the city expects to release an assessment of what it would take to keep the stadium up and running for years to come, and that could trigger a debate between the city and the Angels about who should pay for what.
The Angels are frustrated by all of this, and in particular by what they consider the curiously timed skirmishes over their 21-year-old Los Angeles name. They are annoyed that, for the second consecutive season, city issues have detracted from the hope and faith and joy that surrounds opening day. It is the city, after all, that walked away from two deals that would have secured the Angels’ long-term future in Anaheim.
During negotiations for the last deal, city officials made clear that keeping the Angels was the top priority, even if Anaheim could make more money selling the stadium property to a developer that would not need to retain the stadium.
Now, with six years left on the lease and no commitment beyond then, the mayor of Anaheim says it is time to prepare for a future with or without the Angels.
“We need to plan for what we see as a vision for that property when the lease has expired,” Mayor Ashleigh Aitken told me. “That’s going to take time. No matter how that deal goes, we’re not breaking ground on any project next year.
“But what we need to do, whether it includes the Angels — which I hope it does — or not, is come up with a vision that includes everything residents want to see happen on that land. And only then can we truly advocate for a project that makes sense for us.”
On the day of the home opener last season, Aitken issued an open letter inviting Moreno to meet with her for “an open and honest conversation about the future of baseball in Anaheim” and listing eight starting points for negotiations on a new deal, including the Angels’ restoration of the Anaheim name.
“They have not reached out to us about reopening negotiations for potential development around the property,” Aitken said.
Moreno previously explored other potential ballpark sites, including Tustin in 2014 and Long Beach in 2019.
In Tustin, the targeted land is no longer available. In Long Beach, the proposed waterfront lot remains vacant, but the challenge remains too: Over 81 games each season, how would tens of thousands of fans drive into and out of a ballpark primarily accessible by a single freeway?
For the Los Angeles Angels, perhaps the solution could be found in Los Angeles County.
The Dodgers could bar every other major league team from moving into L.A., but not the Angels. Under MLB rules, neither team could stop the other team from moving anywhere within Los Angeles County or Orange County.
The logical landing spot would be Inglewood, where the Rams, Chargers and Clippers have moved since 2020. Inglewood Mayor James Butts said Sofi Stadium and Intuit Dome have helped to revitalize the city, with unemployment down, home prices up, and municipal revenue up.
“Before, we were known for gangs and crimes and poverty,” Butts told me.
“Now, we are known as the sports and entertainment capital of the western United States.”
How about a baseball stadium in place of the Forum?
“The Forum parcel is absolutely not large enough for a baseball stadium,” Butts said.
Butts said he believes a baseball stadium there would require about 170 acres for the stadium and surrounding parking. Angel Stadium and its surrounding parking lots cover about 150 acres.
On the other hand, the Athletics are building a ballpark on a nine-acre site in Las Vegas, where nearby parking, entertainment and dining options already exist, with more on the way, and with the A’s not responsible for any of that. The same could be true for the Angels in Inglewood, with Rams owner Stan Kroenke and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer developing the land around the sports facilities.
However, Butts said he did not envision baseball coming to Inglewood, at least so long as he remains the mayor. Not enough room in town, he said.
“We’re maxed out when it comes to sports,” Butts said. “We are not going to reduce the housing stock and move residents out to have a baseball team.”
Anaheim has one, plus a 150-acre site perfect for a new stadium surrounded by restaurants and shops and homes. There will be days to be anxious and worried about the Angels’ future in the city they have called home for 60 years. Today is not one of them.
Take it from the mayor of Anaheim, who told me that even after telling me why she wants the city attorney to look into whether the Angels are violating their stadium lease.
“Opening day, to me, is nothing about clauses in a contract,” Aitken said. “It’s about family traditions. It’s about kicking off summer. And it’s about getting so many factions and neighborhoods of Anaheim together for a singular purpose, which is cheering on our hometown boys. That’s the beauty of baseball.”
And, as a lifelong Angels fan, she had one more thing to say.
“Right now,” Aitken said, “we’re tied for first place.”
From Maddie Lee: Shohei Ohtani’s three straight strikeouts in the fourth inning of his final spring start Tuesday featured a different putaway pitch for each.
He got Angels slugger Jorge Soler to whiff on a sweeper. Jeimer Candelario went down on a curveball. And Jo Adell struck out on a fastball.
“Just shows the confidence he has and different ways he had to attack guys, to get ahead and also put guys away,” manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 3-0 loss to the Angels in the Freeway Series finale. “And today the feel was really good, even better than the first outing.”
Pretty much everything was clicking for Ohtani heading into the regular season, even though it was only his second spring training start on the mound. Ohtani recorded 11 strikeouts in four-plus innings. He held the Angels to four hits, three of which were consecutive singles in the fifth, and was charged with three runs, all scored in the fifth.
For the first time in three years, Ohtani is set to begin the season as a fully healthy pitcher. And it will be the Dodgers’ first time managing his two-way schedule all year. Limited the last two seasons by his recovery and build-up from elbow surgery, Ohtani last made 20-plus starts in 2023 with the Angels.
“The desire is high,” Roberts said when asked about Ohtani’s aim to pitch wall to wall. “I think it’s realistic. Then the bigger question is, how are we going to manage that and navigate it?”
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Can Kurt Suzuki lead Angels to success?
From Steve Galluzzo: Anxious may be the best word to describe the vibe in Anaheim before the Angels fly to Houston ahead of Thursday afternoon’s season opener versus the Astros.
New manager Kurt Suzuki has infused enthusiasm into a club that has not finished above .500 since 2015 and has missed the playoffs for an MLB-worst 11 straight seasons. The Angels went 72-90 and finished last in the American League West, though they were nine games better than 2024 — when they set a franchise record for losses with 99. Time will tell if the Halos have enough talent to contend in a division the Seattle Mariners are heavily favored to win.
A special assistant for the Angels the last three seasons, Suzuki signed a one-year contract last October and is the team’s fifth full-time manager since Mike Scioscia stepped down in 2018 after compiling a franchise-record 1,650 victories over 19 seasons. Suzuki spent 16 seasons as a major league catcher, retiring in 2022.
“It’s been fun,” Suzuki said prior to Sunday’s Freeway Series game, a 13-5 loss to the Dodgers at Angel Stadium. “Obviously I’ve never managed before but just being out of the game just as recently as a few years ago I understand the situations of the game, the speed of the game and those type of things. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy by any means. It’s a lot of work, but I’m having a great time, we’re surrounded by great people and the guys have been awesome so it’s been all good.”
As a former player, Suzuki will trust his instincts.
“For me, it’s attention to detail, it’s fundamentals, it’s just really being a baseball player,” he said. “Sometimes in this day and age of analytics and all that stuff you can kind of get lost in that sometimes. Not to say forget about it, but I think the more you can just play baseball how it’s supposed to be played, move guys over, situational hitting, things you grew up doing, if we can kind of keep that style and play hard and all that, I like our chances.”
From Bill Shaikin: Two decades after owner Arte Moreno decided the Angels should play under the Los Angeles name, elected officials representing Anaheim are pursuing two paths toward getting their hometown back into the team name.
Assemblyman Avelino Valencia, whose district includes Angel Stadium, has introduced state legislation that could require any sale or new lease of the stadium property be conditioned upon the team reverting to the Anaheim Angels name.
Meanwhile, Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken has asked the city attorney to explore whether the Angels have violated their current lease by dropping the Anaheim name from legal documents.
Not the best team in the country this year, but truly a testament to teamwork and hard work and talent retention.
Whether UCLA wins it all this season or not, the Bruins are the envy of teams everywhere, including Oklahoma State, whose season they ended with an 87-68 second-round victory Monday. Afterward, UCLA’s six seniors joined their teammates in one last victory lap around the court, waving to fans, soaking in the adoration, on their way to the Sweet 16 for the fourth consecutive season.
“Seeing a team who gets to host, a team who has stayed together, for the most part, they get to experience all the things that all of us want, and that is so incredibly rare and hard and special,” Oklahoma State coach Jacie Hoyt said.
But how much further those things will take these Bruins in the NCAA tournament after they fought off Oklahoma State?
Yegor Sharangovich scored in the fourth round of the shootout to lead the Calgary Flames to a 3-2 victory over the Kings on Tuesday night.
Olli Maatta and Zayne Parekh, each with their first goals of the season, scored in regulation time for the Flames, who have won four games in a row for the first time this season. Dustin Wolf stopped 23 shots.
Quinton Byfield scored both goals and Darcy Kuemper made 21 saves for the Kings, who have points in seven of their last nine but just three victories. They have dropped four straight.
Mikael Granlund scored twice, Alex Killorn had a goal and an assist, and the Ducks beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-3 on Tuesday night.
Mason McTavish and Troy Terry also scored for the Ducks, while John Carlson had three assists and Lukas Dostal stopped 27 shots.
The Ducks grabbed a 2-1 lead in the second period, only to see Vancouver rally and tie the score twice before McTavish scored the winner at the 5:45 mark of the third.
1934 — Horton Smith wins the first Masters golf tournament by one stroke over Craig Wood.
1947 — Holy Cross, led by George Kaftan, beats Oklahoma 58-47 in the NCAA basketball championship.
1958 — Sugar Ray Robinson regains the middleweight title for a record fifth time with a 15-round decision over Carmen Basilio.
1961 — Cincinnati ends Ohio State’s 32-game winning streak with a 70-65 win in the NCAA basketball championship. In the third-place game, St. Joseph’s beats Utah 127-120 in quadruple-overtime.
1967 — UCLA, led by sophomore Lew Alcindor’s 20 points, beats Dayton 79-64 for the NCAA basketball championship.
1972 — Bill Walton scores 24 points to lead UCLA to an 81-76 victory over Florida State and the NCAA basketball title.
1972 — Maryland beats Niagara 100-69 in the NIT championship, becoming the first team to score 100 points in the finals of the tournament.
1973 — The Philadelphia 76ers post the worst mark in NBA history at 9-73 under coaches Roy Rubin (4-47) and Kevin Loughery (5-26).
1982 — Wayne Gretzky becomes the first NHL player to score 200 points in a season.
1995 — Scotty Bowman gets his 900th regular-season coaching victory as the Detroit Red Wings beat the Canucks 2-1 in Vancouver.
2006 — Following the tradition of teenage American women pulling off big upsets, 16-year-old Kimmie Meissner uses the performance of her life to soar to the World Figure Skating Championships title.
2008 — Tennessee gives coach Pat Summitt her 100th NCAA tournament win, a 78-52 rout of host Purdue. The win sends the Lady Vols to the NCAA regional semifinals.
2011 — The Southwest regional is the first in NCAA men’s basketball history with three double-digit seeded teams in the semifinals. Virginia Commonwealth, an 11th seed beats 10th seed Florida State 72-71 in overtime and the top-seeded Kansas Jayhawks beat No. 12 seed Richmond 77-57 in the region’s other semifinal.
2012 — In the NBA’s first quadruple-overtime game since 1997, Joe Johnson scores 37 points and Josh Smith adds 22 as the Atlanta Hawks beat Utah 139-133. The four overtimes tie for the third-longest game in NBA history.
2016 — Klay Thompson scores 40 points and Stephen Curry adds 33 to help the Golden State Warriors become the second team to post back-to-back 65-win seasons with a 128-120 victory over the Dallas Mavericks. The Warriors improve their record to 65-7 following a 67-win season a year ago. The only other team to win at least 65 games in consecutive seasons was Chicago in 1995-96 and 1996-97.
2017 — Arrogate shows his class again in the $10 million Dubai World Cup as he comes from last place to win by an impressive 2 1/4 lengths.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
The Major League Baseball Players Assn. is arguably the strongest union in the United States whose members include some of the most conservative athletes in professional sports. The owners of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams, who made their wealth through the workings of free enterprise capitalism, want to limit what players can be paid. This apparent political and philosophical irony will most likely lead to a shutdown of baseball at the end of this season.
Wednesday is opening day for the 162-game major league season. The 2025 season ended Nov. 1 with an 11-inning Dodgers victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in what was one of the most mesmerizing World Series ever. Last season, the Dodgers attracted more than 4 million fans for the first time. The Dodgers weren’t alone. More than 71 million fans attended major league games — the third straight season of growth. Over the last decade, league revenue has increased 33%.
And yet, despite all this good news about the health of baseball’s finances, team owners have threatened to lock the players out — essentially an ownership strike — at the end of this season over terms of a new collective bargaining agreement soon to be negotiated with the players union.
Major League Baseball, unlike the NFL, the NBA and the NHL, does not have a hard salary cap that limits what teams can spend on players. This is the key issue for the 30 team owners and Commissioner Rob Manfred, who argues that the system is “broken.” Small-market teams can’t effectively compete, Manfred insists, with economic behemoths like the Dodgers and Yankees. But over the past 10 seasons, 14 teams have made it to the World Series, so the league is not dominated by only a few big spenders.
Major leaguers and fans have weathered five player strikes and four owner lockouts since 1972. The 1994-95 strike lasted 232 days, canceling more than 900 games, including the World Series. Unlike in the NFL, where top players like San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana crossed a picket line during the 1987 NFL Players Assn. strike, unionized baseball players have remained united. So far, no star players have been strikebreakers in baseball. Both Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers — the 2025 Cy Young Award winners for their respective leagues — also serve in players union leadership roles.
A recent report analyzing major league ballplayers’ political affiliation found that among those who live in states that allow public access to voter registration records, nearly 54% of the players were Republicans compared with 8% Democrats. Why does a rightward-leaning membership retain such strong union loyalties?
For Miami Marlins pitcher Pete Fairbanks, who is also a member of the players union leadership, it comes down to recognizing that they stand on the shoulders of players who challenged the baseball establishment.
“If you look at the history of the union, we’ve had a foundation set for us,” Fairbanks said. “They fought for players’ rights and for the general betterment of the whole and it’s the job of the veteran players to pass that history on to the younger players.”
Marvin Miller, a former Steelworkers Union leader, revolutionized the players’ union and baseball when he led the association from 1966 to 1982. He told the New York Times in 1999 that he was “irked” that many players did not know that it was the union that made their enormous salaries and benefits, arbitration and free agency possible. “When you don’t know your history, you tend to relive it,” Miller said.
Miller, who died in 2012, was a labor history buff who realized that highly skilled workers often developed elaborate ethical codes that promoted solidarity with other employees.
Bruce Meyer, the current executive director of the players association, puts the union’s fractious history with the owners at the center of his communications with players. He spent weeks talking with union members during spring training in Florida and Arizona, emphasizing the importance of unity in the ranks. “The bottom line is that our players have always been of the view that they are fighting not just for themselves but for their teammates and for the players that come after them,” Meyer said.
Manfred’s strategy as commissioner of Major League Baseball has been to talk directly with the players himself, especially the lower-earning younger players who he claims are being shortchanged. He argues that “10% of our players make 72% of the money,” numbers that Meyer disputes.
The commissioner is essentially telling players that their union has engaged in malpractice, losing touch with its own members while the economics of baseball changed around them. Meyer regards Manfred’s attempt to divide players as “standard management-labor tactics.”
Top agent Scott Boras said that, unlike in the NFL, baseball’s open salary system works for players because “your talent allows you to earn what you can earn without taking money from anybody else’s pocket.”
Paradoxically, the union has embraced the principles of Adam Smith: Let the free market work. No one forced the Dodgers to pay Shohei Ohtani $700 million. Good for Ohtani, great for Dodger fans. And this year, the Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo will be a field sponsor at Dodger Stadium. The owners, who embrace team revenue sharing and luxury taxes and demand restrictions on salary competition, sound like socialists.
When labor-management disputes interrupt baseball, many fans undoubtedly feel like they are victims of a squabble between “millionaires and billionaires.” Ryan Long, a 26-year-old minor league pitcher in the Baltimore Orioles system and a union leader, thinks the players association should try to understand how regular working people feel about a potential lockout. “Whether it’s people selling hot dogs at stadiums or cleaning rooms at local hotels, the union should help in whatever way it can for other workers who may be hurt if baseball shuts down,” he said.
In late February at the Yankees spring training field in Tampa, I spoke with season ticket holder Richard Barnitt, who wore a shirt designed like a baseball, looking like he could be scuffed up and pitched. “There has to be some kind of cap because the Dodgers and the New York Mets had unlimited money,” he said. Another fan, Carlos Rodriquez, an airplane mechanic living in Tampa, disagreed. “I don’t think a salary cap would be fair to the players,” he said. “The players association does magical work for those guys.”
If locked out, the players are going to want support from fans, to whom a salary cap might sound reasonable. Owners will do what owners do: maximize profits and franchise values. The players union should find ways to show the fans they are not forgotten.
During a previous owners lockout, the association created a million-dollar fund to help pay the bills of stadium concession workers who were thrown out of work. They can do the same again, letting fans know that they understand that most Americans struggle paycheck to paycheck. And maybe Ohtani can chip in a couple hundred bucks — like former Dodger Mike Piazza did decades ago — for each home run.
Kelly Candaele produced the documentary “A League of Their Own,” about his mother’s years playing in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
Absolutely, this is the best team in UCLA women’s basketball history.
Not the best team in the country this year, but truly a testament to teamwork and hard work and talent retention.
Whether UCLA wins it all this season or not, the Bruins are the envy of teams everywhere, including Oklahoma State, whose season they ended with an 87-68 second-round victory Monday. Afterward, UCLA’s six seniors joined their teammates in one last victory lap around the court, waving to fans, soaking in the adoration, on their way to the Sweet 16 for the fourth consecutive season.
“Seeing a team who gets to host, a team who has stayed together, for the most part, they get to experience all the things that all of us want, and that is so incredibly rare and hard and special,” Oklahoma State coach Jacie Hoyt said.
But how much further those things will take these Bruins in the NCAA tournament after they fought off Oklahoma State?
Maybe all the way, but maybe not.
The road ahead is treacherous. And the Bruins aren’t barreling toward it with the same momentum as the teams they’re likely to face. This deep UCLA team will need to dig even deeper.
They will have Lauren Betts, though, and no one else will. UCLA’s great 6-foot-7 center and cheat code saved the day Monday, scoring 21 of her career-high 35 points in the second half, when the Bruins got tight and the Cowgirls got closer.
Not close, but closer. Much closer than UCLA’s fellow top seeds’ opponents did.
UConn beat ninth-seeded Syracuse 98-45 in a second-round game that featured a killer 31-0 run by the defending champion Huskies.
South Carolina dismissed ninth-seeded USC, 101-61.
Texas blew out eighth-seeded Oregon like a candle, 100-58, on Sunday.
Even the second-seeded Louisiana State Tigers — likely UCLA’s Elite Eight date if both teams win their way to a third consecutive NCAA tournament meeting — got in on the demolition derby Sunday. They routed seventh-seeded Texas Tech 101-47 while setting an NCAA record by scoring 100 points in their 16th game this season.
But this is not a tournament that takes into account point differential. So no harm and no foul when it comes to the scores of the Bruins’ first two wins — and the first round against California Baptist turned into a rout, 96-43, after the Bruins woke up and outscored their guests 52-9 in the second half.
What might matter is that while UConn and South Carolina, Texas and LSU delivered their best spirit- and soul- and confidence-crushing blowouts, the Lancers and the Cowgirls left Pauley Pavilion feeling good about themselves.
The 16th-seeded Lancers can tout that they trailed a top seed by just 10 at halftime. The eighth-seeded Cowgirls (24-10) can crow about outscoring the Bruins 42-41 in the second half.
“UCLA has lost one game all season, right? The majority of those wins were blowouts, like, real blowouts, and it would have been really easy for us to fold after that first quarter,” said Hoyt, referencing the fact that UCLA beat teams by an average of 28.9 points per game this season, fourth-best in the nation.
“But we never did. They were tough and had a resilience and a grit to them that I was really proud to coach.”
That the Bruins (33-1) couldn’t put more significant distance between themselves and a physical Cowgirls team posed some questions about why adjustments didn’t come quick enough, UCLA coach Cori Close said, taking accountability for her part of that. She also saw her players start to let calls and miscommunications frustrate them: “I didn’t think our next-play speed was as good as it has been, and it affects you,” she said.
UCLA coach Cori Close waves to the crowd after Monday’s win over Oklahoma State in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
That doesn’t inspire additional confidence in the Bruins’ path forward. It’s a thorny gauntlet created by seeding rules that bar conference opponents from playing in the Elite Eight — and that could require UCLA, as the No. 2 overall seed, to beat three of the top-five seeded teams if it’s going to win a national championship for the first time since the Bruins won the AIAW title in 1978.
Close hasn’t quibbled with her team’s seeding despite its impressive 31-1 regular-season record against a loaded schedule. But she said Monday she doesn’t like the route that’s been drawn up for her team.
In Sacramento on Friday, the Bruins will play Minnesota, a familiar foe from the Big Ten — one of a dozen conference teams that earned NCAA tournament bids — whom they defeated 76-58 on Jan. 14.
But after that, to reach the championship game the No. 2 team in the nation could meet LSU (the fifth overall seed in the tournament), followed possibly by Texas (No. 3 overall). And then, of course, they’d likely meet No. 1, undefeated UConn in the final, where the Huskies would be trying to win a second consecutive title.
An unenviable assignment, even for a team that seems to have it all.
“You know what does bother me?” Close said. “That the No. 1 and No. 2 overall seeds are not being rewarded because of a guideline that you can’t play a person in your conference in the regional finals. That is an antiquated, poor rule that advantages the wrong teams and the people who haven’t done the work.”
But on Monday, while saying a victorious goodbye to Pauley Pavilion, the Bruins were still mostly unbothered.
“I told ‘em in the locker room,” Close said, “we can talk about your wins and losses all day, but that will always pale in comparison to the way that you’ve affected this community, the way that you’ve touched people’s hearts, the way that you’ve grown as young women.”
