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Katie Stith, the softball coach at JSerra High, can finally take a bow and become the most famous Stith in the family — at least for a couple weeks.

Imagine being the daughter of legendary club softball coach Mike Stith (OC Batbusters), then going into coaching. Katie did just that and has earned the spotlight after guiding JSerra to its first Southern Section Division 1 championship.

She has been selected The Times’ coach of the year for 2026.

It was her eighth season, and if you want to play in Division 1 in Southern California, you have to go through the gauntlet of powerhouses, from Norco to Orange Lutheran to Murrieta Mesa.

JSerra navigated a difficult regular-season schedule, then avoided upsets in the playoffs. The team finished 25-8 and had wins over Norco, La Mirada, Oaks Christian, Orange Lutheran and Garden Grove Pacifica — all prominent programs.

She was able to rely on pitcher Liliana Escobar and catcher Annabel Raftery in those pressure-packed moments from the first game to the last.

When her team needed her the most, JSerra High pitcher Liliana Escobar delivered a gritty 12-strikeout effort in the Southern Section Division 1 finals against La Mirada, leading the Lions to a 3-2 win and their first CIF title.

Her ability to rise to the occasion time and again while playing in the highest division is why Escobar is The Times’ high school softball player of the year, and no one is more proud of the senior than JSerra head coach Katie Stith.

“Liliana’s one of the best players I’ve ever coached,” Stith said. “She’s talented, of course, but what stands out is the type of teammate she is. She’s so wise for her age and always made it a point to look out for the team. She wanted to win for them.”

Escobar did her fair share of winning in her prep career. She had 14 victories as a junior was selected the Division 2 player of the year after posting a 1.20 earned-run average while striking out 239 batters in 140 innings. This spring she improved to 18-5 and gave up only 26 earned runs with 264 strikeouts and 47 walks in 153 innings pitched. She signed with the University of Florida on Nov. 12, one month after committing to one of the most successful SEC programs.

“What she’s accomplished the last two years is just incredible,” Stith said of Escobar, who plays travel ball for the OC Batbusters. “After battling an injury and having to sit out her sophomore season she could’ve let that defeat her, but she fought hard to be at her best.”

Escobar recorded 10 or more strikeouts 15 times this season and outdueled Orange Lutheran ace Rylee Silva twice in Trinity League action, but perhaps her most impressive performance was a three-hit shutout with 14 strikeouts in the CIF-SS Division 1 semifinals against defending champion Norco — her second win in three outings versus the Cougars this spring.

She threw a five-hitter in the Lions’ playoff opener against Yucaipa and lasted all eight innings with 10 strikeouts in a 5-4 triumph over Ayala in the second round. She struck out 10 again and gave up only three hits in a 1-0 quarterfinal victory over Garden Grove Pacifica.

“Liliana becomes so courageous and competitive when she gets in the circle,” Stith added. “She believes in herself and executes every pitch, trusting the coaches every step of the way. I’m grateful for the time I got to spend coaching her and the example she set for those to follow. This is just the beginning for her. … I think she’ll do great things for the Gators.”

Last summer, James Tronstein of Harvard-Westlake was struggling at the plate. Then came shocking news before his senior year: He didn’t make the list of 40 finalists for the U18 national baseball team despite winning gold medals for the U15 team.

“He was pressing,” coach Jared Halpert said. “He had really good at-bats but wasn’t getting results. Credit goes to his maturity, ‘How do I get better?’”

His mental adjustment on how to react to failure, combined with a conditioning program that led him to lose 10 pounds and become faster and stronger, created a spring environment sending him into rarefied air.

The 6-foot, 170-pounder batted .531 with 52 hits and 10 home runs while making the transition from center fielder to shortstop. Everyone associated with the program now calls him the best hitter in school history.

For an individual performance that separated him from all others, Tronstein has been selected The Times’ player of the year for the 2026 season. The Vanderbilt commit and possible high draft pick has been a four-year varsity starter. He also was named the Gatorade state player of the year.

One of the lessons Tronstein said he learned is that “baseball is a game of failure. How am I going to handle that and set myself up for success?”

“He started evaluating situations,” Halpert said.

He also became a vocal leader, having been taken under the wings by former stars Bryce Rainer, Tommy Bridges and Miguel Villegas. His fire during games and his support of teammates came through loud and clear

He credited Halpert for teaching him about baseball and life.

“Coach Halpert has a huge impact on my life,” Tronstein said. “He’s made me into the man I am today.”

Tronstein helped Harvard-Westlake win the Mission League title and reach the Southern Section Division 1 semifinals before losing 3-1 to eventual champion St. John Bosco.

The votes are still being tallied but the result of Tuesday’s top-two primary election in California seems pretty clear.

Despite an uptick in his performance, hopes for third-place finisher Tom Steyer are fading along with the number of uncounted ballots, suggesting Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton will face off in November.

Given the overwhelming Democratic advantage — both attitudinally and in registration — the outcome of the governor’s race might seem preordained. But it’s voters who decide elections, not know-it-all columnists.

Two of that breed, Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria, can’t see into the future. But they can try to make sense of what just passed, starting with a primary season that was a strange mix of ennui and white knuckles.

Barabak: So Anita, now that the election is over how are you feeling? Relieved? Giddy? Depressed?

Chabria: Tired, with five months to go. And while it’s true neither of us can see into the future, it’s not too much of a long shot to predict that in a state where registered Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, the next governor will likely be blue.

So while the primary was bruising and confusing, the general election will be much more predictable — it’s Becerra’s to lose, and he’d have to try really hard to do that.

But here’s what I’ll be looking for in the lead up to November: How far will Hilton go to capitalize on this moment for personal gain? There are plenty of real issues to be discussed where the Republican-Democrat divide could offer worthy debate. What should we do about gas prices? What is the right balance between environmental regulation and building housing?

But my fear is, with little chance of winning, Hilton will instead focus on boosting his MAGA credentials.

In the past week, we’ve seen him dive headfirst into voter-fraud conspiracies, following the lead of President Trump. Hilton’s campaign is providing Trump with the biggest platform for this false propaganda of rigged elections that California has ever endured.

That is bad for our state and bad for democracy, and it’s troubling that we will likely be subjected to these lies — and that California could be used to further erode voting rights nationally — for the entire summer leading up to the midterms.

What will you be keeping an eye on?

Barabak: How Becerra spends the next five months.

One presumes he’s smart enough not to take anything for granted. Meaning he won’t spend the time between now and Nov. 3 at some swank beach resort, sipping one of those colorful cocktails with a little paper parasol while musing over his inaugural address.

So it will be interesting to see how Becerra campaigns and whether he uses the next several months to build a mandate and also to prepare California voters for the rough road ahead.

Becerra is smart enough, one would think, not to run as Mr. Sky Is Falling and tell voters, “Boy, oh, boy things are really gonna suck going forward.” But the next governor is going to face some really tough challenges, including a structural budget deficit that’s probably going to require both painful cuts and unpopular tax hikes.

On top of that, there are the inevitable disasters, be they earthquake, fire or flood, the latter quite possibly exacerbated this winter by what may be an epic El Niño. There’s also the continued challenge of dealing with a president who treats California the way a dog regards a fire hydrant.

Finally, there’s the unknowable but certain catastrophes the next governor will face.

All of it makes you wonder why anyone would want the job — though Steyer panted after it enough to burn through more than $215 million of his fortune in a bonfire of vanity.

Chabria: Steyer was bashed for being a self-funded billionaire, but what his support showed is that there is a significant contingent of voters who are tired of the status quo and want a governor with bold ideas.

California definitely faces many problems, but we are also historically a state that pushes forward on hard issues.

Universal healthcare and standing our climate ground in the face of federal rollbacks were two of Steyer’s big talking points, along with standing up to corporate influence. Becerra now inherits those thorny problems if he wants to form a more cohesive Democratic base.

Becerra hasn’t yet offered up his vision of the Golden State, as you point out. As much as it may benefit Hilton to focus on Trump in coming months, the same could be true for Becerra.

Why get into messy policy when you can run on opposing MAGA in a very blue state? I fear the next few months will be more about Trump than California.

Barabak: That’s a charitable way to look at $teyer’s campaign.

Sure, he had plenty of ideas, though I think the promise of delivering universal healthcare — a political nonstarter — was cheap pandering, not visionary leadership.

There’s no shortage of people with good ideas. The only reason anyone paid attention to Steyer, who’s never served in any elected office, was the obscene amount of money he spent on his luxury-class ego trip. So it pleases me voters didn’t reward his arrogance or buy his billionaire-turned-populist, “Amazing Grace” spiel. (“I once was blind, but now I see.”)

And I’m be gladder still that voters showed — once again — the governor’s office is not for sale.

I do agree, however, that Becerra should to more than just cry MAGA! MAGA! MAGA! for the next five months, as if that incantation is magic and will solve all our problems. That applies, by the way, to Democratic candidates everywhere.

All of that said, we should note the governor’s race has yet to be officially decided and Steyer still has at least a theoretical possibility of slipping into the top two.

What do you think about California’s prolonged, much-derided long ballot count? Is the criticism warranted?

Chabria: First, we’ll have to agree to disagree. California is on a healthcare cliff and even middle-class Americans (not just Californians) can’t afford either insurance or care.

Single-payer may be a dream, but it’s my dream — for my kids, for my community and for my state, because healthcare shouldn’t be just for the rich and that is increasingly the direction we are going. So any politician, Steyer included, who fights for inclusion rather than accepting exclusion will get my consideration.

And let’s be real — self-funded or corporate-funded — our elections are, to their detriment, too much about money. My outrage is for the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which unleashed the current no-limits mess and created a system in which it requires hundreds of millions from somewhere, anywhere to run for our highest offices.

But back to ballots: Slow is not fraud. Slow is not bad if it’s accurate. Slow allows for greater voter participation by allowing mail-in ballots, and carefully checking all ballots for problems. Slow takes into account the federal mangling of the post office that has, yes, slowed down our mail.

And, slow happens because most of our county elections offices are understaffed and budget-starved. If you want fast, you’ve got to pay for it.

So keep your britches on people and don’t buy Trump’s (or Hilton’s) manufactured hype. Every system can be improved, but there’s far worse problems than slow.

What’s your take on the ballot controversy?

Barabak: Here’s one where we agree.

California goes out of its way to make it easy to vote, which, I believe, is a very good thing. Kim Alexander of the non-partisan California Voter Foundation, who’s spent decades on the matter, has suggested ways we can have both wide access and a faster count, starting with better funding of the state’s over-extended county election offices.

This prolonged count is something Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-run Legislature could have anticipated. Shame on them for not doing more to address it.

Chabria: Any final thoughts?

Barabak: Just this. I’ve read the many plaintive pieces written about this boring, wholly-unworthy-of-the-Great-Golden-State field of gubernatorial candidates.

I, too, yearn for that perfect candidate who is firm but flexible, old but youthful in his or her thinking, masculine but also feminine, brilliant but not too smart and larger than life but also totally relatable.

Maybe in 2030.

A look at The Times’ final top 25 high school baseball in the Southland for 2026.

Rk. School (Rec.); Comment; last ranking

1. ST. JOHN BOSCO (27-6); SS Division 1 champion; 3

2. NORCO (28-5); SS Division 1 runner-up; 1

3. HARVARD-WESTLAKE (26-6); SS Division 1 semifinals; 2

4. SHERMAN OAKS NOTRE DAME (23-9); SS Division 1 semifinals; 8

5. CORONA (23-9); SS Division 1 quarterfinals; 6

6. HUNTINGTON BEACH (25-8-1); SS Division 1 Round 3; Division I regional champs; 5

7. LA MIRADA (25-9); SS Division 1 quarterfinals; 11

8. ORANGE LUTHERAN (25-6); SS Division 1 quarterfinals; 4

9. CYPRESS (23-9); SS Division 1 quarterfinals; 10

10. SIERRA CANYON (24-7); SS Division 1 Round 3; 7

11. AYALA (24-5); SS Division 1 Round 3; 9

12. CORONA SANTIAGO (19-12); SS Division 1 Round 3; 15

13. ETIWANDA (20-9); SS Division 1 Round 2; 18

14. OAKS CHRISTIAN (22-8); SS Division 1 Round 2; 12

15. TEMECULA VALLEY (24-6); SS Division 1 Round 2; 16

16. GANESHA (26-3-1); SS Division 2 champions; 25

17; NEWPORT HARBOR (25-10); SS Division 2 semifinals; Division 2 regional champs;14

18. MARANATHA (23-7); SS Division 1 Round 2; 23

19. LOYOLA (19-4-1); SS Division 2 runner-up; NR

20. ELSINORE (22-4); SS Division 2 quarterfinals; NR

21. AQUINAS (21-10); SS Division 2 quarterfinals; 20

22. FOOTHILL (20-12); SS Division 2 semifinals; NR

23. VILLA PARK (19-9-1); SS Division 2 first round; 17

24. SANTA MARGARITA (16-14); SS Division 2 second round; 21

25. GAHR (18-11-1); SS Division 2 second round; 13

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman cut deeper into the lead of reality television personality Spencer Pratt on Saturday, as his lead slimmed to just a single percentage point.

Pratt fell to just over 27% of the vote while Raman jumped up to slightly over 26%, according to the results from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder. Pratt now leads Raman by just 7,494 votes.

“We’ve seen Nithya Raman catching up on every update and the last two in particular she’s accelerated,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan voter data firm Political Data Inc. “She’s continued to gain at a rate that means she will eventually catch up unless Pratt starts getting some ballots coming in that are either geographically or demographically better for him.”

Democratic consultant Michael Trujillo, who doesn’t represent anyone in the mayoral race, said the results suggest Raman will surpass Pratt as more votes are counted.

“I think it’s over,” Trujillo said. “It appears Nithya will be in the runoff. Pratt doesn’t appear to be growing much more.”

The second-place finisher in the mayoral primary will face Mayor Karen Bass in a Nov. 3 runoff. On election night Tuesday, the Associated Press determined that Bass had secured enough votes to qualify for the runoff.

Pratt has been in second place since then, but Raman has gradually eroded his lead as mail-in ballots have been counted. The updated vote tally released Thursday showed Pratt with 29% of the vote and Raman with 23%.

With Friday’s update, Raman’s share had risen to 25% and Pratt’s shrank to 28%, for a 3 percentage point gap.

In the most recent batch of mail-in ballots counted, Raman received 23,514 votes, while Pratt gained 10,336.

Election analysts expected Raman to gain ground as the mail-in ballots were tallied, reasoning that many left-of-center voters — Raman’s base — held onto their mail-in ballots until the last minute as they waited to choose between Democratic gubernatorial candidates. They also say younger, more progressive voters tend to hold onto their ballots longer generally.

Although the mayor’s race is nonpartisan, Pratt is a Republican in a city that is overwhelmingly dominated by Democratic voters and elected officials.

A poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which was co-sponsored by The Times, had Pratt running in third place behind Bass and Raman.

The poll of 1,351 likely voters conducted May 19-24 had Bass with 26% support, Raman with 25% support and Pratt with 22% support, with a 3% margin of error.

Los Angeles voters have become accustomed to seeing election results change as late-arriving ballots are tabulated. In the 2022 mayoral primary, real estate developer Rick Caruso led the pack for about a week before Bass pulled ahead.

Pratt was favored in many of the same neighborhoods that voted for Caruso, according to a Times analysis of precinct-level returns provided by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder on Wednesday, when an estimated 62% of the projected vote had been counted. Raman, by comparison, made inroads in progressive areas dominated by Bass four years ago.

Pratt, whose Pacific Palisades fire home burned in the January 2025 fire, was strong there and on the Westside, as well as in the San Fernando Valley communities of Encino, Woodland Hills, Chatsworth and Sunland-Tujunga.

Raman dominated precincts known for their progressive politics, particularly those with younger people in renter-heavy neighborhoods stretching from Hollywood to Highland Park, including her home base of Silver Lake.

Mail-in ballots with an election day postmark will continue to be accepted by county election officials through Tuesday.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

It seems odd that the biggest news of the week was the fact that tickets for a movie went on sale, but apparently Christopher Nolan’s upcoming “The Odyssey” is no typical movie. Having already made tickets available for some shows a full year in advance, Universal put more of them on sale for the July 17 opening weekend of the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s ancient epic. There were reports of long online wait times, crashing ticketing systems and the kind of problems more often associated with pop stars than movie nerds.

“The Odyssey” will be playing in a variety of formats, with the Imax 70mm screenings among the most coveted. More venues than usual have also been announced as playing the film in 70mm, including the Village Theatre in Westwood. (A handy visual guide to the different fomats is on the film’s website.) While there is a hint of the ridiculous to some of this mania — popcorn buckets in the shape of Imax cameras and movie tickets going on the resale market for hundreds of dollars — there is no denying how exciting it is to see this kind of anticipation building around any movie.

Back to a ’90s phenomenon

Ewen Bremner, left, Ewan McGregor, Johnny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle in the movie “Trainspotting.”

(Liam Longman / Sony Pictures Classics)

When it first came out in 1996, “Trainspotting” was an instant cultural phenomenon, capturing the vibes of the “Cool Britannia” moment with its sparkling soundtrack, inventive, high-energy style and cast that included up-and-coming talents such as Ewan McGregor and Kelly Macdonald. It was only the second feature directed by Danny Boyle, who would go on to be an Oscar winner, mount an Olympics opening ceremony and remain a reliably exciting filmmaker all the way to his recent “28 Years Later.”

“Trainspotting” is now back in theaters in a 4K restoration for its 30th anniversary, having lost none of its brash vigor. In his original review, Kenneth Turan said of the film, “Exuberant and pitiless, profane yet eloquent, flush with the ability to create laughter out of unspeakable situations, ‘Trainspotting’ is a drop-dead look at a dead-end lifestyle that has all the strength of its considerable contradictions.”

Appearing like magic

Kathy Najimy, left, Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker in the 1993 comedy “Hocus Pocus.”

(Disney)

Directed by Kenny Ortega, “Hocus Pocus” is one of those movies that has seen its fanbase grow steadily over the years — it is now much more beloved than it ever was on initial release. (It even inspired a 2022 sequel.) Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimi play the Sanderson sisters, 17th century witches who find themselves inadvertently brought to modern day by a group of teenagers messing around with casting spells.

The film will play Saturday at the Gardena Cinema, featuring a live commentary from cast members Omri Katz, Thora Birch, Larry Bagby, Tobias Jelinek and Vinessa Shaw followed by a Q&A. This is a rare appearance by Katz in particular, who has retired from acting. Fans of the movie should make the effort to attend.

The Gardena, the last family-owned single-screen theater in Los Angeles, suffered a blow last weekend when a burst pipe flooded the venue. Though they are operational, a campaign has been started to help them recoup repair costs.

Examining the life of the mind

John Turturro in the 1991 movie “Barton Fink.”

(20th Century Fox)

Ranking the films of Joel and Ethan Coen has become a cottage industry of its own. Personally, I go back-and-forth on where to place 1991’s “Barton Fink,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, as well as prizes for director and actor. The movie is by turns funny, disturbing and inscrutable (all good things), with John Turturro in the title role as an intellectual New York playwright who goes to Hollywood to write screenplays — and slowly goes insane.

The movie will play Friday in 35mm at Vidiots with an introduction from Noah Segan, who directed Turturro in one of the breakout titles from this year’s Sundance, “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.” Hopefully, this will turn into a year in which Turturro gets some long-deserved accolades.

Christmas in June

Elliott Gould on the set of 1978’s “The Silent Partner.”

(Anwar Hussein / Getty Images)

There is something particularly charged about watching a Christmas movie at other times of year — an odd sense of dislocation and maybe even something a little naughty, a circuit-scrambling frisson. So it is particularly notable that as part of their salute to the independent studio Carolco Pictures (behind such films as “Basic Instinct,” “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “Reservoir Dogs”), the Vista will be showing 1978’s “The Silent Partner.”

Just the kind of tight and gripping thriller that people pine for all year round, “The Silent Partner” has a screenplay by Curtis Hanson, who would go on to make “L.A. Confidential.” Elliott Gould plays a Toronto bank teller who tries to rip off the thief (Christopher Plummer) who robs his branch wearing a Santa costume as a disguise. Soon they are both scheming against each other.

In his original review of the film, Kevin Thomas called it “tense and ingenious.” In a reconsideration of the film some months later, Charles Champlin called it “a stylish crime-suspense story, a cat-and-mouse game between Christopher Plummer as a clever, sadistic bank robber and Elliott Gould as a bored bank teller who sees a way out of his boredom and into riches.”

So much beauty

Brooke Adams and Sam Shepard in the 1978 movie “Days of Heaven.”

(Criterion Collection)

Terrence Malick’s 1978 “Days of Heaven” is still strikingly singular: a love story told with a stirring visual style. The film’s beauty — aside from its impossibly good-looking lead actors, Richard Gere and Brooke Adams — in part comes from gifted Spanish cinematographer Néstor Almendros, who made his American debut after a career in Europe that saw him working with filmmakers such as Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut. Almendros would win an Academy Award for the film.

The New Beverly will show “Days of Heaven” in 35mm Tuesday through Thursday as a double bill with Truffaut’s 1970 “The Wild Child,” shot by Almendros in black-and-white. Writing about “Days” in 1978, The Times’ Charles Champlin called it “an extraordinary and original visual experience and a movie which is thrilling in its uncompromised purity.”

Perverse fun

Ha Jung-woo, left, and Kim Min-hee in the 2016 movie “The Handmaiden.”

(TIFF)

Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook was just president of the Cannes jury and has become a much-beloved figure on the international circuit for his wicked sense of humor and sharp sense of style. Nowhere is that on better display than his 2016 film “The Handmaiden,” which is somehow at once a period drama, a con-man thriller and an erotic lesbian romance. Vidiots will be showing the movie Sunday.

As Justin Chang wrote when the film was released, “Without sacrificing his taste for psychosexual perversity or his flair for violent grace notes, Park has given us a teasingly witty and elegant puzzle-box of a thriller whose pleasures are rooted not in visceral shock but in narrative surprise, and which wisely opts to seduce rather than pulverize its audience.”

In an interview at the time, Park said the film’s unpredictability was part of the project’s appeal. “That’s the exact kind of fun to be had with this film and the reason why I chose to make this film. Everything becomes a game of perception. Rather than to say it’s a difficult thing to navigate, it is fun to deal with. Not only for me as a filmmaker but for the audience to see that and engage in that game.”

New this week

• Amy Nicholson reviews the latest attempt to make a movie out of a popular Mattel toy with the lightly-tongue-in-cheek “Masters of the Universe.”
• Amy also reviewed the revival of the satirical “Scary Movie” franchise, with original stars Anna Faris and Regina Hall returning to make fun of such recent hits as “Sinners,” “Weapons” and “The Substance.”
• The documentary “Time and Water” looks at climate change through the life and work of Icelandic writer Andri Snaer Magnason as directed by Sara Dosa, who had a hit with her last film “Fire of Love.” Robert Abele reviews.

One last thing…

This week, our colleagues at De Los launched a podcast hosted by Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito. The interview-style video podcast will feature conversations with the people shaping Latino culture in the United States.

The first episode features singer and actor Leslie Grace, who talks about her experiences working on the film “In the Heights” as well as being the star of the canceled “Batgirl.”

Since election night in California, a single theory of election fraud has taken root like no other — not just among online conspiracy theorists or bot accounts, but among major conservative influencers and people close to President Trump.

Late on election night, an update of vote counts in the Los Angeles mayor’s race appeared on election results pages of various media outlets including the Los Angeles Times.

It showed leading Democrats Mayor Karen Bass and Councilmember Nithya Raman receiving tens of thousands of new votes, and leading Republican former reality TV star Spencer Pratt receiving no new votes.

Close observers of the vote tally immediately took screenshots, with some shouting fraud. Others ran statistical analyses that showed it would be impossible for a candidate such as Pratt — running second in the race — to receive zero votes in such a large batch of ballots.

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“They’re not even trying to hide the fraud anymore,” wrote Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and one-time member of Trump’s inner circle.

The claim fit into the broader narrative being pushed relentlessly by Trump and other Republicans in recent days, that California Democrats were cheating.

But the discrepancy in the Tuesday vote count in the mayor’s race was not fraud.

What attracted far less attention than the update with zero Pratt votes was another update one minute later that showed tens of thousands of votes for Pratt, and none for Bass or Raman.

There was no batch of votes that included zero votes for any candidate, as Los Angeles County’s own data show plainly.

But voting data pushed out by the Associated Press came as two separate updates one minute apart, with Bass’ and Raman’s votes in the first and Pratt’s in the second.

“The AP vote count receives updates as provided by election officials and adds them to our vote count. What happened in this case is that there was a lag in an automated update such that some candidates’ votes were added in one update and the other candidates followed about a minute later,” the Associated Press said in a statement to The Times.

“Specifically, an electronic update from the Los Angeles County website pulled in votes for only one group of candidates, including Karen Bass and Nithya Raman. Exactly one minute later, the electronic update picked up the votes for another group of candidates including Spencer Pratt. Taken together, the updates included 21,870 votes for Pratt, 12,850 votes for Bass and 9,521 votes for Raman, along with votes for other candidates.”

The Times’ election results page relies on the AP’s data feed, and checks for updates once a minute.

According to a Times review of election night results data, The Times pulled data from the AP’s feed at approximately 8:35 p.m. that included 0 new votes for Pratt and eight other candidates. When The Times’ system next checked for new numbers a minute later, there was an update with votes for Pratt but no new votes for Raman, Bass and others.

Michael Sanchez, a spokesperson for Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office, said he could not speak for how news outlets report county data, but that he could confirm there were no batches of votes that included zero votes for Pratt.

“It is false,” he said of that narrative. “In every single result update that we released on election night and since election night, he has received votes,” Sanchez said.

Justin Grimmer, a political science professor at Stanford University and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who researches and evaluates claims of election fraud, conducted his own data analysis of the vote updates, and came to the same conclusion.

He said there was an initial update with no Pratt votes, but a second one 41 seconds later with no votes for Bass or Raman — leading him to believe the single batch of ballots was just reported in two back-to-back updates rather than one.

“Because they came so close together, it looks like it was just a sequence of updates,” he said.

Grimmer said news outlets are “thinking about speed” and the best way to get people the most accurate information as quickly as possible, but “haven’t quite adjusted to being in this world where there’s this group of people who monitor these data feeds as if they are official government reports.”

“It leads to these horrible tweets about there being evidence of fraud,” he said.

Grimmer said he operates under the “mantra” that such fraud claims can’t be dismissed “by mere assertion” that the fraud didn’t happen, but must be looked into — which is why he dived into the data in the first place. This claim, he said, was similar to claims about odd-seeming vote tallies that were made during and after the 2020 election of Joe Biden over Trump, so he was familiar with how to look into the data.

“You can just go to the source code for the page, and then you can find where the sort of feed is, and that’s all I did — just found the feed, downloaded it, and then just saw what the updates were,” he said.

Grimmer said it was not surprising to him that people were watching the data feeds come in closely enough to notice an apparent discrepancy in the data that lasted less than a minute.

“There is a group of individuals who are convinced that there’s lots of fraud going on in U.S. elections, and for whatever reason, this group is convinced that they’re gonna uncover this by careful monitoring of these data feeds and the data that is being reported,” he said.

Grimmer said he would not presume to tell news outlets how to do their job of delivering election results quickly in the future, but does hope they balance the need to move quickly with “this reality that their feeds are now being monitored by individuals who think that they’re able to discover instances of fraud from what’s happening in the feeds.”

Sanchez reiterated that the county’s own official results of votes have been accurate — saying that “at no point” did the county office “report an official results update in which Pratt received zero votes.”

Jennifer Kupcho leads U.S. Women’s Open

From Sam Farmer: Nelly Korda’s bid for a U.S. Women’s Open title began Thursday with a foot fault.

The No. 1-ranked player opened her round at Riviera wearing a pair of golf shoes provided to her by LeBron James, Nike Victory Pro 4s with white uppers, gold swooshes, red-and-navy details and an American flag pin on the laces.

Snazzy as they looked, the shoes were a little loose fitting for Korda, who swapped them for a more familiar pair after she played the first six holes at one over par. She never really found her groove and finished the opening round with a two-over-par 73.

“Just hit it really poorly off the tee,” said Korda, who immediately headed to the practice range after meeting with the media following her round. “Found myself in a lot of trouble on the wrong side of a lot of these pins. I just felt like I was kind of just grinding to make safe pars. It wasn’t a great day. I hit it really good Monday through Wednesday, so I have honestly no idea where this came from.”

For others, Riviera — playing host to the major championship for the first time — was as comfortable as an old shoe.

In the long shadows of the afternoon sun, Jennifer Kupcho finished her round of 66 to claim the first-round lead. Her round started with three consecutive birdies. According to Elias Sports Bureau, it marked the first time in her career she made birdie or better three consecutive holes.

Korea’s Sei Young Kim finished just behind Kupcho with a 67, making back-to-back birdies on the 10th and 11th holes, then three in a row on Nos. 6, 7 and 8.

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U.S. Women’s Open leaderboard

Dodgers lose on walk-off homer

From Maddie Lee: Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy appeared to escape serious injury Thursday, despite being involved in a violent collision during a 3-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on Thursday.

Although Muncy left the game after colliding hard with Arizona first baseman Ildemaro Vargas, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he thinks Muncy will be available over the weekend. Muncy won’t play Friday against the Angels, but that was already the plan.

“The head got banged up a little bit,” Muncy said after the game, a cut on the brim of his nose still visible. “I think it was my glasses, maybe, that cut my nose. I’m not entirely sure. And then as I was on the ground, just had shortness of breath. Once I was able to kind of get my breath back, then I was able to get off the field.”

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Why Dave Roberts didn’t pinch-hit Shohei Ohtani in Dodgers’ walk-off loss

Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Casey Wasserman says he will not resign

From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The list of politicians grew daily. Major stars from his talent agency joined the chorus calling for Casey Wasserman to resign as the chairman of LA28 after emails the mogul exchanged with Ghislaine Maxwell were revealed in the Epstein files in February.

But four months after the controversy appeared to threaten his position leading the effort for L.A.’s first Olympic Games since 1984, Wasserman said he never saw it the same way.

“No and yes,” Wasserman said matter of factly Thursday when asked if he considered stepping down as chairman of LA28 and whether he has spoken with Mayor Karen Bass since she was one of several local politicians to call for his resignation.

When asked about the nature of any discussions he’s had with Bass, Wasserman said he speaks with the mayor weekly if not more frequently.

“Our conversations are between us,” Wasserman said in his first public comments in months. “They continue to be thoughtful and productive with a completely shared vision on delivering the greatest Games for the city and our community.”

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USC baseball wants to keep the train rolling

From Jose de Jesus Ortiz: As USC baseball coach Andy Stankiewicz noted the next additions that will be made to USC’s refurbished baseball stadium, he paused Monday night as a train rumbled loudly behind Blue Bell Park.

Stankiewicz, 61, smirked at the fitting metaphor after the Trojans clinched their first NCAA super regional berth in 21 years. He, after all, has rebuilt the USC program over his four seasons as head coach.

“Now we have a beautiful stadium,” he said of Dedeaux Field. “We’re going to have a beautiful clubhouse next year, batting cages and all that.”

As Stankiewicz attempted to utter another sentence, the train’s ear-piercing horn sounded.

“That’s appropriate because we tell people the train’s moving,” Stankiewicz said. “Now we have a train honking its whistle. The train’s moving. We’re certainly excited to see where we’re going.”

The Trojans are definitely going places these days thanks to many players who believed in Stankiewicz’s vision despite knowing their on-campus stadium would be under construction for at least two seasons.

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This day in sports history

1870 — Ed Brown becomes the first Black jockey to win the Belmont Stakes, with Kingfisher.

1927 — The United States wins the first Ryder Cup golf tournament by beating Britain 9½-2½.

1932 — Faireno, ridden by Tommy Malley, wins the Belmont Stakes by 1½ lengths over Osculator. Burgoo King, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, doesn’t race.

1966 — Ameroid, ridden by Bill Boland, wins the Belmont Stakes by 2½ lengths over Buffle. Kauai King, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, finishes fourth.

1974 — NFL grants franchise to Seattle Seahawks.

1984 — 1960 champion Arnold Palmer fails to qualify for the US Open Golf Championship for the first time in 32 years.

1987 — Danny Harris defeats Edwin Moses in the 400 hurdles at a meet in Madrid, ending the longest winning streak in track and field. Moses, had won 122 consecutive races dating to Aug. 26, 1977.

1988 — West Germany’s Steffi Graf beats 17-year-old Natalia Zvereva of the Soviet Union in 32 minutes with a 6-0, 6-0 victory to win the French Open for the second straight year.

1990 — Penn State is voted into the Big Ten. The school becomes the 11th member of the league and first addition to the Midwest-based conference since Michigan State in 1949.

1994 — Haile Gebrselassie becomes the first Ethiopian to set a world track record with a time of 12:56.96 in the men’s 5,000 meters at Hengelo, Netherlands.

1998 — Harut Karapetyan of the Galaxy scores three goals in five minutes for the fastest hat trick in MLS history in an 8-1 rout of the Dallas Burn. The seven-goal margin sets an MLS record.

2005 — Justine Henin-Hardenne beats a rattled and fumbling Mary Pierce 6-1, 6-1 to win the French Open, capping a comeback from a blood virus with her fourth Grand Slam title and her second at Roland Garros.

2005 — Eddie Castro sets a North American record for most wins by a jockey in one day at one track, winning nine races on the 13-race card at Miami’s Calder Race Course.

2008 — The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup for the fourth time in 11 seasons with a 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 6 .

2011 — Li Na becomes the first Chinese — man or woman — to win a Grand Slam singles title. She beats Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 7-6 (0) in the French Open final for her fifth career title and first on clay.

2016 — Garbine Muguruza wins her first Grand Slam title by beating defending champion Serena Williams 7-5, 6-4 at the French Open, denying the American her record-equaling 22nd major trophy.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1940 — The Pirates beat the Boston Bees 14-2 in the first night game at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field.

1940 — The St. Louis Cardinals play their first night game at Sportsman’s Park, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers 10-1.

1951 — Pittsburgh’s Gus Bell hit for the cycle to lead the Pirates to a 12-4 victory over the Phillies at Philadelphia.

1964 — Sandy Koufax pitched his third no-hitter, striking out 12, as the Dodgers beat the Phillies 3-0 in Philadelphia.

1968 — Don Drysdale of the Dodgers blanked the Pirates 5-0 for his sixth straight shutout en route to a record 58 2/3 scoreless innings.

1972 — A major league record eight shutouts were pitched in 16 major league games: five in the American League, three in the National League. The Oakland Athletics swept a pair from the Baltimore Orioles by identical 2-0 scores.

1974 — The game between the Cleveland Indians and the Texas Rangers at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium was forfeited to Texas. Umpire Nestor Chylak had problems with fans all night on 10-cent beer night. The crowd got out of control when Cleveland tied the score 5-5 in the bottom of the ninth.

1989 — Toronto beats Boston 13-11 in 12 innings after trailing 10-0 after six innings. Red Sox starter Mike Smithson threw six scoreless innings before leaving in the seventh because of a foot blister. The Jays then scored two in the seventh, four in the eighth and five in the ninth and two more in the 11th on Junior Felix’s home run. It was the biggest lead the Red Sox have blown and their 12th consecutive loss to the Blue Jays at Fenway Park.

1990 — Ramon Martinez struck out 18 and pitched a three-hitter, sending the Dodgers past the Atlanta Braves 6-0.

1996 — Pamela Davis pitched one inning of scoreless relief and got the win in a minor league exhibition game. She is believed to be the first woman to pitch for a major league farm club under the current minor league system. The 21-year-old right-hander pitched for the Jacksonville Suns, a double-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, against the Australian Olympic team.

2000 — Esteban Yan of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays becomes the 77th major league player to hit a home run in his first at bat, but just the fourth American League pitcher and the first since the Angels’ Don Rose in 1972, the year before the designated hitter rule took the bat out of AL pitchers’ hands.

2005 — Rafael Palmeiro and Melvin Mora each hit grand slams to help Baltimore rally for a 14-7 win over Detroit.

2007 — Mark Ellis hit for the cycle and Eric Chavez had a two-out homer in the 11th inning to lift Oakland to a 5-4 win over Boston.

2009 — Randy Johnson became the 24th major league pitcher to win 300 games by leading San Francisco to a 5-1 victory over the Washington Nationals in the first game of a doubleheader.

2012 — Angels manager Mike Scioscia became the ninth manager in AL history to manage 2,000 games with one club. The Mariners beat the Angels 8-6.

2018 — In a doubleheader with the Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees OF Aaron Judge sets a record by striking out eight times.

2019 — San Francisco Giant Manager Bruce Bochy wins his 1,000th game as the manager of the Giants with a 9-3 victory over the New York Mets.

2022 — The rule preventing position players from pitching in a close game is invoked for the first time when Crew chief C.B. Bucknor objects to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts calling on utility player Zach McKinstry to pitch the ninth inning gainst the Mets with his team trailing, 9-4. The rule, adopted before the 2020 season but not implemented until this year due to the upheavals caused by the coronavirus pandemic, states that a team cannot use a position player on the mound unless there is a difference of six or more runs between the two teams. Roberts is thus forced to use a real pitcher, Evan Phillips, to pitch the final inning.

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.

Shohei Ohtani does it again

From Maddie Lee: Shohei Ohtani needed just one well-spotted fastball to Corbin Carroll to get out of the only real jam of his start against the Diamondbacks on Wednesday.

Ohtani zipped it in at knee level, and Carroll drilled it into the ground, right to second baseman Alex Freeland. As the Dodgers defense turned a quick double play, Ohtani pumped his fist.

With that, he wrapped up the pitching half of one of his best two-way performances of the season.

With Shohei, every run is a premium,” manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 7-0 win Wednesday. “He’s literally trying to throw a shutout every time out there, where I don’t know that every starter has that mindset.”

Ohtani only allowed three base runners (two hits and a walk), while reaching base himself five times (three hits and two walks). With six scoreless innings pitched, Ohtani improved his ERA to 0.74, the third-lowest ERA any pitcher has recorded in his first 10 starts of the season (excluding openers) since the earned run became an official stat in 1913, according to MLB.com.

He came in behind only Jacob deGrom in 2021 (0.56) and Juan Marichal in 1966 (0.59). Not to mention, at the same time, Ohtani the hitter has a National League-leading .420 on-base percentage. At the time of his third hit Wednesday, he became one of 15 qualified hitters in MLB with a batting average over .300.

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Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Angels rout the Rockies

Wade Meckler and Nick Madrigal each had four of the Angels’ 16 hits, Walbert Ureña pitched six solid innings and the Angels beat the Colorado Rockies 11-4 on Wednesday night.

Meckler is batting .389 (14 for 36) with two homers and 10 RBIs since he was recalled from double-A on May 22.

Vaughn Grissom added a homer and three RBIs, and Oswald Peraza had two hits and two RBIs to help the Angels — who tied their season high with the 16 hits — avoid a three-game sweep.

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From ‘Jo Show’ to ‘oh no’: Angels outfielder revives José Canseco meme by giving up homer off his head

Angels box score

MLB standings

What to watch for at the women’s U.S. Open

From Sam Farmer: Reaching the summit is a dream. But staying there? That’s an altogether different challenge.

Maja Stark has a special appreciation for that now, a year after winning the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills and feeling the hefty weight of expectation that came along with it.

For her, the aftermath of that victory brought heightened anxiety, and searing criticism from outsiders when the Swedish pro’s play took a dip.

“You get comments and stuff saying, ‘What happened? You just won a major; why do you suck all of a sudden?‘” Stark said at the Chevron Championship in April. “That does take some energy and just makes you focus on the wrong things. Then I got even more stressed and anxious.”

That career-shaping pressure will be on display again this week when the USGA brings the U.S. Women’s Open to Riviera Country Club for the first time, merging the game’s most prestigious women’s championship with a historic venue celebrating its centennial year. The tournament takes place Thursday through Sunday.

A look at some of the players to watch:

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How Shannon Rouillard is transforming Riviera into a tougher U.S. Women’s Open test

This day in sports history

1870 — Ed Brown becomes the first Black jockey to win the Belmont Stakes, with Kingfisher.

1927 — The United States wins the first Ryder Cup golf tournament by beating Britain 9½-2½.

1932 — Faireno, ridden by Tommy Malley, wins the Belmont Stakes by 1½ lengths over Osculator. Burgoo King, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, doesn’t race.

1966 — Ameroid, ridden by Bill Boland, wins the Belmont Stakes by 2½ lengths over Buffle. Kauai King, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, finishes fourth.

1974 — NFL grants franchise to Seattle Seahawks.

1984 — 1960 champion Arnold Palmer fails to qualify for the US Open Golf Championship for the first time in 32 years.

1987 — Danny Harris defeats Edwin Moses in the 400 hurdles at a meet in Madrid, ending the longest winning streak in track and field. Moses, had won 122 consecutive races dating to Aug. 26, 1977.

1988 — West Germany’s Steffi Graf beats 17-year-old Natalia Zvereva of the Soviet Union in 32 minutes with a 6-0, 6-0 victory to win the French Open for the second straight year.

1990 — Penn State is voted into the Big Ten. The school becomes the 11th member of the league and first addition to the Midwest-based conference since Michigan State in 1949.

1994 — Haile Gebrselassie becomes the first Ethiopian to set a world track record with a time of 12:56.96 in the men’s 5,000 meters at Hengelo, Netherlands.

1998 — Harut Karapetyan of the Galaxy scores three goals in five minutes for the fastest hat trick in MLS history in an 8-1 rout of the Dallas Burn. The seven-goal margin sets an MLS record.

2005 — Justine Henin-Hardenne beats a rattled and fumbling Mary Pierce 6-1, 6-1 to win the French Open, capping a comeback from a blood virus with her fourth Grand Slam title and her second at Roland Garros.

2005 — Eddie Castro sets a North American record for most wins by a jockey in one day at one track, winning nine races on the 13-race card at Miami’s Calder Race Course.

2008 — The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup for the fourth time in 11 seasons with a 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 6 .

2011 — Li Na becomes the first Chinese — man or woman — to win a Grand Slam singles title. She beats Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 7-6 (0) in the French Open final for her fifth career title and first on clay.

2016 — Garbine Muguruza wins her first Grand Slam title by beating defending champion Serena Williams 7-5, 6-4 at the French Open, denying the American her record-equaling 22nd major trophy.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1940 — The Pirates beat the Boston Bees 14-2 in the first night game at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field.

1940 — The St. Louis Cardinals play their first night game at Sportsman’s Park, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers 10-1.

1951 — Pittsburgh’s Gus Bell hit for the cycle to lead the Pirates to a 12-4 victory over the Phillies at Philadelphia.

1964 — Sandy Koufax pitched his third no-hitter, striking out 12, as the Dodgers beat the Phillies 3-0 in Philadelphia.

1968 — Don Drysdale of the Dodgers blanked the Pirates 5-0 for his sixth straight shutout en route to a record 58 2/3 scoreless innings.

1972 — A major league record eight shutouts were pitched in 16 major league games: five in the American League, three in the National League. The Oakland Athletics swept a pair from the Baltimore Orioles by identical 2-0 scores.

1974 — The game between the Cleveland Indians and the Texas Rangers at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium was forfeited to Texas. Umpire Nestor Chylak had problems with fans all night on 10-cent beer night. The crowd got out of control when Cleveland tied the score 5-5 in the bottom of the ninth.

1989 — Toronto beats Boston 13-11 in 12 innings after trailing 10-0 after six innings. Red Sox starter Mike Smithson threw six scoreless innings before leaving in the seventh because of a foot blister. The Jays then scored two in the seventh, four in the eighth and five in the ninth and two more in the 11th on Junior Felix’s home run. It was the biggest lead the Red Sox have blown and their 12th consecutive loss to the Blue Jays at Fenway Park.

1990 — Ramon Martinez struck out 18 and pitched a three-hitter, sending the Dodgers past the Atlanta Braves 6-0.

1996 — Pamela Davis pitched one inning of scoreless relief and got the win in a minor league exhibition game. She is believed to be the first woman to pitch for a major league farm club under the current minor league system. The 21-year-old right-hander pitched for the Jacksonville Suns, a double-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers, against the Australian Olympic team.

2000 — Esteban Yan of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays becomes the 77th major league player to hit a home run in his first at bat, but just the fourth American League pitcher and the first since the Angels’ Don Rose in 1972, the year before the designated hitter rule took the bat out of AL pitchers’ hands.

2005 — Rafael Palmeiro and Melvin Mora each hit grand slams to help Baltimore rally for a 14-7 win over Detroit.

2007 — Mark Ellis hit for the cycle and Eric Chavez had a two-out homer in the 11th inning to lift Oakland to a 5-4 win over Boston.

2009 — Randy Johnson became the 24th major league pitcher to win 300 games by leading San Francisco to a 5-1 victory over the Washington Nationals in the first game of a doubleheader.

2012 — Angels manager Mike Scioscia became the ninth manager in AL history to manage 2,000 games with one club. The Mariners beat the Angels 8-6.

2018 — In a doubleheader with the Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees OF Aaron Judge sets a record by striking out eight times.

2019 — San Francisco Giant Manager Bruce Bochy wins his 1,000th game as the manager of the Giants with a 9-3 victory over the New York Mets.

2022 — The rule preventing position players from pitching in a close game is invoked for the first time when Crew chief C.B. Bucknor objects to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts calling on utility player Zach McKinstry to pitch the ninth inning gainst the Mets with his team trailing, 9-4. The rule, adopted before the 2020 season but not implemented until this year due to the upheavals caused by the coronavirus pandemic, states that a team cannot use a position player on the mound unless there is a difference of six or more runs between the two teams. Roberts is thus forced to use a real pitcher, Evan Phillips, to pitch the final inning.

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.

Before last month’s FA Cup final victory over Chelsea, Guardiola was asked whether the visit to Wembley Stadium would be his last. He replied by saying “no way”, and that he had “one more year [on his contract]”.

But the playful way in which he delivered that line and his quick exit from the room raised a few eyebrows, adding to the mounting speculation.

Guardiola was asked after the draw at Bournemouth on 19 May whether he would still be in charge next season and he replied by saying he had to talk to Khaldoon. His decision was confirmed three days later.

“He’s more than just the manager of the club,” said Khaldoon. “To me, he’s a friend. Over these years we have become close friends and I don’t know if he will admit it, but I consider myself his psychiatrist.

“Inevitably we have had a lot of ups and some downs and in the downs, he must have quit 100 times over these 10 years.

“There is the story as you all know, The Boy that Cries Wolf. In the case of Pep, when he says I quit, it doesn’t mean he’s quitting. You don’t take it that seriously – you have to manage him.”

Guardiola joined the club in 2016 and signed contract extensions in May 2018, November 2020, November 2022 and November 2024.

Khaldoon said: “He never thought he would stay more than four years, then more than five years. So in his mind, even year four and five it was always ‘OK, how much more time? How much more time?’ And it always had to be done in the correct way.

“There was always going to be one moment where it was going to be real.”

UCLA baseball eliminated

From Joaquin Ruiz: Saint Mary’s has achieved the seemingly unthinkable — the Gaels have eliminated UCLA, the nation’s top-ranked team, from the NCAA tournament.

With two outs in the 10th inning, Makoa Sniffen drove in Cody Kashimoto on a walk-off single off UCLA reliever Easton Hawk to lift Saint Mary’s to a 6-5 comeback win Sunday in a Los Angeles Regional elimination game at Jackie Robinson Stadium.

The Gaels (36-26), who also stunned the Bruins (52-8) in the regional opener on Friday, made the Big Ten champions just the second NCAA No. 1 overall seed — after Vanderbilt in 2025 — to be eliminated from the regional round since the current format was established in 1999.

“Obviously, this weekend, we just did not play up to our standards,” UCLA coach John Savage said. “I really felt it was a struggle, for whatever reason — all three games, really. But it’s nothing to take away from this team. You win 52 games [and are] preseason [No.1], and you never leave that spot; it’s really remarkable and a lot of credit to our captains, to our seniors, to the entire program … I just can’t say enough about the people that I’m around and that I’ve coached.”

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UCLA softball eliminated

From Tim Willert: Jordan Woolery nearly saved UCLA’s season Sunday night at the Women’s College World Series. She lined a single up the middle in the ninth inning off former teammate Kaitlyn Terry to score Rylee Slimp from second base and pull the Bruins within a run of Texas Tech.

But Red Raiders ace NiJaree Canady replaced Terry in the circle and retired the final two batters, stranding Megan Grant at second in UCLA’s 8-7 season-ending loss.

Woolery, the nation’s RBIs leader, homered twice and drove in five runs for UCLA (53-10), which got nine innings and 181 pitches from workhorse Taylor Tinsley.

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UCLA softball coaches Kelly Inouye-Perez and Lisa Fernandez inspire nation’s top offense

USC baseball sets up showdown with Texas A&M

From Jose de Jesus Ortiz: On a night when the crowd at Blue Bell Park saw some of the most majestic home runs you’ll see in college baseball, USC’s Andrew Johnson showed why pitching is still paramount Sunday.

The sophomore right-hander delivered arguably the most important pitching performance of the season for USC, beating Texas A&M 14-3 to propel the Trojans to a winner-take-all College Station Regional Final on Monday.

After needing five pitchers in a rout over Texas State earlier in the day just to reach the regional final out of the losers’ bracket, USC coach Andy Stankiewicz rode Johnson on Sunday night.

Two nights after throwing 21 pitches over 1⅔ innings, Johnson threw 124 pitches over 7⅓ strong innings to beat the host Aggies (41-14) before a crowd of 6,934.

Leading 11-2, Johnson retired the first batter in the top of the eighth inning before Nico Partida singled to right. Jake Duer followed with an RBI triple to right field, prompting a call to right-hander Rohan Kasanagottu.

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Dodgers beat the Phillies

From Liana Handler: Not a cake or a ribbon-wrapped present, but the Dodgers celebrated manager Dave Roberts’ 54th birthday with a 9-1 win over the Phillies on Sunday. The Dodgers ended their homestand with a 5-1 record despite their six-game winning streak ending the night before.

“You’re gonna get beat at times, it’s gonna happen,” Roberts said. “But I do think with the talent that we have, if we focus and play like we’re capable of, we should win series, regardless of home, road.”

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto (5-4) held the Phillies hitless over the first three innings.

Yamamoto, much like Roki Sasaki the night before, threw his pitches faster than normal. But the elevated velocity didn’t seem to affect his performance beyond extending at-bats. Despite throwing his four-seam fastball 1 mph faster than usual, the pitch resulted in a strike 76% of the time.

“During the preparation this week towards today’s game, I was always having a great feeling, and then I think I was able to get myself pretty ready,” Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “I was prepared. … And then I was getting into the game with confidence.”

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Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Angels lose to Rays

Shane McClanahan pitched one-run ball for five innings, Jonathan Aranda homered and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Angels 5-2 on Sunday.

McClanahan (6-2) gave up four hits, struck out three and didn’t issue a walk. Bryan Baker pitched a scoreless ninth for his career-high 16th save this season in 19 chances.

Aranda hit a solo homer in the first inning before Jose Siri singled with two out in the second, advanced to third when Logan O’Hoppe doubled and scored on a wild pitch by McClanahan to make it 1-1.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

Arte Moreno should sell the Angels

From Bill Plaschke: He showed up 23 years ago as the lovably grounded steward of one of baseball’s soaring sports franchises.

Remember the first thing Arte Moreno did as Angels owner? He lowered the beer prices!

“I’m not going to think about it,” he said boldly and decisively. “I’m going to.”

The second thing he did was hand out sombreros in honor of his Mexican heritage and status as the first Latino majority owner in America’s major professional sports.

“Being Mexican American, I’d like to reach out to Mexican Americans,” Moreno said. “But also to everyone.”

The third thing he did was answer a question about the Dodgers with a question.

“Who?” he said, “The Angels won the World Series. We are the No. 1 baseball team in the world. There is no reason for us to look over our shoulders.”

It was the most delightful introductory news conference I’ve ever attended, Moreno saying all the right things, doing all the smart things, and ultimately embracing his new purchase’s greatest asset.

“My responsibility is to take care of the Angel fan,” he said. “My job is to make sure we live up to the tradition. My job is to make people comfortable here.”

Twenty-three years later, those first impressions have long since been replaced by lasting erosions.

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Angel City loses to North Carolina

Manaka Matsukubo finished with a goal and an assist to lead the North Carolina Courage to a 2-1 win over Angel City at BMO Stadium on Sunday.

Matsukubo slipped a ball through to Evelyn Ijeh, who calmly finished to give the Courage a 1-0 lead in the 48th minute. With the goal, Ijeh has landed on the scoresheet in three straight matches.

Three minutes later, Evelyn Shores’ pinpoint cross into the box found the head of Maiara Niehues for the equalizer.

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Angel City summary

NWSL standings

This day in sports history

1946 — Assault, ridden by Warren Merhtens, wins the Belmont Stakes to become the seventh horse to capture the Triple Crown.

1968 — Stage Door Johnny, ridden by Heliodoro Gustines, wins the Belmont Stakes in a record time of 2:27 1-5 and spoils the Triple Crown bid of Forward Pass, who finishes 1 1/4 lengths behind.

1975 — Kathy Whitworth wins the LPGA tournament by one stroke over Sandra Haynie.

1977 — Dutch soccer club FC Volendam is established as a result of split up with RKSV; 6-time Eerste Divisie champions.

1979 — NBA Finals: Seattle Supersonics beat Washington Bullets, 97-93 for a 4-1 series victory; Seattle’s first major pro sports championship win.

1986 — Pat Bradley wins the LPGA tournament and becomes the first to win all four major women’s tournaments, beating Patty Sheehan by one stroke.

1992 — The Pittsburgh Penguins win the Stanley Cup for the second straight year, beating the Chicago Blackhawks 6-5 for a four-game sweep.

1993 — Phoenix Suns guard Dan Majerle sets a then NBA Playoff record by sinking eight three-pointers during the Suns’ 120-114 win over Seattle in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals.

1994 — Indiana guard Reggie Miller drills an NBA Playoff record five three-pointers in the fourth quarter of the Pacers’ 93-86 win over host New York Knicks in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

1996 — The LSU women win their 10th consecutive NCAA track team title with 81 points, the longest victory string in women’s college sports.

2002 — Detroit advances to the Stanley Cup finals for the fourth time in eight years with a 7-0 win over Colorado in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals. Colorado becomes the first NHL team to play in four consecutive Game 7s. Detroit goalie Dominik Hasek sets an NHL record by recording his fifth shutout of the playoffs.

2002 — In a battle of former heavyweight boxing champions in Atlantic City, Evander Holyfield beats Hasim Rahman by TKO; fight stopped 1:40 into 8th round because of giant welt above Rahman’s left eye.

2004 — Detroit and Indiana combine for just 60 first-half points in the Pistons’ 69-65 victory, breaking the NBA playoff record of 62 set by the Pistons and Nets during the second round.

2008 — Hillary Will is the 11th woman in NHRA history to win a national event when she takes the Top Fuel event at the O’Reilly NHRA Summer Nationals. Will drives her dragster to a 4.744-second run at a top speed of 304.53 mph, beating No. 1 qualifier Larry Dixon for her first career win in Top Fuel.

2010 — French Open upset specialist Robin Soderling strikes again, rallying past defending champion Roger Federer in a rainy quarterfinal, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4. The loss ends Federer’s record streak of reaching the semifinals in 23 consecutive major events.

2019 — Mexican-American boxer Andy Ruiz Jr produces a huge upset when he stops English champion Anthony Joshua in 7 at Madison Square Garden; wins IBF, WBO, IBO and WBA world heavyweight titles.

2019 — UEFA Champions League Final, Madrid: Liverpool beats Tottenham, 2-0 for Reds’ 6th title.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1923 — The New York Giants scored in every inning to beat the Philadelphia Phillies 22-8 at the Baker Bowl.

1925 — Lou Gehrig batted for Pee Wee Wanninger in the eighth and replaced Wally Pipp at first base to start his streak of 2,130 consecutive games. The Washington Senators beat the New York Yankees 5-3.

1937 — Bill Dietrich of the Chicago White Sox pitched a no-hitter against the St. Louis Browns in an 8-0 win.

1975 — Nolan Ryan of the Angels pitched his fourth no-hitter, striking out nine. Ryan tied Sandy Koufax’s record by beating the Baltimore Orioles 1-0. It was Ryan’s 100th victory.

1977 — Seattle’s Ruppert Jones homered off Cleveland’s Dennis Eckersley in the fifth inning to snap Eckersley’s no-hit string of 22 1-3 innings, just two outs short of Cy Young’s major league record. The Indians went on to win, 7-1.

1987 — Cleveland’s Phil Niekro pitched the Indians to a 9-6 victory, his 314th, over the Detroit Tigers. The win gave himself and his brother, Joe, a major league record 530 combined victories, surpassing Gaylord and Jim Perry.

2000 — Pawtucket’s Tomo Ohka became the third pitcher in the 117-year history of the International League to throw a nine-inning perfect game when he beat the Charlotte Knights 2-0.

2005 — Miguel Tejada hit a homer, three doubles and scored three runs in Baltimore’s 9-3 victory over Boston.

2009 — The New York Yankees played error free for the 18th straight game in a 5-2 victory over the Cleveland Indians, surpassing Boston’s major league mark of 17 set in 2006. New York’s last error came on May 13 at Toronto when shortstop Ramiro Pena misplayed a groundball.

2011 — Cincinnati’s Francisco Cordero got his 300th save, securing the Reds’ 4-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers. Cordero pitched a perfect ninth, becoming the 22nd reliever to achieve 300 saves, tying Bruce Sutter at the mark.

2012 — Johan Santana pitched the first no-hitter in New York Mets’ history. Santana was helped by an umpire’s missed call and an outstanding catch in left field in an 8-0 victory over St. Louis Cardinals. Carlos Beltran, back at Citi Field for the first time since the Mets traded him last July, hit a line drive over third base in the sixth inning that hit the foul line and should have been called fair. But third base umpire Adrian Johnson ruled it foul and the no-hitter was intact. Mike Baxter made a tremendous catch in left field to rob Yadier Molina of extra bases in the seventh, getting injured in the process.

2012 — Jonathan Crawford threw the seventh no-hitter in NCAA tournament history, shutting down Bethune-Cookman in a 4-0 victory in the opener of the Gainesville Regional. Crawford, a sophomore, was nearly perfect and faced the minimum 27 batters. The only player to reach base was Bethune-Cookman’s Jake Welch on a walk in the third inning, and Florida catcher Mike Zunino threw him out trying to steal.

2012 — Alex Miklos hit a go-ahead RBI triple in the 21st inning as Kent State outlasted Kentucky 7-6 in the second-longest game in NCAA tournament history. The Golden Flashes held the lead in the ninth and 18th innings, but the Wildcats answered both times to extend the game. It was the longest game in the NCAA tournament since Texas beat Boston College 3-2 in 25 innings on May 30, 2009.

2016 — Indians OF Marlon Byrd is suspended for 162 games after the second positive test for PEDs of his career. At 39, it marks the end of the former All-Star’s career.

2021 — The Olympic hopes end for three countries. Puerto Rico falls, 7-6, in 10 innings to Nicaragua in the Americas Olympic Qualifier, as Benjamín Alegría doubles twice, scores twice and drives in a run while Norman St. Clair and Berman Espinoza turn in six shutout innings of relief. Venezuela walks it off to eliminate Colombia as Diego Rincones breaks a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the 9th with a solo shot off Carlos Ocampo. Canada eliminates Cuba (missing the Olympics for its first time as a medal event), 6-5, as John Axford saves it for Dustin Molleken to overcome three runs by Roel Santos. In the other game, Team USA locks up a spot in the semifinals with an 8-6 win over the Dominican national team, Luke Williams hitting a big two-run triple. Nicaragua and the Dominicans will play tomorrow for the last semifinal spot to join the US, Canada and Venezuela.

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.

Dua Lipa and Callum Turner are writing a new chapter in their romance, tying the knot two years after a meeting that would make most bookworms swoon.

The Grammy-winning “Levitating” pop diva, 30, and “Eternity” actor, 36, exchanged their vows Sunday morning at the historic Old Marylebone Town Hall in Westminster, London, officials confirmed to the Associated Press. The Daily Mail published photos of the newlyweds all smiles and hand-in-hand descending town hall steps. Callum was spotted wearing a navy suit as his bride donned a custom Schiaparelli skirt suit, white gloves and a wide-brimmed hat, according to the Daily Mail. The singer also wore white Louboutin heels and a serpentine necklace by Bulgari.

Lipa and “Masters of the Sky” star Turner began dating in January 2024, after numerous missed opportunities. Turner told the Times of London in October 2025 that he and his now-wife (“I just thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world”) first met in Los Angeles before a mutual friend’s birthday and struck up an instant connection. “We sat next to each other and realized we were reading the same book, which is crazy,” Turner said.

Lipa runs her own book club and blog, titled Service95, and announces the selected reads on Instagram. When they met, the bookworms-turned-lovebirds were each making their way through Hernán Díaz’s “Trust.”The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2023.

“I had just finished the first chapter and I told her and she looked at me and said, ‘I just finished the first chapter too.’ I said, ‘So we’re on the same page,’” he told the Times. “In the movie version of it I look up to the sky and I’m like, ‘I hear you. I understand. The signs are loud, don’t worry.’ And that was really the first [moment].”

Lipa hard-launched her romance with Turner on Instagram in July 2024, sharing photos from Glastonbury. Over the following years, the singer continued sharing photos of sweet moments between herself and Turner, who does not have an Instagram account, and the pair were spotted together at numerous public events including the 2025 Met Gala. In December 2024, Lipa posted photos featuring a diamond ring on her left ring finger, spurring engagement chatter. After months of flaunting the ring on social media posts, Lipa confirmed the engagement to British Vogue in June 2025.

“It’s very exciting … This decision to grow old together, to see a life and just, I don’t know, be best friends for ever — it’s a really special feeling,” she told the outlet at the time.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. I’m Eric Sondheimer. It was championship weekend for Southern Section baseball and softball. And there were some crazy moments and performances.

Greatness on display

It’s tough enough to win one Southern Section Division 1 baseball title going through the gauntlet of top teams. St. John Bosco did it back to back in a 2-0 win over Norco.

Julian Garcia turned in one of the best pitching performances in championship game history. He gave up a first-inning double to Codey Brown and that was the last hit by a good-hitting Norco team. He struck out 14 and walked none. Here’s the report from Cal State Fullerton.

Here’s a look where Garcia’s individual performance ranks in some past championship games.

Things got bizarre leading up to the Division 2 final when Ganesha was prepared to only send backups to the game because its head coach and players were committed to traveling to Mississippi for a camp.

The superintendent intervened and asked them to stay because Ganesha would have faced severe sanctions from the Southern Section. All the players showed up Saturday and the team beat Loyola 6-3. Here’s the report.

Mira Costa, which lost its top two pitchers to injuries before the season and early in league, rallied from a 6-1 deficit to beat Agoura 9-7 to win the Division 3 title. Quite an achievement for coach Andy Diver and his players.

Despite lots of teams opting out, the Southern California regional championships begin this week. St. John Bosco is playing to defend its regional title and was seeded No. 1 in Division I.

Here are the pairings.

Softball

JSerra High ace Liliana Escobar strides forward as she windmills a pitch against La Mirada in the Southern Section Division 1 championship game on Friday night.

(Nick Koza)

JSerra won its first Southern Section Division 1 championship in softball behind pitcher Liliana Escobar, who was the best all season. The Lions defeated La Mirada 3-2. She struck out 12. Here’s the report.

Whittier Christian went into rally mode to defeat Mater Dei 5-3 in the Division 2 final, getting two-run home runs in the seventh and eighth innings from Mia Camacho and Bella Perez.

Carson came away as City Section Open Division champions with a 12-1 win over defending champion Granada Hills. The Colts and Highlanders have met the last four years in the final, with Carson prevailing three times. Home runs by Anaiyah Popoalii and Ashannalee Titialii keyed the win.

Here are the regional playoff pairings that begin Tuesday.

Track

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame senior JJ Harel won his second consecutive state high jump championship.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

The state track and field championships in Clovis were very good for Southern California athletes.

Servite won the boys championships as its sprinters, led by 100 meters champion Benjamin Harris, put on a show.

JJ Harel of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame cleared 7-2 in the high jump to defend his state title.

Jaslene Massey of Aliso Niguel set a state record in the girls discus.

Here’s the report from Clovis.

Determined to succeed

Jonah Jeovany Vasquez of Cathedral has made it to the state track championships in the 1,600 in his first year running track.

(Vasquez family)

Things didn’t go as well as Cathedral’s Jonah Vasquez had hoped at the CIF track and field championships. He just missed qualifying for the finals in the 1,600.

But his story is just beginning in his first season running track.

Here’s a look at his story and where he intends to go.

Volleyball

Mateo Fuerbringer, center, celebrates with his Mira Costa teammates following a five-set win over Loyola on March 20, 2026.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

It was a season to remember for Mira Costa’s volleyball team, which won the state championship Saturday in Fresno.

The Southern Section Division 1 champions faced top teams all season and prevailed, with junior Mateo Fuerbringer stamping himself as the top player for his class in the nation.

End of an era

Tom Meusborn announced his retirement as head baseball coach at Chatsworth.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Tom Meusborn and Spud O’Neil, two high school baseball coaching giants, have retired from head coaching duties.

Meusborn coached for nearly 35 years at Chatsworth and Sierra Canyon. His eight City Section championships remains the most by any coach in City Section history.

“It’s time,” he said after four seasons at Sierra Canyon.

O’Neil, the head coach at Lakewood since 1984, lost in the Southern Section Division 6 playoffs and retires with 985 career victories.

Notes . . .

Former St. John Bosco and UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen has received his MBA from the Wharton School of Business….

Damien has begun a search for a new baseball coach. AJ LaMonda was head coach for five years….

Devin Davis is the new baseball coach at Castaic….

Ernest Baskerville is the new basketball coach at Pasadena….

Western quarterback Chance Thomas is transferring to Las Vegas Bishop Gorman, which opens the season hosting St. John Bosco in August….

Tight end Luke Karby of Mission Viejo has committed to Duke….

Kevin McCaffrey has been dismissed as baseball coach at Corona del Mar after eight seasons….

Kevin Nichols is the new football coach at Garden Grove…

Katey Thompson has stepped down as boys volleyball coach at Corona del Mar….

Standout junior pitcher Justin Kirchner (11-0) of Harvard-Westlake has committed to Vanderbilt. He was previously committed to Yale….

Brad Willis is the new boys basketball coach at Villa Park. He had been coaching girls basketball at the school….

Standout quarterback Dane Weber of Chaparral has committed to Cal….

Tight end Luke Gazzaniga of Santa Margarita has committed to Kansas….

Defensive end Elyjah Staples from Marquez has committed to Cal….

Matteo Huarte of Mater Dei won the Southern Section individual title. He’s the grandson of Heisman Trophy winner and Mater Dei grad John Huarte….

Makena Cook, the top flag football quarterback for Orange Lutheran, is transferring to Sierra Canyon, which is starting a flag football program this fall….

Cole Kim of Sunny Hills won the Southern California Regional golf tournament last week and will be the player to beat at the state championships Wednesday at San Gabriel Country Club….

Pitcher Jake Brande of Rancho Christian has committed to Cal Poly….

Laura Browder has resigned as boys and girls volleyball coach at La Canada.

From the archives: Kaniya Bragg

UCLA shortstop Kaniya Bragg was a star at Garden Grove Pacifica.

(Nick Koza)

Kaniya Bragg, who was The Times’ softball player of the year in 2024, is living up to expectations and more for UCLA this season.

She entered this week as a key player for the Bruins in the College World Series with a .387 batting average and 18 home runs.

Here’s a story from 2024 outlining why she was the best high school player.

Recommendations

From Texas, a school district continues bureaucratic hurdles for media trying to cover high school sports.

From the Los Angeles Times, a story on former Palisades pitcher Mason Edwards becoming an ace for USC.

From the Los Angeles Times, a story on Zoe Thompson, an eighth-grader at Harvard-Westlake who might be the best soccer player in a famous family of soccer players.

Tweets you might have missed

Until next time….

Have a question, comment or something you’d like to see in a future Prep Rally newsletter? Email me at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @latsondheimer.

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In a typical midterm year, Donna Layne casts her ballot long before election day.

But this time around was different for the 75-year-old Democrat. Late-cycle controversies and fear of a “wasted vote” leading to a lockout for Democrats in the race for California governor meant she didn’t make her final decision until Friday.

California Democrats have been wringing their hands for weeks about who would emerge as front-runners in the crowded race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. The sudden departure of high-profile candidate Eric Swalwell amid sexual assault allegations and California’s jungle primary system, which sends the top two vote-getters to the November general election regardless of their party affiliation, added pressure for Democrats to coalesce around candidates who had the best chance of advancing.

“I was concerned,” Layne said as she slid her ballot into a drop box. “I wanted to make my ballot count and I was afraid that there might be two Republicans because they had been polling pretty high, so I wanted to be strategic about it.”

On Friday morning, voters — predominately Democrats like Layne — trickled into the Orange County Registrar of Voters in Santa Ana to turn in their ballots. A few told The Times they frequently wait to vote until the days leading up to the election so they can watch all the debates and get the most up-to-date information about the candidates.

But most said they hung onto their ballots this year for far longer than usual.

As of Friday, 19% of California Republicans had already cast their ballot, compared with roughly 16% by the same time in the 2022 primary cycle, according to data from Political Data Inc.

An election worker separates ballots from vote by mail envelopes to be tallied at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Ballot Processing Center on Thursday in City of Industry.

(Gary Coronado/For The Times)

Meanwhile, only 14% of the state’s far-more-numerous registered Democrats have returned their ballots, down from 17% at this point in 2022. Only 29% of Democrats age 65 years and older — generally enthusiastic voters — had returned their ballots, down from 33% in 2022, data show.

But that doesn’t mean that Democrats will stay on the sidelines. Data show Democrats have started returning their ballots in earnest over the past several days, a trend that’s likely to continue through election day, said Paul Mitchell, the vice president of Political Data Inc.

“It’s the predominance of this fear that they’ve heard in the media — and that’s largely abated — that a Democrat won’t make it to the runoff,” Mitchell said. “In fact, there’s a growing sense that we could have two Democrats make the runoff, so that fear has — for the political class — gone away, but voters are still clinging to it.”

Democrat Xavier Becerra, the former Health and Human Services secretary, has risen steadily in recent polls, positioning him well to potentially advance to November. He was the leading candidate in a poll released Thursday by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, garnering support from 25% of likely California voters.

Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, a front-runner in the race for governor, shares a light moment with supporters at the UFCW Local 1167 Union Hall in Bloomington, on Friday.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Slightly behind with support from 21% of likely state voters was Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator whom President Trump has endorsed. In third place with 19% support was another Democrat: Tom Steyer, a hedge fund founder and environmental activist.

With support increasing for Becerra, Hilton and Steyer since the last Berkeley IGS/Times poll in March, the survey provided the clearest indication yet that those candidates have separated themselves from the rest of the field.

Support for Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the only other major Republican candidate in the race, dropped 5 percentage points from the March poll to last week’s, putting him in a distant fourth at 11%. Former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter saw her support drop by almost half to 7%. Other prominent Democrats — San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — were all in the low single digits, the poll found.

Republican candidate Steve Hilton speaks at a news conference outside the CIF State Track Championship in Clovis, where transgender athlete AB Hernandez will be was to compete Friday.

(Tomas Ovalle/For The Times)

Roughly a dozen registered Democrats interviewed by The Times said they cast their ballots last week for the person they thought would have the best chance of making it through the state’s jungle primary, even if it wasn’t their ideal candidate.

“I love Katie Porter,” said Connie Wadsley, 78. “I really do, but I just didn’t see her as being able to pull it off. I just don’t think society is ready for a woman governor as much as that pains me to say.”

In the end, Wadsley and her husband, Victor, cast their ballots for Steyer. Becerra, she said, is too much of a career politician for her liking, but Steyer impressed her with his promise not to take corporate money and his position on social justice issues.

“I think we need to shake things up in this state — in this nation,” she said. “Yeah, [Steyer] is a billionaire and I’m not really excited about that, but he truly seems to be spending his money on things that I feel are important.”

For some voters, the sheer volume of gubernatorial candidates — 61 in all — was off-putting. Some even organized gatherings with politically like-minded friends to discuss the best course of action.

“I think it was really overwhelming for a lot of people, especially when they got their ballot and saw all of those names,” said Linda Verraster, co-president of the Democratic Women of South Orange County. “There was this fear of making a mistake — air quotes — that would lead to two Republicans in the runoff.”

Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, left, and Gov. Gray Davis joke with each other as Davis shows Schwarzenegger the governor’s private office at the Capitol in Sacramento on Oct. 23, 2003.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press )

The race seems somewhat reminiscent of the 2003 recall election when 135 candidates vied to replace then-Gov. Gray Davis amid the state’s energy crisis. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, won decisively with roughly 48% of the vote.

But this race differs in a few key ways, experts say.

Mainly, while all of the top candidates have impressive resumes, there’s a lack of star power that could help propel someone to the forefront. Instead, Democrats “have an option of like moderate Dem to slightly less-moderate Dem,” said Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach.

“There’s a lot of people, but they occupy a very similar lane and I think that’s been a lot of the problem,” he said. “They’re loathe to really critique some of the foundational problems like a real ideological opponent would.”

Verraster put it even more simply: “There’s no unicorn.”

Still, she’ll be happy if either of the two Democratic front-runners — or both — make the ballot.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

Both made by 20-something directors who emerged from the world of YouTube, the horror movies “Obsession” and “Backrooms” are dominating the conversation. They could come to represent a pivotal moment for how Hollywood engages with young talent and audiences alike.

I saw Curry Barker’s “Obsession” this week at a packed holiday matinee and Kane Parsons’ “Backrooms” is on track for a huge opening weekend — maybe the largest in A24’s history. The fact that audiences are responding to these films is exciting and one has to hope that Hollywood takes the right message from their successes: to give young filmmakers the space to create the projects they want to make, rather than shoehorn them into preconceived notions of what people want. Audiences right now seem to be proving themselves to be adventuresome when given the opportunity to try something new.

Marilyn at 100

Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 classic “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

(Academy Museum)

When Marilyn Monroe’s death was first reported in The Times on Aug. 6, 1962, the news read, “Marilyn Monroe, a troubled beauty who failed to find happiness as Hollywood’s brightest star, was discovered dead in her Brentwood home of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills.”

That intertwining of the glamour and sex appeal of her public persona with an air of doomed tragedy would permanently attach itself to her image, making her one of the most unforgettable stars Hollywood has ever created.

Monday marks the 100th anniversary of Monroe’s birth in L.A.’s Boyle Heights, where she was born Norma Jeane Mortenson. In celebration of Monroe’s centennial, the Academy Museum will open a new exhibition on Sunday, “Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon,” featuring hundreds of objects including personal materials never before displayed and a number of her most memorable costumes.

The museum will also launch a 17-film series spotlighting Monroe’s remarkable career, including her versatile talent as both a comedian and a more dramatic performer. Highlights include the 1953 thriller “Niagara,” 1950’s backstage drama “All About Eve” in a new 35mm print with an introduction from journalist Lorraine Nicholson and 1955’s “The Seven Year Itch” with writer Kim Morgan introducing. Elsewhere, “Some Like It Hot” from 1959 and Monroe’s final completed film, “The Misfits,” will both show in 4K.

On Sunday, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” will play in the Academy’s David Geffen Theater in 4K. There are also other Monroe screenings and events around the city, including multiple shows of “Gentlemen” at the Gardena Cinema on Saturday.

Marilyn Monroe and photographer Bruno Bernard backstage at the Hollywood Bowl in 1953.

(Bernard of Hollywood Foundation Archive)

Authors Mark A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller have collaborated on a new book, “The Marilyn Monroe Century: From Norma Jeane to Icon — A Story in Photographs.” The culmination of a seven-year-long research process, the book unearths original negatives of pictures of Monroe taken by Miller’s grandfather, acclaimed photographer Bruno Bernard. Bernard, who died in 1987, shot with her before she had even adopted the name Marilyn Monroe and took the best-known images of her, standing on a subway grate with her white dress billowing up while in production on “The Seven Year Itch.”

“One of the stories I’m trying to tell with a lot of these pictures is to counter the narrative that Marilyn didn’t have agency in the creation of her persona,” says Miller in a recent Zoom call from a room at the Chateau Marmont. “The truth is she was very much instrumental in constructing her image. And Bruno was a big part of that. Photographers at that time were not only the photographer — they were the best friend, the therapist, the agent, the stylist. I think it’s really important to have context for these pictures because this kind of history gets lost.”

The book does a remarkable job of providing additional atmosphere around images that might already be familiar, giving a fuller sense of what was going on both inside and outside of the frame. The notorious subway-grate scene was actually shot twice, first in New York and again in Los Angeles.

“I think what I’ve been trying to do is not rewrite the narrative, but thread [Bruno] correctly back into the stitching of Marilyn’s mythology,” Miller says. “He is one of the only photographers who deeply knew both Norma Jeane and Marilyn. I know everyone says they know the ‘real Marilyn,’ but he was part of the construction with her to create that.”

The joy of sadness with ‘Bleak Week’

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet in the movie “Mysterious Skin.”

(Tartan Films)

“Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair” has become the signature program of the American Cinematheque, expanding beyond its L.A. footprint for editions at other theaters not just around the country but around the world. Turning sadness, depression and defeat into group activities to be enjoyed together has been an ingenious masterstroke of programming.

Now in its fifth edition, this year’s highlight will be a series with Isabelle Huppert, who will be present for screenings of such downbeat fare as “The Piano Teacher,” “Le Cérémonie,” Violètte Noziere,” “Elle,” “Time of the Wolf” and “Heaven’s Gate.”

Filmmaker Ari Aster will also be present for a complete retrospective of his four features. Other guests include Denis Villeneuve with “Incendies,” Allen Hughes with “Dead Presidents,” Al Pacino with “The Godfather Part II,” Gregg Araki with “Mysterious Skin,” Robert Englund with “Buster and Billie,” Werner Herzog with “Heart of Glass” and Theresa Russell with “Bad Timing.”

I will be introducing the U.S. theatrical premiere of a 4K restoration of Carlos Saura’s 1966 “The Hunt” and moderating Q&As with filmmaker Richard Kelly for the 20th anniversary of the Cannes cut of “Southland Tales” and actor Haley Joel Osment for a 25th anniversary 35mm screening of “A.I. Artificial Intelligence.” And The Times’ Joshua Rothkopf will moderate a Q&A with Aster for “Eddington,” while Amy Nicholson will talk to Aster for “Midsommar.”

UCLA’s Festival of Preservation

Leslie Uggams in 1972’s “Black Girl.”

(UCLA Film & Television Archive)

The UCLA Festival of Preservation is one of the city’s most-longstanding and venerated events for film lovers, celebrating revered classics and rediscovered obscurities alike. This year’s edition, the 22nd, opens with the West Coast premiere of a new restoration of Ossie Davis’ 1972 “Black Girl,” an adaptation of J.E. Franklin’s successful play about thee generations of Black women.

Jose Luis Ruiz’s groundbreaking 1975 documentary on Latino immigrants, “The Unwanted,” will have a restoration world premiere. The restoration of Budd Boetticher’s 1955 melodrama “The Magnificent Matador,” starring Anthony Quinn and Maureen O’Hara, brings back the film’s stunning look in Cinemascope and Eastmancolor.

Andre de Toth’s 1948 thriller “Pitfall,” starring Dick Powell and Lisbeth Scott, will have a world premiere restoration. The series concludes with De Toth’s stylish romantic drama “The Other Love” from 1947 starring Barbara Stanwyck. The restoration reinstitutes the original ending of the film unseen by audiences since the 1940s.

Former Times critic Keneth Turan has made his own picks for what not to miss.

A tender coming-of-age romance

Vincent Spano and Rosanna Arquette in the movie “Baby, It’s You.”

(Paramount Pictures)

Produced by Amy Robinson and Griffin Dunne between their work on Joan Micklin Silver’s “Chilly Scenes of Winter” and Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” the 1983 movie “Baby It’s You” captures a number of rising talents at just the right moment. Only the third feature written and directed by John Sayles (and still his only movie made at a Hollywood studio), the film is a particularly smart take on the coming-of-age romance, with a sharp sense of time and place. It’s even shot by cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, fresh off his collaborations with Rainer Werner Fassbinder but before his long collaboration with Scorsese.

Set in late-1960s New Jersey, the story involves a good-girl high schooler preparing for college (Rosanna Arquette, who lights up the screen) who falls for a bad boy with few future prospects (Vincent Spano). The film will show on Wednesday in a 4K restoration at the Academy Museum with Arquette and Spano both scheduled to attend.

In a 1983 Times review, Shelia Benson said the film “explores questions of class and unequal opportunity with humor and tender insight,” adding that Spano and Arquette “together conjure up every improbable, love-struck couple who ever dazzled us ordinary mortals in the halls or at the senior prom.”

New this week

• Kane Parson’s horror film “Backrooms” stars Renate Reinsve and Chiwetel Ejiofor in an adaptation of Parson’s own popular YouTube videos. As Amy Nicholson wrote, “Given that backdrop, ‘Backrooms’ would be one of the year’s most significant releases even if the movie itself was merely fine. But it’s better than fine — it’s a work of honest-to-goodness art.”
• Katie Walsh reviews the crime thriller “Tuner,” starring Leo Woodall as a piano tuner who gets in over his head with the wrong people. The film is the fiction feature debut from Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher.
• The latest music-themed film from Irish writer-director John Carney, “Power Ballad” is about a failed-to-launch songwriter (Paul Rudd) trying to get credit for the tune he co-wrote with a boy band star (Nick Jonas). Amy Nicholson reviews.

UCLA loses to Alabama

Megan Grant hit her 41st home run of the season to tie a UCLA career record Thursday night, but top-seeded Alabama rallied behind a five-run surge to beat the eighth-seeded Bruins 6-3 on opening day at the Women’s College World Series.

UCLA starter Taylor Tinsley took a 3-1 lead into the fifth inning but walked leadoff batter Jena Young then surrendered a 249-foot home run to Alexis Pupillo two batters later to tie the score.

In the sixth, Alabama’s Kristen White beat out a grounder to third and Young dropped a bloop single to left, setting the stage for Brooke Wells, who drove a pitch from Tinsley 239 feet to center field to give the Crimson Tide the lead.

The Bruins (52-9) will have to beat the winner of the game between Arkansas and Nebraska on Friday night to avoid elimination.

Continue reading here

Angels rout the Tigers

Grayson Rodriguez pitched five strong innings as the Angels beat the Detroit Tigers 7-1 on Thursday for their fifth victory in six games.

The Angels won back-to-back series for the first time this season, sweeping Texas at home before winning two of three in Detroit.

Detroit has gone 4-18 since May 4, losing seven straight series.

Rodriguez (2-1) allowed one run on two hits and two walks in five innings. He struck out five.

Continue reading here

Angels box score

MLB standings

MLB team owners propose a salary cap

From Bill Shaikin: They had balloons, baseball caps and a splashy video. They even had Dusty Baker, because any day with Dusty Baker is a good day.

And, as a campaign called “The Sacramento Pitch” unveiled its plan to lure a Major League Baseball expansion team to the state capital, the mayor made his pitch a blunt one.

“This region has earned its place in the majors,” Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty said Thursday. “And, frankly, MLB could use Sacramento.”

We’ll see. But, as McCarty and other dignitaries rallied in Sacramento, a more important gathering was happening in New York, at which MLB owners formally proposed the salary cap players have vowed to resist.

Whether owners can get a cap — either by persuasion through the fall and winter, or more likely by canceling games next spring so players go unpaid — remains to be seen. For Sacramento and the other American and Canadian cities pursuing two expansion teams, the outcome of collective bargaining could determine the fee MLB would charge for each one.

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Mason Edwards leads USC to College Baseball World Series

From Joaquin Ruiz: Mason Edwards has first-round hype ahead of July’s 2026 MLB draft for a reason.

USC’s ace takes the mound like a boxer enters the ring, eager to land blow after blow. And as the Trojans (43-15) open the NCAA tournament in College Station, Texas, at 6 p.m. PDT Friday (ESPNU), the southpaw packs a serious punch. He carries a nation-leading 160 strikeouts and the second-best 1.43 ERA.

“They’re getting a competitor,” Edwards said of what people can expect when he pitches. “There have been a lot of situations where I’ve had to battle and fight adversity. So, I think you’ll see a good fight when I toe the rubber. I’m not going to shy away from any type of competition.”

If anything, the competition probably shies away from Edwards.

Named the Big Ten 2026 Pitcher of the Year after stacking a record 113 strikeouts in conference play, Edwards is integral to what has been USC’s best team since the early 2000s.

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Can UCLA win the College Baseball World Series?

From Joaquin Ruiz: No. 1 UCLA’s quest for the second baseall national title in school history starts Friday.

The Bruins (51-6, 28-2 Big Ten) enter the NCAA tournament as the top overall seed and host against Saint Mary’s (34-25, 15-12 West Coast) to begin the Los Angeles Regional at Jackie Robinson Stadium.

After winning its first Big Ten tournament championship in program history on Sunday, UCLA is focused on continuing its dominance and embracing the target on its back as a College World Series favorite.

“We’ll see what happens, but I think just staying with us and not trying to do too much and just stay present,” UCLA junior outfielder Payton Brennan said. “That’s the main thing — and staying with each other.”

Their record and conference dominance aside, the Bruins sit atop several statistical categories and are intimidating across the diamond.

But UCLA coach John Savage said UCLA isn’t looking past its regional foes — Saint Mary’s, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Virginia Tech.

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This day in sports history

1946 — Two-year-old fillies Chakoora and Uleta become the first thoroughbreds to complete a transcontinental flight. They’re flown from New York to Inglewood by the American Air Express Corp., a 2,446-mile trip that lasts 20 hours due to bad weather.

1968 — European Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London: Bobby Charlton scores twice as Manchester United beats Benfica, 4-1; first English club to win the trophy.

1971 — Al Unser wins his second straight Indianapolis 500 with a record mark of 157.735 mph and finishes 22 seconds ahead of Peter Revson. The pace car, ridden by Eldon Palmer, crashes into the portable bleachers and injures 20 people.

1977 — A.J. Foyt becomes the first driver to win four Indianapolis 500s and Janet Guthrie becomes the first woman in the race. Guthrie is forced to drop out after 27 laps with mechanical problems.

1977 — Australian Sue Prell first female golfer to hit consecutive holes-in one; 13th and 14th holes at Chatswood Golf Club, Sydney.

1980 — Larry Bird beats out Magic Johnson for NBA rookie of year.

1983 — After three second-place finishes, Tom Sneva wins the Indianapolis 500 by 11 seconds over three-time champion Al Unser.

1985 — 29th European Cup: Juventus beats Liverpool 1-0 at Brussels.

1988 — Rick Mears overcomes an early one-lap deficit, then overpowers the rest of the field on the way to his third Indianapolis 500 victory. Mears gives team-owner Roger Penske an unprecedented seventh victory and fourth in five years.

1990 — Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker, the top two seeds, are bounced in the first round of the French Open by two European teenagers, the first time the top two men’s seeds are eliminated in the first round of a Grand Slam tournament. Edberg is swept easily in straight sets by 19-year-old Sergi Bruguera of Spain, and Becker loses to 18-year-old Yugoslav Goran Ivanisevic.

1991 — 35th European Cup: Red Star Belgrade beats Marseille (0-0, 5-3 on penalties) at Bari.

1993 — Wayne Gretzky’s overtime goal gives the Kings a 5-4 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Western Conference finals. The Kings become the first NHL team to play the full 21 games in the first three rounds.

1998 — Eighteen-year-old Marat Safin, ranked 116th in the world and playing in his first Grand Slam tournament, beats defending champion Gustavo Kuerten, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 in the second round of the French Open.

2005 — Dan Wheldon wins the Indianapolis 500 when Danica Patrick’s electrifying run falls short. Patrick is the first woman to lead at Indy, getting out front three separate times for a total of 19 laps. But Wheldon passes her with seven of the 200 laps to go and easily holds on.

2006 — Rafael Nadal passes Guillermo Vilas as the King of the clay courts and begins his pursuit of a second successive French Open trophy. Nadal earns his 54th consecutive win on clay, breaking the Open era record he shared with Vilas by beating Robin Soderling in straight sets in the first round at Roland Garros.

2011 — JR Hildebrand, one turn from winning the Indianapolis 500, skids high into the wall on the final turn and Dan Wheldon drives past to claim an improbable second Indy 500 win in his first race of the year.

2011 — Roger Federer sets another record by reaching the French Open quarterfinals, and Novak Djokovic closes in on a pair of his own. Federer extends his quarterfinal streak at major tournaments to 28 with a 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 victory over Stanislas Wawrinka. Djokovic maintains his perfect season to 41-0 and stretches his overall winning streak to 43 matches by beating Richard Gasquet of France 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.

2012 — Serena Williams loses in the first round of a major tournament for the first time, falling to Virginie Razzano of France 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-3 at the French Open. Williams enters the day with a 46-0 record in first-round matches at Grand Slam tournaments.

2016 — Alexander Rossi wins the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.

2017 — Tiger Woods is arrested and charged with driving under the influence in Jupiter, Fla.

2021 — UEFA Champions League Final, Porto: Kai Havertz scores just before halftime to give Chelsea a 1-0 win over Manchester City in an all-English final; Blues’ second CL title.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1916 — Christy Mathewson defeated the Boston Braves 3-0 for the New York Giants’ 17th consecutive road win.

1922 — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled organized baseball was primarily a sport and not a business, and therefore not subject to antitrust laws and interstate commerce regulations. The suit had been brought by the Federal League’s Baltimore franchise.

1928 — Bill Terry hit for the cycle to lead the New York Giants to a 12-5 win over Brooklyn at Ebbets Field. Terry became the first player in major league history to include a grand slam as part of the cycle.

1942 — New York’s Lefty Gomez, self-described as the worst-hitting pitcher in baseball, banged out four hits while pitching a 16-1 four-hitter against Washington.

1956 — Dale Long went hitless for the Pirates, ending his major league record streak of home runs in eight consecutive games. The Brooklyn Dodgers beat Pittsburgh, 10-1.

1965 — Philadelphia’s Richie Allen hit a 529-foot home run over the roof of Connie Mack Stadium off Chicago’s Larry Jackson in the Phillies’ 4-2 victory.

1976 — Houston’s Joe Niekro was the winning pitcher and hit a home run off his brother, Phil Niekro. The Astros beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1. It was the only home run hit by Joe in his 22-year major league career.

1990 — Oakland’s Rickey Henderson broke Ty Cobb’s 62-year-old American League stolen base record, but the Toronto Blue Jays still beat the Athletics 2-1. Henderson’s 893rd steal came in the sixth inning.

2000 — Oakland second baseman Randy Velarde turned the 10th unassisted triple play in regular-season history during a 4-1 loss to the New York Yankees. With runners on first and second in motion, Shane Spencer hit a line drive to Velarde who caught the ball, tagged out Jorge Posada (running from first) and stepped on second to beat Tino Martinez.

2002 — Roger Clemens recorded the 100th double-digit strikeout game of his career, fanning 11 in seven innings against Chicago. Nolan Ryan (215) and Randy Johnson (175) were the others to have 100 double-digit strikeout games.

2002 — In an article in Sports Illustrated former NL MVP Ken Caminiti stated that about 50% of current major league players used some form of steroids.

2003 — Colorado, behind Todd Helton’s three home runs and Ron Belliard’s five hits beat the visiting Dodgers 12-5. Helton added a single and drove in six runs.

2010 — Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay threw the 20th perfect game in major league history, beating the Florida Marlins 1-0. It was the first time in the modern era that there were a pair of perfect games in the same season. Halladay faced three Marlins pinch-hitters in the ninth. Mike Lamb led off with a long fly ball, Wes Helms struck out, and Ronny Paulino to hit a grounder to third for the 27th out. Halladay struck out 11 and went to either 3-1 or 3-2 counts seven times, twice in the game’s first three batters.

2013 — Chris Davis went 4 for 4 with two home runs, and the Baltimore Orioles overcame three homers by Ryan Zimmerman to beat the Washington Nationals 9-6.

2013 — Dioner Navarro had the first three-homer game of his career, connecting from both sides of the plate at Wrigley Field to lead the Chicago Cubs to a 9-3 win over the Chicago White Sox. Navarro drove in a career-high six runs and scored four times.

2014 — Diamondbacks pitcher Josh Collmenter faces the minimum 27 batters in spite of giving up three hits in a complete game shutout defeat of the Cincinnati Reds. The three Reds baserunners were erased on double plays.

2015 — Lewis-Clark State wins their 17th NAIA baseball title.

2021 — The Twins’ Josh Donaldson scored the two-millionth run in major league history.

2025 — Chris Sale becomes the fastest pitcher to reach 2,500 strikeouts, doing so in 2,026 innings, fewer than the 39 men who have preceded him to the mark.

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.

* Re “Play Fair With the Protesters,” editorial, July 25: Once again, The Times has positioned itself so that no matter what happens during protests at the Democratic National Convention it can place the blame on the LAPD. First, you want the protesters to be allowed in areas which invite security problems. Then you issue the caveat that “the city should of course be prepared to act decisively and appropriately if things get out of hand.”

No doubt there are people planning to protest on behalf of positions in which they strongly believe. However, many of those who will take to the streets are simply professional “activists” who caused the chaos during the WTO meeting in Seattle. If the police, with due reason, rough up a few of these types, The Times stands ready to shout “brutality.”

ROSS BARRETT

Los Angeles

*

Re “Public Won’t Get Convention Party,” July 24: Ben Austin, LA Convention 2000’s communications director, says that he can’t find a site in Los Angeles ready, willing or able to host a celebration open to the public (read voters!). I can appreciate his problem, what with a budget of only $150,000, compared to the $1.5 million budgeted for a press party.

Still, I should think that several publicly owned venues would suffice. The first that comes to mind is Griffith Park. There are several locations just within the park, including Greek Theater. There is also the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. I know it’s not big enough for Al Davis or anyone else in the NFL, but Al Gore could use an extra 60,000 happy campers. But maybe the Democrats aren’t so much the party of the people anymore. Maybe it’s time to look more carefully at the Greens.

ANDREW CARRILLO

Venice

*

Mayor Richard Riordan and the LAPD are making false charges of violence against those of us who want to protest outside the Democratic National Convention next month. Why? Because they don’t want you to hear about the important issues that have compelled people to protest. Riordan doesn’t want me to march peacefully with thousands of my fellow teachers and ask, “Why does this city have $4 million to give to the bloated DNC budget when they haven’t built a new high school in the last 30 years?”

Riordan reported “sadly” that Al Gore will not have access to his choice of ritzy downtown hotels during the convention because people want to organize protests downtown. But millions of working Angelenos have no access to health care. When was the last time Riordan felt sad about that? He’s afraid of thousands of people marching peacefully and asking these questions, because neither he, nor the Democrats, nor the Republicans have any answers. But we will be there. We will ask those questions. And we will come up with our own answers.

RANDALL CHILDS

Inglewood

Dodgers beat Rockies, but lose Teoscar Hernández

From Maddie Lee: The Dodgers’ recent string of injuries continued Wednesday when left fielder Teoscar Hernández pulled up limping after trying to beat out a grounder to shortstop.

Once he was thrown out in the second inning of the Dodgers’ 4-1 win against the Rockies, Hernández took his time walking across the field back to the dugout.

He sustained a left hamstring strain, and he is headed to the injured list, manager Dave Roberts said after the game. Hernández, after undergoing preliminary testing Wednesday, is scheduled for imaging Thursday.

“Don’t know how severe it is; he tested well,” Roberts said. “…There’s just no timeline, but something like that obviously is going to be a few weeks at the minimum. Disappointing. He’s been playing so well and he’s a big part of what we’re doing. So to lose him for any length of time is not great.”

This series, as results went, was a success for the Dodgers. They swept the Rockies, outscoring Colorado 24-10 over the course of three games. But the injury losses dealt a blow.

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Kiké Hernández’s oblique shows ‘significant tear’ as utility man returns to IL

Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Angels shut out by Tigers

Spencer Torkelson homered, doubled twice and drove in three runs, and five Detroit pitchers combined for a two-hitter as the Tigers snapped a season-worst seven-game home skid with a 4-0 win over the Angels on Wednesday night.

Despite winning two of their last three games, the struggling Tigers have lost nine of their last 11, 12 of 15 and 17 of their last 21. Detroit has lost six consecutive series for its longest such drought since 2021 and dropped eight of its last nine.

Drew Anderson (2-1) relieved Casey Mize to start the fifth and pitched three perfect innings with three strikeouts. Mize had six strikeouts, gave up two hits and walked one in four scoreless innings before leaving due to an undisclosed injury.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

Lakers to layoff some people

From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The Lakers informed employees Wednesday there would be a round of layoffs as the organization continues restructuring under new ownership, according to multiple people.

Those familiar with the situation but unable to speak publicly confirmed to The Times that at least 15 people across multiple departments, including communications, marketing and sales, would be laid off.

Since Dodgers owner Mark Walter took over as the majority owner of the Lakers in a record-setting $10-billion deal that was finalized in October, the franchise has gradually overhauled both business and basketball operations.

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NBA draft reform is a miss

From Mirjam Swanson: In the NBA, it’s all: “Together, on three!” Or “defense, on three!”

Or maybe, “Cancún, on three!”

But when the NBA braintrust breaks a huddle, it’s, “3-2-1, overreact!”

“3-2-1, obfuscate!”

“3-2-1, complicate!”

The NBA’s owners are expected to meet Thursday to approve new “anti-tanking draft reform” via a “3-2-1 lottery.” I just know they’re the type of people who love a good board game — one with rules that take a half-hour to explain, by which time their guests’ eyes have glazed over.

Think they’ll get the hint if someone asks, “Y’all got any Clue instead?”

Actually, I’d prefer to turn on the basketball game, that nuanced, ever-evolving sport that’s beautiful for its simplicity: make or miss.

What’s wild is that a league that brings together the world’s best shooters keeps missing so badly on draft reform — unless it’s actually their feet that they’re aiming at.

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Q&A with UCLA’s Rylee Slimp

From Jordan Puente: UCLA softball coach Kelly Inouye-Perez expected sophomore Rylee Slimp to deliver under pressure.

Slimp earned first-team all-Big Ten honors as the leadoff hitter for a Bruins team that features slugging stars Megan Grant and Jordan Woolery. She leads a group of underclassmen who helped send UCLA to the Women’s College World Series.

“I have seen Rylee Slimp just play big from travel ball to big moments in high school, and she came here to play on this big stage,” Inouye-Perez said. “I think her biggest asset, besides the fact that she can hit a home run, is that she can hit to all areas of the field, and she has such a good eye.

“I think she wanted to be in this position this year. She wanted to be the leadoff and be an impact player.”

The Austin, Texas, native is hitting .428 with 16 home runs, 56 RBIs, and 94 runs. Slimp broke Natasha Watley’s UCLA single-season runs record of 75, set in 2001.

The following interview with Slimp ahead of the Bruins’ WCWS opener against No. 1 seed Alabama on Thursday has been edited for length and clarity.

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This day in sports history

1901 — Parader, ridden by Fred Landry, overcomes a bad start to win the Preakness Stakes by two lengths over Sadie S.

1904 — Bryn Mawr, ridden by Eugene Hildebrand, wins the Preakness Stakes by one length over Wotan.

1958 — European Cup Final, Brussels: Francisco Gento scores the winner in extra time as Real Madrid beats AC Milan, 3-2; 3rd consecutive title for Los Blancos.

1969 — European Cup Final, Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid: AC Milan striker Pierino Prati scores 3 in 4-1 win over Ajax; second title for I Rossoneri.

1975 — 19th European Cup: Bayern Munich beats Leeds United 2-0 at Paris.

1978 — Al Unser wins his third Indianapolis 500, the fifth driver to do so, edging Tom Sneva by 8.19 seconds.

1980 — 24th European Cup: Nottingham Forest beats Hamburg 1-0 at Madrid.

1985 — The San Diego Sockers beat the Baltimore Blast 5-3 to win the MISL title in five games.

1995 — Jacques Villeneuve overcomes one penalty and wins by another in the Indianapolis 500. Villeneuve drives to victory after fellow Canadian Scott Goodyear is penalized for passing the pace car on the final restart.

1997 — 5th UEFA Champions League Final: Borussia Dortmund beats Juventus 3-1 at Munich.

2000 — Dutch swimming star Inge de Bruijn sets her third world record in three days, adding the 100 freestyle mark to the 50 and 100 butterfly marks she set previously at the Sheffield Super Grand Prix. De Bruijn becomes the first swimmer to finish under 54.00 in the 100 freestyle at 53.80 seconds.

2003 — Patrick Roy officially announces his retirement from the NHL.

2003 — 11th UEFA Champions League Final: Milan beats Juventus (0-0, 3-2 on penalties) at Manchester.

2006 — Sam Hornish Jr. overcomes a disastrous mistake in the pits and a pair of Andrettis — Marco and father Michael — to win the second-closest Indianapolis 500 ever, by .0635 seconds.

2011 — Novak Djokovic extends his perfect start to the season at the French Open, beating Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 for his 40th straight victory this year. Djokovic’s 40-0 start to 2011 is the second-best opening streak in the Open era, which started in 1968.

2011 — UEFA Champions League Final, London: FC Barcelona beats Manchester United, 3-1; 4th title for Barça.

2020 — The Boston Marathon canceled for the first time in its 124-year history. The race had originally been scheduled for April 20 before being postponed for five months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

2022 — UEFA Champions League Final, Paris: Carlo Ancelotti becomes first manager to win CL x 4 as Real Madrid beats Liverpool, 1-0.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1918 — Boston’s Joe Bush pitched a 1-0 one-hitter against the Chicago White Sox and drove in the lone run. The only Chicago hit was by Happy Felsch. It occurred when he threw his bat at the ball on a hit and run.

1939 — Philadelphia pitcher Robert Joyce was victimized two straight days by New York’s George Selkirk. Joyce gave up two homers to Selkirk a day earlier. Joyce came on in relief on this day and gave up two more homers to Selkirk. Selkirk ended with four homers in four at-bats against the same pitcher over two successive games. The Yankees won 9-5.

1946 — The Washington Senators beat New York 2-1 in the first night game at Yankee Stadium. The first ball was thrown out by General Electric president Charles E. Wilson.

1951 — After going 0-for-12 in his first three major league games, Willie Mays of the New York Giants hit a home run off Warren Spahn in a 4-1 loss to the Boston Braves.

1956 — Dale Long of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit a home run in his eighth consecutive game, a major league record. Long connected off Brooklyn’s Carl Erskine at Forbes Field.

1968 — The American League announced the league will be split into two divisions. The East division will consist of Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, New York and Washington. California, Chicago, Kansas City, Minnesota, Oakland and Seattle will make up the West.

1979 — George Brett of the Kansas City Royals hit for the cycle and added another home run to beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-4 in 16 innings.

1986 — Joe Cowley of the Chicago White Sox set a major league record by striking out the first seven batters he faced. He lasted 4 2-3 innings in a 6-3 loss to the Texas Rangers.

1995 — The White Sox and Tigers set a major league record with 12 homers, and combined for an American League-record 21 extra-base hits in Chicago’s 14-12 victory in Detroit.

1998 — Arizona manager Buck Showalter intentionally walked Barry Bonds with the bases loaded and two out in the bottom of the ninth, and the Diamondbacks held on to beat San Francisco 8-7.

2003 — Atlanta became the second team in major league history to start a game with three straight homers in its 15-3 win over the Reds. Rafael Furcal, Mark DeRosa and Gary Sheffield hit consecutive home runs off Jeff Austin in the bottom of the first. The Padres did it against the Giants on April 13, 1987.

2006 — Barry Bonds hit his 715th home run during the San Francisco Giants’ 6-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies to slip past Babe Ruth and pull in behind Hank Aaron and his long-standing record of 755.

2007 — Adrian Beltre tied a franchise record with four extra-base hits, including two homers, as Seattle pounded the Angels 12-5.

2010 — Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera hit three homers in a 5-4 loss to Oakland. Oakland’s Ben Sheets gave up three runs — on Cabrera’s first two homers — worked seven innings in his longest start of the season.

2012 — The Cubs end a 12-game losing streak, their longest since 1997, with an 11-7 win over the Padres at Wrigley Field.

2010 — Matt Cain pitched a one-hitter to match a career best, giving up only a two-out double in the second to Mark Reynolds, and San Francisco beat Arizona 5-0.

2013 — The Mets honor Yankees great Mariano Rivera, who has announced his retirement at the end of the year, by having him throw the ceremonial first pitch before the game between the two teams from the Big Apple at Citi Field, with retired Mets closer John Franco acting as his catcher for the occasion.

2016 — In the thirdrd inning of a game against the Dodgers, Mets P Noah Syndergaard is ejected for throwing at Chase Utley, in apparent retaliation for Utley’s aggressive slide which injured Mets SS Ruben Tejada in last year’s NLDS. Umpire Adam Hamari also tosses Mets manager Terry Collins for arguing his decision, then Utley gets his revenge when he opens the score with a solo homer off Logan Verrett in the 6th and adds a grand slam off Hansel Robles in the 7th. The Dodgers hit five homers in total as they win the game, 9-1.

2019 — Derek Dietrich continues his unlikely homer binge as he hits three, all two-run shots, in leading the Reds to an 11-6 win over the Pirates. With 17 homers this year, he has already topped his career high, and 12 of his last 17 hits have gone over the fence. For the Pirates, rookie Kevin Newman hits his first career homer, a grand slam off Lucas Sims.

2023 — Spencer Strider of the Braves becomes the fastest starting pitcher to record 100 strikeouts in a season, doing so in his 61st inning in an 11-4 win over the Phillies. Last year, Strider set the record for the fastest pitcher to reach 200 Ks in a season.

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.

One year and four months ago, Jeremy Strohmeyer followed little 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson into a casino ladies’ room. His friend, David Cash, followed after them. There, Strohmeyer kidnapped, sexually assaulted and strangled Sherrice to death while Cash, according to his own testimony, watched the assault begin and then left without notifying authorities. Strohmeyer pleaded guilty to all the crimes, facing a lifetime in prison, and Cash remains at UC Berkeley. The disparate legal treatment of two young men who both appear so morally culpable has raised a lot passions, causing even a noted criminal defense attorney, Strohmeyer’s own Leslie Abramson, to call angrily for some retribution against Cash.

So why hasn’t Cash been charged? Many in the African American community believe that the whole case is about race. South-Central activists were highly critical of the Nevada district attorney’s willingness to accept a plea offer from Strohmeyer, wondering if the prosecution wouldn’t have been more eager to seek the death penalty through a trial if the victim were white and wealthy. Maybe. As a former public defender, it seems to me that the deal was typical when a defendant faces a real possibility of the death penalty. Moreover, as an opponent of the death penalty, I agree with Sherrice’s father when he said, “Killing that boy won’t bring my baby back.”

But when it comes to Cash, I wonder. This is not Mississippi in 1963. There is no great racist plot. Indeed, the public unease and outrage against Cash is a multiracial affair with blacks and browns, whites and reds, yellows and “mixeds” all horrified by his actions and indifference. But is there a subtle, perhaps unconscious combination of racial and class privilege causing the authorities to balk at charging a young middle-class white man with a bright future at an elite public university? Would they be so hesitant if he were darker hued, had no high school degree and had the uncertain economic future that too many young, poor black and brown men face?

It is said that neither Nevada nor California can charge Cash because neither state has a “good Samaritan” law–and they should.

I disagree with the pundits who oppose such laws with concerns that range from the infrequency with which Vermont uses its law to the suggestion that these laws turn “us into informants on each other.” It doesn’t matter if the new law is rarely used. Ideally, we hope that all criminal laws will rarely need to be used. What matters is that we believe that the moral obligation to help under certain circumstances is important. If so, then we should have a law for whenever it is needed. And these laws have less to do with us becoming informants on each other and everything to do with what we should already be doing for each other: helping each other out in times of need, regardless of our differences, because we are all part of a community.

But what about the laws we already have? Both states have laws that make accessories to a crime guilty of a crime. An accessory is the crime of knowing a felony offense has been committed and helping the perpetrator avoid arrest or trial. Several Nevada attorneys have suggested that Cash could be charged as an accessory for two reasons: If Cash saw the sexual assault and lied about it, that would be interference with the state’s ability to prosecute, or if Cash told friends, as he did, to keep quiet when they recognized Strohmeyer and Cash in the televised casino surveillance tape that, too, would hinder Strohmeyer’s arrest and prosecution. These attorneys are right. And their examples are bolstered by the fact that when Cash’s father told Cash that the two of them would have to go to the police, Cash’s first move was to call Strohmeyer and tell him, “Do whatever you’re going to do, but do it now.” It was a warning designed to help Strohmeyer avoid arrest or trial.

Frankly, as new information is revealed, the case against Cash grows stronger. While Cash swore under oath that he only witnessed the young girl struggling with Strohmeyer, Cash consistently told friends that he watched Strohmeyer molest the half-naked, terrified Sherrice. It was then, according to Cash’s former roommate, that Cash asked Strohmeyer that stomach-turning question “Was she aroused?” not after Strohmeyer left the bathroom and said that he’d killed Sherrice as Cash claims now.

If instead of ineffectually trying to stop his friend and leaving while “fear[ing] the worst,” Cash, in fact, encouraged his friend’s sick, deadly assault, Cash sounds more like an aider and abettor–beyond an accessory and as guilty as the principal. Surely, Sherrice’s hopes must have died when, in the last moments of her life, she saw her sole avenue of escape blocked by the head of the man in the next stall chatting with her assailant while she was tortured. One wonders whether Cash didn’t wait outside the bathroom door to act as a lookout for Strohmeyer. Moreover, this uglier version of Cash’s acts is evidence that he may have lied. The fact that he lied is more than perjury or inhibiting a police investigation or even protecting Strohmeyer. The lies are also about the specifics of what Cash himself saw and did and reflect his own consciousness of guilt.

If the Nevada authorities can look at all this and find no crime, it’s important to note that the California authorities could also charge Cash. Although the main crime, Sherrice’s murder, occurred in Nevada, many of the accessory acts–intimidating witnesses, lying to authorities, warning Strohmeyer–occurred in California. So the Nevada and the California authorities can do what justice demands.

Many of Cash’s fellow students are morally outraged and have taken action accordingly; the student council wanted to throw him out of school. Both the Nevada and California authorities ought to reexamine Cash’s immoral and illegal behavior and also act accordingly.

Dodgers rout Rockies, but lose Kiké Hernández

From Maddie Lee: Dodgers utility man Kiké Hernández sat with manager Dave Roberts on the dugout bench for a while after he was lifted from a 15-6 win over the Rockies on Tuesday with what the team later called a left oblique strain.

“He understood how frustrated I was,” Hernández said, “and he was trying to get me to keep my head up.”

The Dodgers plan to put Hernández on the 10-day injured list and recall infielder Alex Freeland, Roberts said after the game. Hernández expects to know more about the severity of the injury Wednesday.

“It’s a bummer,” Roberts said after the game. “He’s missed a lot of time and worked hard to get back, was in great shape, added that spark that we had hoped.”

It was his second game of the season, after starting the year on the injured list after offseason surgery on his left elbow. And he was driving the ball hard.

But he said he initially tweaked his oblique before his season debut, during batting practice Monday.

“I was pretty embarrassed about it,” Hernández said. “I thought it was just weird tightness. Never done an oblique before. So I didn’t really know what I was feeling. Came in today, wasn’t feeling great. I got treatment, but I thought I could play. … Compared to some of the things I’ve played through in the past, it was nothing.

“And, yeah, it was a little more than nothing”

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Dodgers box score

MLB standings

New Dodger Eric Lauer got early help from Mark Prior

From Maddie Lee: For a 20-year-old Eric Lauer, fresh out of Kent State University in 2016, talking pitching with Mark Prior made the big leagues feel closer.

“We were so young,” Lauer said in a conversation with The Times, “that it was kind of funny, because everybody was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s Mark Prior.’ ”

Prior, the beloved former Cubs All-Star, finished third in NL Cy Young voting when Lauer was 8 years old.

“He was one of the first experiences I had where I was like, ‘OK, like, these elite big leaguers are just normal guys. They’re just like us.’ ”

Prior was a “high-level thinker,” as Lauer put it, who steered Lauer toward in-depth self-evaluation. But he also was just “a normal dude.”

The two have reunited with the Dodgers. Lauer — who held the Rockies to one run and four hits in his six-inning Dodgers debut Tuesday — was a midseason addition as injuries thinned the team’s starting pitching depth. Prior has been on the Dodgers’ coaching staff since 2018, serving as the pitching coach since the 2020 season.

But when they first met, Lauer was a Padres 2016 first-round draft pick and Prior was the minor-league pitching coordinator.

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Angels win fourth in a row

Vaughn Grissom hit a grand slam and drove in six runs as the Angels beat the Detroit Tigers 10-6 on Tuesday night.

Detroit led 6-4 going into the eighth, and Will Vest (1-4) got the first two out with a runner on second. Logan O’Hoppe’s double made it a one-run score, Zach Neto singled and Mike Trout walked to load the bases.

Facing his ninth batter of the game — matching a career high — Vest fell behind 2-0 before Grissom homered to right-center field to give the Angels the 9-6 lead.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

U.S. World Cup roster announced

From Kevin Baxter: Mauricio Pochettino knows the joy of making a World Cup roster. But he also knows the misery of being left off one.

In the first case, you want to celebrate; in the second, you want to be left alone.

The U.S. coach said he kept both emotions in mind when informing players they had — or had not — made the roster for next month’s tournament, a roster that was formally announced Tuesday during a sun-splashed, made-for-TV rally in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, about 13 miles from where July’s World Cup final will be played.

“The most important event is to be in any single roster,” said Pochettino, who made Argentina’s team for the 2002 World Cup after being passed over four years earlier.

So when Pochettino decided which 26 men would be on his team this summer, each of them got a WhatsApp message, followed by a video, sent out at 1 p.m. Eastern Time Friday. Defender Tim Ream said he received the message as he walked to his car after training with his club team in Charlotte, N.C.

U.S. World Cup roster

Goalkeepers: Chris Brady (Chicago Fire), Matt Freese (New York City), Matt Turner (New England Revolution)

Defenders: Max Arfsten (Columbus Crew), Sergiño Dest (PSV), Alex Freeman (Villarreal), Mark McKenzie (Toulouse), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace), Antonee Robinson (Fulham), Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati), Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Auston Trusty (Celtic)

Midfielders: Tyler Adams (AFC Bournemouth), Sebastian Berhalter (Vancouver Whitecaps), Weston McKennie (Juventus), Gio Reyna (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Cristian Roldan (Seattle Sounders), Malik Tillman (Bayer Leverkusen)

Forwards: Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United), Folarin Balogun (AS Monaco), Ricardo Pepi (PSV), Christian Pulisic (AC Milan), Tim Weah (Marseille), Haji Wright (Coventry City), Alejandro Zendejas (Club América)

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Major League Volleyball comes to L.A.

From Marisa Ingemi: Los Angeles is getting another pro women’s volleyball team.

Major League Volleyball announced it will expand to L.A. in 2027, adding another team to the growing professional volleyball market.

The team will be co-owned by billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who also owns the Los Angeles Times and is a minority owner of the Lakers. He will operate the team alongside Ben Priest, a former investor of MLV’s Omaha Supernovas, one of the league’s first teams.

Sportico reported the duo are paying an expansion fee around $15 million-$20 million to join the five-year-old operation.

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Chargers, Derwin James agree to contract extension

Five-time Pro Bowl safety Derwin James and the Chargers have agreed to a multiyear extension.

The team announced the deal Tuesday. James was entering the final year of his contract, and general manager Joe Hortiz had said that keeping the five-time Associated Press All-Pro was a priority.

James has helped the Chargers’ defense rank fourth in the NFL in total defense over the last two years, allowing 304.8 total net yards per game. The team led the league in 2024 by allowing just 17.7 points per game.

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Kelsey Plum injured

Sparks guard Kelsey Plum sprained her ankle during practice Tuesday.

The team said she’ll be reevaluated next week.

Plum is leading the WNBA in scoring with a career-best 26.8 points per game, while shooting 59% from the floor and 49% from three-point range. Her 6.3 assists average is also a career high.

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This day in sports history

1823 — A $20,000 match race between American Eclipse (representing The North) and Henry (representing The South) is held at Union Course, Long Island, N.Y. American Eclipse wins in two-of-three heats, after his original jockey, William Crafts, is replaced by Samuel Purdy before the second heat. The race, witnessed by 60,000 spectators, is the first to have been timed by split-second chronometers, which were imported for the event.

1873 — Survivor is the winner of the first Preakness Stakes.

1882 — Trainer Robert Walden wins his fifth consecutive Preakness Stakes, with Vanguard. Walden would win a total of seven Preaknesses, a record for a trainer.

1961 — Fiorentina of Italy win 1st European Cup Winner’s Cup against Glasgow Rangers 4-2 in Florence (2nd leg).

1964 — European Cup Final, Praterstadion, Vienna: Internazionale beats Real Madrid, 3-1 for their first title.

1965 — 10th European Cup Final, San Siro, Milan: Jair da Costa scores winner as defending champions Internazionale beat Benfica, 1-0.

1968 — “Papa Bear” George Halas retires as head coach of the Chicago Bears.

1972 — Mark Donohue wins the Indianapolis 500 over two-time defending champion Al Unser with a record average speed of 162.962 mph.

1975 — The Philadelphia Flyers win their second straight Stanley Cup with a 2-0 victory over the Buffalo Sabres in Game 6.

1981 — Willie Shoemaker wins his 8,000th race and then three more. Shoemaker gets the milestone on top of War Allied in the first race at Hollywood Park.

1981 — Julius Erving of the Philadelphia 76ers is named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, making him the only player to win MVP honors in the NBA and the ABA.

1981 — 25th European Cup: Liverpool beats Real Madrid 1-0 at Paris.

1982 — The Lakers, despite an 11-day layoff, beat Philadelphia 124-117 in Game 1 of the NBA Finals for their ninth consecutive victory. The nine straight wins sets the NBA record for consecutive wins during one postseason.

1984 — Rick Mears wins the Indianapolis 500 by the largest margin in 17 years with a record-setting 163.612 mph. Mears beats Roberto Guerrero and Al Unser by two laps. Fifteen of the 33 drivers are eliminated during two crashes.

1985 — Scott Wedman sinks four three-point field goals without a miss and shot 11-for-11 overall from the field, both NBA Finals records, as Boston routs the Lakers 148-114 in Game 1. Boston’s 148 points and 62 field goals are NBA Finals records.

1987 — 31st European Cup: Porto beats Bayern Munich 2-1 at Vienna.

1990 — Arie Luyendyk wins the fastest Indianapolis 500 by overpowering former winner Bobby Rahal over the final 33 laps, for his first Indy car victory in 76 races. His average speed of 185.984 mph breaks Rahal’s record of 170.722 in 1986. Luyendyk becomes the first to finish the race in under three hours.

1998 — In one of the biggest upsets in Grand Slam history, Pete Sampras is ousted at the French Open by 21-year-old Ramon Delgado of Paraguay, ranked 97th in the world, 7-6 (8-6), 6-3, 6-4.

2001 — Hicham El Guerrouj runs the fastest outdoor mile ever in the United States, and high school sensation Alan Webb breaks four minutes outdoors. El Guerrouj wins in a sizzling 3 minutes, 49.92 seconds, shattering the U.S. all-comers’ record of 3:50.86. Webb, the 18-year-old from Reston, Va., puts on a brilliant last-lap burst and finishes fifth at 3:53.43, smashing the high school record of 3:55.3 set by Jim Ryun in 1965.

2001 — Senior PGA Championship, Ridgewood CC, NJ: 5-time British Open champion Tom Watson wins first of 6 Champions Tour major titles with a 1 stroke win over Jim Thorpe.

2004 — Brad Richards’ goal in Tampa Bay’s 4-1 victory over Calgary is the game-winner — his record-tying sixth of the postseason.

2007 — Dario Franchitti gambles on the rain and wins the Indy 500. Franchitti inherits the lead by staying on the track when the leaders pit for fuel and then drives slowly to the checkered flag in a downpour when the race is stopped 10 laps later after 415 of the scheduled 500 miles.

2007 — Senior PGA Championship, Kiawah Island Golf Resort, Ocean Course: Denis Watson of Zimbabwe wins his lone major title by a 2 stroke margin from Eduardo Romero of Argentina.

2009 — UEFA Champions League Final, Rome: Barcelona beats Manchester United, 2-0; first Spanish treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League.

2011 — Top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki loses to Daniela Hantuchova 6-1, 6-3 in the third round of the French Open. It marks the first time in the Open era that the top two seeded women fail to make the round of 16 at a Grand Slam tournament. Kim Clijsters, the No. 2 seed, lost on May 26.

2012 — Dario Franchitti wins the Indianapolis for the third time, taking advantage when Takuma Sato crashes on the final lap.

2012 — Manu Ginobili scores 26 points and San Antonio wins its 19th in a row to tie the NBA record for longest winning streak in the playoffs. The Spurs beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 101-98 to open the Western Conference finals.

2014 — The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater becomes the only school in NCAA history to win championships in football, men’s basketball and baseball in the same school year.

2017 — English FA Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London: Arsenal beats Chelsea, 2-1; Aaron Ramsey scores 79′ winner as Arsène Wenger becomes most successful manager in FA Cup history, winning his 7th title.

2018 — Chris Frome wins the Giro d’Italia to join cycling greats Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault with his third consecutive Grand Tour victory.

2018 — Senior PGA Championship, GC at Harbor Shores: Englishman Paul Broadhurst wins by 4 strokes from American Tim Petrovic.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1904 — Dennis McGann of the New York Giants stole five bases in one game to set a major league record.

1937 — Carl Hubbell, working in relief for the New York Giants, won his 24th straight game over two seasons. Hubbell pitched two innings and Mel Ott hit a ninth-inning home run to beat the Cincinnati Reds 3-2. Hubbell’s string started July 17, 1936.

1955 — Norm Zauchin of the Boston Red Sox knocked in 10 runs with three home runs and a double in the first five innings of a 16-0 victory over the Washington Senators.

1960 — Baltimore catcher Clint Courtney used the “big mitt” for the first time to catch knuckleball pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm. The mitt, designed by Paul Richards, was 50% larger than the standard. Nothing got by Courtney as the Orioles beat the New York Yankees 3-2.

1968 — Montreal and San Diego were awarded National League franchises as the league expanded for the first time in seven years.

1974 — Pittsburgh’s Ken Brett beat the San Diego Padres 6-0 with a two-hitter and in the second game of the doubleheader, hit a pinch-hit triple to give the Pirates an 8-7 victory.

1981 — Seattle’s Lenny Randle dropped to his hands and knees in an attempt to “encourage” Amos Otis’ slow roller to go foul. Umpire Larry McCoy accused the Mariner third baseman of blowing the ball foul and gave the Kansas City outfielder the single. Randle explained he was merely yelling at the ball not to stay fair. The Royals won 8-5.

1986 — At Cleveland, the Boston Red Sox were leading the Indians, 2-0, in the sixth inning when the game was delayed then called on account of fog.

1995 — Oakland’s Steve Ontiveros pitched 3-0 one-hitter against the New York Yankees. Luis Polonia got the only hit for New York.

1997 — Seattle’s Ken Griffey Jr. broke his own major league record for home runs hit through May by connecting for his 23rd of the season in an 11-10 loss to Minnesota. Griffey’s homer broke the mark he set in 1994.

2004 — Carlos Pena was 6-for-6 with two home runs, five RBIs and four runs in Detroit’s 17-7 victory over Kansas City.

2009 — Daisuke Matsuzaka and the rest of Boston’s pitchers tied a modern-day record with six wild pitches. Matsuzaka tied a franchise record set 80 years ago with four, while relievers Manny Delcarmen and Justin Masterson also sent catcher George Kottaras scrambling. It was just the fifth time since 1900 that a team threw six wild pitches in a game.

2010 — Florida International’s Garrett Wittels extended his hitting streak to 50 games with a third-inning single against Western Kentucky. Wittels moved within eight games of matching the NCAA Division I record of 58, set by Oklahoma State’s Robin Ventura in 1987.

2012 — Taylor Sewitt threw 11 shutout innings of relief, entering the game with no outs in the first, to help Manhattan College beat Canisius 3-2, for the school’s second straight Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title.

2012 — Paul Konerko hit a tiebreaking three-run homer — his 400th with the White Sox — and Chicago routed the Cleveland Indians 12-6. The offensive outburst gave Chicago nine or more runs in four consecutive games. The White Sox last accomplished that feat June 27-30, 1938.

2015 — Cubs pitcher Jon Lester sets a new record for most hitless at bats to begin a career with 58 at bats without a hit.

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.

Dodgers ride Kiké Hernández’s emotional comeback, late surge to beat Rockies

Dodgers third baseman Kiké Hernández rounds third during the fifth inning of a win over the Rockies at Dodger Stadium on Monday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

From Liana Handler: In his first big-league game back since Game 7 of the World Series, Kiké Hernández received playoff-level cheers at Dodger Stadium on Monday night, nearly drowning out his walk-up song as he stepped into the batter’s box against the Rockies in the bottom of the third inning. Some fans tipped their hats. Others joined the rising “Kiké!” chants.

After taking a ball, Hernández sent a four-seam fastball hopping down the left-field line for an RBI double that scored Hyeseong Kim. The crowd of 48,778 exploded.

It was shaping up to be a happy return, but it wasn’t until the seventh inning that the rest of the Dodgers lineup found its footing, taking advantage of some shaky relief pitching to rally for a 5-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies.

Hernández reached on an infield single in his second at-bat before being lifted for a pinch-hitter as the Dodgers began to rally in the seventh.

Hernández’s journey back to the big leagues has been an arduous one. Throughout his two-month stint last year on the injured list, he received seven injections in his left elbow. None worked.

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Dodgers box score

MLB standings

No. 1 UCLA baseball to host Saint Mary’s; USC and UC Santa Barbara earn NCAA bids

UCLA players celebrate at home plate as Jack O’Connor rounds the bases during the Big Ten tournament.

(Courtesy of UCLA Athletics)

From Joaquin Ruiz: The UCLA baseball team (51-6) is hosting the Los Angeles Regional as the nation’s No. 1 overall seed, and USC (43-15) is headed to the College Station Regional hosted by 12th-seeded Texas A&M, the NCAA announced Monday.

After walking off Oregon 3-2 on Sunday in Omaha to claim their first Big Ten tournament title, the Bruins will defend Jackie Robinson Stadium and push to make their second consecutive College World Series run. UCLA faces Saint Mary’s (seeded fourth in the L.A. regional) in the Westwood opener at noon Friday on ESPNU, while No. 2 Virginia Tech and No. 3 Cal Poly will face off at 5 p.m on ESPN+ to complete the Los Angeles Regional.

If the Bruins advance, they will host a super regional against the winner of the Morgantown Regional hosted by West Virginia.

USC is making its second consecutive NCAA tournament appearance for the first time since 2002. The Trojans are seeded second at College Station and will face 36-24 Texas State at 6 p.m. PDT on Friday at Texas A&M’s Blue Bell Park on ESPN+. The Aggies will face Lamar at 1 p.m. PDT on the SEC Network to open the College Station Regional.

“When you start in August, the goal is to play in Omaha,” USC coach Andy Stankiewicz said, alluding to the home of the College World Series. “But before you get in Omaha, you got to get to a regional. And so, here we are. [We’d] certainly love to be hosting a regional, but it’s OK. We’re on our way to Texas to tee it up against some really good Texas teams. That’s the goal, to be ready to play. Our boys are up here working right now, and they’ll get ready for a great weekend.”

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Inside U.S. soccer’s World Cup camp at Orange County Great Park

An aerial view of a U.S. Soccer banner hanging on the exterior of a Great Park balloon ride as crews prepare the training area for World Cup training.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

From Kevin Baxter: On a recent spring morning, Championship Soccer Stadium, which sits in a corner of the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, was quiet and empty save for the dozen sprinklers quenching a newly laid grass carpet.

Normally the well-used stadium is a buzz of activity. But its main tenant, the Orange County Soccer Club, which plays in the second-division USL Championship, has been temporarily evicted, left to train in the nearby park and play its final home game before the World Cup at Eddie West Field in Santa Ana, 12 miles away. (Not that it was necessarily a bad thing since the club drew a home-record crowd of 7,651 to its 3-2 win over Oakland on Saturday, which allowed it to hold onto second place in the Western Conference table.)

During the next month, the nine-year-old venue will have just one occupant, the U.S. national soccer team, which has chosen the stadium as its main training base for the World Cup. The temporary change in ownership is heralded by a giant orange orb the size of a hot-air balloon, adorned with the U.S. Soccer logo and tethered to a rise just outside the stadium.

Why and how the federation wound up in Irvine is unknown; U.S. Soccer declined to respond to multiple requests for comment. But it’s safe to say location was a factor since the Orange County Great Park is the closest World Cup training base to SoFi Stadium, where the U.S. will play two of its three group-stage games.

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Lakers hire former Pelicans executive Rohan Ramadas amid front office expansion

From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The Lakers hired former New Orleans Pelicans executive Rohan Ramadas to fill one of two new assistant general manager roles, The Times confirmed Monday.

Ramadas previously worked as the vice president of basketball operations and strategy for the Pelicans and will be involved in managing the salary cap, analytics and data for the Lakers, who are retooling their front office and basketball operations under new ownership this summer. Speaking at an end-of-season newsconference, GM Rob Pelinka said the Lakers will hire two new assistant general managers, with the other position focusing on pro scouting, draft scouting and player development.

Ramadas, who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in astronautical engineering from USC, worked at El Segundo-based The Aerospace Corporation for 12 years before jumping to the NBA full-time in 2024.

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Knicks return to NBA Finals for first time since 1999 after sweeping Cavaliers

Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns and teammates celebrate after winning the Eastern Conference finals Monday in Cleveland.

(Tim Phillis / Associated Press)

From the Associated Press: Karl-Anthony-Towns had 19 points and 14 rebounds, OG Anunoby scored 17 and the New York Knicks routed the Cleveland Cavaliers 130-93 Monday night to complete a four-game sweep of the Eastern Conference finals and advance to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.

Landry Shamet scored 16 off the bench while Mikal Bridges and Jalen Brunson had 15 apiece for the Knicks, who became the fourth team to have an 11-game winning streak during their postseason run. The last to do it was Golden State, which had a 15-game run en route to its second title in three seasons in 2017.

All but one of the Knicks’ wins have been by double digits, with an average margin of victory of 23.7 points.

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This day in sports history

1925 — In Detroit’s 8-1 win over the Chicago White Sox, Ty Cobb becomes the first to collect 1,000 career extra-base hits. He finished his career with 1,139.

1959 — Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitches 12 perfect innings before losing to the Milwaukee Braves, 1-0 in the 13th on an error, a sacrifice and Joe Adcock’s double.

1963 — French Championships Men’s Tennis: Australian Roy Emerson beats home favourite Pierre Darmon 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4.

1963 — French Championships Women’s Tennis: Australian Lesley Turner wins the first of 2 French titles; beats England’s Ann Jones 2-6, 6-3, 7-5.

1972 — Joe Frazier TKOs Ron Stander in 5 for heavyweight boxing title.

1982 — 26th European Cup: Aston Villa beats Bayern Munich 1-0 at Rotterdam.

1983 — LA Lakers set NBA playoff game record of fewest free throws.

1985 — Danny Sullivan misses almost certain disaster and holds off Mario Andretti and the rest of the fastest field in auto racing to win the Indianapolis 500. On the 119th lap, Sullivan spins his racer 360 degrees, narrowly avoiding both the wall and Andretti.

1987 — Boston’s Larry Bird steals an inbounds pass from Detroit’s Isiah Thomas and feeds over his shoulder to a cutting Dennis Johnson for the winning basket as the Celtics pulls out an improbable 108-107 win over Detroit in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

1988 — The Edmonton Oilers, with MVP Wayne Gretzky leading the way, beat the Boston Bruins 6-3 to complete a four-game sweep and win their fourth Stanley Cup in five years.

1991 — Rick Mears passes Michael Andretti with 12 laps to go and wins his fourth Indianapolis 500, by 3.1 seconds. Mears joins A.J. Foyt and Al Unser as the only four-time winners.

1993 — In Major League Baseball, Carlos Martinez famously hits a ball off Jose Canseco’s head for a home run.

1993 — 1st UEFA Champions League Final: Marseille beats Milan 1-0 at Munich.

1994 — Haiti’s Ronald Agenor wins the longest match since the French Open adopted the tiebreaker. Agenor takes the 71st and final game of a second-round match with David Prinosil of Germany. His five-hour, 6-7 (4-7), 6-7 (2-7), 6-3, 6-4, 14-12 victory involves the most games in a French Open match since 1973.

1999 — 7th UEFA Champions League Final: Manchester United beats Bayern Munich 2-1 at Barcelona.

2000 — New Jersey finishes the greatest comeback in a conference final when the Devils win the last three games of the series, beating the Flyers 2-1 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final. Patrik Elias scores his second goal of the game with 2:32 to play for the win.

2004 — Andy Roddick loses at the French Open — to Frenchman Olivier Mutis, who is ranked 125th. With the five-set loss, Roddick joins Andre Agassi and eight other compatriots on the way home, making it the first Grand Slam tournament in more than 30 years without a U.S. man in the third round.

2005 — Americans Andy Roddick, James Blake and Vince Spadea fail to make it through the opening week at the French Open. For the second year in a row — and the second time at a Grand Slam event in more than 30 years — no American man makes it out of the second round.

2008 — Syracuse wins its 10th NCAA men’s lacrosse championship, beating defending champion Johns Hopkins 13-10 behind three goals from Dan Hardy. The crowd of 48,970 at Foxborough, Mass., is the largest to see an NCAA championship outdoors in any sport — the BCS football championship game isn’t an NCAA event.

2009 — NHL Eastern Conference Final: Pittsburgh Penguins beat Carolina Hurricanes, 4 games to 0.

2012 — Toronto FC ends its MLS record nine-game losing streak to open a season with a 1-0 win over the Philadelphia Union on a late goal by Danny Koevermans.

2013 — Tony Kanaan ends years of frustration by finally winning the Indianapolis 500. Kanaan drives past Ryan Hunter-Reay on a restart with three laps to go, then coasts across the finish line under yellow when defending race winner Dario Franchitti crashes far back in the field. The Brazilian finished second in 2004 and twice finished third.

2013 — Senior PGA Championship, Bellerive CC: Kōki Idoki of Japan wins his lone PGA event by 2 strokes from Jay Haas and Kenny Perry.

2015 — Cleveland Cavaliers win the NBA Eastern Conference.

2018 — UEFA Champions League Final, Kiev: Real Madrid beats Liverpool, 3-1 for third straight title. Zinédine Zidane first manager to win 3 consecutive titles.

2019 — Indianapolis 500: 2016 IndyCar Series champion Simon Pagenaud of France finishes just two-tenths of a second ahead of Alexander Rossi for Team Penske’s record-extending 18th victory in the event.

2019 — Senior PGA Championship, Oak Hill CC: American Ken Tanigawa wins his first career major title by 1 stroke ahead of Scott McCarron.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1916 — Benny Kauff of the Giants was picked off first base three times by Boston’s Lefty Tyler. The miscues didn’t hurt as New York won its 14th consecutive road victory beating the Braves, 12-1.

1925 — In Detroit’s 8-1 win over the Chicago White Sox, Ty Cobb became the first to collect 1,000 career extra-base hits. He finished his career with 1,139.

1929 — Pinch-hitters Pat Crawford of the Giants and Les Bell of the Boston Braves hit grand slams in New York’s 15-9 victory.

1930 — Joe Sewell of the Cleveland Indians, who fanned only three times in 353 at-bats during the season, was struck out twice in the same game by Pat Caraway of the White Sox.

1937 — Billy Sullivan and Bruce Campbell appeared for the Cleveland Indians as pinch hitters. Each hit a home run, making this the first time two American League pinch hitters hit home runs in the same game. The Indians beat the Athletics, 8-6.

1956 — Cincinnati Reds pitchers John Klippstein, Hershell Freeman and Joe Black combined for 9 2-3 hitless innings, but lost 2-1 in 11 innings to the Philadelphia Phillies.

1959 — Harvey Haddix of Pittsburgh pitched 12 perfect innings before losing to Milwaukee 1-0 in the 13th on an error, a sacrifice and Joe Adcock’s double.

1962 — Sandy Koufax struck out 16 Phillies to lead the Dodgers to a 6-3 victory.

1969 — Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hits his 500th career double, becoming only the third major leaguer to reach 500 doubles and 500 home runs.

1995 — Southern California and Fresno State combined for an NCAA postseason baseball record of 39 runs in the Trojans’ 22-17 win in the West Regional. USC scored three runs in the top of the ninth to break the record of 37 set by the Trojans and Houston in 1990.

1996 — The Chicago White Sox became the 16th team in AL history to hit four homers in one inning in their 12-1 win over Milwaukee. Frank Thomas, Harold Baines and Robin Ventura hit consecutive homers and Chad Kreuter added another in Chicago’s seven-run eighth.

1997 — Chicago’s Sammy Sosa and the Pirates’ Tony Womack hit inside-the-park homers in the sixth inning of the Cubs’ 2-1 win. It was the first time two inside-the-park homers had been hit in the same inning in 20 years.

2004 — Daryle Ward hit for the cycle and tied his career best with six RBIs in Pittsburgh’s 11-8 win over St. Louis.

2006 — Derek Jeter gets his 2,000th career hit, becoming the eighth player in Yankees history to reach the milestone.

2008 — Chase Utley tied the National League lead with his 16th homer and drove in six runs as Philadelphia routed Colorado 20-5. The Phillies batted around three times and had season-highs in hits (19) and runs.

2011 — The hot-hitting Boston Red Sox routed the Detroit Tigers 14-1 in an eight-inning, rain-shortened game. The Red Sox, who beat Cleveland 14-2 the previous day, scored at least 14 runs in back-to-back games for the first time since 1998.

2016 — Major League Baseball hands out a suspension of 82 games to Braves OF Hector Olivera, following a domestic violence incident in April. It is by far the most severe penalty yet handed out under baseball’s new domestic violence policy.

2018 — Mike Trout has the first five-hit game of his career and drives in 4 runs to lead the Angels to an 11-4 win over the Yankees.

2021 — Commissioner Rob Manfred issues his ruling following the completion of the investigation of allegations of improper behavior towards a number of women against former manager and coach Mickey Callaway. Callaway is found guilty of violating Major League Baseball policies and is declared ineligible for the remainder of this season and all of 2022, after which he may apply for reinstatement. For their part, the Angels fire him from his position of pitching coach, from which he has been suspended since the allegations surfaced in February, and the Indians, who were Callaway’s employer when some of the offensive incidents took place, state that they will take steps to ensure a more respectful environment in which employees feel empowered to denounce workplace harassement in the future.

2023 — Craig Kimbrel becomes the eighth pitcher to record 400 career saves in Philadelphia’s 6 – 4 win over the Braves, barely two weeks after Kenley Jansen became the seventh.

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.