Phil Collins faced death two years ago, and has lived to tell the tale.
The Grammy-winning singer recalled to the Times of London how his “kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing” when he was was hospitalized in Switzerland in April 2024 because of alcohol abuse. At the time, Collins’ five children — including “Emily in Paris” star Lily Collins — were called to his bedside for what they thought could be his final moments.
“There were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’” he recalled for the profile, published Monday. He added: “People were coming to say goodbye. But I don’t remember them coming, I didn’t have no idea this was going on. They were all worried that they wouldn’t see me again. It could all have gone so terribly wrong.”
Collins reflected on his brush with death to the news outlet months before he is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November. His fellow inductees include Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, Oasis, Sade, Luther Vandross and Wu-Tang Clan.
The profile about the “In the Air Tonight” and “You’ll Be in My Heart” singer recalled the extent of his struggles with alcohol, including after his divorce from Orianne Cevey. Collins, 75, said when he was drinking, “the calendar [went] out the window” and that he opted for wine for breakfast. The Times of London reported that Collins was hospitalized in November 2023 and swiftly discharged, only to return to the intensive care unit and stay hospitalized for seven months.
“I was very lucky to have come out of that. Needless to say, I haven’t had a drink since,” he said. According to the outlet, Collins has permanent scarring on his pancreas, and his kidneys “barely” function.
Collins spoke about his alcohol abuse earlier this year in a five-episode podcast series with Zoe Ball. He revealed in April that he has a live-in nurse and that it’s an “ongoing” effort to manage his health. He said “everything that could go wrong with me did go wrong.”
“I got COVID in hospital, my kidneys started to back up, you know, everything that could, all seemed to sort of converge at the same time,” he said, adding that he had undergone five operations on his knee.
Collins also admitted in April he’d “probably been drinking too much” and that he recently celebrated two years of sobriety.
Collins spoke in his most recent interview about his desire “to be in love again,” revisited his controversial love life and spoke about mending his relationships with Piers Morgan, Paul McCartney and daughter Lily Collins after various rifts that played out in the media.
“I don’t like people going around thinking I hate them,” he said.
Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where summer break is over, USC’s preseason camp is underway and we are officially back in your inbox with news, notes and analysis on the Trojans every Monday morning from now through football season and beyond. I hope you had a lovely, peaceful summer. Because this fall, the stakes will have never been higher for Lincoln Riley, who’s entering his fifth and most consequential season yet as USC’s football coach, one that could decide the direction of the Trojan football program for years to come.
We’ve got a lot planned for the Times of Troy this season, including a very exciting announcement to come later this month. But over the next four weeks, before USC kicks off the 2026 season, we’ll take a close look at the team and season ahead.
Fight on! Are you a true Trojans fan?
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This week, we start with the Trojans’ offense, which, in four years with Riley as coach, has consistently remained among the best in the sport. Say what you will about Riley as a play-caller or an overall CEO type, but only one team in college football ranks better in average opponent-adjusted efficiency (FEI) on offense over the course of Riley’s tenure (sorry, it’s Oregon). And only once, in four seasons with Riley, has USC fallen out of the top seven nationally in that efficiency rate.
USC finished third in the nation in offensive FEI last season. And there’s a legitimate case to be made that the offense should be even better in 2026. Two cases, really.
The first path is probably obvious and will no doubt be the source of every preseason TV segment about USC. The road to success for Riley has always run through the quarterback. And Jayden Maiava has all the tools necessary to be that guy. He took a huge step forward last offseason, and if he continues that trajectory, he should be one of the best quarterbacks in the country this season.
But Maiava has also been surrounded by seasoned receivers the last two seasons, including one who just got picked in the first round of the NFL draft. His top returning receiver, Tanook Hines, is sitting out with an injury to start camp, while the rest of the pass-catcher two-deep is made up of either freshmen or transfers. We don’t know how long Hines will have to sit out, but any amount of time isn’t ideal. It’ll be on Maiava to build chemistry in the room and make it all work on the fly.
I suspect he’ll do just fine in that regard. But if USC is really going to reach its offensive potential this season, I believe it’ll be the run game that gets them there.
Riley earned his reputation as a passing savant at Oklahoma for good reason. He had two Heisman Trophy-winning passers and one runner-up in his first three seasons with the Sooners, and all three are now starting NFL quarterbacks. There’s no college coach with a resume even close to comparable when it comes to passing. But what’s often lost about those Riley teams is that Oklahoma also had a stellar rushing attack, one that had to be accounted for at all times, and, in turn, made the passing attack all the more explosive.
USC’s run game hasn’t been bad since Riley took over, not by any stretch. In fact, in terms of expected points added per rush play, the Trojans have ranked among the 15 most efficient run games in college football in each of Riley’s four seasons. They just haven’t run the ball nearly as much as that efficiency suggests they would.
This season would be a great time to shift that ratio. Because this is the best backfield Riley has had at USC.
Before he got hurt last season, Waymond Jordan was on his way to being seen as one of the best backs in the Big Ten, if not the country. He averaged 6.55 yards per carry, which ranked 15th among qualifying running backs in the country, but better yet, he picked up more yards on average after contact (5.15) than all but one other running back in the nation.
Assuming he’s fully healed from his ankle injury last October, Jordan should immediately remind everyone that he’s bound for stardom. And his backfield mate may not be that far behind.
King Miller scores on a 41-yard run against UCLA last season.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
King Miller didn’t get regular carries until Week 6 last season, after Jordan went down. But he ended up busting 26 rushes of 10 yards or more anyway. That’s once every six carries. That’s bonkers, even before you consider that Miller is formerly a walk-on.
The pairing of those two backs, plus the threat of Maiava’s legs, gives USC a varied backfield capable of breaking a big play at any moment. Better yet, in the Big Ten, it gives Riley and his offense the ability to extend drives and wear down opposing defenses. That’s too often been missing from USC’s offense since coming to the Big Ten.
But there’s no excuse not to lean more on the run this season. Throw in the fact that USC is deeper and more talented on the offensive line than at any other point in Riley’s tenure, and it’s not hard to envision a Trojan offense dynamic enough to dominate teams on the ground and through the air.
Offense has never been a problem for Riley at USC. But we also haven’t seen Riley’s offense at the full extent of its powers just yet. And if USC is going to make the Playoff for the first time under Riley, that’s going to have to change this season.
Preseason MVP pick (non-QB): Waymond Jordan … Back from injury, I’m betting Jordan is better than ever.
Breakout pick: Kayden Dixon-Wyatt, freshman wide receiver … Take your pick of top prospects at the receiver position, but I think Dixon-Wyatt could be the big-play threat USC needs alongside Hines.
Biggest question mark: Wide receiver/tight end … So much talent, but so little of it is proven. Don’t be surprised if someone you’re not expecting breaks out at the position.
Bold prediction: Freshman tight end Mark Bowman leads the team in touchdown catches.
—USC‘s top projected cornerbacks are both cleared ahead of camp. We didn’t see Jontez Williams all spring, and we haven’t really seen Chasen Johnson at all since he was injured almost a year ago. So it’s easy to forget how touted both cornerbacks were coming out of the transfer portal. I’m particularly high on Williams, who was clearly the team’s top target in the portal this offseason. I expect both will start on the outside, unless Marcelles Williams makes a serious push to play there in camp.
—Riley is strongly in favor of the 24-team College Football Playoff. That’s been the official Big Ten Conference stance for months, so it’s no surprise to hear Riley echo those feelings. “This is something that’s not going to diminish the game in any way,” Riley said. “Having more teams in a tournament to determine a champion is not going to make it worse.” Of course, Riley’s concern isn’t the overall health of the game, but rather the fact that more playoff spots mean more chances for him to check that box. I don’t blame any coach for feeling that way. But there’s a reason why they shouldn’t be in charge of these decisions.
—Some weight fluctuations … The biggest change since spring belonged to offensive tackle Elijah Vaikona, who lost 25 pounds to open the fall at 360, while two players, tight end Walter Matthews (now 305) and defensive back Carrington Pierce (now 185) each added 20 pounds to their frames. A couple other notable changes: Veteran defensive lineman Jide Abasiri is down to 280 and could play more on the outside this season, while young edge rusher Jadyn Ramos bulked up to 250, after joining USC at (generously) 220 pounds last spring. Freshman five-star tight end Mark Bowman is also up to 245, which should help keep him on the field.
—Grant Govel spurned the Pittsburgh Pirates to return as USC’s ace. The Trojans were one of the big winners of the MLB draft deadline, as their No. 2 starter will now return to take over the top of the rotation. Govel had a 2.87 ERA and an opponent batting average of .203, which made him one of the better pitchers in the Big Ten. But Mason Edwards’ amazing year overshadowed, in some regard, the success Govel was having. That won’t be the case in 2026-27.
—Bloom Football Performance Center is having its grand opening this week. The football team already moved in a couple weeks ago, but the new state-of-the-art facility will get its close-up later this week. The media will be doing a tour Thursday, so be sure to follow along on social media for photos and videos from inside the facility.
The Best Thing I Watched This Summer
Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland in “The Odyssey.”
(Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Pictures)
It’s not exactly an original take to sing the praises of a movie that’s become a global phenomenon. But “The Odyssey,” more than any blockbuster in recent memory, is worthy of piling on. I caught the film in its intended 70mm IMAX format, and I can confidently say it was the most amazing cinematic experience I’ve ever had.
The sheer scale of the movie is something to behold, even before you consider just how difficult it is to adapt an ancient epic poem into an interesting movie script. And on both counts, Christopher Nolan does not disappoint. The performances are outstanding, the score is beautiful, and the themes that Nolan pulls from the poem somehow manage to give a fresh take on a 3,000-year-old story.
I look forward to watching it again, as soon as I can, in IMAX 70mm. Though, judging by the current ticket situation, that might have to be at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday.
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
“I heard that it was pretty much done,” Roberts recounted Sunday afternoon. “But there’s obviously things that have to go on with medical, so it wasn’t actually even finalized. I just heard that it was pretty much close.”
Friedman, however, wasn’t ready to exhale until he got final word from the Tigers during the game.
“I had no idea and was trying to emotionally hedge,” he said. “I wasn’t getting too high or too low on it until we actually found out.”
There was, it turned out, no need to stress. On Saturday, the Dodgers agreed to trade three prospects — outfielder Zyhir Hope (No. 25 on MLB Pipeline’s top 100), right-handed pitcher River Ryan (No. 68) and right-hander Brady Smith — to the Tigers for one of the best starters in baseball.
From Joaquin Ruiz: The Dodgers were swept for just the second time this season after the red-hot Boston Red Sox hit four home runs, including three off embattled starter Emmet Sheehan, to take an 8-4 win on Sunday night at Dodger Stadium.
Boston hit three home runs in four at-bats in the third inning, with Sheehan giving up blasts to Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu and Masataka Yoshida as the Dodgers suffered their second three-game sweep at home in less than a month.
“It was bad execution,” Sheehan said. “I just missed my spots.”
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Teammates in awe of Myles Garrett
From Gary Klein: The Rams knew the resume. Saw the highlights. Gathered all the intel required.
“I was leaning towards coming back the whole time,” Mack said of mulling retirement before signing a one-year, $18-million contract in March to remain with the Chargers. “But it’s just considering the stage of life my kids are at, that balance of being a dad and a husband but still trying to follow the dream. I feel like I’m still in a position to do both.”
The future Hall of Famer decided the show must go on.
And now, with championship aspirations entering his 13th season, and fifth in Los Angeles, Mack is basking in his role as the Chargers’ elder statesman.
“Priceless,” defensive coordinator Chris O’Leary said of the 35-year-old outside linebacker’s presence. “He’s the flag bearer of our culture on defense. He leads the way with his actions. … When it’s time for him to say something, he’s going to say something.
Walbert Ureña pitched three-hit ball over six innings and Wade Meckler hit a two-run homer off Milwaukee ace Jacob Misiorowski as the Angels beat the Brewers 3-0 on Sunday.
Ureña (7-7) struck out seven and walked three as the Angels (43-69) broke a five-game losing streak. The rookie right-hander has a 2.54 ERA and a 2.25 ERA since May 1, a stretch in which he has given up one or fewer earned runs in 12 of 16 starts.
Angels reliever Ryan Zeferjahn replaced the injured Sam Bachman with a runner on second and one out in the eighth. He struck out Brice Turang, gave up an infield single to Jackson Chourio and struck out Garrett Mitchell with runners on first and third to end the inning.
Plum, sidelined since June 21 with a leg injury, was sent to the Phoenix Mercury late Saturday night. The Sparks are now 3-9 without Plum.
Ogwumike hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 1:25 to play, making it 98-96. Hamby followed with a layup off an Ogwumike assist. In the last 24 seconds, Ogwumike and Erica Wheeler went six for six from the foul line.
1852 — The first intercollegiate rowing race is held on Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H., where Harvard beats Yale by four lengths on the 2-mile course.
1936 — American sprinter Jesse Owens wins the 100m (10.3 seconds) in front of Adolf Hitler in a famous race at the Berlin Olympics, first of four gold medals at the Games.
1949 — The National Basketball Assn. is formed by the merger of the National Basketball League and the Basketball Assn. of America.
1955 — Scott Frost, driven by Joe O’Brien, wins the Hambletonian at Good Time Park in Goshen, N.Y. He goes on to become the first trotting Triple Crown winner.
1985 — France’s Lutin D’Isigny becomes the first trotter to sweep the International Trot and Challenge Cup in consecutive years with a 3:03.1 time in the 1½-mile test.
1990 — The PGA Tour announces it will not hold tournaments at golf clubs that have all-white memberships or show any other signs of discrimination.
1996 — Andre Agassi, the Dream Team and the U.S. women’s 400-meter relay team win Olympic gold medals, while the American men’s 400 relay settles for silver. With Carl Lewis idled by a coach’s decision and Leroy Burrell injured, the men’s 400 team is shocked by Canada — the first time the U.S. lost the event at the Olympics.
2003 — Annika Sorenstam completes a career Grand Slam at the Women’s British Open, beating Se Ri Pak by a stroke in a thrilling head-to-head showdown.
2006 — Champ Car driver Cristiano da Matta needs surgery to remove a ruptured blood vessel in his head after his race car collides with a deer that wandered onto the track during a test session at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.
2012 — Michael Phelps rallies to win the 100-meter butterfly for his third gold of the London Games and No. 17 of his career. It’s Phelps’ third consecutive win in the event at the Olympics, and his 21st career medal. Missy Franklin sets a world record in the 200 backstroke for the 17-year-old’s third gold in London.
2013 — Sixteen-year-old Katie Ledecky wraps up a brilliant performance at the world swimming championships with her fourth gold medal and second world record. The youngster turns it on over the final four laps of the 800 freestyle to win in 8 minutes, 13.86 seconds and take down the mark of 8:14.10 set by Britain’s Rebecca Adlington at the 2008 Olympics.
2016 — The International Olympic Committee approves baseball/softball, karate, sport climbing, surfing and skateboarding to be included in the 2020 Tokyo Games.
2016 — Elaine Thompson Herah of Jamaica wins the 200m gold in Tokyo to become the first female to win the 100/200 double in consecutive games.
2017 — Brazilian soccer forward Neymar transfers from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for a world-record transfer fee of $222M on a 5-year deal.
2023 — Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi becomes first WNBA player to reach 10,000 points as she drops 42 points in a 91-71 win over the Atlanta Dream.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1901 — Cleveland pitcher Ed Scott pitched a complete game and hit a solo home run off Bill Reidy in the top of the 10th for an 8-7 win against Milwaukee. It was the last game of Scott’s major league career.
1906 — Washington pitcher Tom Hughes hit a solo home run off Fred Glade in the tenth inning for 1-0 win over the St. Louis Browns. He became the first pitcher to win a 1-0 extra-inning game with his own home run.
1914 — New York Yankee catcher Les Nunamaker threw out three Detroit Tigers trying to steal second base on one inning. It will be the only time a backstop has accomplished this feat this century.
1923 — Major League Baseball canceled all games after the death of U.S. President Warren G. Harding in San Francisco on Aug. 2.
1933 — Lefty Grove of the Philadelphia A’s became the first pitcher since Aug. 2, 1931 — a span of 308 games — to shut out the New York Yankees, winning 7-0.
1944 — Tommy Brown, 16 years and 8 months old, played shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers in both games of a doubleheader loss, 6-2 and 7-1, to the Chicago Cubs. He had a double and scored a run.
1948 — Cleveland’s Satchel Paige made his first major league start and went seven innings to lead the Indians to a 5-3 victory over the Washington Senators.
1959 — The second game of All-Star play this year was won by the AL 5-3 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Nellie Fox of the Chicago White Sox singled in the deciding run in the seventh inning.
1961 — The Pittsburgh Pirates scored a 19-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals for the largest shutout score in an NL night game.
1969 — The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 19-17 in a wild game at Connie Mack Stadium. Trailing 9-6, the Reds scored 10 runs in the fifth inning to take a seven-run lead. The Reds tacked on two more runs in the sixth inning for an 18-9 lead. The Phillies responded with seven runs on the home half of the sixth and another run in the seventh to get within one run. Cincinnati’s Tony Perez homered in the eighth to make it 19-17. The Phillies two-out rally in the ninth ended with Ron Stone lining out to right with runners on first and second.
1969 — Pinch-hitter Rich Reese hit a grand slam to power the Minnesota Twins to a 5-2 victory over the visiting Baltimore Orioles and end Dave McNally’s 15-game winning streak. His two victories at the end of 1968 had given him 17 straight wins.
1982 — Frank White of the Kansas City Royals hit for the cycle in a 6-5 win over the Detroit Tigers. It was the second cycle of his career.
1987 — Minnesota’s Joe Niekro was caught with a file on the mound and was ejected during the fourth inning of the Twins’ 11-3 win over the Angels. Niekro would be suspended for 10 games by American League president Bobby Brown, who didn’t believe Niekro’s story that he had been filing his nails on the bench and stuck the file in his back pocket when the inning started.
2004 — Tony Batista hit a grand slam in the 12th inning after tying the game with a two-run homer in the ninth, leading Montreal over St. Louis 10-6.
2006 — Chase Utley singled in the first inning of Philadelphia’s 8-1 win at St. Louis to extend his hitting streak to 35 games.
2006 — Matt Murton tied a major league record with four doubles and drove in five runs to help the Chicago Cubs salvage a split of a doubleheader with Arizona 7-3.
2015 — Adrian Beltre became the first major leaguer since the 1930s to hit for his third career cycle and the Texas Rangers held on for a wild 12-9 victory over Houston. Beltre hit a solo homer in the fifth inning for the Texas Rangers, completing the cycle in his first four at-bats.
2024 — By stealing three bases in a 10-0 Dodgers win over the Athletics, Shohei Ohtani becomes the first member of the 30-30 club this season (he has already hit 33 homers). In reaching the two marks in 108 games, he is the third fastest to do so in history, beaten only by Eric Davis (90 games in 1987) and Alex Rodriguez (107 games in 1998).
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.
A family trip to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida can be notoriously expensive, but a travel expert who’s visited almost 50 times in the last six years has a money-saving hack
A trip to Disney can be expensive, but there are some nifty ways to significantly cut back costs (Image: Getty Images)
An avid Disney World Resort fan has been to the popular park a whopping 48 times, and during that time, he’s uncovered nifty travel hacks that can help families save hundreds.
Those who have been to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida will know how expensive a holiday can be, and those who haven’t will have heard about its hefty price tag. From flights, hotels, theme park passes, restaurants, and all the additional extras, it can quickly add up, with trips to ‘The Most Magical Place on Earth’ costing anything from £1,500 to £4,000 per person.
For a family of four, that could amount to anything from £4,000 to more than £10,000 for a 10-night trip. It certainly doesn’t come cheap, but for many, it’s a bucketlist holiday that’s well worth forking out for, and there are ample ways to help keep the costs down.
One of the best-known ways to save some serious cash is to book the cheapest available flights and opt for budget-friendly hotels outside the resort but close enough to travel back and forth each day. Yet, there’s another nifty money-saving tip that Disney expert Mark Patterson highly recommends to anyone planning a trip.
Matt, who has been to Florida’s Disney World Resort a whopping 48 times in the last six years for work and pleasure, told the Mirror: “All the restaurants at Disney are expensive, so the hotels I like have a kitchenette with a stove and a full-size fridge, so you can buy food and cook it.
“You can then take it into the park with you, and that can save a lot of money. Even if you just take two meals in for the family, that can save you easily $100 (£74.71) to $200 (£149.42) per day.”
Booking a hotel room or resort with a kitchenette to make meals for the day isn’t the only way to save some extra cash. The travel expert who lives in Southern California advised holidaymakers to book a hotel that offers free breakfast to help avoid hidden costs that can quickly add up to hundreds.
And there’s one area he recommends for that budget-friendly hotel with a free breakfast. “The Flamingo Crossings area is my favourite, it’s newer, and the hotels are all new, and they all have free breakfast. They offer good, reasonable prices there.”
However, he noted that, due to its location, visitors have to drive, get a lift, or take a shuttle bus to the park each day. Yet, with free breakfast included, it might be well worth travelling a little further to help cut costs.
Matt certainly knows what he’s talking about, having stayed at 36 different hotels during his trips to Disney World. He also aims for an average hotel price of around $100 (£74.71) to $200 (£149.42) per night to make it more affordable, while looking out for any hidden fees.
Another area he recommends is Disney Springs. He said: “The Disney Springs area has a range of hotels, right there within walking distance to the shopping area, and it’s where pretty much everybody goes to eat at night. It gets very busy and popular, so being able to walk to that is very handy.
“However, the bad thing about that, or something you have to trade off, is that only one of the hotels offers a free breakfast; all the others you have to pay for. So I might get a hotel for around $100 (£74.71) per night, but will then have to pay for breakfast, which is $28 (£20.92), along with paying for parking, which can be around $25 (£18.68) and a resort fee of around $40 (£29.88).
“So it can literally double the price of what I thought I was going to pay. Disney Springs area is great, but you’ve got those little hidden fees.”
Mark documents his many trips to Walt Disney World Resort on his website, DDadBudget, with various pieces of advice to fellow fans.
Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com
Vincent Pastore, best known for playing gangster informant Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero on HBO’s “The Sopranos,” has died. He was 80.
Pastore was found dead in his Bronx residence Saturday by a friend who did a wellness check after he had not been heard from for three days, his manager Steve Atterman confirmed to The Times. No cause of death was revealed.
While Pastore was best known for his time on the HBO drama starring the late James Gandolfini, he was often cast as an Italian American bad guy in other film and TV projects. His early credits include “Goodfellas,“ “Carlito’s Way” and “The Jerky Boys: The Movie.” He also appeared in the 1996 HBO TV movie “Gotti,” alongside future “Sopranos” co-stars Tony Sirico, Dominic Chianese and Frank Vincent.
A New York native, Pastore was born on July 14, 1946, in the Bronx. He fought in the Vietnam War and went on to graduate from Pace University with a degree in drama. He spent most of his young adulthood running bars and nightclubs in New Rochelle.
He didn’t get into acting until he was in his 40s in the late ‘80s at the encouragement of acting siblings Matt and Kevin Dillon. In a 1999 interview with The Times, Pastore offered his thoughts on why the brothers saw potential in him: “I guess because I looked like a gangster!”
“They used to live in a nearby town, and they used to come to my club a lot, and I became good friends with these guys,” Pastore said. “Kevin brought me down to meet his manager, and I had an interview. I took acting classes and some classes in college, but I didn’t have a clue how to break into film and the New York business. The agent gave me a guidepost, and I started doing some independents and a lot of theater. I started to study acting at 42!”
Pastore appeared in nearly 200 movies and TV projects, and twice in singing roles on Broadway (2007’s “Chicago” and 2014’s “Bullets Over Broadway” productions). But it was his role in David Chase’s 1999 drama “The Sopranos” that became his signature role.
Big Pussy was seminal to the show’s lore as Tony’s longtime best friend and trusted mob enforcer; his betrayal in becoming an FBI informant led to his murder and became one of the show’s most memorable scenes early in the show’s run.
Given his propensity to be cast as a mobster, Pastore was once asked whether he ever considered turning down a job because he thought it portrayed Italian Americans in a bad light.
“No, I haven’t turned any work down,” he told The Times. “The only time I turned work down is when I can’t do it because of ‘The Sopranos.’ I don’t think I am in a position [to turn down work] … when you got a daughter in grad school and you are paying her expenses, it’s pretty hard to turn a job down…You just hope the films are going to be good.”
Ohtani reported soreness Wednesday night in his left knee, which he treated over the All-Star break with a lubricating orthovisc injection and rest. So the Dodgers’ training staff recommended a day off.
“I expected him to play,” Roberts said before Thursday’s win. “I appreciate him saying that there’s some soreness to then allow me to make a decision of what is in his best interest, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Roberts said he’s “very confident” that Ohtani will be in the lineup Friday when the Dodgers open a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox.
But the Dodgers previously believed only pitching aggravated the injury. Ohtani hasn’t pitched in a game since July 3, and he hasn’t thrown off a mound in a little over a week. He’s been running through weighted plyo ball drills to keep his arm in shape without putting pressure on his knee.
The development raises questions about how to best manage Ohtani’s workload for the rest of the season.
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They might. Because we all remember how frequently the self-inflicted damages were occurring during that bizarre and jarring stretch starting late last year.
We also had him publicly calling out NFL officials on a stream and in a social media post sent from the locker room, and getting fined $25,000 by the league for that. We had his weird post on X — a laughing emoji and “sam darnold” — after the Seattle Seahawks’ quarterback led his team to the Super Bowl LX championship on Feb. 9, when Nacua also was recorded stumbling and dancing in a San Francisco street after the game.
We had this all within just a couple of months. So we had to replace the image we previously had of Nacua as a jolly, smiling football star with a new one: a picture of teeth marks on a woman’s skin.
Although Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh expected everyone to be full-go for training camp, the fourth-year edge rusher is holding in amid contract negotiations.
Tuipulotu, who was a full participant in minicamp, did individual work off to the side during Wednesday’s practice and was in general workout attire rather than in a helmet, jersey and football pants like his teammates. On Thursday, Tuipulotu suited up normally and participated in drills alongside fellow defensive linemen but didn’t participate in team sessions.
A hold in is one way players can exercise leverage during contract negotiations. Hold-in players fulfill basic requirements outlined in the collective bargaining agreement — such as attending meetings and doing individual work — to avoid mandatory fines from teams for not reporting to training camp.
“We keep it rolling in practice,” Chargers defensive coordinator Chris O’Leary said. “You know, you get into a game, and you spend a little bit more time game planning and figuring out how to fill that void. … So we haven’t felt it as much. Obviously, we miss [Tuipulotu] out there. We miss how vocal he is and plays that he makes. But for us, we’re just keeping it rolling with the guys we got out there.”
From Steve Henson: Billy Ray Smith Jr. became embedded in the San Diego sports community as an exceptional linebacker who lived up to his billing as a first-round draft pick and played all of his 126 NFL games with the Chargers from 1983 to 1992, long before the franchise moved to Los Angeles.
Despite being Texas-raised and Arkansas-educated, Smith Jr. became synonymous with San Diego by spending the rest of his life in the sunny SoCal city as a sportscaster, radio host and big-hearted, larger-than-life personality.
Smith Jr. died Wednesday at age 64, his family saying in a statement that he “faced his long journey with dementia caused by CTE with unmatched bravery, dignity, and strength.”
“It is with profound sadness that we share the loss of our beloved Billy Ray Smith Jr., who passed away peacefully surrounded by family,” the statement said. “Billy Ray brought so much joy, light, and laughter to the world as a devoted father, husband, son, and loyal friend.”
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive brain disease characterized by mood disturbances and cognitive decline. It is linked to repeated head impacts and traumatic brain injuries, and has been found posthumously in numerous athletes in contact sports.
1932 — France beats the U.S. 3-2 for its sixth consecutive Davis Cup championship.
1934 — Britain, led by Fred Perry and Bunny Austin, defeats the U.S. 4-1 at Wimbledon to win the Davis Cup title.
1942 — Jockey Bill Turnbull wins seven of nine races at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H.
1973 — Julius Erving, the American Basketball Association’s leading scorer, is traded by the cash-strapped Virginia Squires to the New York Nets for forward George Carter and cash.
1983 — Jan Stephenson beats JoAnne Carner and Patty Sheehan by one stroke to win the U.S. Women’s Open.
1993 — Mike Aulby becomes the third player in PBA history to win a tournament by rolling a 300 game in the title game. Aulby beats David Ozio 300-279 in the Wichita Open.
1994 — Sergei Bubka sets a world pole vault record for the 35th time in his career at a meet in Sestriere, Italy. Bubka soars 20 feet, 1¾ inches, adding a half-inch to his mark set in Tokyo in 1992.
2000 — Dorothy Delasin becomes the LPGA’s youngest winner in 25 years by beating Pat Hurst on the second extra hole to win the Giant Eagle LPGA Classic. The 19-year-old Delasin is the youngest winner on the tour since Amy Alcott took the Orange Blossom Classic at age 19 in 1975.
2005 — Grant Hackett becomes the first swimmer to win four straight world titles in the same event, capturing another 1,500-meter freestyle. The Aussie stretches out his own record for world championship medals to 17.
2007 — All-Star Kevin Garnett is traded from the Minnesota Timberwolves to Boston for five players and two draft picks. The Celtics obtain the former MVP and 10-time All-Star from Minnesota for forwards Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes and Gerald Green, guard Sebastian Telfair and center Theo Ratliff and two first-round draft picks.
2011 — Yani Tseng wins the Women’s British Open for the second straight year, beating Brittany Lang by four strokes and becoming the youngest woman to capture a fifth major title. The 22-year-old top-ranked Taiwanese shot a 3-under 69 to finish at 16-under 272.
2012 — Michael Phelps breaks the Olympic medals record with his 19th, helping the U.S. romp to a 4×200-meter freestyle relay victory at the London Games. With 19 medals spanning three Olympics, Phelps moves one ahead of Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, who got her haul in 1956, 1960 and 1964.
2012 — The team of Gabrielle Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Alexandra Raisman, Kyla Ross and Jordyn Wieber lives up to all the hype, winning the first U.S. Olympic title in women’s gymnastics since 1996.
2021 — Katie Ledecky wins the women’s 800m gold in Tokyo. This is the third consecutive Olympics she has won the race.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1930 — Lou Gehrig drove in eight runs with a grand slam and two doubles, and the New York Yankees outlasted the Boston Red Sox 14-13.
1932 — Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium opened and Lefty Grove and the Philadelphia A’s beat the Indians 1-0 before 76,979 fans.
1934 — The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Cincinnati Reds 8-6 in 18 innings at Cincinnati as Dizzy Dean and Tony Freitas both went the distance.
1954 — Joe Adcock hit four home runs and a double to lead the Milwaukee Braves to a 15-7 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. Adcock’s 18 total bases set a major league record at the time. Adcock homered in the second inning off Don Newcombe, doubled in the third and homered in the fifth off Erv Palica. He connected off Pete Wojey in the seventh and off Johnny Podres in the ninth. Adcock saw only seven pitches and his double off the left-center field fence just missed going out by inches.
1961 — The All-Star Game ended in a 1-1 tie at Fenway Park because of heavy rain.
1981 — The second baseball strike ended after 42 days.
1990 — Nolan Ryan, 43, won his 300th game, reaching the milestone in his second try, as the Texas Rangers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 11-3.
2002 — Mike Mussina became the second pitcher in major league history to give up six doubles in one inning, during the New York Yankees’ 17-6 loss to Texas. Hall of Famer Lefty Grove allowed that many with Boston in 1934 against Washington.
2003 — John Smoltz broke his own record as the fastest pitcher to record 40 saves by pitching a scoreless ninth in Atlanta’s 7-4 win over Houston. Last year, he got his 40th save on Aug. 8, en route to breaking the NL record with 55.
2007 — The New York Yankees tied a franchise record by hitting eight home runs, including two by Hideki Matsui, in a 16-3 rout of the Chicago White Sox. New York last hit eight homers in a game in a doubleheader opener at the Philadelphia Athletics on June 28, 1939.
2010 — Carlos Gonzalez hit a game-ending home run to complete the cycle, and Colorado rallied to a 6-5 win after blowing a three-run lead in the eighth inning to the Chicago Cubs.
2011 — Ricky Nolasco scattered 12 hits, Emilio Bonifacio homered and Florida handed the Atlanta Braves the 10,000th loss in franchise history. With the 3-1 loss, the Braves become the second big league team with 10,000 losses. The Phillies reached that mark in 2007.
2015 — New York’s Mark Teixeira homered from both sides of the plate in a game for the record 14th time, hitting his 10th grand slam and a two-run homer that led the Yankees past the Chicago White Sox 13-6.
2021 — Seby Zavala becomes the first player in MLB history to record his first three home runs in the same game.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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.
SACRAMENTO — One of California’s most powerful labor unions declined to endorse a proposed state billionaires tax, a blow to its backers and a sign of simmering divisions on the left over the controversial ballot measure.
The executive board for Service Employees International Union California voted Wednesday to take a neutral position on the tax, which will appear on the November ballot as Proposition 40. It would impose a one-time, 5% tax on the assets of billionaires who resided in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026.
In a statement, the 750,000-member union noted revenue from the “one-time tax proposal [is] dedicated 90% to healthcare,” echoing concerns from other unions opposed to the measure. Teacher, police and firefighter unions argue the tax would largely benefit the healthcare sector and fear it would destabilize the state budget and, along with it, services such as education and public safety.
SEIU California is a parent organization of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the union that crafted the measure and moved to put it on the ballot before securing broad support from other labor groups.
SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan said he pushed the tax to backfill an estimated $100 billion in cuts to healthcare and food assistance programs that California is expected to shoulder under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Trump last year.
“Trump’s ‘Big, Ugly Bill’ slashed funding for healthcare in California to pay for more billionaire tax breaks. Now, millions of Californians are losing their health coverage, and millions more are being forced to pay skyrocketing costs,” SEIU-UHW Press Secretary Renee Saldana wrote in a statement to The Times.
Saldana pointed to an internal poll showing 70% of union members in California would support the billionaire tax, adding: “We’re confident that SEIU members will be joining millions of their fellow Californians and voting YES on Prop. 40 this November to protect healthcare, keep hospitals and clinics open, and stand with California working families.”
In negotiations with Gov. Gavin Newsom last month, Regan offered to pull the tax from the ballot in exchange for concessions for his union, including help securing contracts at several medical facilities around the state, two sources told The Times. Regan denies making the demand, and said the proposal is meant to solve an impending “catastrophe in California’s healthcare system.”
Several unions and Democratic allies, including Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, argue the one-time tax is the wrong solution for the cuts, which are unlikely to be reversed while Republicans hold power in Washington.
SEIU California said its members are focused on “a multi-year campaign to secure California’s fiscal foundation with ongoing revenue,” including an effort to tax large companies that pay wages low enough that their workers rely on public benefits.
Surrounded by members of the SEIU California executive board, Newsom this month signed a bill punting the “Fair Share” measure to next year, when a new governor will take office.
Some labor unions and elected Democrats worry that, in the long run, the proposed billionaire tax will hurt the state budget — which raises more money from wealthy people taxed at higher rates — by pushing rich Californians to move to other states.
Some already have. Google co-founder Sergey Brin last year moved to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe to preemptively avoid the tax, and has pumped $82 million into a committee fighting Proposition 40.
Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential contender, has begun arguing for a federal wealth tax that the rich could not escape by moving to a new state.
“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” he wrote on Substack in June. “The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”
SEIU California on Wednesday also announced “strong opposition” to Proposition 39, a proposed voter ID measure; and Proposition 43, which would make it harder for local governments to raise taxes.
From Maddie Lee: Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman all but confirmed Wednesday that the team would be in contact with the Tigers to gauge their asking price for reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal.
“There just aren’t that many star-level players in the game,” Friedman said Wednesday afternoon when asked how aggressive the Dodgers would be in pursuing big-name players. “Any time one is available, we’re always going to participate in those conversations. We’ve shown to be very aggressive in the past. … We’ve traded a lot of really talented young players.
“But we’re able to be in those conversations because of the incredible work by our scouts and our front office and our player development group that has our farm system in such a strong spot to be able to talk to any team basically about any player.”
All that was expected. Checking in is simply due diligence.
Friedman avoided showing his hand when asked the odds of the Dodgers (68-40) acquiring a player like that at the Aug. 3 deadline.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not in the handicapping business.”
Before the Dodgers’ 4-2 win against the Mariners on Wednesday, they activated closer Edwin Díaz and designated left-hander Charlie Barnes for assignment. Díaz earned the save in his first major-league appearance since undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow in late April, giving up two hits and a run.
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The deal, announced a few minutes before the Angels’ series finale against the Houston Astros, could mark the beginning of an extensive rebuilding process for the Angels, who entered play Wednesday with an American League-worst 42-66 record and 13 1/2 games behind the Rangers in the AL West.
“We know we have to start shaking up this roster, and today was day one,” Angels interim general manager John Mozeliak said. “Clearly, where the Angels are at right now, we need to do things differently.”
From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: After 4 million tickets sold and maybe a million more headaches, the Olympic ticket booth opens again this week.
LA28 sold a record number of tickets during its first drop in April, signaling unprecedented interest in the Olympics as they return to Southern California for the first time since 1984. High prices, service fees and unavailable seats frustrated fans but did not deter them. In fact, interest in the Games has only grown since April’s first drop.
LA28 announced Wednesday that more than 12 million people from more than 200 countries have registered for tickets, a dramatic increase from the 5 million registrants the organizing committee boasted in late February before the first ticket drop.
Sports from the traditional standbys (artistic gymnastics) to the newest additions (flag football, lacrosse and squash) all sold through their first-drop availability. The second drop that begins Wednesday offers “refreshed inventory across all Olympic sports,” LA28 said.
Here’s what to know about the next ticketing phase:
From Ryan Kartje: In the nearly nine months since he was hired as head coach at UCLA, Bob Chesney has won over a lot of hearts and minds with his unwavering sense of belief.
First, he won over his star quarterback, Nico Iamaleava, who opted to stick with the Bruins after a 3-9 season a year ago. He won over 45 new transfers, who came to UCLA as part of the portal’s 11th-ranked class and seems to be winning over recruits, too, with UCLA currently ranked in the top 10 among 2027 classes. He even won over once-dormant Bruin donors, who, according to the school’s athletic department, have now poured over $41 million in private support into UCLA athletics over the last fiscal year, an increase of 80% from the previous year.
“It’s his energy, man,” Iamaleava said. “He brings a different type of energy.”
At this point, the only thing it seems Chesney hasn’t won yet at UCLA is an actual football game.
He couldn’t do anything about that Wednesday from the podium at Big Ten media days. But as the season draws nearer and a new era of Bruin football begins, all the enthusiasm does beg the question: What does a successful debut actually look like for Chesney at UCLA?
Chesney said Wednesday he had no interest in setting those expectations or “in putting artificial limits on ourselves.”
“Outcomes have to be earned,” he said. “And I think in the end, potential is a gift, right? The work is becoming. That’s the work.”
There’s no reason to watch them even though there’s more than a month left on their schedule. Again.
For the sixth consecutive season, one of the WNBA’s legacy franchises has come apart at the seams, tattering the franchise’s three-championship history with a sordid record that mandates a clear response.
Trade your best player.
Trade Kelsey Plum.
The trade deadline is Sunday so do it quickly, and do it boldly, sending her to the sort of playoff contender who would find her worthy of young talent and draft picks.
From Sam Farmer: If there’s a day of uncontaminated enthusiasm on the NFL calendar it’s the first day of training camp. Everyone’s healthy, everyone’s hopeful, and the Super Bowl is seemingly in reach for everyone.
A few thousand Chargers fans were at the team facility Wednesday to watch the inaugural practice, and afterward coach Jim Harbaugh and many of the players stuck around to sign autographs, pose for selfies and make small talk. It was the kind of scene unfolding all around the NFL.
“It was amazing,” said All-Pro safety Derwin James of the practice. “Kind of like the first day of school.”
Were they to receive a grade for their first two seasons under Harbaugh, the Chargers might get an incomplete. They played well enough to make the playoffs in both seasons — overcoming a dizzying array of injuries on the offensive line a year ago — yet failed to show up in the postseason, suffering lopsided losses at Houston and New England.
Harbaugh said the first day of camp feels like “Christmas morning” to him. When asked whether the entire team was full speed and ready to go, he made the analogy of an airplane gathering speed down a runway before achieving flight. There’s a deliberate ramp-up to the intensity of training camp, he said.
1930 — Host Uruguay beats Argentina 4-2 for soccer’s first World Cup in Montevideo.
1932 — The 10th modern Olympic Games open in Los Angeles.
1961 — Jerry Barber edges Don January by one stroke in a playoff to win the PGA title at Olympia Fields in Illinois.
1966 — England beats West Germany 4-2 at London’s Wembley Stadium to capture soccer’s World Cup.
1971 — In the NFL Chicago All-Star Game, the Baltimore Colts beat the All-Stars 24-17.
1976 — Bruce Jenner sets the world record in the Olympic decathlon with 8,618 points, breaking Nikolai Avilov’s mark by 164 points.
1984 — Michael Gross of West Germany sets a world record in the 200-meter freestyle with a time of 1:47.44 at a meet in Munich.
1996 — The American softball team wins the gold medal, beating China 3-1 behind a controversial two-run homer from Dot Richardson in the first Olympic competition in that sport.
2009 — Seven more world records on the fifth night of the world swimming championships in Rome are set, pushing the total to 29 and moving past last summer’s Beijing Olympics. Ryan Lochte gets things rolling by breaking Phelps’ mark in the 200-meter individual medley. The Chinese women finish it off, eclipsing the 800 freestyle relay mark by more than two seconds, with the Americans also breaking the previous record but only getting silver.
2012 — In London, Missy Franklin, a 17-year-old from Colorado, wins the women’s 100-meter backstroke. Franklin has a brief 13-minute break after taking the final qualifying spot in the 200 freestyle semifinals before she had to get back into the water for the backstroke final. Ruta Meilutyte, 15, becomes the first Lithuanian to win an Olympic swimming medal by holding off a late charge from world champion Rebecca Soni of the U.S. in the 100 breaststroke.
2013 — Katie Ledecky crushes the world record in the 1,500 freestyle for her second gold medal at the world swimming championships in Barcelona, Spain. The 16-year-old American finishes with a time of 15:36.53 to beat the previous mark by more than 6 seconds — Kate Ziegler’s 15:42.54 in 2007.
2015 — North Korea wins its first gold medal at the world aquatics championships through 16-year-old Kim Kuk Hyang in women’s 10-meter diving. In her first international competition, Kim produces a stunning final dive, earning two perfect 10 scores from the seven judges, for a total of 397.05 points. On the next dive, the leader up to that point, world champion Si Yajie of China, makes an error to drop to fourth.
2021 — South African swimmer Tatjana Shoemaker sets a new women’s 200m breaststroke world record of 2:18.95 at the Tokyo Olympics.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1917 — Ty Cobb, Bobby Veach and Ossie Vitt, each went 5-for-5 in Detroit’s 16-4 romp over Washington.
1933 — Dizzy Dean struck out 17 Cubs for the St. Louis Cardinals, who beat Chicago 8-2.
1947 — The New York Giants defeated Ewell Blackwell and the Cincinnati Reds 5-4 in 10 innings, ending Blackwell’s 16-game winning streak.
1959 — Willie McCovey had four hits in four at-bats in his major league debut, with the San Francisco Giants. His hits included two triples in a 7-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
1962 — The American League, led by homers from Leon Wagner, Pete Runnels and Rocky Colavito, powered past the National League 9-4, in the second All-Star Game of the year. Wagner of the Angels was named MVP.
1968 — Washington shortstop Ron Hansen pulled off an unassisted triple play, but the Cleveland Indians still won the game 10-1.
1969 — Houston, behind grand slams by Denis Menke and Jim Wynn, scored 11 runs in the ninth inning to pound the New York Mets 16-3 in a doubleheader opener at Shea Stadium. Mets pitchers Cal Koonce and Ron Taylor gave up the slams, marking the first time this century that two grand slams were hit in the same inning of a National League game.
1973 — Jim Bibby of the Texas Rangers pitched a 6-0 no-hitter against the Oakland A’s.
1980 — Houston Astros pitcher J.R. Richard had a stroke during a workout at the Astrodome and underwent surgery to remove a blood clot behind his right collarbone.
1982 — The Atlanta Braves returned Chief Noc-A-Homa and his teepee to left field after losing 19 of 21 games and blowing a 10½-game lead. The teepee was removed for more seats. The team recovered to regain first place.
1988 — John Franco of the Cincinnati Reds set a major league record with 13 saves in one month. Franco was tied with Sparky Lyle, Bruce Sutter and Bob Stanley.
1990 — George Steinbrenner was forced to resign as general partner of the New York Yankees by Commissioner Fay Vincent.
2008 — Kelly Shoppach of Cleveland tied a major league record with five extra-base hits, including a game-tying homer in the ninth, but Detroit beat the Indians 14-12 in 13 innings. Shoppach had two homers and three doubles.
2011 — The New York Yankees broke loose for 12 runs in the first inning of the nightcap of a day-night doubleheader, setting a franchise record en route to a 17-3 rout of Baltimore.
2012 — Kendrys Morales homered from both sides of the plate during a nine-run sixth inning, capping the burst with a grand slam that sent the Angels romping past the Texas Rangers 15-8. Morales became the third switch-hitter in major league history to homer as a lefty and righty in the same inning. Carlos Baerga did it for Cleveland in 1993 and Mark Bellhorn of the Chicago Cubs duplicated the feat in 2002.
2017 — Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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.
From Joaquin Ruiz: Dominic Canzone’s go-ahead home run in the eighth spoiled a Tuesday night of leaderboard climbing for Max Muncy and Shohei Ohtani as the Mariners beat the Dodgers 7-6 in the first game at Dodger Stadium since before the All-Star break on July 12.
With one out, Julio Rodríguez on first and the score tied at five, Canzone got all of Alex Vesia’s 82-mph slider, sending it 414 feet to center to help lift Seattle to its first win over the Dodgers in five years and first in Los Angeles since June 28, 2009.
“I mean it’s a pitch that’s had different results,” Vesia said. “Obviously it’s not the best pitch. I would have liked to have it more outside or more down. Kind of just flush it and on to the next one. Clearly need to be better in that situation. I felt like my stuff was good after that.”
Added manager Dave Roberts: “Alex made a really bad pitch, [an] 0-1 slider that was middle-middle, and they were hitting the ball out of the ballpark. So, that’s kind of the tale of the run prevention tonight.”
The Dodgers (67-40), with some much-needed help from dubious Mariners fielding, did have Ohtani on third and Muncy on second as the tying and game-winning runs in the ninth. But Seattle reliever Andrés Muñoz survived, putting an end to the thrilling opener of this three-game series.
Seattle won the offensive slugfest with 10 hits and five home runs to the home team’s 13 hits and two homers.
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Angels fall to the Astros
Yordan Alvarez homered and hit a go-ahead RBI single with two outs in the ninth inning to lift the Houston Astros to a 3-2 win over the Angels on Tuesday night.
Christian Walker added a solo homer while Houston relievers Enyel De Los Santos, Bryan Abreu, Steven Okert and Josh Hader combined for four hitless innings. Okert (4-1) threw a scoreless eighth to earn the win and Hader threw a four-pitch ninth for his 14th save.
The Astros won for the seventh time in eight games to remain two games behind Texas in the American League West. The last-place Angels have lost 17 of 22 games.
From Steve Galluzzo: On a night when a franchise legend had her jersey raised to the rafters, the Sparks played with inspiration and determination but were unable to snap their losing streak, falling to the New York Liberty 113-109 on Tuesday at Crypto.com Arena.
Down 11 with 3:30 left, the Sparks pulled to within 112-109 on Nneka Ogwumike’s three-pointer with 15 seconds left, but Breanna Stewart sank the second of two free throws with 13.9 seconds left to ice it for New York (16-12).
Despite the absence of leading scorer Kelsey Plum, who is averaging 23.9 points a game but has been sidelined with a lower leg injury since the teams’ prior meeting June 25, the Sparks had a balanced attack with six players in double figures.
Rae Burrell led the charge with 24 points, Ogwumike added 21 points and nine assists, Erica Wheeler had 17 points and nine assists, Ariel Atkins had 16, Dearica Hamby had 12 and Cameron Brink had 11 for the Sparks, who squandered a chance to inch a half game in front of Portland for fifth place in the WNBA’s Western Conference. The Fire (11-17) lost to Las Vegas earlier Tuesday.
“I’m proud of my team — we were active and connected,” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said. “We scored 30 points off of 18 turnovers, we made more field goals than them and we had 35 assists, which is a franchise record. We just didn’t get rewarded with a win.”
The USC coach should’ve been used to weathering pressure by that point. After all, his previous four seasons spent coaching the Trojans had been nothing short of a powder keg, filled with ups and downs, as well as a constant undercurrent of tension and uncertainty. But in this particular case, success was out of Riley’s control. He wasn’t even near a football field.
Rather, he was sitting in the audience of a local dance recital, waiting on his two young daughters, Sloan and Stella, who were each making their solo dancing debut with their company.
“This was the first year, stepping out on their own, no one else to rely on,” Riley said. “But they told me, ‘Dad, we’ve got it.’”
Entering his fifth and most pivotal season yet at USC, their father can relate to that sentiment. While the spotlight burns brighter than ever and the collective college football world is spinning 2026 as a make-or-break moment for Riley, the coach had never sounded so confident that his Trojans had turned a corner than he did Tuesday.
“I’ve felt the pressure to win every single year here,” Riley said during Big Ten media days. “What does feel different is that I think our opportunity to do that is greater than what it has been. It just flat out is. The things you need to win, we have more of than we had in the first four years.”
1751 — The first International World Title Prize Fight takes place in Harlston, England. The champion, Jack Slack of England, beats the challenger, M. Petit of France, in 25 minutes.
1934 — Paul Runyan beats Craig Wood on the 38th hole to win the PGA Championship at Park Country Club in Williamsville, N.Y.
1956 — Cathy Cornelius wins a playoff over Barbara McIntyre to win the U.S. Women’s Open.
1957 — At the Polo Grounds in New York, Floyd Patterson TKOs Tommy Jackson at 1:52 of the 10th round to retain the heavyweight title.
1960 — The first American Football League preseason game is played in Buffalo, N.Y. The Boston Patriots, led by quarterback Butch Songin, beat the Bills 28-7 before 16,474 fans at War Memorial Stadium.
1979 — Amy Alcott shoots a 7-under 285 to beat Nancy Lopez in the Peter Jackson Classic, later named The du Maurier Classic. The du Maurier is one of the LPGA Tour’s major championships from 1979-2000.
1986 — The U.S. Football League wins and loses in its lawsuit against the NFL. The jury finds the NFL violated antitrust laws, as the USFL claimed, but awards the USFL only $1 in damages.
1989 — Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor becomes the first person to high jump 8 feet, breaking his world record at the Caribbean Championship in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He surpasses his mark of 7-11½.
1990 — Beth Daniel shoots a 66 to overcome a 5-shot deficit and win the LPGA Championship — her first major title in 12 years on the tour. Daniel beats Rosie Jones by one stroke and pockets $150,000, the largest in LPGA Tour history.
1992 — The U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay team wins the gold medal, with Matt Biondi and Tom Jager becoming the first U.S. male swimmers to win golds in three Olympics.
1996 — Michael Johnson sweeps to victory in an Olympic 400-meter record 43.49 seconds, while Carl Lewis leaps into history in Atlanta. Lewis’ long jump of 27 feet, 10¾ inches earns him his ninth gold medal, equaling the American mark held by swimmer Mark Spitz.
2001 — Copa América Final, Estadio El Campín, Bogotá: Defender Iván Córdoba scores winner as home team Columbia edge Mexico, 1-0.
2008 — Disgraced ex-NBA official Tim Donaghy admits he brought shame on his profession as a federal judge sentenced him to 15 months behind bars for a gambling scandal.
2012 — Kimberly Rhode wins the Olympic gold medal in women’s skeet shooting, becoming the first American to take an individual-sport medal in five consecutive Olympics.
2012 — Dana Vollmer of the U.S. sets a world record to win the 100-meter butterfly at the London Olympics. Vollmer hits the wall in 55.98 seconds to shave 0.08 off the mark set by Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden at the 2009 world championships in Rome.
2015 — Russia’s Natalya Ishchenko wins a record 18th career synchronized swimming gold medal at the world championships at Kazan, Russia.
2021 — Sunisa Lee wins the women’s all-around gymnastics gold medal in Tokyo.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1908 — Rube Waddell struck out 16, sending the St. Louis Browns past the Philadelphia A’s 5-4.
1911 — Joe Wood of the Boston Red Sox beat the St. Louis Browns with a 5-0 no-hitter in the first game of a doubleheader. Wood fanned 12 and allowed three baserunners on two walks and a hit batsman.
1915 — Honus Wagner, 41, became the oldest player to hit a grand slam as Pittsburgh beat Brooklyn 8-2. The grand slam was an inside-the-park homer. Wagner remained the record holder until 1985, when Tony Perez hit one the day before his 43rd birthday.
1928 — The Cleveland Indians scored eight runs in the first inning and nine more in the second and went on to beat the New York Yankees 24-6 at Dunn Field. Johnny Hodapp singled twice in the second and sixth innings.
1936 — The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 22-7 in the first game of a doubleheader, then lost the second game 5-4.
1955 — Smoky Burgess of the Cincinnati Reds hit three home runs and drove in nine runs in a 16-5 rout of the Pittsburgh Pirates at Crosley Field.
1968 — George Culver of the Cincinnati Reds pitched a 6-1 no-hitter against the Phillies in the second game of a doubleheader at Philadelphia.
1983 — Steve Garvey of the San Diego Padres ended his NL record of 1,207 consecutive games played. The streak ended when he dislocated his thumb in a collision with Atlanta pitcher Pascual Perez while trying to score.
2000 — Eddie Taubensee hit a tying homer with two out in the ninth and homered again in the 11th to lead Cincinnati to a 4-3 win over Montreal.
2001 — Craig Monroe homered in his first major league at-bat, and the Texas Rangers beat Tampa Bay 2-0.
2003 — Boston’s Bill Mueller became the first player in major league history to hit grand slams from both sides of the plate in a game and connected for three homers in a 14-7 win at Texas.
2006 — Tomas Perez tied a major league record with four doubles, going 5-for-5 and leading the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to a 19-6 rout of the New York Yankees.
2010 — Anibal Sanchez pitched a one-hitter, leading the Florida Marlins past the San Francisco Giants 5-0. Sanchez retired his first 13 batters and matched a career high with eight strikeouts.
2018 — The Hall of Fame inducts one of the largest classes in its history. Honored are Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones, Jack Morris, Jim Thome and Alan Trammell.
2022 — Aaron Judge hits two more homers in leading the Yankees to an 11-5 win over the Royals. He now has 41 on the season, tying the American League record for most before the end of July held by Hall of Famers Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx and Ken Griffey Jr. Judge will set a new record with another homer tomorrow.
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.
Ross Douthat, a longtime conservative voice on the New York Times op-ed page, has been hired as full-time correspondent on “60 Minutes.”
Douthat is the first full-time correspondent named to the venerable CBS News magazine program since it underwent a massive shake-up last spring.
His hiring was announced Tuesday.
CBS News executives are trying to fill several correspondent roles after veterans Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi, Cecilia Vega and executive producer Tanya Simon were fired by CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss.
Anderson Cooper turned down a new deal to continue as a contributing correspondent.
Douthat, 46, is not frequently seen on television.
He hosted a video podcast, “Interesting Times,” for the New York Times opinion section which explored religion and politics.
On “60 Minutes,” he will become the most prominent conservative voice on a broadcast news network.
Douthat has been with the Times opinion page since 2009, when he replaced conservative columnist Bill Kristol.
The Times section is where Weiss first made her name as anti-woke contrarian before she launched the like-minded digital news site the Free Press, which was acquired last year by CBS News parent Paramount.
Weiss was hired as editor in chief of CBS News in October with a mandate from Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison to pull the network more to the political center. The hiring of Douthat addresses that desire.
Nick Bilton, whom Weiss hired as executive producer of “60 Minutes,” also named three contributors to the program.
Author and filmmaker Sebastian Junger, 64, who wrote “The Perfect Storm” and covered the Afghanistan war for ABC News. He is a Peabody Award winner.
Gianna Toboni, 39, a former correspondent for Vice News who most recently was a reporter for CNN. She will also be a CBS News national correspondent.
Trevor Phillips, 72, a British journalist who joined CBS News earler this year as a senior global affairs correspondent. He also worked in British politics.
Several internal names are still being considered for full-time and contributor roles on the program. They include “CBS Sunday Morning” veteran Seth Doane, national correspondent Matt Guttman and foreign correspondent Holly Phillips. “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Doukopil is also expected be a contributor.
Veteran correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, Norah O’Donnell and Jon Wertheim are also returning to the program, which begins its 58th season on Sept. 13.
The internal discord at “60 Minutes” followed a highly successful season where its ratings increased by 9% according to Nielsen.
But there was turmoil throughout the season as Weiss fired Alfonsi and Vega — both of whom complained that the executive pushed them to add right-wing talking points to their stories.
In response to the firings, Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering” the program and claimed she was putting “her thumb on the scale” for more favorable coverage of President Trump’s administration.
Pelley was shown the door with cause after confronting management over the firings at a June 1 meeting.
From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: Growing up in Inglewood, Andrew Hernandez heard plenty about the Olympics. Since L.A. was awarded the Games almost a decade ago, the 18-year-old watched preparations slowly improve the infrastructure of his hometown. He still never thought he would ever be able to attend.
Until now.
LA28 and the Rams donated 1,000 free tickets to 10 nonprofit organizations Monday, giving local youth such as Hernandez a seat at Olympic flag football or swimming competitions in 2028.
The tickets are the first gifts from LA28’s community ticket program, which launched in November with a $5 million inaugural donation from the Rams. When Rams coach Sean McVay delivered the news to members of the nonprofits at Rams training camp Monday, kids’ jaws dropped as the group broke into applause.
Hernandez, a member of South L.A.-based Brotherhood Crusade, posed in the group behind a giant commemorative Olympic ticket.
“Having grown up in Inglewood, you don’t really have the funds to [go to sporting events],” Hernandez said. “So if it wasn’t for programs like this or the Rams giving out tickets, a person like me, I would have never had imagined I’d be in a stadium watching the game. It’s opened my eyes.”
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Dodgers probably won’t get Tarik Skubal
From Maddie Lee: Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal is one of the few players who could actually elevate the Dodgers’ roster at the trade deadline. And the Dodgers are one of the few teams that could reasonably part with the prospect capital it would take to acquire the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner.
That doesn’t mean it will come to fruition.
With a week to go before the MLB trade deadline on Aug. 3, the Dodgers don’t appear to be moving toward a trade for Skubal, according to people with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly. And it’s unclear whether the Tigers will indeed trade him; rival executives’ expectations appear to be inconsistent.
The Dodgers can never be fully counted out for a big swing, of course. They weren’t expected to sign closer Edwin Díaz or right fielder Kyle Tucker during the offseason, either.
But having a strong farm system supplements big spending. And part of the reasoning behind those indulgent offseason moves was to make a big trade-deadline move unnecessary. So, barring a significant shift either in rotation health or in the market, don’t count on Skubal joining the Dodgers in their quest for a three-peat.
LaMonte Wade Jr. drew a bases-loaded walk that forced home the go-ahead run in a four-run ninth inning, and the Houston Astros came back to beat the Angels 6-4 on Monday night.
The Astros rallied on a hit, two walks, two errors and two hit batters to hand the Angels (42-65) their ninth loss this season when leading after eight innings.
Houston (53-55) trailed 4-0 after three, but Taylor Trammell homered for a second straight game and the fifth time this season to cut it to 4-1 in the fourth
Angels starter Walbert Ureña gave up a run on two hits in six innings and left with a 4-1 lead.
1913 — The United States wins its first Davis Cup since 1902 by beating Britain three matches to two.
1928 — The Summer Olympics open in Amsterdam and the Olympic flame is lit for the first time.
1929 — The Chicago Cardinals become the first NFL team to train out of state, holding camp in Michigan.
1972 — The American Basketball Assn. announces that San Diego will receive a franchise and the NBA’s Buffalo Braves relocate to San Diego and are renamed the San Diego Clippers.
1972 — The Dallas Cowboys beat the College All-Stars in Chicago 20-7.
1984 — The Summer Olympics open in Los Angeles with a record 140 nations competing. The Soviet Union and 13 Communist allies, including Cuba and East Germany, boycott the games.
1987 — Laura Davies shoots a 1-under 71 to defeat Ayako Okamoto and JoAnne Carner in an 18-hole playoff to win the U.S. Women’s Open.
1987 — Angel Cordero Jr. becomes the fourth U.S. jockey to win 6,000 races when he rides Lost Kitty to victory at Monmouth Park, N.J.
1992 — American Mike Barrowman sets a world record in winning the 200-meter breaststroke, and Russian Evgueni Sadovyi becomes the Summer Olympics’ first triple gold medalist, also smashing a world record in the men’s 400-meter freestyle.
2000 — Blaine Wilson, America’s pre-eminent gymnast, wins his fifth straight championship in St. Louis. He becomes the first gymnast to win five straight national titles since George Wheeler did it from 1937-41.
2009 — Germany’s Paul Biedermann hands Michael Phelps his first major individual loss in four years, setting a world record in the 200-meter freestyle at the world championships in Rome. Phelps, a body length behind, loses for the first time in a major international meet since Ian Crocker beat him in the 100 butterfly final at the 2005 worlds.
2011 — Ryan Lochte celebrates the first world record set since high-tech bodysuits were banned 1 1/2 years ago. Lochte edges Michael Phelps in 200-meter individual medley at the world championships at Shanghai.
2013 — Brek Shea scores less than a minute after entering the game as a second-half substitute, giving the United States a 1-0 victory over Panama in the Gold Cup final. It’s the fifth Gold Cup title for the Americans but their first since 2007.
2016 — Mirim Lee shoots a 10-under 62 to match the Women’s British Open record and take a three-stroke lead in the major championship at tree-lined Woburn (England) Golf Club.
2016 — Stephan Jaeger shoots a 12-under 58 in the Web.com Tour’s Ellie Mae Classic in Hayward, Calif., for the lowest score in major tour play. The German finishes with a 10-foot birdie putt.
2019 — 22-year-old Egan Bernal becomes the first Colombian and Latin American cyclist to win the Tour de France.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1931 — Bob Fothergill of Chicago hit a home run and a triple in an 11-run eighth inning. The White Sox set an American League record with 12 hits in the inning and beat the New York Yankees 14-12.
1940 — King Kong Keller hit three homers to give the New York Yankees a 10-9 win over Chicago in the first game of a doubleheader split.
1951 — Clyde Vollmer of Boston hit a grand slam in the 16th inning, the latest ever hit in a major league game. The Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians 8-4.
1971 — Sixteen-time Gold Glove winner Brooks Robinson committed three errors in the sixth inning against the Oakland A’s. Frank Robinson’s three-run homer in the ninth won the game for the Orioles.
1976 — John Odom (five innings) and Francisco Barrios (four innings) combined on a no-hitter, and the Chicago White Sox defeated Oakland 2-1.
1983 — AL President Lee McPhail ruled that George Brett’s “pine tar” home run against New York on July 24 should count. The umpires had disallowed the homer because the pine tar on Brett’s bat exceeded the 18-inch limit. The rest of the game was played Aug. 18 with the Kansas City Royals beating the Yankees, 5-4.
1989 — Atlanta’s Dale Murphy tied two major league records by hitting two homers and driving in six runs in the sixth inning in the Braves’ 10-1 victory over the San Francisco Giants. Murphy’s two home runs equaled the record shared by 13 others and the six runs batted in matched a record shared by nine players.
1990 — Shawon Dunston tied a major league record with three triples and led the Chicago Cubs to a 10-7 win over the Montreal Expos.
1990 — Cal Ripken’s errorless streak ends at 95 consecutive games, as Baltimore loses to Kansas City, 10-9. The streak is a new major-league record for a shortstop, eclipsing Kevin Elster’s 89-game mark.
1991 — Dennis Martinez pitched a perfect game for the Montreal Expos, who topped Los Angeles 2-0 at Dodger Stadium.
1993 — Ken Griffey Jr. tied a major league record by homering in his eighth consecutive game, but it wasn’t enough for the Seattle Mariners in a 5-1 loss to the Minnesota Twins.
1994 — On the night the baseball players set an Aug. 12 strike date, Kenny Rogers of the Texas Rangers pitched a perfect game for a 4-0 victory over the Angels.
2004 — Troy Percival recorded his 300th save after John Lackey gave up three hits over 8 1-3 innings to help the Angels beat Texas 2-0.
2006 — Houston rookie Luke Scott hit for the cycle and drove in five runs, but the Astros lost to Arizona 8-7.
2018 — Rookie Francisco Arcia had a homer and six RBIs, giving him a major league-record 10 RBIs in two career games, and Angels rolled past Seattle 11-5.
2021 — In the first Olympic baseball game in thirteen years, Japan rallies to defeat the Dominican Republic 4-3.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
On Sunday, in the Rams’ first training camp practice, Stafford was held out as part of the plan to limit his reps, putting all eyes on Simpson and fourth-year pro Stetson Bennett as they began their competition to back up the reigning NFL most valuable player.
But with Jimmy Garoppolo enjoying retirement — probably until an NFL team in desperate need comes calling — the Rams require a capable backup should something befall Stafford, who remains the most important player on a star-studded team favored to win Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium.
Nate Scheelhaase, the Rams’ first-year offensive coordinator, praised Bennett and Simpson.
“We require so much of those guys, from what we do with formations with motions, with adjustments that they’re going to make before the ball is even snapped,” Scheelhaase said. “And so, if you can’t get that right, it’s going to be hard to get anything right post snap.
“So that’s the starting point. That’s the foundation.”
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Bob Chesney will win at UCLA
From Bill Plaschke: Walking down a hallway at UCLA’s Wasserman Football Center earlier this week, I became a believer.
Bouncing hurriedly in my direction was a bright-eyed kid with a huge smile. I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me.
Yet as he passed, he suddenly stuck out his hand for a fist bump, which I was too stunned to ignore, and so I pounded back while wondering.
The new football coach has infused the completely rebuilt program into a place so energetic, his players run around sharing their inspiration to complete strangers.
From Maddie Lee: Dodgers reliever Will Klein had just induced the Mets’ Marcus Semien to whiff on a high heater. In a 1-1 count, Klein, who had struggled with command, went back to the fastball, knowing he could throw it for a strike.
What Klein wanted to be an outside pitch drifted in, and Semien connected for a three-run home run that sent the Dodgers to an 8-3 loss Sunday at Citi Field.
“Gave him a fastball, and he’s ready for it, and put it out there,” Klein said. “When you’re ahead and you’re dictating things, that’s a pop-up, or they have to think about other stuff when I’m throwing off-speed in the zone. But I haven’t been, and so it’s really easy just throwing a fastball there, even if it’s in a spot that should be harder to hit, if you’re behind and the guy is a good hitter, it’s a lot easier for them to make that commitment and put a barrel to it.”
Despite failing to pull off the sweep, the Dodgers went 6-3 on their East Coast swing and won series against the New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies and Mets.
Mike Trout had his first four-hit game in more than five years, Jorge Soler and Jo Adell homered and the Angels beat the San Francisco Giants 4-3 on Sunday to snap a three-game skid and avoid a series sweep.
Angels starter José Soriano (9-6) allowed an unearned run in five innings. The 27-year-old right-hander gave up three hits, walked three and had five strikeouts. Mitch Farris got the final two outs for his first career save.
San Francisco, which had its four-game home win streak snapped, is the only team in MLB without a series sweep of three-plus games this season.
Maja Lardner scored her first NWSL goal and scored again on a second-half header to give Racing Louisville a 2-1 win over Angel City at BMO Stadium on Sunday.
The rookie opened the scoring in the 24th minute for Louisville (3-10-3) after midfielder Katie O’Kane’s long-range effort bounced through Angel City’s penalty area. Lardner touched the loose ball past goalkeeper Angelina Anderson.
Kayla Fischer sent a lofted ball to Lardner in the 55th minute, which she headed past Anderson.
1920 — Resolute defeats Shamrock IV of Britain to defend the America’s Cup title for the United States.
1937 — The United States wins the Davis Cup by beating Britain four matches to one.
1954 — Chick Harbart beats Walter Burkemo 4 and 3 in the final round to win the PGA championship.
1969 — Betsy Rawls wins the LPGA championship by four strokes over Sue Berning and Carol Mann.
1973 — The Miami Dolphins beat the College All-Stars 14-3 in Chicago.
1986 — Greg LeMond becomes the first American to win the Tour de France. LeMond’s teammate, Bernard Hinault of France, finishes second.
1986 — Pat Bradley sinks a 12-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole to defeat hard-charging Japanese veteran Ayako Okamoto in the LPGA-du Maurier tournament. Bradley birdied five of the first six holes and finishes at 6-under 66 for a 72-hole total of 276.
1986 — Speedskater Bonnie Blair sets a U.S. Olympic Festival record for total medals won with 16 and total golds with 10 by taking two titles.
1986 — Bobby Hillin Jr. becomes the youngest winner in the history of NASCAR stock car racing, surviving the Talladega 500 at Alabama International Motor Speedway. Hillin, 22, takes the lead from Tim Richmond eight laps from the end of the 188-lap event.
1992 — Patty Sheehan shoots a 1-over 72 for a two-stroke victory over Juli Inkster in their 18-hole playoff in the U.S. Women’s Open.
1993 — Reggie Lewis, the 27-year-old Boston Celtics star who collapsed during a playoff game on April 29 from a heart ailment, dies after a light workout at the team’s practice facility at Brandeis University.
1996 — Canada’s Donovan Bailey sets the world record to win the 100 meters in 9.84 seconds at the Summer Olympics. The Atlanta Games are later marred by the Centennial Olympic Park bombing that kills Alice Hawthorne, wounds 111 others.
1999 — Tony Hawk is the first skateboarder to land a “900.”
2002 — John Ruiz retains the WBA heavyweight title he won from Evander Holyfield, this time getting off the canvas three times — all after low blows — and lasting long enough for Kirk Johnson to be disqualified.
2005 — Grant Hackett bumps off one of swimmimg’s most enduring world records, eclipsing Ian Thorpe’s mark in the 800-meter freestyle. The 6-foot-6 Hackett claims his second gold and third medal of the World Swimming Championships with a time of 7:38.65, breaking the mark set four years earlier by his countryman Thorpe.
2008 — Carlos Sastre wins the Tour de France in one of the closest finishes in the 105-year-old race. The third Spaniard in a row to win cycling’s premier event, Sastre holds his 65-second lead over Cadel Evans of Australia. As in the last two years, this year’s Tour is plagued by doping.
2013 — Candace Parker scores a record 23 points to lead the West to a 102-98 win over the East and earn MVP honors in the WNBA All-Star game.
2013 — Hunter Mahan withdraws from the RBC Canadian Open after his wife went into labor. Mahan, the tournament leader at 13 under after 36 holes, had yet to tee off for the third round.
2014 — Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali wins the Tour de France, becoming the first Italian to win cycling’s greatest race in 16 years. Nibali is the sixth rider to win all three Grand Tours — France, Italy and Spain— and is the first Italian to win the Tour de France since Marco Pantani in 1998.
2014 — Martina Hingis leads Washington to its fourth straight World TeamTennis title and fifth in six years, beating Olga Govortsova 5-2 in singles in the Kastles’ 25-13 victory over the Springfield Lasers.
2015 — The Arizona Cardinals hire Jen Welter to coach inside linebackers through their upcoming training camp and preseason. The Cardinals say Welter is believed to be the first woman to hold a coaching position of any kind in the NFL.
2021 — Four-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles withdraws from the women’s team final at the Tokyo Games citing needs to focus on her mental health.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1918 — Brooklyn rookie Henry Heitman completed one of the shortest careers in major league history. Heitman appeared on the mound against the St. Louis Cardinals, gave up four consecutive hits and then left the game, never to play a major league game again.
1930 — Ken Ash of Cincinnati got his last major league victory by throwing one pitch. Ash came into relieve in the fifth inning and got Chicago’s Charlie Grimm to hit into a triple play. Ash was removed for a pinch hitter and the Reds beat the Cubs 6-5.
1946 — Rudy York of Boston hit two grand slams and drove in 10 runs as the Red Sox beat the St. Louis Browns 13-6.
1950 — Del Ennis of the Philadelphia Phillies drove in seven runs in the seventh and eighth innings of a 13-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs. Ennis doubled with the bases loaded in the seventh and hit a grand slam in the eighth.
1959 — New York lawyer William Shea announced the formation of the Continental League. New York, Houston, Toronto, Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul were the five cities named and Branch Rickey was named league president.
1978 — Duane Kuiper of Cleveland tied a major league record by becoming the third player in the 20th century to hit two triples in a game. Both came with the bases loaded as the Indians beat the New York Yankees 17-5.
1984 — Montreal’s Pete Rose passed Ty Cobb for the most singles in a career with No. 3,053, against the Philadelphia Phillies.
1986 — Two 300-game winners faced each other, with Don Sutton going six strong innings to outpitch Tom Seaver and give the Angels a 3-0 victory over the Boston Red Sox.
1996 — The San Diego Padres pounded the Florida Marlins 20-12. Wally Joyner led the way with five RBIs and John Flaherty hit a grand slam. The Padres were the sixth club to score 20 runs in a game this season. The last time that happened was 1929.
2008 — Oakland reliever Brad Ziegler recorded six outs to set a major league record with 27 scoreless innings to begin his career. Ziegler broke the previous mark of 25 innings set by Philadelphia Phillies right-hander George McQuillan in 1907.
2009 — Washington’s Josh Willingham became the 13th player to hit two grand slams in a game, doing so in the Nationals’ 14-6 win at Milwaukee. Willingham’s eight RBIs were the most in Nationals history and tied the franchise mark.
2011 — Ervin Santana pitched the first solo no-hitter for the Angels in nearly 27 years, striking out 10 and leading them over Cleveland 3-1. Santana allowed two runners — an error on the leadoff batter that resulted in a first-inning run and a walk in the eighth.
2011 — The Tampa Bay Rays broke one of baseball’s oldest records when they played their 705th consecutive game with a starting pitcher younger than 30 years old. The Rays lost to Oakland 13-4.
2013 — Tampa Bay Rays rookie Chris Archer helped American League teams pitch a trio of 1-0 games, the first time that’s happened on the same day in nearly a half-century. The last time three AL games ended 1-0 on the same day was Sept. 4, 1965. Archer and Tampa Bay edged New York at Yankee Stadium, Justin Masterson and the Cleveland bullpen blanked Texas and Wade Davis and Royals relievers shut out the Chicago White Sox by the same 1-0 score.
2014 — A huge crowd estimated at 48,000 is on hand for the annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown, NY. This year’s class is unusually large and prestigious, featuring three players elected on the first ballot: 300-game winners Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and slugger Frank Thomas, a member of the 500 home run club. Joining them are three managers who stand at #3, 4 and 5 on the all-time win list in Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre. Maddux, Glavine and Cox all found their greatest success in the great Atlanta Braves teams of the 1990s.
2015 — Alex Rodriguez became the fourth player in major league history to homer as a teen and in his 40s, marking his birthday by lining an opposite-field shot to right against his former team to help the New York Yankees beat the Texas Rangers 6-2. Ty Cobb, Rusty Staub and Gary Sheffield are the only other players to achieve the feat.
2017 — The Nationals tied a franchise record with eight home runs, including two apiece by Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman, in a 15-2 rout of the Milwaukee Brewers. Washington matched two major league records in a seven-run third inning: Most consecutive home runs (four) and most home runs in an inning (five).
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.
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. I’m Eric Sondheimer. It’s time to give some love to the linemen doing the dirty work in high school football. Let’s examine the offensive and defensive linemen to watch.
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Big men in spotlight
Size certainly helps playing on the offensive line and has become much in demand from college recruiters. The Trinity League is home to an outstanding group of blockers that includes Drew Fielder of Servite, Lucas Rhoa of Orange Lutheran, Jack Schein of JSerra, Elisha Mueller of St. John Bosco and Lex Mailangi of Mater Dei. Fielder is going to USC, Roha to Texas and Mailangi to Oregon.
The extremely big linemen list includes 360-pound Amaziah Siale of Mission Viejo, an LSU commit, 300-pound Jackson Hill of Chaminade, a Notre Dame commit, and 350-pound junior Lincoln Fa’alafi of JSerra. Vincent Shields, a 6-5, 285-pound junior from Murrieta Valley, is gaining traction as an improving blocker and top college prospect.
Sierra Canyon has 6-6, 270-pound junior Lance Ciechanowski. San Pedro’s David Medina isn’t tall but his strength and passion comes through as an All-City player. Birmingham’s Pablo Granados enters his senior season with high expectations to continue his development.
The matchups this fall featuring top blockers against top defensive linemen will be electric. Sierra Canyon’s Marcus Fakatou transferred from Orange Lutheran and reclassified to be a senior. He’s committed to Ohio State. The Trailblazers also have Kasi Currie. Call them the Great Wall of Chatsworth.
Godschoice Eboigbodin of JSerra is 6-5, 260 pounds and still learning the game as a UCLA commit. Elija Harmon of Inglewood is an Oklahoma commit returning from an injury.
Caleb Pasina of St. Bonaventure is a 6-4, 270-pound junior just beginning to show his dominance. Siave Seti of Bishop Amat was All-CIF and all-Mission League as a freshman.
Sione Felila of Oak Hills is 6-3, 290 pounds and had 18 tackles for losses. Isaia Vandermade of Santa Margarita was one of the best players during last season’s Division 1 playoffs. Opponents couldn’t block the USC commit. Hunter Taylor from Mira Costa is an Army commit with lots of agility. Hunter Eligon starred for Division 2 champion Los Alamitos last season and now is at Western. Miles Schirmer of Corona Centennial is a 6-5, 260-pound disruptor.
Oaks Christian has improving Aliseleti Tuihalamaka. Junior edge Elijah Tuua of St. John Bosco will be turned loose to harass quarterbacks. David Nansen of Bellflower is a sophomore coming off a standout freshman season. Jon Ioane of Tustin was heavily recruited and ended up committing to Washington. Elyjah Staples of Marquez, a Cal commit, had nine sacks last season. Kingston Sula of Carson had 16 sacks as a sophomore. Kenneth Webb of King/Drew had nine sacks. Will Gelt of Agoura contributed 11 sacks.
Taft High football player Carter Wallace, who has been deaf since birth, works with interpreter Jo Beth during practice.
(Craig Weston)
Taft High’s Carter Wallace is not letting being deaf serving as a roadblock to prevent him from playing football.
Official high school football practice begins Monday for Southern Section teams with zero week games and in the City Section. There’s a five-day acclimatization period before pads go on. Each player needs 14 days of practice before being able to compete in a game. Scrimmages count as a practice day.
Santa Margarita celebrates after winning the CIF State Football Championship Open Division game in 2025.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
St. John Bosco begins the 2026 season ranked No. 1 in The Times’ preseason high school football rankings. Last year’s No. 1 team, Santa Margarita, begins at No. 4.
The Aug. 21 football opener in Las Vegas between Bishop Gorman and St. John Bosco might as well be called a national championship game, though Bishop Gorman is expected to participate in a postseason competition run by Overtime that began in 2025.
It was 108 degrees earlier this week in Las Vegas and Bishop Gorman coach Brent Browning is predicting 110 degrees with a chance of a thunderstorm or two when St. John Bosco makes the trip.
Bishop Gorman also has a nonleague game with Mater Dei, so the Gaels are trying to win the Trinity League, which they would gladly join if the CIF allowed non-California teams to participate.
Notes . . .
Linebacker Wyatt Bogdan from Laguna Beach has committed to Portland State….
Receiver Nathan Williams of Carson has committed to Idaho State….
Standout St. John Bosco pitcher Julian Garcia signed with the Milwaukee Brewers for $1.5 million. He was a fourth-round draft pick….
Thank you🙏🏾 My philanthropy was sparked when I was 8 years old doing book & toy drives & throughout my high school years with various homeless drives that many of you around the country participated in. I never felt I had to wait to become a big leaguer to help others. @MLB… https://t.co/dVzYLXrLeU
Grace McCabe has been named the first girls lacrosse coach at Harvard-Westlake, which is adding the sport this year along with flag football as the school prepares to open its new sports complex in Studio City….
Spectrum will once again televise Southern Section football games this fall, with Chaparral facing Mission Viejo in the opening game….
Perfect Game announced rosters for its all-star game on Aug. 16 at Citizens Bank Park. P Striker Pence (Corona Santiago), P Andrew Carlson (Trinity Classical), SS Carter Hadnot (Aquinas), P Jordan Ayala (Norco), SS Dylan Seward (Norco), INF Parker Leoff (Huntington Beach) playing…
Former Yucaipa baseball coach Ralph Grajeda is the new head coach at Citrus Valley….
Santa Margarita will play its home football games at Saddleback College this season. It’s a return for the Eagles, who once played all their home games at Saddleback….
Jordan Vogel of Arcadia has committed to St. Mary’s baseball…..
Pitcher Robbie Erspamer of San Clemente has committed to UC San Diego….
Cal Lutheran assistant Alec Iniguez is the new baseball coach at Thousand Oaks….
JSerra’s girls’ basketball program could be facing a Southern Section investigation after possible rules violations were detailed in court documents. Here’s the report. …
Johnny Garcia is the new girls basketball coach at Bishop Alemany….
THE STAGE IS SET.
The 2026 Area Code Games are almost here! The best HS talent in the country steps on the diamond starting July 31.
📍 Underclass: July 31 – Aug 4⁰📍 Upperclass: Aug 5 – Aug 10
The Area Code Games in baseball begin this weekend with underclassmen at Blair Field in Long Beach, followed by upperclassmen next weekend….
Former Newbury Park cross country coach Sean Brosnan has taken over the program at USC….
Rafael Segura is the new lacrosse coach at St. John Bosco….
Delvon Rose is the new boys basketball coach at South Pasadena….
Isabella Dolce, a girls soccer standout at Santa Margarita, has committed to the University of Louisiana Lafayette….
St. Monica basketball coach Allen Caveness has resigned to become head coach at Long Beach Jordan….
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford presented a $10,000 equipment grant to Dominguez High on Sunday to help purchase blocking sleds, uniforms and practice gear, among other items, for the upcoming season….
Encino Little League’s team made up of 11- and 12-year-olds won its opening game of the state championships in Aliso Niguel to advance to the winner’s bracket semifinals Tuesday. The state champion advances to the Western Regional finals tournament in San Bernardino, with a berth in the Little League World Series on the line.
From the archives: Gabe York
Former Orange Lutheran basketball player Gabe York has found a way to become a pro basketball player since going undrafted in 2016 after leaving the University of Arizona. At age 32, he keeps finding opportunities in overseas leagues, the latest being with the Zhejiang Golden Bulls of the Chinese Basketball Assn.
He has always been known for his shooting prowess. He averaged almost 25 points at Orange Lutheran and had a 43-point performance. Always well liked for giving his all, York keeps finding ways to contribute.
From Globenewswire, a story from 2019 that projected youth sports spending.
From the Los Angeles Times, a story looking into the Hall of Fame induction of former Edison High and Dodger second baseman Jeff Kent.
From Wired, a story on how elite young runners are becoming freakishly fast.
Tweets you might have missed
Youth sports should be about development, having fun. The priority shouldn’t be on winning, which is why so many parents keep switching teams and leagues and paying money to have a trophy. If you develop, you win.
Landon shares his gripes on pay-to-play in America.
“Somebody has to pay for soccer. The problem is, all these youth clubs now are grinding every penny out of every family. I have kids. I can afford to pay for it. My kid has four training jerseys. Why the hell does he need… pic.twitter.com/tmZ7dMcMWr
— Unfiltered Soccer (@UnfilteredSoccr) July 20, 2026
The 15-year TV contract the CIF signed with Spectrum to broadcast state playoffs ends on July 31. Shortly after, a new deal is expected to be announced. I’m not going to speculate who gets the contract, but Play OnSports already owns MaxPreps, GoFan and NFHS Network. It would be…
🇦🇲 Anthony Sarkesian continues to build on an impressive summer.
Gold medalist & FIBA U16 C Division MVP, averaging 21.0 PPG and 14.8 RPG.
The 6’5”-6’6” wing (Chaminade HS/ West Hills, CA | Class of 2029) dropped 22 PTS vs. Kosovo U18 today on 7/7 FG, 4/4 3PT. @cnk10_pic.twitter.com/yVlRt6PWJY
Congrats to rising juniors Ronan Keane and Andrew Schneider of the JSerra Boys Water Polo team, who were selected to the United States Men’s Cadet Water Polo National Team and will compete at the 2026 World Aquatics Men’s U16 Water Polo World Championship in Zagreb, Croatia.
One of the best passing duos in City is Verdugo Hills QB Jered Smith to receiver Aiden Mejia. They’ve been together for four years. pic.twitter.com/1Cgns4lvfT
— Pali Boys Basketball (@PaliBoysHoops) July 25, 2026
6-foot-8 Crew Fotheringham, a 2027 basketball player at Lone Peak in Utah, is the son of former Hart QB Chad Fotheringham and brother of former San Clemente TE Cole Fotheringham. He’d have no problem coming back to SoCal to play college basketball.
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But Plaschke reported his philosophy has quickly forged deep roots in Westwood, where Chesney’s optimism fits in seamlessly at the school built on John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. There’s also some very strong Ted Lasso energy brewing, which makes sense since the character is partially inspired by Wooden values.
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We’ve heard from some UCLA fans were irritated about a potential Plaschke curse after he announced Chesney will make the Bruins winners, but its seems the Bruin faithful are just going to have get used to a growing bandwagon.
The UCLA hype should go national Wednesday, when quarterback Nico Iamaleava, defensive back Cole Martin and linebacker Samuel Omosigho join Chesney during Big Ten football media days.
It’s Chesney’s first chance to meet the national and regional media covering the Big Ten. He is naturally an exceptional public speaker and inevitably will be compared to his predecessor, who went viral for his difficulty the first time he stepped into the Big Ten spotlight.
It’s not a fair comparison, but Chesney is sure to score high marks despite a healthy amount of cynicism among Big Ten blue bloods and whispers throughout the league that UCLA’s high 2027 recruiting ranking is a bit inflated. Perhaps that’s the biggest compliment for UCLA, going from being ignored or laughed at to taking a few jabs over your glowing reviews.
Shortly after UCLA returns from media days, the team will kick off preseason camp. We’ll start to get a closer look at the Bruins’ offseason weight room progress and the team will work to prepare for a deceptively difficult opener at California, another long overlooked team with considerable hype entering the 2026 season.
Betts shines in Canada
Sienna Betts showed she’s ready to step into her older sister Lauren’s formidable shoes during a women’s basketball exhibition game against Canada.
The Bruins lost 69-55 to the Canadian national team Wednesday, but Sienna Betts looked like a formidable focal point of the UCLA attack.
She finished with 20 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks.
Betts got valuable but limited minutes last season as Lauren Betts, Gabriela Jaquez and Angela Dugalic dominated the paint for the national champions.
Canada and UCLA did not have their full rosters available for the tune-up, with Bruins Timea Gardiner, K.K. Bransford, Somto Okafor and Lina Jerkovic missing the game.
The excursion gave a heavily overhauled UCLA roster a chance to face different and formidable competition before setting off on sight-seeing adventures, a team bonding opportunity that likely will mean more to the coaching staff than the final score.
UCLA alums win AUSL title
Bruins alum Jadelyn Allchin won Athletes Unlimited Softball League championship MVP honors after helping lead her team to its second consecutive AUSL title.
UCLA softball great Lisa Fernandez is the Talons’ general manager. Her roster and the entire league is packed with former Bruins who are helping AUSL grow at a rapid rate.
Connor Dullinger offered a great look at the role the Bruins have played in the growth of pro softball and explains why Fernandez is thinking bigger, pushing for global gains so that softball can be a permanent fixture at the Olympics.
Do you have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future UCLA newsletter? Email newsletters editor Houston Mitchell at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
The Times’ preseason top 25 high school football rankings for 2026:
1. ST. JOHN BOSCO: Braves have few weaknesses but must prove they can win in the rain after last season’s first-round playoff debacle to Orange Lutheran.
2. CORONA CENTENNIAL: The offense is going to be balanced and explosive with quarterback Jaden Jefferson the trigger man and Quentin Hale his partner in battle.
3. SIERRA CANYON: Trailblazers have the offensive linemen and running back to run the ball and the defensive linemen to attack quarterbacks.
4. SANTA MARGARITA: Eagles won’t be ready to start the season dominating with too many young players but beware by season’s end.
5. ORANGE LUTHERAN: There’s already signs the Ray Fenton coaching formula is working with lots of talent on both sides of the ball.
6. MISSION VIEJO: Diablos have their best offensive line in years, giving coach Chad Johnson lots of options.
7. MATER DEI: Depth is gone but there’s enough talent to be very good on their best day.
8. SAN CLEMENTE: Just trust Jaxson Rex to do anything and everything for improved Tritons.
9. CHAPARRAL: There’s a crazy amount of offensive firepower ready to be unleashed.
10. RANCHO CUCAMONGA: They play tough, hard-nosed football.
11. EDISON: Quarterback Sam Thomson’s fourth year as starter sets the stage for big Chargers season.
12. CREAN LUTHERAN: If the Saints’ many transfers get eligible, quarterback Caden Jones should flourish.
13. GARDENA SERRA: With five starters back on the offensive line and the arrival of RB AJ McBean, Cavaliers are ready to play smashmouth football.
14. CHAMINADE: There’s speed and size surrounding sophomore quarterback Jeremy Mellalieu.
15. SERVITE: New coach Rick Garretson has a history of building top teams with speed, which Friars have plenty.
16. JSERRA: Lions will be competitive in nonleague games but Trinity League remains formidable challenge.
17. DAMIEN: USC commit Gavin Williams is the definition of the word elite on defense and offense.
18. PALOS VERDES: Ryan Rakowski is back for fourth year as starting quarterback and is a proven winner.
19. OXNARD PACIFICA: Quarterback Taylor Lee is back with lots of skill-position players.
20. LOYOLA: If Cubs can get production at the quarterback position, they can surprise teams.
21. BISHOP AMAT: Still one of the toughest teams to beat on their home field.
22. WESTLAKE: The scoreboard operator will deserve extra pay trying to keep up with Warriors’ scoring barrages.
23. CARSON: Best in the City Section looking to beat some Southern Section teams with improved line play.
24. CORONA DEL MAR: Should have excellent passing attack if the line can provide protection.
25. TUSTIN: Lots of individual talent but can they get breakthrough win against a top opponent?
Jon Bon Jovi’s “Forever” tour stop was cut short after the singer said he needed to cool it.
Nearing the end of his nine-show residency at Madison Square Garden on Thursday, the 64-year-old rock icon apologized to fans when he had to pull the plug nearly an hour early.
Just before launching into “Livin’ on a Prayer,” he told the audience in a raspy voice, “I am the most grateful man in the world right now because I know I’m letting you down, and it’s not like me to do that. I feel f— great, but I’m gonna do one more song. I’m gonna need your help. I might have to cool it because I’m f— hurt.”
He performed the 1986 megahit, with the audience belting the chorus in his place toward the end. Bon Jovi then said, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Stay tuned.”
“I’ve got to cool it,” he continued. “It’s just not going to get any better. Don’t throw away your ticket stubs. I’m gonna figure something out, OK? Just hold onto it, we’ll figure out how to reschedule.”
Bon Jovi embraced his band mates in a group hug before heading off stage.
Representatives for the “Bad Medicine” rocker told The Times that the concert ran for 90 minutes before ending.
“Jon Bon Jovi spoke from stage and told fans he has been battling a sinus infection, which led to the show’s early ending,” the statement continued. “As part of the Bon Jovi residency at Madison Square Garden, Jon has said numerous times that it has been a joy to return to live shows for the band.”
Bon Jovi’s “Forever” tour is the first since the namesake frontman had surgery to repair a vocal cord injury in 2022.
The tour kicked off July 7 at the New York City venue and then will head overseas for a series of international stadium dates, including stops at Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh on Aug. 28, Croke Park in Dublin on Aug. 30, and a three-night stand at Wembley Stadium in London on Sept. 4, 6 and 9.
In 2024, Bon Jovi spoke on a Hulu panel in support of his docuseries “Thank You, Goodnight” and revealed that one of his vocal cords was “atrophying.”
“I pride myself on having been a true vocalist,” the musician said. “I’ve sung with Pavarotti. I know how to sing. I’ve studied the craft for 40 years. I’m not a stylist who just barks and howls. I know how to sing.”
“So when God was taking away my ability, and I couldn’t understand why — I jokingly have said the only thing that’s ever been up my nose is my finger — you know, so there’s no reason for any of this,” he added.
The same year, he told The Times that his voice was a “work in progress.”
“I’m an athlete coming back from an injury — Kobe Bryant with his Achilles torn off. Before I got on the plane this morning, I was at vocal therapy. The goal is 2½ hours a night, four nights a week,” he said.
In June, he told People that he was fully recovered. “It was longer than I’d ever expected, but it had to be right. We never lost faith.”
From Maddie Lee: The sun beat down on the assembled Dodgers players, coaches and staff members as they waited in silence for the real emcee of the event, President Trump, to emerge from the building behind them.
In front stood rows of chairs — with four-inch yellow cushions on them, as Trump made sure to point out in his closing remarks — and onlookers who had donned blue Dodgers snapbacks.
In fact, the new-look Rose Garden, slabs of white stone replacing grass, became a character of its own, the focal point for the first two minutes of Trump’s speech recognizing the 2025 World Series champions.
“It was always wet,” Trump said after making his grand entrance more than 10 minutes after the Dodgers had taken their place in front of the crowd. “You know, the White House is built on a wetland. … And I decided to do something about it. And this has become an incredible place for dining and for news conferences and for events like this.”
This event was the Dodgers’ second White House visit in as many years, in a new venue. It provided new material, and some active participants, for the Trump show Thursday afternoon.
As he retold the winding story of the Dodgers’ World Series for almost 20 minutes, Trump played to not only the audience, but the players behind him, shaking their hands when they came up in his speech, and the two men flanking him, Dodgers chairman Mark Walter and manager Dave Roberts.
“This was truly a great World Series, right?” Trump said, turning to his right.
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USC sued by sports donor
From Ryan Kartje: The L.A. billboard magnate whose name hung over the entrance to USC’s practice football field for a quarter century is suing the school for building a new, $200-million facility on top of it.
Brian Kennedy, a former donor whose company Regency Outdoor Advertising owns billboards all over Los Angeles, claims in the lawsuit that USC breached its contract by demolishing the practice field to build the Bloom Football Performance Center, which is set to open early next month. The arrival of the state-of-the-art facility and erasure of a field that featured the name of Kennedy, according to a complaint obtained by The Times, has caused him “reputational harm,” “embarrassment” and “humiliation.”
“For more than two decades,” the complaint states, “the Field stood as a visible acknowledgment of [Kennedy’s] extraordinary contributions to [USC] and the lasting relationship between [Kennedy] and the University.”
From Gary Klein: The Rams, as is seemingly their custom with a Super Bowl scheduled to be played at SoFi Stadium, made blockbuster trades to improve an already star-studded roster.
Players will report to training camp Saturday at Loyola Marymount as favorites to win Super Bowl LXI in their home stadium in February.
Much, however, can go awry on the way to the NFL’s biggest showcase.
Injuries, subpar performances by Rams players and coaches, and outstanding clutch play by opponents — see the 2025 Super Bowl-champion Seattle Seahawks — could derail the Rams’ presumptive date with destiny.
On Sunday, they will hold the first of 11 training-camp practices before preseason games against the Kansas City Chiefs, New Orleans Saints and the Chargers.
Can the Chargers finally have a postseason breakthrough?
From Sam Farmer: A year after racking up more miles than any team in the NFL, the Chargers are homebodies.
For the first time in their 10 seasons in Los Angeles, they will open with back-to-back games on their home field — against Arizona and Las Vegas.
What’s more, one of their away games will be at SoFi Stadium, against the host Rams on Nov. 1.
Who knows if less time in an airplane will make a difference, but a franchise that hasn’t won a postseason game since the 2018 season will look for anything to change that trajectory.
It’s worth noting that Jim Harbaugh got his team to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons, and he has a history of turning around franchises in college football and the pros.
And, as they’ll show in training camp, the 2026 Chargers have made some significant changes.
1908 — John Hayes wins the Olympic marathon in a record of 2 hours, 55 minutes, 18.4 seconds. Italian Dorando Pietri is the first athlete to enter the stadium, but collapses several times before being disqualified when officials help him across the line.
1931 — Paavo Nurmi sets the world record at 2 miles in a meet at Helsinki, Finland, with a time of 8:59.6.
1960 — Jay Hebert beats Jim Ferrier by one stroke to win the PGA golf tournament.
1967 — Don January wins a playoff by two strokes over Don Massengale to win the PGA championship.
1970 — The International Lawn Tennis Assn. institutes the nine-point tiebreaker rule.
1976 — John Naber of the United States becomes the first swimmer to break the 2-minute barrier in the 200-meter backstroke at the Olympics in Montreal.
1976 — Mac Wilkins of the United States sets an Olympic record in the discus with a toss of 224 feet in Montreal.
1977 — Hollis Stacy wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship by two strokes over Nancy Lopez.
1998 — Tour de France riders, angered by the drug scandal that has dominated the event, protest by delaying the start of racing for two hours. Armin Meier, a member of the Festina team who was kicked off the tour the previous week, admits to a French radio station that he used a banned drug.
2005 — Lance Armstrong wins his seventh consecutive Tour de France. All of the titles are stripped in 2012 for doping.
2008 — Nancy Lieberman makes a one-game appearance for the Detroit Shock after the 50-year-old Hall-of-Famer signed a seven-day contract earlier in the day. Lieberman, finishes with two assists and two turnovers, surpassing her own record as the oldest player in WNBA history. Lieberman held the record playing at age 39 in 1997 while playing for the Phoenix Mercury.
2009 — Ron Hornaday Jr. holds off a late challenge from Mike Skinner to win the AAA Insurance 200, making him the first driver in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series to win four consecutive races.
2010 — Fourteen-year-old Jim Liu of Smithtown, N.Y., beats Justin Thomas of Goshen, Ky., 4 and 2 to become the youngest U.S. Junior Amateur champion. Liu, who turns 15 next month, is more than six months younger than Tiger Woods when he won the first of his three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur titles in 1991.
2011 — Cadel Evans wins the Tour de France, becoming the first Australian champion in cycling’s greatest race.
2014 — Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice receives a two-game suspension from the NFL after his offseason arrest for domestic violence. The six-year veteran was arrested after a Feb. 15 altercation in Atlantic City, N.J., with then-fiancee Janay Palmer.
2016 — Chris Froome celebrates his third Tour de France title in four years. The British rider finishes safely at the back of the main pack during the final stage, arm-in-arm with his teammates during the mostly ceremonial final stage ending on the Champs-Elysees. Froome, who also won the Tour in 2013 and 2015, becomes the first rider to defend the title since Miguel Indurain won the last of his five straight in 1995. Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven consecutive titles for doping.
2019 — 19-year-old Hungarian swimmer Kristof Milak breaks Michael Phelps’ 10-year-old 200m butterfly record in a time of 1:50.73, 0.78s faster than Phelps.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1909 — Nap Rucker of the Brooklyn Dodgers struck out 16 batters in a 1-0 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
1931 — In an 8-7 loss to Pittsburgh, Babe Herman of Brooklyn hit for the cycle for the second time in the season.
1947 — Jackie Robinson stole home for the first time in his major league career in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ 4-2 win over Pittsburgh.
1948 — Chicago White Sox outfielder Pat Seerey become the first major leaguer to strike out seven times in a doubleheader.
1949 — Cleveland pitcher Bob Lemon hit two home runs to lead the Indians to a 7-5 victory over the Washington Senators in the opener of a doubleheader.
1968 — Hoyt Wilhelm of the Chicago White Sox passed Cy Young’s major league record when he made his 907th appearance. He retired with 1,070 appearances.
1973 — Bobby Bonds homered and doubled to lead the NL to a 7-1 rout of the AL in the All-Star game at Kansas City.
1983 — The “Pine Tar” home run was hit by the Kansas City Royals’ George Brett off New York pitcher Rich Gossage at Yankee Stadium. Brett’s shot came with two outs in the top of the ninth to give the Royals a 5-4 lead. Brett’s homer was ruled an out because the amount of pine tar exceeded what was allowed. After a protest by the Royals, the final out and the Yankees’ half of the ninth was completed on Aug. 18.
1993 — Anthony Young of the New York Mets extended his record losing streak to 27 games when he walked in the winning run in the 10th inning for a 5-4 loss to the Dodgers.
1999 — In their biggest victory in 46 years, the New York Yankees routed the Cleveland Indians 21-1 as Chili Davis went 5-for-6 with six RBIs.
2010 — Tampa Bay won in Cleveland for the first time in nearly five years. The Rays ended an 18-game losing streak with a 6-3 win against the Indians. Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon snapped an 0-21 personal losing streak as the visiting manager that began when he was the Angels interim manager in 1996.
2016 — Ken Griffey, Jr. and Mike Piazza are inducted into the Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Cooperstown, NY. Griffey obtained the highest percentage of the vote ever — 99.3% — in being elected in his first year of eligibility by the BBWAA, while Piazza made it on his fourth try. A crowd estimated at 50,000, the second-largest ever at Cooperstown, is on hand to witness the event.
2022 — The induction ceremony is held for the Class of 2022 at the Hall of Fame. Three of the seven men inducted — David Ortiz, Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva — are present to receive the honor. The others, all deceased, are represented by relatives — Gil Hodges, Minnie Minoso and Buck O’Neil — while Dave Winfield introduces 19th century black baseball pioneer Bud Fowler. Over 35,000 are present in Cooperstown, NY to witness the ceremony, and Dominican flags and Boston Red Sox gear, in honor of Ortiz, are well in evidence in the crowd.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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.
Mayor Karen Bass’ press relations office communicates through WhatsApp messages that auto-delete every 24 hours, potentially shielding the messages from public records requests, according to three sources familiar with the office.
The press office is under scrutiny over its use of an unpaid consultant as a spokesperson for the first half of the year. Just weeks after the consultant, Yusef Robb, ceased working as a spokesperson for the city, he took a job doing crisis communications for Lineage, whose cold food storage facility in Boyle Heights caught fire last month, spreading smoke and foul odors. Robb continued to work for Bass as an informal advisor until The Times and other outlets reported his dual roles.
Even though he was no longer a spokesperson, Robb remained in several WhatsApp group channels with mayoral press staffers, all set to auto-delete, until at least a week after he started working for Lineage, said two sources, who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions. L.A. Material first reported Robb’s presence in the channels.
The Times has filed a public records request for all messages that Robb received or sent to the mayor or her press office between June 1 and July 10, including WhatsApp messages. The city administrative code requires records to be retained for at least two years.
The Bass administration declined to comment on the press office’s use of disappearing messages on WhatsApp.
Bass herself has also communicated through disappearing messages.
In response to a public records request from The Times for Bass’ texts in the aftermath of the January 2025 Palisades fire, her office initially declined to turn over any messages. City lawyer David Michaelson told The Times that “texts are ephemeral types of electronic communication” that aren’t subject to the city record retention requirement.
He also said Bass’ phone was “set not to save text messages.”
The city ultimately recovered more than 100 messages to and from Bass during that period and released them to The Times.
The Times still sued the city, alleging that it unlawfully withheld and deleted the mayor’s text messages and other public records from the catastrophic wildfire.
“Their contention is they don’t have to retain them, and our contention is they do,” said Kelly Aviles, outside counsel for The Times in the lawsuit, in an interview Thursday.
In a court filing, attorneys representing the city argued that keeping work-related messages for up to two years was “absurdly impractical.”
“The Times’ proposed rule requires a degree of intrusion into City employees’ personal sphere that is, at the very least, offensive if not violative of California and federal constitutional rights,” wrote Reuben Camper Cahn, an attorney for the city.
In the past, some city employees communicated with each other each other through Google Chat messages that auto-deleted after a day.
In January 2025, the city stopped that practice and required that Google Chats be saved “indefinitely.”
Retention of messages has also been an issue in the federal government, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio setting some of his Signal chats to auto-delete.
Withdrawal is latest instance of government’s efforts to crack down on critical media facing setbacks in court.
Published On 23 Jul 202623 Jul 2026
Attorneys for the United States government have withdrawn subpoenas seeking to compel three New York Times reporters to testify about their sources for a story about an Air Force One jet gifted to US President Donald Trump by Qatar.
Judge Arun Subramanian slammed the government’s lawyers for what he deemed sloppy legal work in an exchange in court on Thursday.
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“Subpoenas are not the first thing you do; they are the last thing you do,” an irritated Subramanian said.
“When you see something like this, if this were a civil proceeding, what I would normally do is ask the parties to show causes why sanctions should not be issued,” he added.
The Trump administration had sought to keep the proceedings secret as it pressured the reporters to reveal their sources for a story, a request that raised alarms for US press freedoms as the president and his allies continue to aggressively target critical media and political opponents.
Such efforts, however, have largely been rejected in court. The US government recently withdrew similar subpoenas that sought to compel testimony from reporters with the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
Lawyers for the New York Times challenged the legitimacy of the grand jury subpoenas along with subpoenas for the phone records of several journalists and their relatives. The paper’s managing editor and general counsel sat in the gallery during proceedings on Thursday.
The government has said that it is pursuing those who have leaked material to reporters for a story about Trump taking an older model Air Force One jet back from a summit in Turkiye, rather than the one gifted from Qatar.
The Secret Service reportedly advised that the new jet, which the government has spent $400m to retrofit and upgrade, lacks important security features such as antimissile capabilities.
“Reporters are not the targets; those leaking classified information are,” the Department of Justice said of the subpoena requests.
Obtaining information from government sources is a cornerstone of journalism, and national security reporting in particular and is considered essential to press freedom. Efforts by the US government under both Democratic and Republican administrations to compel reporters to disclose their sources have been viewed as an effort to weaken those protections.
“I’VE got a statement drafted, I’m ending it,” Katie Price told me of her fledgling marriage to Lee Andrews.
That was on February 1st.
Clemmie Moodie is finally revealing her Lee Andrews dossier including a gay affair rumours, bombshell texts and mental health liesCredit: mistraesthetics/InstagramClemmie hopes exposing Lee will protect other women from being hurt by himCredit: Louis Wood
This statement, as we all now know, never materialised. Because that’s how conmen like Lee operate: over the resulting four months he lied, scammed, obfuscated and wormed his way back into her affections.
Time and time again he has dismissed the seemingly never-ending allegations against him as a scurrilous and damaging pack of lies.
Katie, in her misguided loyalty, has sucked it up, and let him back in. But over the next 1,500 words I am going to lay bare the damning Lee Files: past recordings, voice notes, messages and shameless untruths.
Unverified rumours of a gay affair, allegations of more people cheated of their hard-earned savings, a forthcoming appearance on Piers Morgan’s global YouTube show, horrific allegations of mental and physical abuse from former partners, mental health fakery and what really happened with the couple’s new dog, Dubaii: all shall be revealed.
My hope, in so doing, is to expose this man for the pathological liar he really is – and ensure he never, ever hurts another woman (or man) again.
Lee, a source tells me, has left Katie no choice but to consult a divorce lawyer.
She is also, I can confirm, refusing to return to Dubai. And with Lee locked-up, with travel ban, a reunion any time soon seems unlikely.
For Lee, literally and metaphorically, there is no coming back.
So, where to begin?
Lee and I have history as anyone familiar with this sorry saga may remember.
The “multi-millionaire businessman” persuaded me to “invest” £1,000 in his latest (non existent) project, promising a £4,000 return. Needless to say those funds never arrived.
After my piece ran, and Lee first emerged from Al-Awir prison, he sent me a series of messages insisting the money was still on its way (LOL). I told him not to bother paying me back as my bank, HSBC, had refunded me.
Clemmie awoke with a flurry of messages from Lee after describing him as a ‘bad man’ and ‘sociopath’After Lee left Al Awir prison, he insisted the money Clemmie ‘invested’ was still on the way but HSBC had already refunded itCredit: AFP
Our early exchanges post-prison – to recap, I had earlier joined the model, 48, in trying to hunt down Lee in the UAE – were cautious.
We sent one another “disappearing messages” on WhatsApp, both nervous the other might release them.
When I filmed an Instagram video describing Lee as a “bad man” and a “sociopath”, I awoke to a flurry of seething messages from him saying: “Clems you are not allowed to discuss a persons case files publicly it comes with 3 years sentence and 200k fine (sic).
“The UAE authorities will arrest you for this. And the facts are wrong on this bill oh dear clemmie what have you done. I have to make a police case for this now.”
I am still awaiting that lawsuit.
In response to my disclosure that Lee had had a hair system fitted – aka a toupee – he added: “And you can’t discuss a person’s appearance online.”
From here, I clawed things back and we went on to start chatting again more regularly.
He sent me photos of his shackle marks and hand cuff ties – things people had mocked online in the wake of his claims he’d been taken at gun point to a black site – and said he’d had a hard time in jail.
Lee has left Katie no choice but to consult a divorce lawyerCredit: wesleeeandrews/instagramKatie is also refusing to return to Dubai so a reunion any time soon seems unlikelyCredit: Louis Wood
This I believe.
And on 15th July, unfortunately whilst I was having Botox shovelled into forehead, I missed two calls from Lee in Al Awir prison.
It was utterly bizarre. He left me a voice mail: “Obviously I think you know where I am. I want to run something past you.” He thanked me and signed off. To this day, I have no idea what he wanted.
Anyway, I honestly didn’t know if I would ever release this dossier, and even now, there is a part of me that feels enormous guilt.
Because Lee can be funny, charming, interested and interesting. It is hard not to like him, on a superficial level, and I can understand how and why so many women have fallen for his charms.
I have, though, since spoken to an anonymous account online, going under the name Chaos Corner, who claims to know someone personally conned by Lee.
They have posted several damning videos about his past behaviour, and much of the evidence stacks up. There is, after all, no smoke without fire.
I have also chatted at length to his brilliant ex-fiancee, Alana Percival. She is an incredibly courageous and powerful woman, and the first to come forward with allegations – and proof – concerning her ex’s treatment of her, and other women.
She has subsequently set up a support group for women who have been hurt by this man, using her voice for good, and gaining hundreds of thousands of supporters online in the process.
She tells me: “Based on my own experience, I believe Lee is a dangerous, sick and deeply harmful person. I believe he should be held accountable through the proper legal process.
“My hope is that no one else has to go through what I went through and that anyone who has experienced trauma through him or his actions, abuse or manipulation, feels able to find their voice when they’re ready.
“That’s why I don’t judge Katie at all. Unless you’ve lived through that kind of manipulation, it’s incredibly hard to explain the hold someone can have over you.”
Katie Price reunited with husband Lee Andrews in DubaiCredit: wesleeandrews/InstagramKatie Price and husband Andrew Lee AndrewsCredit: Instagram/@wesleeeandrews
Over the past five months we have witnessed, in real time, the car crash of this marriage. Like rubber-neckers, we haven’t been able to get enough.
But, as the love-loving mum of five has always reminded me, this is HER life we are all gawping at. And only she can call time on this marriage.
It is, though, a sorry state of affairs that has left Katie teetering on the brink of losing public support, something she should be basking in off the back of her recent hit four-part documentary.
But as she herself said in our interview earlier this year, “never underestimate The Pricey”.
Kate is canny. She has, I can reveal, ALL the receipts of Lee’s lies, and WILL deploy them in a court of law should she need to.
Lee may have hoped to take a pretty penny from this marriage – but I doubt he will get one.
She has also NEVER paid for his release from jail contrary to public opinion.
And whilst Lee has garnered something of a celebrity status himself – flogging personalised Cameo videos for around £30 a pop – no TV network would dare to platform him with so many serious allegations hanging over him.
Indeed, a few weeks ago he was in talks with Piers Morgan to undertake a lie detector test. Piers confirmed they were in talks, but on Wednesday told me he had pulled the plug, describing Lee as “dangerous to deal with”.
He is dangerous I fear – which is why I am now blocking him across all forms of communication. I do not wish for his wrath or recrimination.
Doubtless Lee will feel I have betrayed his trust. And, yes – I have.
Piers Morgan was in talks with Lee – but he pulled the plug and said he was ‘dangerous’Credit: InstagramLee with his dad Peter, who also recently enjoyed a jail stintCredit: wesleeeandrews/Instagram
But, then again, this is a fraudster, currently holed-up for the third time in 10 months, and someone who took to Instagram on June 2nd to tell his 150,000 followers that his mental health had taken a battering after being relentlessly trolled 24/7.
This, I can now reveal, is yet another blatant lie. And one, for me, that crosses a line.
“Obviously you know I am not depressed,” he told me in a voice note.
“That’s there to get my legal side up, to get my doctor to sign me off. Do not repeat that!”
Well, I’ve repeated it, because it makes a mockery of those kind, decent folk genuinely battling daily with mental health struggles.
Elsewhere, despite his endless wealth brags, a source tells me a brief £300million partnership he obtained with the UAE Royal Family Offices was terminated after representatives sent in accountants to check Lee’s financials.
He had pledged a bond of around £10million, but when they checked his accounts, it is claimed, found only 27 Dirhams sitting there.
Lee, naturally, will likely deny this – and given he is in prison I am unable to put this historic allegation to him.
But then again, he denies all allegations.
Including a slightly surreal one earlier this week, in a post by Chaos Corner which purported to show loving text messages between Lee and another younger man.
Screenshots of the WhatsApps, in which he promised to leave Katie to be with this anonymous chap – homosexuality is prohibited in Dubai – also showed a credit card with Lee telling the man to treat himself to something nice.
The owner of the account sent me the telephone number of Lee given to them – and it matches the one I have.
Screenshots of WhatsApp purported to show loving text messages between Lee and another younger manCredit: wesleeandrews/InstagramLee Andrews is a man who wouldn’t know the truth if it smacked him around the hair pieceCredit: wesleeandrews/Instagram
I can reveal Katie put this latest twist in the tail to her husband on the phone on Tuesday night – and he adamantly rejected them.
Another recent dispute came over ownership of the couple’s Pomski whom they rescued from a pet shop, and named Dubaii.
Katie paid for the seven month-old pup, but Lee assured her he had sorted care for the poor animal after he got banged-up once again.
When she couldn’t get hold of her best friend, Katie contacted Lee’s ex, Dina, who runs an animal rescue sanctuary, to take him in.
Lee also told Katie he had paid for Dubaii to be flown back to the UK.
Surprise, surprise, he had not.
More lies from a man who makes Pinocchio’s nose seem miniscule.
Even in own sister, Kelly, who has been a rare voice loyally supporting him, seems to have turned against him.
Family friend Becky Smith bravely posted on Facebook: “Kelly Andrews and I just want to take a moment to speak the truth.
“Recent information shared by Chaos Corner has brought forward evidence that has left us both shocked. We are the first to admit when we’re wrong and now that there is proof, we feel it’s important to acknowledge that. (It is) incredibly painful for the family.”
Latest unedifying accusations over a recorded video call – released on Chaos Corner, supposedly show Lee scamming an American man out his late mother’s inheritance. Again, Lee will presumably claim this is AI and untrue.
Lee’s litany of lies, should I detail them in full, would take me way over my word count.
But, in short, he’s bragged about a cameo on EastEnders (denied by the BBC), being arrested for espionage (reality: fraud), a sex tape (never filmed), arms dealer (he posed with a paintball marker), an interview by wife Katie on live stream on June 25th (been and gone), a boxing match in York on July 27th (he is still in prison and has a travel ban), returns to the UK (see: aforementioned travel ban), home ownership (rentals), gifts (a Ferrari “bought” for his wife who has a driving ban), adopting his wife’s five kids (he has not). And I will eat my mortar board if he has a PhD from Cambridge University.
In short, this is a man who wouldn’t know the truth if it smacked him around the hair piece.
He has hurt far too many people… must never be allowed to hurt again. Katie, if you’re reading this: get out. Now.
Last night Lee was unavailable for comment, and Katie declined to comment.
He held up on a curveball from Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola that clipped the bottom of the strike zone. He fouled off a changeup. And he stayed disciplined as Nola tried to get him to chase a fastball up and two breaking balls in the dirt.
In a full count, Rushing fouled off another changeup. And then, finally, Nola made a mistake.
Rushing hammered the grooved fastball to left-center field, just shy of the Citizens Bank Park concourse.
“It’s pretty obvious I’ve been fighting recently,” Rushing said after the game. “The more you try in this game to fight out of a hole, the deeper you dig yourself in a hole. So I think that’s what it’s been recently. And today it was, obviously, you get a good start to the day, and it’s kind of uphill. Yeah, I wouldn’t say it was anything different. I just trusted myself today.”
It was the Dodgers’ first run during a 9-5 win and Rushing’s first hit in more than two weeks. Over the course of nine hitless games, he went 0-for-19.
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Angels fall to Cards in series finale
Hunter Dobbins scattered six hits over six innings, JJ Wetherholt hit a home run in the sixth and the St. Louis Cardinals held on for a 1-0 victory over the Angels on Wednesday at Angel Stadium.
Dobbins, recalled from triple-A Memphis for Wednesday’s start, struck out five and walked none to help St. Louis snap a four-game losing streak and end the Angels’ three-game win streak.
Luis Gastelum threw a scoreless seventh, George Soriano had a 1-2-3 eighth and closer Riley O’Brien struck out Oswald Peraza with an 80-mph sweeper and Josh Lowe with a 98-mph sinker with two on in the ninth for his 26th save.
In Japan, fans come up with a song for each player and sing it happily and relentlessly. Nootbaar played in the major leagues, not in the Japanese league, so he was not sure he would get a song until he came up to bat.
“I don’t know how everybody in the stadium knew how to do it,” the St. Louis Cardinals outfielder said Wednesday at Angel Stadium. “Everybody was chanting it. It was pretty awesome.”
In Japan, baseball games are nine innings of songs and chants, drums and noise sticks. No excessively caffeinated in-game hosts. No scolding video commands to make some noise. The joyful sounds are organic, and they come from the fans.
Nootbaar attended Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s last game in Japan and absolutely raved about the energy in the stadium. Does he believe that kind of fan experience would translate to an American ballpark?
“I don’t see why not,” Nootbaar said. “It would probably have to start small, but it would be cool to integrate that.”
We’re starting small, and soon. A minor league team plans to launch in Irvine next year, and the entrepreneur behind it is pitching it as a way to provide fans with a taste of Asian baseball.
“We’re going to really lean into some of the innovation in fan experience that you’ve seen in Korea and Japan,” said Paul Freedman, co-founder of Innovation Baseball Partners.
Sparks fall to Mercury in final game before all-star break
From Joaquin Ruiz: The Sparks and Mercury teetered and tottered, but Phoenix pulled away late to hand Los Angeles an 86-82 loss on Wednesday afternoon at Crypto.com Arena in the two teams’ final game before a much-needed All-Star break.
With the game tied at 60 entering the fourth quarter, Phoenix scored consecutive baskets and never relinquished its advantage. Forward Alyssa Thomas dominated with 19 points, 11 rebounds, 15 assists and three steals, while guard Kahleah Copper poured in 21 points on 10-for-16 shooting to lead the Mercury precisely as Sparks coach Lynne Roberts expected.
“Players like [Thomas] and [Copper] … can both take over games,” Roberts said before the game. “Last time we played them, Copper had 41 … she is an absolute talent. I think they run good stuff. I like what [Mercury coach Nate Tibbetts] does.”
Lukas MacNaughton and Marcel Hartel scored four minutes apart late in the first half to break open St. Louis City’s 3-1 victory over the Galaxy on Wednesday night.
Simon Becher scored in the second half after Galaxy defender Emiro Garcés was sent off in the 49th minute with his second yellow card, and St. Louis cruised to its third straight win.
St. Louis, which is unbeaten in six straight since early May, also leapfrogged the Galaxy into the Western Conference’s playoff positions with this victory.
1907 — Australasia beats British Isles 3-2 to win the Davis Cup held at Wimbledon. Australasia wins its first David Cup and ends the four-year reign of the British Isles.
1921 — At the annual Harvard-Yale vs. Cambridge-Oxford meet at Harvard Stadium, Harvard’s Edward Gourdin becomes the first to long jump 25 feet. Harvard lists Gourdin’s jump as 25 feet, 3 inches, but the official listing in U.S. Track and Field is 25-2.
1960 — Betsy Rawls becomes the first woman to win the U.S. Women’s Open golf title four times.
1966 — John Pennel pole vaults 17 feet, 6 1/4 inches for the world record in a meet at Los Angeles. It’s the eighth of nine world records he set in the event in his career and his first since 1963.
1976 — The last NFL All-Star game is held and is shortened when thunderstorms hit Chicago. The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the All-Stars 24-0.
1978 — Hollis Stacy wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship for the second straight year.
1989 — Mark Calcavecchia wins the British Open, edging Greg Norman and Wayne Grady in a three-man playoff. Calcavecchia, the first American to win the Open in five years, birdies three of the four holes in the playoff.
1989 — Greg Lemond wins his second Tour de France with the closest finish ever, edging Laurent Fignon by 8 seconds. Lemond starts the day 50 seconds behind Fignon and wins the final stage, a 15-mile race against the clock from Versailles to Paris, in 26:57. Fignon finishes the stage 58 seconds slower.
1995 — John Daly wins the British Open at St. Andrews by four strokes in a four-hole playoff with Italy’s Costantino Rocca. Rocca forces the playoff by sinking a 65-foot putt on the 18th hole.
1995 — Miguel Indurain of Spain wins his record fifth consecutive Tour de France. Indurain joins Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault as the other five-time winners.
2000 — Tiger Woods, at 24, becomes the youngest player to win the career Grand Slam with a record-breaking performance in the British Open on the Old Course at St. Andrews. Woods closes with a 3-under 69 for a 19-under 269 total, the lowest score in relation to par at a major championship.
2000 — 87th Tour de France: no winner (Lance Armstrong disqualified).
2006 — Tiger Woods, one month after missing the cut for the first time in a major, becomes the first player since Tom Watson in 1982-83 to win consecutive British Open titles.
2006 — Floyd Landis, pedaling with an injured hip, cruises to victory in the Tour de France, keeping cycling’s most prestigious title in American hands for the eighth straight year.
2009 — Mark Buehrle pitches the 18th perfect game in major league history, a 5-0 win over Tampa Bay.
2012 — Penn State is all but leveled by penalties handed down by the NCAA for its handling of the allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. The NCAA imposes an unprecedented $60 million fine, a four-year ban from postseason play and a cut in the number of football scholarships it can award.
2017 — British cyclist Chris Froome wins his fourth Tour de France.
2019 — Nike’s Jordan Brand signs 2019 NBA #1 draft pick Zion Williamson to richest multiyear sponsorship deal for a rookie in history; estimated 7 years for $75 million.
2021 — The Opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games takes place after a one-year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2021 — The Cleveland Indians announce the team will be re-named the Guardians.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1925 — Lou Gehrig hit the first of his major league record 23 grand slam homers as the New York Yankees posted an 11-7 triumph over the Washington Senators.
1930 — Pie Traynor won both ends of a doubleheader for the Pittsburgh Pirates with home runs. In the first game, Traynor homered in the ninth and in the second game, he connected in the 13th.
1944 — Bill Nicholson of the Chicago Cubs hit four home runs in a doubleheader split with the New York Giants. Nicholson hit a home run in the opener, which the Cubs won 7-4. He hit three straight in the second game, but the Giants won 12-10. In that game, Nicholson was walked with the bases loaded in the seventh inning.
1955 — Bob Cerv and Elston Howard of the New York Yankess hit consecutive pinch-hit home runs to force extra innings against Kansas City. The Athletics won 8-7 in the 11th inning on Hector Lopez’s RBI-single. Trailing 7-5 entering the top of the ninth, Cerv batted for pitcher Tommy Byrne and homered of Alex Kellner. Tom Gorman replaced Kellner and Howard, hitting for Irv Noren, tied the game.
1964 — Bert Campaneris of Kansas City hit two home runs in his first major league game. He homered on the first pitch off Minnesota’s Jim Kaat, and then connected again in the seventh to lift the Athletics to a 4-3 win.
1974 — Write-in starter Steve Garvey of the Los Angeles Dodgers singled and doubled to lead the NL to a 7-2 victory over the AL in the All-Star game at Pittsburgh.
1985 — Oddibe McDowell became the first player in Texas Rangers history to hit for the cycle in an 8-4 win over the Cleveland Indians.
2000 — Ryan Klesko hit a game-tying solo homer in the ninth inning and a two-run shot in the 10th to lift San Diego over Colorado 6-4.
2009 — Mark Buehrle pitched the 18th perfect game in major league history, a 5-0 win over Tampa Bay. It was the first since Randy Johnson’s on May 18, 2004. Buehrle threw 76 of 116 pitches for strikes and fanned six in his second no-hitter — the first coming on April 18, 2007, against Texas.
2011 — The Red Sox extend Seattle’s losing streak to 14 games, tied for the longest in team history, with a 3 – 1 win at Fenway Park which is also Terry Francona’s 1000th as Sox manager. Josh Beckett is the winner.
2014 — Padres OF Cameron Maybin is handed a 25-game suspension for testing positive for amphetamines; he is the first major leaguer suspended for PED use this season.
2016 — Trevor Story hit two home runs to set an NL rookie record for shortstops and Colorado beat Atlanta 8-4. Story had four hits including his 25th and 26th homers to pass his mentor, Troy Tulowitzki, who had 24 for the Rockies in 2007. Nomar Garciaparra of the Boston Red Sox set the major league record for shortstops with 30 in 1997.
2020 — CommissionerRob Manfred springs a surprise on everyone as he announces a modified postseason format for this year only. There will be eight teams participating from each league: the two teams with the best records in each division, and the ones with the two next best records in the league. The teams will be seeded one to eight. The Wild Card Game will be replaced by a preliminary round with all teams participating, played in best-of-three format, with all games played in the better-ranked team’s ballpark.
2021 — Cleveland baseball team announced the team will be called the Guardians beginning in 2022.
2023 — In Cooperstown, NY, Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen are inducted into the Hall of Fame as the Class of 2023.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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