tuesday

What can derail the Dodgers?

From Maddie Lee: Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior was worried. But how worried? He couldn’t say at first.

The team had taken major steps to address Shohei Ohtani’s lingering left knee condition, presenting him with a plan to skip his last start before the All-Star break and have his knee drained that Sunday. And he’d co-signed it.

The swelling in Ohtani’s knee, however, had been more persistent than the team expected. And pitching seemed to irritate it.

“I would say, moderately concerned,” Prior eventually said in a conversation with The Times last weekend. “But no more concerned than I probably am with anybody else who’s had to deal with aches and pains. Hopefully, this break and this rest will get it to calm down a little bit, and then we’ll see where we’re at next weekend.”

Coming out of the All-Star break, the Dodgers face the most pressing question for their second half: Will they be able to manage Ohtani’s knee condition?

Of course, plenty of other questions loom: What approach will the Dodgers take at the trade deadline? Will the pitchers coming off the injured list in the second half provide enough depth? Can they maintain the best record in the majors?

But naturally, Ohtani’s health is tangled up in all those answers.

Continue reading here

Plaschke: Who says they don’t need him? Dodgers need to trade for Tarik Skubal

World Cup: Spain hopes to recapture 2010 magic

From Kevin Baxter: If something happened once, it can happen again. That’s kind of what Yogi Berra was getting at when he said “it’s like deja vu all over again.”

Berra, the late Yankee catcher and once New Jersey’s unofficial poet laureate, spent most of his life within walking distance of East Rutherford, N.J., where history could repeat itself all over again in Sunday’s World Cup final between Spain and Argentina. And that makes his words newly relevant.

Argentina and Lionel Messi, the reigning champions, will be seeking to become the first to repeat in 64 years while Spain will be playing in the title game for just the second time ever. And the similarities to its first trip, in 2010, are uncanny.

Sixteen years ago Spain became just the second reigning European champion to win a World Cup. It will enter Sunday’s game as the reigning European champion.

In the run-up to the 2010 World Cup, Spain ran off a 35-game unbeaten streak, which matched the longest in history at the time. La Roja will enter Sunday’s game with a 37-game unbeaten streak, which matches the current longest streak in history.

Continue reading here

World Cup schedule

All times Pacific
All games on Fox and Telemundo

Third-place match
France vs. England, Saturday, 2 p.m.

Championship match
Spain vs. Argentina, Sunday, noon

LeBron James remains mum on his next team

If LeBron James knows where he will play this coming season, he’s still not saying.

The NBA’s career scoring king and current free agent spoke publicly for the first time in weeks Thursday afternoon, though stopped short of revealing which team he’ll choose to play for this fall — despite at least one cry from someone in a jam-packed room shouting for him to “pick a team.”

“It’s going to be fun wherever I land,” James said.

The four-time NBA champion was recording an episode of his “Mind the Game” podcast alongside guest co-host Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers in New York on the opening day of Fanatics Fest, a four-day event featuring dozens of athletes, celebrities and sports legends. Single-day general admission tickets were sold out, organizers said, and it’s likely that many of those patrons — there were at least several hundred there, phones out to capture the moment — were hoping to hear James’ next decision.

Not yet, he said.

“There’s no decision,” James said.

Continue reading here

This day in sports history

1939 — Henry Picard beats Byron Nelson 1-up in 37 holes to win the PGA championship.

1955 — Beverly Hanson beats Louise Suggs by three strokes in a playoff to capture the first LPGA championship.

1966 — Jim Ryun becomes the first American to hold the record in the mile since 1937. With a time of 3:51.3 at Berkeley, Calif., Ryun shatters Michel Jazy’s mark of 3:53.6 by 2.3 seconds.

1979 — Sebastian Coe breaks the world record in the mile with a time of 3:48.95 in Oslo, Norway. The time is rounded up to 3:49.

1983 — Bobby Hebert passes for 314 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Michigan Panthers to a 24-22 win over the Philadelphia Stars in the first USFL championship game.

1983 — Tom Watson wins his second straight and fifth career British Open title. Watson shoots a 9-under 275 at Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England to finish one stroke ahead of Andy Bean and Hale Irwin.

1994 — Brazil wins a record fourth World Cup soccer title, taking the first shootout in championship game history over Italy.

2005 — Tiger Woods records another ruthless performance at St. Andrews, closing with a 2-under 70 to win the British Open for his 10th career major. He wins by five shots, the largest margin in any major since Woods won by eight at St. Andrews five years ago. He joins Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win the career Grand Slam twice.

2006 — Stacey Nuveman and Lovieanne Jung each homer to power the United States to the World Cup of Softball title with a 5-2 victory over Japan.

2011 — Japan stuns the United States in a riveting Women’s World Cup final, winning 3-1 on penalty kicks after coming from behind twice in a 2-2 tie. Goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori makes two brilliant saves in the shootout. Japan, making its first appearance in the final of a major tournament, hadn’t beaten the Americans in their first 25 meetings.

2011 — Darren Clarke gives Northern Ireland another major championship, winning the British Open by three strokes over Americans Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson.

2016 — Henrik Stenson shoots an 8-under 63 to beat Phil Mickelson by three strokes, becoming the first man from Sweden to win the British Open.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1924 — Jesse Haines of the St. Louis Cardinals pitched a 5-0 no-hitter against the Boston Braves.

1925 — Tris Speaker is the fifth player to reach 3,000 hits.

1936 — Carl Hubbell’s 24-game winning streak over two years began as he beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-0 on five hits.

1941 — Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak of 56 games was stopped by Al Smith and Jim Bagby of the Indians before 67,000 at Cleveland. The Yankees still won, 4-3.

1956 — In the second game of a doubleheader against Kansas City, Ted Williams hit his 400th home run. Williams connected in the sixth inning off Tom Gorman to give the Red Sox a 1-0 win over the A’s.

1966 — Chicago’s Billy Williams hit for the cycle to lead the Cubs to a 7-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the second game of a Sunday doubleheader. Williams singled in the first inning, doubled in the third, had an RBI-triple in the fifth, homered to center in the seventh and popped out to third baseman in foul territory. The Cardinals took the opener 4-3 in 11 innings.

1969 — Jim Kaat, Gold Glove winner for seven straight years, was charged with three errors, leading to three unearned runs against the Chicago White Sox. Nevertheless, he won the game at Minnesota 8-5.

1974 — Bob Gibson struck out Cesar Geronimo of the Reds in the second inning to become the second pitcher in major league history to record 3,000 strikeouts. Cincinnati beat St. Louis, 6-4.

1978 — Doc Medich of the Texas Rangers saved the life of a 61-year-old fan who had a heart attack just before a scheduled game at Baltimore. Medich, a medical student, administered heart massage until help arrived.

1987 — Don Mattingly became the first AL player to hit at least one home run in seven consecutive games as the New York Yankees disposed of the Texas Rangers 8-4.

1990 — Minnesota became the first team in major league history to pull off two triple plays in one game, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Boston as the Red Sox beat the Twins 1-0.

2007 — Ryan Garko hit a tying pinch-hit home run in the ninth inning and singled home the winning run in the 11th to give Cleveland a 6-5 win over the Chicago White Sox.

2011 — Dustin Pedroia singled with two out in the top of the 16th inning, snapping a scoreless tie and giving the Red Sox a 1-0 victory over the Rays. It was the longest 1-0 game in the major leagues since the Brewers at Angels on June 8, 2004 went 17 innings.

2016 — Starling Marte hit a solo home run in the 18th inning and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Washington Nationals 2-1 in a marathon game that lasted almost six hours. Pinch-hitter Daniel Murphy homered with two outs in the ninth inning for Washington.

2022 — Second-generation players take the first two spots in the 2022 amateur draft as SS Jackson Holliday, son of Matt Holliday, goes first overall to the Orioles, while OF Druw Jones, son of Andruw Jones, is selected second by the Diamondbacks.

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.

Argentina advances to World Cup final

From Kevin Baxter: The jury is still out on whether Lionel Messi is the greatest soccer player ever. But there should be no doubt he’s the greatest to ever play in a World Cup.

And you don’t need the records, the wins or the goals to prove that — although he certainly has enough of those. You just need to see Messi at his most magical, as he was Wednesday, setting up a pair of game-changing goals in a seven-minute span to lift Argentina to a 2-1 win over England and into Sunday’s World Cup final with Spain.

“It’s really hard to speak right now, but I’m going to try not to cry,” Lautaro Martínez, who scored the winning goal two minutes into stoppage time, said in Spanish. “I’m already overwhelmed inside. It’s incredible. Everything we’ve achieved is just incredible.”

Like their 13-game World Cup unbeaten streak, dating to the opening game of the 2022 tournament in Qatar. Or back-to-back trips to the final, which gives them a chance to become the first repeat champion in the men’s tournament since Brazil in 1962.

But it hasn’t been easy. Eleven of Argentina’s 19 goals — including both scores in Wednesday’s semifinal — have come after the 75th minute. They trailed in the 80th minute or later in two of their last three knockout games, only to rally both times.

And Messi has either scored or assisted on three of the four goals that rescued Argentina.

Continue reading here

World Cup semifinals schedule, results

All times Pacific
All games on Fox and Telemundo

Tuesday
Spain 2, France 0

Wednesday
Argentina 2, England 1

Third-place match

France vs. England, Saturday, 2 p.m.

Championship match

Spain vs. Argentina, Sunday, noon

Nneka Ogwumike ties team record in Sparks’ loss

Nneka Ogwumike scored 23 points for the Sparks on Wednesday. But it was her 15-foot jumper with 1:45 left in the game that put her in the record book.

Ogwumike’s final points tied Lisa Leslie as the franchise’s all-time scorers with 6,263 points in the Sparks’ 96-87 loss to the Minnesota Lynx, who won their fourth in a row.

Candace Parker is third with 5,684 points.

Ogwumike, who played 12 seasons in L.A. before returning this season, added 12 rebounds and five assists for the Sparks, who dropped to 10-13. The inconsistent Sparks have dropped back-to-back games since firing GM Raegan Pebley.

Continue reading here

Sparks box score

WNBA standings

This day in sports history

1920 — The United States sweeps Australia in five matches to win the Davis Cup for the first time since 1913. The U.S. team is made up of Bill Tilden and Bill Johnston.

1938 — Paul Runyan wins the PGA Championship by routing Sam Snead 8 and 7 in the final round.

1947 — Rocky Graziano scores a technical knockout with a barrage of 30 punches against Tony Zale in the sixth round to win the world middleweight boxing title. Held in Chicago Stadium, it’s the largest grossing fight in history.

1950 — Uruguay beats Brazil 2-1 to win soccer’s World Cup in Rio de Janeiro.

1967 — Kathy Whitworth wins the LPGA championship by one stroke over Shirley Englehorn. Whitworth sinks a fifty-foot uphill putt for a birdie on the 18th green at Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton Mass.

1989 — Betsy King birdies three of the first four holes of the final round to win her first U.S. Women’s Open championship by four strokes over Nancy Lopez.

1993 — Nick Faldo ties the best single round in 122 years of the British Open with a course-record 63 to give him a one-stroke lead after the second round.

1995 — Annika Sorenstam of Sweden wins the U.S. Women’s Open by one stroke over Meg Mallon, her first victory on the LPGA Tour.

2005 — In Las Vegas, Jermain Taylor beats Bernard Hopkins for the undisputed middleweight title. Hopkins, a winner of a record 20 consecutive defenses, starts slowly and the undefeated challenger builds up a big enough lead on two judges’ scorecards to take the crown.

2006 — J.R. Todd becomes the first Black driver to win an NHRA Top Fuel event, beating Tony Schumacher in the Mopar Mile-High Nationals.

2011 — Kyle Busch wins the Nationwide race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to become the third driver to win 100 races in NASCAR’s three national series. Busch, with 22 Cup victories and 29 Trucks wins, also ties Mark Martin for first place in career Nationwide Series victories with 49. Richard Petty and David Pearson are the other drivers with at least 100 wins.

2012 — Roger Federer surpasses Pete Sampras to set the record for the most weeks at No. 1 in the ATP rankings. After winning Wimbledon a week ago — his 75th career ATP title — Federer returns to the top for the first time since June 2010. Today marks his 287th week at No. 1, one more than Sampras.

2017 — Roger Federer defeated Marin Cilic 6-3, 6-1, 6-4, to claim a record eighth Wimbledon men’s title.

2023 — Wimbledon Men’s Tennis: In a classic final, 20-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz ends Novak Đoković’s 34-match win streak at the All England Club with a 1-6, 7-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 victory.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1897 — Chicago’s Cap Anson became the first major leaguer to reach 3,000 hits when he singled off Baltimore’s George Blackburn.

1902 — John McGraw was named manager of the New York Giants, a post he would hold for 30 years.

1909 — Ed Summers of the Detroit Tigers gave up only seven hits and pitched all 18 innings of a 0-0 tie with the Washington Senators, the longest scoreless game in AL history.

1920 — Babe Ruth broke his own season record of 29 homers with his 30th as the New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns, 5-2. Ruth would finish the season with 54.

1933 — Red Lucas of the Cincinnati Reds pitched a 15-inning 1-0 win over Roy Parmelee and the New York Giants in the opener of a doubleheader.

1941 — Joe DiMaggio extended his hitting streak to 56 games with a 3-for-4 day as the New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians 10-3.

1948 — After 8 1/2 years as Brooklyn manager, Leo Durocher stunned baseball by taking the helm of the archrival Giants in midseason.

1958 – In the nitecap of a doubleheader, Baltimore pitcher Jack Harshman hit two homers in a 6-5 win over the Chicago White Sox.

1970 — The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pirates 3-2 before 48,846 in the first game at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium.

1985 — Sparky Anderson became the first manager to lose an All-Star Game in both leagues. The National League won 6-1 for the 21st win in the last 23 games.

1996 — Colorado’s streak of scoring at least seven runs in a game ended at 11. The Rockies beat the Giants 5-3 and tied the 1911 Pittsburgh Pirates, 1938 New York Yankees and 1976 Cincinnati Reds with 11 7-run games.

1997 — Kevin Brown pitched his first career one-hitter to lead Florida to 5-1 win over the Dodgers. Brown, who no-hit San Francisco on June 10th, faced two batters over the minimum and gave up a lead-off single to left by Raul Mondesi in the fifth. He struck out eight and retired his final 15 batters.

1998 — Randy Johnson pitched a one-hitter to lead Seattle to a 3-0 win over Minnesota. Johnson struck out 11 and gave up a single to third baseman Brent Gates.

2006 — Chipper Jones hit a two-run homer in Atlanta’s 10-5 win at San Diego to give him an extra-base hit in 14 straight games, tying a 79-year-old major league record. Jones tied the record set in 1927 by Pittsburgh’s Paul Waner.

2006 — Mariano Rivera earned his 400th save, escaping two jams and getting six outs to preserve the New York Yankees’ 6-4 victory over the Chicago White Sox. Rivera joined Lee Smith, Trevor Hoffman and John Franco in the 400-save club.

2009 — Philadelphia Phillies slugger Ryan Howard became the fastest player in major league history to reach 200 home runs, breaking the record previously held by Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner. Howard reached 200 homers in his 658th game, hitting his 23rd of the season in the sixth inning of a 4-0 win over Florida. Kiner hit No. 200 in his 706th game.

2013 — Mariano Rivera pitched a perfect eighth inning in his final All-Star appearance, Jose Bautista, J.J. Hardy and Jason Kipnis drove in runs to back a night of pulsating pitching, and the American League beat the National League 3-0.

2015 — Brock Holt became the first Boston player to hit for the cycle since 1996 and the Red Sox slugged their way out to a 9-4 victory over Atlanta.

2021 — Jake Cronenworth hit for his first career cycle, Wil Myers had a grand slam and a two-run shot and the San Diego Padres set a franchise record for runs in a 24-8 blowout of the Washington Nationals.

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. Let me say right now what is the strongest football position in Southern California this season: defensive backs.

Talent is overflowing

Standout safety Gavin Williams of Damien.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

When it comes to talent, the group of defensive backs this season are in a class by themselves. There are so many that it’s useless to debate who’s best. The 2026 season will reveal the winner.

For now, let’s look at the overwhelming group. First up is safety Gavin Williams of Damien. He’s a USC commit with speed, power and looks the part of a man among boys. The Long Beach Poly cornerback duo of Donte Wright (Miami commit) and JuJu Johnson (UCLA) is outstanding. Don’t forget Myles Baker, a UCLA commit from Sierra Canyon who’s physical enough to play anywhere on a football field. Jaxson Rex of San Clemente is a Brigham Young commit who’s also a top receiver. He does everything well.

St. John Bosco is going to have a six-man rotation in the secondary because of its outstanding depth. Washington commit Isala Wily-Ava and talented junior Brandon Nash lead the way. Salesian junior Jordan Slye is a playmaker. to watch. Mission Viejo has two top juniors in Jordan Hicks and Orange Lutheran transfer Kiingbaraka Kizzee. Khalil Terry of Tustin is a UCLA commit.

Jalen Flowers of Redondo Union is a junior with terrific coverage skills. Chauncey Washington of Orange Lutheran is part of a strong group of Trinity League players. The Lancers also have junior twins King Rich and Anhor Johnson. Ca’ron Williams of Santa Margarita was All-CIF as a sophomore.

Jaden Walk-Green of Corona Centennial, a Washington commit, is known for his versatility playing safety and led the state with 10 interceptions. Teammate Brett Smith Jr. is a terrific cornerback. Wesley Ace of Gardena Serra moves from safety to cornerback to prepare himself for San Jose State. Ace Leutele and Danny Lang of Mater Dei are experienced and effective. Duvay Williams was a standout at Serra for three years before transferring to Inglewood in the spring. Pakipole Moala of Leuzinger is a UCLA commit with an immense upside. Loyola’s Zion Phelps is ready to show off his 10.31 100 meters speed, along with junior Malique Pollard. Blaise Burwell from Edison isn’t just a good defensive back _ returns kickoffs with the best.

Tahj Skinner of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame is an athletic safety committed to UC Davis. Simi Valley junior Micah Hannah is a 6-foot-2 cornerback starting since freshman season. Rancho Cucamonga has plenty of talent in its secondary, led by Nathaniel Mensah (Oregon State).

Carson’s duo of Bennie Saulter and Michael O’Dell form a dynamic one-two punch. Shane Anderson of Viewpoint had eight interceptions as a junior. Hamilton’s Jacob Riley had seven interceptions.

Robert Garrett leaves Crenshaw

Crenshaw football coach Robert Garrett.

(Robert S. Helfman)

Robert Garrett, the head football coach at Crenshaw since 1988, is officially out. He was on administrative leave throughout the 2025 season and confirmed he was reassigned to teaching at Dodman Middle School in March and won’t be back.

He coached Crenshaw to seven City titles and was the NFL high school coach of the year in 2017.

Here’s a report.

St. John Bosco’s Prentice Jones Jr. knocks down a pass during Saturday’s Battle at the Beach seven on seven passing tournament. The Braves won the championship.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

St. John Bosco went unbeaten and defeated Corona Centennial in the championship game of the Battle at the Beach seven on seven passing tournament at Edison.

Here’s the report.

Defending City Section champion Carson made it to the semifinals of the Ocean View tournament before losing to San Juan Hills. That’s a sign the Colts’ skill-position players are very good.

“Time for real football,” Carson coach William Lowe said.

San Clemente won the championship.

Culver City won its own tournament over Mira Costa.

Challenges in college sports

With dwindling roster sports and rising numbers in the college transfer portal, a new trend that isn’t really new but is accelerating involves coaches telling players they will have little chance to play as motivation for the player to leave and open up a roster spot.

Here’s the report.

Notes . . .

James Tronstein, The Times’ baseball player of the year from Harvard-Westlake, was drafted in the 15th round on Sunday by the Astros. He’s committed to Vanderbilt….

Golden Valley has named 24-year-old Miguel Mayorga its new boys basketball coach. He’s a Hart graduate…

Senior infielder Ricardo Hurtado of Orange Lutheran has committed to UCLA…

Offensive lineman Seth Sullivan from Redondo Union has committed to San Diego State….

Justin Wright is the new girls soccer coach at Campbell Hall….

Pitcher Michael Flink from Bishop Montgomery has committed to Loyola Marymount….

Starting next season, high school baseball coaches can choose to communicate with the catcher and/or pitcher electronically one way for calling pitches. The same rule goes into effect for softball. Previously, communication devices were limited to the coach and catcher. In baseball, starting in 2028, there’s bat changes. Here’s the report. …

There’s a rule change for girls lacrosse. Starting with the 2027 season, state high school associations may establish a 90-second possession clock….

Pitcher Eli Phillips of Orange Lutheran has committed to UC San Diego….

Pitcher Kyle Casey from Simi Valley has committed to UC Riverside….

Carter Athens, a 6-7 basketball player at Riverside Poly, has committed to Cal Baptist….

Woodbridge senior Maddi Haferling won a gold medal in speed climbing.

(Haferling family)

Maddi Haferling, a senior to be at Woodbridge, won a gold medal in speed climbing. Here’s a report…

Joel Hartmann has been named director of athletics at JSerra. He previously worked at Servite and Mater Dei….

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to a partnership to help run St. John Bosco. The Catholic Schools superintendent, Paul Escala, said, “The young men of St. John Bosco HS will continue to compete athletically in the Trinity League. The standard of excellence the school represents in all aspects of formation and education will only improve as a result of this partnership. We are excited to be meaningful partners in this ministry.”…

The Area Code Games are set for next month in Long Beach, and Harvard-Westlake had three players selected for the Brewers’ roster. Here’s the complete roster. …

Robert Morales is the new softball coach at La Habra….

Super Bowl hero Sam Darnold was inducted into the San Clemente Hall of Fame last week….

Luke Pope is the new boys volleyball coach at St. John Bosco….

Recommendations

From MLB.com, a story on former Corona pitcher Seth Hernandez.

From NJ.com, a story on New Jersey becoming concerned about sports holdbacks.

From USAbaseball.com, a story on former Corona outfielder Anthony Murphy.

From AZCentral.com, a story on former Servite quarterback Noah Fifita.

From the archives: Westlake soccer duo

It was 1994. The World Cup was played in the United States and two USA players from Westlake High, Cobi Jones and Eric Wynalda, helped become hometown soccer heroes.

Here’s a story from 1994 how Westlake Village became soccer central.

Here’s a story from 1994 explaining how Wynalda and Jones learned soccer in the neighborhood.

Here’s a story from 2002 when Wynalda and Jones became teammates again for the Galaxy.

Former Harvard-Westlake star Bryce Rainer.

(Craig Weston)

Tweets you might have missed

Until next time….

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

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PHILADELPHIA — For years, as stars such as Shohei Ohtani and Bryce Harper pleaded for the chance to play in the Los Angeles Olympics, and for Major League Baseball to back up its talk of growing the game internationally by participating in the world’s greatest sporting festival, the league was reluctant: Would the owners truly benefit from shutting down the season for a week and lending their best players to an event beyond their control?

Now that MLB is on board, the league wants the players to make an extraordinary commitment to back up their talk: If you’re selected to play in the Olympics, you must play. Or else.

The “or else” is not rhetorical. If a player is not on the injured list and is selected for the Olympics but declines to participate, the player would be subject to fine and/or suspension. In addition, the players would be ineligible to play for the first 14 days when the season resumes after the Olympics, according to a proposal from the commissioner’s office to the players’ union and obtained by The Times.

Under a tentative MLB plan, the first half of the 2028 season would end on July 9, with the All-Star Game on July 11. The Olympic baseball competition would start on July 13, with the second half of the season starting on July 21.

So as to discourage placement on the injured list as a way to avoid playing in the Games, a player selected for the Olympics but on the injured list as of July 9 would be excused, but he could not be reinstated to his team’s major league roster until Aug. 4, even if he had recovered from the injury before then.

“We went down the road on LA 2028 because we saw it as a unique opportunity to market the sport with our very, very best players,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday in a meeting with the Baseball Writers Assn. of America.

“It is a disruptive undertaking for us … If we’re disrupting an entire season and we’re going to undertake that effort, we want our very best out there, so that people see how great our game really is.”

The league also does not want to undermine its All-Star Game, and it is reasonably foreseeable that some players might wish to skip the All-Star Game for a two-day summer break if they are going to play the next week at the Olympics.

In that scenario, under its proposal, the league would have the right to declare the player ineligible for the Olympics, and the player would be subject to fine and/or suspension as well as ineligibility for the first 14 days of the second half.

Bruce Meyer, the executive director of the players’ union, said the MLBPA plans a counterproposal.

“They want to make it mandatory for players who are selected to appear at the All-Star Game and the Olympics,” Meyer said Tuesday. “The proposals that they made in terms of what the discipline would be, the ramifications if a player doesn’t want to do that, in our view, are extreme.”

To use a Dodgers example, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was selected for this year’s All-Star Game, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said last week that he would not pitch.

Given that situation in 2028, if Yamamoto wished to pitch for Japan, he would have to be available for the All-Star Game. If not, Japan could lose him for the Olympics, and the Dodgers could lose him for his first two starts of the second half.

Meyer said the union is in “a very early stage of discussions” with the league. It is unclear how much time might be needed to resolve the issue, as well as what Meyer called “travel and accommodation” issues, which involve LA28.

It also is uncertain how long MLB would be willing to wait before committing to an All-Star site and date, although the league moved the 2021 game from Atlanta to Denver three months before the game date. San Francisco is expected to host the 2028 game, in large part because Los Angeles is a short flight away for an Olympic competition that would start two days later.

It is clear, however, that the league is getting tired of not always securing participation from marquee players in marquee events. The “you can’t pitch in the All-Star Game if you pitched on the previous Sunday” rule was intended to protect pitchers.

“It’s clear to me that teams are managing their pitching in a way to take advantage of the Sunday pitcher rule,” Manfred said. “I do think it’s really important that we always re-evaluate our approach to the All-Star Game in order to get the very, very best players that can participate in that game.”

The World Baseball Classic was a smashing success this year, even as the United States started a rookie pitcher in the championship game. Do we really need to mandate player participation in the Olympics, especially since so many great players already have said they want to be there?

“The WBC takes place at a point in time that the players are just beginning to ramp up for the season,” Manfred said. “There’s a whole host of reasons why, at that point in the calendar, players might not be ready to play.

“In contrast, the schedule for the Olympics is going to cover days that players otherwise would be playing in major league games — if they’re not on an injured list, they’d be out there playing. That is a huge difference.”

In another column, we could argue the merits of moving the final round of the WBC — the semifinals and championship game — to July, when players “otherwise would be playing in major league games.” That would grow the game, too.

But that is for another day. It would be absurd for MLB to miss out on the global marketing platform that is the Olympics. The issues MLB raises are legitimate; the solutions need not be so draconian.

The opening ceremonies in Los Angeles take place two years from Tuesday. The Olympics have taught us this about boycotts: No matter how worthy the cause, no one pays attention once the Games start. The Soviet Union boycotted the L.A. Games in 1984, and we had a grand time without the Russians.

No one cares if you’re not there. In MLB, a star-studded core wants to be there. Seize the moment.

WASHINGTON — The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency should continue vehicle stops after recent fatal shootings, President Trump said on Wednesday, seeming to oppose a new suspension of the practice used as part of his immigration crackdown.

ICE is “doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done,” Trump wrote on his social media site.

The Republican president said that to remove criminals he claims were let into the country under the previous Democratic administration “we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump said, “Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands.”

Trump administration officials have told Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to suspend most vehicle stops after two deadly shootings within a week, people familiar with the decision said Tuesday.

The suspension was ordered after an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian driver Monday in Maine and a week after another officer shot and killed a motorist in Houston, renewing criticism of the agency’s enforcement tactics that were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.

In Florida on Tuesday, a third man in roughly a week died during an encounter with immigration officers. This time, a 28-year-old man was killed after he was hit by a tractor trailer while running from immigration and other federal officers, authorities said.

It’s a narrative that has been repeated again and again since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began, with federal officers confronting drivers and then saying they opened fire when the drivers’ vehicles became a danger. That’s despite decades of warnings from policing experts that shooting into moving cars presents a danger of its own and should almost always be avoided.

At least 10 people have been killed during immigration operations since the start of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. At least four of those deaths involved people in vehicles, including the one last week in Houston, a trend so troubling that U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Tuesday that she had urged Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops.”

John Sandweg, who was acting director at ICE, which is part of DHS, during President Obama’s Democratic administration, estimated recently that there have been roughly 18 traffic stop shootings during the Trump immigration crackdown.

The office of Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, was told by DHS that ICE was suspending traffic stops, office spokesperson Matthew Felling said.

ICE, which has been under pressure to beef up arrest and deportation numbers, often says people it’s trying to arrest are increasingly resistant to leaving their homes. ICE officers blame immigration advocates who advise immigrants to stay in their homes unless ICE produces a warrant signed by an independent judge instead of the administrative warrants the agency generally uses that are signed by another ICE officer. So, ICE officers say, they’re forced to find other areas in which to make arrests.

Shooting angers Maine

Hundreds of people in Maine protested Tuesday over the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national. Advocacy groups said Guerrero, who had a wife and a young daughter, was authorized to work in the United States.

DHS said Monday that an officer, “fearing for public safety,” shot and killed Durán Guerrero while officers were watching the home of someone they believed was in the U.S. illegally and facing a final order of removal from the country. It said in a post on X that when ICE tried to stop a car driven by someone who came from the home, the person attempted to flee in the vehicle and the officer fired.

That was a shift from how King earlier described the encounter, when he said Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon. King said Mullin told him the officers were trying to serve an arrest warrant but not for the man who was shot.

In a scathing post on X, outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the shooting a targeted killing “at the hands of the U.S. government.”

Petro, who has openly quarreled with Trump, urged Trump to provide an explanation and accused ICE officers of treating Durán Guerrero as “an inferior being without rights.”

In Wednesday’s social media post, Trump told ICE to be “judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job.”

Maine’s congressional delegation on Tuesday demanded a “comprehensive, transparent, and expedited investigation.”

Questions surround the shooting

Photos showed bullet holes in Durán Guerrero’s car windshield, but the officers involved in the shooting didn’t have body cameras, leaving many questions. Among them are how close the officer was to the vehicle when shooting, whether officers told Durán Guerrero to stop and why ICE believes he had put the public in danger.

Border czar Tom Homan told reporters Tuesday that the investigation needs to play out and that officers will be held accountable if they are found to have acted inappropriately or illegally.

Maine’s attorney general’s office, which said it is working with federal agencies to investigate, said initial statements suggest the driver was trying to flee in the direction of the officer, whose name hasn’t been released and who was placed on leave.

Collins said Mullin told her the DHS inspector general is investigating in cooperation with the FBI.

Democrats seeking to unseat Collins in November have sought to connect her with ICE’s methods, which have drawn public scrutiny and derision. Collins later said in a statement that although ICE needs to improve, eliminating the agency would make the nation less safe.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who is vying for Collins’ seat, called the ICE officers at the shooting “thugs” during a vigil Tuesday in Lewiston.

Superville, Whittle, Brook, Santana and Sisak write for the Associated Press.

Spain advances to World Cup final

From Kevin Baxter: In a World Cup boasting a galaxy of stars, a lunch-bucket team of blue-collar everymen may wind up outshining them all.

Spain clinched a berth to the final Tuesday by smothering France 2-0 at AT&T Stadium, running its unbeaten streak to 37 games while eliminating a team that had run roughshod through the tournament.

And it wasn’t even close. France came into the game with 16 goals, second only to Argentina in the tournament, then failed to put a shot on goal in the first 81 minutes.

It had Kylian Mbappé, who is tied with Lionel Messi for the scoring lead this summer and was the Golden Boot winner four years ago in Qatar. He was all but invisible until, frustrated, he felled Spanish keeper Unai Simón with a cheap shot in the final minutes, drawing a well-deserved yellow card.

France couldn’t even score into an open net, with Desire Doue lining a low shot right at a rapidly retreating Simón, who had come well off his line and left the goal unattended. For Simón, Tuesday’s clean sheet was his sixth in seven games in this tournament.

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How World Cup senior citizens like Lionel Messi have bio-hacked longer careers

Folarin Balogun says his red card controversy ‘didn’t help’ U.S. at World Cup

Norway star Erling Haaland left the U.S. with seven World Cup goals and a taxidermy raccoon, sparking a run on the item

World Cup semifinals schedule, results

All times Pacific
All games on Fox and Telemundo

Tuesday
Spain 2, France 0

Wednesday
England vs. Argentina, noon

Third-place match

France vs. England or Argentina, Saturday, 2 p.m.

Championship match

Spain vs. England or Argentina, Sunday, noon

Cody Bellinger is MVP of AL’s All-Star game victory

Dylan Cease struck out the side in the first inning, combining with 10 relievers on a three-hitter in a show of pitching dominance that led the American League to a 4-0 win over the National League in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game.

All-Star most valuable player Cody Bellinger hit a two-run single and Ben Rice followed with an RBI single in the first against Cristopher Sánchez of the host Philadelphia Phillies.

Miguel Vargas of the Chicago White Sox added an eighth-inning home run off the Dodgers’ Justin Wrobleski, who was pitching on his 26th birthday, for the game’s only extra-base hit. Wrobleski struck out five in two innings.

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Shaikin: ‘You never know when it’s your last.’ Mike Trout savors every moment of this All-Star Game

All-Star game box score

MLB standings

USC extends deal with Nike

From Ryan Kartje: The Swoosh is staying at USC for the foreseeable future.

USC and Nike agreed this week to a 10-year extension of their all-sports apparel deal through 2036, the school announced on Tuesday.

Their partnership was already among the longest-running apparel deals in college athletics. Now it’s ensured to carry into its fifth decade.

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What do the Sparks do next?

From Marisa Ingemi: A day after general manager Raegan Pebley was fired, the Sparks were in Atlanta and seemingly still focused on trying to reach the playoffs this year.

The suggestion that Pebley’s removal was a sign that the team is performing poorly didn’t sit well with coach Lynne Roberts.

“I don’t think we underachieved last year and this year is still going,” Roberts said in Atlanta on Monday before the team’s loss to the Dream. “For where we want to get, that’s not where we want to be, but we tripled our win total in my first year — that’s not underachieving. We haven’t hit our stride, we’ve been injured all year. Hopefully we get [Kelsey Plum] and Cam [Brink] back. Our system is designed around KP. I’m not close to thinking we are underachieving.”

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Clippers probe should wrap up this summer

From Broderick Turner: NBA commissioner Adam Silver reiterated Tuesday night after the Board of Governors meeting that the investigation into whether the Clippers circumvented the salary cap by funneling money to Kawhi Leonard for an endorsement deal he allegedly never fulfilled still is not completed.

Silver said his “timeline remains this summer” to make his findings known after high-powered New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz wraps up its investigation and presents the findings to the NBA.

The investigation centers on a $28-million endorsement deal to Leonard from a company called Aspiration that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer invested $60 million into.

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This day in sports history

1912 — Jim Thorpe wins the decathlon at the Stockholm Olympics and, in the closing ceremony, Sweden’s King Gustav proclaims Thorpe the world’s greatest athlete.

1922 — Gene Sarazen shoots a final-round 68 to beat out Bobby Jones and John Black for the U.S. Open golf championship.

1923 — Amateur Bobby Jones beats Bobby Cruikshank by two strokes in a playoff to win the U.S. Open golf title.

1927 — Bobby Jones wins the British Open shooting a championship record 7-under 285 at the Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland. It’s the second straight Open title for the amateur, who goes wire-to-wire for a six-stroke victory over Aubrey Boomer and Fred Dobson.

1945 — Byron Nelson defeats Sam Byrd in the final round of the PGA golf tournament.

1961 — Arnold Palmer shoots a 284 at Royal Birkdale to win his first British Open title.

1967 — Argentina’s Roberto DeVicenzo wins the British Open by two strokes over defending champion Jack Nicklaus.

1972 — Lee Trevino wins his second consecutive British Open title by beating Jack Nicklaus by one stroke.

1978 — Jack Nicklaus shoots a 281 at St. Andrews to win his third and final British Open.

1984 — Hollis Stacy wins her third U.S. Women’s Open golf title, beating Rosie Jones by one stroke.

1990 — Betsy King overcomes an 11-shot deficit over the final 33 holes to win her second consecutive U.S. Women’s Open as Patty Sheehan blows an eight-shot lead over the final 23 holes.

1991 — Sandhi Ortiz-DelValle becomes the first woman to officiate a men’s pro basketball game, working a United States Basketball League game between the New Haven Skyhawks and the Philadelphia Spirit.

2000 — Lennox Lewis stops Francois Botha at 2:39 of the second round to retain his WBC and IBF heavyweight titles in London.

2007 — BYU star Daniel Summerhays becomes the first amateur winner in Nationwide Tour history. Summerhays scores a two-stroke victory over Chad Collins and Chris Nallen in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Invitational.

2007 — Copa América Final, Maracaibo, Venezuela: Defending champions Brazil win their 8th title with a 3-0 win over Argentina.

2010 — Rory McIlroy, a 21-year-old from Northern Ireland, ties the major championship record by shooting a 9-under 63 in the opening round of the British Open at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.

2010 — Caster Semenya wins her first race since being cleared to return to competition after undergoing gender tests, winning the 800 meters in a modest time against a weak field at a low-key meet in Finland.

2018 — Novak Djokovic wins his fourth Wimbledon title with a 6-2, 6-2 7-6 (3) victory over Kevin Anderson. It’s Djokovic’s 13th major trophy, the fourth-highest total in the history of men’s tennis, trailing only Roger Federer’s 20, Rafael Nadal’s 17 and Pete Sampras’ 14. At No. 21, Djokovic is the lowest-ranked Wimbledon titlist since Goran Ivanisevic in 2001.

2018 — France wins its second World Cup title with a 4-2 win over Croatia in a dramatic final in Moscow.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1901 — Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants pitched his first of two career no-hitters, beating the St. Louis Cardinals 5-0.

1921 — NY Yankees slugger Babe Ruth ties MLB record of 138 career home runs (held by Roger Connor since 1895).

1960 — Baltimore’s Brooks Robinson goes 5-for-5, hitting for the cycle and driving in three runs to lead the Orioles past the Chicago White Sox 5-2.

1969 — Cincinnati’s Lee May hit four home runs in a doubleheader split with the Atlanta Braves. May had two home runs and drove in five runs in both games. The Reds lost the opener 9-8 but won the second game 10-4.

1969 — Rod Carew stole home off Chicago’s Gerry Nyman in the Minnesota Twins’ 6-2 victory. It was Carew’s seventh steal of home for the year and tied Pete Reiser’s 1946 major league mark.

1973 — Nolan Ryan of the Angels struck out 17 batters and threw his second no-hitter of the year, beating Detroit 6-0.

1980 — Johnny Bench broke Yogi Berra’s record for home runs by a catcher, and the Cincinnati Reds beat the Montreal Expos 12-7. Bench hit his 314th homer as a catcher off David Palmer. Bench had 33 home runs while playing other positions.

1997 — The San Francisco Giants scored 13 runs to set a modern NL record for runs in a seventh inning en route to a 16-2 rout of the San Diego Padres. The Giants set the NL record for the most runs in a seventh inning since 1900.

1999 — After 22½ years in the dreary Kingdome, Seattle finally played a home game outdoors, moving into a $517.6 million ballpark with a retractable roof. Jose Mesa wasted a ninth-inning lead by walking four batters and the Mariners lost 3-2 to the San Diego Padres in Safeco Field’s opener.

2003 — Garret Anderson of the Angels went 3-for-4 with a two-run homer and a double, powering the American League past the National League 7-6 in the All-Star Game.

2005 — Baltimore’s Rafael Palmeiro became the 26th player to reach 3,000 hits with an RBI double into the left-field corner off Joel Pineiro in the fifth inning of a 6-3 win over Seattle. Palmeiro joined Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray as the only players with 3,000 hits and 500 homers.

2007 — The Philadelphia Phillies lost their 10,000th game, 10-2 to St. Louis. The franchise, born in 1883 as the Philadelphia Quakers and later unofficially called the Blue Jays in the mid-1940s, fell to 8,810-10,000.

2008 — Justin Morneau slid home just in time on Michael Young’s sacrifice fly in the 15th inning, giving the American League a 4-3 victory in the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. The AL extended its unbeaten streak to 12.

2014 — With Derek Jeter going out a winner in his last All-Star appearance, Mike Trout drove in two runs with a triple and a double to lead the American League past the National League 5-3. Jeter started his 14th and final midsummer classic and went 2 for 2 before being removed in the top of the fourth inning.

2017 — Cody Bellinger became the first Dodgers rookie to hit for the cycle and Alex Wood became the first Dodgers pitcher in more than a century to win his first 11 decisions in a season, helping Los Angeles beat the Miami Marlins 7-1.

2021 — Tampa Bay catcher Travis d’Arnaud becomes first player in MLB history to hit three homers while catching and batting leadoff in the Rays’ 5-4 win over the NY Yankees.

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.

Ben Stokes is set to play for the first time since retiring from international cricket by appearing for Durham at Derbyshire on Tuesday.

The former England captain will be part of the opening round of matches in the One-Day Cup – the day The Hundred begins.

Stokes announced an abrupt retirement from international cricket during England’s third Test against New Zealand last month.

Before that match, 35-year-old Stokes missed the second Test during an investigation into an incident in a London nightclub.

In his period away from the England team, the all-rounder played in Durham’s County Championship match against Northamptonshire.

Although Stokes said he had developed “negative feelings” around playing for England, he said his time back in county cricket rekindled his love for the game.

“Being back at Durham, when I wasn’t playing in the second Test, I found a new lease of life for the game, but unfortunately I just couldn’t get that feeling back,” said Stokes.

“I’m very excited about the next part of what I get to do. Going back to playing for my boyhood club Durham, I’m comparing this week to that week – right now I am buzzing.

“But there have been moments this week that have been really tough and it just adds to everything and it makes it clear that I’ve made the right decision.”

After playing in the One-Day Cup, Stokes could feature again in the Championship before the end of the season.

The timing of his return means a clash with the launch of the revamped version of The Hundred.

This season is the first since stakes in the eight franchises were sold to investors for about £520m, resulting in some new team names, branding and players earning more money.

Stokes did not enter the auction and was scheduled to play for Durham in the One-Day Cup before he announced his retirement.

Depending on the extent of his involvement, Stokes, perhaps the most high-profile cricketer in the country, could find himself playing at some intimate venues.

Durham have home games scheduled at South Northumberland Cricket Club in Gosforth and Darlington CC. Their away trip to Yorkshire is at York CC.

Stokes has not played any 50-over cricket since the 2023 World Cup, which was also his last limited-overs game for England.

The game at Derby will mark the first time Stokes has played a domestic one-day fixture for Durham in 12 years.

His most recent 50-over game for Durham was their victory over Warwickshire in the 2014 One-Day Cup final. Then aged 23, he made 164 in the semi-final win over Nottinghamshire.

Stokes’ last domestic 50-over cricket anywhere was a stint playing for Canterbury in New Zealand in 2017, during the period when he missed England’s Ashes tour of Australia following an incident outside a Bristol nightclub.

Since Stokes’ retirement from international cricket, Brendon McCullum has been sacked as England Test coach.

McCullum said he had received “nice messages” from Stokes since the announcement.

Jack White stepped in when Charley Crockett accidentally hired, then fired, a satanic doo-wop duo. Happens to everyone, right?

The outlaw country singer apparently thought the husband-and-wife duo known as Twin Temple were like Black Sabbath when he invited them to open two shows for him this week, a July 14 date in Troutdale, Ore., and another on July 18 in Paso Robles. With songs including “Satan’s a Woman,” “Lucifer, My Love,” “Let’s Have a Satanic Orgy” and “Burn Your Bible,” it’s anyone’s guess how Crockett missed the duo’s shtick.

“Today we were informed that Charley Crockett has decided to remove Twin Temple from his upcoming shows next week due to our Satanic imagery,” the musicians wrote on Instagram last week.

“Unfortunately, that means we will not be able to perform for you next week as planned. We are really disappointed as we were looking forward to getting back out and seeing you, and also what it meant as far as bringing different types of people and music lovers together. We are sorry to everyone who was planning to see us.

“We’re grateful for your support, not only of Twin Temple, but more importantly of artistic freedom. HAIL SATAN! 93/93”

Crockett, who dropped his 16th studio album, “Age of the Ram,” in April, posted his own since-deleted message on social media, writing, “Hail Satan? Not me Jack.”

Twin Temple, composed of married couple Alexandra and Zachary James, weren’t out of work for long. White, the former White Stripes frontman, who happened to be kicking off a world tour in support of his new album, “Frozen Charlotte,” caught wind of the debacle and stepped in.

“Twin Temple, Would you like to open my show in L.A. on September 29th at the Hollywood Palladium? Let me know,” White posted on Friday, adding, “Get in front of me Satan!”

The duo was quick to accept, commenting on White’s invite, “Unholy hell…. Sir Jack, you have no idea what this means to us. Lifelong fans- dead leaves on the dirty ground was one of the first songs I (Alex) ever learned on guitar. We were actually planning on coming to this show. It would be a most infernal pleasure to play the devils music with you.”

On Tuesday, Twin Temple announced their third record, “Doomed Lovers,” produced by Shooter Jennings (who also produced Crockett’s “Age of the Ram” and other recent albums). The album will drop Oct. 9 via their own Pentagrammaton Records. The duo told Rolling Stone on Tuesday that they were sad about the turn of events with Crockett but confirmed that their swanky Satan-loving doo-wop isn’t a sham.

“Satan’s the original outlaw, right? He’s a rebel angel,” Alexandra told the outlet. “He’s the one who questioned authority, fought for himself, refused to bow down or conform, and was like non serviam. That was a metaphor that resonated very strongly with me.”

She added, “It’s really fun to go shopping for a human skull and a Ronettes record in the same day, and we get to do that with our band.”

While Twin Temple has been booking shows and working on the album announcement, Crockett has continued to post about the drama from the road. “Well, now I know how it feels when they try to cancel you on the right AND the left,” he wrote on Facebook on Monday. “The thing is, I never subscribed. America can be a One Eyed Jack, but I’ve seen your other side.”

Folarin Balogun insists that the red card controversy surrounding him during the World Cup was not the reason the U.S. lost 4-1 to Belgium in the round of 16.

But, the breakout American star said Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show, “it didn’t help.”

“As an athlete, you go into a game that’s already difficult enough with everything that goes on, the pressure,” Balogun said. “So to have more pressure, not just internally [but also] from almost the whole footballing world, was difficult. But it’s not an excuse. We were disappointed with the way it ended, but there’s still a lot to be proud of.”

Balogun, a birthright U.S. citizen whose Nigerian parents live in England, scored his third goal in four World Cup games during a 2-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 1 in Santa Clara. But he also received a straight red card for stomping on the ankle of Bosnian center back Tarik Muharemović, meaning the top-scoring American player would have to miss the next game.

It was a controversial call, with some feeling the red card was unwarranted since Balogun’s action didn’t seem intentional.

Then came an even more controversial call, when President Trump reached out to FIFA President Gianni Infantino to ask for the decision to be reviewed. On July 6, the day before the U.S.-Belgium game, FIFA announced that Balogun’s suspension had been lifted and he would be allowed to play the following day.

The only other time a red-card suspension was overruled during a World Cup was in 1962, when Brazilian attacker Garrincha was allowed to play in the final after Brazil’s prime minister lobbied on his behalf.

“My initial reaction was, I was happy to be back in the team,” Balogun said Tuesday on “CBS Mornings.” “But when I kind of started to reflect, I knew it was going to cause a lot of controversy.”

He was correct about that. Although Infantino insisted that the FIFA Disciplinary Committee makes its decisions independently, the reversal caused outrage among many in the soccer world. Belgium submitted an appeal, but it was rejected hours before the game.

Amid all that, the U.S. had to prepare for Belgium — first without and then with Balogun in the mix. He told CBS the situation was “confusing” for all involved.

“I could almost see within my teammates a bit of nerves, because it’s something that is so unique,” Balogun said. “But the closer we got to the game, I tried to just focus as best as I could, but it was difficult. A lot of outside noise, and that’s hard to avoid.”

He added, though, that he and his teammates were “able to separate the emotion from the job at hand,” and the distractions didn’t contribute to the disappointing loss.

“We’re all professionals, so it’s not something I think was too difficult to be separate once we kind of got over the initial announcement that I’d be back in the team,” Balogun said. “I think you saw definitely it was a difficult game against Belgium, and that can kind of overshadow whether we were focused or not. … I know we had full concentration going into the game.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has temporarily ordered officers to avoid, in most cases, making vehicle stops in the wake of two deadly shootings.

The tactical shift comes a day after an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian man in Biddeford, Maine, and a week after an ICE officer fatally shot another man in Houston. Both men were driving at the time of the shootings, and the incidents have renewed criticism over the agency’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Multiple news outlets and a former federal immigration official said early Tuesday that the order allows for exceptions if officers are executing a criminal warrant and working with partner law enforcement agencies. The directive, later confirmed by a top official, is a temporary pause while ICE officers receive more training on vehicle stops.

An ICE spokesperson said that the agency wouldn’t discuss law enforcement tactics but that “we are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets.”

But on Fox News on Tuesday afternoon, Tom Homan, a top White House immigration official, said the decision to halt most vehicle stops was made by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and top ICE leadership. But he emphasized that “it’s not a policy change, it’s a temporary pause” while officials review the incidents and decide whether training could be improved.

Homan said the pause won’t affect ICE arrests. He said officers could, in some instances, make an arrest before someone gets into their vehicle or after they arrive at their destination.

“I think it’s going to be a short pause,” he said. “I’m confident that ICE is well trained in vehicle stops and you’re going to see us keep moving forward.”

Reacting to ICE’s policy change, Rep. Christian Menefee (D-Texas) said in a statement that training won’t solve the agency’s deeply ingrained issues.

“Immigration enforcement shouldn’t be heavily militarized and chasing people through our streets,” he said. “The American people deserve competent leadership and law enforcement that is transparent, accountable, and worthy of the public’s trust.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she had urged Mullin to “cease all non-urgent vehicle stops” in the wake of the Biddeford shooting.

“I am encouraged that the Department has agreed to do so,” she wrote on X.

Hundreds of people protested in Biddeford on Tuesday over the killing Monday of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian. Protests similarly broke out in Houston last week after the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old from Mexico.

The Department of Homeland Security alleged that the men killed in both incidents resisted arrest and that the officers fired their weapons defensively as the men attempted to flee. Neither man was the intended target of the ICE officers.

Local officials in Houston and Biddeford are calling for independent investigations into the shootings. In both instances, the officers involved were not wearing body cameras.

Homeland Security said the officer who shot Durán Guerrero was “fearing for public safety.” The agency said Salgado Araujo had “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.”

Durán Guerrero’s shooting marked at least the ninth such death since President Trump began his immigration crackdown. In a scathing post on X, outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the shooting an assassination “at the hands of the U.S. government.”

Durán Guerrero is survived by his wife and young daughter. Advocacy groups said he was authorized to work in the U.S.

Daniel Boucher, who lives near where Durán Guerrero was shot, said he “clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop.’”

The two shootings come as immigration arrests have surged again amid a Trump administration push to carry out its mass deportation agenda. Over five days at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

BIDDEFORD, Maine — Trump administration officials have told Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to suspend most vehicle stops after two deadly shootings in little over a week, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The order came a day after an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian man in Maine, renewing criticism of the agency’s tactics during enforcement operations.

The suspension is not absolute and there’s room for exceptions when executing a criminal warrant or working with partner agencies, according to a person who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive law enforcement operations.

The Department of Homeland Security said an ICE officer, “fearing for public safety,” shot and killed the man Monday in the city of Biddeford while officers were watching the home of someone they believed was in the U.S. illegally and had a final order of removal from the country.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Whittle, Brook and Sisak write for Associated Press.

The Writers Guild of America sued Paramount on Tuesday, alleging that the company’s planned $111-billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery violates federal antitrust law.
The union said that with fewer competitors, the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery business would be able to lower costs by reducing writers’ wages and work.

“Writers will be paid less and have fewer employment opportunities,” the WGA said in its lawsuit.

The move comes a day after California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta led a coalition of 12 Democratic state attorneys general who filed a federal lawsuit to block Paramount Skydance’s $111-billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

Bonta has separately asked a judge in San Francisco for a temporary restraining order to hold up the deal while his case is pending in court.

“We feel we have a very strong case,” Bonta said Tuesday during a town hall meeting. “This proposed merger will raise prices. It will lower quality. It will reduce output. It will hurt the American people, and it’ll hurt the the economy and competition.”

The writers guild’s missive creates a second line of attack against tech scion David Ellison’s industry-reshaping deal.

Ellison’s proposed merger has been moving closer to the finish line after securing approvals from the U.S. Justice Department and numerous other foreign governments. President Trump, an ally of Ellison’s billionaire father Larry Ellison, favors the deal.

David Ellison wants to close the deal by September to avoid a higher payout to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders.

A Paramount spokeswoman said the company is reviewing the lawsuit.

The proposed merger has sparked fears in Hollywood that it would bring thousands of job losses — similar to past consolidations, including Walt Disney Co.’s 2019 takeover of Fox entertainment properties.

“The Writers Guild of America will not stand idly by as Paramount attempts to violate our country’s antitrust laws and deepen the contraction entertainment workers already feel,” said Writers Guild of America East President Tom Fontana in a statement. “This proposed combined entity would be the largest employer of writers, with tremendous power to suppress our wages, eliminate opportunities for emerging writers, cut jobs across the industry, and produce less programming, affecting the range of storytelling. This merger is not inevitable and we are fighting to stop it.”

Austin Reaves discusses the Lakers after LeBron

From Broderick Turner: From the time Austin Reaves joined the Lakers in 2021 as an undrafted prospect, his basketball life centered around playing with a savant in LeBron James.

That no longer will be the case.

Reaves re-signed with the Lakers on a four-year, $180-million deal, but James decided to move on as he prepares to play an unprecedented 24th season.

Reaves was stunned when he heard about James’ decision while playing golf in Lake Tahoe. Nearly two weeks later, Reaves says he still is trying to process the development.

“I kind of was thinking about it last night when I got here,” Reaves said Monday in his first news conference since re-signing. “Starting the season without him being on the team is going to be different for me. He’s kind of all I’ve ever known. Just him being around, joking around, acting like he’s 15. But that’s his decision and like I said in Tahoe, anytime I’ve talked about it, I got nothing but love and respect for him and yeah, let’s play some golf soon.”

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Lakers sign Ziaire Williams to one-year, $3-million deal to bolster their depth

How France became a World Cup power

From Kevin Baxter: Before it could rise in the World Cup, France first had to fall.

And the fall was spectacular.

In 2010, four years after reaching the final for the second time in three World Cups, the players revolted against coach Raymond Domenech during the tournament. In response, the managing director of the country’s soccer federation resigned in disgust, and the team left South Africa winless after scoring just once in three games.

That matched France’s worst World Cup performance in 76 years. The team, outsiders agreed, had become impossible to coach.

Four years later France made the quarterfinals, beginning a streak in which it has reached the final eight in four consecutive World Cups for the first time. If France beats Spain in the semifinals Tuesday it will advance to the final for a third straight time.

Only Brazil and Germany have done that.

The base for that success was laid a generation before the collapse in South Africa, when a series of poor performances led the French Football Federation to create a series of 16 government-subsidized academies known as Centres de Formation.

Continue reading here

World Cup semifinals schedule

All times Pacific
All games on Fox and Telemundo

Tuesday
France vs. Spain, noon

Wednesday
England vs. Argentina, noon

Third-place match

Saturday, 2 p.m.

Championship match

Sunday, noon

How Justin Wrobleski became an All-Star

From Maddie Lee: Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski could have been content with his performance the first couple of months this season. After all, he’d come into the year fighting for a rotation spot, and he’d shown in that time that he was ready to be a full-time major-league starter.

That wasn’t enough.

While still holding on to his identity as a pitcher who goes right at hitters, Wrobleski tallied 20 strikeouts over his last two starts of the first half.

“We’re just doing a good job with the plan,” Wrobleski said last week, days before he was named a first-time All-Star. “I feel like I’m continuing to get better at knowing where to go with two strikes, knowing where to go versus a certain hitter with two strikes and just kind of reading the game.”

Continue reading here

Shaikin: Love it or hate it: Would the Dodgers’ NL West rivals call a Tarik Skubal trade overkill?

Shaikin: Inside the Shohei Ohtani Economy driving a wild auction for his worn cleats

Sparks lose to the Dream

Angel Reese had 23 points and 13 rebounds for her WNBA-leading 16th double-double of the season, Allisha Gray added 20 points, and the Atlanta Dream beat the Sparks 101-92 on Monday night.

Gray made Atlanta’s first field goal of the fourth quarter with 4:07 remaining to tie it at 87. Then, Reese got a friendly roll on her third made three-pointer of the season to make it 90-87 and she added two free throws on the next possession for a five-point lead. Jordin Canada capped the 9-0 run for a 94-87 lead.

Canada finished with 16 points and Rhyne Howard added 11 for Atlanta (14-10), which had lost six of its last seven games. Reese, who missed Saturday’s game against Portland, was seven for 11 from the field and made all eight of her free throws in 32 minutes.

Continue reading here

Sparks box score

WNBA standings

This day in sports history

1912 — Kenneth McArthur runs Olympic record marathon (2:36:54.8).

1951 — Citation is the first horse to win $1 million in a career by taking the Hollywood Gold Cup by four lengths in Inglewood. Citation retires after the race with total earnings of $1,085,760. In 45 starts, Citation ran out of the money only once.

1964 — Jacques Anquetil wins his fifth Tour de France. It’s his fourth straight title of the cycling event.

1973 — Tom Weiskopf wins the British Open by three strokes over Johnny Miller and Neil Coles. Weiskopf goes wire-to-wire and his total of 12-under-par 276 matches the Open Championship record set by Arnold Palmer on the same Troon Golf Club course in 1962.

1985 — Kathy Baker beats Judy Clark by three strokes to win the U.S. Women’s Open golf title.

1985 — The Baltimore Stars defeat the Oakland Invaders 28-24 to win the United States Football League championship.

1986 — Jane Geddes beats Sally Little in an 18-hole playoff to take the U.S. Women’s Open championship.

1991 — Meg Mallon shoots a 4-under 67 for a two-stroke victory over Pat Bradley in the 46th U.S. Women’s Open. Mallon finishes with a 1-under 283.

2001 — John Campbell scores an unprecedented sixth victory in the $1 million Meadowlands Pace as Real Desire beats favored Bettor’s Delight in the stretch. Real Desire paces the mile in 1:49.3 in matching the record set by The Panderosa two years ago in the race that gave Campbell his fifth win. Campbell, 46, is a winner of a $1 million race 19 times.

2005 — In Oklahoma City, the United States is beaten in an international softball game for the first time since 2002, losing 2-1 to Canada in the inaugural World Cup of Softball.

2011 — Kaio breaks former grand champion Chiyonofuji career sumo victory record, beating Mongolian Kyokutenho for No. 1,046. The 39-year-old Kaio forces out Kyokutenho in the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament.

2011 — Amateur Tom Lewis shoots a record 5-under 65 in the opening round of the British Open. The 20-year-old Lewis posts the lowest round ever by an amateur in golf’s oldest major to pull even with Thomas Bjorn at Royal St. George’s.

2013 — Jordan Spieth becomes the youngest winner on the PGA Tour in 82 years. The 19-year-old outlasts David Hearn and Zach Johnson on the fifth hole of a playoff to win the John Deere Classic. He’s the first teenager to win since Ralph Guldahl took the Santa Monica Open in 1931.

2018 — Angelique Kerber claims her first Wimbledon title with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over seven-time champion Serena Williams.

2019 — Novak Dokovic wins the longest ever Wimbledon title over Roger Federer 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 13-12 (3) in 4 hours 57 minutes.

2019 — English Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins a record sixth British Formula 1 Grand Prix at Silverstone; moves him one win clear of Jim Clark and Alain Prost (five).

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1916 — St. Louis Browns pitcher Ernie Koob went the distance in a 17-inning 0-0 tie with the Boston Red Sox. Carl Mays went the first 15 innings for the Red Sox and Dutch Leonard finished.

1946 — Cleveland player-manager Lou Boudreau hit four doubles and a home run in the first game of a doubleheader against Boston, but Ted Williams connected for three home runs and drove in eight runs for an 11-10 Red Sox victory.

1956 — Mel Parnell of the Boston Red Sox pitched a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox for a 4-0 victory at Fenway Park.

1967 — Eddie Mathews of the Astros hit his 500th home run off San Francisco’s Juan Marichal at Candlestick Park. Houston beat the Giants 8-6.

1968 — Hank Aaron hit his 500th home run off Mike McCormick as the Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants 4-2.

1968 — Don Wilson of the Houston Astros struck out 18 Reds in a 6-1 victory over Cincinnati in the nightcap of a doubleheader.

1969 — Oakland’s Reggie Jackson knocked in 10 runs in a 21-7 win over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Jackson had five hits in six at-bats, including two two-run homers and a double.

1970 — Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds scored on Jim Hickman’s 12th-inning single after bowling over Cleveland’s Ray Fosse at home plate to give the NL a 5-4 victory over the AL at Riverfront Stadium.

1972 — In a major league first, Bill Haller was the umpire behind the plate while his brother Tom was the catcher for the Detroit Tigers.

1995 — Ramon Martinez threw the first no-hitter of the season as the Dodgers beat the Florida Marlins 7-0. Martinez was perfect for 7 1-3 innings before walking Tommy Gregg.

2006 — The New York Yankees snapped Jose Contreras’ winning streak at 17 decisions with a 6-5 win over the Chicago White Sox. Contreras (9-1) hadn’t lost since dropping a 4-2 decision to Minnesota last Aug. 15.

2008 — Josh Hamilton of Texas, with a dazzling display of power, hit a record 28 homers in the first round of the All-Star Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium before he was beaten out by Minnesota’s Justin Morneau in the finals.

2009 — The American League continued its dominance over the National League with a 4-3 win in the All-Star game. The AL is 12-0-1 since its 1996 defeat at Philadelphia — the longest unbeaten streak in All-Star history. Carl Crawford of Tampa, robbed Brad Hawpe of a go-ahead homer in the eighth and took home MVP honors.

2014 — Yoenis Cespedes successfully defends his title as Home Run Derby champion in the annual event held before the All-Star Game at Target Field in Minneapolis, MN. Cespedes defeats Todd Frazier in the final round, 9 long balls to 1, having hit 28 overall. Ken Griffey Jr. was the only other repeat winner in the event, winning in 1998 and 1999.

2015 — Mike Trout became the first player in 38 years to lead off the All-Star Game with a home run, and the American League beat the National League 6-3 to secure home-field advantage in the World Series for the third straight time and 10th in 13 years. Trout also became the first player to be selected the game’s MVP two years in row.

2018 — The Cardinals fire manager Mike Matheny just before the All-Star break, after a loss to the Reds that puts them just one game above .500. Hitting coach John Mabry and assistant hitting coach Bill Mueller are also let go, while bench coach Mike Shildt is named interim manager, with a permanent replacement expected to be named when play resumes after the Mid-Summer Classic in a few days. However, Shildt will do so well that he will be made permanent within a few weeks.

2023 — Brothers Josh Naylor and Bo Naylor both hit two-run homers in the 3rd inning in the Guardians’ 12-4 loss to the Rangers at Globe Life Park. It the first time that brothers hit multi-run homers for the same team in the same inning.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

When Gabriela Jaquez checked into Friday’s game against the Sparks, it was so familiar. The aura of the arena, the cheers from her friends and family.

But it was actually Jaquez’s first time playing on that court. Growing up in Camarillo, she spent her childhood watching Lakers and Sparks games, as she said, “back when it was Staples Center.”

At Crypto.com Arena, though, she was a professional. Months after winning a national title with UCLA, Jaquez was facing her hometown WNBA squad as a member of the Chicago Sky.

“All the legends that have played here, all the games that I have attended here,” she said ahead of Friday’s game. “I’m just like, I walked out there, I told Jacy [Sheldon,] my teammate, that I was like, ‘This is so crazy.’ Like I’m just playing in here. I’ve watched so many games.”

In her first WNBA season, Jaquez has averaged 23 minutes, 8.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game. She has started 15 games, but came off the bench Friday when she scored a team-leading 15 points with five rebounds and shot six for 12 in front of what she said was two suites full of friends and family.

Jaquez was the Sky’s first-round selection at fifth overall a week after she helped the Bruins to their national title. She was one of six UCLA players taken in that draft and five in the first round, setting a WNBA record for a single program.

“It’s a very quick transition,” Jaquez said. “I don’t think you can fully prepare for that transition just because I don’t think there’s anything like it. But I did know that it was going to be quick and it was going to be fast, but I just try to stay grateful through it all.”

Sparks coach Lynne Roberts faced Jaquez in the Pac-12 while Roberts was at Utah and nearly recruited Jaquez to join the Utes many years ago.

The Chicago Sky’s Gabriela Jaquez drives to the basket under pressure from the Wings’ Azzi Fudd on Sunday in Dallas.

(Sam Hodde / Getty Images)

“[UCLA coach] Cori [Close] and I were joking the other day,” Roberts said. “I was close [with Jaquez] and she just kept saying, ‘Well, I’m just waiting to see what UCLA does.’ So I was texting Cori, like, ‘Would you please cut her loose or offer her?’ I’ve always been a big fan of hers. But I think all those guys, they learned how to play with other stars. I think that’s a key in being a WNBA player. You’ve got to learn you’re not the one anymore. And I think at UCLA with that roster they had, they all had to learn how to, you know, sacrifice something to get the ultimate goal. So they’re coming in as team players.”

Close did not cut Jaquez loose and she went on to become a hometown hero with the Bruins. After three solid seasons, Jaquez became a much stronger scoring threat as a senior, shooting a career-high 53.9% with 13.5 points per game during the NCAA title-winning season.

Already established as a strong rebounder and defender, adding that offensive element raised her draft stock year-over-year higher than any other prospect.

“There’s so much to learn coming into this league,” Jaquez said. “I don’t know if I could really name one [thing], but it’s just a lot of games. That’s kind of like the main one that comes to my mind is just the amount of games that you’re playing.”

UCLA Bruins Angela Dugalic, Kiki Rice, Gianna Kneepkens, Lauren Betts and Gabriela Jaquez pose at the WNBA draft. All five were selected in the first round of the draft.

(Angelina Katsanis / Getty Images)

The seniors and graduate students on the 2025-26 UCLA national championship team remain close. Jaquez has faced off against former teammates Charlisse Leger-Walker, Gianna Kneepkens and Kiki Rice.

“We still keep that senior group chat alive, just kind of updating each other,” Jaquez said. “Obviously, when we play each other I’ll text, ‘I’m coming into town,’ or they’ll text me and we always can get dinner the night before, and so that’s always super special. Especially me being in a new state [and] a new city, as I’ve been in Southern California my whole life until now, it’s great to see familiar faces and I’m really grateful that I could catch up with my [former] teammates.”

Roch Cholowsky headlines Bruins in MLB draft

No. 1 MLB draft pick Roch Cholowsky throws a ceremonial first pitch before the White Sox played the Athletics in Chicago on Sunday.

(Nam Y. Huh / Ap Photo/nam Y. Huh)

After an elite UCLA career, Roch Cholowsky was drafted by the Chicago White Sox with the No. 1 overall pick Saturday.

He became the third Bruin to be selected No. 1, joining Gerrit Cole (2011) and Chris Chambliss (1970).

On Monday, MLB.com reported Cholowsky passed his physical and is set to receive a record-setting signing bonus of $10.35 million. The White Sox have not yet announced the deal.

Cholowsky’s bonus tops the $9.3 million bonuses the Reds gave Chase Burns and the Rockies gave Charlie Condon in 2024, according to MLB.com.

Cholowsky said he was thrilled to be drafted by Chicago, where he enjoyed pre-draft meetings with team officials and mingled in the clubhouse of a team that entered the All-Star break leading the AL Central.

“It really felt like to me like a college clubhouse,” Cholowsky told the Associated Press. “It’s just a different feel in there.”

Cholowsky was one of 10 Bruins selected in the MLB draft.

Logan Reddemann (No. 38, Colorado Rockies), Mulivai Levu (No. 70, Cincinnati Reds) and Roman Martin (No. 111, Athletics) joined Cholowsky getting selected on the first day of the draft.

Bruins Cal Randall (No. 146, St. Louis Cardinals), Will Gasparino (No. 161, Philadelphia Phillies), Dean West (No. 222, Toronto Blue Jays), Cashel Dugger (No. 256, Washington Nationals), Michael Barnett (No. 587, Minnesota Twins) and Justin Lee (No. 609, Philadelphia Phillies) were drafted on the second day.

Walt Hazzard to be inducted into Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame

UCLA’s Walt Hazzard carries the NCAA national championship trophy as the team arrives at LAX in 1964.

(Harold Matosian / Associated Press)

Former UCLA player and coach Walt Hazzard will be inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, a selection committee announced Monday.

Hazzard, who died in 2011 at the age of 69, was a senior co-captain on the 1963-64 UCLA basketball team that won the first national title in the program’s history and posted a 30-0 record. He averaged a career-best 18.6 points for the title-winning team, earning most outstanding playerhonors at the Final Four. He also won national player of the year honors.

The 6-foot-2 point guard who grew up in Philadelphia won an Olympic gold medal in 1964 and was a two-time All-American under the direction of Bruins coach John Wooden.

Hazzard went on to coach at Compton College, Chapman and UCLA, leading the Bruins to an NIT title and Pac-10 regular season tournament titles during his four seasons leading the program. His Hall of Fame induction, however, is solely based on his performance as a player.

The 2026 induction class was selected by a committee comprised of college basketball leaders from around the country. The National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame is administered by the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches Foundation.

In case you missed it

Chicago White Sox select UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky with No. 1 pick in MLB draft

‘I want to have fun with it.’ Katelyn Ohashi chasing joyful L.A. Olympic dream at 29

UCLA basketball lands highly touted Serbian small forward Nikola Kusturica

UCLA Unlocked: Former Bruin Jordin Canada is enjoying a Dream season

Have something Bruin?

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.

Dodgers swept by Diamondbacks

From Maddie Lee: The Dodgers needed to turn things around Sunday to wrap up the first half on a high note. Manager Dave Roberts said as much the night before.

“When you give teams free bases, extra outs, it’s hard to win a game, regardless of the opponent,” he said. “Emmet [Sheehan] needs to go out there and throw the baseball well tomorrow. We’ve got to find a way to win a game tomorrow to feel somewhat better about going into the break.”

Instead, the Dodgers fell to the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-3, swept for the first time this season. It was Arizona’s first sweep at Dodger Stadium since September 2017.

Perhaps the break is coming at a good time.

“I guess,” Roberts said. “Gives guys a reset. … We’ve got some good teams coming up and we’ve got to play good baseball.”

Sheehan at least did his job, holding the Diamondbacks to three runs in 5⅓ innings. It was clear from the first at-bat that his pitch count could limit how deep he pitched into the game. Sheehan won a 14-pitch battle to strike out Ketel Marte.

The right-hander then struck out the side and was efficient enough to pitch into the sixth. He exited after his pitch count reached 101.

Continue reading here

Dodgers box score

MLB standings

World Cup: Seven reasons the U.S team always loses

From Kevin Baxter: Before this summer’s World Cup, FIFA asked the 48 participating teams to provide a list of songs to be played during warmups and goal celebrations and, if appropriate, after victories. On the U.S. list was John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which quickly became the anthem of the team’s run through the tournament.

A more appropriate choice would have been the Buzzcocks’ “Sixteen Again,” because once again that’s where the Americans’ World Cup ended.

In the round of 16. Again.

This was supposed to be the year the U.S. broke through. With a roster full of players from major European teams and 13 who were World Cup veterans, a lack of quality and experience no longer were valid excuses.

And that should force U.S. Soccer into a major, systemic evaluation of what went wrong and how it can be fixed.

Continue reading here

How VAR, a system designed to correct errors, became this World Cup’s biggest villain

News Analysis: Mexico wins back fans but is still searching for ways to pass familiar World Cup wall

World Cup semifinals schedule

All times Pacific
All games on Fox and Telemundo

Tuesday
France vs. Spain, noon

Wednesday
England vs. Argentina, noon

Third-place match

Saturday, 2 p.m.

Championship match

Sunday, noon

Sparks fire their general manager

From Iliana Limón Romero and Marisa Ingemi: The Sparks’ ownership made a major shift in direction on Sunday, firing general manager Raegan Pebley amid a lackluster season that has the team just below the WNBA playoff cutoff line and far from the title-contending form Pebley promised.

Assistant general managers Zach Knowlton and Nate Nielsen will split interim GM duties, the team announced.

“We are grateful to Raegan for her leadership and commitment to the Los Angeles Sparks and women’s basketball,” Sparks managing partner and governor Eric Holoman said in a statement. “Her work on the Sparks roster and player experience will have a lasting positive impact on our organization. We sincerely thank her for all she has invested in the Sparks and wish her success in her next chapter.”

The Sparks (10-11) sit in ninth place in the WNBA standings, one removed from the last playoff spot. The team is coming off back-to-back wins over the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever, which followed a three-game losing streak.

Continue reading here

Dearica Hamby’s relentless effort and loyalty helped her retain key role with Sparks

Angels lose to Rangers

Trevor Larnach homered and drove in two runs, Ryan Jeffers added a two-run double, and the Minnesota Twins beat the Angels 4-2 on Sunday and head into the All-Star break with eight wins in their last nine games.

Larnach’s single in the third inning scored Luke Keaschall, tying the score at 1. Jeffers followed with a double that knocked in Ryan Kreidler and Larnach for a 3-1 lead.

Larnach added a 405-foot homer to right in the eighth inning, his seventh of the season, as the Twins (48-49) won their fifth straight series.

Josh Lowe and Denzer Guzman hit solo home runs for the Angels (38-59), who dropped their fourth straight series. Lowe’s eighth of the season came in the second inning, and Guzman added his fourth in the seventh inning.

Continue reading here

Shaikin: Angels could’ve picked any pitcher in America last year. Their pick Tyler Bremner endures

Angels box score

MLB standings

Jannik Sinner wins Wimbledon men’s title

Jannik Sinner is starting to make a habit of responding to adversity in Paris with titles at Wimbledon.

The top-ranked Sinner beat Alexander Zverev 6-7 (7), 7-6 (2), 6-3, 6-4 Sunday for his second consecutive title at the All England Club after his German opponent appeared bothered by a knee injury following a slip to the grass on a key point in the third set.

Sinner’s fifth Grand Slam title came in his first tournament since a second-round meltdown at the French Open, when he wilted in a Paris heat wave.

Continue reading here

This day in sports history

1881 — William Renshaw sets the record for the shortest men’s championship match by time and games by beating John T. Hartley 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 in 37 minutes at Wimbledon.

1941 — The PGA tournament is won by Vic Ghezzi with a 1-up 38-hole victory over Byron Nelson at Cherry Hills CC Denver

1968 — Gary Player wins the British Open by two strokes over Bob Charles and Jack Nicklaus. It’s the second Open championship for Player and his fifth major title.

1972 — Robert Irsay buys the stock of the Rams for $19 million and swaps the franchise for the Baltimore Colts. The players and coaches are not affected.

1980 — Amy Alcott shoots a record score of 280 to win the U.S. Women’s Open by nine strokes over Hollis Stacy.

1994 — Tonya Harding’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly is sentenced to two years in prison for attack on American Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan.

1996 — Cigar matches Citation’s modern North American record of 16 consecutive wins, pulling away to take the $1.05 million Arlington Citation Challenge by 3½ lengths.

1997 — Alison Nicholas holds off Nancy Lopez for a one-stroke victory in the U.S. Women’s Open. Nicholas shoots a 72-hole total of 10-under 274, the most under par in the 52-year history of the event.

2003 — Beth Daniel becomes the oldest winner in LPGA Tour history, birdying the final two holes to beat Juli Inkster by a stroke in the Canadian Women’s Open. At 46 years, 8 months and 29 days, Daniel breaks the age record set by JoAnne Carner in 1985.

2011 — Abby Wambach breaks a tense tie with a thunderous header in the 79th minute, and the United States earns its first trip to the Women’s World Cup final since winning it in 1999 with a 3-1 victory over France. Japan upsets Sweden 3-1 in the other semifinal.

2014 — Mo Martin hits the best shot of her life to become a major champion in the Women’s British Open. Martin hit a 3-wood that hit the pin on the par-5 closing hole at Royal Birkdale, settling 6 feet for an eagle. Martin closes with an even-par 72 and finishes at 1-under 287 for a one-shot win over Inbee Park and Shanshan Feng.

2014 — Mario Goetze volleys in the winning goal in extra time to give Germany its fourth World Cup title with a 1-0 victory over Argentina.

2017 — Venus Williams reaches her ninth Wimbledon final and first since 2009, turning in her latest display of gutsy serving to beat Johanna Konta 6-4, 6-2. At 37, Williams becomes the oldest finalist at the All England Club since Martina Navratilova was the 1994 runner-up at that age. She also stops Konta’s bid to become the first woman from Britain in 40 years to win Wimbledon. In the opening semifinal, Garbine Muguruza overwhelms Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia 6-1, 6-1 in just over an hour.

2019 — Wimbledon Women’s Tennis: Simona Halep beats Serena Williams 6-2, 6-2 in just 55 minutes; first Romanian to win a Wimbledon singles title.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1896 — Philadelphia’s Ed Delahanty hit four home runs in a losing effort, a 9-8 loss to Chicago.

1934 — Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run in a 4-2 victory over Tommy Bridges and the Detroit Tigers. Lou Gehrig left in the first with a severe case of lumbago, the most serious threat to his streak. He returned for one at bat the next day.

1943 — The first night game in All-Star history, at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, went to the AL, 5-3, despite a single, triple and home run by NL center fielder Vince DiMaggio of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The big blow was a three-run homer by Bobby Doerr of the Boston Red Sox, which gave the AL the lead for good.

1945 — Chicago’s Pat Seerey hit three home runs, a triple and drove in eight runs to lead the White Sox in a 16-4 win over New York at Yankee Stadium.

1954 — Pitcher Dean Stone did not retire a batter but received credit for the AL’s 11-9 All-Star victory at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. Red Schoendienst tried to steal a run for the NL after Stone was summoned in the eighth inning, but the pitcher’s throw to the plate nailed the runner for the third out.

1963 — Early Wynn, at 43, registered his 300th and last victory, pitching the first five innings of Cleveland’s 7-4 triumph over the Kansas City A’s.

1965 — The NL took the lead over the AL for the first time since the All-Star series began, winning 6-5 at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minn.

1971 — Reggie Jackson’s mammoth home run off the power generator on the right-field roof at Tiger Stadium highlighted a barrage of six homers — three by each team — as the AL beat the NL 6-4 in the All-Star game.

1982 — The NL registered its 11th consecutive All-Star victory over the AL with a 4-1 victory at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, the first All-Star game played outside the United States. Dave Concepcion’s two-run homer off Dennis Eckersley in the second inning was the deciding hit.

1993 — Minnesota’s Kirby Puckett homered and doubled to win the MVP award in the AL’s 9-3 victory in the All-Star game at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

1999 — Boston’s Pedro Martinez pitched himself into the All-Star game record book, becoming the first to strike out the first four hitters in an All-Star game, fanning Barry Larkin, Larry Walker and Sammy Sosa in the first inning, and Mark McGwire to start the second. Martinez struck out five in the first two innings — tying an American League record — to lead the AL to a 4-1 victory over the National League.

2010 — Brian McCann’s three-run double in the seventh inning provided the NL all the offense it needed to capture its first Midsummer Classic since 1996 with a 3-1 victory.

2013 — Tim Lincecum threw the second no-hitter in 11 days, a gem saved by a spectacular diving catch by right fielder Hunter Pence in the San Francisco Giants’ 9-0 win against the last-place San Diego Padres. Lincecum, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, was the loser when Cincinnati’s Homer Bailey no-hit the Giants on July 2.

2014 — Madison Bumgarner became the first pitcher in 48 years to hit two grand slams in a season, and Buster Posey also hit a slam that boosted San Francisco to an 8-4 win over Arizona.

2021 — The American League wins the 91st All-Star game with a 5-2 win over the National League for their eighth straight win.

2022 — The Blue Jays, who had entered the season with sky-high expectations, fire manager Charlie Montoyo after the team has lost eight of its last ten games and is now barely ahead of the fifth-place Orioles. Bench coach John Schneider takes over as manager on an interim basis, and Casey Candaele is promoted from triple-A Buffalo to step into the breach left by Schneider on the coaching staff.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Dodgers should not visit the White House

From Bill Plaschke: Surely they hear the chants. They must hear the wonderful chants.

“Let’s go, Doyers! Let’s go, Doyers!”

Surely they see the faces? They can’t miss the gloriously diverse faces.

All shades, all colors, 4 million faces surrounding them with resounding support and unrequited love.

The Dodgers do know they play in Los Angeles, right?

Then why in the hell do they insist on embracing the person trying to tear this city apart?

This is an old issue, it’s been written before, it’s been debated ad nauseam, but it’s happening again and remains as sickening as ever.

The Dodgers are going to celebrate their 2025 World Series title with President Trump at the White House on July 23, it was confirmed Thursday.

Just like last season.

Seriously.

Continue reading here

Dodgers scheduled to visit White House in late July to celebrate 2025 World Series win

World Cup spurs grass/artificial turf NFL debate

From A.J. Perez: FIFA’s natural grass transformation of SoFi Stadium and six other NFL stadiums with artificial surfaces for this summer’s World Cup reignited the debate over grass versus synthetic turf.

Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis long ago took a side in the fight.

“I just always felt that football should be played on grass,” Davis told The Times. “That’s for safety purposes, No. 1. I want it to look like a game was played even if it’s an indoor field. You see grass stains and everything else. I wasn’t going to a stadium without it being grass once I knew that capability was there. Obviously, it added a lot of cost, but it’s worth it.”

FIFA spent millions to lay new grass atop all 11 NFL stadiums and most of the other five stadiums that hosted World Cup games in Mexico and Canada — and some NFL players see this summer’s temporary changeover as the league’s touch-grass moment.

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The world came for soccer. What it discovered about America in 1994 was something else.

Steve Cherundolo will lead U.S. men’s soccer team that will compete in 2028 Olympics

Thursday’s World Cup results

France 2, Morocco 0

Today’s World Cup TV schedule

All times Pacific
Noon, Belgium vs. Spain, Fox, Telemundo

World Cup quarterfinals schedule, results

All times Pacific
All games on Fox and Telemundo

France 2, Morocco 0

Friday
Belgium vs. Spain, noon

Saturday
Norway vs. England, 2 p.m.
Switzerland vs. Argentina, 6 p.m.

Semifinals schedule

Tuesday
France vs. Belgium or Spain, noon

Wednesday
Norway or England vs. Switzerland or Argentina, noon

Third-place match

Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m.

Championship match

Sunday, July 19, noon

Kawhi Leonard trade is put on hold

From Steve Henson: The Toronto Raptors put the brakes on acquiring Kawhi Leonard from the Clippers, announcing Thursday that the trade is on hold until the NBA investigation into whether the Clippers circumvented salary cap rules is complete.

“The NBA league office informed us that as a result of the ongoing investigation involving the Clippers, we would assume the risk of any potential outcome of the investigation impacting Kawhi,” the Raptors said. “In light of this, we will wait until the league’s investigation is complete.”

The teams last month finalized a trade to send Leonard to Toronto for forward Brandon Ingram, shooting guard Gradey Dick, two first-round draft picks, a pick swap and two second-round picks. Leonard spent the last seven seasons with the Clippers after leading the Raptors to the 2019 NBA championship.

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UCLA lands big name

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

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

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

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No charges filed against Rams’ Alaric Jackson

From Austin Knoblauch: Rams offensive lineman Alaric Jackson is not facing charges related to his arrest last month on suspicion of domestic violence, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office confirmed.

“Charges are not filed against the respondent at this time, however, the case stays open throughout the length of the statute of limitations. It can be re-evaluated if there are further developments,” said Ivor Pine, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.

Pine said the matter has been assigned for a City Attorney hearing, a pre-filing diversion that is an alternative to misdemeanor prosecution.

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Ducks keep Leo Carlsson

The Ducks have matched the Philadelphia Flyers’ offer sheet for center Leo Carlsson, keeping their rising young star at an extraordinary cost.

The Ducks announced their decision Thursday on the 21-year-old Carlsson, who is now the NHL’s highest-paid player under the five-year, $90-million deal extended by the Flyers one week ago.

“It’s going to be a special feeling, having this pressure,” said Carlsson, who wasn’t told the Ducks were matching the offer sheet until shortly before the decision was made public. “I always wanted to be a Duck. It’s my home, too. I’m just super excited to be back.”

Although he didn’t produce points at a rate commensurate with his new salary during his first three seasons, almost everyone believes Carlsson can become one of the best centers in hockey, so his deal might eventually look downright affordable.

He scored 67 points in 70 games last season despite being limited for a lengthy stretch by a leg injury, and he added 11 points in 12 games during his first postseason experience.

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Angels lose to Rangers

Wyatt Langford lined a shot off the wall in left field to bring home Alejandro Osuna in the ninth inning, lifting Texas to a 7-6 victory over the Angels after the Rangers blew a five-run lead Thursday night.

Langford struck out three of his first four times up as the designated hitter after getting activated from the 10-day injured list in his return from a left hamstring strain.

Osuna led off the ninth with a single and went to second on pinch-hitter Nicky Lopez’s sacrifice bunt. Langford lined a 1-and-1 fastball from former Texas closer Kirby Yates (0-4) over Jose Siri’s head for the winning single.

Jo Adell had a tying, pinch-hit single to cap a five-run seventh a night after homering twice in the Angels’ 13-1 victory.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

This day in sports history

1926 — Bobby Jones wins the U.S. Open golf tournament for the second time with a 293 total.

1951 — Britain’s Randy Turpin defeats Sugar Ray Robinson in 15 rounds to win the world middleweight title and give Robinson his second loss in 135 bouts.

1960 — UEFA European Championship Final, Parc des Princes, Paris, France: Viktor Ponedelnik scores in extra time as Soviet Union beats Yugoslavia, 2-1.

1971 — Lee Trevino rebounds from a double-bogey on the next to last hole with a birdie on the final hole to win the 100th British Open by one stroke over Lu Liang-Huan. Trevino, who won the U.S. Open a month earlier, is the fourth golfer to win both championships in the same year, joining Bobby Jones (1926, 1930), Gene Sarazen (1932), and Ben Hogan (1953).

1976 — Johnny Miller shoots a 66 in the final round to beat 19-year-old Spaniard Seve Ballesteros by six strokes to take the British Open. Ballesteros, who starts the final round two strokes ahead of Miller, shoots a 74 and ends tied for second place with Jack Nicklaus.

1992 — The Major Soccer League, the only major nationwide pro soccer competition in the United States, folds after 14 seasons.

1999 — Team USA wins the Women’s World Cup over China in sudden death. The Americans win 5-4 in penalty kicks, with defender Brandi Chastain kicking in the game winner.

2010 — Paula Creamer wins her first major tournament, never giving up the lead during a steady final round of the U.S. Women’s Open. Creamer shoots a final-round 2-under 69 for a 3-under 281 for the tournament.

2010 — Spain wins soccer’s World Cup after an exhausting 1-0 victory in extra time over the Netherlands. In the end, it’s Andres Iniesta breaking free and scoring a right-footed shot from 8 yards just past the outstretched arms of goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg.

2011 — The United States advances to the semifinals after one of the most exciting games ever at the Women’s World Cup in Dresden, Germany. The U.S. beat Brazil 5-3 on penalty kicks after a 2-2 tie. Abby Wambach scores a thrilling goal to tie it in the 122nd minute, and goalkeeper Hope Solo denies the Brazilians again.

2016 — Andy Murray wins his second Wimbledon title by beating Milos Raonic 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2) on Centre Court.

2016 — Brittany Lang wins her first career major at the U.S. Women’s Open when Anna Nordqvist touches the sand with her club in a bunker for a two-stroke penalty in the three-hole aggregate playoff. The penalty occurs on the second hole of the playoff and is not delivered to the players until they were on the final hole after officials review replays in the latest controversy at a USGA event. Lang seals the win with a short par putt on the final playoff hole, while Nordqvist makes bogey to lose by three shots.

2017 — An independent review of the scoring in Manny Pacquiao’s contentious WBO welterweight world title loss to Jeff Horn confirms the outcome in favor of the Australian. A Philippines government department asked the WBO to review the refereeing and the judging of the so-called “Battle of Brisbane” in Australia on July 2 after Horn, fighting for his first world title, won a unanimous points decision against Pacquiao, an 11-time world champion. The WBO said three of the five independent judges who reviewed the bout awarded it to Horn, one awarded it to Pacquiao and one scored a draw.

2021 — Ashleigh Barty of Australia wins Wimbledon defeating Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-7, 6-3.

2022 — Wimbledon Men’s Tennis: Novak Đoković wins 4th straight and record equaling 7th Wimbledon singles title with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 win over Nick Kyrgios of Australia; Đoković now has 21 Grand Slam titles.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1917 — Ray Caldwell of New York pitched 9 2-3 innings of no-hit relief as the Yankees beat the Browns 7-5 in 17 innings in St. Louis.

1932 — The Philadelphia A’s defeated Cleveland 18-17 in an 18-inning game in which John Burnett of the Indians had a record nine hits. Jimmie Foxx collected 16 total bases, and Eddie Rommell of the A’s pitched 17 innings in relief for the win, despite giving up 29 hits and 14 runs.

1934 — Carl Hubbell struck out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin in succession, but the AL came back to win the All-Star game 9-7 at the Polo Grounds as Mel Harder gave up one hit in the last five innings.

1936 — Philadelphia’s Chuck Klein hit four home runs in a 9-6 10-inning victory over the Pirates, and it wasn’t in the cozy Baker Bowl. He hit them in Pittsburgh’s spacious Forbes Field, including the game-winning three-run shot in the 10th off Bill Swift. Klein almost homered in the second inning when he sent Pirates outfielder Paul Waner to the wall in right to haul in a long fly ball.

1947 — Don Black of the Cleveland Indians pitched a 3-0 no-hitter over the Philadelphia A’s in the first game of a twin bill.

1951 — The NL hit four homers en route to an 8-3 triumph at Detroit, giving the league consecutive All-Star victories for the first time.

1968 — The American League and National League agreed to split into two divisions in 1969. The twelve teams in each league will be divided and play a best-of-five games League Championship Series to determine the pennant winner.

1982 — Larry Parrish of the Texas Rangers hit his third grand slam in seven days, off Milt Wilcox in the first game of a doubleheader against Detroit. The Rangers beat the Tigers 6-5. Parrish had hit his first on July 4 and his second on July 7.

2001 — Cal Ripken upstaged every big name in the ballpark, hitting a home run and winning the MVP award in his final All-Star appearance to lead the American League over the Nationals 4-1. Derek Jeter and Magglio Ordonez connected for consecutive home runs as the AL won its fifth in a row.

2007 — Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki went 3-for-3 with an inside-the-park home run to lead the American League to a 5-4 victory over the National League in the All-Star game.

2009 — Jonathan Sanchez pitched the majors’ first no-hitter of the season, recording a career-high 11 strikeouts in San Francisco’s 8-0 win over the San Diego Padres. The only runner the Padres managed came on an error by third baseman Juan Uribe in the eighth.

2012 — San Francisco’s Melky Cabrera and Pablo Sandoval keyed a five-run blitz against Justin Verlander in the first inning that powered the NL to an 8-0 romp over the American League in the All-Star game.

2013 — David Ortiz doubled in his first at-bat to become baseball’s career leader in hits as a designated hitter and hit a two-run homer an inning later, leading Boston Red Sox to an 11-4 victory over Seattle. Ortiz entered the night tied with Harold Baines for the most hits as a DH.

2014 — Derek Jeter, playing his final regular-season game in Cleveland, went 2 for 4 in the 1,000th multi-hit game of his career. Cleveland scored nine runs in its last two innings at bat to rally past New York with a 9-3 win.

2019 — The independent Atlantic League introduces a “robot umpire” to call balls and strikes at its annual all-star game in York, PA.

2022 — In the 8th inning of their game against the White Sox, Tigers outfielder Robbie Grossman drops a routine fly ball hit by Luis Robert and is charged with his first error since June 13, 2018, ending the longest errorless streak by any player at any position in major league history after 440 games. Worse, the error proves costly as Robert later comes around to score in a 4-2 ChiSox win.

2023 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. wins the annual Home Run Derby, held this year at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, WA, by defeating Randy Arozarena in the final round. His father, Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero, had won the event in 2007, and Vladito had finished runner-up in his first participation as a rookie in 2019.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Dodgers edge the Rockies

From Liana Handler: Mookie Betts’ first hit this series against the Rockies couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. With the crack of the ball against his bat, Tommy Edman scored from third, giving the Dodgers the lead.

And as Betts reached first, he pointed to Freddie Freeman, whose single put Edman in scoring position. It had taken a team effort to overcome another middling start from Roki Sasaki, and Betts, who had little to show before his game-winning hit, took the chance to highlight the joint contribution in the Dodgers’ 4-3 rubber-match win over Colorado (38-56).

It feels great,” Betts said of his nine-pitch battle. “Helping the boys win, that’s really all it is. We play the game to win, and coming through in a big moment is kind of what, when you’re a kid, playing in the backyard, getting that hit is what you always strive to do, and fortunately, I was able to do it.”

Given a three-run lead in the first inning, brought to the Dodgers by a wild pitch and Kyle Tucker’s two-run, line-drive single to left field, Sasaki seemed set up for success.

Still, he gave away the lead as quickly as it came. In the second inning, he left a fastball too far over the plate, and third baseman Kyle Karros drove the ball over the left-center wall. The slider he dealt two batters later to second baseman Edouard Julien also crossed the zone too far over the plate, and Julien rounded the bases with another homer. In the third, a sacrifice fly by Mickey Moniak evened the scored, 3-3

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Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Wednesday’s World Cup results

No matches scheduled

Today’s World Cup TV schedule

All times Pacific
1 p.m., France vs. Morocco, Fox, Telemundo

World Cup quarterfinals schedule, results

All times Pacific
All games on Fox and Telemundo

Friday
Belgium vs. Spain, noon

Saturday
Norway vs. England, 2 p.m.
Switzerland vs. Argentina, 6 p.m.

Mike Trout homers in return

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

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

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

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Angels box score

MLB standings

Sparks defeat the Fever

From Marisa Ingemi: For the first time in two weeks, the Sparks won a game.

Nneka Ogwumike scored 24 points with eight rebounds and Rae Burrell added 22 points in what felt like a near must-win 106-92 effort against Indiana on Wednesday night to snap a three-game losing streak.

The Fever committed 17 turnovers, which the Sparks (9-11) converted into 22 points, and star Caitlin Clark scored her second-fewest point total this season with just nine in limited minutes. Kelsey Mitchell scored 29 points for the Fever, but the Sparks seemed to have an offensive answer each time.

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Sparks box score

WNBA standings

This day in sports history

1922 — Johnny Weissmuller is the first to swim the 100-meter freestyle under 1 minute as he breaks Duke Kahanamoku’s world record with a time of 58.6 seconds.

1932 — The NFL awards a franchise to Boston under the ownership of George Preston Marshall, Vincent Bendix, Jay O’Brien, and Dorland Doyle. The Boston Braves will change their nickname to Redskins in 1933 and move to Washington after the 1936 season.

1954 — Peter Thomson becomes the first Australian to win the British Open. Thomson shoots a 9-under 283 at Royal Birkdale Golf Club, edging Bobby Locke, Dai Rees and Syd Scott by one stroke.

1965 — Peter Thomson wins his fifth British Open title by two strokes over Brian Huggett and Christy O’Connor Sr. Thomson shoots a 7-under 285 at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club in Southport, England. Thomson’s previous Open victory was in 1958. It’s the last to conclude with two rounds on Friday.

1966 — Jack Nicklaus wins the British Open with a 282 at Muirfield to join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan and Gary Player as the only men to win the four majors.

1967 — Mark Spitz and Catie Ball, both 17, swim to world records, and 14-year-old Debbie Meyer sets two records in one race in the Santa Clara International Invitational swim meet. Spitz sets a 100-meter butterfly record at 56.3 and Ball becomes the first U.S. swimmer to set a world record for the breaststroke with a 2:40.5 time for 200 meters. Meyer breaks the 800-meter freestyle record in 9 minutes, 35.8 seconds on the way to a record 18:11.1 in the 1,500.

1968 — Wilt Chamberlain becomes the first reigning NBA MVP to be traded the next season when he moves from Philadelphia 76ers to the Lakers.

1989 — Boris Becker and Steffi Graf claim a West German sweep of the Wimbledon singles crowns in the first double finals day in 16 years. Becker wins his third Wimbledon title in five years, rolling past defending champion Stefan Edberg 6-0, 7-6 (1), 6-4, while Graf takes her second straight championship over Martina Navratilova 6-2, 6-7 (1), 6-1.

1991 — South Africa is readmitted by the International Olympic Committee to the Olympic movement, ending decades of sports isolation and clearing the way for its participation in the 1992 Games.

1995 — Pete Sampras becomes the first American to win Wimbledon three straight years by beating Boris Becker 6-7, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2.

2000 — Pete Sampras passes Roy Emerson for the most Grand Slam championships and ties Willie Renshaw, a player in the 1880s, for the most Wimbledon titles with a four-set victory over Pat Rafter. Sampras, winner of seven Wimbledon titles, 13 Grand Slam championships, extends his mark at Wimbledon to 53-1 over the past eight years.

2001 — Goran Ivanisevic becomes one of Wimbledon’s most improbable champions, beating Patrick Rafter. Two points away from defeat, Ivanisevic rallies to beat Rafter 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 and becomes the second player to win a Wimbledon singles title without being seeded.

2006 — Roger Federer ends a five-match losing streak to Rafael Nadal, winning 6-0, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (2), 6-3 to earn his fourth straight Wimbledon title and eighth Grand Slam championship. Nadal had beaten Federer in four finals this year.

2006 — Italy wins its fourth World Cup title winning the shootout 5-3 against France, after a 1-1 draw. Outplayed for an hour and into extra time, the Italians win it after French captain Zinedine Zidane is ejected in the 107th for a vicious butt to the chest of Marco Materazzi.

2009 — Joe Sakic retires after 21 NHL seasons with the Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche franchise, finishing with 625 goals and 1,641 points.

2016 — Serena Williams wins her record-tying 22nd Grand Slam title by beating Angelique Kerber 7-5, 6-3 in the Wimbledon final. Williams pulls even with Steffi Graf for the most major championships in the Open era, which began in 1968. This is Williams’ seventh singles trophy at the All England Club.

2021 — British road cyclist Mark Cavendish wins Nimes to Carcassonne stage 13 of the Tour de France for his 34th career stage win. The win ties Eddy Merckx for most career stage wins.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1902 — Rube Waddell beat Bill Dineen 4-2 in 17 innings when light-hitting Monte Cross hit a two-run homer for Philadelphia.

1932 — Ben Chapman of the Yankees hit three homers, including two inside-the-park, as New York beat the Detroit Tigers 14-9 at Yankee Stadium.

1937 — Joe DiMaggio hits for the cycle as the Yankees defeat the Senators 16-2.

1940 — The NL recorded the first shutout in All-Star play, with a 4-0 win at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis. Five pitchers — Paul Derringer, Bucky Walters, Whit Wyatt, Larry French, and Carl Hubbell — held the AL to three hits. Max West hit a three-run homer.

1946 — After a one-year break due to war travel restrictions, the Americans trounced the Nationals 12-0 at Fenway Park, the most one-sided of the All-Star games. Ted Williams of the Red Sox didn’t disappoint the hometown fans. He hit two homers and two singles for five RBIs.

1968 — Willie McCovey hit into a double play, scoring Willie Mays with the only run of the 39th All-Star game, played at the Houston Astrodome. It was the first game of this series played indoors and the first 1-0 contest in All-Star history.

1976 — Houston’s Larry Dierker pitched a no-hitter as the Astros beat Montreal 6-0. Dierker struck out eight and walked four.

1991 — Cal Ripken hit a three-run homer to lead the AL over the NL 4-2 in the All-Star game for the AL’s fourth straight victory in the contest.

1996 — Mike Piazza launched an upper-deck home run in his first at-bat and lined an RBI double next time up, leading the Nationals to a 6-0 victory in the All-Star game in Philadelphia.

2002 — Despite Barry Bonds hitting a home run and Torii Hunter making a spectacular catch, the All-Star game finished in a 7-7 tie after 11 innings when both teams ran out of pitchers.

2005 — It took 847 regular-season games at Coors Field, the most any stadium needed, before hosting its first 1-0 game. The lowest total runs scored in a game at Coors Field before Colorado’s 1-0 win over San Diego was 2-0.

2011 — Derek Jeter homered for his 3,000th hit, making him the first player to reach the mark with the New York Yankees. Jeter hit the milestone with a drive to left field with one out in the third inning off Tampa Bay’s David Price, his first at Yankee Stadium this season. He tied a career high going 5 for 5 and singled home the go-ahead run in the eighth inning for a 5-4 win. Jeter became the 28th major leaguer to hit the mark and joined former teammate Wade Boggs as the only players to do it with a home run.

2011 — The Dodgers got their first hit with two out in the ninth inning and still beat the San Diego Padres 1-0 when Dioner Navarro singled in Juan Uribe for the unlikely victory. Uribe was down to his last strike when he drove a pitch from Luke Gregerson over the head of left fielder Chris Denorfia for Los Angeles’ first hit and only the second hit of the game for either team. Navarro then looped a 3-1 pitch into short right-center to give the Dodgers three consecutive shutout victories for the first time since July 1991. San Diego’s Cameron Maybin had the first hit of the game in the fifth, a clean single through the box. It was the Padres’ only hit against rookie right-hander Rubby De La Rosa and three relievers.

2013 — Alex Rios tied an American League record with six hits in a nine-inning game and Adam Dunn hit a go-ahead, two-run homer off Justin Verlander in the eighth to lift Chicago over Detroit 11-4.

2015 — Jose Fernandez pitched seven innings and tied the modern record for most consecutive home victories by a starter to begin a career, helping the Miami Marlins beat the Cincinnati Reds 2-0.

2019 — The American League defeats the National League 4-3 in the 2019 All-Star Game for their 7th straight win.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Shohei Ohtani hits 300th homer in Dodgers’ loss

From Maddie Lee: In Shohei Ohtani, who on Tuesday became the first Japanese player to hit 300 home runs in MLB, the Dodgers had the first National League All-Star voted in this year.

They still have a chance for a late addition.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has been lobbying for two members of his pitching staff to be named replacement players: left-handed starter Justin Wrobleski and left-handed reliever Tanner Scott.

“There’s going to be some changes and some talks here,” Roberts said before the Dodgers’ 4-3 loss against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium. “There’s continual talks about both guys.”

Earlier Tuesday, MLB announced replacements for three NL pitchers who won’t be eligible to appear in the All-Star Game. Pittsburgh’s Braxton Ashcraft, Philadelphia’s Jesús Luzardo and St. Louis’ Riley O’Brien claimed spots as Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski and Miami’s Max Meyer bowed out.

“Obviously it’s disappointing,” Wrobleski said after holding the Rockies to one run through seven innings. “You want to be an All-Star. It’s something that, regardless of the year, whenever, it’s always a big deal. It’s something I wanted to do. It’s frustrating to not get that nod. But like I said before, it’s just more reason to try and keep getting better. Hopefully I can gain the respect of players and everybody else and maybe be in there next year.”

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Dodgers box score

MLB standings

World Cup: U.S. team hopes they inspired future success

From Kevin Baxter: Last fall, in an effort to inspire a national soccer team lacking in confidence and belief, coach Mauricio Pochettino came up with a slogan for this summer’s World Cup, one the U.S. would be playing at home.

“Why not us?” he asked.

Why couldn’t the U.S. make a deep run in the tournament? Why couldn’t the U.S. compete with the best teams in the world? Why not us?

Monday he got his answer: Because the U.S. just isn’t good enough.

A couple of rousing performances in group play and a win over a third-place team in the first elimination game had the U.S. believing, had the U.S. hoping. Maybe Pochettino was right. Maybe it was the Americans’ time.

But it all proved to be a mirage.

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Swanson: Trump’s World Cup meddling only made matters worse for rattled U.S. squad

Paraguayan senator demands apology from Kylian Mbappé for his response to her racist posts

Tuesday’s World Cup results

Round of 16
Argentina 3, Egypt 2
Switzerland 0, Colombia 0 (Switzerland wins on PK’s, 4-3)

Today’s World Cup TV schedule

All times Pacific
No matches today

World Cup round of 16 schedule, results

Round of 16 results
Morocco 3, Canada 0
France 1, Paraguay 0
Norway 2, Brazil 1
England 3, Mexico 2
Spain 1, Portugal 0
Belgium 4, U.S. 1
Argentina 3, Egypt 2
Switzerland 0, Colombia 0 (Switzerland wins on PK’s, 4-3)

Quarterfinals schedule

All times Pacific
All games on Fox and Telemundo

Thursday
France vs. Morocco, 1 p.m.

Friday
Belgium vs. Spain, noon

Saturday
Norway vs. England, 2 p.m.
Switzerland vs. Argentina, 6 p.m.

Angels lose seventh in a row

Alejandro Osuna hit a three-run homer during a five-run eighth inning and the Texas Rangers pulled away for an 8-3 win over the Angels on Tuesday night.

Osuna’s first homer of the season followed RBI singles by Ezequiel Duran and Justin Foscue in the six-hit inning off Sam Bachman (1-2). Foscue also hit a pinch-hit home run in the seventh, tying the score 3-3.

Peyton Gray (4-0) pitched a scoreless eighth for the win for the Rangers, who pulled within one-half game of first-place Seattle in the AL West.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

Lakers sign center Kevon Looney

From Broderick Turner: The Lakers got their backup big man when Kevon Looney signed a one-year, $3.9-million deal on Tuesday, people not authorized to speak publicly told The Times.

The 6-foot-9 Looney won three championships with the Golden State Warriors, in 2017, 2018 and 2022. He played last season with the New Orleans Pelicans. Looney, 30, is an 11-year veteran who went to UCLA. He’s a strong rebounder, a very good defender and he sets solid screens for teammates.

Looney will be the backup behind starter Walker Kessler, who was acquired in a trade from the Utah Jazz and agreed to a four-year, $130-million deal. The Lakers traded last season’s starting center, Deandre Ayton, and backup Jaxson Hayes signed with the Jazz.

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This day in sports history

1889 — John L. Sullivan defeats Jake Kilrain in the 75th round in Richburg, Miss., for the U.S. heavyweight championship. It’s the last bare-knuckle boxing match before the Marquis of Queensbury rules are introduced.

1922 — Suzanne Lenglen beats Molla Bjurstedt Mallory, 6-2, 6-0 for her fourth straight singles title at Wimbledon.

1939 — Bobby Riggs beats Elwood Cooke in five sets to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon.

1955 — Peter Thomson wins his second consecutive British Open finishing two strokes ahead of John Fallon. Thomson shoots a 7-under 281 at the Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland.

1967 — Billie Jean King sweeps three titles at Wimbledon. King beats Ann Hayden Jones 6-3, 6-4, for the singles title; teams with Rosie Casals for the women’s doubles title, and pairs with Owen Davidson for the mixed doubles title.

1978 — Bjorn Borg beats Jimmy Connors, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 to win his third straight men’s title at Wimbledon.

1984 — John McEnroe whips Jimmy Connors 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 in 100-degree temperatures to take the men’s singles title at Wimbledon.

1990 — West Germany wins the World Cup as Andreas Brehme scores with 6 minutes to go for a 1-0 victory over defending champion Argentina in a foul-marred final.

1991 — Michael Stich upsets three-time champion Boris Becker to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon, 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-4.

1995 — Top-ranked Steffi Graf wins her sixth Wimbledon singles title, beating Arantxa Sanchez Vicario 4-6, 6-1, 7-5.

1995 — NHL Draft: Detroit Jr. Red Wings (OHL) defenseman Bryan Berard first pick by Ottawa Senators.

1996 — Switzerland’s Martina Hingis becomes the youngest champion in Wimbledon history at 15 years, 282 days, teaming with Helena Sukova to beat Meredith McGrath and Larisa Neiland 5-7, 7-5, 6-1 in women’s doubles.

2000 — Venus Williams beats Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 7-6 (3) for her first Grand Slam title. Williams is the first Black women’s champion at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson in 1958.

2007 — Roger Federer wins his fifth straight Wimbledon championship, beating Rafael Nadal 7-6 (7), 4-6, 7-6 (3), 2-6, 6-2. I’s also Federer’s 11th Grand Slam title overall.

2010 — Paul Goydos becomes the fourth golfer in PGA Tour history to shoot a 59. Goydos puts together his 12-under, bogey-free round on the opening day of the John Deere Classic. Goydos makes the turn at 4-under, then birdies all but one hole on the back nine at the 7,257-yard TPC Deere Run course.

2012 — Roger Federer equals Pete Sampras’ record of seven men’s singles titles at the All England Club, and wins his 17th Grand Slam title overall, by beating Andy Murray 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.

2014 — Germany hands Brazil its heaviest World Cup loss ever with an astounding 7-1 rout in the semifinals that stuns the host nation. Miroslav Klose scores a record-setting 16th career World Cup goal in a five-goal spurt in the first half and Germany goes on to score the most goals in a World Cup semifinal.

2016 — Roger Federer loses in the Wimbledon semifinals for the first time in his career, falling to Milos Raonic 6-3, 6-7 (3), 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 on Centre Court. The 34-year-old Federer had been 10-0 in Wimbledon semifinals, winning seven of his finals.

2018 — South Korean golfer Sei Young Ki breaks the LPGA 72-hole scoring record with a 31-under par 257 in winning the Thornberry Creek Classic.

2022 — Gymnast Simone Biles aged 25, becomes the youngest person to receive the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Joe Biden.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1912 — Rube Marquard’s 19-game winning streak was stopped as the New York Giants lost 7-2 to the Chicago Cubs.

1918 — Boston’s Babe Ruth lost a home run at Fenway Park when prevailing rules reduce his shot over the fence to a triple. Amos Strunk scored on Ruth’s hit for a 1-0 win over Cleveland. Ruth, who played 95 games in the season, finished tied for the American League title with 11 homers.

1935 — The AL extended its All-Star winning streak to three with a 4-1 victory at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. New York Yankee Lefty Gomez went six innings, which prompted the NL to have the rules changed so that no pitcher could throw more than three innings, unless extra innings.

1941 — Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox hit a three-run, two-out homer in the ninth to give the AL a dramatic 7-5 victory in the All-Star game at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium. Up to that point Arky Vaughan of the Pittsburgh Pirates was the NL hero with two home runs, the first player to do so in All-Star play. Joe and Dom DiMaggio played for the AL, marking the first time that brothers appeared in the same All-Star game.

1947 — Frank Shea became the first winning rookie pitcher in the first 14 years of All-Star play as the AL nipped the NL 2-1 at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.

1952 — The NL edged the AL 3-2 in the first rain-shortened All-Star game. The five-inning contest, at Philadelphia’s Shibe Park, featured home runs by Jackie Robinson and Hank Sauer of the Nationals.

1957 — Baseball owners re-elected commissioner Ford Frick to another seven-year term when his contract is up in 1958.

1958 — The 25th anniversary All-Star game, at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, went to the AL, 4-3 in a game that only produced 13 singles. This was the first All-Star game in which neither team got an extra-base hit.

1970 — Jim Ray Hart of San Francisco hit for the cycle and became the first NL player in 59 years to drive in six runs in one inning as the Giants beat Atlanta, 13-0.

1974 — New York shortstop Jim Mason tied a major-league record when he doubled four times in the Yankees’ 12-5 win over Texas.

1982 — Billy Martin records his 1,000 career win as a manager as the A’s beat the Yankees 6-3.

1994 — Shortstop John Valentin made the 10th unassisted triple play in baseball history in the sixth inning and then led off the bottom of the inning with a homer to lead Boston to a 4-3 victory over the Seattle Mariners.

1997 — Cleveland Indians catcher Sandy Alomar hit a two-run homer to give the American League a 3-1 victory over the National League in the All-Star game. Alomar, the first player to win the All-Star MVP in his own ballpark, broke the tie in the seventh inning off San Francisco’s Shawn Estes.

2000 — Dwight Gooden and Roger Clemens teamed up to shut down the Mets, giving the Yankees identical 4-2 victories in the first double-ballpark doubleheader in the majors since 1903. After the opener, many in the sellout crowd of 54,165 at Shea Stadium immediately headed for Game 2, which drew 55,821 at Yankee Stadium.

2008 — Ryan Braun of Milwaukee hit his 56th home run in his 200th major league game, a 7-3 win over Colorado. Only Mark McGwire and Rudy York (both 59) had hit more in their first 200 games in the majors.

2014 — The Mets record the 4,000th win in franchise history by defeating the Braves 8-3.

2015 — Tampa Bay hits two inside-the park home runs in a 9-7 loss to the Royals. It is the first time the feat has been done since 1997.

2021 — San Diego Padres relief pitcher Daniel Camarena records his first MLB hit, a grand slam, in his second at bat against the Washington Nationals’ Max Scherzer.

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.

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In Shohei Ohtani, who on Tuesday became the first Japanese player to hit 300 home runs in MLB, the Dodgers had the first National League All-Star voted in this year.

They still have a chance for a late addition.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has been lobbying for two members of his pitching staff to be named replacement players: left-handed starter Justin Wrobleski and left-handed reliever Tanner Scott.

“There’s going to be some changes and some talks here,” Roberts said before the Dodgers’ 4-3 loss against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium. “There’s continual talks about both guys.”

Earlier Tuesday, MLB announced replacements for three NL pitchers who won’t be eligible to appear in the All-Star Game. Pittsburgh’s Braxton Ashcraft, Philadelphia’s Jesús Luzardo and St. Louis’ Riley O’Brien claimed spots as Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski and Miami’s Max Meyer bowed out.

“Obviously it’s disappointing,” Wrobleski said after holding the Rockies to one run through seven innings. “You want to be an All-Star. It’s something that, regardless of the year, whenever, it’s always a big deal. It’s something I wanted to do. It’s frustrating to not get that nod. But like I said before, it’s just more reason to try and keep getting better. Hopefully I can gain the respect of players and everybody else and maybe be in there next year.”

There should continue to be movement on the All-Star roster, especially on the pitching side, with rotation schedules limiting which starters can participate. Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, for example, is lined up to start Saturday, which may take him off the table for the All-Star Game next Tuesday.

That could open the door for Wrobleski and Scott.

Asked to make his pitch for Wrobleski, Roberts pointed to his ERA (2.69, No. 8 among qualified NL pitchers), average of more than six innings per start and 10 wins.

“We run a six-man rotation, and I just don’t want him to get dinged for not making a couple more starts that he potentially could have had,” Roberts said. “I just think that he’s performed enough to earn that opportunity.

“And also, Tanner had a rough one [Monday], but I still think that … he’s one of the elite relievers in the National League.”

Scott, after notching just his second blown save Monday, compared to his 12 saves and 2.70 ERA, didn’t have an opening to improve on his All-Star campaign Tuesday.

Wrobleski, however, strengthened his.

He stayed true to his identity, pounding the strike zone and inducing weak contact to go with nine strikeouts. The only run he gave up came on a groundout in the sixth inning with runners on the corners.

In a nod to Wrobleski’s new nickname, “The Shark,” coined by Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martínez, Dodger Stadium organist Dieter Ruehle played a snippet of the “Jaws” theme to punctuate Wrobleski’s punchouts, and as he walked off the mound for the last time.

Justin Wrobleski was great for seven innings Tuesday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Once Wrobleski’s job was done, he paced in the dugout, interrupted once in a while by a hug or handshakes from a teammate. Catcher Dalton Rushing held his hand up to his forehead like a shark fin.

The name and attacking reputation had stuck. Would it be enough for an All-Star nod?

“If it happens, great,” Wrobleski said. “If it doesn’t happen, some time off and just chill for a couple days. Either way, I’m all good.”

On the offensive side, Ohtani’s leadoff homer made him the first player to notch 300 home runs and 100-plus stolen bases in his first nine MLB seasons, according to ESPN Insights. Tuesday was his 1,101st game with at least one plate appearance. By that measure, he was the fifth-fastest to 300 home runs, according to mlb.com and Elias Sports Bureau, behind only Aaron Judge (953), Ralph Kiner (1,086), Ryan Howard (1,091) and Juan González (1,093).

“It was quite the homer,” Roberts said. “I mean, it was [112 mph] off the bat, low launch angle. It was squared up, got out in a hurry. And 300 — he got there pretty quickly for us. I just marvel at him every day.”

Defense unravels late

The Dodgers widened their lead to two runs but gave it up in the eighth on a pair of errors, including one on a sacrifice bunt.

Shortstop Miguel Rojas, who botched a grounder to his left earlier in the inning that enabled a run to score, was late breaking to cover third, leaving the bag wide open. Second baseman Alex Freeland tried to hit Rojas in stride with his throw and was charged with an error when it got away and the go-ahead run scored.

“Physical errors happen, and I’m OK with that,” Rojas said. “I’m not perfect, and I’m going to make errors, and physical errors are OK. But mental errors are the ones that are disappointing. I should have been on third base, I shouldn’t be putting Alex Freeland in the situation of throwing the ball with me on the run there. That’s the one that I kick myself for.”

Said Roberts: “This guy’s as dependable as they come. So that it happens, we don’t like it, doesn’t feel good, but you know that player. I give him a lot of grace, because he is very dependable.”

Right-hander Evan Phillips made his first major-league appearance in 14 months, after undergoing Tommy John surgery last summer, and had two strikeouts in a scoreless ninth inning. But the Dodgers offense didn’t muster a comeback, as the top of the batting order went down in order with two runners on.

Ohtani on track

Ohtani is still in line to pitch Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Roberts said.

The right biceps issue that flared in Ohtani’s final at-bat last Friday, and sidelined him Saturday, raised the question of whether he should skip his last start before the All-Star break. But Roberts said Ohtani’s catch play has been normal and he hasn’t reported any concerns with his biceps.

“As he goes through the next couple days, if he doesn’t feel great, we’ll pivot, and we’re prepared to pivot,” Roberts said. “But as we sit here, I don’t see that changing.”

Roberts said he doesn’t think Ohtani will pitch in the All-Star Game or participate in the home run derby. But he does expect him to take an at-bat or two as the NL’s starting designated hitter.

“He understands the responsibility he has,” Roberts said. “So I do think that there’s a middle for what’s best for him, what potentially could be downside, but also what’s best for the game.”

WASHINGTON — The Senate’s top two Republicans have spoken individually to Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, according to aides, as the former GOP leader remains in the hospital more than three weeks after being admitted for undisclosed health issues.

Aides to McConnell have declined to release any information about his condition, fueling speculation about his prognosis and whether he will be healthy enough to be at the Capitol when the Senate returns to Washington next week after a two-week recess. McConnell, 84, is retiring at the end of his term next January.

A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he had spoken with McConnell by phone on Monday and that the two had a “lengthy and substantive conversation that covered a variety of topics, including national security.” As leader, Thune is generally kept up to date on illnesses and absences in his conference as he has to navigate vote counts and his narrow 53-47 majority.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Senate Republican, had a 20-minute conversation with McConnell on Tuesday, according to a spokeswoman. The two discussed Senate races ahead of the midterm elections, the Supreme Court and other topics, the statement said.

“Senator McConnell was fully engaged and is eager to get back to the Senate,” said Barrasso spokeswoman Kate Noyes.

Another McConnell ally, Republican strategist Scott Jennings, posted on X that he had also talked to McConnell for 20 minutes on Tuesday, and that “he’s still recovering in the hospital.” Jennings said they spoke about politics, foreign policy “and even a little bit of Senate history.”

Few details released as McConnell remains in the hospital

McConnell was admitted to the hospital June 14, according to a statement from his office that only said he was “receiving excellent care.”

A statement a week later said he would not be voting that week. And a new statement Thursday said he ”appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital.”

“The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session,” the statement said.

A spokesman for McConnell released the same statement again Tuesday with no new updates.

McConnell has a history of health troubles

The senator’s unspecified health issues come after several hospitalizations in recent years.

While he was still Republican leader, McConnell was hospitalized with a concussion in March 2023 and missed several weeks of work after falling in a Washington hotel. He froze up twice during news conferences after he returned, staring vacantly ahead before colleagues and staff — including Barrasso, who is a doctor — came to his assistance.

A year later, he fell and sprained his wrist while walking out of a GOP luncheon.

McConnell had polio in his early childhood and he has long acknowledged some difficulty as an adult in walking and climbing stairs. He also tripped and fell in 2019 at his home in Kentucky and underwent surgery for a fractured shoulder.

The Kentucky senator was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and was the Republican leader from 2007 until last year, serving as both majority and minority leader during that period. He has remained active as a rank-and-file senator, showing up for work when the chamber is in session, often using a wheelchair to get around.

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press.

ANKARA, Turkey — President Trump said on Tuesday that the U.S. will lift sanctions on Turkey that were issued after Ankara purchased a Russian missile defense system that led to the country being kicked out of the F-35 fighter jet program.

There are still a number of legal hurdles before Turkey could be fully admitted back to the U.S. program, but the removal of the sanctions — issued under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act — would help ease the process for Ankara to regain access to the F-35s, a top goal of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and one that Trump has predicted for some time would occur.

“We’re going to be taking the sanctions off, OK?” Trump said in response to a question during a meeting with Erdogan at the presidential palace in Ankara. He said Cabinet officials were working on the matter. Earlier in the meeting, he said the possibility of selling the F-35s to Turkey is “certainly something we will consider.”

Trump and Erdogan repeatedly underscored their warm relationship as they met soon after the U.S. president arrived in Ankara for the NATO summit. Erdogan greeted the U.S. president with an elaborate welcome ceremony involving cannons, military officials on horseback and jets flying overhead emitting red, white and blue smoke.

“Sometimes you get along with the toughest people, like him,” Trump said, gesturing to Erdogan. The U.S. president repeatedly praised Turkey for its loyalty to the U.S., particularly during the war in Iran.

Trump, who has often upended NATO gatherings with complaints that European allies did not spend enough on defense, had said he would not have attended this year’s summit had it not been for his close ties with Erdogan.

‘Moment of great pride’

Earlier in the day, NATO showcased a series of military projects worth billions of dollars — an investment that the alliance’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, called “money well spent.”

An energized Rutte was speaking to government ministers and defense industry officials at a forum billed as NATO’s “big reveal,” to the thrum of techno music and a slick video display.

NATO as an organization does not own any weapons — these are the property of the 32 member countries — but it does have a fleet of 14 AWACS early warning radar surveillance planes that are about 50 years old, along with some newer surveillance drones.

A deal to replace the aging planes was announced Tuesday. Swedish manufacturer Saab will be supplying up to 10 new GlobalEye surveillance aircraft for a 10-nation consortium, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced.

“It’s a moment of great pride,” he said, noting that the twin-engine aircraft would be “made within the alliance for all the alliance.”

Some of the projects will be paid for with funds from a system of cheap loans for defense purposes set up by the European Union, comprising up to $170 billion raised on capital markets.

“We need to ensure that we are translating our economic might into military capabilities, putting the cash to work from defense plans to drones, from money to missiles and interceptors,” Rutte said.

Trump has branded NATO a “paper tiger” that would cease to function without American arms and leadership. At the forum on Tuesday, Michael Duffy, a U.S. undersecretary of defense, said “the reality is that we need production increases across the board.”

“We will be looking to increase our exports to those who are looking to buy our equipment, and we’ll also be looking to partner with the expansion of production capacity here in Europe,” he said.

Defense sales announced

Representatives from 15 nations shook hands and patted shoulders on a vast podium under the NATO logo as they announced a multinational effort to buy air-to-air refueling and transport planes from Airbus.

Then Rutte announced a four-country effort to purchase as many as five new Triton surveillance drones to add to NATO’s small fleet.

“It is genuinely made in NATO, and creating jobs on both sides of the Atlantic,” he said.

Rutte told reporters on the eve of the military alliance’s two-day summit in Turkey that “we will announce tens of billions in new contracts that will provide the crucial kit we need to deter and defend.”

However, at Tuesday’s event, no dollar figures were given and the display included some projects long since agreed.

The defense industry splash comes a few weeks after Rutte tried to ease U.S. concerns about military spending at NATO with a new pitch using a chart labeled “The Trump Trillion” — showing $1.2 trillion in spending by European allies and Canada since 2017.

Trump appeared unmoved, saying he was still disappointed at some NATO allies’ refusal to join the Iran war, which he had launched alongside Israel without consulting them.

“We don’t need their money — we don’t need anything,” Trump said. “I just want loyalty.”

Debate over jet sales to Turkey

The summit is being held in Erdogan’s sprawling palace compound in Ankara, and Trump has suggested he would come bearing gifts for the Turkish leader.

Turkey was barred from the F-35 fighter jet program in 2019 after it purchased Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems. When asked about the fate of Turkey’s return to the F-35 system, Trump said as he sat next to Erdogan that “it’s certainly something we will consider.

Speaking Monday on the morning show “Fox & Friends,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the U.S. not to sell F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, saying that Erdogan “calls openly for the annihilation of Israel.”

Turkey and Israel have acrimonious relations. Erdogan frequently accuses Israel of committing genocide in its war in Gaza, triggered by the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.

Netanyahu said selling Turkey F-35s would “upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority and also, I think, by America’s posture in the Middle East.”

Turkey beefed up security and banned protests in Ankara during the summit, but a small group of demonstrators gathered on Tuesday in the capital. They were quickly surrounded by police, and a legal association said 22 students affiliated with the leftist Turkish Workers Party and three lawyers had been detained.

Seeking a stronger Europe for a stronger NATO

The Pentagon wants a reboot and is promoting what it calls “NATO 3.0,” a vision of the alliance in which Europe assumes greater responsibility for its own defense, freeing the U.S. to concentrate on other priorities.

But hiking defense spending means increasing taxes or diverting resources from other priorities. U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey unexpectedly quit last month, saying the British government was not willing to spend at a time of rising threats.

Separately on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a fresh appeal for his country to be allowed to join the alliance, saying its armed forces are highly experienced and resilient would only boost the alliance’s defense capabilities.

He highlighted Ukraine’s adaptability and its ability to strike deep inside Russia, hit oil refineries and other energy targets. He said that Ukraine’s armed forces are “eliminating” on average 30,000 Russian troops every month.

“Frankly we take no pride in this,” Zelensky said, noting that the war with Russia — now in its fifth year — is “a war we did not seek but one we are forced to fight.”

Concern is mounting among some northern and central eastern countries that Russia might be preparing a hybrid attack — a combination of conventional warfare with tactics like cyberattacks — on the continent as Russian President Vladimir Putin struggles to secure victory in Ukraine.

Cook, Fraser, Sewell and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writers Jill Lawless in London and Andy Wilks in Istanbul contributed to this report.