wednesday morning

As Hart High football players participated in a 6 a.m. workout on Wednesday morning, injured player Micaiah Underwood was given an important task — flying the team’s drone to take video. He had been trained by head coach Jake Goossen.

When an alarm went off alerting low battery, Underwood calmly manipulated the controls to bring the drone down — though it briefly went so high that teammates were joking it was out of control.

Managers make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for football players to eat after practices.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Every head coach needs to delegate responsibilities and rely on others to help him focus on getting his team ready, and three important positions in 2025 are drone operator, manager and athletic trainer.

Every program needs one of each.

At a City Section school earlier this week, three managers were making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for players to eat after practices. At another school, the athletic trainer was taping ankles and roaming the field in case of an emergency. For those teams without athletic trainers, coaches were forced to take on the task.

Coaches kept handing out their keys to managers to retrieve or open something.

Managers and trainers have been around for years, but drone operators are new. At Hart, they have to pay special attention to hawks. Seriously, Hart had a drone disabled by a hawk. Now there are spotters to make sure no hawks are nearby. After all, Hart’s new nickname is the Hawks and apparently the real hawks like flying drones.

So everyone say thanks to the drone operators, managers and trainers. They’re unsung helpers every program needs.

Electric bikes lined up at Hart High.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Oh, and one more trend. There are so many players using electric bikes to get to practices perhaps a charging station is next to be added on a program’s football budget.

Arizona second baseman Ketel Marte was in tears after a heckler made comments about his late mother during the Diamondbacks’ game against the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night at Rate Field.

That fan has been banned indefinitely from all MLB parks, The Times learned Wednesday morning.

Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo put his arm around Marte during a pitching change in the bottom of the seventh inning in an effort to comfort the two-time All Star. According to the Diamondbacks broadcast, Marte had also been crying while kneeling behind second base.

Lovullo later said on the Diamondbacks broadcast that he told Marte in that moment: “I love you and I’m with you, and we’re all together, and you’re not alone. And no matter what happens, no matter what was said or what you heard, that guy’s an idiot and shouldn’t have an impact on you.”

According to the Arizona Republic, Lovullo said he heard the comments made toward Marte during the player’s at-bat during the top of the seventh inning and that he and bench coach Jeff Banister asked for the responsible fan to be removed.

MLB confirmed that the heckler had been ejected from the stadium.

“We commend the White Sox for taking immediate action in removing the fan,” the league said in a statement emailed to The Times.

The Diamondbacks and White Sox did not immediately respond to requests for comments from The Times.

Marte is in his 11th MLB season. He played the first two years with the Seattle Mariners and has been with the Diamondbacks since 2017. His mother, Elpidia Valdez, died in a car accident in the Dominican Republic the same year.

Marte did not speak to reporters after the Diamondbacks’ 4-1 win, during which he went two for four with a solo home run in the first inning.

“I’ve known Ketel for nine years, and he’s had some unbelievable, unbelievably great moments, and some hardships as well, and some really, really tough moments in his life, and I know those,” said Lovullo, who has been the Diamondbacks manager since 2017. “And the end of the day, we’re human beings, and we have emotions, and I saw him hurting, and I wanted to protect him.”