June 24, 2020 3:50 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Major League Baseball gives players’ association 60-game schedule, games to start July 23 or 24. This will be MLB’s shortest season since 1878. Each team will play 10 games against each of its four division rivals and four games against each of the five clubs in the corresponding division in the other league, according to details obtained by The Associated Press. The sides expanded the designated hitter to games involving National League teams and will start extra innings with a runner on second base. The union committed its members to start reporting July 1 – those who decide to report. High-risk individuals would be allowed to opt out and still receive salary and service time, but others who sit out would get neither money nor the service credit needed for eligibility for free agency and salary arbitration. Playoff teams remain at 10 for now – there is still talk of a possible expansion. The rejected deal had called for 16 teams.
June 24, 2020 3:53 am
Pittsburgh is out of the running to be one of the two hubs for the NHL when the league resumes its season amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Penguins submitted what the club called an “aggressive” bid to be a hub city and was among the 10 finalists announced by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. Penguins President and CEO David Morehouse says simply being a finalist reflected the city’s support of the team and the NHL. Seven of the finalists were in the United States.
June 24, 2020 3:48 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Matt Murray says he’s focusing on the present and not whatever awaits him in the offseason. The two-time Stanley Cup winner says he’s doing his best to get sharp following the NHL’s extended pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Murray split playing time with Tristan Jarry during the regular season and watched Jarry become an All-Star. Murray’s play was on the upswing right before the shutdown and Murray believes he will be ready when the Penguins face Montreal in the play-in round whenever the league does return.
June 24, 2020 3:52 am
Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin says two unidentified players have tested positive for COVID-19 and recovered. Tomlin says the players tested positive at some point earlier this year. Both players went through what Tomlin called “the appropriate protocol” and have since returned to work. Neither player visited the team facility at any point during the offseason. The Steelers, like the rest of the NFL, have been meeting and training remotely rather than in person since mid-March.
June 24, 2020 3:46 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin says the team will support players if they chose to kneel during the national anthem. Tomlin says the club has engaged in “intimate discussions” about social activism in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death last month. The team has set up structural committees designed to help players as they figure out what actions they might want to take. Tomlin says the organization is fine with whatever the players decide so long as they do things “thoughtfully and with class.”
June 24, 2020 3:47 am
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The Philadelphia Phillies say two more players and two additional staff members have tested positive for COVID-19. That spikes the number of total members in the organization who have the virus to 12. The Phillies said Tuesday all other tests within the organization have come back negative. One of the two players tested positive outside the team complex in Clearwater, Florida. The Phillies shut their spring complex after five players tested positive on Friday for COVID-19. Philadelphia became the first big league team known to be struck by the outbreak. Three staff members at the camp also tested positive.
June 23, 2020 8:41 am
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – Novak Djokovic has tested positive for the coronavirus after taking part in a tennis exhibition series he organized in Serbia and Croatia. The top-ranked Serb is the fourth player to test positive for the virus after first playing in Belgrade and then again last weekend in Zadar, Croatia. His wife also tested positive. Djokovic says “the moment we arrived in Belgrade we went to be tested. My result is positive.” Djokovic has been criticized for organizing the tournament and bringing in players from other countries amid the coronavirus pandemic. There were no social distancing measures observed at the matches in either country.
June 23, 2020 3:51 am
TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) – Ryan Blaney held onto the lead after a restart with two laps to go, earning his second straight win at Talladega Superspeedway on a day that began with NASCAR drivers throwing their support behind Bubba Wallace. Blaney nipped Ricky Stenhouse Jr. at the finish line for his fourth win and first since Talladega in October, albeit this time before a mostly empty venue. It was a race marked by support for Wallace instead of another Big One at Talladega, though there was mayhem behind Blaney on the final lap and he also pushed Erik Jones into the wall near the finish.
June 23, 2020 3:49 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Major League Baseball plans to unilaterally issue a 60-game schedule for its shortest season since 1878 after the players’ association rejected a negotiated deal of the same length, putting the sport on track for a combative and possibly unhappy return to the field amid the coronavirus pandemic. Six days after baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and union head Tony Clark negotiated to expand the playoffs from 10 teams to 16, widen use of the designated hitter to National League games and introduce an experiment to start extra innings with a runner on second base, the deal was rejected by the union. MLB asked the union to respond by 5 p.m. EDT Tuesday as to whether players can report to training by July 1 and whether the players’ association will agree on the operating manual of health and safety protocols. The schedule would be the shortest since the National League’s third season. Given the need for three days of virus testing and 21 days of workouts, opening day would likely be during the final week of July.
June 22, 2020 3:45 am
NEW YORK (AP) – An email from Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to union head Tony Clark led to a balk in the drawn-out talks to start the pandemic-delayed season, which now won’t begin by July 19. The executive committee of the players’ association was set to vote and reject MLB’s latest offer for a 60-game season on Sunday. Manfred says in an email obtained by The Associated Press that he really believes they are fighting over an impossibility on games. Manfred says the earliest they’ll be ready for players to report is a week from Monday, given the need to relocate teams from Florida. That leaves 66 days to play 60 games. Manfred says, “Realistically, that is the outside of the envelope now.” Players want 70 games and $275 million more than teams are offering. They are worried that if a resurgence of the new coronavirus causes the 2020 season to be cut short, the deal being negotiated would lock in innovations for 2021 and lessen the union’s bargaining power.
