June 9, 2020 3:40 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Major League Baseball is making another try to start the coronavirus-delayed season in early July. The proposal calls for a 76-game regular season, expanding the playoffs from 10 teams to as many as 16 and allowing players to earn about 75% of their prorated salaries. Players have refused cuts beyond what they agreed to in March shortly after the pandemic began, part of baseball’s again acrimonious labor relations. The arduous negotiations have jeopardized plans to hold opening day around the Fourth of July in ballparks without fans and provide entertainment to a public still emerging from months of quarantine. MLB says it can’t afford to play in ballparks without fans, and in May the owners proposed an 82-game schedule. The union countered with a 114-game schedule at prorated pay that would extend the regular season by a month through October.
June 7, 2020 7:04 am
DENVER (AP) — Seasonal colds and the flu spread through NFL locker rooms just about every year, sending some players home sick while others slog through practices hoping they’ll feel better by game day. Last December, the Patriots flew two airplanes to Houston to keep the healthy players apart from sick ones, which included seven starters. On the final weekend of the 2016 season, the Raiders were ravaged by a bug that swept through their entire roster and waylaid hopes of a deep playoff run. Now, teams have COVID-19 to worry about. Offseason workout programs have been entirely virtual since the league closed team facilities in March because of the coronavirus pandemic. Coaches began returning to their offices Friday but players not seeking treatment for injuries probably won’t be allowed to return until training camps open next month. Many players polled by The Associated Press say they’re scared to return to work without a cure or a vaccine for the coronavirus that has infected millions worldwide and killed more than 100,000 Americans. But they’re putting their trust in the health protocols the NFL’s medical staff is developing for practices to resume and games to return. Safeguards are expected to include daily temperature checks and frequent virus tests, with sick players quarantined for two weeks.
June 6, 2020 4:00 am
UNDATED (AP) – More than half of the 32 NFL teams did not have their coaching staffs back at their facilities Friday even though the league has approved such returns where local governments allow them. NFL teams have been performing all their offseason duties virtually since their facilities were closed by Commissioner Roger Goodell in late March due to the coronavirus pandemic. The league is taking a slow approach to reopening those team buildings, with the latest step allowing coaching staffs to return. Only players currently rehabilitating injuries are allowed at the complexes.
June 6, 2020 3:59 am
NEW YORK (AP) – NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said his league made a mistake. Goodell said the league was wrong for not listening to players fighting for racial equality and encouraged them to peacefully protest. He made his strongest statement on the issues many players passionately support, one day after 2018 NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes and several of his peers released a video demanding the league condemn racism. When Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to take a stand against police brutality and racial injustice in 2016, he was mostly alone. Politicians, owners and fellow players criticized him, fans burned his jersey and he was booed even at home. Four years later, his protest is widely viewed as prescient. Global opinion has shifted so much that more people are vilifying those who attack Kaepernick or misrepresent his stance. George Floyd’s death, which ignited nationwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality, awakened many people to the root of the issues that led to Kaepernick’s demonstration. Now, Goodell said, “I personally protest with you and want to be part of the much-needed change in this country.”
June 6, 2020 3:58 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Major league players and owners continue to fire salvos instead of fastballs. Players accused teams of “depriving America of baseball games” as part of a money fight created by the coronavirus pandemic. They raised the possibility baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred might push ahead with a shortened season over the union’s objection. Union chief negotiator Bruce Meyer has sent a letter to Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem threatening that an attempt to play without an agreement could lead players to block any attempt to expand the playoffs and deny consent to neutral-site games in the postseason. Major League Baseball made its initial economic proposal on May 26, offering an 82-game regular season schedule and a sliding scale of cuts beyond the prorated shares of salaries the sides agreed to on March 26. Players responded on Sunday with a 114-game regular season schedule running through October and no additional cuts. Each player would get about 70% of his original salary under the union’s plan and roughly 22-47% under MLB’s proposal, including $200 million tied to the postseason being completed. Management quickly rejected the union plan and said it would not offer a counterproposal given the insistence of the players’ desire for a longer season that would spill into November. Among MLB’s objections concerns November baseball that could be canceled by a second wave of COVID-19.
June 5, 2020 3:47 am
UNDATED (AP) – NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has told the 32 clubs in a memo obtained by The Associated Press that coaching staffs may work from team complexes starting Friday. Previously, only up to 75 people per day could be at the facilities, with coaches and players not seeking treatment for injuries barred. The maximum number of club employees in each facility will be increased to 100, subject to governmental regulations and implementation of health protocols developed by the NFL’s medical staff.
June 5, 2020 3:45 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Major League Baseball is no closer to framing an agreement for starting the season. Players have reaffirmed their stance for full prorated pay, leaving a huge gap with teams that could scuttle plans to start the coronavirus-delayed season around the Fourth of July and may leave owners focusing on a schedule as short as 50 games. More than 100 players, including the union’s executive board, held a two-hour digital meeting with officials of the Major League Baseball Players Association on Thursday, a day after the union’s offer was rejected by Major League Baseball.
June 4, 2020 2:57 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Chris Archer won’t pitch for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2020 after the team announced the 31-year-old underwent surgery to relieve symptoms of thoracic outlet syndrome. The procedure was conducted in St. Louis. Archer will not be available this season if Major League Baseball finds a way to put together a truncated schedule. The Pirates were banking on a bounce back year by Archer, who is 6-12 with a 4.92 ERA in 33 starts for Pittsburgh since being acquired at the 2018 trade deadline from Tampa Bay. Archer is projected to return to full competition for the 2021 season.
June 4, 2020 2:02 am
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Johnny Majors, the coach of Pittsburgh’s 1976 national championship football team and a former coach and star player at Tennessee, has died. Majors died Wednesday at his home in Knoxville, according to his wife. He was 85. Majors compiled a 185-137-10 record in 29 seasons as a head coach at Iowa State, Pitt and Tennessee. In his playing days, he finished second to Notre Dame’s Paul Hornung in the 1956 Heisman Trophy balloting. Majors was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1987.
June 3, 2020 3:49 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Pittsburgh Steelers running back James Conner says he’s in the best shape of his life thanks in part to the quarantine surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Conner says the lockdown has given him time to cut out “distractions” and help him focus on bouncing back from an injury-riddled 2019. Conner played sporadically over the final eight games because of a nagging right shoulder injury, and the Steelers opted not to offer him a contract extension during the offseason. Conner says he isn’t concerned about his future and is trying to focus on the present.
