BASEBALL
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Justin Turner violated coronavirus protocols when he celebrated with his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates and he refused instructions from security to leave the field, behavior that Major League Baseball said risked the safety of others.
The commissioner’s office said it is starting a full investigation of the 35-year-old third baseman.
The Dodgers won their first World Series championship since 1988 with a 3-1 victory over Tampa Bay in Game 6 on Tuesday night at Globe Life Field.
Turner was pulled from the game following the seventh inning after MLB was notified that he had tested positive for COVID-19. He was quarantined in a doctor’s office off to the side, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said.
Turner later returned to the field with a mask to celebrate the Dodgers’ title. He then took down his mask and posed for a team photo on the field.
Turner became a free agent when his $64 million, four-year contract expired following the victory.
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — What figures to be a down and perhaps brutal market for baseball free agents in the offseason following the pandemic began when a dozen players were told their contract options had been declined, among them St. Louis Cardinals Gold Glove second baseman Kolten Wong.
The 30-year-old Wong will receive a $1 million buyout. Wong, a first-round pick in the 2011 draft, made his big league debut in 2013 and spent his first eight seasons with St. Louis. Wong hit. 265 with a homer and 16 RBIs in 53 games during the pandemic-shortened season, helping the Cardinals make the playoffs for the second straight year. They were eliminated by San Diego in the first round.
Many teams are cutting costs following a shortened regular season played with no fans in attendance due to the novel coronavirus. Many teams already have eliminated front-office staff and many scouts to cut expenses, uncertain what attendance and revenue can be expected in 2021.
Baseball’s labor contract expires after the 2021 season, putting 2022 at risk of a work stoppage.
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — The Los Angeles Dodgers’ six-game win over the Tampa Bay Rays received an average television rating 32% below the previous World Series low.
The six games on Fox averaged a 5.2 rating, 12 share and 9,785,000 viewers, Nielsen Media Research said. The previous low was a 7.6 rating, 12 share and 12,660,000 viewers for the San Francisco Giants’ four-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers in 2012.
This year’s rating was down 36% from the 8.1 rating, 16 share and average of 14,067,000 viewers for the Washington Nationals’ seven-game win over the Houston Astros last year.
Los Angeles’ 3-1 win in Game 6 on Tuesday night drew a 6.8 rating, 15 share and an average of 12,627,000 viewers, down from a 9.6 rating, 19 share and average of 16,551,000 viewers for Washington’s 7-2 win in Game 6 last year.
PRO BASKETBALL
The Houston Rockets and Stephen Silas have an agreement for the Dallas assistant to replace Mike D’Antoni as coach, multiple people with knowledge of the deal said.
The hiring of the son of former NBA player and coach Paul Silas completes a significant change in the leadership of the team with the league’s longest active playoff streak after Daryl Morey decided not to return as general manager following D’Antoni’s departure.
The people spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made.
The new combination of coach and general manager comes after eight straight trips to the playoffs for the Rockets, all since acquiring James Harden in an offseason trade with Oklahoma City in 2012.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Philadelphia 76ers are in advanced negotiations with former Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey to become president of basketball operations as part of their front-office overhaul that began after an underachieving season, multiple people with direct knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press.
The deal is expected to be finalized as early as this weekend, according to the people who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because it has not been made official. Elton Brand will remain general manager, they said.
Morey stepped down as GM of the Rockets earlier this month after blockbuster moves that failed to lead the franchise to the NBA Finals. The Rockets made the playoffs 10 times since Morey was hired in 2007, including the last eight seasons, for the longest active streak in the NBA.
He was responsible for the trade that brought James Harden to Houston from Oklahoma City. The Rockets reached the Western Conference finals twice under Morey but were unable to win their first championship since consecutive titles in 1994-95.
ATHLETICS
BOSTON (AP) — Boston Marathon organizers said the 2021 race won’t be run on Patriots Day because of the coronavirus pandemic, the second straight year that it has been moved from the April weekend that was its home for more than a century.
About six months before the scheduled April 19 date, the Boston Athletic Association said it was postponing next year’s race until “at least the fall of 2021,” conceding that the state won’t have sufficiently emerged from the pandemic to allow as many as 30,000 runners and a half-million fans to gather on the streets from Hopkinton to Copley Square in the spring.
Organizers said they hope to work with state and local officials to “determine if a fall 2021 date is feasible.” The BAA said it hopes to select a fall date by the end of the year.
AUTO RACING
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Kyle Larson will be back in NASCAR next season driving the flagship No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.
Larson signed a multi-year contract with Hendrick that ended his seven-month banishment from NASCAR for using a racial slur while playing an online racing game last spring. He’d been considered the top pending free agent in the sport but was promptly fired by Chip Ganassi Racing and lost all his sponsors.
Since using the n-word on April 12, Larson has completed NASCAR’s sensitivity training, hired an inclusion training coach, volunteered with the Tony Sanneh Foundation, visited Jackie Joyner-Kersee and her St. Louis community center, and the site of the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, that followed a fatal police shooting of a Black man.
Larson, who is half-Japanese, also kept racing under the radar: He has won 42 sprint car races in 2020 while suspended from NASCAR.
