MLB
NEW YORK (AP) — Trying to find out the status of a baseball player coming back from an ankle injury definitely will be easier than learning whether someone tested positive for the coronavirus.
Major League Baseball said Tuesday that a team will not specifically announce a COVID-19 injured list placement for a player who is removed from the club after testing positive, just an IL trip.
MLB’s operations manual says a positive test, exhibiting symptoms that require isolation for additional assessment or exposure to someone who has had the virus are cause for placement on the new COVID-19 IL.
Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement states that for any medical condition not related to employment “a club may disclose only the fact that a medical condition is preventing the player from rendering services to the club and the anticipated length of the player’s absence from the club.”
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Baseball’s minor leagues canceled their seasons on Tuesday after Major League Baseball decided not to provide any players to its affiliated teams amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, the minor league governing body, made the long-expected announcement. The Professional Baseball Agreement between the majors and the minors expires after this season, and MLB has proposed reducing the minimum affiliates from 160 to 120.
MLB already had told clubs to retain expanded 60-player pools, of which 30 players can be active during the first two weeks of the season starting in late July.
NEW YORK (AP) — As monuments, statues and memorials around the world come under increased scrutiny, some former Most Valuable Players in Major League Baseball are saying they’d like to see a change in future MVP plaques.
The trophy is engraved with the name of Kenesaw Mountain Landis in large letters.
Landis was baseball’s first commissioner and there were no Black players in the majors during his reign from 1920 until his death in 1944. His name has been on every American League and National League MVP plaque since then.
Barry Larkin, Terry Pendleton and Mike Schmidt say they’d like to see it pulled off.
DETROIT (AP) — No. 1 overall draft pick Spencer Torkelson and the Detroit Tigers agreed to a minor league contract on Tuesday, and the team said the infielder will join its player pool for this abbreviated season.
Torkelson’s deal includes an $8,416,300 is a signing bonus, which is $1,000 above slot value, and a $2,500 contingent bonus for days on the roster of a minor league affiliate, which cannot be earned until 2021. He is to receive $100,000 within 30 days of the deal’s approval by Major League Baseball, and 50% of the rest on each July 1 in 2021 and 2022.
Detroit had the top pick for the second time in three years after drafting right-hander Casey Mize in 2018.
Undrafted out of high school, Torkelson hit 54 home runs at Arizona State. The Tigers took the slugging first baseman with the top pick, then said they intended to try him at third.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The San Diego Padres on Tuesday acquired middle infielder Jorge Mateo from the Oakland Athletics in the first trade since baseball resumed after a shutdown of more than three months due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Padres will send either a player or cash to the A’s for the 25-year-old Mateo, who will be added to the player pool for the resumption of spring training. The Padres are scheduled to have their first workout Friday at Petco Park.
Mateo is a former top prospect with the New York Yankees, who signed him as a non-drafted free agent at 17 out of the Dominican Republic. He is a .267 hitter in eight minor league seasons.
BALTIMORE (AP) — Outfielder Heston Kjerstad agreed to a minor league contract with the Baltimore Orioles that includes a $5.2 million signing bonus, well below the slot value of $7,789,900 assigned to the No. 2 overall pick.
“Just the beginning of a new journey! Excited to be an Oriole!” Kjerstad wrote on Twitter.
Kjerstad batted .448 with six homers and 20 RBIs over 16 games as a junior with Arkansas this year before the season was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic. He started every game in right field and had at least one hit in each outing.
He joins a rebuilding Orioles team that has lost at least 100 games in two straight seasons and used the No. 1 pick in 2019 to secure catcher Adley Rutschman out of Oregon State.
NBA
DENVER (AP) — The Denver Nuggets say they’ve closed their facilities after two members of the team’s traveling party tested positive for the coronavirus over the weekend. A third tested positive this week.
All three are asymptomatic, the Nuggets said Tuesday in confirming a report by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The 35-member traveling party includes players, coaches and staff.
Also Tuesday, Pelicans general manager David Griffin said three New Orleans players have tested positive for COVID-19 and will be in self-isolation until testing shows they can return to team activities without infecting others.
NEW YORK (AP) - Joe Borgia, who spent 32 years in the NBA as a referee and executive, announced his retirement Tuesday.
Among the highlights of Borgia’s tenure with the league is the NBA Replay Center in Secaucus, New Jersey, which opened for the 2014-15 season and has become a fixture as part of both in-game reviews and analysis of the league’s referees.
Borgia was hired to the NBA referee staff in 1988. He officiated 10 seasons before an injury forced him to stop in 1998. He joined the basketball and referee operations department in 1999 and retired Tuesday with the title of senior vice president for referee operations.
WNBA
CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago Sky forward Jantel Lavender is recovering after surgery on a broken bone in her left foot.
The team announced Lavender had the procedure on the fifth metatarsal in the foot on Tuesday in Los Angeles.
Lavender, who has averaged 8.7 points and 4.8 rebounds in 288 games over nine seasons in the WNBA, will miss this year’s abbreviated campaign in Florida.
SOCCER
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Lionel Messi scored his 700th career goal for club and country before Atletico Madrid came back to draw 2-2 in the Spanish league on Tuesday and deal Barcelona’s title hopes a major blow.
Barcelona’s third draw in four rounds left it in second place, one point behind leader Real Madrid. Madrid hosts Getafe on Thursday with a chance to open up a four-point lead with five more matches remaining.
Barcelona was two points ahead of Madrid when the league was halted in March because of the coronavirus outbreak.
GENEVA (AP) — FIFA banned its former finance director Markus Kattner for 10 years on Tuesday for helping former president Sepp Blatter and other top managers award themselves salary raises and bonuses totaling tens of millions of dollars.
FIFA said its ethics committee judges found Kattner guilty of conflicts of interest and abuse of position, including obtaining a recording of a FIFA Council meeting from which he had been excluded.
Kattner was also fined 1 million Swiss francs ($1.05 million) and ordered to pay within 30 days.
“By his conduct, the integrity and objectivity of FIFA have therefore been exceedingly violated,” FIFA’s ethics judges said in their ruling.
SPORTS BUSINESS
NEW YORK (AP) — The head of global human resources at sports apparel and shoe company Adidas resigned Tuesday following criticism from employees of what they see as the company’s failure to diversify its workforce.
Karen Parkin’s resignation comes after a group of Black employees called on Adidas’ supervisory board to investigate her and her strategy for addressing racial issues in the workplace. The employees are also pressing the company based in Herzogenaurach, Germany, to create an anonymous public channel to submit any problems about racism.
The demands from Black employees were reported by The Wall Street Journal in mid- June.
Igor Landau, chairman of Adidas AG’s supervisory board, said in a statement that Parkin’s decision to leave the company reflects her belief that a new HR leader will “best drive forward the pace of change that Adidas needs at this time.”
COURTS
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida appellate judges on Tuesday questioned the legality of search warrants that let police secretly video record New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and others paying for massage parlor sex, pressing a prosecutor on his contention that the warrants were legally valid.
Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey DeSousa found himself repeatedly queried by the three-judge panel as he tried to persuade them that the warrants and searches met all constitutional protections and that they should overturn lower court rulings that barred the recordings’ use at trial.
Misdemeanor charges against Kraft, 79, and other customers would have to be dropped if those rulings stand, although felony charges against the spa owners might proceed as there is other evidence against them.
Kraft and others were charged in February 2019 in a multi-county investigation of massage parlors that included the secret installation of video cameras in the spas’ lobbies and rooms. Police say the recordings show Kraft and other men engaging in sex acts with women and paying them.
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