(NEW YORK) — After receiving criticism on social media, New Era has pulled a line of ‘Local Market’ hats from its website.
The hats featured a combination of team logos, local landmarks, World Series patches, and area codes.
The Washington Nationals hat featured the 202 area code, a 1776 patch, a bald eagle, a hot dog, a World Series Patch, an outline of Washington DC, and ‘Washington DC’ in a script.
Pittsburgh’s version had a steel beam, a pirate logo, an outline of the state of Pennsylvania with 1887 on the inside, the word ‘Yinzer” – what people from Pittsburgh are called, “Pittsburgh” in big letters, and “Pittsburgh Steel City” in cursive.
The Kansas City Royals even mocked its hat that featured four area codes in Kansas and none of which were in Missouri, where the team plays.
The hat also featured a saxophone, the Missouri state flag, a pig, a 1985 World Series logo, and a “Kansas City Heart of America” in cursive.
Houston’s version featured four area codes, a Cowboy hat, the Texas state flag, a steak, a NASA spaceship, a World Series Patch, and “Houston Space City” in cursive.
Other highlights include a burrito on the Arizona Diamondbacks hat, what appears to be a UFO on the Atlanta Braves, and a cup of coffee on the Seattle Mariners version.
B Bennett/Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — NHL legend Wayne Gretzky is joining Turner Sports as a studio analyst season, the company announced on Wednesday.
In April, the NHL and Turner agreed to a seven-year deal starting with the 2021-2022 season that will bring hockey to TNT and TBS. Turner will air half of the NHL playoffs each year and TNT will have exclusive rights to three of the next seven Stanley Cup Finals and the NHL Winter Classic each year.
Kenny Albert will be the lead play-by-play commentator and Eddie Olczyk will be the color commentator throughout the regular season and Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“The world’s best hockey league is coming to Turner Sports later this year and the exciting additions of Wayne, Kenny and Eddie will jumpstart our NHL coverage with some of the best and biggest talents in the sport,” said Tara August, Senior Vice President of Talent Relations and Special Projects, Turner Sports in a statement. “Their incomparable experiences within the game and unparalleled depth of knowledge will bring a distinct dimension to our game and studio coverage. We’re thrilled to welcome them to the Turner Sports family.”
On Monday, Gretzky tweeted he resigned as Vice Chairman of the Edmonton Oilers, a day after the team was swept in the opening round by the Winnipeg Jets. He had been in the role since 2016.
Gretzky spent nine years with the Oilers, winning four Stanley Cups, eight Hart Memorial Trophies as the league MVP and finished with 583 goals and 1086 assists. He finished his career as the NHL’s All-Time leader in goals, 894, assists, 1963, and points 2857. He was immediately inducted into the hockey Hall of Fame in 1999.
“I’ve long admired Turner Sports’ coverage of the NBA, among other sports, and I’m thrilled to be joining the studio team in their inaugural NHL season,” said Gretzky. “This is an exciting opportunity to share my experiences and perspectives on the game I will always cherish, while hopefully informing and entertaining fans along the way.”
Albert brings more than 30 years of play-by-play experience to Turner. He has served as the New York Rangers radio play-by-play commentator since 1995, has called seven Stanley Cup Finals on radio and is currently NBC Sports lead hockey announcer for the playoffs.
“Calling the NHL’s biggest games – including the Stanley Cup Final – has been a lifelong dream since I was five years old,” said Albert. “I look forward to this tremendous opportunity with Turner Sports and can’t wait for the puck to drop on the 2021-22 season! Becoming a teammate of ‘The Great One’ and sharing the broadcast booth with Eddie Olczyk – one of the best analysts in all of sports and a long-time friend and colleague of mine – is the icing on the cake!”
Eddie Olczyk, a USA Hockey Hall Of Famer, joins from NBC Sports. He spent 16 seasons in the NHL and won a Stanley Cup with the Rangers in 1994. He joined Fox Sports Net Pittsburgh to call Penguins games and provided analysis for ESPN and NHL Radio. He was the Pittsburgh head coach from 2003-2005, before joining NBC and the Chicago Blackhawks.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of the Turner Sports family and its coverage of the NHL,” said Olczyk. “I’m equally thrilled to be on the same team with ‘The Great One’ for the first time in my career; that’s just tremendously tremendous! Thanks to everyone at Turner Sports for all of their efforts in assembling this amazing team.”
ESPN and the NHL also agreed to a seven-year deal in March. Starting next season, ESPN will air 25 regular season games, one early round and conference final final each year, and four of the next seven Stanley Cup Finals.
(SPOKANE, Wash.) — Gonzaga forward Drew Timme will return to school next season, the team announced Wednesday.
“After reviewing options with my family, I’ve decided to return to Gonzaga,” Timme said in a statement. “I am excited to come back to Spokane and continue my collegiate career. I appreciate everything I’ve learned so far from the Gonzaga coaching staff, and look forward to growing my game more. I love playing at GU, being a part of the program, and can’t wait to play in front of the best fans in the country again.”
Timme won the Karl Marlone Award last year as the nation’s best power forward and was named a second-team All-American by the AP, NABC, and USBWA.
The sophomore led the West Coast Conference in points per game with 19, while finishing fourth with seven rebounds per game, and was named an All-West Coast Conference selection.
Gonzaga started the year 31-0 before losing to Baylor in the NCAA Championship game. Timme was named the NCAA Tournament West Regional Most Outstanding Player. He was also awarded All-NCAA Tournament Team honors after averaging 20.3 points per game during the tournament.
ESPN ranked Gonzaga as the pre-season number one team on April 5. The team signed Chet Holmgren, the top-ranked player in the 2021 class, and added Hunter Sallis, the 14th ranked player, Nolan Hickman, ranked 22nd, and Kaden Perry, who is ranked 62, according to ESPN.
(NEW YORK) — The NFL salary cap is increasing in 2022, according to ESPN’s Dan Graziano.
Graziano tweeted the new number is expected to be $208.2 million, an increase of 14% compared to this season’s salary cap of $182.5 million.
If revenues call for a cap higher than $208.2M in 2022, excess revenues would be used to pay back the $17 million in player benefits that were canceled as a result of the COVID-19 amendments the league and union agreed to last July. (more)
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Atlanta 3, Boston 1
Chi White Sox 8, St. Louis 3
LA Dodgers 9, Houston 2
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Kansas City 2, Tampa Bay 1
Cleveland 4, Detroit 1
Toronto 6, NY Yankees 2
Minnesota 7, Baltimore 4
LA Angels 11, Texas 5
Seattle 4, Oakland 3
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Philadelphia 2, Miami 0
Chi Cubs 4, Pittsburgh 3
Cincinnati 2, Washington 1
NY Mets 3, Colorado 1
San Diego 7, Milwaukee 1
San Francisco 8, Arizona 0
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
Brooklyn 130, Boston 108 (Brooklyn leads series 2-0)
LA Lakers 109, Phoenix 102 (Series tied 1-1)
Dallas 127, LA Clippers 121 (Dallas leads series 2-0)
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
Toronto 4, Montreal 0 Toronto leads series 3-1)
Carolina 3, Nashville 2 (OT) (Carolina leads series 3-2)
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Washington 85, Indiana 69
Atlanta 90, Chicago 83
Seattle 90, Connecticut 87 (OT)
(WASHINGTON) — One of the NHL’s biggest stars is confident he’ll work out a new contract with his longtime team soon.
Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin said Tuesday that he believes he’ll remain with the only team he’s ever played for. The 35-year-old just finished the last season of a 13-year, $124 million deal.
Ovechkin, who is negotiating a new contract without an agent, said he has been speaking with Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and general manager Brian MacLellan recently.
“I’m confident, we still have time,” he told reporters in a year-end media availability. “Obviously, I want to finish my career here. I’m pretty sure we will do something soon.”
He called 2020-21 a “hard year,” reflecting on being forced to sit out four games after he and several teammates were found to have violated COVID-19 protocols, as well as “lots of mini-injuries and obviously a big injury before the playoffs.”
The team was also eliminated in the first-round of the postseason, the third straight year the Capitals have lost their opening series. The team hasn’t advanced since their 2018 Stanley Cup win.
Sources told ESPN that the Capitals are considering different options for Ovechkin’s new contract, including either a one-year, or four-year deal. Prior to the pandemic, Ovechkin was asking for $12.5 million per year, a source says. It’s unclear if that number will change because of the league’s salary cap remaining flat.
A key figure in the D.C. community, Ovechkin and his wife Nastya recently became investors in the NWSL’s Washington Spirit.
Last month, Leonsis told The Athletic that it was important to keep Ovechkin with the team, saying that whether the capain “plays five more years, 10 more years, whatever it is, we’ve got his back.”
“Our commitment to him is to continue to have great teams,” Leonsis said. “We’ll spend to the cap; we’ll try to win championships.”
Ovechkin has scored 730 goals in his career, 164 shy of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record. And on Tuesday Ovechkin says he still hopes to break that mark, saying “you just have to go out there and do your thing. Maybe it happens, maybe not. One step at a time.”
(NEW YORK) — The NFL telling its teams on Tuesday that they will be allowed to host fans at training camp this summer, subject to state and local COVID-19 rules.
The pandemic kept fans away from team facilities last year.
The league also saying that 30 of the 32 teams have received approval from the state and local governments to open their stadiums to 100% capacity when games resume in the fall.
Football is hoping for a return to normal by the time the season begins. The league-wide season ticket renewal rate has been about 90 percent, including a surge in the last week and a half, since the reveal of the 2021 schedule.
29 NFL teams will open their training camps on July 27. The other three — the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers — will be allowed to open earlier because they play in either the Hall of Fame preseason game, or the September 9 regular-season kickoff game.
Peter O’Reilly, the league’s executive vice president of club business and league events, told ESPN that training camp will still look different as the NFL tries to keep its players, staff, and fans safe from the virus.
“It won’t likely look exactly the same as a normal training camp as far as proximity to players and autographs and some of the other things,” he said.
He did add that the league will not implement a fan vaccination policy beyond whatever local regulations might exist.
(GREEN BAY, Wisc.) — Star quarterback Aaron Rodgers says it’s a disconnect on philosophy and communication that led him to decide he didn’t want to play for the Green Bay Packers anymore, not their drafting of QB Jordan Love.
Rodgers appeared on ESPN’s SportsCenter Monday night, commemorating host Kenny Mayne’s last show on the network. And in an interview, Rodgers explained publicly, for the first time, what caused the rift between himself and the only team he’s ever played for.
“It’s never been about the draft pick,” Rodgers insisted. “I love Jordan; he’s a great kid. [We’ve had] a lot of fun to work together.”
Instead, he says, it was how the situation was handled by general manager Brian Gutekunst.
“It’s just kind of about a philosophy and maybe forgetting that it is about the people that make the thing go. It’s about character, it’s about culture, it’s about doing things the right way.”
The 37-year-old Rodgers won his third MVP Award following the 2020 season, leading the team to 13 wins and an NFC Championship Game appearance.
Gutekunst has acknowledged that he should have communicated better with Rodgers before trading up in the 2020 Draft to select Love, seen by some as Rodgers’ eventual replacement at QB.
The veteran also acknowledged in the interview that he had skipped the team’s first session of organized team activities. The OTAs are voluntary, but he will surrender a $500,000 workout bonus tied to his participation in them.
Earlier this offseason, Rodgers reportedly told some members of the organization that he did not want to return to the Packers. The team has continued to insist, however, that it has no interested in trading Rodgers away.
(NEW YORK) — Former boxing promoter Dave Wooley says that during the 1980s, there were three Black men who “ruled the world”: Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan and Mike Tyson.
But it was Tyson who was “the most recognizable face on the planet,” ex-manager Jeff Wald said. “More than the Pope, more than Queen Elizabeth, more than the president.”
“In white America, the image of Mike Tyson was that he was scary,” said civil rights attorney Carl Douglas. “From the Black perspective, he was a hero because he was a success in the white man’s world.”
Whatever you think you know about Mike Tyson, he is arguably one of the most complex characters in the history of American sports and culture.
Tyson is a man who survived a childhood of violence and neglect to become a Black icon and world boxing champion. A convicted rapist. And a man who weathered the loss of many friends and family members, and became the punchline of late night jokes.
His story “breaks all the rules,” said Mark Kriegel, an ESPN boxing analyst and author. Now, the new two-part ABC News documentary The Knockout sets out to explore the former champ’s successes, repeated falls and big comebacks from the perspective of those who knew him best.
Tyson grew up surrounded by violence in the gritty Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.
“The chances of making it out of Brownsville is slim to none,” former world heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs told ABC News. “It’s 50,000 people trying to get through one door, you know what I mean, with no opportunity.”
Tyson’s mother loved him dearly but struggled with alcohol, according to Tyson’s therapist Marilyn Murray.
“She would be drinking, she was extremely abusive,” Murray told ABC News. “Oftentimes, his mother would get beat up [by men she brought home] … so violence, sex, alcoholism, abuse of women — those were his baseline for normal.”
As a child, Tyson picked up the nickname “Dirty Ike” due to his lack of personal hygiene. He was arrested dozens of times and was eventually sent upstate New York to the Tryon School for Boys, a now-shuttered juvenile facility. It was there he was introduced to Bobby Stewart, a guard at the facility and a former professional boxer, who introduced him to the sport.
“Everything I showed him, it was almost like he’d been doing it for 25 years,” Stewart said.
Stewart introduced Tyson to Cus D’Amato, a famed boxing coach who had trained champions Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres. D’Amato immediately saw Tyson’s potential and took him in.
Tyson moved into D’Amato’s home in the Catskills and lived among other young fighters in a sort of dormitory for amateur boxers. D’Amato consistently encouraged the young boxer, telling him that he’d become the greatest. After so much pain leading up to that point in his short life, Tyson finally had safety, direction and support.
“Cus would repeat over and over to Mike from the beginning, ‘Do you know you’re going to be heavyweight champion of the world someday?’” said Nadia Hujtyn, a boxing coach and assistant to D’Amato. “If you say it enough times, you believe it. And if you believe it, then you’ll have no doubt.”
Yet, as Tyson’s life began to take a turn, he would come to know the loss of many loved ones. Tyson’s mother died in 1982. He was 16 and living with D’Amato, who later became his legal guardian. It wasn’t long after that when, in 1985, D’Amato also died.
“I’m sure, at some point, Cus and Mike had a conversation about death,” former world heavyweight champion Michael Bentt told ABC News.
“You have a mission to commit to, we have a pact. If I’m here or not, you complete that pact” of fulfilling D’Amato’s dream of becoming a champion, Bentt said.
On Nov. 22, 1986, Tyson entered the record books as the youngest heavyweight champion in history when he defeated Trevor Berbick, the last man to fight Muhammad Ali.
Tyson’s life was changed forever. He went from living in Brownsville to becoming a multi-millionaire at just 20 years old, and the money kept rushing in. Companies from Pepsi to Toyota wanted to hand him a paycheck to sell their products, and beautiful women vied for his attention.
“I would have girls pull up to the limousine and throw their underwear at me and say, ‘Give this to your boss. Here’s my number.’ It was non stop with groupies,” Tyson’s bodyguard and chauffeur Rudy Gonzalez said.
Those who were watching Tyson, however, say his meteoric rise to fame seemed to be a difficult adjustment.
“The night he won the title from Trevor Berbick, I came in from a club at 4 in the morning and who was sitting in the lobby by himself with that title belt around his waist, but Mike Tyson,” said Wallace Matthews, a boxing writer for Newsday and The New York Post. “He was lonely, isolated. [He] wasn’t sure what to do with himself.”
Instead of running away from his childhood, the champ made a point to return to his neighborhood in Brooklyn. Lori Grinker, a photographer who documented Tyson in his early years, says she can remember riding in a car with him, seeing kids rip up what appeared to be paper bags for him to autograph. He was a hometown hero and he gave out cash to the homeless.
Tyson eventually fell head over heels for actress Robin Givens. They married but their relationship began to fall apart as the media buzzed with abuse allegations.
In 1988, Tyson sat down with Givens for an interview with Barbara Walters on ABC News’ 20/20. Former HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg described the interview as “one of the most remarkable, strange interviews in the history of the medium.”
During the interview, Tyson said he never hit his wife. But Givens told Walters that Tyson had an “extremely volatile temper” and that he “shakes” and “pushes” her.
“Sometimes I think he’s trying to scare me,” she said.
Gonzalez said it was as if Givens “led him right into the limelight and then dropped the hammer on him in front of the world.”
Givens later filed for divorce and sued Tyson for $125 million. In 2009, Mike Tyson admitted to Oprah Winfrey that he had “socked” Givens and that it was “definitely” an abusive relationship “both ways.” Givens, who declined an interview with ABC News for this documentary, also denied to Oprah that she had abused Tyson.
During this time, he constantly made headlines. In separate incidents, he’d gotten into a brawl outside the ring with fighter Mitch Green, crashed his car into a tree, and attacked a news crew that had caught him on a morning run.
“You couldn’t keep up with it,” said Matthews. “This guy basically was reality television way before reality TV was invented.”
Now a single man, those close to him said he relished in the luxury of his fame and wealth.
“We had four penthouse apartments, three mansions … 200 cars, a lot of jewelry,” Gonzalez said. “People wanted to see Mike Tyson just spend a million dollars in Gianni Versace.”
Randy Gordon, former editor in chief of Ring Magazine and the former chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, said that “every single night, instead of resting, Tyson was partying.”
Meanwhile, his next opponent, James “Buster” Douglas, was “training, and resting, and training, and resting,” Gordon said.
On Feb. 11, 1990, Douglas was deemed to be an overwhelming underdog with a 42-to-1 chance of winning. Tyson had been undefeated at the time.
“I really thrived off that negativity,” Douglas told ABC News. “I knew that I had the ability to go fight Tyson.”
Douglas was right. What’s more, he ended up dethroning the king in a 10th-round knockout that shocked the world. To this day, many consider Tyson’s loss in that match to be the biggest upset in heavyweight boxing history.
For more on Tyson’s mistakes, losses and triumphs, watch “The Knockout” May 25 and June 1 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, or stream it on Hulu in the following days.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Washington 12, Toronto 6
AMERICAN LEAGUE
NY Yankees 5, Boston 3
NY Yankees 2, Boston 0
Tampa Bay 10, Baltimore 0
LA Angels 8, Detroit 2
Kansas City 3, Houston 1
Chi White Sox 9, Oakland 0
Seattle 3, Texas 1
Cleveland 3 Minnesota 1
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Atlanta 2, Miami 0
Chi Cubs 2, Cincinnati 1
Milwaukee 2, St. Louis 0
Colorado 7, San Diego 3
San Francisco 3, NY Mets 2
Arizona 3, Philadelphia 2
LA Dodgers 4, Pittsburgh 3
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Connecticut 72, Minnesota 60
Dallas 80, Chicago 76
Las Vegas 93, Washington 83
Phoenix 84, Indiana 80
Los Angeles 85, Atlanta 80 (OT)
MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
Colorado 2, LA Galaxy 1
Minnesota 1, San Jose 1 (Tie)
