(ARLINGTON, Texas) — Ingrid Andress is apologizing for her rendition of the national anthem at the 2024 Home Run Derby on Monday night that has since gone viral online.
“I’m not gonna b——- y’all, I was drunk last night,” Andress wrote in a statement posted to Instagram on Tuesday, referring to her performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
Jelly Roll, Shaboozey and more country stars reveal best advice they ever received
“I’m checking myself into a facility today to get the help I need,” she continued. “That was not me last night. I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much for that rendition. I’ll let y’all know how rehab is I hear it’s super fun. xo, Ingrid.”
Andress, a four-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, is best known for her song “More Hearts Than Mine” and her Sam Hunt collaboration “Wishful Drinking.”
According to her website, Andress’ next shows are both at music festivals, Aug. 3 at Basilica Block Party in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Oct. 4 at Country Calling in Ocean City, Maryland.
“Good Morning America” has reached out to Andress’ representative for comment.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service.
Rufus the hawk and owner Donna Davis talk to ABC News from the stands of Centre Court. Via ABC News.
(LONDON) — Meandering within the manicured lawns and historic courts of Wimbledon are Rufus and Flo, a couple who are incredibly popular with players and fans alike, yet simultaneously unassuming and vital workers whose sole function is to keep the public safe and the tennis uninterrupted.
With a combined 20 years of experience working at Wimbledon, they know exactly what they are doing when they start work each day of the two-week tournament in southwest London: Rufus watches the skies while Flo keeps an eye on the grounds.
The biggest difference about Rufus and Flo, compared to most of the other employees at Wimbledon, is that Rufus is a 16-year-old hawk and Flo is a 4-year-old Labrador Retriever.
Rufus, famous in his own right with over 5,000 followers on Instagram and has also been called “the world’s most notable bird” and “one of Britain’s best-known birds” in the media, has a singular responsibility — keep Wimbledon clear of pigeons at all costs.
“Rufus is ‘Chief Pigeon Deterrent’ here at Wimbledon,” Donna Davis told ABC News while standing on Centre Court on the middle Sunday of the 2024 Championships. “Often the pigeons can go up in the rafters and then sneak around and build little nests. They generally have a really comfortable time up there and then come down when the grass seed has been laid to munch on the seed. It’s like caviar to them. Rufus is here to stop all of that.”
Davis shares a unique bond with Rufus that is built on trust as well as her keen understanding of avian behavior and Rufus’ training relies heavily on food motivation.
“We build up that loyalty and trust, ensuring I always have food for him,” says Davis. “He even does what I call his ‘Wimbledon wiggle’ — which is when he shakes his tail before he flies off.”
Though essentially a wild bird, Rufus is trained to return to Davis, seeing her as his most reliable food source. Davis also makes sure to maintain Rufus at the right weight, something that is crucial to their relationship and ensures that he finds returning to Davis more appealing than expending energy hunting for his own meals.
Davis has worked at Wimbledon now with Rufus and his predecessor, Hamish, for 24 years this year but her career at the All England Club all began because she saw a solution to a massive problem that she noticed while watching the 1999 Wimbledon men’s semifinal between Pete Sampras and Tim Henman.
“During that match, the pigeons kept coming down to Centre Court in between points to munch on the seed that had been laid and Sampras kept having to bat them off the baseline with his racquet,” Davis told ABC News. “And of course at that critical point, if you’re getting distracted, that’s the last thing you need, and it can cost you the game or the match. So I was watching and I was thinking, ‘I’m going to give them a call.’ I did exactly that and they said, ‘come down, show us what you can do’ and here we are, 24 years later.”
Meanwhile, Flo, the 4-year-old Labrador Retriever, has a complimentary — but no less important — role to Rufus as she patrols the grounds to keep the perimeter of the 42-acre complex secure and the more than half-a-million people who come to Wimbledon each year safe.
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Flo and owner Mark Millsand together in the stands on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Via ABC News.
Training a dog like Flo for her specific role is an intensive process, her owner and handler Mark Millsand told ABC News.
Her handler explains that it typically takes about ten weeks of intensive, but relatively quick, training to get dogs like Flo up to speed with the kind of work they are doing, the process designed to ensure that the dogs are sufficiently prepared for their roles — much like passing a driving test but gaining proficiency through experience.
Flo’s working day at Wimbledon is long and demanding. Spanning around 12 intense working hours. Millsand ensures she gets regular breaks to prevent overheating and he says that keeping her alert and ready to respond at a moment’s notice is crucial, especially if a sudden search operation is required.
However, Flo does have plenty of opportunities to interact with the public on their walks and she has quickly become a favorite among visitors.
“We have a lot of returning visitors here every year,” said Millsand. ”They seem to remember the dogs. They get a glazed recollection of our faces and then they think, Oh, I remember Flo.”
Flo might be a working dog with an intense focus on her daily duties but she can’t pull a fast one on Millsand, who is more than just her handler because Flo is a family dog, a pet first and foremost.
“She is absolutely not this well behaved all of the time,” Millsand joked. “Unfortunately, she is very fond of strawberries, which means this is the wrong environment for her to be in with Wimbledon’s strawberries and cream. If she sees people eating strawberries, she can get very friendly.”
Not to be outdone by Rufus, even though Flo doesn’t have an Instagram account, she has had plenty of brushes with fame herself and got to meet Her Majesty Queen Camilla at The Championships last year.
Each of them also, notably, have side hustles. Flo will patrol football matches and sets of television shows while Rufus can be seen high above the skies in central London keeping Westminster Abbey free from pesky pigeons.
Historically, animals have been present at Wimbledon, acting as vital employees since before the tournament was founded in 1877. In the early years of the tournament, ponies and horses were used to level the surface of the grass to a pristine standard by pulling a large roller, even wearing leather boots so as not to trample the freshly smooth surface or damage the grass.
But not all creatures have been so warmly welcomed at Wimbledon over the years, like back in 1982 when a swarm of bees in disrupted the second set of the third round match between Americans Pam Shriver and Kathy Rinaldi, engulfing both of them. Rinaldi was stung on the arm and Shriver, quite considerately, removed the sting.
Over the years, Wimbledon has also had interruptions by squirrels — in 1949 during the match between Hans van Swol of the Netherlands and Frenchman Bobby Abdesselam — sparrows, during the 1989 men’s semifinal between Stefan Edberg and John McEnroe, and — in the days before Rufus and Hamish — a mouse even interrupted play during the 1998 first round matchup between Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Mark Philippoussis.
For now, Rufus and Flo work in tandem, steadfast guardians of this tournament, making sure the competition can unfold as seamlessly as possible.
Their teamwork, however, involves a great irony. Rufus and Flo do not get along. At all.
“Rufus and the search dogs are not friends,” laughed Millsand. “I think it’s a healthy awareness of each other, but Flo wouldn’t stand a chance against Rufus even though she thinks she does, but she wouldn’t. I’d love to go over and talk to Donna Davis and have a chat with her about Rufus but we just can’t get close enough.”
Only 280 ball boys and girls will be chosen from around 1,500 applicants each year, including 170 new recruits and 110 recall applications from those who have served in the previous two Championships. — ABC News
(LONDON) — The first thing you should know about becoming a ball boy or ball girl at Wimbledon is that the process is no joke.
In fact, the process is so rigorous and intensive that the acceptance rate of those who get through the training program to work on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon is on par with being accepted into Oxford or Cambridge University, according to the latest enrolment data from Admission Report.
By the time the tournament comes around in early July, the ball boys and ball girls (BBGs) will have been training for five months, starting in the dead of winter in January or February at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club facility in Raynes Park, just three miles south of where they hope to end up at The Championships come summer.
Prospective BBGs train once a week with each session lasting approximately two-and-a-half hours. In these sessions, anywhere from 40 to 80 prospective children will train, focusing on general fitness, movement exercises and core skills needed to become a BBG such as rolling, feeding, receiving and game knowledge.
Training is continuous with the only reprieve coming during school holidays, meaning that the candidates have to be fully dedicated to becoming a BBG at a pace that can test both their commitment and endurance.
Alma Hamoud and Rudy Price — both 15-years-old and in their first year working at the tournament as BBGs — are two of the highly skilled ones who made it through the arduous process and took a few minutes in between matches to speak to ABC News on the middle Sunday of the 2024 Championships.
“Staying focused is the hardest thing because you have to watch every ball on every point and react,” Hamoud said. “But I feel really proud to go home and my parents tell me they have seen me on the TV.”
“It is a ton of fun to be a part of such a huge and famous event,” Price echoed. “I feel a lot of pride when I am on the court.”
Both admit, however, that nerves do come into play because they don’t want to make a mistake when TV cameras are everywhere and thousands of people in the crowd can see their every move. It should be noted that they were flawless on the court in the matches watched by ABC News.
The BBGs are essentially trained to be ghosts on the court, part of the pomp and circumstance of Wimbledon but never a feature. Their job is critical — vital — to the flow and pace of any of the more than 700 tennis matches played at Wimbledon as these unsung heroes seamlessly retrieve and deliver balls to the best tennis players in the world, ensuring that they can focus entirely on their game.
“I practiced rolling a lot at home and at sports centers near my house,” Hamoud said as she discussed the training and selection process from the 31 local schools that work with Wimbledon on the BBG program. “Only 10 students make it from each school so it is very competitive.”
The training includes specific routines for scoring — such as knowing which end the balls should be at a given score — and set pieces like marching, the procedures at the start and end of matches, tie breaks, ball changes and even suspended play — every eventuality that they might encounter on the courts.
Throughout the five-month training period, candidates are constantly assessed by the instructor team and are also expected to self-evaluate their performance by identifying key areas for their own improvement.
Sarah Goldson, who oversees the selection process for Wimbledon BBGs and has directed the training since 2012, is the one to make the final selections of approximately 280 BBGs that are chosen from around 1,500 applicants each year, including 170 new recruits and 110 recall applications from those who have served in the previous two Championships.
“I just felt a sense of relief when I found out I got the job,” said Price. “We put in so many hours of training so it all feels worth it now.”
The tradition of BBGs at Wimbledon dates back approximately 100 years to the 1920s and 1930s when ball boys were provided by Shaftesbury Homes, one of the U.K.’s oldest children’s charities and has been active since 1843. But that all changed after World War II starting in 1946 when volunteers from institutions and schools began to take on the role.
The landscape would radically shift again in 1977 when ball girls were introduced to the tournament. From there, it took just three years for mixed teams of ball boys and ball girls to become standard practice in 1980.
It took a further six years for ball girls to make their debut on Centre Court, marking a significant milestone in the tournament’s history just 38 years ago and 109 years after The Championships at Wimbledon began in 1877.
Now, as of 2024, the gender ratio is maintained at approximately 50% for girls and 50% for boys and there are no specific height or weight requirements for the role, though candidates must meet several criteria, including completing the training program, being physically fit and available for training, having thorough knowledge of tennis rules and scoring and prioritizing their commitment to the tournament.
To qualify for the full training program, candidates must score sufficiently across four areas of assessment during the winter trials where the competition is incredibly fierce, the difference between success and failure to becoming a BBG coming down to a mere one or two points in many cases.
Those who get through are then rewarded with even more intense training as the Championships approach and, in May, the BBGs move to training on grass towards the end of the program, including a dedicated grass court week on the Championships courts and during the wildcard playoffs for Wimbledon.
Furthermore, just two years ago in 2022, BBGs participated in the qualifying competition for Wimbledon for the first time, covering 10 to 12 courts over four days, a practice that Wimbledon says is now permanently integrated into the BBG calendar.
This, ultimately, prepares the BBGs for what they have been waiting for — the main event at Wimbledon starting in early July.
“We start at 10 a.m. and we will stay until the last court is closed,” said Hamoud. “It’s a very long day.”
Hamoud isn’t wrong. The BBGs routine involves alternating one-hour periods on and off the court, giving them enough time to take breaks and while ensuring they remain alert and focused throughout the day.
For Hamoud and Price, who both grew up as tennis fans, being on the same courts with giants of the sport is an experience they’ll never forget and even though the demands on their time and energy can be heavy, neither of them would trade the experience for anything.
“I hope I get to see Djokovic,” Hamoud told ABC News. “I really want to see Andy Murray, he is a British legend,” echoed Price.
Both are aware that their experience can open doors to future opportunities within the sport, from playing to coaching to sports management, but whatever comes next and how they’re inspired following the 2024 Championships at Wimbledon is up to them.
After all, Hamoud and Price are getting their start exactly the same way a couple of former ball boys did who you may have heard of — seven-time Grand Slam winner John McEnroe and 20-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer.
Said Federer in an interview upon his retirement from the game in 2022 as one of the greatest tennis players ever to have played the sport: “At heart, I am always going to be a ball boy.”
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Thursday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Toronto Blue Jays 5, San Francisco Giants 3 Chicago Cubs 8, Baltimore Orioles 0 Houston Astros 6, Miami Marlins 3
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Detroit Tigers 10, Cleveland Guardians 1 Boston Red Sox 7, Oakland Athletics 0 Tampa Bay Rays 5, N.Y. Yankees 4 Seattle Mariners at Los Angeles Angels (TBA)
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati Reds 8, Colorado Rockies 1 N.Y. Mets 7, Washington Nationals 0 Pittsburgh Pirates 1, Milwaukee Brewers 0 Philadelphia Phillies 5, Los Angeles Dodgers 1 Atlanta Braves at Arizona Diamondbacks (TBA)
Members of each team skirmish on the pitch during the CONMEBOL Copa America semifinal between Uruguay and Colombia on Wednesday July 10, 2024 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC. (Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — After a heated match on the pitch, emotions spilled over into the stands Wednesday night at the Colombia/Uruguay Copa America semi-final match in Charlotte, North Carolina.
About a dozen Uruguay players went into the stands and had to be removed by security personnel.
“Uruguay players have entered the stands and a fight has broken out between fans and players,” read a post on the Fox Soccer X account, which was retweeted by Fox Sports, which aired the match.
Gregg Berhalter, head coach of the United States, during the National Anthem before the CONMEBOL Copa America group C match between the United States and Uruguay at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on July 1, 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Bill Barrett/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
(NEW YORK) — U.S. men’s national soccer team coach Gregg Berhalter has been fired, officials said.
In a statement Wednesday, the U.S. Soccer Federation said Berhalter had “been relieved of his duties … effective immediately.”
“I want to thank Gregg for his hard work and dedication to U.S. Soccer and our Men’s National Team,” U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone said in a statement. “We are now focused on working with our Sporting Director Matt Crocker and leveraging his experience at the highest levels of the sport to ensure we find the right person to lead the USMNT into a new era of on-field success.”
Berhalter’s exit comes after the national team lost 1-0 to Uruguay in the Copa América tournament last week.
U.S. Soccer Sporting Director Matt Crocker has launched a search for Berhalter’s replacement, U.S. Soccer said.
“We are deeply grateful to Gregg for his commitment the past five years to the Men’s National Team and to U.S. Soccer,” Crocker said in a statement. “Gregg has earned the respect of everyone within our organization and has played a pivotal role in bringing together a young team and moving the program forward. We wish Gregg all the best in his future endeavors, and we know he will find success in his next coaching position.”
Berhalter, 50, initially served as head coach from 2018 through the expiration of his contract in 2022, before being rehired in June 2023 on a contract through the 2026 World Cup.
As head coach, he saw a 44-17-13 record in 74 matches and a 29-9-7 record in official competitions, according to U.S. Soccer. Under his tenure, the team qualified for the 2022 World Cup. The team ultimately fell to the Netherlands in the round of 16.
As head coach, he led the team to winning the 2021 Gold Cup and two Concacaf Nations League titles.
(NEW YORK) — Former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter pleaded guilty Wednesday to a single count of wire fraud conspiracy in connection with a gambling scheme that cost him his NBA career.
Porter, in a dark suit and tie, said “guilty” when asked by a federal magistrate in Brooklyn how he pleaded to the charge and admitted he withdrew from games so he and others could benefit from electronic bets placed on how he would perform.
“I knew what I did was wrong and unlawful and I’m deeply sorry for my conduct,” Porter said.
An NBA investigation found Porter placed more than a dozen bets on basketball games, including in which he bet the Raptors would lose. He received a lifetime ban from the league in April.
The wire fraud conspiracy charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison but the former Toronto Raptors player agreed not to appeal anything less than five years. Porter will also be required to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and restitution.
His lawyer said Porter became addicted to gambling and had amassed large gambling debts.
Porter was encouraged by his accomplices to clear those debts by withdrawing from certain games prematurely to make sure bets on his performance were successful, prosecutors say.
A league investigation found he tipped off other gamblers about his health and then falsely claimed he was sick so he could stop playing in at least one game, creating a windfall for those gamblers who placed parlor bets that he would underperform.
Four others have been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Porter’s sentencing is set for Dec.18, 2024. The former NBA player was released on a $250,000 bond co-signed by his wife and his mother, both of whom were in the courtroom.
The judge instructed Porter to have no contact with four co-conspirators who have been charged in the case.
(NEW YORK) — Former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter is scheduled to plead guilty Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court to a felony charge related to an illegal betting scheme.
The NBA said Porter placed more than a dozen bets on basketball games, including in which he bet the Raptors would lose. He received a lifetime ban from the league in April.
His lawyer has said Porter became addicted to gambling and had amassed large gambling debts.
Porter was encouraged by his accomplices to clear those debts by withdrawing from certain games prematurely to make sure bets on his performance were successful, prosecutors say.
A league investigation found he tipped off other gamblers about his health and then falsely claimed he was sick so he could stop playing in at least one game, creating a windfall for those gamblers who placed parlor bets that he would underperform.
Four others have been charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
(LONDON) — Wimbledon is about to get bigger. A lot bigger.
If all goes ahead as planned, the Wimbledon Park Project will be a new and ambitious endeavor aimed at transforming the historic Wimbledon grounds by adding an extra 27 acres of land while simultaneously preserving its legacy and enhancing its community impact, according to Andrew Wayro, Wimbledon’s senior design landscape manager.
“I think it’s fundamental to us going forward as a championship,” Wayro told ABC News in an interview a few days before the start of the 2024 Championships. “It’s fundamental for tennis in the U.K. and for us as a Grand Slam, but it’s also fundamental in terms of what we can offer in terms of other benefits to compete with the other Grand Slams as well as what we can offer to patrons who come to the event each year.”
The project promises to bring significant changes to Wimbledon by expanding the tennis landscape and offering new opportunities for both players and the local community.
The primary vision for the Wimbledon Park Project is to extend the grounds, more than doubling the size of the current grounds. Those changes would focus on the former golf course across the street, which is at the heart of the project.
The expansion aims to enhance practice arrangements and facilities for players, improve facilities for qualifying rounds — which is currently held offsite, the only Grand Slam where this happens — and offer a greater number of courts for wheelchair and junior competitions.
“We did a lot of work before we even submitted our first planning application to the Greater London Authority,” Wayro said. “We have made some adjustments, but by the time we got to submitting, we’d already worked through all the statutory consultees in the U.K., Historic England being a key partner in that. We also talked to people like Sports England and Natural England, to inform the design in the best possible way. We’ve made some minor tweaks along the way, like opening up an additional piece of parkland to the public because the Greater London Authority said that that was really important to them and that was something we could do.”
The project, as planned, is divided into several zones. The northern part of the site will host the qualifying rounds, creating a seamless transition for players who, after qualifying, will be just a stone’s throw away from Centre Court.
During the two-week period of The Championships, the grounds will utilize courts on the former golf course, including four main championship courts and the new Parkland Show Court which will have a capacity of up to 8,000 people and is currently slated to be built last, the crown jewel of the new project.
Wayro says that this setup not only increases flexibility in terms of practice but also allows the courts to rest and be maintained, ensuring they are in the best condition throughout the tournament. Meanwhile, following The Championships, these new courts will be opened to the community and offer locals the opportunity to play on grass courts, extending the Wimbledon experience beyond just spectatorship.
“We’re very keen to give as much benefit back as we can from the project,” says Wayro. “We’re very sure about the robustness of what we’ve designed in terms of this master plan.”
A significant component of the Wimbledon Park Project is the creation of additional parkland which will open up 9.7 hectares of parkland to the public year-round with another 1.1-hectare section that will be accessible outside of the championships.
“This transformation will essentially restore the landscape to its former glory, reminiscent of the works of the famous landscape architect Capability Brown, with rolling grasslands and scattered trees,” said Wayro.
However, during the championships, these new parklands will serve as entrances with airport-style security which will reduce queuing times and allow fans to quicker and easier access to the tournament itself.
The final phase of construction will see the Parkland Show Court built right in the middle of the burgeoning new expansion. Designed to seat 8,000 spectators, this court will feature a roof, meaning more matches can be played in inclement weather, as well as new sustainability features — in line with Wimbledon’s ongoing sustainability project — along with all hospitality and essential services that will be housed underneath the raked seating, “minimizing the footprint and maximizing functionality,” according to Wayro.
“Has it been as complicated as it sounds? Yeah, it has,” Wayro said. “It’s been very detailed because you need to capture all of the technical data from all these different disciplines and bring it together into a big comprehensive project like this. That takes time and we have been working on it for the past five years before we even sent it for the Greater London Authority to consider.”
Complicating matters even further is the fact that Wimbledon Park is a Grade II listed historical site and part of it is on the at-risk register due to its fragmented ownership and previous use.
Wayro said the new Wimbledon Park Project has addressed that by aiming to restore the landscape and bringing back historical features such as the original lake and opening up two brooks currently confined in concrete pipes along its perimeter. The ecological restoration will also include desilting the lake and enhancing existing habitats with reed beds and aquatic marginals — the goal being to not only return wildlife to the area but to grow the wildlife population with a minimum of 10% biodiversity net gain.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime project. There aren’t many that come along like this,” said Wayro. “After the 2012 Olympics, I think this is really the next biggest new park and it is a massive expansion in terms of sporting events.”
The next immediate step will be for Wimbledon to secure planning permission from the Greater London Authority with a decision expected later this year. If it is approved, it will take a minimum of a year before construction even begins, says Wayro, with the entire project expected to span over eight years and executed in phases around the new grounds.
The initial phase will focus on the lake and parkland restoration, followed by the construction of the qualifying courts and, eventually, the Parkland Show Court being completed by 2034 if all goes ahead as planned.
Ultimately, the Wimbledon Park Project hopes to ensure that Wimbledon remains at the forefront of Grand Slams and other global tennis tournaments and even though there are still a few steps to go, Wimbledon officials are quietly hopeful about the future of the grounds.
“It’s a big deal,” said Wayro. “But it’s been a pleasure for all of us. If you talk to anybody in the design team that we work with, they’ve all enjoyed being part of this project. This is our estate for hopefully hundreds and hundreds of years more and it is exciting to be a part of that legacy.”
