Sports

Baseball Has Grown in Bogotá, Colombia, Thanks to Venezuelan Migrants
Sports

Baseball Has Grown in Bogotá, Colombia, Thanks to Venezuelan Migrants

Linked media - Related media “Once you’re here, it doesn’t matter,” said Gabriel Arcos, a systems engineer who grew up cheering for a Leones rival in Venezuela and moved to Bogotá in 2016. “Maybe you don’t like the Leones of Caracas, but like I always say, these are the Leones of Bogotá.” Four years ago, when Iraida Acosta took over as president of the Leones, she said there were only six Venezuelan children. Now, she said, most of its 64 players are Venezuelan. Ms. Acosta, 54, said that in 2017, she and her 9-year-old son left their Venezuelan hometown near the Caribbean coast to visit her husband, who had come to Bogotá six months earlier to find work. They ended up staying because the economic opportunities were better. Still, it wasn’t easy. “The culture, although being brother c...
Willie Hernández, Relief Pitcher Who Had a Banner 1984, Dies at 69
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Willie Hernández, Relief Pitcher Who Had a Banner 1984, Dies at 69

Related media - Related media Hernández led major league pitchers in appearances (80) and games finished (68) in 1984, when he posted a 9-3 record with a 1.92 earned run average. He had 32 saves in 33 chances after tallying a total of only 27 saves in his seven previous seasons. The 1984 Tigers finished 104-58 in the regular season, then swept the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series and defeated the San Diego Padres, 4-1, in the World Series. Hernández appeared in three games in the World Series and had saves in two of them. He yielded just one run and four hits in 5⅓ innings. He earned the final out of the clinching Game 5, getting Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn to hit a soft fly to left field. Hernández became only the third pitcher in major league history, afte...
Unopened Case of More Than 10,000 Hockey Cards Sells for $3.7 Million
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Unopened Case of More Than 10,000 Hockey Cards Sells for $3.7 Million

Linked media - Associated media The box went to an anonymous buyer in Canada, Mr. Simonds said, breaking the record for the most money spent on unopened sports cards and the most anyone has spent on a hockey collectible. Baseball Card Exchange, an authenticator that specializes in unopened vintage sports cards, confirmed that 16 wax boxes were inside the case. Each box contains 48 packs of cards, with 14 cards per pack, for a total of more than 10,000 cards. The set contains 396 different player cards, which means that if the assortment were perfectly random, it would contain 27 Gretzky cards, according to the auction house’s listing. If the case does contains a couple dozen of the prized Gretzky cards, they might not be in good condition, Mr. Simonds warned. The cards could be sligh...
Everybody’s Ejected After a Senators-Panthers Fight
Sports

Everybody’s Ejected After a Senators-Panthers Fight

Associated media - Associated media Geraldine Tkachuk, the players’ grandmother, was spotted in the stands looking less than impressed. As remarkable as the 10-man ejection may have been, it barely seemed to faze the participants. “I mean, I don’t think it’s bad to play with emotion,” Brady Tkachuk told The Associated Press. “I think when this group plays with emotion, we’re a tough team to beat, and I think we rely on our emotion and it shows that we care, shows that we care about what we’re doing here and about the guy next to us.” Two more players got misconduct penalties later in the third period, bringing the total penalty minutes in the game to 167. Still, this being hockey, that wasn’t close to a record. In 2004, a series of brawls late in a game between the Senators and the P...
Rafael Nadal is ready to play again. In America. On hard courts. Should he?
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Rafael Nadal is ready to play again. In America. On hard courts. Should he?

Linked media - Connected media For more than a month, the smoke signals out of Rafael Nadal’s camp have kept the tennis world on its toes, sparking predictions of everything from a triumphant spring on the red clay of Paris to him never playing another competitive match following yet another hip injury in Australia in January. The only thing that seemed clear was that the 22-time Grand Slam champion was prioritizing the clay court season in Europe this spring. Nadal said as much in January when he returned following a year-long layoff because of hip surgery. Sure, he was happy to be back and competing in Australia, where he won the year’s first Grand Slam as recently as 2022, but he was singularly focused on being in top form — or, at least, as close as he can get to it at this point...
How Phoenix Fans Watch Their Teams May Change How You Watch Yours
Sports

How Phoenix Fans Watch Their Teams May Change How You Watch Yours

Connected media - Connected media The Phoenix-area franchises are part of a growing wave of teams doing the same. The San Diego Padres, like the Diamondbacks, ended their agreement with Diamond Sports, the largest regional sports network provider. Major League Baseball used its broadcasting and streaming capabilities to keep the teams on the air and guaranteed they would get 80 percent of the revenue they received in their Diamond Sports deals. Diamond Sports, which must make at least $400 million in annual debt payments, is in talks with its creditors, some of whom want to reshape the company’s business while others want to be bought out. Diamond Sports is also in talks with the N.B.A. and other leagues about reducing their rights fees. A company spokesperson declined to comment on ...