Watch as Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta reflects on their second Premier League defeat in three games and credits Newcastle’s performance in their 1-0 loss at St James’ Park.
Gerrit Cole exercised his opt out from his New York Yankees contract, giving the team two days to void the opt out by adding a $36 million salary for 2029, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.
Three days after the Yankees lost the World Series, New York said Saturday it declined first baseman Anthony Rizzo‘s $17 million option in favor of a $6 million buyout, making the first baseman a free agent.
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Cole’s decision, which was expected, was conveyed by a person who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was not publicly announced. Cole would give up $144 million in the four remaining seasons of his $324 million, nine-year contract.
A 34-year-old right-hander, Cole won the 2023 AL Cy Young Award. His 2024 season didn’t start until June 19 because of nerve irritation and edema in his right elbow. The six-time All-Star went 8-5 with a 3.41 ERA in 17 starts, then was 1-0 with a 2.17 ERA in five postseason starts.
A three-time All-Star, the 35-year-old Rizzo hit .228 with eight homers and 35 RBIs over 92 games in an injury-interrupted season.
Rizzo missed 62 games with a fractured right forearm after colliding with Boston reliever Brennan Bernardino on June 16. He batted .380 (8 for 21) after returning from the injured list on Sept. 1, then fractured the fourth and fifth fingers when hit by a pitch from Pittsburgh’s Ryan Borucki on Sept. 28.
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He returned for the AL Championship Series and World Series and batted .267 with no RBIs.
A 2016 World Series champion with the Chicago Cubs, Rizzo has a .261 career average with 303 homers and 965 RBIs in 14 major league seasons. He was traded from Chicago to the Yankees in July 2021.
He stayed with the Yankees for a $32 million, two-year deal, then agreed in November 2022 to a $40 million, two-year contract.
A former Welsh football referee has said the abuse he received on the job made him “question if it was worth it”.
Sean Regan, who spent six months in the profession before quitting, said there was “a real culture problem”.
The 40-year-old added: “I don’t think we can be proud to be involved in football.”
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It comes as a committee of grassroots referees have refused to officiate games this weekend and two leagues in Cardiff have postponed matches in solidarity with them.
Cardiff Combination League and Lazarou Cardiff Sunday League have agreed to postpone their games, while Cardiff and District league have left the decision on whether to play up to individual teams.
Mr Regan, who was a sports lecturer and a football coach before pivoting to refereeing, said he initially thought it would be a good opportunity.
But the “atrocious” behaviour of players towards him brought him to breaking point.
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“It didn’t surprise me because the coaching staff had very poor behaviour, towards their own players, officials and the opposition,” he said.
“In one match, one of their lads came up to me and said ‘if you keep calling fouls, he [teammate] is going to smack you’.
“It just made me think ‘if somebody hit me what am I supposed to do?’”
Mr Regan said although he enjoyed officiating, he did not want to feel like he was in a “fight or flight position”.
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“I don’t regret leaving because it was the right decision, but I regret feeling like I had to,” he said.
The referees strike will impact matches in the three leagues across 2 and 3 November.
Despite the knock-on effect on matches getting played, many players have also supported the cause.
Evan Emer, a player for CPD Treganna – a team that plays in the Cardiff Combination league – said players were “obviously frustrated”, but added: “If the health and safety of the referees is being challenged and if they don’t feel safe doing their job it is difficult to contest.
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“Frankly, I’m not surprised that it’s come to this.”
Other players were not sure the strike would make a difference.
Cobi Flowers of Cardiff Sparta – a team in the Cardiff and District league – said change needed to “come from above”.
Both Cardiff Combination and Lazarou Sunday League have postponed all fixtures this weekend in support of the referees, but some Cardiff and District league games are still going ahead.
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The Lazarou League said it would “support the stance by the Referee Society”, while the Cardiff Combination Football League (CCFL) said it did “not condone either violence toward or, abuse of referees” but wanted to give all referees the choice on whether or not to participate in the action.
Baseball is just a game. Except on Friday afternoon at Chavez Ravine, 42,458 fans didn’t flock to Dodger Stadium to watch one.
They arrived with their kids, their friends, their parents and grandparents, many of whom once watched Fernando Valenzuela electrify a city and ignite a movement, for a party both four and 36 years in the making.
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When the Dodgers won it all in 2020, the only fans their stadium welcomed came in the form of cardboard cutouts. The real ones were watching from their homes, confined by the limitations of a pandemic that forced the postseason to be played in a Texas bubble and denied the winners the parade they had always imagined.
Despite all the winning the Dodgers had done over the last few decades, including 11 straight trips to the postseason before this year, they hadn’t celebrated a full-season World Series championship since 1988.
On Friday afternoon, on what would have been Valenzuela’s 64th birthday, a city erupted and a long-awaited parade began.
“It certainly made up for 2020,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Obviously there’s a lot of players in 2020 that didn’t get to appreciate and experience what we experienced, but this is for them, too.”
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The Dodgers returned home from New York, where they had silenced the critics and naysayers who tried to claim the only championship they’d won in the last 30 years, a 60-game sprint, somehow didn’t count the same. They demonstrated they could win in an unprecedented sprint. This year, they displayed they could emerge from a rigorous marathon, too.
Baseball is just a game, but the tears that welled up in the eyes of Dodgers players when they finally got their parade suggested more.
The lengthy build-up to the occasion, Clayton Kershaw explained, might have made it “even sweeter.”
“I waited a long time for this,” Kershaw said. “I’m just so thankful to every single fan that came out, so thankful at how well they’ve treated me and my family for all these years. I mean, we’ve been through it. We’ve been through some stuff. To be able to see them as happy as they were, be able to celebrate with us, it means the world to me. It really does.”
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Angelenos flooded the streets to mark the occasion, including hundreds of thousands on the Dodgers’ parade route, which started at City Hall, took the team through downtown Los Angeles and eventually ended at the place where they won 52 regular-season games this year, then clinched the NLDS and NLCS.
Roberts began October on the hot seat after a couple early playoff exits. He began November on a ceremony stage at Dodger Stadium, where he danced alongside Ice Cube, having expertly orchestrated his team to a championship.
“Today,” Roberts said, “was a good day.”
The way the Dodgers expressed their jubilation varied, as one by one some of the most prominent figures took the microphone.
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Some, including Shohei Ohtani, spoke in their second language. The prized free-agent acquisition, after six years without a winning season to begin his career in Anaheim, addressed the crowd in English to express his appreciation after winning a World Series in year one with the Dodgers.
“This is so special,” he said. “I’m so honored to be here and be part of this team. Congratulations, Los Angeles. Thank you guys.”
Many kept it brief: “We’re world f—ing champions, motherf—er,” Walker Buehler said, two days after throwing the final pitch at Yankee Stadium.
Levity was a popular form of expression, including from another player who furthered his October legend.
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“Ice Cube came out in Game 2, and with his performance we didn’t even need to play the game, we had already won it,” Kiké Hernández said. “Then we go to New York, and this guy, he used to be fat, he’s not fat anymore, his name is Joe. He came out and sang, and guess what, we didn’t even need to play because after that performance, we had already won.”
The addition of Betts sparked the Dodgers’ last championship season, but he had struggled through the past couple Octobers before breaking out again this postseason, slashing .290/.387/.565 with four homers and becoming the only active position player in the majors with three World Series rings.
“I’m trying to fill this hand up, LA,” said Betts, who signed a 12-year contract extension during the Dodgers’ 2020 World Series run.
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Baseball is just a game, but for many Dodgers veterans, it also led to a cathartic release.
There was Freddie Freeman, who had battled not only ankle, finger and rib injuries but also personal distress throughout the season’s second half. His 3-year-old son, Max, persevered through a sudden, scary autoimmune illness that at one point rendered him temporarily unable to walk. When Freeman returned from the emergency family list in early August after Max began to improve, the Dodger Stadium crowd gave him a standing ovation that stuck with him as cheers rained down again Friday.
“You guys showed out for my family and I,’ Freeman said. “That was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had on the field. I was so touched. I did everything I could to get out on this field for you guys. And I’m glad I did.”
There was Teoscar Hernández, who joined the Dodgers on a one-year deal after his market didn’t materialize the way he expected last winter. He decided to go to Los Angeles for the chance to win, then provided a vital jolt to the Dodger lineup in a bounceback year. Hernández, who quickly became a quick fan favorite, as the cheers indicated Friday, got choked up as he grabbed the microphone and thanked the crowd.
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The impending free agent also expressed hope to return next year as a Dodger, calling it “the priority.”
“I knew it was going to be good,” Teoscar Hernández said. “I knew a lot of things were about to happen in a good way, but this is way more than I expected.”
And then there was Kershaw, the embodiment of the franchise’s colossal highs and gut-wrenching lows of the past two decades.
“I didn’t have anything to do with this championship, but it feels like the best feeling in the world,” Kershaw said to a cheering crowd. “Dodger for life.”
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The future Hall of Famer was unable to contribute down the stretch of the 2024 season after trying and failing to push multiple injuries. He will need two surgeries on Wednesday, one to address the left big toe and foot issues that forced him out for the year and another to fix the meniscus in his left knee.
That’s part of why it was so meaningful to him that Roberts and Kershaw’s teammates still beckoned him to the stage to say a few words in front of a fanbase that has lived and died with each pitch, with each grueling defeat and euphoric win, the same way he has for 17 years.
Next year, Kershaw plans to make it an 18th in a Dodger jersey, whether he picks up his player option or not.
The 2020 season championship brought him relief. This one induced only tears of happiness.
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“Baseball is just a game, everybody says that,” Kershaw said. “But I don’t know, man. You look around and you see how much it means to so many different people. I think it might be baseball, but it means a lot to a lot of different people, and I’m no different.”
Dodgers vs. Yankees: MINI-MOVIE of 2024 World Series | MLB on FOX 🎥
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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