Mac Engel: Between Kumar Rocker and Jacob deGrom, the New York Mets 'beat' the Texas Rangers

Dec 25, 2023

The best way to plan on Jacob deGrom moving forward is to assume his career is over, and anything he does with the Texas Rangers is free money found between your couch cushions.

(Yes, that is one expensive couch).

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Copyright 2023 Tribune Content Agency.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals expressed skepticism of umpire Ángel Hernández's attempt to reinstate his race discrimination lawsuit against Major League Baseball. The Cuba-born Hernández, hired as a big league umpire in 1993, alleged he was discriminated against because he had not been assigned to the World Series since 2005 and had been passed over for crew chief. U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken threw out the case in 2021. Hernández, 61, has been sidelined by a back injury and has not worked on the field April 3, his only game this season.

Thursday

Thursday

Thursday

Jack Draper will miss Wimbledon because of a shoulder injury that forced him out of the French Open. The 21-year-old British player says he needs time to recover from his latest injury setback. At Roland Garros last Monday, Draper retired from his first-round match against Tomas Martin Etcheverry while trailing by a set and 1-0. The 6-foot-4 left-hander had hoped to make his third appearance at the All England Club next month.

NASCAR is at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France this weekend. The American stock car series is celebrating its new car in its 75th season during the 100th running of the most prestigious endurance race in the world. The Chevrolet Camaro fielded by Hendrick Motorsports has been a popular attraction this week heading into Saturday's twice-around-the-clock race. Its trio of drivers is determined to finish the race. NASCAR's presence at Le Mans marks the first time since 1976 it has challenged the top talent in Europe.

Thursday

The Carolina Panthers have given rookie quarterback Bryce Young the first-team reps in practice this week, a move that coach Frank Reich said is the next step in his progression. Reich anticipates Young will continue to get first-team reps "for now" as the Panthers head into their mandatory minicamp session next week. However, Reich stopped short of naming Young the team's starting quarterback, saying there is plenty of time to make that decision. Young, the No. 1 pick in this year's draft, took over first-team reps from veteran Andy Dalton earlier this week, but Thursday was the first time reporters were allowed at practice.

Unseeded Karolina Muchova has reached her first Grand Slam final by saving a match point and using a stirring comeback to grab the last five games despite dealing with leg problems for a 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 7-5 victory over No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka at the French Open. Sabalenka was a point from winning the semifinal at 5-2 in the third set Saturday but then collapsed, dropping 20 of 24 points down the stretch. Muchova is a 26-year-old from the Czech Republic. She had never made it past the third round on the red clay at Roland Garros until now.

The Big 12 Conference is extending its reach into Mexico. The league says Kansas and Houston will play men's and women's basketball games in Mexico City in December 2024. The league will also explore a possible football bowl game in Monterrey in 2026. Big 12 Mexico is the league's first international extension, and comes less than a year after Brett Yormark became the commissioner of the evolving conference. Yormark says Mexico is a natural extension to the Big 12 footprint. After those initial basketball games, women's soccer teams and baseball teams from the Big 12 will play exhibitions against Mexican clubs.

(All times Eastern)

One side of a dormitory for medical students in downtown Tirana has been covered by a mural of Lionel Messi. Argentine painter Maximiliano Bagnasco is taking part in the Tirana MuralFest 2023 and decided to go with the soccer great. The mural of a bearded and smiling Messi wearing Argentina's white-and-blue national team jersey with the No. 10 will cover part of a building at a crossroad near the capital city's main hospitals. The 41-year-old Bagnasco tells The Associated Press "it is a source of pride for me." Bagnasco has also painted a mural of Diego Maradona in Naples. Maradona also won a World Cup with Argentina wearing the No. 10 shirt.

Jack Swarbrick will step down as Notre Dame's athletic director next year after a 16-year run in which he helped the school maintain its independent status amid an unprecedented flurry of conference realignment. Notre Dame says NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua will succeed Swarbrick. Bevacqua will join the university July 1 as a special assistant to the president for athletics before taking over the athletic department sometime in the first quarter of 2024.

The Minnesota Vikings are parting ways with star running back Dalvin Cook for salary cap reasons. He has been informed he’ll be released, a person familiar with the team's decision told The Associated Press. In six years with the Vikings, Cook reached third on the franchise all-time rushing list with 5,993 yards. He is coming off his fourth consecutive season surpassing the 1,000-yard rushing mark. Cook was scheduled to count more than $14.1 million against Minnesota's salary cap. Cutting him will chop $9 million off the team's cap charges for this year.

Poor air quality from Canada's wildfires has cancelled racing at Belmont Park and called off the Washington Nationals home game against Arizona on Thursday. It's the second straight day the continuing fires north of the border have impacted sports in the Northeastern United States. Several Major League Baseball games were called off Wednesday. A National Women's Soccer League game in New Jersey and an indoor WNBA game set for Brooklyn were also called off Wednesday amid hazy conditions that have raised alarms from health authorities. Also called off was a scheduled practice for the NFL's New York Giants.

Belmont Park cancels racing, MLB's Nationals postpone game due to poor air quality Thursday from Canada wildfires.

JP Dellacamera will be Fox's lead play-by-play commentator for the third straight Women's World Cup and two-time FIFA Player of the Year Carli Lloyd will work as a studio analyst. Dellacamera will be paired with former U.S. national team midfielder Aly Wagner for the second straight women's tournament and one of three crews on site in Australia and New Zealand for the World Cup, which opens July 20. Rob Stone will be the studio host for Fox's third straight Women's World Cup along with two men's World Cups. The set will have the Sydney Opera House as a backdrop.

MLB

Through Saturday, June 3

Today in Sports - Week Ahead, June 9 - June 15, 2 Takes

Today in Sports - Week Ahead, June 9 - June 15, Take 2

This Date in Baseball-Week Ahead for June 9 - June 15. Take 2

Ryan Hunter-Reay will return to the IndyCar Series as Conor Daly's replacement at Ed Carpenter Racing. Daly was let go a day earlier in what team owner Carpenter called one of the most difficult decisions of his tenure running the organization. He cited performance issues for the split with Daly, who was ranked 20th in the standings with a season-best finish of eighth in the Indianapolis 500. Hunter-Reay was out of IndyCar last season but returned this year for the Indy 500 and finished 11th. He will make his debut in the No. 20 Chevrolet next weekend at Road America.

Carlos Alcaraz vs. Novak Djokovic is intriguing but there are also storylines worth following in the other French Open men's semifinal. That will be Casper Ruud vs. Alexander Zverev in a match that which will be played second Friday on Court Philippe Chatrier. Ruud and Zverev do not own any Grand Slam titles like like Alcaraz and Djokovic do. But both have played in the finals at major tournaments. And Zverev is in the final four at Roland Garros for the third year in a row while Ruud made it this far for the second consecutive time.

The German soccer league will appoint two more men to take over as chief executive officers from two men who took over from a woman last year. The league says Marc Lenz and Steffen Merkel are to assume duties as co-CEOs on July 1. They will take over from Axel Hellmann and Oliver Leki. Hellmann and Leki took over on an interim basis from Donata Hopfen last December when she stepped down from the role as head of Germany's top two soccer divisions after less than a year in charge. Hopfen was the league's first female CEO. Lenz and Merkel were already members of the league's management board.

Rick Hendrick fully supports Chase Elliott as he returns from a one-race suspension for deliberately wrecking Denny Hamlin, but the team owner believes on-track aggression has gotten out of control this season and NASCAR sent a message by parking the superstar. Elliott missed last week's race outside St. Louis as the five-time fan-voted most popular driver served a one-race suspension for retaliating against Hamlin in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Hendrick said he believes drivers have gotten far too aggressive with the second-year Next Gen car, which has not only tightened the field but is a durable vehicle that can withstand bumping and banging.

Manchester City enters the Champions League final as a modern soccer and financial heavyweight compared to Inter Milan. That is a new twist in their European history ahead of Saturday's game. Their respective status in European soccer on and off the field flipped about 12 years ago. Abu Dhabi's wealth has been spent wisely. Debt-free City goes to its second Champions League final in three years with seven Premier League titles in 12 years. In that time, Inter won Serie A just once and missed the Champions League for six straight years. Inter has had three owners and racked up record losses.

Budweiser will still be the official World Cup beer through the 2026 tournament in the United States. Brewer AB InBev has renewed with FIFA despite a troubled time with men's 2022 World Cup host Qatar. Two days before the tournament began in Qatar World Cup organizers withdrew a longstanding promise to let fans at stadiums buy beer with alcohol. The move blindsided the brewer whose Budweiser brand has been the World Cup beer since 1986. FIFA seemed exposed in Qatar to a breach of contract case but there was no mention of past problems in a statement Thursday. The value of the renewal was not stated. The sponsorship was reported to be about $75 million for the previous World Cup.

Czech police say 23 West Ham and Fiorentina soccer fans were detained for their behaviour in connection with the Europa Conference League final in Prague. They say one person is suspected of attacking a police officer and two others of hooliganism. The rest are suspected of committing various misdemeanours. Interior Minister Vít Rakušan says as far the numbers of the detained the Italians "won." Other incidents were reported by media between police and West Ham fans using flares while celebrating the 2-1 victory in Prague's Old Town.

Miyu Kato has left behind the disappointment of her controversial disqualification in doubles by claiming the mixed doubles title at the French Open. Kato, a 28-year-old player from Japan, and her women's doubles partner were defaulted during their third-round match last week after Kato accidentally hit a ball girl in the neck after a point. Kato also forfeited all of her prize money and rankings points from women's doubles but was allowed to keep participating in mixed doubles. Playing with Tim Puetz of Germany they won the tournament by defeating 2019 U.S. Open singles champion Bianca Andreescu of Canada and Michael Venus of New Zealand 4-6, 6-4 10-6 after a super tiebreak decided the outcome of the match.

Germany's second division threatens to take attention away from the Bundesliga next season with several heavyweights competing at the lower level. Hertha Berlin and Schalke were relegated from the top flight. They join the likes of second-tier teams Hamburg, Nuremberg, Kaiserslautern, Hannover and Fortuna Düsseldorf. They're all teams playing in stadiums with the capacity for around 50,000 supporters or more. Only five of 18 teams playing in the Bundesliga next season can boast such spectator numbers. When Hertha hosts Hamburg in its 75,000-capacity Olympiastadion, or Schalke hosts Kaiserslautern in front of 62,000 fans in Gelsenkirchen, the games will draw more attention than many first-division matches.

England midfielder Declan Rice looks to have played his final match for West Ham. Rice captained West Ham in its victory over Fiorentina in the Europa Conference League final on Wednesday. West Ham chairman David Sullivan says Rice has been promised he can leave the club and he wants to go. Sullivan tells British radio station Talksport that "you can't keep a player who doesn't want to be there." Rice has been linked with some of Europe's top teams.

Argentina midfielder Alexis Mac Allister has signed for Liverpool for a reported initial fee of 35 million pounds ($43.6 million) to mark the start of an expected rebuild by the club. Mac Allister was part of Argentina's World Cup-winning team last year. He completed a move from Brighton on what Liverpool described as a "long-term deal." Mac Allister helped Brighton secure its highest-ever Premier League finish of sixth place. That was one spot below Liverpool. Mac Allister's reputation has soared over the past year after playing a key role in Argentina's World Cup triumph alongside Lionel Messi.

The first big surprise in golf's new world? Seeing PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and Saudi wealth fund leader Yasir Al-Rumayyan smiling together. Behind the scenes were a pair of PGA board members. One of them was Jimmy Dunne, a power broker in golf and on Wall Street. That he was involved in setting the first meeting between Monahan and the Saudis is telling. Dunne co-founded an investment banking firm that had offices in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. He lost 66 colleagues that day. Dunne is all about looking for solutions. The tour needed answers.

Von Miller's desire to eliminate artificial fields is personal. The three-time All-Pro edge rusher tore his right ACL playing on an artificial surface in Buffalo's game at Detroit last Thanksgiving. Miller, San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle and Green Bay Packers offensive lineman David Bakhtiari are part of Pennington's "Flip the Turf" campaign, urging players and fans to sign a Change.org petition calling for the 16 stadiums that use artificial turf to switch to grass. The NFL Players Association has long been calling for all teams to switch to grass fields. The players’ union released studies in April from 2012-22 that show a significant increase in non-contact injuries on artificial surfaces vs. grass fields.

With Lionel Messi heading for Inter Miami and Cristiano Ronaldo already in Saudi Arabia it's time for soccer's next global superstar to step forward. Erling Haaland's record-breaking first season at Manchester City has seen the striker establish himself as arguably the most lethal goal-scorer in the sport. He is also on the brink of firing Pep Guardiola's City to its first Champions League title against Inter Milan in Saturday's final in Istanbul. That would give City a historic treble of trophies after winning the Premier League and FA Cup this season. Perhaps only Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior can challenge the Norwegian to the title of the world's best player in the post-Messi and Ronaldo era.

Barcelona again couldn't do enough to entice Lionel Messi. The club missed out on a chance to bring the World Cup winner back nearly two years after it was forced to let him go against his will because of its financial struggles. Messi announced Wednesday he would not return to Barcelona and instead was going to join Inter Miami in Major League Soccer. There had been hopes of a reunion between the Argentina great and the Spanish club where he thrived for nearly two decades before leaving to join Paris Saint-Germain. But in the end there was only more disappointment for both sides.

The best way to plan on Jacob deGrom moving forward is to assume his career is over, and anything he does with the Texas Rangers is free money found between your couch cushions.

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — I liked the Dolphins defense last season. I might love the Dolphins defense this season.

DURHAM, N.C. — On the whole, the Duke basketball staff has been successful in roster building over the nearly three months since the Blue Devils’ NCAA Tournament loss to Tennessee.