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Big Red Boosters meeting Monday

STEUBENVILLE — The Big Red Boosters Club will meet at 6 p.m. Monday inside the Harding Stadium Fieldhouse.

All are welcome and memberships are available.

Ohtani to hit in Home Run Derby

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Japanese two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani will compete in the All-Star Home Run Derby at Denver’s Coors Field on July 12.

The Los Angeles Angels star will be the first Japanese-born player in the derby, held the night before the All-Star Game.

“I always wanted to see a Japanese player participate in the derby and it happens to be me, so it’s really exciting for me,” he said through a translator on Friday.

Some players have gone into slumps after hitting in the derby, finding their swings get out of whack.

“Obviously, I’ve never experienced this, so I can’t really tell you how it’s going to effect me in the second half of the season, so I’m just going to just do it and see how it goes,” he said.

Ohtani said Angels bullpen catcher Jason Brown will pitch to him.

The 26-year-old outfielder, designated hitter and pitcher has 19 home runs, three behind major league leaders Fernando Tatis Jr. of San Diego and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of Toronto. Ohtani is hitting .270 with 47 RBIs, and he is 3-1 with a 2.70 ERA in 10 starts.

Ohtani won Japan’s home run derby in 2016, when he also was MVP of the second of Japan’s two All-Star Games.

“I was just trying to swing at the ball too hard, like harder than normal, so this time around I’ll try to use that experience and just try to take normal BP hacks,” he said.

Ohtani played two games in the thin air at Coors Field in 2018 and went 1 for 2 with a single.

“Everyone told me that the ball flies there, and I felt that when I was taking BP, so it was a lot of fun,” he said.

He will become the seventh Angels player in the derby, after Wally Joyner (1996), Troy Glaus (2001), Garrett Anderson (2003), Vladimir Guerrero (2007), Mark Trumbo (2012) and Albert Pujols (2015).

Anderson and Guerrero won the competition, and Joyner was a co-winner.

Panthers’ Barkov wins Selke Trophy

NEW YORK (AP) — Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov has won the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward for the first time in his eight-year career.

Barkov was announced as the winner of the award Friday night before Vegas faced Montreal in Game 3 of one semifinal series. He was a finalist for the first time.

The 25-year-old Finn became just the fifth player in league history to win both the Selke and the Lady Byng for gentlemanly conduct. He won the Lady Byng in 2019.

Barkov ranked ninth among forwards averaging just under 21 minutes a game and was 10th in the league with a winning percentage of 54.9 on faceoffs.

Boston center Patrice Bergeron and Vegas winger Mark Stone were the other finalists for the Selke, which is voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. Golden Knights defenseman Alec Martinez offered his endorsement of Stone after the team’s morning skate Friday.

“He’s just a really, really smart, complete player,” Martinez said of Stone. “He’s always picking off passes, knocking down passes, stripping guys — things like that. He’s a 200-foot player.”

So is Barkov, who helped Florida improve its team defense, allowing a half a goal a game less than last season, and also put up 58 points in 50 games. The Panthers lost to defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay in six games in the first round. Barkov had seven points in that series.

Ski mountaineering to join Olympics

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — A new sport is set to be given an Olympic debut at the 2026 Winter Games.

Ski mountaineering has been proposed by the IOC executive board as the eighth sport on the 2026 program in Milan-Cortina, the Olympic body said on Friday.

The sport involves skiing and hiking up and down mountain terrain. The plan is for five new medal events in sprint and individual races for men and women, and a mixed gender relay.

The same events were staged at the 2020 Youth Winter Olympics in Lausanne, Switzerland, where Italian athletes won three of the 15 medals.

“Ski mountaineering is a particularly popular sport in Italy, with deep historical and sporting roots across the alpine regions,” the IOC said in a statement

The proposal, first made by the Milan-Cortina organizing committee, will be voted on by around 100 International Olympic Committee members at their July 20-21 meeting ahead of the Tokyo Olympics opening, the IOC said.

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