Tuesday Sports in Brief - Associated Press

MLB

NEW YORK — In the midst of difficult negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, Major League Baseball and its players’ association are scheduled to start a grievance hearing next Monday over the union’s claim the 2020 pandemic-affected season was too short.

The timing of the hearing was disclosed to The Associated Press on Tuesday by people familiar with the litigation who spoke on condition they not be identified.

Martin F. Scheinman will hear the case over the coronavirus-impacted 2020 season. If the union prevails, MLB might be liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

— By Baseball Writer Ronald Blum.

NFL

HOUSTON (AP) — Rookie Davis Mills will start at quarterback for the Houston Texans on Thursday night against the Carolina Panthers with Tyrod Taylor out with a hamstring injury.

Coach David Culley announced the decision Tuesday and said Taylor would be inactive.

Culley said the Texans plan to promote Jeff Driskel from the practice squad to back up Mills against the Panthers (2-0).

Taylor was injured in the first half of Houston’s 31-21 loss to Cleveland on Sunday and didn’t return after halftime. Mills, a third-round pick from Stanford, took over and threw for 102 yards with a touchdown and an interception.

Deshaun Watson was not an option to fill in in the wake of Taylor’s injury after Culley said Monday that he would be inactive for Thursday’s game just as he has been for the first two games.

DENVER (AP) — The parent companies of the Denver Broncos are heading to court Wednesday to ask a Denver County District Court judge to clear the decks for any potential sale of the franchise, which is valued at nearly $4 billion.

The partnership wants Judge Shelly L. Gilman to rule that former owner Edgar Kaiser’s estate no longer has the right of first refusal to any potential sale of the franchise.

The trial is expected to last at least a week with a ruling coming in November or December.

NBA

J.J. Redick, the sharpshooter who was The Associated Press college player of the year at Duke before embarking on a 15-season NBA career, announced his retirement Tuesday.

The 37-year-old Redick played with six NBA teams — Orlando, the Los Angeles Clippers, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Milwaukee and Dallas. He averaged 12.8 points in 940 regular-season games, and his 1,950 career makes from 3-point range rank him 15th in NBA history in that category.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Ben Simmons will not report to Philadelphia 76ers’ training camp next week and prefers to continue his NBA career with another team, a person with direct knowledge of the player’s plans told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because discussions of Simmons’ plans with the franchise have been private.

Simmons, the No. 1 pick of the 2016 draft, is a three-time All-Star who had been paired with Joel Embiid as the franchise cornerstones as the Sixers chase their first NBA championship since 1983.

Simmons, though, took the brunt of the blame for the top-seeded Sixers’ second-round exit in last season’s playoffs. He shot 34% from the free-throw line in the postseason and was reluctant to attempt a shot from anywhere on the floor late in games. That led to him spending critical minutes on the bench.

— By AP Sports Writer Dan Gelston.

NHL

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Wild signed left wing Kirill Kaprizov to a five-year, $45 million contract on Tuesday, ending a stalemate between the team and the Calder Trophy winner just two days before the beginning of training camp.

The 24-year-old Kaprizov topped the Wild and all NHL rookies with 27 goals in 55 games last season. He was one of four first-year players to lead a team in scoring during the regular season and qualify for the playoffs, since the league tracked data from 1992. Auston Matthews, Filip Forsberg and Trent Hunter were the others.

Kaprizov also had 24 assists and led all Wild forward in average time on ice per game (18:18). The native of Novokuznetsk, Russia, set franchise rookie records in several categories including goals, power-play goals, even-strength goals, assists and points, even while playing a schedule shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

SOCCER

Major League Soccer and Liga MX will pause play for a month each summer beginning in 2023 for an expanded Leagues Cup tournament.

The tournament will include all the teams from the two leagues and decide three berths for the CONCACAF Champions League, including a spot in the round of 16.

The new Leagues Cup, sanctioned by CONCACAF, will be part of a bigger expansion of the Champions League, which the confederation for North America, Central America and the Caribbean region announced Tuesday.

LONDON (AP) — Hungary was ordered by FIFA on Tuesday to play one game without a crowd for the racist abuse of England players, although European football’s leading anti-discrimination group said it could be time to expel the team from World Cup qualifying for repeated discriminatory conduct by its supporters.

Monkey chants were aimed at England forward Raheem Sterling and unused substitute Jude Bellingham, who are Black, at Puskas Arena on Sept. 2 — just as players in Budapest faced discriminatory abuse during the European Championship in June.

The Hungarian football federation was also fined 200,000 Swiss francs ($217,000), one of the largest financial penalties handed out to a country by the world governing body.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The United Soccer League is launching a professional women’s league that will compete as a second division below the top-tier National Women’s Soccer League.

The USL Super League will begin play in 2023. The organization plans to apply to U.S. Soccer for Division II sanctioning.

The USL is also launching a preprofessional W-League for women next year. With the addition of the Super League, the USL will have a pathway for players that stretches from youth teams to the pros.

WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL

ATLANTA (AP) — The NCAA placed Georgia Tech’s women’s basketball program on probation for three years Tuesday, citing violations committed under former coach MaChelle Joseph that included players being forced to practice longer than the rules allow and on scheduled off days.

The investigation also found that players feared reprisals from Joseph if they spoke out, and cited “a tense and strained relationship” between the coaching staff and the school’s compliance office.

The NCAA finding means both the men’s and women’s programs at Georgia Tech have landed on probation, a situation that prompted the governing body to also order a comprehensive compliance review of Georgia Tech’s athletics department by an outside agency.

WINTER SPORTS

INNSBRUCK, Austria (AP) — Ski jumping record-holder Gregor Schlierenzauer retired on Tuesday, only a few months before trying to compete at his fourth Olympics.

The 31-year-old Austrian, a two-time winner of both the overall World Cup title and the prestigious Four Hills tournament, said he made his decision after having time to reflect during his latest injury.

Schlierenzauer won a record 53 individual events on the World Cup circuit but none in nearly seven years. His career was slowed by a series of knee injuries.

HORSE RACING

BENSALEM, Pa. (AP) — Medina Spirit, the Kentucky Derby winner who failed a postrace drug test, won’t run in Saturday’s $1 million Pennsylvania Derby.

Embattled Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said Tuesday he is going to keep the colt in California and run in the $300,000 Awesome Again Stakes against older horses at Santa Anita on Oct. 2.

Medina Spirit was the 2-1 early favorite for the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing. He has won three of seven starts this year.

The colt was set to face nine others, including Belmont Stakes runner-up Hot Rod Charlie and Midnight Bourbon, who was second in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga.

OBITUARY

FULLERTON, Calif. (AP) — Jo Lasorda, the widow of Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, has died. She was 91.

She died Monday night at her home in Fullerton, the team said Tuesday. No cause of death was given.

The former Joan Miller met Tommy Lasorda at a minor league baseball game in her hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, where he was playing for the Spinners. They wed on April 14, 1950, a union that lasted 70 years until Tommy’s death last January at age 93.

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