Hometown Broadcasting Sports Thursday 6/11/20
11 June 2020 Sports
The Brewers may have found a steal in the first round of the MLB Draft on Wednesday night. With the 20th overall selection, they picked outfielder Garrett Mitchell from UCLA. MLB Pipeline had Mitchell rated as the 6th best prospect overall. Mitchell, 21, was previously selected by the Oakland Athletics in the 14th round of the 2017 First-Year Player Draft out of Orange Lutheran High School (Orange, CA), but did not sign. He started all 15 games in center field for the Bruins in his junior season this spring, batting .355 (22-for-62) with 18 runs, six doubles and nine RBI.
Mitchell enjoyed a breakout sophomore campaign the year prior, batting .349 (90-for-258) with 57 runs, 14 doubles, 12 triples, six home runs, 41 RBI and a .984 OPS to go along with a perfect fielding percentage. He led the NCAA and established a new single-season program record in triples and was a finalist for an American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Gold Glove Award.
Mitchell has been treated for Type-1 Diabetes since the 3rd grade.
This marks the first time that the Crew has selected 20th overall in the First-Year Player Draft and the first time that the organization has selected an outfielder in the first round since doing so in consecutive years in 2015 (Trent Grisham) and 2016 (Corey Ray).
The Brewers have four selections remaining in the 2020 First-Year Player Draft, which concludes with rounds two through five on Thursday starting at 4pm CDT.
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Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says there is a “100%” chance of big league ball this year. Major League Baseball will make another proposal to start the pandemic-delayed season in empty ballparks, but Manfred vowed Wednesday to unilaterally order opening day if an agreement is not reached. “I can tell you unequivocally we are going to play Major League Baseball this year,” he said. Manfred insisted the chance of playing this year was “100%.”
The players’ association made its second proposal Tuesday, asking for an 89-game regular season and 100% of prorated salaries. MLB’s plan a day earlier was for a 76-game season, would guarantee 50% of prorated salaries and hinge 25% in additional money on the postseason’s completion. MLB has threatened a shorter schedule if players insist on 100% of their prorated salaries. The union likely would file a grievance, contending a longer schedule was economically feasible and asking arbitrator Mark Irvings to award damages.
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Martin Truex Jr. won his second consecutive Martinsville Speedway race Wednesday night, ultimately cruising to a 4.232-second victory over a trio of Team Penske cars in the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500. Penske teammates Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano finished second, third and fourth. They combined to lead 273 laps with Logano’s 234 laps out front the most for any driver on the night. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman finished fifth and sixth. Matt DiBenedetto, whose iconic Wood Brothers Racing team hails from Virginia, finished seventh. William Byron, Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson rounded out the top 10.
Bubba Wallace, who drove the No. 43 for Richard Petty Motorsports, earned his career-best NASCAR Cup Series finish at Martinsville (11th) — he and Johnson had a close competition for the 10th position in the final laps.
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Major League Soccer announced Wednesday that its season will resume starting July 8 with a tournament in Florida.
The league’s 26 teams will be divided into six groups for the opening round of the tournament played without fans at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports complex at Walt Disney World.
Teams had played just two games to start the season when the league suspended play on March 12 because of the coronavirus outbreak.
While in Florida, players will be sequestered in a resort with a rigorous testing protocol. Each team will have three group matches, played over 16 consecutive days with multiple games a day. The group matches will count toward the regular season.
Sixteen teams will advance to the knockout round, with the winner earning a spot in the 2021 CONCACAF Champions League.
The prize pool for the MLS Is Back Tournament is $1.1 million, the league said. The title match will be played on Aug. 11.
Following the tournament, teams will resume the season in their home markets. It was unclear whether those games would be played with fans in the stadiums.
The announcement comes a week after the league and its players reached an agreement on a contract that runs through 2025.
Teams can begin arriving in Florida for training on June 24. Those that have already been training in market must arrive no later than seven days before their first match.
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Kickoff for one of the Green Bay Packers’ preseason games has been moved up.
The Aug. 29 game against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, has been moved up to 5 p.m. CT.
The rest of the preseason schedule remains as previously announced:
- 15: vs. Arizona, noon
- 22: vs. Cleveland, 3 p.m.
- 3: at Kansas City, 7 p.m.
Nearly five years after requesting that fans don’t display the flag at races, NASCAR said Wednesday that it was now prohibiting the display of the flag. NASCAR’s announcement comes three days after Bubba Wallace said the flag should be prohibited from tracks and as protests continue in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis on May 25.
NASCAR held a moment of silence on Sunday ahead of its Cup Series race at Atlanta and NASCAR president Steve Phelps made a speech recognizing the work to be done to fix racial injustice. Drivers also teamed up to film a video speaking out against racial injustice and inequality.
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The NFL preseason will be reduced by one game once the 2021 collective bargaining agreement kicks in, but we might see a reduction much sooner.
NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero reported on Wednesday that the NFL and the NFLPA are discussing cutting the preseason in half leading into the 2020 season.
Shortening the preseason would allow for a longer “ramp-up” period, regardless of whether players agree to report a week or two early, and provide extra time for medical experts to finalize game-day protocols for testing, etc.
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