6+ hour, 30+ min ago (756+ words) Shohei Ohtani will once again represent Team Japan in next year's World Baseball Classic. Whether or not he pitches in the international tournament, however, remains unclear. On Monday, Ohtani announced on Instagram he is planning to participate in the WBC for the second time in his career. In the 2023 WBC, he won tournament MVP with a .435 batting average and 1.86 pitching ERA, helping Japan to that year's title. He punctuated the event with his memorable strikeout of Mike Trout for the final out in the championship game. "I'm happy to play again representing Japan," Ohtani wrote in Japanese on Monday. The question now is whether Ohtani will pitch in the event, which takes place in March, just five months removed from his heavy postseason workload during the Dodgers' run to a second-consecutive World Series title. At this point, no decision on…...

6+ hour, 30+ min ago (756+ words) Shohei Ohtani will once again represent Team Japan in next year's World Baseball Classic. Whether or not he pitches in the international tournament, however, remains unclear. On Monday, Ohtani announced on Instagram he is planning to participate in the WBC for the second time in his career. In the 2023 WBC, he won tournament MVP with a .435 batting average and 1.86 pitching ERA, helping Japan to that year's title. He punctuated the event with his memorable strikeout of Mike Trout for the final out in the championship game. "I'm happy to play again representing Japan," Ohtani wrote in Japanese on Monday. The question now is whether Ohtani will pitch in the event, which takes place in March, just five months removed from his heavy postseason workload during the Dodgers' run to a second-consecutive World Series title. At this point, no decision on…...

22+ hour, 25+ min ago (1850+ words) The paper fliers went up early one morning in April, an advertisement of hope in the cell blocks of California's most notorious prison: Baseball tryout, Saturday, 9 a.m. Richard Williams couldn't have been more excited. He had been incarcerated in San Quentin for over three decades, and for the next six months, he would not be just Richard Williams, inmate H-07618. He would be Coach Will, the leader of the San Quentin Giants, the country's best baseball team behind bars. When Saturday morning came, dozens of men gathered on the edge of the infield dirt, still in their prison blue work clothes. They were as young as 24 and as old as 60; some had played college baseball, while others were picking up a bat for the first time since Little League. They would open their season on the day before Easter, and Williams began…...

2+ day, 5+ hour ago (613+ words) Talk about easing the blow. The Canadian father-son duo that secured not one, but both home run balls that doomed the Toronto Blue Jays team they root for in Game 7 of the World Series turned the evidence into some serious U.S. currency Saturday night. Dodgers fans will never forget those baseballs hit by Miguel Rojas in the ninth inning and Will Smith in the 11th flying over the left-field wall and into the first row of seats beyond the Blue Jays" bullpen. John and Matthew Bains " sitting side-by-side " will never forget the balls ending up in their hands. John, 61, caught Rojas" 387-foot home run in his glove on the fly. Two innings later, Matthew, seated next to his dad, saw Smith"s blast land in the bullpen and bounce directly into his hands. Novices they were not. John has been a Blue…...

2+ day, 21+ hour ago (687+ words) The streak is over. Crenshaw relied on tenacious defense and an efficient passing attack to end Birmingham's 55-game winning streak against City Section teams and earn a spot in next week's Open Division championship game with its gritty 12-7 semifinal victory Friday night in Lake Balboa. "It's all about heart " I thank my O-line and my defense " they dominated," said junior quarterback Danniel Flowers, who played with a fiberglass cast on his left hand to protect a broken wrist he suffered Oct. 10 in a 32-0 shutout of Washington Prep. "We came in here with a lot of confidence and all I did was read the zone and throw it right behind where the defender left." The sixth-seeded Cougars (10-1) have reeled off eight consecutive wins since a 23-6 defeat to Hamilton on Sept. 5, and their latest triumph counts as the 300th for longtime coach Robert…...

2+ day, 21+ hour ago (687+ words) The streak is over. Crenshaw relied on tenacious defense and an efficient passing attack to end Birmingham's 55-game winning streak against City Section teams and earn a spot in next week's Open Division championship game with its gritty 12-7 semifinal victory Friday night in Lake Balboa. "It's all about heart " I thank my O-line and my defense " they dominated," said junior quarterback Danniel Flowers, who played with a fiberglass cast on his left hand to protect a broken wrist he suffered Oct. 10 in a 32-0 shutout of Washington Prep. "We came in here with a lot of confidence and all I did was read the zone and throw it right behind where the defender left." The sixth-seeded Cougars (10-1) have reeled off eight consecutive wins since a 23-6 defeat to Hamilton on Sept. 5, and their latest triumph counts as the 300th for longtime coach Robert…...

3+ day, 8+ hour ago (377+ words) The sports executives whom Mark Walter and his Guggenheim Baseball Management trusted to turn around the Dodgers and make them World Series winners have now enlisted Farhan Zaidi and Andrew Friedman to take on advisory roles with the Lakers, people not authorized to speak publicly on the matter confirmed to The Times on Friday. Walter, the controlling owner of the Dodgers, purchased majority ownership of the Lakers for a $10-billion evaluation and has started a transition from the Buss family ownership by having Zaidi and Friedman become more involved. Zaidi is an advisor with Guggenheim and he was the former president of baseball operations with the San Francisco Giants and a former Dodgers general manager. He also has been consulting with the Sparks, another team that Walter owns. Friedman is the president of baseball operations for the Dodgers and has…...

3+ day, 8+ hour ago (588+ words) Ahead of his final season under club control, and with his 2026 salary expected to top more than $6 million through arbitration, reliever Evan Phillips was not tendered a contract for next year by the Dodgers on Friday, but president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the team is still interested in re-signing him as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. Friday's decision " which will make Phillips a free agent " reflects the uncertainty around the pitcher's status for next season, following the Tommy John procedure he had last June. Phillips' recovery process is expected to stretch at least into the early part of next year. How much he will be able to pitch in 2026 remains unclear. Because of that, the Dodgers faced a decision ahead of MLB's non-tender deadline Friday: Keep Phillips on the roster and pay him the $6.1 million or so…...

3+ day, 13+ hour ago (377+ words) The sports executives whom Mark Walter and his Guggenheim Baseball Management trusted to turn around the Dodgers and make them World Series winners have now enlisted Farhan Zaidi and Andrew Friedman to take on advisory roles with the Lakers, people not authorized to speak publicly on the matter confirmed to The Times on Friday. Walter, the controlling owner of the Dodgers, purchased majority ownership of the Lakers for a $10-billion evaluation and has started a transition from the Buss family ownership by having Zaidi and Friedman become more involved. Zaidi is an advisor with Guggenheim and he was the former president of baseball operations with the San Francisco Giants and a former Dodgers general manager. He also has been consulting with the Sparks, another team that Walter owns. Friedman is the president of baseball operations for the Dodgers and has…...

3+ day, 16+ hour ago (1982+ words) Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Charlie Warzel: Oh, 100 percent. Charlie Warzel: Pablo, welcome to Galaxy Brain. I'm thrilled to have you here on our podcast experiment. Pablo Torre: I'm happy to be the subject of yet another experiment that I've, apparently, unwittingly entered into. But good to see you, Charlie. It kind of broke my brain open: in the good way, not the normal internet-bad way. And I wanted to have you kind of try to lay that out a little more for all of us here. Why are sports important from this attentional perspective? Torre: Yeah. It's the lens I see the world through now. As I also, like, hunger for any amount of audience/attention/discoverability/funnel/all of the buzzwords we use to describe getting someone's time, someone's brain. And sports is up and to the…...