Seattle slugger Cal Raleigh beats Tampa Bay's Junior Caminero in finals to win MLB Home Run Derby
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Winnipeg Free Press
40 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Euro 2025: Norway stars Hegerberg and Graham Hansen return for first quarterfinal in 12 years
GENEVA (AP) — They were star prospects aged 18 when Norway last played in the quarterfinals at the Women's European Championship. Now 12 years on, Ada Hegerberg and Caroline Graham Hansen — a Ballon d'Or winner and a runner-up in the voting, respectively — are team leaders for Norway's first game in the knockout rounds since Euro 2013, against Italy on Wednesday. 'People expect things from us now,' Graham Hansen acknowledged Tuesday, calling their situation today a 'complete difference.' 'We were like 18 and nobody expected nothing from us. We also just wanted to show what we could contribute at the time,' she said while sitting alongside Hegerberg. 'I wasn't playing with much pressure at all (in 2013),' said Graham Hansen, who started in the final that Norway lost 1-0 to Germany. 'I was just going for it.' Graham Hansen and Hegerberg have combined to score 102 national-team goals, and the first of those at a major tournament was in that quarterfinal game in 2013 in Sweden. Hegerberg got Norway's third in a 3-1 win over Spain with a curling shot that went in off a post. Both have added one goal each in Switzerland this month to help Norway sweep the group stage with three victories. Hansen's crafty 84th-minute goal sealed a 2-1 win over Finland and sent Norway into the last eight with a game to spare. 'The start couldn't be any better,' Hegerberg said in translated comments. 'We can enjoy that we have such a strong position.' A new generation also is emerging, and one highly rated prospect made her mark when Norway was already sure to top its group that included Switzerland and rested both standout forwards. Signe Gaupset, who turned 20 last month, scored twice early in a 4-3 win over Iceland on Thursday. She was youngest player in the tournament's 41-year history to do that and later added two assists for Frida Maanum's goals. Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. 'She's young, and that is additional motivation to take the opportunities you get,' Graham Hansen said of Gaupset, as if describing her younger self. 'She's a big talent.' Norway coach Gemma Grainger said Gaupset's performance 'wasn't much of a surprise to any of us' though would not be drawn if the Brann winger will retain her place on the left flank to face Italy. The winner Wednesday in Geneva will return to the city next Tuesday for a semifinal against either Sweden or England. ___ AP soccer:
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Barcelona star Yamal faces backlash for reportedly hiring people with dwarfism for birthday party
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Barcelona star Lamine Yamal has been criticized and could face an investigation for reportedly hiring people with dwarfism as entertainers during his lavish 18th birthday party this weekend. Spain's Ministry of Social Rights has asked prosecutors to open a probe into the hiring and exposition of the entertainers. Ministry director Jesús Martín Blanco told Europa Press that such hirings 'take us back to the Middle Ages.' A local association for people with disabilities had already condemned the alleged hirings, saying it would take action 'legally and socially' against those responsible for promoting such actions. Spanish radio station RAC1 published an interview with one of the entertainers who said he was in the party. The man said they were all treated with respect. He complained about the reaction against Yamal for hiring them. Yamal celebrated his birthday with a party filled with celebrities. It also included some of his Barcelona teammates. ___ AP soccer:
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
A lockout is looming over MLB in December 2026, with a salary cap fight possibly at the center
ATLANTA (AP) — Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995. 'No one's talking about it, but we all know that they're going to lock us out for it, and then we're going to miss time,' New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. 'We're definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league's obviously not going to like that.' Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one. Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015. After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami's $69 million, according to Major League Baseball's figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year. 'When I talk to the players, I don't try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,' Manfred told the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Tuesday. 'I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.' Baseball's collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season. 'A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn't about growing the game,' union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. 'A cap is about franchise values and profits. … A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn't reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That's why this is not about competitive balance. It's not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.' The union's opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto's deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani's $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen. Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries. 'I never use the word `salary' within one of `cap,'' he said. 'What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that's real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players' perspective.' Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal. Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a 'gingerbread house.' 'We've heard it for 20 years. It's almost like the childhood fable,' he said. 'This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.' ___ AP MLB:
