Latest news with #479
NBC Sports
25-07-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire: Drake Baldwin, Ryan McMahon and Kyle Bradish
FANTASY BASEBALL WAIVER WIRE PICKUPS Drake Baldwin (C Braves): Rostered in 20% of Yahoo leagues Even for those who weren't fortunate enough to land Cal Raleigh, it's been pretty easy to get solid production from the catcher spot in one-backstop leagues this year, easy enough that most seem too content to make a change at this point. For that reason, Baldwin remains available in 80 percent of Yahoo leagues, even after the Braves turned him into a full-time player by putting Marcell Ozuna on the bench last weekend. He's since started seven straight games, four at catcher and three at DH. With Ozuna seemingly likely to be moved at the deadline, Baldwin should get all of the playing time he can handle the rest of the way, making him the NL Rookie of the Year favorite. He's certainly looked the part thus far in batting .284/.353/.479 with 11 homers. The league as a whole this year has 27% more hard-hit balls than strikeouts. Baldwin has 123% more (89 hard-hit balls, 40 strikeouts). His 50.9% hard-hit rate places him 31st of the 268 batters with 200 plate appearances. Will Smith and Hunter Goodwin are the only catchers hitting at least .280 with at least 10 homers. Maybe Baldwin will wear down some, but all of the DH time will help. If the Braves pivot and trade Sean Murphy instead of Ozuna, I would drop Baldwin in my rankings some. Right now, though, I have him eighth among catchers, and I'd be willing to move on from guys like J.T. Realmuto, Alejandro Kirk, Shea Langeliers, Logan O'Hoppe and Agustin Ramírez in order to add him. Ryan McMahon (3B Yankees): Rostered in 35% of Yahoo leagues It's hard to spin being traded out of Coors Field as a good thing, but getting away from the disaster of an organization that is the Colorado Rockies might pay off for McMahon, an eternally disappointing offensive player who nevertheless possesses excellent exit velocity numbers. Those numbers are actually better than usual this season. McMahon, who was dealt to the Yankees for two pitching prospects on Friday, is currently averaging 94.0 mph off the bat, seventh best in the majors. His top-end numbers aren't as great -- for instance, he's just 46th when it comes to 90th percentile exit velocity -- but that's still a lot of hard contact. He's also hitting more flyballs and pulling the ball more than usual this year. It seems like a recipe for success, but there have been a lot of shots to the warning track thus far. He's also probably been unlucky; Statcast has him with a .466 xSLG, compared to .403 in reality. He's never experienced any sort of gap like that previously. Obviously, the strikeouts really hold McMahon back. He was leading the NL with 127 this season, which is remarkable for a guy playing in the league's preeminent strikeout-suppressing ballpark. The Yankees probably have some ideas on how to help him there, but one can't really expect him to improve much in the near future. If McMahon's value does come up in the short term, it will be a product of hitting in a far better lineup and sneaking balls over the right field wall in Yankee Stadium. It's a far worse offensive ballpark, but it's one that yields more homers to left-handers than Coors does. Unless the Yankees platoon him against southpaws -- they probably ought to, but I'm guessing he'll be a full-timer initially -- he's probably a better rest-of-season bet today than he was yesterday. Kyle Bradish (SP Orioles): Rostered in 10% of Yahoo leagues Bradish pitched in a game Thursday for the first time since Tommy John surgery, throwing two innings and allowing one run for High-A Aberdeen. The stadium gun had him at 94-96 mph, said Jake Rill, putting right back where he was before getting hurt. That bodes well for a right-hander who had emerged as one of the AL's best pitchers at the time of his injury. A subpar pitcher as a rookie in 2022, Bradish busted out about a month into the 2023 season and wound up posting a 2.42 ERA and a 150/35 K/BB in his final 25 starts that year. Last season, he was just as effective, and his strikeout rate jumped from 25 percent to 33 percent in the eight starts before he got hurt. The league had a hard-hit rate of just 29 percent against his arsenal of two fastballs, a slider and a curve. That's not to say Bradish is going to experience the same sort of success right away after returning next month. He might even have a setback before then, and given that the Orioles are out of contention, any sort of setback would probably get him shut down until 2026. However, if his rehab continues to progress smoothly, he could be quite an asset over the final six weeks of the season. Those who look to wait until his rehab is complete to pick him up will probably find they missed out. Waiver Wire Quick Hits - I'm not going to write about rotation-bound Joe Boyle again so soon after featuring him recently, but he ought to be picked up everywhere after the Rays' demotion of Taj Bradley. Instead, he's only 15 percent rostered now. - The Astros' Cristian Javier doesn't need to be picked up just yet as he works his way back from Tommy John, but it was really encouraging that he averaged 93.6 mph with his fastball in his first Triple-A start. That's back where he was in 2021 and '22 before falling off in 2023 (92.8 mph) and 2024 (91.7). I doubt we'll ever again see the Javier of 2022 (2.54 ERA, 33% K rate in 149 IP), but on a fine Houston team, he doesn't need to be that good to offer some value.
The Star
12-07-2025
- Sport
- The Star
Let or no let?
NOT long ago, an anonymous YouTuber known only as Quash Bad Squash reposted one of the strangest moments in the history of the sport. It's match ball in the finals of last year's British Open tournament, with a cheque for US$26,600 (RM112,479) on the line. Four-time world champion Ali Farag, an Egyptian with the physique of a pipe cleaner and the speed of Mercury, is about to lunge forward and hit a backhand. But as he tries to get past his opponent, a rising superstar and fellow countryman named Mostafa Asal, Farag does something baffling. He stops playing. Instead, he wheels around to look at Mostafa, as if he's momentarily stunned. 'Oh, my goodness gracious me!' shouts one of the commentators broadcasting live on the website SquashTV. 'What has he done?' shouts another. The referee isn't sure. So a second referee, whose job is to handle tough calls, looks at instant replay video footage to determine if Mostafa blocked his opponent – a no-no that would cost him the point. Mostafa and Nouran Gohar made it an all-Egyptian affair at the 2024 British Open. — AP The second referee watches the sequence a few times and sees nothing wrong. Point and match to Asal. He buries his face in his hands, overwhelmed with joy. For everyone else, a mystery remained: Why did Ali stop playing? In a text message, Ali declined to say. But the answer seemed obvious in that Quash Bad Squash video, posted in early June and titled 'Remember this left hand?' Whoever is behind the channel took the footage of the point, zoomed in and slowed it way, way down. At that speed, it's pretty clear. Mostafa's open left hand seems to make contact with Farag's groin. And it does not look like an accident. 'What do you think?' asks the female voice-to-text narrator that Quash Bad Squash uses for every video, to maintain anonymity. 'Is this a testicle tickle?' It is just one of about a dozen videos posted by Quash Bad Squash since the YouTube account went live in April. Most of them make the same argument, over and over: that 24-year-old Mostafa Asal, currently the No. 1 ranked player and reigning world champion, is a cheater. Maybe that's too harsh. Foul play might be more apt. Either way, the videos have landed with a concussive thud in the world of squash, which wrapped up its season this past week in Toronto. During the World Championships in May, the videos were debated by commentators on Squash TV, suggesting that Quash Bad Squash has turned Mostafa's on-court behaviour, long a source of irritation among players and fans, into the game's hottest topic. 'I'd like to know who that person is,' said Johnny Williams, a former world No. 15 pro, during SquashTV's on-air analysis. 'And one day, we might get to the bottom of it.' Mostafa celebrates after defeating England's Marwan El Shorbagy at the PSA Squash Tour Final in Toronto on June 23. — AP Not likely, says Quash. In a series of emails, the anonymous YouTuber said little about his identity, revealing only that he is, in fact, a man and that he has no collaborators. His grasp of the rule book and eye for subtleties have caused a few people to speculate that he might be a coach, perhaps even a high-level player. He won't say. 'I prefer to let the content of my videos be the sole focus,' Quash wrote. One reason is to minimise the static in his life. He has been threatened with both death and litigation via the email link on his YouTube account, he said. And the puzzle of his identity adds a bit of intrigue and perhaps some staying power. 'You can't cancel a ghost,' he wrote. The videos underscore that Mostafa is now the sport's greatest attraction and biggest migraine. He was disqualified from the US Open in 2022, after he hit his opponent in the head with the ball, resulting in a burst eardrum. He was barred from the tour twice in 2023, first for six weeks, then for 12, for dangerous play, unsportsmanlike conduct and other infractions. His matches are often stop-start affairs, with a maddening number of referee decisions. He's also a once-in-a-decade talent, with an imposing physique – he plays with his nickname, 'The Raging Bull,' printed on his shirt – a pitiless combination of touch, speed and power. He's wildly charismatic, too. For most players of this British-born sport, post-victory rituals involve a tasteful fist pump followed by a handshake. Mostafa screams, runs up the walls, kneels on the floor, rips off his sweaty shirt and tosses it into the crowd. He has 2.1 million followers on Instagram. A startup company called Shahtoosh is trying to build a brand around him, selling racquets and clothing. Off the court, even detractors say he's friendly and charming. On the court, even supporters acknowledge he's got issues. For the past 18 months, he has been coached by James Willstrop, a former world No. 1 player, who has been trying to impart both Zen-like calm and some rule-abiding discipline. He acknowledges that his protege has, in fact, left a meaty leg in the way of more than a few opponents, among other sins. 'It's not like all of a sudden these videos have exposed him,' Willstrop said. 'He's been getting these things wrong, and he'll play one match, and he gets it a bit better, and then he goes back a couple of steps.' In a text, Mostafa said he had not watched the Quash videos and would not comment on the claims of rule-breaking. Great athletes in every sport get plenty of hate, he wrote, including his hero, football player Cristiano Ronaldo. 'But we ignore it,' he wrote, 'and continue towards building the legacy and forget about any distraction.' Squash has been gaining momentum in recent years. The Professional Squash Association have signed some lucrative sponsorship deals, including one with Mark Walter, a Chicago billionaire and an owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chelsea football club. Terms were not disclosed, but it's reportedly one reason that total prize money this year for men's and women's tournaments exceeded US$10.5mil (RM44.4mil), a record sum. The sport will make its debut at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. It will have to fix its Mostafa problem before that. — NYT
Time of India
12-06-2025
- Time of India
Project Pelican: Canada police busts drug racket financing anti-India activities, arrest nine
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel The Peel Regional Police in Canada undertook Project Pelican to bust a large nacro-terror network based out of the country. Individuals suspected to be Khalistan sympethisers have been caught, ToI operation led to the largest ever drug seizure in Canada with 479 kg of cocaine valued at $47.9 million. Further, nine people, including seven Indian-origin men settled in Canada have been investigation found that the network used commercial trucking routes from the US to Canada and had ties with Mexican cartels and US-based distributors, the Peel police money from the drugs was being used to finance anti-India activities , including protests and referendums besides funding for weapons, sources told reported that intelligence sources pointed towards an ISI-backed plan where Khalistani groups in Canada are being funded to traffic high value Mexican cocaine. The ISI has also been been accused of pushing Afghan-grown arrested men include Sajgith Yogendrarajah, 31, of Toronto; Manpreet Singh, 44, of Brampton; Philip Tep, 39, of Hamilton; Arvinder Powar, 29, of Brampton; Karamjit Singh, 36, of Caledon; Gurtej Singh, 36, of Caledon; Sartaj Singh, 27, of Cambridge; Shiv Onkar Singh, 31, of Georgetown and Hao Tommy Huynh, a 27-year-old from accused face a total of 35 charges related to firearm and drug offences, the Canadian police December 2024, two Canadian nationals of Indian origin were arrested when US Illinois State Police found over 1,000 pounds of cocaine in their Volvo truck. This alerted the investigators to the smuggling ring involving ISI which promoted illegal poppy cultivation in Afghanistan to help Taliban fight the US and Afghan under Operation Pelican began in June last year and focussed on a cocaine smuggling racket using US-Canada commercial trucking November, multiple individuals, trucking companies, and storage sites linked to the operation were identified with the help of Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the US Drug Enforcement February and May this year, significant seizures were made, including 127 kg of cocaine at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor and 50 kg at the Blue Water Bridge in Point Edward, the Peel police said in a seizures were made across the Greater Toronto area, with some individuals arrested in possession of loaded firearms."A total of 479 kg of bricked cocaine, worth an estimated $47.9 million, was seized, along with two illegal loaded semi-automatic handguns. The accused were held for a bail hearing at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton," the Peel police S Kerzner, solicitor general of Ontario, praised the operation, stating, "Project Pelican is proof of what police can accomplish when they have the tools and resources needed to keep our communities safe."
Time of India
11-06-2025
- Time of India
Project Pelican: Canada busts drug racket financing anti-India activities
NEW DELHI: Project Pelican, a major investigation conducted by Peel Regional Police, has busted a big narco-terror network based out of Canada and individuals suspected to be Khalistan sympathisers. While the operation led to the largest ever drug seizure there with 479 kg of cocaine valued at $47.9 million, nine individuals including seven Indian-origin men settled in Canada have been arrested. The investigation has revealed that the network exploited commercial trucking routes from the US to Canada, with ties to Mexican cartels and US-based distributors, the Peel police said. The proceeds from drug trafficking were being used to finance anti-India activities, including protests and referendums besides funding for weapons, sources said. Intelligence sources pointed towards an ISI-backed plan where Khalistani groups in Canada are being funded to traffick high value Mexican cocaine. The ISI has also been been found pushing Afghan-grown heroin. The arrested men include Sajgith Yogendrarajah, 31, of Toronto; Manpreet Singh, 44, of Brampton; Philip Tep, 39, of Hamilton; Arvinder Powar, 29, of Brampton; Karamjit Singh, 36, of Caledon; Gurtej Singh, 36, of Caledon; Sartaj Singh, 27, of Cambridge; Shiv Onkar Singh, 31, of Georgetown and Hao Tommy Huynh, a 27-year-old from Mississauga. They face a total of 35 charges related to firearm and drug offences, the Canadian police said. Last Dec, two Canadian nationals of Indian origin were arrested when US Illinois State Police found over 1,000 pounds of cocaine in their Volvo truck: something which alerted the investigators to the smuggling ring involving ISI which patronised illegal poppy cultivation in Afghanistan to help Taliban fight the US and Afghan troops. The current investigation began in June 2024, focusing on a cocaine smuggling operation using US-Canada commercial trucking routes. By Nov, multiple individuals, trucking companies, and storage sites linked to the operation were identified with the help of Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Significant seizures were made between Feb and May 2025, including 127 kg of cocaine at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor and 50 kg at the Blue Water Bridge in Point Edward, the Peel police said in a statement. Additional seizures were made across the Greater Toronto area, with some individuals arrested in possession of loaded firearms. "A total of 479 kg of bricked cocaine, worth an estimated $47.9 million, was seized, along with two illegal loaded semi-automatic handguns. The accused were held for a bail hearing at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton," the Peel police said. Michael S Kerzner, solicitor general of Ontario, praised the operation, stating, "Project Pelican is proof of what police can accomplish when they have the tools and resources needed to keep our communities safe."
CBS News
13-03-2025
- Sport
- CBS News
Phillies to induct Jimmy Rollins, Ed Wade into Wall of Fame in August
One of the core players from the Philadelphia Phillies' golden era and the general manager who planted the seeds for the 2008 World Series champions will be inducted into the club's Wall of Fame this summer. Jimmy Rollins and Ed Wade will be inducted into the Phillies' Wall of Fame before Philadelphia's Aug. 1 game against the Detroit Tigers. The Phillies say the induction ceremony will be part of their alumni weekend at Citizens Bank Park. Rollins is the Phillies' all-time hits leader and was a key member of one of the club's most successful periods in its 142-year history. Drafted in 1996, Rollins collected a franchise-record 2,306 hits in 15 of his 17 major-league seasons. His 479 doubles as a Phillie remain a club record, and his 214 home runs as a Phillie are the most by a shortstop in franchise history. With Philadelphia, Rollins hit a club record 41 leadoff homers, which is fourth all-time in MLB history. He's second in Phillies history with 2,090 games played and 453 stolen bases and third in runs (1,325) and triples (111). Before the 2007 season, Jimmy Rollins declared the Phillies, not the New York Mets, the team to beat in the NL East. He backed up his words by winning the National League MVP, leading the Phils to their first of five consecutive division titles. In 2007, J-Roll hit .296 with an .875 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) with a 6.1 WAR and an NL-leading 20 triples and 139 runs scored. He also won the first of three straight Gold Glove awards. He added a fourth Gold Glove in 2012. He also won an NL Silver Slugger Award in 2007. "Jimmy was the spark plug for five consecutive National League East titles, back-to-back National League pennants and a World Series championship from 2007 to 2011," Phillies managing partner John Middleton said in a statement. "He is one of the most legendary players to wear pinstripes, and we are thrilled to celebrate No. 11 on Aug. 1." During the Phillies' 2008 World Series-winning season, Rollins had a 5.5 WAR. From 2006-2011, considered the organization's "golden era," Rollins had a 22.7 WAR with a .271 average and .779 OPS, 111 homers, 202 doubles and 577 runs scored. Wade was the Phillies' vice president and general manager from 1998 until 2005. After the 2005 season, the Phils fired Wade and replaced him with Hall of Fame executive Pat Gillick. Two seasons later, the club won its second World Series in franchise history. While Gillick got the Phils across the finish line, he did so with many of the players Wade acquired, drafted, or signed. Wade drafted Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels and Pat Burrell. He signed Carlos Ruiz in 1998, and selected Shane Victorino in the Rule 5 draft in 2005. He also was the GM who hired Charlie Manuel, the manager of the golden era. Wade will be the sixth executive to be inducted into the Phillies' Wall of Fame. "Ed's contributions to the Phillies were game-changing, as he developed most of our core players from the teams that won five straight NL East championship titles from 2007 to 2011, including the 2008 World Series champions," Middleton said in a statement. "We look forward to celebrating Ed's tremendous career as we recognize him on this historic day."
