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Chicago Tribune
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Chicago Tribune
Indiana recruit Trey Meyers is a tall order for opponents. But the 6-6 New Trier star ‘has all the makings.'
Less than an hour after New Trier's Trey Meyers heard his knee pop, he made up his mind. Meyers had played his last football game. 'I was in the car, going to the hospital,' he said. 'That's when I knew I was quitting. I was like, 'Yeah, I'm all in on baseball.'' It was August 2023, the beginning of Meyers' junior year. Still a multisport athlete at the time, he was a wide receiver on the football team and a first baseman on the baseball team. But on the opening night of football season, after an opponent's helmet hit Meyers' left knee and caused a sprained MCL, he knew it was time to give up football. 'Honestly, I missed it a little bit,' he said. 'I was watching all my buddies play, going to the games. But I also got to lift a lot more, so I felt way stronger and better going into the baseball season. Baseball takes a lot of strength, so those extra lifts helped me tremendously.' Meyers proceeded to deliver a sensational baseball season as the Trevians went 33-4. The Indiana recruit entered the summer as a top-15 prospect in the state, lauded for his 6-foot-6, 223-pound frame, elite power-speed combo and sharp baseball mind. 'His baseball IQ is really good, and I think people just take it for granted,' New Trier coach Dusty Napoleon said. 'He's definitely stronger and faster than everybody, but he understands baseball. He understands what pitchers are trying to do to him.' There aren't many players of Meyers' size who bat first in the lineup, but Napoleon craves as many at-bats as possible for his best hitter. So the leadoff spot it is. 'We need to maximize his plate appearances,' Napoleon said. 'He's also our fastest guy and our best base runner.' Meyers has backed that up with gaudy numbers for Central Suburban South champion New Trier (23-7-1, 10-5) this season. He reaches base more often than he records outs, posting a .538 on-base percentage through May 19. Meyers was batting .418 with nine doubles, five home runs, 29 RBIs and 40 runs scored. He had more extra-base hits (16) than strikeouts (9) and was 14-for-15 in base-stealing attempts. A fan of both the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds, Meyers models his game after Reds star Elly De La Cruz. At 23, De La Cruz is MLB's first player since 1900 to post 115 extra-base hits and 115 stolen bases through his first 300 games, and he's on the cover of 'MLB The Show 25.' 'He's another big, really fast guy that I kind of relate to,' Meyers said. 'He's one of the more similar guys to me.' Professional baseball could begin sooner than later for Meyers, who has been ranked among the top 400 prospects for the 2025 draft. 'Well, if the opportunity is right, I'll do it, for sure,' he said. 'It's definitely something I'm interested in. But we're just going to see how everything shakes out and make a decision from there. I don't really want to think too far ahead. I guess we'll just see where we are in a couple months.' Meyers wants to focus on the Trevians and their quest for a state title, not the draft. 'There's definitely a lot going on, but I try not to think about that kind of stuff too much right now to keep myself more levelheaded and just focus on playing the game,' he said. Meyers is looking forward to Indiana too. 'I'm excited to compete at such a high level with some of the best players,' he said. 'I love competing, and there's a lot of really good power in the Big Ten.' Meyers committed to Indiana in December 2023 after visiting campus a few times. First, the well-connected Napoleon, who coached in the Big Ten for eight years at Northwestern, briefed Indiana's staff on what makes Meyers remarkable. 'They really just wanted to know things like, 'Hey, what kind of worker is he? What type of kid is he? How's his family?'' Napoleon said. 'The behind-the-scenes stuff is the hardest part when it comes to evaluating kids. Trey checked all those boxes easily. So it made it an easy decision for Indiana to move forward. 'He's respectful, he helps out in the community, he comes from a good family and then there's the way he works. He always wants to hit. He gets up three times a week to lift. He has all the makings of a Division I scholarship athlete.' Those qualities have endeared Meyers to his New Trier teammates too. Senior outfielder Ben Toft has played with Meyers since they were 13 years old. Toft will play for Iowa, so he'll be a Big Ten rival. He's grateful to be on Meyers' side for now. 'Trey is a really good teammate,' Toft said. 'He does a really good job at setting the tone for how people should be acting in the dugout, getting us locked in, being positive and being a good influence. People enjoy his company. 'He's definitely matured mentally, as well. He knows how to deal with failure a lot better.' Meyers was challenged after suffering the knee injury. He said doctors told him that he could be ready in four months, in time for baseball season, but he would have to grind through physical therapy to get there. 'It was so difficult, especially at the beginning, when my knee really hurt,' Meyers said. 'It was something I was dreading. I didn't even want to get up and move around, drag myself to PT and do these exercises that sucked so bad.' Meyers remembers one exercise in particular involving blood-flow restriction. 'You have to do the leg press with no circulation,' he said. 'It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done. It was so bad.' Meyers did 15 reps at a time, alternating between circulation and no circulation. It tested his resolve. But over time, the painful, tedious work paid off. By October 2023, he felt fresh and was itching to hit again. 'He was like, 'OK, coach, I'm all-in on baseball,'' Napoleon said. 'I was like, 'OK, let's get healthy first.' The last thing I wanted was him pushing himself to hit too early.' Once Meyers' knee was drained, he did begin to hit again. By December 2023, four months after the injury, Meyers was fully back. 'It was tough for him, but he never stopped working,' Napoleon said. 'He's always been a hard worker.'
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
U.S. video game spending fell 6% y/y in March, says Circana
In data published earlier this week, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella said that March 2025 projected U.S. consumer spending on video game hardware, content and accessories declined 6% when compared to YA, to $4.7B. Ubisoft's (UBSFY) 'Assassin's Creed: Shadows' debuted as the best-selling game of March, ranking 2nd YTD. March 2025 content spending fell 4% vs YA, to $4.2B. The only growth segments were non-mobile subscription (+11%) and console digital premium downloads (+12%). Mobile content finished 6% behind March 2024. 'Assassin's Creed: Shadows' was the best-selling title in March, instantly becoming the #2 best-selling game of 2025 year-to-date. 'Assassin's Creed: Shadows' finished the month ranked 1st in full game dollar sales on Xbox (MSFT) platforms and 2nd on both PlayStation (SONY) and Steam. Sony's 'MLB The Show 25' ranked as the 2nd best-selling game of March and led all titles in full game dollar sales on PlayStation platforms. Tracked launch month dollar sales of 'MLB The Show 25' were 23% higher than those of 'MLB The Show 24' during its March 2024 debut period. March video game hardware spending fell 25% when compared to a year ago, to $286M. This is the lowest March hardware spending total since 2019. PlayStation 5 hardware dollar sales fell 26% in March vs YA, however the platform once again led the market in both dollar and unit sales. Xbox Series ranked 2nd in both measures with spending falling 9% year-on-year. Switch hardware sales dipped 37% compared to March a year ago. Other top-selling games for the month of March included Capcom's (CCOEY) 'Monster Hunter: Wilds,' Take-Two's (TTWO) 'WWE 2K25,' EA's (EA) 'Split Fiction,' and Activision's 'Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.' Discover outperforming stocks and invest smarter with Top Smart Score Stocks. Filter, analyze, and streamline your search for investment opportunities using Tipranks' Stock Screener. Published first on TheFly – the ultimate source for real-time, market-moving breaking financial news. Try Now>> See the top stocks recommended by analysts >> Read More on CCOEY: Disclaimer & DisclosureReport an Issue Ubisoft's new 'Assassin's Creed' top-selling game in U.S. each week in market Game On: Nintendo delays Switch 2 preorders in wake of tariffs Now Streaming: Amazon's film strategy hits the big-screen Nintendo unveils Switch 2 exclusives 'Mario Kart World,' 'Donkey Kong Bananza' Game On: Ubisoft announces new subsidiary with Tencent as investor
USA Today
24-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Flailing young Orioles get unwanted lesson in how to fail: 'Trust in each other'
Flailing young Orioles get unwanted lesson in how to fail: 'Trust in each other' Show Caption Hide Caption Gunnar Henderson talks all things Baltimore Orioles and the upcoming MLB season Gunnar Henderson stops by to talk about the upcoming season with the Orioles and being on the cover of MLB The Show 25. Sports Seriously WASHINGTON – The team that won 101 games two years ago and backed it up with another playoff berth last year is now lucky if it can win a three-game series. A young core whose burgeoning talent was only exceeded by how much fun it looked like they were having between the white lines has more often looked dazed and desultory, usually undone by the worst rotation in the major leagues and sometimes by the enduring cruelty of the game. Simply, these Baltimore Orioles have fallen into a hole nobody saw coming – and must learn to dig out of one far sooner in their careers than they expected. They've now lost five of six series, splitting two others, and after losing for the second time in as many nights in their 'Battle of the Beltways' set are suddenly facing a sweep at the hands of the Washington Nationals, with an on-paper pitching mismatch in the finale. Every MLB team's biggest 2025 surprise: Trevor Story playing like superstar for Red Sox Yet that's the case most nights with this club. It's largely the injuries (Grayson Rodriguez will be fortunate to return by June, Zach Eflin perhaps next month) exacerbated by gross underperformance from Dean Kremer and Charlie Morton, the former hoping it's his traditionally cold April start and the latter aiming, at 41, to pin the first loss on the indomitable Father Time. The Orioles are 9-14 and in the American League East cellar and here's the boilerplate qualifier: There are still five months and 139 games remaining in this slog (That's a game a month they need to make up on the Yankees, if you're into math). But if the mound matchup tilts the field against you every night, playing uphill can get exhausting, even for a very talented and young core. And yes, they're still very young. Sure, it seems like they've been around forever now, their dugout Hydration Station and their cherub-cheeked prospects bubbling up from the minors seemingly every month. But aside from fourth-year catcher Adley Rutschman, now 27, it's still a bunch of kids, relatively speaking. Franchise shortstop Gunnar Henderson? Still just 23, opposite double-play partner Jackson Holliday, 21. All-Star infielder Jordan Westburg? Sure, he's 26, but after missing nearly half the 2024 season after getting struck by a pitch, he's never played more than 107 games in a season. The group, collectively, has never known failure. Never been around the block enough to know that when things bottom out, sometimes a turnaround is around the corner. It's the kind of thing you just don't know until you're going through it – and the Orioles are going through it. 'I'm figuring that out,' Westburg tells USA TODAY Sports. 'I'm still really young in this league. I'm still finding my feet in this game. I understand that this game is very temporary and could be taken away from me at any moment. I'm trying not to focus on anything other than today. I'm trying to lean on guys and coaches who have been in this game a lot longer than me. 'And I think those guys are trying to support and get behind a lot of us young guys who maybe don't have that experience under our belt.' 'They're hard on themselves' It's a tricky spot. The Orioles' sudden rise from 110-game losers to contenders to World Series threats was experienced collectively, every talented piece promoted along the way just another bro showing up to the party. At some point, the Rutschmans and Hendersons went from prodigies to cogs, All-Star talents on the field but perhaps not the natural-born leaders some hope to find in their greatest players. Now, they're a mishmash of great young talent and vets who may or may not be here a while longer, such as center fielder Cedric Mullins, a pending free agent, and slugging outfielder Tyler O'Neill, who can opt out of the final two years of his contract after this season. At the core are the youngsters, whose dugout frolicking and childlike penchant for Star Wars and Legos belies an intensity that's usually their finest asset on the field. Yet there's no way to outslug a 6.08 rotation ERA, no matter how stubborn you are. 'They're hard on themselves,' says Orioles manager Brandon Hyde. 'They have such high expectations for themselves that sometimes you get in your own way a little bit with that. There's some frustration with how we've been playing, frustration with how certain guys are pitching and swinging the bat; they want to perform better. 'We were the first team to 80 wins last year, and then we struggled down the stretch. There's still a lot of baseball left to play. You have to stay positive and remind them things can turn quickly.' Westburg was in a pretty big hole himself, an 0-for-30 stretch last week that he snapped with a home run against Cincinnati. He had two more hits the next day and on Wednesday night hit an eighth-inning triple and scored the game-tying run on a sacrifice fly. In the bottom of the inning, he nearly started a 5-4-3 double play that the Nationals beat out. They scored the decisive run on a sacrifice fly one batter later. In Process vs. Outcome, Process took another L. Yet the grind continues. 'The term grinder infers that no matter how things are going, we're going to work, and we're going to be purpose-driven and process-oriented and I think that's a perfect term to describe this group,' says Westburg, who had 15 homers and an .815 OPS through 101 games last year. 'We don't have the flash and the money signs that a lot of teams do, and so we have to win in other ways. It's not always going to look the best or the prettiest, and at times we're going to have stretches like this. 'But we're grinders and we're going to get through it, we trust in each other, we trust that the work and the professionalism that's brought to the field every day is going to carry us through a long season.' Mid-market malaise Certainly, the window is not closing on this year nor the Orioles' bigger-picture title chances. But every tick toward potential free agency for Rutschman (eligible after 2027) and Henderson (2028) feels like opportunity lost. Despite the presence of new owner David Rubenstein, the Orioles were unable to pivot toward big spenders this past off-season, losing starter Corbin Burnes to Arizona after offering a four-year deal. General manager Mike Elias wagered $15 million that Morton had one more ride in him, but a 10.89 ERA in five starts means 'everything is on the table,' says Hyde, perhaps even a bullpen demotion. Elias did pluck Tomoyuki Sagano from Japan for $13 million, and Sagano has pitched gamely and posted a 3.54 ERA. It's probably no surprise, then, that the body language was much better Wednesday, when Sugano put up six zeroes after giving up three runs in the first, than it was Tuesday, when Kremer quickly pitched them out of the game, and Sunday, when Morton's latest horror show set the stage for a 24-2 loss to Cincinnati. 'If we play baseball like that, we're gonna win a lot of games,' a relatively chipper Hyde said Wednesday. 'I thought we competed really well offensively. I thought we played extremely hard. Everybody was into it.' It would be easy to blame the core for not being into it some nights. As Westburg noted, this generation of players leans heavily toward process-oriented, and controlling the controllables. Well, there's no controlling pitcher injuries and insufficient backfilling at the position, a must for an organization whose draft strategy is largely to load up on bats and pluck pitchers from other organizations whose profiles they fancy. So it goes for a ballclub that was 36-19 at the end of May last year, and 35-21 two years ago. That will not happen this year. But the Orioles have no choice but to figure out another path, even if they have no map to guide them. 'It's kind of my first beginning of the season up in the big leagues, but this team expects to win,' says Holliday. 'And it's obviously frustrating to not win and perform at the level we know we can. 'But we're going to keep pushing and keep being competitive and try to push through this. We have a really good team.' The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
USA Today
24-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Flailing young Orioles get unwanted lesson in how to fail
Flailing young Orioles get unwanted lesson in how to fail Show Caption Hide Caption Gunnar Henderson talks all things Baltimore Orioles and the upcoming MLB season Gunnar Henderson stops by to talk about the upcoming season with the Orioles and being on the cover of MLB The Show 25. Sports Seriously WASHINGTON – The team that won 101 games two years ago and backed it up with another playoff berth last year is now lucky if it can win a three-game series. A young core whose burgeoning talent was only exceeded by how much fun it looked like they were having between the white lines has more often looked dazed and desultory, usually undone by the worst rotation in the major leagues and sometimes by the enduring cruelty of the game. Simply, these Baltimore Orioles have fallen into a hole nobody saw coming – and must learn to dig out of one far sooner in their careers than they expected. They've now lost five of six series, splitting two others, and after losing for the second time in as many nights in their 'Battle of the Beltways' set are suddenly facing a sweep at the hands of the Washington Nationals, with an on-paper pitching mismatch in the finale. Every MLB team's biggest 2025 surprise: Trevor Story playing like superstar for Red Sox Yet that's the case most nights with this club. It's largely the injuries (Grayson Rodriguez will be fortunate to return by June, Zach Eflin perhaps next month) exacerbated by gross underperformance from Dean Kremer and Charlie Morton, the former hoping it's his traditionally cold April start and the latter aiming, at 41, to pin the first loss on the indomitable Father Time. The Orioles are 9-14 and in the American League East cellar and here's the boilerplate qualifier: There are still five months and 139 games remaining in this slog (That's a game a month they need to make up on the Yankees, if you're into math). But if the mound matchup tilts the field against you every night, playing uphill can get exhausting, even for a very talented and young core. And yes, they're still very young. Sure, it seems like they've been around forever now, their dugout Hydration Station and their cherub-cheeked prospects bubbling up from the minors seemingly every month. But aside from fourth-year catcher Adley Rutschman, now 27, it's still a bunch of kids, relatively speaking. Franchise shortstop Gunnar Henderson? Still just 23, opposite double-play partner Jackson Holliday, 21. All-Star infielder Jordan Westburg? Sure, he's 26, but after missing nearly half the 2024 season after getting struck by a pitch, he's never played more than 107 games in a season. The group, collectively, has never known failure. Never been around the block enough to know that when things bottom out, sometimes a turnaround is around the corner. It's the kind of thing you just don't know until you're going through it – and the Orioles are going through it. 'I'm figuring that out,' Westburg tells USA TODAY Sports. 'I'm still really young in this league. I'm still finding my feet in this game. I understand that this game is very temporary and could be taken away from me at any moment. I'm trying not to focus on anything other than today. I'm trying to lean on guys and coaches who have been in this game a lot longer than me. 'And I think those guys are trying to support and get behind a lot of us young guys who maybe don't have that experience under our belt.' 'They're hard on themselves' It's a tricky spot. The Orioles' sudden rise from 110-game losers to contenders to World Series threats was experienced collectively, every talented piece promoted along the way just another bro showing up to the party. At some point, the Rutschmans and Hendersons went from prodigies to cogs, All-Star talents on the field but perhaps not the natural-born leaders some hope to find in their greatest players. Now, they're a mishmash of great young talent and vets who may or may not be here a while longer, such as center fielder Cedric Mullins, a pending free agent, and slugging outfielder Tyler O'Neill, who can opt out of the final two years of his contract after this season. At the core are the youngsters, whose dugout frolicking and childlike penchant for Star Wars and Legos belies an intensity that's usually their finest asset on the field. Yet there's no way to outslug a 6.08 rotation ERA, no matter how stubborn you are. 'They're hard on themselves,' says Orioles manager Brandon Hyde. 'They have such high expectations for themselves that sometimes you get in your own way a little bit with that. There's some frustration with how we've been playing, frustration with how certain guys are pitching and swinging the bat; they want to perform better. 'We were the first team to 80 wins last year, and then we struggled down the stretch. There's still a lot of baseball left to play. You have to stay positive and remind them things can turn quickly.' Westburg was in a pretty big hole himself, an 0-for-30 stretch last week that he snapped with a home run against Cincinnati. He had two more hits the next day and on Wednesday night hit an eighth-inning triple and scored the game-tying run on a sacrifice fly. In the bottom of the inning, he nearly started a 5-4-3 double play that the Nationals beat out. They scored the decisive run on a sacrifice fly one batter later. In Process vs. Outcome, Process took another L. Yet the grind continues. 'The term grinder infers that no matter how things are going, we're going to work, and we're going to be purpose-driven and process-oriented and I think that's a perfect term to describe this group,' says Westburg, who had 15 homers and an .815 OPS through 101 games last year. 'We don't have the flash and the money signs that a lot of teams do, and so we have to win in other ways. It's not always going to look the best or the prettiest, and at times we're going to have stretches like this. 'But we're grinders and we're going to get through it, we trust in each other, we trust that the work and the professionalism that's brought to the field every day is going to carry us through a long season.' Mid-market malaise Certainly, the window is not closing on this year nor the Orioles' bigger-picture title chances. But every tick toward potential free agency for Rutschman (eligible after 2027) and Henderson (2028) feels like opportunity lost. Despite the presence of new owner David Rubenstein, the Orioles were unable to pivot toward big spenders this past off-season, losing starter Corbin Burnes to Arizona after offering a four-year deal. General manager Mike Elias wagered $15 million that Morton had one more ride in him, but a 10.89 ERA in five starts means 'everything is on the table,' says Hyde, perhaps even a bullpen demotion. Elias did pluck Tomoyuki Sagano from Japan for $13 million, and Sagano has pitched gamely and posted a 3.54 ERA. It's probably no surprise, then, that the body language was much better Wednesday, when Sugano put up six zeroes after giving up three runs in the first, than it was Tuesday, when Kremer quickly pitched them out of the game, and Sunday, when Morton's latest horror show set the stage for a 24-2 loss to Cincinnati. 'If we play baseball like that, we're gonna win a lot of games,' a relatively chipper Hyde said Wednesday. 'I thought we competed really well offensively. I thought we played extremely hard. Everybody was into it.' It would be easy to blame the core for not being into it some nights. As Westburg noted, this generation of players leans heavily toward process-oriented, and controlling the controllables. Well, there's no controlling pitcher injuries and insufficient backfilling at the position, a must for an organization whose draft strategy is largely to load up on bats and pluck pitchers from other organizations whose profiles they fancy. So it goes for a ballclub that was 36-19 at the end of May last year, and 35-21 two years ago. That will not happen this year. But the Orioles have no choice but to figure out another path, even if they have no map to guide them. 'It's kind of my first beginning of the season up in the big leagues, but this team expects to win,' says Holliday. 'And it's obviously frustrating to not win and perform at the level we know we can. 'But we're going to keep pushing and keep being competitive and try to push through this. We have a really good team.' The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
Forbes
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
MLB The Show 25 - Patch 9 Notes Include Diamond Dynasty Update & More
MLB The Show 25 Sony San Diego Studios released the ninth game update for MLB The Show 25 early on Tuesday morning. The patch targeted a few minor gameplay details, a Marketplace issue and some stability fixes across other modes. This is the kind of update that doesn't change the DNA of the game but could shift how it feels to play. MLB The Show 25 has been critically acclaimed, receiving an 83 score on Metacritic. I gave it a 9 in my review, but there are still a good number of people complaining about R and G results in hitting, and overall difficulty having success at the plate. The studio shared the official update link on X, providing full patch notes for every platform. To be honest, I'm not as interested in player model updates for The Show 25. I'll be more plugged in on this front for next year's game, which should be a massive visual improvement as the series stops supporting last-gen consoles. That subtraction should free most sports games up to fully take advantage of the PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X and the new Nintendo Switch. I don't care what anyone says, I've never enjoyed a baseball video game more than I've enjoyed The Show 25. Diamond Dynasty's flow of content is exemplary and I appreciate the challenge of hitting. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder There is one thing I'd love to see them add to Diamond Dynasty, and that is the ability to set platoon lineups for Ranked, Event and Battle Royal games. There's no way to know if you'll be facing a left or right-handed pitcher. If we could set platoon lineups that were chosen based on the handedness of the opposing starting pitcher, that would be ideal. We will see how much people like or dislike the latest update to the game.
