CS&T/AllsportsAmerica Friday Sports News Update and What's Your Take? 07/28/2017.

Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica

"America's Finest Sports Fan Travel Club, May We Plan An Event Or Sports Travel For You?"

We offer: Select opportunities, For your convenience, At "Very Rare but Super Fair" pricing

Because it's all about you!!!

Note: Our most sincerest apology to our readers. We had our Wednesday edition prepared for publishing and had a technical difficulty. Occasionally, these glitches happen and we dislike them more than you. As always, we strive to take measures to prevent these occurrences from happening again in the future. Thanks for your patronage and please keep reading. ~ The CS&T/AA Editorial Staff.

"Sports Quote of the Day"

"I've worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down and I will not let myself down." ~ Mia Hamm, Retired Professional Soccer Player 

TRENDING: 'The world's against us': Bears plenty motivated to prove preseason expectations wrong; Plus much, much more from the Bears training camp.  (See the football section for Bears news and NFL updates).

TRENDING: Could Hobey Baker winner Will Butcher be an option for Blackhawks?

(See the hockey section for Blackhawks updates and NHL news).

TRENDING: NBA economic reality could speed up Bulls rebuild. (See the basketball section for Bulls news and NBA updates).

TRENDING: The Cubs are back in first place. If Kyle Schwarber's back, the rest of the National League will have another reason to worry about the second-half Cubs; Why Yoan Moncada's slow start with White Sox could soon be a thing of the past. (See the baseball section for Cubs and White Sox updates).

TRENDING: DJ two behind quintet of leaders in Canada; Webb leads Kerr by one at Ladies Scottish Open; Langer (69) leads at 'extremely tough' Senior Open. (See the golf section for PGA news and tournament updates).

TRENDING: This weekend’s NASCAR schedule at Pocono (Cup, Trucks) and Iowa (Xfinity). (See the NASCAR section for NASCAR news and racing updates).

TRENDING: Fire hoping loss in Yankee Stadium will provide wake-up call. Morris’ 88th minute missile gives USMNT Gold Cup. (See the soccer section for Fire news and worldwide soccer updates).

TRENDING: Anthony Rizzo: More than talent needed for successful rebuild. (With regards to the White Sox rebuild). What's Your Take? (See the last article on this blog and let us know, what's your take?)

Bear Down Chicago Bears!!!!! 'The world's against us': Bears plenty motivated to prove preseason expectations wrong.

By Vinnie Duber

(Photo/USA TODAY)

There are 13 different teams on the Bears’ schedule this season. But as the Bears started training camp ahead of the 2017 campaign, they saw many more opponents.

“The world’s against us,” linebacker Danny Trevathan said Thursday.

Trevathan was referring to the almost universal lack of faith among preseason prognosticators when it comes to the Bears’ chances to make some noise this season.

The last three seasons have been miserable by the franchise’s historical standards, with last year’s 3-13 mark the worst the team ever posted in a 16-game season. So those doubting some sort of sudden turnaround have something to back their opinions up.

But down in Bourbonnais, the Bears are using that lack of confidence as a motivating tool.

“You want that mentality. You want it to be just us against the world. That’s how it is. It’s us,” Trevathan said. “A lot of people are going to say what they want to say, critics, all those guys are going to say you were 3-13, all this and that. But we know we can be way better than that. And we showed glimpses of that. But now we gotta go ahead and show it the whole season.”

Self confidence is never in short order for athletes, especially at the dawn of a new season when every team has the same record and there’s no new data to separate contenders from pretenders. But it’s not just the Bears pumping themselves up. They have a few reasons to believe that a flip of last year’s script is possible.

Health is a big one. Trevathan is one of a lengthy list of Bears returning from injuries that cut their seasons short in 2016. Impact guys like Kyle Long, Kevin White and Leonard Floyd missed significant time last season due to injuries. Their healthy return would figure make a big difference for the Bears this season.

New additions are expected to make a huge difference, as well. The Bears will have a new quarterback, with Mike Glennon the likely starter to begin the season and No. 2 overall pick Mitch Trubisky waiting in the wings. Two new faces, Dion Sims and Adam Shaheen, are earning plenty of attention in the battle for the starting tight end job. And Prince Amukamara, Marcus Cooper and Quintin Demps are a trio of new starters in the secondary.

Those guys, guys who weren’t a part of last year’s loss-a-palooza, are bringing a fresh perspective to the team.

“Last year is last year,” said Demps, who’s been to six postseasons in his career, including each of the last two with the Houston Texans. “You’ve got to come in each and every year and prove yourself. That’s the goal right now. We’re coming in with a clean slate, 0-0. We’re just trying to get better right now, trying to build a good team.”

But most importantly, the Bears see this season as the culmination of the cultural changes Ryan Pace, John Fox & Co. have put in place over the past few years.

“That change has been starting from two years ago, it’s been starting. It just hasn’t rolled over to the games,” tight end Zach Miller said. “3-13 is not acceptable for us. We put in all the work, and you can feel the change coming. Every year you walk into camp, everybody’s against you, it’s time to turn the tables, surprise some people, so that’s kind of the goal in mind right now and see how we can do it.”

“I saw spurts of us last year just blooming and being that four-quarter team to win games, close games,” Trevathan said, talking about the team and his defense, specifically. “A lot of people are not seeing the work that we’re putting in, the communication, pieces that we’re putting in, putting in work, guys coming in like they’ve been here before. It’s like we’re clicking on all cylinders right now, and it feels good to be part of a defense like that. I feel like we’re going to be one of the greatest coming up. As long as we keep that full steam ahead, that attitude, that hungriness and that drive, we’re going to be great.”

Never underestimate the power of bulletin-board material, something that’s been around almost as long as football has. There's enough of it floating around this preseason for the Bears to fill a few bulletin boards. As they said, it’s up to them to prove they’re better than everyone thinks, better than last year’s 13-loss season indicated.

But while 2016 was short on wins, one thing 2017 will not be short on is motivation.
“A lot of people have got their backs turned to us. And we’re going to come out swinging. They’re gonna come over to our side,” Trevathan said. “But right now we’re taking care of our business. Our thing is to get better and get better every day, and that’s our goal.”

Mark Sanchez on fast food runs, shutting up and policing a QB controversy. 

By Chris Boden

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

When the Bears signed Mark Sanchez March 24, some fans panicked that it meant Ryan Pace would avoid selecting a quarterback for a third straight draft. And when Pace boldly (or, stupidly, to some) traded up a spot to second overall to secure Mitch Trubisky for the future, those critics emerged, too. 

Sanchez signed as Mike Glennon's backup, and according to Pace Wednesday, that's still what he is. For the former fifth overall pick of the Jets, starting would be great. But he's only done that ten times over the past four years after starting all but two games in his first four seasons under the media microscope in New York.

"I thought this team was on an upper trend and it'd be great to help somebody like Mike," Sanchez said Thursday in his first interview with Chicago reporters. "I know they went through a serious injury bug last year and a lot of guys would be getting healthy."

The man is only 30, and things were never better professionally than in his fresh-faced, first two NFL seasons, helping the Jets win two playoff road games in both 2009 and 2010 (including one at New England) before getting knocked out in AFC Championship games on the road. Now, he's not considered a starter, unless it's an emergency.

"It has been a different role, and adjusting your perspective is not always easy, but that's the mental side of this game and that's why I love playing it, no matter what," Sanchez said. "I wanna be competing my butt off in practice, and then pushing the starter as much as I can."

With Tony Romo hurt yet again in Dallas last year, Sanchez was picked up as insurance by the Cowboys after the Broncos decided to go with two other young quarterbacks, Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch, following Peyton Manning's retirement. But fourth-round rookie Dak Prescott's performance kept him on the field and Sanchez in a mentor role. Just as he will be with Glennon and Trubisky.

"Whatever it takes to win," Sanchez said. "And if that means getting him ready to play, and if that's what the role is, which is what it looks like here, then I'll push Mike, get ready to play myself and make sure he's ready to go in. It's been exciting working with him, because he can really play. I think he's a special player. He's decisive, he's got great feet for a big guy, and he can make all the throws so I'm excited to see how well he does."

Sanchez was Prescott in 2009, being chosen as a rookie over veteran options on a contending team.

"I had Kellen Clemens, Kevin O'Connell and Mark Brunell," Sanchez said of his NFL baptism under fire. "And all three of them, my first couple years, were amazing guys. Whether it was body language, footwork, where to live, where to eat, anything, you name it. We got so close. That kind of stuff transcends football when you get close off the field like we did those first couple of years, things take off. That kind of stuff I learned right away. We're still building that here."

There's no telling the degree of influence Sanchez may have had on Prescott's success. He arrived in Dallas late (after opening last preseason with a long touchdown pass to Demaryious Thomas at Soldier Field), too. But he hopes the NFL life lessons he'd been through, from winning, to butt-fumbling, to being cut, will help Glennon and Trubisky as he hope it did with Dak.

"That was a heckuva run," he said. "When you look at these teams, especially heading into year nine, you know from the first practice what you have, what you're searching for, what guys lead, what guys follow. You can feel it right away.

"It's a young team, but the emphasis is for the veterans to help push guys. Speaking from a number two role, I have to push Mike with everything I see. I had the conversation with Dak last year, 'Hey, I'll tell you everything I know, I'll push you as hard as a I can. But if at any point, you need me to turn it off, I'll do that. I'll shut up and won't say a word.' That's the same relationship I have with Mike and I'm pushing him hard, helping him compete, and I think he's gonna do really well.

"The best compliment you can give a rookie is not have to tell him to shut up," the USC product said of the seniority pecking order. "Just keep your head down and work, and that's really been his mentality. That's huge. And that's not easy, especially coming from where (Trubisky's) come from. The status you build as a college player... then a team trades up to get you, all those things, you start to believe all that.

"I remember getting ready to fly to divisional games, championship games, and two hours before the plane takes off I'm going to like, three different places. Popeyes Chicken, Quiznos, and I'm thinking, 'Geez, this is crazy.' But there's Brunell and Kellen Clemens saying, 'Just keep your mouth shut.  Do it or it'll be worse.' But (Trubisky's) done a great job. He's worked hard, doesn't say much and doesn't need to. Just keep working, keep learning, playing hard."

And despite his own desire to play, he won't fan the flames for change when Glennon has a bad practice, series or game. All four quarterbacks (including Connor Shaw) are ready to accept and follow the gameplan that's in place for the most scrutinized position in sports.

"There's no chance that happens here," Sanchez said of a divided room. "It's been defined clearly, and that's what you need. It's already been addressed by Ryan Pace, by Coach (John Fox), and you can't say it enough. You guys (the media) have a job to do, and I totally understand how papers sell, and some don't. Certain quotes, certain headlines, I've been around a bit, so I know. But we're not gonna have that issue because Mike's gonna play his butt off. If anything happens, I'll be ready. Mitch is gonna be ready. We have a great room so, I like where we're at and I like where we're headed."

Kevin White is starting small to answer the big question: Can he break out in 2017?

By JJ Stankevitz

(Photo/USA TODAY)

Kevin White isn’t taking his ability to play football for granted anymore, not after missing 28 of the Bears’ 32 games since he was drafted seventh overall in 2015. This is supposed to be fun, White said, even though these last two years couldn’t have been much fun for him.  

So with training camp underway at Olivet Nazarene University, White isn’t putting any added pressure on himself in a year that could determine whether or not he gets labeled a bust. 

“I don’t look at this as a job,” White said. “I think it takes the fun away from it. So I would just look at it as it’s a game. I love to play it, just getting paid to do it. But it was fun to be back out there with the guys and rallying together and going out there to compete.”

White looked solid in the Bears’ first training camp practice of 2017, which was a promising start for the 6-foot-3, 216 pound West Virginia product. But that’s a small step that won’t hold much significance unless White can string a few good practices together, and then eventually turn those practices into productive games. 

The good news is the Bears don’t have any restrictions on White and aren’t planning on giving him any additional rest days during training camp.

“He’s ready to go,” general manager Ryan Pace said. “He’s had a great summer, a great offseason, so he’s ready to go. You can just feel his confidence gaining, knowledge of the offense and just being comfortable with his body. He’s pretty much unleashed.”

The bad news is until White proves he can play a full season, questions will remain about his durability. Since being drafted, White has dealt with a fractured left tibia and a severe ankle sprain that resulted in a spiral fracture of his fibula. Those two severe injuries mean we don’t really know what White can do — the four games he played last year were perhaps nothing more than an incomplete glimpse. 

White had the third-lowest average yards per target (5.19) among receivers with at least 35 targets last year, which couldn’t have been what the Bears envisioned when they invested a top-10 pick in him. This is a guy who had 1,447 yards and 10 touchdowns in his final year at West Virginia, after all. 

The Bears still believe White can be a go-to target opposite the budding Cam Meredith and in conjunction with the trio of veterans (Markus Wheaton, Kendall Wright, Victor Cruz) they signed in the spring. 

“We all can do whatever the coaches put us in position to do,” White said. “I do have a lot of confidence (in) us.”

But from a larger view, the Bears need White succeed so they won’t have to re-draft a player at his position, or at least be tempted to deviate from their best-player-available strategy. Doing so would be a blow to Pace’s efforts to build through the draft, a process that’s also, notably, seen the additions of Cody Whitehair, Jordan Howard, Mitch Trubisky and Adam Shaheen on offense. 

For White to fulfill those big-picture hopes, though, he’ll have to start small — like with Thursday’s practice. Saturday’s practice will be the first time White will take contact since Week 4 of the 2016 season, and the Aug. 10 preseason opener will be his first game action since then, too. 

“It’s hard to get better at something if you don’t practice it,” coach John Fox said. “So getting a string of practices, getting him out there and developing his skill set. He’s got plenty of athletic ability. That’s why he was picked where he was. Now it’s just getting out there and improving (his) skillset.”

White’s love of the game wasn’t marred by the frustration of his first two years in Chicago, though. In fact, the opposite happened. 

“You get something taken away from you a little bit, you enjoy it more,” White said.

Recovering from injury and switching positions, there's a lot on Kyle Long's plate at Bears training camp. 

By Vinnie Duber

(Photo/AP)

Saying that it’s been a tough offseason for Kyle Long would be putting it mildly.

Long has been recovering from a pair of injuries, a serious one to his ankle that required surgery and another to his shoulder. On top of that, the Bears are moving him to the other side of the offensive line, switching his position for the second time since he arrived in Chicago by moving him from right guard to left guard.

All that has made for a pretty crazy few months. So being back with the Bears for the first day of training camp allowed Long a return to normalcy that has been evasive for some time.

“First time being away from the team for that extended period. First time missing any games, like not being able to be on the sideline for games,” Long said Thursday. “Mobility was really tough. Gives you an appreciation for your health, and it makes you feel sympathetic and empathy toward people who don’t have great mobility. So I’m really trying to get back to where I was and keeping it that way.”

Long previously revealed that he lost a good deal of weight while recovering. He added Thursday that his body didn’t react well to medication he was taking. The best way he described a challenging recovery period was perhaps also the scariest.

“It just doesn’t make you feel like you,” Long said. “And I don’t like to be in that state.”

So being able to play football again is a welcome reality for the guy who’s arguably been the Bears’ best player for several seasons now.

Thing is, even that is providing a challenge for Long.

Changing positions is nothing new for the Oregon product, as the Bears shifted him from right guard to right tackle two years ago. Now he’s getting another new position, a move to left guard.

Long’s being a good sport about it and expressed excitement over getting to play a new position. But it’s another major thing added to this offseason — and now preseason — whirlwind.

“I like it. It’s fun. It’s a different view on things,” Long said.

“Be patient, but also understand that every rep is an opportunity to learn. You’ll be humbled over and over and over again, but you keep showing up, you keep swinging. You can only play one play at a time.

“There’s certain things that bug you as a player and there are certain things that are out of your control, and then there are certain things you can capitalize on, that I can take the knowledge I have acquired over the last few years at guard and at tackle and apply it to my new position. … We have a lot of guys in the room who can help me out as well. I just need to take it one day at a time.”

So entering this new season, there seems to be nothing but question marks surrounding the two-time Pro Bowler: Will Long return to full health by the start of the regular season? Will the transition to the left side of the line go smoothly? Will Long be the type of elite offensive lineman he’s been in the past?

Those are enough uncertainties to make anyone concerned. How’s Long handling things?

“I wouldn’t say I have a lot of anxiety in regards to my health and my future. I would say that there’s a lot of pressure. Pressure’s good. I’ve got to fight pressure with pressure. I’ve got to work harder and harder in the training room, in the weight room and on the field.

“There’s no real timetable right now, I’m just happy to be out here. Coach is letting me ease back into it. I knew it was going to be a long process when I initially got injured, and I don’t think the timing could have been much worse there toward the end of the season.

“But the cards are what they are, and we’ve got to play the hell out of them.”

Why the Bears are feeling optimistic about their 2017 defense.

JJ Stankevitz

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The general vibe given off by defensive end Akiem Hicks and linebacker Jerrell Freeman -- the two Bears defenders made available to the media on Wednesday -- was of low-key optimism. 

A Bears defense beset by injuries last year ranked 24th in points allowed and only managed 11 turnovers in 2016. But Hicks and Freeman both see bigger things for this defense after general manager Ryan Pace retooled it with a number of veteran free agent signings. 

Specifically, Hicks believes the Bears' defense has enough been-there, done-that players to be the catalyst for victories. 

“Sometimes, it’s like a second nature, something that you have inside you,” Hicks said. “You just want to be in that situation. But it’s also something you can develop through a lot of reps. You know what I mean? A guy who comes in and has 5,000 reps over his career, he’s going to be able to get in that situation and play it with just a little bit more confidence than a guy in his first, second or even third year. 

“Because once you’ve gotten to a point where you’ve gotten enough snaps, you’ve seen everything. You felt disappointment, you’ve felt that feeling of victory at the end of the game when you’re walking off. I think that’s what bringing veteran guys to a team does. They’ve seen it all already.”

The Bears added four possible-to-likely starters to their defense in free agency: defensive end Jaye Howard, safety Quintin Demps and cornerbacks Prince Amukamara and Marcus Cooper. Those four players have a combined 24 years of NFL experience, and the Bears only have one rookie (safety Eddie Jackson) competing for a starting role. Couple the expected Year 1 to Year 2 growth of Leonard Floyd and the potential for a healthy Eddie Goldman with those veterans, and the Bears see enough players with the right mindset to build a sturdy defense. 

“I hope everyone on my defense wants to be the best player at their position,” Freeman said. “That’s the mentality I would want, and that’s the mentality I would want the rest of my defense to have. Getting better, lead a defense to one of the top defenses, just help my team in any kind of way to get some wins.”

The 5 Bears players with the most to prove in training camp.

By JJ Stankevitz

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

1. Mike Glennon

Glennon is, for now, the Bears’ unquestioned starting quarterback — a role the Bears made clear he wasn’t going to lose after drafting Mitch Trubisky with the second overall pick in April. It would take a monumental effort from Trubisky — and a disappointing one from Glennon — for that to change. But Glennon has only attempted 11 more passes in the NFL than Trubisky since the beginning of the 2015 season, leaving plenty of uncertainty heading to Bourbonnais. Glennon’s three-year, $45 million contract is structured so the Bears could cut him for $2.5 million next spring, and with a highly-touted player developing behind him, he may not have as much leeway as his contract would appear to give him. As Glennon put it in May: “This is my year. There are no guarantees in the NFL.” The 27-year-old is well aware this year is his best opportunity to prove, either to the Bears or the rest of the league, that he’s capable of being a successful starting quarterback. That process begins in earnest this week. 

2. Mitch Trubisky

While it remains unlikely that Trubisky will be the Bears’ Week 1 starter, if he proves to be better than Glennon at the end of August…why would he not be the starter? It’s not a simple yes or no question, given Trubisky has to learn a largely different offense than the one he ran in college (unlike Philadelphia’s No. 2 pick, Carson Wentz, a year ago) and only started 13 games since leaving high school in Mentor, Ohio. But it’s the job of John Fox and his coaching staff to win games, and if they come to a consensus that Trubisky gives them a better chance of winning, then it would make sense for him to start. What’s more likely in reach for Trubisky during training camp is showing enough to the coaching staff to lay the foundation for him to play in 2017, either as a substitute or as a starter later in the season. 

3. Kevin White

Aside from the quarterbacks, it’s hard to think of a player with more to prove than White. It’s too early to label White a bust, given those two leg injuries limited him four games in his first two years, but the Bears at least need him to be healthy this year to start to figure out what they have in the former seventh overall pick. White was targeted 36 times before suffering his season-ending injury last year and averaged 5.19 yards per target, which was the third-lowest average among receivers with at least 35 targets in 2016. That's surprising for a guy who was drafted with such good speed, so not only will White have to prove he can stay healthy, but he'll have to prove he can be more productive within the Bears' offense. 

4. Leonard Floyd

While White may have the most to prove, Floyd probably has the highest expectations placed upon him in 2017. Floyd’s 7 1/2 sacks last year were promising, and he appears to be past the scary post-concussion malaise he suffered in January and February. If Floyd grows into a double-digit sack guy for the Bears this year, he could be the catalyst for some significant improvements for the entire defense (a better pass rush begets more opportunities for interceptions, etc.). But he’ll also have to prove the issues that led to those two concussions last year — chiefly, poor tackling form — are a thing of the past, and that he’s able to make that Year 1 to Year 2 leap the Bears think he can. 

5. Kyle Fuller

Fuller faces an uphill climb to make the Bears’ 53-man roster, so what he’s trying to prove may be of more value to finding a post-Chicago landing spot. Vic Fangio’s pointed comments about Fuller’s willingness (or lack thereof) to play last year cast doubt on his future, but he’s still here after being neither cut nor traded in the offseason. The Bears declined Fuller's fifth-year option earlier this year, though, so training camp may be Fuller's last chance at sticking in the NFL, either with the Bears or elsewhere.

How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks? Could Hobey Baker winner Will Butcher be an option for Blackhawks?

By Charlie Roumeliotis

(Photo/USA TODAY)

The calendar is quickly approaching August and a majority of the NHL's top free agents have already signed new deals or found new homes. But there's one marquee player who has suddenly shaken loose, and will surely draw heavy interest across the league.

That would be 22-year-old defenseman Will Butcher, who informed the Colorado Avalanche that he will hit the open market and become an unrestricted free agent on Aug. 15.

Butcher, a 2013 fifth-round draft pick, was named the recipient of the 2017 Hobey Baker Award, annually given to college hockey's top player, after scoring seven goals and 30 assists in 43 games during his senior campaign while helping Denver University capture its first national title since 2005. It's the second straight year NCAA's top player has elected not to sign with the club that drafted him, with Jimmy Vesey doing the same last year when he signed with the New York Rangers instead of the Nashville Predators.

So could Butcher be a real option for the Blackhawks? There's certainly a reason for both sides to be intrigued by a potential match. 

With Brian Campbell, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya no longer in the picture, the Blackhawks could use a young, NHL-ready blue liner with top-four potential and Butcher provides just that.

He's a 5-foot-10, 186-pound puck-moving defenseman with high offensive upside but also plays a solid two-way game and is responsible in his own end. He carries a left-handed shot, quarterbacked Denver's No. 1 power play unit and possesses strong leadership skills after serving as the team's captain for two years.

While he is certainly no sure thing, Butcher would be as close to pro ready as any prospect in Chicago's system and could factor into the cards as soon as this season. It also doesn't hurt that he shared the same blue line at Denver as Blackhawks prospect Blake Hillman, who drew great reviews from Joel Quenneville at prospect camp.

The good news for the cap-crunched Blackhawks is that the maximum allowable salary for an entry-level contract is $925,000, so that eliminates the possibility of getting into a bidding war with other teams. Signing and performance bonuses can still be included, but that's the least of their worries if they can land a player of Butcher's caliber.

His decision will really come down to best fit and opportunity to play and win, and the Blackhawks can offer all of the above.

Just Another Chicago Bulls Session..... NBA economic reality could speed up Bulls rebuild. 

By Mark Schanowski

(Photo/USA TODAY)

In case you missed it this morning, ESPN's Tim McMahon and Bobby Marks collaborated on an excellent piece detailing how the irresponsible spending by NBA teams last summer could impact a star-studded free agent class in 2018.

Which is music to the ears of Bulls' front office executives John Paxson and Gar Forman, who are hoping to be a major player on the free agent market next year.

The ESPN report projected only nine teams having cap space to bid on a free agent class that could include Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Paul George, DeMarcus Cousins, Chris Paul, Isaiah Thomas, Carmelo Anthony, DeAndre Jordan, LaMarcus Aldridge, Avery Bradley, Brook Lopez, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Wilson Chandler, Danny Green, Enes Kanter and Greg Monroe, along with restricted free agents like Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Gary Harris, Jusuf Nurkic, Marcus Smart, Rodney Hood, Julius Randle, Dante Exum, Aaron Gordon and Clint Capela.

Bad summer not to have any spending money.

But that's exactly what Paxson and Forman were anticipating when they chose not to get involved in the reckless spending triggered by the league's new TV deal last summer. We all know about some of the terrible contracts handed out including a four-year, $72 million deal to Joakim Noah, four years, $64 million for Timofey Mozgov and Portland spending almost $150 million to lock up reserves Allen Crabbe and Evan Turner for four years.

The Bulls signed Dwyane Wade, Rajon Rondo and Isaiah Canaan last summer, but avoided any salary commitment beyond two years. Both Rondo and Canaan were bought out of the team options the Bulls held for next season.

Meanwhile, the Trail Blazers are now in such a deep luxury tax hole that they basically gave Crabbe away in a trade with Brooklyn earlier this week, immediately waiving the player they got back, power forward Andrew Nicholson, under the league's stretch provision. Portland figures to be one of at least 10 teams paying the luxury tax for the 2018-19 season.

I know what many of you are thinking, "Why will 2018 free agency be any different than in years past?" Yes, the Bulls missed out on primary targets James, Wade and Chris Bosh in 2010, and they failed to land Anthony in 2014. But with so many teams capped out, the Bulls will face less competition in pursuing the players they want most next summer.

We've all heard the rumors about James wanting to finish his career in L.A., and it's unlikely Durant, Westbrook, George or Paul would have any interest in coming to Chicago. But the Bulls could get significantly better right away in a weakened Eastern Conference by adding one or two players from a list of unrestricted free agents that could be looking for a new situation, including Cousins, Jordan, Bradley, Thomas, Caldwell-Pope, Kanter, Chandler and Green. They also could use their cap space to make a massive cap offer to a restricted free agent whose team is already in the luxury tax.

Of course, the Bulls have decisions to make with their own roster as well. They still haven't re-signed Niko Mirotic, and any contract beyond one season will reduce their cap space next summer. Plus, the key player coming back in the Jimmy Butler deal, shooting guard Zach LaVine, will be a restricted free agent next summer, and if he comes back 100 percent from ACL surgery, could command a multi-year contract starting at $20 million or more.

The Bulls have contract options on the rookie deals of Bobby Portis, Kris Dunn, Cam Payne, Jerian Grant, Denzel Valentine and Lauri Markkanen, while Paul Zipser's $1.5 million salary is not guaranteed for 2018-19.

Paxson said the Bulls are committed to re-building through the draft, and the hope is they'll wind up with a top 3 pick after next year's lottery to grab a franchise changing talent like Missouri's Michael Porter, Jr., International star Luka Doncic and 7-footers DeAndre Ayton of Arizona and Mohamed Bamba of Texas.

Looking at the big picture, if LaVine comes back 100 percent, Dunn emerges as a legit starting point guard and Markkanen shows potential as a stretch 4, the Bulls rebuild could move quickly. Adding one of the top players in next year's draft would be the first step, then Paxson and Forman would be armed with somewhere between $40-50 million dollars in cap space to pursue an impact free agent or two.

Bulls fans remember how long it took to re-build the team after the end of the Jordan era in 1998. Jerry Krause couldn't land a major free agent, and the Tyson Chandler-Eddy Curry experiment failed badly.

Let's hope Paxson and Forman have more luck this time around. At least they'll have a built-in advantage when the 2018 free agent market opens for business next July with the Bulls projected to have more cap space available than any other team in the league.

CUBS: If Kyle Schwarber's back, the rest of the National League will have another reason to worry about the second-half Cubs. 

By Patrick Mooney

(Photo/USA TODAY)

Kyle Schwarber’s proper introduction to the Cubs-Sox rivalry came in the summer of 2015 when a fan on the South Side threw a half-empty “tall boy” at him in left field. A little more than a year removed from college, Schwarber didn’t understand why someone wouldn’t finish all the beer first. 

David Ross chimed in, raising his voice loud enough so Schwarber and a group of reporters could hear him inside the visiting clubhouse: “You should have shotgunned it and then went over there and found him.

“I tell you what: I’d hate to try to wrap up Kyle Schwarber. I guarantee you that whoever threw that beer doesn’t want (any) part of Kyle Schwarber. I promise you that one.”

That was the rookie orientation before Schwarber: blasted five playoff home runs that October; suffered a devastating knee injury that almost wiped out his entire 2016 season; made a dramatic return to the World Series; and experienced newfound fame and fortune that would change his life forever.

Mess with Schwarber? That aura of invincibility is gone after his detour to Triple-A Iowa before the All-Star break. But the first-place Cubs will take Thursday night’s 6-3 win over the White Sox as another sign that he is almost back, yet another reason why the defending champs look ready to continue this second-half surge. 

“I told him that if he had a couple more push-ups in there, he would have had three homers tonight, but we’ll take a triple,” winning pitcher Jon Lester said afterward. “Schwarber’s been swinging the bat great since he’s been back.”

No doubt, the Cubs caught the sell-mode White Sox at the right time during the final days leading up to the July 31 trade deadline. Even in going 3-for-4 and blasting his 16th and 17th home runs – which traveled 814 feet combined at Guaranteed Rate Field – Schwarber is still only hitting .191 with 90 strikeouts in 79 games this season. 

But the Cubs have always given Schwarber the benefit of the doubt and will point to his big personality and encouraging numbers since his Triple-A reset ended on July 6, getting on base almost 37 percent of the time and hitting safely in 10 of 13 games with five homers, three doubles and that triple.

“Retrospectively, we should not have expected that much,” manager Joe Maddon admitted. “I’m guilty of that kind of a narrative or a dialogue also, because I was really eager to watch him play a full season of Major League Baseball.

“But the guy missed the whole season and did really well in a small window of time at the end of the year. So maybe my expectations exceeded what they should have been.

“I do believe he is that good. I do believe you’re going to come back and see him play at the level we anticipated. But he might have just needed more time. And we just didn’t recognize that.

“I might have been as guilty as anybody regarding the promotion of that. But I believe in him fully. I know it’s going to happen. There’s been some really good major-league hitters that have gone through the same thing.” 

At this point, the Cubs (54-47) would love to see what kind of wrecking ball Schwarber could be for a half-season. To his credit, Schwarber has been the same throughout all the ups and downs, someone who looks and sounds like a guy you would drink tall boys with.

“I just want to worry about putting the barrel on the ball,” Schwarber said. “I’m just trying to stay within myself, be short (with my swing) and it’s paying off.”

With or without Justin Verlander, Jake Arrieta expects Cubs to stay in first place: ‘We have the pieces’. 

By Patrick Mooney

(Photo/USA TODAY)

The Cubs already have a Cy Young Award winner, someone who was transforming into the hottest pitcher on the planet around this time in 2015, and then beat the Cleveland Indians twice on the road in last year’s World Series.

So the Cubs can keep discussing Justin Verlander and trying to figure out the price point where it makes sense, what caliber prospects they would have to give up and how much money the Detroit Tigers would have to kick in to cover a bill that could soar toward $90 million. 

But Jake Arrieta showed why the Cubs might finally start to run away from the division and become a very dangerous team in October, dominating the White Sox on Wednesday night at Guaranteed Rate Field during an 8-3 win that vaulted them into first place in the National League Central.    
     
“We expect to remain in first place,” Arrieta said. “We know it’s going to be a tough task, but that’s kind of what you deal with at the highest level of sports. You expect to have really good competition from teams that are either equal with you or close behind.

“We feel like we have the group to separate ourselves at this point in time and remain in first place for the remainder of the way.”

The Cubs probably don’t have the blue-chip prospects – and the appetite to raid their farm system again – to blow away the Oakland A’s and win a bidding war for Sonny Gray. The Cubs kick the tires on everything, but Yu Darvish would be a rental and the Texas Rangers are torn over what to do with their Japanese star. 

This is another reason why the Cubs are focusing on adding a veteran backup catcher and strengthening the bullpen before the July 31 trade deadline: Arrieta Watch is back, taking a no-hitter into the fifth inning in front of a sellout crowd of 38,517 before Omar Narvaez drilled a ground-rule double into the right-center field seats.  

The Cubs are 10-2 since trading for Jose Quintana during the All-Star break, erasing a 5.5-game deficit against the Milwaukee Brewers heading into this weekend’s showdown at Miller Park. At 53-47, the Cubs are a season-high six games over .500, and it all starts with pitching.  

“I think we’ve got the pieces to get it done,” Arrieta said. “If there’s a situation where we can get another guy and not lose any key players, it might work in our favor.

“Obviously, when we traded for Quintana, that’s a huge addition to our ballclub. This guy’s really good. He works his butt off. And just seeing how he carries himself in between starts is a really great sign. To have a guy like that who works extremely hard and cares about the team winning ballgames – you can’t replace that.

“That trade right there in itself is one that’s going to pay huge dividends for this ballclub, not only for this year, but for the next couple years. But we’re a great team right now, and I think we have the pieces to get it done.”  

Arrieta was on cruise control until Yoan Moncada launched his 98th and final pitch – an 0-2 curveball – 409 feet over the center-field wall with two outs in the seventh inning. Arrieta only allowed those two hits, giving up two runs and finishing with five strikeouts against two walks, continuing the correction super-agent Scott Boras predicted when the Chicago media and Cubs fans wondered about his flashes of diminished velocity and spikes in hard contact during a free-agency push.

Arrieta has methodically put together 10 wins and three straight quality starts after the All-Star break, chopping his ERA down from 5.44 in the middle of May to 4.03. Ricky Renteria’s White Sox are obviously tanking for the future and there are a lot of conditions attached to this statement: 

But if Arrieta pitches like this, Jon Lester continues to be one of the best big-game pitchers of his generation, Quintana excels in a pennant race and Kyle Hendricks regains his feel and rhythm after six-plus weeks on the disabled list, then the Cubs might have a better playoff rotation than the one that ended the 108-year drought.  
  
“We’re feelin’ it,” Arrieta said, thinking back to last summer, when Theo Epstein’s front office added 100-mph closer Aroldis Chapman to a team with close to a 99-percent chance of making the playoffs. “I remember last year we were in this clubhouse around this same time, and it’s no different.” 

Look at the competition: The Washington Nationals might be forced into adding a frontline starter now that Stephen Strasburg is headed to the 10-day disabled list with a nerve impingement in his right forearm. The Los Angeles Dodgers are hoping a strained lower back won’t stop Clayton Kershaw from making a few tune-up starts in September before becoming their Game 1 starter in October.

With or without Verlander, the Cubs are ramping up to defend their title.

“I’m going to continue to get stronger as the year progresses,” Arrieta said. “I feel like my best baseball, my best pitching, is still ahead of me. And I’m ready for it.”

Even as they find their offensive groove, Cubs know there's more left in the tank. 

By Tony Andracki

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

221.

That's how many pitches the Cubs saw during Wednesday night's 8-3 win over the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field.

11.

That's the amount of runners the Cubs left on base Wednesday.

To Joe Maddon, those numbers don't quite add up.

The Cubs had 20 baserunners on 10 hits, eight walks and a pair of errors committed by Sox fielders. Yet they only plated eight, going 4-for-13 with runners in scoring position. Over the last two games, the Cubs have seen 412 pitches and scored 15 runs, but they've also left 24 guys on base and gone just 9-for-33 with runners in scoring position.

"The proverbial grinding of the at-bats has been there," Maddon said after Wednesday's game. "[221 pitches], you'd think we'd score — I'm not talking about being greedy — we need to capitalize more.

"Eleven runners left on base. Again, I'm not complaining. Just the fact that we have to be more efficient as we move further along. Keep working those at-bats and I think if we do, at some point, it's gotta catch up to us in a positive way where it comes back to us and the ball's gotta fall in better moments, too."

The Cubs have gotten out to a 10-2 start to the season's second half, averaging six runs a game during that stretch and forcing the opposition to throw 154.5 pitches per game.
The Cubs have rapped out 124 hits in those 12 games as opposing pitchers have only recorded four quality starts.

And for all the issues with runners in scoring position in the first half, Anthony Rizzo and Co. are hitting .293 (37-for-126) with guys in scoring position since the All-Star Break. (Even with that, they're still only 27th in baseball with a .238 average with RISP, showing just how much the team underperformed in that area in the first half.)

The Cubs are starting to look more and more like the 2016 version of themselves as a host of other players — led by Willson Contreras, Addison Russell and Ben Zobrist — have joined Bryzzo in consistently contributing offensively.

"It's very rare when you have a game where everybody hits to their full potential," said Rizzo, who had three hits and drove in four runs Wednesday. "It's guys carrying the load one day and some other guys doing it the next day."

That's been a different script than the one the Cubs were playing off of in the first three months of the season, when only Kris Bryant and Rizzo were reaching their offensive potential.

As the Cubs hit their stride and gear up for the stretch run, they're finally starting to click offensively.

And what's scary is there's still more left in the tank.

"We don't wanna leave guys on, but we want to keep putting guys on to give ourselves opportunity," Rizzo said. "As long as we come away with the win, it doesn't matter.

"We're putting together good at-bats as a unit. [Seeing a lot of pitches] is a good formula for us. We know that if we grind at-bats, good things will happen."

WHITE SOX: Why Yoan Moncada's slow start with White Sox could soon be a thing of the past.

By JJ Stankevitz

(Photo/USA TODAY)

Yoan Moncada wrapped up his first Crosstown Series — in front of the closest thing to a playoff atmosphere he’ll experience in, likely, a while — with an 0-4 showing in the White Sox 6-3 loss to the Cubs on Thursday. 

The 22-year-old had mixed results facing the defending World Series champions, striking out four times in five at-bats on Monday and hitting his first career home run off Jake Arrieta on Wednesday. His final numbers for these four Crosstown games: 17 plate appearances, two hits, two walks, two runs, eight strikeouts and one hit by pitch. 

Moncada is off to a slow start in his second stint in the majors, but he’s drawing plenty of walks (12.5 percent) and probably has been victimized by some bad luck (a .118 batting average on balls in play which, to say the least, is exceedingly low). 
Manager Rick Renteria, though, likes Moncada’s even-keeled demeanor and his ability to handle the ups and downs of the day-to-day grind of the regular season. 

“What he’s going to be able to do is minimize how much he gets wrapped up in frustration, as opposed to taking the at-bat, the last at-bat, going through pitch by pitch and trying to figure out what it was he wrapped in his approach,” Renteria said.

“Younger players usually get very, very frustrated and lose that moment to gain some knowledge. Failure is not in and of itself a bad thing. It’s actually something that can produce a lot of positives. The thing is to try to get them to understand as quickly as possible so they can take those moments and gain information. 

“That’s why his even-keeled approach and even-keeled attitude (will help). He’s got fire. It’s not that he doesn’t care. That’s where people — for a lot of players who are calm or even-keeled, they have fire, they have desire, but they know how to compartmentalize and separate those things and try to gain something from every moment, positive or negative.”

Moncada already took that clear-eyed approach to self-evaluation in the minor leagues, and said that hasn’t changed now that he’s at baseball’s highest level. 

“I’m just keeping the same routine that I was using in the minors,” Moncada said through an interpreter. “And the whole year, I’m just keeping with the things that have been giving me results.”

There’s not much of a common thread between Moncada’s brief call-up with the Boston Red Sox last September and his first few games with the White Sox. Moncada was overmatched in his 2016 debut, striking out 12 times in 20 plate appearances and only drawing one walk. He had four hits, though, so his way-too-small-sample-size BABIP was .571. 

Moncada looks like a different player this year, carrying over his strong Triple-A walk rate (13.6 percent) to his nascent tenure with the White Sox. Eventually, the hits are likely to start falling as long as he doesn’t get out of the approach that got him here — and made him baseball’s biggest prospect in the process. 

“He’s been doing all the work that he has to do to adjust to this level,” first baseman Jose Abreu said through an interpreter. “He’s been doing his same routine from Triple-A and I think that’s something good because you have to stick with the things that are giving you good results.”

Extreme makeover: White Sox bullpen edition.

By Mark Strotman

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

With the White Sox entering rebuild mode in 2017 and the relief pitcher trade market not all that hot, general manager Rick Hahn found a perfect storm to unload some of his arms for future prospects.

Hahn continued that pursuit on Thursday, dealing left-hander Dan Jennings to the Tampa Bay Rays for 24-year-old prospect Casey Gillaspie. With the trade, the White Sox not have just one of their seven relievers from Opening Day on the current roster.

Below are the seven Opening Day bullpen arms, and where they've gone from April 5 to now.

- Zach Putnam (April 25) Putnam was the first of the bullpen arms to go, heading to the 10-day DL with right elbow inflammation. He did some throwing in early May but failed to make much progress. In late June Rick Hahn confirmed that Putnam had underwent Tommy John surgery. He finished with a 1.04 ERA in 8.2 innings.

- Nate Jones (April 28) Jones entered 2017 as one of the White Sox most important bullpen pieces. But the right elbow neuritis he dealt with never fully healed, and he needed nerve repositioning surgery on July 13 that ended his season. The former Tommy John surgery recipient finished 2017 with a 2.31 ERA, striking out 15 batters in just 11.2 innings.

- Michael Ynoa (July 8) After a stellar rookie campaign, Ynoa struggled in 2017, compiling a 5.90 ERA in 29 innings. He walked 22 and struck out just 23, and he allowed seven runs and recorded just four outs in his final two outings before the White Sox designated him for assignment. He's currently on the DL at AAA Charlotte.

- David Robertson (July 18) Rick Hahn gave up his closer right after the trade deadline, sending Robertson to the Yankees in a seven-player trade. Robertson had plenty of value, sporting a 2.70 ERA while going 13-for-14 in save opportunities. In four games with the Yankees he's allowed just one earned run - a homer - while striking out six.

- Anthony Swarzak (July 25) A surprise on the Opening Day 25-man roster, the 31-year-old Swarzak dominated in his time with the White Sox. He sported a 2.23 ERA and struck out 52 batters in 48.1 innings. He did some of his best work just before the trade, too: he had scoreless outings in 13 of his final 14 appearances with the Sox, good for a sparkling 0.56 ERA with 22 strikeouts and five walks in 16.0 innings. In return the White Sox received 25-year-old outfield prospect Ryan Cordell.

- Dan Jennings (July 27) The sixth bullpen arm to depart, Jennings was sent to the Rays for 24-year-old switch-hitting prospect Casey Gillaspie. The left-hander finished his White Sox season with a 3.45 ERA. Left-handed batters hit just .169 with a .497 OPS against him.

- Jake Petricka (still on team) It'll be tough to swing a deal for Petricka, who had a 10.24 ERA in June after returning from a DL stint. He hasn't yet pitched in July.

That's not including Tommy Kahnle, who joined the 25-man roster just a few days into the season. Kahnle was part of the deal that sent Robertson to the Yankees.

Now, here's the current bullpen: Jake Petricka, David Holmberg, Gregory Infante, Chris Beck, Juan Minaya, Tyler Clippard, Brad Goldberg, Aaron Bummer

White Sox continue dealing, trade Dan Jennings to Rays for prospect. 

By CSN Staff

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

The White Sox continued their run of trades on Thursday morning, dealing relief pitcher Dan Jennings to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for Casey Gillaspie.

Gillaspie, 24, was rated by MLB.com as the No. 10 prospect in the Rays organization. The switch-hitting first baseman batted .227 with nine homers, 44 RBIs and 45 runs scored in 95 games for AAA Durham.

The 6-foot-4, 240-pound left-hander began the year ranked as the No. 74 prospect in baseball by Baseball America and was a Southern League All-Star in 2016.  The first-round pick in 2014 was a New York-Penn League All-Star that year and a Midwest League All-Star in 2015.

“Casey is a recent first-round pick who has shown a quality approach at the plate with some power throughout his minor-league career,” general manager Rick Hahn said. “He gives us yet another highly touted hitter who has stood out at every level in the Rays system and increases our organizational depth as we continue to add prospects to the system.”

Casey is the young brother of Conor Gillaspie, who spent three seasons with the White Sox from 2013 to 2015.

Jennings went 3-1 with a 3.45 ERA in 48 appearances for the White Sox this season, his 48 appearances are tied for second in the American League.

Jennings tweeted a farewell to the White Sox following the trade.

It's the fourth trade the White Sox have made in July. They began by dealing starter Jose Quintana to the crosstown rival Cubs for four prospects, including 20-year old phenom Eloy Jimenez.

Hahn and the White Sox bundled David Robertson, Todd Frazier and Tommy Kahnle to the Yankees for a prospect package that included 2016 first-round pick Blake Rutherford.

The White Sox also dealt reliever Anthony Swarzak to the Brewers and received 25-year-old Ryan Cordell in return.

In a corresponding roster move to replace Jennings on the 25-man roster, the White Sox are calling up left-handed reliever Aaron Bummer.

Bummer, 23, was selected  by the White Sox in 19th round of the 2014 MLB Draft. In 28 appearances across three levels in 2017, Bummer has a 3.31 ERA and a 1.306 WHIP.

The White Sox now have just one reliever on their current roster who was also on the Opening Day roster is Jake Petricka.

Golf: I got a club for that..... DJ two behind quintet of leaders in Canada.

By Will Gray

(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)

There were plenty of low scores to begin the RBC Canadian Open, where birdies were sandwiched around a brief afternoon rain delay. Here's how things look after the opening round at Glen Abbey, where Kevin Chappell is among a group of early co-leaders:

Leaderboard: Kevin Chappell (-7), Hudson Swafford (-7), Brandon Hagy (-7), Matt Every (-7), Ollie Schniederjans (-7), Vijay Singh (-6), Bubba Watson (-6), Smylie Kaufman (-6)

What it means: It's a crowded leaderboard after the opening round, as the top 15 players are separated by a single shot. Five share the lead, a group that includes two winners from earlier this season in Chappell and Swafford. Hagy and Schniederjans remain in search of their first career win, while Every has been mired in a lengthy slump since back-to-back wins at Bay Hill in 2014-15.

Round of the day: Chappell has missed the cut in each of his last two starts, but he bounced back in a big way Thursday with a 7-under 65 that included a pair of eagles. Chappell dropped his lone shot of the day on No. 11, his second hole of the day, but he played the next five holes in 4 under and never looked back.

Best of the rest: Swafford earned his maiden win in January at the CareerBuilder Challenge, and he's in the mix for victory No. 2 after matching Chappell's opening 65. Swafford reeled off five birdies in a row from Nos. 2-6 without making a putt over 12 feet, and he added three more birdies on the back nine to grab a share of the lead.

Biggest disappointment: There are plenty of Canadians hoping to challenge this week on home turf, but it appears Adam Hadwin's stay at Glen Abbey will be brief. Hadwin won earlier this season but made five bogeys en route to a 3-over 75. It was a score that beat only seven players in the 156-man field and left Hadwin 10 shots off the lead.

Main storyline heading into Friday: It's anyone's guess with such a tightly-packed leaderboard, but the players to watch sit just off the pace. Former Masters champ Watson remains in the midst of a turnaround after turning in a 6-under 66 in the opening round, while world No. 1 Dustin Johnson sits two shots off the pace as he looks to improve upon last year's runner-up finish.

Shot of the day: Schniederjans was 201 yards away on the 18th hole when he hit his approach inside 15 feet, setting up his second eagle of the round. In fact Schniederjans' 65 didn't include a birdie until No. 2, his 11th hole of the day.

Quote of the day: "I didn't plan on sucking the rest of my life when I went into a slump. So I can't look other guys in the eye out here and be like, 'That guy's going to be better than me the rest of my life.' There's just no way." - Every

Webb leads Kerr by one at Ladies Scottish Open.

By Associated Press

(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)

Hall of Famer Karrie Webb shot a 7-under 65 in cold and windy conditions Thursday to take a one-stroke lead over Cristie Kerr in the Ladies Scottish Open.

Webb played the final 10 holes in 7 under at Dundonald Links. The 42-year-old Australian star birdied the par-4 ninth, made five straight birdies on Nos. 11-15 and added another birdie on the par-5 18th.

Kerr closed with a birdie on No. 9 in her bogey-free round in the event sanctioned by the LPGA for the first time. It has been part of the Ladies European Tour since 1986.

Fellow major champions Stacy Lewis and Inbee Park were tied for third at 69 along with Sei Young Kim, Lina Boqvist and Pornanong Phatlum. ANA Inspiration winner So Yeon Ryu had a 71, and Michelle Wie shot 72.

Lydia Ko opened with a 74. She has gone a full year without an LPGA win.

The Ricoh Women's British Open is next week at Kingsbarns.

Langer (69) leads at 'extremely tough' Senior Open.

By Associated Press

(Photo/Golf Channel Digital)

Bernhard Langer shot a 2-under 69 in wind and rain Thursday at Royal Porthcawl to take the first-round lead in the Senior Open.

The 59-year-old German star had five birdies and three bogeys for a one-stroke lead over 64-year-old Carl Mason of England and Mauricio Molina of Argentina.

''I'm pretty pleased that I'm on top of the leaderboard at the moment,'' Langer said. ''Conditions were extremely tough, and not feeling very good physically. So, just glad that I made it through the day and I'm in contention.''

Langer has nine senior major titles, winning the Regions Tradition and Senior PGA Championship in consecutive weeks in May. He won by 13 strokes the last time the tournament was held on the south Wales course, finishing at 18 under in 2014.

''I do like the golf course,'' Langer said. ''You can be aggressive at times and you've got to be cautious at other times. I think my game plan is pretty good. It's just a matter of executing the shots and the putts.''

Langer also won the 2010 event at Carnoustie.

Scotland's Colin Montgomerie was two strokes at 71 back along with Americans Tom Lehman, Billy Mayfair, Tom Pernice Jr. and Billy Andrade, Australians Peter Lonard and Peter Fowler, France's Jean-Francois Remesy and South Africa's Chris Williams.

''You have to be very, very patient,'' Montgomerie said. ''I said that in the press yesterday. It's the guy that can deal with adversity more than anybody that's going to do well.''

Tom Watson and John Daly topped the group at 72.

''I'm extremely happy because I'm extremely lucky,'' the 67-year-old Watson said. ''I made some Jordan Spieth putts out there. I made a 90-footer on the first hole and about a 60-footer on 14 for birdies that you never make those, unless you're Jordan Spieth.''

He has won the event three times after winning the British Open five times.

NASCAR: This weekend’s NASCAR schedule at Pocono (Cup, Trucks) and Iowa (Xfinity).

By Jerry Bonkowski

(Photo/Getty Images)

This will be a very busy NASCAR weekend with the NASCAR Cup and Camping World Truck Series racing at Pocono Raceway, while the Xfinity Series has a standalone event nearly 1,000 miles westward at Iowa Speedway.

* The NASCAR Cup Series returns for its second visit to Pocono in less than two months with Sunday’s Overton’s 400.

Pocono’s legendary 2.5-mile tri-oval has played host to the Monster Energy Cup Series since 1974 (first winner was Richard Petty).

This will be the 80th Cup race held there. Chris Buescher won this race last summer (shortened from a scheduled 160 laps to 138 due to rain).

In addition, Ryan Blaney earned his first career Cup win on June 11 at Pocono.

* The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will also be racing on Pocono’s Tricky Triangle in Saturday’s Overton’s 150.

This will also be the eighth Truck Series race at Pocono. Since the first Truck race there in 2010, there have been seven different winners, the most recent being William Byron in last year’s race there.

* The NASCAR Xfinity Series visits the 7/8-mile oval at Iowa for the second time in just over a month with the U.S. Cellular 250.

The standalone Xfinity event will the 16th at Iowa (Brad Keselowski won the first Xfinity event there in 2009). Erik Jones won this race last year, while William Byron won the first of this year’s two races there on June 24.

Here’s the weekend schedule at both Pocono and Iowa:

(All times Eastern)

AT POCONO RACEWAY

FRIDAY, JULY 28

10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. – Truck garage open

12 – 12:55 p.m. – Truck practice (Fox Sports 1)

2 – 2:55 p.m. – Final Truck practice (FS1)

SATURDAY, JULY 29

6:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. – Cup garage open

6:30 a.m. – Truck garage open

9 – 9:55 a.m. – Cup first practice (CNBC, MRN)

10 a.m. – Trucks qualifying (single vehicle, two rounds) (FS1)

11:15 a.m. – Trucks driver/crew chief meeting

11:30 a.m. — 12:20 p.m. – Final Cup practice (NBCSN, MRN)

12:30 p.m. – Trucks driver introductions

1 p.m. – Overton’s 150 Trucks race (60 laps, 150 miles) (FOX, MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

SUNDAY, JULY 30

7 a.m. – Cup garage open

11:30 a.m. – Cup qualifying (multi-vehicle, three rounds) (NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

1:30 p.m. – Cup driver/crew chief meeting

2:20 p.m. – Cup driver introductions

3 p.m. – Overton’s 400 NASCAR Cup race (160 laps, 400 miles) (NBCSN, MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

AT IOWA SPEEDWAY

(All times Eastern)

FRIDAY, July 28

2:30 – 9:30 p.m. – Xfinity garage open

5 – 5:55 p.m. – Xfinity first practice (NBCSN)

6:30 – 7:25 p.m. – Xfinity final practice (NBCSN)

SATURDAY, JULY 29

8:30 a.m. – Xfinity garage open

12:05 p.m. – Xfinity qualifying (multi-vehicle, three rounds) (NBCSN)

2 p.m. – Xfinity driver/crew chief meeting

3 p.m. – Xfinity driver introductions

3:30 p.m. – U.S. Cellular 250 Xfinity Series race (250 laps, 218.75 miles) (NBC, MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

Who is hot, who is not ahead of the Cup race at Pocono Raceway.

By Daniel McFadin

(Photo/nbcsports.com)

If you like parity in NASCAR, then you might like Pocono Raceway.

The track hosts its second NASCAR Cup race this weekend and in recent years it’s been hard for drivers to earn multiple wins at the “Tricky Triangle.”

Outside of Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s sweep of the Pocono races in 2014, no driver has won multiple times there in the last 12 races.

The last two visits to Pocono have been defined by first-time winners in the Cup Series, Ryan Blaney and Chris Buescher. Additionally, four of the last five Pocono winners got their first win of the season, including the last three, which began with Kurt Busch in June 2016.

With Pocono there are only six races left in the regular season and four spots left in the playoffs.

Here are the drivers who are “hot” and “not” ahead of the Overton’s 400.

Who is Hot

Kyle Busch

• Been passed for the win five times this season.
• Led the most laps five times this season but is still winless.
• His 1,040 laps led in 2017 are the second most this season and the most ever through 20 races in a season without a win.
• Had four wins at this point in 2016.
• Pocono is one of two tracks where he is winless (Charlotte).
• Top 10 in the last two Pocono races, won the pole in June and led the most laps before finishing ninth.

Kevin Harvick

• Sixth at Indianapolis, top 10 in 11 of the last 14 races.
• Pocono is one of three winless tracks, three-time runner-up including in June.
• All three Pocono runner-up finishes were in the last seven races.

Matt Kenseth

• Finished fifth at Indianapolis, back-to-back top fives for the first time in 2017.
• Best finish this season is third at Atlanta
• Earned stage points in every stage but one in the last nine races.
• Top 10 in four of the last five Pocono races, finished 10th in June.

Martin Truex Jr.

•Finished in the top 10 13 times this season, tied for the most.
• Won a series-high 14 stages this season.
• Led a series-high 1,260 laps, including more than 100 in five of the last 10 races.
• One Pocono win (his first with Furniture Row Racing) in 2015
• Finished sixth at Pocono in June.
• Started on the front row in the last two races at Pocono.

Who is Not

Jimmie Johnson

• Finished 27th at Indianapolis, DNF accident in two of his last three races.
• One top 10 in his last five races.
• Three top-five finishes this season, all wins.
• Has not finished in the top 10 in last three Pocono races, finished 36th in June after a crash.

Erik Jones

• Finished 31st at Indianapolis after crash.
• DNF the last two weeks due to wrecks.
• Finished a career-best third at Pocono in his only Cup start at the track.

Ryan Newman

• Finished third at Indianapolis.
• Only two top-10 finishes in the last seven races.
• Only four top fives in 2017, but one was a win at Phoenix Raceway.
• Fourteen Pocono top 10s but no finishes better than 12th in the last five races at the track.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

• Finished 35th at Indy after a crash.
• Hasn’t finished better than 14th in three races since Daytona win
• Only two top 10s in the  10 races since he won at Talladega.

NASCAR Power Rankings: When 4 of last week's top 5 crash, who gets No. 1?

By Nick Bromberg

1. Kyle Busch (LW: 5): Yeah, we admit this looks really weird on the surface. Moving Busch up four spots after he crashed out at Indianapolis does seem a bit crazy.

But this is how we’re justifying it. Busch had, by far, the best car during Sunday’s race. He would sprint away from the field on every restart and won the first two stages.

And the wreck wasn’t his fault. OK, the circumstances that precipitated it might have been (more on that in a second), but Busch had control of his car. It was Martin Truex Jr. who got loose — understandably so — and slid into Busch, causing Busch’s car to spin into the wall.

Without that crash, we think it’s a safe assumption the Brickyard 400 doesn’t unfold the way it did. Are there still some crazy crashes? Likely. But the battle for the lead isn’t nearly as compelling with Busch and Truex still in the field.

2. Kevin Harvick (LW: 4): Harvick is the only one of last week’s top five to make it through Sunday’s race unscathed. He solidly had one of the race’s best cars, and finished the first stage in fourth and the second stage in fifth.

He was one of the guys poised to strike after the wreck with Busch and Truex, but a late caution for a crash involving teammates Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch did him in. As Harvick had pitted from the lead group — and wasn’t one of the drivers attempting to stretch his fuel at the end of the race — he wound up back in traffic and finished sixth.

“We were on the lead strategy and unfortunately the strategy that wound up taking over was the strategy that was halfway through the middle of the pack,” Harvick said. “And then when the caution comes out, you know it’s gonna happen when everything gets mixed up and then we were just stuck in a hornet’s net and wound up getting beat up a little bit.”

3. Martin Truex Jr. (LW: 1): Busch and Truex had kept their positions at the front of the field through the first 100 laps of the race because they worked very well together on restarts. While Busch had the better car — and led 87 of the 110 laps he completed — the two drivers had an agreement on restarts to not race each other hard into turn 1.

The Toyota teams of Joe Gibbs Racing and Furniture Row Racing have been the best in NASCAR at working together on various arrangements and strategies since Truex’s team shifted to Toyota. The manufacturer-first approach (most of the time, anyway) is commendable from an organizational standpoint. And it’s been highlighted because the Toyota cars have been so fast since 2015.

The crash between Truex and Busch was a product of cooperation going away. Before the restart on lap 111, the agreement to work together disappeared because the race could have been decided with just one more pit stop.

That’s why Truex raced Busch so hard into turn 1. Because he was trying to take the lead — and get the benefit of clean air — he got loose underneath Busch. You know the rest.

“I guess we could have continued to play the teammate game and try to settle it on a green flag pit stop, but he could be that much faster than me and yard me by three seconds on a run with the clean air then I would never be able to get the opportunity to pass him back even if we had to settle it on a pit stop,” Busch said.

Truex too took the hindsight is 20/20 approach.

“We worked well together and that’s the hard part about this stuff is when it’s time to go,” Truex said. “I feel awful and just made a mistake. Definitely should have picked the outside and it would have been fine I guess … We had an awesome car today and we got out front, I don’t think they were going to be able to beat us.”

It’s fair to wonder just how the accident is going to help the Toyota cooperation going forward, especially given what Busch’s crew chief Adam Stevens had to say to members of Truex’s team after the accident. Because you know there’s going to be a point where Toyota teams are up front and racing each other for vital points in the playoffs.

4. Kyle Larson (LW: 2): It’s a moment lost in the shuffle of what happened over the final laps of the race, but had the Brickyard 400 operated like a typical affair, the way Larson raced Jimmie Johnson down the backstretch in the middle portion of the race would be a big moment.

Johnson didn’t want to cede the position to Larson and blocked the driver of the No. 42. Larson responded by bumping Johnson down the straightaway into turn 3.

The contact meant Larson had to come to pit road on the next caution for tape and repairs. And it also meant he lost a lot of track position.

His late-race wreck came as a product of blocking on the frontstretch from Ty Dillon.

“He just kept running me down and running me down,” Larson said. “We’re to the end and I’m not going to lift. He just ran me down far enough where I had nowhere to go and I clipped his left rear and it got me loose probably down the speedy dry and I just came across the track.

“A ton of blocking today. It was pretty aggressive. I got blocked a few times and I saw people blocking pretty aggressively. It was pretty annoying. But, I was there the whole time on that one, so it was pretty bad. But it was just Indy.”

5. Denny Hamlin (LW: 3): Hamlin also had damage on the front of his car, though his came from pit road contact. He was also involved in the wreck on the penultimate lap of the race that led to the overtime line finish. Though, as you know, Kasey Kahne was nowhere near the overtime line when Hamlin hit the wall.

6. Kasey Kahne (LW: NR): The only way Sunday’s win makes Kahne’s job status at Hendricks Motorsports secure for 2018 is if it brings sponsorship. With Great Clips and Farmers Insurance leaving at the end of the season, Kahne’s scheduled to have an unsponsored car for two-thirds of the season next year.

It’s entirely possible the win will help in the sponsor hunt. Teams in the playoffs get more exposure than those that don’t. But Kahne probably also needs to be more competitive too. He’s still outside the top 20 in points even after the win.

“We need to keep getting better. I think we really need to figure out how to qualify better, get that track position,” Kahne said. “Today the track position was key. Once I got to the front, I felt great. When I was in clean air in the back, I felt great, too. It was just a matter of getting to where we needed to be …”

“We have a lot to work on, for sure, but we are heading the right direction. We won a big race today. I feel good about it, man. I feel like I can still race these cars. I’ve known that, and I’ve wanted to, and I have the passion to. So to be able to get a win at this track, this stage, was great for our whole team today, for sure.”

7. Brad Keselowski (LW: 10): Keselowski called the three-wide moment into turn 3 with Kahne and Jimmie Johnson his “Tin Cup” moment, a reference from the 1990s Kevin Costner movie.

Crazily enough, a Keselowski win would’ve been the first Brickyard 400 win for Team Penske. Yeah, the team that’s the best in Indianapolis 500 history hasn’t won a stock car race at the track.

Keselowski took the outside lane on the final restart, likely hoping he could pinch Kahne down into turn 1. It didn’t work, as Kahne’s car rocketed ahead despite the potential aero disadvantage.

“I felt like I hit [the restart] pretty well,” Keselowski said. “Just Kasey, it stuck. He drove through the oil dry. He didn’t just drive through it, he drove it in there, and it stuck. You know, lots of credit to him for getting it to stick. It was impressive.

“I didn’t feel like I could do that if I was on the bottom lane. Maybe I could have, I don’t know. You never know till you’re in that spot.”

8. Jimmie Johnson (LW: 8): We’re confident that a Johnson win would have produced one of the most legendary NASCAR moments of the past 20 years. A seven-time champion with a smoking engine surviving a three-wide moment at Indianapolis to win a record-tying fifth Brickyard 400? Holy crap.

Alas, reality was cruel. Johnson backed his car into the wall, either from the oil leaking from his car, the lack of air pinned on the back of his car or a combination of both. It was still an awesome moment though.

9. Matt Kenseth (LW: 12): Kenseth assumed the race lead after Busch and Truex crashed and sure looked like he was in control of the race for a while. But as the last long green flag run wore on, Kenseth pitted and ceded control of the race to the cars that were trying to stretch their fuel mileage as long as possible. And then when the caution came out for the Bowyer crash, Kenseth was unable to get control of the race back. He finished fifth.

10. Chase Elliott (LW: 6): Elliott’s day went south in a hurry after the red flag for rain. An engine issue ended his day after 43 laps. So Elliott ran 12 laps before the rain, waited nearly two hours to restart the race, and completed just 31 more before having to retire his car. There’s worse work, but that’s rough.

11. Clint Bowyer (LW: 7): Bowyer has some dramatic wrecks. He slammed hard into the inside wall and then went spinning like a top after his teammate plowed into him. And because of Kahne’s win, Bowyer’s now on the outside of the playoffs with just six races to go in the regular season.

12. Jamie McMurray (LW: 11): McMurray got a piece of the wreck involving Bowyer and had significant damage. But he somehow finished 15th because of the crashfest that ensued.

Lucky Dog: Timmy Hill finished 14th in Carl Long’s No. 66. This is our favorite photo from the weekend.

The DNF: Corey LaJoie crashed by himself nine laps into the race.

Dropped Out: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

SOCCER: Fire hoping loss in Yankee Stadium will provide wake-up call. 

By Dan Santaromita

(Photo/USA TODAY)

Coming off the first MLS loss for the Chicago Fire in more than two months, Tuesday’s practice seemed to have a bit more intensity.

After coming out a bit sloppy in a 2-1 loss to New York City FC following a two-and-a-half week break, the team is trying to get back the sharpness and consistency displayed during its 12-game unbeaten run.

“I think it’s the transfer from the bad sensations that we had in the last game,” Paunovic said. “You can lose the game and it’s not the end of the world, but not in the way we lost it.”

The Fire are again licking their wounds after failing to convert chances against a shorthanded team. As opposed to the scoreless draw in Orlando in June, when the Lions finished the game with nine players, this time the Fire were able to score, but actually lost.

This problem is something Paunovic has spoken about before, but is one the Fire still haven’t been able to solve.

“You see the same as in Orlando,” de Leeuw said. “If they play with 10 men and it looks like we’re playing with 10 men, then they deserve every point they had.

“I don’t know what it is. I think maybe when teams are sitting back we need to do something else. We are good at 11 against 11 with possession, the runs we make, but when they have 10 men and they’re going to sit back, you think you need to run less, but actually you need to run more. Because you are with 11 guys you need to create more space. The expectation is higher then from you and I think we lacked that and some other things in the game.”

The filter-free, outspoken de Leeuw said the team had no energy. He is hoping the loss will turn into a motivating factor for the Fire.

“It’s better that it happens now because everybody needs to wake up,” de Leeuw said. “The points we had, it’s not coming by itself. We have to work for it every game, against every opponent, if it’s 10 men, nine men, we have to work for it. It’s good everybody had a wake-up call Saturday I think. OK, we need to work for it, but also we don’t need to distract because we lost one game. We had 11 or 12 good games before that and we lost one, so OK it can happen, but it’s more s--- that it’s against 10 men.”

Teams having sometimes inexplicably bad games is a part of Major League Soccer. The fact that the Fire had gone so long without one was what made the team’s unbeaten run so impressive.

The players and Paunovic have talked about how important the break was. Bastian Schweinsteiger said it was more important for the mind than the body. However, is it possible that the break took the edge away from the Fire?

“We were not sharp, I don’t know, maybe from the break,” winger David Accam said. “We came back and not a single player was sharp. We gave sloppy passes and for us I don’t think it’s just about 10 men or teams staying back, it’s just about us. We were not sharp. We did not play well. It was like we were still training or something.”

Paunovic is trying to refocus his group for another tough road game at Sporting Kansas City coming up this weekend.

“The break was a good thing in terms of recovering from the tough first half of the season,” Paunovic said. “Every team needs that, especially when you’re at the top and did well like we did in the past, but also the break has some challenges and these challenges are losing the rhythm, getting back to the working suit and working atmosphere and mentality.

“It’s just different when you have the game, when you’re in the rhythm of the games and in the season and you’re going from game to game you kind of get that habit very, very simple and very fluent and then you just work towards the next game. That was maybe interrupted with the break, but we are going back, as I said that’s our goal now, to get that habit back again, that mentality that we had before.”

Morris’ 88th minute missile gives USMNT Gold Cup.

By Nicholas Mendola

(AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Jordan Morris missed a chance to put the U.S. ahead with three minutes to play, then belted the Americans to a title with moments to spare in regulation, giving the USMNT its sixth Gold Cup title with a 2-1 win over Jamaica at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara on Wednesday.

Altidore also scored his 39th career goal and is now 16 goals behind joint-USMNT all-time leaders Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan.

Je-Vaughn Watson equalized for Jamaica within five second half minutes.

The early stages were more about fouls than chances, as Jamaica took several chances to plow into the favored U.S.

Je-Vaughn Watson could’ve seen red for a cleating of Jordan Morris, and Jorge Villafana was felled by a vicious bit of work from Romario Williams.

The first threat on goal came from Jozy Altidore and friends, as the Toronto FC man tore into a 25-yard shot that Andre Blake saved before being injured denying Kellyn Acosta’s rebound chance.

Blake was taken from the game with an ugly-looking hand injury, and Dwayne Miller took his place between the sticks.

Though the U.S. controlled the game, there were dicey moments, to be sure, as Graham Zusi was cooked by Darren Mattocks and the U.S. conceded a corner kick it was able to send clear of danger.

Continued U.S. pressure led to a dangerous free kick, dead center, 30 yards from goal. Enter Altidore.

The lead didn’t last long, as Watson cooked Jordan Morris at the back post to lash a free kick past Tim Howard. It was poor marking from the youngster, and the final was tied at 1.

Miller made a stop on an Arriola in the 63rd minute, as the U.S. looked to rally after inserting Clint Dempsey for Kellyn Acosta.

Omar Gonzalez headed a Michael Bradley corner off the netting outside of the near post in the 71st minute, as the Yanks and Reggae Boyz edged toward extra time.

Miller then flipped a Morris rip over the bar for a U.S. corner that turned into a Jamaican counter when Gonzalez was sucked into the Reggae Boyz’ 18.

Dempsey then headed a cross that Miller pushed off the post in the 75th minute in a moment that would’ve been doubly historic.

The Seattle man then mishit a free kick that nearly gave Jordan Morris the match-winner, but the fellow Sounders attacker somehow opted against passing it on goal with his left-foot and flubbed the chance.

Given a chance with his right foot, though, it was all good. A Zardes cross was partially cleared to the penalty spot, and Morris made no doubt with a blast past Miller. 2-1, 90.

UEFA Europa League wrap: Everton, Milan, Marseille take leads.

By Nicholas Mendola

(Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

Lone Premier League contestants Everton controlled proceedings at home but had trouble finding the finishing touch, while Milan and Marseille got goals from summer signings to nab wins of their own in the first legs of the UEFA Europa League’s third qualifying round on Thursday.

All but two of the second legs will be held Aug. 3, with Sion-Suduva and AEL Limassol-Austria Wien the previous day.

Everton 1-0 MFK Ruzomberok

For over an hour, Everton had better than 70 percent possession at Goodison Park and nothing to show for it. But Leighton Baines‘ 65th minute rip deflected home to give the Toffees a deserved lead over its Slovakian opposition ahead of next week’s match in Ruzomberok.

Everton finished the match with a 20-8 edge in shots and 72 percent possession.

CSU Craiova 0-1 AC Milan

New Milan man Ricardo Rodriguez bagged a 44th minute free kick to give the free-spending Rossoneri a notable start to life in the UEL.

Marseille 4-2 KV Oostende

Valere Germain’s move from Monaco to Marseille is paying big dividends already, with French striker helping himself to a hat trick at his new home stadium.

UEFA Europa League first legs

Mlada Boleslav 2-1 Skenderbeu Korce

Trakai 2-1 FK Shkendija
Olimpia Donetsk 1-1 PAOK
Maccabi Tel-Aviv 1-0 Panionios
Utrecht 0-0 Lech Poznan
AIK 1-1 Sporting Braga
PSV Eindhoven 0-1 Osijek
SK Sturm Graz 1-2 Fenerbahce
Suduva 3-0 Sion
Krasnodar 2-1 Lyngby BK
AEK Lamaca 2-0 Dinamo Minsk
Dinamo Bucuresti 1-1 Athletic Bilbao
Botev Plovdiv 0-0 Maritimo
Bnei Yehuda 0-2 Zenit St. Petersburg
Astra Giurgiu 0-0 Oleksandriya
Brondby 0-0 Hajduk Split
Arka Gdynia 3-2 Midtjylland
Gent 1-1 Rheindorf Altach
Red Star Belgrade 2-0 Sparta Prague
Panathinaikos 1-0 Gabala
Bordeaux 2-1 Videoton
Aberdeen 2-1 Apollon Limassol
Dinamo Zagreb 2-1 Odd Grenland
Freiburg 1-0 Domzale
Austria Wien 0-0 AEL Limassol

Manchester City hammer Real Madrid in LA.

By Joe Prince-Wright

(Photo/nbcsports.com)

Manchester City went full Beastmode on Real Madrid in the second half of their International Champions Cup game in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

In front of a record 93,038 fans, City scored four goals in the second half with Nicolas Otamendi, John Stones and Raheem Sterling all netting before youngster Brahim Diaz finished things off in style.

Kevin De Bruyne was in particularly menacing form with the Belgian at the heart of everything good for Pep Guardiola‘s men.

Despite the hammering Real Madrid did score the goal of the night with youngster Oscar Rodriguez smashing home a beauty into the top corner form distance in the 90th minute.

Click play on the video above to watch the highlights.

City now head to Nashville, Tennessee where they face Premier League rivals Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday with both teams finishing off their U.S. tour in style in Music City.

Real Madrid travel to Miami, Florida for the small matter of an El Clasico against Barcelona to finish off the International Champions Cup tournament Stateside.

NCAAFB: NCAA rule ending two-a-days forcing teams to adjust.

By Steve Megargee

(Photo/Associated Press)

The two-a-day football practices that coaches once used to toughen up their teams and cram for the start of the season are going the way of tear-away jerseys and the wishbone formation.

As part of its efforts to increase safety, the NCAA approved a plan this year that prevents teams from holding multiple practices with contact in a single day.

The move has forced plenty of schools to alter their practice calendar, with many teams opening their preseason as early as this week. Officials don't mind if it causes a few logistical headaches as long as it reduces the head injuries that had become all too common this time of year.

According to the NCAA's Sport Science Institute, 58 percent of the football practice concussions that occur over the course of a year happen during the preseason. Brian Hainline, the NCAA's chief medical officer, says August also is a peak month for catastrophic injuries resulting from conditioning rather than contact, such as heatstroke and cardiac arrest.

"There was just something about that month really stood out," Hainline said. "We couldn't say with statistical certainty if this was because of the two-a-days, but there was enough consensus in the room and enough preliminary data that it looked like it was because of the two-a-days."

Some coaches believe the benefits could go beyond reducing concussions.

"I don't think you're going to have the number of injuries that you had, especially the soft tissue injuries — hamstring pulls, quad pulls, groin pulls," Louisiana Tech coach Skip Holtz said.

Teams still can hold two practices on a given day, but one of those practices can only be a "walkthrough" that includes no contact, helmets, pads or conditioning activities. Three hours of recovery are required between a practice and a walkthrough, though meetings can be held during that period.

"It just makes all the sense in the world," Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said.

Most programs were trending away from two-a-day practices long before this decision.

More than three-quarters of the 89 Football Bowl Subdivision teams that responded to an Associated Press survey on the subject said they conducted multiple practices on certain days last year. But in the overwhelming majority of cases, teams made sure one of those workouts had limited or no contact.

Those teams won't have to change their approach too much.

Hainline said he didn't know exactly how many programs were still holding multiple contact workouts on certain days before the NCAA ruling, but he said it was more common in the Division II ranks than among FBS schools.

Coaches say that because players are on campus working out all year, there's no need to work them quite as hard once preseason practices begin.

"Back in the day, we used two-a-days to get in shape," Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher said. "You weren't there all summer. You didn't come until the second half. They didn't train from January until June like they do now."

Marshall athletic director Mike Hamrick, a member of the Division I football oversight committee, agrees that times have changed. As an example, he cites the grueling workouts Paul "Bear" Bryant held at Texas A&M during the 1950s, which were chronicled in the book and ESPN movie "Junction Boys."

"There ain't no 'Junction Boys' anymore because the players are in tip-top shape when we start football practice," Hamrick said.

Even so, some players say they'll miss the grind.

"Going through a two-a-day is tough, and that's a big part of football," Kansas State offensive lineman Dalton Risner said. "That builds you for the season. I wish that could go back to what we used to do."

While two-a-days already were going out of fashion, this new rule is still forcing teams to adapt in other respects.

Although the NCAA is preventing multiple full-scale workouts on the same day, teams are still permitted to hold 29 total preseason practice sessions, the same as before. That creates a dilemma for coaches trying to hold that many practices without the benefit of two-a-days. Chris Ash of Rutgers is concerned that increasing the length of training camp conflicts with new NCAA rules about time demands placed on athletes and could end up increasing the overall amount of contact practices.

"We've got to manage five weeks of training camp very carefully," Ash said.

Division I schools received a blanket waiver for this season allowing them to start practice one week earlier than usual. Nearly two-thirds of the FBS programs that responded to the AP survey are starting practice in July rather than in August, as is customary.

Those early starting dates led to scheduling complications for some programs. Hamrick said Marshall will still have nearly two weeks remaining in its current summer school session when it starts practice Friday.

"If I were to take the full 29 days of practice, we would have to go back into summer school, and our players would not have a chance ever to get home after summer school and summer program," Kansas State coach Bill Snyder said.

That raises the question of whether the NCAA should continue allowing 29 practice sessions. Further complicating the matter, the oversight committee would like to find a way to have every FBS team have 14 weeks to play 12 regular-season games.

"Do we need 29 practices? Probably not," North Carolina coach Larry Fedora asked. "We can get away with less than that."

Scripts flipped for Ohio State and Michigan heading into 2017, but don't be surprised if Big Ten, college football seasons again come down to Buckeyes and Wolverines.

By Vinnie Duber

(Photo/csnchicago.com)

Jim Harbaugh has himself a catchphrase.

You’re probably familiar with it: “Who’s got it better than us?”

The answer, as this is a call-and-response kind of thing, is “nobody.”

And while a great many metrics could back that claim up, it hasn’t exactly been 100-percent true through the first two years of the Jim Harbaugh Experience up in Ann Arbor.

Because in each of those seasons, Ohio State has had it better than Michigan.

Urban Meyer’s program got the jump on Harbaugh’s, obviously, Meyer entering his sixth season in Columbus. His tenure has been defined exclusively by winning, no matter what that famed photo of Meyer eating Papa John’s on a golf cart in the bowels of Lucas Oil Stadium might lead you to believe.

Since Meyer’s arrival at Ohio State, the Buckeyes have posted a jaw-dropping 61-6 record, won at least a share of five division titles, played in a pair of Big Ten title games, appeared in four bowl games of the highest caliber and won two of them, made two trips to the College Football Playoff and won the national championship to wrap a remarkable 2014 season.

Oh, and they’ve twice beaten the Wolverines.

While neither victory punched Ohio State’s ticket to Indianapolis — Michigan State and Penn State each winning the East Division crown in the last two seasons, respectively — last year’s win in the double-overtime classic cemented the Buckeyes' spot in the Playoff. The loss kept the Wolverines out of it.

This time around, the roles are a bit reversed. Last year, Ohio State lost an unbelievable amount of talent to the NFL and started the season as one of college football’s youngest teams, questions of inexperience the preseason topic du jour. This year, Meyer’s annually stacked roster has his team the Big Ten favorite once more, blessed with experience. Meantime, a veteran-laden Michigan team was expected to do big things. This year, the Wolverines have lost more starters than most teams throughout the country — a large number of which went to the NFL — and have question marks to deal with that has stuck them behind Ohio State and Penn State in a number of preseason prognostications.

But even with the scripts flipped, the story might end up the same. Once more, it seems that The Game — not to mention the 11 for each team that precede college football’s most anticipated rivalry bout — will determine who wins the Big Ten.

And once more, it could be Ohio State best positioned to answer “who’s got it better than us?” with “nobody.”

College football coaches dislike few things more than preseason predictions.

Meyer certainly won’t lose any sleep over which pick-makers have made Ohio State their preseason picks to win the Big Ten and win the whole darned thing.

But here’s what he does think:

“Ohio State is always going to be there,” Meyer said Monday at Big Ten Media Days. “I mean, it should be one of the top schools in our conference.”

An ambitious goal for most, Meyer has earned the right to set it. His recruiting classes are annually among the best in the country. His previously described resume speaks for itself. And even without him, Ohio State is one of college football’s most legendary powers. It’s 100-percent true that a preseason where the Buckeyes weren’t considered one of the nation’s top contenders would be a strange one.

And so 2017 is no different.

Last preseason maybe felt a little different. Meyer watched a dozen members of his 2015 roster selected in the NFL Draft, arguably one of the most talented college teams ever having to settle for that — and a Fiesta Bowl beatdown of Notre Dame — as consolation after that walk-off field goal by Michigan State sunk Ohio State’s national-championship repeat hopes. Last year, the Buckeyes were one of the youngest teams in America. Who would replace Joey Bosa? Who would replace Ezekiel Elliott? Who would replace Darron Lee and Joshua Perry and Vonn Bell and Eli Apple?

And still Ohio State was the favorite to win the conference.

This preseason, similar questions surely do exist, with eight more Buckeyes getting their names called in this year’s draft. But those holes are being plugged with older guys, more experienced guys. Ohio State will have a brand-new starting secondary, a mostly brand-new receiving corps and other new starters everywhere a previous All-America type player left.

But there’s also an experienced offensive line, a couple of freaks at defensive end and a fourth-year starter at quarterback who’s still — despite an upsetting season in the passing game in 2016 — one of the best offensive players in the conference.

If the reload worked out last season — and a trip to the College Football Playoff indicated that it emphatically did — this season’s could be even more impressive thanks to the experience that goes along with it.

“Billy Price is going to be snapping the ball to J.T. Barrett. It’s not two freshmen or two rookies,” Meyer said. “The offensive line’s intact except for the right guard, so you’re going to have some established people.

“It’s been done without it, but we don't win the national championship in 2014 without (senior players). It’s one thing when you have seniors, but when seniors play their best football and it’s their last year … if we can say that same thing about this group, we’ll have an excellent season.”

Harbaugh doesn’t think Michigan is flying under anyone’s radar.

And it’s likely that the Wolverines will still be well-ranked in many of the preseason polls.

But it was Ohio State representing the Big Ten in last year’s College Football Playoff. It was Penn State that hoisted the trophy and showered in confetti after the Big Ten title game. Both of those teams have national-championship aspirations in 2017.

Michigan, which went through a lightning-fast transformation from a five-win team in Brady Hoke’s final season to a 10-win team in Harbaugh’s first, could potentially be playing third fiddle in a packed division which now has an annual claim to the title of college football’s toughest.

But the truth is that the Wolverines were better than almost anyone in the sport through the vast majority of last season. Powered by perhaps the nation's finest defense, they gave new meaning to the word dominant, doing impressive work against the Big Ten’s best — silencing the two teams that played for a league title, Penn State and Wisconsin — and obliterating those who weren’t in contention for much of anything, evidenced by the combined 178-11 poundings handed out to Rutgers, Illinois and Maryland.

But a lot changed after Harbaugh & Co. started the season 9-0.

Michigan lost three of its final four games, turning a potential trip to the Playoff into a 10-3 season that left the always-demanding Wolverine fan base wanting. A shocking upset at Iowa cost Michigan everything. And then hopes of a second-chance entrance into the Playoff field went out the window with the loss to Ohio State. Playing without their two best players, Jabrill Peppers and Jake Butt, the Wolverines lost to Florida State in the Orange Bowl.

Add the deficits up from those three losses and what do you get? Five. Five points. That’s all that kept Michigan from going undefeated.

“We lost three out of our last four games last year, two by one point and one by three points in overtime. Didn’t like that feeling,” Harbaugh said Tuesday, “and that’s motivated us to pour more time into the football team and our jobs and give more effort and pour more of our heart and soul into it.”

So while the odds might not exactly be in Michigan's favor entering this season — only six starters return from last year’s team, the quarterback situation is once again up in the air, and the Big Ten East has a couple hulking behemoths to contend with — Harbaugh is banking on hunger.

“I hope they (the players) have the same feeling,” Harbaugh said. “I hope they didn’t like losing those ballgames. They won a lot of ballgames, too, they won nine straight games. Nothing better than the high five after a ballgame. That feeling compared to the one where you’re losing a game in overtime or by point, much better to get the high five.

“I think a lot of guys on our team have learned that. I think that’s going to make things a little hotter, more competitive.”

He’s banking on hunger — and a really, really talented roster, of course. Headlined by sophomore defensive tackle Rashan Gary, Michigan’s ready to reload, not unlike their rivals to the south. The Wolverines have hauled in top-five recruiting classes in each of the past two seasons.

So don’t act surprised if Michigan is a championship contender again. Even if the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions are taking the majority of the preseason buzz, the Wolverines aren’t flying under anyone’s radar.

It’s impossible to know what will happen between now and Nov. 25.

But what is a pretty safe bet is that some sort of postseason hopes will be on the line Thanksgiving weekend in Ann Arbor.

Ohio State has the more favorable road to a Big Ten title, as Michigan has to travel to play both Penn State and Wisconsin. The Buckeyes are at home against the Lions and don’t play the Badgers. Both teams have tough non-conference matchups, Ohio State playing host to Oklahoma and Michigan traveling to Jerry World to play Florida.

For what it’s worth, fellow contender Penn State has the back-to-back bouts at the end of October against these two teams, a 1-2 punch that comes after what could be a tough challenge at Northwestern. The Lions haven’t beaten their feline brethren since James Franklin took over.

If the season does play out as expected, the Buckeyes will be favored in that final regular-season game — and they could bring an undefeated record with them. But the prevailing wisdom is that it will look more like last year’s three-point win in double overtime than the previous year’s 42-13 blowout.

Here's what we know for sure, though. Both teams are extremely talented. Both programs are extremely healthy. Both coaches are among the best in the country and have their eyes on winning championships.

There’s a reason the Big Ten, and college football with it, always hinges on The Game: It’s the culmination of the best division race in the sport. With all due respect to the SEC, it's a mighty rare situation when anything can be settled before Ohio State and Michigan play.

“I don’t think there's a gap at all,” Meyer said when asked about the difference between the Big Ten and the SEC. “And that’s no disrespect to other conferences. … I’ve coached in the SEC East when that was one of the strongest (divisions) in the country. And I think the Big Ten East right now is every bit as strong as I can remember the SEC East.

“I feel a great amount of respect nationally about the Big Ten. You sit and look at the national recruiting rankings and you see the Big Ten everywhere, all over the place, and that’s the way it should be.

“There’s a lot of credit to be given, obviously to the administrations that invest in their programs and to the coaching staffs that are out there doing the work. And this is as tough a conference as there is.”

In other words, if you want to know how the college football season will wind up going, you best free up four hours on the final Saturday in November. That might just tell you all you need to know.

NCAABKB: Four conferences sign on to basketball officiating alliance.

Associated Press

(Photo/nbcsports.com)

Four more Division I conferences will join a men’s basketball officiating alliance formed last year by the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big East, the Atlantic 10 and Colonial Athletic Association.

The Big South, the Ivy League, the Northeast and the Patriot League are joining ahead of the 2017-18 season, according to announcements from the leagues Thursday. The alliance launched last summer for conferences to work together on officiating matters and enhance training, development, recruitment, retention and feedback for officials.

John Cahill, the Big East’s supervisor of officials, and Bryan Kersey, the ACC’s coordinator of men’s basketball officiating, will continue to lead the alliance operations.

ACC commissioner John Swofford says the new additions to the alliance “provide an even greater opportunity to build chemistry and quality” across the officiating ranks.

Virginia, Seton Hall, Rhode Island, Vandy in NIT Tip-Off.

Associated Press

(Photo/nbcsports/com)

Virginia and Vanderbilt will meet in one semifinal of the NIT Preseason Tip-Off on Thanksgiving Day at Barclays Center.

Rhode Island and Seton Hall face off in the other semifinal with the winners meeting on Friday, Nov. 24.

This is the third straight year the Tip-Off has been held at Barclays Center. Eventual NCAA champion Villanova won the event in 2015. All games will be televised on ESPNU.

Non-bracketed teams in the NIT Season Tip-Off who will play games at campus sites are: Austin Peay, Fairleigh Dickinson, Monmouth, Oakland City and UNC Asheville.

Puerto Rico Tip Off bracket revealed.

By Travis Hines

(AP Photo/Sean Rayford)

The bracket of the 2017 Puerto Rico Tip off was revealed Wednesday, setting up a showdown between a 2016 Final Four participant and the 2016 Big 12 tournament champion.

South Carolina and Iowa State headline the event, which will be played Nov. 16-19, in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

The Gamecocks are on the top half of the bracket, opening against Illinois State while the Cyclones are on the bottom half, squaring off against Appalachian State.

Boise State vs. UTEP is the other top-half quarterfinal while Tulsa vs. Western Michigan is the other.
The championship game of the Puerto Rico Tip Off on Sunday, Nov. 19.

Anthony Rizzo: More than talent needed for successful rebuild. What's Your Take?

By Dan Hayes

(Photo/USA TODAY)

Nearly eight months into their rebuild, the White Sox have accrued an eye-popping amount of young talent. The franchise continues to receive kudos even in trading a pair of relievers this week to add depth to what might be the best farm system in baseball.

But having the best farm system -- the White Sox have eight of MLBPipeline.com’s top 100 prospects -- won’t mean much until it’s realized.

Well versed on the subject having experienced it on his own, Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo acknowledged before Thursday’s 6-3 win over the White Sox just how uncertain the rebuilding process can be. In Rizzo’s eyes, it wasn’t just talent that got the Cubs over the hump, it was timing, too.

“It happened fast, but it could have went the other way, too,” Rizzo said. “We’re lucky with how everything turned out. Plus, a lot of hard work has gone into it.”

Similar to Yoan Moncada’s arrival last week, Rizzo was the first [hyped prospect to be promoted] after Theo Epstein’s plan went into place. Acquired the previous winter from San Diego, Rizzo reached the majors midway through the 2012 season with the Cubs only a few months into their rebuild. The three-time All-Star didn’t know it at the time, but he was the first new face the Cubs would introduce to their audience. While Rizzo often [was aware of skepticism of Epstein’s plan], he said he never felt the same pressure from fans. Rizzo also said he can understand why not all the Cubs faithful were on board.

“I think I was naïve and happy to be back in the big leagues,” Rizzo said. “You’ve just got to focus on playing baseball and not worry about everything else that you can’t control.

“I didn’t feel (pressure) at all. I know people were calling for the upper front office’s jobs. But they had a plan and they had a vision and they preached it the entire time.”

“As a fan I can understand why you get upset because you want to win. As a fan of football or whatever sport, if my team doesn’t win, I get mad. But obviously they knew what they were doing.”

So far the White Sox fan base has been mostly supportive of Rick Hahn’s efforts and embraced the idea of building through the farm system. But not everyone is on board with a 25-man roster teardown that appears to have the club hurtling toward its first 100-loss season since 1970.

This week’s Crosstown series is a reminder there are tough times ahead for the White Sox.

The Cubs lost a combined 197 games in 2012 and 2013 and 89 games in 2014. The second half of the 2017 season could be extremely difficult for a White Sox club that has traded Chris Sale, Adam Eaton, Jose Quintana, Tommy Kahnle, David Robertson, Todd Frazier, Anthony Swarzak and Dan Jennings all since December.

Rizzo thinks the way the Cubs handled those difficulties played into their success in 2015 and 2016.

“It’s life,” Rizzo said. “There are tough times in anything. There are going to be good times and bad times so it’s all about how you approach it and how you handle it.

“We always knew the potential we had, it was just a matter of going out and doing it. Ball’s bouncing your way, calls going your way and staying together.”

Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica Take: The White Sox are attempting a complete rebuild from the bottom  up. This is a valiant but difficult task. All of the stars have to line up and a little luck is needed. Also, the talent must be very good and management must be able to relate to the players and get them to buy into the program. Young talent is great but there must be a couple of conscientious and wily veterans on the team to stabilize the immaturity and inexperience of the young players. Pitching is the hardest and most important part of the puzzle; if the team can put together a staff that is driven and committed, it can be done. Again, it won't be easy but with the right ingredients and a proper plan, (three to five years), it can be done. The proof is in the pudding. We saw the Chicago Blackhawks and the Chicago Cubs do it. The Chicago Bears are trying it now and so are the Sox. We wish them the best and are pulling for them. We foresee them succeeding by 2020, if not before. 

The ownership, front office and on-the-field management are pulling out all of the stops. We like what they're are doing and we're sticking with them. That's our position and we're sticking with it. What's your take? Please go to the comment section at the bottom of this blog and share your thoughts wit the White Sox with us. We value your thoughts and love hearing from you. Thanks in advance for your time, consideration and sharing your opinion with us.

The Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica Editorial Staff.

On This Date in Sports History: Today is Friday, July 28, 2017.

Memoriesofhistory.com

1991 - Dennis Martinez, of the Montreal Expos, pitched the 13th perfect game in major league baseball history.

1994 - Kenny Rogers, of the Texas Rangers, pitched the 14th perfect game in major league baseball history.

2002 - Lance Armstrong won his fourth straight Tour de France.

***********************************************************************

Please let us hear your opinion on the above articles and pass them on to any other diehard fans that you think might be interested. But most of all, remember, Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica wants you.