Sports

It was around noon last Thursday when Bob Lutz walked outside of his work and headed home before the start of his daily radio show. He looked across 17th Street in Wichita, Kan., from the offices of League 42, the nonprofit baseball league he founded in 2013. On a rainy, overcast day, he gazed over toward the Jackie Robinson statue the league had erected in 2021. The statue was a symbol of hope and resilience. Lutz, though, could not see the bronze depiction of the man who broke baseball’s color barrier.For a moment, Lutz wondered if it was covered by fog. He blinked. Looked again. Doubting himself, he called an assistant out of the building to join him. The woman looked and also could not see the statue.Soon they were across the street, where the odd hallucination of a missing statue turn...

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The most important run of the night may not have been by Christian McCaffrey. Or Deebo Samuel. Or even by George Kittle on one of his epic catch-and-runs.Nope. It was probably by the game manager. The most momentum-seizing, back-breaking, Lions-taming runs, a case could be made, were by Brock Purdy, the conductor of a 17-point comeback in the San Francisco 49ers’ 34-31 win Sunday over Detroit in the NFC Championship Game.“I’m blocking my man, and next thing I know I hear screaming,” left guard Aaron Banks said from the party in the 49ers locker room at Levi’s Stadium after the game. “And Brock is 20 yards downfield.”One candidate was Purdy’s 21-yard scramble on second-and-11 in the third quarter. He took off up the middle and turned on his baby burners to get away fro...

SAN FRANCISCO — The frustration seethed in Stephen Curry. Until it boiled to the surface. Until he let out a roar. Until he ripped his jersey from the collar to the 30.He’d scored 46 points on 35 shots, getting the benefit of just three free throws in his 43 minutes. He hit the game-tying layup at the end of regulation. Inside the final minute of the first overtime, he forced a turnover and then hit a massive corner 3, setting up the game-tying 3 from Klay Thompson that kept the Warriors alive. Then in the second overtime, Curry’s final points of the night came on a 26-footer from the top with 4.7 seconds remaining, putting the Warriors up a point.He left his follow-through in the air as he backpedaled. Too spent for a more elaborate celebration. The NBA’s leader in clutch points delivered...

If Mike Macdonald’s ascent to one of the NFL’s hottest coordinators and a legitimate head-coaching candidate feels meteoric, that’s probably because he has never embraced the art of self-promotion.The 36-year-old second-year Baltimore Ravens defensive boss has consented to side media interviews in recent weeks largely because he wants to tout the chemistry and cohesion of his staff, not because he wants any more attention. He likes to call himself a “steward” of head coach John Harbaugh’s vision and will point you in the direction of two dozen others who deserve praise for the Ravens’ success.But it’s impossible to ignore Macdonald’s impact on the AFC’s top seed, which faces the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday’s conference championship game at M&T Bank Stadium.GO DEEPERIt's only right Rav...

USA Basketball will be seeking its eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal this summer with the first step coming at the Olympic qualifying tournament in Antwerp, Belgium, from Feb. 8-11. The 12-player roster for that tournament will be the first approximation of the team that will defend the Americans’ gold medal in Paris.Based on the 18 players who have been invited to the national team camp from Feb. 2-4 in Brooklyn, N.Y., the committee has a terrifically challenging task to select that final roster, a decision that will likely be further complicated by the current collegians — primarily Caitlin Clark, but USA Basketball veterans Paige Bueckers and Cameron Brink could also factor in here — who turn pro at the end of the 2023-24 season.The final roster will ultimately make a statement abou...

The NFL is down to its final four teams, and the San Francisco 49ers (+145) remain favorites to win Super Bowl 58 in Las Vegas.After narrowly escaping with a win against the Green Bay Packers in the divisional round, the 49ers host the Detroit Lions in the NFC Championship game next week. The 49ers are favored by a touchdown.Baltimore has the second-best odds after cruising to a 34-10 win over Houston in the divisional round. Lamar Jackson should win the MVP trophy this season, and he showed why in a second-half domination that saw the Ravens outscore the Texans 24-0 after halftime. Baltimore is favored by a field goal against Kansas City next week.If you aren’t a Ravens, Chiefs or 49ers fan, you’re likely now rooting for the lovable underdogs: the Detroit Lions.Detroit has the longest odd...

Every August, after the NBA releases its schedule for the upcoming season, Michael McCullough, the Miami Heat’s chief marketing officer, thinks about the next 82 games. He not only considers ticket sales and promotions but also sets a meeting with the team’s equipment manager and focuses on an essential part of his job: uniforms.Laying out the right jerseys used to be an easy exercise across the NBA. There were just two choices. When Rob Pimental, the Heat’s equipment manager and travel coordinator, began his career with the Sacramento Kings in the 1980s, it was just white and blue: white jerseys at home, dark ones on the road. What to wear didn’t demand a conversation.Today, it needs lots of meetings. It has become one of the benchmark choices a franchise can make each season. Over the la...

It happened again. Of course it did.Two tennis players, starting near midnight, battling nearly to sunrise in front of a scattering of fans, with a squad of kids in their early teenage years scurrying after balls at nearly four in the morning. Last year it was Andy Murray duelling with Thanasi Kokkinakis until the night sky began to lighten at around 4am. On Thursday, and into Friday, it was Daniil Medvedev of Russia and Emil Ruusuvuori of Finland doing the tennis version of the 2am jazz set. “I would not have stayed,” Medvedev said in an on-court interview after he completed his comeback from two sets down and eliminated Ruusuvuori 3-6, 6-7(1), 6-4, 7-6(1), 6-0. Judging from the scoreline, Ruusuvuori decided not to and it was hard to blame him.The dynamic would seem absurd if it wasn’t so...

Follow live coverage of Senegal vs Cameroon in the Africa Cup of Nations today“The spirit of the 1993 team will always be there for Zambia.”Kalusha Bwalya, Zambia’s former football captain, is reflecting on the day that changed his life forever.On April 27, 1993, a military aircraft taking 18 of his team-mates and their coach to a World Cup qualifier against Senegal crashed shortly after refuelling in Gabon. All 30 people aboard died.Bwalya would have been on the plane, too, but for the fact that he was playing for PSV Eindhoven at the time. Being based in the Netherlands meant he made his own way to the match from Europe and ultimately saved his life — although it did not spare him from crushing, numbing grief.“You couldn’t imagine the whole team you play with are not there anymore,” Bwal...

Christian Pulisic is perched on a bar stool in the old clubhouse overlooking the first-team training pitch at Milanello, AC Milan’s training ground.He makes a hand gesture, one he didn’t need the past six months living in Italy to learn. Pulisic is talking about himself as one of the “older guys” on the USMNT and, as he does so, he is sure to put air quotes around it.Nearby is a portrait of Milan legend Paolo Maldini lifting a trophy, a player who retired in his forties. Pulisic isn’t that age yet. He turned 25 shortly after joining Milan from Chelsea in August. But as the United States get ready to host the Copa America as a guest competing nation this summer, the first newly-expanded 32-team Club World Cup the following year and then the biggest men’s World Cup finals yet, with 48 countr...