Sports briefs
Saints sign Chickillo
Linebacker Anthony Chickillo has agreed to a contract with the New Orleans Saints after playing the last five seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The deal was announced Saturday by Saints general manager Mickey Loomis.
The 6-3, 255-pound Chickillo is changing teams for the first time. He was drafted in the sixth round by Pittsburgh in 2015.
Chickillo played in 11 games for the Steelers last season, finishing with 11 tackles and half a sack.
The 27-year-old out of Miami has played in 65 regular-season games with nine starts while also contributing as a regular on special teams.
Former NFL QB Leaf arrested
Former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf was arrested in Southern California on Friday.
Leaf, 44, was arrested on a domestic battery charge in Palm Desert, which is about 110 miles southeast of Los Angeles, according to booking information provided by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department on Saturday. Leaf is being held on $5,000 bail at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility.
It wasn’t immediately known if Leaf had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
Leaf finished third in Heisman Trophy voting in 1997 and led Washington State to the Rose Bowl. He was drafted by the San Diego Chargers as the No. 2 pick in 1998, but he was only 4-14 as a starter in three seasons. He was 0-3 with the Dallas Cowboys in 2001 and finished his four-year career with 14 touchdown passes and 36 interceptions.
He was arrested in 2012 for breaking into a home in Montana to steal prescription drugs, which violated his Texas probation and led to prison.
Last July, Leaf was hired by ESPN to be a football analyst. Leaf worked for the Pac-12 Network last season and has been co-hosting a show on SiriusXM’s Pac-12 channel.
Osaka is top-earning female athlete
Naomi Osaka has been a Grand Slam champion and No. 1 in the WTA rankings, and now she’s No. 1 on another list: top-earning female athlete.
According to a story posted on Forbes.com, the 22-year-old player earned $37.4 million over the past 12 months from endorsements and prize money, eclipsing Serena Williams in that span.
Forbes said Osaka’s total is a one-year record for a female athlete, topping the previous mark of 29.7 million set by Maria Sharapova in 2015.
Osaka is No. 29 overall, with Williams at No. 33, on Forbes’ annual list of the 100 top-earning athletes.
Williams had led the way among women each of the past four years.
Osaka beat Williams in the 2018 U.S. Open final and then added the 2019 Australian Open title, allowing her to become the first player from Asia to be No. 1 in the women’s or men’s tennis rankings.
Osaka has won about $14.5 million in career prize money, according to the WTA, a little less than half of which was earned in 2019.
MLS team tweets wrong photo of coachOops!
Cincinnati’s Major League Soccer team posted the wrong photo in its tweet announcing the hiring of former Manchester United defender Jaap Stam.
And it wasn’t the first time the coach with a shaved head has been confused with someone else who has the same look.
The team announced his hiring on a tweet that mistakenly featured the photo of a bald youth coach. Cincinnati soon retweeted the announcement with the correct photo, saying, “Join us in welcoming our actual new head coach, Jaap Stam.” The team wrote “actual” in italics.
Stam told the team’s website that he’s thankful for the attention the mistake brought to his hiring.