Sports briefs
Former Jackets coach DePasqua dies
Carl DePasqua, who coached Waynesburg College to the 1966 NAIA football national championship and later coached at Pitt and with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died Friday. He was 93.
DePasqua had an amazing two-year at Waynesburg, guiding Waynesburg to a 19-1 record and the national title in his first season. The Yellow Jackets defeated Wisconsin-Whitewater 42-21 in the championship game in Tulsa, Okla., capping an 11-0 season.
He joined Bill Austin’s coaching staff with the Steelers in 1968, then was hired as Pitt’s head coach in 1969. He spent four years as the Panthers’ coach before being replaced by Johnny Majors.
Boys soccer
Four different players scored as Ringgold defeated Uniontown 4-0 in a Class 3A Section 3 match Thursday night.
The win snapped a two-game losing skid for Ringgold (2-3, 2-3).
Nick Evans, Noah Barno, Ben Daskivich and Shane Seiler were the goal scorers for the Rams.
In the majors
Chris Sale returned from COVID-19 to pitch five innings of two-hit ball, and Bobby Dalbec homered to help the Boston Red Sox beat Baltimore 7-1 on Friday night and send the Orioles to their 100th loss of the season.
One night after beating the New York Yankees in a walk-off win, Baltimore again helped the Red Sox close in on a playoff berth.
Alex Verdugo had three hits and a sliding catch in the left-field corner, and Hunter Renfroe had a three-run double for the Red Sox, who entered the night in a virtual tie with Toronto for the two AL wild-card spots; New York was a half game back. The Yankees beat Cleveland 8-0 and Minnesota topped Toronto 7-3 on Friday, leaving Boston and New York in playoff position at the end of the night, with the Blue Jays a half-game back.
• Corey Kluber won for the first time in nearly four months, pitching six shutout innings in his first outing against the team that helped him blossom into a star, and the New York Yankees routed Cleveland 8-0 in the start of the Indians’ final series in the Bronx.
Joey Gallo homered twice, and Aaron Judge, Brett Gardner and Giancarlo Stanton hit one each for the Yankees, who tied their season high with five home runs.
- Luis Castillo struck out 10 while outpitching Walker Buehler, Kyle Farmer doubled twice against his former team and the Cincinnati Reds snapped the Los Angeles Dodgers’ six-game winning streak with a 3-1 victory.
In the NBA
The design meetings have been going on for years. Technology has evolved throughout the process. Painstaking decisions were made time and time again, right down to what an inch or two difference in leg room between rows would mean or where cupholders should be affixed to the seats.
Finally, Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers are ready to build their new home.
The Clippers’ long-awaited, $1.8 billion, privately funded arena officially got a name Friday – Intuit Dome, it’ll be called when it opens in 2024, the team making that announcement hours before the formal groundbreaking ceremony. The practice facility, team offices for both business and basketball operations, retail space and more will all be on the site.
Ballmer, the team’s owner, simply believes it’ll be like no other building in the NBA.
“Basketball mecca! Basketball palazzo!” Ballmer, in his usual excitable way, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
He might be right.
Every detail – from the huge two-sided halo video screen that will hover over the court, to the triple-wide escalators, to how the bathrooms will be designed to get fans back in their seats as quickly as possible – has a purpose. The halo will include 44,000 square feet of 4K LED lighting, slightly more than one full acre and roughly six times the average size of other “big” screens in NBA buildings. The roof of the dome was designed to accommodate the halo, not the other way around.