Sports briefs
In baseball
Outfielder Juan Soto agreed to a $23 million, one-year contract with the San Diego Padres on Friday, a raise from his $17.1 million salary last season.
San Diego also reached a $14.1 million, one-year agreement with Josh Hader, the largest salary for an arbitration-eligible relief pitcher.
The 24-year-old Soto hit .242 with 27 homers, 62 RBIs and a major league-leading 135 walks for Washington and San Diego, which acquired the 2020 NL batting champion from the Nationals in a trade on Aug. 2.
- Major League Baseball is on track to expand its experiment with robot umpires to all 30 Triple-A ballparks this season.
MLB used the Automatic Ball-Strike system at five Triple-A stadiums for parts of last season and will go ahead with the wider use this year if owners approve of it next month. MLB’s intent was first reported by ESPN.
MLB started the experiment in the independent Atlantic League in 2019. A challenge system was tried last year at Low-A in which a pitcher, batter or catcher had the right to appeal a human umpire’s decision to the computer call.
Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said he liked the challenge system but said the sport’s competition committee was not going to consider the robot umpires for the major leagues for 2023.
In the NFL
Sean McVay has decided to return for a seventh season with the Los Angeles Rams after taking a break to contemplate his future following the first losing season of his career.
The youngest head coach in NFL history to win the Super Bowl has decided not to take a break from coaching after his Rams finished 5-12 in the worst season ever by a defending champion.
McVay is sticking with the Rams at their lowest point in his tenure after a year of what he described as heavy mental fatigue and stress. The Rams’ innovative offensive mind has also spoken frequently about his desire to start a broadcasting career.
- NFL regular-season ratings saw a 3% decrease from last season, which was not unexpected with “Thursday Night Football” moving from Fox and NFL Network to exclusively airing on Amazon Prime Video.
The 272 regular-season games averaged 16.7 million viewers across television and digital platforms, The league also said that 185 million fans watched games at some point during the 18 weeks.
Robbie Knievel, son of icon, dies at 60
Robbie Knievel, an American stunt performer who set records with daredevil motorcycle jumps following the tire tracks of his thrill-seeking father – including at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in 1989 and a Grand Canyon chasm a decade later – has died in Nevada, his brother said. He was 60.
Robbie Knievel died early Friday at a hospice in Reno after battling pancreatic cancer, Kelly Knievel said.
As a boy, Robbie Knievel began on his bicycle to emulate his famous father, Evel Knievel, who died in 2007 in Clearwater, Florida.
But where Evel Knievel famously almost died from injuries when he crashed his Harley-Davidson during a jump over the Caesars Palace fountains in Las Vegas in 1967, Robbie completed the jump in 1989 using a specially designed Honda.
In college basketball
Fletcher Loyer scored a season-high 27 points and Zach Edey added 12, leading No. 3 Purdue to a historic 73-55 rout over Nebraska on Friday night.
By improving to 16-1 for the first time since 1993-94, the Boilermakers (5-1 Big Ten) became the 11th Division I program with 1,900 all-time wins.