Sports briefs 5/12
Liquori gets FL award
The Frontier League has selected Washington Wild Things outfielder Jeff Liquori as the league’s Player of the Week for the week ending May 10. It’s the second-straight season a Wild Things player has been chosen for the weekly award after the opening weekend of the season. Last year, Ethan Wilder was picked for the honor.
Liquori posted a 1.412 OPS in four games, going 5-for-14 at the plate with three homers and four RBI. His weekend included a multi-homer game Thursday at Windy City and a 451-foot homer Saturday in Joliet, the longest home run hit by a Wild Thing since at least 2024. It’s the first weekly honor for Liquori, who played in 85 games in his rookie season in 2025. He slashed .256/.336/.400 with 17 doubles, nine homers and 50 RBI.
NFL
Veteran tight end David Njoku agreed to a one-year deal with the Los Angeles Chargers on Monday.
Njoku spent the first nine seasons of his NFL career with the Cleveland Browns, earning one Pro Bowl selection while catching 384 passes for 4,062 yards and 34 touchdowns. He is second in Browns franchise history to Ozzie Newsome for catches and TDs among tight ends, but he became a free agent in February.
Njoku missed significant parts of the past two seasons with injuries. He had 33 receptions for 293 yards and four touchdowns while appearing in 12 games last season.
Njoku could be a major contributor for the Chargers, who are rebooting Justin Herbert’s offense under new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel.
Baseball
Texas Rangers right-hander Nathan Eovaldi was scratched from his scheduled start Monday night because of left side tightness.
About three hours before the scheduled first pitch of their series opener at home against Arizona, the Rangers said right-handed reliever Jakob Junis would start in Eovaldi’s place for what would be a bullpen game.
Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said Eovaldi felt the tightness earlier Monday and then had medical imaging. The team was awaiting the results to find out the severity of the issue and determine the next steps for the 36-year-old pitcher.
Eovaldi (4-4, 4.15 ERA) is coming off consecutive wins against the Yankees in his last two starts, limiting the Yankees to one run and striking out 15 over 15 innings in those games.
* Houston’s Carlos Correa had surgery to repair a torn tendon in his left ankle Monday.
The star infielder was injured Tuesday and said the following day that he would need the season-ending surgery.
College sports
An arbitrator ruled in favor of the College Sports Commission on Monday in a case brought on behalf of Nebraska football players that is viewed as a key test for the new entity in charge of approving third-party name-image-likeness deals in college sports.
The CSC in a statement said the arbitrator affirmed the commission’s decision to reject third-party NIL agreements between Nebraska’s multimedia rights (MMR) partner, Playfly, and the players.
At issue was whether Nebraska’s MMR partner would be considered an “associated entity” — deals from which are subject to CSC scrutiny.
With that decided, the CSC said the arbitrator rejected the deals because:
— They lacked what the CSC calls a “valid business purpose” because they did not include goods or services offered to the general public for profit.
— Playfly violated a rule against “warehousing” NIL rights — i.e., paying for the rights to use for some purpose later instead of employing them right away.