(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Monday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE Cincinnati Reds 5, Houston Astros 3 San Diego Padres 3, Detroit Tigers 0 NY Mets 4, Boston Red Sox 1
AMERICAN LEAGUE Baltimore Orioles 13, Chicago White Sox 3 Cleveland Guardians 4, Kansas City Royals 2 Minnesota Twins 5, Tampa Bay Rays 4 Oakland Athletics 5, Seattle Mariners 4 NY Yankees 8, Texas Rangers 4
NATIONAL LEAGUE LA Dodgers 11, Arizona Diamondbacks 6 Pittsburgh Pirates 5, Chicago Cubs 3 Milwaukee Brewers 9, St. Louis Cardinals 3
TOP-25 COLLEGE FOOTBALL Boston College 28, Florida St. 13
(NEW YORK) — The NFL locker room is filled with intense emotions, from euphoric athletes celebrating victories to those coping with the pain of defeat. For players, reporters and fans, there’s nothing like being there in the thick of those post-game moments.
However, some NFL players are calling for a “timeout” on reporters conducting locker room interviews.
“If only y’all knew how awkward some of the male reporters act,” former wide receiver Torrey Smith wrote in an X post earlier this month. “Straight meat watchers.”
Some players want to move interviews outside the locker rooms to protect players’ privacy and dignity in the space where they shower and change.
“Well, we’ve had some instances where guys have been naked, and it’s been sent unchecked and unedited,” Lloyd Howell Jr., executive director of the NFL Players Association, said of the situation. “We’ve had hot mics where things have been captured that were never meant to be captured.”
One example is a 2015 Cincinnati Bengals locker room interview that aired on NFL Network, where players could be seen in the background of the broadcast removing towels and changing their clothes.
The Bengals recently said that they will no longer conduct interviews inside their locker room and will instead meet reporters in a different location. The decision came after the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) released a statement urging the league to “make immediate changes” to its media policy.
“Over the past three years, the NFLPA has worked to collaborate with the NFL and the Pro Football Writers of America to move media interviews out of the locker room,” it said.
Some reporters are pushing back. Calvin Watkins, President of the Pro Football Writers of America, who has covered the Dallas Cowboys and other NFL teams for over two decades, noted that the players already have protections.
“If a player comes out of the shower and he wants to get dressed in the locker room, the team must provide a curtain around his locker stall so he could get dressed in private,” he said.
The media is willing to respect players’ wishes, Watkins said, as long as they still get their interviews. He also noted that this kind of access and the coverage that comes from it has contributed significantly to the NFL’s current status as a globally recognizable and successful brand.
The current NFL media policy notes that interviews “may be conducted outside the locker area” if the club or player requests it.
“However, media representatives must be permitted to request interviews in person with players inside the locker room,” it says.
It also gives the home clubs responsibility for ensuring that both teams’ shower areas are screened from view.
“Each team must provide its players with wrap-around towels or robes, in addition to the standard supply of bath towels for post-game showers,” the policy says.
Other professional sports, such as basketball and baseball, grant reporters even greater access to the locker room.
Christine Brennan was one of the first female reporters allowed inside an NFL locker room, as a beat reporter for the Washington Post in 1985.
The conversation about locker room access has evolved over the course of her career, having been a “man’s domain” in her early days.
“So many of these hard-line old-school coaches didn’t believe women knew football, didn’t believe women should be around the game of football,” Brennan said. “And they fought tooth and nail to prevent people like me from doing my job.”
By 1985, the NFL began requiring equal access for both male and female reporters.
However, the NFLPA’s Howell said today’s debate isn’t about gender at all — it’s about evaluating a longstanding tradition through a 2024 perspective.
“It’s just going to be a very different procedure and I think it’s going to limit the information the fans, followers, observers of the National Football League care so much about,” Brennan said.
Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus celebrates victory after winning the Women’s Singles final match against Jessica Pegula of USA on Day 13 of the 2024 US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 7, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — World No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka has won the 2024 U.S. Open women’s singles final, beating No. 6 American Jessica Pegula in straight sets.
The 7-5, 7-5 victory marks Sabalenka’s first U.S. Open win and third Grand Slam title.
“Super happy” is how Sabalenka described herself just hours after winning the U.S. Open.
“It’s very special place here, and to win, to win grand slam in New York,” the winner said in an interview with ABC News. Sabalenka said that she learned a lesson from the 2023 US Open final against Coco Gauff – how to work the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd.
“After last year experience against Coco, probably last year, I didn’t expect that the crowd going to be that loud,” she said adding that during this tournament “I felt so much love, and it was, it was keeping me motivated.”
Saturday was a bit of redemption for the Belarusian player, it was last year’s final where she lost against Gauff after the American fought back to win in three sets.
This time, Sabalenka resurged in the second set after dropping 5 straight games to Pegula.
This is the sixth time Sabalenka beat Pegula. Just last month in Cincinnati, the American was bested in straight sets.
The 24,000 crowd was noticiably on Pegula’s side for much of the match and paired with a closed roof – it made for a loud stadium on the game’s biggest stage.
Pegula’s run at the U.S. Open won’t end with all bad news for her – along with the $1.8 million prize money, Pegula will wake up this Monday as the world number 3 making her the top American female tennis player on the tour.
During her post-match press conference, Pegula said she was annoyed that she lost the match but said she “was able to find some good tennis. Just wasn’t quite able to sustain it.”
Pegula added that she was touched by the number of friends and family were in the stands.
“I had a lot of friends that were just, I’m flying in, I’m coming, I don’t care,” she said, adding, “I felt like in a way, not just my journey, but my friends and family have been on this journey with me as well.”
Standing on the court where she had just won her first U.S. Open, Sabalenka told ABC News that the moment she fell onto court after the championship point brought back so many emotions.
“I was just super proud of myself and my team that that we have, like, so many tough lessons here in the past, and we were able to come back stronger and and then finally, we are holding this beautiful trophy,” Sabalenka said while holding the championship trophy.
Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds looks on from the field during batting practice during a Major League Baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium circa 1985 in Pittsburgh. (George Gojkovich/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s hit king who then became a pariah for gambling on the game, has died at the age of 83, the medical examiner in Clark County, Nevada, confirmed to ABC News on Monday.
Rose was found at his home by a family member, according to the medical examiner. There were no signs of foul play.
The medical examiner told ABC News that Rose was not under the care of a doctor when he died, and the scene is being examined.
The coroner will investigate to determine the cause and manner of death.
ABC News has reached out to Rose’s rep.
Rose brought a workmanlike attitude to America’s pastime and won innumerable fans for his hustle on the field. By the end of his 24-year career, 19 of which were with the Cincinnati Reds, he held the record for most career hits, as well as games played, plate appearances and at-bats. He was also a 17-time All-Star, the 1973 NL MVP and 1963 Rookie of the Year.
He also won three World Series — two with Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” clubs in 1975 and 1976, and a third with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980.
But Rose will always be remembered as much for being banned for life from MLB in 1989 over gambling on games while he was managing the Reds.
With Rose under suspicion, new MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti commissioned an investigation led by John Dowd, a lawyer with the Department of Justice, in April 1989. By June, the damning report was released, documenting at least 52 bets on Reds games in 1987, his first season as solely a manager after serving as player/manager for three seasons. The bets totaled thousands of dollars per day, according to the Dowd Report.
Faced with few options, Rose voluntarily accepted placement on baseball’s ineligible list in August 1989. Despite this, Rose continued to deny he ever gambled on his own team for over a decade.
He finally admitted to gambling on Reds games in his 2004 autobiography, My Prison Without Bars. In an interview on ABC News promoting the book, he came clean for the first time as well.
“I bet on baseball in 1987 and 1988,” he told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an exclusive interview that aired Jan. 8, 2004, on Primetime Thursday. “That was my mistake, not coming clean a lot earlier.”
He maintained he never bet against his team, saying he “want[ed] to win every game.”
“I think what happens is you’re, at the time, you’re betting football and then what’s after football is basketball … and obviously the next thing that follows is baseball,” Rose said. “It’s just a pattern that you got into.”
Two years after Rose was banned for life, the Baseball Hall of Fame ruled no one on the ineligible list would be allowed into the institution.
The controversy over Rose’s suspension and ban from the Hall of Fame has taken on a life of its own, becoming a subject sports fans often debate more than his legendary on-field exploits.
Even then-President Donald Trump weighed in on the debate in February 2020, tweeting, “He gambled, but only on his team winning, and paid a decades long price. GET PETE ROSE INTO THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME! It’s Time.”
Rose petitioned the league to be removed from the list in 1992, 1998, 2003, 2015 and 2022 — but either was rejected or received no response each time.
“That was a part of my life that you can’t change, you wish it hadn’t happened, but you can just guarantee yourself that it won’t happen again,” Rose told ABC News in 2004.
There’s little debate over whether his on-field performance merits inclusion in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Rose’s pursuit of the career hits record captivated the country in 1985. Rose broke Ty Cobb’s hallowed record on Sept. 11, 1985, with a single against the San Diego Padres for his 4,192nd hit. He would play just one more season, finishing his career with 4,256 hits.
Decades later, Rose remains atop the career hits list. Only Derek Jeter (3,465), Albert Pujols (3,384) and Paul Molitor (3,319) have even come within 1,000 hits of Rose’s record in the time since it was set — and none seriously challenged the mark.
Years earlier, in 1978, Rose captured attention when he made a run at Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak — maybe the most vaunted record in sports. Starting on June 14, Rose would record a hit in 44 straight games. The streak finally came to an end on July 19, but 44 games remains the second-longest streak since 1900.
Rose was married twice and was in a long-term relationship with model Kiana Kim since 2011. The two appeared in a reality TV show, Pete Rose: Hits and Mrs. in 2013. Rose has four children.
Rose’s eldest son, Pete Rose Jr., played in the minors and independent baseball for over 10 years, but played just 11 games in the majors with the Reds in 1997. He had two career hits.
Rose never strayed far from baseball, despite being on the sport’s ineligible list. His No. 14 was retired by the Reds and appeared on the sport’s All-Century Team, as voted by fans, in 1999. The team was announced at that year’s All-Star Game in Boston and Rose received a standing ovation. Only three non-Hall of Famers are on the list of 30 players, with Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire absent due to allegations of steroid use that popped up after the list was compiled.
“I owe baseball,” Rose told Gibson in 2004. “Baseball doesn’t owe me a damn thing. I owe baseball. And the only way I can make my peace with baseball is taking this negative and somehow making it into a positive.”
