BASEBALL

The Portland Sea Dogs will become the “Alces de Maine” on Friday, May 15, 2020 when they host the Luchadores de Reading as part of Minor League Baseball’s Copa de la Diversión initiative.

The Copa de la Diversión, which translates to “Fun Cup,” is a season-long event designed to embrace Latinx culture and values. The Sea Dogs and 91 other teams are participating in the event, each of them transforming their brand to express their local community’s unique Hispanic culture.

Alces translates to moose, and the newly-designed uniforms will be unveiled in March. The multipronged antlers of the logo represent Portland’s multicultural population. The Sea Dogs said that by integrating baseball gloves into the antlers, Portland stands ready to catch and embrace the array of cultures that supports its community.

TENNIS

ATP FINALS: Roger Federer showed that memories of this year’s Wimbledon final are well and truly behind him.

In the first rematch between Federer and Novak Djokovic since that epic five-set final, Federer dominated from the start to win 6-4, 6-3 to reach the semifinals at London.

“I played incredible, and I knew I had to,” Federer said. “I was able to produce, it was definitely magical.”

It was Federer’s first win over Djokovic since 2015, having lost their last five meetings – including that Wimbledon final in July when Djokovic saved two match points in the fifth set.

The result means Djokovic was eliminated with a 1-2 record in the group stage, and ensures that Rafael Nadal will keep hold of the year-end No. 1 ranking.

GOLF

PGA: Heavy rain has washed out the opening round at Playa del Carmen, Mexico, until Friday.

El Camaleon Golf Club has received nearly 9 inches of rain since Monday. The lead rules official at the tournament, Slugger White, says there has been so much rain that the course isn’t draining. More scattered storms were expected later in the day, so officials decided not to start the tournament Thursday.

The forecast isn’t much better for Friday.

The Mayakoba Golf Classic is the penultimate PGA Tour event this year. White says tour officials have not ruled out trying to complete 72 holes, even if that means going into Monday. The final tournament next week is at Sea Island on the southeastern Georgia coast.

EUROPEAN: Louis Oosthuizen had to make a trip to the hospital this week because of kidney stones. He withdrew from the pro-am at the Nedbank Golf Challenge and was awake since 3 a.m. on the day of the first round because of the discomfort. He was considering pulling out of the main tournament.

Instead, he chose to play and produced a bogey-free 9-under-par 63 – only one off the course record – to take a three-shot lead after the opening round at Sun City, South Africa.

Oosthuizen made four birdies on the opening nine and five on the closing stretch to open a big gap on Thomas Detry (66) in second on 6 under.

DOPING

SWIMMING: One of China’s biggest Olympic stars will undergo a rare public hearing in a doping case on Friday with his 2020 Tokyo Games place at stake.

Three-time gold medalist swimmer Sun Yang is facing a World Anti-Doping Agency appeal in Switzerland that seeks to ban him for up to eight years for allegedly refusing to give samples voluntarily.

The case is notorious for a vial of his blood being smashed with a hammer by his bodyguard. Sun allegedly helped by lighting the scene with his cellphone.
anel president, Franco Frattini of Italy.

SKIING: An Estonian court has given a one-year suspended sentence to veteran ski coach Mati Alaver for his role in international doping.

The Baltic News Service reports that Alaver was found to have incited athletes to dope and accepted a plea bargain.

Estonia’s public broadcaster reports the court identified three Estonian athletes and one foreign athlete involved but ruled their names would not be disclosed.

Alaver’s case is linked to the arrests of five cross-country skiers, two of them Estonians, at the Nordic world championships in Austria in February.

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