Monday Sports in Brief

October 19, 2021 GMT

MLB

BOSTON (AP) — Kyle Schwarber hit a grand slam — Boston’s third in two games — and the Red Sox routed the Houston Astros for the second straight time, winning 12-3 on Monday night to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven AL Championship Series.

One game after J.D. Martinez and Rafael Devers each cleared the bases, Schwarber hit a second-inning 3-0 pitch 430 feet into the right field grandstand. Boston is the first team ever with three slams in a postseason series.

Martinez and Devers each homered again, Christian Arroyo also hit one, and Kiké Hernández had two more hits for Boston, which could advance to the World Series with victories at Fenway Park in Games 4 and 5 on Tuesday night and Wednesday. The Astros need to win at least one to send the series back to Houston.

Red Sox starter Eduardo Rodriguez gave up five hits, including Kyle Tucker’s three-run homer, and struck out seven.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Washington State fired football coach Nick Rolovich and four of his assistants on Monday for refusing a state mandate that all employees get vaccinated against COVID-19, making him the first major college coach to lose his job over vaccination status.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, had set a deadline of Monday for thousands of state employees, including the Cougars’ coach, to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Rolovich applied for a religious exemption.

Also fired for refusing vaccination were assistant coaches Ricky Logo, John Richardson, Craig Stutzmann and Mark Weber, the university said.

Defensive coordinator Jake Dickert will be elevated to acting coach and his first game in charge will be Saturday at home against BYU, the school said late Monday.

Rolovich was hired from Hawaii two years ago, after Mike Leach left for Mississippi State, and led Washington State to a 1-3 record in the Pac-12 in a 2020 season cut short because of the pandemic. Washington State has won its past three games and is 4-3 this season.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Southeastern Conference has fined Tennessee $250,000 for fans stopping the Volunteers’ game with Mississippi for about 20 minutes throwing water bottles, beer cans, pizza boxes, hot dogs, a plastic mustard bottle and at least one golf ball onto the field late in the game.

The league office also announced Monday that Tennessee must meet other standards, including reviewing all possible video to identify and punish fans who threw anything onto the field late Saturday night. Tennessee’s cheerleaders and dance field left the field dodging trash, while the band also left the stands.

NHL

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The NHL has suspended San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane for 21 games for submitting a fake COVID-19 vaccination card.

The league on Monday announced the suspension without pay and said Kane will not be eligible to play until Nov. 30 at New Jersey. Kane will forfeit about $1.68 million of his $7 million salary for this season with the money going to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

The league also announced that a concurrent investigation into allegations of sexual and physical abuse made against Kane by his estranged wife, Anna, could not be substantiated.

NBA

ATLANTA (AP) — The Atlanta Hawks agreed Monday to a four-year, $65 million contract extension with guard Kevin Huerter, locking up another important player from the team that made a surprising run to the Eastern Conference final.

Huerter was the last piece in the Hawks’ offseason list of priorities, working out the rookie-scale extension shortly before Monday’s 6 p.m. deadline. The season begins Tuesday. ESPN first reported the deal, which begins with the 2022-23 season, and Hawks confirmed it in an evening news release.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

NEW YORK (AP) — Gonzaga carried a No. 1 ranking all last season before falling a win short of becoming college basketball’s first unbeaten national champion in 45 years.

Mark Few’s Bulldogs start this season in the same position, hoping to complete that final step this time around.

The Zags were the runaway top choice in The Associated Press Top 25 men’s college basketball preseason poll released Monday. They earned 55 of 63 first-place votes to easily outdistance No. 2 UCLA, which earned the other eight. Kansas, Villanova and Texas rounded out the top five, while reigning national champion Baylor checked in at No. 8.

SOCCER

LONDON (AP) — English Premier League clubs moved on Monday to prevent Newcastle immediately striking lucrative sponsorship deals with companies linked to its new Saudi ownership.

Clubs held an emergency meeting to impose a freeze on any of them agreeing to commercial arrangements with businesses their owners are associated with, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm details of a report published by The Guardian late Monday.

Newcastle was joined by Manchester City in resisting the move to prohibit clubs agreeing to related-party transactions, the person said.

But it passed with 18 votes in favor as Newcastle opposed and City abstained after it questioned the legality of the ban, another person said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss a private meeting.

— By Associated Press Global Soccer Writer Rob Harris.

NEW YORK (AP) — The National Women’s Soccer League has named Marla Messing as its interim chief executive officer as the league contends with the fallout from allegations of player abuse and harassment.

Messing was president and CEO of the 1999 Women’s World Cup and helped land the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic bid. Most recently she has served as CEO of USTA Southern California.

Messing will oversee operations of the league and work with the board of governors. She will replace the three-woman executive committee which was appointed to run the league after Commissioner Lisa Baird resigned a little more than two weeks ago.

OLYMPICS

ANCIENT OLYMPIA. Greece (AP) — Three activists protesting human rights abuses in China sneaked into the archaeological site where the flame lighting ceremony for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics was being held Monday and ran toward the newly lit torch holding a Tibetan flag and a banner that read “No genocide games.”

The protesters managed to enter the grounds and attempted to reach the Temple of Hera, where the ceremony was being held. They were thrown to the ground by police and detained.

“How can Beijing be allowed to host the Olympics given that they are committing a genocide against the Uyghurs?” one protester said, referring to the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China’s northwest region of Xinjiang.

The flame was lit at the birthplace of the ancient Olympics in southern Greece under heavy police security.

SPORTS BROADCASTING

BRISTOL, Conn. (AP) — ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale announced Monday that he has been diagnosed with cancer for the second time this year.

The Basketball Hall of Fame announcer said he has undergone tests that show he has lymphoma.

Vitale announced in August that he underwent multiple surgeries to remove melanoma. He was declared cancer-free at the time.

Vitale said doctors told him the lymphoma diagnosis is unrelated.

SPORTS GAMBLING

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey’s sports betting industry became the first in the United States to take in more than a billion dollars’ worth of bets in a single month, in September, as football season sent more gamblers to sports books and, crucially, their phones, according to figures released Monday.

Figures from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show Atlantic City’s nine casinos and the three racetracks that take sports bets collectively took $1.01 billion worth of wagers on sports last month, setting a new monthly record for both the state and the nation.

Of that lofty total, over $82 million was kept by the casinos and tracks as revenue after winning bets and other expenses were paid. The Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, near New York City, accounted for half that total.

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