Only one pennant winner since 1995 stole more bases than either of them. Game 1 is Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern on FOX.
By Sports Unc
Expect the bases to be busy. The Rays tied for second in the majors with 164 stolen bases this season and the Brewers ranked fifth with 162, MLB.com notes, and both have kept running in October: Tampa Bay is 11 for 11 on steals in nine playoff games, and Milwaukee 10 for 12 in eight.
Among pennant winners since the Wild Card era began in 1995, only the 2023 Diamondbacks, with 166, stole more in the regular season than these two teams. And it is only the fourth World Series since divisional play began in 1969 to feature two of that season's top five base-stealing teams, and the first since 2008.
The Canadiens captain blocked a shot with his hand against San Jose. He will miss Sunday's Heritage Classic in Winnipeg.
By Sports Unc
Montreal Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki will be out two to four weeks with an upper-body injury, the team announced Thursday. He was hurt blocking a shot with his hand late in Montreal's 4-3 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks.
The injury ends a streak that ran his whole career: Suzuki had never missed an NHL game, and his iron-man run stops at 546 games, Sportsnet's Eric Engels reported. It was the second-longest active streak in the league.
The Athletics Integrity Unit added four years for tampering to a two-year ban for a positive test, saying she submitted a prescription from a clinic that does not exist.
By Sports Unc
Ethiopia's Ruti Aga, who won the 2019 Tokyo Marathon, has been banned for six years from March 15, 2026, the Athletics Integrity Unit announced October 22, for the presence and use of a prohibited substance and for tampering, Canadian Running reports.
The case began with a sample taken after Aga won the Meishan Renshou Half Marathon in China on March 15, which tested positive for methylprednisolone, a glucocorticoid banned in competition when taken by injection, by mouth or rectally. That carried a two-year ban.
World Athletics has cut both fields by 10 places, and qualifying opens November 1. The qualifying times come in December.
By Sports Unc ·
The men's and women's marathons at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will each have 70 starters, down from 80, under the qualification system World Athletics has released, Canadian Running reports. The qualifying window opens November 1 and closes April 30, 2028.
World Athletics says it will set entry standards so that about 40 percent of the field qualifies by time and 60 percent through its world rankings. Meeting the standard does not guarantee a place: if more athletes hit it than there are spots, the fastest qualify. National Olympic Committees get more flexibility to reallocate quota places, including to athletes who did not meet the standard.
The new Olympic 50-meter backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly events will be partly decided at the three meets next October.
By Sports Unc ·
World Aquatics will hold the 2027 Swimming World Cup in three Olympic host cities: Berlin on October 15–17, Paris on October 22–24 and London on October 29–31, Swimming World reports. It brings the series back to Europe for the first time since 2023.
The meets matter more than usual. Los Angeles 2028 adds 50-meter backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly to the Olympic program, and the World Cup is a direct qualification route for those six new events, with a cap of six unique qualifiers per event, according to World Aquatics. Each stop decides some of them: the men's 50 back and women's 50 fly in Berlin, and the men's 50 breaststroke and women's 50 backstroke in London.
The 81st season opened Tuesday with an NBC and Peacock tripleheader. ESPN's coverage starts tonight, and Prime Video joins Friday.
By Sports Unc ·
The NBA's 81st regular season began Tuesday, October 20, with a tripleheader on NBC and Peacock: Boston at Detroit, Philadelphia at New York and Oklahoma City at San Antonio, a rematch of last season's Western Conference finals.
The middle game was the night's centerpiece. The Knicks, the defending champions after beating the Spurs in the NBA Finals, raised a banner for their first title since 1973, and LeBron James played his first game for the 76ers, the fourth franchise of his career, the Associated Press reported. James returns to Los Angeles to face the Lakers on Christmas Day.