Friday Sports in Brief

NFL

NEW YORK (AP) - The NFL is further limiting player access to team facilities as it attempts to enhance safety measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a memo sent to the 32 clubs and obtained by The Associated Press, teams must close their facilities for two days after games, with some exceptions.

Beginning Monday, that all teams playing on a Sunday must close those facilities the next two days - except for clubs playing on the subsequent Thursday. Only players needing medical attention for injuries or in rehab programs may enter the team complex.

Coaches can access the facility but must work in their own offices and can’t conduct meetings except virtually.

MLB

Major League Baseball and all 30 of its teams are suing their insurance providers, citing billions of dollars in losses during the 2020 season played almost entirely without fans due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The suit, filed in October in California Superior Court in Alameda County, was obtained Friday by The Associated Press. It says providers AIG, Factory Mutual and Interstate Fire and Casualty Company have refused to pay claims made by MLB despite the league’s “all-risk” policy purchases.

The league claims to have lost billions of dollars on unsold tickets, hundreds of millions on concessions, tens of millions on parking and millions more on suites and luxury seat licenses, in-park merchandise sales and corporate sponsorships. It also cites over a billion dollars in local and national media losses, plus tens of millions in missed income for MLB Advanced Media. It says all of those losses should be covered by their policies.

NEW YORK (AP) - Yankees third baseman Gio Urshela had surgery Friday to remove a bone chip from his right elbow, and New York said his expected recovery time is three months.

Urshela is likely to miss about half of spring training, which starts in mid-February, and will have just a few weeks to get into shape ahead of the opener against Toronto on April 1.

NEW YORK (AP) - Yankees pitchers Zack Britton and Gerrit Cole, free agent catcher Jason Castro, Cleveland shortstop Francisco Lindor and free agent shortstop Marcus Semien were elected Friday to the executive subcommittee of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

They join St. Louis pitcher Andrew Miller, free agent pitcher James Paxton and Washington pitcher Max Scherzer on the union’s highest-ranking member body.

The newcomers replace Elvis Andrus, Cory Gearrin, Chris Iannetta, Collin McHugh and Daniel Murphy on the executive subcommittee.

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - The Texas Rangers hired Chris Young as executive vice president and general manager Friday, bringing the Major League Baseball executive home to work under president of baseball operations Jon Daniels, the club’s GM since 2005.

Young pitched 13 seasons in the majors, the first two with the Rangers after the 6-foot-10 two-sport standout grew up in Dallas and played baseball and basketball at Princeton. The 41-year-old had been with MLB since May 2018.

NHL

Time has all but run out on the NHL’s hope to start the season Jan. 1, with the league and NHL Players’ Association now focusing their discussions on opening play in mid-January, a person familiar with the talks told The Associated Press on Friday.

A mid-January start date has become more realistic given the number of issues that need to be resolved before players can begin traveling to their home cities, according to the person who spoke to The AP on the condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.

The two sides still need to agree on a schedule, with the current working plan featuring between 52 and 56 regular-season games. There has also been talk of a buffer being worked into the schedule in the event games are postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the person said.

-By Hockey Writer John Wawrow.

SOCCER

NEW YORK (AP) - The United States will start a revised and compacted World Cup qualifying schedule with a match in early September that could be at Trinidad and Tobago, which beat the Americans in October 2017 to eliminate them from the 2018 tournament in Russia.

Qualifying was to have began for the Americans this past September but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Under the revised schedule announced Friday by FIFA and the Confederation of North and Central American and Caribbean Football, the U.S. will play three matches each in the September and October 2021 international fixture windows and three apiece in January and March 2022. The Americans will play two in November 2021.

NAPLES, Italy (AP) - Italian club Napoli renamed its stadium in honor of former captain Diego Maradona on Friday.

The Naples city council unanimously approved the change of name from Stadio San Paolo to Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

Maradona died last week aged 60 in his native Argentina.

NICE, France (AP) - French soccer great Patrick Vieira was fired as coach of Nice on Friday after his team was eliminated from the Europa League.

The club, owned by the Ineos chemicals group of British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, is also 11th in the 20-team French league.

Vieira joined Nice in 2018 after years working for Manchester City, including as coach of its American affiliate New York City.

WNBA

NEW YORK (AP) - The New York Liberty have the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft for the second consecutive year, winning the lottery Friday.

Dallas will pick second with Atlanta third and Indiana fourth.

The Liberty had the best chance to win the lottery at 44.2%. Atlanta was second at 27.6%. Dallas third 17.8% and Indiana fourth at 10.4%. The WNBA determines its percentages on the two-year record of the four participants.

WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL

UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) - Hailey Van Lith and Kianna Smith each scored 21 points in the highest-scoring game in Louisville history, a 116-75 romp over No. 20 DePaul on Friday night in the Jimmy V Classic.

The No. 5 Cardinals (3-0) surpassed the 115 points they scored against Murray State in 2017, reaching that point total with 3:53 left in the game that wasn’t finalized until earlier this week.

SPORTS DOPING

A bill that will criminalize international doping conspiracies became law Friday with President Donald Trump’s signature, closing out a two-year legislative process during which the only true opposition to the bill came from outside the United States.

The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act had earlier passed both houses of Congress on voice votes. It passed despite lobbying efforts from the World Anti-Doping Agency, which said it will “disrupt the global legal anti-doping framework.”

The bill is designed to allow U.S. prosecutors to go after doping schemes at international events in which Americans are involved as athletes, sponsors or broadcasters.

HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS

EDINBURG, Texas (AP) - A Texas high school football player who ran onto the field and blindsided a referee who had ejected him from a game was charged with assault Friday and his team has been taken out of the playoffs.

Senior defensive lineman Emmanuel Duron of Edinburg High School appeared in municipal court after being charged with class A assault, a misdemeanor, according to court administrator Maribel Velasquez.

A judge set a $10,000 bond for the 18-year-old Duron, who remained jailed Friday afternoon. Jail records did not list an attorney for Duron.

SKIING

OBERHOFEN, Switzerland (AP) - The International Ski Federation canceled several events in China on Friday that were supposed to test the venues for the 2022 Beijing Olympics, including next year’s snowboarding world championships.

FIS cited travel restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, “including a current mandatory 14-day quarantine for all international visitors” in China.

The canceled events also include the freestyle skiing world championships, and World Cup races in skiing, cross-country skiing, ski jumping and Nordic combined.

COURTS

NEW YORK (AP) - A minor league baseball team once affiliated with the New York Yankees has shut down and filed a lawsuit accusing the Yankees violating an agreement that it would never abandon the farm club.

The owners of the Staten Island Yankees announced in a statement Thursday that with “great regret, we must cease operations.” They also said they were suing the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball “to hold those entities accountable for false promises” that they would always keep the team as a farm club.

The local franchise could have tried playing in an independent league, but that “would force Staten Island to field a subpar team,” the statement said.

OBITUARY

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The United States will start a revised and compacted World Cup qualifying schedule with a match in early September that could be at Trinidad and Tobago, which beat the Americans in October 2017 to eliminate them from the 2018 tournament in Russia.

Qualifying was to have began for the Americans this past September but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Under the revised schedule announced Friday by FIFA and the Confederation of North and Central American and Caribbean Football, the U.S. will play three matches each in the September and October 2021 international fixture windows and three apiece in January and March 2022. The Americans will play two in November 2021.

KINGSTON, Ontario (AP) - Larry Mavety, a longtime junior hockey executive who once coached former NHL star Doug Gilmour, has died. He was 78.

The Kingston Frontenacs of the Ontario Hockey League on Friday confirmed his death on Twitter.

After playing in the minor pro ranks, Mavety entered coaching with the Belleville Bulls in 1979. He guided the Bulls to the national Tier II junior A final in 1981 before the team jumped to the OHL in 1982. Gilmour is a center who spent 20 seasons in the NHL with seven teams.

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