Sports in Brief
Robert Jr. and Alonso lead field for Home Run Derby
Chicago White Sox All-Star Luis Robert Jr. and two-time champion Pete Alonso of the New York Mets are set to participate in baseball’s Home Run Derby in Seattle on Monday.
Robert earned the top seed in an eight-player field announced Wednesday that includes Seattle’s Julio Rodríguez, 2018 American League MVP Mookie Betts, Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Tampa Bay’s Randy Arozarena, Texas’ Adolis García and Baltimore’s Adley Rutschman. Alonso, who won in 2019 and 2021, will try to join Ken Griffey Jr. (1994, 1998 and 1999) as the only three-time champions.
Robert will go against the eighth-seeded Rutschman (11 home runs) in the first round, with second seed Alonso facing the seventh-seeded Rodriguez (13). Third-seeded Betts (23) meets six seed Guerrero Jr. (13), and fourth-seeded García (21) faces five seed Arozarena (16).
The seeding was determined by home run totals through Tuesday. Tiebreakers went to the player with the most homers since June 15.
Robert and countrymen Arozarena and García are participating for the first time.
Brooksby suspended for missing doping tests
American tennis player Jenson Brooksby accepted a provisional suspension from the International Tennis Integrity Agency on Wednesday after being accused of missing three doping tests in a 12-month period, he told The Associated Press.
“Taking the provisional suspension is the best decision that we have to make right now,” Brooksby, a 22-year-old from Sacramento, California, said in a telephone interview. “I’ve never failed a drug test. I’ve never taken any bad substances.”
He plans to go to arbitration.
Under antidoping rules, athletes can be penalized without failing a test if they have three “whereabout failures” within a year’s span.
Brooksby has been ranked as high as No. 33 and is currently at No. 101 after going nearly six months without competing because he needed two operations for dislocated wrist tendons: on his left arm in March, and on his right in May.
He has not played on tour since January, when he upset three-time Grand Slam runner-up Casper Ruud in the second round of the Australian Open before losing to eventual semifinalist Tommy Paul in the third.
Shortly after that tournament, Brooksby split from his longtime coach, Joseph Gilbert.
Cameraman injured by wild throw
A cameraman was injured Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium when he was hit in the head by a wild throw from Baltimore Orioles rookie shortstop Gunnar Henderson.
Positioned right next to the New York Yankees’ dugout on the first-base side, Pete Stendel of YES Network was struck by a hurried throw from Henderson, who fired high to first as he tried to complete a double play in the fifth inning.
The game was delayed about 17 minutes as the Yankees’ athletic training staff and medical personnel tended to Stendel.
Stendel was strapped onto a stretcher and carted off the field, raising and wagging two fingers to loud applause from the crowd of 36,022 as he was driven along the warning track behind home plate.
Henderson was charged with an error that allowed Anthony Volpe to reach second base. He scored on Kyle Higashioka’s two-out single to give New York a 2-0 lead.
Reds’ De La Cruz homers after umps remove piece from bat
Cincinnati Reds rookie Elly De La Cruz pointed at the knob of his bat after hitting a 455-foot homer at Washington on Wednesday night in a reference to the removal of a covering earlier in the game.
Before De La Cruz led off the second inning, umpires had the slugger remove a white or clear object from the end of his bat.
It looked as if it was an empty covering designed to hold a sensor that takes measurements at the plate.
Nationals manager Dave Martinez talked to plate umpire Quinn Wolcott about the knob piece before it was removed.
