Month: October 2023

The Golden State Warriors has planned a new WNBA franchise to launch in 2025. On Thursday, the WNBA officially announced that a Bay Area expansion franchise will take the court for the 2025 season. The league posted on X: It’s official. We’re expanding. Tune in at 1pm EST/10am PST on X and the WNBA App to watch live remarks from @CathyEngelbert and @wnbagoldenstate”

Golden State chairman Joe Lacob said he intends for the Bay Area’s WNBA team to be as successful as the Warriors, who have won four NBA championships in the past nine seasons: “We’re coming in here, number one, to win. Number two, we want to see this league and women’s basketball grow, and we hope to be a big part of it. I believe we’ll have the No. 1 revenue of any WNBA team. And I think we can do very, very well as a business because we know how to do this. We have all the facilities, and we can bring sponsor dollars to the team and ultimately to the league that will help the league in a big way.”

The new WNBA franchise will likely be known as “Golden State” to represent the entire Bay Area, as is the case with the Warriors — but the team name is still to be determined. The team will train in Oakland, but games will be played at San Francisco’s Chase Center, where the Warriors play their home games.

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The New York Mets announced Thursday that GM Billy Eppler resigned from his position. The news comes just days after the organization fired manager Buck Showalter after missing the playoffs. Showalter, last year’s NL Manager of the Year, was with the Mets just two seasons. The Mets also hired former Milwaukee Brewers executive David Stearns as the team’s next president of baseball operations earlier this fall, who will now be tasked with hiring both a new manager and general manager.

Mets owner Steve Cohen said: “Billy Eppler led this team through a 101-win season and postseason berth last year and he iwll be missed. We accepted Billy’s resignation today as he decided it is in everyone’s best interest to fully hand over the leadership of baseball operations to David Stearns. on behalf of the Mets organization, we wish him all the best.” Eppler said in a statement: “I wanted David to have a clean slate and that meant me stepping down. I hope for nothing but the best for the entire Mets organization.”

Eppler spent time as the Angels general manager from 2015-20, and was hired as the team’s general manager in 2021.Eppler oversaw a team that went 176–148; the team went 101-61 last season and made their first playoff appearance in the past seven seasons. However this past season, the Mets finished with a 74-87 record, which put them 30 games behind the Atlanta Braves in the NL East and 10 games away from the NL wild-card picture.

Among Eppler’s biggest moves as general manager included signing both Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, then trading both star pitchers at the 2023 trade deadline, and deciding to not re-sign Jacob deGrom. The Mets, who haven’t won a World Series since 1986, started the season with the largest payroll in the league at $331 million.

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* The Texas Rangers won back-to-back games against the Tampa Bay Rays in the best-of-three wild-card series, defeating the Rays 7-1 on Wednesday to advance to the ALDS. Corey Seager and Josh Jung each hit two doubles, and Marcus Semien added another giving Texas the wild-card series win, and advance then to the ALDS against the top-seeded Baltimore Orioles. The Rangers will face the Orioles in Game 1 of the ALDS on Saturday in Baltimore, with game time set for 1 p.m. ET.

* The Minnesota Twins defeated the Toronto Blue Jays 2-0 at Target Field to sweep the wild-card sweep and advance to the ALDS. Win the win, the Twins broke an 18-game postseason losing streak with their first playoff win since 2004, winning a series for the first time in 21 years. Minnesota will face the Astros in Game 1 of the ALDS on Saturday in Houston. Game time TBD.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks eliminated the Milwaukee Brewers with a 5-2 victory in Game 2 of their wild-card round, sweeping the Brewers 2-0 to advance to the NLDS. Arizona will face the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday in Los Angeles. Game time TBD.

* The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Miami Marlins 7-1 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on Wednesday, giving them a 2-0 series sweep over the Marlins and advancing them to the NLDS. The Phillies will meet the Atlanta Braves in the next round, with Game 1 on Saturday in Atlanta, time still to be announced.

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The U.S. women’s gymnastics team won a seventh consecutive team title at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium on Wednesday night. The American team, led by Simone Biles and comprised of gymnasts Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely and Leanne Wong, combined for a total of 167.729 points to edge Brazil and France for the title. The U.S. team won by a margin of 2.199 points in an extremely close contest; it was anticipated the Americans would dominate after a strong performance in qualifying. The

This win marks the seventh consecutive world championship victory for the U.S. team and the 26th world medal for Biles. U.S. women have won gold in the team event at every world championship that included a team competition since 2011. The victory in Antwerp also makes Biles the most decorated female gymnast in history; she now has 26 world championship medals, 20 of them gold, to go with her seven Olympic medals, including the 2016 Olympic title. Biles 33 combined medals at the sport’s two biggest events are one more than what Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union achieved.

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