SEATTLE (AP) — Elias Díaz hit a two-run homer off Félix Bautista in the eighth inning, and the National League snapped a nine-game losing streak in the All-Star Game with a 3-2 win over the American League. The NL won for the first time since an 8-0 victory in 2012 in Kansas City thanks to Díaz, a catcher who became the first Rockies player to win the All-Star MVP award. Díaz, who was non-tendered by the Pirates at the end of 2019, drove a 2-2 pitch from Baltimore’s hard-throwing closer deep to left to put the NL in front. Díaz was the lone representative for Colorado in his first All-Star Game appearance.
SEATTLE (AP) — Elias Díaz may be the most unlikely All-Star MVP. Just 3 1/2 years after Pittsburgh failed to offer a contract and allowed him to become a free agent, his go-ahead, two-run homer off Félix Bautista in the eighth inning lifted the National League over the American 3-2. A first-time All-Star at age 32, the Colorado catcher put his name on an award won by Willie Mays, Joe Morgan, Frank and Brooks Robinson, both Ken Griffeys and Mike Trout. Díaz says: “I honestly can’t believe that my name is going to be next to some of those names."
SEATTLE (AP) — Shohei Ohtani was the biggest star of the All-Star Game even if his appearance was rather uneventful. Ohtani struck out and walked in his two at-bats as the American League saw its nine-game win streak come to an end with a 3-2 loss to the National League. But it was what happened while Ohtani was in the batters’ box that became notable. With the Seattle crowd aware of Ohtani’s pending free agency this offseason, the stadium broke out into loud chants of “Come to Seattle! Come to Seattle!”
SEATTLE (AP) — There was Barbiecore and suits both serious and spicy at Major League Baseball’s red carpet show on Tuesday. The event came hours before the All-Star Game and featured baseball’s top players strutting through Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market with their spouses, kids and moms in tow, and giving their best looks to the hundreds of adoring fans gathered. Yet what was really on display was MLB’s quest for the crown of cool. The fan-friendly event was yet another indication that MLB is increasingly staking its claim on fashion as an entry to new audiences and pop culture reverence.
SEATTLE (AP) — Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has no intention of altering Pete Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball and said the sport’s commercial deals with gambling companies have no impact on the status of the career hits leader. Rose agreed to a lifetime ban in 1989 after an investigation found Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team. Manfred rejected Rose’s application in 2015. Manfred says: “Pete Rose violated what is sort of rule one in baseball, and the consequences of that are clear in the rule.”
MILAN (AP) — United States forward Christian Pulisic has arrived in Italy for a medical with AC Milan before an expected transfer from Chelsea. The 24-year-old Pulisic has one year left on his contract at Chelsea but is expected to sign a four-year deal with the Rossoneri and become the third American to play for the club after Oguchi Onyewu and Sergiño Dest. American-owned Milan is reportedly preparing to pay a transfer fee of 20 million euros ($22 million) for Pulisic. That would be less than half of what Chelsea paid Borussia Dortmund for Pulisic in 2019. Pulisic never fully lived up to expectations in England.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A PGA Tour executive has told Congress that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund agreed to invest more than $1 billion in a new commercial entity controlled by the tour. Ron Price, the tour's chief operating officer, also said at a hearing Tuesday that Greg Norman will be ousted as the CEO of LIV Golf if the business deal between the Saudis and the tour is finalized. The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is looking into the negotiations between the tour and the Saudis and the geopolitical implications of Saudi investment in American sports. However, there was no indication that Congress would block the tour from going into business with the Saudi Public Investment Fund.