BASEBALL
LOS ANGELES (AP) Vin Scully will be back for a record 67th season in the broadcast booth for the Dodgers, who revealed the news in the second inning of their game against the Chicago Cubs.
Magic Johnson, a co-owner of the team, appeared on the Dodger Stadium video board to tell the crowd that Jimmy Kimmel had a major announcement. Late-night TV host Kimmel appeared and without a sound used cue cards to explain Scully would return for another season – ”at least,” read one of the cards.
His last card read: ”God bless us everyone.”
The 87-year-old Scully stood up and waved from his booth as the crowd cheered. The Hall of Fame announcer’s consecutive years of service make him the longest-tenured broadcaster with one team in sports history.
SEATTLE (AP) – The Seattle Mariners fired general manager Jack Zduriencik after seven disappointing seasons during which the club failed to end its playoff drought.
Team President Kevin Mather announced the decision to fire Zduriencik, with assistant general manager Jeff Kingston taking over on an interim basis. Kingston joined the Mariners front office in 2009 after spending seven years as the director of baseball operations with San Diego.
Mather said he would like to find an experienced GM and have one in place soon after the regular season concludes so as to not lose out on the upcoming offseason.
NFL
ASHBURN, Va. (AP) – Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III will miss Saturday’s exhibition game at Baltimore because of a concussion, reversing an earlier decision to let him play.
In a statement released Friday by the Redskins, NFL independent neurologist Robert Kurtzke is quoted that Griffin ”should be held from game play this weekend and be retested in one (to) two weeks before a firm conclusion to return to game play can be made.”
Griffin left last week’s exhibition game against Detroit with what Redskins coach Jay Gruden said afterward was a concussion. The Redskins announced Thursday that Griffin had been cleared to play this weekend.
GOLF
EDISON, N.J. (AP) – Jordan Spieth lost out on a chance to play the weekend at The Barclays. He also lost his No. 1 ranking.
Bubba Watson made a birdie on the 18th hole at Plainfield Country Club for a 2-under 68 and a one-shot lead going into the weekend at the opening FedEx Cup playoff event.
Trying to rally to make the cut, Spieth hit into a hazard on the 12th hole, and a bogey later became a double bogey when he was penalized one shot for stepping on his ball during the search. He had a 73, the first time since the Tour Championship last year that he had consecutive rounds over par. He missed the cut by five shots. That means Rory McIlroy, who isn’t playing this week, returns to No. 1.
Watson is in good shape through 36 holes to claim his own No. 1 ranking – a victory would move him to the top of the FedEx Cup. Watson was at 7-under 133.
British Open champion Zach Johnson (65) was tied for second with Henrik Stenson (66), Tony Finau (69) and Jason Dufner (68).
PRATTVILLE, Ala. (AP) – Yani Tseng closed with an eagle and a birdie for an 8-under 64 and a one-stroke lead in the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic.
Tseng hit a 6-iron to 4 feet to set up the eagle on the par-5 eighth hole just before play was delayed for about 90 minutes because of lightning and rain, then took the outright lead on the par-4 ninth with her sixth birdie of the day.
Tseng reached 10-under 134 on the links-style Senator Course with her lowest round since a 63 in the 2013 LPGA Thailand.
Austin Ernst was second after a 65, and playing partner Lexi Thompson, the 2011 winner at age 16, was third at 8 under after a 67. Sydnee Michaels and Julieta Granada were still on the course at 7 under when play was suspended for the day because of more rain and darkness. Michaels had four holes left, and Granada two.
ENDICOTT, N.Y. (AP) – Paul Goydos and Gene Sauers shared the first-round lead at 6-under 66 in the Champions Tour’s Dick’s Sporting Goods Open.
Goydos had a bogey-free round at En-Joie. He won the Allianz Championship in February in Florida for his second victory on the 50-and-over tour. Sauers had seven birdies and a bogey.
John Huston, the 2011, winner was a stroke back along with Ian Woosnam.
Defending champion Bernhard Langer had a 71.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) – A week before the start of the football season, a difficult summer for the University of Illinois became chaotic as coach Tim Beckman was fired after an investigation found he tried to influence medical decisions and pressure players to play with injuries.
Beckman’s firing follows the unexpected resignations this month of the top two officials on campus, revelations that they’d used private emails accounts to avoid public scrutiny of school business, and a pair of lawsuits in which former women’s basketball and women’s soccer players claim they were mistreated by coaches.
And the rocky times may not be over: The investigation that led athletic director Mike Thomas – a defendant named in those lawsuits – to fire Beckman continues.
AUTO RACING
NEW YORK (AP) – NASCAR star Tony Stewart said he didn’t see a driver walking on a dirt track in upstate New York last year before he struck and killed him, and noted the racer was impaired by marijuana and shouldn’t have been outside his car, according to court papers filed Friday.
Kevin Ward Jr.’s family filed a lawsuit this month that accused Stewart of gross negligence, saying he gunned his engine and put his card into a skid as the 20-year-old Ward walked on the track after a crash at Canandaigua Motorsports Park on Aug. 9, 2014.
Stewart’s attorney, Brian Gwitt, argued in an answer to the Wards’ lawsuit that the racing star didn’t see the crash Ward had been involved in and didn’t realize anyone was standing on the track.
HOCKEY
Al Arbour, the bespectacled gentleman of a coach who molded a young and talented New York Islanders franchise into an NHL dynasty that won four straight Stanley Cups in the early 1980s, has died. He was 82.
The Islanders confirmed Arbour’s death in a release issued Friday afternoon. Arbour had been in declining health, battling Parkinson’s disease and dementia, and living in a long-term care facility in Florida.
Beginning in 1973-74, Arbour led the Isles to 15 playoff appearances and won 119 playoff games – an NHL record with one team – over 19 seasons. His 740 career regular-season wins with the Islanders are the most with one NHL team.
