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Holding power to account is a core responsibility of being an MP. It is all the more important when so often ordinary men and women in an insecure world have few other ways of protecting their interests, above all at work. So to see Mike Ashley, founder and chief executive of Sports Direct, blustering out his astonishment at the experiences of his workers must have been some slight compensation for…

Vladimir Putin says officials named in the McLaren report will be suspended, pending a thorough investigation Russian President Vladimir Putin said “there can be no place for doping in sport” after his country’s athletes were told their ban from this summer’s Olympics remained in place. Russian track and field athletes are banned from Rio 2016 after claims of a state-sponsored doping programme. Putin said: “Sport must be clean and the…

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Moscow — At first glance, the divide between Russia and international athletic bodies over how to deal with the country’s allegedly state-backed doping – and the harsh punishments that are looming for Russia and hundreds of its athletes – looks insurmountable. Western experts argue that only the “nuclear option” of a total ban on Russian participation for at least one Olympic cycle will help to focus minds in Moscow. That,…

Ken Griffey Jr. was baseball’s last pop culture icon.(Photo: Marc Serota, Getty Images) CINCINNATI — Kevin Falls is a Giants fan, so when he was writing the movie ‘’Summer Catch’’ and (spoiler alert) it came to the end when his main character, Ryan Dunne, makes the big leagues and is facing his first big test, Falls wanted that player to be Barry Bonds. He got Ken Griffey Jr. instead. In…

COMMENTARY They sounded a little silly, those suggestions way back in spring training that Red Sox right fielder Mookie Betts might become an MVP candidate during what would amount to only his second full season in the major leagues. The 23-year-old came into the 2016 season, after all, having played in 197 games, and putting up a .291 batting average, 23 home runs, 95 runs batted in, and an .818…

AUGUSTA, Maine — A recent national mandate obligating most states to develop pitch-count standards for high school baseball beginning with the 2017 season came as no surprise to organizers of the sport in Maine. “We’ve been planning for this,” Maine Principals’ Association baseball committee chair Phil St. Onge, assistant principal at Nokomis Regional High School of Newport, said recently. “We’ve been talking about this for about a year.” The revised…

RJ Sales, 13, leads stretches for the USA-NC Patriots Baseball Team. SAM KRUYER/The Pilot

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The billionaire retailer Mike Ashley has been running Sports Direct like a Victorian workhouse, building his success on a business model that treats workers “without dignity or respect”, a scathing parliamentary inquiry has found. Related: Sports Direct boss had plenty of warning a crisis was looming The report by the business, innovation and skills (BIS) select committee, which was triggered by a Guardian investigation last year, said Ashley had used…

<!– FOOTBALL GOSSIP Sunderland have moved quickly to replace Sam Allardyce, with a deal agreed for former Everton and Manchester United manager David Moyes to take over once the Englishman is confirmed as his country’s new national team boss. (Daily Telegraph) New England manager-in-waiting Sam Allardyce’s name is Scottish in origin, being derived from the old name for the area around Allardice Castle in Kincardineshire, Alrethis. (The National, print edition)…

Vladimir Putin says officials named in the McLaren report will be suspended, pending a thorough investigation Russian President Vladimir Putin said “there can be no place for doping in sport” after his country’s athletes were told their ban from this summer’s Olympics remained in place. Russian track and field athletes are banned from Rio 2016 after claims of a state-sponsored doping programme. Putin said: “Sport must be clean and the…

Sport’s highest tribunal rejected Russia’s appeal on Thursday (21 July) against a doping ban for its entire athletics team from the Rio Olympics starting in 15 days, drawing swift and angry condemnation from Moscow. The decision by the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) increases the possibility that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will now exclude Russia from all sports, not just track and field, in Rio de Janeiro….

A further 45 athletes have tested positive for banned substances after a second set of samples provided at the London and Beijing Olympics were reanalysed, the International Olympic Committee has announced. Related: Usain Bolt says Olympic ban on Russian athletes will ‘scare a lot of people’ The number of additional positive tests – comprising 30 athletes from Beijing and 15 from London – takes the total number of athletes who…

This weekend, thousands of baseball fans will descend on Cooperstown, New York, for the Hall of Fame inductions of Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza, two of the best and most popular players of the 1990s. Griffey was basically the second coming of Willie Mays, and Piazza was the best hitting catcher ever, with a defensive reputation that’s been rehabilitated in recent years thanks to new data. And yet something…

Your teams on the go or at home. Personalize SI with our new App. Install on iOS or Android. There have been a few pretty solid baseball brawls this season, but none that kicked off like this.  During a Can-Am League game against the Rockland Boulders last week, New Jersey Jackals pitcher Fernando Cruz ran out of the dugout and zipped right behind the plate during live play so that…

Caption Close Let’s take a swing at Centro San Antonio’s downtown baseball study. It’s been a bit forgotten, but Centro commissioned a study about the possibility of a Triple-A ballpark downtown, providing the final report to the city. The study makes perfect sense for Centro and an interested public. The ballpark would be downtown, and Centro’s mission is boosting downtown. As for the public, just like a close call at…

The billionaire retailer Mike Ashley has been running Sports Direct like a Victorian workhouse, building his success on a business model that treats workers “without dignity or respect”, a scathing parliamentary inquiry has found. Related: Sports Direct boss had plenty of warning a crisis was looming The report by the business, innovation and skills (BIS) select committee, which was triggered by a Guardian investigation last year, said Ashley had used…

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) OLYMPICS Ten Brazilians who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group were arrested Thursday, authorities announced, describing them as ”amateurs” who discussed on social media the possibility of staging attacks during next month’s Olympics. Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes said in the capital, Brasilia, that the 10 were being held on two terrorism-related charges and that two more people were being sought. Authorities said any…