■ Cricket
Piper pinched for pot
Warwickshire's Keith Piper was suspended for the rest of the English county cricket season Friday after testing positive for cannabis. The wicketkeeper, who tested positive at a county match against Glamorgan on April 14, was banned until Sept. 30 by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). Piper, 35, had a one-day contract with the county champion, and the suspension could end his playing career. Piper pleaded guilty to using cannabis at a May 12 hearing and had been suspended from all cricket since then. The ECB also ordered Piper to attend a drug counseling course and undergo another doping control check. He could be target-tested as many as six times in the following 18 months. Piper, who toured India and Pakistan with the second-tier England A team in 1994 and 1995, also paid £250 (364 euros) toward the cost of the hearings by a three-man disciplinary panel. In 1997, Piper was banned for one match and fined £500 by Warwickshire after testing positive for cannabis.
■ Soccer
China league failing
China's ailing professional soccer league faces collapse unless a management crisis is stemmed, a top official for the sport was quoted as saying. Asian Football Confederation General Secretary Peter Velappan said he was seeking talks with Chinese officials following allegations of mismanagement and corruption made by the recently sacked coach of last year's league champions Shenzhen Jianlibao. "The crisis at Shenzhen must be solved urgently, or Chinese football would collapse," Velappan was quoted as saying in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao. He was in the city Friday to announce new programs to boost soccer in the region. Shenzhen fired coach Chi Shangbin earlier this month after a disastrous winless start to the season. Chi blamed failures on the team, saying players were deliberately performing poorly after salary cuts. Chi's assistant, Yang Saixin, who resigned in protest, went further, calling players "ruffians" and accusing them of fixing matches and gambling. Most of the teams in China's one-year-old super league are mired in financial woes following the loss of major sponsors. Velappan said poor management was behind the crisis.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to
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