Sports
Giannis: Devoted to Bucks; ‘human’ if it changes

On Wednesday, Giannis Antetokounmpo reiterated his commitment to the Milwaukee Bucks as they prepare for the start of the regular season, but also said it would be “human to change his mind” down the line.
Antetokounmpo’s comments came in the wake of a report by ESPN’s Shams Charania earlier this week that the Bucks engaged in trade discussions with the New York Knicks this offseason about a potential deal for the two-time MVP.
Although Antetokounmpo acknowledged that he had not read the report, he again doubled down on his desire to compete for championships — be it in Milwaukee or elsewhere.
“I’ve said this many times: I want to be in a situation that I can win,” Antetokounmpo said. “I believe in this team. I believe in my teammates. I’m here to lead this team to wherever we can go. It’s definitely going to be hard. We’re going to take it day by day, but I’m here. So all the extra stuff does not matter.
“I’ve communicated with my teammates, communicated with the people I respect and love, that the moment I step on this court or in this facility, I wear this jersey, the rest does not matter. I’m locked into whatever I have in front of me. Now, if in six, seven months I change my mind, I think that’s human, too.”
After missing the beginning of training camp in Milwaukee with an illness, Antetokounmpo rejoined the team this past weekend in Miami before its first preseason game Sunday, although he did not play. The Bucks next host the Pistons on Thursday in Milwaukee.
“I’m locked in,” Antetokounmpo said. “I’m locked in to this team. I’m locked in to these guys, to this group and to this coaching staff and to myself.”
He went on to compare the offseason to a “temptation” period, but now that training camp has started, he’s been off social media and focused on his craft.
“It’s temptation. That starts when the season ends until the season begins,” Antetokounmpo said. “There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to approach me or approach my agent and they’re going to say this is a possibility, that’s a possibility … but at the end of the day, ultimately, I’m going to make a decision. And my decision today is that I’m here and I’m committed to this team.”
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Washington Nationals begin sweeping organizational overhaul
Assistant GMs Eddie Longosz and Mark Scialabba are among those affected by the organizational overhaul.
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Sports
Former Penn State, Ohio State player charged with homicide, DUI after girlfriend dies in fatal ATV crash

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A former Penn State football player is facing charges relating to an ATV crash back in May that injured him and killed his girlfriend.
Julian Fleming, 24, and Alyssa Boyd, 23, were driving down a rural road in Bradford County near the Pennsylvania-New York border on the night of May 22 when they struck a deer, according to Pennsylvania State Police.
Documents obtained by TMZ Sports, though, stated that Fleming had a blood-alcohol level of .118 shortly after the crash.
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Penn State Nittany Lions wide receiver Julian Fleming against the Boise State Broncos during the Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
Fleming was charged with homicide by vehicle, driving under the influence and aggravated assault by vehicle.
“In my view, the prosecution here took a tragic and unavoidable accident and turned it into a crime when the facts don’t support that,” Fleming’s attorney, David Bahuriak, told TMZ Sports. “The facts don’t support criminal homicide.”
Neither Fleming nor Boyd was wearing safety equipment, police said, via The Citizens’ Voice.

Ohio State Buckeyes wide receiver Julian Fleming jokes around with teammates during an NCAA football game against Michigan State University at Ohio Stadium. (Brooke LaValley/Columbus Dispatch / USA Today Network)
Fleming was a standout wide receiver who played for the Ohio State Buckeyes from 2020 to 2024. He committed to Ohio State after he was a standout at Southern Columbia High School in Pennsylvania. He was the No. 1 prospect out of the state in 2020.
He transferred to Penn State before the 2024 season to finish his NCAA eligibility.
He played in 16 games for the Nittany Lions last season. He had 14 catches for 176 yards and a touchdown. At Ohio State, he had 79 catches for 963 yards and seven touchdowns in 38 career games.
Fleming signed with the Green Bay Packers as an undrafted free agent. However, his contract was rescinded after he failed a physical with the team.

Ohio State’s Julian Fleming (4) runs with the football vs Michigan at Ohio Stadium. (David E. Klutho/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)
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Boyd suffered “extensive injuries” in the crash, police said, via the New York Post, and died at the scene. She was a student at the University of Alabama.
Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
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Sports
‘You could feel it like in your bones’: Aaron Judge meets his October moment at last

NEW YORK — Never were the questions of Aaron Judge‘s fitness for October particularly fair, but that’s life for the biggest man in the biggest city whose biggest failures had come at the biggest times. The burden of greatness is heavy. The burden of greatness in New York is planetary. And for those unleashing screeds on Judge’s postseasons — on hot take shows and sports-talk radio and in bars and at family dinners and everywhere, really, that anyone talks about the Yankees — it was never about whether they were fair. After all, his performances had been undeniably foul.
Judge never paid any of this any mind because he does not wire himself to do so. He cares about winning. He cares about success. He cares more than anyone who criticizes him, mocks him, derides him, leans into his past performances as if they’re predictive of an unknowable future. Judge always separated those struggles, not just because he needed to but because it is how he lives, purposely boring and boringly purposeful. He believed the moment would present itself and he would meet it. And why wouldn’t he think that? Every other endeavor in his baseball life had treated him that way.
Regardless of how the American League Division Series between the Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays breaks, what Judge did Tuesday night was the sort of thing that should put to rest questions about his October aptitude. It won’t, because it never could, but the wide-eyed, wonderstruck, childlike gawking of everyone in the Yankees’ clubhouse told the story of Tuesday night’s season-saving 9-6 victory against the Blue Jays in which Judge left jaws agape.
Poor Louis Varland. The right-handed reliever entered in the fourth inning to protect the Blue Jays’ 6-3 advantage in a game that could have clinched their spot in the AL Championship Series. He fooled Judge on a 90 mph curveball and then blew a 100 mph fastball by him and then threw another fastball at 100, up and in. Like, really in. Like, 5.9 inches off the inner corner of the plate, at triple digits, with tremendous carry, an absolute nightmare of a pitch for any hitter at any time in the game’s history to touch, let alone punish.
Nearly 400 feet later, when the ball banged off the left-field foul pole — the one place in Judge’s world where something foul is indeed fair — no one on the field could believe it. The absurdity of it all — manipulating his 6-foot-7, 282-pound body to so thoroughly alter his standard bat path, turn on 100 and keep it fair — was not lost on Varland, the Yankees who kept watching replays of the swing in the dugout, or the 47,399 at Yankee Stadium who bore witness.
“He made a really good pitch look really bad,” Varland said.
All postseason, Judge has been doing that. His 11 playoff hits lead MLB. For all of the ugliness of striking out with the bases loaded in Game 1 of this ALDS, his at-bats have been competitive all October. What he did to Varland was the culmination, precisely what the Yankees needed to see another day.
“You could feel it like in your bones,” Yankees reliever Tim Hill said. “It was crazy. It was amazing. I mean, just the pitch that he hit. All that. I’m sure my guy over there on the other side is questioning everything.”
Yes, pitching to Aaron Judge is the sort of thing of which existential crises are made. Before Tuesday, he had never hit a pitch 100 mph or faster for a home run. He hit 53 home runs this season — and none on a pitch outside the rulebook strike zone. Before Tuesday, the Blue Jays were 39-0 this season in games during which they led by at least five runs, too.
It’s impossible to overstate how out of character this was for Judge. He prides himself on good swing decisions because he knows how important they are. On pitches in the strike zone this season, Judge batted .400, 40 points higher than the next-best hitter. He slugged .867, 115 points higher than Shohei Ohtani. In his 214 plate appearances this year that ended on pitches outside of the rulebook zone, Judge batted .109 and drove in one run. All year. He didn’t have a single extra-base hit on such pitches.
One of the biggest home runs in the career of a two-time MVP favored to win a third this year was on something he never does. And if a willingness to exit his comfort zone and in the process do something that few in the history of baseball would be physically capable of doing doesn’t show that Judge isn’t just capable of success in October but destined for it, well, nothing would. And that’s fine with him. He knows emotion is the fuel that feeds the prognostications of inevitable letdown, not consistency or logic.
“I get yelled at for swinging at them out of the zone, but now I’m getting praised for it,” Judge said. “It’s a game. You’ve got to go out there and play. I don’t care what the numbers say or where something was at. I’m just up there trying to put a good swing on a good pitch, and it looked good to me.”
Inside the Yankees’ clubhouse, they’ve been yearning for Judge to have a game like this, to further validate their unflinching belief in him. The past is indisputable. Judge’s postseason OPS is more than 250 points lower than during the regular season. The Yankees haven’t won a championship during his 10 years in the big leagues. It’s real, and it’s regrettable, and it’s part of his legacy. It is also not the ink with which the future is written, which is why Aaron Boone, the Yankees’ manager with whom Judge is extremely close, said: “I don’t worry about Aaron and his state, even understanding all the outside noise.”
From Boone’s perch atop the dugout, he had the perfect view of the left-field foul pole. As the ball carried through the night, Judge stood near home plate. He didn’t pull a Carlton Fisk, trying to wave it fair. He just waited for it to land.
And when it did, helping raise his batting average this postseason to .500 and his OPS to 1.304 — nearly 300 points better than his career regular-season OPS, for the record — Judge uncorked a mini-bat flip and started his jog around the bases. When he got back to the dugout, teammates lined up and greeted him with a full high-five line.
“He’s the real deal, and as beloved a player as I’ve ever been around by his teammates,” Boone said. “They all admire him, look up to him, respect him, want his approval, and that’s just a credit to who Aaron is and how he goes about things.”
After slapping the last hand, Judge took one more step toward the end of the dugout. There awaited a television camera. Judge looked at it, pointed and turned around. He then pirouetted back and gave the audience one more stare. This was not an accident. Nothing Judge does is. It was a message, a reminder, a siren for everyone that didn’t believe.
The Yankees were still alive. And as long as that’s the case, he plans on carrying them. Even in October.
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