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MILWAUKEE — Thousands of fans lined downtown Milwaukee streets on Thursday to catch a glimpse of their beloved Bucks in a parade to celebrate the city’s first NBA championship in half a century.

Six police officers on horseback clopped past cheering fans at the head of a procession that included a hook-and-ladder fire truck, occasionally blaring its horn, and open-air buses and flatbed trucks carrying Bucks stars, including Finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jrue Holiday, and the trophy they captured Tuesday night with a Game 6 victory over the Phoenix Suns.

Fans could be heard chanting, “Bucks in 6,” an odd but beloved rallying cry with roots in a former Bucks player’s fruitless prediction in 2013 that the team would take down the playoffs’ top seed at the time.

Antetokounmpo held his son, 1-year-old Liam, atop a bus as fans along the route chanted “MVP!” Later, he shot a basketball into the crowd.

“Milwaukee, we did it, baby! We did it!” Antetokounmpo said to a cheering crowd in Deer District, the area outside the Bucks’ Fiserv Forum. “This is our city, this is our city. Man, we did it! Unbelievable.”

Neil and Rachana Bhatia, both 34 and from suburban Waukesha, brought 1-month-old son Zain to Deer District, saying they wanted to give Zain an early taste of being a Bucks fan.

Neil Bhatia called winning the title “surreal.”

“It unifies the city and puts the city on a global stage,” he said. “It’s great for the city and the state. It’s just bringing everybody together to celebrate something that hasn’t happened in 50 years.”

Said longtime Bucks fan and Milwaukee native Dameon Ellzey: “In my neighborhood, you could hear everybody on their porches screaming. Black, white, Asian. In a city like Milwaukee, that’s big.”

Milwaukee has long ranked among the most segregated cities in America. Team president Peter Feigin called it “the most segregated, racist place” he had ever experienced, remarks he later softened. As the Bucks drove toward a championship this year, some people were cheered by the diversity of the massive crowds that gathered in Deer District to watch the Bucks on big TV screens.

The team’s ascendance has invigorated a Midwestern city far from the NBA’s more cosmopolitan venues like Los Angeles, Boston or Miami — cities that have traditionally found it easier to attract the game’s top players. One reason fans have embraced Antetokounmpo is his loyalty to the team that drafted him eight years ago when he was 18.

Police estimated 100,000 people jammed Deer District for Tuesday night’s Game 6. Though the coronavirus pandemic has lessened compared to a year ago, the level of cases in both Wisconsin and Milwaukee County still is rated by the state as high, with daily new cases in the county roughly tripling over the past two weeks to 80 per day.

City health officials noted Thursday that announcements of the parade had urged that unvaccinated people wear masks. Few were visible among fans on the parade route or outside the arena. The city health department said its contact tracing team would closely monitor the event.

Julie Willems Van Dijk, deputy secretary of the state Department of Health Services, predicted the two large gatherings would lead to more COVID-19 cases.

“We are concerned,” she said. “We know people wanted to be jubilant and celebrate, but we know half the state is fully vaccinated and half the state is not and I assume the same is true for people in the Deer District and the arena. And I didn’t see half the crowd masked.”

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Springer’s 7 RBIs help Jays pile on Yankees late

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Springer's 7 RBIs help Jays pile on Yankees late

George Springer had a career-high seven RBIs, including his ninth grand slam, and the Toronto Blue Jays celebrated Canada Day by beating the Yankees 12-5 on Tuesday and closing within one game of American League East-leading New York.

The seven RBIs are tied for the second most by any Blue Jays player in a home game, behind Edwin Encarnación (nine RBIs in 2015), according to ESPN Research.

Andrés Giménez had a go-ahead, three-run homer for the Blue Jays, who overcame a 2-0 deficit against Max Fried. After the Yankees tied the score 4-4 in the seventh, Toronto broke open the game in the bottom half against a reeling Yankees bullpen.

Springer went 3-for-4, starting the comeback with a solo homer in the fourth against Fried and boosting the lead to 9-5 with the slam off Luke Weaver after Ernie Clement‘s go-ahead single off shortstop Anthony Volpe‘s glove. Springer has 13 homers this season.

Toronto won the first two games of the four-game series and closed within one game of the Yankees for the first time since before play on April 20.

New York went 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, dropping to 3-for-24 in the series, while the Blue Jays were 5-for-7. After going 13-14 in June, the Yankees fell to 10-14 against AL East rivals.

The Associate Press contributed to this report.

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Astros’ Alvarez to see hand specialist after setback

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Astros' Alvarez to see hand specialist after setback

DENVER — Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez has experienced a setback in his recovery from a broken right hand and will see a specialist.

Astros general manager Dana Brown said Alvarez felt pain when he arrived Tuesday at the team’s spring training complex in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he had a workout a day earlier. Alvarez also took batting practice Saturday at Daikin Park.

He will be shut down until he’s evaluated by the specialist.

“It’s a tough time going through this with Yordan, but I know that he’s still feeling pain and the soreness in his hand,” Brown said before Tuesday night’s series opener at Colorado, which the Astros won 6-5. “We’re not going to try to push it or force him through anything. We’re just going to allow him to heal and get a little bit more answers as to what steps we take next.”

Alvarez has been sidelined for nearly two months. The injury was initially diagnosed as a muscle strain, but when Alvarez felt pain again while hitting in late May, imaging revealed a small fracture.

The 28-year-old outfielder, who has hit 31 homers or more in each of the past four seasons, had been eyeing a return as soon as this weekend at the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now it’s uncertain when he’ll play.

“We felt like he was close because he had felt so good of late,” Brown said, “but this is certainly news that we didn’t want.”

Also Tuesday, the Astros officially placed shortstop Jeremy Peña on the 10-day injured list with a fractured rib and recalled infielder Shay Whitcomb from Triple-A Sugar Land.

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Ohtani’s 30th HR before break ties Dodgers mark

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Ohtani's 30th HR before break ties Dodgers mark

Shohei Ohtani reached 30 homers for the fifth straight season, hitting a fourth-inning drive after fouling a pitch off the plate umpire, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox 6-1 on Tuesday night.

Ohtani fouled the ball off Alan Porter’s right knee in the fourth. Ohtani checked on the umpire and stood by watching until Parker got up under his own power. The three-time MVP then hit a 408-foot shot to center, snapping an 0-for-6 skid and extending the lead to 6-1. He tied Cody Bellinger in 2019 for most home runs before the All-Star break in Dodgers history; Bellinger won National League MVP that year.

Ohtani joined Seattle‘s Cal Raleigh (33) and Aaron Judge of the Yankees (30) as players with at least 30 homers by the All-Star break; it marks the fifth season that three players have reached the 30-homer threshold before the break (2019, 1998, 1994, 1969).

As for Ohtani, this is his third season hitting at least 30 home runs before the break, tying Ken Griffey Jr. for third most in MLB history (Judge and Mark McGwire each did so for four seasons).

During the seventh-inning stretch, Ohtani walked over and checked on Porter again before leading off.

Los Angeles scored its most runs this season in support of Yoshinobu Yamamoto (8-6), staking the Japanese right-hander to a 4-0 lead in the first inning.

The Dodgers won for the 13th time in 16 games and opened a season-high, eight-game NL West lead. They are 16-5 (.762 win percentage) since June 8, the best record in MLB during that span.

Every run Tuesday night was scored with two outs.

Yamamoto allowed one run and three hits in seven innings, struck out eight and walked one.

White Sox rookie Shane Smith (3-6) got two quick outs in the first before walking Will Smith and Max Muncy back-to-back. Teoscar Hernández followed with an RBI single, Andy Pages hit a run-scoring double and Michael Conforto had a two-run single.

Chicago’s lone run came on Lenyn Sosa‘s RBI single in the third.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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