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As the home team Saturday in the neutral-site game against Florida, No. 1 Georgia can leave tickets at the gate for recruits.

For Georgia coach Kirby Smart, that’s not nearly enough to make up for his defending national championship team’s inability to host recruits as he would in a true home game.

The annual rivalry game in Jacksonville, Florida, is under contract only through 2023. Smart’s recruiting concerns are a big factor in discussions about the future of the series.

Officials from Georgia and Florida released a joint statement Monday in which they said a number of factors would be considered as the schools consider keeping the game at the neutral location or moving to home sites.

The rivalry game “is an important tradition,” the statement read.

“Typically both schools begin conversations regarding future games in the series as the last contracted game nears. We anticipate following that timeline. When those discussions take place, we will consider a multitude of factors including tradition, finances, future SEC scheduling models with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, and what is best for both schools’ football programs overall.”

Aside from home-and-home games in 1994 and 1995, the matchup called “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” has been played in Jacksonville since 1933. Georgia (7-0, 4-0 Southeastern Conference) will look to protect its top ranking Saturday against Florida (4-3, 1-3).

NCAA rules forbid schools from hosting recruits at neutral sites. Clearly, Smart does not believe leaving tickets at the gate makes up for the inability to have contact with recruits.

“We’re allowed to use tickets, but we can’t host them,” Smart said Monday. “We can’t do anything. So I never understood — I never understand — what would we do with them? We can’t legally see them. We can’t talk to them, we can’t host them. Visit with them.

“We can say, ‘There’s a ticket at the gate. Enjoy the game.’ So that’s really all we can do. We’ll do that. We’ll have some kids go to the game.”

Smart also addressed the future of the rivalry last week when he said money and the tradition of the neutral-site game also must be considered.

“I enjoy the pageantry of going down there and playing,” Smart said. “I enjoyed playing there as a player. I enjoy tradition. I enjoy all those things.

“When it comes down to it, there’s a very, very basic element of everything comes back to, number one money and number two, recruiting and getting good players. I firmly believe that we’ll be able to sign better players by having it as a home-and-home because we’ll have more opportunities to get them to campus.”

Smart acknowledged the fact that playing the game in Jacksonville brings in more money for the university.

“You have to weigh both those and make really good decisions,” he said.

Georgia and Florida will consider a two-year option to keep the game in Jacksonville through 2025.

The payout for each team from Jacksonville is approximately $2.9 million for each school in 2022 and 2023, which includes a guaranteed $1.25 million and a split of gate revenue. Georgia also receives $350,000 each year for its charter flight, buses and lodging while Florida receives $60,000, with no flights required.

The guaranteed money for each school would be increased to $1.5 million in 2024 and 2025. With gate revenue included each school’s payout under the option would increase to more than $3 million.

Each school generates about $3 million for selling out a game on its campus, minus about $500,000 in expenses.

Florida first-year coach Billy Napier says he’d like to personally experience the game in Jacksonville before offering an opinion about the future of the series.

“So this environment, this experience for a player, can have a significant impact on a player’s decision,” Napier said. “So I mean, I completely understand what Kirby is saying. Every other year he’s missing out on what he knows will be a fantastic venue and game-day experience.”

Napier said there are “some advantages and disadvantages here” for each team in Jacksonville.

Georgia senior safety Christopher Smith said his favorite part of the annual game is “when you step into the stadium you see the crowd split 50-50.”

Even so, Smith said, “I personally would like the game to be home-and-home” with occasional games played in Jacksonville.

Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson said the neutral site adds to the rivalry.

“It’s pretty cool being in Jacksonville seeing the stadium split half and half,” Richardson said. “But I feel like if it was to be put at the universities, at the schools, I feel like you might give one team an advantage over the other. That’s just food for thought.”

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Rays’ 8-run comeback largest in MLB this season

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Rays' 8-run comeback largest in MLB this season

TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays overcame an eight-run deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles 12-8 on Wednesday night in the largest comeback in the majors this season.

Tampa Bay matched the biggest comeback in franchise history. The Rays also rallied from eight down in a 10-8 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 18, 2012, and in a 10-9 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on July 25, 2009.

It tied the Orioles’ largest blown lead over the past 50 seasons. Baltimore last gave away an eight-run lead on April 28, 2017, against the New York Yankees. The Orioles led that game 9-1 entering the bottom of the sixth inning before losing 14-11 in 10 innings.

Baltimore had an eight-run second inning on Wednesday. Colton Cowser smacked a three-run home run, Cedric Mullins added a solo shot, Gunnar Henderson had an RBI single and Ramón Laureano hit a three-run homer.

Tampa Bay’s Christopher Morel hit an RBI double in the third, and Jake Mangum‘s two-run single cut it to 8-3. Curtis Mead hit a two-out triple in the fourth and scored on a Junior Caminero single. Brandon Lowe‘s two-run homer in the fifth made it 8-8. And Jonathan Aranda had a two-run single in the Rays’ four-run seventh.

Lowe has at least a hit and a run in seven consecutive games, the longest active streak of its kind in the majors. He is batting .464 (13-of-28) with two home runs, five RBIs and eight runs during that span.

Caminero had four hits and two RBIs for the Rays.

Entering Wednesday, teams were 0-134 when trailing by eight or more runs at any point this season.

“It’s a tough game,” Orioles manager Tony Mansolino said. “It really hurts. But tomorrow, we’ll have to bounce back and try to figure out how to win a game.”

Three teams came back from eight runs behind last season in the majors. Pittsburgh was the most recent team to rally from more than that, erasing a nine-run deficit in a 13-12 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Nov. 23, 2023.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Yanks finally score, otherwise sputter in latest loss

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Yanks finally score, otherwise sputter in latest loss

NEW YORK — The good news for the Yankees on Wednesday was they scored a run after 30 consecutive scoreless innings. The bad news was they again didn’t score enough to win.

The Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 to extend their season-high losing streak to six games. The Angels will look to complete a four-game sweep Thursday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees, whose lead in the AL East has shrunk to 1½ games, will look to emerge from an offensive funk that has produced seven runs in seven games.

“That’s baseball,” Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge said. “We know what we signed up for. You’re going to play 162. You’re going to hit a little rut like this, but you can’t give up. You can’t mope about it. You just got to show up the next day and you got to be ready to play.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr. ended the Yankees’ scoreless innings streak in the second inning with a moonshot solo home run down the right-field line, giving New York its first run since the ninth inning Saturday against the Boston Red Sox. Two innings later, Cody Bellinger launched another solo shot to give the Yankees their first lead since last Thursday when they defeated the Kansas City Royals 1-0.

But the Yankees mustered only one other hit — a ground ball from Bellinger in the sixth inning that was ruled a single after it bounced off Trent Grisham as he ran to second base for the inning’s second out. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he believed his team’s at-bats Wednesday were better than they were Tuesday — when he said he noticed his players pressing — and pointed to four walks as progress.

But the Yankees went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position and are 5-for-48 (.104) with 12 strikeouts, four walks and three RBIs in such situations over their past seven games.

“We just got to break through now like we’re capable of offensively,” Boone said.

Judge, the two-time AL MVP who is a heavy favorite to win a third this season, has gone 1-for-19 with 11 strikeouts, two intentional walks and a home run over the past five games. He went 0-for-4 on Wednesday with two strikeouts, a 94.7 mph groundout and 107.9 mph flyout.

“Guys are pitching, they’re doing their job,” Judge said. “Sometimes we’re faltering on doing our job. But it’s tough to say. I think it just comes down to us not executing, us not doing our job. Maybe a little passive in certain situations. But all we can do is show up tomorrow ready to go.”

The Angels broke through to retake the lead in the eighth inning Wednesday without a hit when, after three walks, shortstop Anthony Volpe mishandled a ground ball on what should’ve been a routine, inning-ending double play. Volpe, a Gold Glove winner in 2023, was charged with his ninth error of the season, the second most among shortstops across the majors.

“Right off the bat, I got to be aggressive, go get the ball, make the play,” Volpe said. “As far as that, that’s all it is. It’s the first read off the bat.”

The lack of execution trickled to the offensive side in the bottom of the inning. The Yankees appeared ready to mount a rally when Jasson Dominguez walked and Oswald Peraza was hit by a pitch to begin the inning. But they were left stranded as Grisham, who was given the green light to swing away with one strike after failing to drop down a bunt, popped out, before Judge flied out and Bellinger popped out to extinguish the threat.

“When we’re not scoring a lot of runs, we got to execute on the highest level on the little things,” Boone said. “And we haven’t done that this week a handful of times when we had some opportunities.”

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Singer defied Dodgers, belted anthem in Spanish

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Singer defied Dodgers, belted anthem in Spanish

Latin singer Nezza said that she is “super proud” of performing the national anthem in Spanish at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night and that she has “no regrets.”

Her surprising 90-second rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ game against the Giants — and a behind-the-scenes video she shared on social media of team representatives discouraging it beforehand — quickly went viral. It has become a flashpoint for Dodgers fans frustrated by the team’s lack of vocal support for immigrant communities impacted by the deportation raids across the U.S., including numerous neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles.

“This is my moment to show everyone that I am with them, that we have a voice and with everything that’s happening it’s not OK,” Nezza, 30, told The Associated Press. “I’m super proud that I did it. No regrets.”

Nezza said she hadn’t yet decided whether to sing in English or Spanish until she walked out onto the field and saw the stands filled with Latino families in Dodger Blue. Before that, as shown in the singer’s TikTok video, a Dodgers employee had told Nezza, “We are going to do the song in English today, so I’m not sure if that wasn’t transferred or if that wasn’t relayed.”

The Spanish-language version Nezza sang, “El Pendón Estrellado,” is the official translation of the national anthem and was commissioned in 1945 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Peruvian American composer Clotilde Arias.

Nezza says her manager immediately received a call from an unidentified Dodgers employee saying their clients were not welcome at the stadium again, but the team denied that in a statement to the AP.

“There were no consequences or hard feelings from the Dodgers regarding her performance,” the Dodgers said in the statement. “She was not asked to leave. We would be happy to have her back.”

Despite the Dodgers’ statement, Nezza said she does not think she will return to the stadium but said she hopes her performance will inspire others to use their voice and speak out.

“It’s just shown me, like, how much power there is in the Latin community,” Nezza said. “We’ve got to be the voice right now.”

The Dodgers have not gone on the record regarding the arrests and raids made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the areas just a short drive from Dodger Stadium, but player Enrique Hernández posted about it on Instagram over the weekend.

“I am saddened and infuriated by what’s happening in our country and our city,” Hernández posted in English and Spanish. “I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart. ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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