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The Big Ten is expected to hire former MLB and television executive Tony Petitti as the conference’s next commissioner, sources told ESPN. An announcement is expected in the upcoming days.

Petitti emerged from a group of finalists who interviewed in the past 48 hours and was selected Tuesday after a vote of the league’s presidents and chancellors, sources said. Petitti brings a diverse background in both sports and media. He is the former COO of Major League Baseball, where he succeeded current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in that role in 2015.

His media experience comes from working for ABC Sports, CBS and the MLB Network. His work with college sports includes helping create the Bowl Championship Series back when he was with ABC and working with the NCAA tournament while at CBS. He also worked extensively with the NFL while at CBS.

Petitti also oversaw the day-to-day operations of CSTV, the network that would eventually become CBS Sports Network, for a four-month stint in 2008. He left soon after to become the head of the MLB Network, charting his path to become one of MLB’s top executives.

Petitti’s hiring continues the trend of nontraditional hires from outside the college sports space in the collegiate commissioner set, including in the Pac-12 (George Kliavkoff), Big Ten (Kevin Warren) and Big 12 (Brett Yormark). Only the ACC’s hire of Jim Phillips in December 2020 from his job as the athletic director at Northwestern would be considered a conventional recent hire of a high-profile commissioner.

Petitti is currently the co-CEO of the 33rd Team, a football think tank and nascent media organization founded by former NFL executive and current ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum. He has worked for the 33rd Team for the past year.

Petitti takes over the Big Ten at a time when the league is seeking stability and a consensus builder. Warren’s tenure was uneven, as he had difficulty with the set up of college athletics as a clunky and non-linear business where commissioners mostly lack unilateral power of professional commissioners.

Warren left suddenly in January with multiple years left on his contract to become the president of the Chicago Bears. He is expected to finish his tenure this month and start with the Bears on April 17.

Petitti rises immediately into one of the most powerful roles in college sports during a tenuous time in college athletics, as the Big Ten and SEC have television deals that are expected to outpace the other prominent leagues by $30 million annually once those deals come into place in the upcoming seasons.

Petitti graduated from Haverford in 1983 and Harvard Law School in 1986. He told the Haverford College website in 2005: “I loved the Haverford experience, and being at a small school, but it was fascinating to me to travel to these college games across the country and see 80,000 people in the stands week after week.”

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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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