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WHEN THE LOS ANGELES Dodgers arrived at spring training, the big-spending, star-studded defending champions were the talk of the sport. But while the rest of baseball was discussing L.A.’s chances of a repeat, there was a more pressing topic at Camelback Ranch: pickleball.

Spurred on by manager Dave Roberts for weeks, a fierce one-on-one battle between assistant general manager Jeff Kingston and Triple-A manager Scott Hennessey was finally scheduled.

“It’s the most-hotly-talked-about topic in my seven years with the Dodgers,” pitching coach Mark Prior said.

Though perhaps without as much hype as the Kingston-Hennessey showdown, pickleball games have become the norm throughout baseball. The fast-growing sport is replacing basketball and even golf as the preferred off-day activity among front office members, coaches, umpires — and some players.

As pickleball has gained popularity in recent years, courts have sprung up throughout the country, giving those working in baseball convenient places to exercise and exert their competitive spirit no matter what city they are in. But some of the most heated matches take place before teams hit the road for the rigors of the regular season — with some even building courts at their spring training facilities throughout Arizona and Florida.

The Kingston vs. Hennessey clash, however, attracted so much attention that it was held off-site to accommodate all the onlookers. A large group of Dodgers personnel made the four-mile trek from the team’s spring training complex to Chicken N Pickle, a popular local eatery with courts. Some in attendance estimated 80 to 100 members of the organization were present that March day, including Roberts, Blake Snell, Mookie Betts, Miguel Rojas and other players.

“Hennessey is a self-proclaimed great pickleball player,” Roberts told ESPN. “When somebody is a self-advocate of themselves, I like to see it play out in competition. Word on the street was Jeff Kingston was a great pickleball player also.

“We had odds and a betting line.”

Some Dodgers players were looking for an edge as they walked into the event, asking: “Can we watch them warmup before we bet?”

Hennessey was so confident that he spotted Kingston five points. Matches are played up to 11, so the idea was to level the playing field for the Dodgers executive against the former minor league outfielder turned manager.

Roberts bought into Hennessey’s bravado, putting his money down on the favored Triple-A manager while president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman took the other side, betting on his underdog assistant GM.

“Stone-cold s— talker to the point where everyone assumed he was good if he’s this confident,” Kingston said of Hennessy in a phone interview. “He told Mookie to his face, ‘I’ll beat you tomorrow for $10k.'”

Then the unthinkable happened: Kingston won.

“The whole place is going crazy,” Kingston recalled with a laugh. “Henny was speechless.”

Roberts couldn’t believe he lost after spending weeks hyping the match.

“He took a lot of crap,” the Dodgers manager said. “Henny came in the next day and ate crow.”


PICKLEBALL PROVIDED AN opportunity to break up the monotony of the spring for the Dodgers, but for the Texas Rangers it became an essential component of their 2023 march to the organization’s first world championship.

The Rangers’ support staff is obsessed with the sport, even playing outdoors in 40-degree temperatures in Chicago early this season. The group, led by team physical therapist Regan Wong, has been at it for several years.

“Day 1 or 2 of a series, we’ll go find a court to play on,” Wong said. “Either on our own or we’ll mix with the locals. It’s a great way to stay active. There’s camaraderie. Teamwork. S— talking. It gets our juices going.”

Wong goes on apps to find courts in cities around the league, hoping they’re not taken during the limited window they have before heading to the ballpark. But things got a bit more superstitious in 2023 as Texas was gearing up for a postseason run.

“When we were in a really bad funk, one of our starting pitchers asked us, ‘Did you guys play today?'” Wong recalled. “And we actually didn’t. He said he thought that when we played pickle on the road, our winning percentage was really good.

“So we quickly went to the calendar and looked at our road series and sure enough, it was like a 90 percent [series] win percentage.”

While the Rangers were battling for the AL West crown, the team’s support staff was making sure it played pickleball in every road city down the stretch.

“But in this one city we didn’t,” Wong said. “In Seattle, we tried to go, but the locals ran it over, so we didn’t know how to get on the court.”

Texas lost three of four games to the Mariners and subsequently lost the division, settling for a wild-card berth. After that, pickleball became a nonnegotiable part of the schedule in October.

“We fly 1,100 miles across to Tampa,” Wong said. “Go to a workout. No plans to play because we’re trying to get ready for the postseason. That same starting pitcher asks us, ‘Did you play in L.A.?’ Yes, we did. ‘Did you play in Seattle?’ We did not. ‘Your fault. Where are you playing today?'”

“So we looked at each other and knew we had to play.”

Texas swept Tampa Bay then flew to Baltimore, where Wong and the rest of the staff found a place. The Rangers won the series in a three-game sweep and headed to Houston for the American League Championship Series.

“I think it was the Bumpy Pickle in Houston,” Wong said. “In fact, the orthopedic doctor of the Astros was on another court with his son.”

After a seven-game series win, the Rangers were taking their pickleball superstition all the way to the World Series. Luckily, just outside their hotel rooms at Arizona’s lavish Biltmore hotel there were pickleball courts awaiting them at the resort. Rumor has it that the noise from the balls being hit by other enthusiasts — right outside his window — even sent Rangers manager Bruce Bochy to the ballpark early one day.

“We had to check the box in each of the road cities,” Wong said. “I’m not saying that was the reason we came out on top, but we were a little superstitious.”


BECAUSE OF THE spirited nature of the sport, trash talk is a common theme among those who have adapted to pickleball culture. And in the hypercompetitive environment of professional sports, plenty of MLB teams have taken it to a new art.

There is perhaps no better example of that than the Milwaukee Brewers, who have built facilities, created an unofficial org chart title and even brought in outside help to up their games.

“We have two courts outside,” general manager Matt Arnold said. “[Infield coach] Matt Erickson is our VP of pickleball operations. We even had a pickleball professional come to camp and give some lessons. We had a couple players interested.”

The Brewers are one of several teams that keep regular power rankings to track their pickleball performances. Sources allowed ESPN to view Milwaukee’s latest rankings, which list VP of pickleball operations Erickson at No. 1. Arnold is right behind him on the chart, which included a scouting report breaking down the 46-year-old GM’s game: “High-level of paddle skill to both sides, savvy, psychological advantage over opponents, high motor, high intent, Larry Bird-type competitor.”

The whole ranking might be a bit biased though — Arnold is ahead of third-base coach Jason Layne, who sources familiar with their abilities claim is clearly better than his boss.

“It’s a little like the stock ticker,” Arnold said of his controversial place. “Up and down. I’m Bronny James. I’m really good in the G League but not so much in the show.”

At least his ranking is higher than special assistant Matt Klentak’s, whose scouting report simply says “tries hard” next to his name.

The Boston Red Sox, on the other hand, prefer tournament-style pickleball competitions to power rankings during their road trips. When pitching coach Andrew Bailey is finished poring over hitting reports for an upcoming series, he pulls out his phone to find a pickleball court then opens his laptop to create March Madness-style tournaments.

“I made it all on my computer,” he said. “The Baltimore City final. The Toronto World Cup. Day 2 of a series is a little more relaxed. Whoever won last is the No.1 seed for the next game.”

Manager Alex Cora was an occasional participant in Boston’s games before recently announcing his retirement from competition.

“I got hurt,” he said. “I’m done.”

The San Diego Padres take a combined approach to satisfy their pickleball needs, using power rankings and team tournaments to determine who is the best. The competition was heated between front office members and coaching staff vying to be crowned champion — before they had to take a hiatus because it got a little too heated.

“A spirited final and well-attended,” manager Mike Schildt said. “A fair amount of trash-talking. It’s a bunch of alphas going after it.

“I’m not going to lie to you. It got so competitive, we had to take a break.”

After being part of those battles during his time with the Padres, Cubs bench coach Ryan Flaherty has brought that mentality to Chicago over the past two years.

“You have golf and all these other things, but pickleball on the road, an hour a day, it’s intense,” Flaherty said. “On the road we’ll find a place. Sometimes we pay, sometimes they comp it.”

When the A’s moved from Oakland to Sacramento this season, their to-do list was packed with things to get ready for temporary life in a new city. One unexpected item: finding a local pickleball court. General manager David Forst is still scouting for new places to play to keep his weekly game going, even though the GM knows he is at a disadvantage lining up against two former major leaguers when they do take the court.

“[Assistant GM] Dan Feinstein and I have gotten into a game with [first-base coach] Bobby Crosby and [manager] Mark Kotsay,” Forst said. “They have 25 years of major league service on their side of the nets. And we have nothing.”

The norm across the sport is competition between members of the same organization, but some of MLB’s top front office decision-makers do play against each other and couldn’t wait to get their (mostly) playful shots in at fellow pickleball playing execs from other clubs. When asked who was the better player between Friedman or Arnold, White Sox general manager Chris Getz quipped, “I’m going with Friedman because he’s just a little closer to the ground.”

Even though Friedman is currently on the pickleball injured list, he chimed in with his own bold proclamation that he could still beat Arnold, his former Tampa Bay Rays colleague, while recovering from a torn meniscus.

“It takes four to five days to put Humpty Dumpty back together again,” Friedman said. “I can still take Arnold, though.”


JUST MOMENTS AFTER the New York Mets were eliminated from the postseason in October, designated hitter J.D. Martinez was asked what his immediate plans were.

“Pickleball,” he said.

Martinez hasn’t stopped playing, signing up with equipment company JOOLA as he potentially transitions to a life of pickleball instead of baseball.

“I see pickleball as a sport I’ll be involved in for the long run,” he said as part of a statement when he joined the company.

But as the sport has taken front offices and coaching staffs by storm, most players have been a little slower to get on board the pickleball train. Martinez and the Dodgers’ Betts are two players who pick up a paddle on a regular basis. Or at least Betts used to.

“I’m done,” he told ESPN. “I don’t play anymore. I got hooked on golf again. … I’m playing shortstop now. I don’t have time to be doing all that running and stuff.”

In fact, a few discussions with his boss might have convinced him to switch hobbies.

“We had many a conversation about it last spring,” Friedman said. “I don’t think it’s a great thing for the Dodgers’ ultimate success for a lot of guys to be playing pickleball.”

The injury factor is a concern for some players during the season as sprains and strains — along with the occasional fracture — are commonplace. Still, some teams, including the Philadelphia Phillies and the Cubs, have put up nets at spring training to let their players have fun while using the movements to improve baseball skills. Philadelphia broke out a modified version to help the team’s defensive performance during the spring of 2024, and Nick Castellanos was among those who became a fan of pickleball in the process.

The reaction among players who have tried it is pretty mixed.

“It’s one of the more fun sports to play,” Detroit Tigers outfielder Riley Greene said. “Tork [Spencer Torkelson] and I have played. Tork is pretty good. I bet someone like Bobby Witt would be great.”

A quick survey inside the Cincinnati Reds clubhouse resulted in varying degrees of interest.

“It’s an older crowd, so not much risk of getting hurt,” reliever Scott Barlow said. “I like it. It’s only growing.”

Another reliever, Brent Suter, added: “Maybe after my career. I bet Elly [De La Cruz] would be good.”

Infielder Jeimer Candelario was asked if he’s picked up a pickleball paddle.

“What’s pickleball?” he responded.

So while you might not see your favorite MLB player taking the courts at a local park during their team’s next road trip, you could see the men calling balls and strikes — if you know where to look. Umpires have also embraced pickleball while on the road as much as anyone in the sport.

“Getting on a treadmill every day sucks,” umpire Vic Carapazza said. “Playing pickle for two hours feels like 30 minutes. And you’re having fun. Yeah, I’ve been to Central Park. I don’t announce I’m an umpire, of course.”

Carapazza sometimes plays with fellow umpire Chad Fairbanks, who loves it even more now that he got his son into it.

“At first he’s like, ‘Dad, I’m not playing pickleball, this is dumb,'” Fairbanks said. “He sees a bunch of middle-aged people playing.

“Now he’s addicted.”

Fairbanks’ assessment of his son’s interest sums up much of the feeling throughout MLB. Not everyone plays pickleball — but those who do are obsessed with it.

“We’ll play anytime in any city,” Wong said. “It’s so much fun.”

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

NEW YORK — A blunder that typifies the current state of the New York Yankees, who find themselves in the midst of their second six-game losing streak in three weeks, happened in front of 41,401 fans at Citi Field on Saturday, and almost nobody noticed.

The Yankees were jogging off the field after securing the third out of the fourth inning of their 12-6 loss to the Mets when shortstop Anthony Volpe, as is standard for teams across baseball at the end of innings, threw the ball to right fielder Aaron Judge as he crossed into the infield from right field.

Only Judge wasn’t looking, and the ball nailed him in the head, knocking his sunglasses off and leaving a small cut near his right eye. The wound required a bandage to stop the bleeding, but Judge stayed in the game.

“Confusion,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I didn’t know what happened initially. [It just] felt like something happened. Of course I was a little concerned.”

Avoiding an injury to the best player in baseball was on the Yankees’ very short list of positives in another sloppy, draining defeat to their crosstown rivals. With the loss, the Yankees, who held a three-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East standings entering June 30, find themselves tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for second place three games behind the Blue Jays heading into Sunday’s Subway Series finale.

The nosedive has been fueled by messy defense and a depleted pitching staff that has encountered a wall.

“It’s been a terrible week,” said Boone, who before the game announced starter Clarke Schmidt will likely undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.

For the second straight day, the Mets capitalized on mistakes and cracked timely home runs. After slugging three homers in Friday’s series opener, the Mets hit three more Saturday — a grand slam in the first inning from Brandon Nimmo to take a 4-0 lead and two home runs from Pete Alonso to widen the gap.

Nimmo’s blast — his second grand slam in four days — came after Yankees left fielder Jasson Dominguez misplayed a ball hit by the Mets’ leadoff hitter in the first inning. On Friday, he misread Nimmo’s line drive and watched it sail over his head for a double. On Saturday, he was slow to react to Starling Marte’s flyball in the left-center field gap and braked without catching or stopping it, allowing Marte to advance to second for a double. Yankees starter Carlos Rodon then walked two batters to load the bases for Nimmo, who yanked a mistake, a 1-2 slider over the wall.

“That slider probably needs to be down,” said Rodon, who allowed seven runs (six earned) over five innings. “A lot of misses today and they punished them.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s throwing woes at third base — a position the Yankees have asked him to play to accommodate DJ LeMahieu at second base — continued in the second inning when he fielded Tyrone Taylor’s groundball and sailed a toss over first baseman Cody Bellinger’s head. Taylor was given second base and scored moments later on Marte’s RBI single.

The Yankees were charged with their second error in the Mets’ four-run seventh inning when center fielder Trent Grisham charged Francisco Lindor’s single up the middle and had it bounce off the heel of his glove.

The mistake allowed a run to score from second base without a throw, extending the Mets lead back to three runs after the Yankees had chipped their deficit, and allowed a heads-up Lindor to advance to second base. Lindor later scored on Alonso’s second home run, a three-run blast off left-hander Jayvien Sandridge in the pitcher’s major league debut.

“Just got to play better,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down to. It’s fundamentals. Making a routine play, routine. It’s just the little things. That’s what it kind of comes down to. But every good team goes through a couple bumps in the road.”

This six-game losing skid has looked very different from the Yankees’ first. That rough patch, consisting of losses to the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, was propelled by offensive troubles. The Yankees scored six runs in the six games and gave up just 16. This time, run prevention is the issue; the Yankees have scored 34 runs and surrendered 54 in four games against the Blue Jays in Toronto and two in Queens.

“The offense is starting to swing the bat, put some runs on the board,” Boone said. “The pitching, which has kind of carried us a lot this season, has really, really struggled this week. We haven’t caught the ball as well as I think we should.

“So, look, when you live it and you’re going through it, it sucks, it hurts. But you got to be able to handle it. You got to be able to deal with it. You got to be able to weather it and come out of this and grow.”

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

Bobby Jenks, a two-time All-Star pitcher for the Chicago White Sox who was on the roster when the franchise won the 2005 World Series, died Friday in Sintra, Portugal, the team announced.

Jenks, 44, who had been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer, this year, spent six seasons with the White Sox from 2005 to 2010 and also played for the Boston Red Sox in 2011. The reliever finished his major league career with a 16-20 record, 3.53 ERA and 173 saves.

“We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family today,” White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement. “None of us will ever forget that ninth inning of Game 4 in Houston, all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organization during his time in Chicago. He and his family knew cancer would be his toughest battle, and he will be missed as a husband, father, friend and teammate. He will forever hold a special place in all our hearts.”

After Jenks moved to Portugal last year, he was diagnosed with a deep vein thrombosis in his right calf. That eventually spread into blood clots in his lungs, prompting further testing. He was later diagnosed with adenocarcinoma and began undergoing radiation.

In February, as Jenks was being treated for the illness, the White Sox posted “We stand with you, Bobby” on Instagram, adding in the post that the club was “thinking of Bobby as he is being treated.”

In 2005, as the White Sox ended an 88-year drought en route to the World Series title, Jenks appeared in six postseason games. Chicago went 11-1 in the playoffs, and he earned saves in series-clinching wins in Game 3 of the ALDS at Boston, and Game 4 of the World Series against the Houston Astros.

In 2006, Jenks saved 41 games, and the following year, he posted 40 saves. He also retired 41 consecutive batters in 2007, matching a record for a reliever.

“You play for the love of the game, the joy of it,” Jenks said in his last interview with SoxTV last year. “It’s what I love to do. I [was] playing to be a world champion, and that’s what I wanted to do from the time I picked up a baseball.”

A native of Mission Hills, California, Jenks appeared in 19 games for the Red Sox and was originally drafted by the then-Anaheim Angels in the fifth round of the 2000 draft.

Jenks is survived by his wife, Eleni Tzitzivacos, their two children, Zeno and Kate, and his four children from a prior marriage, Cuma, Nolan, Rylan and Jackson.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees, digging for options to bolster their infield, have signed third baseman Jeimer Candelario to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the affiliate announced Saturday.

Candelario, 31, was released by the Cincinnati Reds on June 23, halfway through a three-year, $45 million contract he signed before the start of last season. The decision was made after Candelario posted a .707 OPS in 2024 and batted .113 with a .410 OPS in 22 games for the Reds before going on the injured list in April with a back injury.

The performance was poor enough for Cincinnati to cut him in a move that Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall described as a sunk cost.

For the Yankees, signing Candelario is a low-cost flier on a player who recorded an .807 OPS just two seasons ago as they seek to find a third baseman to move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base, his natural position.

Candelario is the second veteran infielder the Yankees have signed to a minor league contract in the past three days; they agreed to terms with Nicky Lopez on Thursday.

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