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As a service to fans who have a general interest in the National Hockey League but have no idea what’s happened since the Vegas Golden Knights raised the Stanley Cup by defeating the Florida Panthers in June 2023, we’re happy to provide this FAQ as a guide to the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs.

And for you die-hard puckheads: Here is your official refresher before the games begin Saturday. Enjoy!

How intense was the end of the regular season in the Eastern Conference?

It was “four teams, one open playoff spot” intense, filled with desperation and unfortunate amounts of math.

In the end, the Washington Capitals claimed the final wild-card spot in the East in their season finale by defeating the Philadelphia Flyers, who pulled their goalie in a tie game in the third period because only a regulation win would have kept them alive.

The Caps’ win eliminated the Flyers, the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins, marking the first time Sidney Crosby has missed the playoffs in consecutive seasons in his legendary career.

For the effort, the Capitals earn a first-round playoff date with the New York Rangers, owners of the NHL’s best record this season.


On the 30th anniversary of their 1994 Stanley Cup win, is this finally the year for the Rangers?

After getting eliminated in the first round last postseason in Game 7 against the New Jersey Devils, changes had to be made for the Rangers. They changed their coach, hiring the well-traveled Peter Laviolette to replace Gerard Gallant, who has proved to be an upgrade.

Star forward Artemi Panarin changed his hair, shaving his angelic locks as a symbolic vibe change that resulted in him setting career highs in goals (49) and points (120). What didn’t change: terrific special teams and dominant goaltending, the bedrock for the Rangers’ 114-point season.

There have been little memorable moments along the way that point to this year being a special one for the Rangers, from their Stadium Series rally against the Islanders to the legend of Matt Rempe.

Rempe, for the uninitiated, is the 6-foot-7 rookie whose chaotic fights made him an instant cult hero for Rangers fans, the likes we haven’t seen since the heyday of Sean Avery. The hard-hitting Rempe, who was suspended four games for elbowing in March, has 71 penalty minutes and 95 minutes played. Only Laviolette knows how much we’ll see of Rempe in the playoffs. If we do, he could be a conversation changer.

So yes, this could be the year for the Rangers … if they overcome the Presidents’ Trophy curse.


What’s the Presidents’ Trophy curse?

There have been 37 previous Presidents’ Trophy winners for having the league’s best record. Only 11 of them advanced to the Stanley Cup Final, and only eight of those teams hoisted the Cup.

Only three teams in the salary cap era (since 2005-06) have won the Presidents’ Trophy and advanced to the Stanley Cup Final.

It’s only gotten tougher in recent years. Since the NHL changed to a wild-card format in 2013-14, there hasn’t been a single Presidents’ Trophy winner that has advanced to the Stanley Cup Final.

The Boston Bruins won the Trophy last season — and set records for regular-season success — but were shocked in the first round by the Panthers.

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1:25

The curse of the NHL’s Presidents’ Trophy

Check out the numbers behind recent Presidents’ Trophy winners and how they’ve fared en route to the Stanley Cup.


Are the Bruins still a Stanley Cup contender?

That stunning loss to the Panthers was devastating on and off the ice. The Bruins said goodbye to centers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, who both retired, as well as a handful of other impact players in the offseason.

But Boston refused to let its window to contend slam shut. Using a foundation of coach Jim Montgomery’s defensive system, strong goaltending and star winger David Pastrnak‘s 47-goal, 110-point season, the B’s amassed 109 points to finish second in the Atlantic and earn a first-round series against their old friends, the Toronto Maple Leafs.


Uh-oh, the Leafs drew the Bruins again? Should Toronto stop planning the parade?

The Leafs have had their typical roller-coaster season. The highs were extremely high. Star center Auston Matthews just missed out on the first 70-goal season in the NHL since 1992-93, topping out at 69 goals in 81 games, the most in a single season in Leafs history. William Nylander set a career high with 97 points. But inconsistency, especially in their goaltending, made for some inglorious lows.

And now they draw the Bruins again, a team that has eliminated the Leafs in a first-round Game 7 three times in the last 11 postseasons, in series that all offered their unique flavors of heartbreak for Toronto fans.

This is going to go one of two ways: Toronto sees the Spoked-B, gets in their own heads and loses another heartbreaker; or, the Leafs finally overcome their tormentors in a cathartic series win that launches them into a championship run. Either way, the Leafs have only themselves to blame: Their loss to the Panthers allowed the Cats to leapfrog the Bruins in their final game of the season, setting up more Boston vs. Toronto drama.

Of course, the Panthers earned some drama of their own by setting up the next Battle of Florida.


What can we expect from the Battle of Florida?

This series features two of the best individual performers of the regular season. Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov won the Art Ross Trophy as the leading points earner in the NHL, and he became only the seventh player in NHL history to have a point on at least 50% of his team’s goals. Not bad for a guy who was booed for dogging it at the All-Star Game. The Panthers, meanwhile, got a career-high 57 goals from forward Sam Reinhart, who is a free agent this summer. Good timing, sir.

This is the third Battle of Florida in Stanley Cup playoffs history, with the Lightning winning in six games in 2021 and a sweep in 2022. But these teams are in different places now.

  • The Panthers are ascendant after having lost in the Final last season, as playoff hero Matthew Tkachuk and one of the best defensive teams in the league seek the first championship in franchise history.

  • The Lightning are the East’s first wild-card team. Their veteran core — Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos and Andrei Vasilevskiy — is trying to win a third Cup in five seasons.

For added drama: Stamkos is a free agent this summer, and there’s a non-zero chance this could be the captain’s final postseason with the Lightning.


Are the Panthers the favorite to come out of the East?

Actually, the current favorite to win the conference and the Stanley Cup on ESPN BET is the Carolina Hurricanes.

The Canes are a balanced offensive and defensive team that has been inching toward a championship for the past few seasons under coach Rod Brind’Amour. They bolstered their chances with a pair of significant trade deadline acquisitions: Penguins winger Jake Guentzel and Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov. Both of them are accomplished scorers in the playoffs, and could be the ones to push the Hurricanes over the hump. The hump in this case being all of those one-goal games Carolina loses, including four in the conference final last season.

Carolina faces the New York Islanders in the first round, having beaten the Isles in six games last season. But there’s one huge difference between those Islanders and these Islanders: Patrick Roy, the fiery Hall of Fame goalie who took over as coach and led the Islanders to No. 3 in the Metro Division. Yes, their 16 losses after regulation were the most for a playoff team in the shootout era. But in the past three weeks, no team had a better points percentage than the Isles (.864). They’re peaking at the right time.


Besides Guentzel, who are the other old faces in new places that could impact the playoffs?

In the East, the Panthers added winger Vladimir Tarasenko. But the Western Conference was the real arms race at the NHL trade deadline.


Are the Knights engaging in salary cap gymnastics?

Those accusations were unavoidable after the Knights said captain Mark Stone had been cleared for practice just over a week before the playoffs were set to open. Stone suffered a lacerated spleen on Feb. 20, which allowed them to place his $9.5 million salary cap hit on long-term injured reserve ahead of the March 8 trade deadline.

Last season, Stone had back surgery on Jan. 1 and went on long-term injured reserve, allowing the Knights the cap flexibility to add forward Ivan Barbashev (among others) at the trade deadline. Stone didn’t play in Game 82, when his return would have risked Vegas’s cap compliance, but played in Game 1 of their first-round series against Winnipeg. Stone had 24 points in 22 games to help Vegas win its first Stanley Cup.

General manager Kelly McCrimmon pushed back on any notion that the Golden Knights were working the system, telling Sportsnet that LTIR was “collectively bargained,” and called out those who “insinuate” the injuries aren’t significant.

“Google ‘lacerated spleen’ and see if you can tell when a player is going to be back,” he said. “It’s ridiculous to suggest that these aren’t significant injuries. And furthermore, the NHL polices all of this.”

From the Knights’ success on the ice to their bludgeoning play to their aggressive player acquisitions and the “how do they keep getting away with it?” accusations that accompany them, no team in the NHL is as delightfully divisive as the defending Stanley Cup champions.


Who is the favorite in the West?

The Dallas Stars are favored to win the conference, just slightly ahead of the Edmonton Oilers, and for good reason. If you closed your eyes and were asked to draw a championship roster, it would probably look something like the Stars.

They have one of the deepest forward groups in the NHL, with a balance of savvy veterans (Joe Pavelski, Matt Duchene, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin) combined with in-their-prime standouts (Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz) and impactful young players (Wyatt Johnston). They have an elite defenseman in Miro Heiskanen. While he wasn’t up to standards during much of the season, they have a star goalie in Jake Oettinger who is playing his best hockey at the right time.

The Stars were the runners-up in the West last season to Vegas. GM Jim Nill has constructed a roster that’s as Cup-ready as you’ll find. Now it’s up to coach Pete DeBoer and the players to lift it.

To do so, they’ll have to overcome the Vegas Golden Knights in the first round of the playoffs, the team that eliminated them in the conference final last season after a particularly brutal series.


Yes, and it would be a fitting capper for a wild season in Edmonton.

The Oilers fired coach Jay Woodcroft after winning just three times in their first 13 games in favor of Rangers minor league coach Kris Knoblauch, who (probably not) coincidentally coached McDavid back in juniors. Knoblauch went a stellar 46-17-5, thanks in no small part to McDavid recapturing the magic after his own slow start and finishing with 132 points in 76 games. Draisaitl had 106 points, but the bigger offensive star was 31-year-old winger Zach Hyman, who tallied a career-best 54 goals.

As usual, the Oilers’ success isn’t what Connor and Leon (and Zach) do, but what their supporting cast does. They’re third in 5-on-5 average scoring and eighth in 5-on-5 average defense. Replicate those results and the Oilers could go on a run … if goaltender Stuart Skinner can hold up his end of bargain, which seems to be a running theme during the McDavid years.

The Oilers draw the Los Angeles Kings in the first round, marking the third straight season these two teams will face off in the first round. The Oilers won their first meeting in seven games and last postseason’s meeting in six games. The Kings fired head coach Todd McLellan in favor of Jim Hiller at the All-Star break. Hiller’s gone 20-12-1 since then, seeking to lead L.A. vets like Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty on the Cup run they’ve been salivating to have for several seasons.


The Oilers didn’t even win their division, finishing behind the Vancouver Canucks. How legit are the ‘Nucks as a contender?

If they can reclaim their offensive consistency, they can be dangerous. Coach Rick Tocchet is in the coach of the year conversation because he helped turned the Canucks’ defensive metrics around this season. Through their past 20 games, they’re second in 5-on-5 defense, maintaining the effectiveness they had all season. But their 5-on-5 offense ranked 22nd during that span.

The Canucks have been as top-heavy as a Tootsie Pop this season. After leading scorers J.T. Miller (103 points), Quinn Hughes (91), Elias Pettersson (89) and Brock Boeser (73), there’s a 25-point drop to the next-leading scorer, Filip Hronek.

That depth challenge might hurt them more against other opponents than against the Predators, but Nashville is no pushover. They’re talented and play with pace under coach Andrew Brunette. Plus, they’re one of the NHL’s greatest psychological experiments this season: Can depriving a team from seeing a U2 concert at The Sphere in Las Vegas not only lead to regular-season success but also postseason results?


What does U2 have to do with Nashville?

Besides Bono’s cowboy hat phase, not a lot — except for what happened this season.

The Predators were flailing and called out by their coach for a lack of focus. To get their attention again, Brunette cancelled a planned trip to see U2 at The Sphere while Nashville was on a road trip.

The team responded by going 18 games without a regulation loss, a streak that elevated them to a playoff seed they’d never relinquish. (And if they win the Cup, they have to get U2 to play the victory parade down Broadway, right?)


Speaking of elevation: What’s up with Colorado?

The Avalanche are seeking their second Stanley Cup in three seasons, and redemption after losing in the first round of last year’s playoffs to the Seattle Kraken. But they’ve earned a tough draw in the opening round in the Winnipeg Jets. To put this in hyperbolic wrestling announcer terms, it’s the irresistible force vs. the immovable object.

The Avalanche finished near the top of the NHL in goals per game. The Jets finished near the top of the NHL in preventing goals. Colorado has Nathan MacKinnon, the favorite to win the Hart Trophy as league MVP after establishing new career highs in goals (51) and points (138) this season. Winnipeg has Connor Hellebuyck, the favorite to win the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender and someone who might get his share of MVP support, as well.

It’s fire vs. water. It’s green light vs. red light. It could be the best opening-round series of the playoffs.


You’ve mentioned more than a few players hitting career highs statistically. What’s up with that?

Frankly, it’s a great time to be a star offensive player in the NHL. The goals per team per game dropped slightly this season from last season, but those averages remain the highest we’ve had since the mid-1990s. There are a lot of factors behind this, from the dilution of talent due to expansion, to rule changes that necessitated teams rethinking their roster constructions, to power plays being more efficient than they’ve been since the late 1980s.

But in the end, it’s the players. The NHL has never have a greater assemblage of world-class talent than right now.

There’s Auston Matthews flirting with 70 goals. There were 17 players scoring 40 or more goals; just 10 seasons ago, we had three. There’s both McDavid and Nikita Kucherov tallying 100 assists in a single season, joining Hockey Hall of Famers Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr as the only players in NHL history to do so.

Hockey fans used to dream about a time when the name on the back could be as much a draw as the logo on the front, and we’re now living that dream.

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1:04

2024 NHL playoffs: The chase for the Stanley Cup is on

Emily Kaplan sets up the chase for the Stanley Cup as the NHL’s second season gets underway.


So who wins the Cup?

Um … uh … sorry, we’re too busy sketching out potential logos for the new NHL team in Utah now that this incarnation of the Arizona Coyotes just relocated. What about Blizzard? Instant rivalry with the Avalanche. The kids can call them “The Blizzy” for short.

While we can’t tell you who wins the Cup, we can say there are a handful of teams seeking their first one ever: the Panthers, Canucks, Jets and Predators. Seeing one of those droughts end would be fun. Of course, there’s another drought in Toronto dating back to 1967 that would be fun to see end, too.

Well, fun for Toronto. Maybe not so much the rest of Canada, we imagine.

Enjoy the Stanley Cup playoffs, everyone — the best postseason in sports.

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Red Sox activate 3B Bregman from 10-day IL

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Red Sox activate 3B Bregman from 10-day IL

BOSTON — The Red Sox activated All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman from the 10-day injured list before Friday’s game against Tampa Bay.

Bregman, who has been sidelined since May 24 with a right quad strain, returned to his customary spot in the field and was slotted in the No. 2 spot of Boston’s lineup for the second of a four-game series against the Rays. He sustained the injury when he rounded first base and felt his quad tighten up.

A two-time World Series winner who spent the first nine seasons of his big league career with the Houston Astros, Bregman signed a $120 million, three-year contract in February. At the time of the injury, he was hitting .299 with 11 homers and 35 RBI. Those numbers led to him being named to the American League’s All-Star team for the third time since breaking into the majors with the Astros in 2016.

Bregman missed 43 games with the quad strain. Earlier this week, he told reporters that he was trending in a direction where he didn’t believe he would require a minor league rehab assignment. With three games left before the All-Star break, the Red Sox agreed the time was right to reinstate a player to a team that entered Friday in possession of one of the AL’s three wild-card berths.

“He’s going to do his part,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said before Friday’s game. “Obviously, the timing, we’ll see where he’s at, but he’s been working hard on the swing … visualizing and watching video.”

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How Jim Abbott changed the world

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How Jim Abbott changed the world

JIM ABBOTT IS sitting at his kitchen table, with his old friend Tim Mead. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were partners in an extraordinary exercise — and now, for the first time in decades, they are looking at a stack of letters and photographs from that period of their lives.

The letters are mostly handwritten, by children, from all over the United States and Canada, and beyond.

“Dear Mr. Abbott …”

“I have one hand too. … I don’t know any one with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy.”

“I am a seventh grader with a leg that is turned inwards. How do you feel about your arm? I would also like to know how you handle your problem? I would like to know, if you don’t mind, what have you been called?”

“I can’t use my right hand and most of my right side is paralyzed. … I want to become a doctor and seeing you makes me think I can be what I want to be.”

For 40 years, Mead worked in communications for the California Angels, eventually becoming vice president of media relations. His position in this department became a job like no other after the Angels drafted Abbott out of the University of Michigan in 1988.

There was a deluge of media requests. Reporters from around the world descended on Anaheim, most hoping to get one-on-one time with the young left-handed pitcher with the scorching fastball. Every Abbott start was a major event — “like the World Series,” Angels scout Bob Fontaine Jr. remembers. Abbott, with his impressive amateur résumé (he won the James E. Sullivan Award for the nation’s best amateur athlete in 1997 and an Olympic gold medal in 1988) and his boyish good looks, had star power.

That spring, he had become only the 16th player to go straight from the draft to the majors without appearing in a single minor league game. And then there was the factor that made him unique. His limb difference, although no one called it that back then. Abbott was born without a right hand, yet had developed into one of the most promising pitchers of his generation. He would go on to play in the majors for ten years, including a stint in the mid ’90s with the Yankees highlighted by a no-hitter in 1993.

Abbott, and Mead, too, knew the media would swarm. That was no surprise. There had been swarms in college, and at the Olympics, wherever and whenever Abbott pitched. Who could resist such an inspirational story? But what they hadn’t anticipated were the letters.

The steady stream of letters. Thousands of letters. So many from kids who, like Abbott, were different. Letters from their parents and grandparents. The kids hoping to connect with someone who reminded them of themselves, the first celebrity they knew of who could understand and appreciate what it was like to be them, someone who had experienced the bullying and the feelings of otherness. The parents and grandparents searching for hope and direction.

“I know you don’t consider yourself limited in what you can do … but you are still an inspiration to my wife and I as parents. Your success helps us when talking to Andy at those times when he’s a little frustrated. I’m able to point to you and assure him there’s no limit to what he can accomplish.”

In his six seasons with the Angels, Abbott was assisted by Mead in the process of organizing his responses to the letters, mailing them, and arranging face-to-face meetings with the families who had written to him. There were scores of such meetings. It was practically a full-time job for both of them.

“Thinking back on these meetings with families — and that’s the way I’d put it, it’s families, not just kids — there was every challenge imaginable,” Abbott, now 57, says. “Some accidents. Some birth defects. Some mental challenges that aren’t always visible to people when you first come across somebody. … They saw something in playing baseball with one hand that related to their own experience. I think the families coming to the ballparks were looking for hopefulness. I think they were looking for what it had been that my parents had told me, what it had been that my coaches had told me. … [With the kids] it was an interaction. It was catch. It was smiling. It was an autograph. It was a picture. With the parents, it ran deeper. With the parents, it was what had your parents said to you? What coaches made a difference? What can we expect? Most of all, I think, what can we expect?”

“It wasn’t asking for autographs,” Mead says of all those letters. “They weren’t asking for pictures. They were asking for his time. He and I had to have a conversation because this was going to be unique. You know, you could set up another player to come down and sign 15 autographs for this group or whatever. But it was people, parents, that had kids, maybe babies, just newborn babies, almost looking for an assurance that this is going to turn out all right, you know. ‘What did your parents do? How did your parents handle this?'”

One of the letters Abbott received came from an 8-year-old girl in Windsor, Ontario.

She wrote, “Dear Jim, My name is Tracey Holgate. I am age 8. I have one hand too. My grandpa gave me a picture of you today. I saw you on TV. I don’t know anyone with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy. I hope to see you play in Detroit and maybe meet you. Could you please send me a picture of you in uniform? Could you write back please? Here is a picture of me. Love, Tracey.”

Holgate’s letter is one of those that has remained preserved in a folder — and now Abbott is reading it again, at his kitchen table, half a lifetime after receiving it. Time has not diminished the power of the letter, and Abbott is wiping away tears.

Today, Holgate is 44 and goes by her married name, Dupuis. She is married with four children of her own. She is a teacher. When she thinks about the meaning of Jim Abbott in her life, it is about much more than the letter he wrote back to her. Or the autographed picture he sent her. It was Abbott, all those years ago, who made it possible for Tracey to dream.

“There was such a camaraderie there,” she says, “an ability to connect with somebody so far away doing something totally different than my 8-year-old self was doing, but he really allowed me to just feel that connection, to feel that I’m not alone, there’s other people that have differences and have overcome them and been successful and we all have our own crosses, we all have our own things that we’re carrying and it’s important to continue to focus on the gifts that we have, the beauty of it.

“I think sometimes differences, disabilities, all those things can be a gift in a package we would never have wanted, because they allow us to be people that have an empathetic heart, an understanding heart, and to see the pain in the people around us.”

Now, years after Abbott’s career ended, he continues to inspire.

Among those he influenced, there are professional athletes, such as Shaquem Griffin, who in 2018 became the first NFL player with one hand. Griffin, now 29, played three seasons at linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks.

Growing up in Florida, he would watch videos of Abbott pitching and fielding, over and over, on YouTube.

“The only person I really looked up to was Jim Abbott at the time,” Griffin says, “which is crazy, because I didn’t know anybody else to look up to. I didn’t know anybody else who was kind of like me. And it’s funny, because when I was really little, I used to be like, ‘Why me? Why this happen to me?’ And I used to be in my room thinking about that. And I used to think to myself, ‘I wonder if Jim Abbott had that same thought.'”

Carson Pickett was born on Sept. 15, 1993 — 11 days after Abbott’s no-hitter. Missing most of her left arm below the elbow, she became, in 2022, the first player with a limb difference to appear for the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

She, too, says that Abbott made things that others told her were impossible seem attainable.

“I knew I wanted to be a professional soccer player,” says Pickett, who is currently playing for the NWSL’s Orlando Pride. “To be able to see him compete at the highest level it gave me hope, and I think that that kind of helped me throughout my journey. … I think ‘pioneer’ would be the best word for him.”

Longtime professional MMA fighter Nick Newell is 39, old enough to have seen Abbott pitch for the Yankees. In fact, when Newell was a child he met Abbott twice, first at a fan event at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan and then on a game day at Yankee Stadium. Newell was one of those kids with a limb difference — like Griffin and Pickett, due to amniotic band syndrome — who idolized Abbott.

“And I didn’t really understand the gravity of what he was doing,” Newell says now, “but for me, I saw someone out there on TV that looked like I did. And I was the only other person I knew that had one hand. And I saw this guy out here playing baseball and it was good to see somebody that looked like me, and I saw him in front of the world.

“He was out there like me and he was just living his life and I think that I owe a lot of my attitude and the success that I have to Jim just going out there and being the example of, ‘Hey, you can do this. Who’s to say you can’t be a professional athlete?’ He’s out there throwing no-hitters against the best baseball players in the world. So, as I got older, ‘Why can’t I wrestle? Why can’t I fight? Why can’t I do this?’ And then it wasn’t until the internet that I heard people tell me I can’t do these things. But by then I had already been doing those things.”

Griffin.

Pickett.

Newell.

Just three of the countless kids who were inspired by Jim Abbott.

When asked if it ever felt like too much, being a role model and a hero, all the letters and face-to-face meetings, Abbott says no — but it wasn’t always easy.

“I had incredible people who helped me send the letters,” he says. “I got a lot more credit sometimes than I deserved for these interactions, to be honest with you. And that happened on every team, particularly with my friend Tim Mead. There was a nice balance to it. There really was. There was a heaviness to it. There’s no denying. There were times I didn’t want to go [to the meetings]. I didn’t want to walk out there. I didn’t want to separate from my teammates. I didn’t want to get up from the card game. I didn’t want to put my book down. I liked where I was at. I was in my environment. I was where I always wanted to be. In a big league clubhouse surrounded by big league teammates. In a big league stadium. And those reminders of being different, I slowly came to realize were never going to go away.”

But being different was the thing that made Abbott more than merely a baseball star. For many people, he has been more than a role model, more than an idol. He is the embodiment of hope and belonging.

“I think more people need to realize and understand the gift of a difference,” Dupuis says. “I think we have to just not box everybody in and allow everybody’s innate light to shine, and for whatever reasons we’ve been created to be here, [let] that light shine in a way that it touches everybody else. Because I think that’s what Jim did. He allowed his light to permeate and that light, in turn, lit all these little children’s lights all over the world, so you have this boom of brightness that’s happening and that’s uncontrollable, that’s beautiful.”

“Southpaw – The Life and Legacy of Jim Abbott,” a new edition of ESPN’s “E60,” debuts Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN; extended version streaming afterward on ESPN+.

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Cubs’ PCA on track for $1.1M from bonus pool

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Cubs' PCA on track for .1M from bonus pool

NEW YORK — Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong is projected to receive the largest amount from this season’s $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool based on his regular-season statistics.

Crow-Armstrong is on track to get $1,091,102, according to WAR calculations through July 8 that Major League Baseball sent to teams, players and agents in a memo Friday that was obtained by The Associated Press.

He earned $342,128 from the pool in 2024.

“I was aware of it after last year, but I have no clue of the numbers,” he said Friday. “I haven’t looked at it one time.”

Pittsburgh pitcher Paul Skenes is second at $961,256, followed by Washington outfielder James Wood ($863,835), Arizona outfielder Corbin Carroll ($798,397), Houston pitcher Hunter Brown ($786,838), Philadelphia pitcher Cristopher Sánchez ($764,854), Cincinnati shortstop Elly De La Cruz ($717,479), Boston catcher Carlos Narváez ($703,007), Red Sox outfielder Ceddanne Rafaela ($685,366) and Detroit outfielder Riley Greene ($665,470).

Crow-Armstrong, Skenes, Wood, Carroll, Brown, De La Cruz and Greene have been picked for Tuesday’s All-Star Game.

A total of 100 players will receive the payments, established as part of the 2022 collective bargaining agreement and aimed to get more money to players without sufficient service time for salary arbitration eligibility. The cutoff for 2025 was 2 years, 132 days of major league service.

Players who signed as foreign professionals are excluded.

Most young players have salaries just above this year’s major league minimum of $760,000. Crow-Armstrong has a $771,000 salary this year, Skenes $875,000, Wood $764,400 and Brown $807,400.

Carroll is in the third season of a $111 million, eight-year contract.

As part of the labor agreement, a management-union committee was established that determined the WAR formula used to allocate the bonuses after awards. (A player may receive only one award bonus per year, the highest one he is eligible for.) The agreement calls for an interim report to be distributed the week before the All-Star Game.

Distribution for awards was $9.85 million last year, down from $11.25 million in 2022 and $9.25 million in 2023.

A player earns $2.5 million for winning an MVP or Cy Young award, $1.75 million for finishing second, $1.5 million for third, $1 million for fourth or fifth or for making the All-MLB first team. A player can get $750,000 for winning Rookie of the Year, $500,000 for second or for making the All-MLB second team, $350,000 for third in the rookie race, $250,000 for fourth or $150,000 for fifth.

Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. topped last year’s pre-arbitration bonus pool at $3,077,595, and Skenes was second at $2,152,057 despite not making his big league debut until May 11. Baltimore shortstop Gunnar Henderson was third at $2,007,178.

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