Logano throws fastball back at Jones: Ever drive?
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Joey Logano wondered Tuesday if Baseball Hall of Famer Chipper Jones ever had driven a race car at Talladega after the former Atlanta Braves slugger criticized the NASCAR champion in a series of social media posts.
Jones was defending Austin Cindric, the winner of Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway, after Team Penske teammate Logano unleashed an expletive-laden rant about Cindric around the halfway mark of the race. Logano was furious he did not receive the help he needed from Cindric, which allowed rival Toyota driver Bubba Wallace to win the second stage and earn valuable bonus points.
“Way to go, Austin. Way to go. You dumb f—. Way to f—ing go,” Logano said on his team radio. “What a stupid s—. He just gave it to him. Gave Toyota a stage win. Nice job. Way to go. What a dumbass.”
Jones was angered by Logano’s rant and in six social media posts congratulated Cindric, called Logano selfish and celebrated Logano being disqualified for failing postrace inspection.
“Good teammates are hard to come by, Boss! Remember that one of urs MFed u on national tv, when in all actuality, u did everything possible to keep from wrecking him,” Jones wrote. “Some people are ‘hooray for our team as long as I’m the star’ as every team has them. Hendrick, RCR, JGR, Penske, etc. Sometimes karma is glorious.”
When told of Jones’ comments on a Tuesday appearance of SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “The Morning Drive,” Logano said he was unaware of them. Once he was told, Logano asked: “Has Chipper Jones ever driven a race car at Talladega? That would be my first question. I’m pretty certain he hasn’t.”
“That’s like me saying something about baseball. I know nothing about baseball,” Logano said. “That’s like me saying something that he did something in baseball that was wrong. That doesn’t matter.”
“Chipper Jones, he seems like a cool dude, he’s done a lot, right? He’s a pretty popular, good baseball player, but he’s not a race car driver, and I know he wasn’t in the room with us when we set in place the way things are supposed to go.”
Joey Logano on SiriusXM
Logano continued by saying that as a former professional athlete, Jones should understand there was more to the situation than what he saw on television. Jones grew up outside Daytona International Speedway and was once the grand marshal for the Daytona 500.
“Chipper Jones, he seems like a cool dude, he’s done a lot, right? He’s a pretty popular, good baseball player, but he’s not a race car driver, and I know he wasn’t in the room with us when we set in place the way things are supposed to go,” Logano said. “You would think somebody that has been in professional sports and has been in meetings like that would probably take a step back and say, ‘Man, there’s probably more to the story here than what there is.’ I’m surprised it went that way. Maybe he was just bored. I don’t know what his situation is. I tell you I don’t care.”
Logano said he and Cindric cleared the air in Penske’s Monday meeting.
“Austin and I talked about it. We’ve got to move forward. That’s what it is,” he said. “I explained my side. He understood. We move on. There’s no sense in airing our dirty laundry and airing out what the actual rules are because that’s private information that doesn’t need to be out to everybody. But the facts are that what we set in place wasn’t happening and that’s why I got frustrated. Like I said, we talked about it and we moved on.”
Logano did acknowledge that he probably should not have hit the radio button and “spouted off so much.”
“Probably blew up into a little bigger situation than it needed to, but the conversation, either way, needed to happen. Just more people are talking about it now,” he added.
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Kristen Shilton
The Vancouver Canucks have come to terms with forward Brock Boeser on a new seven-year contract, carrying a $7.25 million AAV.
Canucks GM Patrik Allvin announced the deal on Tuesday during the first hour of NHL free agency. Boeser, 28, was an unrestricted free agent on a previously expiring contract.
Drafted by Vancouver 23rd overall in the 2015 NHL draft, Boeser has collected 204 goals and 434 points in 554 games with the Canucks to date. A top-six scoring threat, Boeser has elite playmaking skills and the potential to produce big numbers offensively. He had his best year offensively in 2023-24, producing 40 goals and 73 points in 81 games.
Boeser didn’t hit those marks again last season — settling for 25 goals and 50 points in 75 games — but was still second amongst teammates in output. He also plays a prominent role on Vancouver’s power play and when he can generate opportunities at 5-on-5, he is a true difference-maker up front for the Canucks.
The extension is a happy ending for Vancouver and Boeser. When the regular season ended, Boeser admitted “it’s tough to say” whether he’d be back with the Canucks. Boeser reportedly turned down a previous five-year extension offer with the club and Allvin subsequently looked into deals for him at the March trade deadline, with no takers. Boeser looked — and sounded — poised to explore his options on the open market.
Ultimately, Boeser decided to stay put by committing the best years of his career to the Canucks.
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Ryan S. Clark
Washington Capitals defenseman Martin Fehervary signed a seven-year extension through the 2032-33 season that is worth $6 million annually, the team announced Tuesday.
Fehervary, who had one year of team control remaining, will enter the final season of a three-year bridge deal that will see him make $2.675 million before his new contract begins at the start of the 2026-27 season.
He finished the season with five goals and a career-high 25 points while logging 19 minutes. Fehervary also played a crucial role in the Capitals’ penalty kill by finishing with 245 short-handed minutes for a penalty kill that was fifth in the NHL with an 82% success rate.
Securing the 25-year-old Fehervary to a long-term deal means the Capitals now have seven players who have more than three years remaining on their current contracts.
It also means the Capitals front office has one less decision to make ahead of what is expected to be an active offseason in 2026 that will see the club have what PuckPedia projects to be $39.25 million in cap space.
That’s also the same offseason in which captain and NHL all-time leading goal scorer Alex Ovechkin‘s contract will come off their books along with that of defenseman John Carlson.
But until then, the Capitals have their entire top-six defensive unit under contract as they seek to improve upon a 2024-25 season that saw them finish atop the Metropolitan Division with 111 points before they lost in the Eastern Conference semifinal to the Carolina Hurricanes in five games.
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