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As the NHL’s teams reach the midpoint of the 2022-23 season, there are many proclamations to debate. The best and worst. The surprises and disappointments. Whether the Arizona Coyotes‘ Mullett Arena is a great place to watch a game or the greatest place to watch a game.

But there are two claims that aren’t up for debate. They exist beyond even our capacity for hot-takery. They are:

1. That the Boston Bruins are the best team in the NHL through the first half of the season. A 32-4-4 juggernaut that leads the league in team defense and is second in average offense. There’s the Bruins, and then there’s everyone else this season. Facts.

2. That Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers is the most dominant player in the NHL this season, with 34 goals and 43 assists in 42 games. He’s currently on pace to become only the sixth player in NHL history to hit 150 points in a season and the first to do so since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96. We can debate whether he’s the most valuable player to his team, but McDavid’s status as the league’s single most fundamental force can’t be denied.

That established, here are some other NHL awards and superlatives for the midpoint of the 2022-23 season:

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Ticket to reprise: Mets honor Beatles’ Shea 60th

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Ticket to reprise: Mets honor Beatles' Shea 60th

NEW YORK — The Mets will honor the 60th anniversary of the Fab Four’s performance at Shea Stadium, where they will host the Mariners on Aug. 15 for The Beatles Night at Citi Field.

The 1965 performance was a milestone because The Beatles became the first rock band to perform a major stadium concert. A 50-minute documentary titled “The Beatles at Shea Stadium” captured the show. At the time, the multipurpose stadium was home to the Mets and New York Jets.

The celebration will begin with a performance by 1964 the Tribute in front of Shea Bridge at 6:15 p.m. ET. The first 15,000 fans to enter Citi Field will receive an exclusive Shea Stadium replica.

The first pitch will be thrown by members of the game-day staff who worked the famous concert. A themed fireworks show will be held after the game.

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M’s Naylor exits with sore shoulder after swing

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M's Naylor exits with sore shoulder after swing

SEATTLE — Mariners first baseman Josh Naylor left Thursday’s 4-3 victory against the Chicago White Sox in the third inning because of shoulder soreness, manager Dan Wilson said.

In his first at-bat against White Sox starter Shane Smith, Naylor grimaced after swinging at a high, inside fastball. He walked down the first base line and back before finishing his at-bat, which ended with a strikeout.

Naylor stayed in the game, but later exited after grounding out to second base to end the third inning.

Wilson told reporters after the game that Naylor is day-to-day.

Naylor, one of Seattle’s notable trade deadline acquisitions from the Arizona Diamondbacks, is hitting .289, with 14 home runs, 65 RBI and 21 stolen bases this season. Since joining the Mariners, the left-hander is batting .261 with three home runs and 10 stolen bases.

While with the Diamondbacks, the left-handed hitter was pulled from a June 23 game — also against the White Sox — in the fourth inning due to right shoulder discomfort. Naylor avoided a stint on the injured list and returned to the lineup two days later.

Donovan Solano, who hadn’t played in two weeks, took over at first base for Seattle when Naylor exited.

The Mariners, who swept a series for the first time since July 11-13, moved within 1 1/2 games of first-place Houston in the American League West.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Barrier-breaking MLB umpire Pawol ‘ready to go’

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Barrier-breaking MLB umpire Pawol 'ready to go'

NEW YORK — Jen Pawol was in her hotel room in Nashville, Tennessee, when she got the call she had awaited for a decade.

She was going to make her major league debut this weekend, becoming the first woman umpire in a century and a half of big league baseball.

“I was overcome with emotion,” Pawol recalled Thursday, two days before she will break a gender barrier when she works the bases during Miami’s doubleheader at Atlanta. “It was super emotional to finally be living that phone call that I’d been hoping for and working towards for quite a while, and I just felt super full. I feel like a fully charged battery ready to go.”

Her voice quavering with emotion, Pawol talked about getting the news during a Wednesday conference call with director of umpire development Rich Rieker and vice president of umpire operations Matt McKendry.

Pawol thought back to her long road. In the early 1990s at West Milford High School in New Jersey, she had a summer conversation with Lauren Rissmeyer, the third baseman on the school’s softball team.

“‘Do you want to come umpire with me?'” Pawol remembered being asked. “I didn’t think twice about it. Lauren’s doing it, so I’m going to do it.”

Pawol’s pay was $15 per game.

“She took a field and I took a field,” Pawol said. “It was a one-umpire system. I had no idea what I was doing, but I got to put gear on and call balls and strikes, so I was in.”

A 1995 graduate at West Milford, which inducted her into its Athletic Hall of Fame in 2022, Pawol became a three-time all-conference softball selection pick at Hofstra.

After umpiring NCAA softball from 2010 to 2016, she was approached by then-big league ump Ted Barrett at an umpire camp in Binghamton, New York, in early 2015.

“Moreso than any female that I’d seen, she looked like she could handle the rigors of the job physically,” Barrett said Thursday. “But what impressed me was her willingness to learn. She seemed like a sponge, everything that we were teaching her. I’m proud that I made her aware of the opportunity.”

Barrett invited Pawol to attend a clinic in Atlanta and then a MLB tryout camp at Cincinnati that Aug. 15. He invited her to dinner in Atlanta with fellow big league umps Paul Nauert and Marvin Hudson and their wives.

“I warned her: ‘Look, this is what you’re up against. It’s going to be 10 years in the minor leagues before you sniff a big league field,'” Barrett said.

Pawol was among 38 hopefuls invited to the Umpire Training Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, and started her pro umpiring career in the Gulf Coast League on June 24, 2016, working the plate when the GCL Tigers West played at the GCL Blue Jays.

She moved up to the New York/Penn League in 2017, the Midwest League after the first two weeks of the 2018 season, then worked the South Atlantic League in 2019, the High-A Midwest League in 2021, the Double-A Eastern League and the Triple-A International and Pacific Coast Leagues in 2023. She was called in for big league spring training in 2024 and ’25.

“This has been over 1,200 minor league games, countless hours of video review trying to get better, and underneath it all has just been this passion and this love for the game of baseball,” she said. “This started in my playing days as a catcher and transformed over into an umpire, and I think it’s gotten even stronger as an umpire. Umpiring is for me, it’s in my DNA. It’s been a long, hard journey.”

Pawol is among eight women umpires currently in the minors. For her big league debut, she will join Chris Guccione’s crew in Atlanta, where she expects about 30 family and friends. She is to work the bases during Saturday’s doubleheader and call balls and strikes on Sunday.

Pawol was at third base Wednesday night as Jacksonville beat Nashville in the International League when Sounds third baseman Oliver Dunn congratulated her.

“If I make it to the big leagues,” he told her, “we will have both worked all the levels together.”

Pawol repeatedly thanked her minor league umpiring predecessors, mentioning several who exchanged calls or texts, including Christine Wren, Pam Postema and Ria Cortesio. Just after her promotion to Triple-A, Pawol met with Postema in Las Vegas.

“The last thing she said to me when I saw her was ‘Get it done!'” Powal explained. “So I texted her yesterday and said, ‘I’m getting it done!'”

Barrett will be watching from Oregon, where he is attending Northwest League games this weekend.

“The hopes of this are that it inspires,” he said. “Who knows, there’ll be a young lady watching the game on TV and says, ‘Hey, I’d like to try that.'”

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