NEW YORK — On a roster which includes the iconic Aaron Judge, and fellow All-Stars Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Max Fried, perhaps the most pivotal player in the New York Yankees’ pursuit of a 28th World Series championship just may be Devin Williams.

After some rough patches, Williams, a two-time All-Star and 2020 NL Rookie of the Year, has been on a roll – reclaiming the closer spot, and in the process displaying the moxie which enticed the Bombers to acquire him from the Brewers in December.

Williams started his Yankees career off poorly with a 9.00 ERA through his first 12 outings (10 earned runs in 10 innings), nothing like the 1.83 ERA he posted across his first 241 career games.

He lost the Yankees’ ninth-inning job temporarily, but has looked like himself in recent weeks, racking up 33 strikeouts to just four walks with a 1.90 ERA in his last 25 games, notching nine saves and five holds.

Closing inherently forces you to face excruciating losses head on. But, contrary to the popular belief that the closer must possess a short memory, Williams digests each of his outings.

“I remember everything – good or bad,” Williams told USA TODAY Sports. “It’s being able to compartmentalize and move on from that more so than necessarily having a short memory.”

It was a big adjustment moving from Milwaukee to starring on the brightest stage in New York.

“I think the outside noise can obviously be louder here,” said Williams. “That’s just New York in general. There (are) more opinions here, and if you feed into that, it can lock you up mentally. I think that’s what the good ones do – they just block out everything.”

And while there have been vocal detractors, fans and media alike, Williams seems mostly happy with the way he has been received, “It’s been good and bad, (but) for the most part it’s been good,” said Williams. “In person, people are very encouraging.”

Williams said that encouragement has positively impacted his play.

“I always have a little bit of butterflies in every appearance until I get to the mound and throw my first warmup pitch, and then I’m good,” said Williams.

“They (the fans) bring a lot of energy and I feed off of that. I feel like internally I’m very amped up, but on the outside, it looks very calm, almost nonchalant, I guess. But yeah, definitely, I feed off the energy they have here.”

Of late, the performances from the man dubbed “The Airbender” because of his signature changeup, have provided the Yankees faithful with a myriad of reasons to supply additional energy.

“I’m extremely confident,” said Williams. “I think it took a little bit of an adjustment period here – wanting to show what I can do, how I can help. I think I just tried to do a little too much and kind of lost who I was in the process. I’ve gotten back to that over the last two and a half months.”

Yankees broadcaster Paul O’Neill noticed the change in Williams, and is bullish on the future of the 30-year-old St. Louis native.

“He’s in a much better spot now than he was earlier in the year,” said O’Neill, who began his career in Cincinnati, before winning four World Series with the Yankees. “There’s always a transition coming to New York, but believe me, I think coming down the stretch here, he’s going to be as good as ever.”

Williams’ dominance is linked to his primary pitches – the masterful changeup, which features an extremely high spin rate, and an effective fastball.

His impressive arsenal of pitches, which also includes a cutter and sinker, has allowed Williams to post strikeout rates of around 40% during the past three full seasons.

“I didn’t have very good numbers (against) him,” said Yankees teammate Paul Goldschmidt, who is 1-for-10 with six strikeouts against Williams. “That changeup obviously is his calling card, but he throws 95 miles an hour too. He does a good job of keeping you off balance.”

Goldschmidt called Williams “a great teammate,” and the reliever has been thrilled to team up with the seven-time All-Star first baseman, as well as the rest of his Yankees teammates in New York.

“I am happy, I love New York City,” said Williams.

Still, it may be one and done for Williams in New York.

He will be an free agent after this season, and what his 2026 work address will be is anybody’s guess.

But while he is here, Williams will work hard to have his New York tenure remembered less for being the guy who busted the Yankees-imposed beard ban, and more for closing big games.

“I would love to be the guy to finish off the World Series; and bring another championship to New York” said Williams. “That’s the goal, right?”

The NFL Players Association is going to need a new leader.

NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. announced his resignation Thursday evening.

‘It’s clear that my leadership has become a distraction to the important work the NFLPA advances every day. For this reason, I have informed the NFLPA Executive Committee that I am stepping down as Executive Director of the NFLPA and Chairman of the Board of NFL Players effective immediately,’ Howell said in a statement. ‘I hope this will allow the NFLPA to maintain its focus on its player members ahead of the upcoming season.’

A message was also sent to the NFLPA membership from the executive committee and was obtained by USA TODAY Sports. It read:

‘This evening, Lloyd Howell informed us that he is stepping down as Executive Director of the union. We accepted his resignation and are grateful for his service. The Board will convene as soon as possible for a meeting on next steps and will be in touch with our membership soon.’

Howell had come under intense scrutiny in recent days and weeks following the ‘Pablo Torre Finds Out’ podcast’s release of a 61-page arbitration report.

In January, Christopher Droney, an independent arbitrator, dismissed a grievance raised by the NFLPA, ruling there wasn’t sufficient evidence of collusion by NFL owners. However, the contents of his report included a finding that the NFL encouraged owners ‘to reduce guarantees in future contracts with players at the March 2022 annual meeting.’

ESPN had reported that the NFL and NFLPA made an ‘unusual confidentiality agreement’ to keep the findings of the arbitration report secret.

‘By agreeing to a confidentiality agreement, the union purposefully blocked the players from receiving crucial information about the operations of the NFL,’ attorney Peter Ginsberg said via ESPN. ‘The NFL and the union should not be conspiring together to keep important information from the players.’

ESPN reports Lloyd Howell has side job with conflict of interest

Further controversy surrounding Howell emerged on July 10.

ESPN reported that Howell, in addition to his job as head of the players’ union, was working as a ‘paid, part-time consultant for The Carlyle Group,’ a private equity firm that the NFL approved to seek minority ownership stakes in its teams. Howell had started the consulting gig months before starting his role as the NFLPA’s executive director.

He refused to step down from his role with The Carlyle Group after taking the NFLPA job, ESPN reported.

‘It would be an outrageous conflict for the head of a labor union to have an interest in a third party that is aligned with the NFL,’ NFLPA’s former lead outside counsel Jim Quinn said, via ESPN. ‘The relationship between a labor organization and the employer organization is adversarial by definition, and as a result, as a leader, you have to be absolutely clear and clean as to having no even appearance of conflict.’

A representative for The Carlyle Group told ESPN in a statement that Howell ‘had no access to information about the NFL and Carlyle process’ and that she was unaware of the union’s request he leave his consulting position.

USA TODAY Sports had also confirmed an ESPN report that the NFLPA hired law firm Wilmer Hale last month to look into Howell’s actions as the union’s executive director.

Lloyd Howell involved in previous legal controversies

Prior to Howell’s election as the union’s new executive director, he served as the chief financial officer for technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton between 2016 and 2022.

In July 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Booz Allen paid out a $377 million settlement resulting from a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged the firm had been overcharging the federal government.

The Washington Post reported that the whistleblower had notified top executives, including Howell, of the overcharging issue for months.

The NFLPA had hired Howell as its executive director just one month before the announcement of Booz Allen’s settlement.

Eighteen holes of golf are in the books at Royal Portrush Golf Club, and that means The Open Championship has reached Cut Day for the 156-player field.

So, who is missing the cut line? And how many?

That is the question that will soon be answered as second-round competition resumes in Northern Ireland on July 18 starting with the first group hitting the links bright and early.

Here’s what to know about the cut line rules at The Open:

How many golfers make the cut at The Open?

Those that finish in the top 70 — including ties — following the second round of competition will make the cut line at The Open Championship.

The Open cut line rules

Noted above, the cut line at the 2025 Open Championship is those who finish in the top 70, including ties, following the second round of competition at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland. Additionally, the ’10-shot rule,’ where those within 10 shots of the lead after the opening two rounds will make the cut line, is not in use.

The cut line at The Open is different than some of the other majors on the PGA Tour schedule, as the U.S. Open has a cut line of top 60 and ties, while the Masters has a cut line of the top 50 and ties. Only the PGA Championship has those who finish in the top 70, including ties, make the cut line.

When is 2025 Open Championship? Full schedule

Dates: Thursday, July 17 – Sunday, July 20
Where: Royal Portrush Golf Club (Antrim, Northern Ireland)

The 153rd edition of The Open Championship began on Thursday, July 17 and runs through Sunday, July 20 at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland.

In a move that is therapeutic and helpful for both sides, Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers will reunite.

Lillard, who was waived by the Milwaukee Bucks earlier this month, plans to sign a three-year, $42 million contract with the Trail Blazers, the team with which he spent the first 11 seasons of his career, according to ESPN.

Lillard’s contract with Portland is expected to include a no-trade clause.

The nine-time All-Star and seven-time All-NBA performer could’ve signed with just about any team but decided to return to the team that drafted him with the No. 6 overall pick in the 2012 draft.

The Milwaukee Bucks acquired Lillard in a trade just before the start of the 2023-24 season, and the Lillard-Giannis Antetokounmpo looked great on paper. But it never yielded the success the Bucks sought, and Lillard missed his family back in Portland.

What does Blazers deal mean for Lillard?

Lillard returns to the team and city that are home for him. He could’ve joined a team that is closer to contention, but he gets to be close to family again and can work out and rehab at the Blazers’ practice facility under the supervision of team doctors and training staff.

Returning from an Achilles injury isn’t easy but multiple players have returned and played well, including Kevin Durant. Last season, Lillard averaged 24.9 points, 7.1 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 1.2 steals and shot 44.8% from the field, 37.6% on 3-pointers and 92.1% on free throws in 58 games. He made the All-Star team for the third consecutive season after missing it 2022.

He is another veteran voice who serve as a a de facto assistant coach for the Blazers this season and helps the team on and off the court when he’s ready to return for five-on-five.

What does the Lillard deal mean for the Blazers?

Portland is in a rebuild and showed progress last season, increasing its win total from the previous season by 15 games from 21-61 in 2023-24 to 36-46 in 2024-35 – and head coach Chauncey Billups received an extension in the offseason.

The Blazers lost Anfernee Simons and Deandre Ayton in the offseason, but acquired Jrue Holiday from Boston in the Simons trade, and drafted Yang Hansen in the first round of the June draft.

The team features Scott Henderson, Matisse Thybulle, Deni Avdija, Jerami Grant, Shaedon Sharpe, Donovan Clingan, Toumani Camara, Robert Williams and Holiday.

The Blazers have a first-round protected lottery pick in 2026, 2027 and 2028 that can be conveyed to Chicago if the pick is Nos. 15-30 and have favorable draft capital in 2028 and 2029.

There are only two possible explanations for what’s happened during the first couple weeks of college sports’ new pay-for-play rules: Either the power conferences got duped by signing off on the House vs. NCAA settlement or they built it to fail intentionally.

You can make pretty good arguments for both.

Here’s the basic recap: Last week, the new College Sports Commission sent a memo to schools explaining that some name, image and likeness deals were being denied because they come from booster collectives rather than regular businesses. The CSC is the group appointed by the power conferences and tasked with enforcing the $20.5 million revenue sharing cap and NIL rules that came out of the settlement. 

The plaintiff’s attorneys in the House case, led by Jeffrey Kessler and Steve Berman, responded by demanding a retraction of that memo and suggesting that the CSC must treat collectives like other businesses – or else it’s off to court again. 

And now on Wednesday, Yahoo! Sports reported that power conference are back in negotiation over this issue, with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey acknowledging there could be “a much softer cap” if booster collectives are put in the same category as other businesses.

Folks, we’re 17 days in – and it’s already a (expletive) show.

Are we really supposed to believe that after years of negotiating this settlement to build the so-called guardrails schools wanted around NIL – a settlement, by the way, that will cost $2.8 billion in damages over the next 10 years – that they didn’t have clarity on the key element in whether it has a chance of working?

From the very beginning, everyone (including the schools who signed off on the settlement) understood the new system would face lawsuits almost immediately on two different fronts: Whether it complies with Title IX and whether it’s legal for the CSC to determine what constitutes fair market value.

In other words, if some rich business owners wants to pay Johnny Linebacker $750,000 to play for their favorite school while doing some autograph signings and local TV commercials, can a third-party enforcement group really deny that payment because the money attached is far bigger than comparable endorsement deals? It’s an interesting question, one that will undoubtedly face legal scrutiny. 

But if college administrators want to live in a world that is different from the one they were living in over the past four years of sham booster deals being disguised as NIL, they have no choice but to go to the wall in protecting the authority they believe they gained through the settlement process. 

And that authority includes the CSC’s ability to deny deals that don’t meet the standard of a “Valid Business Purpose.”

Here’s the crux of the issue, though. The CSC has defined Valid Business Purpose as “Evidence of using the student-athletes NIL to promote a good or service being offered to the public for profit” while also staking a position that “An entity with a business purpose of providing payments or benefits to student-athletes or institutions, rather than providing goods or services to the general public for profit, does not satisfy the valid business purpose requirement set forth in NCAA Rule 22.1.3.”

In other words, if a collective is being used as a third-party marketing agency to facilitate endorsement deals, that’s allowable. But the CSC says collectives that exist to move money from boosters to athletes so that schools can circumvent the revenue sharing cap will have their deals denied regardless of the amount involved or what the athlete is required to do for the money.

In other words, the CSC – which, again, is implementing the will of the power conferences who approved the settlement – is saying that collectives can’t operate the way they’ve been operating. And that makes perfect sense if the goal was to truly rein in NIL and stop the flow of booster money. 

But Kessler, according to a person familiar with his thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so, was surprised the CSC took that position and believes the language in the agreement is targeted at the transaction itself, not the organization facilitating the transaction.

I’m surprised that he’s surprised. Because why else would schools have settled with him in the first place? What we have here, essentially, are high-priced lawyers on two different sides who spent months coming to an agreement and now disagree on how arguably the most important issue in the agreement was worded. And now they’re negotiating again to see if they need to go court to resolve this dispute.  

Whoops?

But if there’s engagement with Kessler that could create a “much softer cap’ in Sankey’s words, it would essentially be green light for collectives to go back to operating exactly the way they were over the last few years. Which means schools would have accomplished nothing except moving the money around a little bit. 

It’s actually mind-blowing that, 17 days in, this is even in question. 

So is it merely bad lawyering, or are there certain groups who are actually fine with the settlement effectively falling apart and returning to the status quo where the real salary cap was what their collectives could raise rather than the $20.5 million? 

When you think about who runs the show these days, and who might benefit the most from a cap that isn’t really a cap, it’s the usual suspects. The SEC and Big Ten. Heck, at SEC media days this week, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said it was “obvious” that rival schools were ignoring the cap in recruiting this cycle. Let’s put it this way: Nobody who thinks they have a chance to win a national title over the next five years is planning to spend as little as $20.5 million for their football team, let alone their entire athletic department.

And in full disclosure, over the course of the settlement drama, I spoke with a number of people in both leagues who thought it was a mistake to settle for this very reason: There was simply no ironclad way to contain the money and no long-term legal protection without an antitrust exemption from Congress.

While the NIL environment over the last few years was annoying from a coaching lifestyle perspective, it certainly didn’t hurt the SEC or Big Ten competitively. If the settlement becomes a sham, those schools are going to be fine because of the vast amount of television revenue they bring in. Most everyone else, though, will be back to the grind of begging boosters to give them millions on top of the revenue sharing cap – a battle they are destined to lose. 

Given what has transpired over the last week, doubts about the settlement are more than legitimate. To go through this entire process and still not be able to answer definitively whether collectives can operate as they did before is perhaps the dumbest in a long line of dumb legal situations that college sports has found itself in over the last decade. The only question is whether they got there by malice or incompetence. 

Los Angeles Lakers forward Darius Bazley appeared to suffer a serious leg injury Thursday night during the second quarter of an NBA Summer League game against the Boston Celtics.

Bazley went down after his leg appeared to give out on him as he was driving toward the basket with two defenders on him.

He was on the ground for a few minutes while he was being evaluated. He was eventually put in a wheelchair and was taken to the locker room. The severity of the injury has not been disclosed.

Who is Darius Bazley?

Bazley entered Summer League with five NBA seasons under his belt, for four different teams. He last played in the NBA during the 2023-24 season.

He was drafted by the Utah Jazz with the 23rd overall pick in the first round of the 2019 NBA Draft, before he was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder. He did not play college basketball, opting to play in the NBA’s G League Ignite program.

Bazley has averaged 8.9 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game during his NBA career. He has started 118 of the 237 games he’s played in.

ROME (Reuters) — Austrian extreme sports pioneer Felix Baumgartner, famed for a record-breaking 2012 skydive from the edge of space, died on Thursday in a paragliding accident in central Italy, local police said. He was 56.

Baumgartner lost control of his motorized paraglider while flying over Porto Sant’Elpidio in Italy’s central Marche region, and fell to the ground near the swimming pool of a hotel. The reasons for the accident were unclear.

Porto Sant’Elpidio’s mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, said reports suggested he may have suffered a sudden medical issue mid-air, and offered the town’s condolences for the death of ‘a symbol of courage and passion for extreme flights.’

The Austrian made headlines around the world in October 2012 when, wearing a specially made suit, he jumped from a balloon 24 miles (38 km) above Earth, becoming the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, typically measured at more than 690 mph.

He made the historic jump over Roswell, New Mexico, reaching a peak speed of over 833 mph (1,343 kph), on the 65th anniversary of legendary American pilot Chuck Yeager’s flight shattering the sound barrier on Oct. 14, 1947.

The self-styled ‘God of the Skies’ started parachuting as a teenager before taking up the extreme sport of BASE jumping.

His long career of daredevil jumps included skydiving across the English Channel and parachuting off the Petronas Towers in Malaysia.

In Austria he was also known for courting controversy with views that included expressing support for dictatorship as a system of government.

Baumgartner was fined 1,500 euros after he punched a Greek truck driver in the face during a 2010 altercation that broke out in a traffic jam near Salzburg.

Bronny James and the Los Angeles Lakers continued NBA Summer League play against the Boston Celtics on Thursday in Las Vegas.

While the Celtics beat the Lakers 87-78, James continued to show some promise with a double-digit scoring performance.

The second-year player scored 18 points in the loss. He had a scoreless first half but managed to turn things around in the second half.

It was James’ second straight game with at least 17 points, the first coming against the L.A. Clippers in a 67-58 loss on Monday. He shot 6-of-10 from the field and 3-for-5 from the 3-point line in that contest. He also had five rebounds and five assists, but did turn the ball over three times.

The Lakers have won just one of their four Vegas Summer League games, earning a 94-81 victory over the Pelicans on Saturday.

James has shown some level of growth throughout the summer. In the Lakers’ first game in Vegas, he managed to hold his own against 2025 No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks in an 87-85 loss on July 10. James was matched up against Flagg throughout the evening and at times got the best of the Mavericks’ rookie.

 Here’s how James did in his fourth game of the Vegas Summer League:

Bronny James stats tonight vs. Celtics

Points: 18
FG: 7-for-13
Rebounds: 3
Assists: 5
Steals: 1
Blocks: 0
Turnovers: 8
Fouls: 3
Minutes: 28

Lakers vs. Celtics highlights

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