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Time/Place: 6:40 p.m., Tropicana Field
SB Nation Site: DRaysBay
Media: Detroit SportsNet, MLB.TV, Tigers Radio Network
Pitching Matchup: RHP Jack Flaherty (0-7, 5.81 ERA) vs. LHP Steven Matz (4-2, 4.67 ERA)
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It was June 1999. Jennifer Lopez sat at No. 1 on the Billboard chart with her debut single. StarWars: EpisodeI had been in theaters for a month and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me was topping the box office.
The first season of TheSopranos had wrapped that spring and a New Jersey mobster with panic attacks was suddenly the most talked-about character on television.
Jalen Brunson was 3 years old and Madison Square Garden was buzzing. The New York Knicks were in the NBA Finals.
The San Antonio Spurs won the series in 1999; the Knicks haven’t been back until now.
Twenty-seven years later, the same two teams return to the NBA Finals in a completely different world.
Here are 10 things that did not exist the last time the Knicks made the NBA Finals:
Apple did not release the first iPhone until June 2007. In 1999, the cool phone was the Motorola StarTAC, the slim flip phone that fit in your pocket. Down on Wall Street, the shiny new toy was the BlackBerry, which had just launched that January as a two-way pager.
Neither had a camera. So nobody was snapping selfies at the Garden back in 1999.
The Spurs superstar was not born yet and the NBA had no idea what was coming. The tallest player in the league that June was 7-foot-7 Gheorghe Muresan, a Romanian center whose career was ending due to back problems and whose other claim to fame was a cameo in an Eminem video. The idea of a 7-foot-4 player who handles the ball, shoots 3s, blocks shots and switches onto guards was science fiction.
No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, no TikTok. If you wanted to scream about a Patrick Ewing dunk or a blown call, you had to yell at whoever was in the room and wait until you got to work or school the next morning to get everybody’s take.
Netflix was a website that mailed you DVDs in little red envelopes. YouTube didn’t exist. Neither did Spotify. The 1999 Finals played on NBC, and if you missed it, you missed it. Maybe you caught the highlights on SportsCenter at 11.
Las Vegas was known in sports for boxing and betting in 1999, not being a sports town. The Vegas Golden Knights, the city's first major professional franchise, is in its third Stanley Cup Final, so it's hard to remember that they didn't exist before 2017. The Raiders left Oakland in 2020 and headed to Vegas. The Aces moved from San Antonio in 2018 and won the city's first major league title in 2022.
If you weren’t home for tipoff in 1999, you set the VCR and prayed the tape didn’t run out before the fourth quarter. TiVo had launched that March, but almost nobody had it.
Nobody was asking a tube on the kitchen counter to play the Knicks pregame show. Amazon’s Echo didn’t arrive until November 2014. In 1999, if you wanted to listen to Mike Breen call the game on WFAN, you turned up the boombox or the kitchen-counter clock radio.
Gaming in 1999 meant you and your buddies on a couch passing the PlayStation controller back and forth. There was no Twitch, no online multiplayer on consoles, no streaming, no voice chat. Players in NBA Live 99 looked like floating heads on geometric bodies and NBA 2K didn’t launch until that November.
Hosting a watch party for the Knicks games in 1999 meant actually having to call and talk to a person at the local pizza place to place an order. You had to scrape up the cash to pay and tip the delivery guys, too. DoorDash launched in 2013 and UberEats the year after. The closest thing you had to a delivery app in 1999 was a stack of delivery menus in your kitchen draw.
In 1999, if you wanted action on Game 1, you either had to drive to Atlantic City, fly to Las Vegas or know a guy. The Supreme Court didn’t strike down the federal sports betting ban until May 2018. There were no apps. No same-game parlays. No prop bets on Allan Houston’s first quarter rebound total.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Knicks vs. Spurs NBA Finals 1999 vs. 2026: What has changed
PLANO, Texas (AP) — The Dallas Stars are planning to move north, out of downtown and to the suburb of Plano in five years after the lease is up at the NHL team's current home arena.
Stars officials announced Tuesday the signing of a nonbinding letter of intent to build a new hockey-specific arena and entertainment district about 20 miles north of the downtown American Airlines Center, which they have shared with the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks since it opened in 2001.
The leases at the AAC for both teams expire in 2031. The two franchises have been in a legal dispute about their partnership agreement and management of the building.
The Stars made their intentions known a day after the Mavericks said they have a preliminary agreement on a site for their own new arena about 10 miles north of downtown, but still within the Dallas city limits. The NBA's team deal is for 104 acres on the former site of Valley View Mall, which was demolished three years ago.
A new arena for the Stars is expected to be part of a large-scale redevelopment project at The Shops at Willow Bend, where the last enclosed mall built in Texas is set for demolition.
The Stars submitted their letter of intent to the city of Plano, which placed it on the City Council agenda for consideration at its next meeting Monday. The letter includes plans for the mixed-used development project as well as design and construction of the arena.
“This project would present a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our franchise,” Stars owner Tom Gaglardi said in a statement. “We eagerly await the vote by the Plano City Council and look forward to continuing the conversation to be part of the redevelopment of The Shops at Willow Bend.”
That mall on about 90 acres opened in 2001, and there are open restaurants and parking garages in the area. The new arena would anchor the redevelopment that could include sports, entertainment, retail, dining and public gathering spaces.
The NHL franchise was known as the North Stars before moving south from Minnesota and beginning play in Dallas for the 1993-94 season. The Stars in 1999 became the first of hockey's Sun Belt teams to win a Stanley Cup title.
The Stars won that championship while still playing at Reunion Arena, a building they also shared with the Mavericks after moving to Dallas. That downtown arena, which was fully demolished in 2009, is about a mile from the AAC.
___
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL
The feisty fish have given the Nats problems this year, and last night was no different. The Nationals bullpen was unable to hold on to their lead, and they lost 7-3. Tonight, they will try and even the series. They have been a series winning machine lately, so the Nats will not want to drop this one against the Marlins.
There will be a couple changes to the lineup. Jorbit Vivas will replace Nasim Nunez as the second baseman. Dylan Crews will be back in the lineup, after missing the last couple games with a minor hand issue. The struggling Daylen Lile won’t get the night off, but he will be off his feet as the DH. Drew Millas will be doing the catching. Richard Lovelady will open and Miles Mikolas will follow him.
With the lefty opener for the Nats, the Marlins put lefty masher Heriberto Hernandez at the top of the lineup. Liam Hicks will be at first base for Connor Norby. Other than that, it is the same personnel. Lake Bachar will be opening for the fish, and it will be all hands on deck in their bullpen.
Game Info:
Stadium: Nationals Park
Time: 6:45 PM EST
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan
The Nats have had problems against the Marlins, so hopefully they can snap out of it tonight. Getting all those hard fought wins against teams over .500 just to give those curly W’s away against the Marlins would be frustrating. That makes tonight an important matchup. Follow along in the comments down below and let’s go Nats.
Fresh off a 7-3 homestand, the O’s open their June schedule with three games in Boston against a reeling Red Sox team. The Orioles are just 9-17 on the road, while the Red Sox are 9-15 at home, so neither team is happy to be there. It’s a movable force against a stoppable object. But somebody has to win.
So why not the Orioles? Their hitting and their pitching (minus some bullpen slip-ups) were both on point during their just-concluded homestand, and tonight’s starter, Shane Baz, is coming off two consecutive excellent outings against his former team, the Rays. This is his first time facing the Red Sox this year but historically he’s been excellent against them, with a 2.64 ERA in five career starts. He’s held Jarren Duran, Boston’s leadoff hitter tonight, to a 2-for-14.
Scoring runs could be a problem for the Birds, considering they’re facing their Kryptonite, a left-handed starter. This is a pretty good one in rookie Connelly Early, who’s got a 2.95 ERA in 11 starts this year, though his 4.16 FIP indicates he’s been benefiting from some good luck. The Orioles will be unleashing their lefty-facing lineup that often fails to actually hit lefties, including Tyler O’Neill, who is 4-for-45 this year against southpaws. I’d sooner give Colton Cowser the start coming off his monster homestand instead of wasting more time with O’Neill, but what do I know? At least Samuel Basallo is in the lineup.
The Orioles right now have the most momentum they’ve had all season. Will they keep it going on the road, or immediately squander it?
Orioles lineup:
LF Taylor Ward
SS Gunnar Henderson
C Adley Rutschman
1B Pete Alonso
DH Samuel Basallo
3B Coby Mayo
RF Tyler O’Neill
CF Leody Taveras
2B Blaze Alexander
RHP Shane Baz
Red Sox lineup:
LF Jarren Duran
CF Ceddanne Rafaela
RF Wilyer Abreu
1B Willson Contreras
DH Masataka Yoshida
C Mickey Gasper
2B Isiah Kiner-Falefa
SS Marcelo Mayer
3B Caleb Durbin
LHP Connelly Early
Yankees manager Aaron Boone gave updates on a number of injured players as they start a three-game series with the Guardians on Tuesday...
With the injury to Aaron Judge, the Yankees could be in need of an outfield bat to replace their captain in the short term. Jasson Dominguez would be an ideal candidate if he could return from his IL stint and Boone offered a promising update on the young outfielder.
Boone said that Dominguez will take live batting practice and will begin a rehab assignment on Friday.
The 23-year-old outfielder was starting to turn things around since his call-up in late April. He was 6-for-30 in his nine games, but had five hits, including a home run, in his last seven games before landing on the IL with a shoulder sprain after running into the wall making a catch in the outfield.
Boone was asked about Giancarlo Stanton's status and it was more of the same from a week ago, when imaging showed that his calf strain was healing. Stanton will also be hitting in a live BP and continue his running ramp-up.
When asked if Stanton will need a rehab assignment, the Yankees skipper didn't have a definitive answer, but it was the least of his concerns.
"That’s not a big question for me….not necessarily, but I won’t rule it out either," Boone said. "We’ll decide that at the end. He’s different than every other player in that he doesn’t have to build up innings or things like that. It’s possible, but not a certainty either."
Boone said that he was hopeful Stanton would return soon since the slugger has been running the last few days, but conceded it could be a couple of more weeks before we see Stanton.
Stanton was slashing .256/.302/.422 with an OPS of .724. He also has three home runs and driven in 14 RBI in his 24 games.
Southpaw Max Fried was the final injury update that Boone provided and the skipper gave a short, but optimistic breakdown of what Fried has been going through since he landed on the IL with a bone bruise on his elbow.
"Threw again at 75 feet back-to-back days with some better intensity," Boone said. "Seems to be responding to everything very well. Just talking to him, he’s excited how he felt since even a couple of days after the outing in Baltimore. He’s been doing well. Meeting with the doctor today to see about whether we start ramping him up more. But seems to be responding pretty well."
Fried was pitching to a 3.21 ERA across his 10 starts before going down with injury. If the Yankees can get Fried back healthy, he'll slide into a rotation that has just welcomed back Gerrit Cole.
The NHL All-Star Game is returning in 2027 and will feature a new format.
The league and the NHL Players' Association announced details at NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's news conference before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.
The All-Star weekend will be held Feb. 5-6, 2027, in UBS Arena, the home of the New York Islanders.
The plan is to hold the All-Star Game every other year, with an international tournament taking place in the even years. There will be a World Cup of Hockey in 2028 and NHL players will take part in the 2030 Olympics.
Russian players will be allowed in the All-Star Game, but the NHL and NHLPA haven't decided on Russian participation in the World Cup of Hockey. They will follow the lead of the International Ice Hockey Federation, which recently said it would decide Russian eligibility in 2026-27 on a tournament-by-tournament basis.
Here are details for the 2027 All-Star weekend:
Bettman, who turned 74 on June 2, responded to a report that a succession plan for him has been discussed, and said there have been discussions over the last couple years but nothing is imminent.
"Reports of my demise − or retirement − are greatly exaggerated," he said.
He also defended the current playoff format amid suggestions of going to a 1 vs. 8, etc., format. He said the current format leads to longer series and more competitive games.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NHL All-Star Game date, new format announced
Today’s roster move: Here
Tuesday notes…
Cubs lineup:
Athletics lineup:
I’m not sure what to say about Jameson Taillon anymore.
His last three starts have been, well, awful. The numbers back me up: 14.2 innings, 21 hits and four walks (1.705 WHIP), 16 runs (all earned, 9.82 ERA), eight home runs. His four-seamer velocity is down from last year, not by much, but maybe dropping that from 92.3 to 91.7 makes a difference.
Last year he had a decent outing against the A’s, April 2, 2025 in Sacramento, allowing two runs (a two-run homer by Brent Rooker). I think we’d take that.
Just keep the ball in the yard, Jamo.
Gage Jump. Now there’s a name!
Jump was the A’s second-round pick in 2024 out of LSU. He was a Top 100 prospect before this season and after nine starts at Triple-A Las Vegas this year, the A’s called him up to make his MLB debut last Tuesday against the Mariners. He allowed nine hits and four runs in five innings.
That’s about all I’ve got here, besides the pitch chart below (for the 88 pitches he threw against Seattle). He’s obviously never faced the Cubs or anyone on their active roster.
Here is the weather forecast for the area around Wrigley Field.
Today’s game is on Marquee Sports Network.
Here is the complete MLB.com live streaming page for today.
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Athletics site Athletics Nation. If you do go there to interact with A’s fans, please be respectful, abide by their individual site rules and serve as a good representation of Cub fans in general and BCB in particular.
The 2026 game discussion procedure has been changed, so please take note.
You’ll find the game preview, like this one, posted separately on the front page two hours before game time (90 minutes for some early day games following night games).
At the same time, a StoryStream containing the preview will also post on the front page, titled “Cubs vs. (Team) (Day of week/date) game threads.” It will contain every post related to that particular game.
The Live! (formerly “First Pitch”) thread will still post at five minutes to game time. It will also post to the front page. That will be the only live game discussion thread. After the game, the recap and Heroes and Goats will also live on the front page as separate posts.
You will also be able to find the preview, Live! thread, recap and Heroes and Goats in this section link. The StoryStream for each game can also be found in that section.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
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The Anaheim Ducks need to free space to sign young stars like Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier, and as a result, they could be looking to trade a struggling Mason McTavish.
A new report from David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period links the St. Louis Blues to the 23-year-old center.
“We know that St. Louis is looking to get younger and augment their lineup quite a bit,” said insider Pagnotta.
Too much center depth in the NHL isn’t really a thing. And having an abundance of young centers is how teams become contenders. Currently, the Blues’ center core consists of 26-year-old Robert Thomas, 21-year-old Dalibor Dvorsky, and 30-year-old Pius Suter. Outside of the NHL, the Blues could see players like Aleksanteri Kaskimaki and Adam Jecho.
Adding McTavish would improve the current Blues roster while still aligning with the direction the team hopes to head.
It’s no secret, though; McTavish really struggled during the 2025-26 season and hasn’t had the breakout campaign many thought he would have had by this point. The 6-foot-1, left-handed center notched just 17 goals and 41 points in 75 games this season after posting 22 goals and 52 points the year before.
Despite the issues in McTavish’s game, he’s proven to be a reliable enough center, even at his worst, and his track record provides enough belief that a change of scenery could unlock his game.
McTavish was the third overall pick in the 2021 NHL draft, with a resume that includes a gold medal at the World Junior Championship, as well as MVP honours at the event, a U-18 gold medal, and an OHL championship.
The price tag to acquire McTavish is a bit of a mystery at the moment, but he just finished the first of a six-year, $7-million contract.
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The Jays shared some injury news today:
Apparently it is raining in Atlanta. I’m hoping the game will happen, because I’ve planed to watch at the bar with a friend, and, if the game doesn’t happen, we’ll have to talk or something.
Tonight’s lineup:
Tuesday marks a special anniversary for the Florida Panthers franchise.
It’s been exactly 10 years since the team debuted its then-brand-new logo and uniform, moving away from the leaping panther that had been the team’s main symbol since its inception.
Florida’s new logo was a shield-shaped design that was inspired by the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, which Panthers Owner Vincent Viola was a member of during his time serving in the military.
The unveiling was held during a fan-attended event on the floor of the then-BB&T Center on the night of June 2.
Four Panthers players were brought onto the stage wearing the new duds.
They were Aaron Ekblad, Vincent Trocheck, Steven Kampfer and Shawn Thornton.
Photos from the event can be seen in the collage at the top of this page.
To say things have been going well for Florida since the logo change would be an understatement.
From 1993-94 to 2015-16, the Panthers reached the playoffs five times in 21 seasons, winning a total of three postseason series (all in 1996) and 18 playoff games during that span.
Under the new Panthers shield logo, it’s been quite a different story.
Florida has qualified for the postseason in six of their ten seasons wearing the new logo, all coming since their 2019-20 campaign.
During that time, the Panthers won back-to-back Stanley Cup Championships while reaching the Stanley Cup Final during three straight seasons, from 2023 to 2025.
Future success seems like a strong possibility for the Panthers, considering the team has their talented and battle-tested core locked up for years to come.
Happy 10th Birthday to the Panthers logo!
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The Brewers’ offense came alive last night, when a Milwaukee offense that scored only nine runs over the weekend put up 16 on Landon Roupp and the San Francisco Giants in the first of a four-game series. Tonight, they will look to keep that offensive momentum going, Kyle Harrison looks to continue his brilliant start to the season.
Harrison’s brilliance this year has been overshadowed by the firepower of his rotation-mate, Jacob Misiorowski. But it’s actually Harrison who leads the Brewers in ERA, even after Misiorowski’s seven scoreless innings on Sunday: in 10 games started this season, Harrison has allowed just nine runs. He’s just short of “qualifying” for the ERA title, but if he did, he’d be third in the league, only behind the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler (1.50) and Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sánchez (1.47). Incidentally, those are probably your two leading candidates for the AL and NL Cy Young Awards right now.
Harrison hasn’t allowed a run in any of his last three outings, which covers 18 innings. In that time he’s struck out 20 batters and walked only one.
For the Giants, 25-year-old righty Trevor McDonald will take the hill. He’ll be making his sixth start of the year (in just his tenth career appearance), and he’s been okay this season: in 29 innings, he has struck out 27 and walked only six. He’s had some bad luck, so his 4.34 ERA doesn’t look great, but his FIP (3.26) tells a nicer story. While McDonald has walked only nine batters in 47 major league innings (1.7 per nine), his minor league numbers suggest that might be small sample size blip; even in just the last two years, he’s walked 4.4 batters per nine when pitching with Triple-A Sacramento.
Milwaukee will mostly ride with the lineup that collected 18 hits last night. The one change is that Garrett Mitchell is in while Andrew Vaughn is out; Jake Bauers slides from left field to first base, while Milwaukee goes with a Jackson Chourio-Mitchell-Sal Frelick outfield alignment. For the second straight night, Luis Rengifo and David Hamilton make up the left side of the infield.
First pitch is at 6:40 on Brewers TV and the Brewers Radio Network.
The awful road Orioles (9-17) take on the even more awful Fenway Red Sox (9-19) in a battle for the bottom of the American League East.
But you know who hasn’t been awful at Fenway of late? Connelly Early. He’s thrown back to back seven inning shutouts in the comforts of home against the Rays and Braves, who are two of the best teams in all of baseball.
Early’s probably going to have to be great again too, because offensively, the Red Sox have been so bad at Fenway Park this season, they’ve only won one game all year in which the opponent has scored more than two runs. In the month of May, it was even worse. Here’s all their wins at home in May, and as you can see, all of them involved the opponent scoring one run or less:
Boy do they suck!
The good news is, as you can probably deduce, two of those were the Connelly Early games referenced above, so between that and the Orioles being on the road, maybe they can break through tonight.
Lineup wise, the biggest items of note are Ceddanne Rafaela and Willson Contreras back in there after being out of the lineup on Sunday to double up on rest days with the Monday off day, and Mickey Gasper continuing to court favor with Chad Tracy as he once again gets the start behind the dish.
⚾️ First Pitch: 6:45pm — Fenway Park, Boston, MA
📺 TV: NESN
📻 Radio: WEEI
San Diego Padres (32-26) at Philadelphia Phillies (30-29), June 2, 2026, 3:40 p.m. PST
Watch: Padres.TV
Location: Citizens Bank Park – Philadelphia, Penn.
Listen: 97.3 The Fan
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