Wednesday’s Sports Notes

chicagocubs

 

BASEBALL
Major League Baseball has canceled a two-game series in London between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals because of the coronavirus pandemic. The teams had been scheduled to play at Olympic Stadium on June 13-14. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred made the announcement in a memorandum sent to MLB employees on Wednesday. MLB said March 19 that it had scrapped series in Mexico City and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Opening day was to have been March 26, and MLB has delayed the start of its season until mid-May at the earliest.

 

COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Former Syracuse football coach Frank Maloney has died at age 79. His family says Maloney died Monday at his home in Chicago. Maloney played center and guard at Michigan from 1959-61 and served as an assistant coach at his alma mater before being hired at Syracuse to succeed Hall of Famer Ben Schwartzwalder. Maloney inherited a team that had finished 2-9 in Schwartzwalder’s final season and guided the Orange for seven seasons. His teams went 32-46 from 1974-80. He resigned after the 1980 season and served 27 years as director of ticket operations for the Chicago Cubs until retiring in 2010.

 

NFL
The Bears have re-signed safety DeAndre Houston-Carson to a one-year contract. Houston-Carson has played primarily on special teams since the Bears drafted him out of William & Mary in the sixth round in 2016.

NFL team owners have voted to expand the playoffs by one team in each conference for next season.
During a conference call to discuss league business after the annual meetings were canceled because of the new coronavirus pandemic, the owners also awarded one of those extra games to CBS and one to NBC.
Only the teams with the best record in the AFC and NFC will get a bye under the new format; the top two teams skipped wild-card weekend in the past.

 

TENNIS
Wimbledon has been canceled for the first time since World War II because of the coronavirus pandemic. The All England Club announced after an emergency meeting that the oldest Grand Slam tournament in tennis would not be held in 2020. Wimbledon was scheduled to be played on the outskirts of London from June 29 to July 12. It now joins the growing list of sports events scrapped in 2020 because of the COVID-19 outbreak. That includes the Tokyo Olympics, the NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments and the European soccer championship. The last time Wimbledon was called off was 1945.