Detroit’s Justin Verlander took a shutout into the ninth inning and the Tigers held beat the Yankees 2-1 Tuesday night for a 3-0 lead in the AL championship series. Yankees starter Phil Hughes was lifted in the fourth because of a stiff back, and manager Joe Girardi's lineup shuffle, which included Alex Rodriguez on the bench again, failed to snap New York out of its untimely hitting funk. The Red Sox 2004 comeback from a 3-0 deficit to the Yankees is the only time in baseball history a team has survived the odds. CC Sabathia takes the mound for the Bombers tonight in their last ditch effort to stay alive this season.
This afternoon will see game three of the San Francisco-St. Louis NLCS series, tied at a game apiece.
Hard to believe but as baseball’s season nears the end and the NFL inches closer to the middle of their season, it’s time once again for basketball. IN a preseason game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Celtics, a 96-96 tie went all the way to the finish when a foul shot with 4.1 seconds to go gave the Nets a 97-96 win over Boston. The Nets who moved from New Jersey back to New York this year will officially begin their season with an inter-borough matchup with the Knicks on November 1st. The Nets began their history in New York as an ABA team but were forced out of the state when the NBA forced the Nets to pay a penalty to the Knicks for “invading” the New York area when the leagues merged in 1976. The Celtics’ season starts October 30th against the Miami Heat.
And finally this morning if all this talk of basketball has got you worried for the winter, at least you can’t say the same about hockey. As the NHL lockout continues into another week, the league has made a new offer to the players' association that proposes a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenue and a full 82-game season starting Nov. 2. As talks resumed Tuesday in Toronto between the league and the NHLPA, Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the offer, which is crafted for — if nothing else — a quick response from the head of the players' association, Donald Fehr. The NHL locked out its players on Sept. 15, and the regular season was scheduled to begin on Oct. 11. A Nov. 2 start date would extend the season well into June, but would preserve some of the marquee events, such as the Jan. 1 Winter Classic in Michigan. This is the third lockout under Bettman's watch, but unlike the previous two, dialogue has remained steady. The two sides last met last week in New York.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press