Sports
The Oakland A’s, Lawrence Butler and another personality taken from the Bay Area

OAKLAND, Calif. — Lawrence Butler is used to alter. A fixture in the baseball world that never really knows what city you are in or what day of the week it’s, rightfully comes with the territory. Unfortunately, and as expected, Oakland Athletics fans have seen more shake-ups in and out of town – not due to a trade, which is the typical path for young players in Alameda County. This time the entire team is gone.
On Thursday, the final day of baseball at the Oakland Coliseum, the 24-year-old outfielder went 1-for-4 and scored a run. A solid day to win, all emotions aside – which is not any small thing even for a debutant who has the world in front of him. For players like manager Mark Kotsay, who played for this city and park from 2004 to 2007, those feelings can’t be hidden.
If you were being attentive to the Athletics simply because front office ineptitude over the past few years has made them the saddest laughingstock in the league this side of Chicago’s South Side, nobody would doubt you. It’s only a shame that Oakland specifically did not have more time with a man who embodies every part the league wants in a personality.
“I think for people who have been here the longest, it’s more emotional. I mean, I know a lot of employees are probably going to lose their jobs and be looking for jobs,” Butler said after the 3-2 victory over the Texas Rangers. “I mean, there’s a lot of long, hard-core A’s fans who have just, you know, been here forever from the beginning, I feel for them.”
Over the last six seasons, all six of his skilled profession, he has played for 10 teams in the event you include the Arizona Fall League but not the major leagues. Leaving was never the hardest part, but you’ll be able to’t help but think that in a really perfect world, Butler is strictly the form of player Oakland would retain, develop, and turn right into a star.
He looks and dresses like several necessary person of that age. He isn’t a robot with no visible personality. In April, he met with MLB Network sportscaster Siera Santos at Quad Studios in New York to record some on-camera scenes. He described his admiration for musical artists Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, Beyoncé and Whitney Houston.
“You can have a song that is special to you, or you can have a song that just draws the audience to your attack. It might push you to do something special on the field,” Butler says simply. “I think music has a big influence on baseball.”
Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
It sounds so easy, so obvious, so easy, but sometimes that is what you wish. Talking to players about their personal preferences in almost anything related to the arts may be an especially time-consuming process. Guys don’t need to disclose any personal motivational secrets they’ve, or they’re afraid the unsuitable confession might go viral, and while you stack 25 of those guys on top of one another in a club, you are in for a sleep that turns an all-sane person right into a bore.
Butler can never be taken for square footage. Whether it’s oversized sunglasses, vibrant accessories, or an all-around game, his outfit feels familiar when he’s wearing his kelly-colored Oakland tees. That’s because the Athletics were a team back in the day that weren’t afraid to combine up their personalities. In some ways, that is where the series’ identity lies, somewhat than the latest incarnation dropped at the bay by hated team owner John Fisher.
The kid, who goes by the name Z4law on Instagram, is the closest thing we have seen to the style and charisma that the A’s of the ’70s and ’90s dropped at the game. Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers and Reggie Jackson franchise. The band that brought Bash brothers Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, the Hendersons and countless other names plastered on the limitless concrete partitions of the Coliseum arena.
In short, exactly the sort of player you might construct a team, league or city around. The form of player who puts their butts in the seats and the balls in the stands at the plate. This all is smart as a product of the Marquis Grissom Baseball Association in Atlanta. And while you see him after games, giving style tricks to his teammates in front of everyone and generally having a superb time, it’s hard to breathe a breath of fresh air.
Despite all the nonsense MLB puts out attempting to make the game more fun and diverse blah blah blah, I do not understand why Butler is not the league’s newest darling. It’s all there and we have not even talked about baseball. That’s what it’s all about to some extent.
Ask many black individuals who were kids back in the day and they’ll let you know that those high fives and that whole attitude were the reason they liked the game in the first place. When you set a bunch of fellows in white shoes against the soul and core of a spot that has change into cultural legends like Digital Underground, MC Hammer, Keyshia Cole, Too Short, En Vogue and Tony! Toni! Toné!, all of it makes an excessive amount of sense. But no, as a substitute we’ve a culture of doom and dismay, with owners crying that fans aren’t showing up because raw sewage flows through the last dugouts in the big leagues.
When you see it up close along with your own eyes, it breaks your heart. Never mind that the city has lost three skilled sports teams in five years, which is an actual shame. Butler is the closest thing to real pride in Oakland in YEARS, and for the next few years he’ll be stationed in West Sacramento, where few people will find out about it.
In his first full MLB season, Butler hit .265 with 22 home runs, 57 RBI, 18 stolen bases and recorded 3.1 wins above substitute in 124 games.
“He’s that particular guy, if you were running an organization that you wanted to put a lot of marketing money into, someone who’s personable, who can play and, you know, and who has a good rapport with the fans” – Trent Henderson, son of the late outfielder Dave Henderson, who played for the A’s from 1988 to 1993, said Thursday at a postgame fan event where fans gathered after the final break. “He would be the perfect franchise guy.”

Clinton Yates/Andscape
There are, after all, countless the explanation why Thursday was such an oddly depressing yet cathartic day. In The Bay, fans are too indignant with Fisher to take into consideration the greater picture, which is fair. But when you see the individuals who show up at the tailgate and have supported and boycotted this band in various forms over the years, it is easy to guess why a scoundrel like Fisher doesn’t prefer it. This man sees no a part of himself on this culture.
There’s no way Fisher ever shared the bag together with his homies and faded. He has no idea who rapper Del the Funky Homosapien is, let alone “Mr. Dobalina.” If rapper Dru Down himself – the son of funk musician Bootsy Collins – had taken the field with crazy curls, Fisher would have had no idea. Meanwhile, after the game, as players and team staff collect dirt to maintain as souvenirs, the stadium’s public address system blares through the Luniz team speakers I actually have a remix of “I’ve Got Five On It”.when Richie Rich drops the iconic line “” and the bottom bowl screams “OAKLAND” in unison because that is what you do when that happens.
Fisher has no idea why grown adults wear gold grills during their game – which is ironic. It’s sad that in a city with as much culture as another major city, the MLB commissioner’s office didn’t fight tooth and nail to maintain this team there because diversity is clearly a priority. Instead, a gaggle of other owners cowardly allowed a miser to spoil certainly one of the best franchises the game has ever seen.
“I believe it’s just a bit of s— and not good for business because this area may be very profitable. And in the event you have a look at people like his friend, like (Golden State Warriors majority owner) Joe Lacob, right, you will find individuals who understand how much money there’s in the Bay Area and how much we’re already spending. It’s not like everyone here is just broke, and half the individuals who come to the games will not be just from Oakland,” Sacramento Kings announcer Gary “G-Man” Gerould said after the game. Nearby, women of their 60s were taking photos while sitting on the back of an SUV’s open tailgate. “He would somewhat go somewhere where he thinks people will spend more cash. You can easily get people here to spend even more cash. If you give us something, fix the lights, give us one player, right, like us, you could have players like Khris Davis who come back to the team and take pay cuts simply to play with us? Yes, Negro. But I do not know who of their right mind goes to are available and play for a minor league team for a minor league salary in a minor league stadium in the hottest city in California, outside on AstroTurf.
That said, Butler has had a monster 12 months. This 12 months he played TWO home games that resulted in three runs. He drives for a reason. He comes from a pedigree and a gaggle of friends of other young players who’re also not afraid to be themselves. The first time I met him, we were sitting with friends and family as his minor league season ended and everyone went home to look at Atlanta Braves center fielder Michael Harris II the 12 months he won Rookie of the Year in 2019. There was a conversation about how playing video games is a savior that keeps a tight-knit group of friends. If you realize, you realize.
Thursday was a day filled with confusion. So much potential, a lot love, a lot passion, and it’s all thrown away because a bunch of wealthy guys are too scared to get up to some moron who doesn’t know the difference between a swipe and a zipper. You haven’t got to be an A fan to get indignant about this.
Meanwhile, there’s a portal to the past and the future, containing every part the game expects from young players. Exactly the potential star that Oakland needs, night after night, without the opportunity to really connect together with his fan base.
“It was the biggest variety of fans I’ve ever played in front of in my life. And to have that atmosphere, to have them behind you, you realize, to make a noise each time someone comes on base, or during an enormous strike, I’ll definitely keep in mind that,” Butler said before the team squeezed into their buses – even after tying the home game — because the organization was concerned about potential outbreaks of violence after the tilt. “I mean, just like any other offseason, you can’t take the offseason off just because you had a good season. You have to come in, work harder and try to do better next year. ”
But for the fans of that day, there might be no next 12 months.
Sports
Jalen Milroe can follow the Jalen path in NFL

Star Black playmakers aren’t any longer an exception – they’re the rule. Throughout the entire football season, this series will discover the importance and influence of black QB from bottom -up to NFL.
Indianapolis-keep me, should you heard it earlier: playmaker Alabama born in Texas, who’s a stronger runner than a passerby, will probably be called outside the first round of the NFL Draft.
The playmaker was undefeated in Sec as a primary -year starter.
The playmaker never played for the same offensive coordinator.
The name of the playmaker is even Jalen.
But it isn’t clear that Jalen hurts. This winter he was busy winning the Super Bowl MVP, and he didn’t play Iron Bowl or against Michigan.
Instead, it’s a former playmaker of Crimson Tide Jalen Milroewho last week Combine Combine tried to convey the case to the trainers and evaluators that he – like his namesake – is price being their playmaker franchise in the future despite questions on his ability.
“I went through adversity. I saw everything as a quarterback, “Milroe said on Friday. “I played at the most difficult conference in the country. It would be easier to play at other conferences, but what I could see in Sec catapulted me that I was ready to play NFL. “
Justin Casterline/Getty Images
Departing from Katy in Texas, she originally got involved in Texas in 2019, but a 12 months later she fell to Alabama. After he was sitting behind the Crimson Tide Starter Bryung for 2 seasons, Milroe took his reins in the 2023 season. He helped Alabama survive Sec (8-0) this 12 months, won by the conference rival and two-time defender Georgia in the SEC championship, which caused Crimson Tide to the play-off collection.
But while Milroe had a big arm (his 10 yards for the test took third place in Sec in 2023), the pass was not his strong suit. For two seasons as a starter Milroe never achieved 3000 yards in one season, the first starter of Alabama, who did it because it … hurts.
Hurts, from Houston, led Crimson Tide to the National National Championships in 2016–17, but during these two seasons were lower than 5,000 yards. While Hurts was a singular Rusher (1,809 yards and 21 sticks) at the moment, his weakness as a passerby is known for led to the spare Tua Tavailoa during the break of the national championships in 2017.
In the mix, Milroe decided that despite his pedestrian passes, he was still worthy of being a start at NFL.
He is aware of his weaknesses and swore that he worked in the ass to enhance outside being “one dimension.” He could move when his legendary trainer, Nick Saban, retired after the 2023 season, but decided to not fall off. He traveled six miles a day to ensure that that something was left in the fourth quarter in the fourth quarter. He studied progression and reads after I-SNAP to lift his IQ in football.
Unlike the forecast sorts of the first round, Cam Ward and Shedeur Sanders, Milroe threw a mix on Saturday, hoping that he would show the bands that he has mechanics to do that to the playmaker NFL. It turned out to be a mixed bag. Milroe showed strong arm strength and a very good location of sail routes, curls and it while throwing exercises, but fought accuracy on intermediate and on the routes.
“That’s so many things that I can learn more where I am today and where I will be when it comes to day 1, starting with NFL,” said Milroe before Saturday exercises. “Always be a game student, at all times attempt to develop, because it would be so many opportunities in which I can look back and say that it was the moment after I grew up as a playmaker.
“That’s right now, I’m just trying to grow as much as possible, put my best foot forward and just look for development.”
Derick E. Hingle/Getty Images
Milroe was asked that he was one other playmaker in Alabama to succeed in the mix, following in the footsteps of the role (who moved to Oklahoma in 2019), Tavailoa, Mac Jones and Bryce Young. Milroe said he appreciates being in the company of others, but he added that it’s difficult to check him with others.
“We had different bands, we had different players around us, we had a different system,” he said.
But when he specifically asked what he could study the journey of Hurts-from the first manager of the game after the super Bowl-Milroe master said he inspired him his companion Alabam.
“The most important thing I learned from J. Hurts is how he kept his head (I) always continued to work,” said Milroe. “He at all times raised his game, he has never been self -deserved, and all the pieces you see is great progress from him.
“And I have to applaud him as a person, he as a man, because he is definitely inspiring for many playmakers of my image, as well as many playmakers throughout the country. He leads to all of us. “
The couple isn’t completely similar. Hurts had about 20 kilos on Milroe when he was in college. Milroe has a stronger arm, while Hurts played more and not using a mistake of football: Milroe threw 17 interceptions and ate 67 bags for 2 seasons as a starter in comparison with 10 captures Hurts and 43 bags.
But they can each be changing the game when their teams need them. In a highly publicized match against Georgia at the starting of the last season, Milroe finished almost 82% of his passes on 374 yards and two appointments, adding 117 yards to the ground for the next two results.
Milroe can also match the wounds in the so -called “Jalen-ISMS. “
“Climbing upstairs is not easy, but when you reach the top of this mountain, you will learn so many things when it comes to adversity when it comes to difficulties, things along the way,” said Milroe in a mix.
Sports
Like Tommie Smith and John Carlos from 1968. Black Power Salute inspired me to find my goal

I’d say that I grew up within the household to be sure that that me and my siblings were aware of the black history. My parents invested in the gathering of black encyclopedias. On the duvet we had a version of the Bible with Black Jesus. Our house was stuffed with books of black novelists and thinkers, and if a black document appeared, we watched it. I watched all movies made on television about Dr. King, each “Roots” and “Alex Haley’s Queen” and I sat for all 14 hours “Eyes on the reward”-as a toddler. Bless my heart.
Having said this, there have been pockets of black history, and more likely that I had no opportunity to delve into once I was a toddler. The college was where all the will for information and understanding of the combined. I attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., One of a very powerful historically black universities within the country. It was there that I met people from around the globe whose knowledge about black history differed (often depending on the colleges and the communities by which we lived), but everyone had hunger to learn more.
One day, through the first yr, I remember one among my friends in a T -shirt by which I had definitely seen before, but I never paid attention to. There was a black and white screen printing on the shirt (what I do know now) the enduring moment on the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968, where on the rostrum for 200-meter medals, Tommie Smith, John Carlos (races 1. And 3. Place Finaners) Everyone gathered a black fist in gloves while he played “Star Spangled Banner”. Peter Norman, the second place from Australia, wore a human rights badge, like Smith and Carlos.
Not only did they raise the fist of black power (although they each said it was for human rights), they received medals in black socks to represent poverty within the black community, and Smith wore a black scarf for black pride. Carlos showed solidarity with blue-wheeled employees, unpacking the jacket and wore a necklace from the beads for individuals who were lynched. Due to the state of Black America in 1968 and a continuing struggle for equality and civil rights, there have been calls to a boycott of the Games. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was also killed in April this yr – and all three athletes were inspired enough to find a way to do it on the rostrum, which led to one of the crucial durable images of public protest.
I remember how I learned history and realized that on the most important scene these brave men used their moment of triumph and victory to quietly protest against the conditions of underrated communities in America. I felt strengthened; We often discuss standing on the arms of giants, however the more I got into the history of black in America, the more I spotted what number of giants there have been. In college I used to be very bad and for a while ready to burn every part that represented the establishment or any obstacle to black liberation. I felt like all those individuals who even saw their space on the planet in reference to individuals who could never give you the option to speak as heroes whose lives were to be modeled later. Especially since it was also fastidiously that putting people in front of him can often bring an enormous personal loss.
When Smith and Carlos took their position, they were booed on the stadium and ordered to be sent home by the International Olympic Committee. The athletes returned home, but they weren’t welcomed by the hero, but as a substitute of rough sleds, and even in some cases the specter of death. They were also not beloved by athletes. Two men, associated eternally in history, even have a good relationship –Carlos even claims that he let Smith go within the race Because “Tommie Smith would never put his fist in the sky if I won this race,” the claim that Smith denies.
History ultimately has a way of rights, but it surely took a few years and realizations on the front of social policy, in order that the actions of those persons are perceived as brave and needed, not only selfish and smug.
The lessons that I learned from College and continuous reading and education I gained (my head remained within the book about black history) were one among the best advantages in HBCU. The very variety of books I learned about about which I actually have never heard of – I actually have upheld me all my life.
That is why I remember sooner or later I used to be walking around Washington, the eastern Washington market and a street seller was selling different photos of moments in black history, and he had a 40 -inch photo within the Tommie Smith and John Carlos frame. I paid for it in money and spent it across the capital of the country until I returned home. I do know that it happened in 2005 (I finished Morehouse College in 2001) because I just moved to my first apartment with no roommate and it was the very first thing that I actually have ever suspended on the wall. This picture within the frame still hangs on the wall in my home in 2025 and I used it to teach my children about sacrifice and privilege and how you may have to discuss individuals who cannot.

The query that my youngest children often ask: “How do I know who can’t speak for herself?” Which is an incredible query. For this I answered an easy fact, pointing to the photo:
“These men have made a gesture that gave people whose most of us, including them, would never see or never know them, but on which life negatively affects the alternatives of the wealthy and the federal government. Sometimes you may have to take this chance to say something because you do not know in the event you’ll ever have such a big platform.
Son, there may be at all times someone who cannot speak for himself, and you may have to use it in a voice, because perhaps the thing you say or a stand that can help someone you understand, live a greater life. ”
I take advantage of words that may understand a little bit higher, but I can inform you that my children have a look at this photo on a regular basis, and once one among my sons said: “These guys are heroes, right?”
I say yes, they’re. They are the heroes of the Black History.
They will live eternally for speaking, and even quietly, in solidarity with those that couldn’t.

(Tagstranslate) @Ap
Sports
Main Treasury Official Morgan State University, Sterling Steward, died

Morgan State University announced that his older associate athletics director and tax director, Sterling Steward, died.
No reason for death was disclosed, but the college has confirmed his contribution since he was employed in December 2022.
Morgan State University Athletics mourns Sterling Steward’s departure https://t.co/avjzilxhja
– Grizzly Life (@grizzlylife22) February 26, 2025
Steward died on February 26. In Morgan State he was accountable for the event of university programs, supporting partnerships and strengthening the financial and operational success of the Faculty.
“Sterling was more than a colleague-he was a respected leader, mentor and friend,” said in a written statement by Den Freeman-Patton, vice chairman and director of inter-university athletes. “His passion for athletics and commitment to raising Morgan programs were visible in everything he did. He worked tirelessly to ensure that our sports students had resources and the possibilities of distinction, and its impact will be felt for many years. We expand our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones, especially his three sons and sister when we mourn this huge loss. “
While the steward worked in Morgan, strategic growth and cooperation occurred. His work with the institutional development department helped to offer more opportunities and created lasting relationships to support sports programs.
Steward earlier he worked At the University of New Orleans (UNO) as an assistant to the college athletics director for strategic income generation. He also made stays on the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Savannah State University, Mississippi Valley State University, Alabama State University, Kentucky State University, Eastern Oregon University and Xavier University in various roles, including for a senior consultant athletics director and sports director.
He was from New Orleans, who received the title of bachelor and master’s degree on the University of Southern Mississippi. He won a bachelor’s degree in the sphere of coaching and administration/history of sport and his master’s degree in the sphere of sport management.
(Tagstransate) Morgan State Universiry
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