A 3-YEAR-OLD BALL of energy named Noah bounds around a former live music venue one block from the beach in Santa Barbara. He's surrounded by about a dozen top prep prospects from around the U.S., all here at P3 Applied Sports Science, a performance lab that has assessed the biomechanics of hundreds of the world's best athletes, including about 350 NBA players over the past 11 years.

It's the first Saturday morning in May 2017, and Noah is here with his older brother, Zion, who fears that Noah will one day be better than him, because Noah began playing basketball at 2 years old while Zion only started at 4.

For now, though, Zion Williamson is 16, and in one month will grace the cover of Slam magazine, which will state that the 6-foot-7 forward is as explosive as Russell Westbrook and can dunk like LeBron James.

At P3, basketball players are typically outfitted with 22 markers, each 12.7 millimeters in diameter and placed on a dozen specific anatomical landmarks, from their feet all the way up to their back. After warming up, they undergo a series of vertical and lateral movement tests atop two force plates installed in the floor beneath them, which record their ground reaction forces. Looking on are 10 3D motion-capture cameras, at a multitude of angles, capturing more than 5,000 data points, including joint-by-joint kinetic and kinematic information. The assessments take 15 minutes. A half hour later, a remarkably detailed biomechanical model of each athlete's skeletal system is produced.

Today, P3 officials are eager to assess Zion, given his off-the-charts athleticism and the gravity-defying slams that have already made him an international viral sensation. But instead of taking such tests, Zion is spending his first P3 visit focusing only on recovering from another long season of club basketball that, his parents worry, has taken its toll.

Those parents, Lee Anderson and Sharonda Sampson, stand nearby while Zion's legs are swaddled in Normatec sleeves. As the sleeves swell with air, compressing muscles to improve blood flow, Lee and Sharonda recall their own athletic experiences. Lee played college basketball at Clemson; Sharonda ran track at Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina. When they were kids, decades ago, athletes played several sports and took summers off.

Zion, however, began playing on youth basketball teams at 5 years old, competing against those twice his age, and he's been playing on the travel circuit ever since. These days, his school season starts in October, then he rolls into summer youth basketball. "This is all he does," Sharonda says, as she watches her son. "He doesn't have time for anything else."

During the summers, he'd play four games in a weekend, maybe even five or six, then train for hours every day during the week. Before they knew it, Friday would roll around and he'd be off to play in another tournament. Recently, though, Zion has been feeling the brunt. After bouncing from Las Vegas to their home in South Carolina, then back to the West Coast for events, games and training, soreness and fatigue have seeped in. The high school junior says he felt especially haggard after a recent Adidas event in California, where cramps and charley horses wracked both of his legs for an hour, a first for him.

Years ago, Sharonda might have told her son to toughen up. But as Zion's basketball profile has risen (he just averaged 36.8 points and 13 rebounds in his junior season while leading his high school to its second straight state title), and as she and Lee have become exhausted just from attending his games ("We know if we're wearing out, he's wearing out," she says), she listens more. Sharonda carries a degree in health and physical education, but she's also studying kinesiology -- the science of body movement. Today, if Zion says he's tired, she asks him to take time off.

At the moment, Zion, still in his Normatec sleeves, is recovering from a bone bruise he suffered a month ago during an AAU game in Arkansas. It was a humid night, and the floor was wet, so Zion kept slipping, hitting his knee on the court. He awoke the next day to find it swollen. Two weeks' rest was prescribed, but the moment, Sharonda says, provided a realization: Zion is 16, she thought to herself. He has way more basketball on the other side, way in front of him.

Zion says he gets it -- sort of. "That is going to be your money-maker, your body -- so we have to start taking care of it," his parents tell him. They point to the NBA, where he aims to play for at least a decade, and where recent seasons have been dominated by discussions of rest and players sitting out. "They're resting," his parents say. "You should be resting, too." But the other half of Zion wants to play.

But then, as Zion is explaining his desire to play more, Lee cuts in.

"But we're not going to let him do it when he's hurt," Lee says. "We're not going to let him do that ... as parents we're going to actually let him know, Hey, you shut that down until you get better."

Early on, Zion's parents felt the pull of the youth circuit, as if attendance were required and missing it meant missing out on a future in the game. But as Zion got older, his parents fielded more requests for him to appear at tournaments and events. So earlier this year, they decided to limit him to four per summer.

Here, in the high-tech sports science lab, Sharonda looks at her son -- at all the promise before him. How can she get the message through? "You're 16," Sharonda tells him. "In 10 years, you'll be 26. You don't want to be worn down by the time you're 26."

THE ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON leans over the right knee, two dime-width incisions already sliced on each side. Now comes another, just behind and below the knee -- this is where he'll draw out a shiny tendon that looks like a fresh shoelace dipped in cream: a hamstring. There are four such tendons to choose from, and they will grow back within nine months, but the surgeon only needs two. They will be used to help replace the torn anterior cruciate ligament in the knee -- an injury suffered on the football field when its owner, during a game with friends, planted his right foot and collapsed.

A fellow in training and a scrub technician stand beside Dr. Nirav Pandya as he steadily guides the scalpel and maneuvers an arthroscope -- a small tube with a camera at its end -- inside the knee, sending back footage onto two flat-screen monitors nearby. His 39-year-old hands move with the efficiency and certainty of someone who has performed this procedure 600 times before (which he has). The steady beep of a heart-rate monitor fills the operating room. A ventilator hums while the patient's chest rises and falls. Outside, a grey sky spits rain on a late winter Tuesday afternoon in Walnut Creek, about 20 miles from Oakland.

Typically, a procedure to reconstruct a torn ACL might take 60 minutes for an adult, but this one is taking longer because the X-ray technician is wheeling over the machine after almost every maneuver and because each X-ray is scrutinized to make sure that nearby growth plates, which have not yet closed, are not endangered. Extra time is also taken to ensure that the meniscus, the cushion of the knee, is repaired to prevent the early onset of arthritis. These steps would not be taken on an adult who has stopped growing, but this is not an adult.

It is a 9-year-old boy.

Years ago, as a 10-year-old growing up in Chicago, Dr. Pandya had planned to follow his father, a family doctor, into medicine -- in his case, specifically to become the Chicago Bulls' team doctor. During his residency training in Philadelphia, Pandya decided that he wanted to work with kids. And seven years ago, he moved to the Walnut Creek branch of the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, which examines patients up to age 25. But one day, about five years ago, in came a new patient: an 8-year-old boy, a local basketball player who had ruptured his ACL.

"He was this kid who was basically playing four or five days a week," Pandya recalls. "He was doing drills all the time, and he was playing and landed wrong." His ACL popped. Pandya couldn't believe that such an injury could happen to someone so young.

In the years that followed, Pandya says, more kids that age began to come in, and the operating rooms filled with surgical trainees who came to watch because they had never seen such injuries to kids. But, in time, it became so commonplace that soon the shock wore off -- no longer did an ACL surgery to an 8-year-old raise eyebrows, nor did the constant stream of patients so young seem unusual. Five years ago, Pandya estimates that he alone would see about 1,500 pediatric sports injuries and perform maybe 150 surgeries -- ACL, cartilage, shoulder injuries -- in a single year; those numbers have "skyrocketed," he says, and last year stood at 6,000 and 400, respectively. More than half of his operations are now on those under the age of 14.

Often, Pandya says, he knows exactly what he'll find before ever making an incision, before the arthroscope reveals what's beneath the surface. He can roll the knee in his hands, and it might feel loose, like a bunch of untethered parts. He knows he'll see cartilage that should look paper white but is grayish -- not smooth, but rough -- not hard and solid, but soft and spongy. He knows he'll see an ACL and it will it not look intact, like a new shoelace, but frayed, like it's been through a meat grinder.

During the procedures, Pandya is focused on each step, knowing the pitfalls -- avoid hitting a nerve or blood vessel, be precise when drilling through bone to create a small hole through which to thread the new tendon. On the 15-minute drive from his home in Oakland to the clinic, he mentally prepares himself. How will the kid respond? How will the parents respond? Will each side listen? Will they take the rehabilitation seriously? Will they take the proper steps and be diligent?

Sometimes, he'll see kids who aren't injured but are in pain, month after month. "Look, you just need to stop," Pandya will tell the parents, "if you play 40 hours a week of basketball, you're going to get injured."

Time and again, though, the first question parents ask is not about the well-being of their kids, but simply, "When can my kid get back out there?" Pandya will explain the potential hazards of the surgery, including risk of infection or re-injury. He'll show them a picture of what a healthy knee looks like for someone of their child's age -- and then show them what their kid's knee looks like now: routinely worn to the point that it appears three decades older than it should.

But often, he says, the only time parents appear truly shocked is when they're told how long their child will be sidelined.

Pandya sees the kids throughout their rehabilitation process. Some he's seen for years; he reconstructed their ACL only for it to be torn again. In some cases, he has repaired their ACLs three times by their early teenage years. The parents drop the kid off for physical therapy almost every day, but the kid lives with the injury, the rehab, every single day. Sometimes, they'll confide in Pandya.

Look, I don't want to go back, the kids will tell him. I'm afraid of going back. I don't enjoy it anymore. I've spent my past three years just rehabbing. That's all I do. I go from one surgery to the next. I just want to be a kid.

Today, when he leaves the operating room, Dr. Pandya removes his surgical mask. He's 5-foot-6 and lean, a former collegiate track athlete at the University of Chicago. He's just finished his second ACL reconstruction surgery of the day; he does up to four a day now, two days a week. Earlier this morning, he reconstructed the ACL of a 12-year-old boy, a skier. The day before, another ACL, that of another 12-year-old boy, a soccer player. He heads to his office, takes a seat and resets for a minute.

"I don't want kids in my clinic," he says. Pandya thinks of his own children, a 7-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl. His son loves sports, plays soccer, basketball, kickball and swims. And there may come a day when his children decide to focus on one sport, believing they need to specialize in order to stand out. Pandya knows he will then have to explain in detail what he sees at work almost every day.

IT'S ANOTHER SATURDAY morning at P3, in 2017, and E.J. Montgomery, a 6-foot-10 forward from Florida, settles into a chair behind a desk and peers at animated versions of his skeleton on a pair of computer screens.

Beside him is Eric Leidersdorf, P3's director of biomechanics, who is about to explain how Montgomery, a five-star forward in the class of 2018, scored in his assessment and how those numbers compared to the most elite college and NBA players. E.J. has gained seven pounds since he was last assessed by P3 nine months ago -- and his vertical leap has increased by four inches. But his ankles and quadriceps are tight, hampering the fluidity of his movement in a key area -- his knees. "The goal," says Leidersdorf, a scruffy-bearded Stanford grad, "is to make those things feel as good as new, back before you started playing crazy AAU schedules." E.J. nods. He's been playing club basketball since the fourth grade, 30 games a summer, plus 30 more during the school season. And in the years since, his father, Efrem, has seen it all: kids specializing early, accruing mileage.

E.J. is here along with 14 other players around his age. The players start cycling through workout stations where not a single basketball is present, warming up through a series of hops, skips and lunges before proceeding to vertical and lateral movement tests and a mobility screen where range of motion on their hips and ankle are measured with a digital protractor.

Then it's time to review the results. A combo guard from Texas is told he has tight ankles and needs to improve his hip mobility but that he jumps really well for his age, especially in comparison to most NBA shooting guards. "Now we just want to make sure you can do that for a long time," Leidersdorf says. A center from Senegal by way of Texas is shown slow-motion footage of how his knees bend inward when he jumps. He quietly asks what he can do to stop that. "We've seen way worse than this," Leidersdorf assures him. "It's just making sure it's good moving forward."

Adam Hewitt, P3's director of operations, stands nearby as players are given their results. "The AAU schedule is probably not going to change," he says, "but what you can do is make these guys better at withstanding the demands of playing so much. We can provide them with that. We can quantify and understand their inefficiencies so they can address them and become more well-rounded so they can go play every weekend and have a body that will still work."

While E.J.'s latest results are being explained, Marcus Elliott, P3's founder and lead scientist, is standing nearby. Elliott points at the animated version of E.J. on the screen, set alight by the markers. He explains how well E.J. moves laterally, then unspools a cautionary tale.

About five years earlier, Elliott says, P3 examined a 26-year-old NBA forward. "Look, the way you're loading across your right side, you're doing three distinct things that put stress on the medial aspect of your right knee, and you're likely going to wear out the cartilage on the inside of your right knee," P3 staffers told the forward at the time.

But then the P3 staffers learned that the player had no cartilage in that knee -- at all. It had completely worn out. "If we had gotten him earlier, the things that he showed us that were a problem were entirely preventable," Elliott says. "So that was one of those touchpoints. ... I was like, 'What if we got those guys not when they were 28 but when they were 18 or 17 or 16?'" That led to P3 to begin evaluating players like E.J., now being assessed for the third time. His first assessment came when he was just 14, making him one of the youngest players P3 has ever assessed. At one point, Elliott taps E.J. on the shoulder. "You don't want to go limping into this next phase," Elliott tells him. "I know you've got the skills to keep playing this game for a while, but your body has to be there, too."

E.J. smiles, revealing his braces.

"They shouldn't be peaking at 16 or 17," Elliott says later. "But I can tell you from a data standpoint, you can make a case for it. And you talk to the individual athletes, a whole lot of them will tell you, 'Oh, when I was a senior in high school is when I was jumping my best. I was moving my best.' A lot of guys will tell that story. It just shouldn't be that way. It should happen at 23, 24, 25, but with most of these kids, that's not the case."

STANDING IN THE middle of P3's facilities one afternoon after a flurry of prep players file out, a man named Jeremy Russotti surveys P3's high-tech gadgetry.

Russotti, co-founder of a prep basketball program that trains elite athletes, majored in kinesiology at Sonoma State -- and loves basketball. And after 14 years teaching middle school physical education, then working as a skills trainer/strength and conditioning coach for youth players, Russotti married his two loves at Prolific Prep, a program in Napa, California, that partners with Napa Christian, a private school. In 2014, with backing from Adidas, Russotti helped found that program in part because of issues that he saw around the youth landscape, where he says players were too often exhausted by marathon schedules, didn't receive proper training and saw promising careers be cut short because of it.

"[Basketball] is all he does. He doesn't have time for anything else." Sharonda Sampson, Zion Williamson's mom, in May 2017, before his senior year of high school

He vowed to do better: He would hold shorter practices -- not two hours a day, five days a week, as it was when he went to high school, but just 50 minutes a day, total. He also wanted to limit the number of tournaments and games that his players would play in, even if it meant taking heat from tournament directors, which he says happened when they sat one of their players, a future NBA lottery pick, for a dozen games during his senior year.

"We can see it in their body when they need a break," Russotti says. "We don't want to be the reason why a kid gets hurt."

The player they sat in those games? That star was forward Josh Jackson, who went on to play at Kansas and would become the fourth overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft. But to understand the depth of Prolific Prep's concern for player health, consider what Jackson heard when he'd practice acrobatic dunks:

"You just lost $1,000," Jackson was told. "You just threw it away from your future." Staffers would explain to him how leaping and landing impart a violent force on a player's knees, and that if he wanted to get the most out of those knees, he should save those jumps until it really mattered. If Jackson jumped 10 times in a day, they'd tell him he lost $10,000. If he jumped 100 times that month, they'd say he cost himself $100,000. They'd tell him he was well on his way to losing millions and millions, just on jumping alone.

Such thinking sounds radical, Russotti admits. "The AAU coaches and the parents, we get it all the time: 'Why isn't he working out? Why is he doing this? Why are you giving him time off? No pain, no gain.' That's the old philosophy. So we get that pressure, but we have to tell them, 'Understand. Just please let us do what we know.'"

The players, he says, don't buck against Prolific's methods. "The kids get it," he says. "They want a break. It's exhausting. Some of these kids, because they're pulled [in so many directions] and they gotta go to Nike, they gotta go to Adidas, they gotta go to Under Armour, they got all these games, they got all-star games, and they're telling them if they don't do it they won't be in the McDonald's All-American game, or they're not gonna make the Jordan Brand game."

AN NBA PROSPECT lays flat on a table. Mike Roncarati leans over him, placing one hand on the player's left ankle, another on his left knee. Roncarati, the Atlanta Hawks' director of rehabilitation, guides the player's knee toward his chest to test its range of motion. He holds the knee as it bends, feeling for any restrictions or limitations. He'll repeat this method for at least seven other joints, ranging from the prospect's shoulder to his big toe. "I'm looking for red flags," Roncarati says later -- warning signs that the prospect might suffer a serious injury soon after reaching the NBA. It's May 13, 2017, a Saturday, at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, inside a curtained-off, 20-by-15-foot space. It's one of a half-dozen makeshift exam rooms in which Roncarati and three colleagues from the Hawks' medical and training staff are working, surrounded by health records, X-rays and other data. The prospect is one of several dozen in town for the NBA's annual pre-draft combine, where teams interview and assess the league's crop of incoming talent one month before the draft. And when prospects aren't doing drills or scrimmaging before team officials at a Chicago-area gymnasium, they're at this hospital, where NBA teams perform medical screenings.

The doctors alongside Roncarati are running through the prospect's injury history, administering orthopedic tests to identify the amount of joint or structural damage to cartilage, ligaments or joints. Meanwhile, Roncarati, through a general movement assessment, is focused on identifying certain issues that might manifest in the player's future, based on how he moves -- or doesn't. Roncarati is in his second season with the Hawks, after spending the prior two with the Warriors, and though today marks the first time he's taking part in the medical-screening portion of the combine, he's evaluated scores of prospects in recent years, often during individual pre-draft workouts at the teams' respective practice facilities. By now, he's no longer surprised to see aspects of how a player moves that cause him concern.

He expects to see knees that don't bend properly, or hips that can't fully move side to side, which means they can't properly absorb the force of a landing without causing stress to the joint structures of all their lower extremities. "For me, if I lie someone down on their back and they can't bend their knees 10 to 20 degrees as much as they should as a 20-year-old kid? It certainly doesn't give me much confidence that they'll be able to tolerate the loading of the NBA," Roncarati says.

"[Players] shouldn't be peaking at 16 or 17. But I can tell you from a data standpoint, you can make a case for it. It just shouldn't be that way. It should happen at 23, 24, 25, but with most of these kids, that's not the case." Marcus Elliott, founder and lead scientist at P3, a sports science lab that assesses the biomechanics of the world's best athletes

Today, Roncarati will examine more than 60 players, each for about five minutes, and will jot down asterisks next to four names -- players he'll tell Hawks management not to draft. Each player suffered an injury at a young age, had surgeries and, Roncarati says, returned to action before they were fully recovered.

A month later, the Hawks will draft none of them. It's far from the first time that's happened. It has, in fact, become what Roncarati and his colleagues call the "new normal."

STANDING BESIDE A court before his team plays its first game, Leo Papile pets his team's mascot, Cotton, a bread box-sized 3-year-old "Yorkie Poo" with a "team personnel" credential hanging around his neck. A stream of fans stop to say hello. Few people might know more faces in the cavernous gym than Leo, a fixture on the grassroots basketball circuit who founded the Boston Amateur Basketball Club in 1977 and has been coaching them ever since.

Today, Papile finds himself inside an airplane-hanger-sized complex called the LakePoint Champions Center, located in a small valley in the foothills of the North Georgia Mountains. Above him hang massive banner photos of Anthony Davis, Gordon Hayward, Ben Simmons and other alums of the Nike EYBL circuit, the world's most prestigious youth basketball league, whose latest event, featuring 40 elite teams, is in full swing.

Papile surveys the gym amid a symphony of squeaking sneakers, bouncing balls and shouting adults. He's 63 with a broad chest, deep tan and a touch of Boston in his tongue, and as he pets Cotton, Leo describes the modern state of youth basketball by referencing the Soviet Union -- notorious for testing boys and girls at young ages, then training them intensively for years in whatever single sport they tested well at, a militaristic approach aimed at winning Olympic medals. That system yielded results; the Soviet Union won the most or second-most medals of any country in every Summer or Winter Olympics that it competed in from 1952-1988. But it was also criticized for creating athletic robots. And here, at one of the hundreds of youth basketball events held every year across the country, Papile nods toward the culture before him. "It's the Soviet system -- times 10," he says.

As he talks, a slogan surrounds him, emblazoned on all manner of T-shirts, screaming from the chests of players, parents, everyone. The slogan is three words. And it is ubiquitous.

BACK IN 2011, a man named Jeron Smith was sitting in his cubicle at Nike's world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, when an email popped into his inbox. He had received a brief prepared by the company's global marketing team that would later be sent to their advertising agency, which would recommend a campaign.

Smith, a 25-year-old North American brand marketing specialist in his second year as a full-time Nike employee, read through the brief and spotted three words casually mentioned in a throwaway line.

At the time, the NBA was in a lockout. But the phrase drew upon the notion that basketball would persevere, no matter the court. NBA stars had dominated the Drew League in Los Angeles, had done the same at the Goodman League in D.C.; Kevin Durant had dropped 66 in a pickup game at Harlem's Rucker Park during an August visit there. And so the words had resonated. They felt authentic and organic. To Smith, they had the makings of marketing magic.

He pulled a few colleagues aside and ran the idea by them, seeking feedback. He called another colleague, taking his temperature. The idea kicked up the food chain; in time, a campaign was launched.

A Nike executive had once told Smith that if he were ever to be famous for something, do it early in his career -- and this slogan helped give Smith that fame. Soon after, he joined a global Nike campaign that brought him to Paris, Barcelona and London. In 2015, he left Nike to join the White House as a deputy digital communications director in the Obama Administration, before becoming the chief marketing officer at Stephen Curry 30 Enterprises, then the CEO of Unanimous Media, Curry's production company. And still, years later, Smith sees the slogan everywhere. Today, it is written in all caps, in large block text, above Nike's famous "swoosh" emblem. It speaks to youth athletes who aspire to reach the game's ultimate level. It haunts those who fear that too many young athletes are playing too much -- and breaking down too soon.

And on this day, as the next generation of NBA hopefuls sprint and pivot and leap and land, it calls out from almost every square inch of Champions Center:

BASKETBALL NEVER STOPS.

For a baseball fan to shout the suggestion that an umpire needs glasses is nothing new. For a pitcher to offer an umpire his glasses, however ...

Texas Rangers pitcher Jesse Chavez did just that against the Houston Astros on Friday night.

Frustrated with the strike zone, Chavez removed his glasses and offered them to plate umpire Rob Drake as he walked off the mound at the end of the second inning.

"I thought he needed them," Chavez told reporters. "I don't think it was his prescription, though. He needed to be a little bit better."

It was unclear if Drake saw Chavez's offer.

Chavez gave up six runs on seven hits in 5 1/3 innings of the Rangers' 9-8 victory, including a home run by the Astros' Yuli Gurriel after a walk to Yordan Alvarez that Chavez thought included blown calls by Drake.

"Both sinkers in," Chavez told reporters when asked which pitches Drake missed during the Alvarez at-bat. "The one down, the one up. I mean, what do you want? Up or down? And you give a four-seam in twice? One at the beginning, one at the end? I mean, where are we hung up here? One's coming back, one's got movement. The other ones are straight. Something's got to be said. It's been going on way too long.

"I felt one was close, and if I feel it's close, with the control and the command that I have on both sides of the plate, I feel like I can warrant a question. And then if you do it a couple times, I mean, then we're gonna have a problem a little bit."

Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli denies he wants to stop playing the position, saying Saturday it "was a misunderstanding."

On Sunday, Cervelli was quoted as telling DKPittsburghSports.com "that's enough" after suffering his sixth documented concussion in the major leagues.

"This time is different," Cervelli was quoted as saying. "I can't live like this."

On Saturday, however, Cervelli said he was misquoted and that he "never had an official interview."

"I never said that I don't want to catch," Cervelli told reporters Saturday after saying the same in an Instagram post Friday night. "That was a misunderstanding. It never came from my mouth."

View this post on Instagram

"Saying that I quit from my catcher responsibilities is inaccurate. My hope is to catch again. Not being in the catcher spot right now is part of the process of recovery from several concussions that have forced me to stop and think about my health beyond my baseball years, that have made me reflect on my health and my life in general and how my decisions affect other people that want the best for me in the long run. I keep working hard, there's no other way for me to do things. I love baseball but I also have to take care of myself. I want to take care of myself and have quality of life now and hopefully from many more years This requires to reinvent myself, have patience and keep working In other words, to my fans, rest assured that I am working hard on my recovery and I will come back with more strength and the same passion I have always had for this sport. That, I can assure you: I have nothing other than passion, gratitude and love for what I do, for this sport. This isn't just a job for me. This is part of my life and I can't live my life without injecting passion and energy, heart and mind into what I do, whatever that is. " Decir que "renuncié" a ser catcher es exagerado ?. . Que no esté en la receptoría ahora mismo, es parte de mi proceso de recuperación de varias contusiones que me han obligado a parar y pensar en mí mismo más allá de mi carrera; que me han hecho reflexionar sobre mi salud y mi vida, y que involucra a muchas personas que quieren lo mejor para mí ?. . Yo, por mi parte, sigo trabajando duro, no puedo hacerlo de otra forma. Amo el beisbol, pero también quiero cuidarme y vivir una vida de calidad ⚾. . Eso implica reinventarme, tener paciencia y seguir trabajando. . Así que tranquilos, que me estoy recuperando y regresaré con más fuerza ?? y las mismas ganas de siempre, porque eso sí tengo yo: ganas, pasión y amor por lo que hago ??. Esto no es un simple trabajo para mí, esto es parte de mi vida y yo no puedo vivir mi vida de otra manera que no sea poniéndole el corazón y pasión a lo que hago, sea lo que sea.

A post shared by Francisco Cervelli (@fran_cervelli) on Jul 12, 2019 at 5:39pm PDT

Cervelli, 33, has been getting work at third base and other infield positions after being cleared to resume baseball activity.

"There's a lot of people asking me and telling me, 'Hey, this is a tough decision.' I said, 'No, no, no. Hold on. I have a goal here,'" Cervelli said Saturday. "I want to be normal. I want to recover.

"I've been working everywhere. I'm doing everything. They need a mascot, I'll be the mascot. I just want to be up there. The past week watching the games, the adrenaline has come back. It's hard for me. I want to be able to contribute to a team and win."

In his 12th major league season, Cervelli has started 10 games at first base during his career and appeared in 13 games at the position in all. He also has played at third base (four games) and second (two games) in the majors. He has started 613 games at catcher.

A career .269 hitter, Cervelli is hitting .193 with a home run and five RBIs in 34 games this season.

"We have to be open to the fact that maybe third base or first base or right field or a bat off the bench or maybe he becomes a regular somewhere at each of those [positions]," Pirates general manager Neal Huntington told reporters on Sunday.

IAAF chief executive believes building on “six pillars” will help to turn athletics’ fortunes around

Jon Ridgeon is facing forward. The world silver medal-winning hurdler and double Olympian has had an eventful time since assuming his role as IAAF chief executive earlier this year. He recalls his first IAAF council meeting back in March, during which president Seb Coe used his address to outline how the first four years of his presidency – he is due to be re-elected unopposed for another term in September – had centred around change, reform and trying to heal the wounds inflicted by the previous incumbents at the top of the sport.

Now Ridgeon believes the next four will centre around the growth of athletics – from the very elite echelons right through to those using the sport as means to stay fit or improve their health.

The 52-year-old wants to tempt more fans to come and watch meetings in the flesh, to increase the capacity brought by the all-important people who give up their time to volunteer.

As challenges go, it is a sizeable one – particularly given the ever-increasing demands and distractions on the general public’s time and money.

But the man who built a very successful post-athletics career – he is a businessman and formerly a senior figure in the management company Fast Track, which used to organise the top athletics events in Britain, not to mention a broadcaster for the likes of Sky Sports and BBC – is relishing his task.

He also has what he calls “six pillars” that will help him to achieve his aim and, in the process, bring commercial success back to a sport very much in need of a financial boost.

“Any sports governing will want to maximise revenue and we’re no different but my view is that if you actually do the right thing and grow the sport then the partnerships will follow anyway,” says Ridgeon, who competed at the 1988 and 1996 Olympics.

“Growing the sport is based around a strategy of six pillars.

“Firstly we have to create the best possible stage for our athletes and that’s all about competition reform and we’re in the middle of doing that – Diamond League being an example.

“Secondly, it’s making sure we engage a huge new generation of fans.

“The third pillar is to get the world moving. We are the most participated sport in the world. Somewhere between half a billion and three quarters of a billion people are active athletes, active runners. Let’s make that a billion.

“The fourth area is that we’ve got to build partnerships, but that’s not just sport partnerships, fitness partnerships or commercial partnerships. We’re already working with the World Health Organisation, the UN environmental association. Partnerships are key to building a sport.

“We also have to place athletes at the centre of everything we do. Lots of people talk about that but we’ve actually got to walk the walk and do that.

“Finally, we’ve got to build on what we’ve done over the past four years and become the most respected sport. How will we achieve that? We’ll continue to lead world sport in areas where we are leading already and it will be about the people in the sport – the volunteers, elected professionals and the impact we have on the world.

“We’re driven with ambition.”

Whether it be the Diamond League changes he alludes to, the creation of world rankings, the furore around athletes with Differences of Sex Development, the continued stance against Russia or even the fact that the world governing body will change its name later this year, it’s clear that things are moving fast at the IAAF.

Not everything they do is met with universal approval, of course. Ridgeon states his side of the story on some of the big issues in a feature interview in the latest issue of AW and, as someone who knows what it takes to succeed at the sharp end of an unforgiving sport, insists that he tries to view matters from the point of view of those right in the thick of it.

The latest AW includes an interview with @JRidgeon as the @iaaforg CEO talks to @euancrumley about taking on his dream job and the challenges that come with being a key figure in the governing body during a time of real change.
Digital edition ➡️ https://t.co/aAgaGl0Cik pic.twitter.com/fqWPscsNei

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) July 11, 2019

“Athletes have to be central to our decision-making,” he says. “It’s remarkable that Seb, for all of his experience, still thinks like an athlete and takes the athlete’s view first. I certainly try to do the same.

“We’re trying to really back up what we’re saying here so, for example, on the council later this year it will have two full athlete members with full voting rights so we really are making changes in the sport.

“It’s important to remember the athlete’s mentality and ultimately ‘why are we all doing this? We’re doing it for the athletes’. But by that I mean athletes in the widest sense. It’s not just about the elites, we’re also the governing body for all of athletics so we also need to do more for people who just want to keep fit through athletics because we’ve got an equal responsibility to them as well.”

He adds: “When this opportunity came up it just felt absolutely right for me. It’s the most challenging role that I’ve ever had but it’s the most natural role that I’ve ever had – there has not been a day since I took the role when I haven’t woken up genuinely looking forward to the day.

“It feels like coming full circle to a degree and I fully understand the level of responsibility that comes with the role as well.”

Two titles for Britain on day three of the European U23 Championships by Reekie in 800m and Boldizsar in 200m

Great Britain gained two gold medals on the third day of action at the European Under-23 Championships in Gävle, Sweden, as Jemma Reekie and Shemar Boldizsar took titles in the women’s 800m and men’s 200m respectively.

First Reekie ensured that her dream of a double in Gävle remains on track as she led a British one-two in the 800m, clocking 2:05.19 to win ahead of team-mate Ellie Baker (2:06.33).

After running wide to stay out of trouble, Reekie surged away over the final 200m to add under-23 gold to the under-20 title she won in in Grosseto two years ago.

“This was very messy, so I tried to keep my cool,” said Reekie, who is a training partner of British 1500m record-holder Laura Muir under coach Andy Young and will contest the 1500m on Sunday.

“I knew I had to kick in to cross the finish line, because the other girls were right behind me.

“Today it’s very special. I’m so happy for Ellie – we grew up together and even share a room here.”

"It didn't go to plan at all but I just kept my cool."@JemmaReekie completed the first part of a middle distance double with gold in the 800m in #Gavle2019.

She will be back in action tomorrow in her favourite event: the 1500m. pic.twitter.com/nrI690uVcS

— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) July 13, 2019

Nadia Power claimed bronze for Ireland but had a rollercoaster ride to gaining her medal as she was initially disqualified after crossing the finish line in third place in 2:06.68 before later being reinstated.

Boldizsar’s victory came in the day’s penultimate track final and the England under-23 champion continued what has been a superb year, clocking 20.89 (-0.1m/sec) for victory after a strong finish.

Powering down the home straight, the Harlow AC and St Mary’s University sprinter had a clear win over Belgium’s Kobe Vleminckx (21.04) and Ryan Zeze of France (21.05), as Boldizsar’s British team-mate Toby Harries finished fourth in 21.17.

“I wasn’t expecting to win,” said a shocked Boldizsar, who has improved his outdoor PB from 21.37 last year down to 20.65 this summer.

“I was trying to beat my personal best today. It didn’t happen but to run a good time in my first international out and about like this in another country and win gold, it is a good experience and hopefully I can do a lot more in the future.”

Great Britain's second gold medal of the evening!

Shemar Boldizsar powers to victory in the 200m final in #Gavle2019 in 20.89. pic.twitter.com/GitzSZrkR3

— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) July 13, 2019

Another St Mary’s University student to impress was Anna Emilie Møller as the Danish athlete clocked 9:27.31 to take nine seconds off the championship best and retain her 3000m steeplechase title.

After cross-country success over the winter, Møller won the BUCS 5000m title in May and will be back on the track to contest that event in Gävle on Sunday.

Britain’s Aimee Pratt had been second behind Møller at the bell but struggled in the closing stages, slowing to a walk and eventually crossing the finishing line in 10:18.98 for 11th.

Ireland’s Eilish Flanagan secured silver in a PB of 9:51.72, while bronze was claimed by Romania’s Claudia Prisecaru (9:53.21 PB).

France’s Jimmy Gressier completed a distance double, adding the 5000m title to his 10,000m victory after clocking 14:16.55 ahead of team-mate Hugo Hay with 14:17.00. GB’s Petros Surafel was 11th in 14:28.63 and William Fuller 15th in 14:32.86.

A tactical men’s 1500m was won by Spain’s Ignacio Fontes (3:50.38), with GB’s Piers Copeland coming through for silver in 3:50.89 after working his way past five athletes in the final 40 metres. His British team-mate Jake Heyward finished 11th in 3:52.98.

Another silver was secured for GB in the men’s 400m as Cameron Chalmers led into the home straight but France’s Fabrisio Saidy finished strongly to pass him in the final metres, clocking 45.79 to the Briton’s 45.92.

There was a second women’s sprint title for Poland as after her compatriot Ewa Swoboda won the 100m title, the 400m gold was claimed by Natalia Kaczmarek in a PB of 52.34.

Women’s 200m gold went to Latvia’s Sindija Bukša with 23.24, with GB’s Kristal Awuah sixth in 23.66.

Poland’s Cyprian Mrzygłód broke the championship record with a PB throw of 84.97m to win the javelin title as the top three all bettered 80 metres, Romania’s Alexandru Novac securing silver (81.75m) and Aliaksei Katkavets of Belarus claiming bronze (80.31m).

German athletes claimed a clean sweep in the women’s shot put as Alina Kenzel got the gold with a throw of 17.94m ahead of team-mates Katharina Maisch (17.64m) and Julia Ritter (17.17m) as GB’s Divine Oladipo finished fourth (16.79m).

Spain’s Alberto González won the hammer title with a PB throw of 74.36m as GB’s Jake Norris was ninth with 68.64m.

Ukraine’s world silver medallist Yuliya Levchenko won the women’s high jump after clearing 1.97m as GB co-captain Morgan Lake was unable to clear 1.89m and finished sixth.

Germany’s Bo Kanda Lita Baehre went one better than his European under-20 silver from two years ago as he cleared 5.65m to win pole vault gold as GB’s Charlie Myers, Joel Leon Benitez and Adam Hague were fifth, sixth and seventh after they all cleared 5.50m.

Estonia’s 2017 European under-20 silver medallist Johannes Erm leads the decathlon at the end of the first day, setting PBs in the 100m (10.73) and high jump (2.03m) and a championship best in the long jump (7.97m) on his way to 4513 points ahead of Germany’s Manuel Eitel (4263), who ran a championship best of 10.42 in the 100m, and Niklas Kaul (4208).

In qualifying action, GB’s Alex Knibbs secured his place in the 400m hurdles final after running 50.56 which placed him fourth in his semi-final.

Tom Gale (high jump), Alice Hopkins (long jump) and the men’s 4x400m team all progressed for GB in the morning session, securing spots in the finals of their respective events.

Results can be found here, while a report on day one action is here and a day two round-up is here.

VERNON, N.Y. — Aaron Reutzel triumphed for the fourth time in the last six races during Friday night’s Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions presented by Mobil 1 event at Albany-Saratoga Speedway.

Reutzel’s Utica-Rome triumph on Friday night was accomplished from the outside of row two, mastering an uncharacteristic, lightning-fast, Utica-Rome surface while maneuvering around the likes of Justin Peck, Paul McMahan, and three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Tony Stewart.

Reutzel’s All Star victory bumped his season total to six, now with a 22-point advantage over Dale Blaney in the All Star driver title chase.

“Our car was phenomenal tonight,” Reutzel said. “We had options tonight. We could drive through the middle of turns one and two which really gave us a boost down the backstretch, or we could rip the top. I was a little nervous coming here tonight because I’ve seen so many videos and noticed how slick the surface was. I’m glad Mother Nature stepped in and gave us this surface tonight because this was one bad ass race track.”

During only the third Utica-Rome Speedway appearance in All Star Circuit of Champions history, the first since 2012, Reutzel made his efforts look easy. After being forced to maintain patience through a pair of cautions during the initial start, the defending All Star champion achieved the jump that he needed.

With just one circuit recorded, Reutzel was second, next setting aim on the tail tank of Tony Stewart. Although Stewart was able to balance the very top-side of the speedway, maintaining a pace well-under the preexisting track record, it was an early dose of lapped traffic that proved to be Smoke’s downfall.

By lap six, it was apparent that slower cars were going to be an issue, it was just a matter of when. As Stewart and Reutzel were racing into turn one to begin lap seven, Stewart choked up, instantly losing momentum while trying to carefully navigate around a slower roadblock. It was during that period that Reutzel made his winning move, actually driving right by Stewart on the bottom of the speedway as the pair raced off of turn two.

Although action was halted yet again on lap 16, there was no match for Reutzel’s pace, instantly opening up his advantage as soon as green flag action returned. Reutzel would eventually cross under the final checkers with an advantage pushing two seconds, keeping Stewart, Justin Peck, Paul McMahan and Cory Eliason in tow.

“That was my fault for being a little too timid in lapped traffic,” Stewart said. “I really wasn’t sure where some of those lapped cars were going to go. Having a guy like Aaron Reutzel behind you, you really can’t hesitate or wait too long. A guy like that is going to pounce and that’s exactly what he did.”

The finish:

Feature (25 laps): 1. 87-Aaron Reutzel [4]; 2. 14-Tony Stewart [1]; 3. 70X-Justin Peck [5]; 4. 13-Paul McMahan [2]; 5. 26-Cory Eliason [12]; 6. 11-Dale Blaney [8]; 7. 99-Skylar Gee [9]; 8. K4-Chad Kemenah [16]; 9. W20-Greg Wilson [17]; 10. O7-Gerard McIntyre [10]; 11. 28F-Dave Franek [3]; 12. 40-George Hobaugh [13]; 13. 90X-Matt Tanner [19]; 14. J4-John Garvin [14]; 15. 90-Jordan Givler [18]; 16. 121-Steve Glover [24]; 17. 70-Brock Zearfoss [7]; 18. 98-Joe Trenca [23]; 19. 5-Justin Barger [15]; 20. IO7-Mark Coldren [20]; 21. 40X-Chris Kurtz [22]; 22. OO-Danny Varin [6]; 23. 10C-Paulie Colagiovanni [11]; 24. 91-Scott Holcomb [21] Lap Leaders: Tony Stewart (1-6), Aaron Reutzel (7-25)

FAIRBURY, Neb. — The opening night of Jefferson County Speedway’s Riverside Chevrolet Midwest Midget Championship presented by Westin Packaged Meats and Schmidt’s Sanitation offered up a first-time NOS Energy Drink USAC National Midget series feature winner with Jason McDougal topping Friday night’s 30-lap feature atop the fifth-mile clay oval.

McDougal assumed the point when early leader Tanner Thorson ran afoul of lapped traffic on the 19th circuit and kept the Clauson-Marshall Racing duo of Tyler Courtney and Chris Windom at bay over the final dozen circuits to secure the $3,000 triumph aboard the FMR No. 76m entry.

“This is amazing, it’s such a great feeling to finally get one for this team,” McDougal said. “Tanner (Thorson) was gone by a straightaway or so, but Bob (East) always gets this thing pretty tight at the beginning so we’re always fast for the last five laps.”

While McDougal gridded the feature field outside the second row, 2017 Fairbury USAC Midget winner Tanner Thorson led the feature field to the green flag with California’s Robert Dalby alongside.

Thorson gunned into the early lead with McDougal making a move past Dalby soon after a lap five caution for Tyler Thomas’ turn four spin into an infield tire.  McDougal tried to chase down Thorson’s Keith Kunz Motorsports No. 98 entry, but the Nevada native held off the young Oklahoma racer until spinning to a stop on the frontstretch on the 19th lap after contact with a lapped car.

McDougal slipped through the skirmish unharmed with third-runner Kevin Thomas, Jr., and fourth-place contender Tucker Klaasmeyer collected in the scrum as well. Thomas, Jr., left on the hook, Thorson returned after a quick trip to the work area and Klaasmeyer returned as well only to flip down the backstretch one lap later.

Set for an 11-lap dash to the checkered flag, McDougal had the NOS Energy Drink CMR duo of Windom and 12th-starting Courtney breathing down his neck the rest of the way.  McDougal opened up a slight advantage until Courtney finally battled past Windom for second on the high side.

Courtney and Windom closed in over the final handful of rounds with Courtney falling just two car-lengths short at the stripe as Windom settled for the show position.

“I think one more lap and we would have had him, but it’s only 30 laps,” Courtney said.

Windom explained that, “It was a crazy race that first half, then it widened out some at the end. Jason was a little better than us on the bottom, then I saw Tyler come by the outside of me and I moved up and we both ran him down.  I wish we would have moved up a little sooner, I think we could have got to Jason.  It’s good to be on the podium again, but we’re looking for wins.”

Chad Boat, a 2016 winner at Fairbury, advanced from ninth to fourth with fellow Arizona shoe and tenth-starter Jerry Coons, Jr., rounding out the top five.

To see full results, turn to the next page.

GRANITE CITY, Ill. — Jimmy Owens fought off challenges from Shannon Babb and Josh Richards to win the NAPA Know How 50 Presented by Schoenfeld Headers on Friday night at Tri-City Speedway.

Owens earned his first victory at the Kevin and Tammy Gundaker-promoted facility. It was Owens’ second Lucas Oil win of the season and the 62nd of his career for the three-time national champion.

Owens held the point for the first 11 laps of the race until Babb forged ahead for a lap. Owens and Babb went back-and-forth until just past the half-way mark of the race. Babb held the second spot until he suddenly slowed on the 32nd lap and retired from the race.

Richards picked up the challenge for the lead as he pulled even with Owens on several occasions, but never managed to take the top spot. Earl Pearson Jr. charged by Richards to take the runner-up position on the final lap.

Pearson and Richards joined Owens on the podium as Stormy Scott recorded his best career series finish by taking fourth ahead of 23rd starting Devin Moran, rounding out the top five.

“I want to thank all of my crew, my car owner Leon Ramirez and his family for giving me this opportunity to drive their car,” Owens said. “Thanks to the fans for coming I hope they enjoyed the show. This will give us a lot of momentum heading to Wheatland tomorrow night. We have been leading a lot this year and things have happened. We had a good car last night. We made a few tweaks for tonight and everything went our way.”

Pearson topped off a spirited run with his last lap pass of Richards.

“I got too tight around the bottom, so I went to the top. I could run right through the middle and the car wasn’t so tight,” Pearson said. “To come home second after starting 15th, we worked hard to get there. I really love this track; it’s been good to us in the past. It races so good.”

The finish:

Jimmy Owens, Earl Pearson Jr., Josh Richards, Stormy Scott, Devin Moran, Tim McCreadie, Michael Norris, Gordy Gundaker, Scott Bloomquist, Hudson O’Neal, Shanon Buckingham, Rick Eckert, Mike Marlar, Kyle Bronson, Tyler Erb, Jonathan Davenport, Billy Moyer Jr., Austin Rettig, Shannon Babb, Jeremy Conaway, Chris Simpson, Billy Moyer, Tony Jackson Jr., Daryn Klein, Michael Kloos.

HARTFORD, Mich. — David Gravel used a late-race restart to surge to the front and win Friday night’s World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series feature at Hartford Speedway.

Gravel won his Drydene Heat race and finished second in the DIRTVision Fast Pass Dash, putting him on the front row for the 30-lap feature.

On the initial start, Gravel lost second-place to 10-time series champion Donny Schatz. However, the red flag came out before a lap was completed.

Several cars were involved in an accident on the backstretch, including Series point leader Brad Sweet. The lengthy red flag period — to tow three cars off the track —– allowed Sweet’s Kasey Kahne Racing team, along with team members from several other teams, to get the NAPA Auto Parts No. 49 car fixed and back on track before the race went green again.

Since a lap was not complete, drivers lined back up in their initial starting order, putting Gravel back in second place. This time, his lesson was learned. When the green flag waved, Gravel dove to the bottom of turn one, blocking any attempt by Schatz for another pass.

It also allowed him to get a run underneath leader Carson Macedo down the backstretch and into turn three.

Gravel had his nose in front of Macedo exiting turn four, but Macedo had the better run off the corner and charged back to the lead down the frontstretch.

From there, Macedo held command of the lead for the next seven laps before the caution flew again for a slowed Bill Balog. When the race restarted, Gravel, again, put pressure on Macedo. Inches were left between their bumper for the next two laps. Gravel dived under the rookie in turn three but like before Macedo prevailed.

They stayed first and second, respectively, to the halfway point of the Feature. In that time, Logan Schuchart quietly worked his way from ninth to third with the top two in sight.

With 14 laps to go, Gravel, not willing to settle for second, capitalized on a strong run. While Macedo searched for traction on the high side, Gravel had already found it on the bottom. He powered by Macedo and officially took the lead with 13 laps to go.

“Carson had a good pace. I think he just got free halfway through,” Gravel said. “I just kept working him, working him, trying to keep the pressure up, hoping he would spin his tires and kind of wear his stuff out. Luckily we were able to get by him.”

Cruising around the high side of the track, Schuchart caught Gravel with four laps to go and sped around him with ease through turns one and two. Before Schuchart could run away with his fifth win of the season, the caution came out again for Tim Kaeding coming to a stop in turn four.

With three laps to go and Schuchart now backed up to Gravel, the Jason Johnson Racing driver had one last hurdle between himself and victory

Gravel timed the restart just right, sneaking a nose underneath Schuchart as they raced down the frontstretch. On their charge into turn one, Gravel dove to the bottom leaving no time for Schuchart to attempt a block. They exited turn two side by side and remained that way down the backstretch.

When they made it to turn three Gravel, again, launched his car into the corner, pulling ahead of Schuchart and maintained the run off turn four to clear Schuchart for the lead.

“We’ve been wanting to win so bad,” Gravel said. “Finally getting the win, we’ve been so close. As a driver, I’ve let a couple of wins get away. Just happy I can get another win. You never know when your next one is going to be.”

While Gravel celebrated a special victory – which he got to do with Jason Johnson’s son, Jaxx, for the first time this year in victory lane – Schuchart had to settle for another runner-up finish.

“That stings a little bit,” Schuchart said. “We had one like that last week, we lost the race at the end and did it again tonight. Last week I feel like I blame that on myself. Tonight, the guys did a fantastic job… We qualified bad, didn’t give up and raced hard all night.”

Sweet also had an impressive charge after getting involved in the wreck – which required his front axle to be replaced and his top wing to be replaced – at the start of the race. He restarted at the back of the field and methodically made his way to sixth-place by the end of the race.

“Had a pretty nasty vibration. I think we bent a rear axle,” Sweet said. “Honestly, a good salvage for us. Hung in there and tried not to shake my teeth out… Luckily, we were able to over come it. I think that’s a good sign for us to overcome that adversity tonight.”

He maintains his points lead over Schatz – who finished third – now 44 points over the reigning champion. Gravel still sits third in points – 130 points behind Sweet.

To see full results, turn to the next page.