MIAMI (AP) The Latest on the All-Star Game (all times local):
5:48 p.m.
Michael Jordan has joined the investment group led by Derek Jeter that is trying to buy the Miami Marlins.
Jordan’s spokeswoman, Estee Portnoy, confirmed Jordan’s involvement Tuesday. The NBA Hall of Famer owns the Charlotte Hornets and is expected to assume a minority ownership role if Jeter’s group buys the Marlins.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is soon expected to choose a winning bid from among three investment groups seeking to buy the team, and all have offered about the same amount of money. Manfred said the three groups are working on financial structuring, legal issues and due diligence in preparation for a purchase.
One investment group is led by Jeter, the former New York Yankees shortstop and a 14-time All-Star. A second group includes former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Massachusetts businessman Tagg Romney, and the third group is led by South Florida businessman Jorge Mas.
Loria on Tuesday declined to say when he expects to sell the team.
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3:30 p.m.
Max Scherzer and Buster Posey have been teammates in the All-Star Game before, though they have never been pitcher-and-catcher at the same time.
That changes Tuesday night, when the Washington ace and the San Francisco catcher start for the NL at Marlins Park.
”I talked to him,” Posey said. ”He said he’s going to throw all sliders. No, I’m looking forward to it. Obviously, he’s a really tough at-bat. I’m looking forward to being back there and catching him.”
He might be able to pick something up for future use, too.
Posey is 2 for 9 in his career against Scherzer – including a 1 for 3 night in San Francisco’s title-clinching win over Detroit in Game 4 of the 2012 World Series. When Posey connects off Scherzer, it’s a good rip: his two hits are that homer, and a double earlier this season.
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2:45 p.m.
Miami slugger Giancarlo Stanton remembers having conversations with Jose Fernandez about the All-Star Game. And Stanton has no doubt that Fernandez would have been on the mound at Marlins Park on Tuesday night.
”His No. 1 thing to that point, besides winning Cy Young, was to start this game,” Stanton said.
Clearly, Fernandez will weigh heavily on the minds of Stanton and Marcell Ozuna when they represent the Marlins in Fernandez’s home park.
Fernandez was killed in September, and authorities concluded that the All-Star pitcher had cocaine and alcohol in his system when he and two of his friends died after Fernandez’s boat crashed into a Miami Beach jetty at high speed.
Ozuna and Stanton have talked plenty this week about what it would mean to still have Fernandez with them, and what it would have been like for him to take the All-Star stage in Miami.
”We’ve had talks with him about this day and this week,” Stanton said. ”So it’s going to be huge for us.”
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1:23 p.m.
Players’ association head Tony Clark says the union is willing to talk with management to ”see if some common ground can be found” on pace-of-play issues.
Major League Baseball proposed several initiatives last offseason, including a 20-second pitch clock, limits on mound visits by catchers and raising the bottom of the strike zone. The only change made was to allow intentional walks to be signaled without throwing pitches.
MLB has the right to unilaterally impose for 2018 the proposals made last offseason that were not accepted.
Clark says ”we’ve talked to our guys and our guys are engaged in the dialogue.”
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1:14 p.m.
Major League Baseball could soon award multiple All-Star Games to host cities.
Next year’s game will be at the Washington Nationals and the 2019 game will be in Cleveland. The Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers are among the clubs hoping to host. The Cubs last had the game in 1990 and the Dodgers in 1980.
”I’ll probably do three at once,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said.
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12:53 p.m.
No change will be made this season in the Cleveland Indians’ use of the controversial Chief Wahoo logo.
Just after the season started, Major League Baseball said there had been ”productive discussions” about transitioning away from the logo.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said:” I think it’s safe to see that you’re not going to see any dramatic developments until we’re through the 2017 season.”
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12:48 p.m.
Major League Baseball expects a rebound in the percentage of African-American players.
Of players on opening-day rosters this year, 7.7 percent were African-Americans, down from 18 percent in 1991, according to The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says youth programs MLB has instituted will help and that, based on last month’s amateur draft, ”I’m very optimistic you will see an increase in the number of African-American players at the big league level.”
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12:38 p.m.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says Aaron Judge is the kind of player ”who can become the face of the game.”
Speaking to the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, Manfred called Judge ”absolutely phenomenal.”
He said: ”I mean, there is no other word to describe it. He is a tremendous talent on the field, a really appealing off-the-field personality.”
The New York Yankees rookie, who leads the major leagues with 30 home runs, won Monday night’s All-Star Home Run Derby.
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12:26 p.m.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says there are ”three viable bidding groups that are essentially in the same place in terms of price” in the Miami Marlins sale process.
The groups include Jeb Bush and Tagg Romney; New York Yankees captain Derek Jeter; and Jorge Mas.
Manfred says of a timeframe for resolution: ”I’m pretty confident that that will happen in the relatively near future.”
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12:17 p.m.
The American League can pull even in Tuesday’s All-Star Game.
If the AL wins the game at Marlins Park, it would be the fifth straight time it has topped the National League in the Midsummer Classic.
A win also would knot the all-time series: Going into Tuesday, the NL leads the series 43-42, with two ties.
The all-time All-Star series has been even only once before. The AL won the first three meetings, and it took until 1964 before the NL caught up – the teams were then 17-17-1 against one another.
That was during an eight-year run of NL wins, from 1963 through 1970.
Over the last two decades, though, the AL has had a mighty upper hand, going 16-3-1 in the last 20 games entering Tuesday.
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More AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball
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