sport world

LONG BEACH >> The second-seeded Sparks are hoping that the WNBA playoffs end with a championship team trophy. Wednesday night at Long Beach State’s Walter Pyramid, they began the postseason with some individual hardware. Nneka Ogwumike was awarded the WNBA’s MVP trophy in a pregame ceremony and then spent the next 40 minutes proving why she deserved it as she led the Sparks to a 95-75 win over the fourth-seeded Chicago Sky. “It was great,” she said. “It’s been nothing but love the last few days. It’s been awesome, and this was a great way to start off our run.” Ogwumike, who finished the regular season with the second-highest shooting percentage in WNBA history (66.5 percent) was sensational...

EL SEGUNDO >> Teddy Purcell was here once before. It was six years ago, but it seems as if it was only yesterday. The Kings’ training facility is the same now, but different. Many of the faces are familiar, making his homecoming all the more comfortable, the transition to a new team far easier. “The weight room has a retractable roof now,” Purcell said Saturday after the first of two practice sessions at the Kings’ workout facility. “It’s almost fuy when you hear about it, especially when you come from Edmonton and your car doesn’t start when you leave the rink.” No sub-zero temperatures are in the forecast in Southe Califoia, where summer seems endless. “I bought a beach cruiser,” Purcell s...

Martin Truex Jr. took the lead with 28 laps to go and held off Kevin Harvick on the final restart to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Southe 500 at Darlington Raceway on Sunday night. Truex started the summer season by leading an astounding 588 of 600 miles to win at Charlotte on Memorial Day weekend. He closed the season by outracing Harvick on Labor Day weekend for his second crown jewel win of the season. Harvick had the dominant car. He led 214 of 367 laps but this run was cut short by slow pit stops. At one point, Harvick fell 11 spots from first to 12th after a super slow 16.6-second stop. He battled back toward the top, but could not chase down Truex. Last week’s wier at Michigan, Kyle Larso...

LOS ANGELES >> Amazon Prime offers same-day delivery. The Dodgers had to be more patient. Twenty-three days after they traded three well-regarded prospects to the Oakland A’s for outfielder Josh Reddick and someone suited to fill the void at the front of their starting rotation, Rich Hill finally made his debut for the Dodgers. There was no buyer’s remorse. Hill looked like the top-tier starter the Dodgers thought they were getting – and have sorely lacked since Clayton Kershaw went to the DL. He pitched six scoreless iings Wednesday night as the Dodgers won, 1-0. “I’m not surprised. That’s Rich,” Reddick said. “I’ve seen it all year. “It just shows what a competitor he is. He hasn’t pitched...

LOS ANGELES >> By not showing up, Tre Mason made a huge impact on the Rams’ ruing-back battle in training camp. If Mason had not been arrested in March, to start an apparently sad, complicated saga in his life, the Rams’ depth chart would have been fairly well set with Todd Gurley, Mason and Bey Cuingham. That’s a mix of speed and power that would have made it tough for anyone else to crack the rotation. Instead, more than halfway through training camp, there’s intriguing flux, and heading into Saturday’s preseason game between the Rams and Kansas City Chiefs, there’s at least one job to be won. “I want the best backs to be on the roster, no matter who that is,” Cuingham said this week. “You...

LOS ANGELES >> Prior to Wednesday, Josh Reddick had occupied two spots in the Dodgers’ batting order without much success. He batted cleanup on five occasions, batted sixth twice, and had two hits to show for it. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts speculated that his new right fielder might have been pressing at the plate, so he moved Reddick up to second in the batting order to give him “a different visual in the lineup.” On paper, the move appeared to work. Reddick finished 2 for 5 and scored the first run in a 6-2 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. Only Reddick doesn’t think he was pressing. Mostly he saw it as bad luck — luck that finally tued in his favor. “To get your first multi-hit game,” ...

NEW YORK — The NFL has picked Twitter to stream its Thursday night games. When the league negotiated its latest deal for Thursdays, it decided to sell the streaming rights separately for an “over the top” broadcast. This past season, it partnered with Yahoo to stream a game from London that took place on a Sunday moing in the United States. Only the 10 Thursday games on CBS and NBC will be streamed through Twitter under a one-year agreement, the NFL aounced Tuesday. They will be free worldwide on all devices through the Twitter platform. Viewers will not need to be registered Twitter users. The NFL Network-only Thursday games are not part of the deal. The league wants to experiment with digi...