A fan threw a ball at Red Sox left fielder Alex Verdugo during the sixth inning of the Yankees-Red Sox clash Saturday night at the Stadium.

An irate Verdugo and the Red Sox left the field after the disturbing incident, but play quickly soon resumed on a wild and rainy night in The Bronx.

Gary Sanchez hit a solo homer, just over the right field wall later in the inning and Gleyber Torres followed with his own blast to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead.

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Ted Holmlund

Voit, hitting third in the lineup, hit a solo home run in the first inning of the Yankees-Royals game Tuesday night at the Stadium, his first at-bat since suffering a right oblique strain on May 16. Voit belted the deep homer to left field on the first pitch he saw from Royals starter Brady Singer.

The Bombers have missed Voit, who led the majors with 22 home runs last year while slashing .277/.338/.610 with a .948 OPS. He missed the season’s first 34 games due to a torn meniscus in his left knee, and wasn’t right upon return, slashing .182/.280/.250 in 12 games. Then he suffered a right oblique strain on May 16 and had been out since.

This is just the 13th game Voit is playing in this season. He entered the night hitting just .182 with a homer and three RBIs.

Voit is aware of how important his return to the lineup is to the Yankees.

“I got to do some damage when I’m back out there,” he said recently during a rehab assignment. “I just want to get back. This is killing me.”

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Ted Holmlund

Paul, a YouTube sensation, knocked out Ben Askren in the first round of their Saturday night pay-per-view cruiserweight bout at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta with a straight right hand to the head.

The Triller Fight Club event was televised on FITE.tv for $49.99, and the main-event bout lasted less than two minutes.

The stoppage was questionable. Askren, 36, wanted to continue, but referee Brian Stutts said he was not in the shape to fight and it was stopped at the 1:59 mark.

Askren — who has a 19-2-0 (one no contest) record in UFC — didn’t seem crushed after the loss. He was shown walking backstage smiling after the fight, and apparently was in good spirits after making $500,000 in disclosed pay for the bout, according to CBS Sports.

The 24-year-old Paul — a social media influencer who insists he’s a real boxer — hasn’t fought a professional yet, but this was his first victory over a pro fighter. He is now 3-0 with three knockouts with previous wins over Robinson and AnEsonGib, a fellow YouTuber.

“This is the craziest moment of my life,” said Paul, who did pushups in the ring after the win. “I told y’all I was going to do it in the first round. I told y’all I’m a real fighter. I don’t know how many times I got to prove myself that this is for real.

“It’s been four months, I’ve been in training camp every day. I deserve this s–t. I don’t know how many times I have to prove myself that this is for real.

Paul, a showman who took a stunner from Kevin Owens in a WrestleMania 37 match last week, doesn’t have these top fighters quaking in their boots, judging by their reactions on Twitter.

Nate Robinson, who was panned for taking his fight with Paul, now actually has bragging rights for lasting the longest in the ring against the YouTube star. The former Knick and NBA slam-dunk champion was knocked out in the second round in their Nov. 28 bout.

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Ted Holmlund

Gonzaga (31-0) remained undefeated and will head to the national championship game to face 27-2 Baylor, a 78-59 winner over Houston.

Here’s a sampling of some of the postgame tweets from top athletes in their respective sports :

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Ted Holmlund

The 75-year-old, who won 11 championships as a coach, took some blame for the Knicks’ failure but also assigned a lot of it to the media, Carmelo Anthony and the fans.

Jackson said he was grateful when June 28, 2017, arrived, the day Dolan fired him with around $24 million remaining on his five-year contract.

“It was best to leave, and I think as a favor, [James] Dolan relieved me of the job,” said a candid Jackson on Thursday’s “The Curious Leader” podcast, hosted by former Lakers player Cody Karl in Part 1 of a two-part conversation. “I think he actually did me a favor.”

The Zen Master — introduced to run the Knicks on March 28, 2014 — also said the feud with Anthony was the reason Dolan decided to let him go, adding that he was upset with what he believed was unfair treatment by an anti-Knicks media.

“[The media] was decidedly against the organization, and they were looking for whatever they can do to throw aspersions,” said Jackson, who also compared his press treatment to the type President Donald Trump received during his time in office. “I kind of understand Trump had to live with probably for his first 3 ½ years in office with the media.”

Jackson said he regretted not being able to turn around the Knicks, but also took a swipe at the fan base.

“It felt like a major disappointment to have to go through that and not being able to turn that thing around because it’s a heartbeat of New York,” he said. “It’s a big part of what they like — their basketball team. There are long devoted Knick fans and I appreciate their desire, but I think they get in the way of the team a lot of times.”

As for Anthony, Jackson said he wasn’t able to be the leader the Knicks needed and that his strong personality proved “intimidating” for Derek Fisher, Kurt Rambis and Jeff Hornacek, the team’s coaches during Jackson’s tenure.

“Carmelo, I think, wanted to be a leader, but I don’t think he completely knew how to be a leader as a player,” Jackson said. “And I think that the strength of his personality was intimidating to some of the coaches that were asked to coach the team. And so there wasn’t this compliance that has to go between players and coaches.”

Jackson, who signed Anthony to a five-year contract with a no-trade clause, had a change of heart, but the Knicks star didn’t buy into the idea of being traded until after Jackson’s firing.

“I wanted to trade Carmelo and … he’s got a no-trade clause that they asked for, but I suggested that if there was a situation — and I asked them to trade, I wanted them to be compliant with it,” Jackson said. “And you can have all your choices that you want but I want you to go along with the idea that maybe when your time has come with being with the Knicks. So that was met without compliance.”

Jackson, who didn’t delve into Kristaps Porzingis’ time with the Knicks in Part 1 of the podcast, blamed the media for how he was treated in the feud he had with Anthony.

The legendary coach brought up the reaction to a tweet he said that he “learned you don’t change a spot on a leopard.” It was in reference to Michael Graham, a former Georgetown player Jackson coached in the Continental Basketball Association that he couldn’t reach, which many also took to be a shot at Anthony.

Current Knicks president Leon Rose, Anthony’s agent at the time, was not happy with the tweet and many took it as a dig at Anthony’s ability to succeed in the triangle offense, as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant had.

Jackson said he wasn’t comparing Anthony to the two NBA legends, saying he thought “the offense can work for him, but he’s not that type of player,” adding “you don’t change a player to fit a mold.”

Jackson also referenced the Derek Fisher-Matt Barnes love triangle incident as the time he knew his first Knicks coaching hire wasn’t going to pan out.

Fisher had flown across the country during training camp and was punched in the face by Barnes for being with his ex-fiancée and was fired by the Knicks three months after the blowup.

“Derek Fisher, I thought, was one of my top leaders of the Lakers team and a guy who understood the relationship of players to a game and offensively how the [triangle] system plays,” Jackson said. “He was himself caught up in a personal situation. It was a distraction. And at best, undermined his authority with the team.”

After firing Fisher, Jackson hired Rambis, another triangle expert and liaison, to coach the team but that move failed, too.

“Perhaps the best thing I could’ve done was just coach the team myself. But I wasn’t physically able to do that,” said Jackson, who was dealing with health issues. “I had to convey that through people, I chose to step in. It didn’t seem to work out. And as a consequence I thought we had the talent but we never found that niche, that ability to just play beyond talent and play concise, connected, organized basketball.”

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Ted Holmlund

The Yankees catcher, who is looking to solidify his spot as the team’s starter, blasted his second home run of spring training in the Bombers’ game versus the Blue Jays on Wednesday night at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.

Sanchez hit an opposite-field solo shot off in the fifth inning off Toronto left-hander Nick Allgeyer.

The 28-year-old Sanchez is looking to rebound from what general manager Brian Cashman called a “horrible” 2020 season. Sanchez was even benched during the playoffs in favor of Kyle Higashioka.

Derek Dietrich also belted a two-run homer in the fifth inning to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead.

On Monday, Sanchez hit his first spring training homer, a mammoth shot that cleared the 40-foot high batter’s eye in dead-center field.

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Ted Holmlund