Tennis legend Martina Navratilova came to the defense of “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling on Saturday as the writer received criticism from actor Pedro Pascal in a recent interview.

Rowling and Pascal have clashed in the past on transgender issues, including after Rowling celebrated the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman.

“Bullies make me f—— sick,” Pascal told Vanity Fair. “It’s a situation that deserves the utmost elegance so that something can actually happen.”

Rowling dismissed Pascal in a social media post on Friday and Navratilova added to it.

“Another Johnny come lately telling women to STFU,” Navratilova wrote.

Navratilova is a lifelong Democrat but has never wavered on her push to keep biological males from competing against girls and women in sports. 

Martina Navratilova during the trophy presentations at the French Open on June 8, 2024, in Paris. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

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She has made clear in the past she is no supporter of President Donald Trump, and a quick scan of her social media posts would underscore that. However, she has lamented Democrats’ inaction over the issue of transgender athletes participating in women’s and girls’ sports.

When Trump signed an executive order to prohibit biological males from women’s and girls’ sports, she fired off a fierce message toward the Democratic Party.

“I hate that the Democrats totally failed women and girls on this very clear issue of women’s sports being for females only,” she wrote in a post on X.

She also expressed her frustration in January when the House of Representatives passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. Only two Democrats voted with Republicans on the bill.

Martina Navratilova at a press conference during the GNP Saguaros WTA Finals in Cancun, Mexico, Nov. 2, 2023. (Susan Mullane-USA Today Sports)

“More Dems need to step up here. I know many who agree but are scared to speak up because of re-election. I say do the right thing. Grow a spine,” she wrote on X.

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Memo to Mark Walter:

Check your swing.

Now that you’re the majority owner of the Lakers, everyone is expecting you to whack their two most prominent leaders in hopes of transforming the basketball team into your baseball team, but you should instead initially act in terms your Dodgers would understand.

Take a pitch.

Keep Rob Pelinka and JJ Redick in their jobs … for now.

Agreed, this might be a tough call, and certainly there could be temptation to immediately can the two Lakers employees who most epitomize the incestuous decisions that have dragged the once-shining championship organization into dull mediocrity.

Pelinka, the president of basketball operations and general manager, was hired eight years ago because he was the agent and confidant of Kobe Bryant.

Redick, the head coach, was hired last summer because he was LeBron James’ podcast bro.

Neither man came to their current positions with strong qualifications. Both men were beneficiaries of a post-Jerry Buss culture in which daughter Jeanie would surround herself with friends and family.

It is a culture that led to outsized decision-making roles for the likes of Linda and Kurt Rambis. It is a culture that is diametrically opposed to the meritocracy that has made this town’s other glamour team so great.

Now that the Dodgers have basically swallowed the Lakers whole, it might be a foregone conclusion that Pelinka and Redick would be among the first to disappear.

Memo to Mark Walter:

Hold up rounding third.

Both Pelinka and Redick have earned a chance to show their strengths in a new system in which there will certainly be increased scouting, advanced analytics and a new professionalism for an infrastructure that had been difficult for any official to succeed.

Ned Colletti was the Dodgers’ general manager when Walter’s group bought the team in the spring of 2012. He lasted two more seasons, Guggenheim Partners pouring money into the team and giving him every chance to succeed before firing him.

Pelinka deserves at least half that chance.

Don Mattingly was the manager when Walter bought the team. He lasted four more seasons, finally parting ways after the 2015 season.

Redick deserves at least a portion of that leash.

Although both men have been viewed as overmatched both in this space and by NBA insiders across the landscape, each has done well enough to not be summarily beheaded the minute Walter walks through the door.

Start with Pelinka. You do know he has an NBA championship on his resume, right? While Alex Caruso dismissed the 2020 title as phony last week after he won another ring with Oklahoma City, that first one still counts, and Pelinka still deserves credit for overseeing it.

Yes, Pelinka is the villain who ruined everything by letting Caruso walk while gutting the title team to acquire Russell Westbrook. But he’s also perhaps the only executive in NBA history to acquire three players the likes of LeBron James, Luka Doncic and Anthony Davis.

He had lots of help there — Magic Johnson recruited James, and James recruited Davis, and Nico Harrison handed him Doncic — but still, he was the final cog in making it happen.

Pelinka also engineered the splendid undrafted free agent signing that was Austin Reaves, which led to the Lakers finishing this season as the third seed in the West.

You don’t fire a decision-maker the same year his rebuilt team finishes third in basketball’s most competitive neighborhood. You don’t fire a decision-maker two years after his team reached the Western Conference finals. And you certainly don’t fire a decision-maker until you know what’s happening with his best employee.

It seems clear that James is going to opt in to his $52.6 million contract this week and remain with the team — and son Bronny — for at least one more season. If that’s the case, then Pelinka should get the chance to add the rim protector he’s been seeking to maximize Doncic and give James one more opportunity at a ring.

However, if James unexpectedly turns down the money to seek better title opportunities elsewhere — not a bad decision for the Lakers, honestly — then the ensuing roster chaos will not be the right time to make a change at the top.

Either way, the situation is fluid enough that Pelinka should be allowed to see it through.

The same goes for Redick, who did an admirable job in his first regular season before melting down in the playoffs.

Granted, some would consider his first-round series game management against the Minnesota Timberwolves a fireable offense, particularly in Game 4 when he used the same five players for an entire second half. He didn’t do himself any favors when he later reacted to criticism of that decision by bristling at a reporter’s question before stalking away from a pregame news conference.

During the most important moments of the season, Redick was in over his head. But as he admitted, he’ll learn, he’ll grow, he’ll get better, and he did well enough during the regular season to believe him.

Redick coached one team before the arrival of Doncic and the departure of Davis. He coached another team afterward. He deftly handled both of those teams while smartly disarming the potentially divisive distraction that was Bronny. Redick also empowered Reaves to become a legitimate third threat before Reaves joined his coach in a playoff disappearing act.

All of which brings this surprisingly sugary piece to this upcoming week, the start of the NBA’s summer madness, and the pressure is on.

Like it or not, Pelinka and Redick are a pair now, a tandem joined by the appearance of a new owner with new expectations.

Pelinka needs to find a big man who can help carry them deep into the playoffs. No matter who Pelinka acquires, Redick has to scheme around Doncic and make it all work.

They won’t get many chances under a new Dodger regime that demands sustained success, but they deserve at least one chance to take advantage of the massive changes that this new ownership group will surely create in returning basketball’s greatest franchise to new glories.

Memo to Mark Walter:

Keep Pelinka‘s and Redick’s names in the lineup card.

In pencil.

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Sonny Gray turned in one of the most dominant pitching performances of the season in the team’s 5-0 win over the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field Friday. 

Gray, 35, completed the “Maddux,” pitching nine innings of shutout ball while yielding one hit and striking out 11 batters with just 89 pitches. 

Gray’s performance marks the first time a pitcher tossed a complete-game shutout of under 90 pitches since 2021. New York Yankees ace Max Fried was the last pitcher to do it, when he shut down the Baltimore Orioles as a member of the Atlanta Braves.

The three-time All-Star has thrown seven complete games in his 13-year career, but Friday’s complete game was Gray’s first since 2017, when he did it with the Yankees. 

“I did it a lot earlier in my career, and it’s been a while,” Gray said after the game. “You don’t know if you would be able to do it, especially the way the games kind of went, and especially with me. Like, I don’t throw over 100 pitches very often.”

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St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Sonny Gray pitches in the first inning against the Cleveland Guardians in Cleveland Friday, June 27, 2025.  (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Gray never threw more than 12 pitches in an inning and had two innings with eight or fewer pitches. Gray was on the attack throughout the game with 19 first-pitch strikes to the 28 batters he faced. 

The Cardinals’ starter retired 15 of Cleveland’s hitters on three pitches or fewer, including six on the first pitch.

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Sonny Gray (54) and his teammates celebrate a win against the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field June 27, 2025, in Cleveland.  (David Richard/Imagn Images)

“I knew the innings were kind of moving right along. I did know that I was perfect through that long. I made a good pitch there when the guy got the hit, so I was fine with that,” Gray said. “When I was going out for the ninth, it felt like just another inning, which was nice.”

The Cardinals (45-38) will look to build on Gray’s performance when they take on the Guardians (40-40) in the second game of a three-game series Saturday at 4:10 p.m. ET. 

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