Sports
‘An unforgettable experience.’ Jack Flaherty’s full-circle journey back to Dodger Stadium
Even before he learned how to walk, Dodger Stadium has been part of Jack Flaherty’s origin story.
It’s where the new Dodgers pitcher first visited at 6 months old, and would return frequently alongside his mom, Eileen, sometimes as often as 20 games per year.
It’s where his early love for the game was planted and nurtured, putting him on a path to the big leagues that first began in Sherman Oaks Little League.
It’s also where — before becoming a first-round draft pick, one-time Cy Young Award contender, and resurgent veteran pitcher acquired by the Dodgers in a blockbuster trade last week — Flaherty produced one of the brightest glimpses into his big-league destiny.
On May 31, 2013, in the CIF Southern Section Division I championship game with his Harvard-Westlake high school team, he pitched a shutout while driving in his side’s lone run in a title-clinching 1-0 win.
“That day,” former Harvard-Westlake coach Matt LaCour said, “kind of exemplified who he was.”
Tyler Urbach (17) and catcher Arden Pabst (7) rush pitcher Jack Flaherty (9) after winning the Southern Section Division 1 championship at Dodger Stadium on May 31, 2013.
(Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)
In some ways, it was the start of a journey that will come full-circle Friday, when Flaherty — whose 8-5 record and 2.80 ERA make him one of the most important pitchers on the Dodgers starting staff — will make his much-anticipated home debut.
“I’ll have to probably take a breath and gather myself,” Eileen Flaherty said this week. “Because, he’s been there before, but now he has a Dodger uniform on.”
Flaherty’s future first became clear when he arrived at Harvard-Westlake’s Studio City campus, quickly making an impression on the school’s burgeoning baseball program.
“He was kind of touted as, ‘Oh, we have this incoming freshman who is super athletic,’” said Boston Red Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito, a fellow Harvard-Westlake product who was two years ahead of Flaherty in school. “He was like, varsity-as-a-freshman type of talent.”
Only, early on, Flaherty’s most obvious talents weren’t on the mound.
While the right-handed pitcher had sharp command and decent — though hardly overpowering — velocity as an underclassman, his tools as an infielder initially looked more promising.
“Everyone thought he would be a position player,” noted Harvard-Westlake’s then-pitching coach Ethan Katz (who has gone on to become the Chicago White Sox’s major-league pitching coach).
“He was gonna be the shortstop for the next four years,” Giolito said.
In Flaherty’s sophomore season, however, two things changed.
First, Katz helped Flaherty develop his now-signature slider, watching in amazement as the teenager quickly honed the pitch.
“I would tell him every day at practice, ‘Pitching first. Make sure you come down and see me,’” Katz recalled this week. “When he developed his slider sophomore year, that’s when he really took off.”
Then, when Giolito (the team’s senior ace and a potential No. 1 overall draft pick) blew out his elbow earlier in the year, Flaherty was elevated in Harvard-Westlake’s rotation, emerging as a reliable sidekick to another future MLB star, current Atlanta Braves pitcher Max Fried.
“That was kind of the beginning right there,” Giolito said of watching Flaherty that season. “It was like, this guy is a good hitter and a good infielder, but there’s something special about what he’s doing on the mound.”
With Giolito and Fried in the pros as first-round picks in 2013, Flaherty’s profile as a pitcher only continued to explode. He added life to his fastball. He put more bite on his slider. And he began to refine his mental approach, shifting more of his focus primarily to the mound.
“I get my work ethic from my mom, but also from the way that we worked [at Harvard-Westlake],” Flaherty said. “The way we went about our business, the way that we worked, the way we stayed after [practice]. Everything was detail-oriented.”
In that environment, Flaherty flourished.
In his junior year, he went 13-0 with a 0.63 ERA, earning National Player of the Year honors from Maxpreps while helping lead Harvard-Westlake to the CIF Southern Section Division 1 title game.
The added bonus: The final is annually played at Dodger Stadium.
“We obviously wanted to play for a CIF Championship,” Flaherty said this week, sitting on a railing of the Dodger Stadium dugout. “But we knew, with that, came being able to play here, which was just an unforgettable experience.”
Indeed, 11 years later, Flaherty and those close to him still remember the day vividly.
In the morning, the pitcher struggled to focus on his finals in school. “I don’t think I did well on them,” he joked.
As the team took a bus to the game, Eileen and other parents gathered for a meal, superstitiously repeating their outfits from each of the team’s previous playoff games. “I wore a pink shirt, like, the whole time,” she laughed.
Minutes before first pitch, though, Flaherty sat in the dugout with a quiet confidence, seemingly unfazed by a crowd of several thousand around him.
“You see it in championship games all the time,” LaCour said. “A lot of guys at that age, when the crowd gets loud, big environments, they kind of fall apart. But there was no fall apart in Jack. You knew what you were gonna get. You knew he was gonna execute and attack.”
Attack, Flaherty did, racking up eight strikeouts, giving up just six hits and escaping jams in both the third inning (leaving the bases loaded) and the seventh (when his left fielder threw out a runner at home plate).
“That’s game over,” LaCour thought to himself after the seventh-inning play at the plate. With Flaherty on the mound, “that ain’t happening again.”
By that point, Flaherty’s bat had also given Harvard-Westlake a 1-0 lead, driving in the game’s only run on a full-count single in the third.
“I was in Florida rehabbing from Tommy John [surgery], and I watched a live stream on my laptop,” said Giolito, who’d been drafted by the Washington Nationals the previous year. “I was fist-pumping and cheering. My roommate was like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’”
Full pandemonium followed the final out, which not only clinched a Southern Section title for Harvard-Westlake, but also a National No. 1 ranking from both Perfect Game and Baseball America.
“Four or five years before he got there, that program was a team that won like two games a year,” Katz said. “For the program, it was significant. It put Harvard-Westlake on a bigger map.”
Same went for Flaherty, who surged up draft boards during an equally dominant senior season in 2014 (he finished his high school career on a 23-game winning streak as a pitcher), before being drafted 34th overall by the Cardinals, giving Harvard-Westlake three first-round pitchers in three years.
“My time there was very instrumental,” Flaherty said this week. “Just in the way I continue to go about my business.”
Friday won’t be Flaherty’s first trip back to Dodger Stadium since. In his breakout 2018 season with St. Louis, he struck out 10 in a six-inning, one-run start. As a Cy Young candidate the following year, he spun seven scoreless innings while fanning 10 again.
Flaherty’s most recent trip was less memorable, a five-run clunker last April amid a career-worst season.
But this year, the veteran pitcher has regained his old, familiar dominance, leading him on a nostalgic road back to Chavez Ravine.
“It was in the back of everybody’s mind that the Dodgers would be buyers and the Tigers would be sellers, and hey wouldn’t that be cool,” said LaCour, who is now Harvard-Westlake’s athletic director. “So I think everybody’s looking forward to this weekend, and see him wear the white uniform at the stadium.”
Sports
Pro wrestling star learns what ‘land of opportunity’ means in US as he details journey from Italy to America
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Cristiano Argento has been tearing up opponents in the ring for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) as he worked his way up the ladder to get a few shots at some gold.
But the path to get to one of the most prestigious pro wrestling companies in the U.S. was long and a path that not many wrestlers have taken.
Argento was born and raised in Osimo, Italy – a town of about 35,000 people located on the east side of the country closer to the Adriatic Sea. He told Fox News Digital he started training in a ring at a boxing gym before he got started on the independent scene in Italy. He wrestled in Germany, Sweden, France and Denmark before he came to the realization that, to become a professional wrestler, he needed to make his way to the United States.
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Cristiano Argento performs in the National Wrestling Alliance (Instagram)
He first worked his way to Canada to get trained by pro wrestling legend Lance Storm. He moved to Canada, leaving most of his friends and family behind and without a firm grasp on the English language.
“At the time, my English was horrible. I didn’t speak any English at all,” he said. “But I was with my friend, Stefano, he came with me and he translated everything for me. I probably missed 50% of the knowledge that Lance Storm was giving to us because I was unable to understand. I was only given a recap and everything I was able to see. I’m sure if I was doing it now with a proper knowledge of English, it would have been a different scenario.
“Eventually, I moved back to Italy after the training and I said, OK, now, I want to go to the U.S. So, I studied English more properly, and eventually I got my first work visa that was in Texas. I was in Houston for a short period of time. I trained with Booker T at Reality of Wrestling. I got on his show, which was my debut in the U.S. That was awesome. I eventually got a new work visa in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I currently live since 2017. Since then, my wrestling career, thankfully, kept growing, growing, growing and growing until now wrestling for the NWA. One of the bigger promotions in the U.S.”
Argento said that his family thought he was “nuts” for chasing his pro wrestling dream.
He said they were more concerned about his well-being given that he was half-way around the world without anyone he knew by his side in case something went sideways.
“My family, friends, everybody was like why do you want to move to the opposite side of the world not knowing the language, not knowing anybody, by yourself, to try to become a professional wrestler? And I was like, well, we have one life, I love, and that’s what I’m gonna do,” he told Fox News Digital. “Eventually, my family was really supportive. But when I first said, ‘Hey, mom and dad, I want to do that.’ They looked at me like, ‘Are you nuts? Are you drunk or something? What are you talking about?’ And I said, no that’s what I want to do. And they knew I loved this sport because in Italy I was traveling around Europe, spending time in Canada training, so they started to understand slowly that’s what I want to do with my life. They were proud of me.
Cristiano Argento works out in the gym. (Instagram)
“They’re still proud of me. I think more like the fact that you’re gonna try that, that it’s hard than more like you’re gonna leave us. The fact like, oh, my son is gonna go on the opposite side of the world for a six-hour time difference and we’re gonna see him maybe, when, like, I don’t know. Not often. I think it was more that. And for me too, it was really hard. It was heartbreaking not being able to see my family every day or every month. Like once a year if I’m lucky. I think that was the biggest part for them because of concern or that I was here by myself and if I have any issue or any problem, I didn’t have nobody. So they were scared. Like, you get sick, if you have a problem, anything, and they’re not being able to be here next to me. But they were really supportive since day one.”
Argento is living out his dream in the U.S. He suggested that the moniker of the U.S. being the “land of opportunity” wasn’t far from what is preached in movies and literature – it was the real thing.
“I was inspired by people who came to the U.S. and made it big,” Argento told Fox News Digital. “The U.S. was always like the land of opportunity. That’s how they sell it to us and this is what it is. I feel like, in myself, that was true because anything I tried to do so far I was able to reach a lot more than if I wasn’t here. I’m not yet where I’d like to be but I see like there’s so many opportunities in this country. Not just in wrestling but like in any business to reach the goal. I’m really happy of the choices I did here.
National Wrestling Alliance star Cristiano Argento poses in Times Square in New York. (Instagram)
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“But my big inspirations were big-time actors who moved to the country, who didn’t know English, with no money, no support system. I had one dream, I have to go right there to make it happen and I’m gonna go and do it and I’m gonna make it happen. So those people were always the biggest inspiration even if it wasn’t in wrestling, just how they handled their passion, how they pursued their dream without being scared of anything, how far you are, how alone by yourself … You don’t know the language, you’re like, let’s go, let’s do it.”
Outside of the NWA, Argento has performed for the International Wrestling Cartel, Enjoy Wrestling and Exodus Pro Wrestling this year.
There’s no denying that Loyola’s lacrosse program is best in Southern California and could be that way for years to come with the number of elite young players participating.
On Saturday night, the Cubs (16-3) won their latest Southern Section Division 1 championship with a 14-6 win over Santa Margarita. The Cubs have won three title since the sport was adopted as a championship event in the Southern Section. Defense has been Loyola’s strength all season.
Senior defenders Chase Hellie and Everett Rolph and junior goalkeeper William Russo led one of the best defenses in program history under coach Jimmy Borell.
Senior Cash Ginsberg finished with five goals and junior North Carolina commit Tripp King finished with two goals.
In girls Division 1, Mira Costa upset top-seeded Santa Margarita 12-6.
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Napoleon Solo took home the 2026 Preakness Stakes on Saturday, the 151st running of the race.
The favorite in Taj Mahal, the 1 horse, was in the lead from the start until the final turn until Napoleon Solo made his move on the outside and took the lead at the top of the stretch. As Taj Mahal fell off, Iron Honor, the 9 horse, snuck up, but the effort ultimately was not enough.
Napoleon Solo opened at 8-1 and closed at 7-1. Iron Honor, at 8-1, finished second, with Chip Honcho fishing third after closing at 11-1. Ocelli, one of just three horses to run both the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago and Saturday’s Preakness, finished fourth at 8-1.
A Preakness branded starting gate is seen on track prior to the 151st Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park on May 16, 2026 in Laurel, Maryland. For the first and only time, Laurel Park is hosting the Preakness Stakes which is the second race of the Triple Crown jewel due to the traditional home of the race of the Pimlico Race Course undergoing complete renovations. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
A $1 exacta paid out $53.60, while a $1 trifecta brought in $597.10. But someone out there is very lucky, as a $1 superhighfive – picking the top-five finishers in order – paid out $12,015.70.
Even moreso, a 20-cent Pick 6 – picking the winners of the six consecutive races, with the final being the Preakness, paid out $33,842.34.
The race was run without the Kentucky Derby winner for the second year in a row. After Sovereignty did not run the Preakness last year – and wound up winning the Belmont Stakes – the training team of Golden Tempo opted to skip the Maryland race.
From 1960 to 2018, only three Derby winners did not run in the Preakness. Three Derby winners have skipped the Preakness in the last five years, and for the sixth time in eight years, for various reasons, the Triple Crown had already been impossible to accomplish by the time the Preakness even rolled around.
“I understand that fans of the sport or fans of the Triple Crown are disappointed, but the horse is not a machine,” Golden Tempo’s trainer, Cherie DeVaux, told Fox News Digital earlier this week.
Paco Lopez, right, atop Napoleon Solo, edges out Iron Honor, ridden by Flavien Prat, to win the 151st running of the Preakness Stakes horse race, Friday, May 15, 2026, at Laurel Park in Laurel, Maryland. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
CHERIE DEVAUX REFLECTS ON MAKING KENTUCKY DERBY HISTORY AS FIRST FEMALE TRAINER TO WIN THE RACE
Only three horses from two weeks ago – Ocelli, Robusta, and Incredibolt, were back at the Preakness. Corona de Oro, the 11 horse on Saturday, was scratched well ahead of the Derby, and Great White, who reared up and fell on his back after becoming startled shortly before entering the Derby gate, took the 13 post on Saturday.
The Preakness went off roughly 24 hours after a horse died following the completion of his very first race.
Hit Zero, trained by Brittany Russell, came into the race as the favorite. However, he finished last in the race, which was won by another one of Russell’s horses, Bold Fact — and upon crossing the finish line, Hit Zero reportedly began coughing, dropped to his knees, then put his head down and died.
The Preakness took place at Laurel Park as Pimlico undergoes renovations. It was the first time ever that Pimlico did not host the race, moving roughly 20 miles south.
Paco Lopez, atop Napoleon Solo, wins the 151st running of the Preakness Stakes horse race, Friday, May 15, 2026, at Laurel Park in Laurel, Maryland. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
The Belmont Stakes, the final Triple Crown race, will take place on June 6. The race will return to Saratoga for a third year in a row as Belmont Park continues to be renovated.
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