Whomever is responsible for discovering late-blooming high school baseball prospects in Southern California for the Air Force Academy deserves a raise.

It was six years ago when Air Force took away a 6-foot-7 pitcher/catcher named Paul Skenes from El Toro High. Last season Skenes won the National League Cy Young Award.

This season, Air Force has found another tall, promising prospect in 6-5 Malakye Matsumoto from Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High. As a freshman he played on the freshman team. As a sophomore, he was on junior varsity. He pitched just three innings last season on varsity. This season, with a fastball that has touched 94 mph, he’s become a key closer for the Knights (14-1). He’s also hitting .385 with two home runs, the first of his career.

Yes, Matsumoto is well aware of Skenes’ journey and inspired by it.

“That’s the route. That’s the goal,” he said.

Matsumoto said Air Force started identifying him as a junior and saw him perform during a travel ball tournament. Selling him on Air Force was not difficult because of his family experience. His father and grandfather were in the Air Force and his uncle was in the Army. He has a 4.3 grade-point average.

“My dad told me everything about the Air Force,” he said. “Teaching me discipline, making me a better man and setting me up for life.”

Patience and trusting the process have been Matsumoto’s two guiding principles.

He appreciated spending his first two years getting to play on lower-level teams with no pressure of immediately playing on varsity while waiting for his body to mature.

“The biggest thing was it helped me build up my confidence,” he said. “I got to play shortstop the whole year, batted third. It helped me build a foundation. I started to grow, get stronger and become more comfortable.”

He had no problem “staying in the background.”

“Nobody really knew about me,” he said. “It allowed me to have more fun while playing the game. I didn’t feel pressure at the plate playing JV baseball.”

But the coaches knew about Matsumoto’s potential as they saw him grow from 5-10 to 6-5. Strength coach Nick Garcia said Matsumoto never missed a workout in the weight room. He played second base, third base and shortstop as a junior on varsity. He got in briefly on the mound. It all set up for him to show what could do as a senior.

“We always knew he would develop and be a big impact player down the road,” co-coach Nick LaFace said. “Last year his defense needed to get better, he worked at it and has been playing an amazing third base. He definitely has a big-time arm.”

There’s many different ways to fulfill baseball potential. Some stop growing after Little League stardom. Others are ready to play on varsity as freshmen because of their physical and mental prowess. Matsumoto reminds parents to not be so fast about lobbying for immediate varsity playing time.

“They don’t understand it puts a lot of pressure on kids,” he said. “I’ve seen it. They get called up immediately freshman year. All the pressure is put on their shoulders. Parents want them to be on varsity not realizing they either won’t play or when they are exposed to high-level pitching, high-level hitting, being that young, unless they are really a varsity-level player, they’re going to get exposed or it’s either going to be humiliating or lower the confidence.”

Matsumoto’s mother is of Korean descent and is principal at Hawthorne Math and Science Academy. His father is of Japanese descent and works in security.

As for the Air Force, don’t expect Matsumoto to be flying anytime soon.

“They told me I won’t be able to fit in some planes being 6-5,” he said.

Don’t worry. They had the same answer for the 6-7 Skenes, who turned out pretty good.

Skenes left Air Force after two years, but Matsumoto likes what he sees in his journey.

“It sets me up for life,” he said.

But things change, and beware of Matsumoto, the pitcher. He’s just learning what he can do.

“Pitching has become more of a reality,” he said. “I’m totally open to it in college. I’m going as a two-way player.”

Tiger Woods has entered a plea of not guilty and has waived his arraignment, demanding a trial with a jury.

Woods was arrested in Florida with prescription opioids found in his pocket after being involved in a rollover crash this past Friday, according to court documents.

The 15-time major winner was arrested on charges of driving under the influence with property damage and refusal to submit to a blood alcohol level (BAL) test after law enforcement said his vehicle collided with another while driving impaired.

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

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After his October 2015 overdose at a Nevada brothel, Lamar Odom says, he had “12 strokes and six heart attacks. All my doctors say, like, I’m a walking miracle.”

Now, more than a decade later, the Love Ranch brothel has been demolished, but Odom is still around.

The former Laker and onetime husband of Khloé Kardashian is telling his story for “The Death and Life of Lamar Odom,” the newest episode of Netflix’s documentary series “Untold,” along with Kardashian, former coach Phil Jackson and others who were around during his Oct. 13, 2015, health emergency. The episode premiered Tuesday.

“You know what’s funny?” the 46-year-old former player told Sports Illustrated in an interview published Monday. “I haven’t even watched it yet. You know why? Because I lived it.”

Odom, who just got out of another month of rehab in February, insists that the 2015 episode was not a mere overdose but a “hit,” an attempt on his life.

“Right when I signed the divorce papers, I was like, ‘I’m gonna get it in.’ The Bunny Ranch I used to always see on TV, but I don’t have any coke to take,” he says in the documentary. “ … It’s crazy when you think about [how] one decision, so big or so minor, could be so pivotal to you and to people that you really love.”

The late Dennis Hof, owner of the Bunny Ranch, where HBO’s “Cathouse: The Series” was shot, owned other Nevada brothels. Odom set off that October for Hof’s Love Ranch in Crystal, about 80 miles outside of Las Vegas.

“It was pretty rare that a celebrity — certainly anybody above the D-list — would be actively trying to come out to one of the brothels,” former Love Ranch manager Richard Hunter says in the “Untold” episode. “This was kind of a myth. This was something Dennis perpetuated.”

But, Hunter said, “Lamar Odom actually began contacting several of the girls from the Love Ranch on Instagram. … Being a professional athlete, there’s a lot of easier ways to do this than to drive an hour outside of the city into the desert, walk into a brothel, such as it was, and want to live there for a few days.

“As the days progressed, I remember that him or one of his handlers … actually contacted the brothel and wanted a car to pick him up. So it definitely became real when he gave us the address of where he was at.” The driver called the Love Ranch and let them know his passenger really was Odom. They put him in a house behind the brothel, Hunter said, where they put folks who were “spending enough money.”

Odom told USA Today in an interview published Monday that what transpired at the Love Ranch — which was demolished in November 2024, after Hof’s 2018 death — “was like a hit. Obviously they missed. I don’t know if they want to finish the job.”

Hit or not, Odom infamously wound up overdosing on alcohol and various drugs including over-the-counter erectile-dysfunction supplements. He says no cocaine was involved.

Kardashian explains in the episode that her divorce from Odom came as a result of an ultimatum she was told to deliver during a planned intervention: a three-month rehab stint or a split. Odom surprised them, she said, when he said that all he wanted was his passport — and the divorce.

“I was like, looking around like, ‘Wait. Wait. I — I don’t want the divorce,’” she said. “‘You guys [who assembled for the intervention] told me I have to say this.’”

Odom and Kardashian had signed their papers before the OD, but a judge hadn’t yet signed off on the dissolution, which allowed her to keep him insured and, as his wife and next of kin, to make decisions regarding his health. Kobe Bryant, Odom’s Lakers teammate and Kardashian’s close friend, flew to Nevada to help her decide whether to proceed with surgery to fix Odom’s lung that had collapsed. She said yes, even though there was only “like a 10% chance” that it would work and that he would survive the procedure.

Odom made it through, recovering at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Bryant died in a helicopter crash less than five years later.

After the OD, Kardashian never left the hospital. She put their divorce — finalized in 2016 — on hold. When Odom awakened from his coma, he couldn’t control his bowels and needed six hours a day of dialysis, according to the documentary. “So you can understand the humility … I’ve won two championships. I’m Lamar Odom. I can’t walk, can’t talk. And they come in to check my diaper.”

He was 35 at the time. The next summer, he was removed from a flight at LAX before takeoff while drunk and vomiting, having been seen earlier slamming beer and whiskey in the Delta Airlines lounge.

So what would Odom tell his younger self, if he could, after suffering a dozen strokes and six heart attacks after that visit to the Love Ranch?

“Stay away from your weakness. And my weakness, obviously, was drugs because I’m a drug addict,” he told SI. “It could have been passed down to me from my father. But I’m not blaming anybody. Makes no sense to blame anybody. On or off the court, you have to work with what you’ve got. And I had an incredible stat line in terms of skills and how to play the game.

“And just work on being the best player that you can be. Anybody who offers you that s—, drugs, whether it be coke, pot, alcohol, they probably ain’t your friend. And to choose my friends wisely, because they could affect you on or off the court.”

Odom also wasn’t sure why Netflix had tapped him at this moment, but hopes that by telling his story he might help other people who are trying to get out of addiction.

“I was telling my girlfriend on the way here, it’s like swimming in a cesspool of trauma,” he told USA Today, mentioning a partner who has not been identified. “And I’m trying to get out of it, but the story reels me back into that pool every time. But I just know I’m bigger than the situation, and I hope to help a lot of people by giving my testimony. Not just with the story, but just in life, that we can all overcome addiction.”

That and, well, “Netflix had a good paycheck, bro,” he told SI with a laugh. “No, but it’s a time and place for everything. I don’t know what made me relevant now.”