Sports
Ex-Dodger Raúl Mondesi free after serving 7 years under house arrest for embezzling millions
Raúl Mondesi is a free man.
The former Dodgers outfielder had been on house arrest since a 2017 conviction for embezzlement of public funds associated with his role as mayor of his Dominican Republic hometown, San Cristóbal.
A Dominican court ruled Friday that Mondesi’s original sentence of six years, nine months in prison had been satisfied by the duration of the house arrest. In 2017, in addition to the prison sentence, he was ordered to pay a $1.3 million fine for defrauding more than $6 million and was barred from holding public office for 10 years. Three of Mondesi’s staff members also were sentenced.
Mondesi, 53, was a mercurial figure as a ballplayer, a tremendous talent who invited comparisons to Roberto Clemente but who was prone to emotional outbursts and flouting rules with the Dodgers and five other teams during his 13-year career.
One of seven children raised by his mother, Martina, in a tiny home in San Cristóbal, he vowed to buy a new house for his mother after signing a one-year, $435,000 contract with the Dodgers after winning the Rookie of the Year award in 1994.
“My mother, she’s like superwoman,” he told The Times. “I can’t tell you what she means to me. My father died when I was 7, and she had to do everything. She worked in a laundry just to put food on the table.”
Mondesi twice joined the elite 30-30 club — hitting at least 30 home runs and stealing at least 30 bases — in his six-plus seasons with the Dodgers from 1993 to 1999. He won two Gold Gloves for his play in right field and early on earned a reputation as a hard worker.
He also enjoyed immense popularity in the Dominican Republic.
“He’s a hero in our country, a genuine hero,” Dodgers shortstop and countryman Jose Offerman said in 1995. “We’ve had a lot of players come through the Dominican … but I don’t know if anyone’s been more popular than Raúl.”
Mondesi would pack dozens of bats, gloves, and pairs of shoes and send them to Dominican kids each year.
“I never had anything when I grew up,” he said. “I’d play baseball, and all I’d have is cardboard for a glove. I would have given anything to have a real glove and bat.
“I want to help those kids. A lot of them are poor families. They can’t afford baseball equipment, so I help them.”
Four years later, however, Mondesi was a disgruntled powder keg who demanded a trade in a profanity-laced tirade against Dodgers manager Davey Johnson and general manager Kevin Malone in August 1999.
“I can’t take this anymore,” he told The Times. “I’ve had to deal with this all year. I told them to trade me because I don’t want to [expletive] be here. … “F— Davey and f— Malone, they try to put all of our problems on me. They’re trying to say that all this [s—] is my fault. That’s the way they feel, fine. Just get me out of here.”
Mondesi was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays that offseason and had three productive seasons before bouncing around as a reserve with four teams — including an eight-game stint with the Angels in 2004 — and retiring in 2005.
He earned $66.5 million during his career and returned to San Cristóbal, a dusty, overcrowded and impoverished city of 700,000. He expressed an interest in politics, and in 2006 was elected to the Chamber of Deputies — the Dominican equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives — as a member of President Leonel Fernandez’s Dominican Liberation Party.
Mondesi jumped to the opposition Dominican Revolutionary Party during his second term, where he remained when elected mayor of San Cristóbal in 2010. The former player with a grade-school education was chosen as the party’s candidate over former major league pitcher José Rijo, another local hero who had returned home.
The two former players who earned more than $100 million between them lived in neighboring mansions, surrounded by 8-foot walls and protected by armed guards. Three years earlier, both were fined for rigging illegal connections to their homes that allowed them to use electricity without paying for it.
Soon after winning the election, Mondesi allegedly became engaged in questionable financial transactions. He served through 2016, when he and several other party leaders were charged with “conspiracy of officials, falsification of documents, use of false documents, prevarication, embezzlement, and crimes of mixing in affairs incompatible with the quality of official and association of criminals.”
Mondesi was convicted and put under house arrest while his case was appealed, a slow process that did not conclude until Friday.
In 2020, authorities petitioned the court to send Mondesi to prison for the remainder of his sentence because he was alleged to have violated the terms of the house arrest. Nothing came of it, and in 2023, the Court of Appeals of San Cristóbal ordered a new trial.
Despite avoiding jail, Mondesi’s precipitous decline from Dodgers darling to an explosive under-performer on the field, and from hometown hero and mayor to convicted thief off the field, was shocking.
It was a far cry from the glowing prediction from Al LaMacchia, the Blue Jays vice president of baseball operations, after Mondesi was acquired from the Dodgers 25 years ago.
“He won’t have to worry about money the rest of his life,” LaMacchia said. “His strength is close to Clemente, and if his instincts allow him to make the changes that he needs to make, he may be one of those that you remember for a long, long time.”
Sports
Indy 500: Counting Down The 10 Best Finishes In Race History
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The best Indianapolis 500 finish could be subjective, depending on which driver a fan was rooting for to win.
It certainly is in the eye of the beholder.
So take this list for what it’s worth. One view of the 10 best finishes in Indianapolis 500 history. Of course, it skews to more recent decades when the runs have come a little faster and the finishes have had a tendency to be a little closer.
We’ll add one each day to this list of fantastic finishes ahead of the 110th running of the Indy 500 on May 24 (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX).
10. Ericsson outduels O’Ward (2022)
After a red flag, Marcus Ericsson held off Pato O’Ward in a two-lap shootout. The shootout didn’t last two laps, though, as there was a crash on the final lap behind them. Ericsson had a comfortable lead when the red flag came out for a crash with four laps to go, a situation where in past Indianapolis 500 races, they likely would have ended the race under caution with Ericsson as the winner.
9. Foyt survives chaos (1967)
How does a driver who wins by two laps end up on this list? It’s because the win nearly didn’t happen on the last lap. A big crash with cars and debris littering the frontstretch just ahead of Foyt as he came to the checkered flag forced him to navigate through the wreckage for the win.
8. Sato can’t catch Franchitti (2012)
This was one of those finishes where the leader holds on for the win, but boy did the leader have to hold on. Takuma Sato tried to pass Dario Franchitti early on the final lap but to no avail and Franchitti sped off for the victory. This was one of those Indy 500s that made you hold your breath all the way to the checkered flag.
Sports
UCLA softball pummels South Carolina to advance to NCAA super regional
No. 8 UCLA stuck with right-hander Taylor Tinsley throughout the Los Angeles Regional and that faith in the senior paid off.
During the Bruins’ NCAA tournament opener at Easton Stadium, Tinsley gave up 10 runs before her teammates rallied for a walk-off win. She returned less than 24 hours to pitch against South Carolina, giving up two earned runs in a victory. Tinsley was back in the circle Sunday afternoon, yielding one run in UCLA’s 15-1 victory over the Gamecocks to advance to the super regionals.
“I am proud of Taylor’s resiliency, the ability to do whatever she can to help this team,” UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “She got stronger through the weekend. I am proud of that.”
Tinsley and her teammates will host Central Florida in a super regional that begins Friday.
“I feel good,” Tinsley said after pitching three key games in three days. “I could have gone more innings if needed.”
South Carolina right-hander Jori Heard gave up only one hit through two innings, keeping UCLA’s potent bats relatively quiet. The Gamecocks had runners on first and second with two outs in the second, but Tinsley escaped the inning with a pop-up to left field.
The Bruins got on the board first with a two-run home run from left fielder Rylee Slimp in the third inning. The Bruins followed it up by loading the bases with no outs in the fifth for right fielder Megan Grant.
Grant cooked up a grand slam to make it 6-0. She has 40 home runs, extending her hold on the NCAA single-season home run record. Oklahoma freshman Kendall Wells trails Grant with 37 homers.
“Its just incredible because I am blessed to be able to say the number 40,” Grant said.
South Carolina broke through on an RBI single from left fielder Quincee Lilio to cut UCLA’s lead to 6-1 in the fifth inning after being held to just one hit since the first inning. The Gamecocks couldn’t cash in the rest of the way.
The Bruins resumed scoring in the sixth inning, with the bases loaded and Grant at bat again. Fans at Easton Stadium anticipated another grand slam, holding up their cellphones hoping to catch some magic. Grant served up a two-run RBI single to expand the lead 8-1.
Jordan Woolery added to the scoring with a two-run RBI double down the left-field line, and Kaniya Bragg hit a home run to left-center field. Soo-jin Berry put a bow on the win with one more home run.
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.
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