It was announced on Tuesday by Metros de Santiago, a professional basketball team in the Dominican Republic, that the club had signed former NBA power forward Greg Whittington. First signing with the Miami Heat in 2015, Whittington only appeared in Summer League, preseason, and G League games for Miami, but did finally make his NBA debut with the Denver Nuggets in 2021.

Signing a two-way contract with Denver in November of 2020, Whittington appeared in four games before being waived in April of 2021. At the time of his signing, Whittington was coming off an impressive season with Galatasaray of the Turkish BSL, but never got much of an opportunity in Denver, partially due to injuries.

In a joint Instagram post with his new club, Whittington announced the signing that will continue his professional basketball career:

When the Nuggets announced the Whittington signing in 2020, the team shared the following details on his basketball journey up until that point:

“Whittington, 6-8, 212, spent the 2019-20 season playing in Istanbul, Turkey for Galatasaray of the Turkish BSL. He appeared in 25 games (10 starts), averaging 12.4 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.12 steals while shooting 56.6% from the field and 50.7% from three in 25.8 minutes per game.” 

On the start of his NBA career, the Nuggets added, “The 27-year-old went undrafted in the 2015 NBA Draft and spent the 2015-16 season playing for the Sioux Falls Skyforce of the NBA G League. In two seasons for the Skyforce, Whittington appeared in 36 games (32 starts) averaging 13.8 points, 7.4 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.81 steals while shooting 44.2% from the field in 34.3 minutes.”

As previously mentioned, Whittington’s first NBA contract came from the Miami Heat, as he began his professional career with their G League affiliate Sioux Falls Skyforce.

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When John Akinboyewa studied at the Colorado School of Mines for his engineering degrees, he recalled digging in the couch for change to afford a 99-cent meal at Taco Bell or McDonald’s — coming to $1.08 with tax.

“I remember that number so vividly,” he said. His very next thought: “There is pizza or a sandwich or cookies somewhere on this campus that is fastly approaching the trash can.”

That college experience sparked the idea for a new app called Hungree. And in the last year, Akinboyewa, a 39-year-old Denver resident, and his three team members have brought his vision to life.

The free app follows a basic premise: A user in a small geographic area who wants to get rid of a food item can post it for another user to request and then pick up. Restaurants, food banks and other sizable providers can connect with individuals, and neighbors can link with neighbors.

Users can share either with the public or solely within their own “villages,” which are limited to specific groups like religious organizations or homeowners associations.

The app can be used to arrange very small-scale and extremely large-scale food distribution, Akinboyewa added. If an office staffer has 25 leftover sandwiches after an event, then that user can post the food items in their village and alert others to the surplus.

But to work effectively, the app needs a balance of both providers and users.

He’s developed the app to protect user privacy, keep track of food donations, avoid lines at food pickups and more. In its beta phase, the app granted access to 500 invite-only users across six cities in four countries — the U.S., Nigeria, Colombia and the United Kingdom — before expanding to nearly 1,000 users, Akinboyewa said.

Soon, his team plans to permit tens of thousands of users through several university, community and business partnerships, he said.

The app is available now on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, using an invite code: HUNGREE500.

For Akinboyewa, who was born in Nigeria and resided in London before immigrating to the U.S., the Hungree app is a way to fight hunger and curb food waste. In the places he’s lived, he’s seen the struggle of food insecurity.

Now, he’s watching his strategy work in real time. A local steakhouse manager listed leftover meals on the app — three servings of steak and vegetables — and another user picked them up to hand out to people experiencing homelessness, Akinboyewa said.

“I love solving problems,” said Akinboyewa, who has a background as a consultant in the oil and gas industry. “Sometimes, the simple solution is actually what works.”

To take his app to the next level, Akinboyewa hopes to garner institutional and organizational support. He’s discussed the idea with leaders at the University of Colorado Boulder who are in charge of off-campus housing, which could result in thousands of students accessing the app.

Akinboyewa wants to connect with local businesses and feature them on the app, too. He’s looking for financial backing that lets him roll it out on a larger scale.

Hungree’s nonprofit status was approved by the state on Monday. But the organization’s technology branch is for-profit, with plans to make money through investors and a business model that will eventually let users pay for enhanced features, Akinboyewa said.

“I’ll be sincere about something: Being Black in tech, you’re not connected to the right communities to help get the funding,” he said.

Still, he’s seeing progress globally. And in the next few weeks, a major update will bring multilingual support to the app, expanding beyond English to add Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and Turkish.

Akinboyewa’s hope: “In five to seven years, we want half a billion people on there,” he said. “There are big dreams to this.”

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Originally Published: July 23, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.

The Rockies won as a visitor in their own ballpark on Monday at Fenway Park West.

In front of a pro-Boston gathering of 35,261 at Coors Field, Colorado outlasted the Red Sox 9-8 in 12 innings to claim the series opener. LoDo rising star Ezequiel Tovar roped the walk-off single to improve the Rockies to 6-4 in extras this year and send the red-clad crowd streaming toward the exits.

“There were a lot of Sox fans there, and at times, it felt like an away game,” Sam Hilliard said. “But we were resilient tonight… Guys coming out of the bullpen are doing a great job right now, making big pitches, and we had a pass-the-baton mentality.

“… We’re not going to lie down (in the second half). We feel like we can compete and beat anybody, and I think we’re been showing that a little bit lately by playing spoiler or whatever you want to call it.”

Prior to Tovar’s hit that lifted Colorado to its seventh walk-off win this year, the Rockies blew two leads and staged a comeback of their own to tie the game in the 10th on Hilliard’s two-run homer in a dramatic interleague affair.

“It was a great game, and a good win,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “It was going to be a tough loss for whoever lost that one, but our guys endured.”

After a couple of quiet innings to open the game, Colorado jumped out to a significant lead in the third.

In that frame, rookie Aaron Schunk’s rollover grounder down the third base line hit the bag, resulting in an infield single and jump-starting a big inning. Charlie Blackmon followed with a two-run homer to right on a hanging slider by Tanner Houck.

Tovar then had a swinging bunt. And after Brenton Doyle’s RBI double and Michael Toglia’s RBI single added two more runs, the first-time All-Star Houck was down 4-0.

“We took advantage of some balls up in the zone,” Black said.

But the four-run lead, and Austin Gomber’s cruise control, couldn’t hold.

The Red Sox broke through with four runs of their own in the fifth, tying the game with a pair of two-out swings. Jamie Westbrook’s three-run homer was the backbreaker, then All-Star Game MVP Jarren Duran blasted a triple and Rob Refsnyder’s single through the left side tied the game.

Gomber finished with four earned on six hits through 5 2/3, with one walk and five strikeouts. The southpaw said his final stat line didn’t accurately reflect how comfortable he felt on the mound and his recent positive trajectory.

“I made one bad pitch and gave up a three-run homer, but that’s the best I’ve thrown the ball since 2021,” Gomber said. “I haven’t had that good of stuff in three-plus years. It sucks to make a mistake on the homer, but if I can take that (stuff) every five days, I’ll be fine. The past couple weeks is the livest my arm’s felt in a couple years.”

The Rockies re-took the lead in the seventh following a decidedly Red Sox rendition of Take Me Out To The Ballgame. Brendan Rodgers singled against Josh Winckowski, then Jacob Stallings’ two-out double down the right field line scored Rodgers to make it 5-4.

Boston didn’t waste time squaring the score back up, as Connor Wong led off the eighth with an arching homer to right off southpaw Jalen Beeks that just cleared the out-of-town scoreboard. That energized the pro-Boston crowd on hand, but the Red Sox failed to grab the lead with further traffic when Beeks induced an inning-ending double play.

The Red Sox appeared to have the final say with two runs off Victor Vodnik in the 10th, thanks to Dominic Smith’s leadoff RBI double to score the California runner and then Rafael Devers’ sacrifice fly a couple of batters later. But Hilliard came through with a two-run dinger in the bottom of the inning off right-hander Zack Kelly. Hilliard’s hit sailed 450 feet into the Boston bullpen to tie the game 7-7.

“I went up there looking for a changeup, which is the pitch I hit out,” Hilliard said. “My swing probably got a little too big at first. On 0-1, he pretty much threw the same pitch but a little bit lower, more into the loop of my swing. Before that, I was telling myself to shorten up and not do too much. I was able to put the barrel on it and it went, so it’s good to see an adjustment pay off like that mid at-bat.”

Justin Lawrence worked out of a jam in the 11th, getting a double-play ball and then inducing another groundout to end the inning. But the Rockies left runners on second and third in the bottom of the inning as right-hander Greg Weissert stymied them. At the conclusion of the frame, Red Sox manager Alex Cora was ejected for arguing with home plate umpire Mark Wegner.

“Lawrence’s fastball was crispy tonight (topping out at 97.1 mph), and a little hotter than what we saw prior to the All-Star break,” Black said. “He also had a couple good breaking balls.”

Boston re-took the lead in the 12th via a two-out RBI single off Lawrence by Wilyer Abreu. In the bottom of the inning, Jake Cave scored Rodgers on a single that turned into a double on an error by Tyler O’Neil in left field. Then, an intentional walk to Stallings, a sacrifice bunt by Hilliard and an intentional walk to Schunk set up Tovar’s walk-off single off ex-Rockie Chase Anderson.

Tovar missed Sunday’s series finale against the Giants due to illness, and was still sick on Monday as he returned to the lineup to deliver his third career walk-off hit.

“That was a little Michael Jordan flu game for Tovar tonight to get the game-winning knock,” Hilliard said. “He had (three) knocks on the night and you could just tell he was grinding.”

Tuesday’s pitching matchup

Rockies LHP Ty Blach (3-5, 5.46 ERA) vs. Red Sox TBA

6:40 p.m. Tuesday, Coors Field

TV: Rockies.TV (streaming); Comcast/Xfinity (channel 1262); DirecTV (683); Spectrum (130, 445, 305, 435 or 445, depending on region).

Radio: 850 AM/94.1 FM

After German Marquez landed on the injured list on Monday with right elbow inflammation, Blach likely gets the nod in his 10th start of the season. Blach got hit around in his last start, when the Dodgers tagged him for five runs on 10 hits with three homers in a loss at Coors Field on June 20. He also hasn’t been very good in relief lately, with a 8.31 ERA in three June outings. Unfamiliarity will be on the southpaw’s side as he makes just his second career start against Boston, and only three current Red Sox have faced him.

Pitching probables

Wednesday: Rockies RHP Cal Quantrill (6-7, 4.15) vs. Red Sox TBA, 1:10 p.m.

Thursday: Off

Friday: Rockies LHP Kyle Freeland (2-3, 5.63) at Giants TBA, 8:15 p.m.

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Originally Published: July 22, 2024 at 10:17 p.m.