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Will we ever know who won the record-setting $747M Powerball jackpot in Washington?

Published

1 year ago

February 26, 2023

Will we ever know who won the record-setting $747M Powerball jackpot in Washington?

(NEXSTAR) – Inside every week of one another, the winners of two of the most important lottery prizes in U.S. historical past claimed their payouts. First, it was the California winner of the largest-ever prize, a $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot received in November. Then on Wednesday, it was the nameless winner of a $1.35 billion Mega Tens of millions jackpot received by a ticket bought in Maine final month.

Now, there’s only one record-setting lottery prize received in the previous few months that continues to be unclaimed.

Since final summer season, the U.S. has seen 4 record-setting lottery jackpots – a $1.337 billion Mega Tens of millions jackpot from Illinois in July, the $2.04 billion Powerball win in November, the $1.35 billion Mega Tens of millions jackpot final month, and a $747 million jackpot received by a ticket in Washington state earlier this month.

Daylight saving time: Which states need to cease altering the clocks?

Lottery officers have but to announce a winner for the most recent jackpot.

Whether it is ever claimed – a winner has 180 days to come back ahead in Washington, which means they nonetheless have roughly 160 days but – we may know the identify of the winner.

As a result of the lottery is a state company, its paperwork are topic to the Public Data Act, which may reveal the identify of the winner, even when a legally shaped entity (like a belief) claims the prize.

Based on state regulation, the identify and metropolis of the winner of a Mega Tens of millions jackpot prize, or the second-tier prize, is introduced at a information convention or in a press launch. The winner can also be requested to take part within the information convention.

The place are jackpots most ceaselessly received?

Earlier this month, we discovered the identify of the $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot winner because of California guidelines which don’t let a winner stay nameless. Disclosure legal guidelines require the state’s lottery to share the winner’s full identify and the place they bought the ticket, however the winner doesn’t should be current on the press convention (the winner of this jackpot opted in opposition to showing publicly).

The winners of the jackpots received in Maine and Illinois, nevertheless, did get to stay nameless.

Each states are among the many few that may permit winners to have their names withheld in all or some circumstances. Should you win any lottery video games, make sure you test along with your jurisdiction’s lottery workplace to find out whether or not you possibly can stay nameless.

If the Powerball jackpot in Washington had been to stay unclaimed, collaborating lotteries will obtain their portion of the prize’s money worth constructed by their ticket gross sales, in accordance with the sport’s web site. Jurisdictions then distribute the funds based mostly on native guidelines or legal guidelines.

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Incoming Post editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed role in his reporting

Published

3 hours ago

June 17, 2024

Press Room

Incoming Post editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed role in his reporting

LONDON — The alleged offense was trying to steal a soon-to-be-released copy of former prime minister Tony Blair’s memoir.

The suspect arrested by London police in 2010 was John Ford, a once-aspiring actor who has since admitted to an extensive career using deception and illegal means to obtain confidential information for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. Facing potential prosecution, Ford called a journalist he said he had collaborated with repeatedly — and trusted to come to his rescue.

That journalist, according to draft book chapters Ford later wrote recounting his ordeal, was Robert Winnett, a Sunday Times veteran who is set to become editor of The Washington Post later this year.

Winnett moved quickly to connect Ford with a lawyer, discussed obtaining an untraceable phone for future communications and reassured Ford that the “remarkable omerta” of British journalism would ensure his clandestine efforts would never come to light, according to draft chapters Ford wrote in 2017 and 2018 that were shared with The Post.

Winnett, currently a deputy editor of the Telegraph, did not respond to a detailed list of questions. Ford, who previously declined to be interviewed, did not respond to questions about the draft book chapters.

Winnett is now poised to take over the top editorial position in The Post’s core newsroom, scheduled to start after the November U.S. presidential election. He was appointed by Post CEO and Publisher William Lewis, who has mentored Winnett and worked with him at two British papers. Lewis is also mentioned in Ford’s draft chapters.

The drafts are part of a collection of previously unreported materials representing Ford’s recollections of his activities and associations with Winnett, some of which The Post was able to match with published stories and other public documents. The prospective book project never came to fruition.

The claims raise questions about Winnett’s journalistic record months before he is to assume a top position at The Post. His appointment has increased focus on the different ways journalism is practiced in the United States and Britain.

In one passage, Ford describes working with Winnett on an array of stories about consumer and business affairs. The collaboration, in his account, was part of a broader arrangement with the Sunday Times in which Ford delivered confidential details about Britain’s rich and powerful by using dishonest means, including changing their bank passwords and adopting false personas in calls to government agencies. A Sunday Times editor later acknowledged some of these practices but said they were deployed to serve the public interest.

Winnett, who went on to become a respected business reporter and editor with a record of scoops, has not publicly spoken about relying on or interacting with Ford, a trained actor with a talent for accents.

But a review by The Post of Winnett’s reporting at the Sunday Times, as well as Ford’s unpublished book chapters and other documents that have since been made public, reveals apparent overlap between Winnett’s stories and individuals or entities that Ford said he was commissioned to target. They include pieces on the fate of the Leeds United Football Club, the finances of former prime minister Blair and the efforts by some of Britain’s wealthiest elites to buy a new vehicle from Mercedes-Benz that cost 250,000 pounds.

At The Post and other major American news organizations, the use of deceptive tactics in pursuit of news stories violates core ethics policies. In Britain, “blagging” — using misrepresentation to dupe others into revealing confidential information — has been a known feature of a certain brand of tabloid journalism, especially before a public reckoning over press ethics began in 2011. Blagging has been less frequently documented in the broadsheet titles where Winnett and Lewis built their careers.

Blagging is illegal under the United Kingdom’s 1998 Data Protection Act, but a defense is available if the acts can be shown to serve the public interest, legal experts said.

Winnett was tapped to lead The Post’s newsroom as part of a Lewis shake-up that led to the abrupt departure this month of Sally Buzbee, the first woman to serve as The Post’s executive editor.

Addressing the Post newsroom this month, Lewis touted Winnett as a “world class” journalist. “He’s a brilliant investigative journalist,” Lewis said. “And he will restore an even greater degree of investigative rigor to our organization.”

Lewis’s own journalistic record also has come under scrutiny.

The New York Times on Saturday reported that Lewis, as an editor at the Sunday Times in 2004, had assigned a reporter to write a story about a prominent businessman that the reporter believed was based on hacked phone records. The Post has reviewed unpublished writing by Ford in which he claims to have changed the password on the bank account of that businessman, Stuart Rose, so as to gain unauthorized access to Rose’s records.

Lewis co-wrote a story for the Sunday Times in February 2004 about internal legal wrangling at the Manchester United Football Club, the same month that an invoice — published by an online news site in 2018 — shows Ford was paid for a story about “MANCHESTER.” A former Sunday Times journalist, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said Lewis’s co-author was a junior sports reporter at the time and did not obtain the revelations at the heart of the story.

Lewis declined to comment through a Post spokesperson in response to a list of detailed questions, including about the origins of the information for the 2004 stories.

In recent weeks, Lewis has faced accusations of seeking to suppress stories about a long-running civil court battle in London concerning his time as a top executive in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

In January 2011, London police asked Murdoch’s company to turn over evidence of phone hacking by one of its papers, and last month, a judge cleared the way for plaintiffs to air claims that Lewis and others were involved in plans to subsequently delete millions of emails allegedly related to the hacking. Lewis has denied wrongdoing and is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. He has also denied trying to quash stories on the topic.

Ford’s draft chapters from 2017 and 2018, shared at the time with a cohort of journalists and others, reflect his efforts to blow the whistle on hacking and other illicit newsgathering methods.

Those efforts prompted a 2018 Guardian profile, in which Ford said, “I was nothing more than a common thief.” He counted private investigators among his clients and said he performed most of his work for the Sunday Times, never taking on a formal role or even entering its office, but estimating that he was paid 40,000 pounds a year for his exploits. He said in that profile that he pursued leading politicians, including Blair and another former prime minister, Gordon Brown; celebrities such as Paul McCartney; and a former head of MI6, the secretive foreign intelligence service.

Ford wrote in his draft chapters that he came to know Winnett as a young reporter at the Sunday Times, where Winnett began writing as a student in 1995.

Lewis became business editor of the Sunday Times in 2002. He remained there until 2005, when he became city editor of the Telegraph, a center-right paper identified with Britain’s Conservative Party. He quickly climbed the ranks of that outlet.

Winnett joined Lewis at the Telegraph in 2007, and two years later they worked closely together on an investigation into phony expenses by members of Parliament that rocked the political establishment and forced a wave of resignations.

The stories that the Telegraph published in 2009 arose from data that the paper had acquired as part of a transaction in which they paid about 150,000 pounds to a private investigator seeking to sell the material on behalf of another source, according to an account Lewis later provided as part of a public inquiry into media practices. Lewis has described the Telegraph’s work as a high-water mark for the British press, “one of the most important bits of journalism, if not the most important bit of journalism, in the postwar period.”

Within a year, the British industry’s practices were engulfed in an expanding scandal, fueled by revelations that News of the World, a best-selling tabloid in Murdoch’s media empire, had engaged in widespread hacking of the phones of politicians, celebrities and even victims of violent crimes in the pursuit of salacious stories.

Lewis left the Telegraph in 2010 to join the Murdoch-controlled News International as a senior executive. Within months, he would be charged with helping to manage the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal, a position that involved overseeing the provision of evidence to a Metropolitan Police investigation that swelled to include hundreds of officers.

It was during this period that Ford made his desperate call to Winnett — a decision Ford briefly recounted in a 2018 piece he published in Byline Investigates, a journalism website edited by Graham Johnson, a former tabloid reporter turned whistleblower on journalism ethics. The same year, Byline Investigates published invoices, on its website and in a YouTube video, showing numerous payments to Ford from the Sunday Times parent company, News International.

A line item on one of the invoices includes only the description “LEEDS” for a payment related to a story published in September 2004. That month, Winnett and another reporter broke the news that an Iraqi businessman worth 1.3 billion pounds was preparing a bid to take over Leeds United.

The story quoted what it described as an unnamed friend of the businessman and divulged plans to move the club and redevelop the area surrounding its stadium. Other Sunday Times stories published that month that make reference to Leeds are all straightforward sports or politics write-ups and human-interest pieces about property or interior design.

In 2002, Winnett and two co-authors wrote about a blind trust in which Blair, the prime minister at the time, had parked profits from the sale of his family’s home. It followed a line of reporting about blind trusts connected to officials in Blair’s Labour Party that, in one of his unpublished drafts, Ford claims credit for having helped launch for the Sunday Times five years earlier. Ford did so, he wrote, by altering his voice as part of a ruse to obtain information from the bank Barclays.

The 2002 article co-written by Winnett laid out the political connections of one of the fund’s two trustees, describing a set of real estate transactions for which the fund nearly failed to gain financing until a third party informed the bank that the loan was for Blair’s trust. The article did not reveal how the paper had learned about the private exchanges, saying only that the Sunday Times “has established” the information.

To Ford, one story in particular stood out. He told the Guardian in the 2018 profile that he had used a fake German accent in June 2002 to dupe a Mercedes-Benz employee into disclosing a list of buyers for the new Maybach supercar on a secret assignment for the Sunday Times newsroom. He said he regretted the move because the employee later lost his job.

Winnett reported in June 2002 that 60 British-based millionaires had placed orders for the new Maybach model. “Sources say,” Winnett wrote, that buyers had put down deposits of 50,000 pounds for a modern version of what had once been “the Nazis’ favourite limousine.” The New York Times first linked Ford’s public comments to the Winnett story.

Co-authors of these stories either declined to comment or did not respond to inquiries.

Mark Lewis, a media lawyer who has brought high-profile phone-hacking claims, said revealing who had ordered high-end cars was plainly unjustified by public interest, the exemption carved out for blagging under U.K. law. “It seems like the perfect example of something that interests the public but has no public interest,” he said.

A Sunday Times spokesperson declined to address specific stories but pointed to a past statement saying the paper “has employed many contributors and researchers to work on stories, or parts of stories” but “strongly rejects the accusation that it has in the past retained or commissioned any individual to act illegally.”

Ford divulged in his 2018 piece for Byline Investigates that he had sought Blair’s manuscript at the behest of the Sunday Times. After his arrest, however, he contacted Winnett, by then at the Telegraph, because Winnett “remained in close contact with his friend Will Lewis, one of the leaders of News International’s Management and Standards Committee (the unit Murdoch set up to clean house after phone hacking).”

After Ford’s arrest, on allegations of fraud by false representation, Winnett recommended a lawyer, Ford recalled in the draft book chapters. Winnett urged calm, telling him, “they’ll sort you out.”

They met for Chinese food, according to the draft chapters. Among others who attended the meal, according to Ford’s drafts, was a longtime Winnett colleague: Claire Newell, the Sunday Times journalist who, in Ford’s telling, had asked him to obtain the Blair manuscript.

Newell had been arrested in 2004 under suspicion that she had passed government papers to the Sunday Times while working as a temporary secretary in the Cabinet Office, the Guardian reported at the time. Winnett had helped arrange for Newell to pass confidential leaks to the paper, according to an account in a book by journalist Nick Davies, Flat Earth News.

Newell was questioned in 2004 but not charged. She then returned to the Sunday Times, where she had written several stories in 2003, and subsequently joined Winnett at the Telegraph, where she serves as investigations editor. She did not respond to a request for comment.

When Ford shared concerns about the reverberations of his own arrest, he recalled in one draft chapter, Winnett described the code of silence prevailing inside the Telegraph, where many reporters and editors had previously worked at the Sunday Times. That shared experience, according to Ford’s drafts, meant no one would blow the whistle on the tactics that had landed him in jail.

“It was clear that most had no idea of the specifics of my incident but people knew something had happened,” he wrote in the drafts. “It is pretty incredible that a group of journalists could collectively cover up this story.”

Ford did not remain invisible for long, becoming a flash point in a vexed public debate over press ethics in Britain.

John Witherow, a former longtime editor of the Sunday Times, acknowledged in public testimony and statements in 2011 and 2012 that the paper had repeatedly employed Ford and two private investigators to impersonate public officials, sports regulators and others to obtain stories it deemed in the public interest. Witherow’s admissions came in response to a year-long government investigation known as the Leveson Inquiry that sprung from revelations of phone hacking by the Murdoch-controlled News of the World tabloid.

In the fallout from those revelations, Witherow sought to crack down on the use of subterfuge in reporting, prohibiting pseudonyms and alter egos, according to the Guardian.

Still, he made a public-interest case for blagging under questioning by members of Parliament in 2012. He gave an example of a reporter posing as a businessman to see if a lawmaker would take money to ask questions in a government hearing. The reporting led to the suspension of two lawmakers, he noted.

Witherow said Ford was one of the paper’s regular blaggers and had worked on “various investigations,” including into the soccer authority FIFA. Witherow did not respond to a request for comment.

Former Sunday Times journalists who overlapped with Winnett and Lewis at the newspaper, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity, characterized the methods as infrequent and often justified in the public interest.

“British journalism is naughtier and scrappier,” said one journalist who worked with both Winnett and Lewis. “There’s a feeling of being embattled because access to public information is so much more restricted here.”

But Steven Barnett, a professor of communications at the University of Westminster who has consulted parliamentary committees on press standards, said reporters who rely on blagging are using “illegal means” but letting others bear the brunt of the risk.

“People like Ford are exploited and very useful, and then, when it all went wrong and the whole system was exposed, the senior editorial people like Winnett all shrug and say, ‘I had no idea what was going on, look over at that bloke there,’ who is by then cowering in the corner alone,” Barnett said.

Sometimes, the techniques fall flat, as in the case of Ford’s alleged attempt to obtain Blair’s yet-to-be-released memoir.

Random House told authorities that suspicious calls had been made to obtain the manuscript in the summer of 2010, according to police records. Authorities traced the phone number back to Ford, who was soon arrested. At his home, police found jottings with the words Random House, as well as a Dell computer used to access an email address identified with the maneuver, according to police records.

Ford turned to the law firm that he would later say was recommended by Winnett, according to the draft chapters and the police records. And in early 2012, he was given a caution, an official police warning in lieu of a prosecution.

Cate Brown and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

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Tony Awards 2024 live updates: Red carpet looks, highlights and analysis on Broadway stars

Published

10 hours ago

June 16, 2024

Press Room

Tony Awards 2024 live updates: Red carpet looks, highlights and analysis on Broadway stars

“Stereophonic” enters the 2024 Tony Awards as the most nominated play of all time, while the Alicia Keys musical, “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Merrily We Roll Along” starring Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe, and “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” with Eddie Redmayne promise to be strong competitors. Follow below for our live updates on the red carpet, winners, performances and other big moments.

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Ron Washington won’t let losses deter belief in Angels: ‘Ain’t no damn failure’

Published

17 hours ago

June 16, 2024

Press Room

Ron Washington won’t let losses deter belief in Angels: ‘Ain’t no damn failure’

PHOENIX − Ron Washington’s wife pleaded with him.

His friends from New Orleans openly questioned whether he should do this.

Those closest to him in the game asked if it made sense to trade security for volatility.

Come on, leave the third-base coach job with Atlanta, one of baseball’s elite franchises, to become manager for one of baseball’s most troubled clubs in the Los Angeles Angels?

“People kept saying how bad the Angels are, and why would you want to go there?” Ron Washington says, sipping a beer at the Angels’ team hotel in Phoenix. “Come on, it’s a big-league job. There are only 30 of these [expletives]. I waited 10 damn years to get back.

“I told everyone, I wasn’t going there because of what they’ve done in the past. I’m going there to create what they’re going to do in the future.

“I’m telling you, I’m going to turn this [expletive] around.

“I wouldn’t have taken this job if I didn’t believe I could make a difference.”

Well, three months into his first year on the job and the Angels (27-42) have the fifth-worst record in baseball, with Washington’s own coaches apologizing watching his career winning percentage (.514, 691-653) eroding every day after producing four consecutive 90-victory seasons and back-to-back pennants with the Texas Rangers.

You know who it bothers the least?

“I haven’t had a sleepless night since I took this job,” Washington tells USA TODAY Sports in a three-hour conversation. “This record isn’t anything what I hoped, and we’re not playing like I expect. But we’ve got such a young team. There are nights when we’ve got everyone on the field making the minimum salary.

“But you know what?

“It’s coming. I know it coming.

“We’ll get it done here, and it’s going to be a beautiful damn thing when we’re on top.’’

This is pure, unfiltered Washington, who at 72 truly believes he can be the one to rejuvenate this dormant franchise, leading them back to the postseason for the first time since 2014.

“I ain’t no damn failure,” Washington says. “I’ve never been a failure in my damn life. I might be failing, but I ain’t no failure. There’s a difference.

“I’m going to do what it takes to not fail. I’m not going to let it just keep happening to me and say I’m a failure. [Expletive] that. I’m going to do what I have to do to come out of it.

“Sometimes you can snap out of it, and sometimes it can take a minute.”

If Washington, who last managed in 2014, didn’t believe he could turn around the Angels, he would have just stayed in Atlanta where he had just agreed to a three-year contract extension to remain their third-base coach. The salary was good and the postseason shares were lucrative.

He received plenty of inquiries over the years to leave Atlanta and become another team’s bench coach, with the Kansas City Royals and the Chicago White Sox showing the most recent interest, but he told Atlanta GM Alex Anthopoulos he would leave only if a manager’s job became available.

So here he is, managing a team with no Shohei Ohtani (Dodgers), no Mike Trout (meniscus knee surgery, out until after the All-Star break), no Anthony Rendon (strained hamstring, likely July return), no Brandon Drury (strained hamstring, likely late June return) and a lineup filled with kids making the minimum and veterans just hanging on to their careers.

Those Amstel Lights and oatmeal cookies have never tasted so good on these tough nights.

“If we play solid baseball, we have a chance,” says Washington, whose team is 12-21 in one- and two-run games. “It’s not like teams are just coming in and waxing our ass. We’ve had opportunities, we just didn’t come through. We’ve been missing that one hit. One base hit.

“We just have to learn how to win. It takes time. It’ll be different next year.”

Washington, perhaps the greatest infield coach in baseball history, has been instrumental in his infielders winning 14 Gold Gloves and eight Platinum Gloves with Oakland, Texas and Atlanta. He has coached or managed three different MVP winners.

The man is a winner, and although the Angels certainly are deficient in talent, they sure aren’t going to be out-worked. Washington not only arrives early every day to work with infielders along with infield coach Ryan Goins, but conducts a classroom during the daily hitters’ meeting.

“We’ve had more bad days than good,” says Angels GM Perry Minasian, who was with Washington in Texas and Atlanta, “but he hasn’t wavered. He’s the same consistent person in the energy level. The passion for the game was something he’s always had, but the endurance has been really incredible.”

Washington’s daily classroom pores over what transpired the previous game, forcing players to explain why they made a particular play, particularly if it was caused by a fundamental or mental mistake. It doesn’t matter if you’re Jo Adell getting thrown out at second base to end a game without sliding, Trout looking at a game-ending third strike or infielder Luis Guillorme failing to put down a squeeze.

Washington isn’t afraid to call anyone out, and still finds it strange that his sharp criticism ridicule of Guillorme in his postgame press conference a month ago about his failed bunt became national news. He wants to know when it became a sin to publicly point out a players’ shortcomings.

When an Angels official asked Washington if he wanted to apologize the next day, or at least soften his criticism, Washington refused. He instead brought the beat writers in to show a replay of video, explaining why he was angry with the effort.

“I’m not apologizing for [expletive],” Washington told the official. “I can’t have emotions. I can’t compete. I’m supposed to be stoic all of the [expletive] time. I can’t react to [expletive] that’s not right. Come on man.

“It’s been great ever since.”

The only team meeting he called all season to condemn their performance was in late April when they suffered back-to-back losses of 16-5 and 11-5 to the Minnesota Twins.

Instead of getting upset, or overly sensitive to the criticism, the players have embraced the tough love.

“He’s definitely brought the old school back to the new school that we’re playing now,” Angels 23-year-old shortstop Zach Neto says. “He just wants us to play good baseball, man, that’s going back to the small things. Laying down bunts, moving guys over, doing whatever we got to do to manufacture runs. A lot of praise to him to be able to come in here and change to what we had the last couple of years.

“It’s about ownership, guys just having accountability.”

Says Angels infielder/outfielder Cole Tucker: “Everyone saw what Wash did for those guys in Atlanta, and now he’s doing the same thing here. He just exudes energy and work ethic and positivity and just baseball, what it used to be.

“He’s a straight shooter. You know where you stand. You’re going to know what he wants and the demands of you. As we get more analytical and smarter and nerdier, that is the stuff that works.’’

When the Angels played a sloppy game Tuesday night in a 9-4 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, there were four players who stood up and spoke at the daily meeting, with Washington providing the closing arguments. The meeting was so emotional that Washington called it one of the most moving events of his career.

“I’ve just got to stay in the process, stay the course,” says Washington, one of only two Black managers in the game. “Every day when they get to the ballpark, I want them to see the same guy busting my ass, trying to get people better and having fun. I want them to feed off me and my coaching staff.

“If I was dealing with stars and this [expletive] was happening, oh, I’d have headaches. But I’m dealing with kids that haven’t even experienced baseball. They’re still learning how to win. So, I can’t get pissed at that. What are you going to do?”

Really, it’s as if Tom Brady took a page out of Washington’s playbook during his jersey retirement ceremony this past week when he said: “To be successful at anything, the truth is you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t – consistent, determined and willing to work for it.”

It’s all that Washington asks.

“He has energy, passion, and a realistic expectation of where this unit’s at,” veteran outfielder Kevin Pillar says. “He wants to win. And he expects to win. But he also has a realistic view of like when we lost Trout and Rendon, like the lineup we’re rolling out there is going to be tough to win.

“Every day our goal is to win, but if we don’t win, he’s a big believer in the process and building culture. He knows it’s not done overnight. Despite our record, we have put ourselves in a position to win a lot of games. We just don’t know how to win those games. We have a lot of young guys here. Some of these guys are being relied on to drive the bus, when really our lineup is made up of bunch of passengers right now.

“Culture is a huge part of it, but you can’t win without superstars.”

Maybe there will be a day when Angels owner Arte Moreno opens his checkbook again after refusing to match the Dodgers’ $700 million heavily-deferred contract proposal for Ohtani, declining to make offers for any other marquee free agent this past winter, with their biggest a three-year, $33 million deal to reliever Robert Stephenson.

Maybe pitchers like Jose Soriano will really turn into Yankees starter Luis Gil, as Washington predicts, Adell will become the power-hitting All-Star outfielder they projected, infielders Nolan Schanuel and Neto will become stars, and Logan O’Hoppe will be one of the best young catchers in the game.

And maybe, Washington, who signed a two-year contract with an option, will be around to see it all to fruition.

“I remember when I took this job,” Washington says, “some people thought I would be out by the All-Star break. I ain’t going anywhere. This is where I belong.

“I know this is going to change going forward. I have no doubt. We’re not going to be losers. That [expletive] is going to change.

“I’m telling you, “I’m going to turn this [expletive] around with my coaches and players.

“You just watch.’’

Staying ahead of the (security) curve

While MLB players are faced with growing threats against themselves and their families from gamblers, including death threats, former New York City police detective John Timpanaro warns players to start being proactive.

“This is just the beginning, the next level problem,” Timpanaro, a 25-year veteran who now works private security for celebrities and wealthy clients, tells USA TODAY Sports. “It’s dangerous out there. You’re dealing with folks who have an addiction, a sickness, which is gambling. These players have inadvertently become the substance, the gambler’s addiction. They didn’t ever want to become part of this.’’

Now, with no choice, athletes can start mitigating the damage by doing due diligence, Timpanaro says:

”Go on the web browser, and put their personal information on, full name, research themselves, and see what comes up. Even though they have resources and apparatuses in place, I think most would be very surprised. They may see parts of their social security number, emails, phone numbers, and their home addresses. … Don’t assume people don’t know who you are. You’ve got to do some due diligence. You’ll find it alarming. … So what you’ve got to do is personally scrub your information and remove anything you don’t want on the internet.’’
”Spend a few bucks and do some advance work on your personal travels. I’m talking about bugs, cameras, recording decides, all of those things. You’ve got to presume things are out there, and take those extra steps, especially when you’ve been a victim of a threat.”
”Social media is a problem. If you just remove social footprint all together, you’re safer. I know it’s not always reasonable or practical in the world we live in, but if you want to safer, you do it.’’
”If you’re a victim of a threat, take it seriously. When you leave for the ballpark every day and drive the same car with the same route, you’re just becoming an easy target.’’

Does it sound extreme?

Well, Timparano warns, with MLB and other sports promoting gambling, a nightmare scenario is just around the corner.

“I know there are resources through MLB and the players association,” Timparanaro says, “but don’t be too proud to take the steps. Don’t be shy. Be forceful of it. Don’t be embarrassed to hire executive protection. We see things as law enforcement veterans.

“The next level is scary.’’

Around the basepaths

≻ The Chicago White Sox realize that Garrett Crochet’s value may never be higher so their asking price is exorbitant, hoping that contenders aren’t deterred by Crochet’s injury history and the need to curtail his innings in the second half, perhaps making him a reliever in the postseason.

Certainly, it’s a potential trade that could shape the White Sox franchise for the next decade.

The last time they were in a full-scale rebuild with a left-handed ace was in 2016 when they traded Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox for four prospects: Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Alexander Basabe and Victor Diaz.

It was an absolute bust, which has left the White Sox resorting to yet another rebuild.

While the Red Sox won the 2018 World Series with Sale, who still had three years remaining on his contract, the White Sox chose the wrong prospects, passing up on future All-Star third baseman Rafael Devers and taking Moncada.

The White Sox can ill afford to make the same blunder with Crochet, who has been the game’s most dominant pitcher the last three starts and perhaps the most coveted starter on the market.

≻ Several GMs and baseball executives say they can’t help but laugh at the breathless reports about the trade deadline, which is still six weeks away on July 30.

“Come on, nothing is going to happen until the final 48 to 72 hours,’’ one GM said. “That’s the way it always works. And right now, it’s quiet. We’re all focused on the draft.’’

≻ It has been nearly six weeks since Los Angeles Angels All-Star outfielder Mike Trout had surgery to repair a torn meniscus, and he has yet to begin baseball activities.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia Phillies All-Star catcher J.T. Realmuto, who also had surgery to repair torn meniscus, vows he’ll be back in a month.

≻ While the Houston Astros are baseball’s biggest disappointment and most underachieving team, GM Dana Brown’s job is safe. He still has two years left on his contract.

≻ The most intriguing question at the trade deadline will be whether the Los Angeles Dodgers decide to stick with Mookie Betts as their everyday shortstop, or more him to second base.

Betts is having another fabulous season and could be the leading MVP contender, but it’s been a rough adjustment learning shortstop on the fly, making nine errors with a .957 fielding percentage − third worst among all shortstops.

≻ When catcher William Contreras was traded from Atlanta to Milwaukee, Ron Washington, Atlanta’s third-base coach at the time, sent him an inspirational note telling him that he will be a star.

Well, look who’s in the middle of the NL MVP race helping carry the Brewers to a big NL Central lead?

≻ The Baltimore Orioles are on the lookout for a center fielder while All-Star Cedric Mullins’ struggles continue. He is hitting just .186 with a .234 on-base percentage and .325 slugging percentage.

≻ The annual GM meetings, for the first time, will be in San Antonio, Texas, beginning Nov. 5.

≻ Just how much has the Chicago Cubs’ back end of the bullpen struggled this year?

The Cubs would be 50-19 if games lasted only seven innings this season. Instead, they are 33-36.

≻ Former White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, now an analyst for NBC Sports Chicago, on being charged $60 to park in the Wrigley Field parking lot last week: “For that kind of money I should be parking in the bullpen.”

≻ The Orioles’ streak of playing 21 consecutive series against a powerful AL East opponent without losing one will certainly be tested Tuesday when they visit Yankee Stadium for a three-game series against the New York Yankees.

The last time the Orioles lost a series in the division? Would you believe April 9, 2023?

≻ It was an ugly Friday for first basemen/DHs across the game:

Garrett Cooper of the Red Sox, Harold Ramirez of the Tampa Bay Rays, Daniel Vogelbach of the Toronto Blue Jays and Jose Abreu of the Houston Astros were all dumped.

Abreu, who’s still owed $30.8 million, was easily the most painful cut.

≻ The greatest non-trade this winter belongs to the Cleveland Guardians, who were openly shopping closer Emmanuel Clase, and decided to hang onto him when no one met their asking price.

This year, he’s the most dominant closer in the American League with a league-leading 21 saves and a 0.81 ERA.

He has given up just three earned runs in 34 games this season.

≻ Just how great has Cubs rookie starter Shota Imanaga’s control been this season?

He has walked just 11 batters, the fewest by a Cubs pitcher in his first 12 career starts since 1901, while his 72 strikeouts are the third-most by a Cubs’ starter.

≻ The only teams guaranteed to be sellers at this point: the White Sox, Rockies, Marlins, Angels and A’s.

≻ If you have a starter available, Brewers GM Matt Arnold will be calling. They have already had to use 12 starters this season.

≻ The Colorado Rockies will trade All-Star catcher Elias Diaz. They will not trade infielder Ryan McMahon, who should make the All-Star team this year.

≻ The Brewers are taking on the personality of manager Pat Murphy this year with their play despite all of the obstacles in their way, heeding the advice on Murphy’s arms.

Tattoos on feft forearm: “No retreat. No Surrender.”

Right wrist black bracelet: “Relentless.”

≻ Kudos to Orioles GM Mike Elias who beat out everyone for Brewers ace Corbin Burnes this winter.

Burnes has been a godsend, and has been one of the most consistent starters in Orioles history. He has pitched at least five innings and yielded three or fewer runs in all 14 of his starts with a 2.08 ERA.

≻ It has been nearly a half-century since the Phillies had a divisional lead this big, 10 games ahead of Atlanta this week. The last time they had such a massive lead in June was 1976.

It’s stunning the Phillies were able to run away and hide in the NL East considering that All-Star shortstop Trea Turner has been out since May 3. His replacements had an .868 OPS, fifth in baseball.

Now, we’ll see how they fare without All-Star catcher J.T. Realmuto the next month.

≻ Let’s put Paul Skenes on the NL All-Star team and Crochet on the AL team right now to see if they can duplicate Pedro Martinez’s magical performance in the 1999 All-Star Game when he struck out five of the six batters he faced.

≻ The World Series teams of a year ago should be bolstered by huge reinforcements at the trade deadline:

The Rangers are expected to have starters Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Tyler Mahle back in July, along with third baseman Josh Jung.

The D-backs are expecting starters Merrill Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez back next month.

Those five veteran starters have combined for just four games this season, all started by Kelly.

≻ How rare is the Mariners’ AL West lead? It’s the first time they entered June in first place since 2003.

≻ The Cincinnati Reds don’t play another game West of the Central Time zone the rest of the season. Their longest remaining trip is 2 ½ hours.

The first-place Brewers, on the other hand, still have 23 games left out West.

≻ Whatever happened to the first basemen in the American League?

There is only one qualified first baseman in the AL who has a batting average higher than .230, an on-base percentage higher than .300 and a slugging percentage higher than .430.

Take a bow, Orioles Ryan Mountcastle, who is slashing .271/.318/.478.

≻ The Marlins plan to trade first baseman Josh Bell but realize they will have to eat most of his remaining $16 million contract.

≻ The Orioles’ best trade chip they may be willing to part with at the trade deadline is prized catching prospect Samuel Basallo, who is blocked by All-Star catcher Adley Rutschman.

≻ Scouts are openly concerned about Diamondbacks prized prospect Druw Jones, who was selected with the No. 2 pick in the 2022 draft, one spot behind Orioles’ Jackson Holliday. They question whether his swing will work at the major league level.

≻ So much for the idea that limiting shifts would increase offense.

Teams are batting .240 this season, down from .248 a year ago, and on pace to be the lowest since teams batted .237 in 1968, with MLB lowering the pitching mound the following year.

The .699 OPS, down from .734 in 2023, is on pace to be MLB’s lowest average since 1989.

≻ Pretty cool that Detroit Tigers rookie Justyn-Henry Malloy is wearing No. 44 in honor of his father, Henry Malloy, who is named after Henry Aaron.

“My dad, his name is Henry,” Malloy told the Detroit Free Press. “He was named after Hank Aaron, and then, I’m Justyn-Henry. I think every Black kid’s dream is to wear 42 in the big leagues, but you can’t, so the best alternative that I always thought was 44 as a kid growing up.’’

≻ So, how long had it been until last week that Atlanta had lost five consecutive games?

Can you believe 934 games, dating back to 2017, the second-longest streak in history behind only the Yankees in 1938.

≻ The Royals, who went 56-106 last season, are on pace to win 92 games this year.

How crazy is that improvement?

It would be the greatest single-season turnaround since the 1903 New York Giants went 84-55-3 after going 38-88-5 in 1902.

≻ Ok, which was a greater move this winter?

Atlanta GM Alex Anthopoulos signing Reynaldo Lopez (4-2, 1.69 ERA) to a three-year, $30 million contract or trading for Chris Sale (9-2 with a 2.98 ERA)?

≻ Look out for the Cincinnati Reds, who suddenly have won 14 of their last 19, and just pulled off a zany victory Friday when they made five errors, walked eight batters, hit another, and still won. They entered Saturday six games behind the Brewers, and just one-half game out of a wild-card berth.

≻ Happy 75^th birthday to Dusty Baker, who was treated to a surprise birthday party by his beautiful wife, Melissa, in front of 100 guests in Sacramento.

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