Juan Soto is starting to drop teams from negotiations ahead of baseball's winter meetings next week.

The New York Yankees have retired Paul O’Neill's No. 21.

Cleveland ace Shane Bieber limbered up in Guardians gear, Toronto Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. began taking grounders and new St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol signed autographs as spring training camps in Florida and Arizona finally opened to big leaguers.

The calendar has hit mid-February, which is usually a fine time to be a Major League Baseball fan.

Manager Aaron Boone has been re-signed by the New York Yankees to a three-year contract with a club option for 2025 after four winning but unsuccessful seasons.

New Mets owner Steven Cohen criticized his team following its season-worst fifth straight loss, showing a side much like that of late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner is promising to keep manager Aaron Boone, general manager Brian Cashman and the core of his team.

Minor league baseball is back after a season lost to the coronavirus pandemic.

WASHINGTON – Advocates and lawyers anticipate a flurry of clemency action from President Donald Trump in the coming weeks that could test the limits of presidential pardon power. No, Mr. President, that would be a gross abuse of the presidential pardon authority,” Schumer said. Trump then featured Johnson's story in a Super Bowl ad and pardoned her during this year's Republican National Convention. He has participated in several meetings at the White House during Trump's term as officials brainstormed potential changes to the formal clemency process. “For those people that should be free," he said, Trump's friends-and-family approach to pardons is "a deep and real tragedy."

MINNEAPOLIS – Minnesota sports columnist and radio personality Sid Hartman, an old-school home team booster who once ran the NBA’s Minneapolis Lakers and achieved nearly as much celebrity as some of the athletes he covered, died Sunday. Hartman, whose first newspaper column was published in 1945, died surrounded by his family, Star Tribune sports editor Chris Carr said. After the Times folded in 1948, Hartman went to work at the Minneapolis Tribune covering his beloved University of Minnesota. On the radio, Hartman would sometime hang up on or chastise callers — “geniuses,” as Hartman called them — who voiced opinions he disagreed with. When his 100th birthday column was published, the Star Tribune put his career byline count at 21,149.

NEW YORK Gene Budig, the self-effacing educator and baseball fan from small-town Nebraska who became the head of three major universities and the last president of the American League, died Tuesday. Mixing his passion for academics and athletics at Kansas, Budig oversaw a smart move in 1988. Budig became an assistant professor of educational administration at Nebraska in 1967 and rose to full professor, assistant vice chancellor and assistant vice president and director of public affairs. He moved to Illinois State in 1972 as a vice president, dean and professor of educational administration and its youngest full professor. Budig is survived by his wife, Gretchen Van Bloom Budig, and three children: Christopher Budig, Mary Frances Budig and Kathryn Budig; sister Mary Ann Myers; brother Richard Budig; and five grandchildren.

Two-time and defending champ Josef Newgarden, who won the second race of the Iowa doubleheader, has yet to turn 30. Pagenaud, who like Newgarden drives for Team Penske, won the first Iowa race on Friday night. The natural ebb and flow of sports dictates there must be a wave of youngsters waiting to replace them. Not surprisingly, Ferrucci was fired by his Trident Racing team. Take the doubleheader this weekend, where Herta and VeeKay were in contention Friday night before a caution flag waved.