Sports

Karl-Anthony Towns turned the corner, drove baseline and met the longest player in basketball at the rim.

The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup.com and include “mailbag” in the subject line. Or hit me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline. Some questions have been edited for clarity and brevity.

DETROIT – Kerry Carpenter might want to petition for a move to the American League West and a few more chances to face the Mariners. Regular season or playoffs, the right fielder for the Tigers has provided his share of headaches for the Mariners the last few years.

The Spokane Indians took some frustrations out on the baseball Friday night.

SEATTLE – Tarik Skubal back to Seattle?

For 16 years after becoming (briefly) the youngest American to summit the world’s highest peak, Jess Roskelley continued to pack his life with achievement – earning income and accolades as a welder, tying the knot with the woman of his dreams and climbing into an elite echelon of American mountaineering – before it all came to a sudden tragic end in the Canadian Rockies.

Only as an afterthought did John and Jess Roskelley talk about the corpses in their route through the Death Zone of Mount Everest. On May 30, 2003, their first morning back in Spokane and 10 days after standing on top of the world’s highest peak, the father-son team woke to other concerns in a strange land they call home.

There are 211 teams in FIFA’s global men’s rankings, spanning every corner of the globe. So the U.S. probably could have picked an easier opponent for its last World Cup tuneup game than the one ranked No. 10 and that happens to have four World Cup and three European championships on its mantle.

A GRIP ON SPORTS • For the past few years whenever the idea of America’s changing sports taste came up, boxing seemed to be the poster boy. After all, 100 years ago, heavyweight boxers were the toast of the town, whether that was New York, New York or Keokuk, Iowa. Now it’s even more violent sports in the limelight. The best example of tastes changing these days? Horse racing.

RALEIGH, N.C. – For more than 50 minutes on Thursday night, the Carolina Hurricanes looked like a team running out of time. Now, they’ve turned the Stanley Cup Final into a best-of-five, rallying from a two-goal deficit and beating the Vegas Golden Knights 4-3 on an overtime goal by Seth Jarvis.

A manager will try everything in the book to steal a win, but sometimes the other team ends up gifting it to you.

Cooper Kupp’s signing with the Seahawks in March, 2025 was billed as something of a homecoming. And technically it was, with the Yakima native coming back to his native state to play for the team he grew up watching after spending eight years in Los Angeles with the Rams.

As the soccer universe descends on North America for the 2026 World Cup, Major League Soccer will be well represented at the tournament held on home soil.

SEATTLE – Point. Owners.

Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould’s flight landed Monday night at Washington’s Dulles Airport, followed by a lengthy ride to her hotel. Early the next morning, Gould was on Capitol Hill to discuss perhaps the most significant congressional legislation in college sports history.

The opponent, date and location have been known for months but now a tipoff time has been announced for Gonzaga’s 2026-27 season opener.

SAN ANTONIO – By the fourth quarter, both Victor Wembanyama and Jalen Brunson had shaken off their respective mediocrity and snapped on their capes. Game 1, the tone-setter of the NBA Finals, sat available for the taking like a last slice of pizza. And what had been a beautiful struggle between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks evolved into a dramatic climax.