FORT MYERS, Fla. — It is impossible, when strolling around Red Sox spring training, to avoid David Ortiz or Pedro Martinez.

Ortiz? You hear him before you see him. His bellowing laugh stretches around hallway corners, echoes off ceilings. The Hall of Fame DH strolled into Boston’s clubhouse on Thursday morning wearing baseball pants and a navy team hoodie. A wooden fungo bat dangled from one of his oversized paws. He looked like a coach and knew it.

“I look like a coach, this s*** will make you old quick,” he hollered to nobody in particular, before making a quip about how Boston manager Alex Cora had hair when he first took the job in 2018.

Martinez is a less overtly convivial presence, but still an omnipresent one. On Thursday, the 54-year-old jogged around the Fort Myers backfields in a shimmering silver weight loss shirt made of PVC. He looked like a strip of tin foil floating in the gentle Florida morning breeze. Eventually he sauntered back toward the batting cages to pet a dog, chat with media and take pictures with eager, starstruck minor leaguers.

The duo is everywhere, in both actuality and render. A gigantic muraled windscreen directly outside the Red Sox clubhouse features a host of franchise greats, including Ortiz and Martinez, under the word “LEGENDARY.” Oversized statues of their retired numbers sit outside JetBlue Park. They are omnipresent, grander than their shadows. A reminder of what this organization, at its very best, can be: an icon maker, a creator of memories, an institution.

The 2025 Red Sox were a good baseball team. Skilled enough to make the postseason, flawed enough to begin vacation on Oct. 2. The 2026 team might be better. It might also be worse. Nobody is really sure. 

[Get more Red Sox news: Boston team feed]

At the very least, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow spent his winter transacting up a storm. He added Ranger Suárez, Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo to back up Garrett Crochet in the rotation. Willson Contreras (first base) and Caleb Durbin (assorted infield responsibilities) are the lineup upgrades. Alex Bregman, famously, is no longer in town.

Boston’s pitching staff, helmed by Cy Young runner-up Crochet, should be a real strength. Suárez and Gray are bona fide, trustworthy playoff starters. Their arrivals mean Brayan Bello doesn’t need to be a frontline guy. Top prospects Connelly Early and Payton Tolle should show up and contribute at some point midseason. Aroldis Chapman, somehow, was the sport’s best closer last year at age 37. Garrett Whitlock, leaving camp soon to pitch for Team USA in the WBC, is better than you think. It’s a good group.

The offense is less settled, with a host of questions raised by Bregman’s departure. Quite a bit is being placed on Roman Anthony’s broad shoulders. The 21-year-old shined in a 71-game debut stint last season, making good on his status as the game’s top prospect. Boston needs him to be a true difference-maker, a legitimate MVP candidate. He’ll leave camp soon, joining Whitlock on Team USA.

Boston’s lineup could be good, which might be enough. Barring a Jarren Duran bounce-back or a Marcelo Mayer breakout, it’s difficult to envision another Red Sox hitter joining Anthony at the All-Star Game. Maybe that doesn’t matter and the pitching is sensational enough to carry the day. Teams with hazier outlooks have won it all. Teams with sexier rosters have crashed and burned. It’s Feb. 26.

The only certainties right now are the expectations. Four titles in 15 years from 2004 to 2018 made this once-despondent fan base understandably greedy. Winning will do that. But in the seven seasons since their 2018 championship, Boston has won just one postseason series. Over that span, they have the 16th-best winning percentage in MLB, right below the Minnesota Twins.

That all makes 2026 a crucial year at Fenway. Breslow, who took over in October of 2023, has had ample time to craft the roster. The Red Sox have an ace in Crochet, a starlet in Anthony, an experienced skipper in Cora and yet, a whole lot to prove. Meanwhile, Ortiz and Martinez float around spring training, comfortable in their legacies, enjoying the carte blanche of their accomplishments.

A rare outing for Garrett Crochet

Crochet made his spring training debut Thursday, tossing two scoreless innings against a less-than-full-strength Rays lineup. Notably, the two-time All Star didn’t strike out a batter, though nothing was amiss with his velocity or pitch data. Crochet joked afterward to reporters that he couldn’t remember the last time he didn’t punch anybody out.

The behemoth southpaw is coming off a banner year; 205 1/3 innings with a 2.59 and 255 strikeouts. He made a brilliant start in Boston’s Game 1 wild-card win in the Bronx before the season went belly up in Games 2 and 3. There aren’t many pitchers on the planet better than Crochet, but he knows exactly who they are: last year’s Cy Youngs, Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal.

“Last year, I kind of put myself in that conversation,” he said after his outing, his cheeks still red from the Florida heat. “On the two guys that I feel like are ahead of me, you know, it’s not like I’m looking to dethrone those guys because at the end of the day it’s a team game.”

Crochet tested a new pitch Thursday, a splitter/circle change hybrid that he learned over the winter. It might become a regular part of his arsenal, he said, depending on how hitters react to it. The four-seamer and cutter will remain his bread and butter. 

Maybe next outing he’ll even strike somebody out.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — It is impossible, when strolling around Red Sox spring training, to avoid David Ortiz or Pedro Martinez.

Ortiz? You hear him before you see him. His bellowing laugh stretches around hallway corners, echoes off ceilings. The Hall of Fame DH strolled into Boston’s clubhouse on Thursday morning wearing baseball pants and a navy team hoodie. A wooden fungo bat dangled from one of his oversized paws. He looked like a coach and knew it.

“I look like a coach, this s*** will make you old quick,” he hollered to nobody in particular, before making a quip about how Boston manager Alex Cora had hair when he first took the job in 2018.

Martinez is a less overtly convivial presence, but still an omnipresent one. On Thursday, the 54-year-old jogged around the Fort Myers backfields in a shimmering silver weight loss shirt made of PVC. He looked like a strip of tin foil floating in the gentle Florida morning breeze. Eventually he sauntered back toward the batting cages to pet a dog, chat with media and take pictures with eager, starstruck minor leaguers.

The duo is everywhere, in both actuality and render. A gigantic muraled windscreen directly outside the Red Sox clubhouse features a host of franchise greats, including Ortiz and Martinez, under the word “LEGENDARY.” Oversized statues of their retired numbers sit outside JetBlue Park. They are omnipresent, grander than their shadows. A reminder of what this organization, at its very best, can be: an icon maker, a creator of memories, an institution.

The 2025 Red Sox were a good baseball team. Skilled enough to make the postseason, flawed enough to begin vacation on Oct. 2. The 2026 team might be better. It might also be worse. Nobody is really sure. 

[Get more Red Sox news: Boston team feed]

At the very least, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow spent his winter transacting up a storm. He added Ranger Suárez, Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo to back up Garrett Crochet in the rotation. Willson Contreras (first base) and Caleb Durbin (assorted infield responsibilities) are the lineup upgrades. Alex Bregman, famously, is no longer in town.

Boston’s pitching staff, helmed by Cy Young runner-up Crochet, should be a real strength. Suárez and Gray are bona fide, trustworthy playoff starters. Their arrivals mean Brayan Bello doesn’t need to be a frontline guy. Top prospects Connelly Early and Payton Tolle should show up and contribute at some point midseason. Aroldis Chapman, somehow, was the sport’s best closer last year at age 37. Garrett Whitlock, leaving camp soon to pitch for Team USA in the WBC, is better than you think. It’s a good group.

The offense is less settled, with a host of questions raised by Bregman’s departure. Quite a bit is being placed on Roman Anthony’s broad shoulders. The 21-year-old shined in a 71-game debut stint last season, making good on his status as the game’s top prospect. Boston needs him to be a true difference-maker, a legitimate MVP candidate. He’ll leave camp soon, joining Whitlock on Team USA.

Boston’s lineup could be good, which might be enough. Barring a Jarren Duran bounce-back or a Marcelo Mayer breakout, it’s difficult to envision another Red Sox hitter joining Anthony at the All-Star Game. Maybe that doesn’t matter and the pitching is sensational enough to carry the day. Teams with hazier outlooks have won it all. Teams with sexier rosters have crashed and burned. It’s Feb. 26.

The only certainties right now are the expectations. Four titles in 15 years from 2004 to 2018 made this once-despondent fan base understandably greedy. Winning will do that. But in the seven seasons since their 2018 championship, Boston has won just one postseason series. Over that span, they have the 16th-best winning percentage in MLB, right below the Minnesota Twins.

That all makes 2026 a crucial year at Fenway. Breslow, who took over in October of 2023, has had ample time to craft the roster. The Red Sox have an ace in Crochet, a starlet in Anthony, an experienced skipper in Cora and yet, a whole lot to prove. Meanwhile, Ortiz and Martinez float around spring training, comfortable in their legacies, enjoying the carte blanche of their accomplishments.

A rare outing for Garrett Crochet

Crochet made his spring training debut Thursday, tossing two scoreless innings against a less-than-full-strength Rays lineup. Notably, the two-time All Star didn’t strike out a batter, though nothing was amiss with his velocity or pitch data. Crochet joked afterward to reporters that he couldn’t remember the last time he didn’t punch anybody out.

The behemoth southpaw is coming off a banner year; 205 1/3 innings with a 2.59 and 255 strikeouts. He made a brilliant start in Boston’s Game 1 wild-card win in the Bronx before the season went belly up in Games 2 and 3. There aren’t many pitchers on the planet better than Crochet, but he knows exactly who they are: last year’s Cy Youngs, Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal.

“Last year, I kind of put myself in that conversation,” he said after his outing, his cheeks still red from the Florida heat. “On the two guys that I feel like are ahead of me, you know, it’s not like I’m looking to dethrone those guys because at the end of the day it’s a team game.”

Crochet tested a new pitch Thursday, a splitter/circle change hybrid that he learned over the winter. It might become a regular part of his arsenal, he said, depending on how hitters react to it. The four-seamer and cutter will remain his bread and butter. 

Maybe next outing he’ll even strike somebody out.

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With the entire 2020 NBA season in the balance due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Los Angeles Clippers guard Lou Williams decided to risk it all for some lemon pepper wings from a strip club. That’s how Magic City broke containment and went from Atlanta institution to nationally-recognized establishment. 

Six years later, and Williams’ iconic(?) moment will be immortalized by the Atlanta Hawks, who announced Thursday a one-game celebration of the strip club. On March 16, the Hawks will host “Magic City Monday,” a celebration of the Atlanta institution. No, really. That’s happening. 

In a nod to Williams, the Hawks will serve two versions of the now-infamous wings that Williams picked up during the COVID-19 pandemic, per the team’s release. 

Magic City Kitchen will serve two versions of their ‘world famous’ lemon pepper wings, Louwill Lemon Pepper BBQ and traditional Lemon Pepper. Fans interested in purchasing wings can visit Sections 114, 120 and 211. Two of State Farm Arena’s all-inclusive premium experiences, Harrah’s Cherokee Casino’s Club and the Players Club, will have both sets of wings available as an option, while supplies last.

The team will also release a limited-edition “Magic City” hoodie that features the Hawks’ logo.

Hawks principal owner Jami Gertz said the celebration was scheduled to acknowledge Magic City’s “incredible impact on our city and its unique culture.”

While Magic City was well known in the city of Atlanta, the establishment entered the national spotlight in 2020 thanks to Williams. With the COVID-19 pandemic starting to take shape, the NBA halted the 2019-20 season in March.

The league eventually agreed to continue the season in July, but — in order to make things safer during the pandemic — agreed to hold games in a bubble in Florida. Everyone associated with the NBA had to remain in that bubble and follow COVID-19 guidelines. Violations of those rules would result in quarantine periods.

[Get more Hawks news: Atlanta team feed]

Williams — a member of the Clippers at the time — was given permission to leave the bubble in order to attend his grandfather’s funeral. During the absence, however, Williams was spotted at Magic City. While the guard initially denied being at the establishment, he later claimed he was there only to pick up some lemon pepper wings. The NBA ultimately decided to make Williams serve a 10-day quarantine after he returned to the bubble. He missed two games over that period. 

Williams, who previously played for the Hawks, made it no secret how much he loved Magic City, once calling it his “favorite restaurant in the world.” He went to bat for the Magic City wings multiple times on X prior to the incident. 

Ultimately, Williams’ love of those wings resulted in one of the bigger stories to come out of the NBA bubble. Williams took criticism for his actions, though mostly received coverage for the bizarre nature of the incident. He decided to — at the very least — put the rest of the Clippers’ season in jeopardy due to his desire to pick up some strip-club wings.

Now, the Hawks will make sure that moment lives on forever. While the team’s release does not mention whether Williams will be at “Magic City Monday,” the Hawks need to make an effort to ensure he’s there, right? A celebration of Magic City wouldn’t be complete without the man who introduced it to a national audience. 

The Utah Jazz have 21 losses of 15 or more points this season. That’s more blowout losses than total wins — 18 if you’re keeping count.

And that’s putting it lightly; the Jazz have lost by 22, 23, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 40 and 45 points. Yes, five short of a 50-burger. In this economy.

So it should come as no surprise that during head coach Will Hardy’s debriefing following Monday’s 20-point defeat in Houston, his frustration nearly seeped through the microphone as he demanded a level of professionalism and approach from his players — not simply in the sense of a game-to-game mentality, but almost as if they were conducting interviews for next season. In fact, Hardy did admit he was determining who would be sticking around for the future.

“I thought our physicality at the basket was poor defensively,” Hardy said that evening. “But in general, we could never really settle ourselves down. I think our physicality as a group has to continue to get better, and we will vet out who is willing to do that and who is not.”

Front offices and ownership groups aside, there’s a very fine line that exists between embracing tanking and a wholehearted commitment to winning basketball games. By the time the 2026-27 season rolls around, the Jazz will be welcoming back Jaren Jackson Jr. and Walker Kessler to the starting lineup, instantly forming one of the NBA’s most menacing frontlines with star Lauri Markkanen, who will miss time after reportedly injuring his right hip and ankle this week in practice. Add to that rapidly rising talent Keyonte George, who hasn’t played since early February, and Utah should be back in the thick of the Western Conference.

If you’re a Jazz fan — or a member of their front office, for that matter — with an eye on the incoming draft class, faced with the prospect of 80% of your starting lineup missing and wallowing at the bottom of the Western Conference, how do you salvage what’s left? There’s a gray area formed, knowing the buzzwords will go from “development” to “contention” in a few months. Such a strange space can be seen by simply watching and listening to Hardy, a coach who was born into winning cultures (as an assistant with the Spurs and Celtics) and parachuted into Jazzland.

“My approach with our group is the same,” Hardy said. “These are our guys, and I’m in it with them. With our young players, my responsibility to them is to try to help them through this part of their career, but, more importantly, recognize where they are in their lives. These are young men who are maturing and improving publicly — that’s hard to do. We all have a responsibility to continue to push [our program] forward.”

The base sentiment is the same even on franchises where losing has become second nature almost. You’re always going to be hard-pressed to find individuals who enjoy losing. Yes, they embrace development and growth and understand diluted expectations. But tanking shouldn’t just be on the menu every night. 

“Part of it is [veterans] and their example,” Kings head coach Doug Christie said following Wednesday’s blowout loss in Houston. “Part of it is them as communicators. Talking to the young players, those are things we depend on them for. … Some of our rookies are going to make mistakes and we’re willing to live with those mistakes.”

Welcome to Tank Week, live on Discovery Channel.

It’s somewhat ironic that in the days following the All-Star Game — a celebration of the NBA’s elite and a sliver of hope for future competitive iterations — the league offered up Mavericks-Nets, Kings-Grizzlies, Kings-Mavs and Pelicans-Jazz. A relegation round robin. 

Four of these teams currently own top-10 odds in June’s draft lottery and have full autonomy of their future selection, according to Tankathon. In Utah’s case, its first-round pick is top-8 protected (which is why you maybe don’t trade for Derrick Favors); if it falls anywhere from 9 to 30, the Oklahoma City Thunder will pick up the tab. Let’s not even worry about New Orleans right now, as the Pelicans will automatically fork over their pick to Atlanta (thank you, Joe Dumars). 

You could be the most casual of college basketball observers. It takes about 30 minutes of research to see the hype surrounding the AJ Dybantsas, Darryn Petersons and Cam Boozers of the world. That list easily expands to Kingston Flemings, Darius Acuff and Caleb Wilson. The suits in control of losing franchises recognize that any of these blue-chip prospects could alter the course of their respective organizations, almost immediately. Hence, tanking. 

It’s why some of the blatant activity from teams reached such a level of egregiousness that commissioner Adam Silver had to step in and do something. This incoming class is one of the deepest in the last decade and therefore has teams salivating. 

But back to this week’s festivities. Fancy a look into Sacramento’s Maxime Raynaud’s rim protection? Brooklyn’s Egor Dёmin’s improved shooting? Memphis’ Olivier-Maxence Prosper minutes at center? Who doesn’t love that? 

And rest assured that no matter how bad the product looks, mysterious activity won’t just stop there. The Warriors have the 15th-best odds right now, but aren’t that far off sneaking into the top 14. Draymond Green, who played 32 minutes in a strange 113-109 loss to New Orleans on Tuesday alongside Gui Santos, De’Anthony Melton, Moses Moody and Pat Spencer, sat Wednesday (a win over the Grizzlies) with “injury management.” Between now and the end of the season, teams that find themselves in the play-in or out of the picture entirely will become more liberal with resting guys. No matter how minimal the advantage looks on paper, NBA franchises thrive on chances. It’s like PEDs to them. 

So what can Silver actually do to curb tanking’s enthusiasm? It was reported last week that there was a meeting with NBA general managers in which Silver communicated the NBA plans to aggressively attack the source of tanking, with the hopes of eradicating it by next season by inserting rules to combat it. 

One such potential rule discussed — preventing teams that make the conference finals from selecting in the top four the following season — would directly impact a team like the Indiana Pacers, who might be blessed with one of the aforementioned names after a season from hell without Tyrese Haliburton. Another approach — preventing teams from picking in the top four in consecutive years and/or after consecutive bottom-three finishes — would hopefully deter a 76ers-ish process, obtaining squatter’s rights at the bottom for years until stumbling upon a Joel Embiid type. But even other suggested ideas, flattening odds for all lottery teams, using a two-year window, loosening protections and freezing odds at the trade deadline — reported by ESPN — only partially fix the problem. 

This was a wonderful stretch of hoops this week, with the Pistons facing both the Spurs and Thunder, the Celtics facing the Nuggets, and the Cavaliers beating the Knicks on the road. We also were rewarded with Indiana getting thumped by 21, Washington by 21, Chicago by 32, Memphis by 21 and Sacramento by 31. 

(Jevon Small is a sneaky-good, low-cost addition for Memphis as a hard-nosed guard shooting over 50% from 3. Ditto for the Kings’ Nique Clifford, who should have a role in whatever the future of that team looks like. But this is still one of the nastiest weeks in hoops history.)

Thursday brings us the mecca of tanking: New Orleans-Utah and Sacramento-Dallas. Someone has to win those games! 

After four straight seasons of playing at least 100 games, the 2025 season saw New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton limited to 77 appearances. Dealing with tennis elbow in both arms limited his ability to play and he’s come to terms with the fact that the injury will affect the rest of his career.

Using the winter to rest did not do much to allow the 36-year-old Stanton to fully heal. 

“You have your good days and bad days, just like your mood and everything,” Stanton told NJ.com’s Randy Miller on Wednesday.

After not beginning his 2025 season until June 16, Stanton finished with 24 home runs, 66 RBI and slashed .273/.350/.594. He has yet to play in any spring training games this year, but is scheduled to be available next Tuesday when the Yankees face Panama’s World Baseball Classic team.

The elbow issue isn’t just affecting Stanton’s on-field responsibilities; it’s also affecting him away from the field.

“I can’t open a bottle. I can’t open a bag of chips … a bag of anything,” Stanton told Miller. “That’s the way it is.”

Injuries have been a story of Stanton’s MLB career. Since breaking in with the Miami Marlins in 2013, he has played in 64% (1,353) of a possible 2,106 games. He has not played more than 139 games in a season since 2017 and 2018, when he played 159 in his final season with the Marlins and 158 during his first year with the Yankees.

Having been among the top batters in exit velocity (at least 93 mph in each of the past six seasons, according to StatCast data), Stanton doesn’t believe surgery would have solved his elbow issues.

[Get more Yankees news: New York team feed]

“That’s not going to be fixed in surgery, and I don’t care what any doctor says because they don’t know what’s going on,” Stanton said. “What’s written [about my elbows] is what me and the Yankees give you.”

The goal for Stanton, however realistic, is a full 162-game schedule.

“You never come into a season thinking it’s not going to be a huge season, but you let the season play out,” Stanton said. “Just get me in the box. The key is get in the box.”