MLB draft will be cut to five rounds Sports Digest

NEW YORK — Major League Baseball will cut its amateur draft from 40 rounds to five this year, a move that figures to save teams about $30 million. Clubs gained the ability to reduce the draft as part of their March 26 agreement with the players’ association, and MLB plans to finalize a decision this week to go with the minimum, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because no decision had been announced. There will be just 160 players drafted, by far the fewest since the annual selection started in 1965, and the combined value of their signing bonus pools is $235,906,800. The amount of signing bonus pool money eliminated is $29,578,100. Teams made the move with the season delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and the sport trying to cut expenses to cope with revenue loss. The start date of the draft will remain June 10, and the deadline to sign likely will be pushed back from July 10 to Aug. 1, the person said. The draft will be cut from three days to two. As part of the deal with the union, teams have the right to cut the 2021 draft to as few as 20 rounds. That fits in MLB’s proposal to cut its minimum minor league affiliations from 160 to 120 in 2021, allowing each organization to drop one farm team.

› BRAINTREE, Mass. — Mary Pratt, who played for the Rockford Peaches and Kenosha Comets in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, has died. She was 101. Her nephew, Walter Pratt, told The Patriot Ledger newspaper in Quincy, Massachusetts, she died peacefully at a nursing home this past Wednesday. Pratt pitched for five years (1943-47) in the women’s baseball league profiled in the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.” Believed to be the last surviving member of the original 1943 Peaches, the Bridgeport, Connecticut, native taught physical education for 46 years and was a coach and referee in several sports.

FOOTBALL

› OTTAWA, Ontario — Canadian Football League commissioner Randy Ambrosie said the most likely scenario is to cancel the season because of the coronavirus pandemic. Ambrosie made the admission last week in testimony to a House of Commons standing committee on finance. He appeared via video during a panel on arts, culture, sports and charitable organizations after news broke the week before that the CFL had requested up to $150 million Canadian in assistance from the federal government. The commissioner said the league’s future is “very much in jeopardy” due to its heavy dependence on ticket sales instead of TV revenue, which makes offsetting losses more difficult because of health guidelines regarding social gatherings, and that teams collectively lost about $20 million last year.

› Women’s flag football will become a varsity sport for NAIA member institutitions by next year. The college sports sanctioning body has secured a two-year partnership with the NFL, its NFL FLAG arm and Reigning Champs Experiences. The NAIA will develop league infrastructure and operations for the first women’s flag football competition governed by a collegiate athletics association. The NAIA plans to host its first showcase open to female football athletes in late summer or early fall. The first competitive season will be held next spring, and the NAIA will host an emerging sport or invitational championship in spring 2022. An emerging sport in the NAIA is defined as at least 15 participating institutions, while an invitational is at least 25. A sport must have a minimum of 40 participating schools to be considered for full championship status.

TENNIS

› PARIS — This year’s French Open could be held without fans, the president of the French Tennis Federation said Sunday. The clay-court Grand Slam tournament at Roland Garros was initially set for May 24-June 7, but it was postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic and rescheduled for Sept. 20-Oct. 4. Bernard Giudicelli told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche that organizers are considering the prospect it might need to go ahead without fans present, and it could even start one week later. “We’re not ruling any option out,” said Giudicelli, who also conceded “the lack of visibility” when hosting a tournament without fans is a concern.