U.S. WOMEN WIN THE WORLD CUP

The U.S. National Women’s Team hardly needed reassuring. If anything, captain Megan Rapinoe and her teammates were deemed too brash as they gallivanted across France in pursuit of their third World Cup — and second in a row. Along the way, they sparred with President Trump over politics and highlighted a gender-discrimination lawsuit against their own federation in a fight for recognition and equal pay.

They scored 13goals against lowly Thailand in a group-stage match and caught flak for celebrating too much. They responded by celebrating subsequent tallies with snarky golf claps and tea-time toasts, remaining ruthless until the final whistle in a 2-0 championship-game win over the Netherlands. That’s what happens when you send women to do a job that the better-paid men’s national team has never come close to completing.

“We’ve done exactly what we set out to do, done exactly what we wanted to do, said what we feel,” said Rapinoe. “I know sometimes my voice is louder, but everybody is in this together.”

ANGELS THROW NO-HITTER AFTER SKAGGS’ DEATH

The sudden death of popular Los Angeles Angels left-hander Tyler Skaggs in early July rocked the baseball world. His death was later attributed to an overdose of opioids, sparking a rare agreement between Major League Baseball and the players union to add a treatment-based approach and evaluation protocol regarding opioid use to the current drug-testing program. But the Angels weren’t thinking long-term when they planned to honor Skaggs in their first home game — against the Seattle Mariners — after more than a week away. They wanted his teammates and fans to remember a promising young pitcher whose personality lit up the clubhouse.

The Angels players donned jerseys with Skaggs’ name and his No. 45 on the back. His mother, Debbie, threw out the first pitch. Then the magic started. Mike Trout hit a 454-foot home run to open the scoring. Pitchers Taylor Cole and Felix Pena combined to throw a no-hitter — the 11th in franchise history, which was the number Skaggs wore in high school. After scoring seven times in the first inning, the final score was 13-0, which aligned with Skaggs’ 7⁄13 birthday.

After the final out, the Angels ventured out to the mound and laid their jerseys on the bump.

“Every time you’d go up to him, he’d have that smirk on his face. Either sarcastically, jokingly, or he was trying to put a smile on your face,” Trout recalled. “We’re always going to be thinking about him.”