BASEBALL

This year’s Little League World Series and the championship tournaments in six other Little League divisions have been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Little League President Stephen Keener announced the cancellations in a Facebook Live broadcast Thursday afternoon from league headquarters in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, saying it would be “impossible” to hold the events amid ongoing restrictions on large gatherings and travel.

The Little League World Series has been held every August since 1947 and had never been canceled before. Next year was to be the 75th playing of the tournament; that milestone has been pushed back to 2022.

Little League has not, however, called off the 2020 regular season. Keener said there was reason for optimism that teams could play this spring and summer, depending on restrictions in states and localities.

The annual major league game in Williamsport, which this year was to feature the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles on Aug. 23, has been canceled, MLB said.

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FOOTBALL

NFL:  The Chiefs are exercising their fifth-year option on Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, though both sides remain optimistic that they will agree on a long-term contract before the start of the season.

Teams are allowed to use a fifth-year option on players selected in the first round of the NFL draft. If the Chiefs are unable to sign Mahomes to a long-term deal, he would be due a base salary of $25 million for the optioned season.

The Los Angeles Chargers are hiring Pep Hamilton as quarterbacks coach.

Hamilton was head coach of the XFL’s DC Defenders.

 Former NFL first-round draft pick Taco Charlton, a defensive end, was released by the Miami Dolphins.

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COLLEGES

MEN’S BASKETBALL: Wake Forest hired East Tennessee State’s Steve Forbes as its men’s basketball coach.

The school announced the hiring following a search that concluded less than a week after firing Danny Manning.

BASKETBALL

NBA: NBA team presidents met and emerged with belief that there are still ways to resume the season, and Dallas owner Mark Cuban also expressed optimism that the league will find a way out of the coronavirus-caused shutdown.

The NBA has been shut down since March 11.

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GOLF

PGA: A shorter season brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic means no one will lose a PGA Tour card this year, and Korn Ferry Tour players will have to wait a year before fully joining the big leagues.

A memo sent to players Thursday to outline the changes was another step in the tour trying to figure out what’s equitable in a season that will be without at least 13 previously scheduled events.

The tour said players exempt for this season will keep the same status for the 2020-21 season that is scheduled to start in September, unless they earn a higher ranking after this shortened season.

SOCCER

FRANCE: Paris Saint-Germain was declared champion of the French soccer league after the season ended early because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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The announcement from the league followed the French government’s decision on Tuesday to call off the soccer and rugby seasons in the country and end plans to resume.

DOPING

RUSSIA: Russian sports could face a new wave of doping charges after the World Anti-Doping Agency said it completed its investigation of a vast trove of evidence on nearly 300 athletes, with nearly half the files showing signs of manipulation.

WADA dug through a computer archive it obtained last year from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, where past doping cases were covered up. Of the 298 athletes investigated, WADA said it found signs of manipulation in files relating to 145 of them.


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