Sports
THE BOSTON GLOBE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/SPORTSC
TVHIGHLIGHTS
Baseball: Cardinals-Cubs, 2 p.m., MLB
Baseball: Red Sox-Rays, 7 p.m., NESN
Collegefootball: Air Force-Boise State, 9 p.m., ESPN2
Collegefootball: Utah-USC, 9 p.m., FS1
Listings,C8
The Big E
Eduardo Rodriguez picks up
win No. 18 for Red Sox.C2
A big blow
Yankees ace Domingo German
put on administrative leave.C3INSIDE
By Michael Silverman
GLOBE STAFF
Antonio Brown still has a
job with the New England Pa-
triots.
But he no longer has a shoe
deal with Nike.
A spokesperson for Nike
said Wednesday night, “Anto-
nio Brown is not a Nike ath-
lete.”
Asked multiple times to
elaborate on the reason for the
decision and clarify its timing,
the spokesperson declined.
Several signs suggest that re-
cent allegations against the
wide receiver served as a cata-
lyst for why the world’s largest
sneaker seller would want to
disassociate itself from Brown.
Efforts to reach Brown’s
agent, Drew Rosenhaus, for
comment were unsuccessful.
Three days after the Patriots
acquired Brown on Sept. 7,
Brown’s former physical ser-
vice trainer Britney Taylor filed
a civil complaint in US District
Court in Miami that accuses
him of sexual assault stem-
ming from two alleged inci-
dents from June 2017, and
rape from a May 20, 2018, inci-
dent in Brown’s home in Mi-
ami.
Only a couple of weeks after
the rape allegedly occurred, a
seven-minute-plus video titled
BROWN,PageC5By Jim McBride
GLOBE STAFF
FOXBOROUGH — Antonio
Brown broke his non-social me-
dia silence Thursday afternoon,
the wide receiver making his
first appearance in the Patriots
locker room when reporters
were present.
It also marked Brown’s first
comments since he was hit with
a civil lawsuit by his former
trainer, Britney Taylor, who has
accused Brown of rape and sex-
ual assault.
Brown sidestepped ques-
tions about his off-field issues
and stuck to football answers
during the four-question, min-
ute-long session at his locker.
The 10-year veteran, who is
with his third team this calen-
dar year — after forcing a trade
by the Steelers and being re-
leased by the Raiders — said he
was “super grateful” to be a part
of the Patriots organization and
that he was just going to “focus
on ball.’’
When asked if he was in
good standing to remain on the
active roster, Brown deflected
the question.
“I’m super grateful to be
here. I’m thankful to Bill
Belichick and Tom Brady,’’ said
Brown, wearing a black winter
cap and a gray Patriots hoodie
with the sleeves shortened.
“I’ve got a lot of the offense to
learn and catch up [on], but I’m
excited and grateful to be here
and be a part of these guys.’’
When pressed about wheth-
er he had received any word
from the NFL about his avail-
ability going forward, Brown
again stuck to football.
“I appreciate that question,’’
PATRIOTS,PageC4Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski embraced his grandson, Giants outfielder Mike Yastrzemski, at Fenway Park
Wednesday (above). As ballplayers, the two share a powerful lefthanded batting stroke (below).BARRY CHIN/GLOBE STAFFQuarterback Tom Brady (left) gave wide receiver Antonio
Brown pointers on running a route at practice Thursday.
By Matt Porter
GLOBE STAFF
Had a 5-foot-9-inch defenseman
shown up at a Providence practice a de-
cade ago, he might have had a short stay.
“We probably would have sent him
down the road to Brown University or
Providence [College],” joked Bruins coach
Bruce Cassidy, who was coach of the Prov-
idence Bruins at the time. “You’re in thewrong building. But that’s the new NHL.”
Though the league is increasingly
smaller, lighter, and quicker, defensemen
that small remain relatively rare. Of the
326 defensemen who saw NHL action
last season, 42 checked in under 6 feet.
Six of them were under 5-10. Two of them
were in Boston’s top six.
Torey Krug and Matt Grzelcyk, along
with Connor Clifton and Steven Kampfer— both listed at 5-11 — gave the Bruins
the shortest D corps in the league last
year, even with 6-9 Zdeno Chara and 6-5
Brandon Carlo in the mix. They fell one
game short of lifting the Stanley Cup.
So here comes Cooper Zech, hoping to
one day make the Boston back end —
where Chara has roamed the last 14 years
— a land of Lilliputians.
BRUINS,PageC6here were screams of
joy in the Yastrzem-
ski house on the
North Shore when
San Francisco Giants
outfielder Mike Yas-
trzemski laced into a 96-mile-an-
hour Nathan Eovaldi fastball
Tuesday night and sent it rocket-
ing toward the center-field
bleachers at Fenway Park.
Carl Yastrzemski — the man
they call Yaz — who hit 237 home
runs at Fenway Park in a 23-year
Hall of Fame career, wasn’t
screaming to his grandson; he
was talking directly to the ball.
It had been 19 million min-
utes since Yaz last homered at
Fenway Park in 1983, and No. 8
was taking nothing for granted.
He knows that center field is the
deepest part of the park, and he
was trying to will the ball into the
bleachers.
“I just kept saying, ‘Get up, get
up,’ ” said Yaz. “I didn’t think he
hit it high enough.”
The ball landed 401 feet away,
a couple of rows deep, and Mike
Yastrzemski ran around the bases
the way his grandfather used to:
very classy, no bat flip, no point-
ing toward the heavens. After la-
boring in the minors for 703games, the 29-year-old rookie had
hit his 20th homer since being
called up by the Giants May 25.
Back at the Yastrzemski home,
“The phones started blowing up,”
according to Carl’s wife Nancy.
Yaz sat back and took it all in.
“I was kind of stunned, to tell
you the truth,” he said. “I was just
happy. It was a storybook finish.
“For him to strike out the first
time up and then come back,
walk his second time up, and
then hit the home run his third
time up, he showed great concen-
tration. He’s tough mentally.”
Later that night, Mike added a
ground-rule double to deep cen-
ter.
“If he pulled it a few more feet,
it would’ve been another home
run,” said Yaz, who watched all 15
innings on TV.
“I’m used to it,” he said. “I
watch the Red Sox at 7 o’clock
and the Giants at 10:15 p.m. So I
watch 18 innings a day.”
Yaz believes there may have
been some divine intervention at
work at Fenway that night. His
only son, also Mike Yastrzemski,
and also a former minor leaguer,
died in September 2004 of com-
plications after hip surgery. He
YASTRZEMSKIS,PageC3Bruins’ Zech hoping for a big jump
STORY AND PHOTOS BY STAN GROSSFELD
GLOBE STAFFWR is no longer
‘a Nike athlete’
No reason given
for the decision
Yastrzemskis had
a ball with Mike in
the lineup at Fenway
GLOBE FILE PHOTOT
Brown says
he’s grateful
to Patriots
‘I’m just here to focus on ball and
look forward to get out there in the
home stadium with the team.’
ANTONIO BROWN,Patriots wide receiverJETSATPATRIOTS
Sunday, 1 p.m., CBS