HOCKEY

The Maine Mariners signed goaltender Jon Gillies, of South Portland, to a contract.

Gillies, drafted in the third round of the 2012 draft by the Calgary Flames, has played the last three seasons in the AHL – the first two with the Stockton Heat and last year with the Utica Comets.

Gillies, 27, will join Jeremy Brodeur and Zach Bouthillier on the Mariners, who begin a five-game homestand at 7:15 p.m. Friday against  the Trois-Rivieres Lions.

BASEBALL

Nelson Cruz has been given Major League Baseball’s Roberto Clemente Award for character, community involvement and philanthropy.

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Cruz, the 50th winner of the honor, received the award before World Series Game 2 on Wednesday night.

The 41-year-old, a 17-year MLB veteran and seven-time All-Star, provided financial support to 1,200 families in his hometown of Las Matas de Santa Cruz, Dominican Republic, during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping feed 700 families.

After a fire destroyed the home of a childhood friend, Cruz provided the town with a fire engine, 80 firefighter uniforms and an ambulance for transport of people to the nearest hospital, which is about an hour away.

His Boomstick23 Foundation began construction of an education and technical center last year and he will stock the center with computers to assist athletes in their education.

Cruz also organizes dentists and optometrists to go the town’s clinic for checkups, medicine and eyewear, and 500 patients received dental services last year.

He helped arrange for MLB, Major League Baseball Players Association and the union’s Players Trust to donate $400,000 to the Dominican Republic for medical equipment and food aid during the pandemic.

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Cruz was nominated by the Twins, who traded him to Tampa Bay in July. He joined Hall of Famers Rod Carew (1977), Dave Winfield (1994) and Kirby Puckett (1997) as Minnesota players to win the award.

•  A roller derby team that has called itself the Cleveland Guardians since 2013 sued the city’s Major League Baseball team in federal court in Cleveland alleging that the switch from Indians to Guardians infringes on its trademark.

“A Major League club cannot simply take a smaller team’s name and use it for itself,” the lawsuit said. “There cannot be two `Cleveland Guardians’ teams in Cleveland, and, to be blunt, Plaintiff was here first.”

The Cleveland Indians announced in July that it would assume the name Guardians for the 2022 season after years of criticism that the Indians name and Chief Wahoo logo were racist. The new name was adopted from the two large Art Deco statues that appear to stand guard on a bridge spanning the Cuyahoga River.

The all gender roller derby team is based in the Cleveland suburb of Parma. It formally registered the name Cleveland Guardians in 2017 with the Ohio secretary of state and has been selling team merchandise since 2014, the lawsuit said.

In a statement, the Indians said, “We have been and continue to be confident in our position to become the Guardians. We believe there is no conflict between the parties and their ability to operate in their respective business areas.”

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• The San Diego Padres hired Ruben Niebla from Cleveland as their pitching coach.

General Manager A.J. Preller hired Niebla even though he has yet to hire a replacement for Manager Jayce Tingler, who was fired Oct. 6. Tingler took the fall for the Padres’ brutal second-half collapse, which saw them plummet from a solid grip on the NL’s second wild-card spot to finishing with a losing record for the 10th time in 11 seasons.

Niebla, 49, has been Cleveland’s assistant pitching coach for the last two seasons.

SOCCER

MLS: Tajon Buchanan scored his eighth goal of the season and the New England Revolution beat the Colorado Rapids 1-0 at Foxborough, Massachusetts, to break the MLS record for points in a season with 73.

New England (22-4-7), the Supporters’ Shield winner, broke the mark of 72 for a 34-match season set by Los Angeles FC in 2019 . The Revolution have one game left in the regular season, at home game against Inter Miami remaining Nov. 7.

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New England Coach Bruce Arena tied Sigi Schmid’s MLS record with his 240th regular-season victory.

Colorado (15-7-10) clinched a playoff berth Saturday.

HORSE RACING

BREEDERS’ CUP: Medina Spirit, the controversial winner of the Kentucky Derby, and Belmont Stakes winner Essential Quality head a field of 10 horses for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, with trainer Brad Cox pre-entering two horses for the $6 million race that also includes Hot Rod Charlie.

Hot Rod Charlie finished third in the Derby and second in the Belmont. Preakness winner Rombauer hasn’t raced since finishing third in the Belmont on June 5.

The Classic field was among the 196 horses, including a record 56 from overseas, pre-entered for the $31 million, 14-race world championships on Nov. 5-6 at Del Mar.

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Medina Spirit is overseen by Bob Baffert, the all-time leader among trainers in Breeders’ Cup earnings at nearly $36 million. He currently is embroiled in legal fights in New York and Kentucky for multiple positive drug tests involving some of his horses.

The Breeders’ Cup is allowing Baffert to enter horses (he has eight total), but he has to meet certain conditions, including stricter out-of-competition testing of his horses and greater security at his barn. He has agreed to the tightened standards.

TENNIS

TRANSYLVANIA OPEN: Simona Halep won a battle of generations in Romanian tennis by defeating Elena-Gabriela Ruse 6-1, 6-2 in the opening round at Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Ruse, one of the up-and-coming talents in Romania inspired by former No. 1 Halep, won her first career title in Hamburg in July and reached the final in Palermo the same month to enter the top 100.

The top-seeded Halep will face Varvara Gracheva of Russia for a place in the quarterfinals.

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The second-seeded Anett Kontaveit defeated Serbian qualifier Aleksandra Krunic 6-3, 7-5 to stretch her indoor winning streak to 11 matches.

ST. PETERSBURG OPEN: Home favorite Andrey Rublev reached the quarterfinals in Russia with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Belarussian player Ilya Ivashka.

Rublev, the defending champion, saved all seven break points he faced to reach the quarterfinals at the event for the third time. .

Second-seeded Denis Shapovalov defeated Pablo Andujar 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 to set up a quarterfinal match against Jan-Lennard Struff. The German defeated the seventh-seeded Alexander Bublik 6-4, 6-3.


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