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THE BULLETIN • MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2022
MLB
bendbulletin.com/sports
NASCAR
Lockout
talks back
as openers
threatened
BY RONALD BLUM
AP Baseball Writer
NEW YORK — Major
League Baseball’s negotiations
to salvage opening day resume
at a new venue Monday: Roger
Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Flor-
ida.
Colorado Rockies CEO Dick
Monfort, chairman of the own-
ers’ labor policy committee,
was expected to join a manage-
ment delegation that includes
Deputy Commissioner Dan
Halem, the clubs’ lead nego-
tiator.
Bruce Meyer, the union’s
chief negotiator, was expected
to be joined by players. The site
of negotiations is about 3 miles
from the home
of New York
Mets pitcher
Max Scher-
zer, among the
Days the
eight players
league has
been in a work on the union’s
stoppage
executive sub-
committee.
The ballpark
usually would be the spring
training home of the Miami
Marlins and St. Louis Cardi-
nals at this time of year, but
workouts failed to start on time
last Wednesday due to base-
ball’s ninth work stoppage, it’s
first since 1995.
Monday’s session will be
just the seventh on core eco-
nomics since the lockout
started Dec. 2, and the sides
have met on consecutive days
just once, on Jan. 24 and 25.
MLB said Friday that it in-
tended to have meetings with
the union every day in the
coming week.
The lockout enters its 82nd
day Monday. MLB on Fri-
day canceled spring training
games from Feb. 26 through
March 4.
While owners and players
have participated by Zoom, the
only ones to attend a session
in person have been Monfort
and free-agent reliever Andrew
Miller, on Jan. 24.
Until now, all talks during
the lockout had been in New
York at the offices of MLB and
the players’ association.
MLB told the union that
Feb. 28 is the last possible day
to reach an agreement to allow
openers on March 31, given
the desire for four weeks of
workouts and additional time
to ratify an agreement and
have players report to camps in
Florida and Arizona.
But the sides agreed to less
training time after disrupted
spring trainings in 1990, 1995
and 2020.
82
Cindric’s gift for Penske’s 85th:
ROOKIE WIN
AT DAYTONA
BY JENNA FRYER
AP Auto Racing Writer
D
AYTONA BEACH, Fla.
— Roger Penske had
one rule at the Daytona
500 for his drivers: Do
Not Wreck Each Other.
His orders were followed Sun-
day night when Austin Cindric
worked with teammate Ryan
Blaney over the closing laps to
win the Daytona 500 as a celebra-
tion of Penske’s 85th birthday.
It was just one year ago that
Penske drivers Cindric, Joey Lo-
gano and Brad Keselowski all
crashed while racing for the win
on the final lap at Daytona Inter-
national Speedway. It took time
for tempers to thaw as Penske
made his expectations clear to his
drivers.
“We had talked for weeks after
last year, when we were one-two
and ended up in the fence,” Pen-
ske said. “I said, ‘Look, the best
man wins at the end. I think we’ve
got to work together.’
“They played ball, and Austin
won.”
Cindric was the leader at the
start of the two-lap overtime
shootout with Blaney beside him.
He was driving the No. 2 Ford,
the flagship car at Team Penske
Chris O’Meara/AP photos
PHOTOS: Austin Cindric celebrates winning the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto
race in Florida on Sunday.
that was vacated at the end of last
season when Keselowski left the
organization, and now Keselowski
was behind him determined not
to get beaten by his replacement.
But Cindric switched lanes as
soon as he’d cleared Blaney to
drop in front of his teammate so
the duo could hook together for
two final trips around the track.
Blaney made one desperate at-
tempt up high to get around Cin-
dric, but Cindric threw a huge
block that forced Blaney into the
outside wall.
Bubba Wallace then surged
even with Cindric in the bottom
lane, forcing Cindric to forget
about Blaney behind him and fo-
cus on beating Wallace to the fin-
ish line.
“Oh, my God. I’ve got so many
people to thank,” a stunned Cin-
dric said after climbing from
his car and saluting the capacity
crowd of some 120,000 specta-
tors. “First and foremost Roger
Penske, happy birthday!”
Then Cindric remembered
Blaney, who gave him a winning
push but finished fourth.
“Appreciate Ryan being a great
teammate,” Cindric said. “Obvi-
ously, he wants to win this one.”
Blaney was clear on the Pen-
ske expectations — “I wanted
to try to win the race for Roger
Penske. Whether that was me or
another car, that’s what I was do-
ing,” — and didn’t have much to
say after the race about Cindric’s
block.
“I don’t know. Congrats
to him, I guess,” Blaney said.
“You’ve got to throw a block in
that situation.”
It was the first career Cup vic-
tory for the 23-year-old Cindric,
who was promoted from the
Xfinity Series to replace Kesel-
owski and run for NASCAR’s
rookie of the year honors.
The win was the third Daytona
500 victory for Penske, who also
picked up the trophy in 2008 with
Ryan Newman and 2015 with Lo-
gano. Ford Motor Co. has won
the Daytona 500 17 times, includ-
ing two in a row.
Wallace finished second for the
second time in his career in the
Daytona 500.
See Daytona / A6
2022 Winter Olympics
Beijing’s Games close, ending a
virus-safe but odd global moment
BY TED ANTHONY
AP National Writer
Bernat Armangue/AP
Teams arrive during the closing ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in
Beijing on Sunday. “We welcome China as a winter sport country,” Interna-
tional Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said, closing the Games.
BEIJING — A pile of figure-skating
rubble created by Russian misbehavior. A
new Chinese champion — from Califor-
nia. An ace American skier who faltered
and went home empty-handed. The end
of the Olympic line for the world’s most
renowned snowboarder. All inside an an-
ti-COVID “closed loop” enforced by Chi-
na’s authoritarian government.
The terrarium of a Winter Games
that has been Beijing 2022 came to its
end Sunday, capping an unprecedented
Asian Olympic trifecta and sending the
planet’s most global sporting event off to
the West for the foreseeable future, with
no chance of returning to this corner of
the world until at least 2030.
It was weird. It was messy and, at the
same time, somehow sterile. It was con-
trolled and calibrated in ways only Xi
Jinping’s China could pull off. And it
was sequestered in a “bubble” that kept
participants and the city around them
— and, by extension, the sporadically
watching world — at arm’s length.
On Sunday night, Xi and International
Olympic Committee President Thomas
Bach stood together as Beijing handed
off to Milan-Cortina, site of the 2026
Winter Games. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little
Star” kicked off a notably Western-fla-
vored show with Chinese characteristics
as dancers with tiny, fiery snowflakes
glided across the stadium in a ceremony
that, like the opening, was headed by
Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
Unlike the first pandemic Olympics
in Tokyo last summer, which featured all
but empty seats at the opening and clos-
ing, a modest but energetic crowd pop-
ulated the seats of Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest”
stadium. It felt somewhat incongruous
— a show bursting with color and energy
and enthusiasm and even joy, the very
things that couldn’t assert themselves in-
side China’s COVID bubble.
“We welcome China as a winter sport
country,” Bach said, closing the Games. He
called their organization “extraordinary”
and credited the Chinese and their orga-
nizing committee for serving them up “in
such an excellent way and a safe way.”
By many mechanical measures, these
Games were a success. They were, in fact,
quite safe — albeit in the carefully modu-
lated, dress-up-for-company way that au-
thoritarian governments always do best.
See Olympics / A6