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Purdue Fort Wayne dropping sports

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — Purdue Fort Wayne joined a line of schools dropping sports because of budget cuts and the looming era of revenue sharing with athletes, announcing Friday it would discontinue its baseball and softball programs immediately.

The university announced $6 million in budget cuts Thursday, and discontinuing the two sports will save about $1 million.

The Mastadons are members of the Horizon League and Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association and will sponsor 14 Division I sports.

“This is one of the saddest days in my 25 years as a Mastodon,” athletic director Kelley Hartley Hutton said. “We know this news will upset our student-athletes, alumni and fans. It was not made lightly, and we are committed to supporting those affected through this transition.”

Harley Hutton said budget challenges across the university, in combination with changes in the NCAA model, led to a re-evaluation of the athletic program.

After the Mastadons exit, there are now only five baseball schools in the Horizon League which includes Youngstown State. The NCAA requires the conference to have six teams to qualify for an automatic bid in the NCAA tournament. In the 2026 season, the Horizon League will have five before Northern Illinois enters in 2027.

Stephen F. Austin announced Thursday it would drop bowling, men’s and women’s golf and beach volleyball. Eastern Illinois announced on May 12 it would discontinue men’s and women’s tennis.

Guardians tame Tigers again

DETROIT (AP) — Slade Cecconi gave up a run and five hits over six innings, José Ramírez tripled and scored in a two-run first inning and the Cleveland Guardians beat the Detroit Tigers 3-1 on Friday night.

Steven Kwan had three hits and an RBI for Cleveland.

Cecconi (1-1) struck out six and allowed two walks in his second start of the season. Hunter Gaddis followed with two scoreless innings and Emmanuel Clase pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his 10th save.

Jackson Jobe (4-1) gave up two runs on four hits and two walks in five innings to take his first career loss. The Tigers won his first eight starts — the longest streak to start a career in franchise history.

Kwan led off the game with a double and Ramírez hit a triple over the head of Javier Báez in center field for a 1-0 lead before Carlos Santana added a two-out RBI single for a 2-0 lead.

The Guardians held the Tigers scoreless for the first 14 1/3 innings of the series, but Spencer Torkelson broke the streak with his 13th homer in the sixth inning.

Bo Naylor led off the ninth with a triple and Kwan made it 3-1 with an RBI single.

Brookfield sells stadium

BROOKFIELD — The Brookfield School District sold the old football field with nearly 9 acres for $196,000 in an auction that ended Monday.

WKBN reported the board of education was informed the buyer is Mohammad Matariya, who lives in the local area.

On Wednesday, the board also approved the purchase of the bleachers that went up for auction. High Steel Rodeo in North Bloomfield purchased two lots of bleachers for $30,792, and the Sheakleyville Community Volunteer Fire Department in Mercer County purchased another set for $22,600.

The George A. Nichols Field was home to the Brookfield football team for 50 years. The Warriors started playing at the new stadium last fall behind the school.

Wieners invade Brickyard

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Give the Borg-Wiener Trophy at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to the Wienermobile affectionately known as Slaw Dog.

In a down-to-the-wire race among the six iconic Wienermobiles that serve as goodwill ambassadors for Oscar Mayer, the hot dog-on-wheels representing the Southeast proved to be the big dog on Carb Day ahead of Sunday’s running of the Indianapolis 500.

It made a dramatic pass of the Wienermobile repping Chicago at the finish line to win the inaugural Wienie 500 on Friday.

The margin was about a half a bun.

“You are standing in a moment in hot dog history right now,” Sarah Oney, who was co-piloting the Wienermobile representing New York with Connor Wolff, told The Associated Press. “This is the first-ever time we have honestly had all six Wienermobiles together and especially at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”

It was the definition of a wiener-take-all race, too: The driver and co-pilot of the No. 3 dog, who managed to roast the rest of the Wienermobiles on a cool, sunny afternoon, got to stick around for the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500.

The Wienermobiles have been around since 1936 as a promotional vehicle for Oscar Mayer — not to be confused with Louis Meyer, the first three-time winner of the Indy 500. They travel around the country, logging about 20,000 miles annually, though none were probably as important to the hotdoggers on board as the 5 miles they drove on Friday.

Oney and Wolff jumped into the lead when the green flag flew at the historic yard of bricks, and the six Wienermobiles slowly picked up speed until they reached about 65 mph. They were right in each other’s grills down the backstretch, and swapped the lead among themselves several times until the second of two laps, when the No. 4 dog led the field out of Turn 2.

That’s when smoke began pouring from its rear, and that dog was cooked.

The Wienermobile wearing No. 1 assumed the lead as the field headed onto the front stretch, and a crowd of nearly 80,000 fans who had just watched the final practice for the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 was standing and cheering.

That’s when the Wienermobile from the Southeast, which had doggedly hung around the lead for most of the race, made its big move. It passed the the Wienermobile repping Chicago just in time to relish in the sweet taste of victory.

It might have been the fastest Wieners have gone since Joey Chestnut’s heyday on Coney Island.

“The Indy 500 marks the unofficial kickoff of summer and the start of hot dog season,” said Kelsey Rice, brand communications director at Chicago-based Oscar Mayer. “It’s only fitting that we bring a race of epic proportions to the Speedway and celebrate a timeless tradition: delicious meats and a little friendly competition to kick off a summer of wieners.”

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing