PITTSBURGH -- Theo Epstein said he is staying with the Chicago Cubs as president of baseball operations and dismissed speculation that he could return to the Boston Red Sox, with whom he was general manager from 2002 to 2011.

"I'm here [with the Cubs]," Epstein said Wednesday afternoon from PNC Park, where the Cubs were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates. "We have a lot we need to work on to get back to the level we're accustomed to. I'm invested in that. That's what I'm focused on."

Epstein has two years left on an extension he signed after the Cubs won the 2016 World Series. He has often said that a decade is a good length of time to be in a team's front office; he'll reach 10 years with the team after the 2021 season.

With the Brewers clinching a wild-card berth Wednesday night, the Cubs were officially eliminated from postseason contention. It's the first time in five years they will miss the playoffs.

Epstein said the Cubs' poor play down the stretch was "definitely surprising."

"When you have the best possible outcome and overcome a lot of things and do some transcendent things, you grow from that because you do something you haven't done before," he said. "When you have the middle-of-the-road outcome you can always tell yourself whatever story you want to hear. It's a gray area. When you have the worst possible outcome, like we've had, it reveals everything. As painful as it can be, it creates a real opportunity to learn from it and grow."

Epstein added, "The thing that gets you excited, even in the face of this adversity, is waking up and trying to build the next Cubs championship team."

Though the Red Sox have an opening in their front office after firing Dave Dombrowski, neither Epstein nor Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer -- who also spent time in Boston's front office -- has expressed interest in the job.

"I have really good relationships with a lot of people there and certainly wish them the best," Epstein said of the Red Sox.

One of Epstein's first offseason tasks will be deciding the fate of manager Joe Maddon, whose contract is up at the end of the season. Asked if he had a timeline for that decision, Epstein said, "I'm going to keep that between me and Joe. That's not something I feel comfortable talking about."

The Milwaukee Brewers continued their scorching September with their 19th win of the month Wednesday, clinching a postseason berth and eliminating both the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs in the process.

The Crew's 9-2 victory at Cincinnati brought the team to 88-70, a far cry from Sept. 5, when Milwaukee was only three games over .500 -- with the same 71-68 record as the Mets and five games behind the Cubs for the second wild-card spot.

But despite losing MVP candidate Christian Yelich to a fractured kneecap Sept. 10, the Brewers have won 17 of their past 19 games to secure a playoff spot in consecutive years for just the second time in franchise history.

The last time the team went to consecutive postseasons was 1981-82, when the franchise was in the American League. The Brewers made their only World Series appearance in 1982, falling to the Cardinals in seven games.

The franchise has now made the postseason four times in the past 12 seasons after doing so just twice in its first 39 seasons of existence.

The move you've all been waiting for is back! #MKEHistory pic.twitter.com/k3iMpK0SBO

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) September 26, 2019

On the flip side, the Cubs suffered their eighth straight defeat Wednesday, 4-2 at Pittsburgh, and will fail to make the playoffs for the first time since 2014, snapping the club's longest postseason streak at four years.

The Mets could not keep up the pace that saw them win 15 of 16 games in July and August, and they will miss the playoffs for the third consecutive season despite increasing their win total over the past two years, from 70 in 2017 to 77 in 2018 to 83 so far this year.

Mets relievers' ERA of 5.01 is the sixth-worst in the majors this year, continuing a trend. Since making the World Series in 2015, the Mets have posted the fourth-worst relief ERA in MLB at 4.58, after compiling a 3.40 ERA in 2015.

The Brewers will join the Cardinals, Braves, Nationals and Dodgers in the National League field this year, but they still have a chance to win the division, at just 1½ games behind St. Louis with four games to play.

World governing body also announces Diamond League sponsorship deal with Wanda Group

Sebastian Coe has been unanimously re-elected as the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

Standing unopposed, all 203 voting members of IAAF Congress voted for the two-time Olympic 1500m champion to serve a second term after he was first elected into the role in 2015.

Also on Wednesday, Colombia’s 1992 Olympic 400m bronze medallist Ximena Restrepo was announced as the first female IAAF vice president, with Sergey Bubka, Geoffrey Gardner and Nawaf Bin Mohammed Al Saud also elected into vice president roles.

Newly-elected members of the IAAF Council are Hiroshi Yokokawa (JPN), Antti Pihlakoski (FIN), Anna Riccardi (ITA), Nan Wang (CHN), Adille Sumariwalla (IND), Nawal El Moutawakel (MAR), Abby Hoffman (CAN), Sylvia Barlag (NED), Alberto Juantorena (CUB), Willie Banks (USA), Raul Chapado (ESP), Dobromir Karamarinov (BUL) and Beatrice Ayikoru (UGA).

The election news comes two days before the start of the IAAF World Championships in Doha, which will not feature a Russia team following the continued suspension of the Russian athletics federation (RusAF) as an IAAF member.

Reporting to the 218th IAAF Council meeting in Doha, IAAF Taskforce independent chair Rune Andersen said that while some progress has been made, key issues remain outstanding that prevent RusAF’s reinstatement.

The IAAF announced that 30 athletes have been permitted to participate as authorised neutral athletes at the Doha World Championships.

Speaking at the IAAF Congress press conference, Coe said: “It has been a tough four years, there’s no point in being naive or coy about that.

“I want the next four years to be the fun bit, really. We have to grow the sport.

“We are much safer and secure now than we have ever been. But I’m not kidding myself, the reforms are in place, they have been implemented, but we do need that cultural shift as well. There is a lot of work to be done over the next four years.”

He added: “I genuinely am very pleased and proud about the way the sport has come together, the changes that we made… In hailing those achievements I also have to recognise that yes, it has meant that we have had to detour from being able to really focus as hard as I would have liked in the early years on issues around the field of play.”

Earlier news from the Athletics Integrity Unit was that United Arab Emirates’ Ahmed Al Kamali had been provisionally suspended by the IAAF disciplinary tribunal “for potential violations of the IAAF Candidacy Rules and the Integrity Code of Conduct”.

Al Kamali had been a candidate for vice president and council member positions.

Following an application by the AIU, the @iaaforg Disciplinary Tribunal has provisionally suspended Mr Ahmed Al Kamali of the UAE for potential violations of the IAAF Candidacy Rules and the Integrity Code of Conduct.
Find out more ⬇https://t.co/opInfkVlnV#AIUNews
1/2 pic.twitter.com/fzPHDlzMnC

— Athletics Integrity Unit (@aiu_athletics) September 25, 2019

Meanwhile, it was announced that Chinese multinational conglomerate Wanda Group is to become title partner of the Diamond League for 10 years from 2020.

“The Diamond League has been the IAAF’s shop window for a decade, thrilling fans around the world on an annual basis and we are delighted that the Wanda Diamond League will continue to showcase athletics for the next 10 years,’’ Coe said.

“As a leading marathon organiser in our fastest-growing market China, Wanda Sports Group is a perfect fit for athletics. Wanda shares our vision for the future of athletics and this partnership will be fundamental in helping our sport grow over the next decade, both in China and around the world.”

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – MX Sports Pro Racing has unveiled the 12-round schedule for the 49th season of Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship competition.

The series will once again visit 11 different states over the course of the summer, beginning with the Hangtown Motocross Classic on May 16, and concluding with the Ironman National on Aug. 29.

The most talented collection of riders on the planet will battle it out over the course of 24 motos across the 450 class and 250 class.

From mid May through the cusp of the end of summer in August, the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship will visit every corner of the United States, including the motocross hotbeds of the southwest, in Southern California, and the southeast, in North Florida.

Additionally, the schedule will travel to the densely populated motocross region of the northeast, in New England and Central New York, as well as the scenic Pacific Northwest, on the border of Washington and Oregon. The championship will also journey into the heart of the country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Great Lakes.

“For well over four decades the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship has defined American motocross, providing the ultimate showcase of grit, talent and determination each and every summer,” said Davey Coombs, President of MX Sports Pro Racing. “We’re proud to present a schedule that features the most dynamic collection of venues this country has to offer, many of which have been a part of this sport since its inception, and one that also brings us to nearly every major region of the continental U.S., which provides an opportunity for most of our fans to make the pilgrimage to a world-class motocross National.”

The Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship has served as the world’s preeminent motocross competition since 1972, and over the span of five decades it has maintained its distinction as the most difficult championship to win in all of racing.

With three consecutive 450 class titles to his credit, reigning champion Eli Tomac will look to make even more history next summer, seeking to become one of just two riders to hoist the Edison Dye Cup for four straight seasons. He’ll welcome a new challenger to that title defense under the Monster Energy Kawasaki tent, where newly crowned 250 class champion Adam Cianciarulo will step up onto the big bikes as a teammate to Tomac, joining the likes of a deep list of fellow contenders that includes Ken Roczen, Marvin Musquin, Jason Anderson, Zach Osborne, Cooper Webb and more.

With Cianciarulo’s departure from the 250 class, the title vacancy opens the door for a wide-open battle to claim the Gary Jones Cup, where Jeremy Martin, the lone former champion in the division, will battle it out alongside a promising group of up and coming talent, led by Monster Energy/Star/Yamaha Racing teammates Dylan Ferrandis and Justin Cooper.

2020 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship Schedule
May 16 – Hangtown Classic – Prairie City SVRA – Rancho Cordova, Calif.
May 23 – Fox Raceway National – Fox Raceway – Pala, Calif.
May 30 – Thunder Valley National – Thunder Valley Motocross Park – Lakewood, Colo.
June 6 – Florida National – WW Ranch Motocross Park – Jacksonville, Fla.
June 20 – High Point National – High Point Raceway – Mt. Morris, Pa.
June 27 – Southwick National – The Wick 338 – Southwick, Mass.
July 4 – RedBud National – RedBud MX – Buchanan, Mich.
July 18 – Spring Creek National – Spring Creek MX Park – Millville, Minn.
July 25 – Washougal National – Washougal MX Park – Washougal, Wash.
Aug. 15 – Unadilla National – Unadilla MX – New Berlin, N.Y.
Aug. 22 – Budds Creek National – Budds Creek Motocross Park – Mechanicsville, Md.
Aug. 29 – Ironman National – Ironman Raceway – Crawfordsville, Ind.

COSTA MESA, Calif. – MotoAmerica honored its five champions and those who pushed them the hardest on Sept. 23 at a gala event in downtown Birmingham, Ala., a day after the battles had been won and lost at Barber Motorsports Park.

The list of champions from 2019 includes Twins Cup Champion Alex Dumas, Stock 1000 Champion Andrew Lee, Liqui Moly Junior Cup Champion Rocco Landers, Supersport Champion Bobby Fong and EBC Brakes Superbike Champion Cameron Beaubier, who won the premier title on his Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing YZF-R1 and helped Yamaha take home the Manufacturers Crown.

Additionally, J.D. Beach won the Superbike Rookie of the Year award for riding to fourth in the EBC Brakes Superbike Championship and earning his first class win along the way.

Beaubier was the man of the night, the Californian never giving up the fight as he climbed his way back into the Superbike Championship fight when the title seemed all but lost just a few rounds before. Beaubier won both races at Barber Motorsports Park and walked away with the title – his fourth in the past five years – by just five points over Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias.

“It was a rollercoaster of a season,” Beaubier said. “It actually started out pretty good at the first round compared to the last few years. I was on two wheels at the end of the weekend which wasn’t the case the last few years. I was super thankful for that and we came out with the points lead and I was like, ‘Man this is going to be a really good season after the really good season we had last year, but that wasn’t the case. I was getting smoked by the Yosh (Yoshimura Suzuki) guys. Then Garrett (Gerloff) and I started to find our feet a little bit and Garrett was crushing it there in the middle of the season. Honestly, it took a hit on my confidence to have such a fast teammate and then getting beat by the Yosh guys as well. I owe a lot to my mentor Jake Zemke, who is always behind me and always building me up when I was a little down. We fought back and never quit and I think if it wasn’t for Garrett finding his edge and showing his true ability this year, I don’t think we would have wrapped up this title so I owe a big thanks to him and Keith (McCarty) and Tom (Halverson)… I just appreciate from the bottom of my heart you guys giving me this opportunity. I get to do what I love for a living and I’ll never take it for granted.”

The night was bittersweet for Beaubier as he paid homage to his longtime crew chief Rick Hobbs, who had announced his retirement from racing.

“Rick (Hobbs), it’s been so great working for you for these past six years,” Beaubier said. “You’ve taught me so much on and off the track. You’re just an all-around great human and one of everyone’s favorite guys in the pits so I’m really going to miss you and I’m glad we sent you out on top. Man, I was sitting on the grid yesterday and I was just ready to go with the last race of the season and everything is on the line. I was ready to go and Rick gives me a fist pump and I see his bottom lip quivering and I was like, ‘Are you about to cry? Don’t do this to me right now.’ My heart just sank… and then I blew turn one (laughs). Seriously, a big thanks to all my guys and everyone at Yamaha, my girlfriend who doesn’t get too much credit, but she’s a big support to me; and to my family who are always behind me.”

MotoAmerica President Wayne Rainey closed the night’s festivities.

“This morning I was able to go to a roundtable with all the MotoAmerica Champions and we got to sit around and talk about the championship and how it went for each one of the racers,” Rainey said. “It was interesting for me to see how much a championship means to them and what all they went through to get it. And, tonight, to see all the top three in each class come up and talk about their season… it really struck me as pretty incredible because being a racer and now helping put together MotoAmerica, it’s really strange that I can be a part of this. There was a lot of controversy this year, a lot of hard riding – because it means a lot. And, quite frankly, I was all for it. If the riders don’t give all to achieve what they can to be champions, what is all this worth? Tonight, everyone talked about that. What it’s like to not win, what it meant to achieve. That’s what it’s all about and I’m really proud of what my partners and I have put together in the last five years.

“Everybody in here has a story. Everybody in here has a rider that they root for, a team they work for. There are so many people on those teams that need to do their jobs so their guy can get the job done. This is great. I’m very fortunate to come back and be a part of racing in this way. The best part for me is being at the racetrack. I love watching the races, the emotions. I feel for each and every guy when they fall down, I feel for the teams when they win and lose. It’s incredible.”

INDIANAPOLIS – John Della Penna, who fielded cars in CART and the Indy Racing League, has died at the age of 68 following a battle with cancer.

From Buenos Aires, Argentina, he began his career in race car ownership in the Atlantic Series. He fielded cars for a number of drivers through the years, including Jimmy Vasser, Richie Hearn, Scott Harrington and Memo Gidley.

In 1996 – the first year of the split between CART and the IRL – Della Penna decided to compete in both tours. His team made it’s Indianapolis 500 debut that year with Hearn at the wheel, scoring a third-place result.

Later in the year Hearn gave Della Penna his lone victory at Indy car competition at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sept. 15, 1996 with the Indy Racing League.

The next few years Della Penna’s team focused on CART with Hearn remaining at the wheel. The pairing ended after the 1999 season, with Gidley and Norberto Fontana sharing his car during the 2000 season.

Della Penna shut down his Indy car program at the end of the 2000 season.

Chris Windom’s month of May was unprecedented, largely for the amount of racing he packed into it and the number of different divisions in which he competed.

After all, there have been very few drivers in any era who would have taken on the challenge of adding the Indy Lights Freedom 100 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to a schedule that already included full-time rides in the USAC National Sprint Car Series, USAC National Midget Series and USAC Silver Crown Series.

However, Windom’s month of May was also unprecedented for the amount of carnage he endured and had to battle back from — a tall task for any racer anywhere in the world.

Windom’s holiday week of racing featured five different disciplines — Indy Lights, non-winged sprint cars on both pavement and dirt and Silver Crown cars on both pavement and dirt —  in a seven-day span.

While that kind of a rigorous schedule alone is something that might scare off most grassroots racers, it’s a challenge Windom embraced with open arms because of his passion for the sport.

“I love racing more than anything, and particularly racing anything I can, anywhere I can,” said Windom. “It’s what I signed up for, I guess. I’m fortunate to be a guy who gets to do that, because very few people have gotten the opportunities to be able to do the things that I’ve gotten to do. It’s pretty cool that I have the people backing me who want me to do things like what we tried to do in May this year, and it definitely fuels me to keep going and trying to win races because that’s how you get more chances.”

Windom began his wild week on May 21 with an Indy Lights test session at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, then practiced his non-winged pavement sprint on May 23 at Anderson (Ind.) Speedway before rolling over to the Terre Haute Action Track later that night to run the USAC-sanctioned Tony Hulman Classic sprint car race on dirt.

May 24 saw the Canton, Ill., native practice and qualify his Indy Lights car at IMS, helicopter over to Anderson Speedway to qualify his Little 500 sprint car and then rush to the Indiana State Fairgrounds dirt mile for the Hoosier Hundred USAC Silver Crown Series event that evening.

The Freedom 100 for Indy Lights took center stage on Friday, May 25, followed by the Silver Crown Carb Night Classic that night before the Little 500 on Saturday, May 26.

A non-winged sprint car event at Kokomo (Ind.) Speedway, honoring Windom’s longtime and late friend Bryan Clauson, capped off the week-long stretch on Sunday night, May 27.

Amid that week was chaos and crashes aplenty for Windom, who started a sequence of hard hits on lap six of the Hoosier Hundred at the Indy Mile, shredding a tire coming down the frontstretch and barrel-rolling violently before climbing out under his own power.

The bad news continued the next day when Windom was swept up in an opening-lap melee during the Freedom 100 after David Malukas spun into his path and Windom’s Indy Lights machine launched into the turn-four SAFER barrier.

Windom’s string of three crashes in three straight races concluded with a bang in the hours following the Freedom 100 when the engine blew in his Silver Crown car at Lucas Oil Raceway and he pounded the outside wall.

Many drivers faced with such a string of adversity might have thrown in the towel, but not Windom. He soldiered on to compete in the Little 500 — a 500-lap sprint car race on the high-banked, quarter-mile paved oval.

Though he ended the race down four laps to winner Kody Swanson, Windom finished fifth — a result he considered “a win, given everything we went through to get there.”

It was the start of a turnaround to Windom’s luck, which continued despite a rainout at Kokomo.

He went on to win his first USAC National Midget Series feature during Indiana Midget Week in June, a long-awaited triumph with Clauson-Marshall Racing that came at Lawrenceburg (Ind.) Speedway after a battle with teammate Tyler Courtney.

That was the moment Windom admitted he was “back to full song,” something that had been a tough feeling for the Prairie State native to come by in light of his rough month of May.

“The win at Lawrenceburg really started to heal the wounds of what went on for us during the month of May,” explained Windom. “We just had to — and I’ve been doing this for quite a while, going back to the beginning of my career — forget the lows and focus forward, because if you beat yourself up or get down, it’s hard to get out of that funk when you get down on yourself.

“You just have to go out with confidence in yourself, believing you can win and confidence in every race car that you strap into that it will go out and perform for you when the green flag drops.”

Windom is far from the first driver to go through a run of adversity and have to battle back; it’s a song and dance that happens to rookies, veterans and champions alike.

Click below to keep reading the story.

NAPA, Calif. – Justin Thomas has some extra motivation to go low this week as he kicks off a new season at the Safeway Open.

Thomas has been a frequent visitor to Baker’s Bay in the Bahamas, making multiple high-profile spring break trips with the likes of Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler, and he was watching at home while the area was devastated by Hurricane Dorian earlier this month. Baker’s Bay was only a few miles away from where the storm made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane before stalling out for nearly 48 hours and leaving a wake of destruction behind.

“To have that place almost completely wiped away, being closed for a year and a half or two (years), and the amount of damage it had and the fact that, you know, that spot, Baker's, is not even as bad as Marsh Harbour and other Abaco (islands) – it’s awful, it really is,” Thomas said Wednesday. “Those people that worked there, they don’t have houses to go back to and people that have grown up there and been through 13, 14 hurricanes, their house didn’t make it. It’s like, what do they have to go to?”

Thomas shared on social media that he made an undisclosed donation to support Convoy of Hope’s efforts in the Bahamas, and he is pledging $1,000 for every birdie he makes over the four remaining starts he has planned for 2019, starting this week at Silverado Resort & Spa.

“There’s nothing that I could do individually that could fix everything, but my big thing is I was just trying to spread the word and get others to hopefully pledge with me,” Thomas said. “It’s going to take a long time for them to heal and recover, so any little thing any person can do is huge.”

Thomas has reason to expect a few birdies this week on the North Course at Silverado, where he is the highest-ranked player in the field and where he cracked the top 10 in both 2016 and 2017. This will be his first start of the 2019-20 season, and also the first since a skin cancer scare that led to him having a mole cut out from his lower leg on Sept. 9 following a routine check-up.

Thomas had to limit his activity for two weeks while his leg recovered, but he feels ready to go in wine country after receiving a clean bill of health from his dermatologist.

“Anytime you get a text from your doctor, after hours, telling you to call him is usually not a good thing. So when I did, he kind of explained the situation and told me what was going on,” Thomas said. “I got the stitches out two days ago. So it feels good to have them out so it doesn’t feel like I’m ripping them everywhere I guess.”

Vinicius Jr. scored a stunning goal to help Real Madrid beat Osasuna 2-0 at the Bernabeu on Wednesday night to move into first place in La Liga ahead of cross-town neighbors Atletico.

Zinedine Zidane started a heavily rotated XI with Karim Benzema, Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois all on the bench, and the hosts went close twice inside of 20 minutes with Luka Jovic firing over the crossbar from close range and Toni Kroos just missing a golazo from distance soon after.

Osasuna had their chances, but Real Madrid were the first to score on 35 minutes when Vinicius Jr. picked up a pass from Kross, cut to his right and fired an unstoppable shot past Ruben to give his team a 1-0 lead at the break.

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Jovic made a mess of a clear-cut chance to double Madrid's lead just after the break, somehow flashing his shot over the bar for a second time after Lucas Vazquez had set him up with a one-on-one against Ruben.

The Serbian looked to have made amends just before the hour mark, slotting home from another Vazquez assist, but Jovic, still in search of his first goal since joining Los Blancos, was adjudged to be slightly offside on the play after video review and the goal was waved off.

Rodrygo, the summer arrival from Santos, finally gave Real their second, settling a long ball over the top of the Osasuna defence with a sublime first touch and racing into the penalty area to slot home a far post shot for the 2-0 lead.

The result puts extra significance on Saturday's Madrid derby at the Wanda Metropolitano with first place honours in La Liga on the line.