Author: qap7qg9s

A man was found fatally shot Tuesday morning in North Lawndale, according to Chicago police.

Howaun Roberts, 20, was in an alleyway in the 3400 block of West Polk Street at 9:56 a.m. when he was shot multiple times, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

He was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital where he later died, police said in a statement. No arrests were reported.

A man was fatally shot early Tuesday on the Near North Side, Chicago police said.

Javanti Smith, 40, was outside in the 400 block of West Evergreen Avenue around 2:10 a.m. when he was shot multiple times, police said.

The man was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said. His name was released Tuesday evening by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Area detectives were investigating.

A man was found fatally shot in Back of the Yards Tuesday evening, according to Chicago police.

The man, 26, was found with a chest wound near the street in the 900 block of West 54th Street at 6:50 p.m., police said. He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center and pronounced dead, police said.

Police reported no arrests.

White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami went 1-for-3 with a single and two strikeouts while playing five innings at first base Tuesday in his first rehab game at Triple-A Charlotte. There’s no set timeline for his return, but it’s plausible that he’s in the Sox’ lineup Friday for the opener of a series against the Athletics.

“There’s a game plan to build him up throughout the week,” Sox manager Will Venable said. “Take it day by day to see how he’s feeling and recovering and see if he’s getting enough at-bats. And then hopefully at some point before the break, we’ll activate.”

Venable has said he expects Murakami, who strained his right hamstring May 29, to play a couple of games in Charlotte. If that’s the case, Murakami could play Wednesday and travel Thursday to Chicago.

His return will necessitate a difficult roster decision. Jacob Gonzalez is playing well at first base and coming on at the plate. But there might not be playing time available elsewhere on the infield, where he actually has more experience.

“Every one of these guys has contributed,” Venable said. “We’ve been talking about that in every one of these wins, every one of these games. That makes it tough when you have guys that you’re bringing back and getting healthy because everyone has done such a good job. Good problems to have, but we’ll figure it out when we get there.”

Injury updates

With rain pouring and the field covered before the game Sunday in Cleveland, injured Sox outfielder Austin Hays ran sprints in right field under the supervision of trainer Brad Lawson. Hays is on the 60-day injured list with a strained left calf.

“He looked really good running, and so he’ll continue to run and take [batting practice], and then we’ll see how it goes over the All-Star break relative to being able to move around,” Venable said. “And then if he’s in a good spot, we’ll look at what a rehab assignment would look like.”

Outfielder Everson Pereira still is battling symptoms from a concussion. Venable described him as day-to-day.

“Still working through getting the intensity up with the activities without having symptoms,” he said.

Oh, Noah

Left-hander Noah Schultz had another rough outing in his second start since returning from the injured list (tendinitis in right knee). In five innings, he allowed four runs, seven hits (two home runs) and three walks with three strikeouts. In 10 starts this season, he has a 6.00 ERA (32 earned runs in 48 innings).

BALTIMORE — Pete Crow-Armstrong had a June for the ages.

His next trick? Well, it’s not slowing down.

The Cubs’ center fielder is off to the races in July, starting the month 6-for-12 in four games coming into Tuesday.

After batting .381 last month, he’s off to a .500 beginning to this month.

Yeah, yeah, small sample size. But still. The guy’s on fire.

“Obviously,” team president Jed Hoyer said toward the end of June, “he’s not going to play like this the whole season.”

Are we sure about that?

Crow-Armstrong’s teammates are still marveling, awestruck by the transformation the 24-year-old has made. He reached base at a .287 clip and walked just 29 times in 157 games last season. He carried a .383 on-base percentage into Tuesday and walked 41 times in his first 90 games this year.

“The most impressive thing is the plate discipline and the walks,” outfielder Ian Happ said Tuesday. “For him to get to this point this quickly and really, in a matter of a week or two, kind of change the way that he approaches at-bats and the patience, the ability to lay off some really tough pitches … that’s been the most impressive thing to watch is just the consistency of the quality of at-bats.

“There’s always been thump there. There’s always been unbelievable tools and the speed and the defense. What he did last year was so special. But … to watch the way that he’s walking, it makes him so lethal because he’s such a good base runner.”

And there’s a whole lot of career left for Crow-Armstrong, a long-term franchise cornerstone thanks to the contract extension he signed before the season that will keep him in a Cubs uniform through 2032.

Isn’t it worth wondering if the newly minted two-time All Star can reach even greater heights?

Or, given that his month of June put him in the same club as Babe Ruth, is that asking too much?

“If you bottled this player that he is right this second and gave him 15 more years of that, it’d be pretty special,” Happ said. “There’s always room to get better at things, but this version of him in the last month is pretty spectacular.”

Time for Taillon?

Righty starter Jameson Taillon could still return from the injured list prior to the All-Star break, but the Cubs hope they don’t have to bring him back that quickly.

Manager Craig Counsell said Tuesday the team is planning for Taillon to follow Sunday’s minor league rehab start with another. But should a need arise during the Cubs’ road trip to end the first half, they could bring Taillon back sooner for a “limited” outing.

That safety-net approach makes sense considering the Cubs’ experience with pitching injuries, including the hamstring strain that’s sidelined Taillon since early June.

More pitching updates

The Cubs are also waiting on recoveries from injured righties Edward Cabrera and Daniel Palencia.

Cabrera, down with his own hamstring strain, had a positive day of work Sunday. A recent update from Counsell projected a recovery period lasting slightly longer than Taillon’s, which has already lasted a month.

Palencia, meanwhile, is said to be making progress, with the Cubs expecting their closer to start throwing off a mound following the break.

And that injured position player

Utility man Matt Shaw tested his sprained left hand while taking swings last weekend. The Cubs will give him some more time before testing it again.

“There’s symptoms still,” Counsell said, “so we’re giving him another four, five days to rest and we’re going to re-test and go from there.”

The U.S. game against Belgium in the round of 16 at the World Cup set another record as the most-watched soccer telecast in U.S. history, Fox said after preliminary ratings came out Tuesday.

Fox said 30 million people watched the game, a 4-1 victory for Belgium on Monday in Seattle to move into the quarterfinals and eliminate the last of the tournament’s three co-hosts. Fox said audience peaked at more than 36.8 million people between 9:15 and 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

That topped the previous mark, the U.S.-Bosnia-Herzegovina game last week that Fox said was watched by 26.4 million.

A man was fatally shot in a West Side alley Tuesday morning.

The victim was in the alley in the 3400 block of West Polk Street around 10 a.m. in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, when an assailant shot him multiple times, Chicago police and a Chicago Fire Department spokesperson said.

He was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, according to police. His name, age and other personal information have not been released.

No arrests have been made.

Area 4 detectives are investigating.

Agents and teams typically use the NFL Scouting Combine to do more than measure prospects — through conversations, they get a sense of the pending free agent market.

This season, the two sides won’t have to think too far back to those conversations. The NFL’s legal tampering window will open March 9, one day after the conclusion of the Combine. Typically, teams have at least a week between when they leave Indianapolis and when free agency begins.

The Feb. 14 Super Bowl in Los Angeles and April 29-May 1 draft in Washington, D.C., were previously set. The NFL announced other key dates for the upcoming season Tuesday:

• Aug. 30: Teams must whittle their roster to 53 players
• Nov. 10: Trade deadline
• Feb. 14: Super Bowl LXI in Los Angeles
• March 1-8: NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis
• March 9: Legal tampering window opens
• March 11: First day of the league year
• March 21: NFL’s annual meeting in Phoenix
• April 29-May 1: NFL draft in Washington, D.C.

The NFL will hold its fall quarterly meeting in New York City from Oct. 20-21 and its spring quarterly meeting in Las Colinas, Texas, from May 25-26. Those could prove critical for the Bears, as owners need to vote to approve a stadium site once the team chooses one.

The Bears report to training camp at the end of this month.

Navy Pier is offering free rides on its Centennial Wheel every Wednesday through Labor Day after storms that rolled through the Chicago area made for a foggy Fourth of July fireworks show.

The free rides are available after 6 p.m. starting Wednesday for those who register, Navy Pier announced in a Facebook post Tuesday. Riders can secure up to four tickets per week.

“While we can’t control the weather, we can try to make it right,” the post states.

The special Fourth of July show that began at 10 p.m. was longer than the typical summer show at Navy Pier, had nearly twice as many fireworks and covered double the area along the lakefront.

But fog rolled in along the lake after Saturday’s afternoon storms and obscured most of the spectacle. In a late-night statement, Navy Pier said it was “disappointed with the effect fog had on tonight’s Independence Day Fireworks visibility and understand it impacted our guests’ experience.”