SPORTS DIGEST || Pacquiao to unretire, fight this November

Pacquiao to unretire, fight this November

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Manny Pacquiao isn’t ready to give up his night job just yet.

Pacquiao, who said before his last fight in April that he would retire, now plans to return to the ring in November against an opponent who has yet to be selected.

Promoter Bob Arum said Tuesday that Pacquiao got permission to take a break from his new duties as a senator in the Philippines to take another fight. It will be held Nov. 5, likely in Las Vegas.

“He likes to fight and he likes the attention,” Arum said of Pacquiao’s return.

Lynx ditch Black Lives Matter warmup shirts

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Minnesota Lynx players did not wear T-shirts supporting the Black Lives Matter movement during their game against the San Antonio Stars.

Members of the Lynx wore the shirts before Saturday’s game against the Dallas Wings which listed the names of two black men who were killed by police in Minnesota and Louisiana. The shirts also had the Dallas Police emblem on them.

Four off-duty police officers walked away from security jobs over the weekend because of the shirts.

“The Lynx organization was made aware about the concerns of the off duty Minneapolis police officers,” the team said in a statement. “While our players’ message mourned the loss of life due to last week’s shootings, we respect the right of those individual officers to express their own beliefs in their own way. We continue to urge a constructive discussion about the issues raised by these tragedies.”

Johnson to be guest instructor for Browns

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Former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson will work with the Browns’ wide receivers during training camp.

Johnson knows Cleveland head coach Hue Jackson from his time in Cincinnati. Jackson said Johnson is not on the coaching staff but is a guest-instructor that will work a portion of training camp.

Johnson reached out to the Browns in March on Twitter about coming in to work the receivers.

Manfred says game clean despite more HRs

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With home runs up to a level not seen since the height of the Steroids Era, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says he is not worried performance-enhancing drugs are a reason for the increase.

There was an average of nearly 2.32 home runs per game before the All-Star break, up from 1.90 in the first half of last year and the most before the break since 2.56 in 2000.

“The increase in the number of home runs takes place against a very, very different backdrop,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “It takes place against the backdrop where Major League Baseball does 22,000 drug tests a year.”

Thirteen players have been suspended this year under the big league drug program, including NL batting champion Dee Gordon of the Miami Marlins, nearly double the seven suspensions issued in all of 2015.

Offense started perking up during the second half of last season, and last year’s home run average ended at 2.02.

Stanton’s HRs cause marketing fiasco

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Before Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton hit 61 home runs during Monday’s Home Run Derby, the Marlins sent an email to fans saying they’d knock a percentage point off future tickets based on Stanton’s performance.

However, when fans looked for 61 percent off tickets, they found tickets were only 25 percent off.

Marlins team president David Samson said that MLB Advanced Media, which runs the team’s website, caps these offers at 25 percent.

“What Giancarlo did was so cool that we are working on an additional offer,” Samson said. “We’re thinking about picking a game and offering 61 percent off.”

Staff/Wire reports