They represent West Coconut Grove when it was a vital majority-Black neighborhood hidden among some of the most affluent areas in Miami that boomed with family businesses, local hangouts and sporting events. Some call it West Grove, Black Grove or Little Bahamas in a nod to its roots. Most just call it The Grove — a place steeped in cultural history transformed by the decades.

“When you talk about what is The Grove, you’re talking about true history of South Florida,” said Charles Gibson, grandson of one of the first Black members of the Miami City Commission, Theodore Gibson.

Sports was its heartbeat. It nurtured the early careers of Olympic gold medalists and football stars like Cooper, national champions and future football Hall of Famers like Gore, all of whom trace their first sports memories to this close-knit community.

Today, few remnants of that proud Black heritage exist. Years of economic neglect followed by recent gentrification have wiped out much of the neighborhood’s cultural backbone. Robust youth leagues and sports programs have dwindled. Now, the community that once created an environment for young athletes to succeed — a trusted neighbor watching out for a young football player on his walk to practice, a respected coach instilling discipline and persistence in a future track star — is at risk of extinction.

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

That was eight years ago. Back when she was still just a teenager. Still kind of “ditzy.”

Those days are long gone. The evidence isn’t just on Biles drivers’ license or her marriage certificate but in how the now 27-year-old is able to see beyond herself. The tunnel vision that most great athletes have in pursuit of greatness has fallen away.

And maybe that’s the biggest difference between the national title the gymnastics star won on Sunday night — her ninth, this one with an all-around total of 119.750 — and her first over a decade ago.

The defining moment of Biles’ victory wasn’t a twist, a turn or a jump, but a walk.

It came early on, when Biles watched 2020 Olympic champion and good friend Sunisa Lee spin awkwardly in the air during her vault and landed on her back, a mixture of surprise and fear spreading across her face.

“I was kind of thinking that this was over,” Lee said.

Then Biles appeared at her side, unprompted. She knew exactly where Lee was in that moment better than anyone.

Three years ago at the Tokyo Games, a similar wayward vault by Biles started a chain of events that led to her withdrawing from multiple competitions and dragging the discussion on the importance of mental health front and center.

Watching Lee, who has spent most of the last two years battling kidney issues that have made her weight yo-yo and complicated her training, try to gather herself, Biles left her World Champions Centre teammates and gave Lee the kind of support Biles relied on so heavily back in Japan.

“I know how traumatizing it is, especially on a big stage like this,” Biles said. “And I didn’t want her to get in her head, so we just went and talked about it.”

The two retreated off the floor to talk, with Biles reminding Lee she “could do hard things.”

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

Josh Gibson, one of the greatest sluggers in the history of the Negro Leagues, is now listed as MLB’s new all-time career leader in batting average at .372, moving ahead of Ty Cobb at .367.

The MLB website shows Gibson also overtaking Babe Ruth in career slugging percentage.

“We are proud that the official historical record now includes the players of the Negro Leagues. This initiative is focused on ensuring that future generations of fans have access to the statistics and milestones of all those who made the Negro Leagues possible,” said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in a statement.

“Their accomplishments on the field will be a gateway to broader learning about this triumph in American history and the path that led to Jackie Robinson’s 1947 Dodger debut.”

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Gibson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

“I know Josh Gibson had a great career in the Negro Leagues. He is considered one of the greatest players of all time, but we always considered Josh Gibson a major leaguer anyway. It’s just now that he is recognized in the Major League Baseball stats,” Sean Gibson, the slugger’s great grandson, told ABC’s Good Morning America.

The power-hitting catcher’s Baseball Hall of Fame plaque – he’s one of 35 Negro League stars enshrined in Cooperstown – says he “hit almost 800 home runs in league and independent baseball” during his 17-year career.

However, the majority of those homers came not in league-sanctioned games (about 50 to 75 per season) but in exhibitions played against former big leaguers and White semi-pro teams.

“It’s a big day,” Negro League Museum president Bob Kendrick told Yahoo Sports. “The great thing about it is that we’ve been saying that quite a bit over recent days and weeks as it relates to the Negro Leagues.

“This is the result of a lot of intensive effort by some incredible historians and researchers who have completely dedicated themselves to trying to do something that people thought probably wasn’t possible.”

More than 2,300 Negro Leagues players from 1920-1948 – including Hall of Famer Willie Mays – were added to the MLB database as more stats are “still being discovered.”

Also, MLB career statistics for other Hall of Famers like Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige and Minnie Miñoso now reflect their Negro Leagues’ accomplishments.

For example, Robinson’s 49 hits with the Kansas City Monarchs in 1945 increase his career total from 1,518 to 1,567. Paige’s career wins total goes from 28 to 125 and Miñoso’s 150 hits with the New York Cubans raised his career total over the 2,000 hits milestone to 2,113.

This comes about three and a half years after MLB recognized the Negro Leagues as its equivalent and counted the statistics and records of thousands of Black players who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to the late 1940s.

Even though that recognition happened in December 2020, MLB at the time said it needed time to review how that recognition would affect MLB record books. That was in part because some statistics were still being compiled and because MLB needed to sort league-sanctioned games from exhibitions.

“Shortened Negro League schedules, interspersed with revenue-raising exhibition games, were born of MLB’s exclusionary practices,” John Thorn, MLB historian who chaired the review Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee, said in a statement. “To deny the best Black players of the era their rightful place among all-time leaders would be a double penalty.”

Baseball historian Larry Lester, who also served on the committee, added: “Stories, folklore and embellished truths have long been a staple of the Negro Leagues narrative. Those storylines will always be entertaining, but now our dialogues can be quantified and qualified to support the authentic greatest of these athletes.

“Every fan should welcome this statistical restitution towards social reparation.”

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MLB in 2020 said it was “correcting a longtime oversight” by elevating the status of the Negro Leagues — which consisted of seven leagues and about 3,400 Black and Latino players from 1920 to 1948.

“Many people have heard of Martin Dihigo and Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige. But what about the thousands of other men who played in the Negro Leagues from 1920 to 1948? They’re being recognized finally as major league caliber ballplayers,” Scott Simkus, one of the researchers credited by MLB with compiling and constructing the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database, said at the time.

“Their statistical records, their careers are going to be considered equal to anybody who had played in the National League or American League during that period of time.”

“It’s sad this great history has been kept from them,” Lester, co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, said at the time.

Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, had said the recognition “serves as historical validation for those who had been shunned from the Major Leagues and had the foresight and courage to create their own league that helped change the game and our country, too.”