SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields might not be fully healthy when the second-ranked Buckeyes face No. 3 Clemson in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

Fields said Tuesday his left knee is only 80 to 85% heading into Saturday's College Football Playoff semifinal in Glendale. He plans to wear a small brace during the game and brought a larger one in case anything happens.

"My knee's probably not where I want it to be right now," Fields said. "But I think with treatment every day and just resting it every day, hopefully, it will be better by the game."

Fields aggravated a previous injury against Penn State on Nov. 23 and again the following week against Michigan when a teammate rolled into his knee. He struggled in the first half of the Big Ten championship game against Wisconsin before throwing two touchdown passes as the Buckeyes rallied for a 34-21 victory.

Fields has been practicing during the buildup to the Fiesta Bowl, but with limited mobility.

"I try to get as many reps as possible," he said. "I really haven't missed any reps, I've just been getting in there and playing. I just can't really move like I want to."

Fields finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting and was named the Big Ten offensive player of the year after throwing for 2,953 yards, 40 touchdowns and one interception.

The winner of Saturday's game will face No. 1 LSU or No. 4 Oklahoma in the national title game Jan. 13 in New Orleans.

INDIANAPOLIS – Max Kaeser has joined Miller Vinatieri Motorsports to contest the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship schedule next year.

Kaeser will race as a teammate to Jack William Miller for the team.

“Max had a successful outing with us at the Chris Griffis Memorial Test a couple months ago, and we have been working hard to put a deal together for 2020,” said Jack Miller, co-owner of the Miller Vinatieri Motorsports program. “Max consistently improved throughout the test and was able to run times inside the top-ten by the end of the weekend.”

“I am happy to finally have a deal done, and I can shift my focus to the upcoming season,” explains Kaeser, who is a very accomplished ski racer. “I will be working hard over the next three months to ensure that I am 100 percent ready for the first green flag in St. Petersburg and can’t thank Jack and the entire Miller Vinatieri Motorsports organization for this amazing opportunity.”

Kaeser will drive the Miller Vinatieri Motorsports candy apple red No. 41 entry and will announce his marketing partners in the new year while Jack William Miller will be back behind the wheel of the No. 40.

David Beckham's Inter Miami CF announced the signings of defender Denso Ulysse and goalkeeper Drake Callender on Tuesday.

Haiti international Ulysse, 21, played with the USL champion Tacoma Defiance last season

"We're happy to add a player with Denso's potential to our inaugural roster," said Inter sporting director Paul McDonough in a statement. "He has had tremendous success in the USL, and we hope to continue his upward trajectory."

Callender, 22, had his homegrown rights acquired last month in a trade with the San Jose Earthquakes.

"We're excited to sign Drake to a contract after acquiring his Homegrown Rights from San Jose," said McDonough. "He's a driven, young goalkeeper who stood out at the collegiate level both on and off the pitch."

"Give God a laugh," they say: "tell him your plans."

Joe Root could be forgiven for reflecting ruefully on the expression as his England side head into the first Test in South Africa. It would be unfair to suggest his squad has been thrown into disarray by events of the last few days - they still have most bases covered - but, through no fault of their own, the challenge they face in South Africa has become significantly more complicated due to a bout of sickness that appears to be working its way through the tour party. It is a far-from-ideal start to a series England probably have to win if they are to stand a realistic chance of qualifying for the final of the World Test Championship.

First the good news. James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Jofra Archer all came through a long training session on Christmas Eve unscathed. Anderson really does look as fit and strong as ever, Broad looks fully recovered from the illness that laid him low, and Archer doesn't look far behind him. At this stage, it seems all three will play.

But there's bad news, too. Chris Woakes wasn't at training, having reported symptoms of the sickness that has afflicted half-a-dozen of the rest of the squad. He will now spend Christmas Day in isolation - the rest of the squad will train - and has to be considered most unlikely for the Boxing Day Test. Woakes might well have been utilised in a Neil-Wagner-style enforcer role here - he delivered a torrent of bouncers in the latest warm-up game - and would, no doubt, have added some depth to the batting. Sam Curran looks set to play in his place not least as, unless he does, England will have to pick between Jack Leach and Archer to bat at No. 8.

"Despite the evidence suggesting spinners enjoy little success at Centurion - it is the worst ground for them, both in terms of average and strike rate, among the 41 that have hosted at least five Tests over the last 10 years - there is a case for including one."

More seriously, Ben Stokes also missed training after his father was taken seriously ill in Johannesburg on Monday. It goes without saying, in this day and age, that the welfare of the Stokes family - most of which was here to watch the series - will be prioritised in the coming days and it will be left up to the player to decide whether it is appropriate for him to appear in the game. But it also goes without saying that the show will go on. And there is no easy way to replace Ben Stokes.

With Woakes unfit, it seems the most likely reaction to Stokes' unavailability would be a recall for Jonny Bairstow at No. 5. That would, in theory at least, shore up the batting. But it leaves England with a four-man seam attack on a pitch that, after the first morning, might look pretty flat for two or three days. Truly, no man has been as hard to replace for England from the Test side that reached No. 1 in the world as Graeme Swann.

Despite the evidence suggesting spinners enjoy little success at Centurion - it is the worst ground for them, both in terms of average and strike rate, among the 41 that have hosted at least five Tests over the last 10 years - there is a case for including one. For a start, the next few days are set to be hot (mid-30s) and the inclusion of a spinner might ease the workload for the seamers. Equally, it might also provide some variation from an attack that might otherwise include three men expected to bowl between 80-90 mph.

ALSO READ: England mulling all-seam attack for first Test - Silverwood

It was telling, however, that Root referred to the health of Leach as his first concern. Leach, you may recall, spent the second Test in New Zealand in hospital after suffering a bout of gastroenteritis and has been unwell again on this trip. His situation is complicated by a long-standing struggle with Crohn's disease which may extend the period from which he suffers from such incidents. And while Matt Parkinson remains a promising white-ball bowler, there isn't a huge amount of evidence to suggest he is ready for Test cricket. He has so far claimed two wickets for 225 runs in his 52 overs of red-ball cricket for England.

"We've got to find out where everyone is at first with this illness," Root said. "In terms of the balance of the side, we'll have to make a very late call on our team."

It would be harsh to level any criticism at England for the state in which they find themselves. Maybe they could have ensured the original squad had a reserve seamer who was match-ready for this first Test - Mark Wood is still some way from full fitness - but by calling up Craig Overton (and Dom Bess) as soon as they realised the severity of the sickness within the squad, they reacted as well as could be desired. In truth, they've just been unfortunate and, from Root at least, there is no question of using circumstance as an excuse.

"We're very lucky we've got a big squad out here," Root said. "And we've a number of guys in a really good place and ready to go. We've some competitive players who are desperate to prove a point. We're here to play good, hard cricket and to win this series."

In Anderson, at least, he has a gem. At an age when other seamers might be thinking of the weeks of rehab as unbearable, Anderson still has the desire to have spent months recovering from an injury to drag himself to this position once more. We can leave debates over his place in the pantheon of seam-bowling greats to another day - though his stats suggest he merits a mention among the best of them - but his hunger, his determination and his unquenchable love for this great game cannot be denied.

"He's incredible," Root said. "He's had a significant time away from the game and for a guy as experienced as him to use that time to go away and improve himself physically is a really good example to the rest of the group.

"It must have been difficult for him to miss a huge series like the Ashes. But he's taken that time to work on his strength and fitness. He's in as good a shape as I've ever seen him.

"A lot of it comes down to drive and desire. It's testament to him as a person and to his work ethic. He's a great example to any young cricketer at the start of their career."

Mark Boucher recently alluded to his South Africa team as a wounded buffalo. England may well see themselves as a sickly lion. Which is most dangerous is hard to gauge.

The New York Mets have reached a one-year deal with right-handed reliever Dellin Betances, sources confirmed to ESPN.

The deal is worth $10.5 million, but Betances could earn $13 million if he appears in 70 games. There is a player option in 2021 and a vesting player option for 2022, sources told ESPN's Jeff Passan.

The 6-foot-8 Betances, who has 621 strikeouts in 381 2/3 career innings, is a flamethrower with a fastball that clocks close to 100 mph, but injury problems kept him out almost all of last season. He was diagnosed with an impingement in his pitching shoulder after his fourth spring training appearance on March 17. His rehabilitation stopped when the team said June 11 that he had strained his right latissimus dorsi muscle, and Betances did not start a minor league injury rehabilitation assignment until September.

Betances finally made it back into a big-league game before the end of the season, when a partially torn left Achilles tendon suffered when he hopped on the mound after celebrating a strikeout ended his comeback after just eight pitches.

But Betances has been one of the American League's most reliable setup men during his run of seven seasons with the Yankees. A four-time All-Star, Betances is 21-22 with a 2.36 career ERA in 358 relief appearances over his seven big-league seasons. During one three-year stretch in the Bronx, he chalked up an incredible 392 strikeouts to lead the league three times in that category, with an earned-run average of 1.93.

Betances began his major league career in 2011 with the Yankees; he mostly was used as a starter in his early years, then began moving into a relief role.

Story of the sides reaching an agreement was first reported by SNY.

BOSTON -- All Celtics forward Gordon Hayward wants for Christmas is the nerve pain in his left foot to go away.

Hayward, who has missed the past three games because of the issue, went through practice Tuesday and is listed as probable for Wednesday's Christmas Day matinee against the Raptors in Toronto.

Now he's hoping that, after dealing with the nerve pain for the past week, he's beginning to get to the root of a problem that has dogged him since the Celtics won in Cleveland on Nov. 5.

"It's been a long time, and something I'd been playing through," Hayward said after Tuesday's practice. "I could figure out a way to play through it, but it was progressively getting worse when I wouldn't play, so we tried to figure out solutions.

"For whatever reason we tried a solution that made it worse, and that's why I couldn't play."

Hayward said that he initially felt the pain in his left foot after that win in Cleveland, but he and the Celtics found a way to calm it down enough so he could play. Four days later, however, he suffered a broken bone in his left hand in the second quarter of Boston's win in San Antonio against the Spurs, knocking him out of action for a month.

But while he sat out and recovered from that injury, his foot continued to bother him. To make matters worse, he and the Celtics couldn't figure out what, exactly, was causing the problem.

"You don't," he said with a smile, when asked how he avoided getting frustrated. "I was frustrated, I was super frustrated. I broke my hand, and this was a different issue that when I wasn't playing you would think I could figure it out. My hand was broke. The fact that [the foot] was getting worse was frustrating everybody.

"We were calling around the country trying to figure it out. Hopefully we did."

Hayward said he's gotten three cortisone shots in the foot.

"Hopefully the third time was the charm," he said.

How he feels Wednesday morning will determine whether Hayward plays. He got the shot Monday and had no issues going through practice Tuesday.

"If he's available, then he'll start and play," Stevens said. "We'll be alert to his minutes, like we were on the first game back."

When the Celtics announced last week that Hayward was dealing with left foot soreness, it set off alarm bells because he had multiple surgeries on his left foot and leg after being injured two years ago, minutes into his first game as a member of the Celtics.

Hayward said he suspects that those injuries have something to do with what he's dealing with now.

"I think it had everything to do with the prior injury," he said. "I didn't get hurt on my right foot, so when you have a traumatic event to your foot or your ankle, things are going to change inside of there that you don't know necessarily because they don't bug you, but things start to poke their head a little bit if it gets tweaked in some way or another.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that it's my left foot."

Another Celtic on the mend is Marcus Smart, who has been out for the past six games with an eye infection that spread to both eyes. Smart has returned to practice, but coach Brad Stevens said the goal is for Smart to play sometime before the end of the calendar year.

Boston hosts the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday and the Raptors on Saturday, before traveling to Charlotte for a game against the Hornets on New Year's Eve.

Enes Kanter also will be available for Wednesday's game. Because Kanter will be available, and the Raptors are dealing with injuries to Pascal Siakam (groin), Norm Powell (shoulder) and Marc Gasol (hamstring), the Celtics won't have center Tacko Fall active -- opting instead to activate their other two-way player, guard Tremont Waters.

"They're super small and fast," Stevens said. "Like, super-fast. They press, they zone, they mix up defenses and try to keep you off balance, so that would be a game where we would be more ball handlers and more skill."

DALLAS -- Luka Doncic was a full participant in the Dallas Mavericks' Christmas Eve practice -- his first since spraining his right ankle almost two weeks ago -- and could return as soon as Thursday's home game against the San Antonio Spurs.

"He seems to be doing better every day," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. "I don't know what his status will be for Thursday, but he'll certainly be upgraded. He's doing well. We'll see how he feels tomorrow, and then Thursday we'll see what's what, but things are looking better and better."

Doncic, 20, moved well during the practice, but the Mavs want to monitor how the superstar's ankle responds before determining his status against the Spurs.

"I'm feeling good," said Doncic, who has emerged as an early MVP candidate by averaging 29.3 points, 9.6 rebounds and 8.9 assists per game. "Just taking care of it. A lot of things that we have to do, and we're just taking care of it. We'll see how it progresses, and we'll see if I play."

Doncic injured the ankle when he stepped on the foot of Miami Heat guard Kendrick Nunn while driving to the basket in the opening minutes of the Mavs' double-overtime loss on Dec. 14. The ankle rolled over so far that it touched the hardwood, and the Mavs felt fortunate that X-rays were negative and Doncic was diagnosed with a lateral ankle sprain.

The Mavs managed to win two of the four games that Doncic sat out despite facing all Eastern Conference powers, pulling off road wins over the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers with Jalen Brunson replacing Doncic in the starting lineup. It would have been a 3-1 week for the Mavs, but they became the first NBA team in a decade to blow a 30-point lead in a loss Sunday to the Toronto Raptors.

"We have a great team and had some tough matchups," Doncic said. "They played great. Like I always say, we have a deep team."

After staying home when the Mavs traveled to Milwaukee immediately after his injury, Doncic joined the Mavs for their weekend road trip to Philadelphia and Toronto and ramped up his rehabilitation process. He went through extended workouts under the supervision of Dallas director of player health and performance Casey Smith before both games. Doncic worked at close to full speed Sunday in Toronto, going through a series of one-on-one moves against the defense of assistant coach Jamahl Mosley.

"I just want to go back on the court to play, because I'm competitive," Doncic said. "I just wanted it to get better quick, get back as soon as possible."

The Los Angeles Lakers will have their stars on the court for a Christmas Day showdown with the LA Clippers.

LeBron James and Anthony Davis are expected to play on Wednesday, league sources told ESPN. James missed a game for the first time all season Sunday with a thoracic muscle strain and discomfort in his groin; Davis tweaked his right knee during that game, a loss to Denver.

James and Davis encouraged an impromptu early-morning practice on Christmas Eve, sources told ESPN, in preparation for the Lakers' first game against the fully-formed Clippers with both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George available to play.

The Lakers, who recently completed a stint of 12 out of 15 games on the road, practiced Monday, but both James and Davis were held out of on-court participation.

With an early 5 p.m. PT tip time on Christmas making it too much of a time crunch to hold a morning shootaround on the day of, the two Lakers leaders brought the group in on Tuesday so they could join their teammates in the walk-through to prepare for the Clippers.

Lakers coach Frank Vogel lamented his team's overall lack of practice time and conceded that it could be a contributor to the three-game losing streak L.A. is currently mired in.

"We went a 10-day trip without a single practice, really," Vogel said Monday. "One shootaround, I think. Sometimes that benefits your legs, but usually it leads to a little bit of slippage in your execution and togetherness, particularly on the defensive end."

The Clippers beat the Lakers 112-102 on opening night in a game that the Lakers admit was not their best execution. "I think we were super emotional in the first game, and it showed," Dwight Howard said this week, looking back at the loss.

James and Davis' extra practice time would seem to be a step towards drilling down the game plan to have that knowledge to fall back on when the atmosphere gets charged at Staples Center for Lakers-Clippers Part 2.

"It's a little bit like the playoffs," Vogel said. "You want to be jacked up. But sometimes the best mental approach to the playoffs is managing your adrenaline and managing the edge. But let's start with the edge first. Bring the juice first. If we're overboard with it, we can always pull back. But you don't want to be it the other way around. And it won't be."

Outfielder Kole Calhoun and the Arizona Diamondbacks are in agreement on a two-year, $16 million deal with a third-year team option for $9 million, sources told ESPN, confirming multiple reports.

Calhoun, 32, who became a free agent for the first time when the Los Angeles Angels declined to exercise his 2020 contract option, has spent his entire career with the Angels, who drafted him in the eighth round in 2010 out of Arizona State.

Calhoun first cracked the Angels' big league roster in 2012, and he spent most of the past six seasons as their right fielder. He won a Gold Glove in 2015.

Calhoun hit a career-best 33 homers last season while batting .232 with 74 RBIs. He has 884 hits, including 140 homers.

WEBSTER CITY, Iowa – Habits can be hard to break, and that seems to be the case for Rodney Sanders, whose habit of winning continued this year with his third USMTS national championship.

Sanders, who turned 30 years old less than two weeks after securing the title at Deer Creek Speedway’s 21st annual Featherlite Fall Jamboree on Sept. 21, also won back-to-back crowns in 2013 and 2014.

Despite being considered a veteran of the sport at such a young age, success hasn’t gotten an easier for the Happy, Texas, hustler.

“It’s definitely tough,” Sanders said. “A lot of people see the racing part of it and think they want to do it and then they come try it for a month and realize how much work it is. A lot of it is late hours and being away from home-that’s the biggest thing. I’m maybe gone for a couple months at a time. It’s tough to find help but it’s really tough to find good help. It’s grueling for sure.”

His grueling schedule saw him compete in every USMTS event as he swept the three regional series schedules in addition to his overall United States Modified Touring Series national title. From beginning to end, however, he donned the daiglo yellow spoiler as the Wrisco Points Leader.

“We had a really good year. We raced 71 times and had 20 wins and 19 second-place finishes along with winning our third USMTS championship and all three regional championships. All of this wouldn’t be possible without all our great marketing partners.”

Eleven of those wins occurred during the 41-race USMTS grind – a winning percentage of more than 26 percent. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that his No. 20 MBCustoms machine finished outside of the top 10 just twice in those 41 starts.

“I feel we have good preparation week in and week out and obviously luck doesn’t hurt anything so I just feel like we had a good team, worked well together and just tried to stay out of trouble,” Sanders revealed. “Usually the better you run the higher up front you are and you get to race with good guys so you don’t tear up anything. We had good parts on the car and didn’t have hardly any parts failures, motors ran great… I think it’s just a combination of everything.”

That combination produced his fifth USMTS season with at least $100,000 in earnings and more than $1 million since his rookie season in 2007.

Money-wise, his biggest tax return happened in 2014 when he took home nearly $150,000 in winnings. That magical season that produced a seven-race win streak during the campaign netted him $10,000 for winning King of America IV in March, $20,000 at the World Modified Dirt Track Championship in July and $12,000 with his win rain-delayed Sunday win at the Featherlite Fall Jamboree.

The following year was almost as good, but it was also one that ended in heartbreak. With a $100,000 bonus up for grabs to any driver who could win three regional championships plus the USMTS national championship, Sanders trailed Jason Hughes by just four points on the final night but came up short and settled for second in the final standings while Hughes netted his second USMTS title.

Fast forward four years and Sanders finally sealed the deal for the season sweep. En route to claiming the 2019 USMTS national championship, he added first-place efforts in the MSD Performance USMTS Mid-American Series, Spike Hardcore Energy USMTS Northern Lights Series, Summit USMTS Southern Series and the USMTS Hunt for the Casey’s Cup powered by Summit.

Sanders ended the 2019 season with 97 career USMTS wins-fourth on the all-time list behind Kelly Shryock (182), Hughes (155) and Ryan Gustin (101). As a 19-year-old, his first win happened at the LA Raceway in La Monte, Mo.

“It don’t really seem right, especially the wins and everything,” Sanders added. “We kind of got two (championships) there pretty early and I didn’t know if we’d ever get another one. It’s a tough deal and it’s pretty cool to say we’ve done it three times.”

Pushing Sanders from beginning to end this year was Dereck Ramirez. A veteran at 33 years of age, Ramirez shadowed Sanders nearly every night and settled for a second-place paycheck on 11 occasions while also garnering three wins.

The two racers remain close friends, which translates into respect on the racetrack, Sanders said.

“I felt like this year as a whole, with the group of guys that we raced against, I felt like it was the most fun. We interacted with each other more than in the past and everyone got along great, and that makes it a lot more fun”

For Sanders, the 2019 campaign was another year of checking off boxes for his résumé on his hall-of-fame level journey. While a victory in four of the USMTS crown jewels eluded him, the one that did not was the one that seems to never get away.

In July, Sanders nabbed his seventh Imperial Tile Silver Dollar Nationals title at the I-80 Speedway in Greenwood, Nebraska. In fact, 10 of his 97 career wins have happened at the Kosiski family’s four-tenths-mile high-banked dirt oval.

Sanders noted that getting his first-ever USMTS win at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri, was a highlight of the 2019 campaign. In order to win the 10th Annual USMTS Slick Mist Show-Me Shootout, he had to claw his way through a Real Racing Wheels “B” Main and then started 14th in the main event.

Statistically speaking, Sanders now has three USMTS national championships but has also finished second twice and third three times. In 12 seasons, he has 97 wins, 348 top-fives and 485 top-10 finishes in 627 starts. He’s also led 3,154 main event laps.