Houston Astros owner Jim Crane wrote a letter to a Sports Illustrated reporter to apologize for a statement from the team last week that questioned her reporting.

Stephanie Apstein on Sunday tweeted the letter from Crane, saying she received it on Saturday.

Astros owner Jim Crane sent me a letter on Saturday retracting the team's original statement about my story. "We were wrong."https://t.co/arvGceF4To pic.twitter.com/bw2TZI3fh2

— Stephanie Apstein (@stephapstein) October 27, 2019

On Monday, Apstein reported that, during the celebration in the Astros clubhouse after clinching the American League Championship Series on Oct. 19, assistant general manager Brandon Taubman turned to a group of female reporters -- including one wearing a purple domestic violence awareness bracelet -- and repeatedly yelled, "Thank God we got (Roberto) Osuna! I'm so f---ing glad we got Osuna!"

Last season, Osuna served a 75-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball's domestic violence policy, stemming from an incident that happened while he was a member of the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Astros initially denied Apstein's report, calling the story "misleading and completely irresponsible" in a statement Monday.

In the letter, Crane wrote that he is apologizing to Apstein on behalf of the Astros and retracting that Monday statement.

"We were wrong and I am sorry that we initially questioned your professionalism," Crane wrote. "We retract that statement, and I assure you that the Houston Astros will learn from this experience."

Taubman was fired by the Astros on Thursday. The team said in a statement that Taubman's "inappropriate comments" were directed at the women. The team said it was "wrong" in its initial conclusions and apologized to "Apstein, Sports Illustrated and to all individuals who witnessed this incident or were offended by the inappropriate conduct."

"The Astros in no way intended to minimize the issues related to domestic violence," the team said in its statement.

Information from ESPN's Bradford Doolittle was used in this report.

Roger Federer captured his 10th Swiss Indoors crown with an emphatic 6-2 6-2 victory over Alex de Minaur.

The 38-year-old Swiss maestro extended his winning run to 24 matches in the event and sealed his 103rd ATP title.

He broke twice to take the first set in 34 minutes against the world number 28, playing his only sixth ATP final.

Federer, competing in his 157th ATP final, duly sealed victory in one hour eight minutes against the Australian, 20, for his fourth title of the season.

De Minaur was also seeking his fourth title of the season and attempting to become the first Australian winner of the Swiss event, which was first played in 1970.

But he had no answer to the composed brilliance of Federer, who broke for the first time in the fourth game with a perfectly controlled overhead.

Federer then produced a majestic forehand, followed by an ace down the T-line, to move three games ahead in the second set and serenely completed his fifth Swiss triumph in the past six years.

The 20-time Grand Slam winner, who first reached the Swiss final in 2000, is now only six short of the ATP record for singles titles, held by Jimmy Connors.

In his first meeting with De Minaur, Federer converted four of 10 break points and did not drop serve in a superb performance, which included prevailing in a 39-stroke rally.

"I thought Alex played a great tournament as well, and I think we both can be very happy," he said. "But what a moment for me to win my 10th here in my hometown of Basel. I made very few unforced errors and came up with the big shots and served well when I had to."

In the Erste Bank Open in Vienna, Austrian top seed Dominic Thiem won his fifth tournament of 2019 when he fought back to defeat Argentine Diego Schwartzman 3-6 6-4 6-3.

The 26-year-old world number five won in two hours 25 minutes for his 16th ATP title.

For more than four decades, SPEED SPORT and the National Speedway Directory have worked side by side to make race fans more knowledgeable.

The man behind the latter of those — Michigan’s Allan E. Brown — is just as important to the fabric of motorsports media as longtime SPEED SPORT Editor Chris Economaki was for decades, just in a slightly different fashion.

Brown could be referred to as the master of getting people to the race track. He was integral in the growth of the directory after joining forces with Midwest Auto Racing Guide creator Larry L. Yard, and later Ross and Nanette Ferguson. He eventually bought out the Fergusons out and building NSD, which was first published in 1975,  into a resource for information about tracks across the nation.

In building that base of information, Brown has dedicated his life to not just reading about the tracks compiled in the directory, but physically visiting as many of them as he can.

“I’ve been to about 2,300 race tracks in my lifetime and seen racing at about 1,300 or 1,400 of them,” Brown noted. “How it all started was … my dad and I, we grew up on a farm about six miles north of Berlin Raceway. Saturday nights would always find us up there, so from the time I was about 5 years old, I was going to the race track every week. We didn’t miss very many Saturday night shows there, and finally when I got my own driver’s license in 1964, I started borrowing the car from my dad and would hightail to Hartford, Kalamazoo and places like that.

“I was very interested, even in my teens, in going to races and seeing what I could see. That period was really where the journey began for me.”

Brown may have gotten his start at Berlin after growing up in nearby Comstock Park, Mich., but he always knew he wanted to see more.

He grew up in a hotbed for supermodified racing, watching drivers such as Gordon and Nolan Johncock, Johnny Roberts, Jimmy Nelson and John Benson Sr. and chasing them to various facilities before enlisting in the U.S. Army at the end of 1966, where Brown’s knowledge base grew even further as he added more tracks to his record while he was stationed in New Jersey and New York.

After his time in the military, Brown came across Yard’s work and was quickly drawn to the concept.

“Larry Yard, when he came out with the Midwest Auto Racing Guide … I was just enthralled by it,” Brown recalled. “About four years earlier, I had made my own directory of the tracks I could find, out of SPEED SPORT, Area Auto Racing News and the MARC Times, so that if I happened to travel I had an idea of where the tracks were in the area I was in and what nights they ran.

“I connected with Larry and said, ‘Well, I’ll gladly help you with the book,’ and he ended up moving to Grand Rapids and I became his sidekick for the first four years,” Brown added. “When he realized that he couldn’t keep it going, I took it over after that. It was fun. It’s not work if you enjoy it, and I did.”

Brown retired in 2009 and sold National Speedway Directory to Tim Frost and his business Frost Motorsports, which continues to produce the annual track directory.

In his travels, Brown has frequently made it a point that he’s “not just trying to add up numbers” and go to as many races as he can. With each track he visits, Brown is genuinely focused on the quality of the events that he and his wife, Nancy, attend.

Those travels were largely thanks to his work with the directory, which Brown was able to sell at many facilities as a way to offset some of the costs necessary for his travels over the years.

“Doing the National Speedway Directory the way we did got me out to different facilities and different areas, so that I could feel the pulse of what was going on and understand what was happening,” Brown explained. “I wanted to know if new tracks were being built or if a track was going to reopen, things like that, and it became my job to go to these different tracks, know what was going on and offer little suggestions here and there as much as I could.”

In addition to his tireless work with the National Speedway Directory, Brown produced the National Sprint Car Annual for nearly two decades before selling it to Doug Johnson of South Dakota. Brown has also published “The History of America’s Speedways, Past and Present,” a book that documents the history of thousands of race tracks — active, defunct and demolished — across the United States.

As he’s continued his work within the motorsports industry, Brown has paid close attention to all the tracks he’s chronicled over his lifetime, particularly some of the ones that helped to begin his journey.

“It’s just been neat for me to watch how the tracks have evolved over the years, and to see how they became more professional over time,” Brown said. “Some of the first tracks we listed in the directory, you’d get there and you’d go, ‘OK, why are we here?’ Then it got to the point where those kind of weeded out.

“It’s still tough. My heart is out to any promoter, because it’s a tough job to keep everyone happy and make the money it takes to keep things going, but we’ve tried to aid that process as much as we can.”

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Four drivers failed Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series pre-race technical inspection Sunday morning and will start at the rear of the field for the First Data 500.

Ryan Newman, Corey LaJoie, Timmy Hill and B.J. McLeod were all bitten by the Cup Series inspection team and will fill out starting spots 35 through 38 for Sunday afternoon’s race.

The quartet originally qualified 27th, 28th, 37th and 33rd, respectively.

While Newman and LaJoie passed on their second times through the inspection line, both Hill’s Spire Motorsports No. 77 and McLeod’s Rick Ware Racing No. 51 failed on their second passes, meaning those two teams had a crew member ejected for the balance of the day.

The top 26 starters, including Busch Pole Award winner Denny Hamlin, all passed inspection on the first try and will start in their original positions Sunday – save for Chase Elliott, who will drop to the rear on the pace laps due to his engine change after first practice.

Hamlin’s pole is the 33rd of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career.

The First Data 500 is scheduled for a 3 p.m. ET start, with overnight rains having moved through the area and the track dry and ready for the first race in the semifinal round of the playoffs. Live coverage will be on NBCSN, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM.

No competition caution is scheduled for the event as of press time.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota Vikings safety Jayron Kearse was arrested early Sunday morning on suspicion of driving while impaired and carrying a firearm without a permit.

Kearse is currently being held without bail at Hennepin County Jail, where records show he was booked at 5:27 a.m.

The Minnesota Vikings are aware of the incident involving the fourth-year safety and put out the following statement: "We are aware of Jayron's arrest and are gathering additional information at this time."

According to an incident report from the Minnesota State Patrol, Kearse was stopped heading eastbound on Interstate 94 just before 4 a.m. A state trooper observed Kearse drive his Mercedes around a barricade onto the closed portion of eastbound I-94 at Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis.

Kearse, 25, was placed under arrest for suspicion of driving while impaired. According to the report, the state trooper observed signs of alcohol impairment during his interaction with Kearse. The safety registered a blood alcohol concentration of .10.

The arresting officer also located a loaded firearm inside Kearse's vehicle, according to the report. Kearse was subsequently booked at Hennepin County Jail on suspicion of fourth-degree DWI and carrying a firearm without a permit.

According to the report, two other individuals were with Kearse at the time of his arrest. A spokesperson for the Minnesota State Patrol said a full police report is not yet available due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.

The Vikings are off this weekend following a 19-9 win over the Washington Redskins on Thursday night.

Despite completing three separate trades in one day earlier this month, the Los Angeles Rams might not be done dealing before Tuesday's trade deadline.

The Rams still could be open to moving on from veteran players in the last year of their contracts as part of an effort to free up more money for a player like Jalen Ramsey, league sources told ESPN.

One prime candidate to be traded could be veteran cornerback Aqib Talib, who already turned down the chance to be traded last week, according to sources.

Although Talib was placed on injured reserve earlier this month because of fractured ribs, he is eligible to be traded and could return later this season to help a contender.

The Rams would be open to trading Talib, as they were within the past couple of weeks when the five-time Pro Bowler opposed the trade talks that the Rams had been having about him.

Talib, 33, is in the final season of a six-year, $57 million deal that he had signed with the Broncos in 2014.

Los Angeles acquired Ramsey from the Jaguars after trading cornerback Marcus Peters to the Ravens and landing offensive lineman Austin Corbett in a deal with the Browns.

Jonathan Davies shows raw emotion after Wales are knocked out of the World Cup by South Africa.

Read more: Report: Wales 16-19 South Africa

Read more: Gatland laments missed chance to meet England in final

Watch Scrum V World Cup Special, 20:00 GMT, BBC Two Wales on Sunday, 27 October and later on demand.