The Washington Wizards have announced the hiring of Tommy Sheppard as the team's new general manager and the inclusion of a few new faces in a reorganized management structure.

Sashi Brown, the former executive vice president of the Cleveland Browns, will serve as chief planning and operations officer for Monumental Basketball -- a group that includes the Wizards, the WNBA's Washington Mystics and the Capital City Go-Go of the G League.

Meanwhile, former Georgetown head coach John Thompson III will be in charge of a newly formed athlete development and engagement department.

In his new role, Brown will "manage efforts relating to technology, finance, communications, security, research and player engagement," the Wizards said in a statement.

The Browns fired Brown during the 2017 season, and they went 1-27 with him in charge of personnel. His maneuvering, however, opened the door for the team to make the moves that have turned Cleveland into a buzzworthy team heading into this NFL season.

Thompson's family is considered D.C. hoops royalty, as his father, John Thompson Jr., was a Hall of Fame coach at Georgetown. The elder Thompson led the Hoyas to the 1984 national championship and two other NCAA finals appearances. The younger Thompson did not reach the same levels of success but went 278-151 and made one Final Four appearance in 13 seasons at Georgetown. Thompson III also has served as an ESPN analyst since his coaching tenure ended in 2017. His younger brother Ron has also covered the Wizards as a member of their broadcast team.

For Sheppard, his elevation to general manager of the Wizards comes after he held the job on an interim basis for the past three and a half months. His predecessor, longtime GM Ernie Grunfeld, was fired in early April. Sheppard has been with the organization for close to two decades.

Since taking over for Grunfeld, Sheppard has made several moves to infuse the organization with youth and future assets. He drafted Gonzaga forward Rui Hachimura with the ninth overall pick in last month's NBA draft and made three trades that brought in multiple second-round picks -- as well as several young players to begin an overhaul of Washington's roster.

ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Adrian Wojnarowski contributed to this report.

Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal has pulled out of playing with Team USA in the World Cup this summer, agent Mark Bartelstein told ESPN.

Beal is awaiting the birth of his second son during World Cup preparation and competition, which led to the decision. He is the fifth player to withdraw from the team in the past two weeks, joining Anthony Davis, James Harden, Eric Gordon and CJ McCollum as the guard ranks have taken a significant blow.

Bartelstein said Beal had been mulling the decision for weeks and that it was gut-wrenching because he'd been competing with USA Basketball since he was in high school.

The event runs from Sept. 1-15, but Team USA is spending a week in Australia playing exhibition games before going to Asia. The change in the World Cup schedule -- it now will be competed the year before the Olympics -- and pushing it later in the calendar and closer to the season seems to be a factor for players deciding to play.

Additionally, the NBA has increased the number of teams going overseas to start the season. Davis is scheduled to travel to China with the Los Angeles Lakers in October and Harden is scheduled to go to Japan with the Houston Rockets in the preseason as well.

With MLB's July 31 trade deadline just around the corner, the rumor mill is in high gear. But what happens when the mill stops making gossip and starts producing good old-fashioned deals? What happens when the deadline dust settles and players actually have to, ya know, change teams?

From beer coolers to beard shaving, from replacement woobies to replacement uniforms, from squatting to sewing, here's what goes down once a rumor becomes real.

The player

"I didn't want to shave," says Andrew Cashner. A couple of weeks before going from the Baltimore Orioles to the Boston Red Sox in the first major deal of this deadline season, the veteran hurler is remembering what it was like to be traded. The year was 2016, and Cashner went from the San Diego Padres to the Miami Marlins, where beards were forbidden. A native of Texas who hadn't shaved in five years, he thought long and hard about hanging it up instead of shearing it off.

"I contemplated going home. Like, not showing up. In this game, you don't really have a lot of decisions. So if it's something you don't really want to do, you don't have to do it." But the financial risk was too great. "I hadn't really made enough money at the time," says Cashner, who hit free agency for the first time following that season and signed a one-year, $10 million pact with the Texas Rangers, then inked a two-year, $16 million deal with Baltimore after that. So he caved.

"Never will I do it again. Mark my words. I'll go home."

Red Sox pitcher Andrew Cashner on having to shave his beard to comply with team policy after being traded to the Marlins in 2016

Now that his pockets are deeper, the big righty insists he'd have no problem walking away if he found himself in a must-shave situation again (i.e. with the New York Yankees).

"Never will I do it again. Mark my words. I'll go home." Fortunately for Cashner, he landed in beard-friendly Beantown.

When Ian Kinsler was traded to Boston last July 30, it was pretty last-minute, and by that time, he didn't think anything was going to happen. He had just spent an off day in Tampa, ahead of a series against the Rays.

Minutes after he got to the Vinoy in St. Petersburg, where his Los Angeles Angels were staying, Kinsler heard a knock on the door. He opened it to find his agent standing there with a Red Sox-branded cooler filled with beer.

Jay Franklin, who heads up BBI Sports Group and who represents Kinsler, just so happened to be visiting Tampa and had gone fishing with his client earlier that day. When Franklin got the call from Angels GM Billy Eppler that Kinsler was going to Boston, he managed to wrangle the cooler and filled it to the top with Coors Light. Then, chilled beverages in tow, he headed over for a toast. "It was definitely a memorable experience," Franklin says.

Though Kinsler had heard about the deal before opening the door, his agent's visit only heightened his enthusiasm. His reaction to learning he was headed from the fourth-place Halos to the first-place Sox? "Super excited," Kinsler says. "I'm going to a playoff team that has a really good chance to win the World Series. I'm thinking about the guys on the team, where they're at, how many games they're up in the standings, who they have left to play."

The next morning, Kinsler hopped the first flight to Boston and got there in time to face Jake Arrieta and the Philadelphia Phillies that night.

"It was crazy," the 37-year-old husband and father of two says. "A lot of fun on my part. Honestly, it's a lot more difficult on the family."

The family

It was supposed to be a mini-vacation.

Last summer, Brad Hand and his wife, Morgan, were having breakfast on a Wednesday morning with their two small children. The night before, Hand had pitched in the All-Star Game at Nationals Park, and now the family was holed up at a quiet resort on the outskirts of D.C., looking forward to a couple days of R&R.

Until Hand's phone started buzzing.

On the other end was Padres GM A.J. Preller, calling to inform the reliever he'd been traded to the Cleveland Indians.

Says Morgan: "That's when crunch time started."

Morgan's first call was to her mother-in-law in Minnesota. If she was going to stand any chance of packing up their lives in no time flat, she needed someone to watch the kids. She flew down to their home in West Palm Beach on Friday, dropped off her daughter Lila (then 2 years old) and son Cuyler (5 months) with their grandmother, who'd flown down to help, then hightailed it to San Diego, where she proceeded to pack up their three-bedroom rental in Coronado over the space of one short weekend. Then she flew back to Florida, grabbed the kids, and headed for Ohio.

"Now we have four Mr. Twos. Just in case." Brad Hand's wife, Morgan, on the perils of shipping their daughter Lila's beloved plush bunny

"I didn't think he was going to get traded," says Morgan, whose husband also had been the subject of deadline rumors in 2017 but ended up staying with the Padres, who signed him to a three-year contract in January 2018. "I kind of got too settled in San Diego and bought too many things."

Many of those things -- the big things, especially -- never made it to Cleveland. The Pack 'n Play. The Jumperoo. The TV.

"I didn't have time to deal with everything," says Morgan. Instead, she secured a pod and shipped the large stuff to Florida. The rest of their belongings either went in suitcases on the plane, or in their two cars, which she had shipped to Ohio. Only one problem: The vehicles took several days longer than expected to arrive. "Everything was in there," Morgan says. "That was rough."

It was roughest on Lila, who was missing her favorite pajamas. Making matters worse, the toddler's suitcase got lost on the flight from West Palm Beach to Cleveland. Inside it was a little bunny that's known in the Hand household as Mr. Two. Soft and brown with little flowers on the ears, it was everything to Lila.

Although the lovey eventually arrived, Morgan -- whose hubby has once again been prominently featured in trade buzz this season -- made sure it would never happen again: Their first night in Cleveland, when she realized the suitcase was lost, she went on Amazon and splurged on bunny inventory.

"Now we have four Mr. Twos," she says. "Just in case."

The travel director

The phone call after The Phone Call usually comes from the travel director.

"Once the trade is going to go through, we take control from a logistical standpoint," Chris Westmoreland says. Known to Tampa Bay Rays players and staffers as "Westy," he has been with the franchise since its inception in 1998. He spent a decade running the clubhouse, then in 2014 transitioned to his current gig. In that role, he's in charge of getting Tampa Bay's deadline acquisitions on a plane and with the team as quickly as possible.

Once they arrive, he's also responsible for getting a roof over their heads and cash in their pockets. Known as "seven and seven" to big leaguers, the current collective bargaining agreement stipulates that any new player who joins the active roster is entitled to seven days of meal money and seven days in a hotel. At a rate of $31.50 per day, the meal money comes out to about $220, which Westmoreland typically distributes to players in cash upon arrival. For lodging, the Rays stash guys at the upscale Vinoy if it's available. If not, they divert them to the Hilton Bayfront.

During that first week, Westmoreland makes sure to put players in touch with realtors so that by the time their seven and seven runs out, they've got a place to crash. Given the short time window, and the fact that most deadline deals involve players whose contracts aren't far from expiring, purchasing a home right off the bat is a rarity. While some choose to stay in the hotel on their own dime or go the traditional rental route, Airbnb is becoming an increasingly popular option.

Regardless of which path a player chooses, the travel director's job is to make it a smooth one.

"We want to make that transition as seamless as possible," says Westmoreland, who's on high alert with the contending Rays expected to be active in this year's deadline doings. "We want them to forget about the transition they're going through and just be comfortable."

The real estate agent

In a perfect world, two players going opposite directions in a deadline deal can simply swap places -- like Brian Dozier did last July when he went from the Minnesota Twins to the Los Angeles Dodgers and rented out the Glendale house of pal Logan Forsythe, who went from L.A. to Minnesota in the same trade. But thanks to divergent tax brackets and non-matching family components, situations like that are a rarity. That's where someone like Patti Seghi comes in.

Three decades ago, Seghi was in her 30s and raising a family in Cleveland. Whenever a new addition would join the Indians, the young mother of two -- whose father-in-law, Phil Seghi, was the team's GM at the time, and whose husband, Mike Seghi, was and still is the club's travel director -- ended up chaperoning the player's wife around town, showing the newcomer the different neighborhoods and making recommendations on where the family should live.

"It helps the ballclub to have somebody on call that knows what they're doing. I know what they're looking for, I know what's available. Short-term rentals aren't easy to come by, especially in the luxury market. But that's what I specialize in." Cleveland real estate agent Patti Seghi

One day in November 1989, Seghi found herself cornered by a duo consisting of her mother-in-law and Nancy Score (wife of Indians legend Herb Score). Their not-so-subtle suggestion/ultimatum: You should be a real estate agent. Thirty years later, Seghi is a seasoned realtor who, along with her hubby, essentially offers one-stop shopping to the Tribe's new acquisitions. It's a relationship that's mutually beneficial.

"It helps the ballclub to have somebody on call that knows what they're doing," says Seghi, who last summer helped the Hand family in landing a three-month rental on a four-bedroom Colonial in Westlake. "I know what they're looking for, I know what's available. Short-term rentals aren't easy to come by, especially in the luxury market. But that's what I specialize in."

These days, she gets an assist from folks who are in situations similar to the one she was in back in the late 1980s. When Cleveland traded for Hand last July, Amanda Kluber (Corey's wife) and Jenna Gomes (Yan's better half) reached out to Morgan to offer advice on where the Hands should settle.

Looking back, Seghi readily admits that she was a less-than-willing participant in her mother-in-law's vocation initiative. That she would have preferred to maintain her amateur status.

"I didn't want to go work," she says, "but that's what happened. I got backed into it." Not that she minds one bit now. "I'm very happy I did. Now that my children are grown and have their own lives, I have something to do."

The clubbie

Look good, play good.

If you subscribe to the old baseball adage, then there's nothing more crucial to a deadline deal than getting the new guy properly outfitted in his new threads. Although Fanatics, the apparel company that bought MLB uni-maker Majestic a couple of years ago, is technically responsible for cranking out new uniforms once a player gets traded, it takes time for fresh jerseys to get shipped from the company's production facility in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Enter the seamstress.

"We just Googled: 'Learn how to sew D.C.'" Nationals visitors clubhouse assistant Greg Melnick on how he and his brother, Andrew, became the team's seamsters

The Washington Nationals used to be like most teams in that they used a local contractor to come in and sew numbers and letters on a temporary jersey whenever a trade went down (once the official shirt arrives, the temp becomes a backup). But a couple of years ago, when Washington was looking for a new seamstress, the Melnick brothers took matters into their own hands.

"We just Googled: 'Learn how to sew D.C.,'" says Greg Melnick, who along with bro Andrew helps keep the Nationals Park clubhouses running smoothly (Greg is the visitors assistant; Andrew handles the home side). After a quick one-hour class in the capital's Adams Morgan neighborhood, the siblings were off and running.

Aided by a Brother 6000 sewing machine they ordered online and that lives in the equipment room at Nationals Park, the bearded and brawny 30-somethings are responsible for crafting new jerseys any time a player joins the home or visiting team while in D.C. If Washington finalizes a deal while on the road (like in 2017 when the Sean Doolittle trade went down while the team was in Anaheim), the host club handles production. That means that whenever a team travels, whether it's deadline time or not, they have to schlep a giant trunk filled with blank jerseys of all sizes (typically low 40s to mid 50s), not to mention all the letters, numbers, punctuation marks and accents. For the Melnicks, it's a labor of love.

"I really enjoy it," says Andrew, who estimates that he has sewn about 100 jerseys (including call-ups and special occasion one-offs) during his tenure as Washington's co-seamster. Thanks to all the reps, his production time has dropped from three hours on his first endeavor (Matt Wieters, 2017) to about an hour these days. His proudest accomplishment? The one-off he recently made for Patrick Corbin, who wore No. 45 to honor late friend Tyler Skaggs. "That was pretty special."

Corbin and the Nationals won that game, just like they've been winning most of their games lately. As a result, they've climbed right into the thick of playoff contention, meaning there's a good chance GM Mike Rizzo strikes a deal or two before the end of July.

In other words, the Melnicks might be churning out some new gear real soon.

Cornish Pirates have signed New Zealand-born centre Shae Tucker.

The 23-year-old has signed a two-year contract and has previously played Mitre 10 Cup rugby for Hawkes Bay and North Harbour in his homeland.

Tucker has also played for New Zealand Universities and North Otago in the Heartland Championship.

"He is a player who has all the attributes to succeed in professional rugby," Pirates director of rugby Chris Stirling said.

CALIFORNIA, Mo. — Tyler Blank raced to his eighth winged 360 sprint car victory of the season Sunday night at Double-X Speedway.

Blank took the lead from the start and survived several restarts and a late-race challenge from Ayrton Gennetten for the victory. Gennetten ran out of real estate while challenging for the lead on the white flag lap, allowing Taylor Walton to finish second.

Tyler Utz, Cody Baker and Riley Kreisel rounded out the top five.

John Clancy won the street stock feature and Kyle Smith topped the hobby stock main event.

VERNON, N.Y. — Second-generation driver Erick Rudolph outdueled the red-hot Mat Williamson to take home his first DIRTcar 358 Modified Series race of 2019 Sunday at Utica-Rome Speedway.

Rudolph came into the event with four top-five finishes in the first four Series events but finally broke through for the win at the half-mile oval. The Genoa Giant Pat Ward rounded out the top three. Ward drove up from the eleventh starting position to make the podium.

It was around lap 80 that Erick Rudolph pounced on points leader Mat Williamson to take the lead. Williamson had led most of the race from the early going after passing polesitter Todd Root.

“Utica-Rome Speedway has been really good to us this year. I was a bit concerned early. I thought the top three were a bit faster than us. As the race went on the track came to us a little bit and we were able to put it in victory lane,” Rudolph said.

There was no time to sit back for the pilot of the No. 25r. It was go-time from the drop of the green flag.

Rudolph said, “I was trying as hard as I could every single lap. It’s 100 laps but before you know it, it’s over.”

Williamson still holds onto the series points lead. He entered the Utica-Rome Speedway event on a tear with three Series wins in a row. The No. 6 was excellent on the short runs but late in the race, Williamson was overtaken by Rudolph.

“Erick [Rudolph] had a good car. He was better at the end than we were and that’s what it takes to win these races,” and right now, no one knows how to win 358 Modified races as Williamson and Rudolph do.

Rudolph and Williamson have a developing rivalry. They race against each other weekly at Ransomville Speedway, they race head-to-head in 358 Series competition, and finally, both drivers meet in every round of Super DIRTcar Series racing.

The battle changed completely when a lapped car hit an implement tire in turn three and spun to a stop in the middle of the track just as the leaders were coming around. Rudolph missed the stricken car but Williamson bounced his right-rear tire hard off of him.

“I think I got some damage from when I hit that lapped car that spun out in front of me. I could make up a bunch of excuses but we didn’t win. It is what it is and we’ll get it in the trailer and go to Quebec tomorrow [Super DIRTcar Series doubleheader at Autodrome Drummond and Granby].”

The Gypsum Racing driver in the crimson red No. 42 from Genoa, NY Pat Ward showed the young guns how it’s done and claimed the final spot on the podium. Pat Ward had to fend off the likes of Billy Dunn and DIRTcar 358 Modified ace Corey Wheeler to hold on.

“We started eleventh and came up through the field fairly good. We weren’t super-duper good but the car was working,” Ward noted.

After passing all of those cars, Ward had capable drivers try to work him over.

“We just hung on there at the end. I saw Billy [Dunn] and the No. 47 car [Corey Wheeler] all over me so it was a good race at the end,” said Ward.

For the second time in a row, Mike Mahaney in the black and yellow Huttig No. 35 took home an extra $100 for the Billy Whittaker Cars Fast-Time Award. Mahaney raced in the top five for most of the race, but a flat tire necessitated a stop in the pits. After starting tail Mahaney worked his way up to finish in the sixth position.

ROME, Ga. — Austin Horton led all 53 laps to win Sunday night’s Schaeffer’s Oil Southern Nationals Series presented by Sunoco Race Fuels feature at Rome Speedway.

Horton, who earned $5,300, has now won this event for two consecutive seasons and it also makes him the fourth different winner in five series events this season.

Horton’s victory would be his second career Schaeffer’s Oil Southern Nationals Series presented by Sunoco Race Fuels tour win and would come aboard the Franklin Enterprises, Super K Express, Orr’s Towing, Vapes Gone Wild, GW Performance, Gary’s Pulp and Logging, Allstar Graphics, Horton’s, Inc. sponsored #16 Rocket Chassis, Clements Race Engines powered mount.

The initial start of the event main event would not see a full lap completed as Tyler Clem and Bo Eaton would tangle in turn three. The second attempted start of the race was good, with Austin Horton jumping to the race lead, followed by Donald McIntosh, Jason Croft, Michael Page, and Brandon Overton.

The top five would remain the same as Horton would stretch his lead and would start working slower traffic on lap eight, but by lap 13, Horton would get bottled up a bit in slower traffic and McIntosh would be able to chase down Horton. Horton would finally clear some of the traffic on lap 16 and once again pull away from McIntosh. P

age would begin to challenge Croft for third and would take the position on lap twenty, while the final caution of the event would appear one circuit later when Bo Eaton would spin his car in turn two.

The restart would see Horton maintain the lead, while Page would take second, shuffling McIntosh and Overton back to third and fourth, while Jake Knowles would challenge Croft for the fifth position. Page would close up on Horton and looked to be set to challenge for the lead, but Page would slip up in turn four and lose a lot of ground to Horton.

Horton would maintain a comfortable lead at this point, while McIntosh and Overton would battle for the third position, with Overton driving past McIntosh on lap 25 and Croft would take the fourth position from McIntosh two tours later on lap 27.

Horton would maintain his lead, while Croft would reel in Overton for the third position and would grab the spot on lap 34. Horton would begin lapping slower traffic again on lap 36 and would drive around the slower traffic the remainder of the way to garner the victory, with Page settling for runner-up honors, while Croft would complete the podium finishers with a third-place effort. Overton and McIntosh would complete the top five.

The finish:

Austin Horton, Michael Page, Jason Croft, Brandon Overton, Donald McIntosh, Jake Knowles, Zach Leonhardi, Will Roland, Cla Knight, Austin Smith, Tanner English, Matt Dooley, Ahnna Parkhurst, Cody King, Tyler Clem, Aaron Ridley, Tyler Millwood, Bo Eaton, Craig Greer, Buster Goss, Joey Armistead, Mark Page.

LAWRENCEBURG, Ind. — For Justin Grant, Lawrenceburg Speedway is akin to a second home.

For it was the track where Grant earned his first USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car victory and his lone previous Indiana Sprint Week win seven years earlier. It’s the place in which he won with USAC in 2014 and again in the fall of 2018.

And it’s where he earned his latest triumph, Sunday in round four of NOS Energy Drink Indiana Sprint Week.

“I’ve had a lot of special wins here at Lawrenceburg,” Grant said. “I really like it. I raced down here a ton back when I was driving the 40 car for Mark Hery. It was our Saturday night venue. We raced 10-15 Saturday nights a year here for a few years. It’s just a place I’ve always loved coming to.”

In fact, coming into Sunday’s event, Grant had led just two laps in his entire ISW career, both of which came at the conclusion of that 2012 ISW race at the very same track.

Grant left no doubt on this night, leading all 30 laps from start to finish to win his 15th career USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car feature.

What had been a flurry of five victories in an eight-race span for Grant and TOPP Motorsports to close out the 2018 season, started off strong with a win in their second start of 2019. The wait for a return trip to victory lane took five months, but Grant feels the pieces to the puzzle were always there, the pieces just had to fit together.

“It’s been awhile,” Grant acknowledged. “I felt like we’ve had speed here and there early in the night, then we’ve had speed late in the night and just struggled to put a whole night together. We were finally good early and late and we’re able to put all the pieces together. Lawrenceburg was pretty hammer down tonight and the car was screaming around there. It was a lot of fun to drive and I was just kind of hanging on to it trying to keep it out of the fence.”

Grant won by a comfortable 1.63-second margin over Chris Windom, C.J. Leary, Kevin Thomas Jr. and Carson Short.

To see full results, turn to the next page.

David De Gea has thrown his hat into the ring to be Manchester United's next captain.

United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is looking for a new skipper after Antonio Valencia's departure and De Gea, who is set to sign a new six-year deal, said he is ready to do the job.

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"I've been captain for some games," De Gea said. "Of course it is amazing to be captain of a club like Manchester United and defend this badge.

"It's amazing, so of course I'll be really, really happy to captain."

There was speculation De Gea could leave Old Trafford this summer until a breakthrough in contract negotiations.

The Spain No. 1 suffered a dip in form at the end of last season but the 28-year-old is determined to help United recover from a disappointing sixth-place finish.

"It's my ninth season, I feel like one of the most experienced players," De Gea said.

"I need to show that on the pitch and try to help the young guys know what Manchester United means and that's important.

"We have to improve a lot. We are Manchester United; we need to fight for trophies.

"When you put on this badge, that's what it means -- fight for everything, give your best and bring the team again to the top."