ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The Oakland Athletics canceled batting practice at Angel Stadium after a pesky swarm of bees took the field.

The A's could have hit despite the bees Thursday, but manager Bob Melvin decided to skip it, saying he didn't want anybody to get stung before the series finale.

The grounds crew in Orange County removed the bees shortly after they gathered around one of the pitching screens on the field.

The Los Angeles Angels already had decided to skip batting practice after the teams played the longest nine-inning game in Angel Stadium history Wednesday night.

The Anaheim swarm was just the latest bunch of bees to affect a big league game this season.

Bees swarmed into Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park last month, delaying the start of a game between the Reds and San Francisco Giants.

Just last weekend, a swarm of bees in San Diego landed on a field microphone and caused a 28-minute delay in a game between the Padres and Miami Marlins. A pest control company killed the bees instead of relocating them, prompting criticism.

CHICAGO -- Cubs manager Joe Maddon is projecting how to use Craig Kimbrel, even before Chicago announces a deal with the free-agent closer.

Maddon said Thursday he thought the 31-year-old right-hander might be ready to pitch in about three weeks.

"I would imagine in the position that's he's been in, he had some kind of a strategy of program mapped out," Maddon said. "The first thing you do is find out and then set up program. You think about a three-week window, normally it sounds right. Think about relief pitchers in spring training. Conventionally it would be like that kind of a window. But you've got to talk to the guy first and see what he's been doing."

Kimbrel, who has 333 saves and a 1.91 ERA over nine major league seasons, turned down a $17.9 million qualifying offer from Boston last November and remained a free agent. Starting this week, a team could sign him without the loss of amateur draft picks or international signing bonus pool allocation.

Chicago's bullpen has 11 blown saves this season. Brandon Morrow has not returned from offseason elbow surgery, and Pedro Strop came back Tuesday from a hamstring injury that had sidelined him since May 6. Strop and Steve Cishek have shared the closer's role.

"When you get a guy like Kimbrel, whoever was being utilized [as closer], who was in that role easily steps aside," Maddon said. "When the whole group realizes this makes us better, then everybody falls in line."

CLEVELAND -- Max Kepler has homered three times against the Cleveland Indians.

Kepler, who entered Thursday night's game in an 0-for-21 slump, connected in the first, third and seventh innings against Indians starter Trevor Bauer. Kepler walked in the fifth.

Only 18 players in major league history have homered four times in a game. J.D. Martinez did it with Arizona on Sept. 4, 2017. The last AL player to do it was Josh Hamilton for Texas on May 8, 2012.

It is Kepler's second career three-homer game. He also had one against the Indians on Aug. 1, 2016.

The Twins have had 10 three-homer games in their history, most recently by Eddie Rosario on June 3, 2018.

No Minnesota player has ever homered four times in a game.

The Atlanta Braves have agreed to a deal with free-agent left-hander Dallas Keuchel, sources told ESPN's Jeff Passan, confirming a report by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The veteran starter will receive a one-year deal that will pay him $13 million, which is prorated from a figure closer to $20 million, sources said, confirming a Yahoo report.

Atlanta is 33-29 this season and entered Thursday night two games back of the first-place Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East.

Atlanta also had interest in signing All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel but wasn't willing to be as aggressive as the Chicago Cubs were. Chicago and Kimbrel on Wednesday agreed to a three-year deal worth $43 million that includes a fourth-year option, sources said.

The Braves have an abundance of talented young starters -- such as Mike Soroka, Max Fried, Kevin Gausman and Mike Foltynewicz -- but Keuchel could be a stabilizer in their rotation.

Keuchel, the 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner, went 12-11 with a 3.74 ERA and 153 strikeouts in the 2018 regular season for the Astros and made two postseason starts with a 3.60 ERA and no record. He made $13.2 million.

The 32-year-old turned down a $17.9 million qualifying offer by the Astros after the season.

Keuchel is particularly reliant on the ground ball. Though his ability to change speeds and the movement of his slider are what propelled him to ace status, both his change and slider were below-average pitches in 2017. This at times necessitated an over-reliance on the cutter, now his best pitch, which got Keuchel into trouble in 2018, as he lost eight of his first 13 starts.

He rebounded with a 3.23 ERA over his final 20 starts.

"He got back to being himself," Astros manager A.J. Hinch told reporters during the postseason. "He knows who he is, what he does best -- attacking the game plan, improvising as the game goes along. He gets the ball on the ground. He gets soft contact. He got ultra-focused on just getting back to his strengths and being himself."

Keuchel earned his second All-Star nod in 2017 and was 14-5 with a 2.90 ERA in 23 regular-season starts, helping lead Houston to its first World Series title. He struck out 10 in seven scoreless innings to get the win in the opener of the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees and won Game 2 of the AL Division Series against the Boston Red Sox.

In seven seasons with the Astros, Keuchel was 76-63 with a 3.66 ERA. He was 20-8 with a career-best 2.48 ERA in 33 starts in 2015 and set a major league record by going 16-0 at home. He was the starting pitcher for the AL in the 2015 All-Star Game and won three Gold Gloves.

He also dazzled the Yankees over six shutout innings to win the 2015 AL wild-card game after helping Houston reach the playoffs for the first time since 2005.

Keuchel, a seventh-round pick in the 2009 amateur draft, made his major league debut in 2012, when he posted a 3-8 record in 16 games while striking out 38 batters.

MILWAUKEE, Wis. – In his 43 year driving career, Rich Bickle Jr. has raced at a staggering 225 paved race tracks across America.

He has cataloged more than 500 race victories in his storied career. It may be hard to believe, but the 58-year-old is still in pursuit of his first win at the famed Milwaukee Mile oval.

For Bickle, winning on Wisconsin short tracks against the likes of his hero and friend, Dick Trickle, made him a top caliber racer in Wisconsin. He won the 1990 Red, White and Blue State Championship, he owns four Slinger Nationals titles and several weekly track championships.

Getting the opportunity to race at The Milwaukee Mile starting in the late 1980’s helped propel and prepare him for 218 NASCAR national series starts between 1989 and 2005.

With determination and talent, Bickle was hired by NASCAR Hall of Famers Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip at some point to drive for their NASCAR teams, and fielded his own entries in what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

“I first saw Don White and Roger McCluskey racing in USAC stock cars at the Mile in the 1960’s with my mom and dad, and I knew from that day that I just had to race there,” Bickle said. “I had the same feeling after going to the 1976 Daytona 500 with my parents and witnessing the famous Richard Petty and David Pearson crash.  I just knew I had to race there someday.”

Bickle raced twice in the Daytona 500, and began chasing the checkered flag at The Milwaukee Mile in 1988 in a 60-lap ARTGO-sanctioned race, in which he finished 12th.

“I’ve raced in just about every kind of stock car at The Mile, but something has always bit me there,” Bickle shared. “I’ve led laps in NASCAR Trucks and XFINITY Series there, had a shot at winning a couple races in my Miller-sponsored late model there, too.”

In total, Bickle raced in five ASA National Tour races held at The Milwaukee Mile, led in two of the three NASCAR Xfinity Series races he competed in there, and in five NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series races, his best result was a third place finish in 1997, the year he finished second in the series championship points.

Flash forward to 2019 and Bickle is back home on the Wisconsin short tracks, and he’s not just making laps.  He’s already finished third at the Dells Raceway Park in a 100-lap race, and second in the 200-lap Joe Shear Classic at Madison Int’l Speedway. He feels he had a shot to win both races had it not been for bent suspension components from race altercations in each event.

Bickle and Tony DeAmbrose of T1 Racing have been “trying to put better stuff together for 2019,” including long hours preparing their race car in recent weeks for Milwaukee.  Bickle offered that the speed in his car can be credited to DeAmbrose and what the pair have worked on and fine-tuned down south.

Bickle competed in December at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla., the track where he’s won the prestigious Snowball Derby race a record five times.  He also competed in January in a 250-lap race in Cordele, Ga., against some of the same national traveling stars he’ll face on Father’s Day Sunday.

After two top-10 finishes in the first two ARCA Midwest Tour events this year, he enters The Milwaukee Mile race third in series points. He is confident he will be among a handful of drivers who have a real shot to win the 100-mile race on June 16th.

Bickle has ten top-five finishes in 39 ARCA Midwest Tour races since 2007. He raced a full season in 2013, including an abbreviated run to a 33rd place finish due to an engine failure at The Milwaukee Mile that season.

“I think it’s the only track I’ve raced at in Wisconsin that I have not won at,” he exclaimed. “Winning at Milwaukee would top off my career.”

MOHNTON, Pa. – Maple Grove Raceway, a stalwart on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series schedule since 1985, has been listed for sale.

The track has been owned by the Stauffer family since 1962, when Alfred Stauffer built the facility. The sale includes 14 parcels of land totaling 450 acres and the racing business. The asking price for the facility is listed as $8 million.

“It’s not hard times or anything like that,” Maple Grove Raceway’s Director of Communications Sarah Gingrich told The Reading Eagle. “The family is aging. The parents that owned it passed it down to their kids, and then their kids, it wasn’t in the cards for them. Running a race track is not easy.”

The NHRA has been visiting Maple Grove Raceway since the late 1960s and the track hosted its first NHRA national event in 1985. The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series is scheduled to return to Maple Grove on Sept. 12-15.

SAPULPA, Okla. – Showers, with the threat of severe weather with flash flooding, has forced the as the cancellation of Thursday’s Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series and American Bank of Oklahoma ASCS Sooner Region event at Creek County Speedway.

This marks the eight time this season that the National Tour of the American Sprint Car Series has been slid by Mother Nature.

The next event for the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series presented by the MAVTV Motorsports Network is Saturday, June 8 at Salina Speedway in Salina, Kan.

The event is also co-sanctioned with the American Bank of Oklahoma ASCS Sooner Region.

TOPEKA, Kan. – The deadline has been extended to Saturday, June 22 to submit 2020 SCCA Hall of Fame nomination suggestions.

Any SCCA member can submit a nomination to the Hall of Fame Committee. Submissions should be approximately two pages in length and summarize the nominee’s background and reasons for consideration. The goal should be to help the Nomination, Legacy and Selection Committees understand why and how the nominee was impactful.

Submissions should be more than just a resume. Ideally, those preparing submissions will paint a picture as to why their nominee should be considered. Include when the nominee joined SCCA, the nominee’s Region affiliation, and the offices held or competition accomplishments of the nominee. It is also important to note how the nominee shaped SCCA as a National organization.

Nominations can be submitted to [email protected] or mailed to SCCA Hall of Fame, 6620 SE Dwight Street; Topeka, KS 66619. Those submitting nominations should also include their own email address, phone number or mailing address in case they need to be contacted for more information about a nominee.

The purpose of the SCCA Hall of Fame is to preserve, protect and record the history and accomplishments of the Club for current and future members by recognizing those who have had a significant impact on the Club and the sport. This may be through service to the national organization, achievements in competition, advancement of the sport, or bringing recognition to the SCCA that inspires enthusiasts to seek out and become SCCA members.

Since 2005, a wide array of individuals have been nominated to the Hall of Fame. Candidates have been indispensable members from a Region or Division, as well as those who have made an impact on a national level. Some people have been nominated based on the fact they attracted others to the Club or have even been role models.

Multiple independent nominations will be gladly accepted. This is a chance for SCCA members to leave a permanent mark on the Club by being the one responsible for nominating a member for next year’s Hall of Fame class.