Raphael Stevens

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    Charles Peterson, Veteran Minor Leaguer and M.L.B. Scout, Dies at 46

    This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.Charles Peterson, a high school sports star in South Carolina who played minor league baseball for 14 seasons before becoming a professional baseball scout and a volunteer football coach, died on Sept. 13 in Columbia, S.C. He was 46.His sister-in-law Missy South said the cause was complications of Covid-19.Mr. Peterson brought a charismatic, gregarious style to his work as both a defensive line coach at Spring Valley High School in Columbia and a scout for the St. Louis Cardinals. In June he signed the team’s top draft pick, Jordan Walker, a third baseman.“He had a real infectious presence,” Randy Flores, the Cardinals’ assistant general manager and scouting director, said in a phone interview “He was everything that’s fun about scouting. And he did a great job forging a relationship with the Walker family.”His travel schedule as a scout did not leave Mr. Peterson much time to coach football until mid-August. This year, as the coronavirus delayed the start of practices, Mr. Peterson was already sick, and he was hospitalized for several weeks before he died. His son Charles III, known as Trey, plays for the team.“Charles was the most humble guy; he never talked about his athletic accomplishments,” Robin Bacon, the team’s head coach, said. “He never said ‘No’ if somebody asked him for help.”In June, Mr. Peterson opened a facility in Columbia, Carolina Playmakers, to train young baseball, football and softball players.“At a very young age, he set a standard for me, him being a hometown hero, not only just in sports but how he treated people within the community,” his daughter Alexis Peterson, who played basketball at Furman University, told a local television station in Columbia after her father’s death.Charles Edward Peterson Jr. was born on May 8, 1974, in Laurens, S.C. His father was a mason; his mother, Carolyn (Lattimore) Peterson, worked outside the home.Charles was a receiver for his high school team in rural Laurens in 1991 when he reached over the sideline in the end zone to catch a touchdown pass in his fingertips, with four seconds left, to win the state championship game.“We try that play all the time,” he told The Greenville News. “This is the first time it ever worked.”The next year, as a senior, he switched to quarterback, excelling enough to be named to Parade magazine’s 1992 High School All-America Team. His coach, Bobby Ivey, called Charles his best player ever.Despite being recruited to play college football, he chose baseball. In 1993, after batting .429 as an outfielder for the Laurens Raiders and pitching to a 4-1 record, he was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first round of baseball’s amateur draft. He played at various levels in the Pirates’ system, for independent minor league teams and in Mexico and Taiwan, but never reached the big leagues.After his playing days, he began working at the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau; six years later, the Cardinals hired him. He was named a special assistant to Mr. Flores last year.“His playing career created the lens through which he evaluated players,” Mr. Flores said. “He knew how hard it was to get to the big leagues.”In addition to his mother, his daughter Alexis and his son Trey, Mr. Peterson is survived by his wife, Karen (Andrews) Peterson; his brothers, Deron and Chris; another daughter, T’Keyah Peterson, a high school volleyball player; and Keegan Kolesar, whom he raised and who is a minor-league hockey player. A previous marriage ended in divorce. More

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    One Depleted Team Played Well Sunday (Hint: Not the Jets)

    EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Even without fans in the stands, cheerleaders on the sidelines or the national anthem performed live, some N.F.L. traditions have proven pandemic-proof. Like this one: Two games into the season, and the Jets are already making their fans wish football hadn’t returned.The Jets revisited their annual rite of autumn (and winter, too) on Sunday at MetLife Stadium, where a bad football team did lots of bad football things. In their latest venture into the tragicomic, the Jets’ accumulation of missed tackles, foolish penalties and general clumsiness conspired to doom them against the San Francisco 49ers, who mustered enough healthy players to complete a 31-13 victory.On other days, against more competitive teams, the 49ers, already missing a flock of starters, might have struggled to withstand the losses of four critical players — a group that included their quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, who missed the second half with a high ankle sprain, and the league’s top defensive rookie last season, Nick Bosa, whom they fear tore his anterior cruciate ligament — to injury.Not against the Jets, who followed a somnolent performance last week at Buffalo with a forgettable one Sunday that afterward prompted their beleaguered coach, Adam Gase, to splice an answer with an expletive before saying, “We need to get better fast.”That assessment might as well have been appended with an “or else.” The Jets do not have the roster quality or depth to compete with A.F.C. behemoths Kansas City or Baltimore or division rivals Buffalo or New England, even with the conference’s playoff field expanding to seven teams. The general manager, Joe Douglas, has been afforded a modicum of time to transform the roster to his specifications, and the team’s chief executive, Christopher Johnson, told reporters last week how much confidence he has in Douglas’s ability to do so.While calling Gase “a brilliant offensive mind,” Johnson also expressed a desire to see progress this season. Such progress might not be measured in wins and losses but the over all direction of the team, of the offense, of quarterback Sam Darnold, who has presided over a unit that, yet to score a first-half touchdown, has trailed by 21-3 at halftime in consecutive weeks. Everyone has a threshold for humiliation and despair, and it’s unclear whether a similar first-half fiasco to last season — the Jets started 1-7 before finishing 7-9 — could imperil Gase’s job security.Unlike last week, when the Jets forced and recovered a fumble on Buffalo’s opening series, there wasn’t even a brief flirtation with competence. In fairness, they did win something Sunday: the coin toss. Deferring possession to the second half, the Jets kicked off to San Francisco, which, thanking them for their generosity, scored on its first offensive play, when Raheem Mostert — who later left with a knee injury — took a pitch from Garoppolo and darted down the right sideline for an 80-yard touchdown.Seven-point deficits with 59:43 remaining are hardly insurmountable, but consider the state of the Jets’ offense Sunday: They played without running back Le’Veon Bell and two receivers Denzel Mims and Jamison Crowder — a third, Breshad Perriman sustained an ankle injury — which is sort of like trying to start a car without a key.Gase said he liked how the Jets moved the ball early, but they do not earn points with 7-yard gains. They combusted in the red zone, failing to score touchdowns on both chances, and all but lost the game in the first half when the 49ers stoned Josh Adams on fourth-and-1 from the San Francisco 20.The 49ers rampaged 80 yards in part because the Jets forgot how to tackle, forgot it wasn’t wise to incur a personal foul penalty for roughing Garoppolo after stopping them on third down, forgot that tight end Jordan Reed merits elite coverage in the red zone. In the waning seconds before halftime, Reed all but yanked the ball away from safety Marcus Maye for a 4-yard score, his second touchdown of the game, to extend the 49ers’ lead to 21-3.By then, the 49ers — who entered the game without tight end George Kittle, cornerback Richard Sherman and defensive end Dee Ford — had lost Bosa and defensive lineman Solomon Thomas, and Garoppolo had sustained the ankle injury that would knock him out. The culprit driving these injuries, the 49ers suspected, was as much the new synthetic turf at MetLife — where they play next week, too, against the Giants — as the occupational hazard of playing a dangerous sport.Coach Kyle Shanahan said players discussed how “sticky” it felt all game, and defensive end Arik Armstead afterward tweeted at the N.F.L.’s official account to “fix this trash met life turf. 2020 is so wack.”No disputing the latter assertion there, though every season seems to unspool in a wack fashion for the Jets, who haven’t made the playoffs since the 2010 season.Despite the result and the margin of defeat, despite plunging to 0-2 heading into next weeks’ game at Indianapolis, the Jets could take comfort in a small measure, that a lack of crowd noise allowed their defenders to better hear Mostert sprint away from them on San Francisco’s first offensive play, an 80-yard touchdown 17 seconds in.Without any immediate feedback from the fans, the Jets, then, were left to only guess whether boos would have cascaded then; or after, trailing by 24-3 late in the third quarter, they attempted a field goal on fourth-and-7 rather than go for it (“There’s not a ton of great plays on 4th-and-7 when you’re playing a great defense,” Gase said); or, really, after any or all of the 10 drives Darnold led before he tossed his first and only touchdown on the 11th, with 83 seconds remaining.It was a cosmetic enhancement of a game — but not a season, the Jets hope — that had long been decided. 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    Aimless Giants Lose Saquon Barkley, Then the Game

    CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Bears were happy with another close win, while the Giants have greater concerns than their 0-2 record: a potentially serious injury to star running back Saquon Barkley.Mitchell Trubisky threw two touchdown passes and the Bears hung on to beat the Giants, 17-13, on Sunday.The Bears (2-0) chewed up the Giants early on, grabbing a 17-0 halftime lead, and withstood a big push a week after rallying from 17-down at Detroit for their first season-opening win in seven years. It is Chicago’s best start since the 2013 team won their first three games.“Like, 2-0 is not a bad situation,” Bears defensive tackle Akiem Hicks said. “I don’t care how you get it. Two-and-0 is delicious. I’ll eat that every day of the week.”The Giants (0-2) refused to go quietly even though they lost Barkley to a right knee injury on the opening play of the second quarter.Barkley had been limited to 6 yards on 15 attempts against Pittsburgh on Monday night, after which he was criticized by former Giants running back Tiki Barber for his pass-blocking skills. Barkley, 23, came up clutching his right knee when he was dragged down by Bears safety Eddie Jackson at the end of a run. The 2018 offensive rookie of the year was taken for X-rays after being helped to the sideline and will be examined further on Monday.Giants running back Dion Lewis made it a 7-point game when he plowed in from the 1-yard line in the opening minute of the fourth quarter.James Bradberry then intercepted Trubisky when he ripped the ball out of Bears receiver Allen Robinson’s hands, leading to a 37-yard field goal by Graham Gano that cut the score to 17-13 with 7:43 remaining.The Bears caught a break on fourth down at the New York 36 with just under four minutes left. New York’s Blake Martinez deflected a pass intended for Jimmy Graham, and the ball ricocheted to tackle Bobby Massie for a first down. Cairo Santos missed wide left on a 50-yard field goal attempt, giving New York the ball on the 40 with 2:02 remaining.The Giants drove to the 10-yard line before Golden Tate got called for pushing off against Jackson near the goal line on an incomplete pass from Daniel Jones as time expired.“We did a good job overall as far as moving the ball systematically down the field,” Giants Coach Joe Judge said. “Look, we’re standing at the 10-yard line with one play to go. That’s really what you’re working for in the two-minute drill. Just give yourself an opportunity.”“We came out in the second half and we responded as a team,” said Jones, who threw for 241 yards and an interception. “I thought we were able to play some complementary football with the defense coming up for us, making big plays and the offense, you know, able to move the ball and score some points. So, you know, ultimately, we ran out of time there at the end, but we responded and we certainly got to start better.”Trubisky completed 18 of 28 passes for 190 yards, with two interceptions, and was sacked four times. He hit David Montgomery for a 28-yard touchdown on the game’s opening possession and added a 15-yarder to Darnell Mooney in the closing seconds of the first half to give the Bears a 17-0 lead.“The way it went with scoring no points in the second half, it certainly doesn’t feel as exciting as it was last week when we won with a comeback and scoring all our points in the fourth quarter,” coach Matt Nagy said. “But I also told our guys, now listen, it is not easy to win in this league. I don’t care who you’re playing and we’re 2-0.” More

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    Barcelona Members Say They Have Support to Force Vote Against Bartomeu

    A group of F.C. Barcelona members says it has succeeded in its race to collect the thousands of signatures required to force a vote that could lead to the ouster of the club’s unpopular president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, and the board that has led the team into the biggest crisis in its recent history.The group — a collection of organizations that aligned specifically for the effort to push out Bartomeu — hopes that, if the signatures are accepted, a no-confidence vote will be held later this year.Marc Duch, a member of the group calling itself Més Que Una Moció, a play on Barcelona’s “more than a club” slogan, said he expected to deliver more than 20,000 signed forms — several thousand more than were required — to the team’s headquarters on Thursday. The club will then analyze each form, which according to club rules had to be hand-signed and accompanied by a copy of each member’s identification document, before pronouncing the official count.Local restrictions on public gatherings because of the coronavirus, including a ban on spectators at Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium, had complicated the already difficult task of accumulating more than 16,500 signatures, or 15 percent of the club’s eligible voter base, within two weeks. But such is the strength of opposition to Bartomeu and the club board that the group comfortably surpassed the required tally by Thursday’s 6 p.m. deadline.Collecting the signatures required a complex logistical operation in which stacks of forms were left at more than 130 locations across Catalonia, the region in northeastern Spain that is home to Barcelona. Once the forms were signed and the required documents were attached, the campaigners then had to transport them back to the group’s headquarters to be verified and counted.“We had been receiving lots of papers coming from those places that they were sent, thousands — 5, 6, 7,000 a day — and then receiving 300 or 400 people we had not previously registered at our office,” said Duch, who had taken time off from his full-time job as an accountant to focus on the campaign. As the deadline neared, workers stayed later and later as more disgruntled club members dropped by with their forms. “Yesterday we closed at 11:30 p.m.,” Duch said, “and that was the final push we needed.”Supporter anger at Barcelona has been growing for some time as poor results on the field competed with boardroom infighting for headlines in the Spanish news media. But the campaign to oust Bartomeu reached a new stage after a disastrous week in August, in which the team was thrashed by Bayern Munich, 8-2, in the Champions League and Lionel Messi, perhaps the best soccer player of all time, announced his intention to leave the club. (Messi later reversed course and said he would stay, but in doing so blamed Bartomeu for breaking his word to him.)Voters, Duch said, signed on because they could not stomach any more humiliation for a team that not long ago was seen as the gold standard in the world’s most popular sport. “They are saying, ‘I’m tired of them and I don’t want them to ruin it anymore, I don’t want them to pull the club into the abyss.”Removing a board that has been duly elected is no easy task, though. If Barcelona agrees that enough signatures have been collected — Duch expects between 5 and 10 percent of the ballots will be rejected — a minimum of 10 percent of Barcelona’s more than 140,000 members must participate in the vote of no confidence. In that vote, the motion would need a two-thirds majority to pass.Still, the censure motion appears to have attracted widespread support, including from three candidates seeking to replace Bartomeu, whose current six-year mandate does not expire until next spring, and also the former president Joan Laporta, who oversaw the team’s rise to success under the former coach Pep Guardiola and a clutch of homegrown talent that included Messi.Victor Font, a technology entrepreneur and one of the front-runners to replace Bartomeu, has pressed the importance of immediate change, suggesting that if elections are not held before the end of the year, Messi could renew his effort to leave the club. Messi can sign a precontract agreement with another team as soon as January; Manchester City was among the suitors who expressed interesting in signing him last month.“I thought the defeat in Lisbon was the bottom, but the bottom-bottom was having the best player in the history of the sport, who has been 20 years in the club, wanting to leave after such a defeat and through the back door,” Font said in a recent interview.Whoever emerges as Barcelona’s leader will face a slew of immediate issues beyond the fate of Messi. The club’s finances, including the world’s largest player payroll, will need to be re-evaluated; key sponsorship agreements — including with the team’s principal sponsor, Rakuten — will be up for renewal; a contentious and hugely expensive stadium refurbishment will need to be addressed; and, perhaps most important for the team’s fans, the roster will need to be rebuilt. But so will the club’s battered image.Bartomeu took over in 2014, stepping up from a vice president’s role after his ally Sandro Rosell was forced to step down amid claims of improper conduct in the signing of the Brazilian forward Neymar. Earlier this month, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that the police in Catalonia were investigating Bartomeu for corruption.Should Bartomeu’s opponents succeed in ousting the current leadership in a vote that will also be affected by pandemic restrictions on public gatherings, elections would have to take place within three months. Until then, the team would be in the hands of an emergency board, which would not be able to take any major decisions.The rebel campaigners, though, see a short-term disruption to the club’s operations as worthwhile. Duch pointed out that the numbers of signatures were far higher than any of his group had expected.“I’m surprised by the size of the final number,” he said. “We were expecting it to be close.”With the high vote total, he said, the effort could still succeed even if up to 10 percent of the tally was declared void by the club. Under the club’s bylaws, there are strict regulations over how the paperwork can be presented, including a demand that copies of the front and back of identity cards be stapled to each ballot.For now, it is a case of waiting. The results should be announced before Barcelona plays its first game of the new league season on Sept. 27. More