Manti Te’o is moving past the controversy that once seemed to taint his draft stock and is now focusing on stopping the run or getting to the quarterback for the San Diego Chargers.

Te’o, who signed a four-year deal with the Chargers on Thursday, participated in his first day of rookie camp on Friday in San Diego.

“I'm here to play football,” the linebacker said, according to the Associated Press. “I'm not focusing on what is going on on the outside. I'm worried about what we're doing here in San Diego and I'm looking forward to when the veterans come in on Monday.”

As a senior at Notre Dame, Te’o was a finalist for the Hesiman Trophy while interceptiing seven passes -- the most by a major college linebacker in a single season since 2001 -- and led the Fighting Irish with 113 tackles en route to a No. 1 national ranking and Bowl Championship Series national-title game appearance against the Alabama Crimson Tide.

However, Te’o failed to...

Chicago Bulls forward Taj Gibson has been fined $25,000 for his outburst at a referee, and New York Knicks guard J.R. Smith has been penalized $5,000 for flopping, the NBA announced Friday.

Gibson and Joakim Noah each received two technicals and were ejected from Game 2 of their playoff series against the Miami Heat, who went on to a 115-78 victory that evened the series.

Gibson did not leave the court in a timely manner, continuing to shout at referee Scott Foster as he was led off the court by teammates and staff with 10:13 left in the fourth quarter.

There were nine technicals called in the game, which happened to be the largest margin of victory in Heat playoff history as well as the biggest margin of defeat in Bulls postseason play. Game 3 is Friday night in Chicago.

Smith, the NBA's sixth man of the year, has been in a scoring slump during the playoffs, making only 26.3% of his shots in the last five games. The league decided he flopped in an attempt to draw a call when fighting...

Defenseman Robyn Regehr’s face is a road map of the Kings’ playoff series against the St. Louis Blues.

His nose, broken in Game 1 when he was hit in the face twice by David Backes’ skate boot, was again swollen on Friday because he rebroke it in Wednesday's Game 5 when he took a stick in the face from T.J. Oshie. His ear has a faint bruise, too, a souvenir of an up-close-and-personal encounter with an errant puck a few days ago.

He didn’t miss more than a few minutes to damage control for any of these injuries. Of course he didn’t -- he’s a hockey player.

And an increasingly valuable member of the Kings’ defense corps.

The Kings wouldn’t be in position to clinch their first-round playoff series Friday night in Game 6 at Staples Center if not for the grit and steady defensive play of Regehr, whom they acquired from Buffalo on April 1 for two second-round draft picks. Regehr has been an excellent counterbalance and teacher for defense...

Major League Baseball on Friday suspended the crew chief and fined all four umpires involved in a bizarre incident during Thursday's game between the Angels and Houston Astros.

The discipline all resulted from what an MLB statement called "a misapplication" of a rule -- that is, the umpires not knowing the rules.

Crew chief Fieldin Culbreth was suspended two games. Culbreth and the other three umpires on the crew all were fined an undisclosed amount.

The announcement appeared to reflect MLB's concern about umpire accountability. When umpire Tom Hallion was fined last week -- over an incident with Tampa Bay Rays pitcher David Price -- the fine was not announced.

None of the four umpires corrected Houston Manager Bo Porter, who claimed he could replace one new relief pitcher with another when the Angels used a pinch-hitter. Baseball rules require a relief pitcher to face at least one batter, barring injury or illness.

Porter coached for the Washington Nationals last season. He said after...

Say it ain't so, Fresno Joe!

That kiss-cam video that went viral of the lady getting upset with her man for not offering a smooch when they were shown on the video board wasn't just a prank, it was a hoax perpetrated by staff of the Fresno Grizzlies minor league baseball team.

The woman who eventually tosses her drink on the inattentive fellow is actually a supervisor in the promotions department. 

Kellie Henderson sat down with a reporter from Fresno television station CBS47 to tell her side of the story (shown in the video above).

"We decided, you know, there's going to be a pretty big crowd," she explains. "We should do what we can and try and get the people to laugh. That's our job here at the Grizzlies, to make sure they have a good time."

Kellie and her man, simply identified as Daniel (good name, by the way), were entertaining to say the least. Who doesn't love slapstick and the old drink-dumped-on-a-guy routine? You can watch again in the video below.

Oh, and there is no...

The official word from Major League Baseball is that the umpiring fiasco in Thursday's game between the Angels and Houston Astros is that "the matter is being reviewed." However, since MLB already has acknowledged the umpires ruled in error, the real matter left for review is how the umps should be disciplined.

They should be suspended, all four of them.

First and foremost, the umpires should be suspended because they failed in knowing the rules they are paid to enforce. Astros Manager Bo Porter managed to convince the umpires -- not one, but all four -- that a rule had been changed when it had not. A relief pitcher has to face at least one batter, pinch-hitter or no pinch-hitter.

Beyond that, the umpires should be suspended in a show of accountability to the teams and the fans -- that is, the paying customers.

MLB could fine the umpires, but the league generally does not announce fines -- for players or for umpires. The league does announce suspensions, and public accountability here...

Left wing Kyle Clifford was missing from the Kings’ morning skate in advance of their potential series-clincher against the St. Louis Blues Friday night at Staples Center.

His place on the fourth line was taken by Jordan Nolan, creating a trio of Nolan, Colin Fraser and Tyler Toffoli.

Teams are usually vague about regular-season injuries and even more close-mouthed during the playoffs, so Kings Coach Darryl Sutter offered no enlightenment about Clifford’s absence.

“He was out there. He gets here before you guys,” Sutter said. “Then he did a GEICO commercial. Then he was doing the weather for Channel 4 this morning up in the helicopter.”

If this coaching thing doesn't work out, Sutter could always polish his routines and do standup comedy at the El Cid lounge.

OK, then. Why wasn’t Clifford on the ice with his teammates?

For that, Sutter borrowed a phrase from Blues Coach Ken Hitchcock. “What does Hitch call it? A maintenance day,”...

DETROIT -- David Steckel’s history with Bruce Boudreau goes well beyond their time together in Washington, winding all the way back to tours of duty in Manchester, N.H., and Hershey, Pa.

Steckel, who was a first-round draft pick of the Kings in 2001, was reunited with his old coach in Anaheim when the Ducks acquired the faceoff specialist from the Toronto Maple Leafs in March in exchange for a minor-league player and a future draft pick.

Boudreau long has been the quintessential communicator with his players, and remains so. But Steckel said he has noticed some subtle differences since rejoining Boudreau almost two months ago. 

“He’s still the same Bruce,” Steckel said after Friday’s morning skate before playoff Game 6. “When it’s time to work hard, you work hard and when it’s time for play, he’ll can go out there and he’ll joke around with the best of you.

“I will say the only thing that has changed is, I think, his...

Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s convincing victory over Robert Guerrero last week exceeded 1 million pay-per-view buys, prompting the head of Showtime Sports to declare the fighter’s network debut “a financial success.”

While final buy numbers will trickle in during the next few weeks, Showtime Sports President Stephen Espinoza told The Times on Friday that pay-per-view sales for the bout against a little-known opponent from Gilroy, Calif., are considered “a major win.”

“The fact that Floyd was able to generate more than a million buys without the benefit of a well-known opponent reconfirms that he’s the biggest pay-per-view draw in sports,” Espinoza said.

In his first Showtime fight after agreeing to a 30-month deal with the CBS-owned premium cable network, Mayweather (44-0) dominated Guerrero with his quickness and defense and cruised to a unanimous decision, 117-111, on all three judges’ scorecards.

The buys, however, did slip from...

We recently asked you to list your choices for the 10 greatest Dodgers of all time, and vote you did, as we received an amazing 12,231 ballots. So many people voted that we have decided to expand the list from the top 10 to the top 20. Each weekday at 11 a.m. PDT, a new person will be listed as we count down all 20.

Remember, any Dodger, Brooklyn or L.A., was eligible, including managers, owners, announcers, etc. Points were assigned based on where you listed the person on the ballot. Your first choice received 12 points, second choice 10, third place eight, all the way down to one point for 10th place.

So without further ado, here is No. 6:

No. 6: Roy Campanella (41 first-place votes, 53,000 points)

One of the greatest catchers of all time, Roy Campanella began his Dodgers career in 1948 and played with the team until his career was cut short after the 1957 season. 

In that time, all he did was: Win three NL MVP awards, make eight All-Star teams, hit 242 homers, have a .500 slugging...

Wins have been few and far between for the Angels this season, but on Thursday in Houston, they may have gotten a pair of victories. Not only did they rally to win the game with the Astros, 6-5, they appeared to have won a protest over an umpire's ruling as well.

"The rule covering pitching changes was not applied correctly by the umpiring crew in the 7th inning of last night's Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim game at Minute Maid Park," Major League Baseball spokesman Pat Courtney wrote in an email Friday morning. "The matter is being reviewed."

The incident began with the Angels batting with two outs in the seventh inning and the Astros leading, 5-3. With left-hand hitter J.B. Shuck due up, Houston left-hander Wesley Wright ran to the mound and threw several warm-up pitches.

As that was going on, the Angels sent right-handed Luis Jimenez to the on-deck circle to pinch-hit for Shuck, so Houston Manager Bo Porter raced from the dugout to a spot between the mound and the plate to stop...

Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder said that the football team is going to stick with its name.

"We will never change the name of the team," Snyder told USA Today. "As a lifelong Redskins fan, and I think that the Redskins fans understand the great tradition and what it's all about and what it means, so we feel pretty fortunate to be just working on next season."

Snyder's comments come a week after David Grosso, a District of Columbia councilman, said he plans to introduce a resolution that would call on the Redskins to change their moniker.

Grosso called the Redskins name “racist and derogatory" and suggested that the team should be known as the Redtails in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen.

Snyder said that's not going to happen.

"We'll never change the name," Snyder told the newspaper. "It's that simple. NEVER — you can use caps."

According to a Los Angeles Times pollon May 2, nearly 70% of 11,000 voters agreed with Snyder, voting that the team should not change its...