The Evening Brief: Crow-Armstrong joins 40-40 club; City guilty on 114 charges

Friday's sports calendar divided between individual milestones, organizational vindication, and institutional reckoning. In baseball, two franchises reached October through opposite arcs: the Cubs clinched the playoffs with Pete Crow-Armstrong becoming the seventh player in MLB history to join the 40-40 club on September 24, while the White Sox clinched their first postseason berth in five years by defeating Kansas City 9-1, completing a turnaround from three consecutive seasons of 100-plus losses and the modern-era record 121 losses in 2024.

Crow-Armstrong stole his 40th base in the first inning against Miami, reaching 45 home runs and 40 steals. He leads the majors in runs, home runs, and total bases, with a WAR of 9.8 that ranks fourth all-time among Cubs position players and second by FanGraphs WAR behind only Rogers Hornsby in 1929. The Cubs manager Craig Counsell said, "Everything Pete has done this year has been really incredible... I've never seen it before, actually." The White Sox, by contrast, are the first team in MLB history to reach the playoffs after losing 100-plus games in at least two straight seasons, erasing three straight years of historic losses to secure October play for the first time since 2021.

In English soccer, Manchester City was found guilty on 114 of 115 charges by an independent judicial panel on September 25 related to Premier League financial rules spanning the 2009-10 through 2022-23 seasons. The charges centered on the club's failure to provide accurate financial information and breaches of profitability and sustainability rules. More than 80 charges alleged violations of City's obligation to provide complete and accurate information to the league; additional charges concerned remuneration disclosure and profitability rules. The club has until October 9 to file an appeal, with sanctions remaining unspecified pending that filing and any subsequent review.

Friday also brought personnel transitions and observances across the professional ranks. Angel Reese's September 19 milestone of becoming the first WNBA player to record 500 rebounds in a single season remains the leagues's most comprehensive single-season rebounding record. The Lakers and broader basketball community mourned Lawrence Tanter, who served as the franchise's public address announcer for 43 years starting in 1982 and narrated 10 NBA championships and the careers of Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, and LeBron James; he died Wednesday at 76. The NBA also observed the passing of Bob Pettit, the first player to score 20,000 points and the first recipient of the league's MVP award, who died September 23 at 93. Andrei Kuzmenko of the Pittsburgh Penguins took a leave of absence after his father, Alexander Kuzmenko, was killed in a bear attack in Siberia on September 25; emergency response was delayed by four hours as his group traveled downriver before an ambulance could locate them.