Baseball

Beavers’ Madrigal out for at least the weekend — The Oregon State baseball team will be without Nick Madrigal for at least this weekend, coach Pat Casey confirmed Tuesday. Madrigal, the 2017 Pac-12 player and defensive player of the year, injured his left wrist while sliding home during last Friday’s 10-8 comeback victory over Ohio State in Arizona. Madrigal sat out the next two games for the Beavers (8-0), who open a four-game home series with Hartford at 4:05 p.m. Friday. Casey did not elaborate on Madrigal’s injury prior to Tuesday’s practice at Goss Stadium but did confirm that the star infielder will not play this week. Casey said an update will be provided by the end of the week. Madrigal, who owns a team-leading .560 batting average, was not available for interviews. According to D1Baseball.com’s Kendall Rogers, Madrigal has a broken wrist and is expected to miss four to six weeks.

Hockey

Vancouver lands 2019 draft —The 2019 NHL draft will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia. The league announced the decision Wednesday and noted it will help the hometown Canucks launch their 50th season later that year. The two-day event will be June 21-22 at Rogers Arena.

Motor sports

Jeff Gordon hints he might come out of retirement — In his 25-year NASCAR career, Jeff Gordon accomplished just about everything there is to do in stock car racing. He won 93 races and four championships. Then he parlayed that on-track success into a broadcasting job with Fox, where he has worked as an analyst since his 2015 retirement (although he did run eight races in 2016 as a fill-in driver when Dale Earnhardt Jr. missed time). But during a recent question-and-answer session with fans, Gordon hinted that he may still have more racing in him. “I always thought about maybe looking at an opportunity to drive a truck at Martinsville or a track like that,” Gordon said. “I like the short tracks. But to do it on part-time basis at a like mile-and-a-half or a super-speedway — no, I’m happy to be up in the booth and out of the car right now.” Gordon’s teaser comes just a month after Earnhardt, who retired from NASCAR in November, announced his plans to race in the Xfinity Series at Richmond Raceway.

Football

Panthers release ex-Duck Jonathan Stewart— The Carolina Panthers released running back Jonathan Stewart on Wednesday. The former Oregon Duck became the franchise’s career rushing leader in 2017, finishing with 7,318 rushing yards. Stewart’s 1,699 rushing attempts are also the most in franchise history, while his 58 touchdowns (51 rushing, seven receiving) are second in franchise history. Stewart played all 10 seasons with the Panthers after being drafted by Carolina in the first round in 2008 out of Oregon.

College athletics

Study: Little progress in minority hiring — A diversity report released Wednesday on college sports finds little progress in improving racial and gender hiring practices. The report card from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at Central Florida says NCAA member schools continue to lag behind professional leagues in hiring women and minorities. The combined overall college grade for 2017 was a C-plus with 76.7 points, up slightly from the 2016 score. The report covers hiring for coaches and administrators such as athletic directors. “As somebody who’s worked at a university for most of the past 48 years, it’s particularly disappointing to me because you’d think we’d be the most enlightened ones and moving toward the type of progress we’re calling for in society at a faster pace at universities,” said Richard Lapchick, the institute’s director and the lead report author. “But that’s simply not the case.”

— From wire reports