KANSAS CITY- If rain prevents the play of the American League Championship series game 3 at Kauffman stadium, Major League Baseball has a plan in place.
Game 3 and 4 would be played on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Fans would need to use tickets marked “Home Game 1” on Tuesday.
Fans would need to use tickets marked “Home Game 2” for the Wednesday game..
MLB, the Royals, and the Baltimore Orioles would work together and announce a start time for those games.
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Kansas State University says it will not renew the contract of a professor who conducted controversial research on grassland burning.
Research associate Gene Towne says he believes his 26-year career will end Oct. 31 because he suggested in a published article that ranchers could burn grassland at times other than April. For years, the university has said spring, especially late April, was the best time for grassland burning to revive the prairie.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Biology Division administrator John Blair said Towne’s contract was not renewed because of budget issues. Blair also said Towne lacked technical skills and his research project did not meet accepted standards.
For decades, Kansas State has used the Konza Prairie as a laboratory for research into methods of managing fire.
PALOS HILLS, Ill. (AP) — Authorities say three people have died aboard a small plane that crashed on the only empty lot in a Chicago suburb of single-family homes.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford says the twin-engine Beechcraft Baron crashed in Palos Hills around 10:40 p.m. Sunday, shortly after takeoff from Chicago Midway Airport for Lawrence, Kansas.
“There’s only one empty lot in the whole neighborhood and that’s where the plane came down,” Palos Hills Deputy Police Chief James Boie told The Associated Press by telephone early Monday. “It did not hit any houses.”
He says residents heard the plane sputtering and “it came down right away.” No one on the ground was hurt.
He says he had no immediate identification of the victims, adding a medical examiner was still at the site Monday.
PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A small Italian restaurant fed up with the online review site Yelp recently launched a novel marketing campaign.
Instead of trying to get better reviews, the restaurant owners decided to take a different approach: get terrible ones.
The campaign helped Botte Bistro get a rating of one out of five stars, as more than 1,000 reviewers left hundreds of tongue-in-cheek reviews panning the Richmond, California, eatery, said chef Michele Massimo, adding that it boosted business.
It was the latest protest among businesses who for years have complained that Yelp was extorting them by raising or dropping ratings depending on whether they advertised with the Web’s most popular review site.
DAVE SKRETTA, AP Sports Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Resilience and perseverance are two traits that have come to epitomize the Kansas City Royals, who’ve turned into a playoff force with their run of late-inning wins.
They’re two qualities that the Baltimore Orioles had better embrace.
After taking the first two games of the AL Championship Series at the bandbox known as Camden Yards, the Royals return to spacious Kauffman Stadium needing two more wins to reach the World Series in their first playoff appearance since winning it all in 1985.
Game 3 is Monday night, with two more games on deck in Kansas City — the second only if needed. And make no mistake the Orioles are desperate to play all of them.
“You’ve got to win four games,” Baltimore manager Buck Showalter said. “You’ve got to keep from losing three. And that’s obviously oversimplifying it. But you look at teams that compete during the course of the season, they compete on the road, too.”
The Orioles were 46-35 on the road this season, a decent mark but by no means the same level of dominance that they exhibited at home. And now their power-hitting lineup has to try to punch balls over the outfield fence at one of the least homer-friendly ballparks in the game, a stadium that lends itself to the Royals’ strong suits: pitching and defense.
The Orioles will also have to overcome a daunting bit of history. Since the best-of-seven format was adopted 29 years ago, none of the previous 11 teams that dropped the first two games of a league championship series at home rallied to reach the World Series.
“We’re grown men. We’re not little kids who need to sit in a circle and play ‘Duck, Duck, Goose,'” Orioles outfielder Adam Jones said, when asked whether there would be any special pep talks before the game. “We’re just going to approach it as we’ve approached every game all season, and do what we do best.”
Wei-Yin Chen starts for the Orioles against former Baltimore pitcher Jeremy Guthrie.
While the Orioles are trying to buck history, the Royals have been making some.
The same club that languished below .500 in late July has seemingly become invincible when the game is on the line. The Royals became the first team in major league history to win four playoff games in extra innings with their 8-6, 10-inning triumph in Game 1 on Friday night, and then added another chapter to their memorable postseason in Game 2 on Saturday.
After the Orioles kept rallying to tie the game, Alcides Escobar delivered a go-ahead double in the ninth inning that propelled Kansas City to a 6-4 victory.
“Over the past few years we’ve played a lot of close games,” Royals closer Greg Holland said. “The reason we’re here now is we’ve learned how to win those games. When you learn how to win those games, it kind of builds on itself and you know you can.”
The Royals have certainly embraced a flair for the dramatic.
Beginning with their rally from a four-run deficit in the eighth inning of their wild-card game against Oakland, and right through a pair of extra-inning wins over the Angels in the divisional round, the Royals have thrived when the game is in the balance.
It helps that they have one of the best bullpens in baseball. Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Holland have been just as dynamic in the playoffs as they were in the regular season. And considering that neither the Royals nor Orioles have had a starter go deep in a game yet, the play of both bullpens already has proven pivotal.
“We just want to get the ball to our bullpen with the lead,” Royals outfielder Jarrod Dyson said. “If we can do that, we know we got it.”
Getting the ball to the bullpen will be the job of Guthrie. He’ll be starting Monday night for the first time since Sept. 26, though he’s thrown simulated games and bullpen sessions to keep sharp.
“I’ve never had this much time between starts aside from being on the DL,” Guthrie said, “so I don’t view it one way or another. I was able to throw a simulated game, which at least gave me the opportunity to go out there and face hitters.
The Orioles will counter with Chen, who pitched well in two games against the Royals earlier this season.
“It doesn’t matter to me if we’re ahead or behind,” the left-hander said through interpreter Louis Chao, when asked about the Orioles’ two-game deficit. “For me, my job is to go out and pitch a good game. It doesn’t change whether it’s 0-2 or 2-0. I just want to pitch a good game.”
MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Chief Medical Writer
A Dallas health worker’s Ebola infection is raising fresh questions about whether hospitals truly can safely take care of people with the deadly virus.
The new case shows a breach in infection control and reveals that even in the United States, with the best conditions and protective gear available, mistakes can happen that expose more people to Ebola.
The health worker had been caring for a Liberian man who died of Ebola Wednesday at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Federal officials have said that all hospitals must be prepared to rapidly diagnose and isolate any Ebola cases that turn up. Transferring such a patient to one of the specialized units set up to deal with high-risk germs carries a risk that others could be exposed.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is traveling to Kansas once again to campaign and raise money amid a tight gubernatorial race.
Christie is chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association. He is scheduled to come Monday afternoon to Wichita, where he will be campaigning with Gov. Sam Brownback at a retail store. The campaign stop will be followed by a closed fundraising event.
The Republican incumbent is locked in a tight race with Democratic challenger Paul Davis amid a backlash from voters concerned about massive tax cuts that have created budget shortfalls.
Christie has campaign events scheduled in Minnesota and Kansas on Monday, followed by stops on Tuesday in Maine and Connecticut.
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Hundreds of entities around Missouri will be getting annual grants from the Missouri Arts Council.
The council says it is awarding 337 annual grants totaling $4.3 million during the current state budget year.
The grants will support such things as museums, theaters, concerts, ballets and local community arts organizations.
The Arts Council also plans to award about $350,000 in additional monthly grants for smaller things such as transportation for student field trips to Missouri arts institutions.
The Missouri Arts Council is a division of the state Department of Economic Development. It gets funding from the state, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts.
STEELVILLE (AP) – Crawford County authorities say the body of a missing 57-year-old woman has been found in a heavily-wooded area.
The Crawford County Sheriff’s Department says a landowner setting up a deer stand near Steelville on Saturday discovered the body of 57-year-old Mary Zehnle. She was separated from her sister on Wednesday while they were taking a nature walk to find items to make a wreath. Her family says Zehnle had health problems.
Zehnle’s body was found a couple of miles from where she went missing.
The department says an autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Nearly 200 students of a Kansas-based college have joined a lawsuit that accuses the school of fraud.
The Kansas City Star reports the lawsuit against Wright Career College was filed last year but amended recently to add 195 more students. The current and former students attended Wright’s campuses in Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
The lawsuit states the private, nonprofit college enticed student to enroll and apply for student loans that they can’t pay back. It also claims Wright deceived students about attendance costs and employment prospects.
An attorney representing the college called the allegations “absurd.” She says the college offers resources for student success and has never promised or guaranteed employment after graduation.
