The 28-year-old Puerto Rican actor will star in the first installment of Ryan Murphy’s American Sports Story anthology series for FX.
Rivera will portray the late former NFL star Aaron Hernandez in the season that’s based on the podcastGladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc.from the Boston Globeand Wondery.
Rivera’s co-star will be Patrick Schwarzenegger as fellow former NFL star Tim Tebow.
The first installment charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Hernandez and explores the connections of the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide, and their legacy in sports and American culture.
Tebow and Hernandez were longtime friends going back before their time in the National Football League. They were onetime teammates at the University of Florida, where they won the 2008 SEC Championship and went on to beat Oklahoma for the BCS Championship title. Tebow was known for looking out for Hernandez while on the team, including protecting Hernandez from being kicked off over marijuana use and helping to diffuse a situation in a bar when Hernandez got into an altercation with the bar manager. The two first met when Tebow hosted Hernandez on a recruiting trip to UF before he graduated high school.
Both castings were completed in early 2023, prior to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, but were never confirmed by FX.
“We have a fairly complete set of scripts for American Sports Story by Stu Zicherman,” FX chairman John Landgraf said back on January 12, noting at the time that the series is “heading toward production.”
That was delayed by the WGA strike, which started in May, and the SAG-AFTRA strike, which has been going on since July.
American Sports Story, one of two new offshoots in Murphy’s “American Story” franchise alongside American Love Story, is a scripted anthological limited series focusing on a prominent event involving a sports figure and re-examines it through the prism of today’s world, telling that story from multiple perspectives.
Rivera next stars in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. He recently played Chino in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation ofWest Side Story. He notably performed in the original company on the first national tour of Hamilton.
Pete Alonso is living proof that persistence pays off…
The 24-year-old part-Spanish American Major League Baseball player began the 2019 season fighting just to make the New York Mets‘ Opening Day roster. But he ends it as the National League Rookie of the Year after slugging a rookie record 53 home runs, driving in 120 runs and becoming a cult hero for Mets fans for his energy and enthusiasm and one memorable bare-chested postgame interview.
Alonso was a near unanimous selection of the award’s 30 voters, getting 29 first-place votes. Atlanta Braves starter Mike Soroka received the other first-place vote and finished second, with San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. finishing third.
Soroka posted a 2.68 ERA and won 13 games as the ace of the division-winning Braves. Tatis slashed .317/.379/.590 and dazzled fans with his defensive plays in the infield, but an injury ended his season at 84 games.
“To just win the award, doesn’t matter if it’s unanimous or not,” Alonso said on Monday night. “It’s still such a blessing.”
Alonso’s 53 home runs broke Aaron Judge‘s rookie record of 52 set in 2017, as Alonso became the sixth Rookie of the Year in Mets history, the first since Jacob deGrom in 2014.
He joins Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Chris Davis as the only active players with 50 home runs in a season and he’s just the 30th player in MLB history to reach that mark.
His 120 RBIs are the seventh most for a rookie in major league history and the most since Albert Pujols had 130 in 2001.
Alonso’s storybook season was no sure thing back in spring training, however. Although he led the minors with 39 home runs in 2018, the Mets had a glut of infielders with Robinson Cano, Jed Lowrie, Todd Frazier and Dominic Smith all in the mix at first, second and third base along with Alonso. There were also concerns about Alonso’s defense, and many teams start their top prospects in Triple-A for a couple of weeks to manipulate the player’s service time.
Alonso, however, earned a roster spot after hitting .352 with four home runs in spring training. It also helped that Lowrie and Frazier began the season on the injured list.
Alonso, a second-round pick in 2016 out of the University of Florida, ran with the opportunity, hitting .378 with six home runs in his first 12 games. He said he was challenged by first-year general manager Brodie Van Wagenento “show up in shape and earn your spot.”
“I felt like I answered the bell,” Alonso said.
He finished April with nine home runs, bashed 10 more in May and entered the All-Starbreak with 30 home runs. In Cleveland, he took home the $1 million prize for winning the Home Run Derby, upstaging fellow rookie Vladimir Guerrero Jr.in the final round with a 23-22 victory after Guerrero had bashed 40 home runs in the semifinals.
“It’s survive and advance,” Alonso said after his win. “You’ve got to go in with kind of a killer instinct. It doesn’t matter how many you hit; you just need to have one more than the guy you’re facing.”
Alonso also won over fans when he pledged 5% of his winnings to the Wounded Warrior Projectand another 5% to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
Along the way, Alonso became a fan favorite, not just for his prodigious home runs — he hit 15 of at least 430 feet — but also for his infectious joy and his ability to win over New Yorkers. When the Mets began surging back into the playoff race in early August, he issued a not-safe-for-work rallying cry playing off the “Let’s go Mets!” chant. After a walk-off bases-loaded walk beat the Philadephia Phillies on September 6, Mets teammates ripped off Alonso’s jersey and he conducted interviews on SNY and MLB Network bare-chested.
“I’m not taking my shirt off for this one,” Alonso joked on MLB Network’s broadcast while accepting the award.
He wore custom-made cleats on September 11 to honor the victims of 9/11, even ordering a pair for each of his teammates. “For me, I just come from a place where I want to show support, not just for the victims but their families as well, because no one really knows how deep those emotional scars can be,” Alonso said at the time.
He smashed his 42nd home run on August 27, breaking the Mets’ team record shared by Carlos Beltran and Todd Hundley. With three games remaining in the regular season, Alonso was one homer away from tying Judge. He matched him with a home run at home against the Braves in Game 160 and then surpassed Judge in Game 161 with a third-inning home run off Mike Foltynewicz, a towering shot to right-center. Alonso raised both arms over his head in triumph, received hugs from teammates and a standing ovation from the crowd, and then he wiped tears from his eyes while playing first base the following inning.
“To me, it just means so much,” Alonso said after the game. “I didn’t know I was going to be overcome with all that emotion. At that point, I might as well just let it out.”
Maria Torres has earned her ticket… And, she’s made it into the history books in the process.
The 22-year-old Puerto Rican golfer earned a full tour card for next season at this past week’s the LPGA Tour qualifying tournament in Daytona Beach, Florida.
The final qualifier took place over the course of five days, and the top 20 finishers in the field of 165 players earned full cards.
Torres, an amateur, clinched the final spot by winning a three-hole, aggregate stroke-play playoff.
Torres, a recent graduate of the University of Florida, becomes the first player from Puerto Rico to earn full status on the LPGA.
“It’s so amazing. It’s all still sinking in, like, holy moly, this is crazy! But it’s so exciting,” says Torres in an interview with ESPNw. “I worked so hard, and I’ve been dreaming of this since I was little, and now I’m a professional on the LPGA. It’s just amazing [laughs] and I’m kind of speechless when I talk about it. But I’m excited to go back to Gainesville and see my teammates and then go home and see my family and share this excitement with them.
Torres, who was in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria struck and witnessed the storm’s aftermath before leaving her family behind, had to mentally prepare for qualifying tournament.
“It was really sad, but when I was talking to my parents, they said, ‘You have to leave, and you have focus on Q-school,’” says Torres. “They encouraged me to keep practicing and to stay focused on the end goal. It was still sad to see because you want to help in whatever [way] you can, but this has helped me appreciate what I have, and the support I have, and everything else. I’m not taking this moment for granted at all.”
Torres now hopes her participation in the LPGA Tour will inspire more Puerto Ricans to go after their dreams.
“By teaching kids that if you work hard, anything is possible. It’s not just about golf. I want them to believe in their dreams and go after what they want,” says Torres. “But I would love to see golf become more popular.”
It’s official… Cairo Santos is the best kicker in college football for the 2012 season.
The 21-year-old Tulane University kicker, who was born in Brazil and played high school football in Florida, has won this year’s Lou Groza Collegiate Place Kicker Award.
Santos beat out fellow finalists Dustin Hopkins from Florida State University and Caleb Sturgis from the University of Florida.
Tulane may have gone 2-10 this season, but Santos proved to be incredibly valuable to the Green Wave this season and was one of the team’s few bright spots.
Every time Santos came out to attempt a field goal, he converted. He made all 21 of his attempts, including a 57-yarder against Rice University to tie a school record.
“I just had such a good feeling about the kick … perfect snap, perfect hold, perfect operation,” said Santos about that remarkable kick. “It was amazing, one of the best balls I’ve ever hit in my life.”
In all, Santos has 12 kicks of 40 yards or longer.
Current NFL kickers Sebastian Janikowski, Mike Nugent, Kai Forbath and Dan Bailey are all past winners of the award, and this honor gives Santos an excellent chance to take his career to the next level.
While being a professional kicker is certainly not a stable job, NFL teams always have room for a reliable player with a big leg, and Santos has proven this season that he has both of those qualities.
The Green Wave junior is the second kicker from Tulane to win the honor, joining Seth Marler in 2001.
New York Giants’ star Victor Cruz has plenty of reason to salsa… He’s now the proud owner of a Super Bowl championship ring in only his second season in the National Football League.
The 25-year-old half-Puerto Rican wide receiver scored the first touchdown of the night during Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday to help lead the Giants to a 21-17 victory over the New England Patriots in a tightly-contested match.
New England almost forced a turnover and prevented a score during the Giants’ 10-play, 78-yard drive, but a Cruz fumble on third down in the red zone was undone by a 12 men on the field penalty, which gave the Giants a first and goal. They managed to convert with the scoring pass from Eli Manning, who was named this year’s Super Bowl MVP, to Cruz.
Following his touchdown—at the 3:24 mark in the first quarter—the All-Pro selection even celebrated by doing what he’s done all season long… dance salsa in the end zone… in front of more than 100 million people worldwide.
The New Jersey-born Cruz attended the University of Massachusetts and scored 11 touchdowns in his career and had just under 2,000 receiving yards.
Click here to watch an interview with Cruz reflecting on his improbable journey.
But Cruz wasn’t the only Latino to score a touchdown during the Super Bowl game…
In the third quarter, Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez caught a 12-yard pass from Tom Brady to put the Patriots up 17-9.
The 22-year-old Connecticut-born Hernandez—also a second year NFL player—attended the University of Florida where he, along with Tim Tebow, led the Gators to a 2009 BCS Championship. While at Florida, he was nicknamed “Chico” by his college teammates because he was the only Puerto Rican on the team, something he came to embrace.
Rivera will portray the late former NFL star Aaron Hernandez in the season that’s based on the podcast Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football Inc. from the Boston Globe and Wondery.
