Welcome to Wednesday’s Morning Mashup. For the latest news, start at our WEEI.com home page or click here for the top stories from our news wire.
WEDNESDAY’S BROADCAST HIGHLIGHTS:MLB: Milwaukee at Cleveland, 1 p.m. (MLB Network)MLB: Atlanta at San Diego, 4 p.m. (MLB Network)MLB: NY Yankees at Toronto, 7 p.m. (MLB Network)MLB: Detroit at Boston, 7:10 p.m. (NESN)MLB: Kansas City at LA Angels, 10 p.m. (MLB Network)NBA: Golden State at Cleveland, 9 p.m. (ABC)AROUND THE WEB:
-- Dennis Rodman, the de facto United States ambassador to North Korea, will reportedly be in Singapore on June 12 during Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un.
The meeting is set for 9 a.m. on June 12, which is 9 p.m. EST.
Rodman will reportedly arrive in the country on June 11 and might play a role in the negotiations between the two leaders.
The former NBA star struck up an unlikely friendship with Kim Jong Un and has visited North Korea five times over the years. He has even taken some credit for getting Trump and the North Korean leader together. The last time he visited, Rodman brought Kim Jong Un a copy of Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal.
“I think [Kim] didn’t realize who Donald Trump was at that time, I guess, until he started to read the book and started to get to understand him. Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are pretty much the same,” Rodman said in April. “I don’t want to take all the credit. I don’t want to sit there and say, ‘I did this, I did that.’ That’s not my intention. My intention was to go over and be a sports ambassador to North Korea so people understand how the people are in North Korea. I think that has resonated to this whole point now.”
-- The Yankees will avoid playing three games in two different countries in 24 hours after MLB moved the time of their game against the Blue Jays on July 8 from an 8 p.m. start on ESPN to 1:07 p.m.
The team is set to play a doubleheader on July 9 in Baltimore so the time change gives the Yankees more reasonable travel time.
Aaron Boone said he was "excited" and "grateful" after MLB changed the time. It was reported Boone was ready to boycott ESPN by refusing to talk to the network’s personnel if the game wasn’t changed from Sunday Night Baseball to the afternoon because of the travel and doubleheader schedule.
Boone said this kind of schedule is "just not good for the product on the field, for the safety of our guys to be having to go night game then fly into a doubleheader. That's ridiculous, and anyone that would argue with that is not being truthful."