Marlins At Mets: Bobby V And Mazzilli Enter The Mets Hall Of Fame On Saturday, With Beltrán To Follow In September

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NEW YORK — The Miami Marlins (26-31) arrive at Citi Field on Friday for three games against the New York Mets (23-33) on the kind of weekend that gives a Mets fan in May reasons to look up. The franchise is inducting Lee Mazzilli and Bobby Valentine into its Hall of Fame on Saturday afternoon. Carlos Beltrán, the third member of this year’s class, will have his number 15 retired and his induction ceremony in September. The first 15,000 fans through the gates Friday get a Bobby Valentine Disguise giveaway — fake mustache, glasses, the entire 1999-era bit. Fireworks Night follows Friday’s game.

Both clubs walk into Citi Field still in the conversation. The Mets are 4.5 games out of the third National League Wild Card. The Marlins are five out. The dog days of summer have not arrived. There is a full month of June ahead, then the trade deadline, then everything that comes with it. For two teams that started slow in a division that has not yet produced a runaway leader, this weekend is the kind of stretch you bank wins from while the standings are still soft.

New York Mets’ Juan Soto flips his bat after hittin a two-run home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds Tuesday, May 26, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Friday: Meyer at Peralta

Max Meyer (5-0, 2.52 ERA) takes the ball Friday night at 7:10 p.m. ET for the Marlins. Meyer is the only undefeated starter in baseball with at least eight starts. He has 68 strikeouts in 60-plus innings and a sub-2.55 ERA. Meyer threw six sharp innings in Miami’s 12-0 win over the Atlanta Braves on May 18 and has not lost a decision in 2026. He is the kind of arm a club builds around.

Freddy Peralta (3-4, 3.52 ERA) takes the ball for the Mets. The 30-year-old Dominican right-hander pitched for the Dominican Republic at the 2026 World Baseball Classic and has 63 strikeouts across his 11 starts. He last faced these Marlins in Miami on Saturday and lost a 1-0 pitchers’ duel that could just as easily have gone the other way. He is one of the few healthy rotation pieces the Mets have and he has been pitching like it.

Saturday: Phillips at Scott — And A Hall Of Fame Ceremony

Tyler Phillips (0-0, 1.07 ERA) starts for the Marlins on Saturday at 4:10 p.m. ET, his second career start after being stretched out from the bullpen. Phillips threw five innings last Sunday at home, allowed one earned run, and helped complete a sweep of these same Mets. The story of Phillips this month is the story of a long-relief guy quietly playing his way into a rotation spot. Christian Scott (0-0, 3.20 ERA) starts for the Mets in what is essentially his sixth professional outing — a young right-hander with real stuff and the chance to introduce himself to a national broadcast slot.

Before the first pitch, on the field, the Mets will induct Mazzilli and Valentine into the team Hall of Fame. The first 15,000 fans through the gates receive a Mazzilli/Valentine players pin. Mazzilli is going to walk out to his old position with the entire Brooklyn-Italian section of the borough cheering. Valentine is going to walk out for the first time as a Mets Hall of Famer with the franchise’s modern playoff era — the one between Davey Johnson and Terry Collins — formally recognized at last.

Sunday: Junk at McLean

Janson Junk (3-5, 4.80 ERA) gets the ball for Miami on Sunday at 1:40 p.m. ET in the series finale. Junk last pitched Wednesday in Toronto in relief and is on three days of rest in a swing-starter role. Jonah McLean (2-4, 4.40 ERA), a 26-year-old Mets right-hander with 75 strikeouts on the season, gets the start opposite him. McLean has the highest strikeout-per-nine on the Mets’ active starting staff. Junk needs the kind of grind-it-out start that Marlins fans have seen him give before. The kind that puts a weekend in motion.

FILE – Former New York Mets’ Bobby Valentine, wearing a fake moustache, reacts as he is introduced during an Old-Timers’ Day ceremony before a baseball game between the Colorado Rockies and the Mets on Aug. 27, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger, File)

The Bobby V Weekend, And What It Means

Bobby Valentine spent seven years managing the Mets from 1996 to 2002. He took the team to consecutive postseasons for the first time in franchise history. He took them to the 2000 World Series, the only Mets manager to do so between 1986 and 2015. He left with the second-most wins of any manager in team history. But the reason this Hall of Fame induction is happening this weekend, on a Marlins-Mets weekend, is what Valentine did in the ten days between September 11, 2001 and the resumption of baseball in New York City on September 21.

Shea Stadium became a staging ground for first responders headed to Ground Zero. Valentine personally fed workers at his nearby restaurant. He organized players and staffers for relief efforts. He visited Ground Zero on multiple occasions. He helped establish Tuesday’s Children, a nonprofit created to support the more than 3,000 children who lost a parent in the attacks. That organization still operates today and continues to support families almost twenty-five years later. That is the work being honored on Saturday afternoon. The 536 wins are the resume. The decade of post-9/11 community work is the reason the room will be on its feet.

New York Yankees first base coach Lee Mazzilli, left, and New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine share a laugh before Game 1 of the World Series Saturday, Oct. 21, 2000, at New York’s Yankee Stadium. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

Valentine has also been a quiet ambassador for international baseball. He managed in Japan for the Chiba Lotte Marines, winning a Japan Series in 2005 and developing a generation of Japanese players who later came to MLB. He threw out a ceremonial first pitch at a 2013 World Baseball Classic game in Fukuoka. The Mets going into the World Baseball Classic era with an open-door philosophy — Steve Cohen has consistently encouraged Mets players to represent their countries when invited, from Soto and Peralta to Brazobán and Vientos — is a continuation of a posture Valentine helped author in the franchise twenty years before the WBC even existed.

Bobby Valentine, a former manager of Boston Red Sox, throws a ceremonial first pitch at the World Baseball Classic first round game between Japan and China in Fukuoka, Japan, Sunday, March 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

Former New York Mets’ manager Bobby Valentine, left, talks with Italy’s head coach Mike Piazza, right, prior to the quarterfinal game between Italy and Japan at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, Thursday, March 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Lee Mazzilli, The Brooklyn Mets Story

Lee Mazzilli was drafted by the Mets in 1973 out of Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. He played ten years in Queens across two stints, was a 1979 All-Star, and hit the first home run by a Met in an All-Star Game that summer in Seattle. He is the kind of player every Brooklyn family of a certain generation tells stories about. He is also, importantly for World Baseball Network’s readership, the most prominent Italian-American figure in the modern Mets canon — a Brooklyn kid, an Italian last name on the back of a Mets jersey, drafted out of a New York City public high school. The bridge between borough and franchise that the team has tried to recreate in every generation since.

New York Mets outfielder Lee Mazzilli, manager Joe Torre Listen to coach Willie Mays talk outfield. Mays and Mazzilli are arrivals at camp to work on Mazzilli’s outfield problems on Feb. 21, 1978 in St. Petersburg, Florida. (AP Photo)

Mazzilli came back for the 1986 World Series team. In Game 6 against the Boston Red Sox, with the Mets one strike from elimination, Mazzilli came off the bench in the eighth inning, walked, and scored the tying run on a sacrifice fly by Gary Carter. He went 2-for-3 with two runs scored across Games 6 and 7. The man on third base when Bill Buckner’s error happened was a different teammate, but the one who scored the run that *brought the Mets within one* in that inning was Lee Mazzilli of Brooklyn.

New York Mets Lee Mazzilli reacts as he crosses home plate to score the Mets’ third run of the game on a sacrifice fly by Gary Carter against the Boston Red Sox in New York, Oct. 26, 1986. The Mets went on to win the sixth game of the World Series 6-5 in 10 innings. (AP Photo/Susan Ragan)

Carlos Beltrán, The Cooperstown Clock

Carlos Beltrán is the third inductee and the one whose Cooperstown timeline is most pressing. Beltrán was 70.3 percent on the BBWAA ballot in January — short of the 75 percent needed but tracking toward induction in 2027. He is currently a Special Assistant to Mets President of Baseball Operations David Stearns. The Manati, Puerto Rico native ranks in the Mets’ top ten in home runs, RBI, runs scored, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS. In 2006, he finished second in the National League in bWAR with 8.2 as the Mets advanced to the NLCS.

Beltrán represented Puerto Rico at multiple World Baseball Classics. He was a leader on the 2013 Team Puerto Rico that nearly won the tournament, the squad that established Puerto Rico as one of the WBC’s most dangerous countries for the rest of the decade. He is the most decorated international player to wear a Mets uniform in the franchise’s six decades.

Puerto Rico’s Carlos Beltran, right, highs five with teammates before the start of the World Baseball Classic first round game against Spain in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Friday, March 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

Beltrán has remained close to the borough his whole career. In 2009, during a rehab assignment, he played a game with the Brooklyn Cyclones in front of fans who treated it like a major-league appearance.

New York Mets’ Carlos Beltran signs autographs while on a rehab assignment with the Class A Brooklyn Cyclones in a baseball game against the Hudson Valley Renegades at KeySpan Park in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2009. (AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams)

In November 2019, he was introduced as the Mets’ manager — a job he never got to start, but a moment that signaled where the franchise was placing him in its long-term plans. He has been an organizational fixture in some form ever since. His number 15 will be retired in a September ceremony at Citi Field that will also serve as his formal Mets Hall of Fame induction.

FILE – New York Mets’ Carlos Beltran smiles during an introductory baseball news conference in New York, Nov. 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

Three players. Three different threads. One weekend that the franchise, and its fans, get to celebrate together.

The Soto Heater

Juan Soto is on a heater. He hit his 12th home run of the season on Wednesday off Cincinnati’s Andrew Abbott. Six of his last eight hits have been home runs. He has eight home runs in his last 12 games. Only eight National League hitters have more home runs than Soto on the season, and all of them have played in at least nine more games than he has — he missed two and a half weeks in April with a right calf injury. He is hitting .301 / .392 / .594 with a .986 OPS that would lead the National League if he had enough at-bats to qualify.

In his words, he is “trying to do damage.” That has been the Mets offense for the last three weeks. Soto has accounted for nearly half of New York’s RBIs over their last eight games. The reinforcements are coming. Jared Young (Canada) was just activated off the 10-day IL. A.J. Minter is back from the 60-day. Jorge Polanco (Dominican Republic) is on a rehab assignment at Binghamton and could be back next week. Eric Wagaman homered Wednesday after being selected from Syracuse. The shape of the lineup the Marlins are facing this weekend is different from the one they swept eight days ago.

The Marlins Coming In

The Marlins enter Friday with several stories worth following. Otto Lopez (Panama, plays for Team Canada at the WBC) leads the team at .330 — a serviceable shortstop having his best month as a Major Leaguer. Xavier Edwards is hitting .306 with a .386 on-base percentage and the lowest strikeout rate of any starting infielder in the National League. Liam Hicks (Canada) has 11 home runs and 44 RBIs, still third in the National League. Owen Caissie (Canada) drove in both runs in Miami’s 2-1 win over this same Mets team last Friday. Esteury Ruiz (Dominican Republic) tripled in that one. Jakob Marsee (American-born, plays for Team Italy at the WBC) stole his 14th base of the season Tuesday in Toronto. Javier Sanoja (Venezuela) hit his first career grand slam against the Atlanta Braves on May 18. Joe Mack, the 23-year-old No. 4 organizational prospect, is in his rookie season behind the plate and has a pop time good enough that opposing dugouts have noticed.

Eleven Marlins were on 2026 World Baseball Classic rosters. Eury Pérez (Dominican Republic), Sandy Alcántara (Dominican Republic), Heriberto Hernández (Dominican Republic), Lopez, Hicks, Caissie, Ruiz, Marsee, Sanoja, plus two other names on the active roster represent six different countries.

The Mets You Are Seeing (And The Italian Thread)

The Mets carry their own international footprint. Soto (Dominican Republic). Luis Torrens (Venezuela) — likely catching multiple games this weekend. Huascar Brazobán (Dominican Republic) — Team DR alongside Peralta at the WBC. Vidal Bruján (Dominican Republic). Jonah Tong (Canada) — the 23-year-old rookie who threw three scoreless in Miami last Friday. Jonah McLean (Sunday’s starter) carries his own WBC reps. Mark Vientos (Miami-born, plays for Team Nicaragua at the WBC under Dusty Baker). Bo Bichette (West Palm Beach-born, announced he would play for Team Brazil at the WBC but withdrew before the tournament; his brother Dante Jr. played for Brazil in his place). Marcus Semien (Team USA WBC).

Steve Cohen’s posture on this has been clear from day one of his ownership: Mets players are allowed and encouraged to represent their countries at the WBC. That is how a franchise builds international depth in a sport where the talent pipeline has shifted decisively outside the United States over the last twenty years. The 2026 Mets roster has eight current contributors who wore a country’s colors at the tournament in March. That is the legacy Valentine helped author and Beltrán helped represent. World Baseball Network exists to track this.

The Italian thread runs through the building this weekend. Mazzilli is going into the Hall. Brett Baty is a Mets infielder with Italian heritage. Mark Vientos has roots in the same Italian-American baseball tradition that produced Mazzilli a generation ago. And across the diamond, Jakob Marsee (Team Italy at the 2026 WBC) is in center field for Miami. One Mets HOF inductee, one Mets infielder, one current Met from the same heritage line, and one Marlins outfielder repping Italy at the WBC — all in one ballpark on Saturday afternoon.

How To Watch

Friday May 29 · 7:10 PM ET · Meyer vs. Peralta · Marlins.TV · WPIX · Bobby Valentine Disguise (first 15,000) · Fireworks Night
Saturday May 30 · 4:10 PM ET · Phillips vs. Scott · Marlins.TV · SNY · Mets Hall of Fame Induction · Mazzilli/Valentine Players Pin (first 15,000)
Sunday May 31 · 1:40 PM ET · Junk vs. McLean · Marlins.TV · SNY
Radio: WQAM 104.3 (Miami) · WAQI 710 AM (Spanish) · Audacy Mets Radio WHSQ 880 AM (NY)
Streaming: MLB.TV · Fubo

The Stakes

The Marlins enter Friday three games ahead of the Mets in the NL East and five games out of the third National League Wild Card. Both clubs are still in the chase. The Mets need to take at least two of three to bank a series win going into June and a road trip through Colorado and Los Angeles. The Marlins, riding a stretch of solid baseball with Meyer pitching the way he is, want to keep stacking wins because every weekend they take from a rival is a weekend that strengthens the front office’s hand at the deadline.

Bobby V is back at Citi Field on Saturday. Beltrán is on the Cooperstown clock. Mazzilli is finally getting his moment. Soto is on a heater. Meyer is undefeated. Two teams still in the conversation in late May, playing three games in front of a fan base getting to celebrate its own history. That is what May 29-31 looks like in Queens.

First pitch Friday is 7:10. See you at the ballpark.

— MT

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Supreme Court is only way to end Trump’s control of midterms

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What if Trump tries to overturn election results while ignoring court orders? ‘I have such a hard time believing that would happen,’ one judge said. ‘But I think you have to consider the possibility.’

North Carolina will start sending out the first general election mail ballots on Sept. 4 for the Nov. 3 midterms. Whether the voters who use those types of ballots in that state and across the country get disenfranchised will likely soon be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump and his administration have been battling in federal court with voter rights groups and 24 states that are trying to prevent him from what clearly seems to be an unconstitutional federalization of our elections.

Trump, in an executive order in March, directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile state-by-state lists of eligible voters and then have the U.S. Postal Service develop rules about who can vote using mail ballots.

As always with Trump overreach, this has become a mess in every kind of way.

Trump is fighting a legal battle for control over mail-in voting

A federal whistleblower involved in the development of those rules has warned that they could cause “major disruptions” in voting and that the Trump administration seemed intent on hiding that, according to a letter to the Postal Service from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat.

And there is also a major legal problem with Trump’s executive order: The U.S. Constitution says states run elections, not the president. Trump can’t just decide he has a new power and then act on it.

That prompts three very serious questions. Will the conservative-heavy Supreme Court stop Trump? Will Trump follow judicial orders? And will the Republican-controlled House and Senate force Trump to obey the courts?

To sort out where this goes next, I spoke to three former federal judges from the Article III Coalition, a good-government effort from Keep Our Republic to preserve an independent judiciary.

Will the Supreme Court eventually stop Trump’s election antics?

Former Judge John E. Jones III, who was chief judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, predicted a swift return to the Supreme Court for Trump’s executive order.

Procedural issues prompted a majority of the Supreme Court justices on Aug. 24 to block a federal judge in Boston from temporarily pausing Trump’s executive order. But by week’s end, that judge’s temporary restraining order was back in place – and Trump’s administration was appealing it.

Jones told me he expects the federal courts at every level to find Trump’s executive order unconstitutional.

“I struggle to find a scenario where the Supreme Court does anything other than find that this is a violation of Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, in that these are executive agencies, and absent lawmaking by the Congress, the executive branch simply doesn’t have the authority to do this,” Jones said.

Retired Judge Liam O’Grady, who served in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, told me the Supreme Court might take control of the case directly, skipping over the appellate court, because the subject already reached the high court once and the midterms are looming.

“They may look at 60 days before an election and say, we now should decide this issue,” O’Grady said. “You would hope they would, because the states need direction.”

Former Judge Jeremy Fogel, who served in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, was leery of handicapping the Supreme Court on this because the justices could have put an end to the executive order the first time it reached them.

“I think they’re sending ambiguous signals,” Fogel told me. “That may be just because you’ve got justices in a lot of different places.”

Trump has spent years fighting the US voting system

Jones, who was still a judge when Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election in more than 60 court cases, said the federal judiciary had prepared back then for the potential wave of legal filings and will be ready again. And he pointed to recent controversies – aggressive federal agents demanding to inspect Wyoming’s primary election in August, the FBI’s seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia’s Fulton County earlier this year – as potential harbingers for future cases.

“I think past is prologue, and given the administration’s repeated attempts to, in effect, federalize election administration, almost anything goes from this point on,” Jones said, adding that Trump is trying to drive a narrative that “elections are inherently fraudulent.”

O’Grady noted that the federal judge in Boston, while pausing Trump’s executive order with an Aug. 27 temporary restraining order, pointed out “that the government didn’t put in any evidence of fraud occurring in mail-in voting to substantiate the need to act so quickly.”

Fogel sees a Trump-led public influence campaign to question election integrity as a “coordinated effort to suppress the vote,” recalling how judge after judge in 2020 threw out Trump’s legal challenges for lack of evidence. He expects more of the same in November.

“I think it’s likely they’re going to use all of the levers available to prevent losing control of Congress,” Fogel said.

My last question for the judges worried Fogel: What if Trump tries to overturn the results of the midterm elections while ignoring court orders meant to stop that?

“I have such a hard time believing that would happen,” Fogel said. “But I think you have to consider the possibility that it might.”

Fogel and Jones saw two off-ramps for that kind of chaos.

For Fogel, it depends on “how much integrity” Trump’s Republican allies in Congress will show if he tries to defy court orders. Will Congress step in? “That’s the big question,” he said.

For Jones, he recalls the consequences that Trump’s attorneys faced for their actions in 2020. One big example: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who led Trump’s 2020 legal challenges, was disbarred in 2024 for actions he took in that effort.

“Lawyers are going to have to think hard about whether they want to jeopardize, as we call in the trade, their ticket to practice law,” Jones warned. “I think lawyers are likely to be much more circumspect about diving into some of these potentially ill-considered cases because of the experiences in past elections.”

Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on Bluesky, @bychrisbrennan.bsky.social, and on X, @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.

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Tornado warning canceled in Burlington County, New Jersey, as severe storms hit Philadelphia region

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A tornado warning in Burlington County, New Jersey, was canceled Tuesday night as severe storms hit the Philadelphia region.

A severe thunderstorm watch for the Philadelphia region expired, but some severe thunderstorm warnings remain in effect for parts of the Delaware Valley.

Some of those storms will have heavy rainfall, gusty winds and frequent lightning. Heavy rain, damaging winds, hail, lightning, and even an isolated tornado are possible.

We are not yet at the point where you can shut down the air conditioning. In fact, it will likely be running quite a bit in the coming days.

NEXT big weather changes

The heat and storm chances will continue Wednesday and Thursday.

Storms will form each day and generally move from the northwest to the southeast as they ride around a large ridge of high pressure to the south.

Atmospheric conditions will be in place for severe storms at some point each day, but mainly through the afternoon and evening time frame.

All weather threats are possible across most of the region each day.

The ridge will slowly sink southward. By Thursday, a strong cold front will be able to cross the area and looks to start to push the threat for severe weather to the south, but it still includes Philadelphia and areas south.

The NEXT Weather team will be monitoring atmospheric conditions, and we’ll keep you updated with timing and impact throughout the week.

The good news is that the unsettled pattern looks to begin breaking down by Friday to make way for a relatively nice first weekend of September with highs near 80 degrees under partly cloudy skies and lower humidity levels.

Here’s your 7-day forecast:

Tuesday: NEXT Weather Alert for storms/heat. High 92

Wednesday: NEXT Weather Alert for storms. High 84, Low 73

Thursday: NEXT Weather Alert for storms/heat. High 90, Low 72

Friday: Showers south. High 87, Low 73

Saturday: Partly cloudy. High 82, Low 68

Sunday: Mostly sunny. High 79, Low 65

Monday: Mostly sunny. High 80, Low 61

NEXT Weather Radars

Hourly Forecast

Get the latest weather info on the CBS News Philadelphia app.

In:

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‘Wheel of Fortune’ Announcer Jim Thornton Suspended

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‘Wheel of Fortune’
Announcer Jim Thornton Suspended

Published
September 1, 2026
2:05 PM PDT
|
Updated
September 1, 2026
4:08 PM PDT

Jim Thornton — the longtime “Wheel of Fortune” announcer — has been suspended by Sony Pictures Television Studios … TMZ has learned.

The studio tells TMZ … “We have recently been made aware of allegations concerning Jim Thornton. He has been suspended from Wheel of Fortune and we are recasting while we conduct a thorough investigation.”

Sony Pictures Television did not provide a reason for his suspension from the show.

However, we’ve learned the alleged incident arose while Thornton was on a commercial flight back in May, and a passenger complained to a flight attendant about Thornton.

Sources with direct knowledge tell us the pilot called ahead to have law enforcement meet Thornton when they arrived at the gate.

We’re told officers questioned Thornton — who was wearing a ‘Wheel’ jacket at the time — but he was eventually released.

American Airlines tells us, “On May 14, American Airlines Flight 1276 was met by law enforcement upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport following concerns reported by a customer onboard.”

Thornton joined ‘WoF’ in 2011 after the death of longtime announcer Charlie O’Donnell — who was with the show from 1975 to 1980 and 1989 to 2010.

While mostly heard and not seen on the program, Thornton did host one segment of a 2023 program when one of the contestants — a woman named Sarah Ward — wanted to meet him. Pat Sajak, then the host of the show, served as an announcer for the round.

Thornton also served as an announcer briefly on “The Price Is Right,” “The Soup,” and “The Cleveland Show.” He also lent his voice to Pixar for the classic animated movie “Monsters, Inc.” … serving as a commercial announcer in the flick.

We’ve reached out to Thornton … so far, no word back.

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