Who is leading MLB's MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year races?

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

🇺🇸 USOPC trans ban: The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has effectively barred transgender women from competing in women's sports, citing an "obligation to comply" with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump.

⚾️ Holliday gets record bonus: The Rockies gave No. 4 pick Ethan Holliday a $9 million signing bonus, the most ever given to a high schooler and the fourth-most among all draft picks in MLB history.

🏀 Ratings drop: The WNBA All-Star Game drew 2.2 million viewers, which is the second-most ever but still represents a 36% drop from last year (3.44M), when Caitlin Clark (who didn't participate this year) led her All-Star teammates against the U.S. Olympic team.

🏈 Hendrickson holds out: Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson did not report to training camp amid a monthslong contract dispute. The four-time Pro Bowler called Cincinnati's latest offer "atrociously low."

🏈 UFL teams to relocate: The UFL's entire USFL division (Birmingham Stallions, Houston Roughnecks, Memphis Showboats, Michigan Panthers) will reportedly be relocated for the 2026 season.

With MLB's second half underway, and just over two months left in the regular season, let's take stock of the three major awards races.

American League

MVP: With all due respect to the greatest offensive season by a catcher in MLB history and the Cy Young frontrunner, this one's a slam dunk at the moment.

Cy Young: Skubal is vying to become the first back-to-back AL Cy Young winner since Pedro Martínez in 1999-2000, but his competition in Boston isn't that far behind.

Rookie of the Year: The Athletics might not have a home city or a major league ballpark, but they do have the league's two best rookies.

National League

MVP: At some point, Shohei Ohtani will cede the throne of the greatest player on the planet. We are nowhere near that point as he barrels toward his fourth MVP in five years.

Cy Young: As with the AL, this is a two-man race at the moment.

Rookie of the Year: Who do you choose: the solid player who's been there all season or the lightning rod with just six starts under his belt?

🎧 Listen: What to watch for post All-Star break (Baseball Bar-B-Cast, Yahoo Sports)

Washington, D.C. -- A day after winning her doubles match, 45-year-old Venus Williams stunned world No. 35 Peyton Stearns with a straight-sets victory at the DC Open -- her first tour-level singles match in over a year and first win since 2023. Unreal.

Turn back the clock: Williams is the oldest player to win a tour-level singles match since 2004, when 47-year-old Martina Navratilova won in the first round at Wimbledon.

Geneva, Switzerland -- Defending champion England is headed back to the Women's Euro final after their 2-1 comeback victory over Italy. They get the winner of Germany-Spain on Sunday.

Historic strike: Chloe Kelly's 119th-minute game-winner, a rebound off her own blocked penalty kick, was the latest game-winning goal in Women's Euro history.

Mont Ventoux, France -- Tadej Pogačar made history on Tuesday in his pursuit of a fourth Tour de France victory, climbing the iconic Mont Ventoux in just 54:51, a full minute faster than the previous record.

France gets on the board: Valentin Paret-Peintre won Stage 16 to give the host nation its first stage win of this year's race. Pogačar still holds the overall lead by 4 minutes, 15 seconds over Jonas Vingegaard.

The Trail Blazers shocked the NBA world last month when they drafted Chinese center Yang Hansen with the No. 16 pick.

How surprising was the pick? When Yang's name was called, he was sitting in the stands with fans rather than in the green room with his fellow draftees because he hadn't received an invitation.

Sin City sensation: Despite being a relative unknown in America, the 7-foot-1 Yang is already a phenomenon in his native country. That was apparent this month in Las Vegas, where he was one of the biggest stars of Summer League, writes Ben Golliver of the Washington Post:

Thousands of Chinese and Chinese American fans traveled to Sin City to watch Yang play ... Tencent, a Chinese media company, dispatched a documentary crew to follow him ... and more than a dozen reporters from China covered his games.

Back in China, 5.2 million people watched Tencent's free broadcast of the Blazers' exhibition against the Grizzlies, according to an NBA official, dwarfing the 1.1 million Americans who watched No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg's debut for the Mavericks on ESPN.

On Tencent's paywalled service, one of Yang's games drew 3.4 million viewers -- 16 times the service's average. And on China Central Television, Yang's summer league games garnered larger average audiences than the national broadcast network's telecasts of this year's NBA playoffs.

Next in line: Yang is the third Chinese player to be drafted in the first round, joining Yao Ming (No. 1 in 2002) and Yi Jianlian (No. 6 in 2007). His favorite player is Nikola Jokić and he flashed Jokić-like vision in Vegas, where Yang had a higher assist rate than any of the 15 players picked ahead of him.

The 2025 college football season kicks off exactly one month from today. Here are some stories to get you up to speed, courtesy of Yahoo Sports' Nick Bromberg.

Familiar faces, new places: 10 biggest QB transfers to know

Miami's Carson Beck (from Georgia), UCLA's Nico Iamaleava (Tennessee) and Oklahoma's John Mateer (Washington State) headline the list of high-profile signal callers who will be donning new jerseys this fall.

Coaching carousel: Here are all the new head coaches

Just six power conference schools (UNC, Wake Forest, Stanford, Purdue, UCF, West Virginia) hired new head coaches this offseason, but there was plenty of movement elsewhere.

More from Yahoo Sports:

Looking ahead: The season begins on August 23, with Iowa State vs. Kansas State (in Dublin, Ireland) headlining Week 0.

⚽️ MLS All-Star Game | 9pm ET, Prime/Apple

The best players from North America's top two leagues go head-to-head, with the MLS All-Stars (led by Lionel Messi) hosting the Liga MX All-Stars in Austin.

⚽️ Germany vs. Spain | 3pm, Fox

The second Women's Euro semifinal pits eight-time tournament champion Germany against reigning World Cup champion Spain. The winner gets England in Sunday's final.

For many of us, Yahoo Fantasy is the first place we had a football league. For others, it's the tried-and-true place we go every fantasy football season, creating a ritual that we share with friends and family each and every Sunday.

To celebrate our 28th year of delivering fantasy football, we're dropping 28 BIG NEW features over 28 straight days starting August 4. More ways to play. More ways to draft. More ways to win.