National Sports

NEW YORK — Baseball's All-Star Game had a record low television rating. The American League's 4-3 victory over the National League on Tuesday night in Cleveland had a 5.0 rating and 11 share on Fox, according to Nielsen Media Research.

TORONTO — Veteran Canadian lightweight John (The Bull) Makdessi will face American Devonte (King Kage) Smith next month at UFC 241 in Anaheim. It will be 17th UFC fight for Makdessi, who has won 10 and lost six.

BIRMINGHAM, England — The first flew over long-on. The second went straight down the ground, too, off the very next ball. Jason Roy made it a hat trick of sixes with the best of the lot, almost sending the white ball out of Edgbaston.

CHAMPAGNEY, France — Two Tour de France rookies stole the show on the first mountain stage, with Dylan Teuns of Belgium winning Stage 6 and Giulio Ciccone of Italy taking the overall race lead on Thursday.

MONTREAL — The Montreal Canadiens have signed Finnish forwards Joel Armia and Artturi Lehkonen to two-year contracts. Armia's contract has an average annual value of US$2.6 million, while Lehkonen's has an AAV of $2.4 million.

WINNIPEG — Brandon Alexander hasn't forgotten the criticism heaped on the Blue Bombers' defence the past few seasons, but he's glad this year has started off different.

NEW YORK — Hamilton's Kia Nurse has been named as one of the starting guards for the WNBA All-Star Game. Nurse is averaging 16 points, 2.1 assists, 2.7 rebounds and one steal over 15 games, all starts, for the New York Liberty this season.

TORONTO — IndyCar rookie Santino Ferrucci will be looking to repeat the success he found eight years ago when he raced on the Honda Indy Toronto track for the first time. He'll have to follow the rules this time though.

WIMBLEDON, England — Hours before her Wimbledon semifinal, Serena Williams spent some time deep in thought and arrived at a couple of conclusions.

TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors have officially signed forward Stanley Johnson and guard Terence Davis. The team did not release terms of the contracts. The Athletic last week reported Johnson's contract to be a two-year deal worth US$7.5 million.