The New York Yankees, Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants were informed Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki won’t be signing with them, multiple sources reported.

Giants general manager Zack Minasian announced during a news conference Monday to introduce Justin Verlander that San Francisco no longer was in contention.

The Dodgers and San Diego Padres are considered the favorites to sign the 23-year-old right-hander, with the Toronto Blue Jays another possibility. Every team in MLB was expected to have interest in the phenom.

Sasaki can sign with an MLB team during a window starting 6 a.m. PST Wednesday and ending 2 p.m. PST on Jan. 23 under MLB’s international amateur signing rules and the posting system between Major League Baseball and Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.

Because Sasaki is under 25 and has not played six seasons in NPB, he is classified as an international amateur and limited to a minor league contract subject to international signing bonus pools, which range from $5,146,200 to $7,555,500.

Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, has not publicly identified teams under consideration. Sasaki has been said to also have met with the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs.

Sasaki’s fastball tops 100 mph. He was 10-5 with a 2.35 ERA in 18 games last year, striking out 129 hitters in 111 innings in a season limited by shoulder inflammation. He has a 29-15 career record with a 2.10 ERA over four injury-shortened seasons with the Marines.

WNBA

Authorities in Indianapolis charged a 55-year-old Texas man with felony stalking of Indiana Fever star and WNBA rookie of the year Caitlin Clark.

Michael Thomas Lewis is accused of repeated and continued harassment of Clark, 22, beginning on Dec. 16, the Marion County prosecutor’s office wrote in a court filing. Jail records show Lewis is due in court today.

Lewis posted numerous messages on Clark’s X account, according to an affidavit from a Marion County sheriff’s lieutenant.

In one, he said he had been driving by the Gainbridge Fieldhouse — one of the arenas where the Fever plays home games — three times day, and in another he said he had “one foot on a banana peel and the other on a stalking charge.” Other messages directed at Clark were sexually explicit.

The posts “actually caused Caitlin Clark to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, or threatened” and an implicit or explicit threat also was made “with the intent to place Caitlin Clark in reasonable fear of sexual battery,” prosecutors wrote in the Marion County Superior Court filing.

The FBI learned that the X account belonged to Lewis and that the messages were sent from IP addresses at an Indianapolis hotel and downtown public library.

In asking the court for a higher than standard bond, the prosecutor’s office included that Lewis traveled from his home in Texas to Indianapolis “with the intent to be in close proximity to the victim.”

The Associated Press named Clark the Female Athlete of the Year for 2024. After leading Iowa to last year’s national championship game, she was the top pick in the WNBA draft and went on to win rookie of the year honors in the league.

BOXING

British heavyweight Tyson Fury retired from boxing — again — one month after losing a rematch with Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk.

Fury, 36, announced the decision in a short video posted on his Instagram account.

Fury was upset with the unanimous decision when he lost a Dec. 21 rematch with Usyk in Saudi Arabia. He had acknowledged making mistakes, notably by showboating too much, when losing their first fight in Riyadh in May by split decision.

British boxing fans had been hoping that Fury would next fight countryman Anthony Joshua, a bout that has been talked about for years but now looks unlikely to happen.

Fury has announced his retirement before, however, notably on his 34th birthday in August 2022. But he was back fighting again two months later.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Auburn climbed to No. 1 in The AP men’s poll for its second stint at the top in program history.

Bruce Pearl’s Tigers (15-1) claimed 60 of 62 first-place votes to rise one spot after previous No. 1 Tennessee suffered its first loss of the season, falling at Florida, to end a five-week reign at the top. Auburn has been No. 1 only once before in the AP Top 25, during a three-week stint in January and February of 2022, and is the third team to sit atop the poll this season.

The Tigers’ rise made them the headliner in another SEC-heavy poll, with the league having nine teams in the AP Top 25 — including three of the top five and five of the top 10.

Iowa State rose one spot to No. 2, reaching its highest ranking in program history, followed by Duke, Alabama and Florida. The Blue Devils and Gators each claimed a first-place vote.

UCLA, South Carolina, Notre Dame and USC kept rolling, holding the top four spots again in the AP Top 25 women’s poll. The Bruins received 29 of the 31 first-place votes from a national media panel. The Fighting Irish, who were missing All-America guard Hannah Hidalgo in their last game because of a foot injury, got the other two top votes.

Undefeated LSU moved up one spot to fifth. The Tigers, along with the Bruins and No. 9 Ohio State, are the only unbeaten teams left in Division I women’s basketball.

UConn was sixth, with Texas falling two places to seventh after a 67-50 loss at South Carolina on Sunday. TCU moved up one spot to 10th.

Duke men’s coach Jon Scheyer said versatile forward Maliq Brown will miss “an extended period of time” because of a knee sprain.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

A Texas exodus for the NFL has begun.

Two key Longhorns underclassmen, offensive lineman Kelvin Banks Jr. and running back Jaydon Blue, declared for the NFL draft over the weekend after the Longhorns lost to Ohio State in a College Football Playoff semifinal.