Sen. José Luis Dal­mau San­ti­ago, Pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­tic Party, asked the Sen­ate to inves­ti­gate the vio­lent acts which occurred on June 30 dur­ing a protest march in front of the Capi­tol. READ FULL STORY

The sec­ond half of the Major League Base­ball sea­son began Thurs­day night, and many in Puerto Rico are with a lot of high expectations.

Just as a start, every­body is happy that Car­los Bel­trán returned with the New York Mets, and Joel Piñeiro won his sev­enth straight deci­sion as the Los Ange­les Angels defeated the Seat­tle Mariners.

How­ever, not every base­ball fan is cheery and fes­tive these days.

Car­los Del­gado announced Thurs­day that he will not be able to par­tic­i­pate with the Puerto Rico national base­ball team in the upcom­ing Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean Games in Mayagüez because of a rec­om­men­da­tion from his doctor.

Del­gado, who had shown inter­est in play­ing for the national team at Mayagüez 2010, is still recov­er­ing from surgery on his right hip.

Del­gado, the all-time leader among Puerto Rican play­ers in the majors with 473 home runs and 1,512 runs bat­ted in, was on the national team’s pro­vi­sional ros­ter for sev­eral weeks but said his final deci­sion would depend on his phys­i­cal condition.

It is true that the two-time All-Star and three-time Sil­ver Slug­ger Award win­ner had not played in a Major League game since May 10, 2009, but he lost a golden opportunity.

The games would have been his show­case to show that he is still func­tional and could still play at a com­pet­i­tive level.

Absolutely the 37-year-old first base­man would have to be care­ful, nev­er­the­less Team Puerto Rico would have ben­e­fited from his presence.

Let not for­get Del­gado, even though elbow ten­dini­tis lim­ited him to just one plate appear­ance in the inau­gural 2006 World Base­ball Classic.

Del­gado not only did spin doubts on his pos­si­ble return to the majors, but also a sour spin on what could have been a boon for Puerto Rican national pride.

Team Puerto Rico is the favorite team to win the gold medal in his own back­yard in this regional games.

Last time Team Puerto Rico won gold was in the El Sal­vador Games in 2002 and was its last medal in the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean games base­ball dia­mond, only their sec­ond gold in the his­tory of these games. First one was way back in 1959 in Venezuela.

Fur­ther­more, last time the games were cel­e­brated in the U.S. Com­mon­wealth Island, Ponce 93’, Team Puerto Rico was short­handed with a bronze medal.

Man­ager Eduardo Pérez, for­mer Major Lea­guer and son of Hall of Famer Tony Pérez, found a replace­ment for Del­gado in the lineup with power hit­ter Joy­set Feli­ciano, one of the top hit­ters in island Double-A base­ball. (A semi-pro league with good local talent.)

True, any player in given time is replace­able. How­ever, Del­gado is con­sid­ered one of Puerto Rico’s top sports heroes and should have shown his coun­try pas­sion as in past World Base­ball Clas­sic, and show he was ready to play ball again.

It was his moment to demon­strate to any team that no mat­ter how he had been more than a year away he could be back to the Major Leagues.

It could pos­si­bly have shown as it has been a rumor for a long time regard­ing his return to his beloved New York Mets.

Fel­low Puerto Rican Car­los Bel­trán is back.

Is the other Car­los ready?

Time will tell.

For Alex Cora, Angel Pagan, Pedro Feli­ciano and Jesus Feli­ciano, the San Juan Series is about more than just base­ball. It means the world for the Mets’ Puerto Rican play­ers. FULL STORY

Parece ser que las depen­den­cias munic­i­pales se van a quedar en el Casco Urbano.Según informó la alcaldesa de Ponce, María Melén­dez Altieri, el Gob­ierno Munic­i­pal se encuen­tra ges­tio­nando con la Com­pañía de Com­er­cio y Exportación el traspaso a manos munic­i­pales de la antigua Plaza del Mer­cado Juan Bigas. LEER MAS

NEW YORK — Con­cern­ing chal­lenger Miguel Cotto, there were a num­ber of major ques­tions to be answered enter­ing Sat­ur­day night’s chal­lenge for the WBA junior mid­dleweight (154 pounds) title owned by Yuri Foreman.Among them, how much did the 29-year-old for­mer three-time cham­pion have left, given the bloody wars he had dur­ing an 11^th-round knock­out loss to Anto­nio Mar­gar­ito in July 2008, a split-decision vic­tory over Joshua Clottey in June 2009 and November’s 12-round stop­page loss to Manny Pac­quiao that dethroned him as WBO wel­ter­weight (140 pounds) king?All three bouts left Cotto with severe cuts and bruises, includ­ing one par­tic­u­larly cav­ernous gash over a left eye that rou­tinely streamed blood down his left cheek.   There was also the ques­tion of whether or not Manny Stew­ard, Cotto’s third trainer in five fights, could ade­quately improve the Puerto Rican fighter’s abil­ity to punch cleanly and effec­tively from close range as an aggres­sive pur­suer of the elu­sive Fore­man.  There was also the ques­tion of whether or not Cotto could han­dle the rise in weight, being at the high­est divi­sion of his career, where he weighed a half-pound less than the 154-pound Fore­man.   Cotto (35−2, 28 knock­outs) answered all of those ques­tions with Sat­ur­day night’s ninth round, tech­ni­cal knock­out vic­tory over Fore­man (28−1, eight KOs), before 20,727 in the first-ever box­ing show at the new Yan­kee Stadium.

Cotto dropped Fore­man with a left hand to the body 42 sec­onds into the ninth round, after which ref­eree Arthur Mer­cante Jr. stepped in and waved an end to the bout.   “I came to win the fight, and my goal was to put pres­sure on him all along. After the fourth round, which Fore­man may have won, I went to the cor­ner and Manny Stew­ard told me to stay focused,” said Cotto. “Even when he went down, I thought, ‘I still have to fight.’”   Fore­man had already injured his right leg twice in the eighth round, going down twice in pain after twist­ing and appar­ently re-injuring a leg on which he wore a knee brace.   A towel from the direc­tion of Foreman’s cor­ner had been thrown into the ring, but Mer­cante over­ruled it, say­ing that it came from a source other than Foreman’s trainer, Joe Grier.   “I heard that some­one was yelling, ‘Stop the fight, stop the fight,’ and then, the towel was thrown in. At that moment, I didn’t know who threw the towel in, although I have a pretty good idea who did it now,” said Mer­cante.   “When I resumed the fight, I called time to let both guys rest,” said Mer­cante. “Yuri was always game to fight. Both men showed the mark of cham­pi­ons in a great fight tonight.”   But the towel was thrown in by Grier, respond­ing to Foreman’s wife, Leyla Lei­decker, who pleaded for him to stop the fight.

“I saw the replay on the screen, and I saw the towel come in,” said Cotto, who earned $2 mil­lion plus upside to Foreman’s $750,000.   “And I thought, ‘Fight’s over, this is wrong. The fight should be stopped,’” said Cotto. “But hey, he was hurt, work­ing on one leg, and I still kept on fight­ing. This is a world title fight.   “But as a result, the fight con­tin­ued into the ninth, where Cotto ended things.   “I was sur­prised. I thought that the cor­ner would have stopped the fight, but there were a lot of bad deci­sions going on in there,” said Manny Stew­ard, Cotto’s trainer.   “I knew where the towel came from, and it came right from their cor­ner. The fight was over, and it was wrong to have con­tin­ued,” said Stew­ard. “But I thought that Miguel Cotto fought the per­fect fight — good jab, good right hand. I was very pleased with his effort.   “Fore­man said he wanted to con­tinue despite injur­ing his knee.   “I was there the entire fight. The brace is for an old injury. I was mak­ing side-to-side move­ments, how­ever, and it just gave out. I felt a sharp pain and that’s why I went down,” said Fore­man.   “Arthur Mer­cante let me try to work it out. I’m a world cham­pion, or a for­mer world cham­pion,” said Fore­man. “I would have never quit. I did not want the fight to be stopped.

Cotto also improved to 8–0, with three knock­outs in bouts in New York, includ­ing a mark of 6–0 at Madi­son Square Gar­den, with four of those con­tests tak­ing place on the eve of the Puerto Rican Day Parade.   At Madi­son Square Gar­den, Cotto defeated for­mer world cham­pi­ons Clottey, Shane Mosley, Paulie Malig­naggi and Zab Judah, the lat­ter, by 11^th-round knock­out.   Foreman-Cotto brought a fight to a Yan­kee Sta­dium for the first time since 1976, when Muham­mad Ali defeated Ken Nor­ton at the for­mer venue by 15-round deci­sion.   Cotto, who stood 5-foot-7 to Foreman’s 5–11, crowded the taller man through­out the fight.   Cotto will now weigh his options on whether to move up into the higher weight class and defend his crown, or to return to wel­ter­weight for other oppor­tu­ni­ties.   “I have to wait and see,” said Cotto. “What’s bet­ter, to go back down or to stay here. But I’m always ready to fight the big fights.”