LAS VEGAS -- Sergey Kovalev kept coming, and Andre Ward never stopped battling. With the crowd roaring in approval, they put on a fight that lived up to its advance billing.In the end, Ward won a narrow decision Saturday night to take Kovalevs light heavyweight titles in a battle between two unbeaten boxers.Ward survived a second-round knockdown and relentless pressure from Kovalev, doing just enough to win by a point on all three ringside scorecards. He remained unbeaten in his last 20 years in the ring, but it wasnt without some moments of worry.This was a beautiful thing. We did it baby, Ward said. Im a five-time world champion in two different weight classes. Man, its amazing.All three ringside judges had Ward winning 114-113. The Associated Press had Kovalev ahead 116-111.It was a fight of my life, Kovalev said. I am disappointed in the judges decision. He got maybe a few rounds, I agree with that. I kept control. I lost maybe three rounds the whole fight.Ward won all of the last six rounds on two scorecards, and five of six on a third. He won the final round on two of the scorecards.Kovalev knocked down Ward in the second round and chased him around the ring much of the early part of the fight. But Ward dug deep and managed to land some good punches of his own in a fight that built to a climax in the later rounds.The crowd of 13,310 at the T-Mobile Arena was on its feet in the late rounds as the two fighters went after each other, neither giving an inch. In the end, the judges favored Wards counter punching against the aggressive style of Kovalev.We were a little careless with that knockdown in the second round, said Wards trainer, Virgil Hunter. But we landed the cleaner punchesBoth fighters were unbeaten with almost identical records. Ward was 30-0 with 15 knockouts and Kovalev was 30-0-1 with 26 knockouts.It was a classic boxer versus puncher battle, and it looked like the puncher would prevail as Kovalev won the early rounds. But Ward kept punching and landed some good shots of his own in the middle rounds, and there were plenty of close rounds that could have gone either way.I knew it was going to be a tough fight -- it was the 1st time in my career I was dropped, Ward said. He did everything I expected him to do. He started to fight like I expected.Kovalevs promoter, Kathy Duva, said she would use the rematch clause in the contract for a second fight.He won the first six rounds so I dont know how he could lose a decision, Duva said. Im happy we had a great fight. Boxing needed a great fight.The fight was billed as a matchup of U.S. and Russian fighters, with the 2004 Olympic gold medalist Ward against a Russian who lives mostly in the Los Angeles area. It was a classic matchup of puncher versus boxer, and for the early part of the fight the puncher was winning.Kovalev flashed his power early, hitting Ward with a left hand midway through the first round that briefly wobbled Wards legs. Ward grabbed and held on and finished the round jabbing at the Russian, but the tone of the fight was set early.Midway through the second round, both fighters threw right hands but it was Kovalevs that landed flush to the side of Wards head, putting him on the canvas. He got up quickly and smiles as if not hurt but needed all of his supreme defensive skills to make it out of the round.Ward seemed unwilling to go inside after that, moving backward and trying to land jabs to control the action. But he abandoned the style that had served him so well over the years and fought moving backward, throwing only one punch at a time, as Kovalev constantly pressed the attack.Ward did have some moments, including the seventh round when he landed a good left that snapped Kovalevs head back.Ward earned $5 million, while Kovalev was paid $2 million plus a percentage of pay-per-view.On the undercard, two-time Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields made her pro debut a successful one, winning a decision over Franchon Crews in a four-round super middleweight fight.Shields came back from a slow first round to land the bigger punches in an entertaining fight. Both women, fighting without headgear for the first time, traded punches freely but Shields won all over four rounds on the scorecards of the three ringside judges.Shields, who became the first American woman to win a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics and added another in Rio in August, had vowed to be impressive in her first pro fight. And she wasnt shy about trading punches with Franchon, a Baltimore fighter who lost to her during the Olympic trials in 2012.Nike Vapormax Suomi . As he recorded his 23rd and 24th points of the evening, a segment of the sellout Air Canada Centre crowd expressed their appreciation for the Raptors point guard with a smattering of MVP chants. Myydään Vapormax .C. -- Rodney Hood connected from all over the court while freshman Jabari Parker was busy swatting shots and scoring in transition. http://www.vapormaxsuomi.com/ . But now that hes in the NHL, the Calgary Flames centre showed big improvement in that department by scoring the winner in the eighth round of a 5-4 shootout victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Monday. Vapormax Plus Ale . Toronto has dropped games to Indiana and Miami since a five-game winning streak and closed out a three-game road trip at 1-2. Nike Vapormax Plus Suomi . Speaking Thursday on TSN 1050 Thursday, the Leafs GM also touched on the questions surrounding the teams leadership and the struggles of his big-name free-agent signing. “Its not from lack of effort from the coaching staff.This season, baseball historian Bill Savage has been contributing a Chicago Cubs fans perspective from his seats at Wrigley Field in a column called The View From Section 416.?For the World Series, Cleveland Indians fan and baseball writer Susan Petrone has joined the party and will write The View From The 216?-- aka Clevelands area code.When I was a kid, my brother and I spent a lot of time playing Wiffle ball in the backyard with the neighbors. There were usually only five of us, thus we frequently made use of ghost runners.Unless you grew up in a neighborhood with an overabundance of children, youre familiar with ghost runners. If you have fewer than four players on a side, you often end up in a situation where the runner on base is next in line to bat. Since you cant be in two places at once, you have a ghost runner -- an invisible player who will logically advance the next time the ball is put in play.I thought about ghost runners a lot this past weekend, less because of Halloween (although Im thinking that would make a good costume) than because I went to my first official World Series watch party. On the rare occasions when the Indians have been in the postseason since Ive been of legal drinking age, Ive watched most games at home. Situations like the Indians 1-0 win in Game 3 can cause a great deal of anxiety. Its been proved that petting a dog can lower your blood pressure. Since you cant bring your dog to a bar, I stay home, rub the dogs belly, and try to remain calm. Its a coping strategy.But on Saturday night, a friend invited me to join her at the official Cleveland Indians watch party at Progressive Field. For all three World Series away games, the team sold $5 tickets (proceeds going to Cleveland Indians Charities) for fans to watch the game on the 13,000-square-foot scoreboard.At first, this struck me as an odd sort of arrangement. You want me to go to the ballpark and watch a game that isnt actually being played there? It seemed like the equivalent of watching two teams of ghost runners. Why not just watch it closer to home with some friends, or at the closest watering hole with a liquor license and a wide-screen TV? But my friend had sprung for the Club seats, which included an all-you-can-eat buffet. Free food and baseball? Sure. I put aside my initial skepticism and went.They opened the doors to Progressive Field about an hour before game time. Maybe it was the excitementt of a World Series Game 4, maybe it was the first-come, first-served open seating, but when I arrived, thousands of people were lined up outside the right-field gate, waiting to get in.dddddddddddd They spilled out along the sidewalk on E. 9th Street and down Bolivar Road. It felt like a game day, only when I peeked through the gates, there were no players warming up, no batting practice, just the tarp covering the infield. A ghost park ready for ghost teams. Still, I felt that little tingle up my spine the baseball-obsessed get when were at the ballpark.It was not a ghost crowd. We were quite real, loud, boisterous and ready to watch Game 4 of the World Series, even if it was taking place 350 miles away. Food and beer stands were open, the team shop was open, everybody in attendance even received the same red rally towel the team has been handing out all postseason. It was, for all intents and purposes, a standard ballpark experience. The only thing missing was the presence of actual live baseball players.The place was packed, but it just had the look and feel of a box whose contents have shifted to one side. Hey, when the action is happening on a flat surface at one end of the bowl instead in the middle of the bowl, you adjust. The only truly empty sections were the bleachers directly under the scoreboard.Once the game started, the crowd shifted into overdrive, just as though the action really was happening in front of us. We cheered, we jeered, we waved those rally towels as if the Series depended on it. Ghost team or not, it was a hell of a lot of fun.I did a little bit of searching to see if other ballparks have done this sort of thing. The Cardinals have Ballpark Village, but its outside of Busch Stadium. The Royals have hosted watch parties at Craft and Draft, the bar/lounge inside Kauffman Stadium. The Chicago Tribune noted Tuesday that the Cubs have no plans for watch parties at Wrigley Field for Games 6 and 7.Thats too bad. World Series tickets are expensive and hard to come by. The cumulative attendance for the three watch parties at Progressive Field was 67,218 (in a stadium that currently holds approximately 35,000). Thats 67,218 more fans who were able to get a taste of the World Series at the ballpark, even if every last player was a ghost runner. ' ' '