American League
Manny Ramirez led his Red Sox teammates out of the dugout Tuesday, waving a small American flag on his first full day of US citizenship.
PHOTO: AP
With the flag rippling in the wind, he ran to left field as fans cheered, then went to the seats along the foul line and handed it to a fan.
"I'm very proud to be an American citizen," he said with a big smile before Boston's game against Cleveland.
Ramirez, 31, moved from his native Dominican Republic to New York when he was 13. His parents and sisters are citizens.
"I was the last one to do it and they were always telling me, `Hey, you've got to do this,'" he said. "So I just went ahead and did it."
Ramirez had played in all 31 of his team's games before missing Monday's 8-4 loss to Cleveland to attend a two-hour ceremony in Miami during which he became a citizen. General manager Theo Epstein said it was an excused absence.
"I wasn't nervous," Ramirez said. "There were probably like 2,000 people there [from] all over the world, Costa Rica, Colombia ... Jamaica, so everything went fine."
His first at bat as a US citizen wasn't as pleasant. He struck out against C.C. Sabathia leading off the second. After the top of the inning, "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood was played over the sound system. As Ramirez walked into the batter's box, "America" by Neil Diamond was played.
Ramirez said he took the required citizenship test about six months ago and learned the date of the ceremony during spring training.
"It's going to be good that I took a day off," he said. The Red Sox are in a stretch of games in 16 straight days.
Ramirez, who has dual citizenship in the Dominican Republic and the US, is registered to vote in Florida.
Red Sox 5, Indians 3
Pinch-hitter David McCarty had a two-run triple that broke an eighth-inning tie, and Pedro Martinez struck out 11 to lead the Boston Red Sox over the Cleveland Indians 5-3 Tuesday night.
Alan Embree (1-0) won despite giving up Victor Martinez's solo homer in the eighth -- the only hit he allowed. Keith Foulke pitched the ninth for his seventh save.
Victor Martinez doubled in two runs in the first, but Boston tied the score on solo homers by Gabe Kapler in the third and David Ortiz in the fourth. Martinez gave Cleveland a 3-2 lead in the eighth, but Boston scored three runs in the bottom half against Jose Jimenez.
White Sox 15, Orioles 0
In Chicago, Mark Buehrle got his first victory since April 10, and Magglio Ordonez had five RBIs for the White Sox.
Ordonez went 4-for-5. Frank Thomas hit a three-run homer and Jose Valentin homered and drove in three runs for the White Sox, who snapped a season-worst three-game losing streak.
Buehrle (2-1) allowed four hits in seven innings and struck out six. Sidney Ponson (2-3) gave up 11 hits and seven runs in six innings.
Athletics 5, Tigers 4, 15 innings
In Detroit, Damian Miller hit a tiebreaking, two-out single in the 15th inning to give Oakland its fourth victory in its last five games.
Eric Chavez walked and Jermaine Dye hit singles off Danny Patterson (0-2), and Scott Hatteberg was intentionally walked to load the bases with two outs to set up the game-winning hit. Dye and Bobby Crosby hit leadoff, solo homers in the second and third innings to give Oakland a 2-1 lead.
Justin Duchscherer (1-1) allowed only in five innings, and Jim Mecir pitched the 15th for his second save.
Twins 7, Mariners 6, 11 innings
In Minneapolis, Shannon Stewart knocked the ball out of catcher Dan Wilson's glove to score from second base in the 11th inning for Minnesota.
Stewart, who was slow to get up after the collision, scored on Doug Mientkiewicz's bloop single to center off Ron Villone (3-1). Randy Winn's throw beat Stewart, but the 5-foot-11, 200-pounder knocked the ball loose.
Aaron Fultz (1-1) pitched two scoreless innings for the win.
Yankees 8, Angels 7, 10 innings
In New York, Gary Sheffield lined an RBI double with two outs in the 10th inning, and the Yankees ended Anaheim's nine-game winning streak.
The game included two rain delays, plus a bizarre break when the Yankees' radio broadcast began echoing from the scoreboard.
On a night when ace relievers Mariano Rivera, Francisco Rodriguez and Troy Percival all squandered late leads, Sheffield's hit ended it at 1:23am.
Alex Rodriguez singled with one out in the 10th off Ben Weber (0-1). An out later, Sheffield hit a drive over leaping left fielder Jeff DaVanon. When the ball ricocheted off the wall and past DaVanon, Rodriguez had enough time score from first.
Tom Gordon (1-1) got the win.
National LeagueRoger Clemens remained unbeaten and struck out a season-high 11, leading the Houston Astros over the Florida Marlins 6-1.
Clemens (7-0) won his 11th straight-regular season decision, allowing only three hits, including a solo homer to Ramon Castro, in seven innings to get his 317th win.
Brad Penny (3-2) allowed two runs and five hits in 6 2-3 innings with five strikeouts.
Houston's Morgan Ensberg had three RBIs and Lance Berkman went 3-for-4 with two RBIs as the Astros matched the 1973 club for the best start in franchise history through 32 games at 21-11.
Major League Baseball and its players' union are moving their drug testing to a lab in Montreal that is certified by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Since the start of baseball's drug-testing plan last year, the tests had been collected by Comprehensive Drug Testing of Long Beach, California, and the specimens evaluated by Quest Diagnostics of Teterboro, New Jersey.
Quest will continue to collect the tests, but the evaluations will take place at the INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier Research center.
"These laboratories are subject to safeguards and quality control mechanisms and ethical standards that are the highest available anywhere," Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president for labor relations, said Tuesday.
For minor league players not on 40-man major league rosters, testing will be done at the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory.
Gene Orza, the union's chief operating officer, said the switch emerged from the agreement on an Olympic-style testing program for the baseball World Cup the sides hope to launch next March.
"If it's not a WADA-certified laboratory, then international play cannot take place," Orza said.
Major League Baseball's testing program has been criticized by some because it does not test for as many substances as Olympic sports and its penalties are less severe. The World Cup drug-testing deal does not alter Major League Baseball's labor contract.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig wants to toughen the drug-testing provisions in the labor contract. The union has said it will listen to Selig, but no changes have been agreed to.
Kim Byung-hyun demoted
The Boston Red Sox optioned right-hander Kim Byung-hyun to Triple-A Pawtucket on Tuesday night, a day after he was removed from the starting rotation because of a second consecutive poor outing.
Kim was 1-1 with a 6.17 ERA in three starts after being activated from the 15-day disabled list on April 29. He missed the first 19 games of the season with a right shoulder strain.
Rafael Soriano disabled
Right-hander Rafael Soriano was placed on the 15-man disabled list Tuesday by the Seattle Mariners because of a sprained elbow ligament.
Seattle recalled infielder Ramon Santiago from Triple-A Tacoma.
Soriano is 0-3 with a 13.50 ERA in six relief appearances over 3 1-3 innings.
Miguel Tejada injured
Baltimore Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada left Tuesday's game against the Chicago White Sox in the first inning after straining a muscle in his right shin. He is listed as day-to-day.
Tejada hurt his leg when he extended it to grab a relay throw from left fielder Larry Bigbie. He stood up straight and then hopped on his left leg.
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
RSS