■ BASEBALL
Timlin accepts new deal
Veteran pitcher Mike Timlin will stay with World Series champion Boston for at least one more season after accepting a new contract, the Red Sox said on Friday. The right-hander, who in August became the 13th pitcher to appear in 1,000 major league games, has agreed a one-year deal estimated by local media to be worth US$3 million. Timlin has gone 71-69 with 140 saves and a 3.55 ERA in 1,011 career games. He ranks second in Red Sox history with 347 relief appearances. Despite being hampered by injuries, he went 2-1 with a 3.42 ERA and one save in 50 games last season.
■ BASKETBALL
Knicks worth most
The New York Knicks' struggles on and off the court didn't keep the team from remaining the NBA's most valuable franchise for the third straight year, according to a list compiled by Forbes. The Knicks were valued at US$608 million, up 3 percent from the previous year despite a spate of losses, an embarrassing defeat in a sexual harassment lawsuit, and continuing questions about the future of coach Isiah Thomas. The NBA's marquee franchise also had a league-high US$196 million in revenues for the 2006-2007 season while topping the list with negative US$42.2 million in operating income after going 33-49 and missing the playoffs.
■ ATHLETICS
Runner Kenyan again
Kenyan-born runner Leonard Mucheru, who has been competing with a Bahraini passport, has regained his Kenyan nationality, officials said on Friday. Mucheru, who transferred his allegiance to Bahrain in 2003, fell foul of the Bahraini athletics association after taking part in a January marathon in Israel -- with whom Bahrain has no diplomatic ties. Mucheru is now free to compete for Kenya once again, according to a statement from Athletics Kenya secretary general David Okeyo. Mucheru had competed for Bahrain under the acquired name Mushir Salem Jawher. Kenyan athletes often seek a nationality change to obtain better training facilities and remuneration, plus to avoid the stiff competition at home.
■ GOLF
Woods' wife wins damages
The wife of Tiger Woods won 125,000 euros (US$183,250) and an effusive apology on Friday from an Irish magazine that published a "deliberately offensive" article and a faked nude photo of her. Trevor White, publisher of the Dubliner, conceded that the article -- published in September last year when Ireland was hosting the Ryder Cup -- "was cheap, tasteless, and deliberately offensive. It was also completely untrue." The article visibly angered Woods during the opening day of competition, which the US lost to Europe. Nordegren Woods said she would donate the money to a cancer charity in honor of Heather Clarke, the wife of Northern Ireland golfer Darren Clarke. She died of cancer before the Ryder Cup tournament. The headline of the article that accompanied the fake photo described the US golfers' wives as "Ryder Cup filth." The story claimed that Woods' wife "can be found in a variety of sweaty poses on porn sites across the Web." "The photograph was not of Ms. Nordegren Woods. There are no such photographs of Ms. Nordegren Woods on internet sites or elsewhere. Ms. Nordegren Woods has never posed, or been photographed, nude. The story was utterly and comprehensively false," White said.
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