■FORMULA ONE
Button fastest in test
Jenson Button of McLaren was fastest as Formula One’s penultimate test session ended without rain. The defending champion’s lap of 1 minute, 18.871 seconds set the pace as the 11 cars ran in dry conditions for only the second of eight testing days at the Jerez Circuit. Renault’s Robert Kubica was more than 0.2 seconds behind for second place, followed by Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber, Tonio Liuzzi of Force India and Nico Rosberg of Mercedes GP rounding out the top five, which was within 1.190 seconds of Button. Fernando Alonso of Ferrari was sixth with a best time of 1:20.436 as most teams concentrated on long fuel runs. Jarno Trulli made his Lotus debut with a best time of 1:23.470 from a session-high 141 laps.
■BASEBALL
Torre to stay a fourth year
Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre committed himself to a fourth year with the Major League Baseball team, ending speculation about whether or not he would return next year. Torre’s current contract runs through the upcoming 2010 season, but talks are underway to extend his deal one more year. After next year, the 69-year-old with four World Series titles as a manager said he would call it quits. Torre said on Saturday: “Right now we’re just talking about the one year and what the number’s going to be.” In each of his first two years with the Dodgers, the former Yankees manager has guided the team to the National League Championship Series. “The young guys are getting better and they seem to enjoy the challenges,” Torre said. “The thing that resonates with me is when we lost game five [of the NLCS] in 2008 and 2009, it was very different. In ’08 it was, ‘Look how far we came.’ In ’09 it was, ‘Look at what we missed out on.’ That’s the sense.”
■BASKETBALL
Injury sidelines Brockman
Sacramento Kings rookie forward Jon Brockman will be sidelined for up to four weeks with a knee ligament injury, the NBA team said on Saturday. Brockman has started four of the Kings’ 44 games and has averaged 3.0 points and 4.6 rebounds, the Kings said on their Web site. He sprained the medial collateral ligament in his right knee during practice on Friday.
■FIELD HOCKEY
Aussies given go-ahead
The Australian men’s field hockey team will compete in the upcoming World Cup after Hockey Australia was told there are no known credible security threats against the tournament in New Delhi. The team’s participation was in doubt after Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani militant with links to al-Qaeda, warned the international community against sending athletes to the hockey World Cup, Indian Premier League and Commonwealth Games, all events to be held in India this year. Hockey Australia said it had received advice from the Australian High Commission and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade assuring them there were no credible threats against the team. The field hockey tournament runs from next Sunday to March 13. The team was scheduled to depart Perth yesterday. “The information from all sources is consistent,” Hockey Australia said in a statement yesterday. “The advice states that there is a strong commitment and tangible evidence of the authorities’ ability to implement robust security measures to ensure our team’s safety at all times. All threats have been assessed and there are no known credible World Cup threats at this time.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB