MAJOR LEAGUES
Felix Hernandez has returned to the Seattle Mariners with the same diamond studs sparkling in his ear lobes, plus a little more hardware — his American League Cy Young award.
As part of the Mariners’ pre-spring training news conference on Thursday, Seattle brought out the one bright spot from an otherwise miserable season last year — its young right-handed star.
Hernandez, who was dubbed “King Felix” after he arrived in Major League Baseball, captured his first Cy Young award despite finishing the season with a marginal 13-12 record. He dominated nearly every other pitching statistic in the game.
“For like two months, I was like really, Cy Young?” Hernandez said. “It means a lot to me. I worked hard for this, but it’s not enough. This year I’m going to go out and do my best, I’m going to be the same guy, the same pitcher and I’m going to give a chance for my team to win the game.”
He spent most of the offseason in his native Venezuela, where he became just the second pitcher from that country to win the award, joining Johan Santana. The award brought an instant bump in his celebrity and made scheduling a challenge.
“Back in Venezuela it was crazy. I did a lot of interviews, a lot of stuff,” Hernandez said. “I had to find time to work, to go to the weight room, to play catch, but I figured it out.”
He returns to a franchise that’s done a complete 180 from this time a year ago when they were a popular pick to contend for a division title.
Last year, at the same event, the team broke out its slogan of “Believe Big,” believing the American League West was vulnerable and the Mariners might finally reach the postseason for the first time since 2001.
Of course, the Mariners collapsed, losing more than 101 games for the second time in three seasons.
“Certainly, last year was a disappointing year,” General manager Jack Zduriencik said. “There were issues, things that disappointed all of us. Certainly disappointed me, but that’s behind us and we’re moving forward.”
There might not be a better arm in baseball to move forward with than Hernandez. He’s won 32 games the past two seasons, struck out more than 200 batters and pitched more than 200 innings in each of those years.
Asked what he could improve on now, Hernandez paused, rubbed his chin and said: “I don’t know. That’s a good question.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier