BASEBALL
Alomar, Blyleven enshrined
Roberto Alomar became the third Puerto Rican player enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday, cheered on by compatriots in a crowd dotted with Puerto Rican flags. “I always played for my island,” said Alomar, who spoke first in Spanish and then in English. “It is a true blessing to be able to share this moment with all of you. I have you in my heart.” Puerto Rico Governor Luis Fortuno took a moment to congratulate Alomar as he joined compatriots Orlando Cepeda and Roberto Clemente in the shrine. Alomar, a member of the Toronto Blue Jays’ World Series championship teams in 1992 and 1993, is the first player to enter the Hall of Fame wearing a Blue Jays cap and just the 20th second baseman to be inducted. Also inducted on Sunday was right-hander Bert Blyleven, the first Dutch-born player to be enshrined. He thanked his late father and 85-year-old mother for the drive and determination he needed to succeed. Blyleven’s father, who died of Parkinson’s in 2004, fell in love with baseball and the Dodgers after the family moved to Southern California in the late 1950s. “I wish he was here, but you know mom, I know he’s up there looking down right now,” Blyleven said. Front-office guru Pat Gillick was the other inductee. He was general manager when the Blue Jays won World Series titles in 1992 and 1993, and with the Phillies in 2008.
CRICKET
Hayden to play in Big Bash
Former Australian Test opener Matthew Hayden will come out of retirement to play for the Brisbane Heat in the Twenty20 Big Bash next summer, the team said yesterday. The 39-year-old, who retired from international cricket in 2009 after a 103-Test career, last played in last year’s Indian Premier League with Chennai, but Heat coach Darren Lehmann, a former Test teammate of Hayden, said he was ready to return. “He’s been training for a few months now, so we’re excited to have that knowledge around the place,” Lehmann told reporters. Hayden’s return means he has to relinquish directorships of the Cricket Australia and Queensland Cricket boards, as current players are not allowed to have both roles. “We’re just excited to have his playing ability first and foremost, and obviously his entertainment value, what he brings to the table for the Heat,” Lehmann said. Hayden will play alongside former New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori and Brendon McCullum in the new-look competition from Dec. 30 to Feb. 5.
SOCCER
Olympic ball named
The ball for next year’s London Olympics soccer tournament will be called The Albert. Sporting goods manufacturer Adidas invited Britons to suggest names and it said the winner was picked because it was inspired by “London’s great heritage and cockney rhyming slang.” Adidas said “Albert Hall,” one of London’s great landmarks, means “ball” in east London’s traditional rhyming slang. The actual design of the ball will be unveiled next year.
TABLE TENNIS
Paddlers bag bronze medals
Taiwanese players won two bronze medals on Sunday in the men’s doubles at the Asian Junior Table Tennis Championships in New Delhi. In the 18-year-old division, Hung Tzu-hsiang and Lee Chia-sheng took bronze after they were defeated by Japanese opponents. Hsu Chia-liang and Lai Yi-yao also finished in third place, beaten by a duo from China. At the close of the tournament on Sunday evening, Taiwan had bagged one silver medal and two bronze in the men’s division, and two bronze in the women’s division.
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