BASEBALL
Verlander nabs AL Cy Young
Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers won the American League Cy Young Award as the top pitcher on Tuesday, capping a brilliant season in which he led the league in wins, earned run average and strikeouts. Verlander, who went 24-5 with a 2.40 earned run average and 250 strikeouts this year, received all 28 first-place votes cast by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. The 28-year-old ace, who helped the Tigers advance to the AL Championship Series, also led AL pitchers by throwing 251 innings and holding opponents to a .192 batting average. Verlander pitched a no-hitter against the Toronto Blue Jays in May and his win total was the most in the league since 1990, when Bob Welch won 27 games for the Oakland Athletics.
FOOTBALL
Schaub’s injury ‘significant’
Houston quarterback Matt Schaub hopes to play again this NFL season, but admitted the foot injury he suffered in a game on Sunday “doesn’t look good.” Schaub injured his right foot in the second quarter of the Texans’ 37-9 victory at Tampa Bay. He stayed in the game, but threw just three passes in the second half. Houston coach Gary Kubiak called the injury “significant.” Schaub, speaking on a weekly radio appearance, said his foot “is not visibly looking too good.” “When you look at it, it’s pretty colorful and everything,” Schaub said. “It’s pretty sore and beat up right now, but we’re going to search out some other opinions and just do as much as we can to get it right here in the near future to see what can happen.” Schaub said he was hurt when his foot got caught under a Tampa Bay defender.
BASKETBALL
Coach K gets 903rd win
Mike Krzyzewski, the coach who led a team of NBA stars to Olympic gold in Beijing and will try to guide the US to a repeat in London, became the coach with the most wins in major college basketball on Tuesday. Krzyzewski’s Duke University Blue Devils defeated Michigan State 74-69 to give “Coach K” his 903rd career win, breaking a tie with Bob Knight — who was Krzyzewski’s coach in the army and his mentor when he became a coach himself. Third-year guard Andre Dawkins had 26 points for the Blue Devils, who took control with a 20-1 run that gave them a 61-41 lead with 9:17 remaining. The lead was never threatened, leaving Duke to get to the business of celebrating. Several of Krzyzewski’s former players attended Tuesday’s game at Madison Square Garden — some of them able to be there because of the NBA lockout. As soon as the game ended, Krzyzewski crossed the court to talk to Knight, now a television commentator, and hugged him.
BASEBALL
Baseball, softball may unite
Baseball and softball could merge into one international governing body in the hopes of returning to the Olympics. International Softball Federation president Don Porter said the sports must weigh “the benefits of being an Olympic sport ... against losing your identity.” Porter and International Baseball Federation president Riccardo Fraccari are meeting with IOC officials this week about the bid process. Fraccari said they “have to study many things” and baseball-playing countries meeting on Dec. 3 in Dallas must first back a joint bid. Baseball and softball are currently competing with karate, roller sports, sports climbing, squash, wakeboard and wushu for a spot at the 2020 Games.
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