■BASEBALL
Ramirez to play in Taiwan
It was confirmed yesterday that MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers will arrive in Taiwan on March 11 and that nine-time Silver Slugger Manny Ramirez will be with the team. The Dodgers will play three exhibition games with Taiwan Major League teams, giving local fans a chance to see Ramirez’s legendary batting power. With a career batting average of .313, 37-year-old Dominican-born Ramirez has 546 career home runs, ranking 15th historically and 4th among active players. His 21 career grand slams, second only to Lou Gehrig’s 23 historically, put him in top place among active players. Taipei City Government The team will play at the Tienmu Baseball Stadium on March 12 and March 13 and later in Kaohsiung.
■SOCCER
Former bosses arrested
Three former bosses of China’s graft-ridden soccer association have been formally arrested on corruption charges as the league pledged yesterday to cleanse itself of corruption. Former Chinese Football Association (CFA) boss Nan Yong, one-time vice chief Yang Yimin and just-sacked head of refereeing Zhang Jianqiang were arrested on Monday on charges of match-fixing and bribe-taking, Xinhua news agency reported. The three were detained in January and stripped of their posts in an expanding probe into graft in Chinese football that has made the game a laughing stock amongst beleaguered fans in the world’s most populous nation. “Nan Yong and the others have violated the law, they must bear the legal responsibility ... We fully support the actions of the police,” newly appointed CFA head Wei Di said in a statement posted on the association Web site. “What really hurts is that they were leaders of the China Football Association, this not only is painful, but means that we have a greater responsibility to bear.”
■RUGBY LEAGUE
Second Knight faces charges
A second Newcastle Knights player has been charged with drug dealing, throwing the Australian National Rugby League club into upheaval on Monday. The Knights said they had stood down forward Chris Houston indefinitely after he was charged with four counts of supplying prohibited drugs. The club said Houston was due to appear in court on April 13. Houston’s charges follow the terminating of teammate Danny Wicks’s A$200,000 (US$180,000) yearly club contract with three years remaining after he was charged with supplying drugs on Dec. 16 last year. Wicks is due next to appear in court on March 31.
■SOCCER
No apology for Materazzi
France legend Zinedine Zidane says he would “rather die” than apologize to Marco Materazzi for his infamous headbut of the Italian defender in the 2006 World Cup final. “I will ask forgiveness from football, from supporters, from the team,” he told Spain’s El Pais newspaper published on Monday. “After the match, I entered the dressing room and I told them ‘I’m sorry. It won’t change anything, but I’m asking for your forgiveness.’ But as for him [Materazzi] I cannot. Never, never ... It would be dishonorable... I would rather die.” After a verbal altercation, Zidane was sent off for headbutting Materazzi during the World Cup final in Berlin. “A lot of things happen on the pitch,” he told El Pais. “That sort of thing happens to me quite a lot. But in this case I couldn’t contain myself. It’s not an excuse, but my mother was ill, she was in hospital. More than once they have insulted my mother and I said nothing. But in this case …”
Former world No. 2 Paula Badosa has withdrawn from this week’s Wuhan Open, organizers said on Tuesday, amid a racism row over an online photograph. Tournament organizers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic. News outlets including Britain’s the Telegraph earlier reported that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes. The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the
Shin Oebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is very aware how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani touches his players. “With Ohtani, the kids think everything is possible,” Oebori said, wrapping up practice yesterday on an all-dirt field set alongside a local Buddhist temple, below an elevated highway, and in the shadow of tall apartment blocks in central Tokyo. “Nothing is impossible with him. A dream is not a dream,” Oebori said, stepping out of the fenced practice field that keeps balls from landing on the temple grounds. None of the players hitting sponge-soft baseball has reached
Italian defender Marco Curto has been banned for 10 matches for racially abusing South Korean forward Hwang Hee-chan while playing for Como 1907 against Wolverhampton Wanderers in a pre-season friendly in July. Curto, who is on loan from Como to Serie B club Cesena, would serve half of the punishment immediately with the other half suspended for two years. “The player Marco Curto was found responsible for discriminatory behavior and sanctioned with a 10-match suspension,” a FIFA spokesperson said. “The player is ordered to render community services and undergo training and education with an organization approved by FIFA.” Wolves said the club would
CRICKET Azhar’s 59 leads Stallions Aashir Azhar’s blazing half-century guided the Taipei Stallions to victory over Taipei Super 11 in the Taiwan Premier League’s Group A at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei yesterday. The Stallions were 102-3 and into the 12th over of 20 when Azhar came to the crease. He hit seven sixes and two fours in the 25 deliveries he faced to push his side to 171-5. Gokul Kumar was the star with the ball for Super 11, taking 3-17. In the reply, Deepak Vishnu outscored Azhar with 77 from 50 balls, but nobody else got past 20 as
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