Damon ails at WBC
Johnny Damon has a sore left shoulder, but the New York Yankees’ center fielder is expected to be available Thursday night when the United States plays Mexico in its final second-round game of the World Baseball Classic.
“They’re calling it a spring training shoulder,” Rob Butcher, the U.S. team’s press liaison, said Tuesday at Anaheim, Calif. “It’s something a lot of players get this time of year. We expect him to be able to play Thursday.”
Damon, who signed a $52 million, four-year contract with the Yankees during the off-season, has played in four of the Americans’ five games in the inaugural WBC, going 1 for 7. He sat out Monday night’s 7-3 loss to South Korea and was a pinch-hitter in Sunday’s 4-3 victory over Japan.
His ailment is exactly the kind of issue New York owner George Steinbrenner was referring to when he spoke out against the Classic.
“Nothing to say,” Steinbrenner repeated twice at Yankees camp in Tampa, Fla., as he hustled toward an elevator on his golf cart. “I’ve said it all.”
One thing is sure, the Yankees aren’t happy about the fact that Damon is hurting while far away from the team.
“That’s the thing you dread most is the injury,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said.
Seattle’s Sexson socks Cubs
Richie Sexson hit his first home run of spring training and starter Jesse Foppert pitched three scoreless innings to lead the Seattle Mariners over the Chicago Cubs 4-2 at Mesa, Ariz.
Sexson’s two-run drive off Ryan Dempster in the fifth extended the Mariners’ lead to 4-0. He is 7 for 16 this spring – a .562 average.
Bobby Livingston and Luis Gonzalez each pitched two scoreless innings, and Matt Lawton and Carl Everett had two hits each for the Mariners.
Red Sox reward Francona
Terry Francona has found a home.
The manager who led the Boston Red Sox to their first World Series championship in 86 years received a two-year contract extension through 2008, seven months after uprooting his wife and children and moving just outside the city where he works.
General manager Theo Epstein called Francona “a mainstay of the organization” whose ability to communicate, ignore criticism and create a loose clubhouse atmosphere is important in Boston with its passionate fans and pervasive media.
Clearing the bases
At Tampa, Fla., former pitching star Dwight Gooden was arrested on charges of violating the terms of his probation. Gooden, 41, pleaded guilty in November to speeding away from police after a DUI traffic stop in August 2005 and was sentenced to three years’ probation. He went to a regular meeting with a probation officer, where he admitted to using cocaine, according to Jo Ellyn Rackleff, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections. … Chicago Cubs pitcher Mark Prior will see a specialist in Los Angeles today after cutting short a throwing session because of soreness in his right shoulder. … Colorado infielder Josh Wilson is out four to six weeks after breaking his left big toe when he fouled a pitch off his foot. … Designs for a 41,000-seat ballpark for the Washington Nationals were unveiled by District of Columbia officials, a glass-and-steel structure clad in pale stone chosen to complement the world famous skyline of the nation’s capital. … Major League Baseball settled a lawsuit with a company that said it owned the trademark rights to the name “Washington Nationals.”