Eastern signs three recruits

Men’s basketball: Geoffrey Allen, the son of former UCLA and NBA star Lucius Allen, is among three high school recruits who have signed early letters of intent to play at Eastern Washington University next season.

Allen, a 6-foot-5, 170-pound wing from Los Angeles, averaged 10.2 points and 4.5 rebounds for Crenshaw High School last season. He transferred to Pacific Hill High School, where he will play this winter.

He is joined among EWU’s early signees by Jaylen Henry, a 6-7, 230-pound forward from Cheyenne High Scholl in Las Vegas, and Carter Warnock, a 6-9, 220-pound forward from Seton Catholic High in Chandler, Ariz.

Eagles coach Kirk Earlywine also announced that Tremayne Johnson, a 6-7, 200-pound forward and transfer from Los Angeles Southwest College, will enroll at Eastern in January after clearing up academic issues that prevented him from attending school this fall.

Henry averaged 9.6 points and Warnock 13.3 last winter.

“We’ve really increased our speed and quickness on the perimeter this year, and we wanted to do that on our front line for next year,” Earlywine said. “Tremayne and our new high school recruits are a big step in that direction.”

Steve Bergum

Nationals hire ex-M’s skipper

Baseball: Former Seattle Mariners manager John McLaren was hired Friday as bench coach for the Washington Nationals, helping to round out new manager Jim Riggleman’s staff.

Riggleman was McLaren’s bench coach with Seattle at the start of 2008, then replaced him as the team’s manager when McLaren was fired that season.

McLaren was a special assignment scout for Tampa Bay in 2009.

Associated Press

Give the World for the holidays

Baseball: Major League Baseball has the perfect gift to bust a budget in a recession.

A 20-DVD set of World Series films can be bought for $2,229, and it contains authenticated autographs of 12 Hall of Famers, including Yogi Berra, Bob Gibson, Reggie Jackson and Mike Schmidt.

There are 65 films from 1943-2008 that run for more than 50 hours.

MLB spokesman Jeff Heckelman said the set is also available without the autographs for $179.99 on MLB.com and in stores with a suggested retail price of $229.

Associated Press