Ex-Bangor swimmer wins event at national meet
SHENANDOAH, Texas — Former Bangor High School swim standout Emma Waddell of Williams College captured a victory in the 100-yard butterfly during the NCAA Division III national championships Thursday night.
Waddell finished in 53.6 seconds to claim the national title in the 100 fly. Earlier in the meet, she recorded a second-place finish in the 200 individual medley with a time of 2:02.5 in the individual medley and helped her team to a third-place finish in the 400-yard medley relay with a 52.1 split on the butterfly leg.
She also helped her team finish fourth in the 200 medley relay with a 23.6 split.
White Sox, Eaton agree to new deal
The Chicago White Sox agreed to a five-year, $23.5 million contract extension with center fielder Adam Eaton on Friday.
Eaton will be paid $850,000 this season and will see incremental raises to $2.75 million in 2016 and $4 million in 2017.
In the final two years of the deal, Eaton will get a combined $14.4 million. Chicago holds options for 2020 ($9.5 million) and 2021 ($10.5 million); if either option is declined, Eaton will get a $1.5 million buyout.
The White Sox acquired Eaton from the Arizona Diamondbacks after the 2013 season. Last season, he batted .300 with one home run, 35 RBIs and 76 runs in 121 games.
Mets’ Wheeler to have Tommy John surgery
New York Mets right-hander Zack Wheeler has opted for Tommy John surgery.
Wheeler, after meeting with doctors earlier in the week, said Friday he will undergo the procedure next week and expects to be out through the first two months of the 2016 season.
“They’re going to go in and basically clean up everything,” Wheeler said Friday. “So, I’m going to have a new elbow when I come out.”
Wheeler went 11-11 with a 3.54 ERA last season. Over the last two seasons, he led the Mets in strikeouts (271), ranked second in wins (18) and third in innings pitched (285 1/3).
A-Rod cousin to drop not-guilty plea in baseball doping scandal
MIAMI — A cousin of Alex Rodriguez who linked the New York Yankees slugger to baseball’s doping scandal plans to change his plea of not guilty on charges of distributing performance-enhancing drugs, records filed on Friday in Miami federal court showed.
Yuri Sucart was arrested in August 2014 along with six others, including the owner of the now-defunct Biogenesis anti-aging clinic in Florida at the center of a doping controversy that ensnared some of Major League Baseball’s most prominent stars.
Sucart is the lone remaining defendant not to have pleaded guilty. But he is scheduled to change his not-guilty plea during a court hearing next Friday in the U.S. Southern District of Florida, according to the court papers, and is widely expected to plead guilty.
He was charged with conspiring to distribute testosterone and five counts of distributing testosterone, punishable by a total of 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Rodriguez, one of baseball’s top-paid players, gave Sucart nearly $1 million in 2013. Sucart’s lawyers had threatened to reveal that he was the player’s “steroid mule,” according to court records.
Tigers choose Price over Verlander for opening day
The Detroit Tigers named left-hander David Price as the opening day starter, ending right-hander Justin Verlander’s streak of seven consecutive.
This will be Price’s fourth opening day start — his first with the Tigers — when Detroit opens the season against the Minnesota Twins at Comerica Park on April 6. He has a 3.54 ERA through 20 1/3 innings pitched on Opening Day.
“It’s a tough decision when you have two guys like that,” manager Brad Ausmus said Friday Price, 29, spent his entire career with the Tampa Bay Rays before being traded to Detroit in July of 2014. Price is 86-51 with a 3.21 ERA over seven major league seasons. He went 15-12 with a 3.26 ERA and league-leading 271 strikeouts last year.
Verlander is coming off a disappointing season with the identical 15-12 record as Price, but with a 4.54 ERA.