Andrew Robert Rector, 26, of New York, fell asleep during a New York Yankees game on April 13. Andrew Robert Rector recently filed a lawsuit against the Yankees, Major League Baseball and ESPN for defamation after a clip of Rector sleeping during the April 13 Yankee game against the Boston Red Sox aired on television and was posted online by MLB.com. The scorned fan is asking for #x0024;10 million in damages from the three powerhouses, reports the New York Post. The New York Yankees fan is loo
Major League Baseball has announced that is has suspended New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez through the 2014 season without pay. The suspension amounts to…
“ Jay-Z doesn’t know sh*t about baseball . You don’t hire a real estate agent to do neurosurgery!!” Baseball Insiders Mad About Jay Z’s Sport Agency Via NY Daily News reports: Baseball oracle Jose Canseco tweeted that Robinson Cano “just gave the Yankees $100 million” on Tuesday after the news broke that the star second baseman had dumped Scott Boras for Jay-Z’s new sports agency. “Canseco is probably dead on,” said the agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Jay-Z doesn’t know s— about baseball. You don’t hire a real estate agent to do neurosurgery.” Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports, which has partnered with Creative Artists Agency Sports, announced Tuesday that it has signed Cano as its first client. Cano, who will earn $15 million this year, will be eligible for free agency at the end of the 2013 season. Boras is known for encouraging players to become free agents rather than sign extensions with their current club. The threat of losing the best player on a roster full of aging and injured players would give Cano a boost in negotiations with the Yankees, the agent said. “The Yankees would love to get this done now,” the agent said. Jay-Z, of course, will not directly negotiate Cano’s next contract; those duties, according to the Roc Nation Sports announcement, be handled by a team led by CAA agent Brodie Van Wagenen. Wagenen and CAA aren’t exactly chopped liver; they represent Buster Posey, Ryan Braun, Matt Cain and Ryan Zimmerman. All four players have recently signed contract extensions exceeding $100 million. But the agent said CAA won’t have the same leverage with the club that Boras would have by threatening to take Cano to free agency. “Can you imagine the hardline negotiations that will take place when Jay-Z walks into (Yankee president) Randy Levine’s office with that Yankee hat he’s always wearing and says his client wants to play with the Dodgers?” the agent said. The agent suspects Cano was convinced to jump ship because he was intoxicated by “celebrity perfume.” “Celebrity in baseball comes from performance, but Robinson is looking at Jay-Z and Beyonce to make him a celebrity,” he said. “He is being naïve. The story now is about Jay-Z, not Robinson. Haters gon’ hate!
The greatest relief pitcher of all-time has announced his pending retirement. Mariano Rivera, who is returning to the mound in 2013 after tearing his ACL while shagging fly balls last year, confirmed at a new conference today that he will call it quits following the upcoming season. Said Rivera, 43, this morning at the Yankees’ spring training complex, surrounded by teammates and club officials: “After this year, I will retire… I thank God I was able to play baseball so many years.” Rivera is baseball’s all-time leader in saves. He owns five World Series rings and a career ERA of 2.21.
William Spengler, the killer of two New York State firefighters, apparently left a chilling note before opening fire on first responders earlier this week. An ex-con with the same military-style rifle used in the Connecticut school shooting , Spengler typed a note pledging to burn down his neighborhood. He said he was going to “do what I like doing best, killing people,” police said as another body, believed to be the gunman’s missing sister, was found. Spengler, 62, served 17 years in prison for manslaughter in the 1980 hammer slaying of his grandmother. He set his house afire before dawn Monday. At that point, he took a revolver, a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle to a sniper position outside, Webster, N.Y., Police Chief Gerald Pickering said. He shot dead two firefighters responding to the fire. The death toll rose to three as police revealed that a body believed to be his 67-year-old sister, Cheryl Spengler, was found in his fire-ravaged home. Authorities say he sprayed bullets at the first responders, killing two firefighters and injuring two others who remained hospitalized Tuesday. Those two victims are awake, alert and expected to survive. He then killed himself as seven houses burned on a sliver of land along Lake Ontario. Police recovered a military-style .223-caliber semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle with flash suppression, the same make and caliber weapon used in Newtown, Conn. The chief said it was believed the firefighters were hit with shots from the rifle given the distance but the investigation was incomplete and ongoing. “He was equipped to go to war, kill innocent people,” the chief said. The 2-3 page typewritten rambling note left by Spengler did not reveal what set off the killer or provide a motive for the shootings, Pickering said. He called the attack a “clear ambush on first responders.” He read only one chilling line: “I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down, and do what I like doing best, killing people.”
Former Major League Baseball star Andruw Jones has been arrested on charges of battery. Giving unfortunate new meaning to the term “slugger,” Jones – who has won 10 Gold Glove Awards and became the youngest player to hit two home runs in a World Series Game in 1996 – was booked at the Gwinnett County Detention Center around 3:45 a.m. yesterday. Authorities say a 911 call was placed around 1:30 a.m., reporting a domestic dispute between Jones and his wife. No further details are available at this time, though Jones posted $2,400 bail and was released about seven hours after his arrest. Jones played a part-time role for the Yankees last season and has 434 career home runs. Earlier this month, he signed a $3.5 million contract with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan’s Pacific League. NOTE: In other scandalous sports news, how about that Chad Johnson sex tape ?!?
Earlier this summer, Roger Clemens was found not guilty of lying to a grand jury over his alleged steroid use. But the fireballer apparently is guilty of making like Brett Favre: no, he hasn’t texted a photo of his penis to any young female employees. But he also doesn’t know when to truly retire. Clemens, 50, has actually signed with the Sugar Land (Texas) Skeeters of the independent Atlantic League and is expected to start for the minor league organization on Saturday. Note to Roger Clemens: Stick to golf. Agent Randy Hendricks hasn’t said anything about his client attempting a Major League comeback if all goes well, but did say in a statement: “His fastball was clocked at 87 mph; all of his pitches were working. He threw a three-inning simulated game after an extensive workout warm-up.” Clemens last pitched for the Yankees in 2007, finishing 6-6 with a 4.18 ERA. His 4,672 strikeouts rank third all-time and he was named to 11 All-Star Games. He’s also eligible for the Hall of Fame next year – barring a return to Major League Baseball – although voters are unlikely to vote for the man who most people believe took performance enhancing drugs for many years during the second half of his career.
Amanda Knox, the American college student who spent nearly four years in an Italian jail for murder, only to have her conviction overturned, is read to tell her story. And be paid handsomely for it. The international drama that unfolded on TV and in newspapers is now about to be told from the inside, in a subjective and profitable account, by Amanda Knox herself. Knox, who was freed last fall after her conviction in the murder of Meredith Kercher was thrown out, has sold her book to HarperCollins for what is said to be $4 million. “It is a story everyone else seems to have told except for the person at the center of it all,” Jonathan Burnham, the publisher of HarperCollins, told The N.Y. Times . “There has been plenty of rumor and conjecture about her, the role she played in events, and speculation about what happened. This book will tell the full story from her point of view for the very first time, and it will be told in her own words.” Amanda Knox, 24, kept prison diaries, the newspaper reports. In addition, her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito , who was also cleared in the killing of Meredith Kercher, is said to be preparing to sell his own memoir. Are you interested to hear what Knox’s book has to say? [Photo: Fame/Flynet]
The New York Yankees have accomplished everything a baseball team possibly could on the field, having won 27 World Championships, by far the most history. But the squad had left no mark at all in the world of personal fragrances… until now! The Yankees have partnered with The Cloudbreak Group to launch a pair of scents –
The New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners shocked the baseball universe last night by completing a four-player trade centered around two of the most hyped young stars in baseball: Jesus Montero – who hit over .300 and blasted four home runs for the Yankees in 18 regular season games last year – was swapped for 22-year pitching phenom Michael Pineda, who finished 2011 with a 3.74 ERA and 173 strikeouts in 171 innings. The deal provides Seattle with an upgraded offense, and the Yankees with a solid number-two starter behind C.C. Sabathia. Considering the premium placed on young, cheap starting pitching, most experts agree the Yankees came out on top here. Remember the Hanley Ramirez-for-Josh Beckett deal between the Red Sox and Marlins, for example? Ramirez went on to become one of the top 10 hitters in baseball… yet Boston would do that swap all over again in a heartbeat. Who do you think got the best of the Yankees/Mariners trade?
