Hall of Fame ballot starts with Alomar

Last update: November 28, 2009 - 12:46 AM

Roberto Alomar is among 15 first-time candidates on this year's Hall of Fame ballot, joining holdovers Mark McGwire, Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven.

Edgar Martinez, Barry Larkin and Fred McGriff also are new to the ballot this year. There are 26 candidates, three more than last year.

Dawson fell 44 votes shy of the 75 percent needed last year, and former Twins pitcher Blyleven was 67 short.

McGwire, hired last month as hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals, is on the ballot for the fourth time.

The complete list is in Scoreboard on C11.

TENNIS

Semis set for ATP World Finals

Nikolay Davydenko grabbed the last semifinal spot at the ATP World Tour Finals in London by beating Robin Soderling 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-3, knocking defending champion Novak Djokovic out of the tournament.

Davydenko, Djokovic and Soderling all finished with two wins in the round-robin phase, but Djokovic was eliminated on sets.

Davydenko will face top-ranked Roger Federer in Saturday's first semifinal match. Soderling will take on U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro.

SOCCER

Match-fixers' methods revealed

The international gang suspected in European soccer's biggest match-fixing scandal supplied sedatives to team doctors and hotel cooks to drug players in matches to be manipulated, a lawyer for one of the arrested suspects said.

Prosecutors believe the gang did not shy away from "locking up people in basements" or "sedating players," lawyer Burkhard Benecken said. "According to prosecutors, they were extremely violent," he said.

The doctor of a Slovenian team was given sedatives to use on his own players, and the chefs in luxury hotels were given drugs to disable players, Benecken said.

Chile back on track for World Cup

Chilean club Rangers dropped a court case that threatened the national team's participation at next year's World Cup. FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, had said it could kick Chile out of the World Cup unless Rangers withdrew the case, which contested the club's demotion to the second division of the national league.

TRACK AND FIELD

Montgomery talks of doping days

Former sprinter Tim Montgomery said from federal prison that he started taking performance-enhancing drugs in 1999 because he wanted to beat American sprint rival Maurice Greene and become the fastest man in the world.

Montgomery, a former 100-meter world-record holder who was stripped of his Olympic medals after admitting to doping, spoke to the London Times from a prison in Alabama where he is serving time for bank fraud and drug dealing.

"Maurice got in my head real bad," Montgomery said. "I wanted everything that he had."

AROUND THE HORN

Pro football: Graham Gano kicked a 33-yard field goal in overtime to give the Las Vegas Locomotives a 20-17 victory over the Florida Tuskers in Las Vegas in the United Football League's first championship game.

Golf: Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy held on to Ireland's three-stroke lead in the World Cup of Golf in Shenzhen, China, shooting a 4-under par 68 in the second round. The Irishmen were at 18-under 126 for 36 holes after the alternate-shot second day. Defending champion Sweden was second after Robert Karlsson and Henrik Stenson shot the day's best round, a 7-under 65.

Auto racing: Montreal is back on the Formula One schedule for five years, thanks to more than $70 million in public money. A race had been held there every year since 1978 before being dropped in 2009 after a financial dispute.

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