BASKETBALL
Bryant to have surgery
Kobe Bryant will have surgery Wednesday on his torn right rotator cuff, likely ending his 19th season with the Los Angeles Lakers. The team announced Bryant’s surgery Monday. He injured his shoulder last week in New Orleans. The Lakers will announce a timetable for Bryant’s recovery after surgery, but Coach Byron Scott anticipates losing the third-leading scorer in NBA history for the rest of the year. Bryant’s torn rotator cuff is likely his third consecutive season-ending injury. He missed the 2013 playoffs with a torn Achilles tendon, and he played just six games last season before breaking a bone near his left knee. His body has finally worn down from the accumulated grind of 19 seasons and several lengthy postseasons with the Lakers, including five NBA title runs. Bryant, 36, who was selected to the All-Star game for the 17th time last week, is averaging 22.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.6 assists this season.
m The NBA has postponed home games for both the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets because of a snowstorm expected to batter the area. The Knicks were to have hosted the Sacramento Kings on Monday night at the same time the Nets were scheduled to face the Portland Trail Blazers. Sacramento will instead return to Madison Square Garden on Tuesday, March 3, adding an extra game to what was to have been a seven-game trip. The Trail Blazers-Nets game was rescheduled for Monday, April 6.
m Washington dismissed center Robert Upshaw, the national leader in blocked shots, from its program for a violation of team rules on Monday, a severe blow to the Huskies hopes of getting back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011. Washington Coach Lorenzo Romar announced the dismissal in a statement. No other details were given by the school. Upshaw led the nation averaging 4.6 blocks per game and was already Washington’s single-season record holder for blocked shots with 85 blocks in 19 games. He was averaging 10.9 points per game and 8.2 rebounds, mostly coming off the bench. Upshaw had made four starts, most of those coming when Jernard Jarreau went down with a knee injury. Upshaw had provided Washington an athletic presence in the middle, his first season with the Huskies after transferring from Fresno State and sitting out one year.
FOOTBALL
Woodson re-signs with Raiders
The Oakland Raiders signed pending free-agent safety Charles Woodson to a one-year contract extension on Monday, bringing him back for an 18th season in the NFL. The team announced the contract by releasing a picture on Twitter of Woodson signing the deal next to Hall of Fame defensive back Willie Brown. Woodson was eligible to be a free agent in March. Woodson will turn 39 in October but showed few signs of slowing down in his 17th professional season. He played all 16 games this season and was on the field for a team-high 1,100 snaps, according to STATS LLC. The only defensive back to start a game at age 39 or older is Hall of Famer Darrell Green, who played until he was 42. Woodson led the Raiders with 160 tackles, including 105 unassisted tackles and 4 interceptions. He also added nine passes defensed, one fumble recovery and one sack. Woodson originally joined the Raiders as the fourth-overall pick in 1998 following a brilliant college career at Michigan, where he won the Heisman Trophy and led the Wolverines to a share of the national championship in 1997. He played eight seasons in Oakland before leaving as a free agent to go to Green Bay, where he won the 2009 Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year award and the Super Bowl the following season. He returned to the Raiders in 2013 and will enter the third season of his second stint with the team.
BASEBALL
Mesoraco gets 4-year deal
All-Star catcher Devin Mesoraco agreed to a $28 million, four-year contract on Monday, leaving the Cincinnati Reds with two players in salary arbitration. The Reds were trying to get deals with two other All-Stars, third baseman Todd Frazier and closer Aroldis Chapman. They haven’t had a player go to an arbitration hearing since 2004. Mesoraco’s deal includes a $500,000 signing bonus and salaries of $2.4 million this year, $4.9 million in 2016, $7.2 million in 2017 and $13 million in 2018. The salary in the final year can increase by as much as $2 million. The 26-year-old catcher was a first-round pick — the 15th overall — in the June 2007 draft. He started 84 games in 2013 and the Reds decided he was ready to become the full-time catcher last season, when he made $525,000. He surpassed their expectations on offense. Mesoraco led all major league catchers in home runs (25) and RBI (80) while batting .273. His 24 home runs while catching were the most by a Reds player since Johnny Bench in 1977.
m The Chicago Cubs announced a public visitation and memorial service for Hall of Fame slugger Ernie Banks will be held Friday and Saturday in the city. The visitation is scheduled for noon to 8 p.m. on Friday, with the memorial service at 10 a.m. Saturday at Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church. Limited public seating will be available. Banks died Friday at 83 after a heart attack, according to an attorney representing his family. Known as “Mr. Cub,” Banks is remembered as much for his boundless enthusiasm despite playing on mostly losing teams as his 512 home runs and two MVP awards.
MOTOR SPORTS
Chase will remain same
NASCAR won’t change its new championship format, which chairman Brian France said Monday is “overwhelmingly popular” with fans. The Chase was revamped last year into an elimination-style system that created a winner-take-all final race among four drivers. Kevin Harvick won the season finale at Homestead in November to claim his first Sprint Cup title. NASCAR launched the Chase in 2004 and tweaked it several times in the first 10 years. But it got a dramatic overhaul before the 2014 season, when the field was expanded to 16 drivers with four eliminated after every third Chase race. The final four drivers then went to Homestead even in the standings, with the highest finisher guaranteed the championship. The system worked in creating an eventful finale in which all four contenders raced for the victory. France said he believed the simple formula that did not require following points — drivers made the Chase by winning a race, and advanced through the rounds with victories — was embraced by fans.
BASEBALL
Rob Manfred addressed a myriad of issues on his first day on the job as Major League Baseball’s commissioner, endorsing efforts to speed up and add offense to the game.
A 20-second pitch clock is one new idea Manfred favors.
Manfred, 56, said MLB executive Joe Torre and Atlanta Braves president John Schuerholz both approved continued experimentation of a pitch-clock this year in Class AA and AAA after watching it in the Arizona Fall League.
“I’m a fan of the pitch clock,” said Manfred, who is replacing Bud Selig, baseball’s commissioner for the past 22 years . “I think the best endorsement of it is that some of the people involved in the game that you would regard to be on the more traditional spectrum were converts.”
Manfred also wants stricter interpretation of the rule-book strike zone, a process that began with computer evaluation of umpires’ ball-strike calls starting in 2001.
“A lack of strike zone uniformity is kind of like dandelions,” Manfred said. “If you don’t pay attention, it comes back.”
The big league batting average dropped to .251 last year, its lowest level since 1972.
MLB forwarded the players’ union a list of radical ideas, Fox reported Monday, such as tinkering with the ball, mound, fences and strike zone, and extending the designated hitter to the National League. Manfred said he doesn’t see a DH change happening, but the height of the mound could be open to debate. It was cut from 15 inches to 10 after the 1968 season.
“I don’t see that as a revolutionary idea,” he said.