Off the wire

A defiant and at times angry Robert Allenby stood by his story Tuesday that he was robbed and beaten in Honolulu.
A defiant and at times angry Robert Allenby stood by his story Tuesday that he was robbed and beaten in Honolulu.

HOCKEY

Brodeur to retire

Martin Brodeur, one of the greatest goaltenders in NHL history, is retiring. Brodeur starred for years with New Jersey and is now with St. Louis. He plans a Thursday news conference to announce that he is retiring and will join the Blues in a management role in hockey operations. The 42-year-old Brodeur wrapped up a 22-year career with St. Louis after signing as a free agent on Dec. 2. He was 3-3 and his final victory was a 3-0 shutout over Colorado on Dec. 29. The Montreal native was 691-397-176 with a 2.24 goals-against average, .912 save percentage and 125 shutouts in 1,266 career appearances. He holds regular-season NHL records for victories, shutouts, games played and minutes played, and postseason records for starts (204) and shutouts (24).

BASEBALL

$6M payment iffy

The New York Yankees are thinking about not making a $6 million payment to Alex Rodriguez if he hits six home runs and ties Willie Mays at 660 for fourth place on the career list. Rodriguez signed a $275 million, 10-year contract with the team in December 2007 and a separate marketing agreement that called for $6 million payments for up to five milestone accomplishments designated by the Yankees. Each payment is due within 15 days of designation and is in exchange for rights such as using Rodriguez's name and image in selling licensed goods. At the time of the marketing agreement, those accomplishments were contemplated to be tying the home run totals of Mays, Babe Ruth (714), Hank Aaron (755) and Barry Bonds (762), and breaking Bonds' major league record. Rodriguez returns to the team next month after a season-long drug suspension and has three seasons and $61 million in guaranteed money remaining in his contract. New York's thought process on the $6 million payment, first reported by the Daily News, was described to The Associated Press on Monday by a person familiar with the deal who spoke on condition of anonymity because no public statements were authorized. The Yankees are thinking of letting any accomplishment pass without declaring it a milestone. A failure to declare a milestone and make a payment likely would trigger a grievance on Rodriguez's behalf by the Major League Baseball Players Association. Barring a settlement, the case would be heard by an arbitrator. Rodriguez's spokesman, Ron Berkowitz, declined comment. Rodriguez, a three-time AL MVP, turns 40 in July, and the Yankees have said they plan to shift him from third base to designated hitter.

• The San Francisco Giants and shortstop Brandon Crawford have avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year contract for $3,175,000. The agreement Tuesday gives Crawford a raise from the $560,000 he earned last season. He had been asking for $3.95 million in his first year of arbitration, while the Giants had countered at $2.4 million. The sides settled at the midpoint. Crawford batted .246 with 10 home runs and 69 RBI last season, while helping the Giants win their second World Series title in his third season as the starting shortstop. Crawford has a .242 career average with 26 home runs and 178 RBI.

FOOTBALL

Ex-Vandy players convicted

A jury in Nashville, Tenn., convicted two ex-Vanderbilt football players on Tuesday of raping a former student, rejecting claims that they were too drunk to know what they were doing and that a college culture of binge drinking and promiscuous sex should be blamed for the attack. The jury deliberated for three hours before announcing that Brandon Vandenburg and Cory Batey were guilty. Batey was stoic, staring ahead and Vandenburg shook his head "no," appearing stunned. The victim, who was a 21-year-old neuroscience and economics major at the time of the 2013 attack, cried as each guilty verdict was announced. Both men were convicted of four counts of aggravated rape, one count of attempted aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery. They face decades in prison when they are sentenced March 6. The jury heard two weeks of dramatic testimony from a parade of witnesses, including police, former and current Vanderbilt students, and the woman, who said she didn't remember what happened that night, only that she woke up in a strange dorm room. They also saw cellphone images from the night of the attack that Vandenburg sent to his friends as it was happening. Despite the photos and video, and witnesses seeing the woman unconscious and at least partially naked in a dorm hallway, no one reported it. The trial played out amid a national conversation about rape on college campuses. In Nashville, where the prestigious private university is located, hundreds of officials from colleges across the state are meeting this week for a two-day summit on how to reduce sexual assaults.

• The Washington Redskins have hired former New York Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell as defensive backs coach and Mike Clark as head strength and conditioning coach. Fewell replaces Raheem Morris, who is expected to join the staff of the Atlanta Falcons. Fewell was fired by the Giants earlier this month. He spent five seasons in New York and was the interim head coach of the Buffalo Bills for seven games in 2009. Clark spent the last two seasons as the strength and conditioning coordinator for the Chicago Bears. He replaces Ray Wright, who was let go after five seasons with the Redskins. The Redskins announced the moves Tuesday.

• The Oakland Raiders have hired four more assistant coaches for new coach Jack Del Rio's staff. The team announced the hiring of tight ends coach Bobby Johnson, wide receivers coach Rob Moore, running backs coach Bernie Parmalee and assistant special teams coach Tracy Smith on Tuesday. The main open position left on the staff for the Raiders is a defensive coordinator.

• New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Tom Benson is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by recently estranged heirs who are seeking control of his NFL and NBA teams. Benson, whose lawyers filed an answer to the lawsuit in civil district court in New Orleans on Tuesday, says he made a "deliberate, reasoned and difficult decision" to change his succession plan so that Gayle Benson, his wife of 10 years, inherits control of the teams. Benson's daughter, Renee Benson, and her children, Rita and Ryan LeBlanc, have recently been removed from the 87-year-old owner's succession plan for his clubs. They sued last week, claiming Benson's physical and mental health are failing, allowing him to be manipulated by his wife and her allies within the teams' top management.

GOLF

Allenby stands by his story

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — A defiant and at times angry Robert Allenby stood by his story Tuesday that he was robbed and beaten in Honolulu, basing the account on what he remembered and what he was told by a homeless woman who came to his aid.

“There has definitely been a lot of confusion, but I think the No. 1 thing that you should all remember is that my story stays exactly the same as the way I told it,” Allenby said. “I told you what I knew, and I told you what someone told me. That’s the bottom line. I never lied to anyone.”

Honolulu police are investigating the Jan. 16 incident as second-degree robbery. No arrests have been made.

Allenby, 43, said he was at Amuse Wine Bar with his caddie and a friend from Australia on the night he missed the cut at the Sony Open. He said surveillance tape shows him leaving the bar with three people he doesn’t recognize, and that his next memory is being in a park. He said a homeless woman told him he had been thrown out of a trunk, which he said caused his injuries.

Allenby posted a photo of his bloodied forehead and a swollen eye to his private Facebook account. He said he was robbed of wallet and phone, although the credit card he used to pay for dinner and wine was still in his front pocket.

In the past week, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser quoted the homeless woman, Charade Keane, as saying she never told Allenby she saw him in a trunk and did not how he was injured. The newspaper quoted another homeless man in the park, Chris Khamis, as saying Allenby told him he was depressed and drugged at a strip club and that he passed out and hit his head on a lava rock.

Exactly what happened remains a mystery, even for Allenby. He said Tuesday he has “no memory in my brain” from about 11:06 p.m. to 1:27 a.m. on that date.

“I have been trying and overlooking and going backward and forward, and there is just nothing,” he said. “I can’t tell you how frustrating that is because we all want to know the truth.”

Sports on 01/28/2015

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