Sports Briefs: Furcal to stay with Dodgers for $33 million

LOS ANGELES -- Rafael Furcal is staying with the Los Angeles Dodgers, reaching a preliminary agreement yesterday on a $33 million, three-year contract.

Furcal made his decision late in the afternoon, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deal was still not yet official.

A day earlier, Furcal had been close to accepting a $30 million, three-year offer from the Atlanta Braves, his original major-league team.

Furcal gets $7.5 million next season, $9.5 million in 2010 and $13 million in 2011. The deal includes a $13 million team option for 2012 with a $3 million buyout, and the option could become guaranteed depending on his performance.

Furcal, 31, coming off a $39 million, three-year deal with the Dodgers, played for the Braves from 2000-05.

He hit .357 with five homers and 16 RBIs last season but was limited to 36 games and 143 at-bats by back problems. He had back surgery July 3 and was sidelined until the season's final week, but started each of the Dodgers' eight postseason games, hitting .258 with one homer, three RBIs and nine runs scored.

More baseball

■ Padres outfielder Brian Giles is being sued by his former girlfriend for more than $10 million, saying that Giles battered her while she was pregnant and caused her to have a miscarriage.

The lawsuit was filed in San Diego Superior Court on Dec. 5 and reported Tuesday by the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Cheri Olvera said Giles began abusing her in 2002. The lawsuit accuses him of hitting and slapping her in the face, shaking and kicking her, and battering her twice when she was pregnant with Giles' child.

■ The New York Mets said yesterday that the money lost by their ownership group in Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scam will not affect team operations.

Jeff Wilpon, the Mets' chief-operating officer, said some individual partners lost money. He said yesterday that the case doesn't affect the new Citi Field stadium and that the Mets are not for sale.

Sterling Equities, the real-estate company of Mets owner Fred Wilpon, has said it was among Madoff's victims.

■ Pitcher Joba Chamberlain of the New York Yankees had his arraignment on drunken-driving charges delayed until next month.

Chamberlain, 23, was to appear in court in Lincoln yesterday, but his attorney asked that the arraignment be postponed until Jan. 26.

Chamberlain is charged with first-offense drunken driving and having an open alcohol container. He was pulled over Oct. 18 by the Nebraska State Patrol on the outskirts of Lincoln.

Authorities say his blood-alcohol level was 0.134 percent; the legal limit in Nebraska is 0.08 percent.

Colleges

■ Natalie Mullikin, a graduate student at Wake Forest, was named an honorable-mention All-America yesterday by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. She is only the third honorable-mention AVCA All-America in program history. Mullikin led the Deacons with 395 kills and 123 total blocks, had a .316 hitting percentage and was a first-team All-ACC selection. She holds Wake Forest records in four blocking categories and is third all-time in kills (1.423).

■ Three cross-country runners from Salem were named to the NCAA All-Association of Division III Independents teams for the 2008 season. Rachel Fichthorn was a second-team pick, and Lauren Meek and Julie Piernikowski were honorable mention.

■ The NCAA put Coastal Carolina's athletics department on two years probation yesterday for financial infractions committed by Brian Ashley, the school's former women's golf coach.

Ashley was not named specifically by the NCAA, but he was Coastal's coach when at the time of the violations. According to the NCAA report, Ashley -- who stepped down last year -- gave two golfers improper financial aid.

■ Coach Mike Kennedy of Elon has been named the pitching coach for USA Baseball's Collegiate National Team for 2009. Rick Jones of Tulane is the head coach of the national team and was the coach at Elon during Kennedy's playing career there.

■ Sam Cronin and Marcus Tracy of Wake Forest and Brian Shriver of North Carolina were named first-team MVPs by Soccer America yesterday, and Corben Bone and Ike Opara of Wake Forest made the second team. Also, Danny Wenzel of Wake Forest and Billy Schuler and Sheanon Williams of North Carolina made Soccer America's first-team all-freshman team, and North Carolina's Kirk Urso made the second team.

Miscellaneous

■ CBS and Time Warner executives have discussed joining forces to bid on rights to televise the Olympics in 2014 and 2016, The Associated Press has learned. Such an alliance would make the competition for Olympics TV rights an even greater clash of media titans than is already anticipated.

NBC, Fox and the ABC Sports-ESPN team are already expected to bid on the U.S. rights. Bidding has been put off until the International Olympic Committee selects the 2016 host city next October.

■ Federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh say they have broken up a cocaine ring headed by a nephew of Tony Dorsett, a Hall of Fame running back. Authorities say that Anthony Dorsett, 31, of Aliquippa, and 12 others have been selling crack and powder cocaine since 2003. The alleged trafficking was centered in a public-housing complex in Aliquippa, about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

■ The 2009 Spanish Vuelta, one of pro cycling's three major stage races, will start in the Netherlands on Aug. 29 and pass through Belgium before returning to Spain, race organizers said yesterday. It will be the first time since 1997 that the Vuelta will start outside Spain.

■ Lindsay Davenport is pulling out of the Australian Open because she's pregnant with her second child.

Davenport, a three-time Grand Slam singles champion and former No. 1-ranked woman, gave birth to a son, Jagger, in June 2007. Davenport then returned to the tour, although she hasn't played since the U.S. Open in August of this year.

■ Tiger Woods' caddie received a reprimand, but not a pink slip.

Steve Williams generated headlines this week when he was quoted at a charity dinner in New Zealand calling Phil Mickelson an obscenity and confirming in another newspaper that he doesn't like Mickelson, a the three-time major champion.