Venezuelan government joins investigation of Wilson Ramos’ kidnapping

Venezuela’s government said Thursday that it has sent its top investigators to solve the kidnapping of Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos, a case that has shaken the nation’s elite athletes and focused attention on the country’s sharp rise in kidnappings for ransom.

Police found the kidnappers’ vehicle abandoned in a nearby town Thursday morning, according to Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami, who called the discovery “a very important find.”

He said antikidnapping units led by “the best investigators we have” were dispatched to the area in central Carabobo state, and he vowed to rescue Ramos and capture his abductors.

“We’re taking on this investigation with everything we’ve got,” El Aissami said.

The 24-year-old player, who had just finished his rookie season, was just outside the front door at his home in the town of Santa Ines on Wednesday night when an SUV approached, armed men got out “and they took him away,” said Ramos’ agent, Gustavo Marcano.

“The abductors haven’t made contact with the family or with anyone,” said Domingo Alvarez, vice president of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League, in a telephone interview. “We’re worried.”

Major League Baseball and the Nationals issued a joint statement that the league’s Department of Investigations was working with authorities.

“Our foremost concern is with Wilson Ramos and his family and our thoughts are with them at this time,” the statement said, adding there would be no further comment.

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Former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley, who has expressed his intention to bid on the team, said he has joined former Dodgers pitchers Chan Ho Park and Hideo Nomo on a partnership to run the facility formerly known as Dodgertown.

After McCourt moved the Dodgers’ spring home to Arizona in 2009, Minor League Baseball leased the Dodgertown complex and marketed it for camps, clinics, tournaments and conferences.

Park and Nomo could help attract international business to the complex, now known as Vero Beach Sports Village after McCourt declined to allow the Dodgertown name to remain. O’Malley will be the new chief executive.

— Bill Shaikin

Tory Hernandez, who as manager of baseball operations helped run a bare-bones Angels front office while the team searched for a general manager in October, was informed by new GM Jerry Dipoto on Thursday that he will not be offered a contract for 2012.

Hernandez, 33, was with the team for seven years, the first three as a player performance analyst and the last four as manager of baseball operations. Considered one of the team’s up-and-coming young executives, Hernandez was mentioned as a possible GM and assistant GM candidate before Dipoto got the job in late October.

“I can’t say it’s entirely unexpected, but the timing is not good — it’s Nov. 10, and most of the jobs in baseball are filled,” Hernandez said. Dipoto “wants to bring in his own guys, which I understand. They didn’t see a fit, a role for me, here. I know there are better challenges out there for me. I want to scout more, and they don’t have a role that fits that.”

— Mike DiGiovanna

The Pittsburgh Pirates signed veteran catcher Rod Barajas to a one-year deal with a club option for 2013. Financial terms were not immediately disclosed.

Barajas, 36, hit .230 with 16 home runs and 47 runs batted in last season with the Dodgers. He is one of the top power-hitting catchers in the game. His 50 homers over the last two years are third-most by a major league catcher over that span.

GOLF

Another strong round for Woods

Tiger Woods put together his best back-to-back rounds of the year Friday with a five-under-par 67 that gave him a one-shot lead among the early starters in the second round of the Australian Open at Sydney.

If it holds up, it would be his first time in the lead after any round since the third day of the Chevron World Challenge last year, and the first time against a full field since his last win two years ago in the Australian Masters.

Woods was at nine-under 135, one shot clear of Peter O’Malley (66).

Juli Inkster shot a bogey-free five-under 67 for a share of the first-round lead with Suzann Pettersen in the Lorena Ochoa Invitational at Guadalajara.

Inkster, 51, is trying to become the oldest winner in LPGA Tour history. Beth Daniel was 46 when she won the 2003 Canadian Women’s Open.

Meena Lee was one shot back after a 68.

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Four-time major champion Phil Mickelson was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame and said his upcoming enshrinement won’t slow down his quest to reach 50 career victories. Mickelson, who became eligible for the honor after turning 40 last year, received 72% of votes cast, the Hall of Fame said.

Mickelson has won 39 tournaments since turning professional in 1992, including three Masters titles and a PGA Championship. He is to be inducted May 7 in St. Augustine, Fla.

ETC.

Sparks win WNBA draft lottery

The Sparks were awarded the top pick in the 2012 WNBA draft despite going into the draft lottery in New York on Thursday with a 10.4% chance of earning the No. 1 spot.

The Sparks were competing against three teams for the top pick — the Tulsa Shock, the Minnesota Lynx and the Chicago Sky — and had the fourth-best odds.

The Shock, 3-31 last season, was favored to win the top pick (44.2%). It will draft fourth. The Sky (14-20) will select third and the Lynx (27-7) will choose second.

This is the second time in franchise history that the Sparks have drawn the top pick. The last time they had the top choice was In 2008, when they drafted Tennessee superstar Candace Parker. She won the league’s most-valuable-player award in her rookie year.

The Sparks were 15-19 last season and missed the playoffs for the fourth time in franchise history. The 2012 draft is to be held April 16.

— Melissa Rohlin

The Galaxy will be without forward Chad Barrett for the MLS Cup against Houston on Nov. 20 after Barrett dislocated his right ankle in training.

Barrett, a 26-year-old finishing his seventh MLS season, started 20 games during the regular season and all three in the playoffs. He had seven goals — second only to captain Landon Donovan’s 12 — and five assists.

— Kevin Baxter

Kyle Busch will be allowed to race in the final two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events but without main sponsor M&M’s. Busch will drive Sunday at Phoenix and in next weekend’s season finale at Homestead with Interstate Batteries as his sponsor instead.

In a statement released Thursday night, sponsor Mars said the car will not run with the M&M’s paint scheme until 2012, “at which time Kyle Busch will be the driver with the expectation that no future incident take place.”

The deal ends a week of wrangling over Busch’s future with his race team — all fallout from a road rage incident at Texas. Busch wrecked Ron Hornaday Jr. under caution early in the trucks series race and was parked by NASCAR for the rest of the weekend.

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The IndyCar Series will race in China in 2012, choosing a street circuit in the seaport city of Qingdao to replace its traditional trip to Japan. The race is scheduled for Aug. 19.

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Disgraced American cyclist Floyd Landis was convicted by a French court for his role in hacking into the computers of the antidoping lab that caught him cheating at the 2006 Tour de France.

The court in Nanterre, west of Paris, handed Landis and former coach Arnie Baker 12-month suspended sentences for benefiting from information culled from computers at the Chatenay-Malabry lab.

State prosecutors had sought an 18-month suspended sentence against both men, who were tried in absentia.

Landis was stripped of the 2006 Tour title after the WADA-accredited lab south of Paris found unusually high testosterone levels in his samples.

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Top-ranked Novak Djokovic rallied from a set down to beat Viktor Troicki, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, and reach the quarterfinals of the Paris Masters. Andy Murray, Tomas Berdych, David Ferrer and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga also advanced. Djokovic will next play Tsonga.

Murray routed Andy Roddick, 6-2, 6-2, and will next face Berdych, who beat Janko Tipsarevic, 7-5, 6-4. Mardy Fish was leading 6-1, 6-7 (6), 2-1 against Juan Monaco when a leg injury forced him to retire.

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Pittsburgh Penguins Coach Dan Bylsma said Sidney Crosby will not play Friday or Saturday and that his status remains uncertain. Crosby has not played since he was diagnosed with concussion symptoms in early January.

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Pro soccer player David Testo said he is gay and that he regrets not coming out sooner. The 30-year-old former Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder told CBC Radio in Canada that teammates knew he was gay and accepted him, but he was afraid to go public until now.

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Miami Hurricanes basketball player DeQuan Jones will sit out the season while the NCAA investigates allegations he was recruited with the help of $10,000 cash from a booster.

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Candice Wiggins, who plays for the WNBA champion Minnesota Lynx, has taken an off-season job with Division III Occidental College as an assistant women’s basketball coach.