Bobby Valentine set to become Red Sox manager

The Boston Red Sox have picked Bobby Valentine to be their manager and the sides were working to complete a contract, a person familiar with the decision told the Associated Press on Tuesday night.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made. Several media outlets in Boston, citing anonymous sources, reported earlier in the evening that Valentine would be the team’s manager.

“He’s got it. I just spoke to him a little while ago,” Hall of Fame member Tom Lasorda, who managed Valentine in the minors with the Dodgers, said in a telephone interview with the AP.

The Red Sox had no comment, spokeswoman Pam Ganley said. Valentine would succeed Terry Francona, who left after eight seasons following Boston’s record collapse in September.

Valentine was in Japan this week, where he managed from 2004 to 2009, and said he was about to take off on a flight when he sent the AP a text message at 9:48 p.m. Tuesday saying he had no comment on “the Red Sox situation.”

ETC.

Washington State football Coach Paul Wulff was fired after four seasons during which his teams won only nine games.

Athletic Director Bill Moos said he hoped to hire Wulff’s successor in two or three weeks.

Moos said he had a list with half a dozen names, including former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach and former Oregon coach Mike Bellotti. He did not reveal the other names.

Wulff had a 9-40 record in four seasons at Washington State, the worst winning percentage of any coach in the program’s history.

The Cougars were 4-8 this season, doubling their win total from 2010. They were only 4-32 in conference play under Wulff.

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Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor gave men’s basketball Coach Jim Boeheim a vote of confidence amid an investigation of child molestation allegations against his former longtime assistant coach.

Some commentators and sex abuse victims’ advocates had said Boeheim should resign or be fired after three men, including two former Syracuse ball boys, accused former assistant coach Bernie Fine of molesting them and Boeheim verbally attacked the accusers. On Sunday Boeheim backed off his criticism of the accusers.

“Coach Boeheim is our coach; he’s getting the team ready tonight,” Cantor said in Albany, N.Y. “We’re very pleased with what he said Sunday night, and we stand by him.”

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Chelsea striker Didier Drogba, who played in two World Cups for his native Ivory Coast, is apparently on the Galaxy’s radar as a possible replacement for David Beckham, whose five-year contract with the Major League Soccer club runs out Dec. 31.

Drogba, 33, has turned down a one-year extension to remain with Chelsea in the English Premier League and his agent, Thierno Seydi, told Goal.com that “L.A. Galaxy are a possibility, among many others.”

Michael Roth, a spokesman for AEG, the entertainment company that owns the Galaxy, said that his group “certainly will not comment on rumors.”

But Roth said that “we’re always looking for other players,” adding that talks about a contract extension with Beckham had not produced a deal.

Beckham’s deal paid him an MLS-record $32.5 million.

The Galaxy, with Beckham, is on a three-game tour of Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia.

—Kevin Baxter