Toronto Awarded NBA Team

The NBA on Thursday welcomed Toronto as an expansion team for $125 million but delayed a decision on awarding a franchise to Vancouver.

The NBA’s Board of Governors unanimously approved the Expansion Committee’s Sept. 30 recommendation that a Toronto group led by John Bitove Jr. be accepted as owner of the league’s 28th team in the 1995-96 season. The franchise fee of $125 million is nearly four times the $32.5 million it cost expansion teams in Miami, Orlando, Charlotte and Minnesota over a two-year period in the late 1980s.

Bitove said the name of the team, which will play in SkyDome in its first season and in a new 22,000-seat downtown arena after that, would be decided in a contest next year.

The league also voted to suspend for as many as two games players who repeatedly are called for flagrant fouls.

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One month after Michael Jordan announced he was leaving pro basketball, he sent a letter to the NBA confirming his departure. The league received a similar letter from Jerry Krause, general manager of the Chicago Bulls, on Thursday.

The letters mean that if Jordan decides to come back any time this season, he would need unanimous approval from the league’s Board of Governors. There would be no reinstatement necessary if Jordan chose to come back next season.

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Rookie Doug Edwards, the Atlanta Hawks’ No. 1 draft choice from Florida State, will miss the first three to four weeks of the season because of blood clotting in his right calf.

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Neal Talmadge, former director of corporate sales for the Houston Rockets, filed a lawsuit alleging he was fired because the team wanted to hire a minority in his place. The Rockets declined comment.

Golf

Andrew Magee, with a birdie and eagle on consecutive holes, shot a six-under-par 67 to take the first-round lead at the $1-million Kapalua International.

Two strokes back were Scott Hoch, Peter Jacobsen and Nolan Henke on a day marked by sunny skies and stiff trade winds at the Kapalua Resort on the island of Maui.

Hockey

Owner Peter Pocklington of the Edmonton Oilers has filed papers informing the NHL he intends to move the team to Minneapolis. Pocklington said he expects league governors to approve the move at a meeting in California on Dec. 9 or 10 but added that he would continue to deal in good faith with both Edmonton and Minnesota.

Left wing Nikolai Borschevsky of the Toronto Maple Leafs will be sidelined up to two months after surgery to have his ruptured spleen removed. He suffered the injury during the first period of Wednesday night’s game against the visiting Florida Panthers.

Baseball

The Milwaukee Brewers declined to exercise their 1994 option on Robin Yount’s contract, and the 20-year veteran filed for free agency. The Brewers are expected to re-sign Yount, 38, who made $2.7 million last season and hit .258 with eight homers and 51 RBIs.

Fay Vincent, forced out as baseball commissioner in September of 1992, is considering an offer to become the primary business executive of the New York Mets.

Tennis

Top-seeded Pete Sampras defeated Marc Rosset in the third round of the $2.1-million Paris Open, 7-5, 6-3. Three-time champion Boris Becker also advanced to the quarterfinals, beating Karel Novacek, 7-6 (11-9), 6-2.

Mary Joe Fernandez waited four days for her first match and made the most of it, breezing to a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Meredith McGrath in the Bank of the West Classic at Oakland. Martina Navratilova recovered from a first-set loss to defeat 16-year-old Iva Majoli, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, in the late match to reach the semifinals.

Miscellany

Two Tennessee high school basketball players, senior Lorenzen Wright and junior Ron Mercer, had one-season suspensions reduced to seven games as their penalty for accepting gifts at a Nike-sponsored tournament.

The wife of former boxer George Chuvalo was found dead in an apparent suicide in Toronto, four days after their son died of a heroin overdose. Lynne Chuvalo, 50, was discovered in bed at her home by a family member, Toronto police said. . . . The Missouri Valley Conference added Evansville as its 11th school.