Kidd Signs With Mavericks for $60 Million

The Dallas Mavericks signed guard Jason Kidd to a nine-year, $60-million contract Saturday, hailing it as a gift to the city that for two years has had the worst team in the NBA.

Kidd, 21, was the first of the top eight 1994 draft choices to sign. He was selected second overall in the June draft after playing two seasons for California.

The team would not divulge the contract’s worth. But the 6-foot-4 Kidd, when asked about reports the deal was worth $60 million, said, “It’s close.”

The Mavericks, with only a total of 24 victories in the last two seasons, said the contract forced them to renounce their rights to unrestricted free-agent forwards Tony Campbell and Randy White and guard Fat Lever.

Auto Racing

Race car driver Ernie Irvan advanced another step in his recovery from last month’s crash when doctors at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., upgraded his condition from serious to fair. Irvan suffered a brain injury and bruised lungs when his car slammed into a wall during practice at Michigan International Speedway on Aug. 20.

Mark Martin scored the fifth victory in his last five starts at Darlington Raceway when he won the rain-shortened Gatorade 200 at Darlington, S.C.

Dale Jarrett finished second, followed by Mike Wallace. Martin took the lead on lap 8 and held it for 102 of the next 104 laps before rain brought the race to a close after 111 of the scheduled 147 laps.

Robby Gordon earned the pole position for today’s Vancouver Molson-Indy ahead of Nigel Mansell and Michael Andretti. Gordon’s best lap was 109.049 m.p.h.

Rain resulted in cancellation of second-round qualifying for today’s Southern 500 stock car race at Darlington Raceway. The final 22 spots were determined from first-round speeds.

Baseball

Michael Jordan went hitless in four at-bats Saturday night, striking out twice to finish the season with a .202 average for the double-A Birmingham Barons. Jordan didn’t start Friday night to ensure that his average would remain above .200.

After suffering a sprained left rotator cuff diving for a fly ball, Jordan went 12 for 40 (.300) over the final three weeks of the Southern League season. Jordan, who struck out 114 times in 436 at-bats, hit three home runs and drove in 51 runs. He stole 30 bases in 48 attempts.

The Barons’ parent team, the Chicago White Sox, have petitioned the Arizona Fall League to let Jordan join the Scottsdale Scorpions for the season that runs from Oct. 6 to Dec. 1.

Florida Marlin hitting instructor and former Angel manager Doug Rader will resign at the end of the season, and former Cincinnati Red manager Tony Perez is the early front-runner to fill the vacancy.

Hockey

Alexei Yashin will report to the Ottawa Senators’ training camp today despite his trade demands and belief that the club lied to him about renegotiating his contract.

Yashin, 20, is entering the second year of a five-year contract worth $4 million. He wants $14 million for the final four years of the deal after leading the Senators with 30 goals and 79 points as a rookie.

The NHL is investigating former Hartford Whaler coach Pierre McGuire over a possible breach of contract, according to the Ottawa Citizen. The investigation followed protests by the Whalers that their former coach might have breached his contract in testifying for the Edmonton Oilers in an arbitration hearing. McGuire, now a part-time pro scout with the Ottawa Senators, denied any wrongdoing.

Soccer

U.S. national team midfielder John Harkes said it was an “insult” for England’s Football Assn. to have offered the U.S. soccer team a $25,000 bonus if the Americans win their game against England at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday.

The remark came amid reports in an English newspaper that officials from the U.S. Soccer Federation and the F.A. were trading barbs over the origination of the bonus idea.

“I don’t think we need to be offered some cash sum to come out and play,” said Harkes. “I think it’s more or less an insult for us to be offered money.”

When the F.A. announced the bonus last week, it said the money was an incentive for the Americans to make the game more competitive, adding that the bonus idea came from U.S. officials. That claim was denied by USSF spokesman Jim Froslid.

Diving

Olympic and world champion Fu Mingxia of China produced a stunning final dive to snatch the gold medal from countrywoman Chi Bin at the World Swimming Championship in Rome.

Needing to score more than 62 points on her final dive in the 10-meter highboard, Fu performed an inward 3 1/2 somersault. It earned the 16-year-old scores of 8.5, four 8.00s and a total of 75.48, the highest of the competition, as she became the first woman to win consecutive highboard world titles.

Name in the News

Glen Rose, an Arkansas basketball All-American in the 1920s who later coached the Razorbacks to five Southwest Conference titles, died in Fayetteville at 89.