Red Sox Sign Mack From Japan

Boston’s disintegrating Red Sox picked up an outfielder Saturday, signing Shane Mack, who spent five seasons with the Minnesota Twins before playing the last two seasons with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan’s Central League.

Mack, 33, hit .293 with 22 homers and 75 runs batted in leading Yomiuri to the Central League championship last season. He signed a $1.85-million, one-year contract.

The Red Sox lost longtime pitcher Roger Clemens to a Toronto free-agent contract on Friday and are also losing longtime outfielder Mike Greenwell to free agency.

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The Seattle Mariners, unable to cut a clear path to a new ballpark, are for sale, according to John Ellis, the team’s chairman.

Ellis said the owners were frustrated by an increasing number of roadblocks in the way of plans to build a $363.5-million retractable-roof stadium.

He cited a Dec. 12 letter from four King County council members to the Public Facilities District suggesting that the construction schedule be pushed back from the spring of 1999 to 2000.

The Mariners are owned by a group of local investors who, backed by Hiroshi Yamauchi, president of Nintendo Co. Ltd. of Japan, bought the team from Jeff Smulyan for $100 million in 1992.

Winter Sports

Her bobbles and stumbles apparently overlooked by the judges, Kristi Yamaguchi won the women’s title for the third time in the World Professional Figure Skating Championship at Landover, Md.

Kurt Browning retained the men’s title, upsetting Brian Boitano for the second consecutive year with two routines that played well to the USAir Arena audience--as well as to the judges.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean won the dance title for the fifth time. Elena Bechke and Denis Petrov, who have been runners-up here four times, won their first major pairs title.

U.S. lugers Chris Thorpe and Gordy Sheer returned to Altenberg, Germany, the scene of their 1996 world championship silver medal, and clocked an aggregate of 1 minute 26.593 seconds to race to their second victory in three World Cup doubles event starts.

The Americans top the World Cup overall standings with 102 points.

Americans Brian Shimer and Bob Olesen set a course record of 54.59 seconds in Cortina d’Ampezzo to win a two-man World Cup bobsled race over Italians Guenther Huber and Antonio Tartaglia by 0.09 seconds.

Franziska Schenk of Germany won her third consecutive World Cup 1,000-meter speed skating title of the season in Ikaho, Japan, where two Japanese skaters won gold medals.

World-record holder Hiroyasu Shimizu took the men’s 500-meter title, and Kyoko Shimazaki won her second World Cup women’s 500-meter gold medal of the season.

Fog wiped out a men’s World Cup downhill in Val d’Isere, France, after only 17 skiers finished.

Irina Slutskaya fell on a triple salchow and triple flip, but moved up from third place after the short program to win the Russia Cup women’s figure skating competition in St. Petersburg.

Russians also dominated the men’s competition, with Olympic champion Alexei Urmanov overcoming fierce competition from Alexei Yagudin.

Leading after the short program, Urmanov was the last competitor in the free skating and successfully landed two triple-jump combinations.

World and Olympic champion skier Bjorn Dahlie, from Norway, dominated from start to finish, completing a World Cup 15-kilometer cross-country race in Brusson, Italy, in 39 minutes 49.5 seconds for his second victory of the season.

Stefania Belmondo of Italy won the women’s race over the same distance in 43:20.1, beating Russia’s Elena Vaelbe by 1.7 seconds.

Japan’s Kazuyoshi Funaki broke the hill record in Harrachov, Czech Republic, twice in successive jumps, leaping 140 and 141 1/2 meters to win a World Cup ski jumping event.

Frenchman Sebastien Foucras won the World Cup freestyle ski event, amassing 227.02 points at LaPlagne, France, and easily beating American Eric Bergoust.

Jurisprudence

Pittsburgh Steeler safety Darren Perry fled the scene of a traffic accident early Saturday and has been accused of drunken driving, Pennsylvania state police said.

Perry, 27, was awaiting arraignment at a jail in Greensburg, which is 25 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Belgian police detained 117 people in Brussels, mostly for fighting and drunkenness, before and after Belgium’s 3-0 loss to the Netherlands in a World Cup soccer qualifying match.

In the worst incident, 30 Dutchmen attacked local youths close to King Baudouin Stadium. Police moved in quickly to make several arrests and no serious injuries were reported.

Boxing

Katherine Dallam, a woman making her professional boxing debut in St. Joseph, Mo., apparently sustained a broken blood vessel in her head, requiring surgery and several days of hospitalization.

Name in the News

Mike Fisher of perennial power Virginia won his second consecutive Hermann Trophy as college soccer’s best player.