Rangers Decide to Gamble on Kenny Rogers

After four years away, Kenny Rogers returned to the Texas Rangers on Wednesday, signing a $22.5-million, three-year contract.

“It’s not a secret that I wanted to come back,” said Rogers, who had his greatest success with the Rangers and played his first seven years with the team. “I want to try to go out and do the same thing I did the first time, and hope it will last longer than the three years.”

The Rangers went after the left-hander after the departures of pitchers Aaron Sele and John Burkett, who became free agents. Sele has refused the Rangers’ offer of salary arbitration and the team has pulled a four-year offer off the table.

“We felt that our pitching staff the last few years has been all right-handed. Kenny was on that list, someone of quality we would like to pursue,” Ranger General Manager Doug Melvin said.

Rogers has a career record of 114-78, his .594 winning percentage the second-highest among available free-agent starting pitchers. He was a 39th-round draft pick of the Rangers in 1982, and broke into the majors seven years later.

On July 28, 1994, Rogers pitched one of only 14 perfect games in modern major league history, defeating the Angels, 4-0.

Rogers was 5-1 with a 4.03 earned-run average for the New York Mets in the final two months of the 1999 season after going 5-3 with a 4.30 ERA for the Oakland Athletics.

However, he ended the Mets’ season by walking Andruw Jones with the bases loaded in the 11th inning of Game 6 of the National League championship series, giving Atlanta a 10-9 victory and a berth in the World Series.

Golf

Aaron Baddeley, an 18-year-old Australian who fought off Colin Montgomerie and Greg Norman to become the first amateur champion of the Australian Open in 39 years, has been invited to play in the Masters.

It was the first time an amateur not otherwise eligible was invited to the Masters since Priscilo Gonzalez Diniz of Brazil in 1976.

Augusta National also decided that Gabriel Hjertstedt will be counted among those in the top 40 on the 1999 PGA Tour money list, which makes him eligible for the Masters. Hjertstedt finished No. 41, but moved up to qualify because the late Payne Stewart was seventh on the list.

Tiger Woods, finishing off one of the most dominating golf seasons of the 20th century, shot a five-under-par 65 to share the first-round lead with David Duval in the $3.5-million Williams World Challenge at Scottsdale, Ariz.

Woods had six birdies--including three in a row from Nos. 10-12--and one bogey on the 7,036-yard par-70 Grayhawk Golf Club course at the off-season tuneup event for 12 of the top-ranked players in the world.

He has won eight times this season, the most on the PGA in 25 years, and finished the season with a streak of four consecutive victories.

Jurisprudence

Former Carolina Panther receiver Rae Carruth fathered the 6-week-old baby born to his former girlfriend after she was mortally wounded.

The DNA tests to be introduced today in Charlotte, N.C., during a custody hearing for the infant show that Carruth is the father of Chancellor Lee Adams, the Charlotte Observer reported sources as saying.

The newspaper did not name the sources cited for its report.

A Carruth lawyer declined to comment.

“The appropriate forum for disclosing this information is in court,” Kenneth Spaulding said.

Carruth and three other men are charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Cherica Adams, who was 6 1/2 months’ pregnant when shot four times in her car Nov. 16. Doctors delivered the baby prematurely, and Adams died a month later. She was 24.

Reliever Bobby Chouinard of the Arizona Diamondbacks is accused of pointing a gun at his wife’s head on Christmas night and threatening to kill her. Police arrested Chouinard at his Phoenix home Saturday night and charged him with one felony count of aggravated assault. Conviction could result in five to 15 years in prison.

Winter Sports

Sabine Egger won a World Cup slalom in her hometown of Lienz, Austria, moving up from 11th place after the first heat. She clocked an aggregate time of 1 minute 31.84 seconds to gain the second World Cup victory of her career. Natasa Bokal of Slovenia finished second in 1:31.96, beating Austria’s Karin Koellerer by 0.10 of a second. The best American finisher was Kristina Koznick of Burnsville, Minn., who finished 21st, 1.20 seconds behind Egger.

Yevgeny Muratov scored twice to help defending champion Russia beat Sweden, 5-1, and gain the lead in Pool B in the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships at Stockholm, while Finland upset the United States, 3-1, in a Group A game.

Miscellany

Tennis great Don Budge, 84, injured in a car accident in the Pocono Mountains, remains on a ventilator, but his condition has been upgraded from critical to serious. He is being treated at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Budge drove off the road Dec. 14 near Milford, Pa. He was airlifted to St. Francis Hospital, where he was treated in the coronary care unit.

Reggie Carter, a standout guard at St. John’s who went on to play in the NBA for the New York Knicks for two seasons, died of a heart attack Friday in New York. He was 42.

Carter played for St. John’s from 1977-78 through 1979-80, averaging 14.5 points and helping the team within one victory of the Final Four. St. John’s was the last team invited to the 1979 NCAA tournament and defeated Temple, Duke and Rutgers before losing to Penn, 64-62.