Jeter Seeking $18.5 Million From Yankees in Arbitration

Derek Jeter is going for a baseball salary record, same as his friend, Alex Rodriguez.

Jeter asked for a record $18.5 million Thursday in salary arbitration. The New York Yankees offered their all-star shortstop $14.25 million.

Last year, Jeter set an arbitration record when he asked for $10.5 million. The Yankees countered at $9.5 million and they settled at the midpoint.

Rodriguez last month agreed to a record $252-million, 10-year contract with the Texas Rangers, which markedly raised Jeter’s price.

If Jeter winds up with a one-year deal, win or lose, it will be the top one-year package in baseball history, surpassing David Cone’s $12-million contract with the Yankees last year.

Jeter and the Yankees both hope to avoid a hearing and a one-year contract. Yankee President Randy Levine and Jeter’s agent, Casey Close, want to negotiate a multiyear contract, but it is unclear whether Yankee owner George Steinbrenner is willing to do that.

Jeter, 26, is eligible for free agency after this season and his price for a long-term contract will be even higher next fall.

Close and Levine agreed a year ago to a $118.5-million, seven-year contract, but Steinbrenner nixed the deal because the average salary of $16,928,571 would have been a record.

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Yankee closer Mariano Rivera’s salary arbitration request of $10.25 million and Atlanta outfielder Andruw Jones’ request for $8.2 million were among the next highest, after Jeter, as 63 players exchanged figures with their teams.

Rivera, who like Jeter is eligible for free agency after next season, was offered $9 million by the Yankees. Jones was the only other player to ask for more than $4 million. Atlanta submitted a $6.4-million offer to the center fielder, who made $3.7 million last season.

Controversial Brave relief pitcher John Rocker asked for $2.98 million after a tumultuous season. The Braves offered $1.9 million. Fellow Atlanta reliever Kerry Ligtenberg, also was eligible for arbitration, but he settled with the Braves on a $2.9-million, two-year deal.

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Oakland outfielder Johnny Damon, acquired from Kansas City last week and eligible for salary arbitration, agreed to a one-year, $7.1-million contract.

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Twenty-seven players agreed to contracts, with Kansas City first baseman Mike Sweeney getting the biggest deal, $13 million for two years.

Toronto gave two-year contracts to pitcher Esteban Loaiza, $10.3 million; designated hitter Brad Fullmer, $6.5 million, and outfielder Jose Cruz Jr., $6.3 million.

The Chicago White Sox gave pitcher James Baldwin a $5.95-million, one-year contract and first baseman Paul Konerko a $6.1-million, two-year deal.

Pitcher Shawn Estes and the San Francisco Giants, meanwhile, agreed on a one-year contract worth $4,725,000.

Olympics

The 2008 Olympics are Beijing’s to lose.

That was the picture painted by IOC Vice President Dick Pound, who indicated that China’s human rights history is the lone potential stumbling block.

The IOC will vote July 13 in Moscow on a site for the 2008 Summer Games.

The finalists--Beijing; Istanbul, Turkey; Osaka, Japan; Paris and Toronto--all submitted bid books by Wednesday’s deadline. The bid books provide details on finances, venues, transportation, security and other aspects of staging the Games.

The supermarket chain at which the indicted former head of Salt Lake’s Olympic bid used to work became the official milk supplier for the 2002 Winter Games.

Smith Foods & Drug Stores Inc., which Tom Welch left in 1989 to head Salt Lake’s bid, will provide milk for the Games and U.S. athletes through 2004.

The deal is worth more than $5 million and brings the Salt Lake Organizing Committee closer to breaking even on the games.

The IOC confirmed beach volleyball as an official Olympic sport, removing the sport’s label as a provisional event, its status in 1996 and 2000.

Soccer

The United States will play two World Cup qualifying games at Foxboro Stadium this year.

U.S. Soccer said that the American team will face Trinidad and Tobago on June 20, then play its final home game of the CONCACAF qualifying finals against Jamaica on Oct. 7 at Foxboro, where the team is 5-0-3.

“Boston has been a great home for U.S. Soccer,” Coach Bruce Arena said. “We know that whenever we play at Foxboro, we will always have a great crowd behind us.”

Major League Soccer probably won’t expand by two teams in 2002 as had been planned and is reevaluating when it will add teams, Commissioner Don Garber said in Los Angeles. Garber said he doubted the expansion would be possible for 2002 because of a lack of a stadium for a second New York-area team.

Miscellany

Jim Tressel, who replaced the fired John Cooper as Ohio State’s football coach, received a five-year contract worth $4.6 million, plus incentives.

Kirby Wilson, who coached running backs for the Washington Redskins last season, has been named USC’s wide receiver coach. Wilson, who also coached and played at Pasadena City College, had spent the previous three NFL seasons in New England under Trojan Coach Pete Carroll.

LeVar Anderson, the 2000 U.S. indoor champion in the triple jump, has been added to the field for Saturday’s 41st Los Angeles Invitational indoor track meet at the Sports Arena.

German tennis star Boris Becker will undergo a paternity test in Munich to determine if he is the father of a child born to London model Angela Ermakova 10 months ago, as she has claimed.

Tricia Byrnes of the U.S. led a North American sweep of the top three places in the women’s half-pipe at a Snowboard FIS World Cup meet at Olang, Italy. Byrnes scored 42.2 points in defeating Canada’s Natasza Zurek and American Kelly Clark.

Frenchman Jean-Louis Schlesser won the 17th stage of the Dakar Rally at Bakel, Senegal, but couldn’t take the overall lead from Hiroshi Masuoka of Japan in the car section.