2012 February at BetLM

Johnson’s Agent ‘Very Optimistic’ About Contract Talks With Bills

The Buf­falo Bills made progress in their bid to re-sign Ste­vie John­son before the receiver is eli­gi­ble to become a free agent next month. Johnson’s agent, C.J. LaBoy, said he was “very opti­mistic” after describ­ing talks as being “pro­duc­tive,” in an e-mail to The Asso­ci­ated Press on Fri­day. LaBoy wouldn’t go into fur­ther details in assess­ing the meet­ing he had with Bills offi­cials at the NFL Scout­ing Com­bine in Indi­anapo­lis ear­lier in the day. 2012-s notable free agents Bills gen­eral man­ager Buddy Nix told a Toronto radio sta­tion that... 

TCU Moving Ahead After Drug Arrests

FORT WORTH, Texas — TCU coach Gary Pat­ter­son already had a hoarse voice after only one day of spring practice. The mes­sage to this team was the same as each spring, work toward the goal of win­ning a con­fer­ence cham­pi­onship– now in the Big 12 instead of the Moun­tain West, where the Horned Frogs won the last three– and the chance to one day play for a national championship. “We’ll move straight for­ward,” Pat­ter­son said after prac­tice ended early Fri­day night. Unfor­tu­nately for the Frogs, the expanded crowd of nearly two dozen reporters and cam­eras wasn’t... 

Devils Look to Zidlicky for Offense From Blue Line

NEWARK, N.J. — New Jer­sey Dev­ils gen­eral man­ager Lou Lam­or­iello believes he has found a defense­man who can help his power play and pro­vide some vet­eran lead­er­ship down the stretch — and per­haps beyond if his club qual­i­fies for the Stan­ley Cup Play­offs. That blue­liner is 35-year-old Marek Zidlicky, who on Fri­day was acquired from the Min­nesota Wild for three play­ers and draft picks after Zidlicky waived his no-trade clause. The deal was announced by Lam­or­iello dur­ing the sec­ond inter­mis­sion of Friday’s 2–1 loss to the Van­cou­ver Canucks... 

Wozniacki Loses in Dubai Semifinals

Updated Feb 24, 2012 3:36 PM ET DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Defend­ing cham­pion Car­o­line Woz­ni­acki lost in the semi­fi­nals of the Dubai Ten­nis Cham­pi­onships on Fri­day, her game undone by mis­takes in a 7–6 (3), 7–5 defeat to Julia Goerges. Goerges will play for the title Sat­ur­day against Poland’s Agnieszka Rad­wan­ska, who beat Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic 6–2, 2–6, 6–0 in the first semifinal. Woz­ni­acki led 4–2 in the sec­ond set before Goerges regained con­trol to close the match. “Made way too many unforced errors, and Julia took advan­tage... 

Braun Arrives at Brewers’ Training Camp

Updated Feb 24, 2012 1:29 PM ET PHOENIX Cleared to play, Ryan Braun spent his first moments at spring train­ing address­ing his Brew­ers teammates. The NL MVP reported to camp Fri­day, one day after his 50-game sus­pen­sion for a pos­i­tive drug test was over­turned by an arbitrator. Braun arrived at Milwaukee’s facil­ity at about 9:40 a.m. walk­ing through the complex’s front doors to avoid reporters and cam­era crews wait­ing in back at the club­house entrance. Braun kissed his girl­friend before join­ing his team­mates, many of whom had won­dered whether he would have... 

Report: Pierre Garcon Turns Down Contract Offer From Colts

Report: Pierre Gar­con turns down con­tract offer from Colts Posted by Josh Alper on Feb­ru­ary 24, 2012, 4:47 PM EST It looks like Pierre Gar­con is going to test the free agent waters. Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports that the wide receiver turned down a five-year con­tract offer from the Colts recently, rais­ing the like­li­hood that he will hit the open mar­ket on March 13th. Gar­con had a career-high 70 catches and 947 yards last sea­son, his fourth in the NFL and first with­out Pey­ton Man­ning throw­ing him passes. That lat­ter fact should boost his value to other... 

Pioli Refuses to Discuss Manning but Does Show Interest in Orton

Scott Pioli refused to say Fri­day whether the Chiefs have inter­est in Pey­ton Man­ning, though the gen­eral man­ager said dis­cus­sions have taken place with free-agent quar­ter­back Kyle Orton to pro­vide com­pe­ti­tion for Matt Cassel. KCSP-AM reported Thurs­day that the Chiefs and Manning’s agent, Tom Con­don, have spo­ken twice about the Indi­anapo­lis Colts quar­ter­back, and that the finan­cials appear to be a “good fit” for the team, accord­ing to ProFootballTalk.com. 2012-s notable free agents Orton was acquired by the Chiefs off waivers from the Den­ver... 

NCAA Alleges Oregon Violated Regulations

EUGENE, Ore. — The NCAA is alleg­ing Ore­gon vio­lated the organization’s reg­u­la­tions in the way it used recruit­ing ser­vices over the past four years. The accu­sa­tions were con­tained in two draft doc­u­ments, labeled “Pro­posed Find­ings of Vio­la­tions,” obtained Fri­day in a pub­lic records request by sev­eral media out­lets. While the doc­u­ments use lan­guage that indi­cates the NCAA and the uni­ver­sity agree to cer­tain points, an ath­letic depart­ment spokesman says Ore­gon does not acknowl­edge any of the violations. The NCAA has been look­ing... 

Trainer Dale Capuano Wins 3,000th Race

LAUREL, Md. — Trainer Dale Capuano won his 3,000th career race on Thurs­day at Lau­rel Park in Maryland. He sad­dled Father Mudd to vic­tory in the ninth race, mak­ing Capuano the 27th trainer in North Amer­ica to reach 3,000. Todd Pletcher joined the club 12 days ago. Capuano won his first race in Feb­ru­ary 1981 at Bowie Race Course. The 49-year-old trainer has spent his career in Mary­land, where he was the state’s lead­ing trainer eight times, most recently in 2004. Capuano has won 31 train­ing titles at Pim­lico and Laurel. He sad­dled Wind Split­ter to an 11th-place fin­ish... 

Stewart and Kenseth Claim Gatorade Duel Wins

Today’s action in Day­tona fea­tured the final step in the 2012 Day­tona 500 qual­i­fy­ing process. While the two Gatorade Duel at Day­tona races com­bined to solid­ify the lineup for Sunday’s Day­tona 500 the two races could not have been more different. The first Duel saw mul­ti­ple crashes includ­ing a last lap big hit for Dan­ica Patrick which awarded Tony Stew­art the vic­tory under cau­tion. The sec­ond Duel fea­tured all green flag rac­ing and a mad last-lap scram­ble with Matt Kenseth block­ing three lanes of con­tenders to hold on for the win. What does this...