UPI NewsTrack Sports

Cardinals' Pujols wins second MVP award

NEW YORK, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols, who hit .357 and 37 home runs, was voted the National League's most valuable player, baseball officials said Monday.

Pujols was listed first on 18 of the 32 ballots cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America from National League cities. He also was second on 10 ballots, third on two, fourth on one and seventh on another for a total of 369 points.

Philadelphia first baseman Ryan Howard, who was listed first on 12 ballots, was second with 308 points, while Milwaukee's Ryan Braun finished third with 139 points. Pujols was second to Howard in close voting for the 2006 NL MVP honor.

The award was the second for Pujols, who also won in 2005. He is the 11th player to have been selected NL MVP more than once.

Pujols, 28, played the 2008 season with a torn ligament in his right elbow but still hit .357 and finished second in the batting race to Atlanta's Chipper Jones. He added 37 home runs and 116 runs batted in to his career totals and is the first player to hit at least 30 home runs and drive in 100 runs in each of his first eight seasons.

Insider trading charges against Mark Cuban

DALLAS, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. government announced Monday it had filed a complaint charging Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban with insider trading.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said in a written statement Cuban allegedly dumped his holdings in an Internet search-engine company in 2004 after being invited by the company to take part in a new stock offering.

The SEC claims that Cuban agreed to keep the invitation from Momma.com confidential, but quickly called his broker with a sell order for his entire 600,000-share position in Momma.com.

Cuban allegedly sold on the assumption the new stock offering would dilute the price of his current holdings. On the day the offering was publicly announced, Momma.com share price slid more than 9 percent.

"It is fundamentally unfair for someone to use access to non-public information to improperly gain an edge on the market," explained Scott Friestad, deputy director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement.

Cuban issued a statement saying: "I am disappointed that the (SEC) chose to bring this case based upon its enforcement staff's win-at-any-cost ambitions. The staff's process was result-oriented, facts be damned. The government's claims are false and they will be proven to be so."

Djokovic again nears No. 2 ranking

LONDON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- Novak Djokovic's victory at the season-ending Tennis Masters Cup pulled him within 10 ratings points of the No. 2 ranking in the world.

Djokovic, who has been No. 3 in the world since July 2007 was an impressive 6-1, 7-5 winner over Nikolay Davydenko in Sunday's Masters Cup title match in Shanghai, boosting his ranking point total to 5,295.

Second-ranked Roger Federer failed to advance out of the Masters Cup round-robin and so was unable to protect the rating points his 2007 Masters Cup title delivered. As a result Federer dropped to 5,305 points, just ahead of Djokovic.

Rafael Nadal, who didn't play in Shanghai because of injury, has a strong hold on the world's No. 1 ranking with 6,675 points. After Federer and Djokovic there is a drop off to the 3,720 points of fourth-ranked Andy Murray while Davydenko, ranked No. 5, has 2,715 points.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga improved one ranking spot to sixth and Gilles Simon jumped two places to seventh this week. Andy Roddick dropped two to eighth while Juan Martin del Potro fell one spot to ninth. James Blake remained 10th.

Two Caps cop NHL player honors

NEW YORK, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- Washington teammates Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin won two of the three spots in the NHL's weekly player awards, the league said Monday.

Backstrom and Ovechkin were joined by Nashville goaltender Dan Ellis as the NHL's three stars for games played Nov. 10-16.

Backstrom led the NHL with 11 points, getting two goals and nine assists last week, including a goal and three assists in a 5-1 win over Carolina Wednesday. He posted a plus-10 rating as Washington went 3

Ovechkin hadn't scored a goal in Washington's first nine games of the season before getting five goals and five assists last week. His rating of plus-11 was tops in the NHL. Ovechkin's last goal of the week came at 19:59 of the third period and forced overtime in a game the Caps eventually lost 6-5 to New Jersey.

Ellis was 3