Clemens to pitch for independent team
SUGAR LAND, Texas, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Controversial seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens will pitch for the first time in five years, an independent team said Monday.
The Sugar Land (Texas) Skeeters of the independent Atlantic League said the 50-year-old hurler has signed a contract with the team and will take to the mound Saturday in a contest against the Bridgeport (Conn.) Bluefish.
"Any time you can add a player of Roger's caliber is extremely exciting," Skeeters President Matt O'Brien said. "Our inaugural season has been extremely memorable, and this is just going to add to it."
The Atlantic League is not affiliated with Major League Baseball.
Clemens' appearance will be the first since he pitched for the New York Yankees in 2007. He went 6-6 with a 4.18 ERA and 68 strikeouts over 17 starts that season.
Since then, he has been dogged by allegations of he used performance-enhancing drugs.
The 354-game winner was acquitted in June of two counts of perjury, three counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of Congress after prosecutors alleged he lied to a congressional panel probing steroid use in baseball.
Clemens testified he never knowingly took steroids during his lengthy career.
Red Sox's Crawford to have surgery
BOSTON, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Boston Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford will have elbow surgery and miss the rest of the season, the team announced Monday.
Crawford, who signed a seven-year, $142 million contract with the Red Sox before the 2011 season, has already missed most of the current campaign following off-season wrist surgery.
He made his first appearance July 16, hitting .282 with 10 doubles, three homers, 19 RBI and five stolen bases in31 games.
Crawford will undergo an elbow ligament replacement procedure Thursday, to be performed by "Tommy John" surgery specialist James Andrews, the Red Sox said.
"Carl Crawford has a chronic left elbow ulnar collateral ligament tear," a team statement said. "While he has been following a conservative treatment protocol and playing with this injury, his symptoms are getting worse."
WAC won't include football in 2013
ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Aug. 20 (UPI) -- The Western Athletic Conference won't include football in 2013, Commissioner Jeff Hurd said Monday.
Hurd told The Denver Post the conference -- which will lose San Jose State, Utah State, Louisiana Tech and Texas-San Antonio after the 2012 campaign -- won't field a football schedule following the upcoming season.
"I think that sometime in late July it became apparent that it was unlikely we could continue with football," Hurd told the newspaper. "We looked at every option we could think of. With the geography we have in terms of schools, it presents a challenge."
The WAC previously lost Boise State, Nevada, Fresno State and Hawaii as NCAA Division I college football went through an alignment shuffle.
Questions now remain as to whether it can field enough schools keep its Division I status, the Post reported.
To do so, it must add two to three new members to its remaining lineup of Denver University, Idaho, New Mexico State, Seattle University, Texas-Arlington and Texas State.
Autopsy: No drugs in Seau's system
SAN DIEGO, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Former San Diego Chargers linebacker Junior Seau had no illicit drugs or alcohol in his system before his May 2 suicide, officials said Monday.
The San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office indicated in an autopsy report that a toxicology screening revealed only traces of commonly prescribed medications for sleeping disorders and arthritic pain, U-T San Diego reported.
"No alcohol, common drugs of abuse or other medications (base and acid/neutral screens) were detected," the report said.
"Based on the autopsy finding and the circumstances surrounding the death, as currently understood, the cause of death is perforating gunshot wound of chest, and the manner of death is suicide," Deputy Medical Examiner Craig Nelson said in the report.
Seau, 43, played 17 years in the NFL and made the Pro Bowl a dozen times. He was drafted by the Chargers in 1990 out of the University of Southern California and played in San Diego through 2003.
Some have speculated repeated blows to his head during his 20-year NFL career could have been a contributing factor, and his brain tissue was sent to the National Institutes of Health at the request of relatives, Nelson said.
