MLB
NEW YORK — Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez, who died in a boating accident in September, was voted the NL comeback player of the year by his peers in the annual Players Choice Awards of the MLB Players Association.
Fernandez was the 2013 NL Rookie of the Year, had Tommy John surgery the following year, returned in July 2015 and was 16-8 with a 2.86 ERA this season, earning his second All-Star selection. He died at age 24 on Sept. 25, and autopsy reports released by the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office said he had cocaine and alcohol in his system when his boat crashed into a Miami Beach jetty.
Baltimore slugger Mark Trumbo, who led the major leagues with 47 home runs after hitting 13 for Seattle in 2015, was voted the AL comeback award.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — After speaking with doctors, agent Scott Boras concluded New York Mets pitcher Matt Harvey pitched since spring training with decreased sensation in his fingertips.
Harvey had surgery July 18 to correct thoracic outlet syndrome, a compression of nerves in the area between the neck and armpit, after going 4-10 in 17 starts with a 4.86 ERA. That was more than two runs per game above his previous major league high.
Mets GM Sandy Alderson says the 27-year-old right-hander will be ready for spring training. Harvey, who missed the 2014 season following Tommy John surgery, is 29-28 with a 2.94 ERA in four seasons.
ARLINGTON, Texas — Proponents of Arlington taxpayer funding for a $1 billion retractable-roof Texas Rangers stadium have won approval.
With 98 percent of the vote counted, voters approved by a 60-to-40-percent margin Tuesday the extension of a half-cent sales tax, 2 percent hotel-occupancy tax and 5 percent car-rental tax for a new home for the Major League Baseball team. That revenue now goes to defraying Arlington’s $155 million debt on its share of the cost of the NFL Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium, which opened in 2009.
NFL
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Patriots coach Bill Belichick says the letter he wrote to President-elect Donald Trump before Election Day was done out of a friendship that goes back many years and was “not politically motivated.”
Belichick addressed the letter during a news conference Wednesday, two days after Trump read it aloud at a campaign rally in New Hampshire.
The letter congratulated Trump on his campaign and praised him for overcoming “slanted and negative media” to “come out beautifully.”
Soccer
DOHA, Qatar — Qatar’s investigation into the death of a worker on a 2022 World Cup stadium construction site has led to “extended over-sight” of health and safety procedures, officials said Wednesday.
The man was named Wednesday as Anil Kumar Pasman from Nepal. He was 29 when he was killed while working on Al Wakrah Stadium last month.
Pasman was hit by a water tanker whose driver “was tragically unaware of his colleague’s close proximity” and out of sight, the stadium’s contractors and World Cup organizers said.
The tiny, gas-rich country is relying on its large workforce of Asian laborers to build stadiums and related infrastructure for the first World Cup in the Middle East.
Associated Press
