HICAGO - Major League Baseball is investigating allegations Alex Rodriguez participated in illicit pokergamesand plans to audience the New York slugger. Rodriguez also faced questions about his gambling habits in 2005, when the Daily News reported he attended games at an partisans poker brotherhood in New York. The All-Star third baseman later acknowledged "it wasn’t the without delay whosis to do," and checked in with Major League Baseball before holding a humanity poker event the following year. Now the federation wants to bilge to him again.
"We embezzle this very at face value and have been investigating this upset since the inaugural allegation," Major League Baseball said Wednesday in a release. "As section of the investigation, the commissioner’s establishment will examine Mr. Rodriguez." Star Magazine reported after month that several mobile vulgus maxim A-Rod playing in games hosted at Hollywood hotels and residences; his publicist then denied that he participated. Rodriguez’s bigwig is not mentioned in any court filings in recital to the games.
MLB said then that the bang was the basic the commissioner’s bit had heard about the impeachment and baseball officials would front into the matter. A spokesman for the Yankees declined annotation when asked about Rodriguez on Wednesday. A essence was hand seeking footnote from Richard Rubenstein, Rodriguez’s publicist. "I don’t categorically have any note on that," foreman Joe Girardi said before the Yankees faced the Chicago White Sox. "Let baseball feel those things.
Harlem, NY, United States (AHN Sports) – Oklahoma City Thunder role ship Kevin Durant showed he just may be the best scorer on the planet after dropping 66 points in an Entertainers Basketball Classic marry Monday at storied Rucker Park. Durant, the reigning two-time NBA scoring champion, pulled off another terrible warlike performance, but this take he showcased his ingenuity in the Mecca of pickup basketball, Rucker Park. Using his explosiveness and unthinkable shooting touch, Durant ripped his opponents individually and came away two points anxious of tying the EBC scoring history set by Steve Burtt Jr. (68 points) in 2007 and 8 points small of equalizing Joe Hammond’s car park tell of (74 points).
The Thunder scoring apparatus started a scanty morsel rusty but managed to memento seven emotionless points on his character to a 23-point achieve in the before half. But Durant caught pep in the transfer half as he scored 15 points in the third space and made a upset of treys in the finishing quarter. Despite overlay replicate and triple teams, Durant was still able to throw down his great shots, including four tidy treys that pumped up the harsh crowd. Durant’s DC Power objective security guard Randy "White Chocolate" Gill, who also contributed big in their pick up over the Sean Bell All-Stars, gave all the accolades to his superstar teammate. "It’s an honor and happiness playing with the greatest actress in the world, Kevin Durant.
He’s inexperienced and famished and it makes your problem proper easy playing with a guy disposed to that," Gill told ESPN after the game. Durant joined Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant, Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain in the fellowship of NBA greats that played at Rucker Park. However, Durant’s up to date scoring profit from made his Rucker Park’s show possibly the most important of all. "No lie, jus had one of the best times of my biography at Rucker park.wow! I affinity NY…Harlem waddup," Durant tweeted after the game.
Durant likes living in a smaller market, away from the glitz of , the clubs of and the personality of Los Angeles. Off the court, he tends to unconfident away from the spotlight, which isn't effortless when you're a 6'11" hasten with the nice of basketball talent never seen before in a athlete of that size. But what's most lone about Durant is his fancy of the game.
Recently, the Thunder superstar made headlines around the basketball milieu when he delivered a presentation for the ages at New York City's great Rucker Park tournament. Durant in a prepared at the streetball Mecca stand up night, delivering the big-hearted of masterwork against the best streetballers in the humanity that will repercussion through the five boroughs until well after Durant has hung up his sneakers for the irrefutable time. But that's not what makes Durant so special; lots of players, including NBA players, walk off divide in the festivities at Rucker. No, what sets Durant asunder is the truth that this is what he does, all year long.
He goes and finds tournaments, games, streetball offerings, anything he can get and just plays. He doesn't do it for the camera, he does it for one reason: He loves playing basketball. Durant's fulfilment at Rucker Park reminds us why we delight in sport. The cynic in me says that Durant is just maddening to bod his brand, that he made an illusion at Rucker fully because his factor told him it was the dextral modus vivendi to figure himself into a far-reaching icon.
But given what we've seen from Durant, that doesn't seem to be the case. Durant's get a kick from of basketball is refreshing. He's not wealthy through the motions, not just making an form or shooting a commercial; he's giving it his all, perceptive to occupy oneself in and dominate, honing his skills.
Look at his visage at the end of the video; that's not a houseboy preening and strutting for the camera; that's a valet to hand to tomfoolery defense and arrest a repercussion on his opponent's next expedition down the court. This isn't the only competition Durant has played in, either; he's been floating around the basketball margin all summer long, looking for games and courts to hone his experience and become a more superior player. We're watching the extraction of something specialized in Durant: a superstar who has a fury for the sport. In the hot sports world, it now and then feels as though the cavort itself is simply a means by which to achieve the end result of popularity status.
Players spend their offseasons shooting commercials, compelling on acting parts and turning themselves into broad media icons and moguls. They're as focused, if not more, on ensuring that their disgrace becomes as big as or bigger than anyone else's, on maintaining that unchanging of celebrity, as they are on enhancing great basketball players. Kevin Durant's enjoyment from of the willing is just the indication of fresh air sports fans emergency to rekindle their own warmth of the game. Ronald Martinez/Getty Images Yes, LeBron, I'm looking at you. Durant loves the plucky key and foremost.
He wants nothing more than a ball and a court, and he's happy. You get the notion he doesn't in the final analysis pains if multitude are watching; all he wants to do is coverage ball. His itch for the sport sparks something serious within us, as well, something desire lost to the jaded species of modern professional sports.
It's the same terror we feel when we watch a Cinderella transmute a run in March Madness, the same fear we felt when we watched Michael Jordan clutching the NBA Finals remembrance after giving his all to obtain it. Seeing Durant take on the game with such joviality and passion reminds us why we love sports. It reminds us of the days when athletes played severely for the proclivity of the game, not to become worldwide celebrities or to over shoes. Kevin Durant is providing us with the whisper of unpolluted air our love of sports needs from epoch to time.
He's playing a frolic because he loves it and wants nothing more than to be better at it than he is now. He wants to be the best, not because it means strange stamp of approval deals, but because he loves basketball. If he didn't, he wouldn't have been working so vigorously at Rucker, or the FIBA World Championships remain summer. So, from all of us sports fans out here, hold responsible you, Kevin.
Thank you for reminding us that while there may be endorsements and thwack labels and clothing lines out there, some athletes just tally playing basketball.
