Baseball Vote Makes Piniella Top Manager

Lou Piniella, who led the Seattle Mariners to their first playoff appearance, was voted The Associated Press Manager of the Year on Wednesday.

Piniella received 27 of 66 votes in nationwide balloting by sports writers and broadcasters. Colorado Manager Don Baylor was second with 13 votes, followed by Cleveland’s Mike Hargrove with 10. Atlanta’s Bobby Cox and Boston’s Kevin Kennedy had six votes each.

Earlier this month, Piniella was voted AL Manager of the Year by the Baseball Writers Assn. of America. The AP began selecting one major league Manager of the Year in 1984.

“I’m very humble about it because I know I’m just a figurehead for the organization,” Piniella said from his home in Tampa, Fla. “When players play well, when coaches do a good job, when the front office gets you players, the manager reaps the reward. In my case, my players did an outstanding job for me, as did my staff.”

Seattle won the AL West after trailing the first-place Angels by 13 games on Aug. 2. The Mariners won the division by beating the Angels in a one-game playoff to finish 79-66.

“I think what was needed in the Seattle organization before I got there was somebody to help these kids get over the hump and win and get confidence,” Piniella said. “I think that’s been done. Now we can go to spring training, work hard and get ready for next season. but looking at it from a different perspective.”

Piniella, 52, came to Seattle in 1993 after managing the New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds. He led Cincinnati to the World Series title in 1990.

Since Piniella took over, the Mariners are 210-209. He is the only manager with a winning record in the history of the franchise.

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Florida Marlin right fielder Gary Sheffield underwent successful arthroscopic surgery in Miami to remove excess material from his right shoulder joint.

The 1992 National League batting champion is expected to resume his off-season conditioning program within a month, the team said.

The surgery has nothing to do with an injury he suffered last month when he was shot in the left shoulder through the window of his car by an apparent thief. Sheffield was treated and released from the hospital after the shooting at a traffic light in the neighborhood he grew up in Tampa.

Sheffield missed most of the 1994 season because of a torn ligament in his right thumb. After returning Sept. 1, he had 10 home runs, two doubles and 27 RBI in 21 games.

As expected, free-agent infielder Randy Velarde signed a three-year, $2.45 million contract with the Angels. Velarde batted .278 with 60 runs, 19 doubles, seven homers and 46 RBIs in 111 games last season with the New York Yankees.

Angel General Manager Bill Bavasi said Velarde is a candidate to play second base or third base. Bavasi also said incumbent second baseman Damion Easley remains “as much a part of the club as Randy Velarde,” and added that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of re-signing free-agent third baseman Tony Phillips.

The Angels are believed to be interested in several free-agent third basemen, including Milwaukee’s Kevin Seitzer, Philadelphia’s Charlie Hayes and Florida’s Jerry Browne.

Tennis

Top seeds Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde of Australia won their opening match against Tommy Ho of the United States and New Zealand’s Brett Steven, 6-7, (7-3), 6-3, 6-2, in the $1,105,000 World Doubles Championship at Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

Chanda Rubin was selected to replace Monica Seles on the United States team for this weekend’s Fed Cup finals against two-time defending champion Spain. Rubin, ranked 13th in women’s singles, will join Lindsay Davenport, Mary Joe Fernandez and Gigi Fernandez.

Seles, co-ranked as the world’s No. 1 player, withdrew from the event on Tuesday because of recurrent knee problems.

Boxing

The National Organization for Women expects to stage a protest at Convention Hall in Atlantic City, N.J., if Mike Tyson fights Buster Mathis Jr. there Dec. 16, the president of the New Jersey NOW chapter said.

The status of the bout remains uncertain because state regulators are still trying to determine whether a Tyson appearance would violate restrictions on his promoter, Don King. King was banned from doing business with New Jersey casinos last year because of a pending wire fraud indictment. His trial on the charges ended in mistrial, but the ban remains in place.

The IBF was cleared to strip Kostya Tszyu of his junior welterweight title after a judge in Newark, N.J., vacated a restraining order.

The IBF has said it would take such action because of Tszyu’s refusal to go to Colombia to fight a mandatory defense against top-ranked contender Hugo Pineda. Tszyu, a Russian, said he feared for his safety in Colombia.

Basketball

Darryl Dawkins, 38, who played 14 seasons in the NBA and five in Italy, signed with the Sioux Falls Skyforce of the Continental Basketball Assn., after spending a year with the Harlem Globetrotters.

Miscellany

Runners are asked to bring a nonperishable food item to today’s 5K Run for the Hungry, at Memorial Park in La Canada-Flintridge. The race is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. The Dana Point marina will be the site of a 5K race at 7:30 a.m., and a 10K race at 8 a.m., with the field expected to reach 4,000 runners.

Beverly Hills will be the site of 5K and 10K races on Dec. 3 at 9 a.m., an hour after Culver City holds the 48th annual Western Hemisphere Marathon.

Tom Kite, a former U.S. Open champion and the PGA Tour’s second all-time money winner, will be captain of the 1997 U.S. Ryder Cup team, GOLFWEEK reported. . . .James Robert Laycock, the longtime historian of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, died in Avon, Ind. He was 81. . . .The United States evened its record at 2-2 in the men’s volleyball World Cup at Tokyo by beating South Korea, 15-9, 15-11, 15-13.