Fast Break
BASEBALL
Red Sox, Yankees having some fun
Yankees general partner Hank Steinbrenner knows what he’ll do with a Red Sox Nation membership card if John Henry sends him one.
“I’ll give it to the (Yankees) fans and let them handle it,” Steinbrenner said Sunday. “The fans will probably take care of that. Let them decide.”
Henry, a former member of the Yankees’ ownership group, inducted Steinbrenner into the club Saturday after Steinbrenner challenged the popularity of the Red Sox’s fan club.
“I’ll think of a good response,” Steinbrenner joked.
The Steinbrenner family holds Henry in high regard, and Henry and the Steinbrenner’s may collaborate on non- baseball ventures in the future.
FOOTBALL
FBI kept an eye on McGee
Hard-partying Green Bay Packers receiver Max McGee, who scored the first touchdown in Super Bowl history, had a gambling habit that the FBI tracked after his career ended, newly released records show.
Agents investigated McGee for about a year, from late 1972 through September 1973, before dropping the case for lack of evidence, according to records released to the Associated Press under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
“I’ll be damned,” McGee’s former teammate and longtime friend Jerry Kramer said when told of the file released to the AP last week.
“You know he was betting. Everybody knows that,” Kramer said from his home in Boise. “I kind of thought it was more of a social thing than serious gambling.”
BASEBALL
Hampton back on the mound
A few minutes after one of the most important spring training outings of Mike Hampton’s career, he faced one of his biggest media gatherings in years.
“Welcome to New York,” Hampton said with a laugh as he walked into the Atlanta Braves’ clubhouse after pitching two scoreless innings in his first appearance against major league batters in two years.
The Braves beat a Houston Astros split squad 6-4 at Kissimmee, Fla., on Sunday, but Hampton was the big story.
He’s been sidelined with multiple shoulder and elbow injuries and, most recently a leg injury. He hasn’t pitched in a big league game since 2005, but Braves manager Bobby Cox said he still has Hampton penciled in for a spot in his starting rotation.