Off the wire

BASKETBALL

Buyers line up for Hawks

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said Tuesday he has already talked with six potential buyers of the Atlanta Hawks and expects a sale of the team to move quickly after racially charged comments by owner Bruce Levenson and general manager Danny Ferry. Flanked by Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins and other city leaders, Reed said the crisis engulfing the NBA team would be solved "the Atlanta way" and predicted the franchise would come out stronger in the end. The Hawks have been under fire since it was revealed Levenson sent an email two years ago theorizing that many suburban whites would not attend NBA games because of the team's African-American fans. He agreed to sale his share of the team, but it also emerged that Ferry had disparaged then-free agent Luol Deng on a conference call with team owners this past summer, saying he "has a little African in him." Reed, who did not identify the prospective buyers, said whoever buys the team would have majority ownership. While Levenson owns 24 percent of the team, his Washington partner Ed Peskowitz has also agreed to sell his share, meaning that 50.1 percent of the team is available, according to the mayor. For now, the Atlanta-based owners -- including Michael Gearon Jr. and Rutherford Seydel (the son-in-law of former owner Ted Turner) -- want to keep their shares of the team. "I have had conversations with no less than six prospective buyers," Reed said. "All six of those prospective buyers will have to go through a process to be vetted by the NBA. That process is going to occur very quickly." He said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was lining up an investment bank to look into the finances of any potential buyer. In addition, Reed said the city will likely be willing to offer concessions to any new owner to ensure the Hawks commit to remaining in Atlanta for another 30 years. He said there could be as much as $150 million available after the city sells Turner Field, the current home of the Braves, though the mayor said that process has been held up by the baseball team's refusal to set a definite date for its departure.

BASEBALL

Prado out for season

The Yankees' best hitter the last month is done for the season. The club announced Tuesday morning that utility man Martin Prado had been placed on the 60-day disabled list after undergoing an emergency appendectomy earlier in the day. The Yankees signed infielder Jose Pirela to a Major League contract and selected him to the active roster as a corresponding roster move. Prado "started complaining during the game [Monday] and after the game it got worse," general manager Brian Cashman said early Tuesday afternoon. "He went to the hospital and at 3 a.m. he had surgery on his appendix." Prado has been a star since being acquired from the Diamondbacks July 31, hitting .316 (42-for-133) with a .336 on-base percentage, seven home runs and 16 RBI in 37 games. In his last 10 games, Prado, dealing with a hamstring issue in recent days, is hitting .441 with a .441 OBP with three home runs and four RBI. Prado is under the Yankees' control in 2015 and 2016, due $11 million each season. The Yankees also announced that Masahiro Tanaka, on the DL since July 9 with a slight tear in his ulnar collateral ligament, is tentatively slated to start Sunday against the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium. Tanaka, who pitched against instructional league players in a five-inning simulated game Monday, will be on a pitch count of 70-75 Sunday.

• Houston Astros rookie George Springer, who has been out since July 20 with a left quadriceps injury, won't play again this season. There was some hope that Springer might return for the last few games of the season, but interim manager Tom Lawless said on Tuesday that they decided to shut him down. Lawless said that team officials and Springer came to the decision together and decided that getting a few more at-bats this season wasn't worth the risk of having a setback. "For me it's tough and being a player and a competitor I want to play," Springer said. "But at the same time you have to protect yourself and sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do." Springer, who was the 11th overall pick in the 2011 draft, hit .231 with 20 home runs and 51 RBI in 78 games.

TENNIS

Stosur trumped in China

Top-seeded Samantha Stosur was the most notable among the five seeds to lose in first-round action at the Guangzhou (China) Open on Tuesday. The 2011 U.S. Open champion fell to Chinese wild card Wang Yafan 2-6, 6-2, 6-2. Stosur won only two of her 11 break points, while Wang, ranked 251st, 231 spots below Stosur, took four of her six chances. Also ousted were No. 3 Sloane Stephens of the U.S., No. 4 Bojana Jovanovski of Serbia, No. 5 Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan for the first time in three matches against 220th-ranked qualifier Zhang Ling of Hong Kong, and No. 7 Jana Cepelova of Slovakia, to 259th-ranked qualifier Zhang Kai-Lin of China. Of the tournament's eight seeds, only No. 2 Alize Cornet of France, a winner on Monday, advanced to the second round. Also, Karin Knapp of Italy, who won her first WTA title in Tashkent on Saturday, was beaten by Monica Puig of Puerto Rico 6-1, 4-6, 6-2, and 2012 champion Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan won her opener.

• Top-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland beat Slovakia's Polona Hercog 6-3, 6-3 to reach the second round of the Korea Open on Tuesday in Seoul. Defending champion Radwanska converted five of eight break points to defeat Hercog at Olympic Park Tennis Center in 1 hour, 15 minutes and set up a second-round match against Chanelle Scheepers of South Africa. In other first-round matches, third-seeded Klara Koukalova of the Czech Republic outlasted Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands 6-0, 4-6, 6-4, sixth-seeded Kaia Kanepi Estonia overpowered Russia's Elizaveta Kulichkova 6-2, 6-4, while wild-card entry Maria Kirilenko of Russia defeated Croatian Donna Vekic 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.

MOTOR SPORTS

Aleshin leaves hospital

Rookie IndyCar driver Mikhail Aleshin has been released from an Indianapolis hospital and is expected to make a full recovery from injuries suffered in a crash last month. The Russian was diagnosed with a concussion, chest injuries, fractured ribs and a broken clavicle after a crash in practice at Fontana on Aug. 29. He was transported from the track to Loma Linda University Medical Center in California, where he stayed until being transferred to Methodist Hospital on Sept. 9. He also had "minor" surgery on his right shoulder after returning to Indy. In a statement, Aleshin says the recovery is going as planned and he hopes to be back in the cockpit soon. He will continue his recovery in Indianapolis and will be under the supervision of the IndyCar medical team.

OLYMPICS

Rio ticket prices set

Organizers have announced the basic outline of ticket prices for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. Organizers said Tuesday that 7.5 million tickets will be issued for the Rio Games. Half of them -- 3.8 million -- will be priced under $30. Organizers said the cheapest ticket will be about $20. The most expensive ticket to the Games will be 4,600 Brazilian reals (about $2,000) for the opening ceremony. Spokesman Mario Andrada issued a reminder that "many of the events will be seen for free, walking around the Copacabana beach area" or the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon area where rowing events will be held. Organizers said tickets can be applied for beginning about March 2015, though they will not be delivered to buyers until just a few weeks before the games open on Aug. 5, 2016. Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said several months ago there would be "subsidies for some of the tickets." He was asked about it after a survey showed that attendance at the World Cup was made up primarily of Brazil's top economic classes. Many of the poor were priced out of attending. "We will try to do something more democratic," he said, without giving details.

Sports on 09/17/2014

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