$1 billion prize for correct bracket
DETROIT — Correctly predicting the outcome of every game in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is no layup. There’s now a $1 billion prize waiting for anyone able to pull off the feat this spring.
Quicken Loans Inc. announced Tuesday that it will team with investor Warren Buffett’s Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway on the “Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge.”
The Detroit-based mortgage lender says any qualified entrant who correctly predicts the winners of every game in the tournament will be paid in 40 annual installments of $25 million. A winner also can elect to receive an immediate $500 million lump-sum payment or share in that payment if there’s more than one perfect bracket submitted.
Submissions are limited to one per household.
Source: Players want A-Rod out of union
NEW YORK — Several angry major league players wanted Alex Rodriguez kicked out of their union after he sued it last week, but staff lawyers told them expulsion was not allowed.
The players spoke Jan. 13 during a Major League Baseball Players Association conference call after Rodriguez sued the union and Major League Baseball to overturn an arbitrator’s decision suspending him for the 2014 season and postseason.
Details were first reported Tuesday by Yahoo Sports and later confirmed to The Associated Press.
All players in the major leagues are members of the union and pay $65 daily in dues, or $11,895 if a player is in the big leagues for a full season. Baseball’s labor contract specifies the union is “the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for all major league players.”
Metal detectors at big league ballparks by ’15
NEW YORK — Entering a big league ballpark will be a bit like going through an airport by 2015.
Major League Baseball has told its 30 teams they must implement security screening for fans by then, either with hand-held metal detection or walk-through magnetometers.
MLB spokesman Michael Teevan said “This procedure, which results from MLB’s continuing work with the Department of Homeland Security to standardize security practices across the game, will be in addition to bag checks.”
The Seattle Mariners announced Tuesday that fans entering Safeco Field will have to walk through metal detectors starting with this year’s opener.
Red Sox pitchers visit US ambassador in Tokyo
TOKYO — Boston Red Sox pitchers Koji Uehara and Junichi Tazawa have met with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy during a tour to share the 2013 World Series trophy with baseball fans in the country.
Earlier in the day, the two pitchers presented Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with a Red Sox jersey and talked baseball with the Japanese leader.
The 56-year-old daughter of late President John F. Kennedy arrived in Japan in November to become the first woman to serve as U.S. ambassador to Japan.
By wire sources