WORLD TOP SPORTS STARS: October 2010

Bryce Aron baseball star

Bryce Aron Max Harper[1] (born October 16, 1992, in Las Vegas, Nevada) is a minor league outfielder in the Washington Nationals organization, and was selected by the Nationals as the first pick of the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft.[1] Harper stands at 6 foot 3 inches and weighs 225 lbs.[2][3]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 College career
* 2 Professional career
* 3 Career accomplishments
* 4 Personal life
* 5 References
* 6 External links

[edit] College career

Harper earned his GED after his sophomore year of high school in December 2009, making him eligible for the June 2010 amateur draft in order to begin his professional baseball career earlier.[4][5] For the 2010 college season, Harper enrolled at the College of Southern Nevada of the Scenic West Athletic Conference (SWAC), a league that uses wood bats in conference play. In 66 games, he hit 31 home runs, 98 RBI, hitting .443/.526/.987 (AVG/OBP/SLG).[6] His 31 home runs broke the school's previous record of 12. He was named the 2010 SWAC Player of the Year.[6]

In the Western district finals of the 2010 NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) World Series, Harper went 6-for-7 with 5 RBIs and hit for the cycle.[7] The next day, in a doubleheader, he went 2-for-5 with a three-run double in the first game, and in the second game went 6-for-6 with 4 home runs, a triple, and a double.[8]

On June 2, 2010, Harper was ejected from a National Junior College World Series game by home plate umpire Don Gilmore after a called third strike. Harper drew a line in the dirt with his bat as he left the plate, presumably to show where he thought the pitch was. It was Harper's second ejection of the year, and resulted in a two-game suspension.[9] The suspension ended his amateur career, as Southern Nevada lost the game from which Harper was ejected and lost their next game with Harper suspended, which eliminated them from the tournament.[10]

Harper won the 2010 Golden Spikes Award.[11]
[edit] Professional career

Harper was selected with the first overall pick in the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft by the Washington Nationals,[12] becoming the Nationals second straight number 1 overall pick of the Major League Baseball Draft, following Stephen Strasburg.[13] Although Harper has predominantly played catcher, the Nationals drafted him as an outfielder. Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo explained that Harper playing the outfield will "accelerate his development in the minor leagues and extend his career in the major leagues".[12]

Harper agreed to a 5 year contract worth $9.9 million.[14] On August 26, 2010, Harper was introduced by the Nationals. Harper said he chose to wear #34 because "I always loved Mickey Mantle, three and four equals seven."[15]

After batting .319 with a .407 OBP (and leading his team in hits, homers, RBIs and walks) in the Nationals' fall instructional league, Harper was selected to participate in the Arizona Fall League as a member of the Scottsdale Scorpions taxi-squad,[16] the second-youngest player in the history of the league (two days older than when Mets' prospect Fernando Martinez appeared in the league in 2006)[17]

Bryce Harper

Bobby Abreu

Alex Rodriguez american star

Alexander Emmanuel "Alex" Rodriguez (born July 27, 1975) is an American Major League Baseball third baseman for the New York Yankees. He previously played shortstop for the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers.

Rodriguez is considered one of the best all-around baseball players of all time.[1][2][3] He is the youngest player ever to hit 500 home runs, breaking the record Jimmie Foxx set in 1939, and the youngest to hit 600, besting Babe Ruth's record by over a year. Rodriguez has fourteen 100-RBI seasons in his career, more than any player in history. On September 24th, 2010, Rodriguez hit two home runs, surpassing Sammy Sosa's mark of 609 HRs, and became the all-time leader in home runs by a player of Hispanic descent.[4]

In December 2007, Rodriguez and the Yankees agreed to a 10-year, $275 million contract. This contract was the richest contract in baseball history (breaking his previous record of $252 million).[5]

In February 2009, after previously denying use of performance-enhancing drugs, including during a 2007 interview with Katie Couric on 60 Minutes, Rodriguez admitted to using steroids, saying he used them from 2001 to 2003 when playing for the Texas Rangers due to what he called "an enormous amount of pressure" to perform.[6][7]
Contents
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* 1 Early life
o 1.1 Background
o 1.2 High school
o 1.3 University of Miami
* 2 Professional career
o 2.1 Seattle Mariners
+ 2.1.1 1996: First full season and breakout year
+ 2.1.2 1997–99 season
+ 2.1.3 2000: Final season in Seattle
o 2.2 Texas Rangers
+ 2.2.1 2001–02: Record-breaking seasons
+ 2.2.2 2003: American League Most Valuable Player
o 2.3 New York Yankees
+ 2.3.1 2004: First season with Yankees
+ 2.3.2 2005: American League Most Valuable Player
+ 2.3.3 2006 season
+ 2.3.4 2007: American League Most Valuable Player
+ 2.3.5 Opt-out controversy
+ 2.3.6 2008 season
+ 2.3.7 2009 season
+ 2.3.8 2010 season
* 3 Criticism
* 4 Steroid use
* 5 Personal life
o 5.1 Marketing
* 6 Awards and honors
* 7 Achievements
* 8 Records
* 9 See also
* 10 Notes and references
* 11 External links

Alex Rodriguez

tiger wood top golfer

Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Fomerly the World No. 1, he is the highest-paid professional athlete in the world, having earned an estimated $90.5 million from winnings and endorsements in 2010.

Woods has won 14 professional major golf championships, the second highest of any male player (Jack Nicklaus leads with 18), and 71 PGA Tour events, third all time.[8] He has more career major wins and career PGA Tour wins than any other active golfer. He is the youngest player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest and fastest to win 50 tournaments on tour. Additionally, Woods is only the second golfer, after Jack Nicklaus, to have achieved a career Grand Slam three times. Woods has won 16 World Golf Championships, and has won at least one of those events each of the 11 years they have been in existence.

Woods has held the number one position in the world rankings for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record ten times,[9] the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times, and has the record of leading the money list in nine different seasons.

On December 11, 2009, Woods announced he would take an indefinite leave from professional golf to focus on his marriage after he admitted infidelity. His multiple infidelities were revealed by over a dozen women, through many worldwide media sources.[10][11] Woods returned to competition for the 2010 Masters on April 8, 2010,[12] after a break lasting 20 weeks.

In July 2010, Forbes announced Tiger Woods as the richest sportsman in the world, earning a reported $105m according to them and $90.5m according to Sports Illustrated.[13]

On the 31st October 2010, Woods lost the world number 1 ranking to Lee Westwood.[14]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Background and family
* 2 Early life and amateur golf career
* 3 College golfing career
* 4 Professional career
o 4.1 1996–98: early years and first major win
o 4.2 1999–2002: slams
o 4.3 2003–04: Swing adjustments
o 4.4 2005–07: resurgence
o 4.5 Death of father
o 4.6 Returns to top form
o 4.7 2008: injury-shortened season
o 4.8 2009: returning to the PGA Tour
o 4.9 2010
* 5 Playing style
* 6 Equipment
* 7 Other ventures and aspects
o 7.1 Charity and youth projects
o 7.2 Writings
o 7.3 Golf course design
o 7.4 Endorsements
o 7.5 Honors
o 7.6 Politics
o 7.7 Cut streak
o 7.8 Tiger-proofing
o 7.9 Ryder Cup performance
* 8 Career achievements
o 8.1 Major championships
+ 8.1.1 Wins (14)
+ 8.1.2 Results timeline
o 8.2 World Golf Championships
+ 8.2.1 Wins (16)
+ 8.2.2 Results timeline
o 8.3 PGA Tour career summary
* 9 Personal life
o 9.1 Marriage
o 9.2 Marital infidelity and career break
o 9.3 Other
* 10 See also
* 11 References
* 12 Further reading
* 13 External links

Background and family

Woods was born in Cypress, California, to Earl (1932–2006) and Kultida (Tida) Woods (born 1944). He is the only child of their marriage but has two half-brothers, Earl Jr. (born 1955) and Kevin (born 1957), and one half-sister, Royce (born 1958) from the 18-year marriage of Earl Woods and his first wife, Barbara Woods Gray. Earl, a retired lieutenant colonel and Vietnam War veteran, was of mixed African American, Chinese, and Native American ancestry. Kultida (née Punsawad), originally from Thailand, is of mixed Thai, Chinese, and Dutch ancestry. This makes Woods himself half Asian (one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Thai), one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch.[15] He refers to his ethnic make-up as “Cablinasian” (a syllabic abbreviation he coined from Caucasian, Black, (American) Indian, and Asian).[16]

From childhood he was raised as a Buddhist and actively practised this faith from childhood until well into his adult career.[17] He has attributed his deviations and infidelity to his losing track of Buddhism. He said that "Buddhism teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught."[18]

At birth, Woods was given 'Eldrick' and 'Tont' as first and middle names. His middle name, Tont (Thai: ต้น), is a traditional Thai name.[19] He got his nickname from a Vietnamese soldier friend of his father, Vuong Dang Phong,[20] to whom his father had also given the Tiger nickname. He became generally known by that name and by the time he had achieved national prominence in junior and amateur golf, he was simply known as 'Tiger' Woods.