Giants to make Renteria their new shortstop

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Edgar Renteria will become the second free agent to join the San Francisco Giants in as many days, with the team expected to announce Thursday that he will replace 11-time Gold Glove shortstop Omar Vizquel.

Renteria will receive an $18.5 million, two-year contract.

"We have clearly passed all the hurdles and there's nothing else to do on terms, nothing else to do in respects to a physical," Renteria's agent, Barry Meister, said Thursday in a phone interview. "I always let the team make the announcement."

Giants general manager Brian Sabean has had a busy week, signing right-handed reliever Bobby Howry to a one-year contract Wednesday and following that up by getting things done with Renteria. The sides were close after a meeting Wednesday.

The Detroit Tigers declined to offer Renteria salary arbitration Monday.

Renteria, a 13-year big league veteran, batted .270 with 10 homers and 55 RBIs this year for the Tigers, who after the season declined their $11 million option for Renteria and gave him a $3 million buyout.

San Francisco also had been interested in Rafael Furcal, but the 33-year-old Renteria certainly became less of a medical risk considering Furcal -- also being courted by the Oakland Athletics -- was sidelined for all but 36 games last season for the Los Angeles Dodgers because of back problems that required surgery.

E-mails show NYC played hardball for boxes

NEW YORK (AP) -- When it comes to getting a luxury box at the new Yankees and Mets ballparks, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's aides appear willing to play hardball.

Recently released internal e-mails between the mayor's aides, city lawyers and Yankees officials show that City Hall gave the team even more parking spaces than had been negotiated previously, plus the rights and revenue from three billboards near the stadium in exchange for a suite.

For months, the city had publicly played down the importance of having exclusive use of the suite, but the e-mails obtained and released by state Assemblyman Richard Brodsky show luxury boxes in both ballparks were "a big issue to the mayor," as one official put it.

Brodsky is investigating the city's deals with the Mets and Yankees, who are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies for new stadiums that are scheduled to be completed next year.

The Yankees are financing their $1.3 billion park with about $940 million in tax-exempt bonds and $25 million in taxable bonds, while the Mets are getting about $550 million in tax-exempt bonds and $66 million in taxable bonds for their $800 million stadium. Both teams have indicated they will seek more bonds as costs creep higher.

76ers' Brand out with hamstring injury

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Philadelphia forward Elton Brand will miss Friday's game at Detroit with a strained right hamstring.

Brand had an MRI on Thursday and did not travel with the Sixers. He is listed as day-to-day.

Brand didn't play the final 17 minutes of the 76ers' 114-102 loss to the Lakers on Wednesday when he first complained of the injury. He was limited to three points on 1-for-7 shooting in 25 ineffective minutes.

Brand leads the Sixers with 16.7 points and 10 rebounds a game.

Melrose returning to ESPN as hockey analyst

NEW YORK (AP) -- Barry Melrose will return to ESPN as a hockey analyst on Jan. 1.

Melrose, who was fired as coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning last month, will appear on SportsCenter and ESPNEWS. He'll often be paired with analyst Matthew Barnaby.

"I am very, very excited about coming back home to ESPN where I have had so many great years," Melrose said. "I look forward to analyzing people being fired rather than being the guy fired."

Melrose had worked full-time at ESPN since 1996 before leaving in June to accept the Lightning job. He was fired 16 games into the season.

Melrose, who also coached the Los Angeles Kings, was an ESPN studio analyst for the 1994 Stanley Cup playoffs and 1995 Stanley Cup playoffs.

NFL players' union seeks to block suspensions

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A federal judge will be asked to decide Friday whether five suspended NFL players deserve a chance to play this weekend.

At issue is whether the league had a duty to notify its players and their union that a dietary supplement the five took contained a banned ingredient. The NFL Players Association argues in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the NFL knew about the tainted supplement but failed to share that information with players whose careers were on the line.

The union filed the lawsuit to block the suspensions of five of the six players who were benched this week for violating the league's anti-doping policy. The union wants Kevin Williams and Pat Williams of the Minnesota Vikings, and Charles Grant, Deuce McAllister and Will Smith of the New Orleans Saints, to be eligible to play Sunday.

Union attorneys will go before U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson at 10:30 a.m. in St. Paul on Friday to ask for a preliminary injunction. They said in filings Thursday that the players are critical to their teams' playoff hopes.

Avery has 3-hour hearing with NHL commissioner

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sean Avery surged past camera crews and reporters Thursday, choosing to save his comments this time for NHL commissioner Gary Bettman during a three-hour disciplinary hearing.

The Dallas Stars forward was suspended indefinitely on Tuesday just hours after he used a crude expression to describe former girlfriends now dating others while speaking to reporters.

Hockey's most notorious pest came to league headquarters in midtown Manhattan to give his version of the latest events that landed him in big trouble. Now it's up to Bettman to determine just how long Avery will be kept off the ice.

The NHL said that announcement would be made Friday.

White Sox and Braves complete Vazquez trade

ATLANTA (AP) -- Javier Vazquez knows exactly what the Atlanta Braves were looking for when they traded for him: A durable starter to plug one of the holes in their uncertain rotation.

Vazquez was shipped from the Chicago White Sox to Atlanta on Thursday as the teams completed a six-player deal agreed to earlier in the week. Left-handed reliever Boone Logan also went to the Braves as part of the swap, while the White Sox acquired four prospects: catcher Tyler Flowers, infielders Jonathan Gilmore and Brent Lillibridge and left-handed pitcher Santos Rodriguez.

"Hopefully, I can bring a consistent guy to the rotation, someone who can just take the ball every five days and give his team a chance to win," Vazquez said. "That's what they're expecting of me and that's what I'm expecting of myself, to put up innings for the Braves."

Vazquez was 12-16 with a 4.67 ERA in 33 starts for the AL Central champion White Sox this season, surpassing 200 innings for the eighth time in nine years. But he struggled down the stretch, when manager Ozzie Guillen said Vazquez wasn't a big-game pitcher. In his last three regular-season starts and the playoff opener against Tampa Bay, Vazquez was 0-4 with a 13.22 ERA.

"I just always try to move forward and just go on with my life, I guess," Vazquez said. "I really like to be a positive guy and show a positive side to other people. I really try to stay away from the negativity."

The 32-year-old right-hander has a 127-129 career record with Montreal, the New York Yankees, Arizona and the White Sox. He is owed $11.5 million in each of the next two seasons, then can become a free agent.

"I've been kind of a power pitcher for most of my career, a fly ball pitcher," Vazquez said. "Coming to a stadium like Atlanta, which plays fair, is a little bit better ballpark to pitch in than Chicago. I think that's probably going to help me."

White Sox general manager Ken Williams said the trade was part of his team's effort to bring in young players. He said he was obviously "watching the dollars, but this deal was motivated by a continued desire to transition into a new core."

The Braves have made starting pitching their major focus of the offseason. John Smoltz and Tom Glavine are both in their 40s and coming off arm operations, and Tim Hudson is not expected back until late in the season after undergoing elbow ligament replacement surgery.

Atlanta pursued Padres ace Jake Peavy, who still hasn't been traded, and had hoped to re-sign injury-prone Mike Hampton before he completed a deal with Houston this week.

"Especially after I started hearing rumors a while back, I guess I was expecting a move. I was glad it was here to Atlanta. This has always been one of my favorites," Vazquez said.

The Braves are still looking for at least one more front-line pitcher, and free agent A.J. Burnett is now their top target. They are among the teams that have made an offer to the right-hander.

"That would be awesome," Vazquez said. "Any team would like to have him."

Logan was 2-3 with a 5.95 ERA in 55 appearances with the White Sox in 2008. He has a 4-4 record with a 5.87 ERA in 144 games over three seasons with Chicago.

The 6-foot-4, 248-pound Flowers, who is 22, gained attention when he hit 12 homers in 20 games in the Arizona Fall League. He batted .288 with 17 homers at Class A Myrtle Beach last season.

"I think this guy will be an All-Star catcher," Williams said, adding the White Sox had no plans to move him to another position. "For his size, he has a lot of agility behind the plate and he throws the ball extremely well. ... I think he will be a heck of an offensive catcher and a solid defensive catcher behind the plate."

Lillibridge hit .200 in 80 at-bats with Atlanta last season. He spent most of the season with Triple-A Richmond, batting .220.

Gilmore, a third baseman, batted .294 with four homers and 35 RBIs in 94 games with Advanced Rookie Danville and Class-A Rome in 2008.

The 6-foot-5 Rodriguez was 1-2 with a 2.79 ERA in 14 relief appearances with the Gulf Coast League Braves in 2008.

Williams said he didn't foresee another major deal as he heads off to the winter meetings, which begin Monday in Las Vegas.

Earlier this offseason, the White Sox dealt Nick Swisher and right-hander Kaneoka Texeira to the New York Yankees for pitching prospect Jeff Marquez, infielder Wilson Betemit and minor league pitcher Jhonny Nunez.

The White Sox also hope to finalize a deal with young Cuban star Dayan Viciedo.

With the departure of Vazquez, Chicago's starting rotation could feature Mark Buehrle, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Clayton Richard and Marquez. Veteran right-hander Jose Contreras is coming off a ruptured Achilles'.

"We've got good, veteran players who continue to produce year after year. If I had to guess as I sit there right now, I don't foresee any other movements with any of our other veteran players," Williams said, adding he will be in more of a listening mode at the winter meetings than an aggressive one.