Fax Fault, and WBC Finishes

Dominican Republic wins WBC

• The Dominican Republic concluded a dominant World Baseball Classic on Tuesday night, blanking the Puerto Rican team 3-0 in the finals to finish the classic with a perfect 8-0 slate. It was only appropriate that the game took place in San Francisco, where team general manager Moises Alou's father and uncles all played in the same outfield for games in 1963. Felipe Alou later managed the Giants as well.
• The DR team jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead with a two-run double by Edwin Encarnacion in the first inning, added a third run in the 5th, and never looked back. Samuel Deduno pitched an almost flawless 5 innings, and a cadre of relievers finished off the shut out.
• This is the first victory for the Dominican, in the third WBC. The first two were won by Japan who finished third in this year's tournament.
• Perhaps the most entertaining part of the tournament was DR reliever's Fernando Rodney's "lucky plantaine." Rodney held on to the tuber for the better part of the tournament, even showing it to the camera during introductions prior to the championship.

Denver Fax Fiasco

• Elvis Dumervil of the Denver Broncos signed a 6-year $61.5M contract in 2010. The Denver Broncos could not afford to pay him another year, and approached Dumervil to renegotiate or face being cut by the team. A move that would be for primarily financial reasons, though Dumervil has been injured on and off for the past two years.
• After initially rejecting any attempts by the Broncos to renegotiate, Dumervil and his agent changed their mind. However, the contract needed to be signed before 4PM EST this past Friday. After a framework of an agreement was put in place at 3:24 (according to emails released), Dumervil’s agent and the chief negotiator took a little longer to hammer out details. Dumervil, who was sitting in a Kinko’s office in Miami had to sit and wait.
• Dumervil claims he sent the fax with his signature prior to the 4 PM deadline, but the Broncos did not receive the fax until a few minutes after 4 (side note: who still uses a fax machine?!). That being the case Denver was forced to cut Dumervil. With the rules of that govern the NFL salary cap, the Broncos will be accountable for almost $5M of Dumervil’s salary, which makes it difficult for them to re-sign him at all. However, Broncos president John Elway says he has reached out to Dumervil’s new agent (Dumervil fired his agent after this snafu) and has offered a new contract.
• - This story would have been posted earlier but when we tried to fax it to the copy room...