Pirates sign Sanchez, add Kolb to pen

Baseball
National League batting champion Freddy Sanchez chose not to go to arbitration and agreed to a $2.75 million, one-year contract yesterday with the suddenly active Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates, who made almost no player moves for the first 3 1/2 months of their offseason, signed former Brewers All-Star reliever Dan Kolb to a minor league contract. Kolb is expected to join what looks to be one of the NL's deepest bullpens. Sanchez, a reserve infielder when last season started but the Pirates' 25th NL batting champion when it ended, gets a big raise over the $342,000 he made last season . . . Tony Batista hit two home runs -- the second an inside-the-parker -- to lead the Dominican Republic's Aguilas Cibaenas to a 9-0 victory over Mexico in the Caribbean Series in Carolina, Puerto Rico.

Track and field

Meseret Defar set a women's world record in the indoor 3,000 meters in Stuttgart, Germany, in a race in which the top two runners broke the old mark by more than four seconds. The Ethiopian's time of 8 minutes 23.72 seconds beat the mark of 8:27.86 set by Liliya Shobukhova Schobukara of Russia Feb. 17, 2006, in Moscow. Defar, the Olympic champion at 5,000 meters, edged Messelech Melkamu by 0.02. Both Ethiopians beat the record with a sprint over the final 300 meters . . . Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou won at the Greek indoor championships in Athens in her first race since a two-year ban was lifted in December. Thanou, 32, won the 60 meters in 7.28 seconds. Thanou was suspended with fellow Greek sprinter Kostas Kenteris after failing to report for drug tests on the eve of the 2004 Athens Olympics . . . Texas's Andra Manson became the first athlete in the history of the New Balance Collegiate Invitational to win an event four straight years, taking the high jump at 7 feet 6 1/2 inches at the Armory Track and Field Center in New York.

Soccer

Brian McBride scored in the 73d minute to lead Fulham over Newcastle, 2-1, in London in a Premier League game with four Americans on the field. McBride, defender Carlos Bocanegra, and substitute Clint Dempsey, formerly of the New England Revolution, were the US players for Fulham. Newcastle featured defender Oguchi Onyewu, who joined the team four days earlier on loan from Belgium's Standard Liege . . . David Beckham was again left out of Real Madrid coach Fabio Capello's lineup for a Spanish league game with Levante. Beckham has not played for Madrid in nearly a month. He was a substitute in a 2-0 loss at Deportivo La Coruna Jan. 7 . . . Zoran Filipovic was named Montenegro's first soccer coach. Montenegro, which split from Serbia last year, was accepted as UEFA's 53d nation last month.

Winter sports

China swept pairs figure skating and led the medal standings on the final day of the Asian Winter Games. China finished with 19 gold medals; Japan, which won the men's ice hockey tournament, had 13; and South Korea had nine. China swept the figure skating pairs, with Olympic bronze medalists Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo winning with 195.55 points . . . Adam Malysz of Poland tied the hill record on his second leap to win a World Cup ski jump event in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany. Malysz earned his second World Cup victory in eight days, 31st of his career with the 145.0-meter jump, matching the mark held by Germany's Sven Hannavald. Malysz finished with 293.8 points . . . Olympic gold medalist Sandra Kiriasis of Germany won the two-man bobsled in St. Moritz, Switzerland, with American Shauna Rohbock finishing third. Kiriasis's sled was timed in 4:33.84 in the four races . . . Kris Freeman from Andover, N.H., finished 15th in a 15K freestyle World Cup race in Davos, Switzerland, his best result in nearly two years.

Miscellany

Laila Ali defended her World Boxing Council and Women's International Boxing Association world titles in Johannesburg, knocking out Gwendolyn O'Neil of Guyana at 56 seconds of the first round of their scheduled 10-round super middleweight fight . . . Cory Spinks defended his International Boxing Federation junior middleweight title in Kissimmee, Fla., outpointing Rodney Jones. On the same card, undefeated Chad Dawson won the WBC light-heavyweight title over defending champion Tomasz Adamek . . . Second-seeded Martina Hingis won her record fifth Pan Pacific Open tennis title in Tokyo, beating 19-year-old Ana Ivanovic, 6-4, 6-2 . . . Ivan Ljubicic rallied past Mikhail Youzhny, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5, and will play for the Zagreb (Croatia) Open title against Marcos Baghdatis, who defeated Austrian qualifier Alexander Peya, 6-4, 6-3 . . . No. 1 seed James Blake beat No. 4 Benjamin Becker, 6-3, 7-6 (9-7), and Xavier Malisse defeated Vince Spadea, 6-2, 6-2, in the Delray Beach Invitational semifinals in Miami . . . Horse of the Year Invasor won his 2007 debut, the 1 1/8-mile Donn Handicap by 2 lengths at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla.