A Canseco, McGwire Reunion Looms

Jose Canseco, who asked to be traded after the Boston Red Sox fired Manager Kevin Kennedy, apparently will be sent back to his former team, the Oakland Athletics.

Canseco told the Boston Globe that the deal was contingent on passing a physical. Canseco was on the disabled list several times during his two seasons in Boston, but he told the Globe that the physical would be a formality.

“The deal is closer now than it ever has been,” A’s General Manager Sandy Alderson told the San Francisco Chronicle. Alderson and trainer Barry Weinberg are scheduled to stop in Miami, where Canseco lives, on their way to the Dominican Republic early this week.

Red Sox General Manager Dan Duquette told the Associated Press: “We may have something the first of the week.”

The Red Sox are expected to get right-hander John Wasdin, a sinkerball pitcher who was Oakland’s first-round selection in the 1993 amateur draft. He was 8-7 with a 5.96 earned-run average last season in 25 games, 21 of them starts.

If the trade takes place, Canseco will be reunited with his “Bash Brother” teammate Mark McGwire.

Winter Sports

Fritz Strobl and Werner Franz gave Austria a 1-2 finish Saturday in a World Cup downhill on the most difficult track in the world at Kitzbuehel, Austria.

Strobl, only fifth in Friday’s two-heat sprint downhill, was timed in 1 minute, 51.58 seconds. Franz, second for the fifth time this season, was clocked in 1:52.15.

The Austrians thus fulfilled their pledge to defeat Luc Alphand, currently the best downhiller, who won Friday’s race. The Frenchman was third, only .05 seconds behind Franz.

Fourth was Josef Strobl, another Austrian unrelated to the winner, in 1:52.24. Italy’s Kristian Ghedina, winner of three downhills this season, finished fifth in 1:52.50.

Italy’s Isolde Kostner, who tied for first in the downhill the previous day, edged Sweden’s Pernilla Wiberg by one-tenth of a second to win a World Cup super giant slalom race at Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

Kostner completed the 1,650-meter course in 1 minute, 17.04 seconds for her fourth career victory and second this season.

Wiberg strengthened her overall World Cup lead by finishing second in 1:17.14. Wiberg also leads the super-G and slalom standings. Olympic downhill champion Katja Seizinger of Germany finished third.

Hilary Lindh was the top American, finishing 17th in 1:18.54.

Irina Slutskaya won her second consecutive women’s title at the European Figure Skating championships to give Russia a history-making sweep of all four events in the competition at Paris.

Slutskaya, 17, completed six triples in her routine.

Although not as sparkling as she was in the short program on Friday, she still was far ahead of the rest of the competitors in an otherwise mediocre field.

She had two marks of 5.9, but the remainder were in the 5.6 to 5.8 range.

Krisztina Czako of Hungary was second and Ukrainian Julia Lavrenchuk third.

Surya Bonaly, the five-time European winner before Slutskaya, finished ninth after pushing to be readmitted to the French team. She ruptured an Achilles’ tendon last May.

Despite a fourth-place finish at Oberhof, Germany, Americans Chris Thorpe and Gordy Sheer widened their lead in the World Cup doubles luge standings.

The Italian team of Kurt Brugger and Wilfried Huber won their first World Cup title of the season. They had a total time of 1 minute, 24.018 seconds.

Tobias Schiegl and Markus Schiegl were second in 1:24.040. Gerard Plankensteiner and Oswald Haselreider of Italy were third in 1:24.051. Thorpe and Sheer were next in 1:24.269.

Austrians Markus Prock and Andrea Tagwerker won the men’s and women’s singles.

American Mike Jacoby defeated Italian Elmar Messner in the parallel slalom final at the World Snowboarding Championships at San Candido, Italy. In the women’s competition, Italy’s Dagmar Mair won her first race. . . . Jeroen Straathof of the Netherlands won the 1,500-meter World Cup speedskating event at Davos, Switzerland, retaining his lead in the standings over second-place finisher Hiroyuki Noake of Japan. Germany’s Gunda Niemann won the women’s 3,000 in 4:19.70. . . . Joe Pack of Park City, Utah, fought through a snowstorm at Breckenridge, Colo., to win his first World Cup aerials contest.

Track

Randall Evans finished the men’s 60-meter dash in 6.65 seconds, withstanding a surge by Dennis Mitchell to upset the Olympian by .01 seconds in the Commonwealth Invitational at Cambridge, Mass.

Marcus O’Sullivan set an indoor record with his 47th sub-four minute mile in 3:57. He and Steve Scott had been tied at 46.

Kenya’s Joseph Kimani continued his road course domination by winning the Gasparilla 15K race at Tampa, Fla.

Kimani, who set eight course records last year, finished 38 seconds ahead of countryman Stephen Nyamo in 43 minutes, 11 seconds. The winning time was 36 seconds off the course record.

South African Elana Meyer, competing in her first big race since dropping out of the Olympic marathon, won the women’s division by 54 seconds, in 48:48.

Miscellany

Curt LeDuc of Cherry Valley, Calif., raced his Jeep Cherokee across the Arizona desert along the banks of the Colorado River to win the trophy-truck division of the SCORE Parker 400. John Herder of Tucson won the overall title in the 337-mile desert race.

Travis Myers was the only American winner as Australians dominated the first session of a World Cup short-course swimming meet at Malmo, Sweden.

Myers tied for first with Portugal’s Jose Couto in the men’s 200-meter breaststroke.

Australians Adrian Radley took the 100-meter backstroke, Matthew Dunn won the 100 medley and Michael Klim won the 50 butterfly.

Texas A&M; freshman guard Steve Houston has been ruled academically ineligible for the rest of this season under Big 12 rules, Coach Tony Barone said.

John Gant opened the Professional Bowlers Assn. season by winning his first major title, defeating Mike Aulby, 208-187, in the final of the Brunswick World Tournament of Champions at Reno.

An Olympic distance-runner from Ethiopia awaits arraignment in a Kentucky jail in connection with the death of a woman murdered for backing out of an arranged marriage.

FBI agents arrested Arega Gebrehiwet Abraha, 35, of Atlanta, late Friday aboard a plane that had landed at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport at Florence, Ky.

Abraha was named in an arrest warrant from the Dekalb County Superior Court in Atlanta, charging him with the Jan. 14 shooting death of Aster Haile, 28, his cousin.

Police said they believe Abraha was going to receive money for the marriage, and he killed his cousin when she balked.

The Pacific Shoreline marathon in Huntington Beach will get under way at 7 a.m. today. This is the third year of the event, which also features a 5K, 10K and half marathon, but it’s the first year a full marathon has been included. . . . The 19th annual Redondo Beach Super Bowl Sunday 10K run will begin at 8 a.m. today at Beryl Street.