BASEBALL
MARLINS TRADE 3 STARS TO BLUE JAYS: MIAMI (AP) — The Miami Marlins' spending spree a year ago didn't work, so now they're trying another payroll purge — shedding their biggest stars and their multimillion-dollar salaries in one blockbuster deal.
Rebranded in a new ballpark at the start of 2012, the Marlins were up to their old ways Tuesday, swapping high-priced talent for top prospects. Miami traded All-Star shortstop Jose Reyes, left-hander Mark Buehrle and ace right-hander Josh Johnson to the Toronto Blue Jays, a person familiar with the agreement said.
The trade sent several of the Blue Jays' best young players to Miami.
The stunning agreement came less than a year after the Marlins added Reyes, Buehrle and closer Heath Bell in an uncharacteristic $191 million spending binge as they moved into a new ballpark. The acquisitions raised high hopes, but the Marlins instead finished last in the NL East.
FOOTBALL
TEXANS BACK ON TOP OF AP PRO32 NFL POWER RANKINGS: NEW YORK (AP) — Houston and Atlanta traded places in the AP Pro32 NFL power rankings.
The Texans moved to the top on Tuesday following their 13-6 win over the Chicago Bears, while the Falcons dropped to second after their first loss of the season, 31-27 to the New Orleans Saints.
Houston (8-1) was a unanimous choice, receiving all 12 first-place votes and 384 points from The Associated Press' panel of media members who regularly cover the league.
Atlanta, the NFL's other one-loss team, received 362 points, while the Bears remained third with 341 points. San Francisco was fourth with 339 points, and Denver moved up three places to fifth with 334 points.
BASKETBALL
DAVID STERN ESTIMATES NBA REVENUE UP 20 PCT TO $5B: NEW YORK (AP) — NBA Commissioner David Stern estimates revenue will be a record $5 billion in the current season, an increase of about 20 percent from the league's last full season in 2010-11.
Speaking Tuesday at Beyond Sport United, a gathering of global team, league and industry executives at Yankee Stadium that focuses on social responsibility. Stern said NBA expansion to Europe is probably at least a decade away and that it likely would make sense to add several clubs there at once.
Stern announced last month that he will retire on Feb. 1, 2014, 30 years after he took over from Larry O'Brien, so international expansion will be passed on to Adam Silver, who has been deputy commissioner since 2006.
COLLEGE
STANFORD RUNNER TO PULL OFF REMARKABLE DOUBLE: STANFORD (AP) — Stanford's Miles Unterreiner will pull off a remarkable double Saturday that would be logistically impossible without help from his school and a huge assist by the NCAA: He will first compete in the NCAA cross country meet in Louisville, then fly to Seattle to interview for a Rhodes Scholarship that afternoon.
All that after he begins the interview process as a Rhodes finalist Friday in Seattle, then travels to Kentucky that night in time for the meet.
Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir said Tuesday the university received a waiver from the NCAA on the travel rule so Unterreiner can take a private plane — the only way to make this happen. There were no commercial flights that could get him from Kentucky to Seattle in time for the interviews with the selection committee.
Unterreiner will run his final collegiate race. If he receives the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, he would study philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford next year in England.
The plane ride is being funded through private support, Muir said.
