BASEBALL
Bryce Harper’s free-agency odyssey is finally over. Harper agreed to a record 13-year, $330 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. At 26 years old, the former MVP outfielder will leave the Washington Nationals and compete for their National League East rivals. Harper becomes the highest paid team-sports athlete in history.
FOOTBALL
Jason Witten, the former Dallas Cowboys Pro Bowl tight end, is coming out of retirement and returning to the team. Witten joined the broadcast team for Monday Night Football after last season, but, according to critics, never seemed to develop chemistry in the booth with Joe Tessitore and Booger McFarland. According to Witten, “The fire inside of me to compete and play this game is just burning too strong. This team has a great group of rising young stars, and I want to help them make a run at a championship.”
BRIDGE
You don’t normally associate the game of bridge with doping scandals, but the World Bridge Federation suspended the top-ranked bridge player, Geir Helgemo, for testing positive for synthetic testosterone and the female fertility drug-clomifene. The World Bridge Federation is a member of the International Olympic Committee and therefore needs to regularly test for performance-enhancing drugs. In case you’re wondering how testosterone could help a player compete, according to a “Testosterone and Chess Competition” study, “researchers have found that physiological responses to intellectual challenges are akin to those of physical challenges.”