Hamilton to give Angels everything on and off field

during a news conference at the ESPNZone in Downtown Disneyland in Anaheim, California …more
(Reuters) - Josh Hamilton was introduced as a member of the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday and the slugger immediately promised to give everything he has to the team on and off the field.
A five-time All-Star who overcame drug and alcohol addictions to become one of Major League Baseball's most feared hitters, Hamilton signed a five-year, $125 million deal with the Angels earlier in the week, leaving the Texas Rangers after helping them to consecutive World Series appearances in 2010 and 2011.
"Excited to be here, excited to think about the next five years, excited to think about this lineup and what it's capable of," Hamilton told reporters.
"It's going to be a good run and I'm going to give everything I've got to the organization on and off the field."
Hamilton joins a high-powered Angels lineup that includes three-time National League Most Valuable Player (MVP) Albert Pujols, a 32-year-old slugger who signed a 10-year, $240 million deal with the team last year.
Hamilton, a 31-year-old hard-hitting outfielder, broke into the major leagues in 2007 with the Cincinnati Reds but was traded to the Rangers after the season.
Hamilton has a career .304 batting average, 553 runs batted in and 161 home runs, including a career-high 43 last season.
The Rangers stood by Hamilton as he battled to control his addictions, including a relapse before the start of last season.
But the slugger got the campaign off to a sizzling start and looked to be a Triple Crown threat after slamming 18 homers in the Rangers' opening 34 games.
Hamilton, however, saw his production fall off in the second half of the season finishing with a .285 batting average and 128 runs batted in.
"His qualities on the field really don't need much rundown -- five consecutive All-Star appearances, an AL MVP, batting champion, Silver Sluggers, you name it," said Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto. "But more importantly, a fascinating story. And we look forward to this being the next chapter in his life and our organization's history."
The Rangers had been hopeful of re-signing the 2010 American League MVP and admitted they were caught off guard by Hamilton's jump to their American League West division rivals.
Hamilton said he was just as surprised that the Rangers did not try harder to get his name on a contract.
"I gave (the Rangers) everything I had for five years," said Hamilton. "I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me a little bit that they didn't put the press on.
"The relationships I created in Texas, I love (manager Ron Washington), I loved spending time with him, talking to him.
"There's no reason I can't be in the offices with (manager Mike) Scioscia over here, spending time with him, talking to him, picking his brain - he's got a lot of knowledge about the game and I'm sure life as well.

Read More..

How BuzzFeed Is Betting on Hollywood, Long-Form Writing to Grow

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Last January, BuzzFeed, then an aggregator of memes and cat videos, secured a $15.5 million round of venture capital to beef up a craft that most traditional media was downsizing: journalism.
It hired dozens of reporters and editors, opened bureaus in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles and became a must-read for political junkies during the 2012 presidential election.
On Thursday, the company took another step.
It added adding a fourth round of capital investment - this time worth $19.3 million. And it plans to expand in two major ways: literary, long-form journalism like the kind practiced by New York magazine and the New Yorker, and - with two former Los Angeles Times staffers newly on board - its Hollywood coverage.
BuzzFeed's been on a roll. According to the privately held company's internal traffic numbers, the 8 million unique monthly visitors it drew in 2008 has swelled to 40 million, and revenue for 2012 may triple that of 2011, a spokeswoman for BuzzFeed told TheWrap.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Tom Gara reported that some analysts place the company's valuation at $200 million and say that revenues may reach $40 million this year.
Most of BuzzFeed's traffic currently comes from its odd mix of news and eccentricity on the homepage. Friday morning, spotlighted stories ranged from J.J. Abrams screening his new "Star Trek" for a dying fan and Sen. Tammy Baldwin talking about breaking the glass ceiling to: "How to Murder Your Friend's Facebook Page" and "Here Are Some Elephants Eating Christmas Trees."
But there's no question things are changing.
The first thing CEO Jonah Peretti did with his 2012 investment cash was hire Ben Smith, a Politico veteran, as the site's first editor-in-chief. Smith then kicked off a hiring spree of reporters and got to work. Already BuzzFeed is beginning to break stories and get quoted by aggregators.
McKay Coppins, the site's political editor, embedded with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign. John Stanton, a veteran reporter in Washington, was named BuzzFeed's first D.C. bureau chief. Michael Hastings, the dogged journalist whose Rolling Stone exposé of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's private disagreements with President Obama over Afghanistan led to his resignation, joined the team.
Then, less than a year into its political foray, the site hired former Spin magazine chief Steve Kandell to make the push for longform journalism.
It began with an experiment - a 7,118-word post from last October titled "Can You Die From a Nightmare?" that garnered more than 115,000 hits. Another in October titled "Making Mitt: The Myth of George Romney" drew nearly 130,000 views. This convinced Smith and his team that literary journalism had a niche in the viral news market.
Despite the internet school of thought that briefer is better, Kandell said he has no plans to restrict stories' word counts.
"If someone has a story that has to be 10,000 words, I don't know why that couldn't be," Kandell said.
"I don't think people necessarily have a certain fatigue level when it gets to a certain length and people start trailing out."
Kandell says he plans in the coming months to start publishing at least one long-form story a week and may even start packaging and selling the stories as Amazon Kindle singles or as audiobooks.
Kandell assembled a "Best of 2012" post for his nascent section of the site. The stories ranged from the tale of BuzzFeed's own political editor Coppins, a Mormon, watching attitudes toward his and Romney's religion change throughout the campaign to an inside look at the "Dark World of Online Sugar Daddies."
Plans are to cover more foreign policy and national security issues from a Washington-centered perspective - and to add Hollywood into the mix. The only hands-off topic, apparently, will be international news.
"We've played around with ways to make world news more sharable, just like every editor at every publication," he said, noting that readers liked a roundup of Instagram photos of the civil war in Syria. "It's really hard, it's not something we want to jump into without really knowing what we're doing."
As for Hollywood, BuzzFeed hired Richard Rushfield, former entertainment editor of LATimes.com, and ex-Times television editor Kate Aurthur, also a former Daily Beast staffer, to jump-start its bureau.
Smith said he plans to forge a presence in Los Angeles second only to its flagship New York bureau. A Hollywood vertical is expected to launch on January 7.
To that end, the site is entering a crowded space - one dominated by publications like Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, TheWrap, Vulture and the Times - but Rushfield said he plans to cover entertainment through BuzzFeed's social-web lens: If it's irresistibly share-worthy, it's publishable.
"We have a unique position, despite how crowded the beat is," Rushfield told TheWrap, adding that they won't be competing with trades over stories concerning studio executives and casting deals. "One of our advantages is that we are not going to be going after every single story that the trades are - we have more room to take the things that we think can be interesting. What BuzzFeed is about is writing news that will be of interest to the social web."
Now the trick is to make all these editorial investments worthwhile financially.
Revenue growth from its advertising model has been climbing, chief operating officer Jon Steinberg told TheWrap.
Forgoing the usual banners and display ads, BuzzFeed offers its clients "branded content." For example, Scope mouthwash sponsored a "listicle" on the most "courageous" mustaches.
To that end, the advertising team, which is made up of 20 people that report to Steinberg, works with brands from General Electric to Virgin Mobile to devise sharable pieces of content.
The ratio of advertorial to editorial content on the homepage is usually about one to every six or so stories," he said.
Those branded-content headlines garner 10-20 times the click-through rates of blinking banner and display ads, Steinberg told TheWrap.
"You compare those ads in the 1950s to modern advertising, you realize how broken modern advertising is," Steinberg said. "Most publishers and media companies say you can't make money on modern advertising."
But - though he declined to reveal exact numbers, as BuzzFeed is a private company - the model helped to increase revenue last year and has allowed the publication to focus solely on its advertising stream.
He said the company has no immediate plans to enter the conference business popular with online publications including the Business Insider, AllThingsD and TheWrap.
"This is our Google ad words," Steinberg said of the innovative advertising tool that Google pioneered in the mid-2000s. "If we were Apple, this would be our manufacturing of great hardware products.

Read More..

Cricket-Herath alive and bowling despite death rumours

SYDNEY, Jan 5 (Reuters) - As Mark Twain might have said, rumours of the death of Sri Lankan spinner Rangana Herath which spread like wildfire across social media late on Friday proved to be greatly exaggerated.
Far from lying in a Sydney morgue alongside former test bowler Chaminda Vaas after perishing in a car crash as the reports had suggested, Herath was very much alive when he pitched up for work at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday.
The most prolific wicket-taker in test cricket last year, the 34-year-old leg spinner claimed two Australian wickets to seal a haul of four for 95 and then contributed nine runs with the bat.
Team mate Dimuth Karunaratne told reporters at the conclusion of the day's play that the team had been dumbfounded by the rumours.
"I heard about it when we having breakfast but I had no idea where that came from," he said with a laugh.
"Guys from Sri Lanka were calling us asking 'when is the funeral?' and stuff like that.
"Rangana is alive," he added, somewhat unneccessarily.
Herath's efforts were not enough to prevent Australia taking an iron grip on the third test match on Saturday and move to the brink of a 3-0 series sweep.
That could all change, however, if he and Dinesh Chandimal, who finished the third day unbeaten on 22, are able to dig in on Sunday, inflate their lead beyond the current 87 and give Sri Lanka a decent target to bowl at.
The Sydney track has traditionally offered a lot of turn for spinners in the last couple of days of a test and, as Herath's 60 wickets last year showed, there are few better spinners operating in test cricket at the moment.
"The wicket is turning a lot now and the Aussie guys are playing the fourth innings, so I think Rangana... can do something," said Karunaratne.
Vaas has no position with the test team and remains, also unharmed, in Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan reporters said.

Read More..

Cricketer Herath alive and bowling despite death rumors

SYDNEY (Reuters) - As Mark Twain might have said, rumors of the death of Sri Lankan spinner Rangana Herath which spread like wildfire across social media late on Friday proved to be greatly exaggerated.
Far from lying in a Sydney morgue alongside former test bowler Chaminda Vaas after perishing in a car crash as the reports had suggested, Herath was very much alive when he pitched up for work at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Saturday.
The most prolific wicket-taker in test cricket last year, the 34-year-old leg spinner claimed two Australian wickets to seal a haul of four for 95 and then contributed nine runs with the bat.
Team mate Dimuth Karunaratne told reporters at the conclusion of the day's play that the team had been dumbfounded by the rumors.
"I heard about it when we having breakfast but I had no idea where that came from," he said with a laugh.
"Guys from Sri Lanka were calling us asking ‘when is the funeral?' and stuff like that.
"Rangana is alive," he added, somewhat unnecessarily.
Herath's efforts were not enough to prevent Australia taking an iron grip on the third test match on Saturday and move to the brink of a 3-0 series sweep.
That could all change, however, if he and Dinesh Chandimal, who finished the third day unbeaten on 22, are able to dig in on Sunday, inflate their lead beyond the current 87 and give Sri Lanka a decent target to bowl at.
The Sydney track has traditionally offered a lot of turn for spinners in the last couple of days of a test and, as Herath's 60 wickets last year showed, there are few better spinners operating in test cricket at the moment.
"The wicket is turning a lot now and the Aussie guys are playing the fourth innings, so I think Rangana... can do something," said Karunaratne.
Vaas has no position with the test team and remains, also unharmed, in Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan reporters said.

Read More..

Stocks mostly lower on Wall Street; Yum plunges

Stocks are opening mostly lower on Wall Street as investors get ready for the beginning of corporate earnings season.
Aluminum maker Alcoa reports earnings after the closing bell. The stock was flat in early trading.
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 20 points to 13,362 early Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell a point to 1,460. The Nasdaq rose three to 3,101.
Yum Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, dropped 4 percent to $65.13 after saying that problems with two of its small chicken suppliers hurt sales more than expected in China.
Agricultural products company Monsanto rose 4 percent to $99.48 after reporting that its profit nearly tripled as sales of its corn seeds expanded in Latin America.

Read More..

US stocks mixed ahead of earnings season kickoff

U.S. stocks opened mostly lower Tuesday as traders awaited the start of U.S. corporate earnings season.
In the first half-hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 26 points to 13,358. The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost two to 1,459. The Nasdaq composite index rose a point to 3,100.
Aluminum maker Alcoa reports its fourth-quarter financial results after the market closes, marking the unofficial kickoff to weeks of earnings announcements from U.S. companies. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect Alcoa to earn 6 cents per share, after losing 18 cents per share in the same quarter a year earlier.
Market-watchers expect the quarter's results could include many surprises because of events like Superstorm Sandy, the presidential election, and the narrowly avoided tax increases and spending cuts known collectively as the fiscal cliff.
Trading has been cautious in the week since Congress and the White House struck a deal to maintain lower tax rates and postpone painful cuts in government spending. Enthusiasm about the compromise pushed the Dow up 300 points last Wednesday, its biggest gain since December 2011.
In corporate news:
— Agriculture products giant Monsanto's shares jumped 3 percent after saying its profit nearly tripled in the first fiscal quarter, helped by strong seed sales in Latin America. Monsanto raised its earnings guidance for the year. Shares rose $3.04 to $98.98.
— Video game seller GameStop Corp. lost 7 percent after reporting weak holiday-season sales and cutting its revenue guidance. Shares dropped $1.71 to $23.04.
— Yum! Brands Inc., operator of the KFC and Taco Bell fast food chains, dropped 5 percent after saying a key sales metric in China fell more than expected in the fourth quarter. The decline was related to problems at two of its small chicken suppliers; nearly half of the company's revenue came from China in 2011. Shares fell $3.42 to $64.47.
— In Korea, electronics giant Samsung said it expects record earnings for the fourth quarter as shoppers continue to embrace its smartphones and tablets. But there were signs its momentum is slowing, and shares of the company closed down 1.3 percent in Seoul.

Read More..

S.African stocks dip as worries rise of labour friction

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African stocks closed slightly lower on Monday with mining stocks including Harmony Gold pulling the market back from a record high set early in the session on concerns of fresh labour strife hurting the sector's earnings.
The All-share index, the broadest measure of Johannesburg stock performance, closed 0.28 percent lower at 40,162.56 and the blue chip Top-40 index closed 0.38 percent down at 35,641.67.
Shares of Harmony Gold shed 3.5 percent to 68.98 rand after it warned it might be forced to mothball a mine accounting for 14 percent of its production after labour tensions at its Kusasalethu mine clouded the outlook for operations.
The gold miner's woes mark a rocky start to 2013 for South Africa's mining industry, after a year in which it was rattled by violent wildcat strikes that led to more than 50 deaths and severely damaged the country's investment image.
The National Union of Mineworkers, the sector's most powerful labour group, said it expects a sizable number of job losses in the industry this year.
"These days people are willing to pay a premium for certainty - for knowing what to expect," said Thys van Zyl, a portfolio manager at Thebe Stock Broking in Johannesburg.
He said the market was pulling back after last week's rally when it closed at record highs three days in a row.
Among the day's top gainers were banking and financial services FirstRand, whose shares gained 1.7 percent to 32.11 rand. Other gainers in the sector included Nedbank and Investec, which both ended about one percent higher.
Trade was thinner with 113 million shares changing hands, compared to the 122 million traded on Friday. Advancers outnumbered decliners, 164 to 140.

Read More..