Sports briefs

BASEBALL

Maddon, Banister named top bosses in their leagues

NEW YORK - Joe Maddon won his third NL Manager of the Year award Tuesday and Jeff Banister his first AL award after they guided their teams on a shock run to the playoffs.

In his initial season with the Chicago Cubs, Maddon took the NL prize following the club’s first postseason appearance since 2008. He also won in the American League with Tampa Bay in 2008 and 2011.

Maddon received 18 first-place votes and 124 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He beat out St. Louis’ Mike Matheny and the New York Mets’ Terry Collins by a surprisingly comfortable margin, becoming the seventh manager to win the award three times and the seventh to earn it in both leagues.

Banister garnered 17 first-place votes and 112 points, easily topping Houston’s A.J. Hinch and Hall of Famer Paul Molitor from the Minnesota Twins, another rookie manager.

Banister joined Houston’s Hal Lanier (1986), San Francisco’s Dusty Baker (1993), Florida’s Joe Girardi (2006) and Washington’s Matt Williams (2014) as the only men to win in their first season as a major league manager.

FOOTBALL

Friendly game in Germany called off over bomb threat

HANNOVER, Germany - The friendly football game between Germany and the Netherlands was canceled 90 minutes before kickoff on Tuesday due to the suspected threat of a bomb at the stadium.

“We had concrete evidence that someone wanted to set off an explosive device in the stadium,” Hannover police chief Volker Kluwe told German TV.

Referring to another bomb threat about an hour beforehand that turned out to be a false alarm, Kluwe said, “After the first object turned out to be harmless, we got a tip that had to be taken seriously that an attack was being planned.”

Members of the German government including Chancellor Angela Merkel were not at the stadium, but had arrived in Hannover to attend the match to send a signal that Germany wouldn’t bow to terrorism in the wake of the deadly Paris attacks on Friday. Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said indications of a planned attack became stronger as the match approached. AP