ADAMS TWP— The Jeff Danner Memorial Scholarship will hold its final alumni basketball games Friday in the Mars High School gym, ending a 23-year run.

Over the past 22 years, 55 student-athletes have received more than $30,000 to help offset college expenses. This year's recipients will mark the final scholarship award winners.

The event features Mars men's and women's alumni basketball games, a 3-point shooting contest and various prize drawings. The first game tips off at 6:30 p.m.

Established in 1985, the scholarship honors the life of Jeff Danner, a former Mars basketball player who contracted leukemia during his senior year and died two years later. The Danner games have attracted nearly 100 former players representing 35 years of Mars basketball history.

Tickets for the games are $4 for adults, $2 for students, and are available at the door.

GREENFIELD, Ind. — Dale Baird, the winningest thoroughbred trainer with more than 9,400 victories, died in a crash along an icy highway when he lost control of his pickup truck while hauling a livestock trailer. He was 72.He was killed Sunday in the accident on Interstate 70 along with two teenagers whose car broadsided the truck about 20 miles east of Indianapolis. James Pardo, 19, of Centerville, and Jared Graham, 18, of Hagerstown, were returning from the Indianapolis Colts-Houston Texans game.Baird was heading to Martinsville, Ill., to spend Christmas with his mother and family, his ex-wife, Diane, said Tuesday. He then planned to go to Chicago for a paddock sale.

MIAMI — Former Pittsburgh infielder Jose Castillo signed a free-agent deal with the Florida Marlins on Monday.Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.The 26-year-old Castillo, from Venezuela, played both second and third base for Pittsburgh last season, hitting .244 with 24 RBIs and no homers. In 2006, he hit .253 with 14 home runs and 65 RBIs.

SYDNEY, Australia — Two-time defending champion Wild Oats X1 led the 82-yacht fleet out of Sydney harbor at the start of the Sydney to Hobart race.Wild Oats, trying to match Morna (1946, '47 and '48) as a three-time winner, went through Sydney Heads and into the Tasman Sea first ahead of two other maxis, British entry City Index Leopard and Australian yacht Skandia, the 2003 line honors winner.Five hours into the race, Wild Oats led by 4 nautical miles over Skandia, with City Index Leopard closely behind in third.