A group spear-headed by former basketball great Earvin "Magic" Johnson agreed to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team for a record $2bn, team owner Frank McCourt announced yesterday, capping a two-year drama that started with McCourt's divorce and wound its way through bankruptcy court.

Albert Pujols, widely regarded as the best player in baseball, has joined the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on a 10-year contract reported to be worth $250m (around £160m).

Talks have collapsed on a proposed $200m (£123m) investment in the New York Mets from the hedge fund manager David Einhorn.

Those Britons who don't share their countrymen's traditional prejudice against baseball, but who simply cannot decide on a team to support, might like to consider the Philadelphia Phillies.

The tragicomedy that is the Los Angeles Dodgers intensified yesterday as one of US sport's most famous franchises filed for bankruptcy – a last ploy by its heavily indebted owner to keep the team from being taken over entirely by Major League Baseball.

The Los Angeles Dodgers filed for bankruptcy protection in a Delaware court, blaming Major League Baseball for refusing to approve a multi-billion dollar TV deal that owner Frank McCourt was counting on to keep the troubled team afloat.

Wally Yonamine was a sportsman whose career forced him to face prejudice in two separate sports, on two separate continents, and for opposite reasons. In 1947, playing American football for the San Francisco 49ers, the first Japanese-American in the professional game, he faced considerable resentment resulting from the recently-ended war against Japan. And as the first foreigner to play baseball in the Japanese major leagues, he was referred to as the "Japanese Jackie Robinson", after the black star who integrated American baseball, and faced a similar onslaught of racial abuse and harsh treatment.

A great American sports institution is on the brink of bankruptcy after its owners' fortunes were struck out

The Los Angeles Dodgers capitalised on San Francisco's error-strewn performance to hand last season's World Series champions a 2-1 defeat on Major League Baseball's opening day on Thursday.

It's an old and often angry debate: during a national tragedy with thousands displaced, a nation traumatised and bodies still being counted, should athletes retire from the field in respectful silence – or play on? Japan's most popular sport has become the latest casualty of the country's worst disaster since the Second World War after baseball officials postponed the start of the season in one of the two professional leagues.

More than a half-century after moving to San Francisco, the Giants are taking the World Series trophy to the city by the Bay for the first time.

There was no sign of panic from the San Francisco Giants after they suffered their first loss in the World Series late on Saturday. After winning the first two games at home in the best-of-seven series, the Giants were brought back down to earth in a 4-2 setback on the road against the Texas Rangers.

The Texas Rangers vowed to make the best use of home-turf advantage after being humiliated by the San Francisco Giants 9-0 in Game Two on Thursday evening to fall 2-0 behind in the best-of-seven World Series.