Sporting Fools

"I feel bad for him and I'm in shock about what I paid," Manley said.

"I didn't want that embarrassment, but I pushed that envelope ethically and morally because if I could take something that would help me perform better and it wasn't on the list, I was going to take it. I had two criteria: Would it hurt me? And would I test positive?

"... At the core, I compromised my integrity to become the best I could be, to perform at the highest level possible."

"Leadoff walks don't bother me,'' Kolb insisted. "I'm a ground ball pitcher and I can get double plays. Now I just to have get them to hit ground balls at someone.''

The three-month era of good feeling ended with a bang. The league said that after meeting with prominent player agents, the union backed out of agreement on several points, including the league's key demand, reducing the length of contracts from seven years to five.

The union made no statement, but ESPN's Greg Anthony said union director Billy Hunter, who is black, told him the league's suggestion the agents were running things was "racist" and "bigoted."

The Pacers believed they had a step up on laying claim to this season's NBA championship while blowing out the Pistons in Detroit until Ben Wallace sent his headband flying, a cup followed and . . . well, the rest is history.

It's remarkable the Pacers still are standing after all the blows they have taken.Their planned starting five for the season never played a game together with Miller's early season injury and then the suspensions to Artest, Stephen Jackson and O'Neal. They had 32 different starting lineups and 435 games lost to injury or suspension.

But they made the playoffs--as the sixth seed--went to Boston and blew out the Celtics at home in Game 7 of the first round before taking two of three from the Pistons.

We have seen this series before--in 1989. Michael Jordan hit the famous game-winner against Cleveland and the sixth-seeded Bulls were on an unlikely roll, winning in the second round and then taking two of three from heavy favorite Detroit. The Pistons woke up in Game 4 and ran the Bulls out in six games.

That's what this Pistons-Pacers series now looks like.

In all, the study in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature found that red-clad Olympians in the four sports won about 55 percent of the time, compared with 45 percent of their blue-wearing competitors. The disparity was largest among competitors of similar ability, while the advantage of wearing red seemed to decrease among mismatched opponents.

"Basically, if you're hopeless, wearing red won't turn you into a winner, but it may mean that you don't lose as badly, as often," said study co-author Robert Barton, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Durham in England.

"As of today, Barry Bonds is no longer on IV antibiotics," Giants trainer Stan Conte said. "This allows Barry to be a little more mobile, he has been pretty much stationary because of the IV. ... It's still important to keep a close check on the infection and make sure that it is totally eradicated."

Bonds is not immobilized "by any stretch of the imagination,'' his spokeswoman, Rachael Vizcarra, said Wednesday night.

"Barry's doing great. The IV antibiotic is very standard. He's not on it any longer, and he's progressing very well. He really wants to get back to his teammates,'' she said.

The Capitol Hill hearing was held as part of the continuing debate about athletes' use of performance-enhancing substances, particularly steroids. The issue of steroids in sports drew intensified Congressional interest after the former major leaguer Jose Canseco wrote a book asserting that several former teammates, including some of baseball's biggest stars, had used steroids to enhance their skills and performance.

A House committee held hearings in March, and Representative Cliff Stearns, Republican of Florida, later introduced legislation, the Drug Free Sports Act, that would require all professional sports in the United States to adopt steroid-testing rules similar to those that govern Olympic sports and many other international sports federations, like the World Anti-Doping Agency.

But Mr. Selig and others who testified before the subcommittee today expressed concern about such a group taking charge of drug policy for their sports. The World Anti-Doping Agency has much harsher punishments for those caught cheating, including two-year bans for athletes caught cheating and expulsion for a second offense.

Bill Rhoden of the New York Times thinks the NBA has a serious image problem and its possible that revisiting the "frozen envelope" theory of the 1984 lottery might not be a bad idea.

[Joe] Dumars and Isiah Thomas were stars of the Detroit teams in the 1980's that had to go through star-studded Boston and Los Angeles. That was a large part of the N.B.A. drama. "For guys in Detroit to go beat teams like L.A., Boston, that was special," Dumars said. "That you beat Los Angeles in the finals, or that you beat Boston in the conference finals to get there, that was an added bonus."

Now things are flipped: the large market teams are chasing the small and medium market teams. Detroit crushing Indiana's little engine doesn't have the same resonance as the Pistons going after the Lakers or the Celtics. Look at the Pistons' next likely series. Miami, suddenly energized by the presence of Shaquille O'Neal and the rise of the phenomenal Dwyane Wade, is compelling.

The trade that sent O'Neal from Los Angeles to Miami instantly changed the Heat from a veritable little engine into a diesel. The N.B.A. is enhanced by having Shaq in Miami, just as the league was tremendously enhanced in 1996 when Shaq decided, or was persuaded, to leave Orlando and play for the Lakers.

Would it be so bad for the league to have LeBron James in New York rather than his wasting away in Cleveland? Of course not.

There is some danger in this thinking, but let's be honest, the league is definitely missing the star factor right now. Kobe's Lakers died, T-Mac's Rockets were eliminated. I think we all are loving Dwyane Wade but Shaq is still Miami's draw.

I don't see the "frozen envelope" coming into play with this draft. But let's monitor the free agent movement over the next few years. Where will guys like LeBron, Carmelo, Chris Bosh and others play during the prime of their careers. I don't think Cleveland, Denver and Toronto will be the right answer.

NBA Needs Another Frozen Envelope [NYT]