Sports News

SAN FRANCISCO - The 49ers would consider moving to Santa Clara if plans for a new San Francisco stadium fall through, team and city officials said Tuesday.

NEW YORK - With Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick and Marty Schottenheimer nodding in agreement, a former teammate spoke Tuesday about Harry Carson the man, not the New York Giants middle linebacker and soon-to-be Hall of Famer.

NEW YORK - If anyone is familiar with the road Matt Leinart faces as he prepares for his first NFL training camp, it is Eli Manning.

DALLAS - Dallas Cowboys safety Keith Davis checked out of the hospital Tuesday, recovering nicely from two gunshot wounds and optimistic about making the start of training camp late next week.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Negotiations with the Tennessee Titans for their top draft pick, Vince Young, will begin face-to-face Thursday, and his agent said Tuesday he expects the quarterback will be signed in time for the start of training camp.

SACRAMENTO - City leaders reached a deal Thursday to build a new downtown arena for the Sacramento Kings, using a quarter-cent sales tax that would require voter approval in November.

DENVER - Two weeks after getting married, Nuggets power forward Nene made another long-term commitment by signing a six-year, $60 million contract to stay in Denver on Thursday.

OKLAHOMA CITY - Members of an Oklahoma City business group that purchased the SuperSonics said Thursday they are disappointed many people have scoffed at the notion that their goal is to keep the team in Seattle.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Washington Wizards signed free agent forward Darius Songaila to a five-year deal worth a reported $21 million on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Washington Wizards added power to their frontcourt on Wednesday, signing free agent forward Darius Songaila of Lithuania.

SAN FRANCISCO - Barry Bonds did what he does best: Step into the batter's box, forget all the off-field distractions and hit a baseball over the fence.

PHOENIX - Carlos Quentin homered in his first major league game. Twenty minutes after Arizona's win was over, his trip around the basepaths still seemed like a blur.

SAN FRANCISCO - They aren't through with Barry Bonds, not yet. The federal grand jury considering possible perjury and tax-evasion charges against the star slugger expired Thursday without an indictment. Hours later, Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, walked out of a prison where he spent two weeks for refusing to testify against his childhood friend.

At Great American Ball Park, the great debate about Barry Bonds was in full swing. "Yes, it is a cloud over baseball and continues to be a cloud over baseball," New York Mets pitcher Tom Glavine said Thursday after a 4-2, 10-inning win at Cincinnati. "It's the kind of thing that I guess you don't expect to go quickly," he said.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Kansas City Royals feel their speed can force opponents to make mistakes. Thursday night's 9-4 win over the Los Angeles Angels was a great example.

DENVER - Jacob Peterson scored in the 93rd minute to give the Colorado Rapids a 3-3 tie with CD Chivas USA in wet conditions Thursday night.

ZURICH, Switzerland - Zinedine Zidane will perform community service as penance for his infamous head butt on Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final. Materazzi didn't get off unscathed, either.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Chris Henderson and Jerrod Laventure scored and the New York Red Bulls beat the Columbus Crew 2-0 Wednesday night.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Carlos Alberto Parreira quit as coach of Brazil on Wednesday, three weeks after his team was eliminated by France in the quarterfinals of the World Cup.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Kansas City Wizards fired Bob Gansler, the longest-tenured coach in Major League Soccer history, and chose assistant coach Brian Bliss as interim coach on Wednesday.

EDMONTON, Alberta - The Edmonton Oilers gave coach Craig MacTavish and president Patrick LaForge four-year contract extensions on Thursday.

WOODBURY, N.Y. - Garth Snow settled into his new office early Wednesday morning and took a break only to attend a luncheon in his honor. Not bad for a guy who was the New York Islanders' backup goalie one day earlier.

SPARTA, N.J. - Former New Jersey Devils defenseman Ken Daneyko was arrested for drunken driving in May and will face charges next month.

UNIONDALE, N.Y. - Neil Smith campaigned to be the New York Islanders' general manager the very day the position opened up six months ago.

RALEIGH, N.C. - The Carolina Hurricanes acquired forward Scott Walker from Nashville in exchange for center Josef Vasicek on Tuesday, giving the Stanley Cup champions a veteran scoring threat to help replace departed free agent Matt Cullen.

DURHAM, N.C. - Duke quarterback Zack Asack was suspended for the season for plagiarism while coach Ted Roof dismissed three other players for breaking team rules, the school said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - A former Naval Academy quarterback accused of rape testified Tuesday that his accuser initiated the encounter, which he described as "sex gone bad."

NEWPORT, R.I. - West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez doesn't agree that his team's victory in the Sugar Bowl rescued the Big East from oblivion.

DURHAM, N.C. - Every member of Duke University's lacrosse team is a potential witness in the case against three players charged with rape, a prosecutor said Monday in arguing for access to their student ID card records.

FRESNO, Calif. - Eddie Scott and Mackey Davis crossed the country chasing their football dreams, only to see their journey end at a run-down apartment complex where police say they took part in the gang rape of an 11-year-old runaway.

INDIANAPOLIS - Second-seeded Andy Roddick beat Jeff Morrison 7-6 (4), 7-5 on Thursday night in the RCA Championships to set up a quarterfinal match against Gilles Muller, the player who edged Roddick in the first round of the U.S. Open last year.

MASON, Ohio - Serena Williams took another step in her comeback from a chronic left knee injury, beating Bethanie Mattek 6-3, 6-1 on Thursday to advance to the quarterfinals in the Western & Southern Financial Group Women's Open.

PALERMO, Sicily - Second-seeded Anabel Medina Garrigues remained on track for a fourth Palermo International title after defeating Anastasiya Yakimova 6-1, 2-6, 6-0 on Thursday.

AMERSFOORT, Netherlands - Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo of Spain upset second-seeded Frenchman Paul Henri Mathieu 6-4, 6-2 Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals at the Priority Telecom Open.

STUTTGART, Germany - Mariano Zabaleta ousted top-seeded Gaston Gaudio from the Mercedes Cup with a 6-4, 6-0 victory on Wednesday.

VERONA, N.Y. - Jason Bohn knew in his heart he made the right choice. On Thursday, his golf game confirmed it. Opting to defend his B.C. Open title instead of playing in the British Open, Bohn shot a 6-under 66 to tie Harrison Frazar for second, one shot behind 45-year-old Mark Brooks after the first round.

HOYLAKE, England - Outside of the royals, few people provide more tabloid headline fodder over here than Tiger Woods.

HOYLAKE, England - A little rain took the fire and fear out of Royal Liverpool. Still intact was the strange nature of the British Open, such as the peculiar path Tiger Woods took toward the top of the leaderboard Thursday.

HOYLAKE, England - Phil Mickelson has nothing on Greg Owen, if you take away a couple of green jackets and the little trinket the PGA Championship gives its winners. They both try to put a little white ball into a little hole for a living, and on Thursday they managed to do it quite nicely at Royal Liverpool.

HOYLAKE, England - Short and plump, Fred Funk chuckled at the prospect of testing golfers for drugs.

LAS VEGAS - Although Shane Mosley and Fernando Vargas stared menacingly into each other's eyes at the weigh-in, there was a mutual regard behind the usual boxing bravado.

LAS VEGAS - Nevada's bid to make boxing safer is already under fire, as supporters for Shane Mosley fought a move Thursday to allow Fernando Vargas to have a sports drink in his corner for their weekend rematch.

WEST ALLIS, Wis. - Danica Patrick sounds as if she has already made a decision on her racing future, even if she's not quite ready to announce it. Despite recent speculation that she would head to NASCAR after her contract with the Rahal-Letterman IndyCar Series team is up at the end of the season, Patrick said she's leaning toward staying in the IndyCar Series and is "far down the line" toward getting a deal done with for next season.

LONG POND, Pa. - Robert Yates Racing will let Elliott Sadler out of his contract at the end of the season. It's another blow for the Yates team, which also will lose longtime driver Dale Jarrett and sponsor UPS to Michael Waltrip's new team at the end of the season.

Richard Childress never got to the point where he hated coming to the race track, but there were times in the past five years when he rather would have been hunting or fishing.

It would have made sense for Nicky Hayden and his brothers to pursue NASCAR careers while growing up in Owensboro, Ky., a city that sent Darrell and Michael Waltrip and Jeremy Mayfield to the top of stock car racing.

GLADEVILLE, Tenn. - For Andretti Green Racing, the word that best describes 2006 is "slump."

ZURICH, Switzerland - Zinedine Zidane will perform community service as penance for his infamous head butt on Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final. Materazzi didn't get off unscathed, either.

SAN FRANCISCO - With Barry Bonds still firmly in the sights of a federal steroid investigation, prosecutors will impanel a new grand jury to take up where an outgoing one left off Thursday and consider perjury and tax-evasion charges against the star slugger.

MORZINE, France - Written off as hopeless just a day earlier, Floyd Landis needed a once-in-a-lifetime ride Thursday to revive his sagging chances of victory in the Tour de France.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Baseball superstar Barry Bonds could face a criminal indictment on Thursday on charges he lied to a federal grand jury about steroids, his lawyer said in an interview on Wednesday.

ATLANTA - Since the start of spring training, Atlanta Braves general manager John Schuerholz has called his bullpen "a work in progress." No longer.

One of the first things the unpretentious staff at the U.S. Olympic Committee's public relations department told Emad Nassir Hussain to do when he arrived in America was to lose the suit.

The U.S. Olympic Committee will soon receive a report about five potential host cities for the 2016 Games that could determine how many of those cities go forward in the bid process.

LAKE PLACID, United States (AFP) - The International Luge Federation will stage the 2009 World Championship here at the site of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics, officials announced.

DUBLIN, June 28 (Reuters) - Golf's Ryder Cup will have its first Olympics-style opening ceremony before the showcase event tees off in Ireland in September.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AFP) - South Korean city Pyeongchang, Sotchi in Russia and Salzburg in Austria have been shortlisted as candidates to host the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, International Olymipic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge has confirmed.