Athletes

It was evidently good enough for Gilligan and Robinson Crusoe. But is coconut water a healthy choice for people who aren't stranded on a deserted island? A longstanding treat in tropical regions across the globe, coconut water hit U.S. supermarkets a few years back and is now being marketed with a vengeance. Sometimes billed as nature's sports drink, the slightly sour beverage has also acquired a reputation for being able to improve circulation, slow aging, fight viruses, boost immunity, and reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and stroke.

OAKLAND — Mike Scioscia won't declare that Ernesto Frieri is his new closer — he'd still like the option of using veteran left-hander Scott Downs at the end of games — but the Angels manager's actions and Frieri's performance suggest the 26-year-old right-hander has assumed that key role. Frieri struck out three of four batters in the 11th inning Wednesday for his first big league save, nailing down the Angels' 3-1 victory over the Oakland Athletics that featured Alberto Callaspo's clutch two-out, two-run double in the top of the inning.

The biggest home in Los Angeles County is ready for a new nickname: The 56,500-square-foot Manor, dubbed Candyland after owner Candy Spelling, has been sold to another wealthy socialite, British heiress Petra Ecclestone, in an all-cash deal for $85 million. As steep as that price is, it's not a record or even close to what Spelling was asking. The priciest Southland home transaction was the 2000 sale of an 8-acre estate in Bel-Air to financial executive Gary Winnick in a deal that included the trade of other land, for a total value of about $94 million.

Legal poker The stalemate is so stale, the one between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants, that it somehow became big news when someone asked Bud Selig last week whether the A's might move out of the Bay Area and the commissioner basically said, "Beats me. Go ask the A's. " The A's haven't given up on San Jose. The Giants haven't given up on blocking the move. Selig hasn't given up on brokering a deal, three years into the peace talks. Selig had better be wary.

"Oh, you mean the guy with the 70-year-old head and the 20-year-old body-builder body? That picture has got to be Photoshopped." Dr. Jeffry Life smiles when I tell him about the general reaction I get about the famous picture of him with his shirt off, the shot that turned a mild-mannered doctor in his mid-60s into a poster boy for super-fit aging and controversial hormone replacement Appearing in medical-clinic ads in airline magazines and...

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the supplement nitric oxide? Richard Sunland Nitric oxide is a gas naturally found in the body; its function is conveying information between cells. One of its main jobs is increasing blood flow by dilating blood vessels, and that's why it's sometimes given in supplement form to heart patients, orally and intravenously. In at least one study it's been shown to be effective for lowering blood pressure.

European sports ministers called Wednesday for strong anti-drug legislation that would facilitate year-round testing of athletes throughout Europe, even though some officials expressed doubts about its legality. The proposals, which come up for a final vote by the Council of Europe ministers today at Reykjavik, Iceland, also would recommend penalties for doctors and coaches who supply athletes with banned substances. "We need to ensure that measures are harmonized between countries, so competitors and their supporters will know they face similar regimes of doping control no matter where they compete," British Sports Minister Colin Moynihan said.

As athletes in Beijing vie for medals, fame and fortune, Iraqi distance runner Mahmoud Kamil Ahmed competes thousands of miles away for a different reason: to forget. A year ago, while Ahmed trained in Cairo, Sunni Muslim insurgents surrounded his family's homestead in Diyala province, machine guns and rockets blazing. All 27 of his relatives inside were killed, including his mother, father and two brothers. Now, the 27-year-old lives in a Baghdad University dorm, still running, still winning some races, still struggling with the despair that haunts every turn around the searing track where he trains.

Bishop Dolegiewicz, a shotputter for the University of Texas in the mid-1970s and a member of the Canadian Olympic teams in 1980 and '84, purchased large amounts of steroids from a Texas pharmacy, according to the Austin (Tex.) American-Statesman. At the ongoing Canadian steroid inquiry in Toronto, Dolegiewicz earlier was named by Charlie Francis, coach of sprinter Ben Johnson, as a supplier of steroids to the Canadian team from 1980 until 1986. Two former employees of Austin pharmacist Donald Von Minden told the American-Statesman that Dolegiewicz bought steroids to supply about six athletes.

Sure, smoking is bad for you -- but what happens when you combine it with something really good -- like running eight miles a day? Do you get a healthier smoker? Or an unhealthy athlete? It's one of those is-the-cigarette-half-smoked-or-half-unsmoked conundrums. And there's no definitive answer. "If people can quit, that's the best thing," says Dr. Robert Sallis, director of sports medicine at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana.

One problem with talk about the A's relocating is there is no obvious market for MLB to move into. Charlotte and Las Vegas are possibilities but the most viable is probably Portland. There's less talk about a third New York team with the Mets sorting through financial difficulties ? Miguel Cabrera was expected to be a monster with Prince Fielder behind him but has inexplicably expanded his strike zone. He recently went 17 games in a row without a walk, the longest stretch of his career ?

The Southern Section track and field championships will be held Saturday at Mount San Antonio College, with field events beginning at 10:30 a.m. and running events at 1 p.m. Sprinter Khalfani Muhammad of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, the second-place finisher in the state 100 and 200 last year, will be trying to win his first section title in the Division 3 100 and 200. There are lots of standouts in the boys' and girls' ranks, including Gardena...

Oklahoma City hasn't been to the NBA Finals but has plenty of time to get there with its youthful roster of size, speed and Kevin Durant. The Thunder swept Dallas in the first round, and the Lakers were pressed to merely get out of it, needing seven games to beat Denver. The Thunder won the regular-season series, 2-1, beating the Lakers with ease in Oklahoma City, 100-85, and at Staples Center, 102-93, before losing in double overtime at Staples Center without James Harden after the second quarter, 114-106.

Of all the indignities visited upon Frank McCourt over the last couple years - fan boycotts, pickets outside Dodger Stadium, "Frankrupt" T-shirts - McCourt never had to pick up a copy of the Los Angeles Times and stare at a full-page advertisement in which fans demanded he mind his manners or sell the Dodgers. But, hundreds of miles to the north, another fed-up fan base had its say last week. In a full-page ad in the Oakland Tribune, under the headline "An Open Letter to John Fisher, Majority Owner of theOakland A's," Fisher was urged to commit to a new stadium in Oakland or sell the team to someone who would.

The day begins around 7 a.m., at the back of the house, in a room outfitted with rows of fluorescent lights, a ping-pong table and little else. This is where Ariel Hsing comes to practice alone. She starts by crouching silently at one end of the table, then springs up and, with a flick of her paddle, sends a serve whizzing across the net. The 16-year-old repeats this motion hundreds of times, the balls collecting against a far wall. She must concentrate on hitting with maximum spin, but other thoughts occasionally creep in. Thoughts of precalculus and English composition.

The 17-year-old football star's skin was black and his backpack red. Were it not for those colors, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday, Jamiel Shaw II might never have been murdered by an 18th Street gang member eager to earn his stripes. Deputy Dist. Atty. Allyson Ostrowski said Pedro Espinoza, now 23, shot Shaw execution-style in 2008 thinking he was a Bloods gang member because he was African American and was carrying a red Spider-Man backpack. Shaw, who played for Los Angeles High School, was killed in March of that year just a few houses away from his Arlington Heights home.

Emmitt Smith was the first athlete to win "Dancing With the Stars. " That was in Season 3, after Jerry Rice finished second in Season 2 to Drew Lachey, the less famous but maybe more talented younger brother of singer Nick Lachey (who used to hang out with USC quarterback Matt Leinart, but that's a whole other reality show). Since then, four other athletes have won the mirror-ball trophy given to the winning couple and, counting Pittsburgh Steelers great Hines Ward on Monday night, 12 have made it to the final three.

IT is 4:01 a.m. The red glow of the digital clock is clearly visible through the clear plastic walls surrounding my bed. It is mid-March, and the Boston Marathon is more than a month away. If everything works as planned, I will finish it in less than three hours. For several nights now, I've been sleeping in a giant plastic bubble as part of an unscientific but increasingly common experiment on athletic performance.

Ah, the glamour of being an Olympic medalist. It is an overcast Wednesday morning in Newhall. The parking lot at the Oak Tree Gun Club is already filling up and the greatest competitive female gunslinger in the history of the good ol' USA is being put through the paces by a photographer. Our modern-day Annie Oakley stands on a square of dirt, next to a field of gravel and facing a scraggly hill. A sign warns of rattlesnakes in the area, and Kim Rhode laughs and says, "Almost sat on one here.

Through her tears, Luisa Seau said that there had been no warning of this. How could her son, Junior, who had so much promise in his life and during a glittery football career, want to kill himself? "I don't understand," she wailed. But Seau, 43, a star linebacker at USC and for his hometown San Diego Chargers, apparently ended his life Wednesday with a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Oceanside home. Oceanside Police Chief Frank McCoy said Seau's girlfriend went to the beachfront home about 9:30 a.m. and found him dead in a bedroom.