Jerry Ball

Dan O'Brien flirted with his world record in the decathlon for nine events before succumbing to heat and dehydration at Knoxville, Tenn. With only the 1,500-meter run remaining in the USA-Mobil Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Wednesday night, O'Brien was 14 points ahead of his world-record pace. But he had nothing left for the 1,500, struggling home in 5 minutes 16.42 seconds. The weary O'Brien needed a 4:44.29 to break the record of 8,891 points he set at Talence, France, Sept.

It used to bother Barry Sanders that nobody believed in the Detroit Lions. Now it's Sanders and the Lions who are causing all the bother. The Lions had too much Sanders and too much defense for the New York Jets as they nailed down their first 10-win season in 21 years and moved a step closer to their first playoff berth in eight years with a 34-20 victory Sunday. Sanders rushed for 114 yards and two touchdowns in 20 carries and the Lions' defense forced five Jets' turnovers.

For those tired of World Cup soccer and uninterested in baseball, good news is here. The Raiders will kick off a new football season today when rookies, free agents and some selected veterans report for training camp at Oxnard. After finishing with a 10-6 regular-season record and reaching the second round of the AFC playoffs before losing at Buffalo last season, the Raiders made several key moves during the off-season that has made them one of the favorites in the AFC to reach Super Bowl XXIX.

Remember the Kings' Marty McSorley and his illegal stick? Now comes Jeff Jaeger and his illegal tee. Except the McSorley incident was in an NHL Stanley Cup final and Jaeger's was in an NFL exhibition game. And McSorley was found guilty, whereas Jaeger proved to be innocent. The Raider kicker thinks the whole thing was petty. It began before Saturday night's exhibition between the Raiders and the Steelers at Pittsburgh.

Mike Royko wrote in the Chicago Tribune that with some NFL franchises in a moving frenzy, the Green Bay Packers aren't going anywhere because the team is basically owned by the people of Green Bay, Wis. "This is the way it should be in every football-crazed city.

With 4:58 to play, the Cleveland Browns were all but a defeated team Sunday at the Coliseum. They trailed the Raiders by 13 points and knew they were one turnover away from losing for the first time this season. In years past, the Browns would have folded and started to look ahead to their next opponent. But not this year's team.

The Oakland Raiders celebrated Jeff Hostetler's return from injuries by breaking an eight-game losing streak in a ragged game featuring little offense and 18 penalties. The image of 320-pound defensive tackle Jerry Ball lumbering 66 yards for the game-breaking touchdown was a fitting ending to the Raiders' sloppy 17-3 victory over Jacksonville on Sunday. "I hadn't run the 40 in eight years," said Ball, who thought about jumping into the stands in celebration, but reconsidered.

Timing has never been Jim Everett's strength and it wasn't Sunday in the Raiders' 24-19 victory over New Orleans at the Coliseum. In his first game in Los Angeles since being traded by the Rams to the Saints during the off-season, Everett struggled for three quarters before leading New Orleans to a furious comeback in the final five minutes. Everett, who began the game with 14 touchdown passes, passed for two scores and came close to a third only to run out of time on the Saints' final drive.

After he heard the news Wednesday, Dominik Unger lashed out. "This school let me down," said Unger, a Southern Methodist University defensive tackle who formerly played at Orange High and Fullerton College. "When SMU recruited me out of Fullerton, I was assured that the program was clean, that they had taken steps to see that violations would not occur again," Unger said. "I was convinced at the time that I would be playing in a clean program. It turns out that they were lying to me."