Sports Rules And Regulations

I love my country and will respect its laws. I will play fair and strive to win. --Part of the Little League pledge A year of cheating scandals has rocked its squeaky-clean, middle-class image and Little League baseball has been doing a lot of soul-searching this week.

No one else had to know about the extra club in Zach Nash's golf bag. The five-wood belonged to a friend, and Zach forgot it was there as he played his way to victory in a junior tournament near his Wisconsin home this summer. The 14-year-old accepted his medal, celebrated with grandparents who had come from Iowa to watch, and stopped by his country club to share the news. Then his golf pro noticed something amiss. "Count your clubs," he told the teenager. Fifteen -- one more than allowed.

So who are you going to believe, the umpire or your lying eyes? This baseball postseason has been a real eye-opener for television viewers who, time and again, have seen a home-plate umpire make a call on a pitch only to be contradicted by a computer-generated graphic. Balls are strikes and strikes are balls. Do we need an optometrist to stand behind the ump? It's called Fox Trax on Fox broadcasts and Pitchtrax on TBS games, but the look is the same.

For many NFL prospects, life begins at 40 (yards). Covering that distance in a scorching time -- as Clemson's Jacoby Ford did Sunday at the NFL scouting combine -- can turn the heads of potential employers, just as a slow 40 time can send a player's draft stock into a tailspin. According to an NFL scout who, along with dozens of others, was keeping his own stopwatch on Ford, the 5-foot-8, 182-pound receiver clocked in at hand times ranging between 4.18 and 4.23 seconds. The official (electronic)

Don James, starting his 19th season as the University of Washington's football coach, abruptly resigned Sunday, hours after the Pacific 10 Conference levied stiff penalties against the school for numerous rules infractions. The football team, which has appeared in the last three Rose Bowls, was placed on probation for two years and was banned from bowl games for the 1993 and 1994 seasons.

Second of two parts Click for part one A panel of international sports arbitrators hearing a doping case against Olympic sprinter Torri Edwards went out of their way to sing her praises. They described Edwards, then a 27-year-old USC graduate, as "a diligent and hardworking athlete" who had "conducted herself with honesty, integrity and character. " They acknowledged that her purported breach of doping regulations was entirely unintentional, caused by the obscure additive nikethamide in a couple of otherwise innocent glucose tablets she took at an exhibition race in Martinique.

Referees in the National Football League are being instructed to penalize a team for excessive crowd noise only in extreme situations during the 1989 season, Indianapolis Colts General Manager Jim Irsay said. Irsay told a news conference in Indianapolis Friday that Commissioner Pete Rozelle modified but would not order a complete reversal of the controversial rule approved in a vote during the off-season.

The University of Washington football program, already under the thumb of Pacific 10 Conference sanctions, has been assessed additional penalties by the NCAA Committee on Infractions. The latest sanctions, which were announced at a Friday afternoon news conference at the Seattle campus, would prevent the Huskies from appearing on television for another season, through 1994. The NCAA also added another year of probation to the original penalty, thus extending the time to the summer of 1996.

It's either the scourge of the NHL or a stroke of genius. It's either "destroy hockey," as Detroit Red Wing defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov disdainfully called it, or the ultimate strategy because its success depends on the discipline and selflessness of every player. It's the New Jersey Devils' neutral zone trap, and no one who has seen it during the team's march to the Stanley Cup finals remains neutral about it.

The liquid quarter-mile. That's how drag boat enthusiasts like to refer to the stretch of water where they race boats side by side at speeds up to 225 m.p.h., but two years ago the liquid quarter-mile came close to drying up. Drag boat racing seemed on the verge of self destruction. --Six drivers, including national champion Billy Todd, were killed in high speed accidents in a single season.

The truth was hard to hear amid a Superdome din, difficult to see through French Quarter tears, impossible to reckon immediately after what felt like one of the most deserved victories in NFL history. Two days later, though, it's still there, pounding like a hangover, reeking like a Bourbon Street back alley. Two days later, the truth is staring in the face of a league too shrouded in 36 years of silly tradition to see it. That great victory by the New Orleans Saints against the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC championship game Sunday night?

Lane Kiffin had just finished discussing the "magnifying glass" of operating in the Southeastern Conference, and how it had taught him the importance of "complete attention on the rules." Then came a question about one of the assistant coaches who had come with him, and whether Ed Orgeron had initiated phone calls to players who had been recruited to Tennessee. "I don't know that that's accurate. . . . I don't believe that has happened," Kiffin said Wednesday evening, just after he was introduced as USC's new head football coach.

Joe McKnight, star tailback of USC's football team, has been driving a sport utility vehicle owned by a Santa Monica businessman, an arrangement the school is investigating and which may be in violation of NCAA rules. The NCAA prohibits student-athletes from accepting benefits from marketing representatives or agents or "extra benefits" based on their athletic ability. For several weeks, McKnight has been seen driving a well-kept 2006 Land Rover that, according to California Department of Motor Vehicles records, is registered to Scott Schenter.

If the World Series at all resembles the first two rounds of the baseball playoffs, an umpire will make a bad call, a call so bad that instant replay will reveal the error for all of America to see, in living color, in high definition, and within seconds. The manager will charge onto the field to argue. The umpire will defend his call. The game will go on. The error will not be corrected. With a limited replay system and supporting facilities already in use, Commissioner Bud Selig could authorize a broader use of instant replay by the time the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies play Game 1 of the World Series tonight at Yankee Stadium.

The young quarterback rolled out and found himself, quite suddenly, alone. No linemen blocking, no receiver breaking open, only tacklers bearing down. At that point, UCLA freshman Richard Brehaut realized he had turned right when the play was supposed to go left. It was only practice, but coaches pulled him off the field, yelling. "I screwed up," he said. "They got on me real good."

Go ahead and ask Dean Lombardi if fighting has a place in the NHL. Then settle in for a passionate defense of conduct that's applauded in rinks around North America but forbidden in other major professional sports leagues here and in Europe. "If you want to throw a fastball at somebody's head, you can get away with it and not be held accountable," the Kings' general manager said. "If you want to crackback block and break somebody's leg, you can get away with it.

The Clovis West boys' basketball team is expected to be stripped of its 2000 Southern California Regional Division I championship-game victory over Mater Dei for using an ineligible player from the Dominican Republic. Center Charlie Rodriguez was 21 years old, according to birth records obtained by Central Section Commissioner Jerry Laird, when he scored 17 points to help the Golden Eagles defeat the Monarchs, 71-64, in March 2000.

When Lance Armstrong was dropped to the pavement by the wayward handle of a fan's yellow bag, his closest pursuers, even Germany's Jan Ullrich, who had trailed Armstrong by only 15 seconds at the day's start, slowed to wait for Armstrong to pick himself up, dust himself off and get back in the race. To many U.S. sports fans, casual watchers of this extraordinary bike race, what happened in Monday's Stage 15 of the Tour de France caused a collective "huh?"

FINA, the international governing body of swimming, is attempting to put the genie back in the bottle. The genie would be the high-tech swimsuits, starting with the well-known Speedo LZR Racer, that dominated the run-up to the Beijing Olympics last year, and the next generation of controversial successors.

A dispute over how Oscar De La Hoya wraps his hands for a fight grew contentious Friday before the Nevada State Athletic Commission said his taping method can effectively remain status quo. De La Hoya's tape man, Joe Chavez, uses two-inch-wide brown medical tape around his fighter's hands and then rolls up the tape between the fingers to help cushion what the De La Hoya camp describes as sensitive hands.