Teams

Brian Price, once a wrecking ball on UCLA's defensive line, has beaten long odds to return to the NFL after two off-season surgeries aimed at keeping his hamstrings attached to his pelvis, rather than breaking loose and coiling down the backs of his thighs. For Price, who will start at defensive tackle Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his excruciating recovery was a 10-step process. Meaning just two months ago, he could run only 10 steps. "You have these doubts in your head at times," said Price, a second-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2010 who, because of his congenitally malformed pelvis, spent the last half of his rookie season on injured reserve.

SEATTLE -- It was one at-bat in a season filled with 126 of them through Wednesday, but it spoke volumes for the strides Mark Trumbo has made in plate discipline. With two on in the seventh inning at Texas on May 13, Rangers reliever Mark Lowe threw a 1-and-2 pitch an inch or two off the plate. Trumbo took it for ball two and eventually drew a walk to load the bases, extending a rally in which the Angels scored three runs to trim Texas' lead to 10-5. Howie Kendrick grounded out to end the inning, and the Rangers won, 13-6, but had Kendrick hit a grand slam, Trumbo's walk would have set it up. Had it been 2011, the inning probably would have ended with a Trumbo strikeout or weakly hit ball.

The Dodgers and New York Mets might rank as the biggest financial headaches for Major League Baseball, but they are not the only ones. Nine of the 30 teams are in violation of the MLB debt service rules, according to information presented in a confidential briefing at the owners' meetings last month and confirmed to The Times by three people familiar with the presentation. In addition to the Dodgers and Mets, the teams out of compliance are the Baltimore Orioles, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers, Florida Marlins, Philadelphia Phillies, Texas Rangers and Washington Nationals, according to the people, none of whom were authorized to disclose the information.

LeBron James of the Miami Heat was the leading vote-getter for the All-NBA team, and the Lakers' Kobe Bryant earned his 10th first-team selection, tied for second on the all-time list. Bryant, a first-team pick for the seventh straight season, joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , Elgin Baylor , Bob Cousy , Michael Jordan , Bob Pettit and Jerry West with 10 selections to the first team. Karl Malone is the leader with 11. James, who won his third most-valuable-player award, received 118 of a possible 120 first-team votes Thursday from a panel of writers and broadcasters.

A look at how playoff teams have ranked among the 30 Major League Baseball teams in payroll the last five seasons and this year. World Series winners in bold: 2006 AL East: New York, 1 AL Central: Minnesota, 21 AL West: Oakland, 19 AL wild card: Detroit, 14 NL East: New York, 3 NL Central, St. Louis , 10 NL West, Dodgers, 5 NL wild card: San Diego, 17 2007 AL East: Boston , 2...

The smile on Andrew Bynum's face widened. “This is so fun,” he said. The reasons pointed to everything with his performance in the Lakers' 103-96 victory Friday over the Portland Trail Blazers, in which he scored a team-high 28 points on 12-of-20 shooting.  He threw down two alley-oop lobs from Pau Gasol to open the game. His eight fourth-quarter points featured an array of moves, including a baby hook shot over LaMarcus Aldridge, a lob from Josh McRoberts and two short-range jumpers in the paint.

The NBA's condensed 66-game schedule is starting to form. The collective-bargaining agreement has not officially been ratified, but the league acknowledged Sunday that each team must endure at least one of the dreaded back-to-back-to-back situations. Teams haven't had to play games on three consecutive nights since the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season. Some teams will have to do it three times, the NBA said. There might even be some back-to-backs for playoff teams that take part in the conference semifinals.

And then on their 17th game, they played against a winning team. The Dodgers are starting a six-game homestand Monday against the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals, two teams off to strong starts. Which would be the opposite of their first five series, all played against teams looking up at .500. That has made it somewhat difficult to gauge the merits of the Dodgers' 12-4 start, but now there's a more controlled aspect as the Dodgers prepare to play the 10-6 Braves and 12-4 Nationals.

The Mega millions jackpot has soared to $640 million. Imagine what you could buy with that kind of money -- a medium-sized island, a lifetime supply of In-N-Out for a small country, or even a share of a sports team. Magic Johnson was part of a group that bought the Los Angeles Dodgers for a record $2.15 billion. If you win the lottery, you could own 31.2% of the team. Before the Dodgers deal, the previous record for the purchase price of an American sports team belonged to the Miami Dolphins, which sold for $1.1 billion in 2009.

The winless San Francisco 49ers scratched offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye on Monday, firing him a day after he got a vote of confidence from Coach Mike Singletary. The winless Buffalo Bills scratched Trent Edwards, releasing the quarterback who took every first-team snap during the off-season and in training camp. The winless Carolina Panthers? They simply scratched their heads. "We are what we are," Coach John Fox said, "and that's what I'm trying to change so we're not that.

Seems like old times. For years, season-ending series between Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State almost annually determined the Big West Conference baseball title, including three times when the rivals met as the top teams. UC Irvine's emergence as a power and a lull at Long Beach State put that tradition on hold, but it will be renewed for the first time since 2008 when Long Beach plays host to Fullerton in a three-game series that starts Friday at Blair Field. "The energy and the atmosphere should really be something," said Troy Buckley, a former Long Beach assistant who is in his second season as the 49ers head coach.

Clippers All-Star point guard Chris Paul was named to the NBA’s first-team All-Defensive team that was announced on Wednesday by the NBA. Paul led the league in steals during the regular season with 2.53 per game and in total steals with 152. In becoming the first player in Clippers’ franchise history to make the All-Defensive team, Paul had 33 total voting points, getting 13 first-place votes and seven second-place votes.

Same opponent. Different location. Same result. After losing to the Sparks in the teams' season opener on Friday, the Seattle Storm spent three days, including a shoot-around earlier Tuesday, working on jelling with one another offensively and playing more aggressive defensively. Yet, as if on cue in a rematch at Staples Center, glitches by Seattle helped trigger the Sparks' 74-61 victory Tuesday night. Candace Parker scored 21 points and Kristi Toliver had 18 for the Sparks.

A presidential campaign is never just two people slugging it out on the national stage. It is always a battle of narratives, and the struggle, when all is said and done, is over which candidate can craft the most persuasive story. For Mitt Romney, the story is about a businessman with sterling credentials and a profound knowledge of how jobs are created, facing off against a nice guy who is in over his head, has no idea how to fix the economy and is spending the country into oblivion.

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.

With a last round of roster cuts looming ahead of this summer's London Olympics, U.S. Water Polo Coach Terry Schroeder will get one final look at his team in action when it plays a series of exhibitions in Southern California against Croatia and Hungary, the defending Olympic champion, beginning Saturday at Newport Harbor High School. Schroeder needs to trim three players from a 16-man roster that includes 11 former Olympians, among them three-time Olympians Tony Azevedo, the team captain, and Ryan Bailey.

It's time to forget February and separate the schools you didn't want to play in December and January, Texas and Villanova, from the teams you don't want to play now. Timing is everything as the NCAA tournament approaches. Texas started out 11-0 in Big 12 Conference play and seemed on track to challenge for a championship in Houston, site of this year's Final Four. Wouldn't it be cool if the Longhorns replicated the Dallas Cowboys' feat of winning this year's Super Bowl in their home state?

On an unusual day when the North Course at Torrey Pines played as hard as the more renowned South Course, Lennie Clements and Brad Faxon led their fivesomes to victories in the Isuzu Andy Williams San Diego Open Pro-Am Wednesday. Faxon's group, which included amateurs Victor Mature, David Walton, Rich Gillette and Howard Gillette, shot a 51 on the south. Clements teamed with amateurs Gale Hagar, Bruce Weisman, Don Gravette and Robert Day to shoot the same score on the north.

Here's a look at what the Lakers should do with their agents as well as players who hold either team or player options. Andrew Bynum, center Status: Lakers hold $16.1-million team option Verdict: Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak told The Times' Mike Bresnahan that the Lakers will exercise the team option before the June 30 deadline. But Bynum expressed indifference to reporters after the Lakers' Game 5 loss Monday to Oklahoma City on where he plays.