Briefly

Briefly

Baseball

Roland "Rollie" Latina, the retired chief glove designer at Rawlings Sporting Goods in St. Louis, has died of cancer at his home in Belleville, Ill. He was 78. Latina was born in East St. Louis, Ill., and was a gunner for the Navy during World War II. He worked for Rawlings at its St. Louis headquarters for 39 years. He designed two major trademark features in today's modern gloves -- the Fastback with holster design, which is the closed-back glove with an index finger opening, and the basket web.

Colleges

Two-time defending Conference USA champion Louisville and Southern Mississippi, which returns 18 starters, are the top two teams in a preseason football poll of the league's sports information directors.

Golf

Glen Hnatiuk proved he can protect a lead, shooting a third consecutive 6-under 65 that kept him atop the leaderboard with a four-stroke margin after three rounds of the St. Jude Classic at Memphis, Tenn. Hnatiuk never led a PGA tournament before this week, but he put himself in position to win his first title wire-to-wire with an eight-birdie, two-bogey round that gave him an 18-under 195 total.

Don Pooley made a twisting, 18-foot putt for par to cap a record-setting round of 8-under-par 63 that thrust him into the lead after three rounds of the U.S Senior Open at Owings Mills, Md.

Juli Inkster birdied five of the last six holes after a blowup on the 13th tee and took a one-shot lead heading into the final round of the ShopRite LPGA Classic at Galloway Township, N.J.

Denmark's Thomas Bjorn and Sweden's Niklas Fasth each tied the course record with an 8-under-par 63 and shared the lead with Soren Hansen after three rounds of the Irish Open at Cork, Ireland.

Hockey

Ron Francis signed a two-year, $11 million contract extension with the Carolina Hurricanes, less than 48 hours before the 39-year-old captain could have become an unrestricted free agent. Francis, who made $5 million a year the past four seasons with the Hurricanes, will earn $5.5 million each of the next two seasons after leading Carolina to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in franchise history.

The Dallas Stars traded the rights to Ed Belfour, a soon-to-be free agent, and right wing Cameron Mann to the Nashville Predators for left wing David Gosselin and a fifth-round pick in next year's draft.

Motorsports

Sam Hornish Jr. blew by Gil de Ferran on the inside of the first turn with less than two laps to go and handed the vaunted Penske team a bitter loss in the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond, Va.

Hornish, never a factor until the end, passed Felipe Giaffone for second in the same spot on the 246th lap, then reeled in de Ferran. Hornish finally got underneath de Ferran in the front straightaway, pulling ahead entering the first turn and racing away to win by 1.8323 seconds.

Greg Biffle took the pole, and Jim Sauter and his three sons will start in the top 10 of today's Busch Series GNC Live Well 250 at West Allis, Wis. Biffle, who won the race last year, will head the field after a fast lap of 121.770 mph on the Milwaukee Mile. Jason Keller will start second in the 43-car field after he clocked in at 121.544.

Terry Cook took advantage of a race-extending caution at The Milwaukee Mile, passing Jason Leffler with less than two laps remaining to win the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series GNC Live Well 200 at West Allis, Wis. Cook, who led 127 of the race's first 154 laps before a slow pit stop dropped his Ford to fifth place, battled back to within a half-second of Leffler's Dodge but was running out of time when Brian Rose crashed.

People

Awaiting the top bidder

Last year, a golf tournament tried to sell its naming rights on eBay. Two months ago, Seattle Mariners reliever Jeff Nelson tried to sell his bone chips on eBay for charity.

Now, an Alaska man is trying to save his bankrupt minor league hockey team via an online auction.

Anchorage Aces owner Michael Cusack Jr. put his bankrupt team on the Internet last Saturday. It opened with a minimum bid of $1.5 million. One bid was made on Tuesday and three were made on Wednesday, bringing the top bid to $1.6 million.

Early Thursday morning, one bidder chose the "Buy-it-now" option, which was set at $2.3 million, a sale price that would allow Cusack to pay off all 67 team creditors, who are owed approximately $2.1 million, Cusack said. One of the largest creditors is his sister and her husband, Kelly and Corey Millen, who are owed $496,000.

However, the high bidder -- who said he was a college student -- e-mailed Cusack to apologize and said he didn't mean to place the bid. So the team remains up for sale.

Quoteworthy

Bob Verdi in the Chicago Tribune: "One disturbing aspect of the World Cup is the insistence of some very annoying soccer nuts on shaming the masses to fall in love with their sport.

"These windbags are everywhere, in America and overseas, in the public and the press

"Pay no attention to people who call us stupid for dismissing the world's most popular sport, and by all means that includes European 'journalists' who label the U.S. soccer program a joke.

"It's amazing how America can be dissed in so many different languages -- that is until other countries need protection or a few billion dollars in loans."

-- From wire reports