Fanfare 1/2/03

Baseball

The two men unable to agree on who owned Barry Bonds' 73rd home run ball now can't agree on how to sell it.

That leaves the record ball still locked in legal limbo.

A judge ruled last month neither should get it outright -- Alex Popov gloved the ball for an instant and Patrick Hayashi ended up with it.

Now the only thing the men can agree on is to postpone a court order that requires them to unload the ball and split the money, perhaps $1 million.

Under Judge Kevin McCarthy's order, Popov, Hayashi and their lawyers were to meet with Judge Richard Kramer and sort out the details of the sale by Dec. 30. That deadline came and went.

"We've had a couple of meetings with Kramer and decided to postpone the decision," said Popov's lawyer, Martin Triano. "We agreed to postpone to take the holidays off."

He did not say whether Popov was planning to appeal McCarthy's decision. Hayashi said he was disappointed he didn't get the ball, but had no intention of appealing.

Hayashi said the best way to resolve the dispute was to hand the ball to an independent seller.

"We gave our proposal that the ball be given to an auction house," Hayashi said Wednesday. "That'll just take the headaches out of it."

The San Francisco Giants' slugger touched off the long court battle when he set the single-season home run record on the last day of the 2001 regular season.

Basketball

Michael Jordan will dress in the visitors' locker room at the United Center for only the second time tonight, when his Washington Wizards play his former team, the Chicago Bulls.

Chicago fans nearly drove Jordan to tears with a long standing ovation when the starting lineups were announced during his first return 12 months ago. Jordan played one of the most nervous games of his career, committing a career-high nine turnovers and scoring 16 points in a 77-69 victory.

"I've gotten a year removed from that," Jordan said. "It's always going to be home, and fans are always going to be someone I have high regard for. They built my career, basically, with their support, and I'm going back now as someone who's trying to beat their team.

"I imagine they're going to have the same respect, but they're going to be loyal, too."

Miami Heat point guard Travis Best was carried off the floor during the first quarter of Wednesday's game against the Atlanta Hawks with an injured right ankle.

Heat coach Pat Riley said X-rays were negative but added that Best likely won't return until next week.

Best was dribbling upcourt when he accidentally stepped on the right foot of Atlanta's Mike Wilks. Best fell to the floor and was carried off by teammates Vladimir Stepania and Sean Marks.

Best, who leads the Heat in assists at 3.8 per game, was replaced by Mike James, who scored 10 points in Miami's 107-73 victory.

Football

Joe Foss, the first commissioner of the American Football League, died Wednesday. He was 87.

Foss also was a World War II fighter ace, who won the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Flying Cross after shooting down 26 enemy planes. After leaving the Marine Corps, Foss entered politics and became governor of South Dakota in 1955.

Foss never regained consciousness after suffering an apparent aneurysm in October. He died at a hospital in Arizona, South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow said.

He became commissioner of the AFL in 1960, and remained in the job until 1966.

Foss also served as a colonel in the Air Force in the Korean War.

He also hosted the television show "The American Sportsman" on ABC, and was president of the National Rifle Association from 1988-90.

"I always had the attitude that every day will be a great day," Foss said in a 1987 interview. "I look forward to it like a kid in a candy store, wherever I am."

Foss was born in 1915 on a farm near Sioux Falls. He once said his love of flying dated to his childhood, when he watched pilots fly over his family's home and wave from the cockpit.

"I thought, 'Someday I'm going to trade these horses for an airplane,' " he said.

Verbatim

Bill Lankhof of the Toronto Sun, after Maple Leafs fans honored Alexander Mogilny's 17th career hat trick against Atlanta the traditional way: "Not sure why anyone would fire a hat for which they just paid 30 bucks onto the ice, but I guess if you're paying $180 to see the Atlanta Thrashers, anything makes sense."