fanfare 8/10

Briefly

Baseball

The Chicago Cubs on Friday waived second-baseman Delino DeShields and purchased the contract of right-handed reliever Will Cunnane from AAA-Iowa.

DeShields, 33, the Cubs' Opening Day starter at second base, batted .192 with three homers, 10 RBI and 10 steals in 67 games. He batted .276 in 68 games for the Cubs last year after being signed as a free-agent at midseason.

DeShields hit a career-high .296 with 86 RBIs and 37 stolen bases and was voted Baltimore's MVP in 2000. He was released by the Orioles the following year.

Cunnane, 28, is 4-1 with two saves and a 2.20 earned run average in 43 relief appearances for Iowa this year. He has spent parts of five seasons in the majors, four seasons with San Diego and last year with Milwaukee.

Cunnane was scheduled to join the Cubs for Friday night's game against the Colorado Rockies.

Hockey

The St. Louis Blues signed free agent defenseman Aris Brimanis on Friday.

Brimanis, 30, appeared in five games with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim last season. He also played 72 games with Cincinnati of the American Hockey League, finishing with two goals and nine assists.

The 6-foot-3, 210-pound Brimanis posted NHL career highs in games played (56), points (eight) and penalty minutes (26) in 2000-01 with the New York Islanders. Brimanis, who has played in 100 NHL games, was drafted in the fourth round, 86th overall, in the 1991 Entry Draft by the Philadelphia Flyers.

Miscellaneous

Boston was picked as the top sports city in North America by the Sporting News, which cited the New England Patriots' Super Bowl victory

and strong seasons by the city's other major teams. Second in the annual survey was the Oakland-San Francisco-San Jose area, followed by New York-New Jersey-Long Island, Detroit, Philadelphia and Los

Angeles-Anaheim. Completing the top 10 are Baltimore-Washington, Dallas-Fort Worth, Phoenix and Miami-Fort Lauderdale.

Motorsports

Ricky Rudd didn't let the distraction of his impending departure from his team slow him down Friday. He won the pole at Watkins Glen International.

For him, there are no lingering questions about 2003, which he says is enabling him to concentrate more on finishing strong this year.

"The one thing we do know is there's not a place for me at Robert Yates Racing next year, so we're going to move on," Rudd said. Rudd said the pole for Sunday's Winston Cup race proves that the differences he has had with Yates and crew chief Michael "Fatback" McSwain can be put aside at the race track.

Michael Waltrip qualified second in a Chevrolet at 122.635, while the Pontiac of Tony Stewart was third at 122.485.

Tennis

Chanda Rubin upset top-seeded Serena Williams 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 in Friday's quarterfinals of the JPChase Morgan Open, ending the French Open and Wimbledon champion's 21-match winning streak.

No. 2 Jennifer Capriati exited within an hour of Williams, losing 6-3, 6-3 to Japan's Ai Sugiyama.

No. 4 Jelena Dokic beat Rita Grande 6-4, 6-1, and will meet Rubin in today's semifinals.

Sugiyama will play the winner of Friday night's late match between No. 3 Lindsay Davenport and Eleni Daniilidou.

Lleyton Hewitt outlasted Andre Agassi 7-5, 6-3 Friday night in a battle of baseline bombers to advance to the semifinals of the $2.95 million Cincinnati Masters Series.

Hewitt, the No. 1-ranked player in the world, and Agassi, a former No. 1, provided some brilliant and some spotty tennis in the match that lasted 1 hour, 41 minutes.

Hewitt will play the winner of Friday night's match between 12th-seeded Andy Roddick and Fernando Gonzalez in one of Saturday's semifinals.

Earlier Friday, eighth-seeded Juan Carlos Ferrero beat Wayne Arthurs 6-4, 7-6 (2), and No. 16 Carlos Moya beat Rainer Schuettler 7-6 (3), 6-1 to set up the other semifinal.

People

A bullpen nightmare

Dan Mason, the Rochester (N.Y.) Red Wings general manager who vowed to sleep in the team's bullpen until the team snapped its seven-game losing streak, is finally out.

But he didn't become a free man again until after the Wings tacked on five more losses to tie an 82-year-old club record for futility and team staffers began wearing "Free Tent Boy" T-shirts.

"I'd rather wake up from my children coming in than by a train going by (the stadium) at 3:30 a.m.," Mason told The Associated Press. "I'll never take for granted a good night's sleep again."

Usually the GM gets the blame for moves that backfire, but this idea was his wife Sheila's.

"We were brainstorming, and Dan suggested bleaching his hair," she said. "He thought the effect might take too long. Little did he know how long this would take."

Verbatim

Before the start of the season, Arizona pitcher Curt Schilling invested $25,000 in customized software for his computer. The database contains thousands of pitches he has thrown since 1996, with a file on 490 players listing their tendencies. And it lists tendencies of umpires.

"It is as important as everything else I do to get better," Schilling told the Cincinnati Post. "It allows me to go out every fifth day with a plan. It was one of the huge reasons for the success I had last year. You can see patterns in hitters and you try to find a way to exploit a weakness. I would not be the pitcher I am without it."