Sports briefs 2/5/05

Baseball

* With spring training less than two weeks away, the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees moved to bolster their pitching depth Friday.

Texas agreed to an $800,000, one-year contract with right-hander Pedro Astacio, and New York gave a minor league deal to left-hander Buddy Groom.

Colleges

* Missouri sophomore guard Spencer Laurie will seek a medical redshirt year due to complications with injuries to his right knee and ankle, the school announced Friday.

Laurie had surgery for partially torn cartilage on Dec. 28, and earlier in the season he had sustained a high ankle sprain earlier in the season. He returned to practice earlier this week, but the school decided he won't be able to return this season.

Football

* Baltimore Ravens running back Jamal Lewis reported to federal prison camp in Florida on Friday to serve a four-month sentence for using a cell phone to try to set up a cocaine deal, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman said.

Dan Dunne, the prisons spokesman, said Lewis reported to Federal Prison Camp, Pensacola on Saufley Field at about 11:40 a.m.

"It's a facility where inmates are required to work, and it provides auxiliary work force for the military there," Dunne said. "The chief job for the inmates is grounds maintenance work."

The minimum-security facility holds up to 536 inmates, who live in three dormitories with double bunk beds. Many inmates in the facility are drug offenders. The prison is surrounded by perimeter security.

Lewis was sentenced last month in Atlanta. He had pleaded guilty to trying to set up the drug deal 4 1/2 years ago, a few months after the Ravens chose him as the fifth overall pick in the 2000 draft. No drugs ever exchanged hands.

After he entered his guilty plea, the NFL suspended him for two games and he lost $761,000 in wages.

The penalty was worked out in October as part of a plea agreement in which prosecutors agreed to drop more serious drug conspiracy and attempted cocaine possession charges. After his prison term, Lewis will spend two months in a halfway house and perform 500 hours of community service.

* New England Patriots running back Corey Dillon was selected for his fourth Pro Bowl on Friday, making him the second member of the AFC champions to be added to the roster as an injury replacement.

He replaces Indianapolis Colts running back Edgerrin James, who has a back injury.