Sports briefs 5/10/06

Baseball

• Former St. Louis Browns outfielder Jim Delsing, best known as the pinch-runner for midget Eddie Gaedel in one of baseball's most unusual spectacles, has died. He was 80.

Delsing, who played 10 seasons in the major leagues, died of cancer Thursday at his home in Chesterfield. There was a Mass for him Monday.

On Aug. 19, 1951, the lowly Browns were playing a doubleheader against Detroit when maverick St. Louis owner Bill Veeck had Gaedel sent in to hit in the second game. After Tigers pitcher Bob Cain walked Gaedel on four pitches, Browns manager Zack Taylor sent Delsing in to pinch run.

Delsing hit .255 with 40 career home runs and 286 RBIs.

Delsing's son, Jay, is a professional golfer and his grandson, pro soccer star Taylor Twellman, was the MVP in the MLS last season.

Colleges

• Darrell Arthur, a 6-foot-9 forward and one of the top unsigned high school seniors in the country, said Tuesday that he will play basketball for Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks, the Lawrence Journal-World reported on its Web site.

Arthur averaged 18 points, 10 rebounds and six blocked shots as a senior at South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas. Rivals.com ranked him the No. 3 power forward in the country and 16th-best recruit overall.

Arthur chose the Jayhawks over Baylor and LSU.

* As expected, Illinois' mascot cost the school a chance to extend its seven-year streak of hosting NCAA men's tennis tournaments.

The Fighting Illini will play Western Illinois, the Mid-Continent Conference's automatic bid, on Friday in the Louisville Regional, the NCAA announced last week.

Illinois, 22-6, ended the season ranked No. 8 and is the tournament's seventh seed.

The NCAA's executive committee declined recently to remove Chief Illiniwek from the association's list of "hostile and abusive" mascots, making Illinois ineligible to host postseason athletic tournaments.

* Casey Martin, who battled the PGA Tour for the right to use a golf cart in competition, was named head coach of the Oregon golf team Tuesday.

The 33-year-old Martin takes over for Steve Nosler, who announced in March that this would be his final season. Martin had been serving as a volunteer assistant for the Ducks since the start of the season.

Martin suffers from a birth defect in his right leg known as Klippel-Trenaunay-Webber Syndrome, a circulatory disorder. Because of his disability, Martin sought the use of a cart to get around the course in PGA Tour events.

Motorsports

• Crew chief Richard "Slugger" Labbe was suspended for four races and fined $25,000 on Tuesday for using an illegal part on Dale Jarrett's car at Richmond International Raceway.

NASCAR officials discovered the sway bar on Jarrett's car was illegally mounted when the No. 88 Ford passed through Saturday night's pre-race inspection in Richmond.

The sway bar, also called an "antiroll bar," counteracts the rolling force of the car body through the turns. Any alterations made to it would likely be in an effort to help the car's agility through the corners.

The penalties included a loss of 25 driver points for Jarrett and 25 car owner points for Yates.

-- The Associated Press