Sports briefs 6/27/05

Baseball

• The Chicago Cubs activated right-hander Mark Prior before Sunday's start against the White Sox and sent left-hander Rich Hill to Triple-A Iowa.

Prior, 4-1 with a 2.93 ERA, had been on the disabled list since May 28 with a fracture in his right elbow after being hit by a line drive in a game against Colorado.

The Cubs will have another roster move to make this week when right-hander Kerry Wood comes off the disabled list. Wood is expected to start Wednesday against Milwaukee.

Basketball

Danny Ferry has left the front office of the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs to become general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers, two league sources said Sunday night.

Ferry, who played 10 seasons with the Cavaliers, accepted the job on Sunday, the sources told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. Ferry's hiring is expected to be announced today -- one day before the NBA draft.

Ferry spent the last two years as San Antonio's director of basketball operations under GM R.C. Buford. The 38-year-old Ferry played in a club record 723 games for the Cavaliers from 1990-2000.

He played the final three years of his career with San Antonio, where he worked with Cleveland coach Mike Brown, then an assistant with the Spurs.

Boxing

Kendall Gill's professional boxing debut was a slam dunk.

The NBA journeyman and former University of Illinois star scored a first-round technical knockout of Trevor Biley in his first professional bout Saturday night in Chicago.

Gill, a 6-foot-5, 199-pound shooting guard who has played 14 NBA seasons, knocked Biley (0-2-1) to the canvas three times before the referee stopped the cruiserweight fight at 1:58 of the opening round.

Gill, 37, said he plans to fight at least one more time before attempting to return for a 15th NBA season. He averaged 6.1 points in 14 games with Milwaukee last season before being waived in January.

* Floyd Mayweather Jr. exposed Arturo Gatti as the club fighter he said he was, giving the brawler a vicious beating Saturday night and taking the 140-pound title when Gatti's corner called it quits after six rounds.

Showing speed and power that Gatti had no answer for, Mayweather pounded him with shots to the body and head for six rounds before a stunned sellout crowd at Boardwalk Hall that had come to cheer on their local hero.

Motorsports

* Pole-sitter Paul Tracy was able to skirt around trouble and won Champ Car's Grand Prix of Cleveland on Sunday, one year after a first turn crash knocked him out.

Tracy, who hadn't won on the Burke Lakefront Airport track since 1993, finished 3.113 seconds ahead of A.J. Allmendinger, who was carried from the track on a stretcher on Saturday after a nasty wreck during qualifying.

Oriel Servia finished third, 3.913 seconds behind Tracy, who won for the 30th time in his career. It was also Tracy's second win this season and gave him the lead in the series points championship with 128, one more than two-time defending Cleveland champion Sebastien Bourdais, who finished fifth -- 13.262 seconds back.

Track and field

* Justin Gatlin cemented his status as America's fastest human Sunday by winning the 200 meters, becoming the first man in 20 years to sweep the sprints at the U.S. track and field championships.

A day after winning the 100, Gatlin turned it on down the stretch to win the 200 in 20.04 seconds. The last man to win both races at the U.S. meet was Kirk Baptiste in 1985. Tyson Gay, just out of Arkansas, was second in 20.06, followed by the Olympic gold medalist in the event, Shawn Crawford, in 20.12.

Wallace Spearmon, who has the world's fastest time in the event this year in 19.91, finished fourth at 20.16 and failed to make the U.S. team for the world championships in Helsinki Aug. 6 to 14. The men's 200, into a head wind, was the last event of the four-day competition at Home Depot Center.