Sports briefs 9/29/04

Baseball

• A court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in the dispute over who is the rightful owner of the ball Barry Bonds hit for his 700th home run.

The hearing will be in San Francisco County Superior Court, according to Daniel Horowitz, the attorney representing Steve Williams. Williams is the Giants fan who ended up with the prized ball during a melee in the left-center field bleachers at SBC Park on Sept. 17.

Williams was notified that he was being sued by attorneys for Timothy Murphy, who said he pinned the ball underneath his leg during a scrum for it after the baseball struck Murphy's chin. Murphy claims he is the ball's owner because Williams stole it from him while he was in a pile of fans.

Football

• Browns rookie tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. needs a second operation on his right leg and will miss the remainder of this season.

Winslow, who broke his fibula during a loss on Sept. 19 in Dallas and had it operated on last week, will have surgery Wednesday to stabilize ligaments.

• The Chicago Bears signed former Cowboys quarterback Chad Hutchinson to a two-year contract Tuesday as insurance after Rex Grossman was lost for the season with a knee injury.

Hutchinson passed his Bears physical Tuesday and will begin practice Wednesday. A former St. Louis Cardinals baseball prospect, the 6-foot-5 Hutchinson started nine games as a rookie with Dallas in 2002.

Jonathan Quinn will start Sunday against the unbeaten Eagles at Soldier Field after the loss of Grossman, who tore his anterior cruciate ligament in Sunday's loss at Minnesota.

Grossman, who started the first three games this season and the final three a year ago, was officially placed on injured reserve Tuesday.

Hockey

• Dmitri Afanasenkov of the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning became the latest NHL player to head to Europe, agreeing on Tuesday to return home to Russia during the lockout.

There are 174 NHL players in Europe, about 25 percent of the league's roster spots. Most of those players have clauses in their contracts that permit them to return to the NHL if the labor impasse ends in time to salvage a season.

The Czech league leads the way with 49 players, including Jaromir Jagr of the New York Rangers, followed by Sweden at 40 and Russia at 38.

Tennis

• Defending champion Mark Philippoussis lost in the first round of the Shanghai Open on Tuesday, beaten 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 by Glenn Weiner, an American ranked No. 133.

Philippoussis, seeded fourth, has yet to win a title this year and his ranking has fallen from No. 9 to No. 76, mostly because of injuries. He hasn't won a match since the fourth round at Wimbledon, and this was his fifth straight defeat.

-- From wire reports