During most of the year, the Indy Racing League may take a back seat to NASCAR, but as this year's Indianapolis 500 proved, the IRL still has the king of motor races.

Even Rusty Wallace, a NASCAR driver turned ABC Indy 500 analyst, said as much on camera Sunday, giving the nod, in terms of excitement, to Indianapolis over anything he'd experienced on the stock car circuit – and this was his assessment even before the green flag dropped to start the race.

Little did Wallace or anyone else know what a compelling drama would unfold, with pole-sitter Sam Hornish Jr. using the last straightaway to pull out a spectacular come-from-behind victory over 19-year-old Marco Andretti. The rookie tried to hold off Hornish by throwing a few blocking fakes at him, but Hornish, having none of it, sped past on the inside to win by 0.0635 seconds in the second-closest finish in Indianapolis 500 history.

A flawed pit stop on lap 150 of 200, in which Hornish's crew failed to completely remove a fueling nozzle, led to a penalty that almost ended his chances. But he worked back from eighth place and closed fast in the last lap, turning in his fastest lap of the day (219.935 m.p.h. and nearly 5-1/2 m.p.h. faster than the young Andretti) to come seemingly from nowhere to earn the traditional bottle of milk and the $1.74 million winner's purse.

The drama at the end was almost enough to make people forget that Danica Patrick was in the race. Patrick, as you may recall, made history a year ago when she became the first woman driver to ever hold the lead at the Brickyard. She wound up finishing fourth to earn top rookie honors and remains the biggest celebrity on the IRL circuit and perhaps all of motor sports.

This time Patrick was not the story, but she turned in a respectable performance. She started 10th in the 33-car field, worked herself up to as high as fifth, and finished eighth. "You know," she observed afterward, "I think I drove harder this year than I did last year."

Patrick is surely a driver worthy of attention, but how long she will remain in open-wheel racing is hard to say. What Indy can count on from year to year are the family traditions of the drivers, which provide a deep reservoir of history and human interest and were center stage this year.

First, of course, there were the Andrettis, who are like the oft-frustrated Red Sox of the speedway when compared with owner Roger Penske's racing team, the Yankees of Indy with 14 wins, including this year's race.

Patriarch Mario Andretti, who drove to victory just once at Indianapolis in 1969, called the shots for his offspring, son Michael and grandson Marco, in the pits. Michael, who came out of a three-year retirement to race alongside Marco, drove a valiant race only to come up just short in his 15th try (he finished third).  Marco, an up-and-comer, passed his dad with three laps to go, only to see Hornish trump possibly the greatest father-son finish in any major sport.

Storied racing families were represented throughout the starting grid. There was Larry Foyt, the grandson of four-time winner A.J. Foyt; P.J. Jones, the son of 1963 winner Parnelli Jones; Arie Luyendyk Jr., the son of two-time winner Arie Luyendyk Sr; and Al Unser Jr., the 1994 winner whose father, Al Sr., and uncle, Bobby, notched a combined seven Indy victories. "Little Al," who is not so little or so young anymore, needed to get his personal life back together after it fell into ruins in 2002 following an arrest on domestic abuse charges.

Indy racing famlies, it seems, are much like circus families that can't get the automotive big-top out of their systems. And as long as they keep coming back to the speedway, it appears there will always be more than enough race-day story lines.

Trick softball pitch a real change of pace

Too bad Mississippi State's women's softball team missed making this year's NCAA tournament. Even casual fans might have enjoyed seeing Stephanie Comeaux, the State pitcher who occasionally throws a behind-the-back changeup. She might not have risked it against top-flight competition, but even seeing her execute the pitch during warmups would be impressive.

She developed the pitch playing catch were her dad in junior high. It is thrown about 15 m.p.h. slower than her normal windmilling deliveries, and is such an oddity that some umpires automatically assume it is illegal. It's not.

Comeaux has one more season left at Mississippi State, where, as a junior, she compiled a 15-10 record, a team-leading 1.75 earned run average, and tossed two no-hitters.

Touching other bases

•Has any NBA team ever had two more powerful centers than the Miami Heat has in muscle men Shaquille O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning? I doubt it.

•And speaking of the Heat, it's pretty strange seeing all the Miami fans wearing white attire during home playoff games. The idea is to create a "white hot" crowd. To me, it looks like a convention of bakers.

•When Barry Bonds hit his 715th home run, the one that moved him ahead of Babe Ruth but still leaves him behind Hank Aaron, the radio call was lost to a mechanical failure. KNBR's microphone cut out as sportscaster Dave Flemming said "a deep drive to cen...."

•In case you missed it, Nate Robinson and Stephon Marbury of the New York Knicks were each fined $10,000 during the NBA regular season for wearing basketball shorts that were too long. The league says shorts must be an inch or more above the knee. The fines were just another bump in the road during a pothole-filled Knicks season.

•Billie Jean King has long taken the pulse on women's tennis, and women's sports in general, so when she speaks, I tend to listen. Here's what she told ESPN Magazine in comparing today's women stars with those of her era: Today "everything is about outer success. When I was 15, I wanted to be the best at something. Girls today want to be famous. I think all of us realize something isn't quite right with that."

•Does anybody know why some major-league hurlers blow on their clenched pitching hands between pitches? My guess is that it's a habit left over from cold spring nights.

•I wonder if Steve Nash, the NBA's Most Valuable Player, ever gets tired of brushing back his hair. It sure seems like a sweatband would help.

•Looking back, what strikes me about golfing great Jack Nicklaus is how he slimmed down during his career without losing any distance off the tee. Who says bulk is better?

Although the Women's National Basketball Association is celebrating its 10th anniversary season, it really doesn't seem that old. Still, the freshness factor is gone and attendance has actually slipped from an average high of 10,864 in 1998 to 8,174 last year.

To add excitement, the league has pared 6 seconds off its shot clock, giving teams 24 seconds in which to shoot, as in the NBA, rather than 30 seconds. That should speed up the game and make it physically more demanding on players, many of whom test their limits by playing in professional leagues virtually year-round.

Because the average WNBA player makes a decent but relatively modest $47,000 average salary, 63 percent migrate overseas after the WNBA's summer season to play seven more months. And they head to widely scattered destinations, which makes WNBA players, as a group, some of the most culturally enriched in sports.

In the latest issue of Sports Illustrated for Kids, a handful of players submit "postcard" messages about their experiences abroad. Tamika Catchings, who plays in South Korea, says players there are a lot skinnier, quicker, and they "run, run, run!!!" In Turkey, Nicole Powell says loudspeakers wake her up each day at 5 a.m. during the first of five daily Muslim calls to prayer. And in Israel, Deanna Nolan notes that you have to dribble before taking a step, otherwise the referee will call you for traveling, whereas in the US you can step, then dribble.

The WNBA, an offshoot of the NBA, has provided professional playing careers for women when other leagues, including those in other sports (soccer, for example), have tried and failed. What the WNBA hasn't done is create a lot of opportunities for women coaches. Only three of 14 teams have female head coaches this year: Anne Donovan of the Seattle Storm, Susie McConnell Serio of the Minnesota Lynx, and Pat Coyle of the New York Liberty.

Many of the remaining bench bosses either played or coached in the NBA, including Muggsy Bogues, Dave Cowens, Bill Laimbeer, Brian Winters,  Paul Westhead, Richie Adubato, and Joe "Jellybean" Bryant, whose son is the one and only Kobe Bryant.

Minoso: more than just a great name 

When a special group of selectors was formed to do a sweep of all the deserving Negro League baseball players not already in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the screening committee compiled a list of 94 candidates. Ultimately 17 made the cut, including five executives. One who sadly didn't is a personal favorite, Cuban Minnie Minoso, who I hadn't realized had played in the Negro Leagues. All I knew as a boy in the 1960s was that Minoso played for the Chicago White Sox, was a solid performer in all aspects of the game, and had one of the most delightfully lyrical names I've ever come across in sports.

"Minnie Minoso" (his name is actually Orestes "Minnie" Minoso) may be unsurpassed in alliterative appeal, but I was struck by the other memorable names on the Hall of Fame's Negro Leagues candidates' list. Here are some favorites: Wabishaw Wiley, Cumberland Posey, Bingo DeMoss, Mule Suttles, Jelly Gardner, Spotswood Poles, Nip Winters, Rap Dixon, and Bernardo Baro.

Getting back to Minoso, what few people realize – myself included until I found it on BaseballLibrary.com – is that he enjoyed a spectacular Major League rookie season in 1951, even though he'd seen spot duty in the "show" before that. With the stats he had, it's hard to imagine why Minoso earned only one of the two Rookie of the Year honors at that time, the one awarded by The Sporting News.

For the other Rookie of the Year award, the baseball writers gave the nod to Yankee infielder Gil McDougald, whose production really didn't compare to Minoso's. That year, Minoso had a .326 batting average that was second-best in the AL; a league-leading 31 stolen bases and 14 triples; and 112 runs batted in, which was just one less than league RBI champion Dom DiMaggio. McDougald's stats weren't nearly as impressive (.304 batting average, 63 RBIs, for example), which makes one wonder if racial bias entered into the writers' selection of McDougald.

Touching other bases

•Has figure skater Kimmie Meissner, a high school junior from Bel Air, Md., ever come down to earth since winning the world championship in March?  In the space of just a few months she went from making her first Olympic team and finishing sixth at the Winter Games to leapfrogging to the very top of her sport. The problem with being crowned the queen of the ice at this juncture is that she's got to find a way to stay motivated for another four years if she wants to win Olympic gold, and even then there are no guarantees.

•The state of Indiana is trying to lure a new Honda auto plant, and probably figures it's got the inside track since Honda is the sole supplier of engines to the Indy Racing League, which is based in Indianapolis.

•The National Football League's Paul Tagliabue has just been proclaimed "the best commissioner of any sport of all time" in a full-page New York Times ad. And who placed the ad? The United Way, which appreciates the way Tagliabue has extended the league's "incredible reach, exposure and resources" to the charity. Tagliabue has presided over a period of incredible player-management peace and prosperity. Few observers, however, anticipated such a spectacular tenure when the previous commissioner, highly regarded, Pete Rozelle, stepped down in 1989. Tagliabue has exceeded expectations in filling Rozelle's enormous shoes and retires next month if not as the best-ever sports commissioner, at least among the best.

•It was disappointing to learn that in a new-age hockey community like San Jose, Calif., fans booed the Canadian anthem before a San Jose Sharks playoff game with the Edmonton Oilers. San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales apologized and called it "an aberration caused by misplaced enthusiasm and an ignorance of the expected courtesy." To their credit, other more polite fans attempted to drown out the booing by singing along to "O Canada."

•One of the best playoff series in NBA history concluded Monday night in San Antonio, when many casual fans may have missed TNT's telecast. That would be disappointing for the league, since the seventh game was a classic, with the Dallas Mavericks coming back to beat the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs, 119-111, in overtime. The final score only hints at the drama. Dallas squandered a 20-point lead and trailed, 104-101, with 32 seconds left. The superstars of both teams were at the top of their games, with Dirk Nowitzki leading the Mavs with 37 points and Tim Duncan scoring 41 for the Spurs.   

In case you hadn't noticed, there are no artificial turf baseball fields left in the National League and only three in the American. For this we can be grateful, since the synthetic fields distort the game with balls that bounce over outfielders and grounders that zip past infielders. That's to say nothing of the turf's unappealing appearance, which, to the industry's credit, has improved greatly with much more life-like playing surfaces.

The only holdover fields are in Minnesota, Tampa Bay, and Toronto. In the case of Minneapolis's Metrodome and St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field, permanently enclosed domes make artificial turf necessary. It's harder to accept the fake stuff in Toronto, though, since the Blue Jays play in a retractable dome (the former SkyDome, now blandly called the Rogers Centre) that operates much like the newer hybrids in Seattle, Houston, and Milwaukee, which all sport real grass.

Cutting-edge golf trophy

While Arnold Palmer's Florida-based Bay Hill Invitational golf tournament (to be renamed the Arnold Palmer Invitational next year) deserves credit for breaking with tradition, I'm not crazy about the championship trophy: a handcrafted double-edged sword.

Sure, there's a connection here, since golf has Scottish roots and the sword resembles the claymores brandished by 16th-century Scottish Highlanders. And yes, incorporating a hand-carved sterling silver golf ball into the handle design is clever, but is a sword really a good fit for the gentlemanly sport of golf?  Golfers, one assumes, might be tempted to beat a sword, if not into plowshares, then at least into a 5-iron.

OK, LeBron, you've got game, but...

LeBron James is truly an incredible basketball player, a player so athletically advanced at age 21 that he could conceivably lead the Cleveland Cavaliers past the veteran-laden Detroit Pistons in their current playoff series. It's just too bad that James has "The Chosen One" tatooed in large letters across his back and plastered across his personal website. It seems like a case of self-deification, even if Sports Illustrated originally bestowed the questionable title upon him.

Celtics end dance holdout

The Boston Celtics, long a bastion of traditional NBA values, have gone the way of the world with the recent decision to create a dance team next season, the Celtics Dancers. Partly in deference to team patriarch and former coach Red Auerbach, who remains nominally with the organization, the Celtics had resisted this concession to the league's glitzy, entertainment ethic.

Maybe in becoming the last team to hire dancers, the franchise could at least honor the origins of its nickname and assemble a Riverdance-style group of Irish dancers. They'd probably be showstoppers.

A truly cavalier Cavalier draft choice

If the Cleveland Cavaliers ever win an NBA title (something they've never done in 35 years of existence), I know one guy who might take satisfaction in being a historical franchise footnote. Phil Elderkin, a former sportswriting colleague, was the team's 17th draft pick in 1973, a gag selection made by Bill Fitch, who coached the the lowly Cavs, mockingly dubbed the Cadavers, at that time.

Fitch had gotten to know Elderkin during the team's trips to Boston, where Elderkin was the sports editor of The Christian Science Monitor and also an NBA columnist for The Sporting News. Today the NBA draft is a compact two rounds, with no opportunity for horsing around.

Expecting Shaq, and getting Sarah Jessica instead

Sportscasts on the local late-night news are like the milk shelves at the back of the grocery store. To get what you want, you may have to wade through more products or news stories than you care to. The disappointment for me comes when I drift off right before the sports report comes on, then wake up 10 minutes later and wonder why Sarah Jessica Parker and "Sex in the City" is on and not the nightly sports highlights and scores.

The real scoop on college football attendance

Last season nine college football teams averaged home crowds larger than 90,000, including the University of Michigan, which drew an unmatched 110,915 and has led the nation in home attendance 30 of the last 31 seasons. This, however, can be misleading in seeing the bigger picture. When you look at average attendance for all regular and postseason games, including in Division I-A, I-AA, II, and III, the average was just 13,162. The top-drawing teams in the smaller-school divisions were, in descending order, Montana (22,479 per game), West Texas A&M (13,089), and St. John's of Minnesota (7,925).

I'd like to know which slugger started the sad trend toward admiring long balls instead of running them out. As with many trends, it's probably not possible to trace its origins, much less its evolution, but however such arrogant posturing got started, the game would be better without it.

Sometimes, a nonchalant player gets his comeuppance, such as when Boston's Manny Ramirez recently began by taking off his batting gloves as he eased into what he thought was going to be a home-run trot. Instead a stiff wind kept the fly ball in the field of play and Ramirez had to hustle to reach third with a triple on what could have been an inside-the-park home run.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying the moment, but wait until the ball is clearly in the seats before downshifting. Consider me old-fashioned, but despite not being a Pete Rose fan, I liked the way he ran out everything, including sprinting to first after receiving a walk.

Baseball's throw-it-to-the-fans mentality

These days, it's almost di rigeur for major league players to toss baseballs into the stands at every opportunity. Even visiting players seem intent on appeasing souvenir-hungry fans by "feeding" them foul balls and balls caught for third outs. This is quite a contrast to pro baseball's early years, when fans were expected to toss foul balls back onto the field.

The tide shifted in 1923 at Philadelphia's Baker Bowl, when an 11-year-old boy attending a Phillies game caught a foul ball but refused to return it. The team pressed charges and the youngster was jailed overnight, until a judge dismissed the case the next day and declared the team's policy ran counter to a fan's natural impulses. Soon after, baseball's front office said that fans could keep whatever balls they snared in the stands as souvenirs.

Willis a winner on a loser

The Florida Marlins, it seems, may be doing a disservice to high-kicking star pitcher Dontrelle Willis by keeping him on a roster that's been gutted of virtually all of its seasoned, higher-priced talent. Willis could eventually be a serious Hall of Fame candidate, but hall electors (baseball writers and broadcasters) are partial to 300-win pitchers, and unless Willis can play on a team that offers more support, he may fall far short of notching enough wins to ensure consideration.

Going batty not recommended

Anyone who's seen the replay knew minor leaguer Delmon Young of the Durham, N.C., Bulls was due some sort of major punishment. That the International League only suspended him 50 games for throwing his bat at the home plate umpire might be considered lenient. After all, if the ump hadn't been hit where padding protected him, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays prospect could could conceivably face assault charges.  His outburst occurred after Young had been ejected April 26 for arguing a called third strike.

It was probably the worst bat-wielding attack since 1965, when San Francisco Giants pitcher Juan Marichal, while hitting against the Dodgers, turned and clubbed catcher John Roseboro.  Marichal said he believed Roseboro's return throws to the mound were made intentionally close to his head. Roseboro received 14 stitches, and Marichal, who was ejected, a nine-day suspension and $1,750 in fines. The two men, ironically, went on to become friends after settling Roseboro's lawsuit out of court. Eventually, they were even willing to jointly signed photographs of their violent encounter, which led to a bench-clearing brawl.

Touching other bases

•Doesn't it seem odd that 16-year-old golf phenom Michelle Wie would make the cut at a men's professional tournament, the SK Telecom Open in South Korea, before ever winning an event on the LPGA Tour?

•I'd venture a guess that Geoff Petrie, president of basketball operations for the Sacramento Kings, is the first NBA executive to make an ex-roommate into an ex-coach. Petrie and Rick Adelman roomed together as players on the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1970s. As a result, Petrie must have agonized about not extending Adelman's coaching contract, especially since Adelman is the most successful coach in Kings' history. The team managed to make it to the playoffs for the eighth straight year, but lost to San Antonio in the first round, and some think the club's better years are behind it – at least in the short term.

•Anyone who remembers how powerful baseball's Big Red Machine was in the 1970s must be startled to learn that Cincinnati set a club record with 17 victories in April – and this with a team that was expected to go nowhere. The biggest individual surprise: pitcher Bronson Arroyo,who was acquired in a trade with Boston and quickly asserted himself on the mound with a 5-0 start, and at the plate with the first two home runs of his six-year career.

•Those who think of Babe Ruth as baseball's greatest slugger shouldn't forget that he played before integration. If he'd faced some of the great black pitchers of his era, perhaps his home run stats would be lower.

•It's going to be very interesting to see how ESPN uses analyst Tony Kornheiser, the highly opinionated co-host of its "Pardon the Interruption" talk show, in the booth at Monday Night Football. Having occassionally had an opportunity to observe Kornheiser at close range – including on an Olympic press bus – I can assure you that he is outspoken by nature, so I don't expect him to be muzzled in his new assignment.

•Whatever stereotypes you might have about the reading habits of NBA players might be undermined by Miami Heat star Dwayne Wade, who recommends Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" as a spokesman for the league's Read to Achieve program.

•If I were Cory Booker, who just became the first new mayor of Newark, N.J., in 20 years, I'd make keeping the NBA's Nets or bringing in an expansion team an urban-renewal priority. The Nets reportedly are headed to Brooklyn in three years, but even now the team plays in kind of a no-man's land off Exit 16W of the New Jersey Turnpike, in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Basing the team in Newark and having it bear the city's name could provide a breakthrough in civic morale. A Yale Law School graduate who played football at Stanford, Booker showed that he still has a sports orientation when he tossed miniature footballs into the crowd during his electoral victory speech, delivered in the Essex County College Gymnasium.

Commissioner Bud Selig said recently that Major League Baseball has no plans for any special recogniton when Barry Bonds becomes the No. 2 all-time home run hitter by passing Babe Ruth, as presumably he'll do. Bonds has 712 homers (through May 3), just two shy of Ruth, but 43 behind clout king Hank Aaron. 

Some observers suspect that baseball's brass is really just trying to buy some time, hoping that the messy situation with Bonds and the questions about his possible drug use, can be shelved for as long as possible. Maybe, to avoid the dilemma of what to do if and when Bonds should catch Aaron, Major League Baseball should consider how it can put off any obligatory record fanfare almost permanently and also show good faith with baseball's international community.

The solution? Officially recognize Japan's Sadaharu Oh, with 868 dingers, as the the world home run king. Some would sneer at such a decision, claiming that Oh collected his homers playing against lesser competition and in generally smaller ballparks. Maybe so, but slugging records are always subject to variables, including differing ballpark dimensions.

'Commander in Chief' sent to showers

The Women's Sports Foundation doesn't ordinarily endorse TV dramas, but recently it came out with an "immediate action" memo to friends of the foundation, urging them to watch ABC-TV's "Commander in Chief." The reason was simple: The show needed a ratings boost to keep it on the air, and since Geena Davis portrayed the president, her character served as a powerful model of female achievement - that is, until the network pulled the plug on the show midseason.

A foundation press release cited President McKenzie Allen (played by Davis) as an example of "a healthy, active woman ... full of substance."  Also, in Davis, sportsminded women have an actress they can relate to. On the silver screen, she played catcher Dottie Hinson in the 1992 movie hit, "A League of Their Own," about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. In real life, Davis attempted to make the US Olympic archery team in 2004.

According to WebMD the Magazine, Davis didn't consider herself athletic when she began training to portray Hinson, which she said was a daunting task. With professional coaching, however, the six-foot actress proved a fast learner. She also found her newfound athleticism exhilarating, and since then hasn't hesitated to take on more athletic assignments. For other movie roles, she's tried her hand at horseback riding, fencing, tae kwon do, and ice skating. And to play a fitness-oriented Commander in Chief, she took up rowing, so she could be shown working out on the Potomac.

Tennis ace in strange place

Strange sighting: tennis great John McEnroe pictured with his head poking out of Fenway Park's left-field wall. Not during a game, mind you, but while taking a personal tour of the hallowed ballpark. McEnroe was in town for something called the Champions Cup for 30-and-older "retired" players.

He lost in the final to Todd Martin, who is 12 years his junior, but not until he'd gotten his first-ever look at Fenway, a visit captured with a picture in The Boston Globe. As someone who once spent a game inside the Green Monster in the 1970s, I can assure you it's really nothing to write home about. As for the impropriety of letting a New Yorker behind the scenes at Fenway, well, it's not as bad as it may have looked. McEnroe, a Long Island guy, actually is a fan of the Mets, not the despised Yankees.

NFL, not Rockettes, at center stage

The National Football League moved into one of New York's premier showbiz landmarks, Radio City Music Hall, for this year's college draft. Although not known as a sports venue, the Rockefeller Center auditorium showed its versatility in 2004 when the New York Liberty women's pro basketball team played a handful of games there. The court was placed on the stage, with most of the crowd cheering from the theater seats.

The move was necessitated when the Republican National Convention came to town and displaced the Liberty from their regular home at Madison Square Garden. This novel arrangement was reminiscent of what happened at Boston's Symphony Hall several years ago, when the US Open Squash Championships were played on a glass-enclosed court built in the famous concert hall. The event was a sporting first for the home of the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops.

Basketball's 3-pointer, today and 'yesterday'

The stats might not bear this out, but it sure seems that NBA players are deadlier than ever from 3-point range. If the long-range attempts were ever thought of as semi-heaves, they aren't any longer. Even when well guarded, many sharpshooters are capable of burying them like any other jump shot. So who can we thank for this innovation, which the NBA adopted in 1979?

Some consider it the legacy of the old American Basketball Association, which used a 3-point line from its inception in 1967. On the FAQfarm website, however, various others are credited with introducing the trey. The short-lived American Basketball League, which only lasted a year and a half, is said to have unveiled 3-pointers in 1961.

A Puerto Rican professor is also cited for incorporating the 3-pointer in the Baby Basketball League for 6-to-10-year olds, although obviously not from 23 feet away.  Former New York University coach Al Grenert is also credited with sharing his inspiration for 3-point baskets in articles he penned in the 1950s. Grenert envisioned these bonus buckets as a way to reward smaller players for their long-range marksmanship.

Even before that, however, Wikipedia says three-pointers were once tested in a game between Columbia and Fordham in 1945.

Crestfallen Leinart may rise again

Quarterback Matt Leinart looked shellshocked as he was repeatedly passed over in the first round of last weekend's NFL draft. Some analysts felt he blew it by electing to stay in school, a decision they believe may cost him millions of dollars. A year ago he might have been the top overall pick after winning the Heisman Trophy and leading USC to its second straight national championship.

This time, however, there was a glut of draftable talent and perhaps more doubts about Leinart's arm strength. Consequently, he didn't get the call until the 10th pick, when the Arizona Cardinals selected him. The fall may have wounded Leinart's pride, especially when the Tennesee Titans, whose offensive coordinator Norm Chow had schooled Leinart at USC, passed him by in favor of Texas QB Vince Young.

Still, Leinart can look on the bright side. He made it to the NFL in one piece, he's now got plenty of incentive to show the teams that bypassed him that they made a mistake, and if he's as good as he presumably thinks he is, he's got plenty of time to make up any lost signing money during the course of a successful career.

Touching other bases

•NBA playoff basketball really is a lot more intense than play during the regular season. Although the league wouldn't want to admit it, the players probably realize that an 82-game season requires a bit of pacing. In the playoffs, though, it's all out, all the time, with greater across-the-board effort, especially on defense.

•Shaquille O'Neal now has six children, which means he's got his starting five and someone to come off the bench.

•If the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers square off in a second-round playoff series, as it appears they will, it may mark the first time two teams that share the same arena – the Staples Center – have ever met in the postseason. This could result in a very strange situation for both teams, since when either one is the designated "visiting team" it may feel like they're on the road.

•The Boston Red Sox were so determined to find someone able to catch pitcher Tim Wakefield's elusive knuckleballs that they brought back reserve catcher Doug Mirabelli in a trade with the Padres. So that Wakefield didn't suffer through another start riddled with passed balls, Mirabelli was rushed to Fenway Park earlier this week after a specially arranged cross-country chartered flight, in which he was the only passenger. A police escort met him at the airport and whisked him to the ballpark, while Mirabelli changed into a Red Sox uniform in the back seat. He arrived just in time to catch Wakefield's first warmup toss. Mirabelli got a standing ovation from the fans (on the same night they unmercifully booed expatriate, now-Yankee Johnny Damon) and didn't let any pitches get by him in a 7-3 Sox victory.